Christmas music at the mall

.
Religion beyond religion.




And another one:


.

good news

.
Reading the news from around the world today, I was reminded of my deceased brother-in-law, who, when I was working at a newspaper, wondered why there couldn't be a newspaper that reported all the good news, the warming news, the news that made you smile inside and out. He was quite serious about it. And sometimes, reading the news as I was this morning, I could see his point ... men, women and children being killed or maimed or going hungry or sick or ... the list is endless.


And sometimes it is the same inside as it is in the news -- a lot of very difficult and painful pictures painted in the mind ... no wonder people take illicit drugs. It can be so pleasing to read or hear good news, news that elevates the darkened interior. Bright and cheerful. Yes, we are all going to heaven after we die and, for those inclined, there will be 77 virgins to make things more pleasant. It's good to hear good news. But most of the good news comes at the expense of bad news ... yes, we're going to heaven, perhaps, but we are also going to die in order to get there. Most are not dying to die.

Good news/bad news.

As the former television anchorman Walter Cronkite once said, "News isn't about the number of cats that did not get up on the garage roof." Going to heaven is also about the cat on the garage roof -- the death we must address when we're honest, the bad news.

And the civil rights leader Martin Luther King once said approximately, "It's not what's wrong with the world that scares people. What really scares them is that everything is all right."

Good news, everybody! The cat is on the garage roof!

-ish

.
Wondering vaguely if children -- and subsequently adults -- are inherently selfish. And, based on the need to survive, I guess they probably are. But the question that arises after having survived is, who survives? What self is it, precisely, about which anyone might be -ish?

The -ish suffix implies approximation. Blue-ish, tall-ish, sweet-ish. Is there an approximate self ... or an exact one either? If we are imitating something called the self -- stage-managing some play called "I, Myself and Me" -- then who is doing the imitation?

This is a point at which Buddhism can be useful. Check it out. It's interesting-ish.
.

grinchy

.
The day after Christmas and the house that was already overflowing with stuff is now overflowing-er. Today is likely to be a day of Stuff hangovers. Bleah.

Well, the zendo heat is on and perhaps a little zazen will help sweep the floors, although the fellow who said he would come today (and I thought might kick my ass into gear) emailed his regrets and said he would come next Sunday. I'll take my Grinch out there and let him do the kicking.

Watched a large chunk of the movie "Avatar" yesterday with my son. I can see why it didn't win an Academy Award: Lots of imaginative background and special effects, but basically it was a cowboys and Indians movie ... only this time the Indians won and the characters were not that interesting, even if they did have tails. Maybe today we can watch one of the several old movies I got my older son for Christmas -- "Schindler's List," "A Man for All Seasons," "Paths of Glory" and "The Parallax View."

Somehow -- perhaps because of my own crabby disposition today -- I can imagine Europeans chortling a little because the same kind of snowfall that has snarled air and land traffic in their neck of the woods is promised for this part of the colonies... 10-15 inches.

Gotta get to the market early ... stock up ... hunker down ... and be grateful for the wood stove.
.

the cat's pajamas

.
Early Christmas Day and the house is full of the smell of cinnamon buns. It is dark as yet and my usual stopping places on the internet are quiet.

After the boys get up and the orgy of Christmas wrappings is over, I plan to go downtown and stand on the peace picket line. The fact that few if any will see those who gather on that picket line makes it a somehow extra-delicious prospect.

Doing things when no one else sees or knows what is being done ... that's pretty much the cat's pajamas, a Santa Claus among Santa Clauses, I think.


PS The "cat's pajamas" is described on the internet as a usage from the 1920's, "a phrase used to describe something that is the best at what it does, thus making it highly sought and desirable. Similar phrases that didn't endure: "the eel's ankle," "the elephant's instep" and "the snake's hip.""
.

smile just one smile

.
Merry Christmas and ...

 A Happy and Peaceful
                        New Year to all!
 .

movie time

.
"You ready, Pop?" my son asked about a half an hour before the movie was due to start yesterday. I muttered something about being too early, but he countered that there would be traffic. And besides, since being on time is an old habit of mine ... I hustled into my clothes, checked my wallet for money, and away we went, him in the driver's seat.

And we were early -- early enough to see why movie theaters are losing their appeal. Once seated, for a solid fifteen minutes, we watched advertising clips. Nothing but advertising ... for cars, for food, for malls, for debilitating diseases. Finally, the theater darkened and we were treated to another five or ten minutes of advertisements of movies to come. None was coherent or let you know what the story might be about. Instead it was a pastiche of boobs and bomb blasts and cryptic one-liners uttered by pretty male actors who needed a shave and were therefore, somehow, Alpha-male tough guys who got the girls with the boobs.

