Friday September 26 — “A little faith will see you through”
One sunrise-sunset calendar for Detroit tells me that today is the autumn equinox, that Detroit has precisely 12 hours of daylight (http://www.sunrisesunset.com/calendar.asp). The play of sunrises and sunsets with our particular place on the earth gives the north east corner of campus a privileged vantage point. The corner offers a pretty vast patch of sky to the eye, compliments of the big parking lot & soccer/lacrosse field, and because it borders on McNichols Road (or as the cool new baseball hats on sale as of yesterday in the McNichols book store say “6 Mile.”) and because McNichols Road is a surveyor line east-west street. So today’s equiniox sun rose dead center down the middle of the street giving early east bound drivers fits. Besides all that, the combination of UDM’s big sky right next to surveyor-line 6 Mile Road lets me track sunrises as they march a little farther to the south each day until December’s winter solstice when the sun will rise just about over the north-east corner of Calihan Hall, Then sunrise begins to trek north a little bit each day until the height of summer. It took 10-15 years at UofD before it dawned on me that I had fallen in love with the parking lot’s big sky and the east-west precision of 6 Mile. How about you? Any other druid wannabees out there?
Today is also the last Friday of the first full month of the Term. I looked the post on this day in 2013 and I still like it a lot. Garrison Keillor mixes tough social criticism with a poet’s feel for metaphors and with a deep affection for ordinary human beings.
Have a good weekend.
john sj
Today’s Post
A little faith will see you through.
What else will except faith in such a cynical corrupt time?
When the country goes temporarily to the dogs,
cats must learn to be circumspect,
walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith
that all this woofing is not the last word.
Even in a time of elephantine greed and vanity,
one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.
Lacking any other purpose in life,
it would be good enough to live for their sake.
Garrison Keillor
