An hour-long telephone talk with an old friend tonight: one of the best things about being middle-aged is having a friend you’ve known for twenty-eight years and you’ve watched each other grow up and grow older. After a couple of decades you realize that like it or not you’re stuck with each other, because by that point you’re like family; which means you better make the best of that friendship; which is what we did. Usually after I have an exhausting twelve hour day at work I just want to go to bed, but today it was much better talking to this old friend.
Category Archives: Meditations
Warm weather
On the front page of today’s newspaper: “Where’s winter?” 60 degrees Fahrenheit in New Bedford yesterday; 68 in Boston. This morning, it was warm enough that I didn’t need an overcoat walking to work. I stood out in front of the church before the worship service to say hello as people walked in. “A nice April morning,” said Paul as he walked in. “Feels more like May,” I said. After he walked in, one of those Asian beetles that looks like a ladybug landed on the stone threshold of the church. You’re not supposed to see insects outdoors in early January.
The lack of winter has me feeling disoriented. I like winter: clear cold air, ground frozen hard, snow. When we lived in California, I did not like the lack of winter. And now here we are back in New England, but there’s no winter. The lack of winter has been bothering me enough that I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and lay awake for a quarter of an hour, turning it over and over in my mind:– is this the beginning of serious global climate change? will the Arctic ice cap totally melt this summer? are all the worst-case scenarios true? — all those crazy thoughts that run through your head late at night.
I took a long walk this afternoon in the spring-like air, and it was just so pleasant.
The light of the sun hanging low over the western side of New Bedford harbor practically blinded me; when I got closer to the water, it reflected up off the flat surface of the water, and I had to look down. Down at the asphalt pavement littered with broken shells left when the gulls dropped a quahog or a mussel to break it open and reveal the tender mollusc body inside. Broken shells and some bones, picked clean, probably bones of a small gull — that bone looked like a humerus, that one perhaps an ulna — and the tail end of a fish skeleton, left by returning sport fisherman, and picked clean by the gulls.
Out on the still surface of the water, sea ducks dove underwater to catch small fish. The fish in the harbor are filled with toxic waste, PCBs, which will accumulate in the fat of the ducks. The fish in the harbor are evolving to become tolerant of the toxic waste, although it took many generations of fish and lots of death to get there. The same will probably happen to the ducks.
A breeze riffled the surface of the harbor. I turned away from the sun. Three gulls flew away at my sudden movement. One immature gull, too stupid to know when to fly away, stayed, facing the sun behind my back. No haze to soften outlines or hide sharp edges: I could see each feather on its head.
The ducks aren’t bothered by the traffic on the highway. They see me and fly low across the water, their wingtips tapping its calm surface. On Pope’s Island, I can see every detail of a Lark Sparrow hiding in the bushes, even though I have forgotten my binoculars: the harlequin pattern of its head, the clear breast with a dark spot in the center.
Walking west, the sun blinds me and forces me to look away. Then it dips behind the city, the few last rays lighting up the top of the old New Bedford Hotel dimmed by clouds moving in from the west, and the sun sets for the last time on this year.
Christmas checklist:
- Eat a little too much — check.
- Call family and friends who live far away — check.
- Take a walk, to walk off some of the food I’ve eaten — check.
- Have something a little silly happen — check. (For the record: watching brother-in-law Jim play blues on a ukulele using a jelly jar as a slide.)
- Have the bayberry candle we lit last night burn down to the socket of the candlestick this morning, as dictated by the folk saying “A bayberry candle burned to the socket brings health to the house and money to the pocket” — check.
- Eat one last Christmas cookie before going to bed (and feel a little sick as a result) — oops, still have to do that.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Christmas Eve in New Bedford
At about 7:30 p.m., I’ll be preaching this homily here at First Unitarian in New Bedford. I’ve set this blog entry to appear at the same time — it’s not quite live streamed audio, but if you’re stuck at home you’ll be able to start reading this just about when the congregation in New Bedford starts hearing it.
As usual, this is a reading text, and no doubt I will ad lib and otherwise diverge from what is printed below. Please excuse any typos, as I don’t proofread reading texts of my sermons particularly well.
And merry Christmas to you and yours!
