Humans

One of the wonderful things I received for Christmas was the book Humans of New York: Stories.


It is better experienced than described. 


Here is one, of so many, that made me smile. 


May you find a delightful pear at just the right moment. 

The Greatest Story Re-Told

...is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. 
I read this as a child and re-discovered it this season through my kid.  She opened it up, began reading, and began laughing to herself.  "This," she said, "is really funny."        



One day I saw Alice Wendleken writing something down on a little pad of paper, and trying to hide it with her other hand...What she wrote was 'Gladys Herdman drinks communion wine.' 
'It isn't wine,' I said.  'It's grape juice.'
'I don't care what it is, she drinks it.  I've seen her three times with her mouth all purple.  They steal crayons from the Sunday-school cupboards, too, and if you shake the Happy Birthday bank in the kindergarten room it doesn't make a sound.  They stole all the pennies out of that....and every time you go in the girls' room,' she went on, 'the whole air is blue, and Imogene Herdman is sitting there in the Mary costume, smoking cigars!'


...


Since none of the Herdmas had ever gone to church or Sunday school or read the Bible or anything, they didn't know how things were supposed to be.  Imogene, for instance, didn't know that Mary was supposed to be acted out in one certain way---sort of quiet and dreamy and out of this world. 


The way Imogene did it, Mary was a lot like Mrs. Santoro at the Pizza Parlor...[who] yells and hollers and hugs her kids and slaps them around.  That's how Imogene's Mary was---loud and bossy.


'Get away from the baby!' she yelled at Ralph, who was Joseph.  And she made the Wise Men keep their distance.


'The Wise Men want to honor the Christ Child,' Mother explained, for the tenth time.  'They don't mean to harm him, for heaven's sake!'


But the Wise Men didn't know how things were supposed to be either, and nobody blamed Imogene for shoving them out of the way.  You got the feeling that these Wise Men were going to hustle back to Herod as fast as they could and squeal on the baby, out of pure meanness. 
They thought about it too.  'What if we didn't go home another way?' Leroy demanded. 


Merry Christmas! 

How

Start where you are.
Use what you have.
Do what you can.


--Arthur Ashe

Sunday's Song

One of my neighbors takes great care with his bird feeder.  He buys a special type of feed and has attracted a regular charm of Goldfinches.  He tinkers with the setup to ensure the small birds are fed. When his father visits, he adds creative contraptions to the feeder to discourage squirrel interference.


The result of all this family care and attention is that our neighboring trees are full of song and color.


The Wood Brothers are a little like this.  I love their sound, and their story:

After pursuing separate musical careers for some 15 years, the brothers performed together at a show in North Carolina.... "I realized we should be playing music together," Chris recalled.

Performing here for Fordham's WFUV, it's The Wood Brothers. 
Singin' about singin'. 

The Heart of the Matter

I've been enjoying a collection of short speeches by Kurt Vonnegut in a book titled
If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young.  In its pages he dispenses advice to college graduates, spanning from 1978 - 2004.  Vonnegut was a Humanist from long line of Humanists, and while he mentions his own philosophy of living, more frequently, in nearly every speech, he talks about God:

"I am so smart I know what is wrong with the world.  Everybody asks during and after our wars, and the continuing terrorist attacks all over the globe, 'What's gone wrong?'  What has gone wrong is that too many people, including high school kids and heads of state, are obeying the Code of Hammurabi, a King of Babylonia who lived nearly four thousand years ago.  And you can find his code echoed in the Old Testament, too.  Are you ready for this?

 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'   

A categorical imperative for all who live in obedience to the Code of Hammurabi, which includes heroes of every cowboy show and gangster show you ever saw, is this: Every injury, real or imagined, shall be avenged.  Somebody's going to be really sorry.

Bombs away---or whatever.

When Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross, he said, 'Forgive them Father, they know not what they do.'  What kind of man was that?  Any real man, obeying the Code of Hammurabi, would have said, 'Kill them, Dad, and all their friends and relatives, and make their deaths slow and painful.'

His greatest legacy to us, in my humble opinion, consists of only twelve words.  They are the antidote to the poison of the Code of Hammurabi, a formula almost as compact as Albert Einstein's 'E = mc ^2.'   

Jesus of Nazareth told us to say these twelve words when we prayed: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.'

Bye-bye, Code of Hammurabi.

And for those words alone, he deserves to be called 'the Prince of Peace.' 

...  

Revenge provokes revenge which provokes revenge which provokes revenge---forming an unbroken chain of death and destruction linking nations of today to barbarous tribes of thousands and thousands of years ago.   

We may never dissuade leaders of our nation or any other nation from responding vengefully, violently, to every insult or injury. 

But in our personal lives, our inner lives, at least we can learn to live without the sick excitement, without the kick of having scores to settle with this particular person, or that bunch of people, or that particular institution or race or nation. 

And we can then reasonably ask forgiveness for our trespasses, since we forgive those who trespass against us.  And we can teach our children and then our grandchildren to do the same---so that they, too, can never be a threat to anyone.

OK?

Amen."

Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia, 1999 

Bí

Recently my brother and I were talking about crap shows for kids alternative viewing options for children, and he recommended a few films his crew had enjoyed. 


I followed the tip and one night my daughter and I began watching The Song of the Sea.  The music was so beautiful and familiar, and after checking out the credits I saw the group Kila listed for many of the songs.


