The Inside of Fire

I think I am probably insane sometimes. The following account is true as best I can remember. I believe that I am a direct descendant from a line of fire keepers. I have been fascinated by fire since I was a small child. I have always loved fire and tended fire and kept fire. I believe that there will come the time when fire will caress me without burning.
I looked into darkness. Picture a large painting, light gray on the right, vertically. As your eyes sweep across the canvass the color gets progressively darker and bends to the left on the top. Towards the left side the color is as black and as dark as you could ever imagine. Deep, dark, black. And on the very edge on the left, a line of light. I looked into the darkness, darker that I could imagine and felt welcomed. I imagined that it felt soft and reached out for it. I pulled it over me and it was soft and warm. This darkness is the inside of fire. I know what fire is, and I know what the darkness is. And I am not afraid.
Image: whenthedarkcomes.blogspot.com/

Hecho en China

In 1989 Sal and I bought our first new car: Ford Bronco II. In addition to other considerations we wanted an American made auto. The dealer assured me it was “made in America”. When delivered it had a sticker on the window that said “Assembled in Newport News, Virginia”. How American is that? The owner’s manual told the story: Engine assembled in Canada; Transmission either Mazda or Mitsubishi; Tires made in America. The engine and transmission lasted 250000 miles. The tires failed in 20k,
“Hecho en China”. The words sent chills up my spine. Even the Mexicans are importing from China. My new custom window was thus marked: “Hecho en China”. I ordered it from an Iowa (heartland) American company, the window was fabricated in part in China, shipped to Mexico and finally to Tallahassee. What the hell? I really have nothing against China. I have been there and loved it (exclusive of the air). The Chinese make some fine things and have some fine people. But the sleeping tiger is no longer sleeping. It is eating us alive. I really thought the window would be giving Americans a job to do. At least the installer and his helper were locals. Hard to know where to go after this.
Image: humor.desvariandoando.com/tag/china

The Final Disaster

A hiatus in essays. I decided that I would wait until something good came along before writing again. Things in the world are so screwed up that topics that conjure anger or disgust or despair are easy to find, but the good bits are not so easy. I try not to be trivial in my comments (although it may not seem so to everyone). I thought about another food posting, or a story from the past, or a tale of moral import but none seemed right. So what to do? There are many individual efforts of goodness in the world that no one sees or hears about, but what do they tell us? That not everything is crappy? That the world is not going to “hell in a hand basket” as my dear old Mom would say? That the sun will come up in the morning on a new, kinder, gentler world? No, they tell us that the vast majority of humans are just trying to get along in life and live in some kind of peace.
I ask myself: “Why is it so hard to focus on these, the majority of the population?”
I think the answer is in the proximity of the various disasters, the variety of the problems and the very number of them. In the past, way past, disasters of one kind or another happened all the time, but we didn’t know about them all at once, if ever. It seems to me that the sheer mass of problems facing the world, and I include local and national issues here, drown out the goodness. It’s there, but lost in the storm of troubles. That overused “Perfect Storm” tag (that always is cast in threes) is probably a good metaphor, but not in threes. The list of disasters is long: political paralysis; genocide; starvation; trade in children; fires; droughts; war; mud slides; tsunamis; gigantic storms; banking failures; greed; murder. The list goes on and on.
These are not new to the world. What is new is that we know about the all at once. And the danger I see in that is the possibility that people of good faith and good intent will get inured to the dangers and turn away from the challenges they present.
That, I believe, would be the final disaster.
Image at: www.deviantart.com/deviation/19212014/