tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43418075449320403132024-02-20T10:08:26.152-08:00Groundless ObservationsThink Free to Be FreeTRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-44152748815583982802009-08-28T15:14:00.000-07:002009-08-28T15:19:11.684-07:00Bon Vivant<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5COwner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5COwner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5COwner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> 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style="font-size: 12pt;">It has been years since I’ve spent this much time with my Dad, and in my whole life, I don’t think we’ve ever been “just the two of us” for anything like the length of time of these five days.<span style=""> </span>So it has been interesting for me to observe my Dad—and myself!<span style=""> </span>Are our parents predictors for our own aging?<span style=""> </span>Or are they merely possibilities for us, to choose to grow into or not?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Youth in Age:” Last night at the restaurant to which we went for Dad’s 88<sup>th</sup> (a steak place, so he could have “beef and a baked,” his favorite fare), we met the owner, Steve, and were waited on by a man, Gary.<span style=""> </span>The former was maybe in his 50’s, the latter, maybe in his 40’s.<span style=""> </span>Both asked my father’s age—and commented on how <i style="">young</i> he looked!<span style=""> </span>“I hope I look like you when I’m your age,” Gary said—and in our family’s typical modesty, my Dad replied something to the effect that he hoped that Gary would <i style="">never</i> look like <i style="">him</i>! <span style=""> </span>And I thought: You should have seen him years ago, especially before my mother died, when, indeed, Dad did look younger than his years.<span style=""> </span>And maybe he still does now, to others, except not to me.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I wonder: Am I seeing my father?<span style=""> </span>Or am I seeing myself, years from now, and thus feeling my own aging displayed before me?<span style=""> </span>I don’t have the stake in seeing him as younger than he is—and he does not himself, for that matter.<span style=""> </span>But the ways others view him is informative, if not instructive.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Paternal Example:” Along these lines, my father has been a “meat and potatoes” man all of his life.<span style=""> </span>I asked him if he wanted something “green” with his meal, and he laughed and waved me off!<span style=""> </span>Other evenings, the restaurants where we’ve dined have served us salads.<span style=""> </span>Dad pushes his away after a few token bites, and refers to how that would better serve his “special lady friend.”<span style=""> </span>In California, I am immersed in a culture of health-obsession.<span style=""> </span>Every item for intake is weighed and measured for its nutritional benefit or risk.<span style=""> </span>One’s weight is a subject of constant worry, and the concern for “aging well—if at all” is ubiquitous.<span style=""> </span>My Dad is oblivious to any and all of these concerns.<span style=""> </span>Freed from the constant anxiety of eating right, he eats abominably—and prospers.<span style=""> </span>When on the odd occasion he finds himself weighed and measured by medical personnel, he is told he has the BP of a 20 y/o and the triglycerides of a man half his age.<span style=""> </span>Years ago when I, who eat my broccoli and spinach with ritual rigor, was finding myself with rising BP and the threat of either taking medication or stroking out, I asked my Dad whether he had encountered the same malady as he got older.<span style=""> </span>I was looking for a genetic link.<span style=""> </span>Instead, my Dad was merely confused: High BP?<span style=""> </span>What’s that?<span style=""> </span>This was as foreign and distant a phenomenon to him as maybe the likelihood that our President would be African American.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I wonder: My father’s diet has served him, if not well, at least not poorly, all of these 88 years.<span style=""> </span>I should live so long!<span style=""> </span>So why do I concern myself as I do with what I eat?<span style=""> </span>I surely have other things to worry about!<span style=""> </span>What I tell myself is: My family is “Mediterranean” in extraction—meaning, not only are the meat and potatoes OK, but a little red wine would only help.<span style=""> </span>Pickling is another way of “aging well.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Hail Fellow, Well Met—Especially by the Ladies:” Watching my father make the acquaintance of waitresses and female salespeople and service personnel is observing a master.<span style=""> </span>With a twinkle in his eye and a grin on his face, he greets, and quips, and jests until, in a surprised and often shy way, the woman’s face mirrors the twinkle and the grin she was given.<span style=""> </span>My Dad is all rapport and repartee.<span style=""> </span>She responds more often than not in kind, and a certain warmth surrounds the two as they realize that they can enjoy each other’s company.<span style=""> </span>My Dad is not a flirt!<span style=""> </span>But he does come alive in the exchange, and he does take pleasure in the conversation not being business-as-usual.<span style=""> </span>So there is a kind of gentle seduction that takes place: an invitation, a dance, and gracious bow and curtsey of gratitude when the music of the moment stops.<span style=""> </span>My father put the fox in fox trot.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I wonder: Would my children, who are often embarrassed by my behavior with waitresses--or my friends, who are (thankfully) more often bemused—feel the same way about it if they realized that I was unconsciously emulating my father?<span style=""> </span>Or do I lack his grace, so that I am more accurately becoming the “dirty old man” my father has so obviously avoided being? <span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“Man to Man:” One of the joys for me about my relationship with my Dad is the level of our conversations.<span style=""> </span>This level has deepened since my mother died, at least, so it seems to me.<span style=""> </span>We speak not only as father and son, but also as men, about being men.<span style=""> </span>As one might guess, “being men” often means “in relationship with women!”<span style=""> </span>For the differences and mysteries of our genders continues to fascinate us both.<span style=""> </span>But it also means that we share a commonality of experience as well as perspective.<span style=""> </span>The bluff and bluster of masculinity bonds my Dad and me, and I thank him for that, since too often fathers and sons compete, and rivalry replaces respect.<span style=""> </span>I think the nature of father-son bonds begins with the father; the father sets the tone and the terms.<span style=""> </span>I haven’t always liked or responded well to the terms my father set, but now…<span style=""> </span>now we are close.<span style=""> </span>And relaxed.<span style=""> </span>And easy-going.<span style=""> </span>And comfortable in a shared and special intimacy.<span style=""> </span>I am grateful.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I wonder: I hope I am the father my Dad is to me to my children, and especially to my sons. I hope that I live long enough to feel that our relationships have matured in this way. I am glad that both my father and I have lived long enough to have come to the relationship we now share. And I know that it means a lot to my Dad, too, because, if I know one thing about my Dad, it is that a deep love and respect for </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">his</i><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> father abides in him. Perhaps good fathering can be inherited.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-36442107336115170122009-08-28T08:01:00.000-07:002009-08-28T08:06:34.668-07:00Captain, My Captain<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The morning of my father’s 88th birthday eased itself over the mountainside and nestled in the bosom of the Lake like a grateful lover. It was cooler than it had been all week, but no less bright for that, and the sky was dashed with clouds, just enough for the winds aloft to smear shapes—“There’s an eagle!” my Dad cried—that invited our imaginations and gave a shifting canopy to the calmed water. The Lake borrowed some blue from the sky, making the horizon pale in donation, but the trees’ green kept them each in their own place, a blanket of discretion between intimate friends.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">My father’s fears were relieved. He had worried that he’d “blown his chance” at a beautiful time on the Lake by his inadvertent plunge two days before. But as we stood lakeside again, this time more patient with the process of boat delivery, he could see the water was just as calm, and the sun was burning off what morning mist remained. It was better in fact, for the air being cooler. And we were less rushed—so we had cooler heads as well!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The high school student who went over the checklist of operational “do’s and don’t’s” turned out to be a jazz trombonist—just like my Dad and I! It was as if more than one sort of legacy of the Lake was being handed down.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Once we were checked out, we headed out, Dad at the wheel, I in the bow, for “ballast,” er, balance! Dad was, well, “heady” about his being at last on the Lake. We shot out the gate, and were movin’! We headed counterclockwise, which was right, or starboard as the case might be. In either case, we were at it! We headed towards where we were staying, then up along the coast until we got to the dam, then back to open water—a signal to Dad to open it up. We got to be movin’! It was fun!</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I sat in the front, snapping pictures. Dad was in his element, on the Lake, livin’ and re-livin’. He was often so deep in memory that he didn’t respond to my requests to slow down or stop so I could take a clearer picture. We went on, past White Beauty, around the back of The Island, around The Other Island, across the other side of the Lake from which we owned, down into where the Lake narrowed again, and back in towards The Bridge. End to end, Dam to Bridge. Not quite record time, but, quickly enough.