These are texts for the summer service that I led on 15 July 2012.
From Jataka Tales, by Ellen Babbitt
Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics for two of the songs we are performing today. In Studs Terkel's book Hard Times, he discusses how he came to write our offertory:
"I was walking along the street at that time, and you'd see the bread lines. The biggest one in New York City was owned by William Randolph Hearst. He had a big truck with several people on it, and big cauldrons of hot soup, bread. Fellows with burlap on their shoes were lined up all around Columbus Circle, and went for blocks and blocks around the park, waiting."
"There was a skit in one of the first shows I did, Americana. This was 1930. In the sketch, Mrs. Ogden Reid of the Herald Tribune was very jealous of Hearst's beautiful bread line. It was bigger than her bread line. It was a satiric, volatile show. We needed a song for it."
"On stage, we had men in old soldiers' uniforms, dilapidated, waiting around. And then into the song. We had to have a title. And how do you do a song so it isn't maudlin? Not to say: my wife is sick I've got six children, the Crash put me out of business, hand me a dime. I hate songs of that kind. I hate songs that are on the nose. I don't like songs that describe a historic moment pitifully."
"The prevailing greeting at that time, on every block you passed, by some poor guy coming up, was 'Can you spare a dime?' Or: 'Can you spare something for a cup of coffee?' … 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime' finally hit on every block, on every street. I thought that could be a beautiful title. If I could only work it out by telling people, through the song, it isn't just a man asking for a dime."
"This is the man who says: I built the railroads. I built that tower. I fought your wars. I was the kid with the drum. Why the hell should I be standing in line now? What happened to all the wealth I created?"
What we do here matters. For the work of this Society, the morning offering will now be given and gratefully received. As as you give, please consider that there has been a certain amount of inflation since 1930.
Our second reading is from the short story "Year of the Jackpot", by Robert A. Heinlein, published in Galaxy magazine in 1952. Meade Barstow, a young woman in a Los Angeles of 1952 that is seeing sudden bouts of mass insanity, finds herself taking her clothes off on the street for no apparent reason. She is rescued by Potiphar Breen, a rather strange man who explains to her his obsession with statistics.
"The whole notion of cause-and-effect is probably superstition. But the same cycle shows a peak in house building right after a peak in marriages, every time."
"Now that makes sense."
"Does it? How many newlyweds do you know who can afford to build a house? You might as well blame it on wheat acreage. We don't know why; it just is."
"Sun spots, maybe?"
"You can correlate sun spots with stock prices, or Columbia River salmon, or women's skirts. And you are just as much justified in blaming short skirts for sun spots as you are in blaming sun spots for salmon. We don't know. But the curves go on just the same."
"But there has to be some reason behind it."
"Does there? That's mere assumption. A fact has no 'why.' There it stands, self demonstrating. Why did you take your clothes off today?"
She frowned. "That's not fair."
"Maybe not. But I want to show you why I'm worried.
He went into the bedroom, came out with a large roll of tracing paper. "We'll spread it on the floor. Here they are, all of them. The 54-year cycle -- see the Civil War there? See how it matches in? The 18 and a half year cycle, the 9-plus cycle, the 41-month shorty, the three rhythms of sun spots everything, all combined in one grand chart. Mississippi River floods, fur catches in Canada, stock market prices, marriages, epidemics, freight-car loadings, bank clearings, locust plagues, divorces, tree growth, wars, rainfall, earth magnetism, building construction patents applied for, murders, you name it; I've got it there."
She stared at the bewildering array of wavy lines. "But, Potty, what does it mean?"
"It means that these things all happen, in regular rhythm, whether we like it or not. It means that when skirts are due to go up, all the stylists in Paris can'tmake 'em go down. […] It means we're lemmings."
[…]
"See anything odd there, Meade?"
She studied the chart, trying not to let the curving lines confuse her.
"They sort of bunch up over at the right end."
"You're dern tootin' they do! See that dotted vertical line? That's right now and things are bad enough. But take a look at that solid vertical; that's about six months from now and that's when we get it. Look at the cycles, the long ones, the short ones, all of them. Every single last one of them reaches either a trough or a crest exactly on or almost on that line."