I am a sucker for stories, so I never stop being amazed at a movie industry that fails to tell the story that will bring me back and extract my money. It's as if what happens in any given story doesn't matter so much -- it's how it looks and the technology it employs that counts. Talk about dumb and dumber! Who doesn't like being carried away by intellect and emotion ... swept up in some suspend-disbelief panorama? Who doesn't like to be shown the world in another way, to be surprised?

Is it a surprise that bombs go boom or girls have boobs or the hirsute hero needs a shave?

Abraham Lincoln once said, "You call fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." I guess Hollywood is satisfied with "some of the people."

The movie, called "The Fighter," was pretty good -- had some good characters and plot lines. The fight scenes were OK too, but it was the entire arena of the film that was more credible. "It took me a while to get into it," my son said, "but after that, it was really good."
.

expertise

.
Yesterday, a woman from the cardiologist's office called to remind me that I have an appointment next Tuesday -- a fact I had already written down on the calendar but had largely ignored or perhaps blocked out. It wasn't the 'mortality' thing that caused the blockage -- I'm pretty much in tune with the doctor component of getting old -- but rather the fact that I don't much like or trust the doctor I see and I have avoided the effort and diplomacy necessary to finding a different guy.

My problem with the current man is his expertise. He is -- or I sense that he thinks he is -- an expert. As Shunryu Suzuki once observed more or less, in the beginner's mind, the possibilities are endless; in the expert's mind the possibilities are few. There is a difference between being an expert and knowing you are an expert. This guy knows -- or acts as if he knows -- he is an expert. He reminds me of the 18th century French doctor who, in the age of reason, dissected a corpse and announced to the world with an expert's delight that he had not found anything resembling a soul. In an age reacting to a credulous past, I can sympathize with the announcement and delight. But there is something to be said for getting past our own expert abilities.

Not that expert abilities aren't wonderful. I would hate to go to a car mechanic and ask him to tend to my heart or any other organ. But for an expert of all people, the imperative to move on -- to get wider and more open -- strikes me as, well, imperative. How else can you BE an expert?

Oh well, perhaps on Tuesday I can ask for future visits to be with someone who does not know so much and therefore knows more. Just because you can't find a soul doesn't necessarily mean it's not there.
.

work and play

.
During anyone's working life, there may come a time when the saying hits home: "Stop and smell the roses."

But when working life recedes and there are nothing but roses, the old Zen saying begins to take on a meaning beyond thin-tea, logical certainty: "A day without work is a day without eating."

"Work is overrated." -- what a fine koan.
.

give and take

.
Yesterday I passed the scene a couple of times while driving around doing errands -- yellow police tape strung around a local bank's parking lot. State and local police cars and officers could be seen behind the tape. The scene didn't take much deduction and shortly thereafter on the internet there were security camera pictures of a black man, apparently with a beard and wearing a snappy hat. He had robbed the bank of an undisclosed amount of money. How he escaped was not revealed.


Greed, giving, desperation ... Merry Christmas.

It put me in mind of a small lesson in giving-and-receiving I once got during a three-week trip to what was then called the U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) in 1968.

Before leaving the United States, the tour group had been told that the Russians were serious about gift-giving. It wasn't like Christmas in the United States where people gave gifts because they felt they should. There was no duress -- gifts came from the heart, so we were advised not to give things casually.

As part of the tour, we took a boat trip down the Volga River, and on the way we stopped at a small dock surrounded by lush green hills. We could swim or go for walks or whatever took our fancy. A fellow tourist and I walked back into the hills to a small village whose houses, with one exception, were all built of logs. The exception was a cinderblock cow collective.

The place was picturesque. Houses were neatly kept on either side of the dirt roads that provided transportation routes through the town. No cars were in evidence and I don't remember seeing any draft animals either. There were no people on the streets.

But as my friend and I sat on the grass and I changed film in my camera, a young girl of perhaps 11 approached us shyly. She was curious and I waved her closer. She came slowly until she was right next to me. She wore a flowered shapeless dress that might once have been worn by an older sister. My Russian was extremely limited, but I managed to say hello and then, on a whim, I took the pin I and all the others on the tour wore and pinned it gently on her frock. The pin said "peace and freedom" in Russian and it identified the tour. Once the pin was on her, the girl, who had been bunched with tension at her own compelling curiosity and audacity, ran away to the safety of a house we could not see.

We continued to walk through the streets.

