What could be more secure?
He gave the combination
of his PO Box to her,
Left to C, Right twice to G,
Left to B, then open.
She’d find his note,
know when & where to meet,
and no one in town would know…
except the PO Box is Government
Property to be used only for stamped Mail.
His oldest son’s girlfriend’s Uncle
was a Postal Clerk, who read the note,
told his Neice, who told his son.
What could be more certain?
Txt msg hacked-all knwn
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, August 4, 2015
The car trips were all singing trips,
Our folks in front, four boys in back.
The station wagon filled with maps,
We’d sing Church songs, no one was sick
Or bored. They called them “Choruses,”
“Yes, Do Lord, oh Do Lord, oh do remember me!”
Just simple words for simple minds.
Each travel day was like Sunday.
“I’ve got a home in Glory Land
That outshines the sun!” We’d stop
For gas and all would beg inside
For sweets, gum balls, a lemon drop,
Then back to sing as we drove through
The States. “A-way be-yond the blue.”
They felt they never could divorce,
“The Bible says it is for life.”
Instead of songs, we heard silence
From Christian husband, Christian wife.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, August 2, 2015
Is there a day without a sport?
Remember when ABC’s
Wide World of Sports
was just on TV Saturdays…
and for only 90 minutes?
Baseball games were on the radio.
Now ESPN Channels 1-348 are on 24-7.
Just today WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS are being played and broadcast in
Professional Men’s Basketball,
Professional Men’s Hockey, and
Professional Women’s soccer.
I think there is a sport every minute.
Of course I could be wrong–
I watch only movies via NetFlicks,
37 HD Satellite Channels, BLU-RAY,
or in Theaters with rocking chairs,
cup-holders, 5 gallon popcorn buckets,
300 speakers, and IMAX.
Our grand-children watch small screens
under the covers after lights-out.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, June 9, 2015
Author Frederick Buechner puts into words the feeling at the 55th high school reunion last weekend.
ON AGING
As time goes by, you start picking [your contemporaries] out in crowds. There aren’t as many of them around as there used to be. More likely than not, you don’t say anything, and neither do they, but something seems to pass between you anyhow. They have come from the same beginning. They have seen the same sights along the way. They are bound for the same end and will get there about the same time you do. There are some who by the looks of them you wouldn’t invite home for dinner on a bet, but they are your companons de voyage even so. You wish them well.
It is sad to think that it has taken you so many years to reach so obvious a conclusion.
– Frederick Buechner, originally published in Whistling in the Dark. Re-published today by The Frederick Buechner Center.
55th class reunion
Pope Francis’s Encyclical Laudato Si‘: On Care for Our Common Home has caught the world’s attention. (Scroll down for the Encyclical Letter’s opening paragraphs.)
In our view, Pope Francis and Bill McKibben of 350.org are prophetic figures, i.e., they seem to utter a Word not totally their own. So does Sen. Bernie Sanders (I, VT), who is, not by accident, Bill McKibben’s close friend from Vermont, and the ONLY candidate to place climate change action among the top priorites of his presidential campaign. He speaks boldly, and his message echoes the cry of Luudato Si‘ for action now for the sake of the planet. There is no obfuscation.
“The United States must lead the world in tackling climate change, if we are to make certain that this planet is habitable for our children and grandchildren. We must transform our energy system away from polluting fossil fuels, and towards energy efficiency and sustainability.” – Excerpt from Sen. Bernie Sanders’s campaign priority on Climate Change and the Environment.
Religion, science, and politics each deal with reality, superstition, and obfuscation. The Pope’s call for global action requires political legs to make it walk. Political engagement is not optional at this moment in the history of planetary development. In that regard, no other presidential candidate is so clear on climate change and sustainability as Bernie Sanders. No other candidate speaks with such passionate conviction or knowledge. Pope Francis is a man of God, a modern John the Baptizer appearing in the wilderness, following the lead of Bill McKibben, the scientific consensus, and The Pontifical Academy of Sciences’s research and counsel.
The Pope’s position on nature, born of a more ancient wisdom than the mechanistic “man over nature” view of postindustrial society, is thoroughly catholic, the0logically classical, and steeped in scientific research. “Man over nature” and “history over nature” are figments of our imagination. Nature always wins. We ARE nature and nature is us.
1. “LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore” – “Praise be to you, my Lord”. In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. “Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.[1]
2. This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.
[1] Canticle of the Creatures, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vol. 1, New York-London-Manila, 1999, 113-114.
– Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN. July 28, 2015
“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves…” [Genesis 11: 4]. No further comment needed.
Building of the Tower of Babel – Master of the Duke of Bedford
International Trump Tower and Hotel, Chicago, IL
Steve in torture chamber
Planes are not made for Giants
The headrest’s too short, if you please,
The seat-width is always a squeeze,
But more than my weight,
My six feet and eight,
Means there’s never a space for my knees.
One plane had a restroom so small,
I could not use it at all,
The ceiling was low,
And to sit was a show,
For my legs were clear out in the hall.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, July 20, 2015
The Kingdom Tower, Saudi Arabia
Meeting an engineer helping design and build what will be the world’s tallest building at over 3,250 feet, the Kingdom Tower in Saudi Arabia, reminds Steve of his first published poem. “I had written it in Chicago in 1963 while in college watching the new skyscrapers being built to surpass the then tallest building in town, the Prudential Building.” “Towers” was published 10 years later in The Anglican Review.
TOWERS
Of course a tower is built by starting from
the bottom. Strong workers and machines make
a joint to earth with wet, grey gravel–form
with time a foundation almost like rock.
Orange steel is welded, riveted, and made
to stand naked pointing skyward. Then blocks
and bricks are hoisted slowly up the side
providing covering flesh the tower lacks.
Small children make towers in trees, and these,
though only made of rotting boards, still stand
as proudly strong in little children’s eyes
as those from which much older men descend.
But both kind of towers still seem to say
with their builders: we look down on the sky.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, July 19, 2015
Don’t Look For Me On Twitter
My poems I never can Tweet,
I know many folks find it neat–
e e cummings could do it,
He’ a much better poet,
But my verses take much much longer to wreet.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, July 17, 2015
Click HERE for the Poetry Foundation’s bio for e.e. cummings.
I have made a new “Friend” on my FaceBook:
It is Francis, the Pope–you can look;
But he never will “Comment”,
Or will “Like” what I present,
He just Pronounces and quotes the Good Book.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, July 14, 2015
Views from the Edge 