I was listening to one of those business news shows on NPR this AM, when I heard a startling thing. The report was on why there are no especially compelling toys to buy this year: no "Tickle Me Elmo's" sending parents on searches that can be frantic and retailers on challenges to keep shelves sufficiently stocked.
A comment was made about how there are years when these toys arise and years when they don't, regardless of the economy. But in a time of "economic downturn," the likelihood of such toys catching on is further diminished, was the point. Here's what was said: "When you're thinking about how to spend your money, you're far less vulnerable to fads and excitement."
At first, I felt really sad. I mean, at what other season of the year are we to be "vulnerable to excitement," if not Christmas? Christmas/the Holidays is all about excitement! If the economic problems we are facing, both in our families and in our country, are diminishing our vulnerability to excitement, then these are hard times indeed.
But then I remembered another time in my life, a time when I was unemployed, and very much "between" jobs, and my income was, as we would say now, "extremely limited." Times were not as tough for everyone then as they were for me and my family, but it also was not exactly a time of consumer-confident hysteria. We were living near Chicago, a locale that can be quite bleak at this time of year, the fleeting beauties of a White Christmas made terrifying by the sleeting realities of what happens to transportation when roads are icy.
And Cabbage Patch Dolls were the rage. And my daughter was 7. And because she was "vulnerable to fads," I was.
I remember futile searches of toy store shelves and frantic trips for miles to other, perhaps better stocked neighborhoods, and calling stores and timing visits to shipments and the sheer determination not to disappoint my daughter driving me to great distances. All to no avail.
Then, just as I was settling into the tragic task of preparing my "sorry, sweetheart" Christmas morning speech, word came from up North. My wife and I had a friend in the town were we'd met, Houghton, MI-- a place so far North in the US that a road sign reads, "Houghton, 10 miles; End of the World, 15 miles." Our friend called. He had found a Cabbage Patch Doll! One of the last ones in that Northern outpost of civilization.
It was as if it came from Santa himself! He sent it. It arrived. It turned out to be a "she," and her name, we found out on Christmas morning was "Charity Wilma." Charity Wilma made my daughter's Christmas. Charity Wilma saved me from being the sad father, the disappointing and disappointed dad. Charity Wilma, more than Baby Jesus that year, was our Christmas miracle!
Now, the fact that my daughter, at her mother's the following Spring, left Charity Wilma behind in the playground, so that we never heard from Charity Wilma again... does not take away from the excitement and even joy that Charity Wilma gave to all of us that Christmas: not just to my daughter, but to me and her step-mother and even to our Northern friend and benefactor, who in a real way got to play Santa.
So today, I thought: it is precisely when we have only a few dollars to spend that we want to spend them on something special, something that isn't the last of many gifts under the tree, but something that is THE one and only gift under the tree-- the way Jesus was the only baby in that barn that night. Searching for that Cabbage Patch Doll, gave my Christmas focus and purpose. Knowing the dolls' scarcity, gave value to our finally getting one. Being vulnerable to the excitement meant also being vulnerable to other feelings as well.
Over the years, on other occasions, my daughter got other Cabbage Patch Dolls-- and those she has kept with her. She's told me that she plans to share them with her daughter, and that is a wonderful thing. Charity Wilma, although gone, is not forgotten. Recently I asked my daughter how many Cabbage Patch Dolls she had. She hesitated, like a mother who's had a child die, who then doesn't know how to reply to the question of how many children she has. She said, "if I include Charity Wilma, or not?" I said, include her. She was with us for a time. She was, for a Christmas, our evidence of divine generosity.
And really, isn't this the affirmation we want to make every year, and need especially to make this year: That God is Great and God is Good and now we thank God for God's Giving. Especially when we feel like the world has taken away so much and left us vulnerable to our fears and insecurities, we ought to take comfort from the Christmas message that God's giving is so great, it encourages us to be vulnerable only to excitement and joy.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Pacific Palace Aids
The ocean was as placid as I've ever seen this morning,
as calm as a dreaming baby,
as smooth as a seducer's spiel.
I rushed to the shore to join the sentinel line
of sleepy-eyed seagulls, watchers and holy ones.
I arrived before the surfing magicians
could conjure up their waves.
And sure enough, my mind floated out to sea,
leaving me thoughtlessly on the shore.
I realized my body needed to be kneaded
by those foamy fingers curling gently
as from a young mother's hand.
I wanted to be bread dough, to smell like yeast,
to be pulled and stretched and made supple again.
I wanted to be washed, to have the stain of my shame
worked out of me; I wanted to be clean again.
I wanted to be squeezed and squeegeed as the sky had been,
cloudless and bright; I wanted to be clear again.
I wanted what only the sea could give: new life.
A flock of shadows flew across my face,
and I turned my body for home,
letting my mind find its own way as it will.
Suddenly a butterfly flew around my head,
crowning me like the monarch it was!
I picked up a sand dollar, small change
when I was hoping for something larger?
No, for the priceless epiphanies of this morning
I would have paid much more...
as calm as a dreaming baby,
as smooth as a seducer's spiel.
I rushed to the shore to join the sentinel line
of sleepy-eyed seagulls, watchers and holy ones.
I arrived before the surfing magicians
could conjure up their waves.
And sure enough, my mind floated out to sea,
leaving me thoughtlessly on the shore.
I realized my body needed to be kneaded
by those foamy fingers curling gently
as from a young mother's hand.
I wanted to be bread dough, to smell like yeast,
to be pulled and stretched and made supple again.
I wanted to be washed, to have the stain of my shame
worked out of me; I wanted to be clean again.
I wanted to be squeezed and squeegeed as the sky had been,
cloudless and bright; I wanted to be clear again.
I wanted what only the sea could give: new life.
A flock of shadows flew across my face,
and I turned my body for home,
letting my mind find its own way as it will.
Suddenly a butterfly flew around my head,
crowning me like the monarch it was!
I picked up a sand dollar, small change
when I was hoping for something larger?
No, for the priceless epiphanies of this morning
I would have paid much more...
Friday, November 28, 2008
Horizons
The Phoenix did not rise tonight,
but instead flew fiercely across the horizon
like a pelican streaking for home,
its belly lit by the fire of the setting sun,
its wing as outstretched as an angel's,
eventually trailing a rainbow streamer
across the length of the horizon.
There was no such spectacular promise
in the orderliness of the day.
The line of the horizon was razor sharp,
like Occam's, cutting sky from sea with clarity.
The waves wrinkled to shore like folds of skin
massaged by the wind's gentle hand.
And the clouds were combed and parted,
the silver strands of an aged gentleman waiting for a lady.
Tranquility reigned at last.
We needed to be soothed,
after two tumultuous days and nights of unpredictability.
Which lent surprise to the day's ultimatum:
The fire next time!, it proclaimed,
but not as a threat; more like a pledge.
And as Saturn and Venus took their places
in the cobalt sky, above the crimson band,
and we waited for the moon's sliver
to cut the night's curtain,
we knew we had something more to look forward to
than merely passing days upon the earth.
but instead flew fiercely across the horizon
like a pelican streaking for home,
its belly lit by the fire of the setting sun,
its wing as outstretched as an angel's,
eventually trailing a rainbow streamer
across the length of the horizon.
There was no such spectacular promise
in the orderliness of the day.
The line of the horizon was razor sharp,
like Occam's, cutting sky from sea with clarity.
The waves wrinkled to shore like folds of skin
massaged by the wind's gentle hand.
And the clouds were combed and parted,
the silver strands of an aged gentleman waiting for a lady.
Tranquility reigned at last.
We needed to be soothed,
after two tumultuous days and nights of unpredictability.
Which lent surprise to the day's ultimatum:
The fire next time!, it proclaimed,
but not as a threat; more like a pledge.
And as Saturn and Venus took their places
in the cobalt sky, above the crimson band,
and we waited for the moon's sliver
to cut the night's curtain,
we knew we had something more to look forward to
than merely passing days upon the earth.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Rainbow Splash
Arching from inland to ocean,
the storm dragging its tail,
it pours its essence out:
indigos and teals fill the water;
blues rise to the skies and spread themselves
in the mirrors of the shallows;
greens blend and reach out to each other
in the vegetation of land and water;
yellows and golds drape the cliffs
and fly away on the breasts of kestrels.
I look for reds, like blood at the scene of a crime,
and find them splashed on stones and shells
and pooled in the ominous tide.
How will we harvest the rainbow?
Will we wrap ourselves in it, like Joseph?
Or are we to remain in the pit,
never to be the dream-meaner
who saves his people-- and thus himself?
Anyone can see the colors.
Only a few can wear them.
Fewer still can let the light illuminate them.
And fewest of all become the prism
of their own luminescence.
the storm dragging its tail,
it pours its essence out:
indigos and teals fill the water;
blues rise to the skies and spread themselves
in the mirrors of the shallows;
greens blend and reach out to each other
in the vegetation of land and water;
yellows and golds drape the cliffs
and fly away on the breasts of kestrels.
I look for reds, like blood at the scene of a crime,
and find them splashed on stones and shells
and pooled in the ominous tide.
How will we harvest the rainbow?
Will we wrap ourselves in it, like Joseph?
Or are we to remain in the pit,
never to be the dream-meaner
who saves his people-- and thus himself?
Anyone can see the colors.
Only a few can wear them.
Fewer still can let the light illuminate them.
And fewest of all become the prism
of their own luminescence.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tracings
I walk the scalloped coastline
as if I am tracing the lace edge of your bodice,
my knuckles soft across your surface,
our hearts beating like waves chasing each other,
seeking to escape the gathering storm
by breaking, over and over again.
My arms spread wide to take it all in,
to take you all in.
I'm a supplicant to beauty!
Let the weight of the wide sky fall on me
like a downy comforter!
My eyes spring with surprise,
as if at a dolphin sighting.
The aperture of my body is as open as can be,
a wide angle lens bending, stretching to receive.
I am backlit as a wave at sunset,
crimson, transparent, on fire.
I am light, and glad to be, even
glad to have been, when the light goes out.
The waves of passion have scratched the shore,
leaving sand paintings for our healing.
There are parables in those parabolas.
as if I am tracing the lace edge of your bodice,
my knuckles soft across your surface,
our hearts beating like waves chasing each other,
seeking to escape the gathering storm
by breaking, over and over again.
My arms spread wide to take it all in,
to take you all in.
I'm a supplicant to beauty!
Let the weight of the wide sky fall on me
like a downy comforter!
My eyes spring with surprise,
as if at a dolphin sighting.
The aperture of my body is as open as can be,
a wide angle lens bending, stretching to receive.
I am backlit as a wave at sunset,
crimson, transparent, on fire.
I am light, and glad to be, even
glad to have been, when the light goes out.
The waves of passion have scratched the shore,
leaving sand paintings for our healing.
There are parables in those parabolas.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
A Day at the Beach
Sights, encounters, and reflections from a day at the beach:
Sights: I am a solitary figure among solitary figures. Many of the seabirds are loners at this time of year: a lone cormorant dips and dives not ten yards from shore; the occasional curlew is flockless; I walk around a single gull standing on one foot, in order to respect him, for this is his beach, not mine. Out on the water, a solitary surfer waits for one last wave as the darkening day joins the sky and the sea in gray. This is a good time to be alone on the beach, for I am not alone in being alone.
Encounters: Yesterday, a boy runs up behind me and yells, "DAD!" at the top of his lungs. He is shouting to his father, I'm sure, but I hear him as if I am he, when he startles me out of my reverie. Down the beach I meet "Flat Stanley," a doll sent by her great granddaughter to the great grandmother who is now photographing Flat Stanley's oceanside adventures for the great granddaughter to share with her class. Travel by proxy, like a garden gnome. Flat Stanley speaks to me: one of us is going places, he says. Two boys break away and run screaming at a group of seagulls minding their own business. A classic case of boy meets gull-- and as is usually true on such occasions, the gulls simply grumble and move along.
Reflections: I am wondering what our hearts are made of. I carved my name into her heart of stone, hoping to leave a lasting impression. But her heart turned out to be made of sand instead, and whatever impression I might have made was gone with the tide. Above the cliffs flies a POW/MIA flag. Some impressions are more permanent: in the battlefield of love, some of us are Missing in Action, others, Prisoners of War-- but lost forever to "take no prisoners" romance.
Sights: I am a solitary figure among solitary figures. Many of the seabirds are loners at this time of year: a lone cormorant dips and dives not ten yards from shore; the occasional curlew is flockless; I walk around a single gull standing on one foot, in order to respect him, for this is his beach, not mine. Out on the water, a solitary surfer waits for one last wave as the darkening day joins the sky and the sea in gray. This is a good time to be alone on the beach, for I am not alone in being alone.
Encounters: Yesterday, a boy runs up behind me and yells, "DAD!" at the top of his lungs. He is shouting to his father, I'm sure, but I hear him as if I am he, when he startles me out of my reverie. Down the beach I meet "Flat Stanley," a doll sent by her great granddaughter to the great grandmother who is now photographing Flat Stanley's oceanside adventures for the great granddaughter to share with her class. Travel by proxy, like a garden gnome. Flat Stanley speaks to me: one of us is going places, he says. Two boys break away and run screaming at a group of seagulls minding their own business. A classic case of boy meets gull-- and as is usually true on such occasions, the gulls simply grumble and move along.