Christmas Eve Homily
I don’t know if you ever noticed, but there are two quite different stories about the birth of Jesus. On the one hand, the story in the book of Luke [Luke 2.1-21] tells us about how there was no room at the inn, and the manger, the shepherds, and the angels. The story in the book of Matthew [Matthew 1.18-21, Matthew 2.1-12], on the other hand, says nothing about a manger or a stable, and in fact calls the place where Jesus was born a “house.” But it’s Matthew who tells us about the magi, whatever “magi” might be. There are at least three other complete books that purport to tell the story of Jesus — the books of Mark, John, and Thomas — but Mark and Thomas start with Jesus as an adult, and John gives us a short and mysterious paragraph about word and God and light.
The fact of the matter is that we know precious little about the birth and early life of Jesus. It would be slightly easier for us if we said that the Bible is the literal and incontrovertible word of God: then we’d know for certain that there were angels who spoke to shepherds, and a long journey to Bethlehem, and magi from the East (whatever “magi” might be). Of course, if the Bible were the literal and incontrovertible word of God, we could ignore the contradictions and inconsistencies that occur between the different stories about birth and life of Jesus.
Since we do not take the Bible literally and incontrovertibly, at Christmas time we find ourselves in the realm of myth and enchantment; I would say, we find ourselves in the realm of poetry. A poem can be just as true as a mathematical equation, or just as true as a scientifically proven natural law; but it is true in a different way; not literally true, but true in its allusions and connections and resonances.
This year, I have been thinking about the magi, those mysterious visitors from the East. (By the way, nowhere does it say that there were only three of them.) Magi comes from the ancient Greek word “magoi,” which means astrologer or wise men. I wonder if they were actually all men, or if we just assume that they were? I wonder, if they were astrologers, did they try to predict the future life of the new baby they came to visit? –and how accurate were their predictions? I wonder where they came from in the East? –from Persia, from Baghdad, from India? I wonder what religion they followed –Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, paganism? I wonder, but there is simply no way to know for sure.
But the poetic truth of that moment when the magi finally arrive:– the star that they have been following stand directly over the house where the newborn baby lies, watched over by his mother and father — the poetry, for me, lies in this passage:
The magi “were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”
We should all kneel down to pay homage when we see a new-born baby. Any baby is a miracle: a new life that has come into being, a new bit of humanity to be loved and cherished, and to offer love in return. Every time a baby is born, the human stock of love is increased by the love contained in that tiny body. What could be more miraculous? We can offer no other response than to be overwhelmed with joy.
And then the magi open up their treasure chests, and offer gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Why did they give those three things? They gave gold because the crown of the king of Israel was fashioned from gold; and frankincense and myrrh were used in the oils for anointing kings. These astrologers seem to be predicting that Jesus would be a new king of Israel. So there is a very specific, technical meaning for the gifts the magi brought.
As with any good poetry, we can find layers of meaning. For someone living in the land of Judea in the first century Roman Empire, gold and frankincense and myrrh might have very specific meanings relating to the longing for a king, a leader, to deliver the land of Israel from Roman oppression. For us today, living in a post-Christian, globalized world, those old meanings have only a faint resonance; but we can resonate with the deeper levels of meaning in the giving of gifts.
We can understand that the magi gave gifts to that baby, because that baby represented new life and love. We can understand that we give gifts today for the same deep reason. When you or I give a gift to someone else, we are first of all acknowledging that person’s essential humanity; and although we might not express it that way, we are also extending a little bit of love to that person.
If you exchange gifts tomorrow, I hope you will think of this poetic meaning of Christmas gift-giving. To give a gift to another person is a metaphor for extending a little bit of love to that person; and so symbolically, poetically, to exchange gifts is to add to the store of the world’s love. And it isn’t necessary to give an actual physical object, you know; you can give the gift of a kind word, or a hug, or a smile, and it does the same thing.
Let me put this another way. When Jesus grew up, he taught that the most important thing in the world is to love your neighbor as yourself. This is a truth that Jesus got from his Jewish heritage, and passed on to the wider world. This is the poetic truth that is embodied in the simple act of giving gifts: to love and value other people as you would be loved and valued by them.
Winter Is Icumen In
You may be familiar with Ezra Pound’s 1915 poem that begins “Winter is icumen in/ Lhude sing goddamm….” The poem has an extra line or two, so it doesn’t quite fit the familiar tune to “Sumer Is Icumen In.” But if you take those extra lines of poetry and stuff them into the two ground melodies, you can actually sing the song. It makes a nice antidote to the sappy Christmas carols that we hear playing over and over and over everywhere we go in this week leading up to Christmas. You’ll find the sheet music to “Winter Is Icumen In” here.
