Knowledge, Love & Forgiveness

In front of the volume of "Thrall"" by our great, new Poet Laureate,  Natasha Trethewey,   there are two quotations which she undoubtedly approved of:        "What is love?

                                                                                    One name for it is knowledge. "

                                                                                               -- Robert Penn Warren
&   "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?"

                    --   T.S. Eliot

When I first read these my response was something akin to being blindsided on both sides at once, perhaps the intention of the poet.  Knowledge/Information is so all pervasive,  so ever present and confusing to me,  that is is completely impossible to think of it as love,  not even close.  And then to add the forgiveness factor is a change up so wild as to confound what is left of reason, to say the least.

In an age of doublespeak,  where there are both individuals and organizations  employed full time to do the utter scrambling of knowledge and information (and I think of Global Warming right now,  because it is so much in the news);  one has to shake his or her head just to imagine all the think tanks dedicated to information manipulation to satisfy their clients and sponsors,  unseat opponents,  win elections, etc.

In the naive days when I first graduated from library school,  it seemed enough to cite a reference deemed authoritative to a patron, and thus be satisfied that you had done an objective, professional job for them.  Little did we know that this house of cards would come down harder and harder, and that eventually the Internet would step in and provide so many sources,  so much information and knowledge  that to imagine an authority would be somewhat laughable.  I guess we can be forgiven
for that,  but to back up and imagine love and knowledge together is just to be blind sided again.

Preparedness

I think I've mentioned "to be prepared" earlier,  one of the major Boy Scout mottoes.  Today, in a world so complex it seems downright  quaint to even broach the subject,   September, has been deemed Preparedness Month.  By whom and why,  I don't know.  One radio show had an announcement about a kit of some kind by the American Red Cross.  (A note and call to them brought no response,  they are probably busy with people who didn't or couldn't prepare for things that happened to them (?);    just kidding.

Then I noticed something from the State of Wisconsin,  looked it up on the Internet and, bingo,  it was there.  Had something to do with Governor, with a list of suggestion about being prepared that would cost far more than people like ourselves could afford .... unless we had the time and fuel money to shop hard for the items far from here.   One of the major problems today,  of course,   is to have the resources to do what is undoubtedly agreed upon as necessary.

A month before last I sent a letter to some people in our surrounding community about a loose knit organization to deal with personal and group problems.  It seems that with the crescendo of issues and disasters around us it would be good to be able to "take it on"  together.  Another community not far from us has done this,  Prairie Farm,  and we have attended a few of their events,  watched and listened to the DVD they suggest on the so-called economy,  "Crash Course."

As the month of September progressed I began to wonder if anyone around us listens to the radio,  had any inkling that it was a month dedicated to preparation,  especially because not a soul responded to my earlier letter (?!).   I suppose I should take the advice of my inner voice and just "get a life."   What do you think?