"That's bad?" "What do you think? Three of the big ones troughed in 1929 and the depression almost ruined us . . . even with the big 54-year cycle supporting things. Now we've got the big one troughing and the few crests are not things that help. I mean to say, tent caterpillars and influenza don't do us any good, Meade, if statistics mean anything, this tired old planet hasn't seen a jackpot like this since Eve went into the apple business. I'm scared." She searched his face. "Potty, you're not simply having fun with me? You know I can't check up on you." "I wish to heaven I were. No, Meade, I can't fool about numbers; I wouldn't know how. This is it. The Year of the Jackpot."
The TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation visited many strange new worlds over its seven seasons. Like many other fans, I think the episode entitled "The Inner Light", written by Morgan Gendel and Peter Allan Fields, was among the best things they ever did. Here is a summary of the plot of that episode, taken from Wikipedia:
On stardate 45944.1, the Enterprise has just finished a magnetic wave survey of the Parvenium System, when they encounter an unknown probe which scans the ship and directs an energy beam at Captain Picard, rendering him unconscious.
Picard wakes up to find himself on the surface of Kataan, a non-Federation planet. A woman identifies herself as his wife, Eline, telling Picard that he is Kamin, an iron weaver recovering from a feverish sickness. Picard talks of his memories on the Enterprise, but Eline and their close friend Batai try to convince Picard that his memories were only dreams, and acclimate him into their society as Kamin. Picard begins living out his life as Kamin in the village of Ressik, starting a family with Eline, and learning to play the flute. Kamin spends much time outdoors studying nature. As the years pass, he begins to notice that the planet is suffering a worldwide drought owing to increased radiation from the planet's sun. He sends reports to the planet's leaders, who seem to ignore his concerns when, in fact, they already know this but wish to keep it a secret.
Meanwhile, on board the Enterprise, the crew continue attempts to revive Picard. They try to block the influence of the probe, but this only makes Picard worse, leaving them no choice but to let it continue.
Years pass and Kamin grows old, outliving his wife. Kamin and his daughter Meribor continue their study of the drought. They find that it is not temporary; extinction of all life on the planet is inevitable. One day, while playing with his grandson, Kamin is summoned by his adult children to watch the launch of a rocket, which everyone seems to know about except him. As he walks outside into the glaring sunlight, Kamin sees Eline and Batai, as young as when he first saw them. They explain that he has already seen the rocket, just before he came there. Knowing that the planet was doomed, the planet's leaders placed the memories of their culture into a probe and launched it into space, in the hope that it would find someone who could tell others about their species. Picard realizes the entire context, saying "Oh, it's me, isn't it? I'm the someone."
Picard wakes up on the bridge of the Enterprise to discover that only 25 minutes have passed. While he was unconscious, the crew of the Enterprise tracked the probe's course back to a scorched and desolate planet whose sun went nova 1,000 years earlier. The now inactive probe is brought aboard the Enterprise and the crew finds a small box within it. A somber Riker gives the box to Picard who opens it to find Kamin's flute. Picard, now adept at the instrument, plays the melody he learned during his life as Kamin.
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
She took a sip of her tea. Nothing was forever; not her, not Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, not the house, not even Botswana. She had recently read that scientists could work out exactly when everything would come to an end and the earth would be swallowed up by the sun --or was it by some other planet?-- and there would be nothing left of any of us. That had made her think, and she had raised the issue with her friend, Bishop Trevor Mwamba, over tea outside the Anglican Cathedral, one Sunday morning after the seven thirty service in English and just before the nine thirty service in Setswana. “Is it true,” she had asked, “that the sun will swallow up the earth and that will be that?”
Trevor had smiled. “I do not think that this is going to happen in the near future, Mma Ramotswe,” he had replied. “Certainly not by next Tuesday, when the Botswana Mothers’ Union meets. And, frankly, I don’t think that we should worry too much about that. Our concern should be what is happening right now. There is plenty of work for love to do, you know.”
There is plenty of work for love to do. That was a wonderful way of putting it, and she had told him that this could be the best possible motto for anybody to have.
Last modified 21 August 2012