The Eternal Return of Politics

Today is the Feast of Saint Francis, when in many Roman Catholic parishes animals of all sorts are blessed.  Heaven knows that United States party animals (I’m referring to Republicans and Democrats) need some divine intervention in order to get back to the business of trying to govern in a sensible manner.  

For that matter, it seems like the world at large could benefit from saintly nudges.  It doesn’t take the literary gifts of Yeats or Achebe to fear that things are falling apart in ways big and small.  For me, as a small-time essayist rather than a gifted poet or novelist (alas), there’s too much going on in the world that makes me curious, ruminative, or just plain angry to stick to writing book reviews. 

Therefore, I’m reviving my old blog so I can mark some virtual space for rants, commentaries, and meditations about world, national, local, sometimes personal events.  And still, on occasion, about books.  It’s not that I’ve all suddenly stopped reading.  As people close to me know, I read about five books a week and have done so ever since I knew the alphabet.  And it’s not that there aren’t fascinating books I’ve wanted to discuss and to recommend. 

But hey, it’s election season.  And there’s another Middle East war.  And a plague that may reach Biblical proportions.  And a Vatican synod about the family that may have huge consequences.  And melting glaciers and missing schoolgirls and NFL scandals and, and, and. . .

So look for the next blog entry soon.  It probably won’t be a book review.  Then again, it might.  After all, another Francis – St. Francis de Sales – is the patron of writers and journalists and, by extension, books.  While he had his hectoring side, he also could offer good advice that applies to writing about the world, whether manifested in books or in politics:  “Attend to the Business of Life Carefully, but without Eagerness or Over-Anxiety” – an excellent admonition that’s easier to admire than to follow.  But I’ll try.

(If you want to see what my old, often but not always political blog looked like, here's the URL to the first one I wrote (the others are archived by month on the side.  I was a writing fool in 2012!  http://deblog2012.blogspot.com/2012/02/font-face-font-family-cambriap.html)