Reflections: I am wondering what our hearts are made of. I carved my name into her heart of stone, hoping to leave a lasting impression. But her heart turned out to be made of sand instead, and whatever impression I might have made was gone with the tide. Above the cliffs flies a POW/MIA flag. Some impressions are more permanent: in the battlefield of love, some of us are Missing in Action, others, Prisoners of War-- but lost forever to "take no prisoners" romance.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Insane Dependence
I remember when our most benighted of Presidents told us, in a State of the Union Address no less, that we were a country "addicted" to oil. When even he recognized our economy, indeed our culture, had an irrational dependence on a substance, well then, surely it must be true. Then we got globally warmed to a point that our relationship with fossil fuels became ambivalent at best. And finally we followed the inconvenient truth far enough to believe that there might actually be alternatives to our crude addiction. We are now in love with "hybrids." Hmmm...
The other day, on NPR, two reports laid bare the dilemma of our alternatives. In one, the limitations of battery-powered personal transportation vehicles was examined. Thomas Edison himself had promised Henry Ford that he would make a battery-powered car for Ford's wife within their lifetimes. He didn't of course-- and cars were a lot lighter then! Now battery powered car technology turns on basically one option: lithium-ion. Alternatives to that option are not being sought-- except by the lead acid folks who've made our car's batteries for a long time.
OK, so what's so dangerous about lithium-ion? Don't they power our cell phones and cameras? Well, yes... And if that isn't fair warning, then maybe we ought to pay attention to where the "stuff" to make such batteries comes from. That "stuff" is cobalt and another element I don't remember (this was radio I heard this on). Turns out, most of cobalt is found in the Congo-- not a very stable place to be mining our futures-- and in "southern China, near Tibet," which is also where most of that "other element" is found. Hmmmmm...
So if our present is about dependence of foreign oil primarily from the middle east, could our future be about dependence on foreign cobalt from China? And haven't we already mortgaged our future to China who owns most of the paper of our national debt anyway? Hmmmmm...
Suddenly, all of Obama's brave pronouncements to the contrary, I was a lot less sanguine about our futures...
But the future is not really mine to see. What struck me more was the insight of a possible analogy: As it is in our fiscal economies, could it be in our emotional economies? That is, is it the case that, no matter how hard we try or how many alternative choices we feel we may have, that each of us finds ourselves perpetually dependent on obtaining something we need from those who are foreign or alien or even hostile to us?
You see, I'm puzzling about my own insane behavior, and looking to rationalize over the wider spread of the human condition...
As anyone in recovery knows, the definition of "insanity" is "doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result." Being in recovery from a recent romantic relationship that could only be described as "insane" on exactly the same terms, I have become a student of my own irrational, self-destructive repetitive behaviors. I'm looking at myself asking, why did I continue to do that?
Well, the answer, my friends, may lie in the stars-- and there would be a certain relief if I could point to "destiny" to exculpate myself. But more likely Shakespeare was right, and it lies in "ourselves"-- and I get some comfort from thinking I may be an idiot but my behavior was not idiosyncratic! In other words, I am not alone in my penchant for insanity.
To be precise, maybe there truly is something built into the human condition where we eventually discover that we actually do need for our own better functioning what another has within them. Like we do with middle eastern oil, or we might with Chinese cobalt. Maybe the world is so structured that we are become aware that each of us have the parts of the other's puzzle. And that to complete ourselves, we need each other. Maybe in the worst way...
Or maybe we are to find out how not to need each other in the worst way, but instead how to deal with this "the way things are" in a manner that does not bring about insanity, but something like vulnerability and cooperation.
The thing about the definition of insanity is not the repetition or the compulsion, but the expectation. Our expectations of ourselves and others is what is so screwy! Maybe we are to deal with this need for what the other has for us that we cannot supply to ourselves-- but change our expectations. Maybe it is our own expectations that drive us insane.
At least that is where I'm going in my own life, and in whatever future romantic relationships I might be blessed to have. But maybe we need to learn that geo-political economic lesson now as well. What we need, those who are foreign to us have. So why should we expect anything different?
I'm thinkin' about this... I'm workin' on it!
The other day, on NPR, two reports laid bare the dilemma of our alternatives. In one, the limitations of battery-powered personal transportation vehicles was examined. Thomas Edison himself had promised Henry Ford that he would make a battery-powered car for Ford's wife within their lifetimes. He didn't of course-- and cars were a lot lighter then! Now battery powered car technology turns on basically one option: lithium-ion. Alternatives to that option are not being sought-- except by the lead acid folks who've made our car's batteries for a long time.
OK, so what's so dangerous about lithium-ion? Don't they power our cell phones and cameras? Well, yes... And if that isn't fair warning, then maybe we ought to pay attention to where the "stuff" to make such batteries comes from. That "stuff" is cobalt and another element I don't remember (this was radio I heard this on). Turns out, most of cobalt is found in the Congo-- not a very stable place to be mining our futures-- and in "southern China, near Tibet," which is also where most of that "other element" is found. Hmmmmm...
So if our present is about dependence of foreign oil primarily from the middle east, could our future be about dependence on foreign cobalt from China? And haven't we already mortgaged our future to China who owns most of the paper of our national debt anyway? Hmmmmm...
Suddenly, all of Obama's brave pronouncements to the contrary, I was a lot less sanguine about our futures...
But the future is not really mine to see. What struck me more was the insight of a possible analogy: As it is in our fiscal economies, could it be in our emotional economies? That is, is it the case that, no matter how hard we try or how many alternative choices we feel we may have, that each of us finds ourselves perpetually dependent on obtaining something we need from those who are foreign or alien or even hostile to us?
You see, I'm puzzling about my own insane behavior, and looking to rationalize over the wider spread of the human condition...
As anyone in recovery knows, the definition of "insanity" is "doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result." Being in recovery from a recent romantic relationship that could only be described as "insane" on exactly the same terms, I have become a student of my own irrational, self-destructive repetitive behaviors. I'm looking at myself asking, why did I continue to do that?
Well, the answer, my friends, may lie in the stars-- and there would be a certain relief if I could point to "destiny" to exculpate myself. But more likely Shakespeare was right, and it lies in "ourselves"-- and I get some comfort from thinking I may be an idiot but my behavior was not idiosyncratic! In other words, I am not alone in my penchant for insanity.
To be precise, maybe there truly is something built into the human condition where we eventually discover that we actually do need for our own better functioning what another has within them. Like we do with middle eastern oil, or we might with Chinese cobalt. Maybe the world is so structured that we are become aware that each of us have the parts of the other's puzzle. And that to complete ourselves, we need each other. Maybe in the worst way...
Or maybe we are to find out how not to need each other in the worst way, but instead how to deal with this "the way things are" in a manner that does not bring about insanity, but something like vulnerability and cooperation.
The thing about the definition of insanity is not the repetition or the compulsion, but the expectation. Our expectations of ourselves and others is what is so screwy! Maybe we are to deal with this need for what the other has for us that we cannot supply to ourselves-- but change our expectations. Maybe it is our own expectations that drive us insane.
At least that is where I'm going in my own life, and in whatever future romantic relationships I might be blessed to have. But maybe we need to learn that geo-political economic lesson now as well. What we need, those who are foreign to us have. So why should we expect anything different?
I'm thinkin' about this... I'm workin' on it!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
More Passing Thoughts
I cannot help but think that, since we cannot help but attribute gender to our conceptions of a personal diety, and since the notion of "Mother-and-Father God" seems to have gained some relative currency among those who pray that way, perhaps there are times when we prefer one gender attribution to God over another.
Like, maybe we begin, early in life, in our infant and child ways, to feel pretty good about Mother God, taking care of us, providing, as classic mothers do, protection and provision.
And then there comes a time in our lives when the adventures of the world beckon, and mastery, and competence, and testing ourselves against the elements and each other becomes more important to us than the relative comforts of home. Maybe then Father God appeals: strengthening, encouraging, picking us up when we're knocked down and dusting us off without coddling or infantalizing us, and sending us back into the frey again. In Father God's world we have enemies, but we have Him at our side, or better at our backs... The Good Father, growing us into adults.
Ah, but then there comes a time, or times come more frequently as we age, in which we need tenderness again. Not like before, but wounds need to be bound, our frailty acknowledged, our fatigue forgiven. More than anything, we come again primarily to need to be held, to be understood, to be accepted-- to be loved as only a mother could love. In the latter years of life, perhaps Mother God returns, to invite us into Her comfort, to put to rest our misgivings and to quiet our fears, and eventually to invite us to the sleep of the angels, when once again, in spite of all we've been through, we get that look on our faces of contentment and peace, a look She hasn't seen since we were wee.
All in God's good time...
Like, maybe we begin, early in life, in our infant and child ways, to feel pretty good about Mother God, taking care of us, providing, as classic mothers do, protection and provision.
And then there comes a time in our lives when the adventures of the world beckon, and mastery, and competence, and testing ourselves against the elements and each other becomes more important to us than the relative comforts of home. Maybe then Father God appeals: strengthening, encouraging, picking us up when we're knocked down and dusting us off without coddling or infantalizing us, and sending us back into the frey again. In Father God's world we have enemies, but we have Him at our side, or better at our backs... The Good Father, growing us into adults.
Ah, but then there comes a time, or times come more frequently as we age, in which we need tenderness again. Not like before, but wounds need to be bound, our frailty acknowledged, our fatigue forgiven. More than anything, we come again primarily to need to be held, to be understood, to be accepted-- to be loved as only a mother could love. In the latter years of life, perhaps Mother God returns, to invite us into Her comfort, to put to rest our misgivings and to quiet our fears, and eventually to invite us to the sleep of the angels, when once again, in spite of all we've been through, we get that look on our faces of contentment and peace, a look She hasn't seen since we were wee.
All in God's good time...
More Passing
Well, it has happened again. First there was Pogo. Then Calvin & Hobbes. And recently, I wrote about the passing of "For Better or Worse." Now "Opus" has "bit" the dust...
You know, if the comics are "poor man's entertainment," in this economy, more of us are going to need to be reading them, and it seems like the level of excellence is declining. No slight to those who remain, but even La Cucaracha reprises Boondocks! Thank goodness for Frazz and Doonesbury!
Anyway, Berkeley Breathed gave us Opus readers ample time to anticipate his passing-- told us the date, and even invited folks to suggest a "place" for Opus to go-- with a "first place" prize of Ten Grand! Talk about stimulating reader interest!
So when Sunday November 3 rolled around I wasn't surprised to see the last strip-- only at Breathed's choice. (I had thought to send Opus to Galapagus, to evolve and further the evolution of all species. Penquins rule!) But BB didn't put his choice in the paper. I had to go to a website to find where Opus had been put to bed...
Which is exactly what Breathed did: he ended the strip by putting Opus in bed next to the little bunny in the children's classic, Goodnight Moon! There's the momma bunny, across the darkened room, reading: Goodnight Opus, and goodnight air. Goodnight noises everywhere.
I loved it! Whimsical. Wonderful. And appealing.
I thought: when the time for my passing comes, lay me down with someone soft and sweet and bunny-like to cuddle me 'till my eyes close forever. And let me hear the Great Mother saying "goodnight" to me, and to all that I have held dear...
May we all go the way of Opus! The model is somewhere in the children's book of our choice.
You know, if the comics are "poor man's entertainment," in this economy, more of us are going to need to be reading them, and it seems like the level of excellence is declining. No slight to those who remain, but even La Cucaracha reprises Boondocks! Thank goodness for Frazz and Doonesbury!
Anyway, Berkeley Breathed gave us Opus readers ample time to anticipate his passing-- told us the date, and even invited folks to suggest a "place" for Opus to go-- with a "first place" prize of Ten Grand! Talk about stimulating reader interest!
So when Sunday November 3 rolled around I wasn't surprised to see the last strip-- only at Breathed's choice. (I had thought to send Opus to Galapagus, to evolve and further the evolution of all species. Penquins rule!) But BB didn't put his choice in the paper. I had to go to a website to find where Opus had been put to bed...
Which is exactly what Breathed did: he ended the strip by putting Opus in bed next to the little bunny in the children's classic, Goodnight Moon! There's the momma bunny, across the darkened room, reading: Goodnight Opus, and goodnight air. Goodnight noises everywhere.
I loved it! Whimsical. Wonderful. And appealing.
I thought: when the time for my passing comes, lay me down with someone soft and sweet and bunny-like to cuddle me 'till my eyes close forever. And let me hear the Great Mother saying "goodnight" to me, and to all that I have held dear...
