Couldn't Take You With Me

[A short essay from my Beyond Life's Boxes series.]

I couldn’t take you with me. And you didn’t want to come. Remember? That same uncanny, purposeful sense of fate that threw us together, scattered us like expatriates of Babel having lost the language, relationship and purpose of our time and place. And it didn’t matter when or where, because of you with me, it seemed like magic there. Was it school, the Marines, a church, another sojourn or road we traveled? Was it a shared faith, philosophy, or professional life? Or was it the causes and organizations, the boards and councils, or our retreats and pastimes, where our passions and purposes brought us together in common cause? Wherever it was, you were there and so was I. We knew there was a reason; we knew it was important, at least to us—and we were grateful for it. But just as fatefully, purposefully, and surely as we felt brought together, we felt pulled apart. You were gone and so was I.

You moved in your direction and I in mine, you to one box, I to another—and then another. I’ve been in some very different places with some very different people. Perhaps I’ve been led there, as I have said. But even if ushered there by serendipity alone, I’ve encountered a lot of the stuff, stories and lessons of life—seeing into it, then past it. My eyes have been widened and then narrowed, but now feel softer, more comfortable, wiser, more generous. They now see new things, and old things new. I can’t change what I’ve seen and know. I can’t and won’t go back. The call, the challenge is still in going forward. But I couldn’t take you with me then, and I can’t take you with me now. I would, but you have your own invitations and path to follow. I still love you and miss you—but in that time, place or cause we once shared together. And I’m still grateful for that time together, what it meant to me then and what it means to me now.

First written: June 2005

The Tongue is a Fire

James, brother of Jesus: "The tongue is a fire...a restless evil...which defiles our entire body and sets on fire the course of our lives...[H]ow great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire...With it we bless our Lord and Father; and with it we curse men; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way." (from James 3:5-10)

Hafiz, 14th-century sufi poet: "What we speak becomes the house we live in. Think what can happen when the tongue says to kindness, 'I will be your slave.'" *** "Now is the time to understand that all your ideas of right and wrong were just training wheels to be laid aside when you finally live with veracity and love." (from The Gift (1999))

Our Poorer Brethren: Understandings and Attitudes

Our behavior and identity are in part a function of our genetic legacy, yes, but also the way we are conditioned and schooled, what we learn in our families, communities and cultures. Some combination of genes and life circumstances determines who we are, how we act, the scope and limits of our potential and achievements. But for the least fortunate of our brethren--the increasing numbers of poor brethren--their choices are far fewer and their ability to act on them much less. That's a reality we could better understand. And compassion and a generous spirit are sentiments we could more often, more broadly embrace. GH

Zakaria: Tax Law Complexity Equals Corruption

For much of my career, I worked as a tax lawyer and a corporate tax executive. If there was anything I understood, it was the complexity of the U.S. tax code, regulations, rulings, and case law--at least those parts of it I dealt with most. To be really competent in tax practice, you do have to specialize in one area of practice, or a few at most. It's nothing short of byzantine. And many companies and industries have their special tax breaks or "incentives." They also have their lobbyists, both "in house" and on K Street, who are well paid to protect those competitive tax advantages. (And, it can hardly be surprising that tax lawyers, tax accountants, and financial products architects view each new and more complex iteration of the tax code as tax professionals' full-employment legislation.)

But most of those tax breaks provide no additional incentives for companies to do more of what they are already doing to maximize their profits in their chosen area of commercial endeavor. Not really. They are just thinly veiled, indirect government payments to one industry or another, or one company or another. They are created and sustained by congressmen and senators eager to help their constituent companies, or other companies, for which they have developed sympathetic support--and that sympathy is most often engendered through the financial and political support those companies provide the politicians.

In addressing the 9-9-9 tax plan of Republican presidential contender Herman Cain, Fareed Zakaria finds merit in the underlying ideas, even if the particulars are difficult to support or defend. But in taking on the most basic element of the plan--tax law simplicity--he exposes one of the principal unspoken realities of tax law complexity: political corruption. Mr. Zakaria: 

I am going to defend not Cain's specific policy proposals but their general thrust. His plan is sloppy and, in parts, bizarre. But the impetus behind it--tax simplification and reform--is not. Most Americans believe that the federal tax code is highly complex and fundamentally corrupt. They are right. The federal code (plus IRS rulings) is now 72,536 pages in total. The code itself is 16,000 pages.  

Complexity equals corruption. When John McCain was still a raging reformer, he pointed to the tax code as the foundation for the corruption of American politics. Special interests pay politicians vast amounts of cash for their campaigns, and in return they get favorable exemptions or credits in the tax code. In other countries, this sort of bribery takes place underneath bridges and with cash in brown envelopes. In America it is institutionalized and legal, but it is the same--cash for politicians in return for favorable treatment from the government. The U.S. tax system is not simply corrupt; it is corrupt in a deceptive manner that has degraded the entire system of American government. Congress is able to funnel vast sums of money to its favored funders through the tax code--without anyone realizing it. The simplest way to get the corruption out of Washington is to remove the prize that members of Congress give away: preferential tax treatment. A flatter tax code with almost no exemptions does that.

---"Complexity Equals Corruption," Fareed Zakaria, Time Magazine (10.31.11)

This is not the first time I have posted on this topic, as some of you know. It is a subject I was passionate about for much of my professional life, and that passion has not abated. It is just so logical and so right. If Mr. Cain's particular proposal is not viable --and it is not, in my view--he has embraced the right idea in simplification.