As we started to head back towards the boat, at last there was someone else on the streets -- a man who, even from a distance, was clearly drunk. His head was down and he was clearly singing and equally clearly he did not see us approaching him. The space closed between us. He kept singing and wobbling. I could feel myself tensing up in the same way I might have tensed up in the United States -- this was a bum and he was likely to ask for money to use for more liquid drugs. I hardened myself, preparing to reject him. At perhaps 30 feet, the man caught sight of us. He raised his head, looked us over as we looked him over and then, instead of asking for money or anything else, he stopped singing and hung his head in shame.

And this one small action made me ashamed of myself. Ashamed for tensing up. Ashamed for assuming he would ask for something. Ashamed because I disliked refusing to give what I could give when someone asked. Ashamed because I had assumed something and it was not true. Ashamed to cut short his melodies, wherever they came from.

All of this happened in less than 30 seconds. We passed him and he passed us and that was the end of that. He left me with a gift, though it didn't feel that way at the time. We just walked down the dirt road between the lush hills ... back towards the boat.

About 100 yards out of the town, suddenly we heard a voice calling out behind us. We stopped and turned and saw the young girl, hell-bent-for-leather, running towards us. She ran at full tilt until she stood two or three feet away. In her hands was a small package, badly wrapped in old newspapers. She extended the package to me and, as soon as I had taken it, she took off again, running like a white-tailed deer back towards the village. When I peeled back the edges of the Russian newspaper, there, inside, were perhaps a dozen crab apples. But even as I thought I had no clue what to do with these apples, which usually require cooking in order to be tasty, it dawned on me that it didn't matter what was in my hands.

What she had given me came from her heart and touched my own.

It was beyond compare.

truffle wars

.

Dec 22, 4:16 PM (ET)By GREG KELLER

PARIS (AP) - French police have arrested a farmer who fatally shot a trespasser he suspected of trying to steal highly coveted truffles from his land on the edge of France's southern Provence region.
The 32-year-old farmer told authorities he was guarding his truffle patch in the town of Grignan when he was frightened by the intruder and shot him in the legs and head with a hunting rifle, police said Wednesday.
Police said the farmer believed the man was armed. The 43-year-old victim died shortly after Monday's shooting. Authorities did not release the names of either man.
Truffles are a fungus found mainly in forests in France and Italy that grow underground, in the root systems of host trees. They are prized for their rich, earthy flavors and can fetch astronomical prices - making them a prime target for thieves.

Complete story
.

unemployment line

.
It was an hour-plus before the unemployment benefits office opened this morning and already there were about ten people waiting in the cold, morning dawn. By the time the doors actually opened, there were close to 30 people, me among them.

The guy I was standing next to was a miner. His work strip-mining marble for upscale counter-tops and other uses traditionally shuts down in winter: The stone was hard to work in the cold weather and then there was snow and ice: "Steel treads don't work well on ice," he commented. He had tickets to a professional basketball game tonight. "I bought them when times were good," he said, "and we really shouldn't go, but the girlfriend loves basketball, so I guess we will." Luckily, since in hard times there are still a lot of rich people (how could times be tough otherwise?) his work will resume in the spring.

Thirty people at just one center. Extension benefits were approved just last Friday, so there was bound to be a rush of people filing for extensions. But there were a lot of first-timers as well. I wondered how many centers like the one I was at dotted this state ... or the nation.

In the morning chill, it seemed to me to be a reality check for everyone there. It was nice in the sense that individuals did not have to feel so lonely. And it was nasty in the sense that this was proof positive -- the country really is in trouble and those who helped caused it have not yet shown the decency to consider their responsibility and, at a minimum, apologize.
.

house of cards

.
The other day, I caught a snippet of a TV interview with a fellow who had written a biography of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. Born into a wealthy family, Roosevelt was a naturalist, explorer, hunter, author and soldier. He also felt what was once a given among patricians -- that it was their duty to both lead and protect those who were not in power. In this vein, Roosevelt did what he could to defend the people from the greed of corporations and banks.

The TV interviewer asked whether the author thought a man of similar diverse interests and capacities could be elected to office today. The author replied that he doubted it and, given the leadership that has evolved since Roosevelt was president (1901-1909), it was hard not to agree. Not only has the patrician imperative of noblesse oblige been replaced by status-according-to-wealth, but the electorate has come to expect two-dimensional leaders, people who stand for a couple of things and otherwise are juiceless ciphers. And the leaders -- who long for office and power -- try to comply with the electorate's demands.

