A monumentally challenging day. Up at 4:15, to have a very early breakfast, so as to enter into a day of fasting, for various lab tests to be done at Palo Alto Medical Foundation at 2 pm (in preparation for two medical appointments next week, one on Tuesday, one on Wednesday). After breakfast, several hours of clearing things out of my bedroom, in preparation for the removal of my excellent bed (which is too big for an assisted living facility) and its replacement by a substantially smaller one, from a mattress company contracted by my daughter Elizabeth, a company now scheduled to do removal of the old and installation of the new between 11:45 and 1:45 (my grandchild Opal will be here to supervise this process). I am dead tired from my labors, my fingers are in great pain from them, and I am surly from the fasting.
So I’ve scanned the file of dozens of postings waiting to be polished and offered to the world, in search of something small but indisputably important, and found something that I’ve been saving up for months as a reminder that great works can take lifetimes and that I, personally, must be willing to do some little bit in the belief that it will smooth the way to an end devoutly to be desired but probably not achievable until long after I’ve died. What I need to muster up is a combination of doggedness and humility; I’m am old hand at doggedness, but have a lot to learn in the humility department: how to free myself from the desire for credit?
What I saved is two voices from the past, from 175 – 250 years ago, that continue to resonate for me, but also remind me that the ends are not yet in sight, even though the visions are brighter than they once were.
