It is a most notable part of the human experience that we get itches. And often, these sometimes infuriating itches are just out of reach, even with our best efforts at gymnastic contortions. Worse yet, at the most inopportune times a powerful itch will present itself on a part of our anatomy we dare not deal with in public. Time stands still. Will we ever be able to get alone to find relief? Yet, the great neurologists of the world haven't really a clue what causes an itch or what obscure physiologic process is going on during a prickling torment of our corpus. But we all know intimately the vast pleasure derived from a simple one-hundred percent effective, and low-cost cure: scratching.
One of the most perverse pleasures in life can be the scratching of an itch until it hurts. Anyone who has engaged in botanical warfare with poison ivy knows, don't they? What about those who have thrashed around on their beds with a peeling sunburn? The most excruciating experience of my childhood followed a trip to the beach where I had become an unwitting luncheon for some kind of biting sand flies. For certain, Einstein or Hawking could have done a major study that infinitely long night about the stopping of cosmic time, while I convulsed in my itchy nocturnal torment. Are we all relating yet? Good.
Alas, there is another kind of itching for which a good scratch with long fingernails is of no therapeutic value; that deeper inner itch of the soul, a spiritual one that seems fiendishly inaccessible to any simple remedy, like the unrelenting itch in the depths of my soul deriving from the fact that all my family has died and I feel very alone in the world. Life is full of severe challenges for most, if not all of us. It is in these that the fertile ground of "If onlys" often gets tilled. From this ground we often harvest great sorrow and regret, failing to move on past our challenges.
It is said that challenge produces vast growth. You may already know that at an intellectual level. I did. I recall the New Testament verse in the epistle of James that essentially says to "count it all joy when you encounter various trials, that you may be made perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." It's pretty tough to do if those trials include being told you have a terminal disease, losing your eyesight in a freak accident, coming home to an empty house to find a note from your wife saying she's left with the kids, or finding you are down-sized seven weeks before you would have been eligible for a thirty-year pension. Instead of rising to the occasion, we crumble inside, and sometimes on the outside.
Yet, it's true. We can become better for these insults on our psychic landscape. A severe itch of any kind represents a major challenge for you, whether you are out in public and can't politely scratch or have a deep inner need you can't quite reach on your own. An itch is beneficial in that it's often a powerful motivator to action and creativity, be it an itch of my corpus from sand flies or something much deeper. It's the latter kind of itch we're after here. My soul itch has motivated me to make a journey I would never have sought out, yet I am now far richer for the experience. On this journey I have found some priceless nuggets of gold in my own life and in the lives I met along the way. I have found many astounding examples of beauty, hope, strength, faith, and creativity in those travelling with me.
Many of the deeper itches in my soul have been beyond my reach but well within the reach of others I have met on my journey. They have their own itches beyond their reach, yet within my easy reach. Together, we have found great relief. We have been jointly challenged to new strength, hope, faith, and possibilities. Perhaps you can join us vicariously through these pages and also gain some relief from your own tormenting soul itches. It is my sincere hope that after reading our stories you will have found a bit more inner strength, had a few laughs, cracked a few smiles, grown in faith, stood a bit taller, and stopped scratching, if but for a short while.
An army of experts, scientists, consultants, writers, and policy makers are all too happy to quantify and elaborate on the angst of soul that exists in the modern era. Some truly beneficial texts have been written about the roles of technology, epidemics, time, increased mobility, complexity, and myriad other factors in creating legions of people who feel disconnected, isolated, fragmented, hurried, depressed, and otherwise ill of soul. For certain I have felt disconnected, isolated, fragmented, hurried, depressed, and otherwise ill of soul. Sometimes profoundly so. Odds are you have as well.
I have often gotten perverse pleasure from reading lots of these technical books about how bad modern life has become. Perhaps I covertly distill out of them the idea that it's not all my fault that my soul feels really yucky at more times than I want to admit. Any of you do this?
Yet, you don't need another "how-to" book telling you how to scratch your soul either. What you need is a tube of super-duper ointment that you know will work on those deep places. Instead, I wish to simply share with you this ointment, distilled from the pure essence of many beautiful lives in my world, It really does work if applied correctly. It's been field tested.
Many lament the loss of community in our modern age. The remedy for your itch for community and connection may be as near as your jumper cables or the bookstore cafe that opened up last week down the street from your house; maybe even on the public bus you vowed to never need. I've seen community form in the aromatic swirls of a shoe repair.
With our challenging times, many of us are overly serious about ourselves and life. I will never be accused of being a clown or party animal, yet I have found laughs are to be had in the most unlikely places. Sometimes they even land at my feet. My soul has smiled many times because of a small playful cat.
There are lots of good people out there. The problem is their goodness doesn't usually sell newspapers or increase Arbitron ratings for news casts. But these modern-day saints will show your soul a better way. They can be found in trains, botanical gardens, nursing homes, Olympic stadiums, or even attached to holiday lamp posts. Once in a while they wear fur coats.
The great appeal of the movie classic "The Wizard of Oz" is the magic throughout. There, anything is possible. The first occurrence of color in film making took place when Dorothy opened the front door of her aunt's house in the Land of the Munchkins. If we take the time to look for them, moments of magic will present themselves often. Sometimes, they will sit right down next to you on the #75 bus. Sometimes, it's delivered to your garage.
In a fast-food culture where tycoons make billions selling it and kids growing begging for it, the best food sometimes comes from a crippled old lady or wrapped in saffron leatherette. It will feed your soul as well as your body.
Many people are locked into a daily struggle to simply survive. They don't have the luxury of seeking out self-actualization experiences or gaining cosmic understanding of the universe. Yet, sometimes such experiences come to those of us locked in such struggle. I've seen transcendent experiences appear suspended on a stainless steel strand between two mountains, caught up in a cumulus thunderhead, and even shine brightly in a windowless room. Anything is possible.
May you find relief.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
When You Itch For Community and Connection
One of the deepest needs we have is for a sense of place and a connection to others. Our increasingly mobile fast-paced society has left an itch on many of our souls that often seems just out of reach. The fragmentation, isolation, and loneliness in the American culture has become legendary and has filled many a newspaper and research journal. A recent large survey revealed more than 57% of the people in my county to have markers for clinical depression. Isolation is bad for the soul.
At one time we sat on front porches in the evening and enjoyed our neighbors. Today we don't have porches on our houses and have been enticed into an inner solitude by air conditioning and wide-screen TV with satellite up-links. Maybe we can have our air conditioning and cosmic hook-ups without sacrificing the community we need to scratch our deeper need for connection.
At least twenty recent studies have shown that people who attend church regularly are healthier and have less difficulty with heart disease. There is something heartening about joining with others of similar spiritual persuasion. My heart has often received great benefit from joining with others in their struggles and celebrations. "Community" has been used as an invocation in church services a number of times.
Americans have always had a fierce independent spirit and prided themselves on their self-sufficiency. In this day and age we often face problems and challenges that take more than one individual to solve. In "Jump Start" three of us learned that a healthy inter-dependence was able to solve an old man's problem. In a society obsessed with security and personal safety, we learned that true security comes from relationships and community, not money or an individualistic spirit.
Many of us are enjoying the greater connectivity possible with the Internet, cellular phones, fax modems, digital pagers, and a host of other electronic wizards. For certain, I enjoy hearing from the same person several times a day in a distant country. "Shoe Repair" reveals there are community connections that are quite independent of modern technology. Elaine and Jack both depended on my paying attention to their needs. There are people out there itching to get their needs met but don't know about each other. You might be the one to scratch the need.
We all have had a chance encounter with a stranger we were certain angels must have mediated. I recall people I met but for seconds many years ago and would give dearly to encounter once again. Often I have itched for a second chance to see them. "Chance" suggests that sometimes we can take things out of the realm of chance. Once in while Fate gives us more than we asked for.
Sociology researchers describe three kinds of essential places in people's lives; the place we live, the place we work, and the place we gather for conviviality. It is in these "third places", where the primary activity is conversation, that communities can come into being and continue to hold together. When an automobilecentric, suburban, drive-thru fast food, shopping-mall way of life eliminated many of these third places, the social fabric of many communities shredded. The United States experienced a near extinction of such places. Happily, there has been a recent gain in their numbers as manifest by the sudden popularity of bookstore cafes. "Bookstore Cafe" describes my happy experience with a newly opened third place on an icy winter night. Several bookstore/cafes have opened recently within a short distance, making our lives much richer.
It is well known that when some kind of unusual natural event occurs, people will often pull together. The extensive flooding in the Great Plains revealed some truly heroic deeds on the part of many to save their communities from inundation by icy flood waters. Fortunately, we can sometimes experience the spontaneous crystallization of community by a more benign experience such as an unusual snow fall. A real snowfall in the south is rare enough to be a cause for celebration by all children and the more open-minded adults who don't commute two hours to work. "Snow" describes spontaneous community and a departure from the status quo.
Community
In these moments of stillness,
quietly gathering, we draw strength.
In silence we hear inner messages,
bringing us new hope and promise.
In our corporate solitude,
we celebrate communion of shared joy.
Flames of fellowship fanned,
incandescent radiance bursts forth.
We share the light of our lives,
bringing renewal and possibility.
Jump Start
I was working late Friday night, with another fellow, Bill, in the community playhouse building sets for an upcoming play. Like a lot of volunteer theaters, ours thrives in a lousy part of town in a semi-abandoned building that used to be a TV repair shop or some such thing. The low rent is a compelling enticement for a cash-poor group of Broadway dreamers. An older man, looking much like Yoda, of Star Wars fame, wandered into the theater looking like he had just returned from the ice planet Hoth. After some twenty minutes of roaming about, watching us work, he revealed that his inter-galactic cruiser had run out of dilithium crystals outside. Actually, he said he was seeking a tow truck as his house-bound aunt's 1978 LTD had died in the street.
After a brief interview we came to learn that he thought he might have run out of gas but was not quite certain. He thought a warp-core breach (dead battery) a possibility. His hesitation stemmed from having walked four blocks at impulse speed for a gallon of gas and putting ALL of it in the gas tank and then cranking the starter motor until the battery was quite dead. I asked him if he had saved any gas to prime the butterfly valve in the carburetor. A glazed look came over him at this point; much like that coming over unfortunate people stuck outside at sunset on Hoth, where it drops to minus 150 degrees very very fast. The diagnosis was confirmed; a systemic electrical collapse secondary to failure to properly prime the warp-field generator before energizing the dilithium crystals.
We can make amusing similes from popular science fiction fantasies for purposes of telling stories but if you have ever been motoring along late at night in a dream-like state enjoying your favorite music and suddenly have your sputtering and soon silent engine shock you back to reality, then you will agree there is nothing amusing at all about your plight. This old man found himself stranded late on a cold night in a bad part of town where many adverse possibilities could have arisen for him. Newspapers are replete with stories of people killed after mechanical failures in their vehicles put them at risk for assault. We have had several people killed in recent months within 200 feet of where this man's car died.
It turns out Bill had a set of jumper cables and a large truck with a strong battery. I had knowledge of how to prime the engine with the fifteen drops of gas left in the old man's gas can. Neither Bill, the old man, or myself could have gotten the car going on our own. The man's careful explanation of his problem along with Bills' equipment, and my knowledge of old LTDs were enough, together, to get the car running again and to put a smile on this old man's face. He left the scene radiant
with the $50 he would have given to the tow truck operator, if he had been left alone until he arrived.
It has been a growing realization to me in recent months that true security comes from relationships and community and not from money or an individualistic spirit. That old man could have had $5,000 in his pocket. It wouldn't have gotten his car started. My primed carburetor was no good without Bill's jumper cables and truck. His truck and cables were of no use without my knowledge of priming. Each of us brought something unique and indispensable to the situation. Together, we accomplished the desired result.
The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes tells us that it is better when two walk together, for when one falls the other can help him up. It also tells us in battle that where one can rout two then two can rout ten. There is a synergism that occurs when people work together for the common good. The New Testament book of Corinthians tells us that each of us has a distinctive unique contribution to make to the community. The human body is used as an analogy for this with some of us described as functioning as eyes, others as feet, others as hands, ad infinitum. All are viewed as equally important.
Grand orators can be found in theaters, but the greatest lessons are learned on the stage of everyday life.
Shoe Repair
Do you ever have one of those truly splendid moments when you want to jump up and down and scream “YES! YES!”? Well, I just had one. I just experienced the enthralling magic of the healthy interdependence we can have on each other; the true sense of safety and security that can come from a willingness to link arms with those around us.
My boss and I went to lunch at the beginning of the week and on the way back he wanted to stop by a shoe repair shop and pick up his wife’s boots. The shop was closed, it being Monday. I reminded Joe that all great museums in the world are always closed on Mondays so curators can do what ever it is they do on Mondays when all great museums are closed on Mondays. I figured this must be a really fine repair shop if it does as museums do. The closest thing to it in my world, I figure, is the barber shop which closes on Wednesday afternoon.
Anyway, in a driving torrential rain I returned to this shop a couple of days later, mere seconds before closing time with a canvas bag of my tired and poor. The aromas swirling inside the shop told me they used strong stuff and could put anything back together. An exceedingly pleasant consultation with Jack and Phyllis revealed my shoes to be on the brink, but a favorable prognosis was forthcoming. They will be spared a plunge into the cold dark abyss of the county landfill and will once again walk the cobbled streets of Wales and Scotland from wence they came.
After our conference declared my shoes pardoned from death row, I fell into happy discussion with these two splendid people about the mysteries and lore of cobbling and smithing of shoes. During this they revealed an interest in acquiring additional finishers, stitchers, and other machinery used in the repair business. Jack told me that he especially wants old machines because they are easier to maintain and he can use them interchangeably with his other older machinery. In my head a light bulb came on, very brightly at that.
My dear friend Elaine, who has walked on those fine cobbled streets of Wales with me, got an idea a year or so ago of buying the contents of a shoe repair business from a fellow who had done such work for more than seventy five years. Elaine contra dances with the fellow who owns the building where this shop had been located, in the old historical district of Wilmington, and he had told her of this shop. Elaine, having recently been traumatically outsourced and down sized, was looking for a new way to finance her bad habits of eating, staying warm, and getting in out of the rain. Her mortgage company had also told her she still had to pay up every month. Based on the council of many she bought the shop.
Alas, the council of many later said this was not such a good idea after all and she ended up with a garage full of all those mysterious spindles, funky hammers, strange glues, and machines used to keep the world on its feet. And yes, her garage is closed on Mondays. She has been trying for some time now to sell her cobbling museum, without success. Fortunately, for Elaine, she has had some success at other means of employment and is continuing to eat, stay warm, and come in when it rains.
I mentioned to Jack that I had a close friend three hundred fifty three miles away who had the answer to a cobbler's prayer; a complete shop at an ultimate price. Jack has been very fortunate in that he and Phyllis have been able to get their shop up and going from scratch and are making an honorable living from it in less than two years. The down side is that it is essential that he not experience idle time with his machinery, especially at the holidays when people like me bring in big canvas bags full of the abused and neglected. His concern is that he not lose business because of a mechanical failure with one of his machines. I told him his business insurance was waiting for him in Wilmington and to expect a call in the morning from Elaine. We had a most happy parting, me back into the driving rain, he back into his aromatic swirl.
I called Elaine and? Magic. I hope you have had the good fortune of having someone call you and-discovering that someone has you at heart and is being used by the powers on High to make a difference in your life. Elaine told me she just finished putting a note on my Christmas gift and was off to the post office with it! I know I am living right. I told her of the most probable buyer for her garage museum and gave her Jack's name and number and suggested they could work out an arrangement for Jack to view the machinery and negotiate a sale price. She was speechless. What was magical for me was knowing that this will be a true win-win for Elaine and Jack. Elaine will be able to park her car in the garage and keep eating because Jack will give her more than fair price for the machines. Jack will get an ultimate good value because I know how Elaine treats people. My role? Merely passing on a phone message.
We live in a society that prides itself on individualism and self sufficiency, maintaining an attitude of not needing anyone else. This was made especially evident to me this week, watching the struggle of a distant acquaintance in the frozen north who has gone through a serious biopsy, much pain, and the ominous uncertainty of waiting for the results - alone. She has no one to walk with her through this dark time in her life, a somber legacy of American self-sufficiency. No one to bring her a bowl of hot soup in bed or to ease her pain. My mother recently died alone after years of a willful independence from others. Her sister followed her but a few weeks later. She also made that great leap alone. I learned just yesterday of a man who decided he doesn't need his wife anymore. He declares he needs no friends and wants none. I fear for him
Jack would never have found Elaine's garage three hundred and fifty three miles away and Elaine would have never known that Jack has a preference for older machines. Self-sufficiency and independence would never have led these two to each other. Humans are created social and they need each other to have meaningful fulfilled lives. Our richest memories come from shared experiences.
In the 10th century BC Solomon wrote “There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. ‘For whom am I toiling,’ he asked, ‘and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?’ This too is meaningless - a miserable business! Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Reach out and touch someone.
Chance
If you read the personals classifieds in the newspapers of any city you will find a number of mournful ads in a small category called "Missed Connections." Even my small rural town newspaper has these poignant ads. Someone sees or meets another who causes his soul to resonate with at least three levels of harmonics, yet, so often, a chance encounter with a soul mate is left to Fate. Fate rarely returns such a gift. The grim reality of regret drives these hapless people to place those "missed connection' ads against great odds, hoping a lost traveler might be found. That Fate might, for once be generous.
Two years ago, on a bright Easter Sunday morning, while on the District Line in the London Underground, I encountered one with whom my soul resonated; sharing conversation in a magic timeless space until I reached my station. I left her to Fate and Fate did not give her back. I rode that train for some days thereafter, hopeful. I have nothing but a distant memory of what might have been. Soul mates are ever so rare.
Two years later, today, I was on a city bus in Victoria, just returning from the world renown botanical gardens to be found north of the city. It was a cold rainy winter day and nothing was in bloom, having made for a disappointing outing. Moments after boarding the #75 bus at the entrance to the gardens, an older woman asked me how it was. I told her nothing was in bloom. She decided to stay on the bus rather than brave the rains to see flowerless flowers. I suggested the gardens would be better in the spring. She agreed.
This time Fate didn't win. This woman is old enough to be my grandmother twice over but she has a vibrant soul and a mind young enough to be my grandchild. I saw nothing along the forty-five minute trip back into the city. My vision was filled up with her soul. Besides, the windows were all condensed as they are inclined to be on cold, beastly winter days. Christmas is near, after all.
Warm winds of fortune must have been blowing on me this blustery winter day. We got off at the same stop and she asked me if I wanted to take afternoon tea with her. For two hours I plumbed her soul over tea in a department store cafeteria. It proved to be one of those magical places where people explore souls in conversation; where time stands still. Those two hours allowed me to speak of things that are not acceptable to speak of in my world. I found validation for my thoughts, understanding of my dreams, acceptance, a hug. It was one of the enchanted times when another soul nods up and down and says Yes! Yes! Yes! We fantasized as a steady succession of sea planes carried people to their dreams, leaving the safety of the harbor.
It seems the #75 bus had much more to offer me than just a ride home.
Bookstore Cafe
Golden interior radiance beckoning,
we cast off foggy night's embrace.
Cozy warmth enfolding frosty ears,
aromatic tendrils of coffee tease.
Warm worlds cast in oil and canvas,
gleam under sunny electric suns.
Printed realms, glossy with potential,
offer passage to unseen Kingdoms.
An oasis of civility in a dark sphere,
grand ideas, shared, vanquish shadows.
Encountering a long-lost Traveller,
we know this to be the Way.
May we have a refill?
Snow
Deafening silence cloaks winter world.
Dazzling snow muffins lazily descend.
Crystalline metamorphosis complete,
adults gawk in child-like wonder.
I, composed in translucent winter stasis,
enjoy serenity with newly fallen flakes.
Parents and children, crossing generations,
frolic in communal snow-bound adventures.
Arboreal denizens cloaked in white mantles,
give mute testimony of life’s Grand Secret.
Winter's blanket, bandaging the world,
heals humanity's angst of soul.
On a cold winter day centuries ago,
One came telling of emerald summer.
Can we go sledding now?
At one time we sat on front porches in the evening and enjoyed our neighbors. Today we don't have porches on our houses and have been enticed into an inner solitude by air conditioning and wide-screen TV with satellite up-links. Maybe we can have our air conditioning and cosmic hook-ups without sacrificing the community we need to scratch our deeper need for connection.
At least twenty recent studies have shown that people who attend church regularly are healthier and have less difficulty with heart disease. There is something heartening about joining with others of similar spiritual persuasion. My heart has often received great benefit from joining with others in their struggles and celebrations. "Community" has been used as an invocation in church services a number of times.
Americans have always had a fierce independent spirit and prided themselves on their self-sufficiency. In this day and age we often face problems and challenges that take more than one individual to solve. In "Jump Start" three of us learned that a healthy inter-dependence was able to solve an old man's problem. In a society obsessed with security and personal safety, we learned that true security comes from relationships and community, not money or an individualistic spirit.
Many of us are enjoying the greater connectivity possible with the Internet, cellular phones, fax modems, digital pagers, and a host of other electronic wizards. For certain, I enjoy hearing from the same person several times a day in a distant country. "Shoe Repair" reveals there are community connections that are quite independent of modern technology. Elaine and Jack both depended on my paying attention to their needs. There are people out there itching to get their needs met but don't know about each other. You might be the one to scratch the need.
We all have had a chance encounter with a stranger we were certain angels must have mediated. I recall people I met but for seconds many years ago and would give dearly to encounter once again. Often I have itched for a second chance to see them. "Chance" suggests that sometimes we can take things out of the realm of chance. Once in while Fate gives us more than we asked for.
Sociology researchers describe three kinds of essential places in people's lives; the place we live, the place we work, and the place we gather for conviviality. It is in these "third places", where the primary activity is conversation, that communities can come into being and continue to hold together. When an automobilecentric, suburban, drive-thru fast food, shopping-mall way of life eliminated many of these third places, the social fabric of many communities shredded. The United States experienced a near extinction of such places. Happily, there has been a recent gain in their numbers as manifest by the sudden popularity of bookstore cafes. "Bookstore Cafe" describes my happy experience with a newly opened third place on an icy winter night. Several bookstore/cafes have opened recently within a short distance, making our lives much richer.
