{"id":15661,"date":"2014-05-30T10:48:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T14:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=15661"},"modified":"2014-05-31T16:15:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-31T20:15:19","slug":"missing-lost-never-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/missing-lost-never-found\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing, Lost, Never Found"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"float:right; margin-left: 1em; background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Arial,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:370px;\">\n<div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:125.135135% 0 49px 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/478162483?et=8tnpVDWQQklbt4g16P9W3Q&#038;sig=NfZJrnIlOAr8REhNf95mJ1LKw0quge02mo8syuwflG8=\" width=\"398\" height=\"548\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin:0;\">\n<div style=\"padding:0;margin:0 0 0 10px;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/478162483\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;\">#478162483<\/a> \/ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;\">gettyimages.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, on jigsaw puzzles and people\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/05\/the-talmud-asks-question-who-is-wise.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Talmud asks the question, &#8220;Who is wise?&#8221; and gives the surprise answer, &#8220;Someone who learns from everyone.&#8221; We recognize humility in others by finding something that we can learn from them. Do you hear them? Are you paying attention? There&#8217;s something you can learn from everyone, something that only he or she knows, that only he or she can teach you.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s like each person&#8217;s life has the pieces of a 1,000 piece interlocking jigsaw puzzle. In my experience, no one seems to get issued a complete puzzle. Everyone&#8217;s puzzle is missing, on average, seven pieces, and these puzzle pieces are distributed randomly into other people&#8217;s puzzles. We spend our lives walking around saying, &#8220;Do you need a puzzle piece with a little yellow in the corner and a red line running through it?&#8221; Then we meet someone, and he or she says, &#8220;Oh, my God, I&#8217;ve been looking for it all my life.&#8221; We say, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what to do with it, I wound up with it, take it, it&#8217;s yours.&#8221; It&#8217;s rarely the author or featured speaker who has your puzzle pieces; it&#8217;s usually someone who has a bit part in your life whose name is not recorded in the program.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Rabbi Lawrence Kushner [<em>unconfirmed source for this version, but see, e.g., <a title=\"Google Books: 'Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life,' by Frederic Brussat and Mary Ann Brussat\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=4_mmFPt4ok8C&amp;pg=PA422#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">this<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: 'Moonlight' (excerpt), by Mary Oliver\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2014\/05\/take-care-you-dont-know-anything-in.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a> (italicized lines):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Moonlight<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now comes the white-striped, sharp-nosed digger of dampness<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">in her black and oily coat.<\/span><br \/>\nAll night in the moonlight she has been wandering<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">the stony beach; now she steps<\/span><br \/>\ninto the gardens and under the street light<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">like a flat cat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Her eyes gleaming and her tail aloft, she is afraid<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">of nothing &#8212; not dogs, not policemen who see her<\/span><br \/>\nand do not remove themselves from their cruisers, but sail on<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">down the dark roads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Everything is famous for something: the eagle for power,<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">the fox for cunning.<\/span><br \/>\nThis one we know for her temper and also her smell,<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">which comes from the wicks of fire.<\/span><br \/>\nYet once I watched and heard her, deep in the woods,<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">humming to herself as she carried<\/span><br \/>\nleaves into her humble house, that was nothing<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">but a scratched-out hole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Take care you don&#8217;t know everything in this world<\/em><br \/>\n<em> <span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">too quickly or easily. Everything<\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<em> is also a mystery, and has its own secret aura in the moonlight,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> <span style=\"margin-left: 2em;\">its private song.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"margin-left: 10.5em;\">If you meet her<\/span><br \/>\ndon&#8217;t be afraid, just stand still.<br \/>\nAnd, while you let her stare you down,<\/p>\n<p>notice how she stamps her pretty, little feet.<br \/>\nNotice how she shines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Mary Oliver [<a title=\"Amazon.com: 'What Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems,' by Mary Oliver\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/What-Do-We-Know-Poems\/dp\/0306812061#reader_0306812061\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>52 Hertz<\/strong><br \/>\n<span class=\"epigraph\">&#8212; a letter to Shea in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina<\/span><\/p>\n<p>No rebellions from the sea of late, you write. You must be pleased to see it calm, the gray Atlantic, which yearly moves the slender strip of your island a little east, a little west. Across the continent the whale known as the loneliest leviathan on earth roams northward to Kodiak and the Aleutians, singing as much to the silver-furred grizzly kings and to the blue spruce as to its own kind. I can hardly stand to think of it \u2013 that solitary keen in the ocean\u2019s dusk. Too high for anyone to hear but a headphone-clad oceanographer in NOAA\u2019s quiet, coastal observatory. (That is, you must know, my favorite of all acronyms.) There are those who suggest <a title=\"Wikipedia, on the 52-hertz whale\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/52-hertz_whale\" target=\"_blank\">the 52 Hertz whale<\/a> is deaf. Mostly deaf people have suggested this. <em>(Dear Cetologists: have you considered the possibility the whale is singing into silence, into a trembling in his own bones?)<\/em> Your letter describes a little paper bag full of last year\u2019s white poplar leaves, like plaster chiselings. Pelicans ruling thrones of old pilings. A sable horse by the frosted pond. Your cats inspecting the valleys between one another\u2019s claws. I\u2019d gather them, if I could, sing in their language. I\u2019ll pen this letter on a single olive leaf. I\u2019ll tell you what I saw today: flecked sparrows in the winter brush, cobble-eyed, close enough to touch.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Corrie Williamson [<a title=\"Linebreak: '52 Hertz,' by Corrie Williamson\" href=\"http:\/\/linebreak.org\/poems\/52-hertz\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Black Oaks<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Okay, not one can write a symphony, or a dictionary,<br \/>\nor even a letter to an old friend, full of remembrance<br \/>\nand comfort.<\/p>\n<p>Not one can manage a single sound though the blue jays<br \/>\ncarp and whistle all day in the branches, without<br \/>\nthe push of the wind.<\/p>\n<p>But to tell the truth after a while I&#8217;m pale with longing<br \/>\nfor their thick bodies ruckled with lichen<\/p>\n<p>and you can&#8217;t keep me from the woods, from the tonnage<br \/>\nof their shoulders, and their shining green hair.<\/p>\n<p>Today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, a<br \/>\nlittle sunshine, a little rain.<\/p>\n<p>Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from<br \/>\none boot to another &#8212; why don&#8217;t you get going?<\/p>\n<p>For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees.<\/p>\n<p>And to tell the truth I don&#8217;t want to let go of the wrists<br \/>\nof idleness, I don&#8217;t want to sell my life for money,<br \/>\nI don&#8217;t even want to come in out of the rain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Mary Oliver [<a title=\"Google Books: 'West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems,' by Mary Oliver\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=IdGeQABgBlwC&amp;pg=PT14#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>#478162483 \/ gettyimages.com From whiskey river: The Talmud asks the question, &#8220;Who is wise?&#8221; and gives the surprise answer, &#8220;Someone who learns from everyone.&#8221; We recognize humility in others by finding something that we can learn from them. Do you hear them? Are you paying attention? There&#8217;s something you can learn from everyone, something that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,36,251],"tags":[595,3806,3807,3808,3809],"class_list":{"0":"post-15661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-reading","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-mary-oliver","13":"tag-lawrence-kushner","14":"tag-corrie-williamson","15":"tag-the-52-hertz-whale","16":"tag-melanie-isaacson","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-44B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15661"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15673,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15661\/revisions\/15673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}