I first heard this group playing at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  The museum had a cool program called Art After 5 in which they'd have phenomenal international musicians play on Friday evenings in the Great Stair Hall.  I don't recall if on this particular night I was there for the art and heading out when I heard the music, or there for the free cheese (I was a student so that is likely) when I heard the music.  I remember hearing sound, moving toward the music, and then just standing mesmerized.  The musicians seemed entirely unaware of their surroundings and entirely in the music.  It was a tribal sound, powerful and enveloping.   The acoustics in the Great Stair Hall are unreal, and Kila filled it. 


After hearing Kila again in The Song of the Sea, I fished out the CD that was purchased long ago, and much like that time, have been wearing it out. 
 SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Certainty

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.

--John Keats

Diaper Clad and Barefoot Messenger

Oh my gosh, this is exactly what the internet is for.

dia des los muertos

The days of Dead, Saints, and Souls moves into regular November. 
So many songs with souls and saints that I had to flip a coin between St. Stephen and Rhythm of the Saints and Paul Simon won.  Then did Rock Paper Scissors between Rhythm of the Saints and Soul Meets Body and St. Teresa won.  Go figure. 
Anything can happen when you play Rock, Paper, Scissors. 


The transatlantic version:

Next up: Locking

"One sort of optional thing you might do is to realize there are six seasons instead of four.  The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet.... I mean, Spring doesn't feel like Spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for Fall and so on.  Here is the truth about the seasons: Spring is May and June!  What could be springier than May and June?  Summer is July and August.  Really hot, right?  Autumn is September and October.  See the pumpkins?  Smell those burning leaves.  Next comes the season called 'Locking.'  That is when Nature shuts everything down.  November and December aren't Winter.  They're Locking.  Next comes Winter, January and February.  Boy!  Are they ever cold!  What comes next?  Not Spring.  Unlocking comes next.  What else could April be?"


--Kurt Vonnegut, in advice to SUNY Fredonia graduates, 1978

Slainte!

October has been blissfully wedding filled, and in a few short weeks I've learned to whip,  nae nae, bop (bop bop bop bop bop), stanky leg, and even wobble.  My superman needs a little practice but by the time I master it, there will be a new dance and my wobble nae nae superman whip will go in the shed along with the Macarena and Gagnam style, gathering dust with the running man, and hammer thing I learned in 8th grade. 
The cherry on top of these nuptials was the wedding of my favorite older brother.  My favorite younger brother gave a wonderful speech, and though there was much ribbing throughout the night, such as quoting Aunt Voula---"We never think it could happen never!"---there was much truth, such as that my older brother is one of the most generous people known.  "He'd give you the shirt off his back," might have been coined to describe him.  His "yes" is not limited to a small personal circle but literally to any creature he encounters who might need anything at all, and he married an equally generous person, a woman Franciscan in her love for dogs and underdogs and living breathing beings. 
My daughter had the honor of fulfilling a three year wish, which was to be a flower girl, and I had the honor to read at the wedding Mass.  So much joy has lingered with me from the event and the reading I was given has been part of that as well.  When I received the printed text, I was like, "Opa!"  There are so many possible readings to be assigned and I got the plumb pick. 
It is indeed a most excellent way to live: attempting to remember, and live from, the one thing that never fails. 
Any bad decisions I've made have been a reflection of wandering from these truths; anytime I've used these words as the basis of a choice, I've never chosen wrong.  For everything that we've piled on top of what love is supposed to be, what friendships and circumstances are supposed to be, this reading shakes it off and gently corrects.  Cheers to that. 

Brother and Sisters:

Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts.


But I shall show you a still more excellent way.

If I speak in human and angelic tongues

But do not have love,

I am a resounding gong or clashing cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy

and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge;

if I have all faith so as to move mountains,

but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own,

and if I hand my body over so that I may boast

but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.

It is not jealous, is not pompous,

it is not inflated, it is not rude,

it does not seek its own interests,

it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over

injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing

but rejoices with the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things,

hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.

Ask away

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

Albert Einstein

#9

This week I flipped through a book of old cd's and picked one I hadn't listened to in a few years. Good songs never get old, and this cd was composed from the incredibly cool project Playing for Change. I was familiar with most of the covers sung, but one was new to my ears the first time I heard it. Tonight I looked up the song to finally figure out it's origin, and a surprising story unfolded. Though it was written by U2 with creative support from Bob Dylan, the version I've been listening to is sung by The Omagh Community Youth Choir of Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland is one of the most breathtaking places in the world, it's crashing coastline and immense raw beauty the exterior, it's walled cities, painted curbs, fences, gates, and murals part of the ongoing inheritance of heartbreak within.

So what a beautiful thing to stumble upon, this song that is so lifting, coming from the center of a place so divided.

Official Definition

Nocturnal: a creature that will find the loudest activity possible just after you've fallen into a light sleep, and continue this activity for 12 hours straight, or until 30 minutes before you are set to rise. Activity could be a squeaky wheel, loud gnawing, throwing it's body from one story of it's 'enclosure' to another, or slurping its water.

*this definition brought to you by a dwarf hamster, net weight .27 ounces

*only creature I've encountered that slurps water louder than....an animal that ingests water loudly. I'm too sleepy for accurate analogies.

Sunday's Song: by St. Cohen

Written after Leonard Cohen ran into the Sisters of Mercy.
Oh, I do hope you run into them.

Procrastination

When you wholeheartedly become convinced that the tidying you must do would be made much more enjoyable if done while listening to an audio book about the Life-Changing Magic of the task you are about to embark upon. (And once you track down the audio book about this Japanese Art of De-Cluttering, you will begin this art form. Stat.)

