Re: Once the brick has hit your foot . . .
Posted by Douglas on March 02, 2002 at 20:19:20:

In Reply to: Once the brick has hit your foot . . . posted by John on March 01, 2002 at 21:21:47:

Coach:

I may have been more than a little prescient when I wrote ten days back:

“Status? I have a rank here? I get to wear stripes of some sort or does that refer to the stripe down the middle of my back?”

for I certainly feel like the “skunk at the Garden Party”, presently.

Let me attempt to illustrate my train of thought although I wouldn’t expect the associations to make a great deal of sense.

Last month John in the post:

“So we need to fail . . . but we don't *have to* fail!
Posted by John on February 26, 2002 at 23:26:51:”

you wrote:

“And I invite each one of you who are present in this class to check in with your own inward phenomenological responses (or
reactions) to finding out that Douglas has done a loving good deed with Eon. And he did this gesture of loving kindness secretly
(just as Jesus admonished the Disciples to do their good deeds in secret, when he spoke to them in the Garden of Gethsemane).”

“Now, didn't that make some of you Folks just plain *feel good* when Eon told us what Douglas had done for him? I had a grin from
ear to ear! And I was beaming for *both* Douglas *and* for Eon. It took the two of them to give us this blessing. Douglas had made
his loving move in secret. And Eon knew it would be good for us all to know about it. He added his love in with Douglas's and passed
it on to the rest of us. And so happiness actually can become sewn in the space of our little community here. Harmony can be sewn,
deliberately.”

“The good deed done without calling attention to itself turns out to be richly rewarded with love all around.”

I found your compliments effusive to the point of embarrassment and wished to temper them with a commonplace teaching. The
short reply would have been the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the mount, Matthew. 6.1-4., but it was a reference that you had
already cited.

The next words that came to mind were by Wordsworth:

“These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: — feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.”

And how I wish they were unremembered.

What possessed me to post the entire poem, is my affection for “Tintern Abbey” and I am allowed my affections, although obviously
they are not shared.

The reaction though was entirely untoward.

It would appear that I mystified many of you and that mystification led to frustration which in turn provoked anger. Anger I can
live with as it is usually short lasting. Hate is another matter as it is a lasting sentiment.

It was only a poem.

My apologies.

Douglas

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