Following Up

Synchronicity again, and following up. The service for Michael Pullin was just lovely. I choked up immediately, when the minister choked up, telling about the sign on the door of The Garlic Press that said they were closed to celebrate the life of their friend. And there was the staff, in a row (and scattered about the church). Here are some of the cooking classes he taught--alas, with his name still on them, to add a pinch of nostalgia.

And here is a wonderful and thorough profile of Michael Pullin, at Julie Kistler's blog, A Follow Spot.

Michael received great applause and a standing ovation at the end of this service, just the right touch.

Today, over at my own church, the reflection was on "the fragility of existence" in terms of its very unlikeliness. "How are we even here?" we might ask ourselves, as a way to more fully appreciate that we are, and, as Bob Ryder reminds us, not to take life for granted, nor "to get too used to it."

And my post on the "well-earned bravada" in the robot voice of Curiosity on Mars led poet Ron Hardy to comment that his poem "Hearing Her Voice" was about the inability to hear the voice of the planet herself, that Mother onto which our Curiosity descends. You can read the poem here.

I am struck each time by this:

The moment we see the other will be
the moment of helpless compression.

Ron's poem made me think of "Mars is Heaven," a Ray Bradbury story, and a scary one, with irony as well as nostalgia. And I was just reading a profile of the moral philosopher Derek Parfit, who questions the whole concept of personal identity, reinforcing the fragility of existence. And I saw the end of a documentary on quantum physics that makes me want to see the beginning of it. Which I will. But, hey, end, beginning? It might all be now.