#21 "It's a Gift" -- Don

‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the home, we regarded our waistlines, swollen like gnomes.

Ugh. Christmas is over.  Now let’s get ready for New Year’s Eve and the subsequent three months of dieting and scary, snowy roads.  Before, however, we pour the remaining eggnog down the drain, gobble up the last bit of Chex Mix (before it goes bad, ha!) and haul the crumpled wrapping paper to the curb, let’s take a moment and appreciate what we received through this past holiday, our Christmas gifts.

I suppose there are dozens of ways we could categorize Christmas gifts (big to small, most expensive to least expensive, sentimental to functional), but for now I’m going to organize them into the three categories: what we get from businesses, what we get from family and friends, and what we get from God.

What We Get From Businesses

While most of us abhor the excessive and grotesque commercialization of Christmas, with the overly bright and glitzy displays and the endless paa rum pum pum pum blaring through the mall speakers, there are some aspects of the merchandizing of Christmas that I am actually grateful for.  I was in a store the other day, and the cashier said to the person in line before me, “Merry Christmas” and that customer growled at her as though she was either hopelessly naïve or socially awkward.  After the snarky shopper moved along, the cashier said to me, “I don’t care how others treat me, I’m going to be nice to people anyway.”  Her smile was genuine, her kindness was infectious, and she had already forgiven the grump in front of me for his rudeness.

And that, folks, is a real gift. 

Yes, yes, I know the lights are too bright, the music is too loud, and the parking lots are too crowded, but let’s remember that when people make it a special part of their jobs to be nice to others, it more than makes up for the cynical corporate marketing schemes that aim to squeeze out our last dimes.  While I’m sure this particular cashier is nice to people the other eleven months of the year, it’s a gift to be reminded that Christmas shopping is not just about going out to garner the stuff we will be trading with the people we know, it’s also about the cheerfulness and consideration we can exchange with absolute strangers.  Although at times we can all get cranky and sneering, we know we are better people when we are not.  It’s a gift to be reminded to be nice to one another (even if that reminder has a price tag hanging off of it).

What We Get From Family and Friends

The best gifts we get from our family and friends are not necessarily unwrapped on Christmas morning.  The best gift we get from the people we really know and care about in our lives is the certainty that (for reasons which may lie beyond our comprehension) we matter to them and they matter to us.

My daughter, Olivia, gave me a new board game for Christmas; as much as I appreciate the box full of tiny tokens, playing cards, and its impressive cardboard layout, the real gift is not the game so much as all the time we’ll eventually spend together playing it.  This Christmas among the spoils we offered each other, the family gave movies, music, and books.  For me, these presents are not the media itself, but the time we’ll spend together watching the films or talking about the books.

My wife, Ruth, was a bit disappointed, I think, that I started wearing the jacket she gave me before Christmas and that she didn’t get to wrap it up for me to open yesterday morning.  Her gift wasn’t really the jacket though.  It was the warmth it provided me last week when I couldn’t bear to go outside in my old coat. 

My daughter, Ellie, gave me a graphic novelization of The Wizard of Oz.  I love the book, but what I love even more is how this particular gift demonstrates how well Ellie knows me.  She knows what I like, and that’s the real gift: she knew I would like it.

So, for my friends and family who regularly drop by this blog and give Olivia and me a little bit of your time, thanks for taking a part of your life to be a part of our lives.  We appreciate this gift more than you’ll ever know.

What We Get From God

The best gifts, naturally, come from God.  I am completely grateful for the talents and abilities that I have.  Although I humbly admit I lack a lot of useful skills (I’m a terrible mechanic, a wretched carpenter, and nearly worthless plumber), I have been divinely gifted with a love for words and a keen appreciation for seeing the humor in most situations. 

I love music, and although I put many, many hours into learning to play a few instruments, I did not “learn” to be a songwriter, that was a gift from God.  I have no idea how many times I have been gifted while writing a song with a new melody from an inspired spiritual region that I have no right to claim ownership from.

Perhaps the best gift I get from God is the on-going mystery of it all.  As I’ve often said to my students, “a good question is better than a good answer, because a good question keeps us going.” 

Even though I may not understand a lot about God (nor much of what He or She is up to), I am grateful for the gift of simply being allowed to hang out here in this particular physical world to watch and see what I can make of it all.  I don’t think it’s just a linguistic coincidence that the word “present” means both “a gift” and “at this very moment.”