It is well known that when some kind of unusual natural event occurs, people will often pull together. The extensive flooding in the Great Plains revealed some truly heroic deeds on the part of many to save their communities from inundation by icy flood waters. Fortunately, we can sometimes experience the spontaneous crystallization of community by a more benign experience such as an unusual snow fall. A real snowfall in the south is rare enough to be a cause for celebration by all children and the more open-minded adults who don't commute two hours to work. "Snow" describes spontaneous community and a departure from the status quo.
Community
In these moments of stillness,
quietly gathering, we draw strength.
In silence we hear inner messages,
bringing us new hope and promise.
In our corporate solitude,
we celebrate communion of shared joy.
Flames of fellowship fanned,
incandescent radiance bursts forth.
We share the light of our lives,
bringing renewal and possibility.
Jump Start
I was working late Friday night, with another fellow, Bill, in the community playhouse building sets for an upcoming play. Like a lot of volunteer theaters, ours thrives in a lousy part of town in a semi-abandoned building that used to be a TV repair shop or some such thing. The low rent is a compelling enticement for a cash-poor group of Broadway dreamers. An older man, looking much like Yoda, of Star Wars fame, wandered into the theater looking like he had just returned from the ice planet Hoth. After some twenty minutes of roaming about, watching us work, he revealed that his inter-galactic cruiser had run out of dilithium crystals outside. Actually, he said he was seeking a tow truck as his house-bound aunt's 1978 LTD had died in the street.
After a brief interview we came to learn that he thought he might have run out of gas but was not quite certain. He thought a warp-core breach (dead battery) a possibility. His hesitation stemmed from having walked four blocks at impulse speed for a gallon of gas and putting ALL of it in the gas tank and then cranking the starter motor until the battery was quite dead. I asked him if he had saved any gas to prime the butterfly valve in the carburetor. A glazed look came over him at this point; much like that coming over unfortunate people stuck outside at sunset on Hoth, where it drops to minus 150 degrees very very fast. The diagnosis was confirmed; a systemic electrical collapse secondary to failure to properly prime the warp-field generator before energizing the dilithium crystals.
We can make amusing similes from popular science fiction fantasies for purposes of telling stories but if you have ever been motoring along late at night in a dream-like state enjoying your favorite music and suddenly have your sputtering and soon silent engine shock you back to reality, then you will agree there is nothing amusing at all about your plight. This old man found himself stranded late on a cold night in a bad part of town where many adverse possibilities could have arisen for him. Newspapers are replete with stories of people killed after mechanical failures in their vehicles put them at risk for assault. We have had several people killed in recent months within 200 feet of where this man's car died.
It turns out Bill had a set of jumper cables and a large truck with a strong battery. I had knowledge of how to prime the engine with the fifteen drops of gas left in the old man's gas can. Neither Bill, the old man, or myself could have gotten the car going on our own. The man's careful explanation of his problem along with Bills' equipment, and my knowledge of old LTDs were enough, together, to get the car running again and to put a smile on this old man's face. He left the scene radiant
with the $50 he would have given to the tow truck operator, if he had been left alone until he arrived.
It has been a growing realization to me in recent months that true security comes from relationships and community and not from money or an individualistic spirit. That old man could have had $5,000 in his pocket. It wouldn't have gotten his car started. My primed carburetor was no good without Bill's jumper cables and truck. His truck and cables were of no use without my knowledge of priming. Each of us brought something unique and indispensable to the situation. Together, we accomplished the desired result.
The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes tells us that it is better when two walk together, for when one falls the other can help him up. It also tells us in battle that where one can rout two then two can rout ten. There is a synergism that occurs when people work together for the common good. The New Testament book of Corinthians tells us that each of us has a distinctive unique contribution to make to the community. The human body is used as an analogy for this with some of us described as functioning as eyes, others as feet, others as hands, ad infinitum. All are viewed as equally important.
Grand orators can be found in theaters, but the greatest lessons are learned on the stage of everyday life.
Shoe Repair
Do you ever have one of those truly splendid moments when you want to jump up and down and scream “YES! YES!”? Well, I just had one. I just experienced the enthralling magic of the healthy interdependence we can have on each other; the true sense of safety and security that can come from a willingness to link arms with those around us.
My boss and I went to lunch at the beginning of the week and on the way back he wanted to stop by a shoe repair shop and pick up his wife’s boots. The shop was closed, it being Monday. I reminded Joe that all great museums in the world are always closed on Mondays so curators can do what ever it is they do on Mondays when all great museums are closed on Mondays. I figured this must be a really fine repair shop if it does as museums do. The closest thing to it in my world, I figure, is the barber shop which closes on Wednesday afternoon.
Anyway, in a driving torrential rain I returned to this shop a couple of days later, mere seconds before closing time with a canvas bag of my tired and poor. The aromas swirling inside the shop told me they used strong stuff and could put anything back together. An exceedingly pleasant consultation with Jack and Phyllis revealed my shoes to be on the brink, but a favorable prognosis was forthcoming. They will be spared a plunge into the cold dark abyss of the county landfill and will once again walk the cobbled streets of Wales and Scotland from wence they came.
After our conference declared my shoes pardoned from death row, I fell into happy discussion with these two splendid people about the mysteries and lore of cobbling and smithing of shoes. During this they revealed an interest in acquiring additional finishers, stitchers, and other machinery used in the repair business. Jack told me that he especially wants old machines because they are easier to maintain and he can use them interchangeably with his other older machinery. In my head a light bulb came on, very brightly at that.
My dear friend Elaine, who has walked on those fine cobbled streets of Wales with me, got an idea a year or so ago of buying the contents of a shoe repair business from a fellow who had done such work for more than seventy five years. Elaine contra dances with the fellow who owns the building where this shop had been located, in the old historical district of Wilmington, and he had told her of this shop. Elaine, having recently been traumatically outsourced and down sized, was looking for a new way to finance her bad habits of eating, staying warm, and getting in out of the rain. Her mortgage company had also told her she still had to pay up every month. Based on the council of many she bought the shop.
Alas, the council of many later said this was not such a good idea after all and she ended up with a garage full of all those mysterious spindles, funky hammers, strange glues, and machines used to keep the world on its feet. And yes, her garage is closed on Mondays. She has been trying for some time now to sell her cobbling museum, without success. Fortunately, for Elaine, she has had some success at other means of employment and is continuing to eat, stay warm, and come in when it rains.
I mentioned to Jack that I had a close friend three hundred fifty three miles away who had the answer to a cobbler's prayer; a complete shop at an ultimate price. Jack has been very fortunate in that he and Phyllis have been able to get their shop up and going from scratch and are making an honorable living from it in less than two years. The down side is that it is essential that he not experience idle time with his machinery, especially at the holidays when people like me bring in big canvas bags full of the abused and neglected. His concern is that he not lose business because of a mechanical failure with one of his machines. I told him his business insurance was waiting for him in Wilmington and to expect a call in the morning from Elaine. We had a most happy parting, me back into the driving rain, he back into his aromatic swirl.
I called Elaine and? Magic. I hope you have had the good fortune of having someone call you and-discovering that someone has you at heart and is being used by the powers on High to make a difference in your life. Elaine told me she just finished putting a note on my Christmas gift and was off to the post office with it! I know I am living right. I told her of the most probable buyer for her garage museum and gave her Jack's name and number and suggested they could work out an arrangement for Jack to view the machinery and negotiate a sale price. She was speechless. What was magical for me was knowing that this will be a true win-win for Elaine and Jack. Elaine will be able to park her car in the garage and keep eating because Jack will give her more than fair price for the machines. Jack will get an ultimate good value because I know how Elaine treats people. My role? Merely passing on a phone message.
We live in a society that prides itself on individualism and self sufficiency, maintaining an attitude of not needing anyone else. This was made especially evident to me this week, watching the struggle of a distant acquaintance in the frozen north who has gone through a serious biopsy, much pain, and the ominous uncertainty of waiting for the results - alone. She has no one to walk with her through this dark time in her life, a somber legacy of American self-sufficiency. No one to bring her a bowl of hot soup in bed or to ease her pain. My mother recently died alone after years of a willful independence from others. Her sister followed her but a few weeks later. She also made that great leap alone. I learned just yesterday of a man who decided he doesn't need his wife anymore. He declares he needs no friends and wants none. I fear for him
Jack would never have found Elaine's garage three hundred and fifty three miles away and Elaine would have never known that Jack has a preference for older machines. Self-sufficiency and independence would never have led these two to each other. Humans are created social and they need each other to have meaningful fulfilled lives. Our richest memories come from shared experiences.
In the 10th century BC Solomon wrote “There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. ‘For whom am I toiling,’ he asked, ‘and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?’ This too is meaningless - a miserable business! Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Reach out and touch someone.
Chance
If you read the personals classifieds in the newspapers of any city you will find a number of mournful ads in a small category called "Missed Connections." Even my small rural town newspaper has these poignant ads. Someone sees or meets another who causes his soul to resonate with at least three levels of harmonics, yet, so often, a chance encounter with a soul mate is left to Fate. Fate rarely returns such a gift. The grim reality of regret drives these hapless people to place those "missed connection' ads against great odds, hoping a lost traveler might be found. That Fate might, for once be generous.
Two years ago, on a bright Easter Sunday morning, while on the District Line in the London Underground, I encountered one with whom my soul resonated; sharing conversation in a magic timeless space until I reached my station. I left her to Fate and Fate did not give her back. I rode that train for some days thereafter, hopeful. I have nothing but a distant memory of what might have been. Soul mates are ever so rare.
Two years later, today, I was on a city bus in Victoria, just returning from the world renown botanical gardens to be found north of the city. It was a cold rainy winter day and nothing was in bloom, having made for a disappointing outing. Moments after boarding the #75 bus at the entrance to the gardens, an older woman asked me how it was. I told her nothing was in bloom. She decided to stay on the bus rather than brave the rains to see flowerless flowers. I suggested the gardens would be better in the spring. She agreed.
This time Fate didn't win. This woman is old enough to be my grandmother twice over but she has a vibrant soul and a mind young enough to be my grandchild. I saw nothing along the forty-five minute trip back into the city. My vision was filled up with her soul. Besides, the windows were all condensed as they are inclined to be on cold, beastly winter days. Christmas is near, after all.
Warm winds of fortune must have been blowing on me this blustery winter day. We got off at the same stop and she asked me if I wanted to take afternoon tea with her. For two hours I plumbed her soul over tea in a department store cafeteria. It proved to be one of those magical places where people explore souls in conversation; where time stands still. Those two hours allowed me to speak of things that are not acceptable to speak of in my world. I found validation for my thoughts, understanding of my dreams, acceptance, a hug. It was one of the enchanted times when another soul nods up and down and says Yes! Yes! Yes! We fantasized as a steady succession of sea planes carried people to their dreams, leaving the safety of the harbor.
It seems the #75 bus had much more to offer me than just a ride home.
Bookstore Cafe
Golden interior radiance beckoning,
we cast off foggy night's embrace.
Cozy warmth enfolding frosty ears,
aromatic tendrils of coffee tease.
Warm worlds cast in oil and canvas,
gleam under sunny electric suns.
Printed realms, glossy with potential,
offer passage to unseen Kingdoms.
An oasis of civility in a dark sphere,
grand ideas, shared, vanquish shadows.
Encountering a long-lost Traveller,
we know this to be the Way.
May we have a refill?
Snow
Deafening silence cloaks winter world.
Dazzling snow muffins lazily descend.
Crystalline metamorphosis complete,
adults gawk in child-like wonder.
I, composed in translucent winter stasis,
enjoy serenity with newly fallen flakes.
Parents and children, crossing generations,
frolic in communal snow-bound adventures.
Arboreal denizens cloaked in white mantles,
give mute testimony of life’s Grand Secret.
Winter's blanket, bandaging the world,
heals humanity's angst of soul.
On a cold winter day centuries ago,
One came telling of emerald summer.
Can we go sledding now?
When You Itch For a Laugh
Even three thousand years ago Solomon understood there was a time for laughter. We all know well his declarations of there being a time to live, to die, a time to cry. And yes, to laugh.
Norman Cousins was a medical sociologist at a prominent medical center in California. He faced the dark side of Solomon's promise and several times stared into the shadows of incurable life-threatening disease, and laughed. He discovered the power of laughter and was able to essentially humor his diseases into remission and go on for many more productive years. During the acute phase of his illnesses he had comedy videos, humor books, and anything that provoked laughter brought to him and he laughed himself back to health. The Anatomy of an Illness was his best seller which described his discoveries of how a merry heart not only did his soul good but his body also. I consider myself a serious minded-person so have a lot to learn from his writings.
I have a difficult time finding the silver linings in dark clouds but occasionally one shows up for me. In an essentially bleak humorless childhood a small incident occurred which has been a source of many laughs through the years. "Lab Test" insures this incident will live beyond me.
College students are a different sub-species than the rest of homo sapiens. I spent an inordinate portion of my growth and development as one of these. Consequently, I was able to enter into extensive questionable student behavior that was to prove the source of many laughs twenty years later. The poverty-induced creativity of my learning years spawned a number of memorable and now highly amusing pot-luck suppers as readers of "Diners Beware" will find out.
My favorite uncle died a few months ago and his great legacy to the family was his sense of humor. He could find something funny in most anything and if not, he created it on the spot. "Counterfeiters" immortalizes his ability to generate wide-eyed wonder in impressionable young children with his money machines and special scratch pads. He will take your posthumous laughter as a compliment to a life well lived.
Cats prove to be limitless sources of amusement. It is hard to imagine something more amusing than watching my cat turn somersaults in pursuit of a rubber band or chasing a fleck of styrofoam around the house at warp nine.
This silly little feline will endear herself to me by meeting me at the door each evening and then falling down at my feet, purring loudly. "A Man's Perfect Love" offers a possible humorous alternative to those of us who are relational challenged with real women.
Lab Test
In southern California it can get really hot in July, as much as 110 degrees if one lives inland from the ocean. Last week it got to 126 in parts of the desert. On one of these very hot smoggy days my mother had an appointment for a physical exam and had been asked to bring an early morning urine sample to the physician's office with her. Lacking for any suitable container in which to collect her specimen, she elected to make do with a half-pint Black and White Scotch bottle.
My mother is a born shopper, living for opportunities to indulge in department stores like I. Magnin. To maximize her day she combined a shopping expedition with her doctor's appointment. She took the Scotch bottle with her and put it on the front seat of the car so she would not have to return home to collect it. Because it was one of those torrid days, she left the car windows down while she went shopping before her appointment.
When she came back to the car, the bottle was gone.
Diners Beware
We often take the safety of the U.S. food supply for granted until some major calamity gets reported in the media. Notorious examples such as the Jack 'n the Box salmonella poisonings in the Pacific Northwest or the crytosporidium disaster in Milwaukee galvanize public consciousness. As if it is needed, here is another potential threat to the American food supply. Psychological damage to pot-luck supper attendees has been induced by college students living on the edge of poverty who feel compelled to bring unorthodox food stuffs into the food supply, because the price is right. Hapless diners are often exposed to these during pot-luck meals, especially when their luck runs out.
***
While attending Northwestern University, I often found myself on the edge of a financial black hole and frequently indiscriminant in my eating habits. Financial necessity proved a mother of invention and culinary creativity. I often autoclaved a TV dinner in the very same sterilizer in which I made fruit fly media. Disgusting? I'll leave out the other morbid details of my undergraduate eating habits in my fruit fly lab.
It so happened that during my senior year my roomie and I attended a church where a weekly potluck supper in homes was a tradition. I was poor. I was creative and resourceful. I was hungry. So was my room mate. The rent was late. The makings of a psychological food disaster were nearly complete. It was finally our turn to host the Thursday pot-luck. Now, all the ingredients were in place to disrupt the congregation's serenity and create transient culinary psychosis.
I had the good fortune of coming into a five-pound block of frozen whole squid for about a dollar. We had grand visions of seafood wonders that would be the talk of the church for years. With enthusiasm, my roomie and I cut off all those myriad tentacles, fried them and served them as a side dish of "crunchies," never really saying what they were. The amputated bodies yielded their exotic meat which then went into a seafood chowder served in a fine English tureen. We served both with confidence, trusting our guests to be hungry enough to have lost most of their discrimination.
The twelve or fifteen people present were exclaiming how good the meal was until one of them actually had the audacity to ask "What are we eating?" Someone else quickly asked "Just what are those little round things?" as she pointed to the tentacles. I replied "Those are suuuucction cuppps." A sudden clatter of utensils in freefall filled the air. A pregnant pause followed. Helpfully, with an insouciant smile, I also offered "And guess where the bodies ended up that were attached to them. Are we ready for more soup?" I didn't run out of food that night.
***
About a month later the members of our small congregation had recovered from our squid-induced trauma and were sufficiently hungry to once again risk pulling up to our dining table. I had something really special for them. Rabbit.
At the time I had been working about a year in a pharmacology lab in the medical school doing research on the molecular basis of action of a class of cardiac drugs called glycosides. This Nobel Prize research required me to use the hearts of rabbits in surgical experiments and to do all manner of radio-isotopic studies on them. Experimental design required me to remove these from the rabbits without benefit of any kind of drugs or agents. I will assure you the rabbits did not suffer, and so that you won't, I will spare you the details of how I ended up with fine rabbits sans hearts.
The rabbits we used in our experiments were specially raised in sterile lab environments and fed a high grade Purina Rabbit Chow (there actually is such a thing). These rabbits were cleaner and safer than probably most of the meat products available in the grocery store, never injected with hormones and antibiotics as most farm animals are.
In the pharmacology department we had an enterprising secretary from France who was a culinary genius and she delighted in taking home my heartless rabbits and cooking them up into pates and other continental exotics. An industrious technician in another lab tanned the fine white pelts. It occurred to me that if the departmental secretary could take home rabbits and make continental wonders out of them, then I should be able to use them to bring a new dimension to the weekly church pot-luck supper.
On this particular Thursday two fresh rabbits went home with me on the subway, discretely wrapped in plain brown paper. These went into an antique cast iron skillet with a fine blend of spices and were then served hot with a nice side dish of rice and some appropriately inexpensive vegetables, commensurate with a student budget.
An inquiring mind asked "This chicken's different. Wha'd you do to it?" Politely, with even tone I said "It's not chicken." Silence erupted at the table and I knew that every neuron in every brain around the table was thinking that I better have a good explanation, and fast. With another insouciant smile I simply said "It's today's experiment from the medical school." The pregnant pause was punctuated with a crescendo clattering of fork and knife. Visions of rare virulent viruses with no treatment and horrific endings were suddenly seen. I assured them they would not experience any of the Egyptian plagues as described in the book of Exodus or the curses found in the book of Revelations. I also suggested that God no longer used this kind of thing to get our attention.
Curiously, in the future we did not seem to get listed as a host home for the potluck dinners and were often reminded we didn't need to feel compelled to bring a dish. It was suggested we bring carbonated drinks and cups.
***
Two years later I was living on the edge of another financial black hole in another state while working on a masters degree in hospital management. For better or worse, there were many people attending the same church with me, and this church held pot-luck suppers.
I had an acquaintance in this church who was a Davy Crockett look-alike complete with coon-skin cap, leather pants and shirt, Indian moccasins, and a grand pot belly. This guy, Bill, was even complete with black-powder muskets. These were antique working replicas actually requiring a powder horn, gun cotton, tamping rod, lead balls, and the like. One could get off a round every ninety seconds or so with one of these muskets, if they were really good.
Several times Bill had asked me to go hunting with him. I am not a hunter, have never shot anything, and really don't want to. I declined to blast away the natural order of things. Once again, Bill called me up and was insistent that I go hunting with him, that very night. To keep Bill happy and prevent the total rupture of our friendship, I met up with him about 9 PM to go coon hunting under a full moon with the air temperature at minus twenty.
For four frigid hours I chased around with him across ice, snow, and other solid forms of water looking for those ring-tailed curiosities. Inside I was praying those coons were a whole lot smarter than we and were curled up in some warm place having whatever kind of dreams it is that coons have. Fortunately, my moral fortitude was never tested and we never saw the first living thing during that glacial wandering. Bill admitted defeat and we headed back into town, my brain filled with delicious thoughts of a warm bed.
We were on the main four lane road into town when just blocks from Bill's house I saw something on the yellow line. As we drove by, the head lamps revealed it to be nothing other than one very still coon; that ringed tail giving him away. For unknown reasons I assumed it was a him. After all most females are smart enough to be asleep in bed and not out in the middle of the road at minus twenty degrees. I shouted at Bill to drive back around the block and grab it. He complied and we were well rewarded for our efforts. The coon was very dead and essentially undamaged. Mr Coon had died from a glancing blow to the back of the head, which left only a small bit of evidence. Most importantly, he was still quite warm. At minus twenty degrees a dead coon would cool down in less than ten minutes. We both knew this coon was fresh, undamaged, and that it had been presented to us by the universe in unusual fashion at an auspicious time.
A light went on in both our frontal cortexes at the same time: barbecued coon for the potluck supper at church tomorrow!! We eagerly sprinted the last blocks to Bill's house where he expertly removed the fine pelt which he later was able to sell for $35. Being a Davy Crockett look-alike, Bill also knew all about dressing animals and proceeded to do this with me attending in a supervisory capacity. He also knew about cooking such things and proceeded to spend much of the next day performing various incantations and rituals to get the wild taste out and to render our ring-tailed find palatable for a banquet.
Next evening we took our offering to church, contained in an ignominious white and blue corning ware casserole with one of those clear glass tops. We watched with silent curiosity to see how Mr. Coon would be received by the Kingdom of God. Amazingly, the pot was quickly emptied.
Mid-way through the second sampling of the culinary treasures of Heaven, someone commented "This BBQ is different. What kind of beef is this?" With forced seriousness, I said simply "It's not beef." A short cross examination followed. "It's pork then?" "No." "It can't be lamb, can it?" "No" "It sure isn't chicken." "No." A glazed look came over our fellow diner's eyes, as if to say "Oh no!! "What have I gotten into this time?" Without prompting I simply said "Road Kill." "Roadkill!!???" "Yes, coon." "Whhhattt?" "You can't do that!" "We did." Funny, I don't remember the pot-lucks that came after than one.