May we all go the way of Opus! The model is somewhere in the children's book of our choice.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Three Scary Thoughts
Maybe because it is Halloween, I found myself with three scary thoughts about this matter of climbing the Fourth Butte, Old Age:
First, after four games of racquetball this morning, it occurred to me, not for the first time, that we only get as far in life as our joints take us. I am blessed with joints that work! My knees are fine, my hips and elbows and shoulders all work well enough, without complaint. (Well, one shoulder nags a little, but only enough to let me know that I'm alive.) But I am aware of the ills that flesh is heir to, and if not the flesh itself, then the things of the flesh that keep us connected, and prevent our simply falling down. So this AM, I gave thanks for my joints! But its scary to think how fragile we are physically. We need good joints to climb the Fourth Butte!
Second, there was an article in the paper the other day that noted that the suicide rates were up in our country. Evidently, they have been steadily rising for nearly a decade. And "the most alarming increase" has been among "middle age" adults-- 16%. It turns out that people aged 40-64 are at much higher risk for suicide than previously thought. This was especially true for "whites" in that age group: 16% for men, 19% for women. No one quoted in the article seemed to know why. They speculated about "stresses of modern life" and incidences of depression. But maybe at the very least we can take from such information the implication that this transition, from Middle Age, off the Third Butte, and then across the valley and climbing up the Fourth Butte, is a fairly hazardous transition for more people to make. It's scary to think how fragile we are psychologically. We need to find resources in ourselves to make it to the top of the Fourth Butte. (Where, according to the article, suicide rates for people over 65 have remained relatively unchanged for some time, after declining 18% from 1986 to 1999.)
Third, it occurred to me that the way we get off the Fourth Butte is by dying... Maybe that means being "lifted up," or maybe that means climbing down and heading across yet another valley-- I don't know. But I do think, from having observed folks who were dying for ten years or more, that a whole lot happens on the Fourth Butte! I have seen people flourish as the end of their lives grew near. And I have seen people become discouraged, weighed down by disappointment, and despairing of a sense of purpose. One challenge of the Fourth Butte, it seems to me, after we have made it to the top, is to continue to discover a sense of meaning to one's living. Why am I here? becomes Why am I still here? It is scary to think how fragile we are spiritually. We need to be spiritually aware and vital if we are to be able to scan the horizons of the Fourth Butte, and appreciate what we are seeing.
And seeing as this is Halloween, I don't know that I have three antidotes to these scary thoughts! Maybe its enough to be frightened at the moment! BOO!
First, after four games of racquetball this morning, it occurred to me, not for the first time, that we only get as far in life as our joints take us. I am blessed with joints that work! My knees are fine, my hips and elbows and shoulders all work well enough, without complaint. (Well, one shoulder nags a little, but only enough to let me know that I'm alive.) But I am aware of the ills that flesh is heir to, and if not the flesh itself, then the things of the flesh that keep us connected, and prevent our simply falling down. So this AM, I gave thanks for my joints! But its scary to think how fragile we are physically. We need good joints to climb the Fourth Butte!
Second, there was an article in the paper the other day that noted that the suicide rates were up in our country. Evidently, they have been steadily rising for nearly a decade. And "the most alarming increase" has been among "middle age" adults-- 16%. It turns out that people aged 40-64 are at much higher risk for suicide than previously thought. This was especially true for "whites" in that age group: 16% for men, 19% for women. No one quoted in the article seemed to know why. They speculated about "stresses of modern life" and incidences of depression. But maybe at the very least we can take from such information the implication that this transition, from Middle Age, off the Third Butte, and then across the valley and climbing up the Fourth Butte, is a fairly hazardous transition for more people to make. It's scary to think how fragile we are psychologically. We need to find resources in ourselves to make it to the top of the Fourth Butte. (Where, according to the article, suicide rates for people over 65 have remained relatively unchanged for some time, after declining 18% from 1986 to 1999.)
Third, it occurred to me that the way we get off the Fourth Butte is by dying... Maybe that means being "lifted up," or maybe that means climbing down and heading across yet another valley-- I don't know. But I do think, from having observed folks who were dying for ten years or more, that a whole lot happens on the Fourth Butte! I have seen people flourish as the end of their lives grew near. And I have seen people become discouraged, weighed down by disappointment, and despairing of a sense of purpose. One challenge of the Fourth Butte, it seems to me, after we have made it to the top, is to continue to discover a sense of meaning to one's living. Why am I here? becomes Why am I still here? It is scary to think how fragile we are spiritually. We need to be spiritually aware and vital if we are to be able to scan the horizons of the Fourth Butte, and appreciate what we are seeing.
And seeing as this is Halloween, I don't know that I have three antidotes to these scary thoughts! Maybe its enough to be frightened at the moment! BOO!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The Butte-y of Aging
In a recent Frazz, the eponymous college-educated janitor of an elementary school, turns to one of more precocious students, Caulfield, and says: "Henry David Thoreau said to beware of all enterprises that require new clothing." To which Caulfied gives this reply: "Like aging."
Yes, like aging...
Like many of us I suppose my aging has meant a constant adjustment, not only in my wardrobe, but in my sense of myself. I remember I few years back going into a department store where I'd usually bought pants, going through the stacks, finding my size, and going to the cash register to pay for them. The sales person took one look at them, and another at me, and said, as tactfully as could be, "Don't you wish to try these on before you buy them, sir?" No, I said, I knew MY size. Well, sure enough, when I got home I found out that the size of me was not "MY size" anymore! One would think that there's only so much of that sort of adjustment a person could take, but the fact is, I've had to adjust "my size" several times since!
I like to think that I do pretty well with this "aging" thing, but the truth is, I'm still a sucker for the compliment that goes along the lines of: "you look (or sound) much younger" than my chronological age. And to think that, when I was a child, and even a youth, I took it to be a compliment when someone would say that I seemed "older" than my age! Somewhere in the course of middle age/adulthood, the compliment gauge was switched.
I have come to believe that our culture gives us no good, useful, confirming and guiding models for getting older, and telling us what aging might truly mean for us. We have no good names for people of a certain age. "Seniors" doesn't sound too good-- unless it leads to discounts on movie tickets and the like. "Elders" might be more accurate, but in our culture people have to be enjoined to respect their elders (because it doesn't seem to come naturally) and having lived so long does not seem to me to be in itself an achievement worthy of respect. And sometimes, one can simply seem to be way too "old!" John McCain, I think, suffers from this. The appeal of Obama is to the "young" supposedly-- and that means not just those of only a couple or three decades of life, but also maybe those who think "young." And "inexperience," which used to mean something negative, McCain is finding out, is not such a detraction. We have this shared sense in our society right now that we are moving into a time that none of us have experienced, a time when all of the paradigms seem to be shifting, and so,what would "experience," in itself, teach us? This, of course, is how the "young" think anyway!
I've begun to believe that we are requiring for ourselves a New Paradigm for aging. I was impressed to have been listening again recently to a cassette tape (you see, even saying that dates me!) of Robert Johnson, the eminent Jungian, talking about the strengths and limitations of the Parcifal and the Holy Grail myth for modeling male identity. Basically, what it boiled down to was that young men, coming of age, would benefit from understanding their lives in the light of the Parcifal tale. Fathers would certainly do well to teach it to their sons. But it scarcely applies to older men. The story "runs out," as it were, of meaning. It fails to be instructive, let alone enlightening.
In its place, Johnson subsitutes Shakespeare's King Lear-- which I found even less instructive and not at all enlightening.
And this is my point: if aging into and beyond seven decades of life is to be accomplished in some meaningful and meaning fulfilling way, then a good mythic structure for it certainly would help. Maybe not enough visionaries and myth-speakers have lived long enough (yet) for our culture to have generated such narrative underpinnings. All we have now is "retirement," as a constant vacation ended mercifully by death, hopefully before too much suffering or lingering or otherwise eviscerating one's material and spiritual resources. Rather dismally vague, wouldn't you say?
OK, so if not from our culture, perhaps from another? I would like to recommend the following from the Arapaho, as recounted in Joseph Bruchac's Our Stories Remember:
As we travel, we shall come to four buttes. We must be ready when we come to each of them in turn, for their sides are steep and rocky. If our steps are not careful, we may slip and fall and go no farther. When we reach the top, which is flat and wide, we may stand there and look far in all directions, both behind us and ahead. But, sooner or later, if we would continue, we must climb down the other side. As we pass through the valley between that butte and the next, we are met by White Owl Man. He tests us to see if we remember what we learned from our climb, from what we saw while we were there on the top, from our experience of leaving that former high place. If we remember all that our past experience has taught us, then we are allowed to continue on until we come to the side of the second steep slope. Then we begin the hard climb again.
So it goes for each of the four buttes in turn. We must make the difficult climb, stand for a time on top seeing far vistas, but then, at last, descend and prepare for yet another ascent.
Each of these four hills has a name. The first is Childhood. The second is Youth. The third is Middle Age. The last is Old Age. That journey which leads us up and down is called the Road of Life.
With this narrative map, I can come to know where I am in life: climbing that last butte of Old Age. It tells me that the butte is worth climbing-- and that it is work to do so! So as I struggle with myself and with where I am in life, I am really answering the questions of White Owl Man, who is evaluating whether I am worthy to go on. This makes sense to me. This frame of reference grounds me and gives my present life meaning.
Perhaps the best mythic structures are the oldest-- older even than the Arturian Legends!
Yes, like aging...
Like many of us I suppose my aging has meant a constant adjustment, not only in my wardrobe, but in my sense of myself. I remember I few years back going into a department store where I'd usually bought pants, going through the stacks, finding my size, and going to the cash register to pay for them. The sales person took one look at them, and another at me, and said, as tactfully as could be, "Don't you wish to try these on before you buy them, sir?" No, I said, I knew MY size. Well, sure enough, when I got home I found out that the size of me was not "MY size" anymore! One would think that there's only so much of that sort of adjustment a person could take, but the fact is, I've had to adjust "my size" several times since!
I like to think that I do pretty well with this "aging" thing, but the truth is, I'm still a sucker for the compliment that goes along the lines of: "you look (or sound) much younger" than my chronological age. And to think that, when I was a child, and even a youth, I took it to be a compliment when someone would say that I seemed "older" than my age! Somewhere in the course of middle age/adulthood, the compliment gauge was switched.
I have come to believe that our culture gives us no good, useful, confirming and guiding models for getting older, and telling us what aging might truly mean for us. We have no good names for people of a certain age. "Seniors" doesn't sound too good-- unless it leads to discounts on movie tickets and the like. "Elders" might be more accurate, but in our culture people have to be enjoined to respect their elders (because it doesn't seem to come naturally) and having lived so long does not seem to me to be in itself an achievement worthy of respect. And sometimes, one can simply seem to be way too "old!" John McCain, I think, suffers from this. The appeal of Obama is to the "young" supposedly-- and that means not just those of only a couple or three decades of life, but also maybe those who think "young." And "inexperience," which used to mean something negative, McCain is finding out, is not such a detraction. We have this shared sense in our society right now that we are moving into a time that none of us have experienced, a time when all of the paradigms seem to be shifting, and so,what would "experience," in itself, teach us? This, of course, is how the "young" think anyway!
I've begun to believe that we are requiring for ourselves a New Paradigm for aging. I was impressed to have been listening again recently to a cassette tape (you see, even saying that dates me!) of Robert Johnson, the eminent Jungian, talking about the strengths and limitations of the Parcifal and the Holy Grail myth for modeling male identity. Basically, what it boiled down to was that young men, coming of age, would benefit from understanding their lives in the light of the Parcifal tale. Fathers would certainly do well to teach it to their sons. But it scarcely applies to older men. The story "runs out," as it were, of meaning. It fails to be instructive, let alone enlightening.
In its place, Johnson subsitutes Shakespeare's King Lear-- which I found even less instructive and not at all enlightening.
And this is my point: if aging into and beyond seven decades of life is to be accomplished in some meaningful and meaning fulfilling way, then a good mythic structure for it certainly would help. Maybe not enough visionaries and myth-speakers have lived long enough (yet) for our culture to have generated such narrative underpinnings. All we have now is "retirement," as a constant vacation ended mercifully by death, hopefully before too much suffering or lingering or otherwise eviscerating one's material and spiritual resources. Rather dismally vague, wouldn't you say?
OK, so if not from our culture, perhaps from another? I would like to recommend the following from the Arapaho, as recounted in Joseph Bruchac's Our Stories Remember:
As we travel, we shall come to four buttes. We must be ready when we come to each of them in turn, for their sides are steep and rocky. If our steps are not careful, we may slip and fall and go no farther. When we reach the top, which is flat and wide, we may stand there and look far in all directions, both behind us and ahead. But, sooner or later, if we would continue, we must climb down the other side. As we pass through the valley between that butte and the next, we are met by White Owl Man. He tests us to see if we remember what we learned from our climb, from what we saw while we were there on the top, from our experience of leaving that former high place. If we remember all that our past experience has taught us, then we are allowed to continue on until we come to the side of the second steep slope. Then we begin the hard climb again.
So it goes for each of the four buttes in turn. We must make the difficult climb, stand for a time on top seeing far vistas, but then, at last, descend and prepare for yet another ascent.
Each of these four hills has a name. The first is Childhood. The second is Youth. The third is Middle Age. The last is Old Age. That journey which leads us up and down is called the Road of Life.