This present moment is the greatest gift we get from God; recognizing it’s endless mysteries of why we’re here and how we’re meant to be with each other is how we demonstrate our gratitude for this gift.  It’s the wonder that makes it wonderful.  Furthermore, whenever we are feeling blue or overwhelmed with our lives, it’s this awareness that holds the secret to finding our way back to happiness: “Who am I right now?” and “Why am I here?” 

It seems foolish to struggle with the petty complications of this life when we remember that we have been given the gift of this present moment. God has puts us on the cusp of the infinite to marvel at all we can behold while overlooking its rim.

Thank you, God, for everything.  I promise not to try and return it.

Sorry for the hold up!

I'm flying to Ohio today!  I know this post should've gone up yesterday, but I truly haven't had a chance.  You should see it tomorrow some time, thanks!

#20 "So Bad That It's Good" -- Don

I’m tempted to start off by riffing on the Platonic/Socratic discourse that separates “what is truly good from what is merely pleasurable.”  Plato, in several of his dialogs, has his teacher, Socrates, ramble on and on about how life offers us plenty of things that are bad for us that are nonetheless very pleasurable.  For instance, we might all enjoy it when someone flatters us, but Socrates would say the truth is more beneficial.  But, I’ll save my philosophic lectures for when I’m waxing eloquent about rhetoric in English class, and here in today’s blog, I want to stick to those things that are aesthetically not very good, but somehow, because of some weird gravitational effect, they rebound off the side of The Wall of Terrible and bounce back squarely into The Playground of Awesome.

Musically, it would be hard to find a better example of something that is “So Bad That It’s Good than this gem from The Lawrence Welk Show:

During my childhood, The Lawrence Welk Show was one of those TV shows that seemed like it was alway on.  Even as a child, I could not understand how anyone could watch this show and not notice how desperate the producers seemed to be to depict all American music as sanguine and banal.  While The Munsters and The Addams Family were parodying what was supposed to be creepy in America during the 1960's, I say the show that really gave me the creeps was this one.  One of my favorite SNL skits demonstrates this attitude perfectly as Kristen Wiig performs with doll hands and a massive forehead while her singing sisters work to appear as normal as possible.  Here's a link to the video, I don't have the mad blogger skills to figure out how to embed it like I did with the previous video above.

As far as movies go, I can think of plenty of films that somehow uses it's self-awareness of being second-rate material to move it somehow passed all those films that want to be great but can't quite make it.  One of my all-time favorite bad movies that just happens to be amazingly good is Mothra vs. Godzilla.  Seriously, as if the giant lizard fighting the giant moth does sufficiently satisfy the weirdness quotient for a movie, you have to admire the filmmaker's willingness to incorporate two Barbie-doll sized twin fairy girls who plead with the evil corporate executives to return an enormous egg to their homeland "Infant Island."

  

In my humble opinion, nobody can take material that is so weird that it makes you wonder if the writers were stoned when they cranked out their story and present it in a style that acts as though it's all as common as Wonder Bread as the Japanese can.  Yes, I know Lewis Carroll, Rolad Dahl, and Tim Burton can all do terrifically mad and beautiful work exploring this literary territory, but even as good as Alice in Wonderland, James and the Giant Peach, and Edward Scissorhands can be, they all pale in the exquisite shadows of Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away:

With its bouncing disembodied Russian heads, its child abandoned because Mom and Dad have been turned into swine, and the creepiest giant baby ever portrayed on film, Spirited Away couldn't have been weirder if the ghost of Walt Disney had showed up tripping on LSD.

In the category of reading "So Bad It's Good," I'd put the series of pulp novels by Tarzan-creator Edgar Rice Burroughs about the prehistoric world that lies at the center of the Earth as my favorite.  

You can get a free ebook of At the Earth's Core here.  If you've never had the fun of reading any of the Doc Savage pulp novels (mostly written by Lester Dent) then as soon as you finish At the Earth's Core, you should jump in a read The Man of Bronze (most of the Doc Savage books are available as free ebooks from here).  

If you get an ebook reader for Christmas (such as a Kindle or a Nook), then you should know there are tons of free and awesome books waiting to be had; I particularly recommend the sci-fi and mystery pulp writers of the 30's and 40's including Robert Howard and H.P Lovecraft.  These writers are more accurately described as "So Bad They're Hard to Beat."