***
Medical students are well known for living in abject poverty. Perhaps that is why physicians compensate later in life with opulent incomes. I was no different in that the tab for my first year of medical school alone was about $23,000. You can be certain I was intent on getting full value for my education.
It happens that the sciatic nerve in large frogs is very useful for conduction physiology studies that will enrich the frontal lobes of tentative nervous first-year medical students. Experimental design often demands the freshest of ingredients, be it rabbits or frogs. One day we went to physiology lab to discover we were going to do nerve conduction studies using the sciatic nerve from frogs. For those of you that don't know, the sciatic nerve runs from the lower spine down the back of the leg. Each of the twelve lab teams was given a very large and very alive frog which we were instructed to dispatch in a humane fashion. This done, we were instructed to remove the large succulent legs from the frogs and place them on a bed of crushed ice. We were then instructed to carefully remove the sciatic nerve from the back of the leg and then go ahead with our experiments following the detailed instructions in our lab manuals.
Those twelve pairs of large fresh luscious frog legs, still packed in crushed ice were quickly forgotten. While others were busily measuring conduction velocities and the efficacy of various neuro-blocking agents, I was busily planning a menu, with the main course being something truly special. Discretely, I roamed around to the other eleven team tables and quietly collected the forgotten treasures, still packed in ice. The experiments were deemed a success by all but I am certain I had the best results of the whole class. I will leave it to you to guess what kind of results I had.
Sometimes it's simply better to not ask.
Counterfeiter
My dear Uncle Marion was a printer with an unbounded sense of humor that served him rather well for more than eight decades. I can envision small children chasing after him to see what antics he would be up to next. I sometimes wondered if he had the ability to pull rabbits out of hats.
As a printer, he often made scratch pads out of left-over waste paper; making these in myriad brilliant colors; iridescent pink, royal blue, green, salmon, canary, and ten shades of white and ivory. He would put piles of this scrap together, trim them to size in his hydraulic paper cutter, and then make them up into pads with his super duper pad adhesive. I remember being entranced by these, even as a post-adolescent trying to be a self-important college student at an Ivy league school. Before you ask. Ivy really does grow on the walls at my alma mater.
One day Uncle Marion got a brilliant idea that was to earn him many laughs and the consternation of numerous skeptics. Once again, he got the urge to make pads, but this time he decided to use a very special kind of green paper with very small red and blue threads running throughout. He found the only place he could get this kind of paper was in banks. Banks? That's right.
He went down to the local International National State Bank of Hometown America and obtained several packets of newly-printed dollar bills and then hurriedly disappeared into his printing shop to work his magic. He proceeded to take bundles of fifty fresh dollar bills and a piece of stiff cardboard and make them into 'scratch' pads with adhesive down the long edge. Then the real fun began.
This octogenarian humorist would slip a 'pad' of his special scratch into his coat pocket and as needed during the commerce of daily life would pull it out to pay tribute. One time he checked into a hotel and wanted to pay a tip to the porter for carrying his bags. Without fanfare, my uncle pulls out his pad and peels off a couple of bills and hands them to the now mute and uncertain porter. With a small bit of urgency the porter asks "Just what kind of money is this?" My uncle says with insouciant smile "It's good money, of course. I've been a printer all my life and I do good work." Now what would you do if you were the porter? Try to pass the bills? Burn them? Wad them up and toss them away? Give 'em back?
Over the years my uncle saw his special scratch suffer all these fates. One time outside a small grocery he offered a young fellow a tip, carefully peeling a couple of fresh Lincoln portraits from the top of his pad. With uncertainty, the fellow took them. My uncle assured him it was good money as he was a good printer. A buddy nearby told him he could go to the big house if he got caught passing around this kind of money. With some urgency, as my uncle watched, he flicked his bic and incinerated the suspect tribute money, right there on the sidewalk. My uncle gained at least another decade of happy living from his raucous belly laughter.
It turns out my uncle had several modus operandi that he used to pass out his tribute money. One of these involved a small plastic machine made on the 38th floor of some obscure toy factory in inner city Hong Kong. It yielded him at least the status of the Wizard of Oz in the eyes of many cousins, nephews, and nieces during their important formative and impressionable years.
This machine allowed one to load up to four pieces of real American currency into a small concealed inner compartment. My uncle would then ask a hapless child if he would like a dollar for ice cream from the Good Humor truck or some other childhood dream. Dreams were cheap back then. After a rather animated affirmative answer, my uncle would say "Let's print your dollar right here with my special machine." With the wide-eyed wonder that only five year olds can muster, they would watch as my uncle carefully loaded a piece of white paper exactly the size of a dollar bill into a small tray on the front of the machine. A single careful turn of a crank on the side would draw this paper into the machine at the same time a real dollar bill emerged from the back of the machine. You would've thought my uncle had just flown to the moon and back. Magic. Next he took them to Mars. He would ask them "Want a $5 bill?" YEAHHHH!!! He loaded another white blank. You know the rest. My uncle could do ANYTHING.
Sometimes children who had been raised with strong moral sensibilities would say to him "You can't do that! Isn't that against the law?" With shame my uncle would say, "I guess we better unprint it then." This magic machine from the 38th floor of Toy Towers would allow nit-witted counterfeiters to put the illicit money into the back of the machine and reverse the crank; taking the good currency in and spitting back out the blank white paper on the front end. I am certain there are people, to this day, living in Eastern Tennessee who are absolutely convinced my Uncle was the Wizard of Oz.
A Man's Perfect Love
Nearly all men dream of an idyllic relationship free of harsh words, one where a single pleasing look tells all. Solomon, the wisest man in ancient times told us it is better to live in an attic than to live in a palace with a contentious woman. We men wilt under the power of contentious words. They are death to the soul.
Imagine a relationship in which someone is waiting for you at the door everyday without fail when you get home from work. She asks for nothing in return but a modest bit of affection, more if you are so inclined. Suppose that the whole time not a single ill word ever crosses her lips, instead only pleasing murmurings. Fantasize that she has actually fallen down at your feet and as much said “I’m yours.” Sounding more than pretty good isn't it?
I actually come home to such a splendid circumstance every day. Never once have I heard a sarcastic word and never once have I been nagged about taking out the garbage, picking up my socks, or mowing the grass. You must think I am living in a Star Trek Holodeck. To further wet your appetite, I have found someone who doesn't like to shop and has never once asked me for money! What? How is this possible? Isn't it genetically determined that females are born to shop? No, not really. This belief about women is only part of the American folk myth. But what is amazing is that my little lady doesn't mind when I go out and buy some new power tool that I simply gotta have. And to push the limits of reality she doesn't mind if I bring other women home in the evening!!
You must be wondering what my secret is to finding Nirvana this side of heaven? Bet you would pay your life's savings to get in on this wouldn't you? Because you are a dear friend I will tell you my secret.
Get a gray female tabby cat and feed her Frisky's Special Diet and be certain to keep around a couple of those big rubber bands used to tie broccoli stocks together as they make the ultimate cat toys.
The best lovers wear fur coats.
Norman Cousins was a medical sociologist at a prominent medical center in California. He faced the dark side of Solomon's promise and several times stared into the shadows of incurable life-threatening disease, and laughed. He discovered the power of laughter and was able to essentially humor his diseases into remission and go on for many more productive years. During the acute phase of his illnesses he had comedy videos, humor books, and anything that provoked laughter brought to him and he laughed himself back to health. The Anatomy of an Illness was his best seller which described his discoveries of how a merry heart not only did his soul good but his body also. I consider myself a serious minded-person so have a lot to learn from his writings.
I have a difficult time finding the silver linings in dark clouds but occasionally one shows up for me. In an essentially bleak humorless childhood a small incident occurred which has been a source of many laughs through the years. "Lab Test" insures this incident will live beyond me.
College students are a different sub-species than the rest of homo sapiens. I spent an inordinate portion of my growth and development as one of these. Consequently, I was able to enter into extensive questionable student behavior that was to prove the source of many laughs twenty years later. The poverty-induced creativity of my learning years spawned a number of memorable and now highly amusing pot-luck suppers as readers of "Diners Beware" will find out.
My favorite uncle died a few months ago and his great legacy to the family was his sense of humor. He could find something funny in most anything and if not, he created it on the spot. "Counterfeiters" immortalizes his ability to generate wide-eyed wonder in impressionable young children with his money machines and special scratch pads. He will take your posthumous laughter as a compliment to a life well lived.
Cats prove to be limitless sources of amusement. It is hard to imagine something more amusing than watching my cat turn somersaults in pursuit of a rubber band or chasing a fleck of styrofoam around the house at warp nine.
This silly little feline will endear herself to me by meeting me at the door each evening and then falling down at my feet, purring loudly. "A Man's Perfect Love" offers a possible humorous alternative to those of us who are relational challenged with real women.
Lab Test
In southern California it can get really hot in July, as much as 110 degrees if one lives inland from the ocean. Last week it got to 126 in parts of the desert. On one of these very hot smoggy days my mother had an appointment for a physical exam and had been asked to bring an early morning urine sample to the physician's office with her. Lacking for any suitable container in which to collect her specimen, she elected to make do with a half-pint Black and White Scotch bottle.
My mother is a born shopper, living for opportunities to indulge in department stores like I. Magnin. To maximize her day she combined a shopping expedition with her doctor's appointment. She took the Scotch bottle with her and put it on the front seat of the car so she would not have to return home to collect it. Because it was one of those torrid days, she left the car windows down while she went shopping before her appointment.
When she came back to the car, the bottle was gone.
Diners Beware
We often take the safety of the U.S. food supply for granted until some major calamity gets reported in the media. Notorious examples such as the Jack 'n the Box salmonella poisonings in the Pacific Northwest or the crytosporidium disaster in Milwaukee galvanize public consciousness. As if it is needed, here is another potential threat to the American food supply. Psychological damage to pot-luck supper attendees has been induced by college students living on the edge of poverty who feel compelled to bring unorthodox food stuffs into the food supply, because the price is right. Hapless diners are often exposed to these during pot-luck meals, especially when their luck runs out.
***
While attending Northwestern University, I often found myself on the edge of a financial black hole and frequently indiscriminant in my eating habits. Financial necessity proved a mother of invention and culinary creativity. I often autoclaved a TV dinner in the very same sterilizer in which I made fruit fly media. Disgusting? I'll leave out the other morbid details of my undergraduate eating habits in my fruit fly lab.
It so happened that during my senior year my roomie and I attended a church where a weekly potluck supper in homes was a tradition. I was poor. I was creative and resourceful. I was hungry. So was my room mate. The rent was late. The makings of a psychological food disaster were nearly complete. It was finally our turn to host the Thursday pot-luck. Now, all the ingredients were in place to disrupt the congregation's serenity and create transient culinary psychosis.
I had the good fortune of coming into a five-pound block of frozen whole squid for about a dollar. We had grand visions of seafood wonders that would be the talk of the church for years. With enthusiasm, my roomie and I cut off all those myriad tentacles, fried them and served them as a side dish of "crunchies," never really saying what they were. The amputated bodies yielded their exotic meat which then went into a seafood chowder served in a fine English tureen. We served both with confidence, trusting our guests to be hungry enough to have lost most of their discrimination.
The twelve or fifteen people present were exclaiming how good the meal was until one of them actually had the audacity to ask "What are we eating?" Someone else quickly asked "Just what are those little round things?" as she pointed to the tentacles. I replied "Those are suuuucction cuppps." A sudden clatter of utensils in freefall filled the air. A pregnant pause followed. Helpfully, with an insouciant smile, I also offered "And guess where the bodies ended up that were attached to them. Are we ready for more soup?" I didn't run out of food that night.
***
About a month later the members of our small congregation had recovered from our squid-induced trauma and were sufficiently hungry to once again risk pulling up to our dining table. I had something really special for them. Rabbit.
At the time I had been working about a year in a pharmacology lab in the medical school doing research on the molecular basis of action of a class of cardiac drugs called glycosides. This Nobel Prize research required me to use the hearts of rabbits in surgical experiments and to do all manner of radio-isotopic studies on them. Experimental design required me to remove these from the rabbits without benefit of any kind of drugs or agents. I will assure you the rabbits did not suffer, and so that you won't, I will spare you the details of how I ended up with fine rabbits sans hearts.
The rabbits we used in our experiments were specially raised in sterile lab environments and fed a high grade Purina Rabbit Chow (there actually is such a thing). These rabbits were cleaner and safer than probably most of the meat products available in the grocery store, never injected with hormones and antibiotics as most farm animals are.
In the pharmacology department we had an enterprising secretary from France who was a culinary genius and she delighted in taking home my heartless rabbits and cooking them up into pates and other continental exotics. An industrious technician in another lab tanned the fine white pelts. It occurred to me that if the departmental secretary could take home rabbits and make continental wonders out of them, then I should be able to use them to bring a new dimension to the weekly church pot-luck supper.
On this particular Thursday two fresh rabbits went home with me on the subway, discretely wrapped in plain brown paper. These went into an antique cast iron skillet with a fine blend of spices and were then served hot with a nice side dish of rice and some appropriately inexpensive vegetables, commensurate with a student budget.
An inquiring mind asked "This chicken's different. Wha'd you do to it?" Politely, with even tone I said "It's not chicken." Silence erupted at the table and I knew that every neuron in every brain around the table was thinking that I better have a good explanation, and fast. With another insouciant smile I simply said "It's today's experiment from the medical school." The pregnant pause was punctuated with a crescendo clattering of fork and knife. Visions of rare virulent viruses with no treatment and horrific endings were suddenly seen. I assured them they would not experience any of the Egyptian plagues as described in the book of Exodus or the curses found in the book of Revelations. I also suggested that God no longer used this kind of thing to get our attention.
Curiously, in the future we did not seem to get listed as a host home for the potluck dinners and were often reminded we didn't need to feel compelled to bring a dish. It was suggested we bring carbonated drinks and cups.
***
Two years later I was living on the edge of another financial black hole in another state while working on a masters degree in hospital management. For better or worse, there were many people attending the same church with me, and this church held pot-luck suppers.
I had an acquaintance in this church who was a Davy Crockett look-alike complete with coon-skin cap, leather pants and shirt, Indian moccasins, and a grand pot belly. This guy, Bill, was even complete with black-powder muskets. These were antique working replicas actually requiring a powder horn, gun cotton, tamping rod, lead balls, and the like. One could get off a round every ninety seconds or so with one of these muskets, if they were really good.
Several times Bill had asked me to go hunting with him. I am not a hunter, have never shot anything, and really don't want to. I declined to blast away the natural order of things. Once again, Bill called me up and was insistent that I go hunting with him, that very night. To keep Bill happy and prevent the total rupture of our friendship, I met up with him about 9 PM to go coon hunting under a full moon with the air temperature at minus twenty.
For four frigid hours I chased around with him across ice, snow, and other solid forms of water looking for those ring-tailed curiosities. Inside I was praying those coons were a whole lot smarter than we and were curled up in some warm place having whatever kind of dreams it is that coons have. Fortunately, my moral fortitude was never tested and we never saw the first living thing during that glacial wandering. Bill admitted defeat and we headed back into town, my brain filled with delicious thoughts of a warm bed.
We were on the main four lane road into town when just blocks from Bill's house I saw something on the yellow line. As we drove by, the head lamps revealed it to be nothing other than one very still coon; that ringed tail giving him away. For unknown reasons I assumed it was a him. After all most females are smart enough to be asleep in bed and not out in the middle of the road at minus twenty degrees. I shouted at Bill to drive back around the block and grab it. He complied and we were well rewarded for our efforts. The coon was very dead and essentially undamaged. Mr Coon had died from a glancing blow to the back of the head, which left only a small bit of evidence. Most importantly, he was still quite warm. At minus twenty degrees a dead coon would cool down in less than ten minutes. We both knew this coon was fresh, undamaged, and that it had been presented to us by the universe in unusual fashion at an auspicious time.
A light went on in both our frontal cortexes at the same time: barbecued coon for the potluck supper at church tomorrow!! We eagerly sprinted the last blocks to Bill's house where he expertly removed the fine pelt which he later was able to sell for $35. Being a Davy Crockett look-alike, Bill also knew all about dressing animals and proceeded to do this with me attending in a supervisory capacity. He also knew about cooking such things and proceeded to spend much of the next day performing various incantations and rituals to get the wild taste out and to render our ring-tailed find palatable for a banquet.
Next evening we took our offering to church, contained in an ignominious white and blue corning ware casserole with one of those clear glass tops. We watched with silent curiosity to see how Mr. Coon would be received by the Kingdom of God. Amazingly, the pot was quickly emptied.
Mid-way through the second sampling of the culinary treasures of Heaven, someone commented "This BBQ is different. What kind of beef is this?" With forced seriousness, I said simply "It's not beef." A short cross examination followed. "It's pork then?" "No." "It can't be lamb, can it?" "No" "It sure isn't chicken." "No." A glazed look came over our fellow diner's eyes, as if to say "Oh no!! "What have I gotten into this time?" Without prompting I simply said "Road Kill." "Roadkill!!???" "Yes, coon." "Whhhattt?" "You can't do that!" "We did." Funny, I don't remember the pot-lucks that came after than one.
***
Medical students are well known for living in abject poverty. Perhaps that is why physicians compensate later in life with opulent incomes. I was no different in that the tab for my first year of medical school alone was about $23,000. You can be certain I was intent on getting full value for my education.
It happens that the sciatic nerve in large frogs is very useful for conduction physiology studies that will enrich the frontal lobes of tentative nervous first-year medical students. Experimental design often demands the freshest of ingredients, be it rabbits or frogs. One day we went to physiology lab to discover we were going to do nerve conduction studies using the sciatic nerve from frogs. For those of you that don't know, the sciatic nerve runs from the lower spine down the back of the leg. Each of the twelve lab teams was given a very large and very alive frog which we were instructed to dispatch in a humane fashion. This done, we were instructed to remove the large succulent legs from the frogs and place them on a bed of crushed ice. We were then instructed to carefully remove the sciatic nerve from the back of the leg and then go ahead with our experiments following the detailed instructions in our lab manuals.
Those twelve pairs of large fresh luscious frog legs, still packed in crushed ice were quickly forgotten. While others were busily measuring conduction velocities and the efficacy of various neuro-blocking agents, I was busily planning a menu, with the main course being something truly special. Discretely, I roamed around to the other eleven team tables and quietly collected the forgotten treasures, still packed in ice. The experiments were deemed a success by all but I am certain I had the best results of the whole class. I will leave it to you to guess what kind of results I had.
Sometimes it's simply better to not ask.
Counterfeiter
My dear Uncle Marion was a printer with an unbounded sense of humor that served him rather well for more than eight decades. I can envision small children chasing after him to see what antics he would be up to next. I sometimes wondered if he had the ability to pull rabbits out of hats.
As a printer, he often made scratch pads out of left-over waste paper; making these in myriad brilliant colors; iridescent pink, royal blue, green, salmon, canary, and ten shades of white and ivory. He would put piles of this scrap together, trim them to size in his hydraulic paper cutter, and then make them up into pads with his super duper pad adhesive. I remember being entranced by these, even as a post-adolescent trying to be a self-important college student at an Ivy league school. Before you ask. Ivy really does grow on the walls at my alma mater.
One day Uncle Marion got a brilliant idea that was to earn him many laughs and the consternation of numerous skeptics. Once again, he got the urge to make pads, but this time he decided to use a very special kind of green paper with very small red and blue threads running throughout. He found the only place he could get this kind of paper was in banks. Banks? That's right.
He went down to the local International National State Bank of Hometown America and obtained several packets of newly-printed dollar bills and then hurriedly disappeared into his printing shop to work his magic. He proceeded to take bundles of fifty fresh dollar bills and a piece of stiff cardboard and make them into 'scratch' pads with adhesive down the long edge. Then the real fun began.
This octogenarian humorist would slip a 'pad' of his special scratch into his coat pocket and as needed during the commerce of daily life would pull it out to pay tribute. One time he checked into a hotel and wanted to pay a tip to the porter for carrying his bags. Without fanfare, my uncle pulls out his pad and peels off a couple of bills and hands them to the now mute and uncertain porter. With a small bit of urgency the porter asks "Just what kind of money is this?" My uncle says with insouciant smile "It's good money, of course. I've been a printer all my life and I do good work." Now what would you do if you were the porter? Try to pass the bills? Burn them? Wad them up and toss them away? Give 'em back?
Over the years my uncle saw his special scratch suffer all these fates. One time outside a small grocery he offered a young fellow a tip, carefully peeling a couple of fresh Lincoln portraits from the top of his pad. With uncertainty, the fellow took them. My uncle assured him it was good money as he was a good printer. A buddy nearby told him he could go to the big house if he got caught passing around this kind of money. With some urgency, as my uncle watched, he flicked his bic and incinerated the suspect tribute money, right there on the sidewalk. My uncle gained at least another decade of happy living from his raucous belly laughter.
It turns out my uncle had several modus operandi that he used to pass out his tribute money. One of these involved a small plastic machine made on the 38th floor of some obscure toy factory in inner city Hong Kong. It yielded him at least the status of the Wizard of Oz in the eyes of many cousins, nephews, and nieces during their important formative and impressionable years.
This machine allowed one to load up to four pieces of real American currency into a small concealed inner compartment. My uncle would then ask a hapless child if he would like a dollar for ice cream from the Good Humor truck or some other childhood dream. Dreams were cheap back then. After a rather animated affirmative answer, my uncle would say "Let's print your dollar right here with my special machine." With the wide-eyed wonder that only five year olds can muster, they would watch as my uncle carefully loaded a piece of white paper exactly the size of a dollar bill into a small tray on the front of the machine. A single careful turn of a crank on the side would draw this paper into the machine at the same time a real dollar bill emerged from the back of the machine. You would've thought my uncle had just flown to the moon and back. Magic. Next he took them to Mars. He would ask them "Want a $5 bill?" YEAHHHH!!! He loaded another white blank. You know the rest. My uncle could do ANYTHING.