Ratings of this book are pretty funny, ranging from, "You will never use spare buttons" (5 stars) to "Do you like talking to furniture? Do you believe shirts have souls? Are you insane? This might be the book for you" (1 star).

Either way, before I contemplate the jar which contains 4 buttons, must find audio book.

Tall shadow, Moon shadow

I see the moon and the moon sees me
and the moon sees every-body


God bless the moon and God bless me
and God bless every-body.




Turn around bright eyes!

In sheer excitement for the lunar eclipse, two beautiful songs about passing shadows, tall shadows, moon shadows.

Basia Bulat---Tall Tall Shadow



And of course, Cat Stevens, 45 years ago sang this tune

Dona Nobis Pacem

It's World Peace Day.




Here the ever talented Capital Children's Choir cover Lily Allen's song "Chinese," written for her Madre.

Visualize setting down your arms today (whatever form they take), and pick up the dog's leash, or a nice cup of tea.

Until You've Loved the Pilgrim in You

There’s a road that runs straight through your heart
Walk on it.



Macrina Wiederkehr,
from poem, Tourist or Pilgrim

SS: Ever Present. Everywhere.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Doing Brave Acts*

Moral virtues come from habits. They are not in us neither by nature, nor in despite of nature, but we are furnished by nature with a capacity for receiving them, and we develop them through habit. These virtues we acquire first by exercising them, as in the case of other arts. Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we come to be brave.

--Aristotle, posted here

*Brave acts are personally determined by considering what frightens you, which could be small rodents, very fast moving spiders, public speaking, saying no, saying yes, or eating deli meat which is two days past the Best By date.

*this particular Idiot's Guide book has not yet been written, although there is one on Vampires, and also one on the year 2012, but none yet on the year 2016. So if you want to write the Complete Idiot's Guide to Bravery, or Self-Controlled Acts, or Being Just, or the year 2016, get going

*there also isn't one about harps

Raw Materials

Some mornings feel like you've reached into the bag of Scrabble letters and pulled out 7 Q's.

Best letter to get that also means you better call to mind a word where Q doesn't need a U, or search the board for a U and an opening, or else invent a new word entirely and keep your game face on while insisting that it's real.

Gonna go with option 3:

qwxtinga
verb  / 'qwx ting a /

to create something that has not yet existed and will soon be accepted as actual because that's typically how it's done

Alternate spelling: QQQQQQQ

Worth 70 points.

Pass the bag please I need more letters.


Happy qwxtinging today. 

Phone fight

Trying to text a message and every time I begin to type Rosh Hashanah my phone autocorrects it to Rush Limbaugh.

(This is probably what twitter is for, noting things like this.) (I sat at a cookout this weekend and was given a demonstration on Pintrest, because everyone who loves it concluded that it's kind of hard to explain and best shown. Then we talked about when folks got their first email account---median year 1996.)

< 140 characters.

Rosh Limbaugh

Rush Hashanah

Roshanabaugh

Rosenblaugh.

Still < 140 characters.

The End.

Sunday's Song: Oceans

I went through a dream phase where every time I fell asleep, I dreamt of sea creatures. 


It started with over a dozen dolphins, and then included whales, giant tortoises,  and in smaller versions, tadpoles, quickly growing into beautiful green frogs. 


Water water everywhere, sometimes a crick and sometimes an ocean.  Sometimes the sea creatures were in my dream bathtub and sometimes they were crashing in miles of mid-Atlantic surf. 


Sometimes the water was scarce and sometimes I was surrounded by it, or sailing along it. 


Ah, dreams.  Jung's playground. 


Today I heard a new-to-me song, straight from the altar.  It was dueted between a man and woman and it was so lovely.  It reminded me of the vastness of water that is the majority of this planet, and the symbols of the subconscious as represented by water, and somewhere in there I thought of Doctors Without Borders and Nations Without Borders.  But this song speaks to Trust Without Borders.

I scribbled the phrase and looked it up and lo and behold, it's a big song on many altars.  But this is my favorite version. 

Sunday's Song

If you've ever stood in a place and believed you had everything to lose, this song will fly you up out of that valley. 
Best place to be standing, and it's exactly where you are standing. 
(Or sitting.)
(Or reclining.)
(Or tap dancing.)



Brought to me by Scott Regan, and so brought to you.

fás

"We are not the same person this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person."


- W. Somerset Maugham

Gpd

Tonight before bed I was googling 4 various things I needed to learn about. And at the end of my serious academic study, I decided to Google God.

Except I did it really fast because I both wanted to (suddenly) Google God, as well as go to bed.

Here's what I found:

We also provide our customers with unparalleled support and service.

---Gpd 

(also known as Global Parts Distributor) 

This is to say: I mis-spelled God. Spelled her Gpd.

No matter.  All the Gpd entries were Godly enough.

(And if you are sure your God's a dude, read The Shack, or you know, watch Madonna's Like a Prayer.  Or just remember beyond gender.  )
Except don't mis-spell gender or you will wind up with beyond gander and that's just not.  Very.  Interesting. 

Sunday's Song: Suggestion Box

I first heard this song a few years ago, while I was driving, and the Universal DJ was playing music to connect to the world.  When I listened to his program, I had this odd feeling that he'd used some invisible instrument to open the top of my head, and had also plumbed the depths of my heart, and created an appropriate soundtrack. 
It was like, I'm elated, and all the songs are about elation!
It was like, I'm heartbroken, and every song is about my specific heartbreak!
It was like, I'm craving a bologna and peanut butter sandwich, and every single song is about that.