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Then back out again. This time, we were to pass in front of the property he and Mom once owned. I asked him to go slow, so we could see where it was. We still missed it! We took pix at the neighbor’s house, distracted by a huge blue heron that had landed on a float nearby. Eventually, we got it right. We headed out.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">There was where we used to put the boat in and take it out. There was where we first spent Summers at the Lake. Here was the narrow straight were we used to swim from the beach to the Island—and in the good old days, ski from the beach, around the Island, and back to the beach, letting go into stand up landings... Those were the good old days, before increased boat traffic and regulations!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">As we crossed over into the now extinct White Beauty View area where the Lake widens and is chronically rough (the Lake’s version of Tierra del Fuego), Dad let me take the wheel. This turned out to be a bold move on his part: he had to sit in the bow across the roughest water, into increased boat traffic. This was going to be a bumpy, kidney-bustin’ ride for him no matter how much I moderated our speed. Weaving around skiers and fishers we made it back to base—too early! I took us out across the Lake and around the Lake’s largest island, before I headed us back.</span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">All I wanted to do was extend Dad’s ride. He was in near-ecstasy. He kept praising God, saying how wonderful the day was, and marveling at the weather. It truly was a joy to behold—for both of us.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Once we got back on shore, and on with the day, Dad kept talking about it. Evaporated in the heat of the experience was his fear that he had “spoiled” things earlier. Instead he was flush with the realization that all had gone well, splendidly even, and most likely in a manner fitting to the best that could be. All was right with the world, for my Dad.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">For me, it was a once in a lifetime experience. I kept thinking: I am glad that I lived this long, to have this kind of time with my Dad. I kept wondering: Will any of my children think about what might please me this way should I get to be 88? I kept believing: I’m glad that I had the courage of my whimsy and arranged for the possibility of this day.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The very best thing was to see my Dad behind the wheel, making his own “road,” leaving his own wake. More than driving a car, driving a boat brings out my Dad’s true nature.</span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-43071975951441069232009-08-27T12:03:00.000-07:002009-08-27T12:07:28.084-07:00Drive to Live, Live to Drive<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5COwner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5COwner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5COwner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> 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mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:12.0pt; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:0in; mso-para-margin-left:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">To know my father is to know how important driving an automobile is to him.<span style=""> </span>He is seldom more “at home” than when he’s behind the wheel—which is precisely, of course, when he is not at home!<span style=""> </span>There is something spiritual in the synergy of the man, the car and the road that elevates his spirits and centers him in himself.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">So when I got off the train, and as we loaded my bags into the back of his car, and I offered to drive to the Lake, I wasn’t surprised when he said, “No, I’ll drive.<span style=""> </span>I know where I’m going.”<span style=""> </span>And yes, he usually does.<span style=""> </span>But he would also drive even if he didn’t know where he was going!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">The drive up to the Lake let me know how well my father was doing.<span style=""> </span>We see each other once a year now.<span style=""> </span>I carry these memories of my father’s basic condition through the intervening year.<span style=""> </span>This is base-line data gathering.<span style=""> </span>And since his driving is his métier, his most comfortable environment, this is the ideal setting to see him at his best.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">My Dad’s driving gave me little cause for concern.<span style=""> </span>At no point did I feel that we were going to careen suddenly off the road, and out into the woods or over into the valley!<span style=""> </span>His speed was what it always is—heck, what <i style="">mine</i> always is!—just a tad too fast for conditions.<span style=""> </span>But that’s OK—his Odyssey has airbags!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">His confidence behind the wheel is the best measure of his confidence in himself.<span style=""> </span>So when he asked me to drive yesterday after his fall, he in effect told me how he was.<span style=""> </span>And when he told me to drive us to dinner, I knew he had not fully recovered confidence in himself.<span style=""> </span>Today he simply took the wheel and got us to and from the grocery store.<span style=""> </span>If he’s not yet his “old self” again, he’s at least feeling more like it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">Of increasing significance is <i style="">why</i> he drives.<span style=""> </span>He drives for therapy.<span style=""> </span>He drives to grieve the loss of my mother.<span style=""> </span>He is a driving Descartes: <i style="">I drive, therefore I am</i>.<span style=""> </span>Not just around the block, either: He drives to the Jersey shore if need be!<span style=""> </span>Some days he needs more healing than others…<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">None of this matters all that much in itself; what matters is what it portends for the future.<span style=""> </span>What will happen when the day comes that Dad is told he is not to drive?<span style=""> </span>I fear for him for that day.<span style=""> </span>My Dad has made it, quite likely, as long as he has because his major strength in life is a kind of stubbornness.<span style=""> </span>He got it from his mother, but he has parlayed stubbornness into a fine art!<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">My Dad exhibits a stubborn refusal to change.<span style=""> </span>Oh, life and its circumstances change around him, and he adjusts all right to them.<span style=""> </span>He is not delusional in his stubbornness.<span style=""> </span>He knows his wife of 64 years, the most wonderful woman in the world, has died.<span style=""> </span>He’s not in denial.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">What he is deep into is stubbornness: he <i style="">will</i> drive until they pry the keys from his hand!<span style=""> </span>THE most frightening event in his recent life was not when he woke from a nap with a non-functioning right hand and waited overnight to call for an ambulance so he could be examined at the hospital.<span style=""> </span>No, the most frightening event was needing to have his driver’s license renewed—a procedure that required a note from his eye doctor about his vision, and a driver’s test.<span style=""> </span>He passed the whole procedure with flying colors, and thus got a new lease on life.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">For the moment, we (his children and the rest of the world) can breathe easy.<span style=""> </span>He’s still a good driver.<span style=""> </span>Will he ever know when he is <i style="">not</i> a good driver?<span style=""> </span>Maybe not.<span style=""> </span>As it is, he sits uneasily in the passenger seat, even when he consents to be driven.<span style=""> </span>There is a car commercial that says something to the effect of: “In life, some of us are passengers, others of us are drivers.”<span style=""> </span>My Dad is a driver; he does not handle being driven well.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">In this regard, there is a verse in John’s Gospel that suggests my father to me whenever I hear it.<span style=""> </span>To paraphrase, Jesus tells us that, whereas at the moment we are able to get up every morning and put our clothes on and go about our days as we choose, the day is coming when someone else will get us up, will put our clothes on us, and will take us where they want us to go!<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">That day is coming for me, I know.<span style=""> </span>That day is coming for my Dad, too.<span style=""> </span>I dread it more for him than I do for myself, frankly.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";">Of course, he could always surprise me!<span style=""> </span>I’m always glad to be surprised…<o:p></o:p></span></p> TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-6673233823589741642009-08-26T08:54:00.000-07:002009-08-26T09:06:18.535-07:00Boat Enthusiast<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> This trip is something of a remembrance of things past. So we have visited places that we knew when… IF they are still there! And we have dreamed of past glories.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> Many of those glorious moments were spent on the water here. We water skied behind and rode in the various boats my father owned. He still fondly tells the story of his taking possession of the last boat he owned—actually, of how it took possession of him! For my Dad, it was love at first sight with that boat. And he showed that boat his love as long as she was in his life…</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> That’s the way my Dad is… He was, of course, the same way with my Mom.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> No wonder, then, that once he saw the Lake, Dad thought about being on the Lake. We went looking for a place that rented boats.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> We found two: one, near where we are staying; the other, near where we used to live. We chose the one near where we are staying because the boat was likely to be better—meaning, bigger, faster, and sleeker. My Dad may drive an Odyssey but his heart is built for speed!