An Opportunity For Magnanimity

The holidays come around every year, and they do so for a purpose. To give us an opportunity for magnanimity, to share of ourselves with family, to rise above our circumstances, our possessions, our personal protectiveness, our inclination to disregard the uncomfortable. Of course, that is not all they are for, but they do provide the opportunity for us to extend ourselves beyond ourselves. Thanksgiving moves families together for the day, to renew ties, strengthen bonds and usher us into the Christmas season, a season that can be difficult for some, to say the least.

This has been a formidable year for many. People have lost jobs, homes, family, and the self-esteem that accompanies such loss. Recovery is a process that takes the help of others. It takes the help of family, and of strangers alike. It takes people committed to having less so that others may have more. And in many cases, ‘more’ can be defined simply as ‘subsistence’, something we all deserve.

There are many families living in homeless shelters, and in other circumstances less than ideal, and less than dignified. Many remain there because it is just too difficult to come up with first and last months rent, and a security deposit, to get their family into their own apartment, all the while trying to keep the kids going in school, and themselves going with work. A very trying and complex juggling act at best, and one that would challenge the best of us. I would like to suggest this Christmas season that my readers get their friends and families together to commit to making a difference for another family in their time of need. That you curtail the buying of expensive gifts for one another, and, instead, contribute the money you would have spent on those gifts to secure an apartment for one of these families that are down on their luck. You wouldn’t need to commit to paying future months rent, just get them started, and they can carry it from there. I’ll bet many of you could even furnish the apartment with the stuff you have in storage. You can do this. You just have to do it.

If you’re an apartment building owner, how about eliminating the deposit and the last months rent this year to allow a homeless family a new beginning?

The holidays come around every year, and they do so for a purpose.


Click on the little envelope below to email this suggestion to friends and family.

Beautiful Trees

It’s foggy today where I live. Like looking through the intervening years back to childhood. Vague impressions standing ghostlike on their own like tree stumps lurking through the fog in a field. I’m told that as one gets older long-term memory becomes more acute while short-term memory diminishes. But I remember what I did last night, it’s the childhood years I’d spent so long trying to forget that I am now trying to remember once again. I remember why I spent all those years trying to forget them; I just don’t know why I now want so desperately to recall them.

Perhaps one needs the totality of one’s life to truly put ones self in any kind of meaningful context. As struggling and sensitive people, as people susceptible to emotional and psychological pain, we tend to diminish, or eliminate, portions of life and history we don’t like in order to arrive at the conclusions we wish to accept about ourselves. It is a natural thing to do. It is self-protective, it is often necessary, but it is surrender to the MEGO (My Eyes Glaze Over) way of being, and of seeing; like looking through the fog, aware of the ghostlike images of stumps in the field, but not seeing them clearly, not understanding that they really are, quite profoundly, beautiful trees having, at one time, been thoughtlessly, and carelessly, cut off at the knees.

In order to see the tree one first has to see the stump.

My Little Brother Is A Great Man

In our world today we seem to measure greatness by the amount of attention or recognition one gets. Sometimes the attention is connected to accomplishment of some sort, and sometimes it is merely the byproduct of self-promotion, or even of some notorious behavior. With cell phone cameras, instant digital video, and the internet, it is becoming an increasingly public world. It is easy to put oneself in the public consciousness, or to be put there, even unbeknownst, by someone else. Greatness and notoriety have become interchangeable.

A politician, social activist, or minister who finds the camera often enough will take on a mantle of greatness whether that moniker is actually deserved or not. Witness the homage we pay to the Nancy Pelosi’s, the Al Sharptons and the Benny Hinns of the world. A music group can be promoted to the top of the industry much the same as an individual can be exalted by his handlers.

But exposure, in my view, does not constitute greatness, nor does accomplishment, even on a grand scale. I see greatness as an internal quality, a character casserole of sorts, a quiet contribution to the world, the kind of contribution that the world would miss were it not present, a contribution which does not necessarily have ones name prominently, or publicly attached.

I know a young woman who claims to be in Christian ministry. She travels around the world supposedly saving the under-privileged in the under-developed regions of under-developed countries she wants to see. I think SHE is under-developed. But what do I know.
She counts, and keeps track of, supposed conversions resulting from her ‘ministry’, as if she could know another’s heart, then prints those results on her web page, and in fund-raising newsletters she sends out to solicit additional support to enable her to continue to travel around and see the rest of the world. She includes pictures of little black children whose lives she has supposedly improved, and whose souls she has supposedly saved. She considers herself a preacher, a teacher, and an evangelist. She exploits her parents, she asks other people for gifts. She asks them to pay her debts, to furnish her house, to commit to monthly contributions so she can afford to raise the family she wants to have. She owns her own house back in her own hometown, but conveniently leaves that part out of her fundraising communiqués. She claims to be following the Lord by faith. She brags about her goodness in ways that fool people into thinking she is glorifying God. She tries to dress self-aggrandizement in humility.
She is not a great woman. She mistakes ambition for greatness. She embodies why I left the church more than 30 years ago.