Once, when chatting with a librarian while checking out, we began talking of music and fell onto the topic of the Universal DJ.  And she said something to the effect that he was like a soul DJ.   And I was like Ah know!
How every song she heard was specifically applicable to her. 
And I was like, Ah know!
And I was like, That's a gift right there, what that man does, sending songs though the airwaves that are stamped with exactly everyone's name on it. 
Indeedy. 


Every now and then this song drifts back into mind.  When the Universal DJ spun it, he played the Red Molly cover.  But it was writ by Susan Werner, and she plays it here. 

Bless my heart. And bless yours too.

A dear friend of mine relocated to Atlanta, from NYC.


And upon noting certain cultural shockahs, I learned  of ones which I like, such as "The lowest common denominator rules traffic, and if you are five lanes over from your exit and suddenly decide, 'That's my exit!', people will slow down and accommodate this.' " In short, terrible driving habits are not only permitted, but encouraged. 
Sign me up.    I'm tired of these non-human cameras tracking my every ill-timed left-on-red, as though it were a crime or something.  Seriously.  In Hotlata, I'd be encouraged.


Further, no one honks their horn unless someone is dying.  She has yet to hear a horn honk. 


Beyond this though, my favorite story is how people say, "You are an %$UW#L idiot." 


According to my dear friend, they say it like this, "Well bless her heart, she didn't know where the copy paper is kept!" 


At first listen, if you are from Not Atlanta, it sounds like you are just the sweetest newbie, learning the ropes.  Listen a little deeper though, and it's like, Dumbass.


Gives this tune a whole new meaning.  But even without it, #(#(@)%.  This woman can sing. 


Sometimes Sunday's song comes early.

(10,000)

The People of the Other Village

hate the people of this village   

and would nail our hats

to our heads for refusing in their presence to remove them

or staple our hands to our foreheads   

for refusing to salute them

if we did not hurt them first: mail them packages of rats,

mix their flour at night with broken glass.

We do this, they do that.

They peel the larynx from one of our brothers’ throats.

We devein one of their sisters.

The quicksand pits they built were good.

Our amputation teams were better.

We trained some birds to steal their wheat.

They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.

They do this, we do that.

We canceled our sheep imports.   

They no longer bought our blankets.   

We mocked their greatest poet   

and when that had no effect   

we parodied the way they dance

which did cause pain, so they, in turn, said our God

was leprous, hairless.

We do this, they do that.

Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand

(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.

by Thomas Lux

Sunday's Song

Photo likely taken in the days before Beard Oil was sold everywhere.
Lyrics allegedly inspired by Retsina, or Psalm 23.  Or both.  Or neither. 
(That's what allegedly means: all of it is true, none of it is true, or Other.)
But I don't know.
Don't really care.
Let there be songs...

Sunday with Sufjan

Lovely, ennit?

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."


---Oliver Wendell Holmes

May You

A hand-written prayer in my post box 
all the way to me
from Somewhere In Middle America
all the way to all of us
from a woman who lived over a century ago


So beautiful and perfect


May today there be peace within.
May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others.
May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content with yourself just the way you are.
Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.


--St. Therese of Liseaux

I support lol

It has been brought to my attention from two reputable sources that the use of LOL is passé.


First, my younger sister, who mentioned my use of it now that I'm a texter. 


"It's more for 13 year old girls," she gently explained.


"But I write it when I've actually laughed out loud.  What else am I supposed to write?"


"Ha."


"Ha?"


"Or Ha Ha."


"I don't say Ha when I laugh.  Nobody says Ha."


She shrugged.  "You asked."


"That's ridiculous.  I'm not writing Ha."


Next, when a good friend was discussing her recent dating adventures, and the things that were sticking points for her.  Some I understood and some I didn't. 
"Poor spelling on a regular basis," she said.  "And LOL."


"LOL?"  I couldn't believe this was up for discussion again.  "You won't date someone who uses LOL?"


"It's not that I won't."  The silence that followed indicated it was one of those allowances she might make if the good outweighed the bad.  By a lot. 


"I don't even think that should be a thing.  I like LOL."


"I get to choose my own criteria," she said, "and be as picky as I like." 


These conversations came to mind when I stumbled on this flow chart.  I laughed out loud.  I did not say HA.  Or Ha Ha.



--from Micah J. Murray

America

I've been listening to a mix of audio books, alternating between Amy Poehler and Pema Chodron.
And Amy Poehler referencing Pema Chodron.  There must be a bibliography for particular times in life and it appears we have been covering the same required reading. 


Amy is funny, as she is supposed to be.  Pema is... like sitting with the kindest person possible.  And in listening to her I wondered how one gets to be like that.  And I researched a tiny bit and here is what I found:


She had two failed marriages, and when her second husband came home one day and told her that he was having an affair and wanted a divorce, she picked up a rock and threw it at his head.


It was her rock bottom---not the second failed marriage, not the being left, but her response to it.  She was leveled by her reaction, and began a journey of inner work, starting within her then-current religion and leading to where she is now. 


All of the readings I've ingested by her center around our expectations about pain, and our response to it.  Our habitual response typically being either one of two things:


1. withdraw.  retract.  hide in our shell.
2. revenge.  throw a rock.


