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     Further postscripts to recent correspondence.

     a) God the Father as role model is specifically madated
in the verse: Be ye perfect even as your father in heaven is
perfect. (Matthew 5:18) This sounds to me like pure
Platonism. I can't imagine Abraham or Moses, the Psalmist,
Job or even Isaiah saying such a thing.

     b) My present criticism of my parents' penchant for
formal dining may be somewhat misleading. I cited my
impressions of long ago as an explanation for my reluctance
to "be taken out to dinner" this week or this month.  It is
incorrect to infer that as an adolescent I was overtly or
even implicitly critical of my parents' aristocratic life
style.  As a child, I identified with my parents in this
regard as in every other. When I saw that the emphasis on
elegance did not bring their problems closer to solution, and
that it certainly did not solve mine, I supplemented what
seemed essential to them with efforts of my own, without ever
disparaging theirs. My relationship to them is well
documented in our voluminous correspondence from 1945 to
1955, which I believe to be preserved in its entirety, though
I have not taken the time to reread it.

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Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