Sometimes children who had been raised with strong moral sensibilities would say to him "You can't do that! Isn't that against the law?" With shame my uncle would say, "I guess we better unprint it then." This magic machine from the 38th floor of Toy Towers would allow nit-witted counterfeiters to put the illicit money into the back of the machine and reverse the crank; taking the good currency in and spitting back out the blank white paper on the front end. I am certain there are people, to this day, living in Eastern Tennessee who are absolutely convinced my Uncle was the Wizard of Oz.
A Man's Perfect Love
Nearly all men dream of an idyllic relationship free of harsh words, one where a single pleasing look tells all. Solomon, the wisest man in ancient times told us it is better to live in an attic than to live in a palace with a contentious woman. We men wilt under the power of contentious words. They are death to the soul.
Imagine a relationship in which someone is waiting for you at the door everyday without fail when you get home from work. She asks for nothing in return but a modest bit of affection, more if you are so inclined. Suppose that the whole time not a single ill word ever crosses her lips, instead only pleasing murmurings. Fantasize that she has actually fallen down at your feet and as much said “I’m yours.” Sounding more than pretty good isn't it?
I actually come home to such a splendid circumstance every day. Never once have I heard a sarcastic word and never once have I been nagged about taking out the garbage, picking up my socks, or mowing the grass. You must think I am living in a Star Trek Holodeck. To further wet your appetite, I have found someone who doesn't like to shop and has never once asked me for money! What? How is this possible? Isn't it genetically determined that females are born to shop? No, not really. This belief about women is only part of the American folk myth. But what is amazing is that my little lady doesn't mind when I go out and buy some new power tool that I simply gotta have. And to push the limits of reality she doesn't mind if I bring other women home in the evening!!
You must be wondering what my secret is to finding Nirvana this side of heaven? Bet you would pay your life's savings to get in on this wouldn't you? Because you are a dear friend I will tell you my secret.
Get a gray female tabby cat and feed her Frisky's Special Diet and be certain to keep around a couple of those big rubber bands used to tie broccoli stocks together as they make the ultimate cat toys.
The best lovers wear fur coats.
When You Itch For a Better Way
Some of us are frustrated Utopians at heart, itching for a benevolent world where everything turns out right and people treat each other according to the Golden Rule. Alas, this may be only the stuff of science fiction. We only have to read the newspaper or hear the evening news to know there is much room for improvement.
Occasionally, we have brief encounters with a Higher Realm where we can actually experience Utopia, if but for a fleeting moment. A stranger holds the door open when we have our hands filled with a precarious pile of fragile parcels. Someone offers us the choice prize of a brilliant smile on a gray rainy Monday morning. Near the end of the month, when money is short, we pull up to the toll booth and find a driver in front of us has paid our way through. Another driver actually yields to allow us onto the crowded expressway.
Ever had a beautiful unexpected postcard show up in the mail from a treasured friend who thought of you while ten thousand miles away on a long journey? Ever come home and find an aromatic bag on the porch containing a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies?
At one time I must have lived in Utopia. For nearly a year after moving into a new house I came home to find anonymous gifts at my door. During the first week before I had water in the house and a blistering midwestern summer was broiling my soul, I came home to find a single can of ice-cold Coke on the threshold. Many other times I came home to find various sun-drenched offerings from unnamed vegetable gardens. Just last year, someone left a very large pumpkin on my porch which eventually found its way into warm breads and sweet holiday pies.
The only real difference between the Utopian worlds of science fiction and our world is how often people reach out to others in acts of kindness or civility, how often they refrain from personal gain at the expense of others. Sometimes a bit of magic will happen that confirm the Creator's great desire for us to live in a kinder better world.
"A Better Investment" describes my really difficult struggle to walk away from certain profits at a tax auction in order to not make a gain at the expense of others. I struggle with greed as much as the next consumer. It so happens a few months later I was called and given a chance to make a large gain on property sold freely by its owners rather than by the tax authorities.
"Link" is a memorial to a dear friend who makes the world an infinitely more civilized and gracious place, almost Utopian at times. Jan encourages the souls of those around her, sees their inner gold despite coarse rocky exteriors. She helps empower people to believe they can make a difference, one at a time.
In "Wake Up, America!" my cat taught me that there is a better way to start the day. It does not have to be a frantic last second dash to the 63rd floor of a far distant office tower. It can be a leisurely embrace of a new day and perhaps we don't have to spend two or three hours a day commuting. I really don't have to sacrifice myself to a high-pressure high-paying job that might just cost me my soul.
In "Nap" Jan showed me that the best medicine has no adverse side effects and that the best things in life don't have to be confined to our dreams.
We all recall the Olympian magic that descended on Atlanta and the rest of the world. Too well, we recall the reality of Centennial Park. Utopia has yet to arrive on earth. Even so, for a short season, a southern city made infamous by its racial strife and church bombings ascended Mount Olympus. "Olympian Magic" describes what that city found on top.
"Safety as Myth" describes many of our desperate bids for safety and security. We install electronic detection systems in our houses, over insure ourselves, obsess about making more money, try to win the lottery. Yet we may fall in the bathtub and be rendered total dependent. The ancient time‑tested wisdom of Solomon tells us that there is for everything a season. A time to live, a time to die, a time to laugh, a time to cry. If we can truly rest in this then we may find out what real living is about.
Sometimes it's difficult to determine whether something is still owned by someone or if it has been abandoned. "Teddy Bear" captures my hesitation about removing a pink four inch stuffed teddy bear from a lamp post on the town square. There was only the one and it gave a sense of having been lost by an unknown little girl and later picked up by a passer-by and given refuge in the holiday decorations of a nearby lamp post. I left it but checked on it two weeks later and found it in the mud and ice. I took it home and shampooed it and hung it above the wood stove to dry.
Volunteerism is probably the shortest way to Utopia in this world and might even help get us to the Kingdom of God. In "Second Mile" my uncle demonstrated the volunteer spirit to be what moves America, not trucks. It's no accident Jesus never drove a Chevy.
Its easy to think one knows it all after taking seventeen years of university training and traveling to thirty-one countries. In "#409" it's obvious that I didn't learn it all in university and still haven't quite got it. Sometimes the greatest teachers never got past the third grade.
"Reeducation" only confirms that my learning still has a long way to go before being completed. We often see things at face value and conclude the worst. I do. This time I found out that what I thought to be a great tragedy was really a great blessing for the ones that went through it. Ms. Rice found out that tragedy was an open door way to great blessing. Sometimes we have to walk in another's moccasins to really know what's going on.
"Offering" confirms that there is always room for Hope, even when we are in the midst of the darkest of circumstances. There isn't a disease in the world someone has not beaten. The greatest mind in the world has beaten Lou Gherigs disease back for decades while he explores the universe. Miracles are just that; the impossible made possible.
Much of our value system we learn from our parents, for better or worse. If you're luck, you got a daddy like the one Ms. Rice had. She has grand memories of him and relishes telling stories of his life. In "The Second Temptation of Mankind" Ms. Rice relates her learning about the folly of telling lies. In Utopia there is no need for lies. If we quite telling them here we might just get closer to experiencing it.
"Productivity Enhancement and Institutional Survival" makes the humorous suggestion that putting cats in hospitals might make them better places to get well. In actuality, hospitals would be much better places to get well in if those of us working in them were to be much less self-important and let go of our pretenses. Cats don't know anything about the caste systems that exist in most hospitals.
Einstein figured out a long time ago that time moves more slowly or more quickly depending how fast we are moving. In "Crescent" I suggest that if we move more slowly we will have more time to live life more fully, especially during our travels. Rather than spend a mere forty minutes sitting in a jet to get launched to a destination, it might just make sense to stretch it out into a seven-hour railroad odyssey instead.
A Better Investment
Several weeks ago a friend called me to tell me of a large sale of properties by her county to satisfy delinquent real estate tax payments. I had visions of acquiring grand properties for pennies on the dollar. It occurred to me after some days of pondering that it would be rather uncivil for me to make a large gain at the expense of someone else’s misfortune. Even with this acquired wisdom, there was an ongoing inner struggle between the small nascent part of my being that attempts to live above greed and the much larger part that would be perfectly happy to win $100 million in the Super Ball lotto and live happily ever after on a tropical atoll. Too bad for all the millions who bought lotto tickets and lost.
During the course of my struggle I decided I would drive the thirty five miles to the court house and look at the tax map books to see if there really was something I shouldn't be missing. Don’t ask me to explain the theology of such an approach to decision making. It is not something to be emulated. I am a master at rationalization. If the deals proved irresistible, then I should go after them, right? I got in my car and headed to the court house two counties away. My routing was to take me past the entrance to the South Carolina Botanical Gardens. I found myself turning into the gardens, eliminating my last opportunity to view the map books before the tax auction scheduled for next Monday.
Alone in those gardens on a cloudy afternoon I experienced the late fall brilliance of myriad wild flowers and swarms of butterflies. I knew I was in the right place. I just knew it. While wandering in dark shade of the forest I caught the intense distinctive fragrance of newly bloomed gardenia, my favorite flavor. I was quite surprised by this as the season is months past the time for blooming of gardenias. What made this more confounding was the complete lack of gardenia bushes or blooms. I wandered about 45 minutes in the area and never found a bush, stray blossom or anything else to account for the truly over powering aroma I left the gardens quite bewildered by this, even mentioning it to several friends in the evening.
Late in the evening my dearest friend, Jan called. During the course of our discussion I mentioned enjoying aromatic gardenia where there was no gardenia. She excitedly told me that the gardenia bush in her garden had a single bloom open on it today, in the afternoon. I gave her this bush last year and in the years I had the bush and the year she has had it, it has never made a single flower. Last year it never even made a bud. We both were taken aback when we realized that in some magical way I had experienced the miracle of her perfectly-timed bloom. You see, the bloom was 288 miles west of where I was standing when I was delighted with the unique signature of that symbol of gentleness.
We are convinced that this was a magical sign to both of us that God the Father provides for His children and that I don't need to depend on tax auctions, lotteries, or the misfortunes of others to experience true security. If He can enable me to partake of a gardenia bloom at 288 miles, He can empower me to partake of the desires of my heart, His way.
Store up your treasures in Heaven where thieves do not steal and where moths do not destroy.
Link
Two strangers meeting at table;
both part, satiated in Spirit.
Another faltering in her step; clings.
With You, she walks in confidence.
An elder failing in health, fears.
With gentle words, Hope flowers.
Would-be musicians, uncertain,
bask in Your creative urgings.
Lacerated by life's malignity;
many muse Your missives of Mercy.
Young, uncertain of the future;
dreamy-eyed youth trust Your Way.
Your sentient radiance warming me;
inner ice melts, releasing my soul.
Just One makes a grand difference.
They say butterfly wings cause hurricanes.
Want to share a taxi?
Wake Up, America!
Have you ever wondered why Americans are so aggressive and confrontational with each other? Sociologists have explored this issue for decades and come up with little that is truly definitive. Their landmark studies often describe a culture nearly run amok. Rather unsettling reading actually, which the popular press loves to sensationalize.
I think I have found the solution with only minimal experimental research. Like with some other great discoverers, it was not due to a great scientific mind being at work, rather just plain old good luck. Remember the guy that discovered “post-it note” adhesive for 3M and made hundreds of millions of dollars? It was a serendipitous accident. He left a pot full of improperly-made adhesive on a lab counter and the next morning found it didn't stick very well, but well enough to attach 2 x 2 inch squares of yellow paper to most surfaces on the third planet. No, I don’t expect to make hundreds of millions of dollars with my discovery, but perhaps we can save billions of dollars as a nation in reduced casualty and medical insurance losses as a result of lower aggression.
This morning, in the quiet serenity of my own bed, the solution to our perplexing social problems presented itself to me. It being Sunday morning, I had not yet been victimized by a certain strident technology, which allowed me time for relaxed creativity. Americans are well known to be severely sleep deprived. Much as been made of this in the media in the past year. Everything from homicide to excess highway mortality has been attributed to our being in states of partial consciousness. I am among their ranks, at times. This is one of those hapless times.
The past several nights did not find me in quiet repose until 1:30 AM. And the emergence of another morning can be especially harsh at such times. But today in my hazy fog I found brilliant clarity.
Think back to those times when you have been mid way through some fabulous dream and in the merest instant found yourself blasted into the consciousness of a new day with a pulsating thousand-cycle shrill insult from that tiny plastic monster located strategically near your head. All night long, with those two tiny dots pulsating at one-second intervals, it waited for the most inopportune time to destroy your fantasy. Ever slammed your fist down on the thing in less than a nanosecond in a desperate bid to get back to Shangri-La? To no avail. The transporter coordinates had been lost.
How did you feel when you realized you weren't really in Shangri-La but in your bed on a rainy nasty Monday morning? And it was 8:45 AM and your project presentation scheduled for 9 AM is twenty-two miles away and sixty-three floors up and the express elevators are out for maintenance. Did your demeanor get worse when you remembered that you had planned to get up early to get your grand exposition finished up, because you played golf yesterday instead? How was it when those believable rumors of a corporate down-sizing percolated up into your grogginess?
I would suspect that when this not-so pleasant reality was foisted onto you by that digital-display monster, you were off and in the running for a really bad day, I also suspect the sociologists could have collected much field information about your aggressive uncivil behavior on the Dan Ryan expressway. Especially, when you cut off that ambulance from County that had the audacity to merge into your lane from the on-ramp as you were attempting to get off. You missed your exit. I think the picture is pretty clear now.
Would you like to rewind and start the day over?
The sun is just making itself known, with an ebony sky giving way to platinum possibilities. A slow gentle rumbling resonates in the depths of your being and barely rises above the horizon of consciousness. What is it? Pondering, curious, you turn over with relaxed grunt. Time slips. It grows louder. Two neurons fire. With minimally functional sentience, you realize the cat is directly under the bed purr claiming the arrival of aureate dawn. You admit to a tiny smile as you lapse back into pleasant slumber
The day blooms vermilion. A gentle prodding politely suggests its time to embrace the grand opportunity of a new-born day. You turn the other way with serene musings. It persists. You relapse again, searching for Shangri-La.. Perhaps its out there for the finding. A gentle “meow?” breaks your reverie. Nine precious minutes drift by. More firmly now. “Meow.” It’s eighteen minutes now. With a bit more crescendo, “Meow!” Twenty-seven priceless minutes, more than enough. With total commitment. “MEOW!” My feline guardian walking on my head whispers “You can let me outside now or I can do it right here, right now.” I get up, instantly.
With great expectations of the new day, I smile. I really don't have to make that frantic dash to that high-pressure high paying job that enables me to buy all that 'stuff' I will only sell in next year's garage sale. My furry teacher again reminds me of the basics we need for happy contented living. Health, a few good friends, a warm bed, a cat, being let out, and Purina Special Diet. Puderd goes out to chase squirrels. I go out to chase dreams. Before leaving the house I unplug the alarm clock. I don't think I'll need it any more. I gave my notice today.
I drove nice all day.
Nap
Modern American life is so stressful that a multi-million-dollar industry has grown up to show people how to cope with living their lives at the speed of light. Thousands of books, tapes, videos, seminars, and conferences are offered at princely prices to the chronologically beleaguered. When it gets really difficult to contend, one can pay $125 an hour for a therapist who can talk with you and wire you up to a bio-feedback machine, if you can find the time and money.
I will have to confess to living my life at warp nine a lot of the time. It's hard not to when the whole culture seems to push ever faster. I know I am in really big trouble when my 'to-do' list is an ever-growing relational data base on a pentium computer. Yes, I really do keep up with my life this way. Pathetic isn't it?
A couple of days ago I had a profoundly de-stressing and ultimately relaxing experience with a very close friend. I was walking with Jan in a very fine botanical garden on an unusually cool July day. It was one of those singularly brilliant low-humidity days that occurs in summer right after a rare cold front pushes a cleansing rain just ahead of it; one of those days that has you wondering "why can't summer always be like this?" We were in the coolest region of the garden, a serene wild flower garden under a emerald canopy of oak and sweetgum trees when Jan spotted some brilliant lacy Cahaba lilies growing in a small fern bog. While sharing mutual exclamation over the aesthetic merits of these rare lilies, we spotted a newly installed memorial bench of limestone.
Jan sat down at one end. Impulsively, I laid down on this cool slab and put my head in her lap. In seconds, I was soundly asleep, enjoying myriad dreams. I often dream a lot when I take naps during the day. I was amazed to awaken and find I had been soundly sleeping in such a bucolic setting with a fine friend. I have no idea how long I slept.
If you live your life too fast, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to the nearest botanical garden with a dear friend who likes human touch. Find a sturdy bench in the shade. Lie down with your overfull head in your friend's lap and make petition for a head massage. Fall swiftly asleep.
Dream.
Olympian Magic
So often life is filled with the daily grind of paying bills, staying ahead of creditors, taking the car in for an estimate and having the wind knocked out of us when we are told how much it’s going to be. When not contending with financial turbulence, we often worry if our children are using drugs, if racial tensions will destroy our cities, if fear of crime will rob us of our freedom. We struggle to get to the day care on time, leave work to carry our children to the doctor, get dinner on the table. Life can be exceptionally complex and stressful with little light at the end of the tunnel for many. As I write this, teams of divers were probing the dark cold waters of the North Atlantic for the remains of TWA Flight 800; presumed to have been blasted from the skies by callous terrorists.
Yet, moments of magic enable us to transcend valleys of hopelessness and stand on summits of great joy. Birmingham, Alabama is known as the Magic City, the only place in the world where all the ingredients for making steel occurred naturally. Little steel is made there anymore, but today that city made another kind of magic; the kind that builds bridges, not of steel, but of unity and celebration.
More than eighty-five thousand residents of that city, once known for the Sixteenth Street bombing, came together to celebrate the 26th Olympiad and to build bridges between white and black, rich and poor. Legion Field is in a dying part of the city, silent but a few days a year. Today, an all-time attendance record was set for that stadium, the silence forgotten as the hopeful came to noisily commemorate the Centennial games. It is the first time in decades that no nation has boycotted the games. It seems no one in Birmingham boycotted the games either. For a magical day, fears set aside, strangers held hands, proclaiming love and unity as the setting sun transfigured the collective blues of soul to golden possibilities of shared celebration. Thousands of voices united in a grand choir, transcending denomination, color ,and class, sang of hope for a higher way. Olympians played out their fantasies on a field of dreams. Spectators saw fear transformed to hope.
And when it was all done, people drove friendly. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.
Safety as Myth
The security industry in America is booming. We spend a veritable fortune to wire our homes to protect ourselves from fire, thieves, and pathological killers. Many of my friends and acquaintances have their houses and businesses wired directly to police and fire stations. Wealthy executives build bullet‑proof limousines, hire heavily‑armed body guards, and install state‑of‑the‑art electronic surveillance systems. We use security systems to make sure people don't put bombs on planes or in public places. Sixty percent of the households in my state keep firearms. Our state legislature just passed a bill allowing all private citizens to carry concealed weapons for protection. We seek to fortify a place of safety.
The insurance industry is unbounded in the modern era. We have short‑term disability insurance, long‑term disability insurance, major medical insurance, hospitalization insurance, cancer insurance, liability insurance, workman's compensation insurance, dental insurance, replacement‑value homeowner's insurance, burial insurance, uninsured motorist insurance, collision insurance, malpractice insurance, comprehensive insurance, term life insurance, Medigap insurance, accidental death insurance. W seek to insure our way to safety.
An acquaintance works for a printing company which is dependent on a $750,000 high speed press for its production. A 29 cent piece of wire in the press arced three years ago and caused a fire which resulted in a total loss of the press. Thirty people have lost their jobs, the company is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will soon be in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The owner is facing personal bankruptcy as he has legal liability for his company debts. This despite loss‑of‑business insurance, fire insurance, capital equipment insurance, and a jury trial that found in favor of his printing company. Surety is not a sure thing in this world.
If we're smart, we wear seat belts when driving, helmets when riding our bikes, and life vests when canoeing or kayaking on white water. When doing technical climbing on a cliff face we use retaining pins and ropes. We carry a compass if hiking off trail in the wilderness. We seek safety from calamity.
The culture has become quite preoccupied with what are called extreme sports; those activities with a high level of risk and a demand for high physical endurance and skill. I am more frequently encountering people who wear plaster casts as a medal of honor. One can certainly question the virtues of many of these activities. It is difficult to see the merits of riding a bike down a 75 degree ski slope during the summer. Preparation and planning are appropriate when doing things that have inherent danger to them, even more so when doing things with very high levels of danger.
The tragedy in the modern era is that we have become bound by an obsession with financial and physical safety. I remember nights in my childhood when we sat in the front room of the house with rifles because of a barrage of death threats by phone. My mom kept a semi‑automatic pistol in the 'gun drawer' of her dresser for years. An acquaintance routinely is called at night to meet the police at his place of business when his alarm goes off. It is necessary to drive through two gates to get to his house.
I find myself preoccupied with safety as well. I fly a lot. How could I not be concerned. Korean Air, Air India, Pan Am, and now TWA know too well about the flimsy illusion of safety that comes from bomb detection security systems. In three days I will be getting on a plane once again, in Atlanta. I was in Atlanta the morning the Olympic spirit was blasted from Centennial Park to the front pages of the world's newspapers.
I think that I can create a place of safety for myself if I stay off planes, stay out of big cities, stay away from people with guns, buy lots of insurance, wear my seat belt and drive less. I have to confess to many years given to seeking safety and security rather than life. What is really absurd about my situation is that I have been spared death at least eight times that I know of and in no case was my safe passage in any way dependent on my own advance preparation, hyper vigilance, trained anticipation, or trained reaction to the events that threatened me.
Three times I have walked away from the metallic carnage of having my cars totaled by drunks. There was not enough time for me to react or to do anything . Another time I survived being in a level four thunderstorm in a plane and having it struck by lightning and losing all power. Me doing anything? Hardly. I sat in the back and lost it, but I lived to tell about it. It wasn't my time. The Guinness Book of Records for the early 80s editions showed the highest fatality hotel fire to have occurred in Seoul, Korea on December 18, 1971. One hundred eighty nine people died in that fire. I had a paid reservation in that hotel that fateful night. I didn't burn. In September of 1992, thirty‑four people died around me in a two‑thousand‑year rated flood in the French Alps. The event filled fifty pages of the European news magazines. I didn't even get wet. It was not my appointed time.
