9 inches of fresh snow for Christmas, Dry Creek 2015.
I haven't posted one of these in a while. My illness made it difficult to get around Dry Creek to take pictures. I haven't been down by the cabin since last spring, and I haven't been down in the main canyon for more than a year. Our 90 acres, from my perspective, shrank considerably, to mainly the field. However, even the view from the living room window is pretty spectacular, and I pull up to wild turkey and deer after work on a daily basis, so I shouldn't complain.
Anyway, it's two days after Christmas, the sun is shining bright on a healthy blanket of snow, clumps of snow nestled in the gnarled arms of the oaks out front. Christmas was amazing. It snowed pretty much the entire day. Yesterday, I went out to get some firewood and extended my knee, collapsing to the ground in the old pig shed beside the ATV. It hurt something awful--and still does--but you can't get too down when the air is that soft alpine blue--deep and vibrant when you look up, but frosted towards the horizons with tints of lavender, the smudgy sky almost the color of snow where it meets the land. Amazing.
The old pig shed from across the field, 2006, before our house was built. It's amazing how much the pines have grown in that time.
I love the bitter-sharp air, the intense light, the soft silence around. It brings me "Nearer My God to Thee."
It's not like I'm always aware of that. I certainly wasn't yesterday, collapsed on the ground beside the ATV. I thought "Oh crap," and lets be honest, some other choice phrases as I hobbled back to the house in pain, but I was also aware of how freaking glorious it was outside.
These are the same small pines you see in the 2006 photo above.
This one wasn't even visible in 2006; it was small enough to be buried.
This morning, I woke up with the tune in my head and thought I'd do a "Dry Creek and a Sunday Song" post once again.
According to Wikipedia, the lyrics were written by the English poet Sara Adams in 1841 at her home in Sunnybank, Loughton, England.
Loughton seems like the perfect parish for such a song to arrive: pastoral, with deep roots. The earliest structure is from 500 B.C. The town of Loughton itself remained small until the early 17th Century when a new road made it an important stop on the way to London, and with the new wealth came the great houses of the rich, such as Loughton Hall, which was once owned by Mary Tudor before she became Queen Mary of England. The house also received important guest like Ben Johnson.
Even today, located next to the famed Epping forest, which has long attracted and inspired artists and writers with its beauty, the area--at least from the internet--seems like the perfect place for such a song to be composed.
The verse was first put to music by Adams' sister, composer, Eliza Flower, but the version we know best in the United States (as well as most of the world) is sang to the tune "Bethany" by Lowell Mason, which was composed in 1856.
I've included three renditions, the first by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the second by Anna Weatherup, and the third by BYU Men's Chorus.
I don't know what Charles Schwab was doing in my dream,
but boy was he mad at Obama.
I tried to make a few counter-points,
but he just talked right over me.
So I just thought about the beauty of tulips in spring.
Black Friday. Snow falls gently down through the last soft gray light of day; a band of wild turkey make their way across the front field, the oak and maple along the canyon slope a smudged gray in front of the softer gray cedar ridge across the canyon. It's a nice, quiet end to a vibrant Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, I received a call at work from Marci saying Thanksgiving was being moved from Dry Creek to St. George. I wasn't happy. Neither was she. We'd put a lot of work into getting ready to host it here. On top of that, I simply didn't want to go anywhere, especially somewhere with more than 10,000 people. I seldom do. I've achieved my desire in life--to sit in a recliner, look out the window, and watch bands of turkey move slowly across the field, pecking at the slender blades of bent wild rye poking through.
I thought of our past Thanksgivings here. I like moving around the circumference of the action, going out to old pig shed to get fire wood, or over to the trailer to get food from the extra fridge. I like placing sparking cider bottles in the snow bank on the north side of the house, as well as the regular chores of feeding the chickens and taking the trash out.
Because of health reasons, it's been a while since I could enjoy such things, but I'm feeling quite a bit better now. I could do some of that again, and no matter how much or how little I could do, the cedar ridge, field and wild turkey would be here. Everything I'm thankful for is here. I love this land on the edge of an insignificant town on the edge of a great western valley.
I remembered a couple of our Black Fridays. Once we went to a bird refuge just west of here (which I'll leave anonymous to protect it's anonymity); another time we went out to some lava cliffs (which again I won't name) and the boys did some repelling off a long, black wall of basalt.
Black Friday in our valley
My brother, Lloyd, on one Black Friday outing
Various family members on the same outing, including Tyler, standing on 1 hand
I love the alkali flats, the small dunes, the lava escarpment, the ancient volcano, the distant horizon, the great expanse of deep blue sky.
Who wants shopping malls, deals, and a hazy brown horizon?
So, I found myself filling up the car on a cold, windy Wednesday to head to someplace I deplore--the city--for Thanksgiving.
The only good thing was that I'd be headed down a vacant, desert highway for two hours before I'd run into anything that resembles modern civilization.
I put George Harrison's All Things Must Past in the CD player, hoping I'd find the brighter side of whatever bad Karma I was justly or unjustly receiving.
Headed down the highway, a straight and narrow rail line on the left, some small rubble mountains on the right, I thought of a southwest Texas Thanksgiving trip long ago.
It was midway down my decent into the death valley of my life, but like with most memories, time has a way of shining its golden light, and so it wasn't at all an unpleasant journey.
