It Gives Me Pause ....

It Gives Me Pause ....

The impact rendered her airborne because he was so much bigger than she was.  He had plenty of time, but didn’t seem to even attempt to touch his brakes….His sheer size and power rendered him king for the moment, deciding who lives and who dies.  He was after all, a brawny dump truck.  He up-shifted in the 40 mph residential zone and his stack belched an uncaring black exhaust of smoke upward to the heavens as he left the scene. 

It was me, driving behind him that saw the full panorama of what happened.  I was four car-lengths behind him.  Only one of us was slowing as we neared a school zone which would require 20 mph.  Still, the oncoming cars had stopped completely.  As I said, he never touched his brakes, not even for a second.  It made me sick to my stomach and I wanted to pull over to the side of the road and weep for her – she rolled onto a lawn and began her confusing process of dying.  She had not traveled alone, but certainly she was alone in her passing onward to wherever her spirit tended.

The other vehicles and I saw the whole herd of perhaps four or five deer on the south side of the residential street as they leapt into traffic to cross north-bound.  The first few made it to the grass and fled into the woods – their momentary gamble of crossing had shook their calm demeanor even before It, that terrible thing, happened.  The very last one, a young doe, tried to pour on the speed as her hoofs scrambled for traction on the pavement.  The truck had plenty of time to stop, or even to pause to make her way safe.  He did not.

I have a few compound words that have crossed my brain in his regard.  I was tempted to tailgate him and give him a hand signal a little more singular than a five-fingered wave.  But if he didn’t respect her life to pause for a second, why would I think he would respect mine?  It disturbed me that we were so close to a school zone – what if that had been a group of kids bolting across the road?!

So this whole incident begs the classic question I ask usually once a week:  What the HELL is the matter with people?!

Two months ago, I was driving to work and was quite disturbed by a sequence of events that unfolded.  I merged onto the freeway via the ramp.  I had plenty of time to move one more lane over into the flow of traffic which was spaced out quite generously.  However, the guy that was far back in that middle lane in his kick-arse jeep decided I was too slow for his liking.  (And by the way, I am not a slow, pokey driver by any stretch of the imagination.)  He rode right up my backside and then passed me on the RIGHT (illegal) and cut in front of me (illegal), and then touched his brakes (just plain stupid). 

Now I ask you:  how would he feel if I reacted, slammed on my brakes, was rear ended, and then subsequently hit by a few cars in the flow of traffic and killed?  Because, in fact, that was certainly one of the options that could have played-out.  For whatever reason, way behind me, he took something personal and decided to deliver a message by his bad behavior.  Any law enforcement officer who witnessed that behavior would have ticketed him for “road rage.”  I did not realize it at the time, but I could have taken his license plate and called it in.  I’m sure that even though he turned onto the westbound ramp to the other freeway, they could have picked him up pretty quickly.  Next time I will do exactly that.  But I hope there is never a next time because it was kind of scary.  Scratch that “kind of.”  It was just plain scary.

Let me take this opportunity to remind everyone that vehicles are machines and as such they are dangerous.  With this knowledge comes responsibility.  Slow down.  Turn off the cell phone.  Don’t text because you won’t be ROTFL if you hurt someone or some animal and damage your vehicle to boot.  Think about LIFE when you are driving – and how so much depends on YOU and your care for what is going on around you.  Be present in the moment.  Don’t drive drunk, high, thoughtless, angry or stupid.  I imagine, for some people that means they have to turn in their car keys.

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Musicians as Social Commentators

Musicians as Social Commentators

“If we heard that sound coming from one of the animals on the farm, we would have done the kind thing and euthanized it.”  That was the first thought that came to me when I heard Bob Dylan “sing” for the first time.  I mean, if he were kneeling at your feet and trying to propose marriage by singing, you’d be drawing up divorce papers in your head already. Yet for me, an odd thing happened, it kind of grew on me.  There were songs that certainly made me react with a shudder like nails-on-a-chalkboard.  But others had a certain sort of charm to them.

Dylan’s career in music is a curious thing to me.  I never heard of him giving a concert at any of the major cities where I lived, yet everyone seems to know who he is.  His sound ranged from folksy to rock, and yet probably forty years’ worth of people is familiar with the sound.  But my one opinion on which I will not flex, budge, or understate is that while we call him a singer it is more honest to call him a poet  and a social commentator.  His voice is not what I had in mind when I am trying to relax.  Yet you could count on him to not pull any punches in any of his balladiering, if that is a word.