A close friend was on TWA Flight 800 on Monday, July 15th coming from Athens to New York. She had a premonition that something dreadful would happen to the plane. She came home without incident to tell me of her premonition. Two days later the very plane was blasted from the sky. It wasn't her time yet.
I think that if I stay in my house I will be safe. It is well known that many fatal accidents occur in home bathrooms, in fact, far, far more than have ever occurred in airplanes, hotel fires, or from lightning strikes combined. I got an impressive personal lesson in this last week. As I write this I sit on a very sore back side. I live in a two‑story house and have gone up and down the stairs dozens of times a day for years, without incident. Last week, half way down, I slipped and went the remainder of the distance in a single high impact blur with a very jarring finish at the bottom. I was really quite astounded. I ended up with only a very sore tailbone. I could have just as easily ended up a quadriplegic from a cervical fracture of the spine and still be lying at the bottom of the stairs waiting for someone to find me. I got up. It wasn't time for me to pass through those waters Nothing could have predicted the fall and nothing I could have done would have altered the outcome. I could buy a house on one level and then fall in the bathtub and shatter my skull. Life's risk.
Two women I am getting to know well went back packing some weeks ago in the nearby mountains. I have the good fortune to live within sight of the Blue Ridge mountains. Mary had the misfortune of slipping on a rocky face four miles from the trail head and causing herself serious injury. She was unable to carry her own weight and certainly unable to carry her own heavy back pack. Rosellen, who is much smaller than Mary carried both packs four miles and half carried Mary. Mary did not die on that rocky place and she did not have to walk alone. In the ancient writings of Ecclesiastes we are told if one falls, then another pulls him up, but if a man falls when alone, then he is in trouble. Rosellen had the wisdom to not walk alone.
I work in a hospital all day every day except at special times. One of the things I find haunting working in a hospital are the announcements over the public address system for a Code 99. In our hospital a Code 99 is a semi‑secret way to tell everyone working in the hospital someone has just gone into full cardiac arrest without unduly upsetting the large numbers of visitors, patients, and public that are in the hospital at any given time. This week I got a code 99 at 4:34 AM at home. I was informed it was time for my mother. She left nineteen days after her 81st birthday. Gently, the nurse told me Heaven was ready for my mother. I thanked her for her gentle care of Mom.
The same ancient time‑tested wisdom of Solomon tells us that there is for everything a season. A time to live, a time to die, a time to laugh, a time to cry. If we can truly rest in this, we can then board airplanes, back pack the Blue Ridge, climb the stairs, let dear ones go; not wondering what more we could do to insure our own safety or the safety of others. Safety comes from the One who was before the foundations of time.
"He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; and his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart."
Teddy Bear
Autumn frost expanding into winter;
Cinnamon cider and chestnuts warm hearts.
Holiday festivities giving life pause,
holly and lights festoon street lamps.
There in prickly leaves, illuminated,
your nascent pink smile greets us.
Four velveteen paws embrace life,
offering Hope to those passing by.
Trusting you to fate, I leave empty-handed;
wanting others to learn Your Secret.
Not daring to take you from your leafy shrine,
I pray for warm dry days at Christmas.
Should I bring you in from the chill,
lest you catch cold or be kidnapped?
***
It is January, patina of Christmas fading,
decorations stored, village shrouded in darkness.
Wondering if you are dry and warm,
I drive by your post, looking, hoping.
You are there, cast aside, shivering.
Ice and snow imprison your radiance.
Another was left out in the cold at Christmas.
But, then, You know this don't you?
Let me put another log on the fire.
The Second Mile
In the heyday of the Roman Empire, military forces occupied many far-flung provinces. It was required of citizens and foreign subjects that they submit to carrying a soldier's field pack for one mile, if so requested. Soldiers were not permitted to demand citizens to carry their gear any further than this. The first mile was expected. Volunteering to carry a pack a second mile was seen as a remarkable act of generosity.
My Uncle Bart recently released his dear wife, Nancy, to Eternity after more than fifty years of happy marriage. They lived in era when people stayed together for the long haul and shared the challenges of life. An inspiring tenacity of spirit in my uncle shows clearly in his commitment to volunteer community service. In spite of his own incalculable loss, he has continued to drive a truck two days a week for a community food pantry and also kept up the race as a volunteer runner in the local hospital another two full days a week. He goes more than the second mile every day.
For some years, my uncle drove about town in his own car collecting surplus food for the community kitchen which then made it available to the needy. As the generosity of food donors grew and as more people became dependent on these services, my uncle's car no longer could pass mustard. He saw the need for a bigger mousetrap. At his own expense, he bought a new pick-up truck and donated it to the community kitchen. As harvests of donated groceries continued to increase and client appetites gobbled them up, the point was reached where a large step van was purchased by the Board of Directors and my uncle's well-loved pick-up truck used as the trade in.
My uncle was not consulted about this and he could have been miffed about it and quit the race. Most would have. I probably would have. Instead, he kept driving, sitting up high in that new step-van. Alas, his is not a step-van kind of persona. If you knew my uncle, you'd know what I mean. He tried but never could reconcile himself to that big step-van. He stepped down and went for the third mile. He raced to the nearest Chevy dealer and bought another new pick-up truck and is out there yet, today making his rounds, carrying more than his share of the load.
The heartbeat of America? It ain't trucks. It's the generous hearts of a few good men.
#409
I don't think of myself as a numerologist or one that places significance on superstitious numbers. For example, you could find me living perfectly happy on the thirteenth floor of a building, excepting that some people might be hesitant to come visit me. I usually find Friday the Thirteenth to be a splendid day; kind of a reverse expectation of the day that so many dread. Yet, recently I noticed an obscure numerical co-incidence that merits notation here, if for no other reason than it gives me a good excuse to write about something I find quite important.
For several weeks I have been visiting an eighty-five year old saint, Elva Rice, in a nearby nursing home where she happens to live in Room 409. Several nights ago as I came out of the nursing home, entranced with the mysteries of the Hale-Bopp comet setting in the west, it occurred to my idle mind that there is a super-duper household disinfectant cleaner called simply "409." I don't know what brought this less-than-profound decidedly non-cosmic observation of the universe to mind but it inspired me to get my brain out of idle and into a meditative state.
What emerged was an opportunity to consider a significant spiritual principle: we become like those we associate with, for good or bad. It has been an unfortunate reality that I have had a struggle with faith for many years while others simply know who they are in a spiritual sense and have a total certainty regarding the reality of God and Heaven. Most of the people around me have also struggled with doubt a lot and it is a rare person in my world that KNOWS for certain about God and Heaven or even wants to acknowledge the possibility of their reality. Birds of a feather flock together as they say.
In the past three weeks that I have been going to the nursing home I have made an important personal discovery. Faith is infectious! Elva has as strong and consistent and inspiring a Christian faith as I have yet encountered in my extended travels and she has infected me with it. I have found that my own tortured struggle with faith has been greatly diminished during the past weeks. I have even begun to experience a quiet wondrous knowing that is new to me in all the decades of doubting I have wrestled with. I find myself captivated with the idea that the Christian message is REALLY true and not subject to my doubts. Talk about a cure for fears and anxieties!
Last night I went back to that nursing home feeling like a student taking the most important course of study in the world: reality. In nursing homes there's no pretense. There's congestive heart failure, night terrors, constant screaming, vast isolation, loneliness, fear, dementia, PAIN. Big pain. But what I have learned there is that the Christian faith is for real and is bigger than any of these things.
Late in the evening my personal saint asked me to wheel her around those halls so that she could have prayer with her fellow patients. We went to several rooms and each time I was introduced as her adopted son. I stood behind her wheelchair and waited for her to pray. After some awkward silence she asked me to pray out loud. I did. You know what? I believed those prayers for those dear suffering women were heard in the highest parts of Heaven. I knew that I knew. I knew there was no more important thing in the world I could be doing than praying, laying my hands on those platinum heads. In that instant, I knew that I have been infected with the magic of faith. And, its safe from the strongest disinfecting cleanser, even 409.
In the Old Testament book of Isaiah we are told that the way to cool down a fire is to spread out the coals. Separate them and they will grow cold and dark. In the New Testament book of Hebrews we are told to not forsake the fellowship of the saints. We are like coals. If a number of coals are kept in proximity to each other, they will maintain their heat and light. In a few short weeks I have found that getting next to a red hot coal of faith has yielded much heat and light in my dark world of doubt. Last night, I found that I could take my own meager heat and light into those dark warrens of fear and bring possibility to those shattered and frightened souls.
Your own answer may be found in the back halls of a nursing home. It might even be found in a nearby church. And watch out, you might get infected for life and there's no disinfectant for a Faith infection except Heaven.
Reeducation
Things are not always as they seem and this can be especially true in matters of the spirit. From our perspective on the ground, the only thing in sight may be a swirling green-black cloud with ominous intent. From another's perspective above, one may see instead cerulean heavens with billowing white cotton tufts below. Anyone who has experienced a jet take-off into dark foreboding cloud, only to break through into cobalt brilliance moments later, will know exactly how compelling this change in perspective can be. Yet, both perspectives are correct. In matters of the spirit, merely changing our attitude is often enough to lift us above a swirling harbinger of doom to witness a heavenly wonder. Today I had an opportunity to experience a cloud from both sides. I realized that reality can often be what we want it to be, simply by making an attitude adjustment, by walking in faith.
I think most of us have an unspoken fear of experiencing some sort of incapacitating accident or medical calamity and being rendered helpless to cope with it. Our deeper fear is that no one will find us or come to our aid. Years ago I faced a neurologic monster and had an intense encounter with this same fear. I have several male acquaintances who have gone through as many as seven marriages in desperate bids to find a woman willing to protect them from the unplanned consequences of life. One of these men even states that he is looking for someone to take care off him when his health begins to fail. And yes, his health has begun to fail and his forth wife has just left him. Alas, no person can protect us from the strong currents of life.
I just returned from a visit to the seventh floor of the hospital where I had a truly sobering experience. An earlier phone call from an acquaintance, Ron, revealed him to be in the hospital fighting a dangerous kidney infection. For most of us this would not be a major issue but for Ron, who has been a quadriplegic for thirty-one years, it's more than a big deal, it can be life-threatening. He's been living on the edge of survival for decades with his eighty-five year old mother, who has been caring for him in a once-grand now-disintegrating Victorian house in that part of town most people with a choice stay out of.
While visiting Ron, I casually asked about his mother. Ron told me that his mother had fallen and broken her hip two weeks ago and was now confined to a nursing home following corrective surgery. Ron now finds himself in the hospital with his primary caregiver confined to a nursing home. Ron has no place to go when he is discharged from the hospital. He is quite unable to live alone as he is unable to even wipe away his own tears.
Ron related to me the facts of a horrific scenario. About 8:30 PM one evening, Ron's mother went out to the porch to lock the screen door and on her way back into the house stumbled. She heard her own hip shatter on the way down. She ended up lying on the floor until the middle of the next day writhing in intense pain, wondering if she would freeze to death in the middle of a long winter night. She was never able to reach a phone. Ron lay helpless on his bed just inside the door that same long night, quite unable to call for help, also wondering if anyone would find them.
The next day a Meal's On Wheels volunteer showed up and left without coming to their aid when unable to open the door or get a response. Later he returned and this time Ron and his mother were able to make a rehearsed yell for help that gained his attention. The volunteer left again, promising to go for assistance. Later yet, police showed up, broke in the door and were able to bring the first chapter of this story to a close.
I am not sure how it happened, but Ron ended up staying in that house more than a week by himself while his mother had hip surgery. Without his mother keeping after him, he got a major infection and ended up in the hospital where he has been a week now, wondering about his infection, about his future, if his mother will mend, and if she will ever get out of the nursing home. It's safe to say that all people would pass on such an experience, given a choice and most would be hard pressed to see anything but swirling ominous clouds in the future.
One of the most confounding and difficult passages in the New Testament is one in James that admonishes us to count it all joy for the various trials that afflict us so that we can become people of better character. In other words, a major attitude adjustment. This, without a doubt, is the hardest thing we are called to do on the journey of Faith. Don't let anyone proclaim that Christianity is an easy opiate for the masses of people who aren't up to the hard stuff of life.
For a number of days I have visited Ron and his mother in their respective institutions. It's been rather convenient, actually. I work in the hospital and the nursing home is on the same block as my house. It has not been a sacrifice on my part to visit them. The reality is driving a great distance to see them would not be a sacrifice because I have gotten something truly profound and of great value from both of them: an attitude check, an infusion of faith, a re-education. When I first heard this story of Ron lying helpless in his bed as his mother writhed in agony on the floor, I was nearly breathless from the horror of it all. When I heard the other side of the story I was breathless with wonder and amazement.
If you go to visit Elva Rice in the nursing home you will be in for a real joyous surprise. You won't find someone with head hung down, lamenting her lot in life, pandering for pity and compassion, playing on your emotions. What you will find instead is a radiant Faith unequalled in all Israel and these here parts as well. We're talking about an eighty-five year old woman with a busted hip, a beloved husband in the ground for years, a paralyzed son that has used up more than three decades of her life, a house falling apart around her, yet one who expounds openly about how good God has been to her and what a blessed life she has lived.
When all I saw were the horrors of that winter night, the forbidding possibilities, all she saw were the Eternal promises. Elva Rice will look you in the face with clear eyes and without hesitation tell you that winter night was the best night of her eight and a half decades on this Earth. She describes a wondrous transcendent experience with the Creator God of the Universe that took her from a broken body on a cold splintered floor into the very Presence of God where she felt Him enfold her for the duration of that cold night and the next day. In her experience, there is nothing more real than the Presence of God she encountered in that cold darkness.
Does Ron's mother regret going to a nursing home? No way! She sees it as an opportunity to be an assistant to the Teacher of all time. She carries His radiant message of Hope throughout those halls of despair and loneliness. She sees herself as in a privileged position to reach out to these lonely souls and to weary nurses and aides. For years Elva has lived in semi-isolation in that old house caring for Ron. She now has dozens of people to interact with on a daily basis. During the day Elva is out in a wheel chair cruising up and down the halls loving on the lonely souls slouched over on the tray tables of their wheel chairs. Her grandson tells me he has not seen his grandmother look so animated and rested in years. She has brought much brightness to a dark place.
It doesn't get any better than this. This woman, by any measure of the world, has gotten a lousy deal but she doesn't know that. She uses a different yardstick. A heavenly One. She KNOWS where her husband is. She KNOWS where she is going. She KNOWS where her son is going. And she KNOWS there are no wheelchairs in Heaven.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
Offering
Have you ever been at a point in your life where you feel like you are caught in the jaws of a giant monster and about to move down on the food chain? I recall times when I was absolutely certain there was no way out and I was doomed to some horrible fate. One time I thought it was multiple sclerosis, another time cancer, yet another blindness. A couple of times I have been let go (outsourced) from my job. Many of us have faced a severe challenge when we were given a grim pronouncement by a physician, plunged into economic free fall when we were told our services were no longer needed, or found a note on the kitchen table telling us our spouse had packed up and left without a forwarding address. Economic and relational uncertainty seem to have become epidemic. Yet, today I don't have multiple sclerosis, cancer, or blindness and am gainfully employed. I would not have thought that possible at different times, no possibility of it whatever.
Last night about 11 PM I went to the front door to look for the cat and heard a horrible cry from a creature in distress. It certainly didn't sound like any cat I had ever heard. Seconds later my docile gentle feline ran up on the porch, past me into the house, carrying in her mouth the very obvious source of the plaintive tormented call I had just heard. I quickly turned on the light to find a bird in the jaws of a rather unpleasant scenario. I very quickly removed the cat with bird to the porch and liberated the feathered victim from certain oblivion. Happily, the bird fluttered away, without delay, no doubt with adrenalin maxed out. I never went to vet school. I assume birds have adrenalin for emergency get aways. I quickly tossed the cat into the interior of the house to sulk at her loss. The cat stayed in all night and is under house arrest today. That little sparrow needs a break today.
At one point that bird would have seen no possibility for liberation from her captor. I 'happened' to open the door at exactly the right moment just before going to bed and was able to intervene. We humans often face things from which we think there is no possibility of liberation. Yet, prisoners of war in the Hanoi Hilton experienced the magic of release after eight years. Jews experienced the enchantment of emancipation by the Allies. I experienced the magic of not having multiple sclerosis. I get a pay check every other Thursday. There were times when I didn't.
The good part is there is no limit to the possibilities for you. You may be facing cancer or some other horrific circumstance in life. I can't tell you liberation is for certain today. But I can tell you for certain, it is possible for today. If as the Christian scriptures say, "He who counts the sparrows and the hairs on your head will not let you falter" is true and he can move me to liberate a sparrow from the clutches of my house pet, then you can be hopeful that He will liberate you. If not today, then tomorrow, for certain.
Tomorrow you may be flying again.
The Second Temptation of Mankind
One of the best known stories of the early origins of man arises from the serpent's temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden. In this case, as you know, the serpent offered Eve a luscious apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She took this fine fruit and offered Adam a succulent juicy bite. And as you also know, both got caught in the misdeed and Adam passed off responsibility to the woman who gave it to him. What do you want to bet that Adam had something to say to her after they were alone once again? Of course you know, mankind hasn't been quite the same since.
Actually, we never are told that it was an apple. But apples do work nicely in classical paintings. About eighty-one years ago there was another incident involving fruit. This time we are certain the tempting culprit was, indeed, an apple, as I have direct testimony from the one tempted. And yes, like the first time, the temptation was too much to bear.
It has been my great fortune to have nearly daily visits with an eight-five year old saint in the nursing home behind my house. It seems nursing homes are among the great educational institutions of America. I learn more there than most anywhere else. It was here that I learned of the second great temptation of mankind. I will let Ms. Rice tell you in her own words.
Perhaps what we had done was overlooked because they were after that lie. My daddy always said "A man is no better than his word." He said if a man's word was no good and he couldn't believe him, he was a no account man. Just watch him. Mark it down.
One time I remember, when I was a little one, between three and a half and four years old. My daddy was just a young father and he started him up an orchard, just cleared up the land, terraced it down, and started his orchard. He would order his trees from Starks Brothers. Some from Sears Roebuck, way back then. He would dig holes where he was going to put them and then he would call me as his big helper. I would stand there and hold the trees up straight and erect while he tamped down the soil around them. I thought I was really something because I was helping Daddy start an apple orchard. He would tell me how good the apples would be and we would make pies and we would make jellies, and apple cider. I just loved those apple trees.
About the second year after we got them out, a few of the trees began to put little bunches of blossoms out on the tips of every branch. Daddy would take me by the hand, lead me around, and show me these and say "This will make a red apple and this will make a yellow apple and we will have some fine apples." When they got up large enough for one to tell they were going to be apples of nice size, he told me one day "There's not going to be but a few of these because this is a young orchard, but don't pull any of 'em, because if you do, it will cause the trees to drop their fruit before its mature and they won't bear as well. Well, I let that all sink down. I promised him I wouldn't. He would take me every week by the hand and show me the apples.
One morning I got restless. It had been raining all night on Friday and it was now Saturday morning and they slept in late. I jumped up and slipped out in the yard, down to the spring, out to the terraces to see the apples. Those apples were about as big as your fist at that time; yellow golden apples. There was a drop of rain hanging on the bottom of each one of 'em. I thought those were just the prettiest apples I ever saw. I stood there a while and looked at them, out on the tips of the branches. I reached up and he told me not to. "That one way out there on the end, he will never miss that and I'm going to see how it tastes." It was beginning to show color; beautiful.
The little forked tree was standing there and I just stepped up in it to reach for the apple. The tree split all the way to ground. One side went down all the way to the ground!
Oh! I was frightened. Oh! I knew I was caught and I knew I didn't know how to get out of it. And I knew I mustn't lie and I was in a quandary. So, I ran to the house as fast as I could. There was a pan of water there on the steps, where it had rained during the night. I washed off my feet, ran in, and jumped in the bed. I curled up, lay there awhile, but couldn't go back to sleep. I got as deep under those covers as I could get.
After a while my daddy got up and he got breakfast started. He was out walking around, looking at his apples. I knew what he was doing and why, but I didn't go to see. I was sleeping. Daddy came into my room a bit later where I was pretending to be asleep and asked me if I had been out of bed already. "No, Sir." "Are you sure?" "Yes, Sir." "Positive?" "Yes, Sir." "OK." He left and went back down to the kitchen.
After a while he said "Let's have breakfast." Mother finished our breakfast and we enjoyed it. Well really, they enjoyed it but I couldn't enjoy it much because I knew I had lied. And I was going to get in trouble if they caught up with me. But I was hoping they wouldn't quite come up with what I had done. After a while Daddy said "Hanna, guess what one of these children's done?" Oh! I just drew up in a knot. I knew I was caught. "Guess what one of these children's done. They's climbed up in one of the trees and split it all the way to the ground; that big one down there that had them pretty ones on it. Daddy asked mother if she had any idea of who did it and she had no idea at all. She said none of the children had been up. She had no idea that I had slipped out early. She was telling what was right. "All of them's been in bed, there haven't been any children here." He said "I have a way of finding out. It was one of these children here." I thought "He can't tell who it was because he was in bed asleep. I did that. I washed my feet and crawled back into bed."
Daddy turned to me and asked me "Do you have any idea who stepped up into that tree down there and split it all the way to the ground and ruined my pretty apple tree?" "No, Sir." I stood there a few minutes. Again he asked "Do you have any idea?" "No, Sir" He continued "Now you look me straight in the eye. Are you telling me the truth?" I said "Yes, Sir" because I knew I was in trouble and didn't know how to get out of it. I knew I shouldn't lie but I didn't know how to get out of it. I was in a quandary. He said "I'll give you another chance. Are you sure you didn't do it?" "Yes, Sir." He said "You know I have a way of finding out exactly who did it." Oh, oh. Where was he when I didn't see? He must have been watching me someplace. Then I got to thinking. Maybe daddies were like God and could see everything I did. Then I really was scared. I had been taught all my life that God saw every thing I did.