I remembered the high golden valley of Marfa in the late afternoon, shadows from the tree yucca long and dramatic. I remembered pulling into Terlingua after sundown, a slight glow of turquoise over the rubble hills behind it. I found a cold motel room with no TV that costed way more than I thought it should.
That lonely Thanksgiving I was searching for escape, for better times. There was a different Terlingua, one where I sat across the table from a beautiful college girl from Germany. We spent hours in a clean, white-walled cafe, drinking Blue Sky soda as we stared out the window at the rubble ghost town and rubble hills. Patsy Cline played on some CD player or tape deck somewhere back in the kitchen. I was in heaven.
I had come back in search of traces of that same magic. Instead I found a cold room with nothing to do.
Thanksgiving Day was damp and overcast. I headed into Big Bend National Park with the goal of getting to Boquillas, Mexico, in a vein attempt to resurrect another mirage.
The first Boquillas was pure magic. Karin and I had arrived one hot spring day--which in southwest Texas, can be extremely hot. It was Spring Break, and the only camping was in the overflow area of Rio Grande Village. We'd set up camp and gone off into the desert--I don't remember where. While we were gone, a thunderstorm had moved in and dumped on our tent. As it was hot and dry when we left, I hadn't put on the rain fly. When we came back, we found soaked sleeping bags.
I remember sitting that evening on a high, chalky stone ridge watching silver ripples on the Rio Grande as we waited for the sleeping bags to dry in the laundry mat back at the campground. Sprinkles of rain continued, golden darts of piercing cold in the last light of day. I was in heaven, rubbing wet splashes into the smooth skin of Karen's bare legs.
The next day we took a canoe across the river to Boquillas, Mexico, and spent the day eating tacos, drinking Coke from nicked-up bottles, kissing each other randomly, frequently, and playing with the village children. Apparently, I'm not the only one to experience such a thing, for Robert Earl Keen captured a day in Boquillas much like mine perfectly. I was young, in love, and away from the city, in God's country. What could be better?
I found the second Boquillas under a dark, brooding sky on a winter's day. The wind howled across the small, stony mesa above the Rio Grande. The river was choppy and gray below. Only I and the goats walked the gavel streets. The kids were inside the small adobe huts with smoke coming out of the small, metal-piped stacks. I saw one boy in a blue-framed doorway leering out with dark brooding eyes. And then his mother called him, the door was shut, and I was left outside, pelted by small bits of sleet. I found my way to the bar and joined a few drunks inside. A wrinkled old gringo couple who looked like they hadn't bathed in months played guitar and sang "Mind Your Own Business." By now, I'd moved on from Coca-Cola and spent the day drinking shots of tequila while hating the lonely, miserable person I'd become.
The musicians were good. Good and drunk. So was I. And they were scuzzy, victims of a gringo honeymoon gone wrong. Two sad old people that couldn't get out of the rut of youth, couldn't leave those glory days behind, stuck here, living that special day over and over again, until everything yellowed, decayed and stank. To grow up here, now that would be grand. But, to get shipwrecked here--what a sad, sad song. I drank myself sober and headed home, realizing no matter how low I sank I could never sink low enough to try living a honeymoon forever. Whatever reality I had to live, I'd live it. The past was gone.
But, you know memory is a funny thing. With time, both versions of Boquillas del Carmen became equally beautiful. As I drove down a similar, gray highway towards another Thanksgiving, the bleeding of past and present mingled to create some sort of strange joy.
By the time I pulled up to the house in St. George, I was feeling fairly good. I had a strange yearning to go to a bookstore. Perhaps it was because of all the hours Marci and I had logged at Bookman's in Flagstaff, many during the holiday season. Perhaps it's because I realized I do have a happily-ever-after story, and unlike that couple in Boquillas, I don't have to remain drunk to keep it alive.
As for Marci and I, our honeymoon ended the day we returned from our trip to Monterrey and Big Sur and had to get back to raising two boys and completing school. But the beautiful reality continues on, whether here at Dry Creek or in some stinking city.
We went to Barnes & Nobel where I bought a leather-bound collection of five novels by Charles Dickens to replace my copy of Tale of Two Cities, which my son Rio gave away to a girl he'd helped recover from a suicide attempt. Someday his memories of that gift will mingle with his present and add meaning to whatever drive he is on.
After Barnes and Nobel, Marci and I went to the DI (Deseret Industries) where she picked up 10 books for 10 dollars. It wasn't quite the same as going to Bookman's in Flagstaff, but close enough to jump-start a great Thanksgiving with the family.
And the road goes on.
Marci walks with fresh cut flowers at Dry Creek in the early fall
Over the years my dreams have changed, not just my aspirations, but also my night dreams. When I was younger, in my teens and twenties, they often expressed humor, fear or anger. In my thirties and early forties, they most often had to do with my desire to have some impact on the world. Recently, they are most often about observation. I am still the main character in my dreams, but I'm not the protagonist in a traditional sense because the focus of the dream is not on me, but instead those around me. Usually, there is something terrible going on, but because of the outstanding quality of those around me, I have this overwhelming sense of peace not connected to any specific outcome. In the dream, I'm aware that beauty has nothing to do with what is happening. Instead, it has everything to do with how people handle what is happening.
