So ... what would you say ...

... if your husband said to you, "did you pull on the handle to open the bottom of the firepot to let the clinkers fall out?"

If you don't know the answer to a question like that, you might have central heating.

Helpful suggestion of the day

Because one daughter and one young giant have now vacated this house and taken with them anything they thought they could use ("can I take that table?"), there are now four bedrooms and two beds for three people and any guests. This is not a workable situation. One lone "sack of denim" futon mattress is awaiting export to the young giant's apartment, and it was slept upon last night by a not-very-rested uncle.

So ... this morning ...

Me: "We have to solve this mattress problem this week."

Him: "Just buy the right lottery ticket like I keep telling you."

Me: "Uh-huh. Well, here's what IKEA has ... and I've looked at Costco and Cotton Cloud."

Uncle: "Let's find a mattress that fell off a truck and got run over. It would be cheaper than buying a new one and more comfortable than that thing I slept on last night."

Him: "Figure out a way to buy one at the CAT dealer. They can always get money out of us even if we don't have any."

Now, this is a brilliant solution. All I have to do is buy a mattress at the Caterpillar dealer. They've got toy Caterpillar trucks, and parts for real ones, and coats, and mugs. Surely they carry mattresses.

I wonder if it happens again

A very strange thing about being in the middle place of a life is the discovery that all the teenage decisions are coming into my hands again. The issues feel familiar.

It's much like hearing the voice of an actor I can almost recognize, and not being able to remember where I saw the actor before. This is a pretty common conversation at our house, actually. "Where have I seen him (or her) before? What was he in?" And, since it's generally true that almost everyone in this family is better than I am at remembering which actor is which, my question is generally answered by whoever else is in the room at the time. (And generally quickly - it's maddening, but I have to ask.)

So maybe it doesn't happen again for everyone. Maybe other people can remember where their other voices once were heard, and maybe they don't have to come around again to answer the questions again and again, in each season of their lives. But apparently I have to.

Here's one. Are the complainers and naysayers and worriers and doom addicts right about the world? Is it really worse than it was in the old days? Do we really have to suspect the bad before we can accept the good? Do constant warnings to "be careful" and "watch out" and "protect yourself" really set a body up for a good life?

I was almost convinced of it when I was younger. I thought the Fearing Folk knew something I didn't know. But they're just afraid - they're not wise. So I gave up on them and their silly bonging of doom, doom, doom. I decided to be happy.

The thing is, though, crap happens. And if you grow up and move away and go to college and get married and have kids and then the kids grow up and move away (none married yet, but this isn't complicated - I think I can figure out what's next) ... well, a lot of crap happens.

So I find myself trying to remember where I've heard this voice before. The voice is in my own head, so no one else in the living room can give me any help with this one. The voice is the youthful me, glancing around with an anxious face, trying to see what all those Fearers were seeing. Were they right after all? Is it true?

Should I have exerted more control over things along the way?

(No. In the first place, you couldn't really have had any "control" - you're just not that powerful. And in the second place, trying to do it makes people frantic and worried all the time. Look around. See them? No. More control along the way wouldn't have worked. It's obvious.)

Maybe my kids would be having an easier time of it if we'd been more conventional.

(Right. You've seen that kind of kid after a life of conventional education and conventional (utter lack of) creative input. Conventional movies and music and books and free time experiences. Your kids would've been better off that way? Your kids? Those people? Right. And besides - didn't you marry a man who's pretty much the opposite of conventional just so you wouldn't have to do that? Yes, you did. You decided on this life, and it's turning out pretty well, and you know it.)

Well, they would've fit in more easily if they'd had more practice fitting in.

(Fit in more easily with what? Convention? This would've been better?)

A more conventional life would've given me a more conventional house. I might even have a finished house by now. People do, you know. Foundation and basement and everything. Decor, even.

(You'd trade?)

...The conversation is a lot longer than this, but I'll stop here. I remember this voice. And now I remember the answers. And now I have new answers - or rather, I have the same answers, all grown up.

The doom-and-gloomers were wrong then, and they're wrong now, and it's not silly to be happy or optimistic. But not because crap doesn't happen. It's not silly to be happy or optimistic for the simple reason that crap isn't the only thing that happens. And you know what else crap does? Rots. Composts. Dries out. Blows away. Happiness might be temporary but so's crap. And worrying about its happening doesn't actually make it not happen, so what was the point of that? To be prepared? That would be a great reason if it were true or if it ever happened. But the crap that's happened to me isn't on any list I ever had my hands on. There wasn't any way to be prepared for that stuff. It just happens. And then it stops happening. Or ... other stuff happens too. (Or you die. I guess that's the other option here.)

