Monday, September 11, 2017 \u00a0\u201cspeaking in a soft voice,
\nspeaking in a voice slightly colored with bitter wrongs
\nmingled with monumental patience\u201d<\/p>\n
This past week, while Attorney General Sessions announced the rescinding of the DACA window out of fear for c. 800,000 \u201cDreamers,\u201d I thought of my family\u2019s 9 lawyers, across 3 generations. \u00a0I am deeply proud of them; \u00a0not only do they practice the law without cheating (their clients or the law itself), they often use their skills to open paths to justice for vulnerable people. \u00a0Yes, they, and the rest of the family, love to argue and debate about large questions and crazy tiny ones. \u00a0Dinner tables pulse with conversational energy, only sometimes noble; \u00a0sometimes we rant and scold each other. \u00a0Sometimes we apologize, sometimes we don\u2019t get that far in a dinner argument. \u00a0But, that said, . . . .<\/p>\n
I have been schooled by my family\u2019s habits to expect lawyers to use their skills to open paths to justice for vulnerable people. \u00a0And expect that pragmatic hope for wounded people requires what today\u2019s poet, Carl Sandburg, describes as \u201cmonumental patience.\u201d \u00a0These hard days got me searching in Garrison Keillor\u2019s 2005 anthology (Good poems – for- Hard Times)<\/u>. \u00a0That\u2019s where I found today\u2019s poem. \u00a0I\u2019m taking the liberty of dedicating this post to those nine lawyers with whom I have lived all of my life. \u00a0(n.b., Sanburg uses \u201chim\u201d for his lawyer; 4 of my 9 are women.)<\/p>\n
Monday approaching mid-September. \u00a0Have a blest day.<\/p>\n
john sj<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Post \u00a0\u201cLawyer\u201d \u00a0<\/strong>Carl Sanburg<\/p>\n When the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks of direct Monday, September 11, 2017 \u00a0\u201cspeaking in a soft voice, speaking in a voice slightly colored with bitter wrongs mingled with monumental patience\u201d This past week, while Attorney General Sessions announced the rescinding of the DACA window out of fear for … Continue reading
\nand cross examinations, hot clashes of lawyers and cool
\ndecisions of the judge,
\nThere are points of high silence \u2014 twiddling of thumbs is at an
\nend \u2014 bailiffs near cuspidors take fresh chews of tobacco
\nand wait \u2014 and the clock has a chance for its ticking to
\nbe heard.
\nA lawyer for the defense clears his throat and holds himself
\nready if the word is \u201cGuilty\u201d to enter motion for a new
\ntrial, speaking in a soft voice, speaking in a voice slightly
\ncolored with bitter wrongs mingled with monumental
\npatience, speaking with mythic Atlas shoulders of many
\npreposterous, unjust circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"