Wednesday, September 08, 2010

New Year

The new school year has begun, here at DePaul--just in time for the Jewish new year, which kicks off just after my first class, as it happens. My syllabi are ready, my assignments written and printed, and I have...what, five hours left before I get to the classroom? Hard to buckle down and get something done in that time; my inclination, I'm discovering, is to toss everything else to the wind and focus on my classes--just as, when I'm writing, I toss everything to the wind and do only that.

What to do? Stop, breathe, step away from the computer, look at my lists, get something done.

Sadly, I'll have to pass the picket line of a rather nasty organization to get to services tonight. They're protesting at a bunch of local synagogues (God hates us, for various reasons) as well as at the local Holocaust museum (God hated them, and the next one will be worse) and a local high school (God hates gays, whatever their religion). Sigh. At least these folks don't blow themselves up or kill anyone. They bring this little poem to mind, from Alicia Ostriker's the volcano sequence:
One of these days
oh one of these days
will be a festival and a judgment

and our enemies will be thrown
into the pit while we rejoice
and sing hymns

Some people actually think this way
Yup. Some of them do--and I'll be seeing a few, albeit briefly, tonight.

Today's song, in honor of the New Year, a hymn from Leonard Cohen. "There is a crack, a crack in everything / That's how the light gets in."

3 comments:

Mark Scroggins said...

Break a leg on the first day, Eric; and happy New Year! (We've just gotten the first celebratory phone call from the non-secular wing of Jen's family.)

Have you noticed how YouTube videos embed *wider* these days, totally effing up the layout of one's blog?

RfP said...

Happy new year, and may any unpleasant things along the way simply provide a little grit for your oyster.

Laura Vivanco said...

If those protesters are Christians, I have to wonder if, in their reading of the Bible, they got as far as the New Testament. The bit about loving one's neighbours, and Matthew 6.5 seem relevant:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Oh well. Hope you had a good new year despite the unpleasantness.