PeaceBang

Darth Vader Would Like To Light A Candle of Concern

So we can conclude a few things from this article.

One, it’s never a good idea to drink that much boxed wine.

Two, there were way more people in Britian in 2001 who identified their religion as Jedi than there are Unitarian Universalists on membership rolls right now in congregations in the entire world.

May the Force be with you.

Heard Outside A Nursing Home

A six year-old boy swinging off his mother’s arm leaving Plymouth Life Care Facility on Saturday afternoon, in the cheeriest of tones:

“This would be a good place to get dead at.”

Even though someone I love very much did “get dead” at this very place the next day, I still smile at that little boy’s blithe observation, and I think my dear parishioner would have found it hilarious, too.

A Sardonic & Serious Take on Lenten Discipline

A snarky Catholic pal sent me this card, which cracked me up and reminded me of a Boston Globe article I read about ten years wherein Boston Catholics described Lenten disciplines such as giving up popcorn and potato chips for forty days, and they weren’t kidding:

I love this. It’s such a perfect commentary on our contemporary idea of sacrifice as compared with the old practices of penitence and deprivation that would lead to spiritual insights we seek in the Lenten season. Jesus spent forty days fasting in the desert… I think I’ll, um, refrain from buying lip gloss for forty days!

My Lenten discipline this year has been to be in a relationship that began, in an officially seriously committed way, just days before Ash Wednesday. For a long-time single, incredibly strong-willed and independent woman with extremely high expectations and a total inability to (a) hide her emotions or (b) speak her truth to any man in her life in a circumspect manner, this period has definitely been time in the wilderness wearing a hair shirt. Lent of 2008 will always be memorable as the year I gave up privacy, sole governance of my home, my sense of an inevitably solo future, my refrigerator, my schedule and social plans, and (on a happier note) the popular myth that I am far too prickly a pear for any human being to abide with in close quarters.

Not true, saith the LORD. Even when Jesus was being tempted by Satan (the Adversary), he had angels to attend to him. Lent may be about spending some time in the desert of self-denial and facing our demons, but it is also a time of feeling angel wings hovering ’round, and knowing their tender ministrations to be just as real as the awful stuff Satan is whispering into our ears.

For those who are offended by the whole idea of Lent, let me share with you that for me, penitence is not about punishment and Calvinistic ideas of existential unworthiness. The penitence we embrace during Lent is, for me, the confession of a dignified soul knowing that it can be more whole, a spirit incarnate in one human body vowing that it can receive healing and be an instrument of God’s peace, and the faith of a heart saying to itself that it deserves both to love, and to be loved, better.

A Moment of Zen in Time Squares, New Year’s Eve, 2007

You know the scene. You’ve either been there or watched it on television, snuggled cozily in bed or on the couch and thanking your lucky stars that you’re not stuck in that claustrophobia-inducing bacchanalia.

So this year I’m snuggled cozily in with a pal and we’re watching the madness right before the big disco ball drops and chuckling while the frantic newsgal sticks a microphone into various inebriated faces and screams “WHAT’S YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION THIS YEAR?”

She’s getting the usual “I’M GONNA LOSE TWENNY POUNDS!” “I’M GONNA GET BETTER GRADES!” “I’M GONNA USE MY CREDIT CARD LESS!” and this sort of thing. And then, because I’m nodding off, I miss it. My pal starts cracking up and I rouse myself and say, “What? What? What did I miss?” All I had noticed through my sleepy haze was a woman with a comically huge, lit-up 2008 tiara on her head and a Brooklyn accent so thick you could serve it on bread with mustard. “What did she say?” And as soon as he can stop laughing his head off, my friend gasps out, “TAKE PROPER TIME TO BE WITH YOURSELF!” which comes out like “TAKE PROPPAH TOIME TA BE WITH YAHSELF!”

This pronouncement is followed with a wild, “GO TEAM” bout of cheering and jumping up and down tooting horns, and right there we have the perfect mash-up of mindless New Year’s Eve revelry and the wisdom of ancients.

So whoever you are, New York lady, my friend and I just want to say we totally love you and you have given us the best, most genuine first great laugh of the new year.

Separated At Birth: A Special Holiday Edition

Yukon Cornelius

…

and Kevin Youkilis…

Hark How the Bells

I attended a lovely concert of Christmas music this morning at church, but the thing is, I wasn’t at all in the spirit. The woman’s ensemble was really excellent — they always are — and I just sat there feeling guilty for having arrived late and for not being angelically appreciative of being there, just rarin’ to get into the office and GET SOME WORK DONE. As many pastors recognize, this is a seasonal event that goes with the call at this particular congregation and the one time I missed it I felt lousy about it, just wrong. We have this concert and then the Alliance has their holiday luncheon with those sandwiches on crustless white bread that you can eat 100 of if they let you. I think I ate between 8-10. I would have gone back for more of the roast beef ones, seriously. So it’s the whole morning and by the time you get into the office you’re in a carb-induced bloat and need a nap even though you have a scary long list of things that need doing.

Anyway, when the choir ladies brought out the handbells during the concert this morning I definitely perked up because I love handbells. To be more specific, I love handbells when they’re played imperfectly, because the times I have tried to play in a handbell ensemble I became a nervous wreck and clanged away at all the wrong times and for some reason that strikes me as hilariously funny. So this is what I hope for when the handbells come out: that someone will mess up and then the next person will mess up and there will be this gentle, melodious train wreck of sound coming from these earnestly lovely people with white gloves on who are just trying, dammit, to make the music of the angels.