So, after all these years, even if it's still instant conversation success to talk to people about stuff that's gone wrong or will go wrong or used to be better back in the good old days or anything else that sounds all "wise" and cautious and knowing about the world - even though people still love, love, love to talk about how they "can't because" - it's still just as silly to go through life that way as it would be to stand by the potty all day to scrub and clean and beware just in case crap happened. There really is more to life than that.

I wonder if this conversation will sound different in my head when I'm eighty.

Today is the Feastday of the Holy Innocents

"Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not."
The Gospel according to Saint Matthew

When Christ was born in Bethlehem,
Fair peace on earth to bring,
In lowly state of love he came
To be the children's King.

And round him, then, a holy band
Of children blest was born,
Fair guardians of his throne to stand
Attendant night and morn.

And unto them this grace was giv'n
A Saviour's name to own,
And die for him who out of heav'n
Had found on earth a throne.

O blessed babes of Bethlehem,
Who died to save our King,
Ye share the martyrs' diadem,
And in their anthem sing!

Your lips, on earth that never spake,
Now sound the eternal word;
And in the courts of love ye make
Your children's voices heard.

Lord Jesus Christ, eternal Child,
Make thou our childhood thine;
That we with thee the meek and mild
May share the love divine.

Laurence Housman, 1906

Whose dumb idea was it to have a three year campaign season?

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'" Theodore Roosevelt

"Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important." Eugene McCarthy

"Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles." Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), The Devil's Dictionary

"I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians." Charles DeGaulle

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy." Ernest Benn

Power

I believe in the power of one human voice.

"Benazir Bhutto is dead after gunfire and a suicide bomber targeted her vehicle as she left a campaign rally." Pakistan is in chaos today. The collective voices of the people cry out in rage and grief. The news shows the crowds. I am sure, however, that what God hears is the voice of this one man. And each other single human being. I believe in the power of this man's voice.

This is not the US Army's ill-advised former recruitment slogan of "army of one." An army of one is a pretty bad idea. That's a mercenary. Or a maverick zealot. Or someone utterly deranged. Armies need more than one, even if they must move as one. (And if you talk very long to anyone in the army, you will discover that the reality behind the seemingly organized and unified movement of an army is mostly the stuff of legends and ideals. It's actually a bit messier than that. Okay, a lot messier.)

No, the power of the single human voice is not the idealization of the individual. It is, I think, quite the opposite. The power of the single human voice comes from its place in the whole of the choir of voices.The whole choir of humanity knows the ancient tones of grief - and sings the parts in the songs of freedom. Every once in awhile, a soloist stands out. Above the voices of the rest of the choir, and woven in among them, we hear that one voice, "soaring, dying 'round Thy throne," and calling us in "the moment to decide." Its clarity sears us deep within our souls and we can try again to tune ourselves to the human song.Today I hear the voices of the people in the streets of Pakistan. God hears them too. And I believe - because I think I have seen it over and over in just my own short lifetime - that when the one voice sings the True Song, others will hear it and join in. I do not think the soloist's voice, in true pitch, once heard, can ever be silenced. That is its power. "Heal the anguish of the world" is a prayer that gets answered in the choir.

More shepherds

These shepherds are by the Van Limburg brothers. Gotta love the book the angels are using as reference material for their message - or perhaps it's the angel hymnal. It's open pretty near the middle, so maybe all the music in the angel hymnal is service music. You can read about them here: http://www.artbible.info

My favorite Adoration painting

I know it's early. Epiphany's not until January 6 (which, happily, falls on a Sunday this year). But I just came across it again, and this really is my very favorite Adoration painting. It's by Diego Rodriguez da Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660). The expression on the Holy Child's face is what gets me.

Go ahead ... be happy

Morning Edition, December 18, 2007 · The idea that the "holiday blues" could drive one to consider jumping off a bridge has been with us since the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life. And, like the movie, it's fiction.

Studies show suicides go down over the holidays by as much as 40 percent. One Oxford researcher told The Los Angeles Times that studies contradict the popular view of Christmas as a time of stress and arguments. And remember, George Bailey didn't jump.

A
strong
conviction
that
something must be done
is
the parent
of
many
bad
measures.

Daniel Webster

Modern rendition on a bumper sticker:

Don't believe everything you think.

Christmas Ghosts

I found this just a few days ago - it's from the Chris Beetles Art Gallery in London. I fell in love with it - don't you think it's got a particularly giggly, delicious quality to it? Those shepherds keeping watch (or chewin' the fat, looks more like to me) - they're just so ... um ... well, so shepherdy.