He said "come here." He told Mother "I have a way of finding out." He reached back into his hip pocket and took out a little stick that he had trimmed off just right with his knife. He held up the stick and said "This stick is the same length as the foot that stepped up in the apple tree because I measured it down in the footprints in the mud at the base of the tree." Oh, oh. I'm a goner. I just stood there. I was frightened to death. He asked me "Do you want to change your story?" "No, Sir." I was in deep enough and I didn't know which way to turn cause if I told a lie, I was telling another one. Then I didn't know what I was gonna do. Daddy said, "Well I got a way."
He asked Mamma to bring the baby to him and to turn his foot around. He took his stick out and measured it next to that tiny little baby's foot and that stick was much longer than that little foot. He said "It couldn't have been this one." I was hurtin' all over. He called my little sister, just two years old. "Come here, Elsa." He told her "Hold your left foot up here." So she did. Her foot came just a little over halfway on that stick. "Well, it wasn't this one. There's not but one more here that it could have been." To me again he said "I'm going to give you another chance to straighten things out if you want to." I was in such a mess then I didn't see any way out and I just went ahead and lied again. "No, Sir."
Daddy said "I want to measure your foot by this stick. Reach your foot up here." I was standing there. I went to lift my foot up there and that was the heaviest foot I EVER picked up. It would just hardly get up on his knee where he could measure it. When I got it up there and he measured it, it came out exactly right to the top of that little stick. He looked at me and asked "You want to change your story?" I was already crying and I didn't want to change any story. But I knew that he knew all about it.
He said "Now let me tell you something. My apple tree's ruined. Split open and I don't know whether it will ever amount to anything. I'm not worried about the apple tree. What I'm worried about is about my child lying to me like you lied this morning." I didn't have a thing to say. I was standing there, facing the facts. I had lied. He said "You know there's a penalty for lying. I'm going to give you a good lickin'." He went out in the yard and broke off five or six little twigs from a peach tree and pinched them together at the back and came back in. He pulled up my little gown which was already muddy and wet from being out on the grass and mud in the yard and orchard. He checkered my little legs real good in the back with that little switch. It just burnt and hurt and everything.
Daddy said "Remember, I'm not whipping you for the apple tree. I'm whipping you for lying to me. You gotta pay for a lie when I catch you in one." He wasn't fussing. He was just talking. I a whole lot rather he fussed. He didn't. He was just talking. "When you lie, you've always got to face it. You've learned early. You faced yours this morning. Now you watch that."
Oh, I went back in there and crawled in that bed. My little legs were just stinging and burning. But you know what? Next time that I was asked something I thought two or three times before I answered and I didn't lie again about that. I tried again a few times but I never could get by with it. My daddy or mamma could look me straight in the eye and tell when I was lying.
I lied that time but I raised a little boy a few years later and he tried the same thing on me. I remembered what my daddy had taught me and what my mamma had taught me and I was trying to teach him. So I spanked him one day for lying and I told him "Mother can always tell when you're lying." He said "How can you tell when I'm lying?" He was a little feller, only about two and a half. I said "Mother can look in your eyes and tell when you're lying." So a few days later he came into tell me something and all at once he turned the backs of his little hands over his eyes and stood there while he was talking. I asked him "Ronny, why have you got your eyes covered up?" He said "I don't want you to see in there and know I am telling you a lie." He had tried the same thing I did.
It is nearly a century later that Elva Rice told me of the lessons that her daddy had taught her. It has been more than fifty years since Ronny covered his eyes with his little hands. Yet, the lessons are as fresh as today's coffee and undiminished by the dusts of time. I have seen four generations of Elva's family and the truth clearly remains:
Raise up a child in the ways of the Lord and when he is old he will not depart from them.
Productivity Enhancement And Institutional Survival
I work in a large hospital, and like many other hospitals, the one I work in is making many attempts to find ways to improve the quality of care while at the same time spending less money on it. Sounds almost like an oxymoron doesn't it? One of the things we as a hospital are doing to achieve this is to implement a facility-wide quality-improvement initiative using a variety of statistical measurement techniques that have been used for years in industrial settings. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train more than two thousand employees to various levels of proficiency in the use of Statistical Process Control. All of this to insure institutional survival. You probably know that hundreds of hospitals have been closed over the past ten years because of marginal performance.
A long time ago it was discovered that when measurement strategies are put into place in an organization, what is described as the Hawthorne Effect often occurs. Essentially what happens is that people will improve their job performance when they think they are being watched by experts; with their clipboards, taking measurements. In one of my former lifetimes, I worked four years as a management industrial engineer in a large hospital and I often saw this occur, especially if I had on my white coat, radiation badge, and acted like I knew what I was doing.
Personnel costs are nearly half the operating budget of most any hospital, probably any business, for that matter. If we ‘experts’ can find ways to enhance labor productivity then one has a chance of significantly improving financial performance. Yet, one must also realize these ‘experts’ are not free and tend to run up big laundry bills with their white coats and even bigger dry cleaning bills with their dark business suits. They also tend to want big desks and well decorated offices. It would be an ideal set of circumstances if we could find a way to produce the Hawthorne Effect without the high overhead expenses associated with hiring ‘us.’
As often is the case, inspiration came late at night under duress. I was actually doing some homework, at home, for my job as one of those experts. I was slated to begin a training class in the morning to learn a structured approach to interviewing job applicants. As all business gurus know, employee turnover is exceptionally costly and demoralizing. The management experts at the hospital decided to take a stab at reducing this. While being overly responsible about my job, I discovered a way to induce the Hawthorne Effect without experts!
I was lying on the floor, on my stomach, reading through a three-ring binder, struggling greatly to not get up and play a game of Free Cell on my computer or go to bed. While on the edge of consciousness, my eight pound gray with some patches of orange semi-tabby cat hopped up on my back and settled in for the duration. How could I now even think of getting up and playing Free Cell or shirking my responsibility even further by going to bed? I would have heard no end of it and probably been required to sleep alone. No, I must push on with my reading, I thought. After all, I was being watched.
In that instant, vivid revelation came to me. Vision was given. Hope for the financial dilemmas of American healthcare was spawned. In that moment it occurred to me that many American hospitals are struggling for survival after only a brief three or four decades of existence at the very same time second hand book shops have existed in Europe for centuries, often passing down through many generations. How could a multi-million dollar hospital filled with experts be compelled to close while a small home-spun book shop could last what seemed like forever? What was the difference that produced this vast extension of institutional survival. I pondered and there it was, the answer in a single small four letter word: cats. Cats? Of course. How could all of the experts have missed it?
Have you ever been in a second-hand book shop in Europe that didn't have a regal striped cat sitting atop the highest book case, watching? The truly productive shops have a second cat, often a white and brown one placed strategically in the window to watch customers, to manipulate them and give them that look that says “If you don’t buy a book, my owner will not be able to afford to go down to the butcher at closing time and buy me scraps for my dinner. Do you want to be responsible for that?” Of course not. No one gets out without buying books. Consequently, bookstores with cats do not have to suffer with non-paying browsers.
I realized in my instant of brilliant insight that every single one of those hospitals that closed had failed to install cats in strategic places to induce the Hawthorne Effect in its labor pool. I mean, if my cat can keep me from Free Cell AND my bed, certainly, a tabby and a brown-and-white, working together, could have saved a hospital from institutional extinction. Can you imagine the political coup that would have been for them, saving all those hospitals and reducing the ranks of the unemployed. Even more importantly, think of what we could do with the problem of burgeoning cat populations in the animal shelters of America. We would be certain to win political votes from the animal lovers of America, if instead of gassing cats at
the pound, we gave them an important role in reducing the cost of healthcare and saving our hospitals.
I believe the quality of care would also rise markedly. Patients do so much better when in friendly environments that remind them of home. Can you imagine how much better a patient would feel at the sight of a large tabby roaming around under the rungs of chairs in the waiting rooms or sitting up in the window of a patient room, next to the Gloxinia from Aunt Harriet? There is actually an emerging sub-discipline in medicine called pet therapy. It has been proven that by taking pets into nursing homes, the patients tend to maintain far better mood and actually show enhanced mobility and physical well-being. One study demonstrated that allowing these patients to care for pets increased their life expectancy! Imagine if Fluff was waiting for us when we came out of surgery. Imagine if we replaced the experts with cats.
Besides, Purina Cat Chow is a whole lot cheaper that experts.
Crescent
It has been my contention for many years that trains constitute the most civilized way to get places. Trains offer the luxury of freedom of movement, affording opportunities to walk into elegance past and dine on crisp linen as a vermillion sunset unfurls; a vase of cut flowers giving a pleasing aroma to the experience. Most European trains and an ever smaller number of American ones provide lounge cars in addition to diners. It is possible to leave the solitude of a good book, walk a few paces, and join animated conversation in one of these small havens of civility. Most importantly, people riding the rails are not in a hurry. If they were, they would have blasted themselves over the horizon with a jet turbine. With an abundance of time and unhurried fellow travellers, and a bit of good fortune, it's possible to find a good listener, a mentor, perhaps even a soulmate. Unfortunately, most people just want to get there, and trains have suffered a precipitous drop in popularity and most train service in America has disappeared.
Airplanes get people there too fast, often stalling out opportunities to meet a best friend or a soul mate. It has been my experience to fly many hundreds of times throughout the world. With the ever greater pace of life, air travel over the years has lost much of its magic. Once planes were filled with people inspired and awed by seeing cumulus clouds from above and chasing sunsets that last four hours at forty thousand feet. It seems planes are now filled with business travellers pounding away on lap top computers to beat out a competitor, spinning deals on GTE Airfones in the seat back, or checking commodities trades over satellite links to the Internet. I never have seen a phone installed in railroad coach cars and haven't yet heard the tell-tale clicking of computer keyboards
Automobiles require much attention to driving and often isolate each of us in our own steel and glass containment. I have driven between Greenville, South Carolina and Birmingham, Alabama some sixty times and only on three of these journeys did I have the luxury of companionship. Surrounded by tens of thousands of travellers at rush hour in Atlanta, I had no one to share my musings with, and I certainly wasn't ordering dessert from the steward in the dining car. Most likely I was fuming at the brake lights in front of me while avoiding becoming road kill under an eighteen wheeler.
I have gotten smarter in recent years and have been stretching a forty-minute plane ride or a four-hour drive out into a six or seven hour train experience while leaving the car at the station or a friend's house. The car gets a rest and I get a break.
This past week I took a short holiday by train. I arrived at the small station twenty minutes from my house just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, casting bronze daggers of brilliance into the new day. Many states have no train service whatever so I consider myself eminently fortunate to have a station so very near. As the sun continued its ascent into the brightening morning, I indulged in a leisurely breakfast served on freshly starched linen. A good book and musings with a fellow passenger about the turbulent journey of her life filled the time-space continuum between the rails and I arrived unhurried at my destination in early afternoon where I was soon whisked away to a pleasant picnic in a splendid botanical garden with a dear friend.
My return journey was equally pleasing, if not more so. An early afternoon departure eastward found me able to read through two charming novels by the time the first copper hints of sunset appeared. In the dining car, I actually recognized the steward as the same fellow that reigned over this miniature culinary oasis on my previous three journeys. They say familiarity breeds contempt. Not this time. A pleasant sense of continuity and connection was forthcoming as was a fine three-course meal with wine; costing less than a single movie ticket and large popcorn. Stretching out the last morsels I was able to take in the last lavender musings of a day well spent.
This was easily done with the splendid company of Dorothy and Ernest who were on a month-long journey to visit some of their eight kids scattered throughout the southeast. He had just been released from the hospital after being told he needed cardiac by-pass surgery. He declined to have it. He figures he's had a long good life and he knows where the last Station is for him. Who knows, maybe because he rides trains and slows down to thank the One who makes sunsets, he will get to see his grand kids grow up.
We disappeared to our respective seats, I to relish a fine nap. There's much more leg room in a train coach than any first class airplane cabin and no seat belt signs. The congenial conductor awakened me just in time to leap from the carriage which barely stopped at my destination. Being the only one to get off at a destination and having no others leaving it provided a marked contrast to the Atlanta airport where up to ninety thousand travellers well up out of the terminal subways in a single day to be launched into the not always friendly skies. Out of the dark shadows emerged a dear friend, letting me know I was home once again.
One day the Conductor will take me on a final journey to His Home and show me how he paints sunsets.
Occasionally, we have brief encounters with a Higher Realm where we can actually experience Utopia, if but for a fleeting moment. A stranger holds the door open when we have our hands filled with a precarious pile of fragile parcels. Someone offers us the choice prize of a brilliant smile on a gray rainy Monday morning. Near the end of the month, when money is short, we pull up to the toll booth and find a driver in front of us has paid our way through. Another driver actually yields to allow us onto the crowded expressway.
Ever had a beautiful unexpected postcard show up in the mail from a treasured friend who thought of you while ten thousand miles away on a long journey? Ever come home and find an aromatic bag on the porch containing a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies?
At one time I must have lived in Utopia. For nearly a year after moving into a new house I came home to find anonymous gifts at my door. During the first week before I had water in the house and a blistering midwestern summer was broiling my soul, I came home to find a single can of ice-cold Coke on the threshold. Many other times I came home to find various sun-drenched offerings from unnamed vegetable gardens. Just last year, someone left a very large pumpkin on my porch which eventually found its way into warm breads and sweet holiday pies.
The only real difference between the Utopian worlds of science fiction and our world is how often people reach out to others in acts of kindness or civility, how often they refrain from personal gain at the expense of others. Sometimes a bit of magic will happen that confirm the Creator's great desire for us to live in a kinder better world.
"A Better Investment" describes my really difficult struggle to walk away from certain profits at a tax auction in order to not make a gain at the expense of others. I struggle with greed as much as the next consumer. It so happens a few months later I was called and given a chance to make a large gain on property sold freely by its owners rather than by the tax authorities.
"Link" is a memorial to a dear friend who makes the world an infinitely more civilized and gracious place, almost Utopian at times. Jan encourages the souls of those around her, sees their inner gold despite coarse rocky exteriors. She helps empower people to believe they can make a difference, one at a time.
In "Wake Up, America!" my cat taught me that there is a better way to start the day. It does not have to be a frantic last second dash to the 63rd floor of a far distant office tower. It can be a leisurely embrace of a new day and perhaps we don't have to spend two or three hours a day commuting. I really don't have to sacrifice myself to a high-pressure high-paying job that might just cost me my soul.
In "Nap" Jan showed me that the best medicine has no adverse side effects and that the best things in life don't have to be confined to our dreams.
We all recall the Olympian magic that descended on Atlanta and the rest of the world. Too well, we recall the reality of Centennial Park. Utopia has yet to arrive on earth. Even so, for a short season, a southern city made infamous by its racial strife and church bombings ascended Mount Olympus. "Olympian Magic" describes what that city found on top.
"Safety as Myth" describes many of our desperate bids for safety and security. We install electronic detection systems in our houses, over insure ourselves, obsess about making more money, try to win the lottery. Yet we may fall in the bathtub and be rendered total dependent. The ancient time‑tested wisdom of Solomon tells us that there is for everything a season. A time to live, a time to die, a time to laugh, a time to cry. If we can truly rest in this then we may find out what real living is about.
Sometimes it's difficult to determine whether something is still owned by someone or if it has been abandoned. "Teddy Bear" captures my hesitation about removing a pink four inch stuffed teddy bear from a lamp post on the town square. There was only the one and it gave a sense of having been lost by an unknown little girl and later picked up by a passer-by and given refuge in the holiday decorations of a nearby lamp post. I left it but checked on it two weeks later and found it in the mud and ice. I took it home and shampooed it and hung it above the wood stove to dry.
Volunteerism is probably the shortest way to Utopia in this world and might even help get us to the Kingdom of God. In "Second Mile" my uncle demonstrated the volunteer spirit to be what moves America, not trucks. It's no accident Jesus never drove a Chevy.
Its easy to think one knows it all after taking seventeen years of university training and traveling to thirty-one countries. In "#409" it's obvious that I didn't learn it all in university and still haven't quite got it. Sometimes the greatest teachers never got past the third grade.
"Reeducation" only confirms that my learning still has a long way to go before being completed. We often see things at face value and conclude the worst. I do. This time I found out that what I thought to be a great tragedy was really a great blessing for the ones that went through it. Ms. Rice found out that tragedy was an open door way to great blessing. Sometimes we have to walk in another's moccasins to really know what's going on.
"Offering" confirms that there is always room for Hope, even when we are in the midst of the darkest of circumstances. There isn't a disease in the world someone has not beaten. The greatest mind in the world has beaten Lou Gherigs disease back for decades while he explores the universe. Miracles are just that; the impossible made possible.
Much of our value system we learn from our parents, for better or worse. If you're luck, you got a daddy like the one Ms. Rice had. She has grand memories of him and relishes telling stories of his life. In "The Second Temptation of Mankind" Ms. Rice relates her learning about the folly of telling lies. In Utopia there is no need for lies. If we quite telling them here we might just get closer to experiencing it.
"Productivity Enhancement and Institutional Survival" makes the humorous suggestion that putting cats in hospitals might make them better places to get well. In actuality, hospitals would be much better places to get well in if those of us working in them were to be much less self-important and let go of our pretenses. Cats don't know anything about the caste systems that exist in most hospitals.
Einstein figured out a long time ago that time moves more slowly or more quickly depending how fast we are moving. In "Crescent" I suggest that if we move more slowly we will have more time to live life more fully, especially during our travels. Rather than spend a mere forty minutes sitting in a jet to get launched to a destination, it might just make sense to stretch it out into a seven-hour railroad odyssey instead.
A Better Investment
Several weeks ago a friend called me to tell me of a large sale of properties by her county to satisfy delinquent real estate tax payments. I had visions of acquiring grand properties for pennies on the dollar. It occurred to me after some days of pondering that it would be rather uncivil for me to make a large gain at the expense of someone else’s misfortune. Even with this acquired wisdom, there was an ongoing inner struggle between the small nascent part of my being that attempts to live above greed and the much larger part that would be perfectly happy to win $100 million in the Super Ball lotto and live happily ever after on a tropical atoll. Too bad for all the millions who bought lotto tickets and lost.
During the course of my struggle I decided I would drive the thirty five miles to the court house and look at the tax map books to see if there really was something I shouldn't be missing. Don’t ask me to explain the theology of such an approach to decision making. It is not something to be emulated. I am a master at rationalization. If the deals proved irresistible, then I should go after them, right? I got in my car and headed to the court house two counties away. My routing was to take me past the entrance to the South Carolina Botanical Gardens. I found myself turning into the gardens, eliminating my last opportunity to view the map books before the tax auction scheduled for next Monday.
Alone in those gardens on a cloudy afternoon I experienced the late fall brilliance of myriad wild flowers and swarms of butterflies. I knew I was in the right place. I just knew it. While wandering in dark shade of the forest I caught the intense distinctive fragrance of newly bloomed gardenia, my favorite flavor. I was quite surprised by this as the season is months past the time for blooming of gardenias. What made this more confounding was the complete lack of gardenia bushes or blooms. I wandered about 45 minutes in the area and never found a bush, stray blossom or anything else to account for the truly over powering aroma I left the gardens quite bewildered by this, even mentioning it to several friends in the evening.
Late in the evening my dearest friend, Jan called. During the course of our discussion I mentioned enjoying aromatic gardenia where there was no gardenia. She excitedly told me that the gardenia bush in her garden had a single bloom open on it today, in the afternoon. I gave her this bush last year and in the years I had the bush and the year she has had it, it has never made a single flower. Last year it never even made a bud. We both were taken aback when we realized that in some magical way I had experienced the miracle of her perfectly-timed bloom. You see, the bloom was 288 miles west of where I was standing when I was delighted with the unique signature of that symbol of gentleness.
We are convinced that this was a magical sign to both of us that God the Father provides for His children and that I don't need to depend on tax auctions, lotteries, or the misfortunes of others to experience true security. If He can enable me to partake of a gardenia bloom at 288 miles, He can empower me to partake of the desires of my heart, His way.
Store up your treasures in Heaven where thieves do not steal and where moths do not destroy.
Link
Two strangers meeting at table;
both part, satiated in Spirit.
Another faltering in her step; clings.
With You, she walks in confidence.
An elder failing in health, fears.
With gentle words, Hope flowers.
Would-be musicians, uncertain,
bask in Your creative urgings.
Lacerated by life's malignity;
many muse Your missives of Mercy.
Young, uncertain of the future;
dreamy-eyed youth trust Your Way.
Your sentient radiance warming me;
inner ice melts, releasing my soul.
Just One makes a grand difference.
They say butterfly wings cause hurricanes.
Want to share a taxi?
Wake Up, America!
Have you ever wondered why Americans are so aggressive and confrontational with each other? Sociologists have explored this issue for decades and come up with little that is truly definitive. Their landmark studies often describe a culture nearly run amok. Rather unsettling reading actually, which the popular press loves to sensationalize.
I think I have found the solution with only minimal experimental research. Like with some other great discoverers, it was not due to a great scientific mind being at work, rather just plain old good luck. Remember the guy that discovered “post-it note” adhesive for 3M and made hundreds of millions of dollars? It was a serendipitous accident. He left a pot full of improperly-made adhesive on a lab counter and the next morning found it didn't stick very well, but well enough to attach 2 x 2 inch squares of yellow paper to most surfaces on the third planet. No, I don’t expect to make hundreds of millions of dollars with my discovery, but perhaps we can save billions of dollars as a nation in reduced casualty and medical insurance losses as a result of lower aggression.
This morning, in the quiet serenity of my own bed, the solution to our perplexing social problems presented itself to me. It being Sunday morning, I had not yet been victimized by a certain strident technology, which allowed me time for relaxed creativity. Americans are well known to be severely sleep deprived. Much as been made of this in the media in the past year. Everything from homicide to excess highway mortality has been attributed to our being in states of partial consciousness. I am among their ranks, at times. This is one of those hapless times.
The past several nights did not find me in quiet repose until 1:30 AM. And the emergence of another morning can be especially harsh at such times. But today in my hazy fog I found brilliant clarity.
