You Feelin' Christmasy Punk? The Sequel

"You feelin' Christmasy Punk" is a rough paraphrase of a Clint

 Eastwood line in a film about tough police detective, "Dirty Harry." 

 And what does that have to do with Christmas? That's a question I could ask all month long...

It happens every December, I have to grab a big breath to even  push open the doors of the local pharmacy, (yes one of the many franchises that have pressed sameness and uniformity and anonymity upon us) and face all the doo-dads and bling and ding-dong and blinkie and fuzzy stuff that it is hoped we will purchase to celebrate....  

And even at my usually staid dentist's office there was... no, I'm not going to describe and thereby burden your mind with another such image.  

But here's a post from 2009 that I hope you'll enjoy...

You Feelin' Christmasy, Punk?

So I have posted a picture of an Advent Calendar we made a number of years ago. I have not figured out a title for this post, and have to laugh at the things that pass through as possibilities.
Okay, I admit that "You feelin' Christmasy Punk?" wasn't the first title that came to mind this morning, but it is something that popped out of my mouth the other night as I handed my husband a Christmas napkin. Dirty Harry invaded the culture and sometimes I let my guard down and like those winsome viruses we are all trying to avoid, I catch my share.

I love Christmas, but I don't like what's been done to it. One of my brothers said to me this week that Christmas doesn't last long enough...and my heart pounded hard. We were on the phone, but I could see him so clearly, working in the cold days to keep abreast of the on-going demands and that nicely positioned December 10th property tax deadline, and yet thinking of all the people he would like to make gifts for...the families he would like to stop by and see...yummy, what kind of cookies are you making? I remember the year, time was slower then, he made us all little copper pots.

But I hear stories about people just feeling all stressed out from the holidays...and that is a sad thing. There are the unresolved family issues, the concern for buying gifts that are too big or too small, unneeded or unwanted...or desperately needed and out of sight.

I just have a few of Aunt Dorothy's little Christmas napkins. She's been gone for many years now. They are faded and were just simply a collection of holly fabrics but she made them and she loved Christmas for what it is. Of course I handed my husband one of his aunt's napkins and asked him "You feeling Christmasy, punk? "

 I'm just fighting off what the tear-it -all- down bullies would erect. What do you mean that doesn't make any sense? ...of course it doesn't. I should just focus my energy on the part of it all that re-members me with what really matters.

