The Rose and the Spider
A friend recently sent me a strikingly beautiful photograph: In it there is a rose, each petal a bright red battle flag boldly defying a massive concrete wall.
And there is a spider, patiently spinning its web. Unlike the rose, it does not fight the wall, does not struggle against its cold impersonality. It passes no judgments, forms no opinions: It accepts the wall’s existence and adapts to it.
Staring at that photo, as I have for hours over the past few days, I have begun to wonder if I am the spider.
Or the rose.
As a young man I was a soldier, trudging through faraway rice paddies with a rifle, a radio, and a 60-pound pack on my back. I was not sent, I volunteered for reasons that were complicated then and are even more so now.
Raised on the war stories of my parents’ generation and on Hollywood fantasies in which iron-jawed heroes fought against the enemies of freedom, democracy, and civilization itself; I thought that I was saving the world, at least part of it.
I thought that my country needed me.
I didn’t know then that wars are complex; that they are seldom – if ever – fought for reasons that have anything to do with right and wrong; with good and evil.
There are always, it seems, “other considerations” that are taken into account by those who declare war.
Considerations that those of us who swear an oath, take up arms, and go into harm’s way not once but many times are never told about.
Was I the spider?
Or the rose?
For most of my life after the Army I was a journalist. I covered murders and court cases. I witnessed a brutal civil war in Rwanda and stowed away on a mercy flight to cover a hurricane in Mexico.
I rode out other hurricanes in pick-up trucks and an SUV; lived undercover with white-power extremists, posed as a soldier to cover Desert Storm with a Florida National Guard unit, and was on hand for the invasion of Panama. I helped force one state government to stop police from illegally seizing money, vehicles, and property from people never charged with a crime and forced another state government to take its infant mortality rate seriously.
I wrote about the aftermath of a jet aircraft slamming into the ground near a small Pennsylvania town on 9/11.
I wrote, too, about the problems of the poor and the disadvantaged; about the ravages of alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence.
And yet… and yet when gray men in gray suits rolled up in their fancy cars and declared that my colleagues were being laid off for reasons that had nothing to do with their abilities or willingness to risk life and limb to bring back the stories and photos our readers needed to make informed decisions I said nothing.
I simply shouldered the extra work and went on with the job.
Was I the spider?
Or the rose?
I am an old man now: A full threescore and 10. Weak now, though I once was strong; slow now, though once I was fast.
Dull now, though I once was sharp.
Older but not really wiser and so, as I gaze at that photo and page through the chapters of my life, I do not yet know if I was the spider or the rose.
My great fear is that I was the spider.
My sincere hope is that I was the rose.
https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/p...
And there is a spider, patiently spinning its web. Unlike the rose, it does not fight the wall, does not struggle against its cold impersonality. It passes no judgments, forms no opinions: It accepts the wall’s existence and adapts to it.
Staring at that photo, as I have for hours over the past few days, I have begun to wonder if I am the spider.
Or the rose.
As a young man I was a soldier, trudging through faraway rice paddies with a rifle, a radio, and a 60-pound pack on my back. I was not sent, I volunteered for reasons that were complicated then and are even more so now.
Raised on the war stories of my parents’ generation and on Hollywood fantasies in which iron-jawed heroes fought against the enemies of freedom, democracy, and civilization itself; I thought that I was saving the world, at least part of it.
I thought that my country needed me.
I didn’t know then that wars are complex; that they are seldom – if ever – fought for reasons that have anything to do with right and wrong; with good and evil.
There are always, it seems, “other considerations” that are taken into account by those who declare war.
Considerations that those of us who swear an oath, take up arms, and go into harm’s way not once but many times are never told about.
Was I the spider?
Or the rose?
For most of my life after the Army I was a journalist. I covered murders and court cases. I witnessed a brutal civil war in Rwanda and stowed away on a mercy flight to cover a hurricane in Mexico.
I rode out other hurricanes in pick-up trucks and an SUV; lived undercover with white-power extremists, posed as a soldier to cover Desert Storm with a Florida National Guard unit, and was on hand for the invasion of Panama. I helped force one state government to stop police from illegally seizing money, vehicles, and property from people never charged with a crime and forced another state government to take its infant mortality rate seriously.
I wrote about the aftermath of a jet aircraft slamming into the ground near a small Pennsylvania town on 9/11.
I wrote, too, about the problems of the poor and the disadvantaged; about the ravages of alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence.
And yet… and yet when gray men in gray suits rolled up in their fancy cars and declared that my colleagues were being laid off for reasons that had nothing to do with their abilities or willingness to risk life and limb to bring back the stories and photos our readers needed to make informed decisions I said nothing.
I simply shouldered the extra work and went on with the job.
Was I the spider?
Or the rose?
I am an old man now: A full threescore and 10. Weak now, though I once was strong; slow now, though once I was fast.
Dull now, though I once was sharp.
Older but not really wiser and so, as I gaze at that photo and page through the chapters of my life, I do not yet know if I was the spider or the rose.
My great fear is that I was the spider.
My sincere hope is that I was the rose.
https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/p...
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