Think back to those times when you have been mid way through some fabulous dream and in the merest instant found yourself blasted into the consciousness of a new day with a pulsating thousand-cycle shrill insult from that tiny plastic monster located strategically near your head. All night long, with those two tiny dots pulsating at one-second intervals, it waited for the most inopportune time to destroy your fantasy. Ever slammed your fist down on the thing in less than a nanosecond in a desperate bid to get back to Shangri-La? To no avail. The transporter coordinates had been lost.
How did you feel when you realized you weren't really in Shangri-La but in your bed on a rainy nasty Monday morning? And it was 8:45 AM and your project presentation scheduled for 9 AM is twenty-two miles away and sixty-three floors up and the express elevators are out for maintenance. Did your demeanor get worse when you remembered that you had planned to get up early to get your grand exposition finished up, because you played golf yesterday instead? How was it when those believable rumors of a corporate down-sizing percolated up into your grogginess?
I would suspect that when this not-so pleasant reality was foisted onto you by that digital-display monster, you were off and in the running for a really bad day, I also suspect the sociologists could have collected much field information about your aggressive uncivil behavior on the Dan Ryan expressway. Especially, when you cut off that ambulance from County that had the audacity to merge into your lane from the on-ramp as you were attempting to get off. You missed your exit. I think the picture is pretty clear now.
Would you like to rewind and start the day over?
The sun is just making itself known, with an ebony sky giving way to platinum possibilities. A slow gentle rumbling resonates in the depths of your being and barely rises above the horizon of consciousness. What is it? Pondering, curious, you turn over with relaxed grunt. Time slips. It grows louder. Two neurons fire. With minimally functional sentience, you realize the cat is directly under the bed purr claiming the arrival of aureate dawn. You admit to a tiny smile as you lapse back into pleasant slumber
The day blooms vermilion. A gentle prodding politely suggests its time to embrace the grand opportunity of a new-born day. You turn the other way with serene musings. It persists. You relapse again, searching for Shangri-La.. Perhaps its out there for the finding. A gentle “meow?” breaks your reverie. Nine precious minutes drift by. More firmly now. “Meow.” It’s eighteen minutes now. With a bit more crescendo, “Meow!” Twenty-seven priceless minutes, more than enough. With total commitment. “MEOW!” My feline guardian walking on my head whispers “You can let me outside now or I can do it right here, right now.” I get up, instantly.
With great expectations of the new day, I smile. I really don't have to make that frantic dash to that high-pressure high paying job that enables me to buy all that 'stuff' I will only sell in next year's garage sale. My furry teacher again reminds me of the basics we need for happy contented living. Health, a few good friends, a warm bed, a cat, being let out, and Purina Special Diet. Puderd goes out to chase squirrels. I go out to chase dreams. Before leaving the house I unplug the alarm clock. I don't think I'll need it any more. I gave my notice today.
I drove nice all day.
Nap
Modern American life is so stressful that a multi-million-dollar industry has grown up to show people how to cope with living their lives at the speed of light. Thousands of books, tapes, videos, seminars, and conferences are offered at princely prices to the chronologically beleaguered. When it gets really difficult to contend, one can pay $125 an hour for a therapist who can talk with you and wire you up to a bio-feedback machine, if you can find the time and money.
I will have to confess to living my life at warp nine a lot of the time. It's hard not to when the whole culture seems to push ever faster. I know I am in really big trouble when my 'to-do' list is an ever-growing relational data base on a pentium computer. Yes, I really do keep up with my life this way. Pathetic isn't it?
A couple of days ago I had a profoundly de-stressing and ultimately relaxing experience with a very close friend. I was walking with Jan in a very fine botanical garden on an unusually cool July day. It was one of those singularly brilliant low-humidity days that occurs in summer right after a rare cold front pushes a cleansing rain just ahead of it; one of those days that has you wondering "why can't summer always be like this?" We were in the coolest region of the garden, a serene wild flower garden under a emerald canopy of oak and sweetgum trees when Jan spotted some brilliant lacy Cahaba lilies growing in a small fern bog. While sharing mutual exclamation over the aesthetic merits of these rare lilies, we spotted a newly installed memorial bench of limestone.
Jan sat down at one end. Impulsively, I laid down on this cool slab and put my head in her lap. In seconds, I was soundly asleep, enjoying myriad dreams. I often dream a lot when I take naps during the day. I was amazed to awaken and find I had been soundly sleeping in such a bucolic setting with a fine friend. I have no idea how long I slept.
If you live your life too fast, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go directly to the nearest botanical garden with a dear friend who likes human touch. Find a sturdy bench in the shade. Lie down with your overfull head in your friend's lap and make petition for a head massage. Fall swiftly asleep.
Dream.
Olympian Magic
So often life is filled with the daily grind of paying bills, staying ahead of creditors, taking the car in for an estimate and having the wind knocked out of us when we are told how much it’s going to be. When not contending with financial turbulence, we often worry if our children are using drugs, if racial tensions will destroy our cities, if fear of crime will rob us of our freedom. We struggle to get to the day care on time, leave work to carry our children to the doctor, get dinner on the table. Life can be exceptionally complex and stressful with little light at the end of the tunnel for many. As I write this, teams of divers were probing the dark cold waters of the North Atlantic for the remains of TWA Flight 800; presumed to have been blasted from the skies by callous terrorists.
Yet, moments of magic enable us to transcend valleys of hopelessness and stand on summits of great joy. Birmingham, Alabama is known as the Magic City, the only place in the world where all the ingredients for making steel occurred naturally. Little steel is made there anymore, but today that city made another kind of magic; the kind that builds bridges, not of steel, but of unity and celebration.
More than eighty-five thousand residents of that city, once known for the Sixteenth Street bombing, came together to celebrate the 26th Olympiad and to build bridges between white and black, rich and poor. Legion Field is in a dying part of the city, silent but a few days a year. Today, an all-time attendance record was set for that stadium, the silence forgotten as the hopeful came to noisily commemorate the Centennial games. It is the first time in decades that no nation has boycotted the games. It seems no one in Birmingham boycotted the games either. For a magical day, fears set aside, strangers held hands, proclaiming love and unity as the setting sun transfigured the collective blues of soul to golden possibilities of shared celebration. Thousands of voices united in a grand choir, transcending denomination, color ,and class, sang of hope for a higher way. Olympians played out their fantasies on a field of dreams. Spectators saw fear transformed to hope.
And when it was all done, people drove friendly. Perhaps there is hope for us after all.
Safety as Myth
The security industry in America is booming. We spend a veritable fortune to wire our homes to protect ourselves from fire, thieves, and pathological killers. Many of my friends and acquaintances have their houses and businesses wired directly to police and fire stations. Wealthy executives build bullet‑proof limousines, hire heavily‑armed body guards, and install state‑of‑the‑art electronic surveillance systems. We use security systems to make sure people don't put bombs on planes or in public places. Sixty percent of the households in my state keep firearms. Our state legislature just passed a bill allowing all private citizens to carry concealed weapons for protection. We seek to fortify a place of safety.
The insurance industry is unbounded in the modern era. We have short‑term disability insurance, long‑term disability insurance, major medical insurance, hospitalization insurance, cancer insurance, liability insurance, workman's compensation insurance, dental insurance, replacement‑value homeowner's insurance, burial insurance, uninsured motorist insurance, collision insurance, malpractice insurance, comprehensive insurance, term life insurance, Medigap insurance, accidental death insurance. W seek to insure our way to safety.
An acquaintance works for a printing company which is dependent on a $750,000 high speed press for its production. A 29 cent piece of wire in the press arced three years ago and caused a fire which resulted in a total loss of the press. Thirty people have lost their jobs, the company is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will soon be in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The owner is facing personal bankruptcy as he has legal liability for his company debts. This despite loss‑of‑business insurance, fire insurance, capital equipment insurance, and a jury trial that found in favor of his printing company. Surety is not a sure thing in this world.
If we're smart, we wear seat belts when driving, helmets when riding our bikes, and life vests when canoeing or kayaking on white water. When doing technical climbing on a cliff face we use retaining pins and ropes. We carry a compass if hiking off trail in the wilderness. We seek safety from calamity.
The culture has become quite preoccupied with what are called extreme sports; those activities with a high level of risk and a demand for high physical endurance and skill. I am more frequently encountering people who wear plaster casts as a medal of honor. One can certainly question the virtues of many of these activities. It is difficult to see the merits of riding a bike down a 75 degree ski slope during the summer. Preparation and planning are appropriate when doing things that have inherent danger to them, even more so when doing things with very high levels of danger.
The tragedy in the modern era is that we have become bound by an obsession with financial and physical safety. I remember nights in my childhood when we sat in the front room of the house with rifles because of a barrage of death threats by phone. My mom kept a semi‑automatic pistol in the 'gun drawer' of her dresser for years. An acquaintance routinely is called at night to meet the police at his place of business when his alarm goes off. It is necessary to drive through two gates to get to his house.
I find myself preoccupied with safety as well. I fly a lot. How could I not be concerned. Korean Air, Air India, Pan Am, and now TWA know too well about the flimsy illusion of safety that comes from bomb detection security systems. In three days I will be getting on a plane once again, in Atlanta. I was in Atlanta the morning the Olympic spirit was blasted from Centennial Park to the front pages of the world's newspapers.
I think that I can create a place of safety for myself if I stay off planes, stay out of big cities, stay away from people with guns, buy lots of insurance, wear my seat belt and drive less. I have to confess to many years given to seeking safety and security rather than life. What is really absurd about my situation is that I have been spared death at least eight times that I know of and in no case was my safe passage in any way dependent on my own advance preparation, hyper vigilance, trained anticipation, or trained reaction to the events that threatened me.
Three times I have walked away from the metallic carnage of having my cars totaled by drunks. There was not enough time for me to react or to do anything . Another time I survived being in a level four thunderstorm in a plane and having it struck by lightning and losing all power. Me doing anything? Hardly. I sat in the back and lost it, but I lived to tell about it. It wasn't my time. The Guinness Book of Records for the early 80s editions showed the highest fatality hotel fire to have occurred in Seoul, Korea on December 18, 1971. One hundred eighty nine people died in that fire. I had a paid reservation in that hotel that fateful night. I didn't burn. In September of 1992, thirty‑four people died around me in a two‑thousand‑year rated flood in the French Alps. The event filled fifty pages of the European news magazines. I didn't even get wet. It was not my appointed time.
A close friend was on TWA Flight 800 on Monday, July 15th coming from Athens to New York. She had a premonition that something dreadful would happen to the plane. She came home without incident to tell me of her premonition. Two days later the very plane was blasted from the sky. It wasn't her time yet.
I think that if I stay in my house I will be safe. It is well known that many fatal accidents occur in home bathrooms, in fact, far, far more than have ever occurred in airplanes, hotel fires, or from lightning strikes combined. I got an impressive personal lesson in this last week. As I write this I sit on a very sore back side. I live in a two‑story house and have gone up and down the stairs dozens of times a day for years, without incident. Last week, half way down, I slipped and went the remainder of the distance in a single high impact blur with a very jarring finish at the bottom. I was really quite astounded. I ended up with only a very sore tailbone. I could have just as easily ended up a quadriplegic from a cervical fracture of the spine and still be lying at the bottom of the stairs waiting for someone to find me. I got up. It wasn't time for me to pass through those waters Nothing could have predicted the fall and nothing I could have done would have altered the outcome. I could buy a house on one level and then fall in the bathtub and shatter my skull. Life's risk.
Two women I am getting to know well went back packing some weeks ago in the nearby mountains. I have the good fortune to live within sight of the Blue Ridge mountains. Mary had the misfortune of slipping on a rocky face four miles from the trail head and causing herself serious injury. She was unable to carry her own weight and certainly unable to carry her own heavy back pack. Rosellen, who is much smaller than Mary carried both packs four miles and half carried Mary. Mary did not die on that rocky place and she did not have to walk alone. In the ancient writings of Ecclesiastes we are told if one falls, then another pulls him up, but if a man falls when alone, then he is in trouble. Rosellen had the wisdom to not walk alone.
I work in a hospital all day every day except at special times. One of the things I find haunting working in a hospital are the announcements over the public address system for a Code 99. In our hospital a Code 99 is a semi‑secret way to tell everyone working in the hospital someone has just gone into full cardiac arrest without unduly upsetting the large numbers of visitors, patients, and public that are in the hospital at any given time. This week I got a code 99 at 4:34 AM at home. I was informed it was time for my mother. She left nineteen days after her 81st birthday. Gently, the nurse told me Heaven was ready for my mother. I thanked her for her gentle care of Mom.
The same ancient time‑tested wisdom of Solomon tells us that there is for everything a season. A time to live, a time to die, a time to laugh, a time to cry. If we can truly rest in this, we can then board airplanes, back pack the Blue Ridge, climb the stairs, let dear ones go; not wondering what more we could do to insure our own safety or the safety of others. Safety comes from the One who was before the foundations of time.
"He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; and his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart."
Teddy Bear
Autumn frost expanding into winter;
Cinnamon cider and chestnuts warm hearts.
Holiday festivities giving life pause,
holly and lights festoon street lamps.
There in prickly leaves, illuminated,
your nascent pink smile greets us.
Four velveteen paws embrace life,
offering Hope to those passing by.
Trusting you to fate, I leave empty-handed;
wanting others to learn Your Secret.
Not daring to take you from your leafy shrine,
I pray for warm dry days at Christmas.
Should I bring you in from the chill,
lest you catch cold or be kidnapped?
***
It is January, patina of Christmas fading,
decorations stored, village shrouded in darkness.
Wondering if you are dry and warm,
I drive by your post, looking, hoping.
You are there, cast aside, shivering.
Ice and snow imprison your radiance.
Another was left out in the cold at Christmas.
But, then, You know this don't you?
Let me put another log on the fire.
The Second Mile
In the heyday of the Roman Empire, military forces occupied many far-flung provinces. It was required of citizens and foreign subjects that they submit to carrying a soldier's field pack for one mile, if so requested. Soldiers were not permitted to demand citizens to carry their gear any further than this. The first mile was expected. Volunteering to carry a pack a second mile was seen as a remarkable act of generosity.
My Uncle Bart recently released his dear wife, Nancy, to Eternity after more than fifty years of happy marriage. They lived in era when people stayed together for the long haul and shared the challenges of life. An inspiring tenacity of spirit in my uncle shows clearly in his commitment to volunteer community service. In spite of his own incalculable loss, he has continued to drive a truck two days a week for a community food pantry and also kept up the race as a volunteer runner in the local hospital another two full days a week. He goes more than the second mile every day.
For some years, my uncle drove about town in his own car collecting surplus food for the community kitchen which then made it available to the needy. As the generosity of food donors grew and as more people became dependent on these services, my uncle's car no longer could pass mustard. He saw the need for a bigger mousetrap. At his own expense, he bought a new pick-up truck and donated it to the community kitchen. As harvests of donated groceries continued to increase and client appetites gobbled them up, the point was reached where a large step van was purchased by the Board of Directors and my uncle's well-loved pick-up truck used as the trade in.
My uncle was not consulted about this and he could have been miffed about it and quit the race. Most would have. I probably would have. Instead, he kept driving, sitting up high in that new step-van. Alas, his is not a step-van kind of persona. If you knew my uncle, you'd know what I mean. He tried but never could reconcile himself to that big step-van. He stepped down and went for the third mile. He raced to the nearest Chevy dealer and bought another new pick-up truck and is out there yet, today making his rounds, carrying more than his share of the load.
The heartbeat of America? It ain't trucks. It's the generous hearts of a few good men.
#409
I don't think of myself as a numerologist or one that places significance on superstitious numbers. For example, you could find me living perfectly happy on the thirteenth floor of a building, excepting that some people might be hesitant to come visit me. I usually find Friday the Thirteenth to be a splendid day; kind of a reverse expectation of the day that so many dread. Yet, recently I noticed an obscure numerical co-incidence that merits notation here, if for no other reason than it gives me a good excuse to write about something I find quite important.
For several weeks I have been visiting an eighty-five year old saint, Elva Rice, in a nearby nursing home where she happens to live in Room 409. Several nights ago as I came out of the nursing home, entranced with the mysteries of the Hale-Bopp comet setting in the west, it occurred to my idle mind that there is a super-duper household disinfectant cleaner called simply "409." I don't know what brought this less-than-profound decidedly non-cosmic observation of the universe to mind but it inspired me to get my brain out of idle and into a meditative state.
What emerged was an opportunity to consider a significant spiritual principle: we become like those we associate with, for good or bad. It has been an unfortunate reality that I have had a struggle with faith for many years while others simply know who they are in a spiritual sense and have a total certainty regarding the reality of God and Heaven. Most of the people around me have also struggled with doubt a lot and it is a rare person in my world that KNOWS for certain about God and Heaven or even wants to acknowledge the possibility of their reality. Birds of a feather flock together as they say.
In the past three weeks that I have been going to the nursing home I have made an important personal discovery. Faith is infectious! Elva has as strong and consistent and inspiring a Christian faith as I have yet encountered in my extended travels and she has infected me with it. I have found that my own tortured struggle with faith has been greatly diminished during the past weeks. I have even begun to experience a quiet wondrous knowing that is new to me in all the decades of doubting I have wrestled with. I find myself captivated with the idea that the Christian message is REALLY true and not subject to my doubts. Talk about a cure for fears and anxieties!
Last night I went back to that nursing home feeling like a student taking the most important course of study in the world: reality. In nursing homes there's no pretense. There's congestive heart failure, night terrors, constant screaming, vast isolation, loneliness, fear, dementia, PAIN. Big pain. But what I have learned there is that the Christian faith is for real and is bigger than any of these things.
Late in the evening my personal saint asked me to wheel her around those halls so that she could have prayer with her fellow patients. We went to several rooms and each time I was introduced as her adopted son. I stood behind her wheelchair and waited for her to pray. After some awkward silence she asked me to pray out loud. I did. You know what? I believed those prayers for those dear suffering women were heard in the highest parts of Heaven. I knew that I knew. I knew there was no more important thing in the world I could be doing than praying, laying my hands on those platinum heads. In that instant, I knew that I have been infected with the magic of faith. And, its safe from the strongest disinfecting cleanser, even 409.
In the Old Testament book of Isaiah we are told that the way to cool down a fire is to spread out the coals. Separate them and they will grow cold and dark. In the New Testament book of Hebrews we are told to not forsake the fellowship of the saints. We are like coals. If a number of coals are kept in proximity to each other, they will maintain their heat and light. In a few short weeks I have found that getting next to a red hot coal of faith has yielded much heat and light in my dark world of doubt. Last night, I found that I could take my own meager heat and light into those dark warrens of fear and bring possibility to those shattered and frightened souls.
Your own answer may be found in the back halls of a nursing home. It might even be found in a nearby church. And watch out, you might get infected for life and there's no disinfectant for a Faith infection except Heaven.
Reeducation
Things are not always as they seem and this can be especially true in matters of the spirit. From our perspective on the ground, the only thing in sight may be a swirling green-black cloud with ominous intent. From another's perspective above, one may see instead cerulean heavens with billowing white cotton tufts below. Anyone who has experienced a jet take-off into dark foreboding cloud, only to break through into cobalt brilliance moments later, will know exactly how compelling this change in perspective can be. Yet, both perspectives are correct. In matters of the spirit, merely changing our attitude is often enough to lift us above a swirling harbinger of doom to witness a heavenly wonder. Today I had an opportunity to experience a cloud from both sides. I realized that reality can often be what we want it to be, simply by making an attitude adjustment, by walking in faith.
I think most of us have an unspoken fear of experiencing some sort of incapacitating accident or medical calamity and being rendered helpless to cope with it. Our deeper fear is that no one will find us or come to our aid. Years ago I faced a neurologic monster and had an intense encounter with this same fear. I have several male acquaintances who have gone through as many as seven marriages in desperate bids to find a woman willing to protect them from the unplanned consequences of life. One of these men even states that he is looking for someone to take care off him when his health begins to fail. And yes, his health has begun to fail and his forth wife has just left him. Alas, no person can protect us from the strong currents of life.
I just returned from a visit to the seventh floor of the hospital where I had a truly sobering experience. An earlier phone call from an acquaintance, Ron, revealed him to be in the hospital fighting a dangerous kidney infection. For most of us this would not be a major issue but for Ron, who has been a quadriplegic for thirty-one years, it's more than a big deal, it can be life-threatening. He's been living on the edge of survival for decades with his eighty-five year old mother, who has been caring for him in a once-grand now-disintegrating Victorian house in that part of town most people with a choice stay out of.
While visiting Ron, I casually asked about his mother. Ron told me that his mother had fallen and broken her hip two weeks ago and was now confined to a nursing home following corrective surgery. Ron now finds himself in the hospital with his primary caregiver confined to a nursing home. Ron has no place to go when he is discharged from the hospital. He is quite unable to live alone as he is unable to even wipe away his own tears.
Ron related to me the facts of a horrific scenario. About 8:30 PM one evening, Ron's mother went out to the porch to lock the screen door and on her way back into the house stumbled. She heard her own hip shatter on the way down. She ended up lying on the floor until the middle of the next day writhing in intense pain, wondering if she would freeze to death in the middle of a long winter night. She was never able to reach a phone. Ron lay helpless on his bed just inside the door that same long night, quite unable to call for help, also wondering if anyone would find them.
The next day a Meal's On Wheels volunteer showed up and left without coming to their aid when unable to open the door or get a response. Later he returned and this time Ron and his mother were able to make a rehearsed yell for help that gained his attention. The volunteer left again, promising to go for assistance. Later yet, police showed up, broke in the door and were able to bring the first chapter of this story to a close.
I am not sure how it happened, but Ron ended up staying in that house more than a week by himself while his mother had hip surgery. Without his mother keeping after him, he got a major infection and ended up in the hospital where he has been a week now, wondering about his infection, about his future, if his mother will mend, and if she will ever get out of the nursing home. It's safe to say that all people would pass on such an experience, given a choice and most would be hard pressed to see anything but swirling ominous clouds in the future.
One of the most confounding and difficult passages in the New Testament is one in James that admonishes us to count it all joy for the various trials that afflict us so that we can become people of better character. In other words, a major attitude adjustment. This, without a doubt, is the hardest thing we are called to do on the journey of Faith. Don't let anyone proclaim that Christianity is an easy opiate for the masses of people who aren't up to the hard stuff of life.