Then there's this one:
It's called "Christmas Thieves" - look closely - see them?

One thing that is a distinct difference between American Christmas and Euro or Brit Christmas is that crazy sense of the slightly off-kilter - the magical in the same sense that faeries and wood sprites and ogres are magical. There's a keen sense, especially in all the British literature, of the things just beyond the boundaries of ordinary human sight, and at Christmas time they break through and bother us.

Charles Dickens' is well known for his ghost story A Christmas Carol, and we shop-n-smile 'mericans are generally okay with what could appear to be a morality tale about not being selfish at Christmas time. (Shopping's good if you're doing it for things you're going to give to other people, right?) But did you know our Mr. Dickens also wrote a whole book of other Ghost Stories for Christmas?

The Publishers Notes on this newest edition say: Utilizing fascinating and often little known facts about each story, Peter Haining also argues that it was Dickens who inextricably linked Christmas with the supernatural, together with perpetrating the idea of a White Christmas.

Maybe. But he sure didn't invent the idea of the supernatural sneaking or breaking or popping into the safe, natural, "known" world. Dickens didn't do that. God did that. And there's something particularly British in the understanding and story-telling about things at Christmastide that come out of the darkness ... and then walk right up to you and tweak you on the nose.

Baseball's Shame

So ... the report is out. Baseball as an industry (which is more what it is than a sport) stands like a guilty child with crumbs on his face, no longer able to deny filching from the cookie jar. I suppose the "records" are a bit of a problem ... but ... "the integrity of the game is now damaged"? What integrity? Did anyone really think that with that much money and that much glory in being spoiled rotten all mixed into playing a part called "hero" would be clean? Really?

If tears roll down your face today because of this - if you were disillusioned in some way - then it's probably time that this part of your life came into the real world, and the sports guys seemed more like humans to you. And if your child has been disillusioned about his heroes, shame on you.

Arriving

In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the passing; we have arrived.

Knut Hamsun, Norwegian novelist, Nobel Prize for Literature, 1920

There are already a lot of crossed out bits - and places where the ink ran in the tears I dropped on the page whilst the writing was going on ... but ... there is a lot of beauty in those pages, and I think when I have arrived, it will have been a batch of letters worth sending. Flesh made Word ... I hope.

It might be time

... to pay a little more attention to things that happen here - in my house. I'm starting to suspect it, anyway. It just might be time.

See, today, my husband (the one driving the one car) took the time to hunt down some lovely saffron for me. It wasn't cheap - because saffron isn't. I told him I wanted it for making a St. Lucia Crown tomorrow on St. Lucia Day. So - good man that he is - he bought me some.

And then tonight he asked me when I was making it. Tomorrow, I said. For St. Lucia. And then I realized what he was really saying - it was something resembling, "It's for us, right?" Oh. I get it now. He wants to eat it himself - and not have me take it to church for other people to eat. Mm-hm. I see. Well, he's in luck. I'm making it for us. And who knows? I might even do something weird and wonderful with the beef and spiced wine - and keep that just for us too!

I found it

Yesterday! I found it! No, no ... not that tempest in a teapot of an evangelical campaign from the 70's ... was Portland the only place that did that thing? There were bumper stickers everywhere that said "I found it" -- the idea was that people would ask what you'd found, and then you could witness or talk about the "four spiritual laws" and God's "wonderful plan for your life," and then send the person to any church that "meets your needs." (No way to sort out that nonsense ... walk away ... walk away ...) When I went to college in the Bible Belt, a group of kids always went "mall witnessing" (now, there's one for the Hilarity of Subculture-speak Dictionary!). The "I found it" Campaign was like that - only Pacific northwest style. Anyway ... that's not it.

I've found the Cozy. The holiday comfort and joy. The anticipatory sense of approaching happiness. The "spirit" of Christmas. That's what I've found. And I've found it in a dishtub of soapy water.

No kidding. Yesterday, in a house empty of people, and full of the sound of a very sappy holiday DVD, at a pace of quiet and leisurely contentment, I took my plastic dish tub from the kitchen into the living room and washed the windows and walls and electronic equipment (don't panic - I did wring out the rags and I did dry everything off) ... and all of a sudden, there it was. The Cozy. I've been coughing and tired and a bit stressed for the past month or so, and haven't really been eager to see the blessed season of Joy approaching. So I was surprised yesterday. But there was no denying it. There, in the minty green plastic tub of soap bubbles, was the blissful calm of waiting for the Birth.