This is all of us, and this is typical, and all of her books are about: start exactly with where you are, and if you can catch one of fifty incidences of pain and sit in it, with it, you have made a leap. 


(I swear this is related to the 4th of July---eventually).


The staying put is not to wallow or roll in pain, but to feel our vulnerability, how deeply we feel wounded, and hopefully in feeling this, can soften our hearts to understanding how everyone feels this.  Sitting with the pain is an exercise of softening, breaking a wall, and instead of feeling alone, understanding how many others have encountered this exact thing. 


She proclaims that the more one grows in this work, the more "opportunity" we receive to grow ever deeper in it.  And that our teachers are often those we are in conflict with.  The people we want to shrink back from, the people who we want to throw rocks at, whichever habit seems to be prominent at the moment.


"Be thankful for your teachers, because they are there to blow your cover."  Our gratitude can be for those who somehow seem to trigger in us a strong reaction, as they are showing us something that is not yet healed. 


An example for me would be a training I once attended for work.  In a room full of educators, we were given a rating scale from 1 - 5, and a variety of circumstances to rate.  Giving something a 1 meant we are not bothered at all by the circumstance.  Giving something a 5 meant we are heightened, panicked, and on the inside at least, freaking out. 


When the scenarios were read and our rated responses were given, the majority of the room rated one particular scenario a 4 or 5, and for me, this scenario was a 1.  If zero were an option, it would have been a zero.  It elicited nothing for me.  No internal reaction.  I was feeling pretty awesome for about 2 seconds until the next scenario was read, which for me was a 5.  If 10 were an option, it would have been a 10.  And I seemed alone in that response.  The rest of the room rated it a 1 or 2. 


It is like this in the things that trigger us.  We can watch another complain or get upset about something that seems benign to us.  But that circumstance is not our teacher.
Our teacher is the next moment we find ourselves either flinching and withdrawing, or picking up a rock without even thinking.


One final Pema point:  the teacher is very often someone in our family or that we are in relationship with.  The intimacy that comes with knowing and being known can also up the stakes to be schooled on what we have tucked away, or are "smiling over" until our cover is blown. 


All this falls under "Drive all blames into one"

It doesn't mean, instead of blaming other people, blame yourself. It means to touch in with what blame feels like altogether. Instead of guarding yourself, instead of pushing things away, begin to get in touch with the fact that there's a very soft spot under all that armor, and blame is probably one of the most-perfected armors that we have. You can take this slogan beyond what we think of as 'blame' and practice applying it simply to the general sense that something is wrong. When you feel that something is wrong, let the story line go and touch in to what's underneath.

How does this relate to America?  To being thankful?


It did when I started, something about America Ferrera and her thank you letter to Donald Trump. 
She said thank you.  And her name is America. 
But like a great idea at midnight that evaporates with 6 am sun, I don't know how that was going to go.  And now I am going to bed. 

Night and Day

Over the winter I drove from New York to Florida.


Driving there, the last stretch of the trip was in complete darkness.  I wound through dark roads in Alabama, passing through small towns.  I had plans to fuel up at the next town but then the towns...stopped appearing.  The night became darker, my gas light blinked on, and I tried to gauge whether to turn back toward the last town or hope that another would appear.


The last town was too far back, but I had no idea where the next town was.  I had printed directions, a child asleep in the backseat, and roads that no longer matched what was in hand. 


I passed an abandoned gas station with a splintered wooden sign.  The pumps were dusty and the building shuttered.  I pulled into the gravelly drive.  I didn't contemplate the next move long.  I thought of all the calls my one brother receives as a firefighter where he arrives to find: someone needs Tylenol, someone's smoke alarm is broken, someone is locked out of their home. 
I thought of my last conversation with my other brother, whom I was driving to see.  He'd said,  "Alabama is the hardest stretch.  It's like no-man's land, especially in the dark.  Just miles of nothing."
I had technology in the car, but it had broken in Georgia, and so my printed directions were the last hope I had. 


I dialed 911 and said, "This is not life threatening, but I am out of gas, in Alabama, and I'm lost, and I have a child with me, and I have no idea where the next town is."


I spoke with the call receiver and told the name of the darkened gas station where I sat.  She spoke with me about the road I was on, and said she would send someone to lead me to the next town because "you'll never find it otherwise."


Minutes passed and then an officer arrived.  I followed him though pitch black for several more minutes, around side roads, until we reached a two-pump gas station lit up like a stadium.  It appeared from seemingly nowhere, and I never would have found it. 


The officer stayed with me and explained that on Sunday, most of the gas stations were closed at a certain point. 


I pumped gas and he looked at my directions, and printed me up a new set from his car, reflecting where we were.


I took the directions, had a full tank of gas, and was so grateful for the help.  My child slept on and I traveled the last part of the journey.


The next morning over coffee, I recounted the drive to my brother and his wife. 
They'd had others drive to see them in Florida and it was confirmed that getting through pitch-black Alabama at night was no picnic.


Despite that, I'd developed a little soft spot for my first encounter with Alabama.  I'd called for help, and help had been abundant.  I'd been given better directions and good advice and was set forth to keep driving. 




I spent a week in Florida and then, with my technology fixed, headed back to NY.  Alabama was a picnic.  I had sunlight, and strangely, some flakes of snow, and my daughter was awake to ask a million questions.  She does this thing her dad does, which is to read every billboard out loud. 


In Alabama it sounded like this:


"Go...to....church....or....the....devil....will.....get.....you.   What does that mean?  What is that red thing on the billboard?"


