Old Well: UNC Chapel Hill Campus

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Beginnings

from my garden
I’ve never done a blog before, so I looked up sundry models, only to make the discovery that blogs, like flora, fauna, and humans, come in variegated shapes, sizes, and hues.  And so I’ll do what works for me, making mistakes along the way, but with practice becoming more sure-footed. 

In fact, I don’t know quite know how to begin. So many things interest me: hot news items, accounts of injustice and cruelty, scenarios of human heroics and compassion when we can indeed overcome, music, books, etc. I know that I’ve always been in love with the realm of ideas. I enjoy discussion, civilly delivered, rebuttal as well as endorsement. I have always  wanted to have an informed perspective, and I have long held that today’ s truth may  be tomorrow’s lie. I don’t see the wisdom of holding on to the gods of yesterday.  I love the beauty of nature such as  the rose above which graced my garden for several days last summer, reminding me of Keats’ poetic rendering:  “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”  

Do you have an experience you’d like to share that helps define beauty?  It need not be of nature.  In a troubled world, beauty sometimes triumphs in the human spirit, offering redemption and forgiveness, eroding the cynicism that sometimes takes hold.