“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot
“There’s a thread you follow. It goes along
Things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are using.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die: and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.”
– William Stafford
Our lives and the news about them comes and goes. Today, in the moment, the top of the news was a killing, perhaps a slaughter, certainly a mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, a remote community in British Columbia.
The news is once again breathless about, who knows, the umpteenth day of the Epstein saga. Its narrative: revelations of the wealthy and powerful and their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein. The powerful are resigning and apologizing, but not, of course, President Trump. His vocal thread is changeless. When we know the “thread,” we know the outcome. Ours, theirs.
On some mornings, over coffee, I simply tire of the news’ repetition of yet another dark chapter. I hope, although hope thins, that when the light comes back on, progress will be revealed. It’s our century, it will be our legacy.
But then my mind pivots to the larger question that frames in stark relief the smaller ones. In the hierarchy of news, is the minimization of Judeo-Christian morality the real story? Love? Humility? Divinity’s concerns? Strip away its influence and where do we begin and end?
And, where does conjoining religion and politics take us? In a reflective moment, consider its pattern in the Middle East.
A picture puzzle begins with imagination—what image will people want to buy? Which picture will endless minutes or hours of arrangement compel?
When the pieces of a picture puzzle fall on a tabletop, the image is a jumble. We then become a co-creator. We, not artificial intelligence. Thoughtfully, our game—our mind, our time, and ultimately our finish. We don’t compete with time or others—it unfolds as the pieces are joined.
Does our end’s unknowability weigh against its contemplation? Guided by a thread we choose to piece together life. But then darkness causes us to confront the inevitability of death.
The puzzle maker, of course, knows that scenes of death will not sell. But we know, even if our thoughts attempt to closet death, that it is the ultimate question. The end of our time here. Or as the poet William Stafford might say, the end of our “thread”.
Is there an irreversible thread in our life—innate, compelling—that orchestrates our time? Is it then as T.S. Eliot noted both the beginning and end? And, is the end the end? Dare we ask, when time is still ours? Implicitly we know, that thoughts about future time can inform and shape present time.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.