With this narrative map, I can come to know where I am in life: climbing that last butte of Old Age. It tells me that the butte is worth climbing-- and that it is work to do so! So as I struggle with myself and with where I am in life, I am really answering the questions of White Owl Man, who is evaluating whether I am worthy to go on. This makes sense to me. This frame of reference grounds me and gives my present life meaning.
Perhaps the best mythic structures are the oldest-- older even than the Arturian Legends!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Mothers' Little Helper
One of the advantages of having a grandchild is that her mother reads all sorts of material that otherwise would never gain entry into their house and my world.
On a recent visit, I was shown the magazine Cookie, subtitled, "All the Best for Your Family." One article about this "best" in the September 22 issue was "The Cookie 100: 18 Pages of People, Places and Things that Make Moms Happy."
Following the premise, the article's lead admitted that the selections were "random," ranging from ketchup to Pixar to mascara! "But slid under the mom microscope, each product, service, person, or trend selected by the Cookie editors is as integral to our maternal well-being as the bedtime ritual or the synced family calendar." "In short, they are the things that make moms happy. Because when you're happy, it usually means everyone else is too."
On this basis my daughter showed me item #1: "Creamy Crayons:" "chubby beginner crayons" in "intense, rainbows-on-steroids colors." Ah, yes, what mother wouldn't be happy with her child's drawings in steroid-amped vibrancy! Much happier than with your fuddy duddy Crayolas, I imagine.
Lest you think my emphasis on the "drug" reference unfair, Number Two of the Top 100 things that make moms happy was: Cocktail Hour! Yes, Cocktail Hour: "the one hour of the day that no sticky fingers can sully, no high-octane tantrum can hijack." (Yes, I'm quoting here.)
I am not making this up! Not even fingers got sticky from drawing with steroidal crayons can disturb the mother who is attending to her own happiness during cocktail hour! And you know, the mom who has a drink or two in her before dinner just might be a "happy" mom. And if one's child throws one of those pesky, annoying, over-the-top tantrums, perhaps trying to get her attention-- well, pour another round! The crying might not stop but after a few smooth ones, mom will hardly hear it anyway. And perhaps when there is this sort of "happy" mom around, everyone else will be "happy" too? Or maybe just free to seek their own "happiness."
What's even better is that #3 on the list is "Family Cookbooks," in case a now "happy" mom might like to remember to do some menu planning or maybe even some cooking. The cookbook suggestions are good ones, too. One of them even "belongs in every kitchen, whether you're a parent or childless, young or old, human or alien." Or, maybe, intoxicated.
The thing is, the misuse and abuse of alcohol is widespread enough already to be a major public health issue. And if their Top 100 list reflects the Cookie editors' personal priorities, this is really quite scary because the behavior and attitudes they are encouraging are probably their own. Certainly, no one at the magazine thought it might be the least bit inappropriate to be saying that Cocktail Hour was "as integral to our maternal well-being as the bed-time ritual or the synced family calendar." Maybe they did their editing after a cocktail hour of their own.
Think of the social implications they are encouraging. Evidently, our psycho-therapeutic professionals and alcoholism- and drug-treatment facilities are not already blessed with sufficient numbers of patients. Or perhaps, we do not yet have enough adult children of alcoholics suffering through life--many of whom are seeking the same "happiness" their mothers (and fathers did) during their cocktail hours.
The thing is, people who would see Cocktail Hour as not only "normal" or "usual" but "integral" were most likely raised by mothers and in homes where it surely was! More, they are likely raising their children in such environments.
I have no idea what the immediate impact of Cookie's advocacy will be. But just the other day, I was talking with a group of businessmen about how the business day had changed over the last decade or so. Less booze in it, was the consensus. The infamous "three martini lunch" a thing of the past, they said. Then I read the Cookie piece. Maybe the three martini lunch is destined to come back.
On a recent visit, I was shown the magazine Cookie, subtitled, "All the Best for Your Family." One article about this "best" in the September 22 issue was "The Cookie 100: 18 Pages of People, Places and Things that Make Moms Happy."
Following the premise, the article's lead admitted that the selections were "random," ranging from ketchup to Pixar to mascara! "But slid under the mom microscope, each product, service, person, or trend selected by the Cookie editors is as integral to our maternal well-being as the bedtime ritual or the synced family calendar." "In short, they are the things that make moms happy. Because when you're happy, it usually means everyone else is too."
On this basis my daughter showed me item #1: "Creamy Crayons:" "chubby beginner crayons" in "intense, rainbows-on-steroids colors." Ah, yes, what mother wouldn't be happy with her child's drawings in steroid-amped vibrancy! Much happier than with your fuddy duddy Crayolas, I imagine.
Lest you think my emphasis on the "drug" reference unfair, Number Two of the Top 100 things that make moms happy was: Cocktail Hour! Yes, Cocktail Hour: "the one hour of the day that no sticky fingers can sully, no high-octane tantrum can hijack." (Yes, I'm quoting here.)
I am not making this up! Not even fingers got sticky from drawing with steroidal crayons can disturb the mother who is attending to her own happiness during cocktail hour! And you know, the mom who has a drink or two in her before dinner just might be a "happy" mom. And if one's child throws one of those pesky, annoying, over-the-top tantrums, perhaps trying to get her attention-- well, pour another round! The crying might not stop but after a few smooth ones, mom will hardly hear it anyway. And perhaps when there is this sort of "happy" mom around, everyone else will be "happy" too? Or maybe just free to seek their own "happiness."
What's even better is that #3 on the list is "Family Cookbooks," in case a now "happy" mom might like to remember to do some menu planning or maybe even some cooking. The cookbook suggestions are good ones, too. One of them even "belongs in every kitchen, whether you're a parent or childless, young or old, human or alien." Or, maybe, intoxicated.
The thing is, the misuse and abuse of alcohol is widespread enough already to be a major public health issue. And if their Top 100 list reflects the Cookie editors' personal priorities, this is really quite scary because the behavior and attitudes they are encouraging are probably their own. Certainly, no one at the magazine thought it might be the least bit inappropriate to be saying that Cocktail Hour was "as integral to our maternal well-being as the bed-time ritual or the synced family calendar." Maybe they did their editing after a cocktail hour of their own.
Think of the social implications they are encouraging. Evidently, our psycho-therapeutic professionals and alcoholism- and drug-treatment facilities are not already blessed with sufficient numbers of patients. Or perhaps, we do not yet have enough adult children of alcoholics suffering through life--many of whom are seeking the same "happiness" their mothers (and fathers did) during their cocktail hours.
The thing is, people who would see Cocktail Hour as not only "normal" or "usual" but "integral" were most likely raised by mothers and in homes where it surely was! More, they are likely raising their children in such environments.
I have no idea what the immediate impact of Cookie's advocacy will be. But just the other day, I was talking with a group of businessmen about how the business day had changed over the last decade or so. Less booze in it, was the consensus. The infamous "three martini lunch" a thing of the past, they said. Then I read the Cookie piece. Maybe the three martini lunch is destined to come back.
Coyote Tales
One of the things about this blog that maybe only I understand well is its aim to provide a space for me to express some of the "Trickster" in me-- the Native American story-genre that means a great deal to me, even as it confounds, if you ask the Indians, most white people.
I've been reading this wonderful book, Our Stories Remember, by Joseph Bruchac, and find that he has some edifying things to say about tricksters. Ethnologists who've written about the coyote and other tricksters and their stories have invariably remarked upon "the inconsistency of having a character who is profoundly sacred and clever on the one hand and incomprehensibly stupid on the other." (Maybe "inconsistent" to these authors, but for me, a remarkably appropriate mirror!)
Bruchac writes: "Okay, okay, but just listen for a minute. How can you have a character such as Coyote who is the Creator of the people one moment and then a total buffoon the next? Not only that, he is dishonest, deceitful, totally libidinous and licentious, as dirty and malodorous as two-day-old road kill. Everything about the American Indian Trickster seems to be the antithesis of the image of the Indian that non-Indians still appear to be most comfortable and most familiar with, the noble nineteenth-century Indian-- in particular, the Hiawatha of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." Or, one might add, our contemporary sense of the Noble Savage seen in as diverse places as our fascination with "shaman" training and Old Town, San Diego.
Point One is, Trickster speaks of Native Americans from Native Americans in a way that resists our efforts of romanticization, idealization, or otherwise "cleaning them up" to make them fit with our sense of who they should be.
Point Two is, Trickster spoke to Native Americans about the nature of the world they were living in, and the underlying nature of humanity and of all things. So the "inconsistent" combination of the sacred and the profane that people of other cultures had such difficulty appreciating-- because they were trying to reconcile the irreconcilable-- made sense to american aborigines. Trickster said meaningful things about how the world was.
What I wonder is: Why did we Indo-Europeans not develop mythic stories on a par with those of the Tricksters? Do we really think the world operates all that rationally, all that orderly?
My guess is that we do, or we think that it should. But, to my mind, it doesn't. And maybe never has.
To tell a story that demonstrates the "trickster"-nature of our world these days, I want to tell you what happen to the mother of my daughter a few months back when she attempted to fly from the East coast to the West for a visit.
With all good intentions, she packed two things in her suitcase: a jicama; and a word game like Scrabble that comes in a convenient-to-travel-with cloth pouch, shaped like a big banana-- hence the name of the game: Bananagram. She placed both objects in her suitcase for travel under the plane, and proceeded to the gate to await take off. The flight however was delayed. In not very short order she found out that she, of all people, was the reason for the delay! She was summoned by TSA to an "interview" room, and asked repeatedly about what she was carrying in her suitcase. Over and over again, she had both to spell "jicama" to the agents and explain what it was! Then she was asked why she was carrying a "grenade" and where she had got it. This was of course even more puzzling to her-- a non-violent and gentle woman-- than the agents' unfamiliarity with jicama. But while they were interrogating her, the authorities closed the airport (yes, the whole thing) and called the bomb squad. Only once the bomb squad arrived was it determined that the "grenade" she was alleged to have been carrying was the Bananagram game. Heck, it looked like a grenade on the x-ray! As near as I can tell, pretty much without apology, and certainly without explanation to the other delayed passangers, they cleared her to fly, and everybody went on their way.
I just wish that the local news folks had had sense of humor enough to report that the international airport had been closed down for a couple of hours and evacuated all because of a jicama and a word-game. But maybe they couldn't spell "jicama" either...
The thing is, this is Trickster at work. This is Coyote in our world. For our world is not the smooth running and orderly place we like to think it to be! It is disorderly and irrational-- and even TSA agents make silly mistakes.
Finally, it must be said that the meaning of the Trickster tales, the "end of the day" reason why they are told in the first place, is to lead us to laughter. Fact is, maybe the only way they were/are like us, Native Americans tended to get too "serious-ed up." Coyote and the other tricksters reminded them of the divine comedy we are living.
That's what trickster tales do for me, too. If for T.S. Eliot, the world ends "not with a bang, but a whimper," for me the world ends in laughter-- laughter at ourselves, laughter at the way things are.
Another story goes that a European, maybe a well-meaning ethnologist, noted that the Indians called the North American continent "Turtle Island," because their creation stories had described how it came to be on the back of a Great Turtle. The rational European asked what was "under" the Turtle. The Native American, a little trickster in him, replied, "It's turtles all the way down." Turtles, maybe; laughter, certainly.
I've been reading this wonderful book, Our Stories Remember, by Joseph Bruchac, and find that he has some edifying things to say about tricksters. Ethnologists who've written about the coyote and other tricksters and their stories have invariably remarked upon "the inconsistency of having a character who is profoundly sacred and clever on the one hand and incomprehensibly stupid on the other." (Maybe "inconsistent" to these authors, but for me, a remarkably appropriate mirror!)
Bruchac writes: "Okay, okay, but just listen for a minute. How can you have a character such as Coyote who is the Creator of the people one moment and then a total buffoon the next? Not only that, he is dishonest, deceitful, totally libidinous and licentious, as dirty and malodorous as two-day-old road kill. Everything about the American Indian Trickster seems to be the antithesis of the image of the Indian that non-Indians still appear to be most comfortable and most familiar with, the noble nineteenth-century Indian-- in particular, the Hiawatha of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow." Or, one might add, our contemporary sense of the Noble Savage seen in as diverse places as our fascination with "shaman" training and Old Town, San Diego.
Point One is, Trickster speaks of Native Americans from Native Americans in a way that resists our efforts of romanticization, idealization, or otherwise "cleaning them up" to make them fit with our sense of who they should be.
Point Two is, Trickster spoke to Native Americans about the nature of the world they were living in, and the underlying nature of humanity and of all things. So the "inconsistent" combination of the sacred and the profane that people of other cultures had such difficulty appreciating-- because they were trying to reconcile the irreconcilable-- made sense to american aborigines. Trickster said meaningful things about how the world was.
What I wonder is: Why did we Indo-Europeans not develop mythic stories on a par with those of the Tricksters? Do we really think the world operates all that rationally, all that orderly?
My guess is that we do, or we think that it should. But, to my mind, it doesn't. And maybe never has.
