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Jewish World Review Dec. 15, 2000 / 17 Kislev, 5761

David Brewster

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Relinquish the Wind

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- ROBERT FROST wrote these words, "There is something in nature that abhors a wall." Often times, when we stand firm for cherished beliefs or seem immovable against a thing called progress, we become as walls. We rise in defense when what we hold dear is in danger. This desire to protect what is treasured comes from the heart. Emotions bring us to the struggle, plot our course and at times, blind our logic. Out of love, we oppose those who would do harm to our friend. Thusly motivated, we are a force with which to be reckoned, but as with Frost's ever crumbling wall, we are powerless against nature's omnipotent wind of time.

This is a battle as old as humanity itself. Simply put, it is the eternal struggle between what was and what is to be, the preservation of the past versus the inevitability of the future. But this is not a contest that is simple. It is complex, because we are complex. We are, at once, creatures of passion and progress, feelings and logic, emotion and intellect. Our nature is to cling to what we know, what brings us comfort and security. While, at the same time, we seem driven to invent the new, to step into the unknown and explore the possibilities of change. This is the conflict that troubles our soul, pits us one against another and animates our lives.

Often, the clash of emotion and logic is couched in terms of right versus wrong or even, good against evil. But the basis for such judgment is not there, for both, in their own way, are righteous. To long for the past is no sin, nor is the desire to change it. Such understanding, while perhaps doing little to resolve the conflict, helps focus both passion and reason where they belong, on the debate rather than against an imagined enemy.

Those of us with fewer years ahead than behind know these struggles well, for we have claimed many and lost most. We've shouted against the cruel wind of change until our voices grew weak, our numbers dwindled and our cause became obsolete. Left fallen in the wake of time's never-ending tempest, we face the bewilderment of the vanquished. Do we continue to cling to the past, to what we know full well exists only in our mind, or do we pick ourselves up, brush off the dust of what was and move on with the way it is? On the one hand, we are seen as 'past it', on the other, traitors to the worthy cause. We wish to be neither, and yet, we are both.

For those who are, today, 'with it', those who, today, ride the wind but tomorrow must succumb to its gale, hear the feeble voices of those honed by the storm and know we stood because we care, because we love. When our past was the present, and we rode the wind of time with the poise of new gods, like you, fear was a stranger, novelty a friend and change expected, accepted and prized. But when those fickle winds carried us beyond where we felt we'd always been, as the hastening scene about us turned strange, bewildering and ominous, we became disenchanted with the ride and the wind and prayed for calm. But standing still is not the nature of time. We had become at odds with the wind. We were no longer astride its gale. Like the wall, we stood within the wind's fury, buffeted by a force answerable to no one and no thing with a might beyond the rule of mere mortals, indeed, the source of all mortality.

Know this of us, you who ride the wind of time. We know your mount and tremble. Not from fear for ourselves, for we are no longer carried on the wind. We fear for you. Sometimes we reach out to take your hand and steady you and caution you and yes, even rebuke you, because we care about your welfare, and we love you. And as you race through the days of youth, if you can, consider this. Where you are, we once were. Where we are, you shall be.

Enjoy the ride.


JWR contributor David Brewster writes from his home near Burlington, Ind. Comment by clicking here.

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© 2000, David Brewster