Tyler's Turn Blog

Today I heard an interview with Kenneth Helphand, the author of Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime. In that interview, he talked about a question the International Association of Modern Architects asked in the midst of World War II.

"How can one plant roses when the trees are burning?"

Their answer, "How can one not plant roses when the trees are burning?"

Sometimes my work at the store seems frivolous. Why sell gourmet food when so many in the world are starving? Why spend the time to make a beautiful meal when the hills are burning and the middle east is exploding? But that's what we humans do.

As far back as the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc cave, the earliest written record of human activity, we have taken time out of the mayhem and dangers of our lives to create beauty.

So, plant a rose, even if the trees are burning.

How can you not?

Today is the one year anniversary of the public execution of Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, two Iranian teenage boys who's crime was that they loved each other.

In many countries around the world, homosexuality is still punishable by death. Gay people in these countries fear every day that someone might find out about them and turn them over to be tortured and killed, as Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni were.

Tonight, join me in lighting a candle and placing it in your window in memoriam for Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhoni, and as a prayer that others like them will not suffer similar fates.

I like to think I'm a reasonably informed guy when it comes to world events. I regularly listen to NPR, and I read a few blogs every day while I eat my lunch. I'm not a news junky, but I always have one eye on the world.

However, I don't think I'm alone in my bafflement at what's going on in the middle east right now. It seems like a couple weeks ago an armed and uniformed Israeli soldier was captured by Hezbolah, I blinked, and suddenly the world is on the brink of Armageddon. It feels like one of those barn fires, where someone trips over a lamp and before he can pick it up, all the hay has burst into flames and the barn is gone.

It really makes me want to be a parochial hedonist. If the capture of one soldier can escalate into Armageddon before I'm even aware of it, then why bother keeping an eye on world events at all? The world is a tinder box, ready to end in flames and fire at any moment, so why not just enjoy my life here in Podunk, New Mexico, and ignore everything else?

Of course, I never could, but it certainly makes me understand the people in my county who don't bother with anything outside our mountain community.

To paraphrase Qoholet, the teacher of Ecclesiastes, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may all die."