I glanced at the billboard, which was huge, and there was a painted red devil on it.  It struck me as so funny that my daughter didn't recognize the devil which was so familiar to me. 


"That's a devil that someone painted."


"But why does it say the devil will get you?"


Soon another billboard,


"Marriage....equals....one man....plus.....one woman....I think I know what that means."


More discussion.


Then,


"What country is that flag for?  Or is it for a company?"


It was a giant Confederate flag.  To explain this was no picnic, but it was possible.


Her questions:  "But why is that flag flying since that war is over and it's one country?  Does that mean the people flying the flag want to have slaves?  Is that the flag that was flying when Addy Walker was my age?"


I had no idea who was flying the huge flag, or why.  I didn't understand it anymore than she did. 

Publish, Delete, Guns

Ever posted something on the internet while in the mix of one emotion, then looked at it a day later and decided, "Nah," and taken it down?


Many mistakes and missteps are taken when we are in the clutches of a powerful emotion.


Wearing a gun----to church----to school----creates the likelihood that experiencing a powerful emotion or thought can have a permanent effect.


Because to have a wave of some emotion, and be able to reach for a weapon in the midst of this, is about as easy as hitting "publish".  Except there is no delete button. 


From NYT article NRA Board Member Deletes Criticism of Victim in Church Massacre

The N.R.A. official, Charles L. Cotton, argued in an online discussion that Mr. Pinckney, a state senator, bore some responsibility for the other deaths because he had opposed a change to South Carolina’s gun laws that would have made it legal to carry a concealed weapon into a church.

Then the comments were deleted.

 Mr. Cotton did not explain why he deleted the comments 

Full piece here.

And the wisdom to know the difference

Something about the end of this prayer, the Serenity prayer, has been in my head today.


It is not much use to have courage and acceptance if they are applied in the wrong direction. 
Sort of like wasting breath, wasting water, wasting wonderful gifts. 


Good prayer, whoever prayed it first. 

Yeat's Grave*

Considering that, all hatred driven hence,   

The soul recovers radical innocence   

And learns at last that it is self-delighting,

Self-appeasing, self-affrighting,   

And that its own sweet will is heaven's will,   

She can, though every face should scowl   

And every windy quarter howl   

Or every bellows burst, be happy still.

--W. B. Yeats

*props to The Cranberries

It's the Most. Wonderful. Time. Of the Year!

I'm talking about Commencement of course. 


This is the time of year that fantastic commencement speeches get posted all over the internets. 


I give thanks to live in a time where I can listen to the guest speaker at  Penn or Swarthmore in the comfort of my bathrobe.  While washing dishes. 


Favorites from years past include J.K. Rowling's address at Harvard, and Neil Gaiman's address at University of the Arts. 


Earlier this week I read the speech Vice President Biden gave at Yale just last month, where he shares how he's worked with those with whom he has opposite opinions or ideas.  The how came through an early experience in which he assumed something, and shared his assumption with a colleague. 

He then went on to say, Joe, it’s always appropriate to question another man’s judgment, but never appropriate to question his motives because you simply don’t know his motives...

From that moment on, I tried to look past the caricatures of my colleagues and try to see the whole person.  Never once have I questioned another man’s or woman’s motive.  And something started to change...

Because when you question a man’s motive, when you say they’re acting out of greed, they’re in the pocket of an interest group, et cetera, it’s awful hard to reach consensus.  It’s awful hard having to reach across the table and shake hands.  No matter how bitterly you disagree, though, it is always possible if you question judgment and not motive. 

Resist the temptation to ascribe motive, because you really don’t know — and it gets in the way of being able to reach a consensus on things that matter to you and to many other people. 

 Other gems in there, such as:

I’ve worked with eight presidents, hundreds of senators.  I’ve met every major world leader literally in the last 40 years.  And I’ve had scores of talented people work for me.  And here’s what I’ve observed:  Regardless of their academic or social backgrounds, those who had the most success and who were most respected and therefore able to get the most done were the ones who never confused academic credentials and societal sophistication with gravitas and judgment.

Don’t forget about what doesn’t come from this prestigious diploma — the heart to know what’s meaningful and what’s ephemeral; and   the head to know the difference between knowledge and judgment.

 All this in Biden's straight up style.  For full wordage, clickity click.

X Marks the Spot

The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is "look underfoot."  You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.  The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive.  The great opportunity is where you are.  Do not despise your own place and hour.  Every place is under the stars.  Every place is the centre of the world. 


Look underfoot.  Gold and diamonds and all precious stones come out of the ground; they do not drop upon us from the stars, and our highest thoughts are in some way a transformation or a transmutation of the food we eat.  The mean is the divine if we make it so. 


--John Burroughs, Leaf and Tendrill

Aum

This hefty and colorful book caught my eye as I was exiting the library and I went to grab it and the weight of it brought me to the ground. It requires two hands.

It's filled with: paintings, Q and A.

A sample:



Who Am I? Where Did I Come From?


We are not our body, mind or emotions.  We are divine souls on a wondrous journey.  We came from God, live in God and are evolving into oneness with God.  We are, in truth, the Truth we seek.  Aum.


Where Am I Going?  What Is My Path?


We are all growing toward God, and experience is the path.  Through experience we mature out of fear into fearlessness, out of anger into love, out of conflict into peace, out of darkness into light and union in God.  Aum. 