To tell a story that demonstrates the "trickster"-nature of our world these days, I want to tell you what happen to the mother of my daughter a few months back when she attempted to fly from the East coast to the West for a visit.
With all good intentions, she packed two things in her suitcase: a jicama; and a word game like Scrabble that comes in a convenient-to-travel-with cloth pouch, shaped like a big banana-- hence the name of the game: Bananagram. She placed both objects in her suitcase for travel under the plane, and proceeded to the gate to await take off. The flight however was delayed. In not very short order she found out that she, of all people, was the reason for the delay! She was summoned by TSA to an "interview" room, and asked repeatedly about what she was carrying in her suitcase. Over and over again, she had both to spell "jicama" to the agents and explain what it was! Then she was asked why she was carrying a "grenade" and where she had got it. This was of course even more puzzling to her-- a non-violent and gentle woman-- than the agents' unfamiliarity with jicama. But while they were interrogating her, the authorities closed the airport (yes, the whole thing) and called the bomb squad. Only once the bomb squad arrived was it determined that the "grenade" she was alleged to have been carrying was the Bananagram game. Heck, it looked like a grenade on the x-ray! As near as I can tell, pretty much without apology, and certainly without explanation to the other delayed passangers, they cleared her to fly, and everybody went on their way.
I just wish that the local news folks had had sense of humor enough to report that the international airport had been closed down for a couple of hours and evacuated all because of a jicama and a word-game. But maybe they couldn't spell "jicama" either...
The thing is, this is Trickster at work. This is Coyote in our world. For our world is not the smooth running and orderly place we like to think it to be! It is disorderly and irrational-- and even TSA agents make silly mistakes.
Finally, it must be said that the meaning of the Trickster tales, the "end of the day" reason why they are told in the first place, is to lead us to laughter. Fact is, maybe the only way they were/are like us, Native Americans tended to get too "serious-ed up." Coyote and the other tricksters reminded them of the divine comedy we are living.
That's what trickster tales do for me, too. If for T.S. Eliot, the world ends "not with a bang, but a whimper," for me the world ends in laughter-- laughter at ourselves, laughter at the way things are.
Another story goes that a European, maybe a well-meaning ethnologist, noted that the Indians called the North American continent "Turtle Island," because their creation stories had described how it came to be on the back of a Great Turtle. The rational European asked what was "under" the Turtle. The Native American, a little trickster in him, replied, "It's turtles all the way down." Turtles, maybe; laughter, certainly.
Rock Formations
Recently I found my oceanside meditations interrupted by what I was seeing.
On the one hand, there were two rocks, separated. As the ocean rose and fell around them, the rocks created two indentations, like eye sockets, and the water, as it went past, would swirl into eddies, which sometimes would create a "face" in the water: two eyes, and when the eddies joined, a sort of a smile beneath them. It was a grim smile though, and with the sunken eyes, more skull-like than anything. Maybe I was too close to Halloween!
On the other hand, there were two rocks close enough together to be taken to be one. When the ocean swelled around them, a very different phenomenon occurred: There were still two eddies, but as they swirled back on themselves and as they joined shore-side of the rocks, they created a heart-shape in the water, two currents going back to meet again, one thin one pointing away.
I thought of separation and how being too far apart can be deadly. And I saw how closeness, being just close enough, could bring out the heart, even from the sea.
On the one hand, there were two rocks, separated. As the ocean rose and fell around them, the rocks created two indentations, like eye sockets, and the water, as it went past, would swirl into eddies, which sometimes would create a "face" in the water: two eyes, and when the eddies joined, a sort of a smile beneath them. It was a grim smile though, and with the sunken eyes, more skull-like than anything. Maybe I was too close to Halloween!
On the other hand, there were two rocks close enough together to be taken to be one. When the ocean swelled around them, a very different phenomenon occurred: There were still two eddies, but as they swirled back on themselves and as they joined shore-side of the rocks, they created a heart-shape in the water, two currents going back to meet again, one thin one pointing away.
I thought of separation and how being too far apart can be deadly. And I saw how closeness, being just close enough, could bring out the heart, even from the sea.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sharing Tears
Someone is missing in my exercise classes. He was there all through the first part of this year, his long hair shaggy with sweat, his piercings and tatoos accenting a body that was in enviable condition.
Then he was gone. Then he came back! "Where've you been?" I asked him. He measured me, then said shyly, "I've had a little problem with depression...". I tried to appreciate his vulnerability, said something to indicate that I did, and joked with him a little. "Welcome back. I've missed you," I offered.
A couple weeks later he came running up to me as I left the gym. "Good to see you! Haven't seen you in class...," I started to say. "No," he said, "I'm not in good enough shape yet. I'll be back..." "Lookin' forward to it," I small talked. I noticed he'd removed his piercings.
It was the last time I saw him. I've been thinking about him, wondering where he is and how he's doing. Has the black hole of depression swallowed him again? I don't know.
We don't know each other very well, really, at the gym. We see each other in such limited contexts, and make the talk small enough to fit the moment. How he managed to squeeze that word "depression" into the cubicles of conversation we usually allow ourselves, I don't know. But he trusted me enough to do that, and I've felt myself caring about him more ever since.
In the paper the other day there was an article about the outpouring of affection for a homeless man who'd died when someone poured gasoline on him and lit it. Turns out, this man had family-- three sisters who looked after him as much as he would allow. He had sunk into depression years back and couldn't stand the treatment so chose the streets. He'd made friends of the people in his neighborhood. In addition to his family, 200 people came out for his memorial service! An astonishing outpouring of caring...
I am marveling about this phenomenon of human caring, that happens everyday, and that mostly goes unnoticed or at least unremarked upon. Henri Nouwen writes that our word "care" has its roots in the Gothic "Kara", which means "to lament." Thus "the basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with." I'm reminded that "compassion" in the Latin means "to suffer with." Nouwen adds: "in fact, we feel quite uncomfortable with an invitation to enter into someone's pain before doing something about it."
Ah, the American way of caring: doing something about another's pain. And when we find out that there is likely nothing we can DO about it, we add our discomfort with our helplessness to the uncomfortableness we already feel about entering another's pain-- and we move away, or otherwise shun.
There is another way to respond, and it has to do with affirming the "with" of caring and compassion. For human pain and suffering is not a "problem" to be solved; it is, first and last, a mystery to be lived with... It is in fact an act of extraordinary hospitality when someone opens up to us and invites us "in" to where they are in pain. They likely are not even expecting us to "relieve" the pain for them-- they are simply expecting us to share that pain-filled experience with them. I think that's what the sisters and neighbors of that homeless man discoverd. And I'm trusting that I responded adequately to the honor my friend at the gym bestowed upon me...
To be able to enter that space of the "with" means that we have to be comfortable with our own pain, with the "with" of our own suffering-- for our pain and our suffering are always "with" us, too. And, being "with-in" us, they are the sources for whatever hospitality we can offer to others to come, be "with" us.
Odd that we feel that our pain is best kept hidden. No wonder we end up feeling alone and isolated. Our pain is our invitation to be open about our humanity, and to share ourselves with others. Somehow my friend and that homeless man seemed to know this. Maybe I can come to know it, too.
Then he was gone. Then he came back! "Where've you been?" I asked him. He measured me, then said shyly, "I've had a little problem with depression...". I tried to appreciate his vulnerability, said something to indicate that I did, and joked with him a little. "Welcome back. I've missed you," I offered.
A couple weeks later he came running up to me as I left the gym. "Good to see you! Haven't seen you in class...," I started to say. "No," he said, "I'm not in good enough shape yet. I'll be back..." "Lookin' forward to it," I small talked. I noticed he'd removed his piercings.
It was the last time I saw him. I've been thinking about him, wondering where he is and how he's doing. Has the black hole of depression swallowed him again? I don't know.
We don't know each other very well, really, at the gym. We see each other in such limited contexts, and make the talk small enough to fit the moment. How he managed to squeeze that word "depression" into the cubicles of conversation we usually allow ourselves, I don't know. But he trusted me enough to do that, and I've felt myself caring about him more ever since.
In the paper the other day there was an article about the outpouring of affection for a homeless man who'd died when someone poured gasoline on him and lit it. Turns out, this man had family-- three sisters who looked after him as much as he would allow. He had sunk into depression years back and couldn't stand the treatment so chose the streets. He'd made friends of the people in his neighborhood. In addition to his family, 200 people came out for his memorial service! An astonishing outpouring of caring...
I am marveling about this phenomenon of human caring, that happens everyday, and that mostly goes unnoticed or at least unremarked upon. Henri Nouwen writes that our word "care" has its roots in the Gothic "Kara", which means "to lament." Thus "the basic meaning of care is: to grieve, to experience sorrow, to cry out with." I'm reminded that "compassion" in the Latin means "to suffer with." Nouwen adds: "in fact, we feel quite uncomfortable with an invitation to enter into someone's pain before doing something about it."
Ah, the American way of caring: doing something about another's pain. And when we find out that there is likely nothing we can DO about it, we add our discomfort with our helplessness to the uncomfortableness we already feel about entering another's pain-- and we move away, or otherwise shun.
There is another way to respond, and it has to do with affirming the "with" of caring and compassion. For human pain and suffering is not a "problem" to be solved; it is, first and last, a mystery to be lived with... It is in fact an act of extraordinary hospitality when someone opens up to us and invites us "in" to where they are in pain. They likely are not even expecting us to "relieve" the pain for them-- they are simply expecting us to share that pain-filled experience with them. I think that's what the sisters and neighbors of that homeless man discoverd. And I'm trusting that I responded adequately to the honor my friend at the gym bestowed upon me...
To be able to enter that space of the "with" means that we have to be comfortable with our own pain, with the "with" of our own suffering-- for our pain and our suffering are always "with" us, too. And, being "with-in" us, they are the sources for whatever hospitality we can offer to others to come, be "with" us.
Odd that we feel that our pain is best kept hidden. No wonder we end up feeling alone and isolated. Our pain is our invitation to be open about our humanity, and to share ourselves with others. Somehow my friend and that homeless man seemed to know this. Maybe I can come to know it, too.
Monday, October 13, 2008
It's a Jungle Out There
First, a disclaimer: I never go to Starbucks. Never. I'm a Peet's man, through and through.
Except when I travel, and there are no Peet's in the airport terminals, but plenty of Starbucks, you can bet your life.
So I was surprised to find that, along with my coffee, I got words of wisdom. "The Way I See It," Starbucks calls these quotes. And they are numbered, like Snapple Facts, only longer, because you can print more on the side of a Venti than you can in a little circle under the cap. But same principle. Opportunities to learn abound!
The thing was, I really liked #233, from Maria Fadinian (I think; I had to copy it down and I can't be sure of my own writing any more; I'm a casualty of the computer age; soon I won't be able to spell, a casualty of the texting age...), who was listed as a Geographer, ethnologist, and National Geographic Emerging Explorer. This is what she said:
"I used to think that going to the jungle made my life an adventure. However, after years of unusual work in exotic places, I realize that it is not how far off I go or how deep into the forest I walk that gives my life meaning. I see that living life fully is what makes life-- anyone's life, no matter where they do or do not go-- an adventure."
I took this initially as great consolation, simply because I don't go anywhere. I am the least well-travelled person I know. Unless you count the wild places of other people's lives that they have shared with me, or the forest of feelings I am invited to visit. But the many-miled Starbucks user, I am not.
Except on this trip something happened that made me realize how strange a world it is out there. I went with my family to see a professional baseball game, something I hadn't done in years. Things in the ballpark were pretty much as I remember them-- meaning, the home team lost, again. But on the way out, as we made our way to the car through the jungle of disgruntled fans and all-too-eager peddlers of bottled water and soft pretzils, one young African American man was standing in the gate, selling T-shirts. At the top of his lungs, he was shouting what was written on the shirts: "Romo is a Homo!" (Referring of course to the Dallas Cowboys QB...)
Then, when I got home, an email acquaintace sent me a picture, of a man on a motorcycle, stopped in traffic. The back of his shirt read, "Nigger, please!" Then something I couldn't make out...
OK, so I'm a recluse who travels in genteel company when he travels at all. But I have to say, I haven't heard or seen such blatant homophobia and racism in, perhaps, far too long. I'm not so naive as to think that these feelings are no longer out there. But evidently I was something of a babe in the woods to think that people would be more ashamed to express them in public.
I wondered what our Starbucks geographer and ethnologist would make of these places and ethnicities in our own country. Sometimes around the corner can be an unusual and exotic place.
But maybe its up to us all to become "emerging explorers!" Certainly, it is important for me. Because these peoples' prejudices give their lives meaning-- even as I find them appalling. Perhaps the adventure is in this discovery of comparative meanings, of persons and cultures.
As I pursue my own life's adventures, sometimes I can't help feeling dismayed but what I find.
Except when I travel, and there are no Peet's in the airport terminals, but plenty of Starbucks, you can bet your life.