I woke up early this morning from such a dream. It started in a classroom, not a traditional classroom, but a rented space in an almost vacant shopping center in a decaying part of town. The school was in one big classroom, but had two levels. My side of the room was at street level, where you entered from two glass doors. There were a couple of those long metal fold-out tables with particle board and wood-print-paper veneer tops. There were half a dozen with fold-out chairs around them. The floor on my half of the room was worn, yellow linoleum. Four carpeted steps led up to the other classroom that was raised and had a black iron rail separating it from the main floor. It was furnished much the same as mine. It had worn, blue-gray industrial carpet and looked like it once was probably the office area of a food or discount store that must have occupied the rest of the space.
Anyway, I had four or five students I was working with in this big, almost empty space, and another teacher, a Navajo woman, had four or five students she was working with in the raised classroom.
I knew one of my students, an oriental girl about fourteen or fifteen years old, was not doing her best work. She kept giving me excuses, and I was telling her that those excuses were nothing but crap. This made her angry and I was aware her raised voice had drawn the attention of the teacher with the other class. I considered the other teacher my mentor and didn't mind that she was watching somewhat critically. But, I also knew I was handling the student appropriately, that she needed to be pushed so that she could experience the taste of real success--not success from the outside, not empty praise, but success from the inside, that inner voice that says, "That needed to be said, and damn, I said it well." But she was putting up a wall.
Finally, I asked the other teacher if she'd watch my students, and I told the girl I wanted her to take me to see her parents. At first she argued and told me I was crazy, but I said, "if you're so sure what I'm doing is wrong, why not get your parents involved?" I know that would never work in real life--kids may run to parents to intervene in school, but not without controlling the narrative first--but in the dream, it worked. It had to in order to move the narrative to the next scene.
I followed the girl along a ravaged boulevard, the sidewalk littered with broken liquor and beer bottle glass to an old motel that had been converted into apartments. She took me up some outside stairs to the "apartment." Below, I could see the swimming pool had been filled with dirt where a rusted swing set and half-broken teeter-totter now served as the playground.
Inside, the kitchenette room was steamy. There was a couch and a double bed in the main room. An old 1970s TV was mounted on the wall. Off to the side there was a small kitchen where her mother was cooking. An eleven or twelve year old boy sat at the bar between the two rooms, swiveling on a beat up bar stool. On the bar was a gold Buddha. There was also a bedroom that I assume had been another room altogether, for a door had been blasted through, a frame put up, the wall filled in, but they'd failed to paint the remodeled part.
I don't think there was a full conversation in my dream, and if there was, I don't remember it. I do remember her brother, the scrawny twelve-year-old, was excited that his sister was in trouble and kept coming to my defense, which I didn't particularly like. But what I remember most is the love I felt from the mother for her daughter and the appreciation she had towards me for pushing her daughter to excel.
I remember thinking, she is one of the lucky ones about the girl. She has nothing and yet everything. This is what she needs to write. She probably hates it--this small cramped space in a smoldering city-- and that's alright. As she writes it out, she will deal honestly with the bad, but in the process, she will see the good also.
I didn't say that. It would have been an insult to her family. But I now knew how to reach her.
I left the family. Because it was a dream, I never returned to the school. Instead, I went to my house, which was a couple doors down. There was a blast behind me and the sound of air-raid sirens. An old Jewish man, who I knew, was holding a sobbing Cambodian boy.
"His mother works in that direction," he said, pointing towards the smoke, as I came up and stood beside him. Then to the boy he said, "There's lots of buildings down there, you can't just assume it was your mother's office, but I'll tell you what, after the sirens stop, I'll walk down and make sure everything is alright."
The scene cut to the Jewish man's apartment at a later time. It was a small, dark-paneled room with a single bed, a worn-out recliner and this beautiful big old roll-top oak desk, which you could tell was polished on a daily basis, the papers on it immaculately organized.
He sat at the desk, his old 1940s swivel chair turned to face me, the desk behind him. I sat on the edge of the bed.
"If you don't believe in God," I asked, why do you do it?" I was referring to all he did to help relieve the suffering of others in the neighborhood. You see, although Jewish by heritage, he was atheist by belief.
He smiled, looked over his round, clear glasses that had slid down to the end of his nose, and said "Love."
At first I wanted to push him for more, but then I decided not to. I wanted to go back to my own place and write down my thoughts:
I believe in Christianity--Buddhist Christianity, Jewish Christianity, Islam Christianity and Atheist Christianity.
So, I told him so. "I hate to go, but you've inspired me and I've got to get it down on paper."
He smiled--"Glad to be of service"--and swiveled around back to his big, oak desk and returned to writing a letter.
As I walked out the door, the shadow of a bomber moved swiftly down the street and up the side of the motel where my student lived, and then a few blocks beyond there was a flash, the distant wailing of mothers, followed by sirens.
And yet somehow I knew with people like my student's mother and my atheist Jewish neighbor all was well regardless of the outcome, which was incredibly uncertain at best.
Patio lights through water droplets on the sliding glass door
It's been a long time since I've connected with this place. Summer was long, hot & plagued with insects. Between the heat, voracious grasshoppers and my poor health, my gardens suffered greatly. Fall was dry and drab compared to the norm--trees choosing to go into a dry coma instead of fighting the heat that continued into late September. October brought little relief.
