Welcome to the weekly Third Degree: Tough, Brief, Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. This Sunday we target: Immersion
- With opening lines “Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote,The drought of Marche hath perced to the rote”, are we immersed in a 14th century, English, 17,000-line, poetic excursion with meaning hauntingly contemporary?
- As shared by 29 travelers on the pilgrimage trail to Becket’s shrine in Canterbury, why does the humor, honor, horror, societal standing, institutional (and personal) deception and a very variable morality (mostly bawdy) of those April tales matter?
- Does immersion in Chaucer reveal that human nature and the vagaries of life are little changed?
- While translation of old English eases reading, does real insight require some soaking in the sensibilities of the medieval age and transferring enduring observations to present day?
- Would that we should be showered more by insight than season?
- Is the character and countenance of the teller of the tale often as telling as the tale itself?
- What protects against corruption by man of institutions designed and intended for the betterment of mankind?
- Given existence and increasing creation of the many dark pits of division, how can one avoid thoughtless, inimical immersion?
- With apologies to Justice Brandeis: “Sunlight leads the way and is a great, the best, disinfectant,” but where to find the light?
- Should relentless and rigorous questioning be an illuminating source in every person’s universe?
- To encourage and enable objective and disseminated challenge essential for preservation of individual and collective freedoms, what other actions need be taken?
- With such questioning, can we shower off, and not just in April, the slime of cover up and hypocrisy that can so adversely affect a nation or a world? Will it take full immersion? Lots more pilgrims?
Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living”. The answers and actions remain yours.