How often do we box ourselves or others with the same narrow definitions we apply to our political leadership? He's an editor, she's a lawyer, he's a father, she's a mother, he's boring, she's fascinating, he digs ditches, she cooks lasagna...? It's cozy and comforting, in one sense -- editing what we see and hear to fit on our own private 3x5 index cards. But invariably, with investigation, it turns out not to be true. It's bad enough that we do it to others, but it can be purely confounding when we discover we have done it to ourselves ... limited the limitless as a trade-off for a safety and security that never works very well. The serial killer is remembered as a quiet fellow who was nice to neighborhood children. The saintly soul turns out to have a penchant for porn.

Naturalist, explorer, hunter, author and soldier ... I guess that any time I start believing my own descriptions of self or other, it is time to rethink what is "obvious." Who wants to live in a house of cards?
.

three phases of life

.
With some rare exceptions -- and I'm not even sure about them -- I think maybe the Hindus got it right when they observed that there were three phases to a human life ... childhood and learning, working and family, and finally an interest in or dedication to spiritual life.

Skipping over or revising any of these segments so often just means there will be a necessity to turn back and live through what has been skipped. The old man recreates a childhood ... the old woman reconfigures a family life that had been forsworn... the middle-aged live a drawn-out childhood only to be confronted by what it might mean to be an adult ... or delve into spiritual life only to find that the richness had dried up.

Confronted by a template of this sort, the mind races to point out exceptions and footnotes and asterisks galore. "Yes, but...." Nothing is precisely linear or limited and the mix-and-mingle of the phases is everywhere apparent. Human beings are more interesting than templates. On the other hand, the longing for 'meaning' makes templates comforting and delicious.

Generally, I think the Hindus got it right.
.

blame it on the moon

.
The last time a total lunar eclipse coincided with the winter solstice was Dec. 21, 1638. It happened again in the wee hours of this morning. It won't happen again until Dec. 21, 2094. News reports said the moon glowed red.

I slept through it.

How many 'important' events does anyone miss? It makes you wonder what, precisely, is important, what is momentous, and what is different. If you say that agreeing with others is what makes something important, well, that's not quite right because there are personal matters that blew you away when you were utterly on your own. But if you reduce it to what you, personally, consider important, that doesn't seem quite right either since the mind most often relies on a tapestry that is woven from a learning and belief system that rests on the learning and beliefs of others.

And as you ponder and sift -- assuming you wouldn't rather sleep through it -- maybe the importance boils down to the momentousness, the utter shazam, of what is happening right now and who it is who could possibly sleep through it.

Blame it on the moon. :)


.
.

sucker for a waltz

.

.
 And, in a somewhat different vein, this one from Kate McGarrigle 


.

the educational model

.

.

pleasure in all things

.
At a Zen center I once attended, students who had been around a while would be called upon to give a talk on a public meeting night -- a Thursday, if I recall. This was the night on which visitors sniffing the edges of Zen practice were invited to visit and give things a try.

I was at a point in my practice where I felt honored and delighted to give such a talk. For one thing, it made me feel noticed and appreciated and for another it fed into what seemed to be an innate desire to be a ham.

But whatever 'positive' feelings I might have had, there was inevitably a sense of anticipation and dread as the time approached when I would sit in front of the meditation hall and say something 'important,' when I might (or -- oh my God! -- might not) wow others as I myself had been wowed in the past. I seemed to be in what I now think of as a natural phase of spiritual practice -- one in which I would have the snappy robes and I would inspire recognition and devotion and I would ... dwell among the anointed, I guess. I wanted to be a teacher and to be acclaimed as such. I wanted to hang out with the big boys.

And within this often sub-rosa longing, there was a feeling that you had to learn how to please others -- be as pleasing as you had been pleased. When talk-night came, I wanted to be pleasing ... pure and true and ... pleasing. You know -- the kind of stuff where someone talks about compassion as if it were some elevated, oozy-goozy altruism or about emptiness/satori/nirvana as if it were some clarity that existed at the end of a mythical rainbow ... together with the leprechaun's pot of gold.

An indicator of my state of mind and state of practice was the sense of disappointment I invariably felt after giving my own version of a Thursday-night talk. "I should have said this" or "I shouldn't have said that" whizzed through my mind after the fact, stinging like a swarm of bees.

I wanted to be pleasing and, post mortem, I had failed. I knew I had failed because no one came up and patted me on the back as I subconsciously wished they would. There was no applause. There was no offer of a corner office in the corporate, climb-the-ladder structure I imagined Zen practice to be. No one crowned me king ... or even prince. I saw other kings and queens and princes in the realm and ... how come no one crowned me?

As I say, I now think this is something every student goes through, one way or another. Maybe they aren't as insecure as I was, but still.... And I suppose it should be mentioned that there are those who never leave the pick-me realm of spiritual life and it is possible to make a life-long corporate venture out of it. What a pity.

