Today is my 82nd birthday.  Birthdays are family events with friends who are as close or closer than family.  Today I have received phone calls from members of my extended family and from a slew of wonderful friends.  I mentioned two days ago that I would have something to say about family.  I wan’t thinking about my birthday.  I wasn’t thinking about any of my family members in particular, but I was thinking about Sophocles and his 2500-year-old play, Antigone.  I wrote yesterday and the day before about the play.  I’m not at all sure what I will write tomorrow, but today I must say that I am very, very fortunate to be a member of the family into which I was born.  We are typically American… but we have a world view that makes me proud.  There are Republican members of the family and there are Democrats.  We talk with each other about politics… and after the talks we love each other even more… if that is possible.  

The play was written around a myth which educated Greeks knew.  Oedipus killed his Father and married his mother… of course, neither Oedipus nor Jocasta knew who the other was, and that isn’t the point of the story.  They had four children, Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles, and Polyneices.  The sad story of their lives as it was told by Sophocles was meant to focus on family and family relationships, but my emphasis in writing about the play is not on the incestuous relationship, unknown to the characters as they lived out their lives and approached tragic deaths.  

My focus is now on the two sons of Oedipus… and their deaths, accomplishing nothing… I’ll try to pull my thoughts together before writing more.