The Flinchum File

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A Thing of Beauty

Years ago, I enjoyed scuba diving and did many open-water dives, as well as night-dives, cave-dives and even shark-dives, but the dive I remember most often was a drift-dive off Cozumel. For a drift-dive, you let the water current simply carry you along, drifting as the underwater world passes by. Cozumel has a ten mile long coral reef that you can watch while drifting. There is colorless sand, ugly rocks, and beautiful coral.

Often, I recall that dive when watching the television news, as news reports pass by. This week, the ugliness reminded me of the four murdered college students in Idaho. The colorless was the banality in the House of Representatives. The beauty concerned the horrifying injury to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin. As he lay in ICU, hanging on the life itself, the good people of Buffalo and Cincinnati and across the country closed ranks in prayer and best wishes for the patient. After watching the savagery of the Idaho murders and the pitiful banality of our elected leaders, it was beautiful to see thousands of well-wishers supporting an unconscious athlete and donating millions of dollars to charity.

Maybe, life is just another drift-dive . . . ?