This morning I was thinking of the be-pleasing aspect of spiritual life. Of course it's nice to be nice and kindness is better than cruelty, but contrived niceness and contrived kindness is just a starting point, a way of trying to revise habits that have proved useless and painful in the past. Sure, take the precepts and do your best. It's a start.

But today it seems to me that the object of spiritual adventure is not to please or be pleasing to others. The object of spiritual life is to take pleasure in all things. Enjoy yourself. No need to harm others. Just enjoy yourself.

I realize that it's a sticky wicket in the sense that plenty of egotistical assholes seem to enjoy themselves immensely. But they are enjoying themselves at the expense of others. They rely on those others for their enjoyment and their enjoyment, therefore, falls short. How can you possibly rely on anything and fulfill the requirements of enjoyment?

As the Zen teacher Rinzai once said to his monks by way of encouragement, "Your whole problem is that you do not trust yourselves enough."

Of course there may be some question as to what self anyone might actually trust, but, hell, that's why there's practice.

Never mind being pleasing. Just take pleasure in all things.
.

catching the unicorn

.
I was once ambling idly around an art gallery when I came upon a painting of a mountain that utterly blew me away. I was transfixed. I was overwhelmed. I was drowned in wonder and delight. I was speechless.

And as I stood there looking, the gallery owner approached from my rear and began to "explain" the "meaning" of what I was looking at. He was knowledgeable and effete and polite and wanted a sale. And when I could finally take myself away from the painting, I purely wanted to kill him. His explanations and meanings and wisdom struck me as so second-rate as to be obscene.

What...a...complete...and...utter...asshole!

I guess everyone has had moments like that -- moments that left you speechless and complete. "Awe" is a word used by those seeking to put a handle on what has no handles, but anyone who has had the experience feels the sullying lash of language when the experience is upon them.

Naturally, the first thing you want in the wake of an experience like that is to have it all over again. You'd do anything to enter that territory and swim there ... forever. And equally naturally, the harder you try, the further the experience retreats. It is like some shy unicorn that eludes all blandishments and prayers. Efforts are puny and yet the unicorn walks with a sure and delicate and utterly-uncontrived step through your garden.

How do you catch a unicorn? The only way I can figure it, you have to surrender all notion of or longing for the unicorn. Elaborate traps and ascending virtues are of exactly zero use. Unicorns are sui generis, utterly free and appearing where they choose to appear, not where anyone might want them to appear. They are so quiet and assured. They are, to the extent anyone might say so, just you.
.

the world of wonders

.
Those who rely on kindness are bound to run into the brick wall of unkindness.

Those who rely on clarity are bound to run into the brick wall of confusion.

There is no such thing as a coin with a single face.

Better to rely on nothing whatsoever and stop deluding yourself with wonders.
.

a small invocation

.
Greed, anger and folly,
Body mouth and thought,
Clarity, confidence, kindness....
.

simple stuff

.
As a card-carrying member of my gender, I am reluctant, if not downright opposed, to seeking directions. It was therefore with a light heart and steady hand that I began to make some real cocoa to take with me to the peace-picket line today. How hard could it be?

The answer is, not very hard. Cocoa is just chocolate, sugar and milk if you grew up the way I did. But since I was making something more than a quart and a half, the amounts of chocolate and sugar were not mapped out in my mind. Never fear, I figured, just taste and retaste it.

Which I did. More chocolate. More sugar. More chocolate. More sugar ... back and forth and on and on as the pot warmed on the stove. I wanted something that tasted like real chocolate, not that wussy stuff that comes in a packet from Nestle.

I finally achieved about what I wanted, but looking back, I was amazed at how much effort this one, apparently simple-chore, entailed.

Simple stuff does not mean it is simple stuff. You'd think I might have learned that as a practicing Zen Buddhist. :)
.

daydreaming

.
A sharply brrrrrr morning and as I read over the mail or comments that collected overnight, I realize how delighted I am to hear from people who are willing to put themselves on the line and just describe what they actually do in life -- what their circumstances are -- and what they think about it. To hear what they think or believe is OK, but it lacks a marrow of context in my eyes and ears.

The military entry below elicited a comment from someone who pilots a Blackhawk helicopter ... and a little of what he thinks. The entry also elicited an email from someone who had been a conscientious objector during the Vietnam war and whose son is now in the army in South Korea. These kindnesses put music to the dance of life ... plain-Jane, everyday facts ... inescapable and mundane.