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> We signed up, and watched a video designed to reacquaint us with the Rules of the Water, but we were like two kids in school—not paying attention to the lesson, and copying off of each other’s papers. We were know-it-alls! Lessons? We don’t need no stinkin’ lessons! They gave us our temporary licenses anyway… After all, how much trouble could we get into on the water?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> Thing is, we never made it to the water—at least, not the way that we had planned. The folks with the boats were having a little trouble getting the one they were renting to us ready to go out. So my Dad and I had time on our hands. We walked down the ramp to the lakeside. We waited. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> I could feel the restlessness grow in my Dad. He was impatient to get out on the water. I was looking out at the Lake, enjoying the day and the moment, when suddenly I felt my Dad was not there with me. I turned to see my Dad, like toddler, making it toward the dock. He got on the ramp, and negotiated its narrowness—until he had to step down more than 18 inches from the ramp to the dock’s gangway. As he did, the gangway sank with his weight into the water, and Dad pitched forward. He landed on the gangway, and rolled over onto his back, but into the water. By the time I got to him, he was flailing to keep his head above water and regain his feet. I reached down and grabbed his hand—but it wasn’t the sort of grip you see in the movies! Still, it steadied him, and he stood up in the water. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> I spoke to him calmly, gently and firmly: “Dad, see if you can kneel on the dock.” He got one knee up, then the other. He shifted, putting his back to me. I asked if he could get his feet underneath him. He could, but only with his hands on the dock to steady him as his legs shook. He went back to his knees—and started to crawl away from the shore, toward where the dock widened. I called to him, “Dad, if you’re gonna crawl, crawl toward the shore!” He turned around and crawled toward me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> At that point, I kneeled on the gangway, and my Dad rose to his feet with both hands on my shoulders. Then I got up, turned around, told my Dad to put his hands on my shoulders again, and we walked in tandem off the gangway, over the ramp, and back onto the shore. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> There we assessed the damage: the back of his left hand was bleeding, and he was pretty shaken up, his eyes wide, his breathing shallow and rapid. He leaned on me as we walked together back up the hillside. We spoke to the owner’s son about what had happened, and he got Dad some first aid. Then I walked my Dad to the car, where he sat while I backed us out of our boat ride and completed some paperwork. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> I knew my Dad was still shaken by this turn of events because, when I asked him for the car keys, he surrendered them without a murmur.<br /> </span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> Once home, we almost literally had to wring my Dad out! I told him he was one big sponge! Thank goodness it was one of the warmest days of the year! More, thank goodness my Dad was not hurt worse. Being the man he is, he was more embarrassed than anything, except maybe regretful that he “wasted” a beautiful day on the Lake. I said, “Dad, there’s always tomorrow. Maybe today just wasn’t our day. Maybe we rushed things.” He nodded his head in affirmation—and told me I was to drive the car to dinner. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> I don’t think that even Proust could have ever imagined that sort of ending to our day.</span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-53748369616160417142009-08-25T14:57:00.000-07:002009-08-25T15:00:48.988-07:00Geezers and Tweezers<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5COwner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5COwner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" 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</style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">When I got off the train in Lansdale, having flown all night in a clean but crowded plane, and having endured a city’s public transport through its bowels, I lumbered my luggage down the steps and emerged into the bright, clean air of Montgomery County.<span style=""> </span>I trundled myself and my baggage across the platform toward the station, looking all the way for my father.<span style=""> </span>He was nowhere to be seen.<span style=""> </span>I stood at the curb, lost, waiting to be found.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">After several long minutes, a small man emerged from the parking lot, on semi-certain steps, his scant, grayed hair catching what sunlight it could, like a tattered flag would the wind.<span style=""> </span>I kept looking for my father.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But as he came closer, I realized that this indeed <i style="">was</i> my father, now in a somewhat diminished version.<span style=""> </span>He no longer had the dark hair and firm gait of a man half his age; now he had been fitted with a more appropriate appearance.<span style=""> </span>And my heart sank, just a little, for I, too, aged in that moment.<span style=""> </span>We were growing older of a sudden, the way it happens when we look into the mirror, not in the casual way of looking past ourselves, but in that glance-snatching, gaze-holding way of seeing on the surface the evolution that has been etching underneath all the while we have not been paying attention.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Two older men made their way to my Dad’s car.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">My father, now, on the doorstep of his 88<sup>th</sup> birthday, was officially a Geezer.<span style=""> </span>By “Geezer,” I mean a wise and wizened, well-aged fellow, who, by years and maturity, deserved the title.<span style=""> </span>Not merely “senior,” my Dad had come into something more than his own, more than age alone could confer.<span style=""> </span>He’d become a Geezer.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I, on the other hand, still hoped to have Geezerhood out in front of me somewhere, like an anticipated land to which I’d want to travel, but not just yet, thank you very much.<span style=""> </span>Yet, I knew I was no longer the middle-aged man who was at the top of his powers—as we are told we are or can be when we first show the signs of aging and grey at the temples and sag in the middle.<span style=""> </span>I had been graying and sagging for too long now already!<span style=""> </span>So what <i style="">was</i> I, then?<span style=""> </span>Growing out of middle age, but not yet fully into Geezerhood, how was I to call my “in between” self?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in; font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I decided to think of myself as a “Tweezer.”<span style=""> </span>Just as those who are still children, not-yet Teens have become “Tweens” or “Tweeners,” so it is, I think, that those of us men, past 50 but not yet 75 or more, are living through Tweezerhood.<span style=""> </span>We are holding onto what dignity and capacity of being middle-aged we can manage, but we increasingly carry it like I did my luggage for this trip: like baggage, lugging what Youth we have left around like a burden we can still bear, but now must work to bring along.<span style=""> </span>One day, we’ll simply forget where we placed it, and will walk off without it.<span style=""> </span>Then, one of two things will happen.<span style=""> </span>We’ll either be frantic, and anxiously search about for what no longer can be found.<span style=""> </span>Or, if we are blessed with self-acceptance, we’ll feel surprisingly relieved once we’ve realized that we have let it go.<span style=""> </span>Then we may hope to find ourselves to be Geezers—and not merely old men, waiting for the ultimate relief of Death and the life to come.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Lucida Sans","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So I am not my father! It is not yet time for me to </span><i style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">be</i><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"> my father. But he has managed, since my mother’s death nearly two years ago now, to grasp his Geezerliness. And I have made this trip, I know now, to learn from him how to survive the Tweezer Years, and prepare myself for being a Geezer—if only I shall be as blessed as my Dad.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-43838685874199225952009-08-25T14:46:00.000-07:002009-08-25T14:52:50.297-07:00Timeless Travel<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This is an experiment.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Apparently I have traveled to a land where the Net does not reach. I can receive emails, but I cannot send them out! </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">My situation has been explained to me, and I've nodded as if I understand it. But so much of <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> world is so different from my own, that I'm not really sure what is going on. <br /><br />But you, dear reader, can help! IF you get this, and IF you respond that you have, I will know that in some fashion at least, I can manage two-way communication.<br /><br />This is not exactly a cry for help! More like, a plea: How far from Home am I? Can you hear me? Is anybody listening! HA!<br /><br />I'll be back... <br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-85753751313555137042009-05-02T10:13:00.000-07:002009-05-02T11:58:18.890-07:00Remnants<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">A Cheerio on the back floor of my car remembers the child who sat in her very own seat, and ate in her very own way, and pointed at birds, and called them with a "buh" on her lips for the sheer pleasure of the sight and the sound.<br /><br />A fan of feathers and fuzz on my front porch remember the bird who came to feed on the seed and became another creature's feed instead, as they met along that timeless cycle of Nature's silent turning.<br /><br />The wheel of necessity may drive our natural forces but the small eddies of joy give Life meaning and light.