Missing Bill Moyers

Another Friday night has come and gone. Just as Bill Moyers and his weekly television show, Journal, has gone. I don't begrudge his wanting to let go of demands of a weekly television show - nor his desire to do some other creative things with the next years of his life. Afterall, I let go of one profession to take up another. I did not want to reach the end of my life and not have tried to see what I could create with words and camera lens. Perhaps Bill Moyers has the same feelings.

But just the same, I miss him. As if he had physically died and left all of us - even though he still prowls the canyons of NYC. I miss his wisdom, his humor, his delight in ever learning new things, his passion for justice, his keen intellect.

He would sit there and focus on his guest across the table  . As he engaged in the conversation, he often would lean forward, his face and eyes alive. His questions were always respectful, but after watching him week after week, his positions and perspective on the world were clear. And he could skewer someone as nicely as anyone.

However, it was his last choice of a person to interview that is a metaphor for what I miss most. He invited the writer, Barry Lopez to be his last guest. It has always been quite evident that Bill Moyers lived his life in the political world. But he also lived in the literary world. He knew the importance of the wisdom that poets and writers have to give us.

Wars, world hunger, climate change, politics, injustices, educational policy, technological changes, aging, immigration - the list is long. The Journal addressed all of these and more. Bill Moyers expanded the search for creative approaches to the issues of our day with a steady stream of writers and poets. No one else in the contemporary media  does what Bill Moyers is so skillful at doing.

In the last interview on the Journal, Barry Lopez said to Bill Moyers:  "Where I start from is ethical responsibility to an audience. The creation of something that is as beautiful as you can make it. And that ensures that what we dream, what we really desire, not for ourselves, because that's what you do as a kid, but for children - how will you ensure some possibility here by making sure we don't forget where we are going or what we are up to." Wise words that say it all.

I miss you, Bill Moyers!