A Thesaurus of Humor
When we went to visit my grandmother, who lived in Staten Island, we would stay in her house. My older sister, Jean, and I would spend hours in the downstairs room where the TV was; the television stations in New York had different programming than we had back home, and we were fascinated to see TV shows that we had never seen before.
The room was full of books, too. I think it had been my grandfather’s study, or office. He had died two weeks after I was born, so I never met him. Jean and I found the books fascinating. We leafed through them, and as we got older, we read a good many of them.
I still have a tattered copy of the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, dated 1894, which Grandma gave me when I was eleven of twelve. But I no longer have A Thesaurus of Humor, which I discovered when I was eight, and which Grandma also gave to me. I took it home and read it cover to cover, and I would read the jokes out loud to my parents, and memorize them. I must have been insufferable.
Dad told me that my grandfather, his father, had been the managing editor of the Staten Island Advance and a member of one or two fraternal organizations and had taken jokes from the book to put into speeches that he had had to give. I only vaguely understood what Dad meant, just as I only vaguely understood some of the jokes.
Today, as I was walking through Porter Square in Cambridge, one of those old jokes suddenly came up out of memory. I have a touch of a cold, walking briskly loosened up some congestion, so I hawked and spat, making sure to spit on the road, not on the sidewalk. That’s when the joke re-emerged from memory.
MAN: Your honor, I feel I should be fined.
JUDGE: Why is that?
MAN: I expectorated on the sidewalk.
JUDGE: Well, if it makes you feel better — the Court fines you two dollars. Next!
I distinctly remember reading that joke in Grandma’s house, and not understanding it. I asked my father what “expectorate” meant. “Why, it means ‘spit’,” said Dad. Then my eight-year-old self thought I got the joke: how silly of the man to ask to be fined just because he spat on the sidewalk! I hadn’t thought of that joke in thirty-five years, but remembering it today I finally realized that the joke was funny in large part because the man was obviously educated and overconscientious.
A Thesaurus of Humor disappeared some years ago. I can still see it in my mind’s eye: a thick book bound in medium blue. I can remember how the jokes were laid out on the page, grouped together by category. I wish I still had it. It’s a good thing I don’t still have it, because I would probably succumb to the temptation of reading it again cover to cover, and memorizing the jokes, and reading them out loud to people who would only listen out of politeness.
December morning
The alarm went off at seven o’clock this morning, just as it does every morning in our house (except Fridays). I staggered out of bed. “It’s dark,” I said.
It was indeed dark: not just because the sun rose at four minutes to seven this morning, but because the clouds were thick and heavy and dark. Something was hitting the skylight.
“It’s raining,” I announced authoritatively, still swaying slightly and waiting for my eyes to fully open and come into focus.
“No it’s not,” said Carol, her voice muffled by the pillow. “I’ll bet it’s snowing. It’s supposed to snow this morning.”
As usual, Carol was right: that was snow, not rain, coming down out of those thick dark clouds.
“Blah,” I said, and stumbled off to the shower. The water in our apartment takes forever to get hot in the morning. I made the mistake of getting into the shower too soon. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm. Blah, I thought to myself.
I managed to get dressed and cook breakfast, but even the nice pot of hot tea didn’t cheer me up. I pulled on my winter coat and kissed Carol goodbye.
As I turned to walk out the door, she started to whistle:
“Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we’ve no place to go
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.”
Suddenly my mood lifted. I whistled back:
“When it snows, ain’t it thrilling
Though your nose gets a chilling,
We’ll frolic and play the Eskimo way:
Walkin’ in a winter wonderland.”
By the time I went out the door, we were both whistling.
And sure enough, the sun came out by mid-morning.
I
That innocent look!
Hermes had stolen the cows;
as Apollo thought.
II
Amazing. Hermes
is inside every cairn.
Stack up stones, he’s there,
ready to guide you,
patron god of travellers.
But I’m suspicious:
he’s mischievous, too,
the trickster god. If fog comes
and you leave the path,
or if your map proves
to be utterly wrong, if
you somehow get lost:
you should blame Hermes.
Or thank him. For all you know,
you’re better off lost.
III
When you come to die,
that’s when Hermes shows up next.
With his magic wand
he touches your eyes.
Next thing you know, there’s Charon
demanding his fare.
You spit out the coin
they left on your tongue, so you
can plead with him; but
he’s already gone.
Winged sandals are fast. You’re stuck
on the banks of Styx.