Although it was only Thursday morning, it had already been a long week. As I drove to work, I turned off the radio. I didn’t need the noise. I needed some quiet. Yet with the radio off, some of the rattling sounds of the aging car became apparent and another matter for concern. The almost quiet, the concerns of the day which could so easily turn to desperation; no, I am not taking a train from Concord to Boston, but Thoreau echoes in my mind,

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

The parkway was lined with six foot piles of light gray and brown; snow and ice that had unceremoniously been heaped on the shoulders. Above these piles, stood the trees, barren of leaves, also gray and brown, although much darker than the dirty snow. Every now and then, the dark green of a pine tree would interrupt the flow of trees. Above, the sky, in shades of blue, gray and white reminded me of a J.M.W. seascape.

I remembered years ago heading off to one job or another, trying to clear my mind from the troubles of the day. I would try to convince myself that the job I was doing mattered. Now, looking back at the computer programs I had written for financial engineers, it seemed pretty hollow. Today, I was less sure. I am not a medical provider. I am simply a person that writes about the doctors, nurses, patients, and everyone involved in trying to provide quality health care to under served people. Yet it requires much less justification to believe that what I am doing now really matters.

I looked at the stream of cars heading the other direction.

And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

Whitman’s fellow travelers on the Brooklyn Ferry are now driving on the Wilbur Cross Parkway and they are in my meditations. Perhaps this gets to some of it, the humanity of it all.

As I think about fighting to make sure everyone has access to quality health care, my mind wanders to John Donne.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
...
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.

It is now evening, and I am back home. I’ve spent the day talking about infant mortality and childhood obesity. Can my words make a difference? Can my blog posts cause someone to stop and think for a moment, and maybe help someone around them?

I think of the blogs I read. Many of posts are simply online markers of some other fellow travelers of Whitman. They, too, are in my meditations. Grace has had a good trip during the lunar new year. Fishhawk is starting a new blog to ponder eschatology.

I had studied religion in college and when I think about eschatology, my mind goes to Millennialism; post trib, pre trib, dispensational, etc. Today, we talk about different Millennials.
If I were to write about the final times, I’d be tempted to say that perhaps it is marked by an age of people calling themselves Christians, who are driven by selfishness and greed. Who are more concerned about their rights than their responsibilities.

It has been another long day in another long week. I wish I had a good way of pulling this all together, but I’m too tired so I’ll just end off with the words of The Youngbloods

Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
and try to love one another right now