Contradictions
Posted by Judy Hill at 9/8/2007 10:53 AM and is filed under uncategorized 
A friend forwarded me one of those ubiquitous e-mail messages that multiply like bacteria and exceed the speed of light as they go around the world: a video link to a performance by the recently deceased Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti singing one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, Nessun Dorma by Puccini.
Thank God she did.
I opened the message and played it over and over. I needed a shower of beauty after hours of contemplation about the allegations against - and suicide of - St. Petersburg City Council Chair John Bryan.
To be fair, all Bryan apparently admitted in a family court hearing Friday morning was that he had a sexual relationship with a "nanny" who turned 18 before he bedded her many years ago. This "nanny" was also, apparently, an adopted daughter.
The allegations against him also include charges that he sexually abused his two teenage adopted daughters, 12 and 15.
A judge ordered him to leave his home - neighbors said Bryan had told them he and his wife were getting a divorce - and stay away from his wife and daughters, but there is no official confirmation of those charges.
Even so, I am outraged at Bryan.
I know his wife. Maybe that's what makes this all so devastating. I've known her since she was a teen who played football on my front yard with my own kids, raided my refrigerator for drinks and snacks. She grew into a wonderful, accomplished, dignified woman who must be grief-stricken, mortified, humiliated, stunned.
And only God knows how those girls, if there was sexual impropriety, will survive.
Bryan was not a teenager with no moral compass. He was a grown man who, if he did something so base, should have known the consequences. That perhaps explains his suicide. But his death also prevents him from defending himself against the charges - which leads one to believe, perhaps unfairly, that something rotten was going on.
That's what brings me to the existential contradiction: how can humans create something so beautiful, so exquisite, so inspirational that it can bring you to tears, while also being capable of behavior as base and ugly and unforgivable as the sexual abuse of children?
Maybe the answer is that Nessun Dorma or Michaelangelo's David or any piece of art or literature or music that can make us weep, exalt and reach for goodness and purity is what allows us to tolerate all the ugliness in life.
Thank God she did.
I opened the message and played it over and over. I needed a shower of beauty after hours of contemplation about the allegations against - and suicide of - St. Petersburg City Council Chair John Bryan.
To be fair, all Bryan apparently admitted in a family court hearing Friday morning was that he had a sexual relationship with a "nanny" who turned 18 before he bedded her many years ago. This "nanny" was also, apparently, an adopted daughter.
The allegations against him also include charges that he sexually abused his two teenage adopted daughters, 12 and 15.
A judge ordered him to leave his home - neighbors said Bryan had told them he and his wife were getting a divorce - and stay away from his wife and daughters, but there is no official confirmation of those charges.
Even so, I am outraged at Bryan.
I know his wife. Maybe that's what makes this all so devastating. I've known her since she was a teen who played football on my front yard with my own kids, raided my refrigerator for drinks and snacks. She grew into a wonderful, accomplished, dignified woman who must be grief-stricken, mortified, humiliated, stunned.
And only God knows how those girls, if there was sexual impropriety, will survive.
Bryan was not a teenager with no moral compass. He was a grown man who, if he did something so base, should have known the consequences. That perhaps explains his suicide. But his death also prevents him from defending himself against the charges - which leads one to believe, perhaps unfairly, that something rotten was going on.
That's what brings me to the existential contradiction: how can humans create something so beautiful, so exquisite, so inspirational that it can bring you to tears, while also being capable of behavior as base and ugly and unforgivable as the sexual abuse of children?
Maybe the answer is that Nessun Dorma or Michaelangelo's David or any piece of art or literature or music that can make us weep, exalt and reach for goodness and purity is what allows us to tolerate all the ugliness in life.
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