<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-71948728429609924472009-04-16T09:52:00.000-07:002009-04-16T10:32:10.874-07:00Starting Again<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">My horoscope on the day I was attacked read as follows: "You're in high gear and can count on the occasional flub. Let nothing stand in the way of your productive mood."<br /><br />Makes me laugh! I fully intended to "let nothing stand in the way" of my "productive mood" on that day-- and since. I was indeed in "high gear," working well and effectively on my most important creative project. I was goin' places and gettin' things done along the way!<br /><br />...Oh well! What I've noticed is that, since then, certain areas of my living just stopped-- this blog, for example, along with another blog I'd been in the process of developing. There have been some friends I haven't contacted or kept in the kind of regular contact with that I had at the time. Looking back, I believe I kind of "pulled in." I think being assaulted effected me in ways I didn't anticipate at the time, and have not been able to reverse since.<br /><br />So this post is Step One toward getting back on track! I can say that I managed to maintain enough focus that the creative project in which I've been involved has gone forward-- albeit at a slower pace than I would have liked. So my life did not come to a complete halt. But it shrank. It definitely shrank.<br /><br />Before I was attacked, I'd been playing with the notion of "Full Catastrophe Living." I got it from the title of a Jon Kabat-Zinn book. I'd been feeling like the last two years or so of my live had been kind of inadvertent "full catastrophe living," and I'd wanted to embrace that notion more intentionally, both to bless what I'd been through, and to see if more good might come out of it.<br /><br />Then, of course, another involuntary "catastrophe" literally struck, and suddenly the notion of embracing "full catastrophe living" had a connotation that was more than disquieting! Not more of that!, I silently screamed.<br /><br />But before that catastrophe befell me, while I was still innocently toying with "full catastrophe living," a friend sent me this quote from Joan Halifax, author of <span style="font-style: italic;">Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death</span>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Catastrophe is the essence of the spiritual path, a series of breakdowns allowing us to discover the threads that weave all of life into a whole cloth."</span> Indeed...<br /><br />Of course, something along those lines was what I'd been contemplating, <span style="font-style: italic;">before</span>... The challenge now is to contemplate them again. Now that I am proabably physically as healed as I will be, how to contemplate what happens when figure of speech becomes literal, when the dust from which we are created becomes ashes seeking to be dust again that it might be re-created? <br /><br />OK, I went back to metaphor there... Can't help it! You can kill the poet but not the poetry! <br /><br />And I guess, in that quick way, I've answered my own question: How to embrace the spiritual essence of catastrophe? By finding meaning in the meaningless. With the triumph of the figurative over the literal. By surrendering again to the Creator...<br /><br />I'll write more in this space... Soon. Thanks for following...<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-62094898325812126132009-02-25T15:52:00.000-08:002009-02-25T16:48:32.900-08:00One Week Later<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Since it has been a week since I was assaulted, I'm writing now basically to say I'm "OK," but also to try to capture some of the fleeting moments that have happened, basically before they fly out of my memory!<br /><br />1) "Shattered Assumptions:" In part this is what I was talking about in a previous post. It's the sort of "official" description of what happens to a person when they are assaulted. I was telling someone how I felt about losing a sense of safety around what is essentially my backdoor. I was told that, along with the physical damage is this notion of "shattered assumptions," a kind of official PTSD term. Like, I <span style="font-style: italic;">assumed</span> my garage area would be safe at 7 AM when I pick up my paper. One morning, I was wrong about that. But all it takes is one time, to shatter assumptions.<br /><br />The issue then becomes, how both to re-assemble an assumptive world, and make appropriate adjustments, reasonably and with as little fear as possible. At least, that is how I put it to myself. So I had the company deliver my paper to the front door, where I can better see if someone is coming or lurking. Still, it's different getting my paper now...<br /><br />2) Robbery was <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> the motive?: No, most likely not-- because nothing material was taken from me. What was taken from me was a sense of safety in my own home environs. I'm not the first to experience this, obviously.<br /><br />3) Am I still a lion?: Being a Leo, I identify with lions. The symbol of them as regal. The whole "pride" thing! I even like that hyenas are their principle nemeses! Sort of puts lions in their place. But last week I was feeling less like a lion and more like a wildebeest! I felt like I had wandered absentmindedly just a little too far from the herd, had been jumped by a predator, and had escaped and made it back to the herd. I spent a lot of the week literally "shaking off" the attack, a la <span style="font-style: italic;">Waking the Tiger</span>, and just being glad for the herd gathering around me. It was not a week to have to fend for myself.<br /><br />4) I went to the ENT doc yesterday, which was an adventure in itself. One of the nurses told me that, given what I'd been through, I looked "good." I told her that was a lot better assessment than I'd received from other people, who simply had said I did not look "too bad." Now the ER doc had told me that they found nothing wrong with my brain-- which was a pleasant surprise in itself. But the ENT doc said that he couldn't do anything to "help" my face... which was kind of sad to hear. I mean, I'm glad about my brain, but I was kind of hoping to get some help for my face...<br /><br />5) What people say: Art Linkletter (remember him?) made a name for himself by recording what children told him. His "Kids Say the Darndest Things" books were a riot. Well, I've read enough Dear Abby, and Ann, and Amy columns to know that people say the darndest things to each other at times of trauma. I've had enough trauma in my life to have heard some of them, and now I'm wondering whether I could find a way to get us to laugh at ourselves when we say the darndest things to each other in an effort to comfort. For instance, one person said to me, "This is going to <span style="font-style: italic;">age</span> you." Well, yes... Other people said, "Protect yourself." Of course-- but I thought I either was protecting myself or didn't need to at that hour in the AM. Someone said, "You should have had a gun." Maybe, but, given how quickly everything happened, I probably would have found my own weapon used against me. I don't know that any sort of "preparedness" would have helped, really. Many people said things that had the ring of closing the barn door after the horses has got out-- because, after all, they too were trying to restore <span style="font-style: italic;">their</span> assumptive worlds. More than just my assumptions got shattered.<br /><br />This is probably why the most comforting things I was told had to do with how my telling them what had happened was affecting them in that moment. People said they were shocked, horrified, even sick to their stomach. They were sad, or angry, or worried for me, or sympathetic. Getting back some sort of emotion from others was like a Red Cross blanket and cuppa joe for me as I was sitting in my own disaster. There were offers to help, too, but we all knew we were helpless to turn back the clock and undo what had been done. So the "being in the moment" with me meant more than anything.<br /><br />Honestly, there is more than enough good to have come from this to make me almost glad it happened... Almost glad, I said. Truly, I wouldn't wish this on anyone-- let alone me, all over again.<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-91856968789297374442009-02-24T08:07:00.000-08:002009-02-24T08:56:42.567-08:00Calling All Angels<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">There actually are more than a few gratifying things about being beat up. One of them is, you find out who your friends are!<br /><br />No, sorry, I really do not mean to joke about this. I mean to express my gratitude and seriously affirm the abundance of the universe. I truly am "getting by with a little help from my friends." I have been lifted up, as by angels.<br /><br />Here's what I would say about angels: Some of them have come from places I would hope and expect-- family, friends, people I know love me and whom I am privileged to love.<br /><br />Some of my "angels" have come from within me: resources of intellect, emotion and spirit that I rely upon more than I know in everyday life, and rediscover when life is not so "everyday." Angels like my sense of humor. And my knowledge about and previous experience of PTSD... So when I'm in shock and numbed, I am; and when I'm shaking, and weepy, I am. And when I'm walking through the valleys of the Shadow that are ERs and doctors' offices, I am.<br /><br />I am, I am able to be, because I am aware that I am accompanied.<br /><br />Which brings me to the third sort of angels who've been called and who have come: those I didn't expect. As if to balance the Surprise of the One Who Would Harm have come the Surprises of the Many Who Would Heal. So: a neighbor brings dinner; someone I hardly know sends a card; people whom I wouldn't expect, call, or email; many offer to keep me in prayer.<br /><br />All of this is more than gratifying, more than reassuring. This is a community of care I've discovered that I didn't even know I had, really, or better, that was part of my "assumptive world" yet not my <span style="font-style: italic;">presumptive</span> world, if you know what I mean-- the tacit become tactile, the silent, speaking and speaking up!<br /><br />I am more than grateful, because, at the moment, I <span style="font-style: italic;">need</span> this widened awareness of the essential benevolence of the world. Nothing material was taken from me outside my garage, but still the motive was robbery: for what was taken from me was my sense that at least THAT part of the world was safe.