What Gets You Up in the Morning?

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "What's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" 

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.                                             

                                                                                                              —A.A. Milne from Winnie the Pooh

Finding ourselves in the midst of the holiday season and on the brink of a new year, it’s a good time to pause, take stock of what went well in 2017, what gave us comfort, what went wrong, what kept us up at night …..and what we can do to improve life for everyone in 2018.

What Gets You Up in the Morning?

Porridge in the morning, steam on a cup of tea, a reverence for light, the mystery of fire, biking to work, rolling in the snow, watching flowers grow, finding that illusive answer.

In Danish it’s Hygge, Lagom in Swedish, Gemütlichkeit in German, Fargin in Yiddish, Jugaad in Hindi, Ikigai in Japanese, Mbuki-Mvuki in Bantu, and Xìngfú in Chinese.

It’s the stillness inside that transcends words—learning to recognize joy and beauty, feeling love and hope, expressing morality and compassion, pulling a soft blanket over your shoulders to harness warmth and tame the darkness of winter.

Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle found it in eudaimonia, thought giving way to the spirit—arriving at virtue. Camus searched for meaning and purpose, marveling at the will of Sisyphus as he keeps pushing his rock.

It guides us through the seasons, overcomes nostalgia and melancholy, tunes in the sound of wind whistling through trees, gathers the luster of moonlight on water, and recalls memories as we find ourselves opening the door to take on a new day.

                                                                                                                       —Jeff Key, 2016

STEPS

"The light, acquiring luminous momentum, is caught in a brazen act of seduction

and scurries below the surface, attempting to avoid its own brilliance."

                                                                     —excerpt from STEPS by Jeff Key

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

                                                                                             —Winston Churchill

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.

                                                                                        —Elvis Presley

Truth is an elusive commodity.  Source, attitude, and perception color facts and populate print and speech with disparate realities. 

Steps comments on how these traits affect truth, influence thought, gather momentum, and descend into enigma.

How can 40% of Americans reject evolution and 50% reject the evidence that climate change is mostly due to human activity?  (Pew Research Center survey)

How could the Supreme Court in its decision of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission declare that corporations have the same rights as people and grant  corporations and labor unions the ability to spend unlimited funds for the election or defeat of a candidate?

How could Congress pass a major tax bill without hearings or a more thorough analysis of its economic impact in light of the report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the bill would increase the national deficit by more than $1 trillion over the first 10 years.

As Kurt Andersen points out in his new book, Fantasyland—How America went Haywire,  “People tend to regard the Trump moment—this post-truth, alternative fact moment—as some inexplicable and crazy new American phenomenon. In fact what’s happening is just the ultimate extrapolation and expression of attitude and instincts that have made America exceptional for its entire history.”

Click on "read more" to see the text for STEPS

WALLS

With so much in the news these days about building walls to keep people out with physical and legal barriers, I created some pieces that comment on why these obstacles get implemented and the consequences they generate.

Pope Francis, in an audience at the Vatican in 2016 stated, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.”

Although the Pope never directly referred to Donald Trump, the President felt compelled to tweet in response, “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful.”

The Great Wall in China, the Berlin Wall, Trump’s vision of a barrier on the Mexican-American border and now his mandates on immigration policy—only time will tell what effect these structures and policies will have on the arc of history.

As Martin Luther King said in his 1964 Baccalaureate sermon at the Wesleyan University commencement, ““The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The quote was so important to President Obama that he had it woven into a rug that graced his tenure in the Oval Office.

Click on "read more" to see the text for 
Is it a Fence, a Wall, a Partition, or a Barrier?

In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.  -—Buddha

                                                                                                                                                      

You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there. 

                                                                                                                              —Yogi Berra

                                                                                                      Writing and illustrating this blog will give me a chance to engage 
in commentary that I refrain from on my website, Facebook, and Instagram sites.

From Buddha to Yogi Berra I try to look at history, the present, 
and the future through the eyes of revered philosophers, spiritual sages, and world leaders whose vision points either forward or backward depending on how the wind is shifting.

(Left—self-portrait with background credit to Yayoi Kusama)

JUSTICE

Since the founding of our nation American political thought has had an enduring focus on justice. The concept of justice and equal protection rights has been questioned recently in response to the proposed Immigration Ban.

The Preamble to the American Constitution says that one of its primary goals is to “establish justice.”  In 1788 James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers that "justice should be the goal of all government and of all civil society, that people are willing to risk even liberty in its pursuit."  

I created this piece, entitled “Justice,” after traveling through Eastern Europe and considering how every society has had to define justice in pursuit of freedom.

Click on "read more" to see the text for Justice