I listened to Dylan during what he himself referred to as his “Christian phase.”  I listened because a good friend introduced me to the “Slow Train Coming” album and I think we wore out the song “Man Gave Names to all the Animals” – so fun, so light-hearted, and then the cool lyric cut-away at the end of it.  The song I always skipped over:  “Lenny Bruce was Bad” (“he was the brother that you never had”).  It just felt dark and ugly.  A part of your gut always reacts to Dylan’s songs:  Music doesn’t always do this, but good poetry does.  I think he had something worthwhile to say.

I remember a decade or so after I was in college and had long shelved the records of Dylan for another style of music that seemed truer to me, I read a Parade magazine article about him.  It seems he attended his son’s bar mitzvah and the media was all over him like lint on a black sweater that somehow he was denying his Christianity being there.  (A ridiculous conclusion on their part)  He came out very succinctly and said pretty much:  “Whenever I do a genre of music, I totally get into it; that was my Christian phase.”  While I found that disappointing, I understood that he had to tell them something.  Now, twenty years beyond that, I wonder what Dylan himself makes of all of it.

Was his religious experience driving his music?  Or was his search for a new genre of music attaching itself to a religious experience …. Kind of like a barnacle on the side of a ship – not caring where the ship goes, as long as it goes somewhere? 

During that genre or phase of Dylan’s music he produced at least three albums I am aware of:  “Slow Train Coming,” “Saved,” and “Shot of Love.”  For my money, he could have skipped the last two albums entirely.  One of them was an attempt to use the standard “two gospel/soul singers standing behind lead vocal” approach.  The album wasn’t comforting, but it was energetic, in an annoying sort of way.   Yet again, I make the case that Dylan is a poet and as such he is making commentary or rumination on life from a particular angle.  For that particular reason, I believe, he recently was awarded the Nobel Peace prize.  

I found it comic that he didn’t acknowledge reception of the NPP for days.  WHO goes on tour and says they were unable to respond to the Nobel Peace Prize committee because they were on tour?  Where was he touring, Antarctica?  Did he not have cell phone reception?  Or, more to it, was Dylan possibly snubbing the accolades of a society and media that for decades tried to grapple with what he was trying to say, and re-interpreted it when they didn’t “get him”?   Maybe he gave them a dose of Poetic Justice?!   

And then there is Madonna.  Madonna, whom I wish we could ship her to Antarctica… with no cell phone service.

Madonna who, next to Gloria Steinem, has done more to HARM the role of women in our society decides she is going to be a “voice” for women at these marches people are doing?  Are you bleeping kidding me?!  If you are too young to understand the misinterpreted effect of Gloria Steinem on society in general and women in particular, please accept my humble assessment as follows:  Gloria assessed that men were “sexually liberated” (read that:  morally bankrupt, socially irresponsible, and permitted to be boors) and decided that women should have that “privilege” as well.  Consequently, she got media and pieces of degenerated culture on board with the Women’s Liberation movement and said that women should be able to have S.O.D. (sex on demand) with anyone, at any time, without the consequences of parenthood or commitment to relational ties (ie marriage).  Thus you have the birth of the STD explosion, unplanned pregnancies, the disintegration of families, exponential upswing in personal lives in crisis, post-traumatic stress disorder that was not related to an overseas war with the victims being women, etc.  I could go on and on.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I am in favor of women’s liberation:  I feel women should be liberated from being treated like sexual chattel.  I think women should be able to walk beside a man and not a few feet behind him because she is being treated as a household possession.  I know women should be paid equally for doing the same job that men do.  I want women to free themselves from situations and circumstances that cause them to devalue their worth as free human beings.  I want them to see again that the gift of love belongs in an environment of permanence, not the shaky world of part-time emotions.  Which is where Madonna comes in….

Madonna’s contribution to womanhood,  ummmm, let me see.  How can I count the ways?  She dresses like a slut and struts like she works the street corner as a Queen of the Night.  That doesn’t sound liberating to me.  It sounds like she is endorsing and promoting a whole different kind of slavery.  Her songs are vulgar and classless.  She apparently holds nothing sacred, in that she uses religious imagery –including her stage name “Madonna” - and then immediately profanes it.  If she tried that with any of the other world religions’ symbols or leadership figures, she’d be prosecuted.  Somehow the Roman Catholic Church tolerates her taunting.   I guess when you are big enough you can take the pokes of the small-minded.  She has used the profanation of the sacredness of womanhood and sexuality to make herself a millionaire.  Perhaps it is for this last reason that I cannot conjure up an adequate amount of disgust and disdain for her in my own mind.  She has led the young women of this generation down the wrong path – and the only one who benefits from that is herself.