<br /><br />We all need to feel safe. I mean, yes, it does take courage to live and to go about living in this world. But some times it takes more courage than at others, and right now, at this time in my life, I needed to feel safe again. I needed to re-establish where I could be safe and whom I could be safe with.<br /><br />The angels who came from without and within, the angels who might have been anticipated and those who were unanticipated, all served to make me feel safe again. My face and body would heal on their own, but the rift in my world could only heal with the help of these angels.<br /><br />People have said to me: Take care! Be wary! Be cautious! Be alert! And yes, I am more aware of where I am and who is around me now than I was. But I also know that if I go into the world in too much fear, if I am jittery and apprehensive, if I am suspicious and distrustful, if I am short-tempered and reactive-- then the Assailant won.<br /><br />So I will not live in fear and I will not let my basic trust be broken. I will walk in confidence and I will be unafraid.<br /><br />How can I do that? Well, I got Angels watchin' over me!<br /><br />You do, too! Blessings...<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-66867506173538604132009-02-18T15:51:00.000-08:002009-02-18T16:10:09.880-08:00Can Sense Be Made of the Senseless?<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">This is no rhetorical question for me at the moment.<br /><br />This morning, when I went to get my newspaper, I was jumped! Assaulted. By an unknown assailant. And beaten about the face and neck. Until he ran off...<br /><br />I was down for the count on the first blow, and so did little to protect myself from what came after. Then, when he was gone, I got to my feet, and called 911. I did some other things, too, but remembering them became problematic.<br /><br />The police and the paramedics were wonderful, both professional and kind. Plus, they laughed at my jokes!<br /><br />So did at least some of the medical personnel at the local hospital. They were kind, too. The nurse told me about her own facial trauma, from a car accident, and I guess that was supposed to make me feel better since she's looking OK right now.<br /><br />And the MD gave me the most surprising news I've ever heard. He told me that the CAT scan of my head showed "there was nothing wrong with [my] brain!" Many other people have told me just the opposite with less concrete information to go on! I was relieved.<br /><br />Physically, the immediate outcome is that I have a broken nose. I am becoming more like my father everyday! But he got his from an opponent he could actually see-- in a boxing ring in the Army.<br /><br />My assailant? I got a look at his clothes, coming and going. And I didn't see what hit me... But I also didn't see his eyes... This is what bothers me most right now: I can see him coming at me, in his black hoody, but I can't see his face, and I can't see his eyes...<br /><br />Like Death: black hood; no eyes...<br /><br />I'm pretty achy at the moment, and I can't breathe very well, but I still have my half-wits about me, and I'll survive. But I have experienced a "random act of violence." One of the few that occurs in my neighborhood every decade or so...<br /><br />And I can't yet make sense of it... That's the hard part at the moment-- I mean, except for the breathing. It doesn't make sense to me.<br /><br />It didn't at the moment either. I mean, I didn't scream or cry out or say, "NO!" or any of the things self-defense classes teach. All I did was shout: "Why are you doing this to me?"<br /><br />Of course, he didn't say...<br /><br />Death never does have to explain himself. Maybe his younger brother, Assailant, doesn't either.<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-29111614804310346482009-02-13T14:56:00.000-08:002009-02-13T15:51:00.169-08:00Poets, Society: Dead or Alive<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I am still trying to figure out what to think about Elizabeth Alexander's poem, "Praise Song for the Day," the one she read at Barak Obama's inauguration. At the time of the reading, I was underwhelmed. I realized that she followed one of the great orators of our time-- our new President. Yet, I wanted her to rise to the occasion, as Maya Angelou had done for Bill Clinton, and more, as Robert Frost had done for JFK. So I was disappointed.<br /><br />I took some consolation in reading afterward, that I was not alone. Little of her imagery had stuck in the minds of many-- and what are poets, any way, if not image-stickers? I felt for her. How often do poets get so grand a stage, so great an opportunity to make the case for poetry? When Alexander missed the mark, the rest of us might too. Yet now, more than ever, we need creative writing. On the coming-down side of our national shopaholic binge, we could all lift ourselves up by the bootstraps of our language-- if we simply were inspired to do so.<br /><br />Two events have occurred to inspire me. One is to read that a radio DJ in New Jersey has been about inviting "remixes" of Alexander's poem. He seems to realize it needed some redeeming, too. Kenny G is his name, and we can listen to him on www.wfmu.org. He's also posted 51 MP3 remixes on WFMU's blog! One of them simply took all of the words in the poem and put them in alphabetical order-- which turned out to be a poem all its own.<br /><br />I don't know what Alexander thinks of this, but I find it to be in the spirit of poetry itself. Robert Frost used to say that a poem was never "finished, only abandoned"-- a view I've come to take about my life itself. Maybe Alexander's offering was meant to be remixed or reworked or otherwise taken in by us and redone, like the abandoned given a new home.<br /><br />The other thing that happened was an editorial in the local paper, that begins with this quote from JFK: "Power corrupts, but poety cleanses." Ah... I'm breathing easier already! Then the story is told of what really happened on JFK's blustery inaugual day: Frost abandoned the poem he was going to read, the one he had written for the occasion, and instead recited from memory, "The Gift Outright." Who knew? "The Gift Outright" was shorter...<br /><br />Anyway, here are the closing lines of the poem Frost wrote, "Dedication-- For John F. Kennedy, His Inauguration":<br /><br />"Some poor fool has been saying in his heart<br />Glory is out of date in life and art.<br />Our venture in revolution and outlawry<br />Has justified itself in freedom's story<br />Right down to now in glory upon glory.<br />Come fresh from an election like the last,<br />The greatest vote a people ever cast,<br />So close yet sure to be abided by,<br />It is no miracle our mood is high.<br />Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs<br />Better than all the stalemate and's and if's.<br />There was a book of profile tales declaring<br />For the embodied politicians daring<br />To break with followers when in the wrong,<br />A healthy independence of the throng.<br />A democratic form of right divine<br />To rule first answerable to high design.<br />There is a call to life a little stearner,<br />And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.<br />Less criticism of the field and court<br />And more preoccupation with the sport.<br />It makes the prophet in us all presage<br />The glory of a next Augustan age<br />Of a power leading from its strength and pride,<br />Of young ambition eager to be tried,<br />Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,<br />In any game the nations want to play.<br />A golden age of poetry and power<br />Of which this noonday's the beginning hour."<br /><br />Frost got much right in that poem-- a fair forecast of Camelot, and our national mood in the early '60's. But the line I like the most is the next to last: "a golden age of poetry and power...". When we approach our personal lives and our national life together with that order in mind (poetry, then power), we'll not only get through this dismal and discouraging time, we'll find new ground for pride and new reasons to rejoice in triumph.<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-73988319029651068052009-02-13T13:44:00.000-08:002009-02-13T14:25:24.585-08:00Reality Shows<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Given our celebrity culture, I am frequently amazed at who we admire and of whom we are envious. Television influences us more than we realize-- which is why I confine my TV watching to sporting events and the occasional PBS special!<br /><br />But I <span style="font-style: italic;">read</span> about television and its shows, just in case I find something interesting, but mostly to justify my decided lack of interest. So there I was the other day, reading a review of a TV show-- and I found myself reading good writing! How did THAT happen?! Mary McNamara wrote an intelligent review of a show that is either unintelligent or unintelligible, I don't know which.<br /><br />Here's the line that hooked me: "So it's true then. John Updike is dead and we are left with 'The Real Housewives of Orange County'." Well, yes, and we were left with them even when Updike was alive, but even he could not have written about them in any way that was redeeming.<br /><br />But curiously, even as she skewers those lamentable housewives (<span style="font-style: italic;">who</span> admits to be being a "housewife" any more?; and is <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> what "housewifery" has come to?), McNamara is almost sympathetic in her prose: "They embody the moral, spiritual and intellectual anorexia that writers have grappled with for years, but in terms a child can understand. Cheever for Dummies." "Hedda Gabler left the building years ago; these heroines are tragic only in their lack of consciousness." "[T]hese women will no doubt remain right where we want them to be: trapped in the fabulous shabbiness of their lives, having conversations that run back and forth like trained rats along dim and narrow mazes of the mundane. Which is precisely why we will always need our poets."<br /><br />Ah, yes, our poets... Surely emptiness and vacuity are not confined to Orange County and its families (for don't vacuous men find vacuous women attractive?). Maybe the OC is more like a cultural Void into which vacuity flows and collects? But which poet among us can make meaninglessness meaningful?<br /><br />McNamara did not seem to know one. I don't. I'm waiting for the "Real Bards of Orange County" on PBS...