 Sometimes I think spiritual endeavor really does shoot itself in the foot with its versions of angels on the head of a pin, intricate philosophies and buzz words, cozy imaginings that seek to assuage some current uncertainty. Seventy-seven virgins await you in heaven; compassion is better than cruelty; the only good god is a righteous god ... that kind of stuff. And I suppose that imaginings have the capacity to draw us all forward, but I do so miss the begin-at-the-beginning stuff -- the stuff that gives spiritual endeavor its honest zip ... stuff like a broken shoelace or a sunset that blows your socks off or the fact that the bread really does seem to hit the floor butter-side-down or a relationship grown stale or sour.

The sci-fi writer Ursula LeGuin (absolute aces as a writer) used the theme in her books frequently ... the uninitiated setting out on a journey with a sense of importance and curiosity and imagination. It's all serious stuff in its time in its time ... seeking, seeking, seeking. And yet many of these characters return to where they began, to themselves, to their homes, to the drab dailiness they had once longed to escape ... at which point any honest seeking can begin.

I once read a psychology book that pointed out that the hallucination is as real to the person in the midst of it as reality is to the rest of us. You can't take daydreams away from a daydreamer -- not only would it be cruel, it would also be impossible. And since we're all daydreamers one way or another I guess the only application that is worth much is patience -- patience with our own daydreams; patience until the adventure wears out and the broken shoelace or the buttered bread on the kitchen floor asserts its ascendance and magic.

About the best I can envision the spiritual endeavor that entices with daydreams is that (assuming it's worth a shit and not just some self-indulgent religion) when the day dreaming is worn out, we have the tools with which to bend over and pick up the bread.
.

a little updated Laurel and Hardy

.

.

where cowards lurk

.
When I was a freshman in college, there were a number of academic requirements -- English, science, a foreign language, etc. And together with them was a requirement that males take ROTC -- an acronym that was pronounced ROT-SEA and stood for Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Back then, in the late 1950's and early 1960's,  the U.S. had 'universal' conscription and the military was part of the national tapestry. Flower power would come later. The idea that women might be similarly required to have military training wasn't even on the radar.

My father had lectured me at some length about his philosophical opposition to the military and perhaps that lecturing -- which lacked some force in my young ears because he had never actually been in the military -- was part of the reason I decided not to take ROTC ... requirement be damned. I thought through my opposition as best I might at 18-19 and then had a sit-down with the officer in charge of the ROTC program. I made my case on moral rather than religious grounds and to my surprise, I was allowed not to take the course.

Three years later, I volunteered for a three-year hitch in the army. Conscription was still the law of the land and, unless I ran away to Canada, got pregnant, went to graduate school, pulled political strings I didn't have, or pleaded conscientious objector, there was no way out of it. I explained my change of heart to myself by saying, "I am more interested in experience than I am in virtue." It was a feeble argument in its time, but now, so many years later, I have to admit I like it quite a lot. My father was not overjoyed at my choice but, being an college-teacher intellectual, he smothered his disdain.

I did acknowledge that I did not have the courage to be a conscientious objector -- a group whose detractors often bring up their lack of patriotism and just plain cowardice. I never could quite figure out why, if you believed someone to be a coward, you would want them on your team in the first place. The inability or unwillingness to recognize the fact that there are cowards in this world strikes me as an indisputable act of cowardice ... but that's just me.

Anyway, I joined the army. The bottom-line mission of any military is to coerce and kill and I was fortunate not to have been put to the test during my three years. Instead, after a suitable period of running around in the South Carolina dust, learning to shoot and salute and make my bed, I was taught German, sent to Berlin and spent a couple of years with the single most intelligent and eclectic group of people I ever met in my life.

We were "Violet Section," a bunch of fruits and faggots from the gung-ho point of view ... the people who eavesdropped on East German (yes, there was an East Germany once) political phone calls. The army needed smart people and yet smart people seemed limp-wristed to those who maintained a narrower and more heroic vision of coercion and killing. I suppose, in their eyes, we were just one step up from the unpatriotic cowards who never did any military service at all.

I'm not quite sure what got me off on this old-fart recollection this morning except perhaps the re-echoing of the experience-trumps-virtue theme. Mostly, I think it's true. But nowadays I also think there is a point at which virtue can trump experience, as for example, the admonition not to kill or steal or lie or misuse sexual capacities. Each and every one of these capacities is well within the human arsenal and yet, particularly with killing, there is good reason to follow as best possible the admonition: "Don't do that." Why? Short answer: Because suicide is a poor way to lead this life.