So, Madonna, if you are out there listening, do women a favor and sit down and shut up.  You don’t speak for me.  You speak for yourself just to get more publicity and consequently more attention and eventually more money (surprise, surprise).  You are not representative of talent that has been put to good use for womanhood OR humanity.  Your gifted voice has been a siren’s call to the destruction of civilization and the self-esteem of women who are called to be noble, co-contributors to the planet.  You’ve got nothing to say.  Well, unless you can explain yourself better to the CIA for the White House remark. 

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The Natural Pitfalls of Improvisational Leadership

The Natural Pitfalls of Improvisational Leadership

I was thinking of the act by which ships are “christened” for their maiden voyage as the empty glass soda bottle in my eleven-year-old-hand connected with the giant oak tree at the Polish Veteran’s picnic grounds.  That was most definitely NOT what the adults around me were thinking as they swarmed in my direction.  I vaguely remember dropping the bottle and looking at the faces of the one or two younger kids with me, yet now I cannot remember who they were.  Lucky them.  I do remember that as we had finished our sodas I declared:  “Let me show you what to do with this.”  It was ceremonial in my head.  Yeah, the adults didn’t feel that way.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”  The road to hell has that spray-painted along the sidewalk, and with good reason.  People believe that there are such things as “born leaders.”  To a certain extent, I disagree.  A person may have leadership qualities, a certain charisma that causes others to listen more readily to their opinions, or other non-common traits that set them apart, BUT, (and this is a big but) they have to have a good role model in front of them to steer the zeal in the correct way.  (Television does not provide that.)  That role model can be a contemporary person or a set of principles or morals that are clearly articulated (ie The Golden Rule or the Ten Commandments, etc.) but no one can be a leader in a vacuum and not get it wrong at least sometimes.  Perhaps the things that actually go right are just moments of the kindness of God saving them from lifelong humiliation?  I don’t know.  I just am willing to go on record agreeing with the quote of the late Thomas Merton, monk from Gethsemane Abbey, “No man is an island.”  We need the example and influence of others.

My first moment of trying out the theory of improvisational leadership kind of spooked me about leading anyone or anything again.  Mainly the adults at the misunderstood-event YELLED … particularly that woman who was scary-looking already.  She was stocky and pale and had a wild eye and always seemed to be ranting about something.  I am sure that my kid-brain locked her in that way forever…  just like the other adults I knew who didn’t take the time to ask, “What was that all about?”  Thank Heavens, I was too big to spank.  My father was “working the wheel of fortune” table so I bet he was preoccupied enough where I was told, “Yeah, don’t do that again.”  After I am done writing this, I will ask him if he remembers the incident.  Five bucks says he won’t. 

Improvisational Leadership is the term I would use to describe what Type A personalities do when given the chance to lead in an area where they have zero life experience.  I remember speaking with a man about thirty years ago who told me he was a consultant.  I asked him, “What do you consult about?”  He answered:  “Everything.”  THAT MAN was an improvisational leader in order to get a paycheck.  He would either have to research the areas of his consulting that were weak and foggy, or he would just have to make crap up.   I hope he didn’t do that.  But it is probably not the first time that an improvisational leader made up details to suit the occasion.

Improvisational leaders can be misunderstood.  They can have the best of intentions … which end up inadvertently paving the same, extremely southbound-road that I mentioned above.  They move forward because they were given – or interpreted that they had – a moment of confidence from followers.  They often have noble ideas.  It’s just that the raw material of the universe doesn’t always build nobility if you have no clear model to follow.  You take a risk, because you are a risk-taker by nature, always believing that somehow a special star shines above you and if you do “just this one thing” your greatness will be revealed.  So yeah, I guess that puts them in a fantasy world at times.  It is a benevolent fantasy world with great ideals being achieved and justice and fairness and who wouldn’t want to be a part of bringing that about?! 

Permit me to take you to the bathroom at about the same time period as the bottle event.  My younger brother, at my elbow, we stepped into the family bathroom and I proceeded to take the singular bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume from the closet.  It was half-empty.  In my world, anything half-empty demands to be addressed.  My mother deserved more.  So by the amazing principle of Liquid Expansion, I just began to add water to make “more” perfume.  Why not?  I will tell you why not.  The next sound we heard was my mother at the door demanding we OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT NOW.  “Just a sec,” was not an acceptable response, but it did buy a few more minutes for my Father to get to the door also.  “Great.”  Now two parents would see how generous and noble their children are!  Yet, oddly, that is not how it shook down.  All I can say is that an appropriate punishment might have been to force me to take a Chemistry class in high school a few years later so I would grasp why my nobility principle didn’t work with the water in the perfume.  Had they recognized my Improvisational leadership leanings, they should have made sure I took Chemistry.  But it did not happen that way.