For the first time, it was hard to write about this land. I buried anger and disgust by blogging about different times and places, not wanting to face a dream deferred.
Tonight, walking back from the wood shed carrying logs though nine inches of fresh snow, the air damp and cold, the smell of smoke drifting down from the chimney, silence big and booming under dark expanse, I felt this place deep in my tissue again.
View of the house while walking back with firewood.
To be fair, I had a taste of winter a couple weekends ago. It started off mighty but fizzled out before an inch had collected. Still, it was a wonder standing at the window watching the patio lights bleed through water droplets on the glass.
Outdoor grill pad as seen through the back window
The house was cold and damp, a good reason for a hot drink, a good book and fire.
Everest slumbered while I watched Mountain Men, Camilla, his pug, taking advantage of him lounging around all day.
Everest and Camilla enjoying a snow day.
But tonight!--this is it, the real thing: WINTER. With it, Dry Creek is vibrant, living, and in the spring will be green again--the churning, chalky white waters bringing life to both the forest, and via our irrigation system, the fields.
The other day a friend asked me how I would start film about the old gang. It was a reciprocal question; I'd asked all of them the same thing. They gave me history--how it all started at Bill's Ice Cream in a large and sprawling city on a great, humid plain. Now, what am I suppose to do with that?
I do feel the stickiness of dried ice cream up to my elbow from reaching way down into the square carton, making sure I "square dipped" appropriately so that we wouldn't have shrinkage.
I remember working the line on those hot August nights when it snaked around the metal bars and people stood with the glass front doors open waiting outside to get out of the heat and have some cool ice cream. I remember picturing them as flies and wishing I had a great can of bug spray to knock them down, so we could sweep their buzzing, bumbling bodies out the door with a push broom and and shut down. But the fools just continued to come in.
But what am I to do with that?
I remember Jim belching out the Boss while stocking the milk room--how it was low and muffled until Andrea opened the glass door to Windex it, and it then blasted through the store--
I ain't nothing but tired Man I'm just tired and bored with myself Hey there baby, I could use just a little help
Or I remember some chubby, blond punk-ass kid, saying "squeeze-me" for "excuse me" each time he passed a girl behind ice cream counter on his way to get a broom or rag from the back.
But what am I to do with that?
I remember one time Phil asked Andrea if she could invite anyone over for Thanksgiving, who would it be? and she replied, "Sid Vicious."
Okay, maybe I could use that.
But I think I'd start instead with Nancy Sinatra reclining on stage in her pink, pseudo-Native American dress and pink boots singing, "Bang, Bang--My Baby Shot Me Dead." It's stark--that black background against that shocking pink; it's glamorous--oh that thick, deep 60s long, blond hair; and it has nothing what-so-ever to do with the story-line, which would have been my take on things at the time.
Then, perhaps, there'd be a shot of the gang at the zoo feeding flamingos. Marsh, here after known as Swamp, would be looking into the camera with strait, dark brown shoulder length hair, Lennon-specs and a cheesy smile. He'd be wearing a white U2 Joshua Tree t-shirt. Andrea would be bending over the metal bar, wearing a bright blue t-shirt and blue and black checkered Capris talking to a flamingo directly below her. Here, her hair would be auburn and straight, but it could be any color from neon orange to purple. Each scene it will be different. The movie will end with Andrea as Nancy Sinatra, only she will be dressed like Sinead O'Connor and will have a shaved head. She won't like that. She won't like any of it. Jim, I'm not sure what Jim does. He wears a concert shirt of the Police. It has the arms ripped off. He's showing off his muscle. Oh, I got it, he stands next to Andrea, but faces towards the camera while she faces away. He looks down at the concrete wearing dark sun-glasses, the type Buddy Holly would wear if Buddy Holly wore sunglasses. He's counting ants on the ground. He's up to twenty-four. I'm not sure why.
The Barking Strings are never sure why.
Phil is pelting the flamingos with bread. Or, rather Phil, here after known as Glasses, is trying to pelt the flamingos with bread. Bread doesn't make very good stones. He looks like Neil Young. He will hate that.
He doesn't hate Neil Young. That will soon become very apparent. But, he will hate that he looks like Neil Young.
Lucy, she now prefers to be called Lucia, will be telling Phil, I mean Glasses, to stop it, that he's mean. She is the 1960s counter-culture type--two braided pony tails, leather headband, tie-died t-shirt, flowing skirt and all.
Me. Well, I'm skinny with a white dress shirt that is big and sloppy. I wear blue-gray dress slacks and canvas vans. I have a bit of mullet, and if I looked cool, I'd look a bit like Cy Curnin of the Fixx (see video below), but I'm not cool. I'm a geek with a great unused mind instead.
I hold up a copy of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, open the cover, and show the author's note to the audience. The camera zooms in on the following:
I am not I; thou art not he or she;
they are not they.
--E.W.
There is a black and white shot of U2 by the Mississippi River. "Heartland" plays. Scene fades.
Something happened in eighth grade. I'm not sure what or why. It wasn't all good. It wasn't all bad. But I was somehow sucked from a primarily external world into a primarily internal world--from doing to observing. I noticed deeply the world around--the lights, the shadows, the stark winter light on blue boned trees. Everything gained a richness, a complexity, a texture I'd never noticed, never knew. It was quite startling. I didn't know how to react. I didn't know if anyone else experienced this new world. I felt awkward, a bit like an alien.