I recognized it right away, you see. I know this one. It started its life when I was quite young, and it felt like someone whispering a secret in the dark. A really good secret. The kind of secret it feels better to keep than to tell because when everyone knows about it, they'll all be happy about it. The secret was all about the candles and lights on the tree and the presents in the wrapped packages under the tree, of course, but mostly it was about the darkness. At dinner time each night, the curtains on the dining room windows were drawn closed because it was really dark outside already. The usually relaxed twilight was shorter. The darkness sent us inside, where it was warm and light and where the scent of things cooking and the sounds of a family were held.

Later the Cozy could be felt from as far away as "cruising altitude" when I was flying home from college, on a plane more full of college students and military personnel than business travelers. In December, in Portland, the rain is chilly and nearly constant - or, it seems that way. The rain defines the city. And in the plane, on the way home one year, we suddenly heard the drops hitting the windows as we started our descent. The whole plane went silent - and then someone who sounded like a guy about my age, from somewhere across the aisles breathed out the magic words. "It's raining ....!" We all laughed in sympathy. We were all coming home.

Maybe that's what the Cozy is all about, really. Maybe it's about home. Maybe that's why the song "I'll Be Home For Christmas" has the immediate status of frank emotional manipulation. It's so blunt. "Home" and "Christmas" both in the very title of it!

It makes sense, of course. In the winter, in the northern hemisphere at least, the darkness sends us all indoors, and at the end of the work day, the people scurry home. And, in the winter, the Church begins the cycle again. In the darkness and quiet, the biggest secret ever whispered comes to us, and He was far, far from Home. In the quiet, and in the dark, and with the lowliest of creatures, the "creator of the stars of night" was whispered to us.

Yesterday, I found Him again - or, I should say, I heard the whispered promise of Him - I heard it in a tub of soapy water.

Pretty Proud o' Portland

A little film about the livable city that holds my early roots. Check it out. Portland, Oregon - a bicyclist's paradise. http://dutchbikeseattle.com

Head check

Okay. Admittedly, it's been awhile. When you're down to one car, one of the people doesn't do much driving. I'm that one - the one not driving a lot lately. And, also admittedly, it's "the holidays" and there are many many holiday shoppers out there on the weekends.

But I'm seriously considering getting a paint job on our car. Over and over, all the way around the car, it's going to say,

"Do the head check."

If you want to merge, do the head check.

If you want to change lanes, do the head check.

The life you save could be my own.

Advent Saints

Saints of Advent, Christmas joy,
Yours the message we employ
Waiting for our Saviour dear
As we sing that Christ is near.

Gifts and generosity,
Nicholas, the people see
In the stories of your fame,
Children, sailors hail your name.

Shine in darkness candles bright,
Lucy's image brings us light.
Martyred saint your name recalls
That Christ's light shines for us all.

John the Baptist herald's cry,
Gives a signal, Christ is nigh.
His are words that do compel
Hope in Christ, all shall be well.

Thomas, once with doubt did sigh,
Now, My Lord and God, he cries,
Christmas leads to Calvary,
Resurrection sets us free.

Holy Joseph, none compare,
your devotion, love and care,
Guardian of the Holy One,
shows that new life has begun.

Blessed Mary, full of grace
Chosen by the Lord's embrace,
Mother by whom God is born
On that wondrous Christmas morn.

Mary, Joseph, John, we pray
Lucy, Nicholas, we say,
Thomas leading songs of praise,
As our prayers to Christ we raise.

J M ROSENTHAL 2003

Advent One

Snow twice already, and it's only the first of December today. This is very early in the season for such weather, but it does put me in the mood of Advent.

Thursday of this week is Saint Nicholas Day. I have an antidote for you if you wish to eschew such inane and idiotic shopping sales pitches as, "Sure, peace on earth sounds like a good idea, but at my house it won't happen without two of everything." The woman in the commercial has twins - so of course, she has to buy two of everything right? What could be more obvious? For pity's sake, don't expect lessons like one for each and then sharing ... and it's certainly beyond the pale to consider the fact that peace on earth doesn't have much to do with brothers fighting over the plastic airplane or superhero cape. Just buy two. (Is anyone else as repulsed by that as I am?)

Anyway, this week, go to The Saint Nicholas Center, and find generous heaps and piles of recipes, stories, ideas, customs, projects, music, artwork, and traditions. Bake German Pancakes for breakfast and Speculaas Koekjes (Dutch Spice Cookies). Toast the season with a glass of Bishop's Wine, and take a break from the madness with the good Saint Nick.

Tomorrow is the annual Service of Lessons and Carols at our parish. Always beautiful, of course. Only ... I do wish I didn't overflow into tears at absolutely everything that "touches a nerve" in me. Apparently, I've become nothing but nerve - and not in a good way.