REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

Just a week ago winds blew strong out of the North. Some of us saw sleet. A few, icy rains. Only on the Upper Peninsula were piles of plowed snow still melting. Michigan saw very little snowfall this winter. Snowmobiling was practically non-existent.

Last year, remember last year? High in the mountains bordering California and Nevada, snows fell heavily in late April. Yet this year, in February, families strolled in shirtsleeves in bright sunlight along the beaches of Lake Michigan. I have pictures to prove it.

Yes, for closed minded people, it is hard to imagine God forsaking us, deleting the seasons we have come to know, come to depend upon. “It is His plan, His will” they will say, “We are His children. By His will, we will be protected, saved.”

Really?? How sad. How naive. When has God ever saved or protected us from suffering the consequences of our own ignorance, our own arrogance, our own stupidity? He never has. He never will.

We trip. We fall. We suffer. We die. Only we can alter that fateful sequence: with attention, with learning, with planning, with cooperation, with follow-through.

The ignorant, the arrogant, the obstinate are legion among us, now even inhabiting the White House and making up majorities within state legislatures. But, is it they who must become our newest “other”, a scourge to be eradicated? No, I hardly think so. Persecution, segregation, genocide, war have seldom left goodness in their wake. And even the softer scourge eradicator, public education, would seem to be failing us. Who has time for education, anyway, with multitudes of vacuous media dominating our attention. Woe to our poor flabby brains, filled to the brim now with nonsense upon nonsense upon nonsense.

When last did you carve something from wood, create a useful electric circuit, nurture a plant to flower and fruit? Real. Real is where the meat of life is at. Real, with nothing between you and the workings of the world save clear, useful, and true notions, questions, and ideas.

The wise, the intelligent, the inventive, the resourceful have always led the way to better outcomes for all of us. Now, yes now, would be a really good time to be that kind of person, one of that set of persons. It is with them our future lies. It is within their wisdom, insight, creativity, and hard work the endless bounty inherent to our oh so fragile existence lies.

It is also where the joy of winter we cannot bring ourselves to forget may yet be revived, where that now fading crisp white exhilaration and starkly isolating pensive reality might perhaps, with time and patience and persuasive leadership, be coaxed to life again.

Such is hope. Ah yes, my friend, such is hope.