And I guess too that I was thinking of the coward anyone might face when trying to lead a fruitful life -- the coward in the mirror. Miles beyond physical cowardice lies mental cowardice -- the fear that things can and do change and that if I take the time to investigate this obvious fact, I will lose my footing and my definition and my comfort. This is not something to scorn like some lapel-pin patriot. This is something to treat with care -- with a gentle firmness that does not surrender to the blandishments of easy bias or judgment or virtuous hallelujahs or group-think.

In this realm, who wouldn't be afraid? Who wouldn't shrink back in horror? Who wouldn't cower among the cowards?

And yet cowardice and comfort are not quite enough. The accusations of the mirror are sometimes just too tough to take and each in his or her own way feels the imperative to step forward, to step up, to be courageous where there are nothing but shudders.

Gently, firmly ... to seek out what nags in the night and casts doubt by day.

To seek it out and, in the end, to make peace with what is at war.

To seek it out and return victorious.

A victory that requires no flag-waving.

I found Zen Buddhism useful, but that's just my mirror.
.

warm and cold

.
Went Christmas shopping this morning.

The best gift I found was dropping a dollar or two in the tin cans that various street people put out. They were well-bundled against the cold and warm enough to offer some small conversation.

The stores, by contrast, were just full of cold stuff that, with the exception of a small but beautiful-sounding gong, numbed my nerve endings.

Time for a nap.
.

looking ahead

.
A crispy clear day today -- pale blue and bright.

I keep wondering if the snow storm that recently clobbered the upper Midwest will rain its bounty down here. Weather systems tend to move from west to east, so it seems logical.

But the forecast says nothing about it.

Why is it that I feel the need to look ahead?
.

Christmas surprises

.
I really do enjoy giving other people presents. Everyone likes a pleasant surprise -- from a chance meeting to an unexpected widget -- and I enjoy playing a role in that surprise. But yesterday, with Christmas in mind, I went to the mall and traversed the marbled floors in search of surprises whose joy was somehow diminished by an enforced holiday 'spirit.' I hate malls when they act as an aimless effort to evoke joy. The experience was not improved by the piped-in Christmas music that each emporium insisted on.

Earlier, I had gotten a haircut. The barber I go to doesn't dither and dally. She, or occasionally a he, uses the clippers deftly and once in the chair, I'm out of there in under seven minutes and feel a strange lightness of spirit, as if some messy table had been straightened out and was now spacious enough to work or eat on. The mall, by contrast, seemed to clutter the table without much purpose -- creating the kind of mindless mess that might be found in a teenager's bedroom.

I did see a few wonderful things, as for example a guy in the mall's hallway who was manipulating a model helicopter. It was a mesmerizing piece of machinery, flying, at the controller's behest, with all the maneuvers an actual helicopter might make -- soaring, swooping, banking, landing, taking off, hovering ... all in miniature. At $100 or more, depending on the model, it was well outside anything I was willing to spend, but that didn't mean I couldn't marvel and be surprised.

I ambled around, feeling the fatigue creep up on me like a fog, rising up out of the marbled floors and off the shelves of various stores. I did buy a couple of presents, but not anything that surprising. They would be part of my family's Christmas day, but their surprise quotient or usefulness did not match the effort involved.

And then I stopped into a computer store. Lately, contrary to my usual ways, I had conceived a longing for a laptop computer. I figure the longing is based on the male gene marked "gadgets" or "tools." There are some good excuses I can come up with for having one, but they are mostly excuses and the idea of buying something expensive for myself goes against years of putting off my satisfactions in favor of family needs or surprises. It was somehow a challenge -- imagining doing this for myself.

The young man who helped me was, as I expected, much better informed than I was. And he was patient with my ignorance. And pleasant into the bargain. It was as nice a surprise as I found in the mall. Email friends had told me bits and pieces of information -- comparing personal computers to Apple -- but in the store I was faced with the actual things, sleek and shiny and calling out the the gadget gene. They looked so kool and I indulged myself a little, letting the kool sweep over me. But I am tired of buying things that look kool and then fall apart in a couple of years. I don't like things that fail over the long haul. I like things like the hammer in my tool box: It may be a bit worn after all these years, but it's a hell of a good tool nevertheless.

And what occurred to me during this adventure was that I was surprising myself, challenging my long-held habit of not doing what I felt like doing, buying something for myself that was not as functional as a shirt or a pair of shoes. This was personal whimsy and, on my pocketbook, pretty expensive whimsy. Did I have the nerve for my own whimsy?

And the answer is, I don't know. Why should I be willing to buy whimsical, surprising things for others -- and really enjoy it -- and yet be reluctant to extend the same enjoyment to myself? I can recognize in malls and in others the willingness to succumb to their own whimsies on their own behalf, but I am the mirror image of that willingness.

