Maybe temperance plus compassion equals the real meaning of family

Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (ISBN ISBN 978-9388125956) by Aberjhani: A memoir of what happens when the heart & soul of a city meet the art & purpose of a 21st-century advocate for compassion & social justice.

​The second epigraph at the beginning of Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah comes from a contemporary and friend of Nobel Prize for Literature winner Albert Camus (1913-1960), the French poet Rene Char (1907-1988):

"On our temperate side we have a series of songs in us, guarding us, wings of communication between our calm breath and our highest fevers..."
(R. Char from Put on Guard)

​​The hope to establish a balance between temperance and its opposite, heedlessness or chaos, so that a "series of songs" may flow unimpeded, is an important theme in "A Brazilian Thanksgiving in Georgia," the second story in Dreams of the Immortal City Savannah (ISBN 978-9388125956). In fact, the story might also have borrowed from Char's quote the phrase "Between Our Calm Breath and Our Highest Fevers" for an alternate title. This is the synopsis for it:

"One Thanksgiving holiday when people all over the country are gathering with family members to enjoy a good meal and each other’s company, the narrator makes peace with the fact that his estrangement from certain relatives will make the occasion a challenging one: for the widowed family matriarch he looks after, and, for himself. Having already resolved to make the best of a sad situation, he is surprised by a visit from two friends, a brother and sister from Brazil. In addition to several boxes loaded with traditional Brazilian food, they bring with them much-needed inspiration." 

Determining the best strategies and practices when it comes to caring for aging populations is something impacting the lives of people around the world. While Traditional Elders may be the primary recipients of this care, Millennials, members of Generation X, and Baby Boomers are largely the ones charged with providing it. And members of Generation Z eventually will inherit the same responsibilities.

How well we accomplish the task before us with love and compassion or how miserably we fail has become one of the true 21st-century tests of what we like to call-- our humanity.

Aberjhani
100th Anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance

Read More Blog-Notes on Dreams from the Immortal City Savannah:

• Applying Dreams of the Immoral City Savannah to Modern Global Realities
• A Story of Cities, Lights, and Dreams