<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-36475514851162355252009-02-10T11:56:00.000-08:002009-02-10T12:27:25.025-08:00The Light at the End of the Tunnel<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I had a dream the other night that I was crawling through a cave. It was a genuine spelunking experience, with stalagtites and stalagmites, and mud and water dripping. <br /><br />The thing about it was, I could see where I was going. The whole narrow cave was lit up, as if by a light on a camera. I felt like I was in one of those history channel experiences, you know the ones, where the man intones that he is going to be the "first" to explore this dark, underground place, but we see him enter, so we know that the one who <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> got there first was the cameraman? <br /><br />When I woke, I remembered a Monty Python sketch wherein all of the characters realize they are being filmed, and look for the cameraman, find him, then realize they are still being filmed, so search for THAT cameraman, and so on in infinite regress. <br /><br />"Someone's watching us," Bette Midler sang, but most of our experiences of being watched in this way are more close up than her "from a distance."<br /><br />Which I learned in another way today from the man who'd come to replace my wind-shredded awning. Like a lot of guys in businesses having to do with roofing, this awning salesman was in recovery, and not shy about saying so. No wonder. He had quite a testimony! (He thanked me for listening, saying not too many other people tolerate his preaching. I told him I knew what he meant!)<br /><br />He recounted with some bravado some of the life-threatening experiences he had survived-- including three marriages!-- but "survived" wasn't his word. He spoke more of being "brought through," as in guided. "I was being watched," he said.<br /><br />In addition to his three marriages, which led me to think about my own (we were like "brothers" in a now life-long marriage-recovery program!), one of his adventures was a car accident that nearly took his life. This, too, led me to think of one car accident I'd had. Like him, I'd done a lot while in shock that I wasn't aware of doing at the time. And like him, afterward, I knew I was still alive because I was in a lot of pain. But also like him, I had the experience of being "brought through:" <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> just watched, as if the Watcher either had no interest in the outcome or couldn't do anything about it anyway; but something more hands on... Involved... The cameraman may be taking the picture but he is also shining the light.<br /><br />And he's walking backwards, while facing forwards, his eyes on me... <br /><br />Maybe this is God's singular saving capacity: to be able to walk backwards, with sure steps and bold, yet keep us in sight as we are brought through our peril and led safely home. Amazing Grace!<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-13961687848476834592009-02-01T10:21:00.000-08:002009-02-04T15:31:22.914-08:00Go Like 60!<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">"Tell me one thing that's <span style="font-style: italic;">good</span> about being 60." I'm at my dentist's office, and his assistant has just discovered that we are very nearly the same age. She takes great delight in knowing that I am a few months older than she.<br /><br />But her question stumps me. She notices my pause, my unusual lack of a quick answer. Any snappy retort I might have spoken has already snapped like the buttons of those who don't eat at Subway. But even the ricochet strikes nothing worth repeating.<br /><br />"See!" she says, triumphantly. "There's <span style="font-style: italic;">nothing</span> good about being 60!"<br /><br />Especially for women, I'm thinking, remembering a conversation I'd had recently with a female friend who wanted to set me up with a friend of a friend. "But she's over 60," my would-be yenta lamented. And we went on to talk about how women "change" when they get to 60, how they feel their age in certain sad, fleshly ways. We concurred with the old cliche that men get distinguished, women just get old, and the time for that turning seems to be about the age of 60.<br /><br />I don't know the truth of any of this, but I'm guessing that my dentist's assistant was thinking something along these lines about herself, and feeling a kind of loss of attractiveness or desirability. I'm guessing that this varies, and I'm sure it is more or less an internal sort of thing. I mean, my dentist's assistant was attractive enough to me that I might have flirted with her if she weren't married. But then, I've been told I flirt a lot, even indiscriminately.<br /><br />The saying goes that "there's no fool like an old fool," and I'm just now finding out what that means. One of my discoveries on reaching 60 is that, while I've been a fool many, many times before, <span style="font-style: italic;">now </span>I'm having the experience of being an <span style="font-style: italic;">old</span> fool! It's having a curbing effect on my flirting, as if at this ripe age I might finally be learning to be a little more discriminating.<br /><br />Unfortunately, it just feels like I'm too old to have as much fun as I used to! Now THAT is a sad thought!<br /><br />Being 60 has led to another kind of vulnerability besides the relational one, and that's the vocational one, the one that connects the significance of one's life to one's accomplishments. Much more than the way my age influences my attractiveness in terms of how other people see me, my age influences my sense of my life's meaningfulness.<br /><br />(Of course how I am perceived by others is no small thing: just try to get a real job or even health insurance when one is 60 or older! I was told by a health insurance salesman the other day that "60 is the age when everyone starts 'breaking down'." I told him we aren't used cars... But he didn't seem to get the point. Besides, he's got a ways to go before <span style="font-style: italic;">he's</span> 60!)<br /><br />Anyway, I'm watching this movie the other night, a foreign film that, on the eve of the Oscar's, is being re-released into selected theaters, as foreign films seem to be. I read a wonderful review of it in the paper, and then, lo and behold, discovered it on my cable's pay-per-view! This is the closest thing to an Act of God (at least, a positive one) to happen to me for some time.<br /><br />The name of the movie is, "The Secret of the Grain." It is French, with English subtitles, and it is about a Tunisian man and his family, so even the French is not what we learned in school, because it is spiced with Arabic like <span style="font-style: italic;">en Provence</span> with turmeric. Point is, the man is 61, and he's just been laid off from a ship yard where he's worked for 35 years.<br /><br />He's at a certain point in his life that resembles mine in the uncomfortable way that art and life can imitate each other. There was one line in the movie that especially resonated with me, a line that revealed his innermost thoughts. He says, "All this time, and what do I have to leave my children? What do I have to show for my life?" At least, that's a reasonable facsimile of what the line is, and I can't remember whether he actually says, "nothing," or just distinctly implies it.<br /><br />Either way, what he expresses is what it means to be 60 and male. There truly is this turning in us, from the so-called "power years" of the 50's to the "dis-empowered" ones that begin in the 60's. We go from feeling we are useful to fearing that we are utterly useless to anyone.<br /><br />Realizing that this turning is occurring can lead to some rather comic/tragic decision making. In the movie, the man decides to invest his severance in transforming a scrapped fishing boat into a restaurant. I decided to invest my retirement in writing. In the movie, the man's decision has some tragic consequences-- but as I was watching it, I kept hoping they were going to turn out comically! I have the same experience in watching my own life: I keep hoping it is going to turn out comically.<br /><br />In either case, I am learning first hand more about what it means that "there is no fool like an old fool!"<br /><br />And when I come up with an answer to what is "good" about being 60, I'll let you, and my dentist's assistant, know.<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-6603206395854228452009-01-31T08:44:00.000-08:002009-01-31T09:36:48.115-08:00The Importance of Being Human<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Living with open ears gets to be challenging in a noisy world, and almost nowhere in my world is it as loud as it is in spinning class. One difference between an indoor ride and an outdoor ride is that at least with the latter, you get somewhere! But another has to do with the noise level. I am not an I-Pod wearer-- maybe among the last of us without earbuds and a white cord dangling. So I am not accustomed to having ambient sounds crowded rudely out by music at volumes approaching rock concerts or planes escaping the runway. Spinning has meant adjustments for my legs and heart to the exercise, and my ears (and heart!) to the music's volume.<br /><br />It is the volume itself that makes actually listening to it difficult. Otherwise, one's whole body becomes an eardrum, and vibrates, like everything else in the room, to the beat. That's where the heart-part comes in: is my heart beating to the music or is the music beating my heart? Hard to say. My legs keep pumping anyway!<br /><br />So it is unusual when, having become the noise I am immersed in, I actually hear the lyrics, especially if the song is new to me, as one was the other day. I heard this chorus, emerging over the relatively dulcet chords: <span style="font-style: italic;">"Are we human? Or are we dancers?"</span><br /><br />I love it when existential questions rise like the Lady of the Lake (or Angelina Jolie) from beneath the primordial ooze of everyday distractions.<br /><br />Turns out, the questions were posed by the British punk rock group, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Killers</span>, in their web-released song, "Human," last September. Turns out, bit of controversy there. (You'll be helped to hear what I'm writing in that last bit by re-reading and saying "controversy" in a British accent!) More than one critic called the lyric "silly"-- which is both damning and positively saying something when it comes to rock music lyrics, most of which hold meaning like a sieve holds water. But one post opined that when the song appeared in <span style="font-style: italic;">German</span>, the meaning suggested that maybe The Killers were likening us to marionettes. Some of the lyrics appeared to have allusions to puppetry. Maybe it helps to hear rock music sung in languages other than our own?