For a number of days I have visited Ron and his mother in their respective institutions. It's been rather convenient, actually. I work in the hospital and the nursing home is on the same block as my house. It has not been a sacrifice on my part to visit them. The reality is driving a great distance to see them would not be a sacrifice because I have gotten something truly profound and of great value from both of them: an attitude check, an infusion of faith, a re-education. When I first heard this story of Ron lying helpless in his bed as his mother writhed in agony on the floor, I was nearly breathless from the horror of it all. When I heard the other side of the story I was breathless with wonder and amazement.
If you go to visit Elva Rice in the nursing home you will be in for a real joyous surprise. You won't find someone with head hung down, lamenting her lot in life, pandering for pity and compassion, playing on your emotions. What you will find instead is a radiant Faith unequalled in all Israel and these here parts as well. We're talking about an eighty-five year old woman with a busted hip, a beloved husband in the ground for years, a paralyzed son that has used up more than three decades of her life, a house falling apart around her, yet one who expounds openly about how good God has been to her and what a blessed life she has lived.
When all I saw were the horrors of that winter night, the forbidding possibilities, all she saw were the Eternal promises. Elva Rice will look you in the face with clear eyes and without hesitation tell you that winter night was the best night of her eight and a half decades on this Earth. She describes a wondrous transcendent experience with the Creator God of the Universe that took her from a broken body on a cold splintered floor into the very Presence of God where she felt Him enfold her for the duration of that cold night and the next day. In her experience, there is nothing more real than the Presence of God she encountered in that cold darkness.
Does Ron's mother regret going to a nursing home? No way! She sees it as an opportunity to be an assistant to the Teacher of all time. She carries His radiant message of Hope throughout those halls of despair and loneliness. She sees herself as in a privileged position to reach out to these lonely souls and to weary nurses and aides. For years Elva has lived in semi-isolation in that old house caring for Ron. She now has dozens of people to interact with on a daily basis. During the day Elva is out in a wheel chair cruising up and down the halls loving on the lonely souls slouched over on the tray tables of their wheel chairs. Her grandson tells me he has not seen his grandmother look so animated and rested in years. She has brought much brightness to a dark place.
It doesn't get any better than this. This woman, by any measure of the world, has gotten a lousy deal but she doesn't know that. She uses a different yardstick. A heavenly One. She KNOWS where her husband is. She KNOWS where she is going. She KNOWS where her son is going. And she KNOWS there are no wheelchairs in Heaven.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
Offering
Have you ever been at a point in your life where you feel like you are caught in the jaws of a giant monster and about to move down on the food chain? I recall times when I was absolutely certain there was no way out and I was doomed to some horrible fate. One time I thought it was multiple sclerosis, another time cancer, yet another blindness. A couple of times I have been let go (outsourced) from my job. Many of us have faced a severe challenge when we were given a grim pronouncement by a physician, plunged into economic free fall when we were told our services were no longer needed, or found a note on the kitchen table telling us our spouse had packed up and left without a forwarding address. Economic and relational uncertainty seem to have become epidemic. Yet, today I don't have multiple sclerosis, cancer, or blindness and am gainfully employed. I would not have thought that possible at different times, no possibility of it whatever.
Last night about 11 PM I went to the front door to look for the cat and heard a horrible cry from a creature in distress. It certainly didn't sound like any cat I had ever heard. Seconds later my docile gentle feline ran up on the porch, past me into the house, carrying in her mouth the very obvious source of the plaintive tormented call I had just heard. I quickly turned on the light to find a bird in the jaws of a rather unpleasant scenario. I very quickly removed the cat with bird to the porch and liberated the feathered victim from certain oblivion. Happily, the bird fluttered away, without delay, no doubt with adrenalin maxed out. I never went to vet school. I assume birds have adrenalin for emergency get aways. I quickly tossed the cat into the interior of the house to sulk at her loss. The cat stayed in all night and is under house arrest today. That little sparrow needs a break today.
At one point that bird would have seen no possibility for liberation from her captor. I 'happened' to open the door at exactly the right moment just before going to bed and was able to intervene. We humans often face things from which we think there is no possibility of liberation. Yet, prisoners of war in the Hanoi Hilton experienced the magic of release after eight years. Jews experienced the enchantment of emancipation by the Allies. I experienced the magic of not having multiple sclerosis. I get a pay check every other Thursday. There were times when I didn't.
The good part is there is no limit to the possibilities for you. You may be facing cancer or some other horrific circumstance in life. I can't tell you liberation is for certain today. But I can tell you for certain, it is possible for today. If as the Christian scriptures say, "He who counts the sparrows and the hairs on your head will not let you falter" is true and he can move me to liberate a sparrow from the clutches of my house pet, then you can be hopeful that He will liberate you. If not today, then tomorrow, for certain.
Tomorrow you may be flying again.
The Second Temptation of Mankind
One of the best known stories of the early origins of man arises from the serpent's temptation of Eve in the garden of Eden. In this case, as you know, the serpent offered Eve a luscious apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She took this fine fruit and offered Adam a succulent juicy bite. And as you also know, both got caught in the misdeed and Adam passed off responsibility to the woman who gave it to him. What do you want to bet that Adam had something to say to her after they were alone once again? Of course you know, mankind hasn't been quite the same since.
Actually, we never are told that it was an apple. But apples do work nicely in classical paintings. About eighty-one years ago there was another incident involving fruit. This time we are certain the tempting culprit was, indeed, an apple, as I have direct testimony from the one tempted. And yes, like the first time, the temptation was too much to bear.
It has been my great fortune to have nearly daily visits with an eight-five year old saint in the nursing home behind my house. It seems nursing homes are among the great educational institutions of America. I learn more there than most anywhere else. It was here that I learned of the second great temptation of mankind. I will let Ms. Rice tell you in her own words.
Perhaps what we had done was overlooked because they were after that lie. My daddy always said "A man is no better than his word." He said if a man's word was no good and he couldn't believe him, he was a no account man. Just watch him. Mark it down.
One time I remember, when I was a little one, between three and a half and four years old. My daddy was just a young father and he started him up an orchard, just cleared up the land, terraced it down, and started his orchard. He would order his trees from Starks Brothers. Some from Sears Roebuck, way back then. He would dig holes where he was going to put them and then he would call me as his big helper. I would stand there and hold the trees up straight and erect while he tamped down the soil around them. I thought I was really something because I was helping Daddy start an apple orchard. He would tell me how good the apples would be and we would make pies and we would make jellies, and apple cider. I just loved those apple trees.
About the second year after we got them out, a few of the trees began to put little bunches of blossoms out on the tips of every branch. Daddy would take me by the hand, lead me around, and show me these and say "This will make a red apple and this will make a yellow apple and we will have some fine apples." When they got up large enough for one to tell they were going to be apples of nice size, he told me one day "There's not going to be but a few of these because this is a young orchard, but don't pull any of 'em, because if you do, it will cause the trees to drop their fruit before its mature and they won't bear as well. Well, I let that all sink down. I promised him I wouldn't. He would take me every week by the hand and show me the apples.
One morning I got restless. It had been raining all night on Friday and it was now Saturday morning and they slept in late. I jumped up and slipped out in the yard, down to the spring, out to the terraces to see the apples. Those apples were about as big as your fist at that time; yellow golden apples. There was a drop of rain hanging on the bottom of each one of 'em. I thought those were just the prettiest apples I ever saw. I stood there a while and looked at them, out on the tips of the branches. I reached up and he told me not to. "That one way out there on the end, he will never miss that and I'm going to see how it tastes." It was beginning to show color; beautiful.
The little forked tree was standing there and I just stepped up in it to reach for the apple. The tree split all the way to ground. One side went down all the way to the ground!
Oh! I was frightened. Oh! I knew I was caught and I knew I didn't know how to get out of it. And I knew I mustn't lie and I was in a quandary. So, I ran to the house as fast as I could. There was a pan of water there on the steps, where it had rained during the night. I washed off my feet, ran in, and jumped in the bed. I curled up, lay there awhile, but couldn't go back to sleep. I got as deep under those covers as I could get.
After a while my daddy got up and he got breakfast started. He was out walking around, looking at his apples. I knew what he was doing and why, but I didn't go to see. I was sleeping. Daddy came into my room a bit later where I was pretending to be asleep and asked me if I had been out of bed already. "No, Sir." "Are you sure?" "Yes, Sir." "Positive?" "Yes, Sir." "OK." He left and went back down to the kitchen.
After a while he said "Let's have breakfast." Mother finished our breakfast and we enjoyed it. Well really, they enjoyed it but I couldn't enjoy it much because I knew I had lied. And I was going to get in trouble if they caught up with me. But I was hoping they wouldn't quite come up with what I had done. After a while Daddy said "Hanna, guess what one of these children's done?" Oh! I just drew up in a knot. I knew I was caught. "Guess what one of these children's done. They's climbed up in one of the trees and split it all the way to the ground; that big one down there that had them pretty ones on it. Daddy asked mother if she had any idea of who did it and she had no idea at all. She said none of the children had been up. She had no idea that I had slipped out early. She was telling what was right. "All of them's been in bed, there haven't been any children here." He said "I have a way of finding out. It was one of these children here." I thought "He can't tell who it was because he was in bed asleep. I did that. I washed my feet and crawled back into bed."
Daddy turned to me and asked me "Do you have any idea who stepped up into that tree down there and split it all the way to the ground and ruined my pretty apple tree?" "No, Sir." I stood there a few minutes. Again he asked "Do you have any idea?" "No, Sir" He continued "Now you look me straight in the eye. Are you telling me the truth?" I said "Yes, Sir" because I knew I was in trouble and didn't know how to get out of it. I knew I shouldn't lie but I didn't know how to get out of it. I was in a quandary. He said "I'll give you another chance. Are you sure you didn't do it?" "Yes, Sir." He said "You know I have a way of finding out exactly who did it." Oh, oh. Where was he when I didn't see? He must have been watching me someplace. Then I got to thinking. Maybe daddies were like God and could see everything I did. Then I really was scared. I had been taught all my life that God saw every thing I did.
He said "come here." He told Mother "I have a way of finding out." He reached back into his hip pocket and took out a little stick that he had trimmed off just right with his knife. He held up the stick and said "This stick is the same length as the foot that stepped up in the apple tree because I measured it down in the footprints in the mud at the base of the tree." Oh, oh. I'm a goner. I just stood there. I was frightened to death. He asked me "Do you want to change your story?" "No, Sir." I was in deep enough and I didn't know which way to turn cause if I told a lie, I was telling another one. Then I didn't know what I was gonna do. Daddy said, "Well I got a way."
He asked Mamma to bring the baby to him and to turn his foot around. He took his stick out and measured it next to that tiny little baby's foot and that stick was much longer than that little foot. He said "It couldn't have been this one." I was hurtin' all over. He called my little sister, just two years old. "Come here, Elsa." He told her "Hold your left foot up here." So she did. Her foot came just a little over halfway on that stick. "Well, it wasn't this one. There's not but one more here that it could have been." To me again he said "I'm going to give you another chance to straighten things out if you want to." I was in such a mess then I didn't see any way out and I just went ahead and lied again. "No, Sir."
Daddy said "I want to measure your foot by this stick. Reach your foot up here." I was standing there. I went to lift my foot up there and that was the heaviest foot I EVER picked up. It would just hardly get up on his knee where he could measure it. When I got it up there and he measured it, it came out exactly right to the top of that little stick. He looked at me and asked "You want to change your story?" I was already crying and I didn't want to change any story. But I knew that he knew all about it.
He said "Now let me tell you something. My apple tree's ruined. Split open and I don't know whether it will ever amount to anything. I'm not worried about the apple tree. What I'm worried about is about my child lying to me like you lied this morning." I didn't have a thing to say. I was standing there, facing the facts. I had lied. He said "You know there's a penalty for lying. I'm going to give you a good lickin'." He went out in the yard and broke off five or six little twigs from a peach tree and pinched them together at the back and came back in. He pulled up my little gown which was already muddy and wet from being out on the grass and mud in the yard and orchard. He checkered my little legs real good in the back with that little switch. It just burnt and hurt and everything.
Daddy said "Remember, I'm not whipping you for the apple tree. I'm whipping you for lying to me. You gotta pay for a lie when I catch you in one." He wasn't fussing. He was just talking. I a whole lot rather he fussed. He didn't. He was just talking. "When you lie, you've always got to face it. You've learned early. You faced yours this morning. Now you watch that."
Oh, I went back in there and crawled in that bed. My little legs were just stinging and burning. But you know what? Next time that I was asked something I thought two or three times before I answered and I didn't lie again about that. I tried again a few times but I never could get by with it. My daddy or mamma could look me straight in the eye and tell when I was lying.
I lied that time but I raised a little boy a few years later and he tried the same thing on me. I remembered what my daddy had taught me and what my mamma had taught me and I was trying to teach him. So I spanked him one day for lying and I told him "Mother can always tell when you're lying." He said "How can you tell when I'm lying?" He was a little feller, only about two and a half. I said "Mother can look in your eyes and tell when you're lying." So a few days later he came into tell me something and all at once he turned the backs of his little hands over his eyes and stood there while he was talking. I asked him "Ronny, why have you got your eyes covered up?" He said "I don't want you to see in there and know I am telling you a lie." He had tried the same thing I did.
It is nearly a century later that Elva Rice told me of the lessons that her daddy had taught her. It has been more than fifty years since Ronny covered his eyes with his little hands. Yet, the lessons are as fresh as today's coffee and undiminished by the dusts of time. I have seen four generations of Elva's family and the truth clearly remains:
Raise up a child in the ways of the Lord and when he is old he will not depart from them.
Productivity Enhancement And Institutional Survival
I work in a large hospital, and like many other hospitals, the one I work in is making many attempts to find ways to improve the quality of care while at the same time spending less money on it. Sounds almost like an oxymoron doesn't it? One of the things we as a hospital are doing to achieve this is to implement a facility-wide quality-improvement initiative using a variety of statistical measurement techniques that have been used for years in industrial settings. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to train more than two thousand employees to various levels of proficiency in the use of Statistical Process Control. All of this to insure institutional survival. You probably know that hundreds of hospitals have been closed over the past ten years because of marginal performance.
A long time ago it was discovered that when measurement strategies are put into place in an organization, what is described as the Hawthorne Effect often occurs. Essentially what happens is that people will improve their job performance when they think they are being watched by experts; with their clipboards, taking measurements. In one of my former lifetimes, I worked four years as a management industrial engineer in a large hospital and I often saw this occur, especially if I had on my white coat, radiation badge, and acted like I knew what I was doing.
Personnel costs are nearly half the operating budget of most any hospital, probably any business, for that matter. If we ‘experts’ can find ways to enhance labor productivity then one has a chance of significantly improving financial performance. Yet, one must also realize these ‘experts’ are not free and tend to run up big laundry bills with their white coats and even bigger dry cleaning bills with their dark business suits. They also tend to want big desks and well decorated offices. It would be an ideal set of circumstances if we could find a way to produce the Hawthorne Effect without the high overhead expenses associated with hiring ‘us.’
As often is the case, inspiration came late at night under duress. I was actually doing some homework, at home, for my job as one of those experts. I was slated to begin a training class in the morning to learn a structured approach to interviewing job applicants. As all business gurus know, employee turnover is exceptionally costly and demoralizing. The management experts at the hospital decided to take a stab at reducing this. While being overly responsible about my job, I discovered a way to induce the Hawthorne Effect without experts!
I was lying on the floor, on my stomach, reading through a three-ring binder, struggling greatly to not get up and play a game of Free Cell on my computer or go to bed. While on the edge of consciousness, my eight pound gray with some patches of orange semi-tabby cat hopped up on my back and settled in for the duration. How could I now even think of getting up and playing Free Cell or shirking my responsibility even further by going to bed? I would have heard no end of it and probably been required to sleep alone. No, I must push on with my reading, I thought. After all, I was being watched.
In that instant, vivid revelation came to me. Vision was given. Hope for the financial dilemmas of American healthcare was spawned. In that moment it occurred to me that many American hospitals are struggling for survival after only a brief three or four decades of existence at the very same time second hand book shops have existed in Europe for centuries, often passing down through many generations. How could a multi-million dollar hospital filled with experts be compelled to close while a small home-spun book shop could last what seemed like forever? What was the difference that produced this vast extension of institutional survival. I pondered and there it was, the answer in a single small four letter word: cats. Cats? Of course. How could all of the experts have missed it?
Have you ever been in a second-hand book shop in Europe that didn't have a regal striped cat sitting atop the highest book case, watching? The truly productive shops have a second cat, often a white and brown one placed strategically in the window to watch customers, to manipulate them and give them that look that says “If you don’t buy a book, my owner will not be able to afford to go down to the butcher at closing time and buy me scraps for my dinner. Do you want to be responsible for that?” Of course not. No one gets out without buying books. Consequently, bookstores with cats do not have to suffer with non-paying browsers.
I realized in my instant of brilliant insight that every single one of those hospitals that closed had failed to install cats in strategic places to induce the Hawthorne Effect in its labor pool. I mean, if my cat can keep me from Free Cell AND my bed, certainly, a tabby and a brown-and-white, working together, could have saved a hospital from institutional extinction. Can you imagine the political coup that would have been for them, saving all those hospitals and reducing the ranks of the unemployed. Even more importantly, think of what we could do with the problem of burgeoning cat populations in the animal shelters of America. We would be certain to win political votes from the animal lovers of America, if instead of gassing cats at
the pound, we gave them an important role in reducing the cost of healthcare and saving our hospitals.
I believe the quality of care would also rise markedly. Patients do so much better when in friendly environments that remind them of home. Can you imagine how much better a patient would feel at the sight of a large tabby roaming around under the rungs of chairs in the waiting rooms or sitting up in the window of a patient room, next to the Gloxinia from Aunt Harriet? There is actually an emerging sub-discipline in medicine called pet therapy. It has been proven that by taking pets into nursing homes, the patients tend to maintain far better mood and actually show enhanced mobility and physical well-being. One study demonstrated that allowing these patients to care for pets increased their life expectancy! Imagine if Fluff was waiting for us when we came out of surgery. Imagine if we replaced the experts with cats.
Besides, Purina Cat Chow is a whole lot cheaper that experts.
Crescent
It has been my contention for many years that trains constitute the most civilized way to get places. Trains offer the luxury of freedom of movement, affording opportunities to walk into elegance past and dine on crisp linen as a vermillion sunset unfurls; a vase of cut flowers giving a pleasing aroma to the experience. Most European trains and an ever smaller number of American ones provide lounge cars in addition to diners. It is possible to leave the solitude of a good book, walk a few paces, and join animated conversation in one of these small havens of civility. Most importantly, people riding the rails are not in a hurry. If they were, they would have blasted themselves over the horizon with a jet turbine. With an abundance of time and unhurried fellow travellers, and a bit of good fortune, it's possible to find a good listener, a mentor, perhaps even a soulmate. Unfortunately, most people just want to get there, and trains have suffered a precipitous drop in popularity and most train service in America has disappeared.
Airplanes get people there too fast, often stalling out opportunities to meet a best friend or a soul mate. It has been my experience to fly many hundreds of times throughout the world. With the ever greater pace of life, air travel over the years has lost much of its magic. Once planes were filled with people inspired and awed by seeing cumulus clouds from above and chasing sunsets that last four hours at forty thousand feet. It seems planes are now filled with business travellers pounding away on lap top computers to beat out a competitor, spinning deals on GTE Airfones in the seat back, or checking commodities trades over satellite links to the Internet. I never have seen a phone installed in railroad coach cars and haven't yet heard the tell-tale clicking of computer keyboards
Automobiles require much attention to driving and often isolate each of us in our own steel and glass containment. I have driven between Greenville, South Carolina and Birmingham, Alabama some sixty times and only on three of these journeys did I have the luxury of companionship. Surrounded by tens of thousands of travellers at rush hour in Atlanta, I had no one to share my musings with, and I certainly wasn't ordering dessert from the steward in the dining car. Most likely I was fuming at the brake lights in front of me while avoiding becoming road kill under an eighteen wheeler.
I have gotten smarter in recent years and have been stretching a forty-minute plane ride or a four-hour drive out into a six or seven hour train experience while leaving the car at the station or a friend's house. The car gets a rest and I get a break.
This past week I took a short holiday by train. I arrived at the small station twenty minutes from my house just as the sun was peaking over the horizon, casting bronze daggers of brilliance into the new day. Many states have no train service whatever so I consider myself eminently fortunate to have a station so very near. As the sun continued its ascent into the brightening morning, I indulged in a leisurely breakfast served on freshly starched linen. A good book and musings with a fellow passenger about the turbulent journey of her life filled the time-space continuum between the rails and I arrived unhurried at my destination in early afternoon where I was soon whisked away to a pleasant picnic in a splendid botanical garden with a dear friend.
My return journey was equally pleasing, if not more so. An early afternoon departure eastward found me able to read through two charming novels by the time the first copper hints of sunset appeared. In the dining car, I actually recognized the steward as the same fellow that reigned over this miniature culinary oasis on my previous three journeys. They say familiarity breeds contempt. Not this time. A pleasant sense of continuity and connection was forthcoming as was a fine three-course meal with wine; costing less than a single movie ticket and large popcorn. Stretching out the last morsels I was able to take in the last lavender musings of a day well spent.
This was easily done with the splendid company of Dorothy and Ernest who were on a month-long journey to visit some of their eight kids scattered throughout the southeast. He had just been released from the hospital after being told he needed cardiac by-pass surgery. He declined to have it. He figures he's had a long good life and he knows where the last Station is for him. Who knows, maybe because he rides trains and slows down to thank the One who makes sunsets, he will get to see his grand kids grow up.
We disappeared to our respective seats, I to relish a fine nap. There's much more leg room in a train coach than any first class airplane cabin and no seat belt signs. The congenial conductor awakened me just in time to leap from the carriage which barely stopped at my destination. Being the only one to get off at a destination and having no others leaving it provided a marked contrast to the Atlanta airport where up to ninety thousand travellers well up out of the terminal subways in a single day to be launched into the not always friendly skies. Out of the dark shadows emerged a dear friend, letting me know I was home once again.
One day the Conductor will take me on a final journey to His Home and show me how he paints sunsets.
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