I would like to propose that leading-with-no-clue, while dangerous, might be a better option than the alternative:  no leadership at all.  Sometimes in the swirl of daily life things take on a hectic, yet predictable, rhythm.  And while I have a few friends who willingly elect that lifestyle, I am desiring very much to step to the edge and see what else can be done in whatever situation I find myself.  So for all the risks and pitfalls of this disposition, it is to me a much more attractive option than a slow death amidst the march of time.  

On more than one occasion upon visiting a new city or event, I want to take the road-less-traveled.  I don’t want to eat the hot dog from the street vendor’s cart in D.C.  I want to take the Metro and find the Post Office Mall and get a franchise taco or slice of pizza and then take the elevator up to the top of the roof and “see the city.”  When I am in a mountain Adirondack town and the drizzle is threatening overhead, I still want to walk through the rain to see if the log cabin gift shop still exists down the street, as it does in my memory, even if I step in an ice cold puddle on the way.  Discomfort is a part of life.  I detest it only because it slows the journey and hampers the exploration.  Well, that, and it makes my foot crinkly and prune-ish.

Do not bail me out of my journey.  Do not shake me from my dream world.  I am putting my “all” into finding my way and improvising as I go.  Join me, won’t you?

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Pray Specifically

I did not know that I needed to be more specific when I prayed for something.  I am smart enough to know not to pray for “patience” because the only way to find out if you are patient, is if you are surrounded by extremely aggravating people and frustrating situations.  I’ve got that already in a few arenas and I fail that regularly.  LOL.  The Good Lord must keep all of those tests in a closet somewhere and just open the door on some poor, unsuspecting person who prays for patience.  I can hear Him in my head, “All these situations in this storage closet are starting to rattle around.  Hmmm, let’s see who down there prayed for patience, I will just open up this door and let a few cases out and see how the pray-er does….”  I don’t think He adds “heh, heh, heh.”  I think only the other guy down below is allowed to use that subtle taunt.  (It was a tactic that seems to be implied in the biblical story of Job.  “Do you see your servant Job, if you let me mess with him, he will blow it just like every other human being.  Heh, heh, heh.”  And God replied, “Go for it.  The guy’s got his head on straight and he can manage this.”  (personal translation from the English by me).

So what I prayed for was “a little camper.”  What I had in mind looked like the picture above.  What ended up happening was the picture below.  The Crown Prince featured below is the first born of a litter of six cocker spaniels that I raised recently.  It’s not that no one wanted him.  It’s that the wanters didn’t cut the muster.  When the woman who called wanted me to “cut off that tail by the time we pick him up,” and he was already six weeks old I realized she was a bad fit.  First of all, we dock tails at 3 DAYS old because it (docked tail) is breed standard, and you do it prior to the full development of the central nervous system.  She didn’t seem to be aware of or care that it would hurt like heck.  Comparatively, there was a character in the Bible who had his ear whacked-off with a sword and no one said to him, “aw, stop your blubbering; it’s just cartilage; after all you’re a grown man!”  (Or the famous line from my father when I fell off my bike, “Stop crying; it will heal up before you are married.”  Little did I know I could have major surgery a few times over by the time that happens…)  

This particular puppy, like his brother Oreo who is similar in color, kept their tails because … I thought they were adorable.  That was the only criteria needed.  They looked like black paintbrushes with white tips, and they are adorable.  So, no, lady, I aint cutting the puppy’s tail off because you can’t manage to love him IF he has a tail.  He will do just fine with me who loves him tail and all.

  

But the scenario of wanting a “little camper” to enjoy in the woods and getting “a little camper who will enjoy the woods too,” was kind of a surprise to me.  It made me wonder if I should buy a prayer journal with sketch pages on it, just so I can be clear-er next time I put a request in.  For instance, there is a raffle with a Dodge vehicle coming up – and I sure could use a new vehicle (to pull the little camper that I don’t have).  Do I have to draw a picture of the vehicle?  Or will I end up with dodge ball?!

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You Get What You Pay for

You Get What You Pay for ….