<br /><br />Point is, I really got caught by the dilemma of the questions-- thus (a)mused my way through several intervals, jumps, and sprints. Are we human? Or are we dancers?<br /><br />I want to make two quick comments, not by way of answers, certainly not one way or the other, but in order to speak out of both sides of my mouth:<br /><br />Yes, we <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> human-- and since it is our basic humanity that gets too often lost in this brutish and inhuman world, affirming it, confirming it, and returning to it requires a daily spiritual discipline. We are helped when we can treat each other with compassion and embrace ourselves and each other in our common humanity. We ARE human. But we need a kind of common encouragement to be our all-too-human selves...<br /><br />And, yes, we <span style="font-style: italic;">can be</span> dancers! In fact, would that we were dancers! Would that we could develop in ourselves a capacity to transcend our humanity, even if only for brief moments in time, and <span style="font-style: italic;">dance</span>! And participate in that which is greater than ourselves with a freedom straining for abandon! And be moved by music that we hear with our whole selves, and give ourselves over to, so that we are made lighter, translucent even, by moving at the speed of sound!<br /><br />Ah, maybe making us riders into dancers-with-pedals is what our spinning instructors are aiming for? Why then do I feel only the sound barrier? In the noise, I huff and puff and am reminded all too well of my humanity. In the music, who could tell what hills I might climb?<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-25812074656366273372009-01-31T08:31:00.000-08:002009-01-31T08:40:11.648-08:00Requiem<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The following is one of John Updike's last poems, to be published later this year in a collection to be titled, "Endpoint." Updike died this past week at the age of 76. I'm posting it here both because I find it to be a moving self-memorial by a gifted writer, thus for what it says <span style="font-style: italic;">to</span> me; and for what it lets me say about myself, thus for what it says <span style="font-style: italic;">for</span> me.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It came to me the other day:/ Were I do die, no one would say,/ "Oh, what a shame! So young, so full/ Of promise-- depths unplumbable!"<br /><br />Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes/ Will greet my overdue demise;/ The wide response will be, I know,/ "I thought he died a while ago."<br /><br />For life's a shabby subterfuge,/ And death is real, and dark, and huge./ The shock of it will register/ Nowhere but where it will occur.<br /></span><br /><br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-64181557913440219062009-01-21T17:25:00.000-08:002009-01-21T18:05:01.938-08:00A Spirituality for Our Time<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">A newspaper article recently reported on the rise of, shall we say, "condensed" spirituality enhancement aids. This is not to say, "quickie" spiritual growth. But it is to concede that people these days are busy, and time is more and more of the essence, so it becomes important for people who are interested in their own spiritual growth to attend to it in the few free moments they have.<br /><br />Publishers are willing to accommodate. Evidently some recent titles include: "The One Minute Bible, Day by Day;" "5 Minute Theologian: Maximum Truth in Minimum Time;" "Aunt Susie's 10-Minute Bible Dinners: Bringing God into Your Life One Dish at a Time;" and "7 Minutes with God." If these sound too adult-only oriented, you could get, "The Kid Who Would Be King: One Minute Bible Stories About Kids." Don't even have time to read? Listen to an evangelical "Faith Minute" on the radio. Don't have time to stop? In Orange County there's a mega-church that offers "drive-time devotionals." Not Christian? There's a Temple in Los Angeles that offers a "Friday Night Live" gathering for young professionals that includes cocktails along with more traditional features. Buddhist? Check out "10-Minute Zen: Easy Tips to Lead You Down the Path of Enlightenment."<br /><br />This whole trend is understandable and would be more laudable than laughable if it were not such a sad comment on our ever-dwindling attention spans. It probably started long before television, but since TV, it has been shown that the most we can pay attention at any given time is about 22 minutes, the length of the average television show. (When I say, "it has been shown," it isn't that I'm especially aware of any real research on attention spans. What I mean is that, "it has been shown" to most preachers by the elders in charge of their churches that the congregants can't really pay attention to a sermon that lasts much more than 20 minutes-- especially because sermons don't usually come with commercial interruptions, to give attention spans a break. To my knowledge, this information has not "been shown" to preachers in our African American churches.)<br /><br />And now, we have the Internet, and Websites, and blogs... Like this one... Blogs, I am told, should be short-- about 250 words, by my estimate-- so that people can visit, scan and leave quickly. Not like this one...<br /><br />But here's my point: as our technology becomes both more sophisticated and prolific, it changes us. One thing it changes is our attentions spans. I fear it shortens them-- and then I console myself with the hours on end my son can spend playing World of Warcraft on line!<br /><br />The thing is, spiritual growth is both a daily and a sort of "World of Warcraft" thing: One has to pay attention over a number of years really if one is going to grow spiritually. It's not gonna happen in 5, 7, or 10 minute bites. Spiritual growth takes more sustained dedication than that.<br /><br />So how DO we grow spiritually in a world where our lives are replete with distractions? I think the answer has more to do with changing the way we live than with trying to adapt our spirituality to fit with the little time we have for it.<br /><br />At least, that is what seems to me to be yet another "inconvenient truth."<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-39143195182035804262009-01-21T15:55:00.000-08:002009-01-21T18:16:17.866-08:00Survival of the Lucky<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">A <span style="font-style: italic;">Parade</span> magazine article a couple weeks back (Jan. 11) trumpeted: "You Can SURVIVE! 9 Ways to Stay Alive When the Worst Happens." Its author, Ben Sherwood, trombones his research: "Is it just luck when somebody makes it though a catastrophic accident or illness? After interviewing hundreds of survivors and experts from around the world, I've found that overcoming adversity comes down to a combination of factors. Here's how you can increase your own chances of surviving and thriving."<br /><br />Since "surviving and thriving" in the face of adversity is of some professional interest to me (see dealwithchange.com), Mr. Sherwood got me at word one. Unfortunately, at least in the instances he mentions, it turns out it truly IS mostly luck-- along with a little good positioning. Let me add my own baritone voice to this brassy choir.<br /><br />Situation One: Escape a Plane Crash: Surviving this, Sherwood says, turns on knowing where to sit. Seats near an exit row are "safer." Caveat One: We learned recently that surviving a plane crash might depend less on where one sits than <span style="font-style: italic;">who</span> sits in the pilot seat! Caveat Two: If you are Muslim or look like you might be Muslim, don't have this "safer seat" discussion after you get on the plane. A couple of weeks ago a Muslim couple were escorted off a plane for doing just that, because some passengers were alarmed at their conversation! The money they spent for their aborted flight was returned to them, but the airline did not pay for booking them on another, later flight... I don't know what happened to their luggage. Such are ethics and etiquette in a post-9/11 world.<br /><br />Situation Two: Get Out of a Hotel Fire: Lesson: don't take a room higher than fire ladders can reach!<br /><br />Situations Three and Four: Don't be admitted into nor discharged from a hospital on a Friday or a weekend. In other words, time your illnesses and recoveries for when hospitals are adequately staffed. Good luck with that!<br /><br />Situation Five has to do with the initials of your name! You'll do better, evidently if you so name yourself that your initials spell out something positive, like ACE, WIN, or WOW, as opposed to those whose have "bad" connotations, like RAT, BUM, or SAD. What about those of us whose initials spell a color? My father's are: RED. And how does it work if, say, in your monogram your last initial is in the middle, and your middle, last? I mean, can one rearrange one's initials so that they spell something that increases one's chances or surviving-- or even, thriving?<br /><br />Situation Six: Turns out, if you're planning on risking a cardiac arrest, go to Vegas. There are more defibrillators there-- and Someone is always watching!<br /><br />Situation Seven: To "walk away from an accident," sit in the middle of the back seat... If only I could drive from there...<br /><br />Situation Eight is essentially being extra careful when walking across a street on Halloween, Dec. 23, and New Years Day... OK, so Christmas Eve and Christmas are safe?<br /><br />Situation Nine amounts to "research" that men are prone to die just before their birthdays and women, just after. My mother died the week before hers, but then, it was observed that she wore the pants in our family... (Just kidding, Dad!)<br /><br />All of this drivel would be nothing more than attributed meaning if Mr. Sherwood were not serious enough about the conclusions he jumped to, to publish them in an upcoming book, with the subtitle, "The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life."<br /><br />I think his so-called research just goes to substantiate one of my favorite sayings of Mark Twain: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics!"<br /><br />Watch out for yourself! It's a dangerous world out there!