Although in many ways I was less mature than other kids my age, definitely more socially awkward, in some ways I all of the sudden was an old soul. I understood the adult world more than my own. In music, I was drawn to songs with adult themes, like Eric Carmen's "All By Myself".
Outwardly, I still tried to be the kid I knew how to be, but it didn't work. I felt fake, and I think I seemed fake to others. All of the sudden, everything was hard. And yet, there was a clarity, a complexity I saw in life that thrilled me.
I was interested in layers. In the natural world, I loved the layers of leaves along the canyon bottom at Dry Creek--how on the top layer they'd be crisp and crunchy; and in the layer below, the leaves would be soft and partially eaten with little squares nibbled out between the fibers; and finally, the later below them would be leaf-skeletons among potato bugs. Below that would be rich, black dirt.
In music, I liked layers also. Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album had that. "Over and Over" had the complexity in sound and lyrics I was looking for.
A richness, a Rembrandt brown in tones, an uncertain hope in the lyrics--hoping something might be, but knowing it just as likely might not be. Hoping, yearning, over and over.
I don't know what caused it. I loved a girl, but I'd loved her since fifth grade.
No dramatic event happened in my life.
My family was good, stable.
It's almost as if I was invaded by a knowledge unwarranted.
That person who moved in during 8th Grade has been who I've remained the rest of my life. I haven't necessarily done much with him other than that I've become a little more comfortable letting the world know it's alright to see shadows in the rain.
But I live in a complex world, a world hope and broken dreams, of love and heartache. Not because that is my reality necessarily. But because I see the shadow lives around me--those pretending because not pretending is too damn scary. Because of this, I don't have a lot of tolerance for those who have no empathy.
But, I'm not sure they can help it. I too once lived in a world without shadows. I'm glad that for whatever reason, complexity was thrust upon me. It's not necessarily an ingredient for success, but it is an ingredient for humanity.
My step dad was a pretty mild-mannered man, a good guy, very much like Atticus Finch; perhaps he didn't have as much courage, but overall, he was a man of manners and integrity. Everyone in town respected him. He was a teacher and his students loved him.
As a child, it was pretty hard to get him riled. He was thrifty, so spending money could do it. Mom and Dad argued about money sometimes. But, he was pretty tolerant of us kids. Lloyd played music all the time and at extraordinary levels. Kim slept in until noon on the living room sofa after coming home late. Angelo and I fought frequently.
When you did get him angry though, he usually flashed a look rather than words. He wore dark-rimmed glasses, again not unlike Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, and he would tilt his head down slightly and glare over them with steely eyes. That was usually all it took to squelch any inclination of rebellion. Mom, on the other hand, would rant and rave, and leave open lots of vulnerable spots for counter attack. Besides, she always presented illogical reasons for her authority, such as "Because I'm your mother!" or "Because I said so!" Always a stickler for logical fallacies, I was compelled to correct her mode of thinking and would infuriate her by saying things like, "Being older doesn't make your right" or "What type of argument is 'Because I said so'?"
Once she got sick and tired of picking up after me--which I now totally get--and threw all my clothes in yard. I happened to notice she too left things around, so I threw her shoes out in the yard. Needless to say, that did not go over.
But all Dad had to do was stare over his glasses and my rebellion was over--both because the look truly did make you squirm and because he was almost always fair and so you knew he was right, which is something I cared a lot about. I had no respect for authority as a kid, but I did have respect for morality. If anything, I was obsessed with it. All my life I've been obsessed with the notion things should be just and right. As Dad usually seemed just and right, I had very little conflict with him.
There was one time though that I got him rather riled. He had invited the missionaries over for dinner. For whatever reason, he decided we should have dinner music.
"Steve, go put on a record."
"What record?"
"I don't care. Whatever one is on there."
"I don't think you want me to do that."
He flashed me that look over his glasses. Very reluctantly, I complied for I knew what album was on the phonograph. I flicked the switch, the automatic arm began its process of delivering the needle to the first groove. By the time the riff started, I was back in my seat around the kitchen table--there to see the shock and horror spread across his face as Robert Plant started belching out...
Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove. Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thingGonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that wayWatch your honey drip, cant keep away.
Perhaps, even in these days when singers casually sing about lady humps (whatever that describes, I'm pretty sure it's not describing the slouched shoulders of an old woman), perhaps "Black Dog" is still shocking, because when I went to select a live video of it, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Quite frankly, I found Robert Plant dancing around on stage with a lady's shirt on and unbuttoned, simply strange and repulsive, nothing like U2 singing with the Harlem Gospel Choir.
Although I like Led Zeppelin, I'm glad U2 came into this world--a band that stands for more than bedding girls.
There was the blue room, a lean-to add-on, no insulation. It was cold, very cold. We used the closet to keep the apples crisp all winter long. But at last I had my own room. No more sharing the partial, unfinished basement with my foster brother and the furnace. No more sharing the utility room with my foster brother, the hot water heater and the deep freeze. No more sharing the unfinished garage.