As I wrap this blog up, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't say something about food.  Ruth is always giving me a hard time about my dietary choices (as well as she should, it's her job to keep me on the straight and narrow), and know that their food is especially bad nutritionally, but in the category of "So Bad It's Good" I think it would hard to beat the delicious choices that are available at Speedway.  

Not only is their coffee the best deal anywhere, I'm a sucker for all the delectable delicacies that are in perpetual rotation on their spinning hot dog cooker.  If you haven't tried one of their meat and cheese pastry filled Tornadoes, then what are you waiting for?  Permission from your doctor? That'll never happen.  Be sure to use your Speedy Rewards Card because if you survive a few meals, they'll give you a free sandwich after you accumulate a few points.

Okay, Christmas is next weekend.  So Ho-ho-ho and all of that.  Don't overindulge too much (just overindulge enough not to get ill from it afterwards).

#19 God

Finding a picture I've taken that sums up "God" was harder than I thought it would be.   I'm still not really satisfied.

It looks cliche.

Why is God always summed up in a sunrise?  Obvious answers include the conspicuous "light" metaphor, or the even more noticeable "sun" metaphor, the source of everything.

Or perhaps, all those inspirational posters with God quotes also have sunrises because it suggests a peace or an awe that escorts the dawn into day.  How else would you describe that time but holy?  The reverence of morning reminds me of God.

However, I want more than that.  If I had more options, perhaps instead of a picture, I'd play a sound.

As much as images paint poignant and lasting impressions, nothing soaks in like something I've heard.  Music can be all encompassing in ways that cannot be replicated by the other senses.

When I picture God as a sound, I hear the Who-chorus singing to their spangle-stripped holy morning.  It's a song that makes the heart awaken.

"Fa who fo-raze!  Da who do-raze!"  They sing not because they have nothing left, but because life is too sacred not to.  Morning is here!  Their song is a sweet promise.  It is a simple wisdom.  It feels like a hallelujah use to.  I see it as nothing more or less than the purest, most unconditional and freeing love.

Love like gravity.  Love like color.

Love so full and complete that we cannot see it all or understand it all and so often we take it for granted or forget about it.

That's what I think of when I think of God.

While my father and I may disagree, I know my capacity to fathom God comes from my own mortal parents.

 I was always blessed by words like "Who loves you?"
To which I would smile back and say, "You do, Dad."
And he would say, "No matter what."
And I would repeat "No matter what."

It took very little imagination to imagine love of that nature coming from a Heavenly Father.

How did I know my Godly Father loved me?  Because I was given a body?  One that can see, hear, taste, smell and touch?  Because that body could grow?  Because I was given the capacity to learn and choose?   Because each day, I am given another sunrise?  Another breath?

Or because I can feel?  All those things being true, I knew because I could feel it.

And that changes everything.

I believe in a God who loves.  Simple as a s'more.  He loves us because He knows us.  And because He knows us, and loves us, He has provided us ways to be happy.  He wants it for us.

And I'm not talking about bubble-gum machine weekend part-time happiness.   I'm talking real, fine craftsmanship, home grown, worthy investment happiness.  The kind that not only serves you now, but the kind that can be passed down forever.  Heirloom happiness, perhaps.

While I cannot confirm nor deny a particular first name, I can tell you that when I talk to God, I feel a deep peaceful understanding of love.

It moves me to love others and seek after things that are good.  His love is one that rouses me to find truth.  His love spreads seeds of gratitude that has taken the deepest root in me.

There is so much that I know because of the love of God.  I know that as cliche as a sunrise is, like His love, it will always be there.

And it will always be the most brilliant thing I see all day.

Don Replies:


I'm glad that your experience with God is so pleasant.  I'm a bit jealous of that.  Somewhere along the line for me, other people's "religion" got in the way of my experience of God.  I've spent my entire adulthood trying to get to that space where it's just God and me, but what I heard in my childhood about a God who is often angry and vengeful almost always gets in the way.  On a rational, abstract level, I can separate what I was told from what makes sense to me today, but on an emotional level, I'm still often bitter and jaded.  And I don't just get angry at all the dogma and doctrine that's screwed up my ability to make peace with The Eternal, but I get angry that God would allow it to happen as well.  It seems to me that if God is an active force in the everyday lives of ordinary human beings, then the one thing He would care about (and take care of) is how He gets portrayed by the people who claim to know him the best.  So for me, I struggle to have a very simple faith -- that God is more kind, loving, and forgiving than the "official" script portrays Him to be.