To my great and tender delight, not only did the last song slowly degenerate into such a confused cacophony of off-rhythm BONGing that the director had to stop the gals and give it a second go, I caught one of the ladies in the first row mouthing an alarmed OH Jesus as she made the first of the mistakes. Lady, whoever you are, you totally made my day and possibly my entire Christmas season. I’m thinking of her now with her pretty white hair and pristine gloves, and her festive red vest going oh Jesus and she is my Special Advent Favorite.

In other silly things that make me unaccountably happy at this time of year, there’s this.

Ready to Love Again

Doesn’t that sound like some kind of corny Lifetime movie channel thing?

Which reminds me of one of my favorite true stories. Some years ago I was on a fun weekend outing in Williamsburg, VA with Scott Wells (TheBoyInTheBands) and we were in our hotel room unpacking. We turned on the television set and ignored it while we chatted and put our things away. At some point I asked, “What channel is this, anyway?” And Scott replied, “Oh, it’s probably Lifetime Channel or something.” “Naw,” I said. “If it was Lifetime it would be a movie about Mare Winningham as an abused wife fleeing her sociopathic husband.” Scott grabbed the remote control and turned on the volume just in time to hear the actor on screen say in a sinister fashion to another actor, “Are you insinuating the I BEAT MY WIFE?” Moments later, Mare Winningham came on screen. We laughed so hard I threw my back out.

ANYWAY, Ready To Love Again isn’t a Lifetime channel movie. It’s SisterBang’s excitement over this little gal born on November 10th:

Some people say when their dog dies that they can never have another dog because it hurts too much to lose the first one. I can understand that, and I respect it. But SisterBang and I both feel that doggies need loving people to care for them and that if you’ve made room in your life for a dog, it’s a wonderful thing to just keep welcoming them for as long as you can, if you can. Gordon was such an extension of SisterBang’s life — the rhythms of her days and weekends were synced to his needs. They were a team. Watching him decline from a robust, shiny-coated canine stud to a deaf and blind, winter-faced, creaky old gentleman was very hard on both of them. He was such a good boy, pushing himself to stay active and to engage with her until he was just too sick to do so. It hurt her terribly to watch him suffer. She will miss him always.

But all kinds of dogs need homes, and SisterBang has been talking to breeders of miniature dachsunds for some time now in preparation for the time she would no longer have Gordon (who was a shelter dog). She may be going to get this pup in February and I’m so happy for both of them. Look at those ear buds! And just imagine the puppy smell.

Wouldn’t it be great if the love between humans was so pure and uncomplicated that, after the loss of one relationship we would feel bruised but immediately ready to love someone again? Cripes, I didn’t dare date for about 6-7 years after the end of my last terrible, tumultuous relationship with a man who turned out to be a pathological liar and a cheating skunk. I figured if my judgment had been that poor (couldn’t have been worse unless it had been a Lifetime Channel character), I shouldn’t trust myself to fall in love with anyone. I haven’t since, and that little debacle was over in 1997. But there’s no need to do that with dogs. Dogs don’t have baggage — if you love them enough and can devote enough time to them, you’re pretty much guaranteed a true romance.

The Souls Of Inanimate Objects

So I go to pick up a chaise I just purchased from Home Goods and I’ve got it in the back of a friend’s truck. I run into a woman I know in the community (not my church, but a church-goer) and she stops to chat. “Did you just buy that?” she asks. I look over at the chaise and I say,very casual-like, “Oh no. That’s just my couch. I’m just taking it for a little ride to get some fresh air.” She looks at me incredulously but I’m totally dead-pan. “It’s such a nice day,” I add.
She gets an expression like she wants to laugh but maybe that would be rude, so she stays silent. We look at each other.

“I think that all inanimate objects have souls,” I say. “So I think it’s important that they not stay cooped up in the house for too long.” She composes herself, remembering that I am a Professional Spiritual Person and I must actually believe this stuff.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do next week when it’s the bed’s turn to go out. I’ll have to borrow a bigger truck.”

She finally allows her eyes to express her opinion of me: she was worried that I was insane, and now she knows I’m just sort of insane.

“You’re pulling my leg, right,” she asks. And I admit that yes, I am. And then she says, “But for a minute there, even though I thought you were crazy, it was sort of a sweet idea. I mean, that objects have souls of their own.”

I tell her that it’s actually not my idea at all, that the Celts and other indigenous religious peoples believe this and so do I (although not to the extend that I take my furniture out for Sunday drives) and that she might like to read Thomas Moore’s book The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life if the idea appeals to her. She says she will because she really liked Care of the Soul by the same author. And we say goodbye and she says to me, “I always heard that you were crazy, but in a good way. I can’t believe you’ve lasted this long in this little town, but we love having you here.” I respond that my couch and I are very touched by her sentiments, and we crack up and say goodbye.

The chaise looks great in the living room. It looks like it’s sitting there thinking, “FINALLY, I’m in just the right place and off that stupid retail floor.” It’s very elegant brown and I’ve got my favorite deep red chenille throw on it, plus two pillows I’ve had for years that just happen to look great with it. It’s very sturdy and I plan to spend many happy and calm hours reading and watching movies in it. I’ve been looking for years for just the right chaise. I’m stupidly happy about it.

“Science Informs”

As a comical addendum to our conversation about being offended by the idea of someone praying for us, I wanted to tell you that a teen-aged boy of my sister’s acquaintance says, “Science informs” when someone sneezes. It’s his way of countering the whole “God bless you” tradition.

It goes like this:

“Achoo!”
“Science informs!”

More Friday Cat Blogging

I don’t understand why the cat is getting fatter even though I’ve cut back on her food and am being really careful not to feed her off my plate.

Then it occurred to me: she’s sneaking out to the car when I’m asleep and using my new GPS system to locate all the fast food joints!!

From now on I’m leaving my keys where she can’t find them, and I think that will take care of that problem. That is, until the snake teaches her how to hot wire a Honda.