And to top it off, I got my own stereo for Christmas. Sort of. It was a small, blue kid's stereo Mom ordered from Sears & Roebuck. It had two separate speakers unlike most kids' record players. I remember, we'd ordered one for $35, but Sears goofed and sent the more expensive $45 model to the store--the one I had wanted but was told we couldn't afford. As it came in right before the big day, they just told Mom to keep it instead of sending it back. Even so, the speakers were probably only 6" wide and 12" tall. Records were wider than the cabinet, so I had to lift the dark plastic cover to play one.
I had some 45s, but no albums, so my sister gave me a couple of hers when she got married: the Ronco collections Far Out and Hit After Hit. Having no personal space before, I hated going to bed. Sleeping equipment for kids seemed low priority to Mom. We always had new couches, but Angelo (my step-brother) and I always slept on trunks or cots. With Lloyd and Kim out of the house, I had a bedroom with a real bed, and more importantly, a stereo. And thanks to Kim, I had a couple of records.
As soon as 8:00 rolled around, I was off to bed even though my bedtime was 9:00. In my dark room, stereo on, eyes shut, I entered my own world. I became a star. I became the lead singer of the Bay City Rollers and sang "Saturday Night" before thousands of screaming fans. I became Elvin Bishop and brought Kelly, the girl I was crazy about, up on stage and sang "Fooled Around and Fell In Love."
Through my teens and twenties, I had a hard time functioning in society, partially because those cold nights in a dark room with the music blasting when I was a child. Truth is, I loved the life I was living in my head far more than the life I was living in the world.
Since then, I've become better at functioning in the world, but the truth is, I'm still not a big fan of reality, at least not the version promoted by society.
I'd still rather escape into a song, a poem, or a painting than deal with health insurance or taxes. Material goods don't mean much to me, but time in my own mind does.
Balance, of course, is healthy. I'm no more healthy than the next guy. Instead of getting lost seeking things, I get lost seeking dreams, which can leave you just as empty. It is still avoiding the concrete moments of day to day life.
In preparing for a priesthood lesson tonight, I was struck by the following quote by Elder Neil Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles: We are a very large worldwide family of believers, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have taken His name upon us, and each week as we partake of the sacrament, we pledge that we will remember Him and keep His commandments. We are far from perfect, but we are not casual in our faith. We believe in Him. We worship Him. We follow Him. We deeply love Him. His cause is the greatest cause in all the world.
The sentence that struck me most was, "We are far from perfect, but we are not casual in our faith." That seems to be what the world wants most from us, all of us, not just Mormons, not just Christians, but all believers, any faith, any creed--the world wants Seinfeld casualness at the deepest level. In an effort to tolerate conflicting faiths, conflicting cultures, conflicting creeds, the world asks that we believe at the shallowest level. It is one thing to celebrate our culture, but quite another thing to have enough faith in the teachings of our Lord and prophets to subdue our personal will and follow something greater than ourselves.
There is an assumption that guides almost all thought in the twenty-first century, which is as follows: truth is an illusion and therefore anyone who claims to know it is a huckster. In other words, all holy men are but conmen one way or another. They might teach some good principles, but the higher power they tap into is but a product of the imagination.
This thinking is not unwarranted. At least in my lifetime the news has been splattered with self-declared spokesmen for God who are taken down for great hypocrisy and crimes. The world's priesthoods often seem to protect the authority of guilty men over the innocence of young children.
It is no wonder doubt soars and faith beats against a glass ceiling with battered wings. The sky seems empty, the soul caged by reality: life is like a Seinfeld episode--there's friendship, there's conflict, there's laughter, but in the end, it's all about dining out, riding in taxis, going movies, and not much else. In short, life is a show about nothing.
Even science teaches us nothing is as it seems. Apparently, I never actually sit on my chair. A force repels me before I actually touch the wood. And the wood isn't really there either. Made up of billions of atoms, which are mostly space, it isn't solid. Solid too is only a perception.
What a life? We are told that truth is relative, that the only reality is the here and now, the material world, but even that, according to science, is an illusion. We are actors upon a stage of mirrors. Everywhere we look, the audience is just I, repeated over and over again, for eternity, but when I reach out to touch myself, I'm not there--I'm just an illusion along with everything else.
So grab a napkin and a cocktail, have some cheese, and entangle yourself in some witty conversation about nothing so that you never have to stand alone in a field on a sharp cold night and wonder what do all those stars have to do with I, me? So, you never have to answer those big questions:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is my purpose?
I am not perfect, but neither am I casual in my faith. I know enough to the answers of those questions that I can promise you that you are not living an episode from Seinfeld. The scientists are right. The Buddhists are right. The Christians are right. The Muslims are right. The Native Americans are right. This world is an illusion.
It's alright that it feels fake. That doesn't take away its meaning. That is its meaning. It is a stage, and sure we are actors with our mortal parts to carry out in this earthy drama, but we are meant to walk off this stage having learned a few lessons and then we are to join our creator, in whose image we are made, as we continue on our journey towards perfection.
Our bodies may literally be the stuff of stardust, which is pretty amazing in itself, but our souls are the stuff of God.
And not only can we know these things, but we are built to know these things. It's in our DNA. There is a reason man has been praying since the dawn of time. It's who we are: obedient sons and daughters of God. It's just sometimes we get so caught up in the drama happening on this stage, we forget there is a director, a script, a purpose.