“You get what you pay for” is a very common-sense reminder for people living in a seemingly senseless culture.  I always am amazed by people who do not function in relationship to logic and “the bigger picture” mentality – they seem surprised when they get bad results after years of bad decision making.  Perhaps it is the wise person that, knowing this, and yet also knowing the nature of stubborn humanity, just sits back and lets things play out … rather than offending someone by unsolicited advice.

Example #1.  Years ago I was visiting the home of my then-boyfriend’s parents.  His parents were fabulous people hosting a family BBQ for the relatives.  One of the female cousins brought her seven year old daughter, who was behaving absolutely obnoxiously.  The mother of the child was not managing the behavior, she was coddling it.  I believe I bit my lip to avoid comment.  I really do enjoy children – playing and interacting and talking with them – but when they’ve got the Brat Factor going on, I’d rather have a bistro table on the moon, (for them!) thank you.  Apparently I must have inadvertently made a wincing face throughout observing the business.  The young mother turned to me and said in a very fresh manner, “Oh, what, Chris do you think I should use tough-love?”  I fought back a thousand sarcastic responses and just said this:  “You may think this behavior is cute now, but when she is 15 years old and you are getting the 15 year old version of it, you will know why.”  End of discussion.

Example #2.  The resident Canadian in my office was telling me she did an experiment last week by saying, “Happy Holidays” to people working in stores and check-out lines that week before Christmas.  She complained that people were often surprised that she said it and didn’t seem to grasp how to respond.  It seemed from her description that particularly the younger generation was inept.  I asked her to consider this:  we have made it a general mission to kick God out of our North American culture (or at the very least, lock him up in churches where He allegedly belongs – and can arguably have only a fraction of an impact on our moral compass).  Why, when we have made Him and His ways a pariah, do we expect that celebrating a holiday that has its ONLY roots in religion, will make sense to anyone?  To say it another way, for the last thirty years I have heard laity and clergy alike moan and complain that Christmas has become so commercialized and materialistic.  Well, duh, if you take the religious component OUT of a religious holiday, what the heck do you think you are left with????  You can’t have it both ways and retain the spirit of the thing it once was.

Example #3.  I just cooperated with Madeline Grace Pearl in the raising of six beautiful cocker spaniel puppies.  Neither she nor I have had enough quality sleep in the past eight weeks.  We have dealt with high winds blowing over the pallets that extended the dog fencing, me in my pajamas and parka hammering fence posts in at 10:30 at night, Madeline slipping out of the fencing and taking off across the street for no good reason, and me cooking special menu for the two adult dogs for at least five weeks straight.  When I say “special menu,” this is what I mean:  breakfast is scrambled eggs or French toast; afternoon snack is a can of nutrient dense dog food; late meal is home-cooked boiled chicken and its luscious broth.  And that is what the dogs ate.  Meanwhile, I lost seven pounds on my diet (use your imagination) and running up and down the basement stairs.  So the other day Madeline was outside going crazy at the neighbor’s goat.  And I had one nerve left, which she happened to be aggravating.  I had my foot between a concrete block and a retaining wall, I was yelling at her (which isn’t my custom), she was ignoring me (which is definitely her custom) and I turned and just fell.  BLAM.  On my shoulder, with my ankle twisted, and my body just “done” from the aggravation.  I got up after saying a very unfamiliar word and took inventory to find that I was not in fact injured – other than the general rattling of bones that you get at mid life when these whacky things happen.  I am now requesting that when I pass away, you pack a bag of Snickers in with me so I can pay-off the guardian angels that keep me going.  My point again, I wasn’t on my game and everything got the better of me.  I got what I paid for.

You know, there is a term in the dietary world called “mindful eating.”  The theory behind it is that you don’t just shove any old food-thing in your mouth, at any time, and expect it to not impact your health.  I think that in 2017 what I would like to do is practice “mindful living” to a higher degree.  I would like to be a bit more insightful before I make a verbal response, or do an action.  I would like to ask the question, “will I like where this takes me?” before I make a decision, thus considering long-range consequences.  I kind of do that already, but I could be a bit more focused. 

This morning as I sat in church, I had a moment where I was really praying for emotional healing and a better sense of personal wholeness.  Frankly, if you are emotionally whole, it is easier to feel well just kind of all-over.  If you’re not; it doesn’t work so great.  I considered that there is some forgiving I need to do.  I also considered that the particular moment of quiet I was experiencing was incredibly and deeply therapeutic for me.  And maybe I need to take a bigger slice of that on my life’s plate.  Maybe praying-on-the-fly is no longer good enough for what I need to achieve to survive and actually thrive. 

What is it you need to do for yourself?  Join me, won’t you?  Make it a great New Year.

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