A Question

And it is STILL my favorite Christmas story. Here’s hoping each of us wears what becomes us this holiday season.

mothlit

I was listening to NPR yesterday—an interview with Sir Tom Stoppard, screenwriter for the new Anna Karenina movie. When asked about the meaning of love he posed the question, “Are we born self-interested and we have to learn to be good? Or are we born selfless and merely corrupted by competition and institution?” I’m guessing there’s not any black or white answer to the question, though I was taught in my young religious days that we were born in total depravity with the need, of course, to be saved in an institution that just happens to make a lot of money off such doctrines—a truth that seems to belie the first argument in support of the second. Then there’s my own parenting that seems to betray the truths of corruption.

When my older son was five, he had a passion for Mary Poppins. He loved her magic, her command, her…

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A Question

I was listening to NPR yesterday—an interview with Sir Tom Stoppard, screenwriter for the new Anna Karenina movie. When asked about the meaning of love he posed the question, “Are we born self-interested and we have to learn to be good? Or are we born selfless and merely corrupted by competition and institution?” I’m guessing there’s not any black or white answer to the question, though I was taught in my young religious days that we were born in total depravity with the need, of course, to be saved in an institution that just happens to make a lot of money off such doctrines—a truth that seems to belie the first argument in support of the second. And looking to something like my parenting, for instance, I find a few human dregs betraying the likelihood of corruption.

 

When my older son was five, he had a passion for Mary Poppins. He loved her magic, her command, her wisdom. He loved her clothes. So it wasn’t much of a surprise that on a fall afternoon some thirteen years ago, after closing the TV cabinet on the gazillionth viewing of the movie, he declared, “Mommy, I want to be Mary Poppins for Halloween.”