---Dancing with Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Catechism
    A richly illustrated sourcebook of Indian spiritualtiy in question-and-answer form, exploring how to know the Divine, honor all creation and see God everywhere, in everyone


Aum to that. 

Love Song in the Key of B Flat

Alright?
Alright!

Sunday's Song

Nobody hums quite like Van the Man.

Boy King on Beachey Keen

"In the early days of flight, there was this man named Lincoln Beachey. 
     Lincoln Beachey solved the issue of the tailspin.
     Beachey was a barnstormer and a pioneer aviator when avionics were a brand-new science, and the mortality rate for aviators was in the 90th percentile.  In particular, they grappled with the issue of mid-flight stall, and the going logic at the time, based entirely on intuition, was to turn your propeller away from the plummet and try to restart the engine with friction. 
     This eventually happened to Beachey, and defying his own intuition and popular logic, he instead turned his plane into the dive, into the plummet, increasing his downward plunge and decreasing his response time to seconds.  But it worked: The dive decreased the kinetic friction against the propeller to restart his engine, and suddenly, the stall was no longer an issue for flyers.  Lincoln Beachey solved it by defying his impulses of self-preservation and diving headlong into what was a risk."


---Domingo Martinez

How To Get Less Certain

"Writing somehow tends to move us from a position of one-dimensional certainty about a topic to a more ambiguous or even confused state — and that is mind-enlarging."


--George Saunders

Theory will not supply it

I read this letter today and upon finishing promptly thought:


This is what it must be like for God.


God being Flannery, we being the students led by a Knowing Professor who states: there are layers and layers of things here!   Let us dissect.


Then the whole class writes to God (Flannery) and God is like: wtf.  That's not it.  I don't mean to be rude, but fer real.  I'm not that mean.  Just.  No. 


Then if we listen long enough God is like, My tone is not meant to be obnoxious, I am in a state of shock. 


But we are off examining the text: What is she really saying?  Let us interpret some more..

Biennial

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." 


--Zora Neale Hurston

Anniversary

Today marks the anniversary of the end of the Second World War.


Monthly, I have the privilege of meeting with veterans, and spouses of veterans, and diving into the stories that are carried around.


Each meeting, we use a writing prompt, put pen to paper for 20 minutes, then come up for air and see what emerged.


What emerges is always incredible, and often surprising.


One of the things I love about group writing is that there is a limited time, and people move quickly past what might block them if they were writing alone.  The focus is sharp and the result is that stories begin.  Meaning, 20 minutes is a perfect amount of time to go into a story, and often, we are left wanting to return to and complete what we have written.  The first step taken, the next step is less daunting and more exciting. 


Here is what I wrote, or began, at our last gathering:


I am reading a book of 125 letters.  There is a letter from a little girl to Abraham Lincoln, before he became president, telling him he might stand a better chance if he grew his whiskers, as every lady loves whiskers and could convince their husbands to vote for him.
There is a letter from Beatnik poet Jack Kerouac to Marlon Brando, asking him to make his recent book, On The Road, into a movie.  Brando never responded. 
There is a letter from Clementine Churchill to her husband, Winston Churchill, telling him he is not as kind as he used to be.  There is the famous letter from Sun Magazine Editor to Virginia, stating, Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.


I come upon a letter from WWII soldier, written to the President of the United States. 
The sidebar to this letter states that there were over 20,000 soldiers who, in the midst of chaos, fled.  This soldier, found guilty of desertion, was sentenced to be executed by firing squad.
His letter to the President asks for mercy, and a second chance.  He writes that he made some mistakes, served jail time before becoming a soldier, and wanted to live for his wife.  The letter is riddled with misspellings, those that speak of desperation.
He writes that upon finding himself in battle, his bad nerves took over, and he ran.


His appeal did not win what he sought, and not long after, he was executed by firing squad, the first punishment of its kind enacted since the 1860s. 


20,000 soldiers did what he did---rather---20,000 soldiers found that when dropped into a chaos they could not comprehend, their fight of flight instinct took over.  The one that they were trained to activate---fight---was overruled by the other one----flight.


Both responses are meant to keep us alive, but in an instant which belongs only to the one experiencing it, sometimes our animal brain takes over and says, Flee.  Now.


There is a third response of the Three F's, one that can be found after an intense experience:
Freeze.  It is the paralysis between fight or flight.  It is a deer in headlights.  It is the center of unknowing.  It can preserve a life, or cost it.


The soldier killed by firing squad had an instinct: flight.  Then later, another: fight for his life through letter writing.


I go through the letters and keep coming back to his.


A bad case of nerves, he wrote.  I have some awfull bad nerves. 


And then time was up.


The soldier's name was Eddie Slovik. 

21 Questions

Good questions (sometimes) beget good answers.  In this interview, they do.


21 Questions with Carmela Ciuraru, author of Nom de Plume: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms

 Q. What do you want to know?

 A.  I want to know everything. It’s painful that I can’t.

 

Q: Please explain what will happen.

A: Everything will go according to plan, even if the plan belongs to someone else.

 

Q: If you could relive one moment over and over again, what would it be?

 

A: Some memorable meals, the few first bites of which I would happily experience again and again. 

And now I am thinking about food.

Miriam Makeba and Paul Simon and Grace Land

Yes I know it is one word but I like two.


Yesterday I woke up singing Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes and today I heard myself humming African Skies and I was introduced to this album in 4th grade and I think it will never leave my heart thankgod.
This is the story of how we begin to remember...