"Advent, advent let your little light shine." Today another chicken flew up to roost in the manger. Christmas is coming...don't despair...it doesn't matter what you wear...or how you feel about your hair...or if your hand is empty when you arrive. Just come as you are...you don't even need to feel Christmasy, punk.

~~~~~~~~~

That Person Behind the Job

What a busy week it has been. Chance to sit and gather up thoughts has been hard to come by. Reflection requires time that can pool quietly. The pilot light is burning, but I can't stand at my own stove long enough to cook up my recipes; I have a nameless stew, simmering on the back burner. Even now, I know, I could be called away before I strike another key, but I long to steal within, and so I grab these moments.

That's how work time often is, the inner life goes on, but not unhampered. Yet the inner being isn't really trapped in outward doings; it's always receiving and re-collating within the living tissue of memory that hungers for meaning. I know we aren't actually what we do. I know one's value isn't based on the outward rewards this culture gives, but sometimes that's harder to remember than others. Nothing required of me by my job has been onerous, I've just been busy in a variety of directions. But I know that isn't how it is for everyone.



This week a talented and dear to my heart young person, currently anticipating a return to the wait-person workforce, told me a story about a restaurant job experience in her college days.

The establishment in question we'll just call a 5 star luxury hoity-toity where folks of median means occasionally splurge for the most special of celebrations and lush luminaries drop your box office dollars to down enough alcohol to reveal threads common to all mankind.

Having gotten through the written application, extensive psychological and background checks, and a telephone interview, an in-person interview was finally obtained. Imagine this young woman's consternation at being told within moments of arrival, "Well, I'm not even going to waste your time, today. You're at the wrong interview." No explanation was given, she was just told she needed to reschedule with a different department on a different day. Two days later she was interviewed and hired for the upper echelon of dining. Asked if she had any questions, she inquired about the abrupt cancellation of the first interview. "Oh, let's just say that it's an unofficial policy that people of a ah...certain attractiveness get sent to the more prominent jobs than, well ah... you know, less attractive people." It must have been the Zoolander effect, that movie spoofing modeling..."you must be really, really, really, really, realllly good looking."

It was awkward amongst the employees, especially if groups of them spotted each other off site at the university or in town. Envy, pride, resentment were all afoot. The young women who worked in the cafe, knew they weren't as showy as the wait-persons in fine dining; lines had been drawn, barriers erected. The dehumanizing spell of the class caste system was doing its deed.


People aren't what they do, they are people. It's so simple I think it's easy for us to miss the person behind the role or the function that they're fulfilling.

Later that day, standing at a grocery store being ignored myself by the staff, I watched three employees, two women and one man, bantering amongst themselves as they checked and bagged my items.

The male bagger, a smooth faced young black man, of very average stature and above average girth, asked one of the buoyant tattooed clerks why she thought it was okay to call him "Big Ben." I wondered if she was up on the law and ethics of not harassing fellow workers.

"Well Big Ben is the name of a famous clock," she offered.

"Nothing to do with me," he said.

"Oh, but it's very famous," she insisted, "Big Ben is the nickname for the clock at the Palace in London. It's a good nickname for you, Big Ben."

"I don't know anything about it. My name is Ben," he said, "but I'm not famous."

As he checked my dozen eggs for cracks, rubber banded the box and set them in my sack, I caught his eye. "You don't need to be famous," I said, "You're a person."

His laughter rang out. "Cool, someone advanced enough to understand the simple things."

And that was it. Nothing more was said, as they finished up and I paid my bill. But somehow I felt Ben saw me as he loaded my sacks and that he meant it when he told me, "You have a good day now."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, it's back to work for me....

Poem for the Topic of Troubles

When trouble comes
in small unmarked packets or
the large bannered varieties blazoned in headlines
"Oh why did that happen?
If only ... what if?"
But no,
all that has already taken place
IS.

How shall we be
of good cheer
In this world
of many troubles?
Birds fly
and sing
and drink dew from the cup of a leaf or
the slow drip of my leaking faucet.
We should be so simple;
migrating as the seasons command,
our boundaries no offense to any others,
residing in the zone where we belong,
a cup ready at the well for any sojourner,
the fear of poisoned waters dismissed in the golden sun of morning.

That we could live so with one another.
What if?






my collage & poem...my father's sketch

Bread-Money-Energy

I haven’t shared much in “my profile” here. I find I have a deeply rooted resistance to filling in lists in boxes. For one thing, I don't always remember what would go in the boxes if I were totally willing to fill them in. But sometimes, quiet times, it's as if I feel unseen hands on my shoulders turning me to take in a view I might have missed as I remember the words, or the impact of the words, of a friend I met only through their writing. So this morning I have entered a favorite book in my profile because this morning I remembered Victor Frankl.

It's been many years since I read him. In Man's Search For Meaning he wrote: "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Someone asked me why I chose to call my web log “Bread on the Water." It’s a phrase from the 11th chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes. “Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.” Perhaps bread on the water calls up an image of feeding ducks or soggy loaves, but as real as bread and water are , they are also symbolic. "Cast your bread upon the water," I don’t know if I know what it “means” in the context of Solomon’s purpose, but I hear in it an openness: to do, to risk, to give, to care, to trust. Even the word cast is a power of imagery. I see lines cast in rivers to draw forth fish, sowers casting seeds across the fields of the world.

In San Francisco 1960s bread was often slang for money, as in “you got any bread man?” Bread, Money, Energy…cast your bread upon the waters. I think that’s what a blog is all about, a little giving into the unknown, to unknown others.

That’s quite an image that Frankl shares…men giving away their last piece of bread. I’ve never done that, but I have been given a lot. I've received a lot: a lot of bread, a lot of love, a lot …. so I hope to share a little here. As my banner says, I'm not sure what the topics or direction of this blog will be from week to week, but I’m here to cast a little bread on the water.

~~~~~~

Non-zero Compliance

The news headlines economic disasters, yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's. Trouble is real but what a thief worry is. I totter inwardly on the divide between actively doing what I can to ward off troubles and the mental casting about in the waters of time not yet mine. The dread of a thing can take on more power than the thing itself.

In the early morning my little cat is looking for a responsive object. Her ability to sleep and toy is notable, she has no anxiety to rob her of rest or play. I listen to the refrigerator humming and the gas hissing as I heat water on the stove. These are ordinary seemingly inconsequential sounds and yet awareness of these simple privileges brings me gratitude.

The bigger the trouble, the further from home, the more powerless I feel. There are starving people, warring factions world wide, violence on foot, on wheels, on wing.

Having done all else, scripture says, stand. Where to stand? The concept of circles of influence is helpful. Take starving children for example. I am fat. If I feed myself properly, feed my family, then in widening concentric circles I may have more to give in this realm to others. The excess can go to those who need rather than hang around and hamper my frame.

I know it is only a non-zero drop in the pot of gruel, the bowl of soup, the cup of milk that's daily needed in the famine stricken realms.

And war, it brings up primal questions right away. In moments of stretching for grand compassion I want to see everyone as truly believing they are right; they must believe they assert out of peril for life. But then another awareness, the foul smell of evil asserts itself. There is evil hunger for power, there is insanity, there is fear that leads to hatred. What can I do?

Seek justice, love mercy, the book I read says.

So back to those little concentric circles of influence, in relationships at hand, and in any circle of influence available to me, seek justice, love mercy. There really is nothing new under the sun, but there is so much I have been told and shown that needs entering into.

Where to start, where to start? Postive non-zero compliance, it's a beginning.

~~~~~~~