Category: quote

JC’s Confessions #31

In the first few seasons of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert did a recurring skit, then a best-selling book, called Midnight Confessions, in which he “confesses” to his audience with the disclaimer that he isn’t sure these things are really sins but that he does “feel bad about them.” While Stephen and his writers are famously funny, I am not, so my JC’s Confessions will be somewhat more serious reflections, but they will be things that I feel bad about. Stephen’s audience always forgives him at the end of the segment; I’m not expecting that – and these aren’t really sins – but comments are always welcome.

On April 6, 2025, Pope Francis appeared in public for the first time after returning home from his long hospitalization. It was at the end of a special Jubilee liturgy for the sick and health care workers and others who care for them. He had written the homily and a special blessing for the mass, although they were read by others. Francis wrote:

In this moment of my life I share a lot: the experience of infirmity, feeling weak, depending on the others for many things, needing support. It is not easy, but it is a school in which we learn every day to love and to let ourselves be loved, without demanding and without rejecting, without regretting, without despairing, grateful to God and to our brothers for the good that we receieve, trusting for what is still to come.

I am currently entering the second year of dealing with a complex medical situation that has not yet been fully diagnosed. I don’t know if I will be able to be adequately treated or if I will continue to see progression in my symptoms.

It’s hard.

I confess that I am not always gracious in this situation. I manage to let others do things for me and to ask for accommodations if I need them, but I find it difficult to set aside regret and to trust in the future.

This is especially hard for me in regard to my future as a poet. I don’t know if I will regain the creativity I’ve lost to brain fog and fatigue. I’m even losing the concentration and attention to detail needed to do submissions for my already existing poems and manuscripts.

I’m trying not to get to the point of despair.

These next few weeks are important in that I have a new batch of tests and specialist visits coming up.

Maybe having some more information about what is happening will help me to be better with being sick.

Maybe not.

I’ll try.

(I realized when I went back in my blog to find the number confession this was that this confession is, in a way, a continuation of #30.)

One-Liner Wednesday: Cory Booker sign

Sign that a friend made for the Hands Off! gatherings on Saturday, April 5, 2025 with a quote from Cory Booker‘s record-breaking speech in the United States Senate: “This is a moral moment.”

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/04/09/one-liner-wednesday-good-call/

One-Liner Wednesday: standing up to totalitarianism

“It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”
~~~ Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine), speaking out in 1950 against McCarthyism

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/03/26/one-liner-wednesday-coffee-2/

One-Liner Wednesday: integrity

“If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”
~~~ Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, who passed away last week at the age of 93

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/03/18/one-liner-wednesday-you-know-youre-getting-older-when/

DEI

The sign at my church, St. Francis of Assisi, this weekend:
D E I is what the kingdom of God is about.

Amen!

One-Liner Wednesday: more from Thomas Paine in 1776

“There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice.”
~~~ Thomas Paine, closing lines of American Crisis, 1776

This sobering 1+ liner comes to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/03/05/one-liner-wednesday-bad-suggestions/

One-Liner Wednesday: Thomas Paine in 1776

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”
~~~ Thomas Paine, opening lines of American Crisis, 1776

This sobering 1+ liner comes to you as part of Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday series. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/02/26/one-liner-wednesday-useless-superpowers/

One-Liner Wednesday: supporting Ukraine

Slava Ukraini!

This message of support for Ukraine’s sovereignty from me, one among millions of like-minded Americans, is brought to you by Linda’s One-Liner Wednesdays. Join us! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/02/19/one-liner-wednesday-if-i-didnt-laugh-id-cry/

“Two-Hour Delay” by Abby E. Murray

Last Sunday, I shared Rattle Poets Respond offering “The Skaters” by Dante Di Stefano.

This Sunday, editor Timothy Green has chosen “Two-Hour Delay” by Abby E. Murray, which, to me, expresses perfectly the state of mind of these harrowing times in the US. (Link will open in a new tab, so you can read it right now or listen to the audio clip of Abby reading it. Make sure to also read Abby’s note that accompanies the poem.)

The opening lines are:

It’s February                                 and already
I’ve overspent my budgeted bewilderment

for the year, most of it on deep & constant
sorrow…

It’s true.

Interestingly, both Abby’s poem this Sunday and Dante’s poem last Sunday feature the counterpoint of a young daughter, enjoying the wonderment of winter, playing against the hard reality of current events.

It is my privilege to know both Abby and Dante, who each earned PhDs from Binghamton University. When I first joined the Binghamton Poetry Project, a community outreach program founded by Nicole Santalucia, Abby was our director. I was honored when Abby agreed to write a blurb for my chapbook, Hearts. It is so beautiful that I still tear up when I read it.

Mid-poem, Abby writes:

Belief is the new disbelief. Grief, not shock,

is this year’s renewable resource, and baby,
the harvest looks plentiful.

I’m really feeling it.

Thank you, Abby, for giving voice to what it is to be dealing with our present times.

President Biden’s farewell

Vote for Democracy #26

Last night, US President Joe Biden delivered a farewell speech from the Oval Office. Among other things, it warns against the increasingly powerful tech oligarchy that threatens our democracy. You can read the address here.

The penultimate paragraph is:

My eternal thanks to you, the American people. After 50 years of public service, I give you my word, I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands — a nation where the strength of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure. Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America. You love it, too.

Yes.

I, along with millions and millions of others, will heed the call. Each of us doing the work that is ours to do will keep our democracy intact.

Some will have a bigger, public role and others will be working in a much smaller sphere of influence, but all of us can participate.

It’s what democracy means.
*****
Join us for Linda’s Just Jot It January! Find out more here: https://lindaghill.com/2025/01/16/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-12th-2025-2/