Words Beneath the Words

When I was in college our basketball team played in the NCAA tournament and made it to the Elite Eight. 
Then they lost, and I felt so sad and heartbroken and disappointed and I wandered down the street of off-campus housing.
There were lots of other sad and heartbroken and disappointed students too.
They were so heartbroken they threw couches off of the second and third story balconies of their rented homes.
They were so sad they jumped on top of cars parked in the street.
They were so sad they threw wooden furniture into a massive pile and started a fire.
They were so sad when the firetrucks and police cars came.  So sad that they climbed on top of the firetrucks.  Heartbroken at the sheer injustice of a team losing.  It was our team.  It was anguish.


I was shaken out of my sadness watching the crazy happen that night.
I was like: I am sad, and now I am confused.  Why is there a couch sailing through the air? 
Why are 14 young men jumping on the roof of a parked car?
That bonfire is extremely big and does not seem to be contained.  Why is this? 
What does this have to do with basketball?


No one called us thugs. 

There is no justification for rioting, looting and the destruction of property. But the way in which many Americans talk about what's happening....seems to suggest that sports is a valid reason to riot and destroy property, while anger about systemic injustice, economic oppression and the institutional devaluation of an entire race are not.

            ----from photos of white people rioting 

fat buttery words

In 1934, this was written by a copywriter who hoped to become a screenwriter.  It can be found, among many other splendid letters, in Letters of Note.
The compilation is fantastic.
The website is here.

Dear Sir:

I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave "V" words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.

I have just returned and I still like words.

May I have a few with you?

Robert Pirosh
385 Madison Avenue
Room 610
New York
Eldorado 5-6024 

 

Words as a Weapon, Language as a Tool

"Having been exposed to theater in my post-military life, I know what a powerful tool for self-expression it can be.  In my platoon, I often saw how violence came from those who couldn’t express themselves and regretted that the people I served with weren’t made aware that language can be as valuable a tool as the rifle on their shoulder."


--Adam Driver, founder of Arts in the Armed Forces

Use it

For years I have loved this labyrinth.  It is in the backyard of someone's house, and I found it listed under Public Labyriths.  The idea that someone built this in their backyard, and also said, "Come by any time and walk this spiral," well, it is one more thing to love about the world.


I have walked it in the blazing heat, in the snow, when the path can't even be seen.  I have walked it when it is dark and night has fallen.  I have taken my daughter, and she has skipped around it like hopscotch while I adjusted my idea of walking it with her.  I have gone with my spouse when he was my spouse.  But mostly I have walked it alone, and many times, arrived at the center of it to find that I am never alone.


Once I brought a problem there and the first step I took upon the path of tiny stones, an immediate answer reverberated from within.  It was not an answer I wanted, so I wrestled it down, drowned it out by re-phrasing my question, and again, the answer that I did not want came back.  Again, I tried to speak over it, rewording the problem, stating it more clearly, and again, the answer that I did not want came bounding back.  It was the most patient answer and it struck terror into me.  It began with You already know.  And I said back I don't know I don't know I don't know.


That was long ago and the terror is gone and I am familiar, moreso at least, with that patient answer that rises from within, and also, with all the ways I try to wrestle it down when I am not ready for that answer, when I think it means harm, instead of seeing that it simply means change, no matter what, change is happening. 


Today I went to my labyrinth.  It was warm and the sky was cloudless and I was driving by the house and pulled over.  I parked my car and walked down the familiar drive and for the first time, the people who lived there were there.  They were in their backyard, in two chairs, each reading a book.  A big dog bounded up to me, a red ball in her mouth. 


It felt invasive, walking into someone's private enjoyment of a cloudless blue sky day.
But the woman smiled and I asked, "Do you mind if I walk your labyrinth?"


And she answered, "Of course.  It's kind of mess.  But use it as metaphor."


She called the dog to her, and I went to the labyrinth and it was kind of a mess.  There were clumps of decayed leaves.  Sprouts of fresh green weeds.  Branches that blocked the path.  One chunk of ice remained.  A crocus, near the side, was trying to bloom.  Several large rocks were out of place.


I used it as metaphor.  Those leaves had been there all winter, under the snow.  They were thawing enough now to become part of the earth.  I walked slowly.  I didn't wrestle anything that came up.  I took note of all the things present on the path.  I felt so glad to see it again, after guessing my steps on snowy days, making the walk from memory while the guiding rocks remained buried beneath white.   


There is a straight path out of this particular labyrinth.  But today I walked back the way I came.  My feet moved quickly, retracing the old steps but with a new bit of information, something I'd learned in a quick moment standing at the center.  More change was coming but I did not have fear.  I didn't have to say I don't know I don't know.  I could say, Okay.  And step along the tiny stones, the decayed leaves, the broken branches, the many pebbles.  Any path can be navigated with a bit of knowledge and a slip of insight.  Walking this path in the winter I had learned: sometimes you make up the path as you go, guess the steps because that's all you can do.  With snow melted, a messy path was no longer concealed and I was overjoyed at the opportunity to walk something with obstacles, something I could see.  Sometimes you bound forward, and other times, you stop every two feet, pause, look around, and take another guess step.  Spring is for vision, for seeing the bend in the road, knowing there may be a fallen branch, but feet are nimble and answers are there at every turn.   

Conversations

"If you are not afraid to look back, nothing you are facing can frighten you."


---James Baldwin

Morsels of Lumber, Mountains of Faith

It's the best time of year for one of my favorite David Sedaris essays.


Happy Easter!