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