If you are feeling lost in your role and need assistance from the director, you are promised in the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, that you will receive a reply:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
It may require work; it may not come all at once; it may require leaving some of the world behind; but if you ask in sincerity, you will receive an answer. It's your birthright. God did not send us off without a way to phone home.
There are ways of knowing more solid than this world of illusions. But we have agency too. We can choose not to see beyond the end of the stage.
When members stood up and testified that they knew God lives, that Jesus Christ is His son, and that He personally answers prayers, I use to think, There is no way you can know that. Believe, sure--but know, impossible.
I now can add voice to that testimony. Faith is not only belief in things unseen. Faith is knowledge of things unseen. You can't know until you know. There is no reason to hide doubt. But doubt is not the human predicament as I once thought. We can know what our purpose here on earth is. Maybe not all of it, but enough of it to keep us moving forward. It starts with the humility to ask.
Of this I testify, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Sixth-grade was a remarkable year for me. I discovered continental drift and wrote a #1 hit. Really. Well, sort of. The first was in fact a true discovery. I was "silent reading" during the dummy-reading class. The five or six of us would place chairs in a circle with Mr. Robins and read from whatever painfully old text it was, something like Old Yeller, and we'd take turns stumbling aloud over incredibly difficult passages like the following:
We called him Old Yeller. The name had a sort of double meaning. One part meant that his short hair was a dingy yellow color, a color that we called "yeller" in those days. The other meant when he opened his head, the sound he let out came closer to being a yell than a bark.
I hated it. I was always terrified I'd mispronounce some difficult word, like "meant" as Me-Aunt and everyone would laugh. "Ha, ha, ha--you sound so British. Me aunt! Me aunt! Me aunt!" The only silver lining was that Kelly wasn't there to witness it. She was outside with Mr. Larson and the accomplished readers having recess. Good thing. That would have killed me. She already made fun of the fact that I had Peanuts Treasury checked out from the Bookmobile for six weeks. All she had to say was, "I can't believe you're still reading that" and I immediately wanted to take what had previously been my greatest reading treasure and burn it.
Anyway, after the torture of communal oral sacrifice of what was probably someone's proud literary accomplishment, we were allowed to remove our desks from the sacred circle and find peace in isolation and the jumble of words in our very own Bookmobile books. I always made sure to check out National Geographic books like Volcano or Earthquake because there were lots of pictures, and you could learn everything you needed to know without ever reading a word. But, mostly I just stared at the walls during silent reading.
On this particular day, I stared at a colored mimeographed map of the world and all of the sudden it hit me: Holy shit, all the continents fit together! I felt like Moses. This was life-changing. No, this was world-changing. I'd be famous! Kelly, Kelly, Kelly! She'd have to be impressed. As far as I knew, no other sixth-grade boy had discovered all the continents use to be gathered as one. In fact, no other human being had discovered that.
I rushed home to tell my brother. I couldn't just tell anyone. They might beat me to it. But he'd listen. He'd know how to proceed.
Yeah, right. What he did know was how to kill dreams: "Oh yeah, that, that's called continental drift; it's been known about forever."
But not all was lost. There was a warm, sloppy spring day with lots of mud and tender green grass. The sun was hot, the snow was melting. Richard, Jason and I were all out at the swings doing spiders with Kelley and I don't remember who, and a spider is where on separate swings you hook your legs together in some convoluted way that I don't recall, and swing in unison, as one, and somehow it had all gone horribly wrong, and Richard and Kelly were spidering gleefully while Jason and I, their servants, ran back and fourth between the swing set and the water fountain in the building, which was no small journey, and using small Dixie cups left over from the lunch ladies serving us warm cider in the morning, we had to bring them fresh water, which they quickly downed laughing hysterically, before sending us on our way again.
Then, to make things worse--or better, I couldn't quite decide which--my old girlfriend, Lynn, started slapping the cups of water out of our hands half way through our journey back to please Kelly, my woman, my goddess. And dang, the devilish smile on Lynn's face was so damn cute, I didn't know what meant more: to get the cups of water back to Kelly so she'd know how much I truly did love her, or to watch the gleam in those dark brown eyes of my new antagonist.
By the time school was out, I was on cloud nine. I was in love. With who, I wasn't sure, but that didn't matter. What was clear was that girls were amazing.
I spun home in circles, writing a song as I went:
Baby, I am a want you Baby, I am a need you, Baby, I am gonna buy your love
I think I was thinking in the upper-middle class, shower-you-in-presents sort of way with the last line here, rather than the prostitute-down-on-some-dark-corner sort of way, but I was definitely too high, no matter how bright I was, to be doing any relevant sociological analysis that either way it amounts to sort of the same thing.
But here's the kicker, as amazing as those lines were, after the whole symphonic transition (sort of like in "A Day in a Life") there was this amazing couplet to a tune I absolutely knew would someday take hold:
And I can't help falling in love with you, No, I can't help falling in love with you.
I knew I had a hit. Absolutely. There is no way the world would ever let such a remarkable song go by unnoticed. I just had to figure out how to write it down.
I kept my secret until ninth grade when I first consciously heard Elvis on the radio and realized that amazing couplet wasn't mine after all.