And after Mr. Zakaria works through the other elements of Mr. Cain's plan, he offers his own own variation on a 9-9-9 type of approach. It is still simple enough, although not as simple as Mr. Cain's. We can be thankful for that. But it is clearly more thoughtful and defensible. It, too, may have elements that one or another of us will take issue with, but on the whole it is much closer to a workable set of particulars. Again, Mr. Zakaria:

My version of Cain's proposal would be flatter but not flat: 9% for the first 90% of Americans, 18% for the next 9% (incomes starting at $150,000) and 27% for the top 1% (incomes starting at about $500,000). I would keep a few straightforward deductions--state and local income taxes and charitable contributions. I would lower the corporate rate to 18% and impose a VAT of 9%. Finally, I would enact a 50% inheritance tax, because nothing is more un-American than an inherited elite that perpetuates itself. So my proposal is a bit more complex--the 9-18-27-18-9-50 plan. Don't expect it to catch fire on the campaign trail anytime soon.

The full article is worth reading, not just for the analysis of the particulars, but for the policy discussion as well. It can be accessed through the following link:

http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2097396,00.html 

Life's Slippery Slope: Who We Too Often Become.

Following on from my last post, I've added these additional pull-quotes from various of my writings (which have also found their way to my Facebook page). I place them all together here in successive paragraphs because they follow naturally enough from one to the next.

Have we lost our way somewhere on the quest for the greater good, on that path paved with good intentions? Have we lost our footing, our vision and mission? We have our success and worldly goods, yes, but has that fulfilled our potential, our promise? And if that is what we've gained in the world we've so easily slipped into, what have we lost? 

We are competitive and contentious as a species, and given too much to disagreement. We contend and disagree among nations, ethnicities, religions and ideologies, and within them all as well. We are set on distinguishing ourselves from others, lifting ourselves above them or separating ourselves from them--and we are often unpleasant or hurtful in doing it. It all breeds prejudice, anger, even hatred. It's clearly not heaven yet, not anywhere close. 

So, if loving one another, even respecting one another, is too often just not in the cards, not realistic, don't we have to reach even more earnestly and insistently for tolerance, at least? In the name of peace on shared ground and in common spaces, can't we agree to patiently and politely abide one another? Can't we at least get over the lowest bar of tolerance and civility?

What's Gained? What's Lost?

Have we lost our way somewhere on the quest for the greater good, on that path paved with good intentions? Have we lost our footing, our vision and mission? We have our success and worldly goods, yes, but has that fulfilled our potential, our promise? And if that is what we've gained in the world we’ve so easily slipped into, what have we lost? GH

true lovers: one more from eec

Oh, one more, just one more, from this cummings selected poetry collection (well, until the next one).

#82 

true lovers in each happening of their hearts

live longer than all which and every who;

despite what fear denies,what hope asserts,

what falsest both disprove by proving true 

(all doubts,all certainties,as villains strive

and heroes through the mere mind's poor pretend

--grim comics of duration:only love

immortality occurs beyond the mind) 

such a forever is love's any now

and her each here is such an everywhere,

even more true would truest lovers grow

if out of midnight dropped more suns that are 

(yes;and if time should ask into his was

all shall,their eyes would never miss a yes)

e e cummings, 5 of 100 gifts

From e e cummings, five of 100 Selected Poems (a birthday gift from son, Adam.) You do have to keep working with cummings' poetry, mining the alternatives and possibilities, rethinking the pieces and the whole. But if you do, it just keeps on giving and surprising. It is surely worth it! 

#83 

yes is a pleasant country:

if's wintry

(my lovely)

let's open the year 

both is the very weather

(not either)

my treasure,

when violets appear 

love is a deeper season

than reason:

my sweet one

(and april's where we're)

#80 

nothing false and possible is love

(who's imagined,therefore limitless)

love's to giving as to keeping's give;

as yes is to if,love is to yes 

must's a schoolroom in the month of may:

life's the deathboard where all now turns when

(love's a universe beyond obey

or command,reality or un-) 

proudly depths above why's first because

(faith's last doubt and humbly heights below)

kneeling,we--true lovers--pray that us

will ourselves continue to outgrow 

all those mosts if you have known and I've

only we our least begin to guess

#84

all ignorance toboggans into know

and trudges up to ignorance again:

but winter's not forever,even snow

melts;and if spring should spoil the game, what then? 

all history's a winter sport or three:

but were it five,i'd still insist that all

history is too small for even me;

for me and you,exceedingly to small. 

Swoop(shrill collective myth)into thy grave

merely to toil the scale to shrillerness

per every madge and mabel dick and dave

--tomorrow is our permanent address 

and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do,

we'll move away still further: into now

#92 

no time ago

or else a life

walking in the dark

i met christ 

jesus)my heart

flopped over

and lay still

while he passed(as 

close as i'm to you

yes closer

made of nothing

except loneliness

#65 

love is the every only god 

who spoke this earth so glad and big

even a thing all small and sad

man,may his mighty briefness dig 

for love beginning means return

seas who could sing so deep and strong 

one queerying wave will whitely yearn

from each last shore and home come young 

so truly perfectly the skies

by merciful love whispered were,

complete its brightness with your eyes 

any illimitable star