Well, I didn't buy the laptop yesterday, but I remain interested. Once freed, the gadget genie is had to put back in the bottle. So I'll go to the Apple store today, perhaps, and let some nice young person who knows his/her ass from his/her elbow explain why paying twice as much is really a bargain. And perhaps I will eventually succumb.

At the moment, though, it's all a strangely surprising adventure. If nothing else, completing Christmas shopping means I don't have to listen to lovely Christmas carols that have been reduced to Muzak.
.

bumper sticker lifestyle

.
A woman walked up to me in the supermarket parking lot the other day and asked where I had gotten the only bumper sticker on my car, a bumper sticker that reads "Do No Harm." After I told her, she said she thought it was a "marvelous prayer" and wondered what it would be like if more people acted according to its implications.

Sensing a heart-felt exposition in the offing, I said something non-committal and moved towards the store and the inevitability of forgetting to buy something because I had been so convinced I could remember everything without writing it down.

But later I thought I sort of agreed with her. I like the bumper sticker primarily because it is just three words and it leaves it up to the reader how to interpret and act on them. My daughter, for example, once chided me and the bumper sticker as further examples of the thin-tea, "earthy-crunchy" ambiance of the town we live in.

The bumper sticker is a bit like the peace picket line I join on Saturday mornings. Some of the pickets don signs to indicate a distaste for war, a wish for peace ... things like that. I wear my Buddhist robe because I figure a guy in a dress excites attention and I like to think passersby would pay attention to their own versions of war and peace. Even just a little bit. Even for a nanosecond. I don't care so much if they agree with me or agree with the peace picket. I just hope they will agree with themselves in something other than a simple-minded way.

Last weekend, when Saturday's vigil broke up at noon, I headed towards my car and got a chance to say thank you to the counter-picket ... a lone fellow who stands at a slight distance from the peace picket with neatly-printed signs saying what an unpatriotic, ill-informed and purely pussy view of reality the peace picket depicts. He comes from some distance to stand, all by himself, for the same hour that we stand. He helps our cause as we help his ... pay attention, pay attention, pay attention. He's a pleasant guy.

It's another version of getting around to what "Do No Harm" might mean in reality.
.

an education

.
Sometimes I wonder how useful it might be to require all those graduating from college or entering into a job to see an execution. Maybe you could get a college degree, but its usefulness would be premised on the viewing of an execution ... not on a TV monitor, but through a glass that was not 15 feet from the event itself. Graduates or others feeling faint of heart might decline this adventure, but those seeking positions as stock brokers, bankers, politicians, teachers, social workers, doctors, soldiers and so forth might be given extra credit or extra pay for having assumed the responsibility. In the event, puking and tears would be permitted, but there would be a monitor to assure that no one closed his eyes or turned away.

This bizarre and somewhat grizzly suggestion is premised on the all-too-easy ways in which we may evade our responsibilities, little and large. It is premised on judgments and belief systems that are often too glib and offer to little considered substance. It is based on a lack of street-level accountability that suggests kindness to our fellow beings is not just nice ... it is also sensible.

Here is an excerpt from a 1939 interview with a Massachusetts resident, Charles Monroe. I think it suggests the kind of backbone any of us might wish to exhibit:

I try to be a good citizen by performing certain public and personal duties which most of my friends would throw up their hands at if I suggested they perform along with me. In my opinion there's too much 'passing the buck' going on today. I don't like many of our laws - capital punishment, for instance - but since I'm a voter and a sustainer of our form of government, I of course automatically make myself as responsible as any other individual in the upholding of our laws.
As a sort of an 'accessory to the fact' I once forced myself to attend an execution down in Sing Sing prison where my brother-in-law holds a good job. It was an ugly business. One witness fainted and another vomited, and it was a big relief to get out of there. I felt like the executioner myself, as I was partly, for the fact that we do not press the button or cut the rope doesn't let any of us off.
But if I can't convince you that I was a killer in that instance, you'll have to grant that I'm a killer of pigs and cattle, for I've often helped farmers butcher their live stock. I've done this to satisfy my own conscience, for I'm a meat eater, and being a meat-eater, why shouldn't I assist with the dirty work? You smile! (Complete Charles Monroe interview)

And for those willing to see an execution and receive extra credit in the social market place, perhaps there could be an extra-extra credit adventure: Be present and focused as a child is born.

No one can tell another what to think or how to think in the presence of such events. Philosophies and religions fall away except among the terminally blind. And it doesn't matter much WHAT anybody thinks in the face of street-level facts. It matters THAT they think.
.