So I was surprised to find that, along with my coffee, I got words of wisdom. "The Way I See It," Starbucks calls these quotes. And they are numbered, like Snapple Facts, only longer, because you can print more on the side of a Venti than you can in a little circle under the cap. But same principle. Opportunities to learn abound!
The thing was, I really liked #233, from Maria Fadinian (I think; I had to copy it down and I can't be sure of my own writing any more; I'm a casualty of the computer age; soon I won't be able to spell, a casualty of the texting age...), who was listed as a Geographer, ethnologist, and National Geographic Emerging Explorer. This is what she said:
"I used to think that going to the jungle made my life an adventure. However, after years of unusual work in exotic places, I realize that it is not how far off I go or how deep into the forest I walk that gives my life meaning. I see that living life fully is what makes life-- anyone's life, no matter where they do or do not go-- an adventure."
I took this initially as great consolation, simply because I don't go anywhere. I am the least well-travelled person I know. Unless you count the wild places of other people's lives that they have shared with me, or the forest of feelings I am invited to visit. But the many-miled Starbucks user, I am not.
Except on this trip something happened that made me realize how strange a world it is out there. I went with my family to see a professional baseball game, something I hadn't done in years. Things in the ballpark were pretty much as I remember them-- meaning, the home team lost, again. But on the way out, as we made our way to the car through the jungle of disgruntled fans and all-too-eager peddlers of bottled water and soft pretzils, one young African American man was standing in the gate, selling T-shirts. At the top of his lungs, he was shouting what was written on the shirts: "Romo is a Homo!" (Referring of course to the Dallas Cowboys QB...)
Then, when I got home, an email acquaintace sent me a picture, of a man on a motorcycle, stopped in traffic. The back of his shirt read, "Nigger, please!" Then something I couldn't make out...
OK, so I'm a recluse who travels in genteel company when he travels at all. But I have to say, I haven't heard or seen such blatant homophobia and racism in, perhaps, far too long. I'm not so naive as to think that these feelings are no longer out there. But evidently I was something of a babe in the woods to think that people would be more ashamed to express them in public.
I wondered what our Starbucks geographer and ethnologist would make of these places and ethnicities in our own country. Sometimes around the corner can be an unusual and exotic place.
But maybe its up to us all to become "emerging explorers!" Certainly, it is important for me. Because these peoples' prejudices give their lives meaning-- even as I find them appalling. Perhaps the adventure is in this discovery of comparative meanings, of persons and cultures.
As I pursue my own life's adventures, sometimes I can't help feeling dismayed but what I find.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Confession
Not much to say today, but something to share, again from the writing of Henri Nouwen:
"How often is the intimate encounter of two persons an expression of their total freedom? Many people are driven into each other's arms in fear and trembling. They embrace each other in despair and loneliness. They cling to each other to prevent worse things from happening. Their sleep together is only an expression of their desire to escape the threatening world, to forget their deep frustration, to ease for a minute the unbearable tension of a demanding society, to experience some warmth, protection and safety. Their privacy does not create a place where they both can grow in freedom and share their mutual discoveries, but a fragile shelter in a stormy world." (from Intimacy)
I confess the rarity in my own life of "intimate encounters" that were an expression of mutual "total freedom." Too often I have preferred "a fragile shelter" to what it seemed was no shelter at all.
So, Fr. Nouwen, how do two persons encounter each other intimately in "total freedom"? If there is this Possibility, then there must also be this Promise: that such relationships can happen for any of us... Even me.
"How often is the intimate encounter of two persons an expression of their total freedom? Many people are driven into each other's arms in fear and trembling. They embrace each other in despair and loneliness. They cling to each other to prevent worse things from happening. Their sleep together is only an expression of their desire to escape the threatening world, to forget their deep frustration, to ease for a minute the unbearable tension of a demanding society, to experience some warmth, protection and safety. Their privacy does not create a place where they both can grow in freedom and share their mutual discoveries, but a fragile shelter in a stormy world." (from Intimacy)
I confess the rarity in my own life of "intimate encounters" that were an expression of mutual "total freedom." Too often I have preferred "a fragile shelter" to what it seemed was no shelter at all.
So, Fr. Nouwen, how do two persons encounter each other intimately in "total freedom"? If there is this Possibility, then there must also be this Promise: that such relationships can happen for any of us... Even me.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Sea of Love
I was startled in reading Henri Nouwen recently, to see him say of God, "Your sameness is not the sameness of a rock, but the sameness of a faithful lover." This in the midst of an extended metaphor: God, "you are the sea." Thus, God's is a "sea" of love-- in Nouwen's word, "unwavering."
It might seem unfair to deconstruct Nouwen's beautiful prose and, er, deep thoughts, like this. He may not have succeeded in helping me understand God better, but he certainly made me think about what it means to be a "faithful lover."
Now Nouwen was a priest, and so his sense of how faithfulness actually works in love may be a bit on the imaginary side. But his insights into the human condition are consistently charitable and compassionate, and there is something to be affirmed about someone who views us less cynically than most.
So what does it mean to be a "faithful lover"?
My first thought goes to a comparison often made between "attachment" and "detachment," the latter more often than not being held in higher regard than the former. Nouwen himself implies this when he writes that "sadness is the result of attachment. Detached people are not the easy victims of good or bad events in their surroundings and can experience a certain sense of equilibrium." Ah, but this is not the "equilibrium" of the sea, which could easily be said to be an "easy victim" of the events of its environs. And if fidelity in love has to do with "detachment," well, how involved in the actual loving is that lover? I've been in love before (as the song goes), and I cannot seem to love without a certain degree of attachment, and therefore sadness. But I've also been loved before, and I can tell you, that being loved by a "detached" lover is like being embraced by an idea: it might warm the heart, but it does nothing to keep the body warm on a cold night. So, for me, I want a little attachment in my loving and being loved. And if that means sloshing about in the events of each others lives, then so be it.
My other thought turned to those I've known whose "faithfulnes" would almost universally be confirmed. (And heavens, I do NOT mean myself! It probably could be said of me that I practice a form of fidelity that best suits me and does not likely meet any universal standard.) A friend of mine is one of these people. He is a "faithful lover" to his wife and children. He knows himself to be such, and his family sees him that way as well. But I see something missing in his fidelity: he seems to me to be faithful to his wife at the expense of being faithful to himself. He loses himself, and even betrays himself, in his constant effort to be a faithful lover of his wife. This occurs, in part, because his wife's fidelity is more to herself than to him-- and being a faithful lover means, to her, being less than active on the "lover" side of things. Faithfulness has turned into a form of indolence and indifference for her.
So doesn't being a "faithful lover" mean, in some sense, activity, and involvement, and interest in the life of another? And doesn't being a "faithful lover" also entail a fidelity that does not result in a betrayal of oneself? In this active attachment of loving, surely "faithfulness" entails a kind of balancing of self and other-- like the sea, shifting, the waves evidence of the dynamic balance being attended to and maintained.
All life seeks to maintain this constant balance-- constancy, "faithfulness," being a dynamic not a static experience. Rocks do, too, as well as bodies of water-- and Nouwen may actually understand this-- but rocks' efforts are lost to the narrowness of the human frames of time and reference. The sea, on the other hand! Ah, there is a dynamic "sameness" we can--sorry, gotta say it!-- see...
I think that maybe if we understood that God's being our "faithful lover" manifests a kind of dual refusal on God's part: a refusal to betray Godself in loving us, and a refusal to be "detached" from us in that loving; I think we might find in that a divine model for human fidelity in relationships. Maybe not "sameness," then-- for, indeed, the sea is constantly changing; it is never the "same." But maybe the dynamic constancy of balance, of losing regard neither for other nor for self, and holding both, somehow, in a relaxed, non-anxious tension. Perhaps that is how God is our "faithful lover." Perhaps that is how we can be "faithful" lovers of each other.
Come with me to the Sea of Love!
It might seem unfair to deconstruct Nouwen's beautiful prose and, er, deep thoughts, like this. He may not have succeeded in helping me understand God better, but he certainly made me think about what it means to be a "faithful lover."
Now Nouwen was a priest, and so his sense of how faithfulness actually works in love may be a bit on the imaginary side. But his insights into the human condition are consistently charitable and compassionate, and there is something to be affirmed about someone who views us less cynically than most.
So what does it mean to be a "faithful lover"?
My first thought goes to a comparison often made between "attachment" and "detachment," the latter more often than not being held in higher regard than the former. Nouwen himself implies this when he writes that "sadness is the result of attachment. Detached people are not the easy victims of good or bad events in their surroundings and can experience a certain sense of equilibrium." Ah, but this is not the "equilibrium" of the sea, which could easily be said to be an "easy victim" of the events of its environs. And if fidelity in love has to do with "detachment," well, how involved in the actual loving is that lover? I've been in love before (as the song goes), and I cannot seem to love without a certain degree of attachment, and therefore sadness. But I've also been loved before, and I can tell you, that being loved by a "detached" lover is like being embraced by an idea: it might warm the heart, but it does nothing to keep the body warm on a cold night. So, for me, I want a little attachment in my loving and being loved. And if that means sloshing about in the events of each others lives, then so be it.
My other thought turned to those I've known whose "faithfulnes" would almost universally be confirmed. (And heavens, I do NOT mean myself! It probably could be said of me that I practice a form of fidelity that best suits me and does not likely meet any universal standard.) A friend of mine is one of these people. He is a "faithful lover" to his wife and children. He knows himself to be such, and his family sees him that way as well. But I see something missing in his fidelity: he seems to me to be faithful to his wife at the expense of being faithful to himself. He loses himself, and even betrays himself, in his constant effort to be a faithful lover of his wife. This occurs, in part, because his wife's fidelity is more to herself than to him-- and being a faithful lover means, to her, being less than active on the "lover" side of things. Faithfulness has turned into a form of indolence and indifference for her.
So doesn't being a "faithful lover" mean, in some sense, activity, and involvement, and interest in the life of another? And doesn't being a "faithful lover" also entail a fidelity that does not result in a betrayal of oneself? In this active attachment of loving, surely "faithfulness" entails a kind of balancing of self and other-- like the sea, shifting, the waves evidence of the dynamic balance being attended to and maintained.
All life seeks to maintain this constant balance-- constancy, "faithfulness," being a dynamic not a static experience. Rocks do, too, as well as bodies of water-- and Nouwen may actually understand this-- but rocks' efforts are lost to the narrowness of the human frames of time and reference. The sea, on the other hand! Ah, there is a dynamic "sameness" we can--sorry, gotta say it!-- see...
I think that maybe if we understood that God's being our "faithful lover" manifests a kind of dual refusal on God's part: a refusal to betray Godself in loving us, and a refusal to be "detached" from us in that loving; I think we might find in that a divine model for human fidelity in relationships. Maybe not "sameness," then-- for, indeed, the sea is constantly changing; it is never the "same." But maybe the dynamic constancy of balance, of losing regard neither for other nor for self, and holding both, somehow, in a relaxed, non-anxious tension. Perhaps that is how God is our "faithful lover." Perhaps that is how we can be "faithful" lovers of each other.
Come with me to the Sea of Love!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Divine Thoughts in Passing
I have been blessed with travel to see family in the last couple of weeks: blessed with the family, and glad for the time with them; and blessed with the sort of time that travel gives one, to read, and reflect on what one has read. It is sort of like having seeds injection-planted into the fallow field of one's thoughts, and then watching whether anything bearing something edible manages to grow amid the weeds.
Here's what I've harvested so far, and am chewing on:
--Ram Dass in his gentle Ram-Dass-ian meditation on aging and dying, Still Here, talks about how important his Maharajji became to him after his stroke. He writes: "My link to Maharajji is very strong. He's the very context of my experience. He's my friend, my constant imaginary playmate. He's an imaginary playmate who's wise, loving, understanding, rascally-- all the things I like in a playmate. What's wonderful is that that kind of playmate is available to each of us, because its inside."
Ram Dass says lots of other things about Maharajji, but this notion of "play" and "playmate" at the center of his spiritual life simply sprouted in me. What if I were to think of God as my "playmate?" What if the living of this life were to be more about "inter-play" with the Divine, than obedience and rule-following-- or even "playing" by the rules? What if God were making up new rules as we went along-- and I could, too? (Just like we did when we were very young children, before we got all growed up, and got victimized when rules were broken, or punished when we were the ones breaking them....) What if my life were, indeed, more this "divine comedy" than the human tragedy I too often take it to be? What if spirituality were more about developing a sense of humor instead of a determination to take everything very seriously? Wouldn't we all be having a lot more genuine fun?
I know, it's an outrageous line of thought. It makes people angry, just as Sam Keen's article in Playboy did back in the late '60's-- the one that was accompanied with a picture of a laughing Jesus. True, no one read the article; in Playboy everyone just looks at the pictures! Still the image of Jesus laughing was a bit too sacrilegious for some-- even more than the nudity! Now that tells us something about where the heads are of the religiously minded!
