Caught

You know the feeling. Discovered. Found out. Exposed. These are not fun. Some people are skilled at navigating even in the moment, providing a reasonable out. It's so human, trying to beat the system. Works, sometimes. For a while. Maybe even for a long while.

Dante's Inferno starts with his wandering off the path and ever down a slope with unrecoverable consequence, on to a guided tour that influenced countless minds and provided images to interpret the doctrines of the day lasting even to now. Read it sometime.

Pilgrim's Progress weaves allegorically through swamp and circus and forest and mountain, by Bunyan not Paul but John and written from prison. Pretty good project on the whole (took two visits to prison, though).

Machiavelli's words on running a principality came to mind today during a conversation about Haiti where there are few trees any more (the result of logging and making charcoal for cooking fuel), lots of erosion, and meals are sometimes twice a week. So incredibly in need of organizing, but the economics are so terribly stacked against it. Young men studied, did the best they could, and no jobs. What will they do?

My friend from Africa will start in a professional program at the university soon. He dreams one day to go back to his war-ruined country to help rebuild. From what I know of what he has been through, I have no doubt that he will persist and give it everything he can.

There is so much need, so much poverty, so much chaos. And here I am attempting to organize - something. A desk, an office, a job, a home, a life. My life, actually. Seems kind of small. But maybe it's important to start small and do well at that first.

Last evening Mozart's Don Giovanni aired. A guy who goes after women and goes after the wrong one and ends up not only caught but hauled off to hell. A story with a moral.

Tired. Good tired, but tired.

Back to caught - the best way to not be caught is to not do anything to be caught about. Easier said than not done. James puts it nicely: "...a person is tempted when he is drawn away and trapped by his own evil desire." Trapped. Sort of goes with the words at the top.

No violin tonight. Did listen today to Rondo Capriccioso by Saint-Saens, performed by Perlman. There are few people who will ever play like that, I think.