My little brother is a great man. Growing up in the shadow of two older brothers, he received very little attention. My older brother was the golden child, and he fulfilled that expectation. I was the sensitive, troubled child, and I fulfilled that expectation until I became strong enough to break those chains. But my little brother was only expected to get through life without fucking up too bad. He did so much more than that. He spent many years baking that character casserole inside himself. He found ways to share the cooking with those around him. He worked a job, educated himself, raised a family, helped support a larger community, and gave of himself as opportunity arose around him. He has worked in Christian ministry for most of his life, he just doesn’t call it that. And he doesn’t ask for donations. He quietly helps mold the character of teen-agers with whom he interacts. He provides help for those who need it. He gives of himself, of his time, and of his resources. He has been taking off work, going down to New Orleans, and helping to clean and rebuild houses and homes for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. He’s been doing this since the beginning. He does it quietly. He doesn’t ask for anything in return, and he doesn’t post his business on the internet.
And he cares for our parents in their old age.

I wish the young woman I spoke of could get to know my little brother. It would do her well to become more like him. It would do us all good.

My little brother is a great man.

The Illusion Of Hope

The hullabaloo is over. The crowds have all gone home. The hope of a different world holds many in its once diffident grip. I include myself among them, and although hope is something that leaders have been selling us on since the beginning of time, it is, I recognize, actually a very empty action. It is, in fact, not an action at all. It requires nothing of us. If I go under anesthetic for surgery I hope that I’ll wake up from the operation. If my boat sinks in the middle of the ocean, and I can’t swim, I hope somebody will rescue me. If I break the law I hope I won’t get caught. Hope holds itself out as if it were something to believe in even though it can change nothing in, and of, itself. But I guess the idea of hope is important, especially considering that the backside of that coin is despair. I’ll choose the hope thing every time.

We’ll see if those of us who expect a different world out of a different leader will actually do our part to make those changes happen. For some it means to stop hating those with whom you have disagreed in the past. For others it will mean the acceptance of a new direction. It must start inside of every individual.
Inside of every individual.

And like so many of us, I too, hope it all works out.

A Warm Comforter

I have to admit the move from summer into fall is affecting me. As the days begin to get shorter, and the nights longer, I find myself being pulled down, somehow, almost as if by gravity. I experience it every year about this time. I love the Autumn weather, the leaves falling from the trees, the squirrels scurrying about on the ground collecting acorns to store up for the winter, the new chill in the evening air, the smell of the first fires burning off in the valley. But it is a time of introspection, self-evaluation and fortification for me as well. A time to take personal inventory, much as one would assess whether or not he has enough wood for the winter, or enough canned goods in the pantry. It is a time to put some of the playful things away, some of the frivolous thinking even, to pull out the warm clothes, the wool hats, the heavy blankets, and the long historical novels. The animals are repairing and upgrading their dens, their nests, and their burrows, knowing that survival of the winter depends upon the diligence with which they tend to their preparation for it. We are very much the same. Winter is a time when depression sets in for many, a time when those who are alone feel even more alone, and a time when those confined indoors for days on end feel, quite intensely, the pulse of their existing relationships. Fall is a good time to fortify primary relationships, for husbands and wives to embrace, to reach a little deeper, to acknowledge the need for one another, to strengthen the bonds, the commitment, the connection. It is a time to be a warm comforter for the one you love as winter seeks to chill our proverbial bones.

The Inevitability

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that, every democracy will collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back into bondage.”

Those words have been attributed to many different authors over the years. It is still unclear who really wrote them. Pretty eye-opening stuff. Even though we are actually a Republic, rather than a Democracy, the observation carries the same implication. I was going to offer my comments on the statement, but rather than doing that, I would ask each of you to read it again, and again if necessary, and then forward it on to a friend.

Click on the envelope below to forward.

Living In The Moment

Living in the moment is often defined as living, or should I say ‘being’ fully present. It’s a good concept, and a noble aspiration. But it can also be a meditative state in which ones own personal oblivion takes precedence over the larger state of affairs. It, at times, can be an extreme, focused concentration as well, like in an emergency when all other concerns shut down, giving regard only to the task at hand. It is truly living in the moment, but it proves to be a resolute moment, fleeting in its existence, and in its degree of importance on the larger canvass of life. The adrenalin rush pushes one through the circumstance, but to live there would be an exercise in exhaustion, both physical and psychological.

There is, however, a more general context for living in the moment. There’s a popular consciousness, and push on, for people to seek to achieve that psychological state, to reach an acute awareness, a way of being, a full and deeper use of the now. It has grown out of eastern religious philosophies, practices and traditions, from western indigenous cultures as well. It is a perception, and perspective, that allows one to be free of the encumbrance of history, and the anxiety of the future. It is a place where many people seek to live, but few can actually afford the rent. It is not a place that is easy to embrace for long. Some people still have to make a living. It requires the suspension of what we already know, and disengagement from what we have hoped for. In this regard, living in the moment is actually a very effectual escape, but a vacation destination that is hard to find, and usually not worth the drive. A place to visit, but I don’t think you really want to live there. At least not for long. It’s always good to come home.

When we’re living in the moment life continues to go on, but it goes on around us, it does not include us. The way I see it, life can go on without me when I die.

