Tag Archives: Greta Thunburg

Carl Sandburg and Greta Thunburg

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I forgot to append a Carl Sandburg poem yesterday to my musings about Greta Thunburg.  And I admit I am a bit sheepish as the poem likens her unto a weed, but I have a hunch she will readily identify and appreciate the “likening unto” a weed.  She is used to it.  She has always been different and has become accustomed to it  She and I have that in common…and I don’t think her “diagnosis” is far removed from mine.  Perhaps more on that later.

Greta is accustomed to being “out there.”  And the awareness of being “out there” can be so terrifying that one is driven into a pathological orientation to life. It can drive one into such a radical estrangement that one feels the world is “out to get me” and thus something to be fearful of; this is paranoia.  This paranoia can find expression so readily in political and religious orientations, always pitting one view of the world against the rest of the world.  This profound distrust fails to realize that we can never escape the reality that we are in and of the same world and the attempt to escape this realization is at our own peril.  The “them” that we loathe is “us.”

Please read this beautiful wisdom from Carl Sandburg:

There is a desperate loveliness to be seen
In certain flowers and bright weeds on certain planets.
With the weeds I have held long conversations
And I found them intelligent
Even though desperate and lovely.
The flowers however met me with short spoken.
“Yes” and “No” and “Why” were their favorite words,
And they had other slow monosyllables.
They seemed to find it more difficult
Than the gaudy garrulous bright weeds
To be intelligent, desperate, and lovely.
Take a far journey now, my friend, to certain planets.
Meet then certain flowers and bright weeds and ask them
What are the dark winding roots of their desperate loveliness.
See whether you bring back the same report as mine.
See whether certain long conversations
And certain slow practices monosyllables
Haunt you and keep coming back to haunt you.
For myself, my friend, I have come to believe on certain planets anything can happen.

(“Bright Conversations with Saint Ex” by Carl Sandburg)

 

 

Greta Thunburg, Courage, and Trumpian Cowardice

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A friend this morning was crowing about Greta Thunberg, and even likened her unto Jesus.  I have some hesitation in even sharing this as I know Thunburg would grimace at the comparison.  But I know what my friend had in mind.  Thunberg is a “voice crying in the wilderness” with the “wilderness” consisting of those of us who live lives of “quiet desperation” with our voices muted into compliance of the status quo.  Sure, Thunberg has battled depression as her father noted and this activism is a very healthy and productive means of addressing the bottled up frustration that contributes to depression.  We are all motivated to do and say the things that we do and say. And whatever is driving Greta Thunburg is beautiful and powerful.  It is so sad to see how prominent people like Steven Mnuchin and Donald Trump have sought to diminish her. They are totally unwilling to look at their motivations, their dark side.  They cling to their “objectivity.”

I want to share with you an observation from one of my blogging friends in response to my post of several days ago, quoting Jim Green’s remarks from his book, “Meditations and Depressions”: It is unrealistic, and a misunderstanding of the inner life to aspire to a state of consciousness that is entirely untouched by the storms and the tremors of our passions and our sometimes chaotic thoughts. That would be a rather sinister dream of a meaningless purity – and the end of our humanity. Our pathology and our psychopathology will always be with us. But they don’t need to be always in control. Through our askesis – our practical training and exercise – we can put them in their place: held and embraced by the infinite peace and generosity of the heart.