--Henri Nouwen has also been with my on my travels, and I find myself fertilized by his fecund writing, especially his meditations on the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
(First, a little background: I have always found that parable to be anong Jesus' most profound. I identify with all three of the men, the father and both sons. Having lived the role of the prodigal, in spite of my being the older son in my family of origin, I identify with what it's like to be in a "far off" place ("far out," in my case!), and being afraid about how one will be received at home. But I also am the elder, so I know the lure of being well-behaved and being well-thought of, and wanting to please one's father. And I am a father, whose sons are their own persons; but through them I wrestle with how to love, especially when love can connote approval instead of acceptance, and the whole way a father's own hopes and dreams can come to be lived out in his sons, in spite of them, in spite of him. Although, in the parable, the father is often taken to denote God, I see God as being "in the midst" of this triangle of men and their emotions. God is in how the whole parable plays out, how it is enacted, how it is brought into being. The meaning is about God-- and ourselves... .)
Well, anyway... Back to Nouwen: In one of his startlingly frank reflections, he speaks to his indentification with the elder son. He says he has "harbored a strange curiousity for the disobedient life that I myself didn't dare live...". He's "envious" of the "wayward son." He observes: "There is so much resentment among the 'just' and the 'righteous.' There is so much judgment, condemnation, and prejudice among the 'saints.' There is so much frozen anger among the people who are so concerned about avoiding 'sin.'" Then he asks: "which does more damage, lust or resentment?"
As someone who has struggled with his own lust(s), and with his own resentment(s), I came to have new words to describe the younger and the older son in me. And while I have felt my measure of both guilt and shame for my lusts, I wonder if I've sufficiently appreciated how my resentments have inhibited my coming into the abundant life God has intended for me. My lusts and my resentments have both betrayed me-- or rather, have been ways I have betrayed my self. But while a plethora of Others have arisen to remind me that I should indeed feel both ashamed and guilty for the ways my lust has betrayed me, almost none have extended the mercy, forgiveness, understanding and acceptance that might have kept me from resenting their being judgmental! Thus I find myself on this pendulum, from lust to resentment and back again. Unpleasant. Not good.
I suppose that this "swing" could be halted on the lust side-- but Nouwen does not suggest how. He does, however, make a connection that would halt the swing on the resentment side. He says: "There is always the choice between resentment and gratitude," and it is of one or the other, because "resentment and gratitude cannot coexist." Ah... So the resentments of those whose "frozen anger" leads to the denial of their own sinfulness, which thus results in their judgments of me-- they might free themselves for gratitude, and more gentleness and mercy toward me and others, if they would just make that choice. And I, in turn, can choose not to harbor resentment of them, if I choose to be grateful, if I find in myself a grateful heart for all of my life experience-- including others' reactions, and resentments.
How do I do this? How do I find my own way to freedom from resentment, toward gratitude and grace?
--Well, maybe the answer has something to do with finding the father of the parable in me. Maybe that father is more like Ram Dass' Maharajji than like the Father God of most Christian preaching. Because, what does the father of the parable want most to do when the prodigal son returns? He wants to play! He wants to party! He wants to step into that relational space beyond resentment; he wants to choose gratitude.
I think we are always surprised by that father-- and often disbelieving. Or else, we say to ourselves: That's OK for God-- but it wouldn't work in "real" life! But Jesus does not say that the parable is an allegory, and that the father in it stands in for God. He is really saying that we experience God in our lives whenever this dynamic occurs-- whenever play triumphs over judgment; whenever grace and gratitude triumph over resentment.
Whether this happens in the "real" world, among persons, is another matter. But the thing is, these triumphs can be experienced within me, in my own reality, within my own self-- just by my choosing to let my father play with my prodigal, and enjoin my elder to get with the program!
Just like Ram Dass' Maharajji, the father of the parable is "inside" me-- along with that elder son, and the prodigal one. There's a Life of manifest gratitude, grace-- and playfulness-- waiting for me, if I just choose to live it.
Here's what I've harvested so far, and am chewing on:
--Ram Dass in his gentle Ram-Dass-ian meditation on aging and dying, Still Here, talks about how important his Maharajji became to him after his stroke. He writes: "My link to Maharajji is very strong. He's the very context of my experience. He's my friend, my constant imaginary playmate. He's an imaginary playmate who's wise, loving, understanding, rascally-- all the things I like in a playmate. What's wonderful is that that kind of playmate is available to each of us, because its inside."
Ram Dass says lots of other things about Maharajji, but this notion of "play" and "playmate" at the center of his spiritual life simply sprouted in me. What if I were to think of God as my "playmate?" What if the living of this life were to be more about "inter-play" with the Divine, than obedience and rule-following-- or even "playing" by the rules? What if God were making up new rules as we went along-- and I could, too? (Just like we did when we were very young children, before we got all growed up, and got victimized when rules were broken, or punished when we were the ones breaking them....) What if my life were, indeed, more this "divine comedy" than the human tragedy I too often take it to be? What if spirituality were more about developing a sense of humor instead of a determination to take everything very seriously? Wouldn't we all be having a lot more genuine fun?
I know, it's an outrageous line of thought. It makes people angry, just as Sam Keen's article in Playboy did back in the late '60's-- the one that was accompanied with a picture of a laughing Jesus. True, no one read the article; in Playboy everyone just looks at the pictures! Still the image of Jesus laughing was a bit too sacrilegious for some-- even more than the nudity! Now that tells us something about where the heads are of the religiously minded!
--Henri Nouwen has also been with my on my travels, and I find myself fertilized by his fecund writing, especially his meditations on the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
(First, a little background: I have always found that parable to be anong Jesus' most profound. I identify with all three of the men, the father and both sons. Having lived the role of the prodigal, in spite of my being the older son in my family of origin, I identify with what it's like to be in a "far off" place ("far out," in my case!), and being afraid about how one will be received at home. But I also am the elder, so I know the lure of being well-behaved and being well-thought of, and wanting to please one's father. And I am a father, whose sons are their own persons; but through them I wrestle with how to love, especially when love can connote approval instead of acceptance, and the whole way a father's own hopes and dreams can come to be lived out in his sons, in spite of them, in spite of him. Although, in the parable, the father is often taken to denote God, I see God as being "in the midst" of this triangle of men and their emotions. God is in how the whole parable plays out, how it is enacted, how it is brought into being. The meaning is about God-- and ourselves... .)
Well, anyway... Back to Nouwen: In one of his startlingly frank reflections, he speaks to his indentification with the elder son. He says he has "harbored a strange curiousity for the disobedient life that I myself didn't dare live...". He's "envious" of the "wayward son." He observes: "There is so much resentment among the 'just' and the 'righteous.' There is so much judgment, condemnation, and prejudice among the 'saints.' There is so much frozen anger among the people who are so concerned about avoiding 'sin.'" Then he asks: "which does more damage, lust or resentment?"
As someone who has struggled with his own lust(s), and with his own resentment(s), I came to have new words to describe the younger and the older son in me. And while I have felt my measure of both guilt and shame for my lusts, I wonder if I've sufficiently appreciated how my resentments have inhibited my coming into the abundant life God has intended for me. My lusts and my resentments have both betrayed me-- or rather, have been ways I have betrayed my self. But while a plethora of Others have arisen to remind me that I should indeed feel both ashamed and guilty for the ways my lust has betrayed me, almost none have extended the mercy, forgiveness, understanding and acceptance that might have kept me from resenting their being judgmental! Thus I find myself on this pendulum, from lust to resentment and back again. Unpleasant. Not good.
I suppose that this "swing" could be halted on the lust side-- but Nouwen does not suggest how. He does, however, make a connection that would halt the swing on the resentment side. He says: "There is always the choice between resentment and gratitude," and it is of one or the other, because "resentment and gratitude cannot coexist." Ah... So the resentments of those whose "frozen anger" leads to the denial of their own sinfulness, which thus results in their judgments of me-- they might free themselves for gratitude, and more gentleness and mercy toward me and others, if they would just make that choice. And I, in turn, can choose not to harbor resentment of them, if I choose to be grateful, if I find in myself a grateful heart for all of my life experience-- including others' reactions, and resentments.
How do I do this? How do I find my own way to freedom from resentment, toward gratitude and grace?
--Well, maybe the answer has something to do with finding the father of the parable in me. Maybe that father is more like Ram Dass' Maharajji than like the Father God of most Christian preaching. Because, what does the father of the parable want most to do when the prodigal son returns? He wants to play! He wants to party! He wants to step into that relational space beyond resentment; he wants to choose gratitude.
I think we are always surprised by that father-- and often disbelieving. Or else, we say to ourselves: That's OK for God-- but it wouldn't work in "real" life! But Jesus does not say that the parable is an allegory, and that the father in it stands in for God. He is really saying that we experience God in our lives whenever this dynamic occurs-- whenever play triumphs over judgment; whenever grace and gratitude triumph over resentment.
Whether this happens in the "real" world, among persons, is another matter. But the thing is, these triumphs can be experienced within me, in my own reality, within my own self-- just by my choosing to let my father play with my prodigal, and enjoin my elder to get with the program!
Just like Ram Dass' Maharajji, the father of the parable is "inside" me-- along with that elder son, and the prodigal one. There's a Life of manifest gratitude, grace-- and playfulness-- waiting for me, if I just choose to live it.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Enemy or Guest
I am finding myself in a certain time in my life, when I have the time to reflect upon my relationship with myself. Usually I have thought first of my relationship with others. But now, perhaps led by the Springsteen song, "Your Own Worst Enemy Has Come to Town"-- meaning, of course, oneself-- I am feeling a sense of burden and dread: Have I indeed been my own worst enemy?
One of my favorite spiritual writers, Henri Nouwen, contrasts "enemies" with: "guests!" Of all things! Not "friends," but "guests." He writes in Reaching Out that "our vocation" is "to convert the hostis into a hospes, the enemy into a guest...." Coming as I have from a "hospice" background, I think it would do well for that movement to talk of those under its care not as "patients," but as "guests." They certainly aren't "enemies!"
But I also took in this meaning personally. What if my "vocation," my spiritual "work" with myself was to "convert" my way of looking at myself from that of being my own worst enemy to being my own best guest? Nouwen is writing about the virtue of "hospitality"-- again, which I usually think of in reference to relationships with others. But what if I were to be more "hospitable" to myself? What if I were not always at war with myself, but instead took it upon myself to be welcoming of myself: my moods and moodiness; my foibles and my failures? How much differently would I live in my own skin if I worked more to make myself at home there? As opposed, for instance, to struggling with myself, or blaming myself, or even berating myself? How much more at ease I'd be in my everyday life, if I would aim to be my own best guest than to blame myself for being my own worst enemy!
Everyone might agree that hospitality begins in the home. But maybe, even before that, hospitality begins in ourselves. I am working at welcoming myself-- even into my own world!
One of my favorite spiritual writers, Henri Nouwen, contrasts "enemies" with: "guests!" Of all things! Not "friends," but "guests." He writes in Reaching Out that "our vocation" is "to convert the hostis into a hospes, the enemy into a guest...." Coming as I have from a "hospice" background, I think it would do well for that movement to talk of those under its care not as "patients," but as "guests." They certainly aren't "enemies!"
But I also took in this meaning personally. What if my "vocation," my spiritual "work" with myself was to "convert" my way of looking at myself from that of being my own worst enemy to being my own best guest? Nouwen is writing about the virtue of "hospitality"-- again, which I usually think of in reference to relationships with others. But what if I were to be more "hospitable" to myself? What if I were not always at war with myself, but instead took it upon myself to be welcoming of myself: my moods and moodiness; my foibles and my failures? How much differently would I live in my own skin if I worked more to make myself at home there? As opposed, for instance, to struggling with myself, or blaming myself, or even berating myself? How much more at ease I'd be in my everyday life, if I would aim to be my own best guest than to blame myself for being my own worst enemy!
Everyone might agree that hospitality begins in the home. But maybe, even before that, hospitality begins in ourselves. I am working at welcoming myself-- even into my own world!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
For Better or Worse
Seems life endlessly begins-- and ends, sings Counting Crows. In the art imitating life/life imitating art cycle, the comic strip "For Better or For Worse" ended yesterday.
I am a fan-- which, given the article in the paper announcing that the end was near, may be something of a mixed bag. FBOFW evidently had as many dislikers as likers. Something to do with its emotional content. What I liked about it was that it spoke to "real" life issues. A beloved pet died, and was mourned. Kids grew up, and went to college, or not. Parents and grandparents died, and siblings faced each other in the process. People got sick--and didn't die, but lingered in twilight states. You know: real life.
Well, almost. I mean, if anything, there wasn't enough failure. No one didn't succeed. No one was unemployed. No one used drugs or alcohol, or found themselves addicted in any way. No one compromised themselves for what seemed like good reasons at the time... or otherwise found themselves in ethically ambiguous positions. So FBOFW wasn't really all that real! Just maybe as real as the "comics" can get.