The Ocean Grooms The Beach

I lay in bed late last night and listened to the sound of waves washing the shoreline of the beach below. The ocean pounds and devastates a shoreline in a storm, but has a way of grooming that same beach when the turbulence is past. The water rakes the sand like you would the leaves in your own yard, leaving all things new again. There’s nothing quite like a freshly groomed beach. No debris, no piles of tangled kelp beneath our feet, no footprints even, only manicured sand stretching north to south, behind us, beneath us, and out before us like a red carpet or a yellow-brick road.

But what if there was never any newness? What if everything that absorbed damage, was torn apart, devastated, worn down or worn out remained that way? What if cleanup, repair or regeneration was not a part of the natural order? It would be a depressing world. It would be a sad world, like an old dog abandoned on the street collecting fleas and discarded chicken bones to feed himself until he eventually succumbed to the cold of that foreboding and unforgiving world. What if there was no intervention in the deterioration of man or nature? Fortunately, the earth, allowed to break down, has also been designed for regeneration, like those self-cleaning toilets you see on the streets of many major cities. Like the ocean tears up, and then rakes the sand, man becomes victim to his own inner turbulence, but he is also empowered with the capacity to reclaim himself from such personal devastation. We have all been there at various times, and to varying degrees.

I lay in bed late last night and listened to the sound of waves washing the shoreline of the beach below, knowing the water was grooming the sand in preparation of my early morning walk. We should be grateful for, and not take for granted, the ocean, and the waves, that live within each of us. They have been designed to groom our beaches.

Time Crawls By Like Molasses

Early morning, little rest of late. Mom remains in Intensive Care with a machine doing her breathing for her, tubes encumbering any hope of comfort. IV’s and monitors, doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists doing their jobs like they do every day, like they’ve always done. This just happens to be my mom. It happens to be someone I love, someone I’m connected to this time. People all over the world wait at the bedsides of those they love, in hospitals of varying degrees of competence, and care. Some wait by the beds of family in huts in remote villages, in makeshift field hospitals, or in small rooms in small houses, in tenement buildings, with little hope of change, only the expectation of deterioration, as time crawls by like molasses dripping off an old kitchen countertop. My mom is in the care of good doctors, with qualified staff, and the best technology available to this kind of situation. Still, I wait, we all wait, for time to work it’s healing, for strength to return, for muscle memory to engage so that breathing will respond again. We also wait for the time when we would know that mom would want no more of these medically valiant, and heroic, efforts. We can only wonder which would come first, which would play itself out with the hand of fate, or divine providence for that matter. Continued life, we know, would be a temporary condition, and death, a permanent one.

As If They'd Never Happened

Trust is not something inherent to an adult relationship. A mature relationship starts out cautiously, and proceeds incrementally as trust develops over time. It is not something implanted like a seed in the psyche of an individual, but more like the development of gray hair, reflecting a history, a road traveled through both smooth and rough terrain. It is a natural progression, and one we are wise to let develop naturally. Individual lives are filled with negative examples of relationships gone bad after having been formed too quickly, and moved along at an unnaturally fast pace. And I’m not even talking about love affairs, just the superficial friendships and casual relationships we form through the course of our daily lives. Elation, followed by silence, and then withdrawal, are the dynamics most commonly associated with, what I call, these ‘rescue’ relationships. People jump into them to be rescued from their loneliness, social isolation, feelings of worthlessness or need for attention. Need creates desperation, which creates poor judgment, which leads to rescue situations. Unfortunately, when they do not turn out to be as promised, they are ended clumsily and hurtfully, most often, as I’ve alluded to, with silence and withdrawal, with no closure, as if they’d never happened, leaving the invested party mistrustful, even more severely withdrawn, and set back exponentially from the place they were at before jumping into the potential friendship.

But it is not so much the harmed party that concerns me here as the one who delivers the silence. What is it about people today that will allow them to dismiss others so easily, like brushing dust off their jeans, and particularly when there has been the pretense of friendship? Why is it that no one wants to engage in the closing of a relationship, to slip out of a friendship gracefully, with regret, and with dignity, rather than shutting it down like a computer? Have the courage gene, and the kindness and consideration genes been genetically modified in us by too much stress or too many hours on the internet? Has MySpace, text messaging, and the nature of our instantaneous relationship culture given us permission to dismiss one another as if we were disposable commodities? Has the delete button on our email programs replaced the social manners and mores we grew up valuing in simpler times? Have honest assessments, and explanations to one another become too difficult, time consuming or burdensome to bother with? Is it that we have become such a self-indulgent, and self-important, culture that the other person no longer matters to us anymore? As families have scattered across the country, as people increasingly work from home, as we become more divided by political and social identities, and in our isolation, are we taking each other for granted? Has the silent dismissal of relationships become a necessity to keeping ourselves afloat, our heads above water? Is it that we are just too busy, too burdened with our own concerns that we have given ourselves permission for the feelings of others to be disregarded, banished to the irrelevance file?

Or has silence simply become the new weapon of choice to be wielded skillfully by the weak of character,
and the weak of heart?
I hope life has not come to that.

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I have posted new thoughts and observations on the MUSINGS page of this website.