I attended a Quaker-style meeting about racial justice. I went believing that I need to know my prejudices to have a chance of overcoming them. The meeting was a personal success. As soon as someone started to read a poem, I realized that I am instinctively intolerant of poetry. Having confronted this inner demon, I have resolved to work on lessening my poetic prejudice. Suggestions?

“It seemed preposterous that there were still poets out there among us.” Ottessa Moshfegh, Death in Her Hands.

Whoever said that slow and steady wins the race never attended a track meet.

Often after a natural calamity—hurricane, tornado, earthquake, fire—a person who pretends to believe in God’s love says that the devastation has been the Lord’s judgment on the United States, usually because we have not punished some people for the “sin” of loving someone of their sex. Now there have been outbreaks of Covid-19 after people have congregated in churches. How now should we interpret God’s judgment?

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.” Jonathan Swift.

          The Christian radio station gave a few brief Bible readings, although where the sacred words left off and commentary began was not always clear. It also presented short inspirational stories and exhortations. Mostly, however, it played music, and mostly that music fell into the rock category. I remembered back to when rock ‘n roll started. (Alas, I am old enough to remember when “Rocket 88,” Bill Haley, and Elvis Aron were all new.) I recalled how ministers smashed 45s saying that rock was music of the devil. This made me think about how powerful He is. In only the relatively short span of my lifetime, He had transformed a genre that would send me to eternal damnation into music that was now for the devout. Hallelujah!

“It is the test of a good religion whether you make a joke about it.” G.K. Chesterton.

I parked downtown the other day at a parking meter. I fumbled for coins but found that there was unexpired time—long enough for me to complete my errand–on the meter. It was not a huge joy, but it did make me feel a bit better. Metered parking, however, increasingly requires us to go to one of those machines and buy a slip with a time printed on it to put on the car’s dashboard. This wipes out that possibility of finding unexpired time on a meter. Those slip machines deprive us of a good feeling, minor though it is. Or does anyone, when leaving a parking place, give the slip with time remaining on it to someone pulling into a spot? If someone handed me such a slip, it would produce joy and effusions of thankfulness. Even so, I have never handed my unexpired slip to another driver.

Will a new generation know what “Rita the Meter Maid” is about?