People got divorced, for instance, but then they were married to the "wrong" people in the first place, so the wheel of life turned and even those tragedies were "corrected" comically. Thus it is on the last strip, one of the main characters, Elizabeth (aka, "Lizardbreath!" I like that!), marries her high school sweetheart, Anthony, who is divorced from a caricature of a woman who has left him with their daughter to raise. (The daughter, despite being abandoned by her mother is not very bratty... See? No one really has emotional issues in the comics.) So a "wrong" is righted. And Elizabeth and Anthony immediately after exchanging vows leave the wedding/reception to visit her grandfather in the hospital, where he's been laid low by circulatory compromises (stroke, now heart), but is being dutifully looked after by his second wife, Iris, who has become a hero to his family for her devotion. Whew!
OK, but Iris' testimony closes the strip. She says: "It isn't easy, but we made a commitment... This is part of loving someone-- with all your heart-- and with all you have to give. It's a promise that should last a lifetime. It defines you as a person and describes your soul. It's a promise to be there, one for the other, no matter what happens, no matter who falls... For better or for worse, my dears... for better or for worse."
As someone who has left relationships, and been left as well, I found myself unusually touched by these words. I have known for some time that it is precisely this sort of exchange of commitments that I have been looking for in my life. The lack of this defines my emotional life at the moment. I'd made this sort of commitment earlier in my life--and then decided I couldn't keep it-- but then didn't realize its significance: its uniqueness, its specialness, its difficulty. Frankly, I wonder how many who make this commitment do take it seriously.
Recently, I had occasion to be back in touch with some old friends. Both of them reported that, since we'd last been in contact, their spouses had been diagnosed with cancers and were now "cancer survivors"-- which meant physically compromised and emotionally challenged. I've often thought of cancer as a "family" disease-- by which I mean that, when it rears its ugly head and makes its presence known, it affects more than just the one in whom it is found. Like a lot of adversities in life, one never knows, really, how one will respond until one is "in" it. My friends and their spouses have responded in the "for better or for worse" fashion-- allowing their mutuality to be shaped by these events, but not allowing their mutuality to be destroyed by them.
It is indeed difficult to "hang in there" when someone you love is facing adversity. There is a kind of horror to it, an OMG, I didn't know this was going to happen! And there is a kind of "surrender" that is required, in order willingly to let the adverse events in another's life effect one's own. A lot of the time, instead of surrender, there is only resignation. But resignation carries with it despair, and despair breeds resentment, and pretty soon one who has resigned oneself to the situation actually emotionally abandons-in-place the one who is in need of something more, something other.
This place of surrender is difficult for most people to reach. We are much more accustomed to resignation, I think, and thus fall prey to other forms of resistance. Not too long ago, even in "media" time, John Edwards showed us all another side of himself, when his affair with a campaign aide became all too public. I didn't pay any attention to his media "outing," so I don't know how he and his family handled themselves, but I felt for them all. We had made such heroes of John and Elizabeth, and had so elevated their marriage, that it was almost sadly predictable that John's humanity would disappoint us in equal proportion. They had lost a child tragically; then came Elizabeth's cancer; now John's infidelity. Their life experiences are so far from mine, I cannot imagine what "for better or for worse" means to them. Yet, you know, I hope at the end of the day, they are able to be content with the commitment they have made to each other-- as Iris said, "no matter who falls...". I thought when John persisted in his Presidential ambitions that he was trying to overcome his resignation to his life circumstances, instead of surrendering to his commitment to Elizabeth and her life-threatening cancer. But then, maybe his undoing himself publicly was one way to re-do himself privately. Maybe he has moved now, from resignation to surrender. I hope so. And I hope Elizabeth has, too.
There is another side of "for better or for worse" that we don't often think about, and that is: how "for better" can be just as challenging for relationships as "for worse!" But that may be the stuff of another blog.
This one ends in this way: There is more to Life than one can find in the "funny papers," but it is nice when one finds enough of Life there, framed in a comic way, to allow us to laugh, when we may feel like crying. I will miss the lift that laughing to FBOFW gave me. This is for me not the end of the world that the cessation of Calvin and Hobbes was, but it is a loss nonetheless. Where else am I to turn for Canadian wisdom about what Life is really all about, anyway?
Blessings to you all-- for better or for worse!
I am a fan-- which, given the article in the paper announcing that the end was near, may be something of a mixed bag. FBOFW evidently had as many dislikers as likers. Something to do with its emotional content. What I liked about it was that it spoke to "real" life issues. A beloved pet died, and was mourned. Kids grew up, and went to college, or not. Parents and grandparents died, and siblings faced each other in the process. People got sick--and didn't die, but lingered in twilight states. You know: real life.
Well, almost. I mean, if anything, there wasn't enough failure. No one didn't succeed. No one was unemployed. No one used drugs or alcohol, or found themselves addicted in any way. No one compromised themselves for what seemed like good reasons at the time... or otherwise found themselves in ethically ambiguous positions. So FBOFW wasn't really all that real! Just maybe as real as the "comics" can get.
People got divorced, for instance, but then they were married to the "wrong" people in the first place, so the wheel of life turned and even those tragedies were "corrected" comically. Thus it is on the last strip, one of the main characters, Elizabeth (aka, "Lizardbreath!" I like that!), marries her high school sweetheart, Anthony, who is divorced from a caricature of a woman who has left him with their daughter to raise. (The daughter, despite being abandoned by her mother is not very bratty... See? No one really has emotional issues in the comics.) So a "wrong" is righted. And Elizabeth and Anthony immediately after exchanging vows leave the wedding/reception to visit her grandfather in the hospital, where he's been laid low by circulatory compromises (stroke, now heart), but is being dutifully looked after by his second wife, Iris, who has become a hero to his family for her devotion. Whew!
OK, but Iris' testimony closes the strip. She says: "It isn't easy, but we made a commitment... This is part of loving someone-- with all your heart-- and with all you have to give. It's a promise that should last a lifetime. It defines you as a person and describes your soul. It's a promise to be there, one for the other, no matter what happens, no matter who falls... For better or for worse, my dears... for better or for worse."
As someone who has left relationships, and been left as well, I found myself unusually touched by these words. I have known for some time that it is precisely this sort of exchange of commitments that I have been looking for in my life. The lack of this defines my emotional life at the moment. I'd made this sort of commitment earlier in my life--and then decided I couldn't keep it-- but then didn't realize its significance: its uniqueness, its specialness, its difficulty. Frankly, I wonder how many who make this commitment do take it seriously.
Recently, I had occasion to be back in touch with some old friends. Both of them reported that, since we'd last been in contact, their spouses had been diagnosed with cancers and were now "cancer survivors"-- which meant physically compromised and emotionally challenged. I've often thought of cancer as a "family" disease-- by which I mean that, when it rears its ugly head and makes its presence known, it affects more than just the one in whom it is found. Like a lot of adversities in life, one never knows, really, how one will respond until one is "in" it. My friends and their spouses have responded in the "for better or for worse" fashion-- allowing their mutuality to be shaped by these events, but not allowing their mutuality to be destroyed by them.
It is indeed difficult to "hang in there" when someone you love is facing adversity. There is a kind of horror to it, an OMG, I didn't know this was going to happen! And there is a kind of "surrender" that is required, in order willingly to let the adverse events in another's life effect one's own. A lot of the time, instead of surrender, there is only resignation. But resignation carries with it despair, and despair breeds resentment, and pretty soon one who has resigned oneself to the situation actually emotionally abandons-in-place the one who is in need of something more, something other.
This place of surrender is difficult for most people to reach. We are much more accustomed to resignation, I think, and thus fall prey to other forms of resistance. Not too long ago, even in "media" time, John Edwards showed us all another side of himself, when his affair with a campaign aide became all too public. I didn't pay any attention to his media "outing," so I don't know how he and his family handled themselves, but I felt for them all. We had made such heroes of John and Elizabeth, and had so elevated their marriage, that it was almost sadly predictable that John's humanity would disappoint us in equal proportion. They had lost a child tragically; then came Elizabeth's cancer; now John's infidelity. Their life experiences are so far from mine, I cannot imagine what "for better or for worse" means to them. Yet, you know, I hope at the end of the day, they are able to be content with the commitment they have made to each other-- as Iris said, "no matter who falls...". I thought when John persisted in his Presidential ambitions that he was trying to overcome his resignation to his life circumstances, instead of surrendering to his commitment to Elizabeth and her life-threatening cancer. But then, maybe his undoing himself publicly was one way to re-do himself privately. Maybe he has moved now, from resignation to surrender. I hope so. And I hope Elizabeth has, too.
There is another side of "for better or for worse" that we don't often think about, and that is: how "for better" can be just as challenging for relationships as "for worse!" But that may be the stuff of another blog.
This one ends in this way: There is more to Life than one can find in the "funny papers," but it is nice when one finds enough of Life there, framed in a comic way, to allow us to laugh, when we may feel like crying. I will miss the lift that laughing to FBOFW gave me. This is for me not the end of the world that the cessation of Calvin and Hobbes was, but it is a loss nonetheless. Where else am I to turn for Canadian wisdom about what Life is really all about, anyway?
Blessings to you all-- for better or for worse!
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Unnatural Order
I work to get my plants just so;
I snip and trim and tend.
For if I let them simply grow,
watering now and then,
they would go all over the place!
Who knows what would happen?
In this labor I find solace,
a peace approaching Zen.
Yet it meddles in their nature,
to make them twist and bend
into the shapes that I prefer,
not what they were given.
I fear for what has got wrung out
and lost in the bargain.
Then a humming bird comes, and shouts,
the holiness regained.
I snip and trim and tend.
For if I let them simply grow,
watering now and then,
they would go all over the place!
Who knows what would happen?
In this labor I find solace,
a peace approaching Zen.
Yet it meddles in their nature,
to make them twist and bend
into the shapes that I prefer,
not what they were given.
I fear for what has got wrung out
and lost in the bargain.
Then a humming bird comes, and shouts,
the holiness regained.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Going to Pot
There was a "Peanuts" cartoon lately that I identified with. Charlie Brown is lying in bed, not sleeping. He says, "Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I think, 'Maybe I can change my life around.'" In the second panel, he thinks, "Then a voice comes to me out of the dark, 'Sure, make a lot of paperwork for the rest of us.'"
Lately, I have been creating a lot of paperwork for many people! This truly is a common consequence of change.
I have been transplanting. Last Sunday I took to gardening, always a nervous time for my plants. I took almost all of them out of the pots they'd been in, and put them in others. I pulled them up by their pot-bound, intertwined roots and shook 'em until they gave up as much of their "old" dirt as they would let go of, and then I put 'em in "new" dirt, in new "digs," by themselves, or with new "bedfellows." I fertilized/fed and watered.
And now I wait. I wait to see how the "transplant" has taken. Will they like it? Will they flower? Or will they shrivel, shrink from the shock-- or simply because they liked it the way it was? (I mean, plants like people can grow comfortable when roots are intertwined in familiar ways. Freedom-- room to grow and be ourselves-- can be a formidable thing.)
I have been transplanted. For thirty years or more I had been living in the same series of pots, in the same soil, trying to live in some way true to myself and also "bloom where I was planted," as the saying goes. Well, what I found out was that some soil is not altogether fit for some plants, and vice versa. Hopefully, I have been transplanted into soil better fit for me to thrive in-- as myself, for the gifts I have been given and the gifts I have to give, to bear the fruit I actually have within me to bear. I cannot know for sure.
I can only trust The Gardener. I know that I wouldn't have been transplanted were it not for my own good, because The Gardener does not really care about how much paperwork such change eventuates! And I know that The Gardener is watching, watering, and waiting.
This column, this new blog, is my effort to see if I can bear new fruit, find another voice (or voices), to see for myself if this transplantation isn't truer to myself.
Let's see how this goes, ok, Dear Reader!
Lately, I have been creating a lot of paperwork for many people! This truly is a common consequence of change.
I have been transplanting. Last Sunday I took to gardening, always a nervous time for my plants. I took almost all of them out of the pots they'd been in, and put them in others. I pulled them up by their pot-bound, intertwined roots and shook 'em until they gave up as much of their "old" dirt as they would let go of, and then I put 'em in "new" dirt, in new "digs," by themselves, or with new "bedfellows." I fertilized/fed and watered.
And now I wait. I wait to see how the "transplant" has taken. Will they like it? Will they flower? Or will they shrivel, shrink from the shock-- or simply because they liked it the way it was? (I mean, plants like people can grow comfortable when roots are intertwined in familiar ways. Freedom-- room to grow and be ourselves-- can be a formidable thing.)
I have been transplanted. For thirty years or more I had been living in the same series of pots, in the same soil, trying to live in some way true to myself and also "bloom where I was planted," as the saying goes. Well, what I found out was that some soil is not altogether fit for some plants, and vice versa. Hopefully, I have been transplanted into soil better fit for me to thrive in-- as myself, for the gifts I have been given and the gifts I have to give, to bear the fruit I actually have within me to bear. I cannot know for sure.
I can only trust The Gardener. I know that I wouldn't have been transplanted were it not for my own good, because The Gardener does not really care about how much paperwork such change eventuates! And I know that The Gardener is watching, watering, and waiting.
This column, this new blog, is my effort to see if I can bear new fruit, find another voice (or voices), to see for myself if this transplantation isn't truer to myself.
Let's see how this goes, ok, Dear Reader!
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