A couple of days ago, on the commute home, I was listening to an NPR news story that covered presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaking at a Christian school. The students were thankful for his visit, but there seemed to be an automatic assumption by the students that they could not be good Christians and vote for Sanders. I thought that odd, because my Christian values push me towards candidates like Sanders (although on a few select issues the other side of the political spectrum appeals more). It got me thinking, is there a way to accurately measure a candidate's political positions against the doctrine of Christ?; is it all a matter of interpretation?; or is it a little of both?
Now, before proceeding, I want to be upfront about two assumptions: 1) Separation of church and state and secularism are vital for healthy democracies; 2) There are self-evident, fixed eternal moral truths that are not relative which are exemplified by the teachings of Jesus. These truths can be rationally tested by creating thought-scenarios and applying them in the same manner Buddhist monks experiment on reality by creating mental scenarios. Buddha's teachings, many Native American teachings, and I assume many Hindu teachings, as well as the teaching of Mohammad are similar to those of Christ, so it is the perfect principles I'm advocating here, not religious unity. I chose Christianity as my exemplar for two reasons: a) I'm a Christian; it's what I know best and believe; b) to be blunt, I believe many who profess Christian values in their politics are actually practicing outside their belief system without being aware of it.
I will proceed simply by using the beatitudes as found in Mathew Chapter 5 of the King James Bible, unpacking their meaning or possible multiple-meanings and applying to current political issues to see how each party measures up on that particular beatitude. I will also use other scriptures from the new Testament where Christ explains or extends the meaning of a particular beatitude.
My preferred outcome would not be that one party win or lose, but that people realize they are perhaps not as partisan as they thought. We have become so good at waving political banners, we've forgotten how to think before we vote. But, we'll see. Who knows, I may have to do some mental adjusting. That would be a good thing. A static mind is a dead mind.
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
If poor here has its usual definition of "worse than expected or desired," than "poor in spirit," to my thinking can mean one of two things: a) to be literally suffering spiritually; or b) to have the humility to be teachable--to desire a spiritual tune-up.
I tend to think it means both. Christ is providing comfort. Your heart is aching, but fear not, I am here. If that is the case, the reward for that suffering is automatic. "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven." No application needed. Instant help and mercy for the broken-hearted.
The second meaning requires work to obtain "the kingdom of heaven." Poverty here is not a negative condition but a desirable goal. It is the humility necessary to remain teachable, and not all will obtain it because their egos will get in the way.
It seems clear to me through other passages that Christ means both, particularly in passages dealing with judgment:
3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
12 ¶Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (John 8:3-12)
Here he applies both meanings of the beatitude. The woman is violated in multiple ways: 1) A sense of privacy has clearly been broken; 2) a double-standard (sexism) is in place as it takes two to commit adultery, but only she is brought before Jesus; 3) her sins, unlike those of the scribes and Pharisees have been publically exposed. As a result, she is anguished. He feels her pain and instantly absolves her sins: Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
The scribes and Pharisees, on the other hand, fail to meet the other definition of "poor in spirit." Until he rebukes them, they lack the humility to choose the right. They take a bad situation and make it worse through a lack of empathy.
The question is, why does Christ rebuke the scribes and Pharisees and not the woman? She too has sinned; yet he gives her a blank check (provided she "sin no more".)
I think the answer to that is clear. The Pharisees were members of a movement towards religious puritanism. They believed the Torah was the final word of God, adequate for all purposes and all times. In other words, they were the fundamentalist-leaning clergy of their time. The scribes were the educated writers, copiers and bookmen, many of whom were members of the highest legal administration in the state. In other words, the Pharisees and scribes were the power-holders of their time; the woman, we may assume, had no economic or political clout. It's not so much that the woman is innocent, but that she is disadvantaged. The scribes already have their reward; he is assuring her that if she changes, she will have "the Kingdom of Heaven." That is where justice comes in.
It is not hard to apply the lessons of this beatitude to the political issues of our time. At first I was going to analyze specific issues and rate each of the party's performance on that issue based on the outcome. But, I think I'll avoid that. Instead, I want to formulate for myself the questions I should ask when voting on either issues or candidates.
1. Does this proposition or candidate I'm considering allow people a reasonable path to redemption? In other words, does it assert the right of everyone to a fresh start or a new beginning? 2. Does this proposition or candidate I'm considering hold those in power accountable for their elevated social stature?
These questions are not partisan. They are not based on interpretations of scripture. They are literally derived from the first beatitude, "Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit: Theirs Is the Kingdom of Heaven" found in Mathew Chapter 5 and the account of woman taken in adultery found in John Chapter 8.
We have this new puppy, and he has this obsession with
water.I wouldn’t call it
love.Often, it seems more like
hate.When I water the garden,
he tries to bite the water coming out of the hose.Then, when he gets wet, it makes him angry,
so he rushes in for the attack again.When he gets too angry, he starts trampling my plants, so I have to turn
it on him.That temporarily makes him
fall back, but as soon as I move the hose, he thinks he has a chance to move in
for the kill, and the process starts all over.When the war is done, he stands shivering and defeated.
I’ve started locking him up when I water both because I don’t
like him trampling my plants during his water raids and because I feel sorry
for him.
I’d post the video, but I’m pretty sure it’d get millions of
views, and then I’d be pissed because I’ve posted some pretty meaningful
reflections on my blog that have received three.
I think the internet audience is my water and I’m as stupid
as that damn dog.