<br /><br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-11833067137065805322009-01-21T14:56:00.000-08:002009-01-21T15:55:00.919-08:00Virtuous Citizen<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">On this day after the inauguration of Barak Obama as our 44th President, the nitpickers and the pundits have begun to splash in the puddles and even pools of unparalleled joy that remain after yesterday's flood. As he spoke of storms, we felt the heavens open in showers of blessing. Now, the day after, things are being said about the things he said.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Like, while he said he was the 44th man who'd taken the oath of office, he was actually only the 43rd, because Grover Cleveland took it twice! And even as he said "man," as grateful as we were for <span style="font-style: italic;">him</span>, we couldn't help but wish for the first woman to take that oath.<br /><br />On the other hand, the text and tone of his inauguration address is being assessed for what it is and what it is not. Much is being made of it, and rightly so! But not so much that I would be prohibited from adding my two cents.<br /><br />Cent One: For the first time in my memory, an inauguration address began with "My Fellow Citizens" instead of "My Fellow Americans." I take this to be a significant shift, for in it is an appeal to participation, to engagement, to awareness, and to commitment that simply is not carried in our being merely "Americans."<br /><br />We are indeed citizens of this republic and of this great experiment in democracy. As such, we share a responsibility-- a responsibility that Obama articulated in part-- for our life together as nation. By reminding us that what we have in common with each other, and with him, is our <span style="font-style: italic;">citizenship</span>, he appealed to less to our emotions and more to our intellects. When he, in another part of the speech, pronounced the end of tribalism, he in effect declared that we are bound together by something that transcends blood and race, and individuals' histories, and groups' self-interests. Our "membership" in America is as citizens. In that sense, the Greater Good, indeed what I would call using an outdated term, the Common Weal, is to be our principle concern and aim.<br /><br />Cent Two: Along these lines, it was interesting to me what he said at the end of the address, where he remembered for us George Washington's use of the words of Thomas Payne, I think just before he led the Continental Army across the Delaware and toward Valley Forge. Those words were, in part, "Let it be told to the future world... that in the depth of winter, when nothing by hope and virtue could survive...". Ah, I thought, the great irony of that! When in recent memory do we know of "hope and virtue" being the <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> survivors in the face of adversity? In <span style="font-style: italic;">our</span> time, hope and virtue were among the first <span style="font-style: italic;">casualties</span> of the war on terror, murdered by fear and expediency.<br /><br />So the man who inspired us to hope and gave us confidence to believe that we could find the courage to hope for real again, after hope was assassinated in the '60's and virtue was stangled in the '70's, now tells us that we might find it in ourselves, individually and collectively, to be virtuous again. Indeed, Obama is calling us to be "virtuous citizens," and is promising us that he, at least, will strive to be one.<br /><br />What a departure from "Presidency as usual!" What a change from "Presidency as we have known it!"<br /><br />One final observation: No one I've read seems to have picked up on what I think is the most powerful line in his whole speech: <span style="font-weight: bold;">"This is the source of our confidence: the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny." </span>Now, I'm not entirely clear what he means here-- because I'm not sure <span style="font-style: italic;">how</span> we go about shaping an "uncertain destiny!" But I am clear that he believes that there is a Providential Demand as well as Guide involved-- so we are not alone! Perhaps because he believes this, and believed it in this way, I actually believe him when he says, "God Bless America."<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-88545246326539783842008-12-19T16:18:00.000-08:002008-12-19T17:15:04.615-08:00Vulnerable to Excitement<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">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.<br /><br />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: <span style="font-weight: bold;">"When you're thinking about how to spend your money, you're far less vulnerable to fads and excitement."</span><br /><br />At first, I felt really <span style="font-style: italic;">sad</span>. I mean, at what other season of the year are we to be "vulnerable to excitement," if not Christmas? Christmas/the Holidays is all <span style="font-style: italic;">about</span> 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />And Cabbage Patch Dolls <span style="font-style: italic;">were</span> the rage. And my daughter was 7. And because she was "vulnerable to fads," I was.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />And really, isn't this the affirmation we want to make every year, and need especially to make <span style="font-style: italic;">this </span>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.<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-6174695462227755632008-11-29T15:32:00.000-08:002008-11-29T16:14:21.653-08:00Pacific Palace Aids<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The ocean was as placid as I've ever seen this morning,<br />as calm as a dreaming baby,<br />as smooth as a seducer's spiel.<br />I rushed to the shore to join the sentinel line<br />of sleepy-eyed seagulls, watchers and holy ones.<br />I arrived before the surfing magicians<br />could conjure up their waves.<br />And sure enough, my mind floated out to sea,<br />leaving me thoughtlessly on the shore.<br /><br />I realized my body needed to be kneaded<br />by those foamy fingers curling gently<br />as from a young mother's hand.<br />I wanted to be bread dough, to smell like yeast,<br />to be pulled and stretched and made supple again.<br />I wanted to be washed, to have the stain of my shame<br />worked out of me; I wanted to be clean again.<br />I wanted to be squeezed and squeegeed as the sky had been,<br />cloudless and bright; I wanted to be clear again.<br />I wanted what only the sea could give: new life.<br /><br />A flock of shadows flew across my face,<br />and I turned my body for home,<br />letting my mind find its own way as it will.<br />Suddenly a butterfly flew around my head,<br />crowning me like the monarch it was!<br />I picked up a sand dollar, small change<br />when I was hoping for something larger?<br />No, for the priceless epiphanies of this morning<br />I would have paid much more...<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-68976358865176786332008-11-28T17:44:00.000-08:002008-11-28T18:11:41.328-08:00Horizons<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">The Phoenix did not rise tonight,<br />but instead flew fiercely across the horizon<br />like a pelican streaking for home,<br />its belly lit by the fire of the setting sun,<br />its wing as outstretched as an angel's,<br />eventually trailing a rainbow streamer<br />across the length of the horizon.<br /><br />There was no such spectacular promise<br />in the orderliness of the day.<br />The line of the horizon was razor sharp,<br />like Occam's, cutting sky from sea with clarity.<br />The waves wrinkled to shore like folds of skin<br />massaged by the wind's gentle hand.<br />And the clouds were combed and parted,<br />the silver strands of an aged gentleman waiting for a lady.<br />Tranquility reigned at last.<br />We needed to be soothed,<br />after two tumultuous days and nights of unpredictability.<br /><br />Which lent surprise to the day's ultimatum:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The fire next time!</span>, it proclaimed,<br />but not as a threat; more like a pledge.<br />And as Saturn and Venus took their places<br />in the cobalt sky, above the crimson band,<br />and we waited for the moon's sliver<br />to cut the night's curtain,<br />we knew we had something more to look forward to<br />than merely passing days upon the earth.<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-3997570708364012722008-11-27T16:24:00.000-08:002008-11-27T16:51:14.723-08:00Rainbow Splash<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Arching from inland to ocean,<br />the storm dragging its tail,<br />it pours its essence out:<br />indigos and teals fill the water;<br />blues rise to the skies and spread themselves<br />in the mirrors of the shallows;<br />greens blend and reach out to each other<br />in the vegetation of land and water;<br />yellows and golds drape the cliffs<br />and fly away on the breasts of kestrels.<br />I look for reds, like blood at the scene of a crime,<br />and find them splashed on stones and shells<br />and pooled in the ominous tide.<br /><br />How will we harvest the rainbow?<br />Will we wrap ourselves in it, like Joseph?<br />Or are we to remain in the pit,<br />never to be the dream-meaner<br />who saves his people-- and thus himself?<br /><br />Anyone can see the colors.<br />Only a few can wear them.<br />Fewer still can let the light illuminate them.<br />And fewest of all become the prism<br />of their own luminescence.<br /><br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4341807544932040313.post-74995597240794555142008-11-26T15:58:00.000-08:002008-11-27T16:55:24.703-08:00Tracings<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I walk the scalloped coastline<br />as if I am tracing the lace edge of your bodice,<br />my knuckles soft across your surface,<br />our hearts beating like waves chasing each other,<br />seeking to escape the gathering storm<br />by breaking, over and over again.<br />My arms spread wide to take it all in,<br />to take you all in.<br />I'm a supplicant to beauty!<br />Let the weight of the wide sky fall on me<br />like a downy comforter!<br />My eyes spring with surprise,<br />as if at a dolphin sighting.<br />The aperture of my body is as open as can be,<br />a wide angle lens bending, stretching to receive.<br />I am backlit as a wave at sunset,<br />crimson, transparent, on fire.<br />I am light, and glad to be, even<br />glad to have been, when the light goes out.<br />The waves of passion have scratched the shore,<br />leaving sand paintings for our healing.<br />There are parables in those parabolas.<br /></span>TRXTRhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08085618820656397856noreply@blogger.com1