#1010 – Dick Bernard: Death and Resurrection. Perhaps a real time for real hope for our future.

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Regardless of your faith tradition, or your particular beliefs, you know that tomorrow is Easter, and the basics of the Easter story.
Have a good day, tomorrow, today, and every day.
Happy Easter.
(click to enlarge)
BUSCH Postcards early 1900s - 123 - Easter (undated)128
Tuesday I wrote with a prediction about the negotiations involving the U.S., Iran, and several other countries: Russia, Britain, France, European Union.
Twice in that post,in slightly different ways, I predicted that: “there will be a deal, imperfect as such deals always are, which will look better and better as time goes on“.
By weeks end, the “resurrection” had come to pass. No one can deny that there has been a major and positive change in relationship, regardless of what happens going forward.
My prediction was informed by experience. Once parties – any parties – agree to negotiate (which begins simply by willing to even be seen in public together just to talk, on anything at all), relationships are bound to change, most certainly for the better. This applies to every such negotiations, from the most minor interpersonal dispute, to, as in this case, a very high stakes international effort to defuse and begin to reconfigure a long time history which goes back to at least 1953.
So, for me at least, the beginning of the end of the dispute went back to the first time there was an unofficial, but very public, meeting of a high Iranian official with a high United States official in New York at the time of a United Nations meeting. I don’t recall the exact date or people or circumstances, but at the time I knew it was more than a casual accidental brush in an elevator or such.
It was a beginning.
So, events this Easter week in the Iran negotiations were a beginning to something which, I feel, can be very good long-term. There is a very long way to go to a complete comprehensive deal (which makes the apostles of doom hopeful), but the change is permanent. There has been a breakthrough.
Of a multitude of opinions I have seen about the Iran negotiations, these two stand out thus far: here and here.
There was another similar “resurrection”, not long ago, with an official change in the U.S. position towards Cuba, a relationship broken almost as long as with Iran, going back to 1959.
The day after I posted about Iran, I took my grandson to an open rehearsal of the world-class Minnesota Orchestra. Ted loves music, and I thought this a good opportunity.
Some time ago, it was announced that the Minnesota Orchestra had been selected as the U.S. Orchestra who will perform in Cuba May 12 and 13.
As the preview for the next season of the Orchestra was being described, one announcement, the coming trip to Cuba, brought enthusiastic applause from the hundreds of us in the seats of Orchestra Hall.
There, too, people know that “times, they are a changin’ “, and with our individual efforts going forward, the positive changes can become permanent. (If you’re interested in Bob Dylan, let this tape roll on. Fascinating.)
Nothing will be perfect – it never is.
But it is certainly appearing that it can be made better, for all of us in the entire world.
Happy Easter.
MN Orch Cuba 2015001
Now, how about those nuclear powers (the U.S., Russia, Israel and all the rest) getting rid of those nuclear bombs…which we, after all, invented and perfected and still stockpile by the thousands.

#1009 – Dick Bernard: "Goosefeathers"*

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About 8 a.m. today I was on Radio Drive, southbound, just past the intersection with Valley Creek Road in Woodbury. This is possibly the busiest intersection in our suburb of over 60,000 people.
A car in the inside lane was stopped, delaying traffic behind.
Sashaying across in front of the car, taking its sweet old time, was a Goose, one of many who, despite all man-made efforts, return every year, and will populate the intersection for some time, laying eggs, and guiding young goslings across these same streets, mostly safely, until they’re old enough to fly.
Like all his siblings, brothers and sisters, cousins, and so on, this goose was in no hurry. “I have the right of way”.
Of course, I see these geese every year, generation after generation, taking up residence in their temporary home at Woodbury’s busiest intersection. Nothing seems to work in moving them.
How they came to prefer our suburb, I don’t know. My guess is, though, that they are regulars, probably the egg is imprinted with a GPS code for that very intersection in our town, much as likely happens with salmon, and monarch butterflies and on and on and on.
It probably happens with we humans too…though we’re too arrogant to acknowledge that we’re imprinted with patterns, too, that enable or bedevil us our whole lives.
Maybe I’m thinking about this a bit more, since ten minutes before I saw that goose, I was writing a letter to someone who was making suggestions about how I should handle my recently deceased Uncle’s affairs out in North Dakota. As readers of this space know, he never married, and his bequest to me was to handle his final affairs, relating to land, personal property et al.
My correspondent, a relative from a distant state, to whom I was replying, said “To simplify your life I would advise hiring an estate lawyer to settle the estate as we did….All matters are handled with speed and efficiency. The added bonus was we [siblings] all remained a family in the end, which was the greatest gift we all received.”
Oh, so easy, just hire a lawyer.
I have nothing against lawyers, they do provide a valuable service.
But isn’t this part of our contemporary societal problem?
We are basically disconnected, not only from family, from each other, attempting to override the basics of human relationships (bad and good) so as to make life less risky and more satisfying.
I’m thinking that maybe that solitary goose delaying the traffic this morning is happier than those of us waiting for its passage.
Then, again, there might be some useful merit in trying to modify instinctful behaviors too.
Back on the road, nearing home, I heard a thud underneath my car. It sounded ominous. I looked in my rearview mirror. A squirrel had picked the wrong time to cross the road.
Have a great day.
* – “Goosefeathers” came to mind when I was titling this post. I looked it up to see if it appears as a saying somewhere. No conclusive results. On the other hand, I remember the saying “horsefeathers” as a kid. It’s definition doesn’t fit my use of goosefeathers, but I’m not writing about a horse, anyway….