Archive for February, 2007
February 28th, 2007
"Tupelo Honey" was my first Van Morrison album. It was 1972, I was just outta high school, heading to mid-west USA, but wishing I could have experienced Woodstock. "Tupelo Honey" seemed like the next best thing. Folksy, innocent, anti-establishment in its extolling of "back to the land" living, and plain captivating.
At the concert tonight, I’m reminded of all these years ago.
Morrison looks like a portly "Goodfella." He sings–Doesn’t matter to what God you pray/Precious time slippin’ away–and I’m there.
But the years have only added texture to that hammond-organ throat of his. I was swept up for the entire concert, even after all these years. Deb too, she’s been a Morrison fan from the time she was introduced. And at the end we all sang G-L-O-R-I-A…Gloria.
We’re home early. Not even 10 PM. And this is my only complaint. I needed at least another 90 minutes worth. Perhaps Van needed his sleep, or maybe he needed a little honey.
Technorati Tags: Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey, Edmonton’s Rexall Place, Beauty
February 27th, 2007
The days are getting longer. Have you noticed? There’s already a deep azure at 6:30 AM. Hope for a new day is already surfacing.
People have held on to whatever they could to make it through these past two months. Mostly other people I suppose. Or a getaway dream. Or a new stay-around dream.
I detect slight movements around people’s mouths. A softening of sorts. Pursed lips relax. And how beautiful is that?
And the guy at Starbuck’s spots me a coffee because I forgot my wallet, a regular happening when I change coats.
The Italian roast goes to work. Fueling my two hour sabbatical.
An older gentleman is talking about meditation with the hostess. He has a word.
I decide to buy Bob Dylan’s Live at the Gaslight. 1962. Still can’t get enough of a "Hard Rain."
Who remembers 1962? Well I do. Mrs. Pinder was my teacher and she took delight in chiding me in front of the class for being the last one to learn the alphabet. And no, that wasn’t Junior high.
Well, I gave back. Signs of early rebellion. Her back to the class, arm raised to the blackboard, with heavy folds of bicep-flesh hanging loose from the right sleeve of her print dress, I would imitate her fleshy movements by waving my hand under my upraised arm. The kids laughed and I spent an hour in the cloakroom.
I had a few cloakroom timeouts. I find "cloakroom" an interesting word. Think of the things you can get away with in a room with that name.
When I look back, it was Mrs. Pinder that inspired in me a disaffected desire to get my letters in some kind of order. It’s her I continue to hope to prove wrong about my non-facility with the alphabet.
Maybe it’s time to move on. Maybe I’m still building myself against, and therefore on, a negative set of experiences. Maybe, unless I let this go, keep letting this go, I can’t rise above a mirror image of what it is I’m defining my dreams, my hopes, my "self" against.
Sun’s up. Time to move on and welcome the longer days.
Technorati Tags: Beauty, Spirituality
February 25th, 2007
Do you remember the first time you sensed what it meant to be free?
You were young, or at least younger. You were spending time lifting the edges of life. Edges that shimmered dark with a curious promise. You were falling in love with things and people around you.
Do you remember the place, or the places? Those thin places on earth, where here and there were at confluence. Where the fine hairs on your body would rise up to brush the universe.
Do you recall your people? Do you recall sharing the secrets of your soul that you could only point to through broken sentences and wet eyes and mounds of laughter and dirty jokes?
Do you remember how it didn’t matter whether or not you owned anything? How it came to you in a blinding flash that you couldn’t own anything without it owning you. Those days you ate when you were hungry and slept when tired. And you kept playing on the borders that were brimming with ideas.
And ideas were beginning to mold and transform you. Old wisdom seeped in from reading and watching and you thought you owned it and even made some of it up yourself. And Wisdom just loved you and let you think that as long as you wanted and needed to.
You drew it, painted pictures of it, and wrote it down on scraps of paper. You made rhymes with it and somebody had a guitar that they played until their fingers bled.
In this place, with these people, you could experiment with who you were. You were free to experiment with becoming. Somehow, you knew God liked you, or at least that the gods accepted you. And you moved toward them when they showed themselves.
It was a cloudless night the first time I saw the ocean. I mean really saw it. We were on our way to Tofino. Stopping the Plymouth by an unmarked trail, we got out and without talking headed for the sound of surf. The stars were big and the moon brilliant. On the trail our legs sped up on their own. At the end of the path we came to a mountain of driftwood and scrambled over it like rock crabs. The surf was a mile out. A dozen white lines spread out across the horizon separating swells of black. Six of us broke out in a run. Running to what? Something primordial was crashing and giving up its secret. And we raced to catch it.
That was the first time I saw the ocean. And the first time I felt free enough to let myself feel absolutely alone.
Technorati Tags: Tofino, Long Beach, Ocean, Freedom, Spirituality
February 22nd, 2007
"Have a wonderful day sweetheart." This was shouted to me by a homeless woman sitting on the steps of St. Joe’s as I exited from my ash daubing.
And that was the blessing.
Earlier, inside, just before the entrance hymn, a lady came and sat beside me who had just come from snorkeling in perfume. In a moment the lady on the other side of me took to breathing through her collar.
Later, as the priest read prayers, before the holy water was added to the ash, the perfume lady’s cell phone went off. The ring tone was a jazzy little number that she liked well enough to allow to go on ringing until enough heads turned our way, and I was forced to again look her way in my defence. This was finally signal enough for her to bend and fish in the purse at her feet and turn the thing off.
After I was reminded about my constitution of dust, and after the ashen cross was placed on my head, I walked to the back of the basilica instead of returning to my seat. The woman’s perfume was at the base of my throat and on my tongue and I had developed a minor headache. I decided she was encased in enough aromatic preservative as to not worry about returning to dust any time soon.
I left early, I came through the great oak doors and stepped into fresh air and onto the broad concrete stair where the homeless woman was sitting. Fooling me, she simply smiled and said, "Hi!" I said hi back. She said, "Have a good day." I said, with more feeling, "You too," and needing to walk, moved off. She called out, "No, I mean have wonderful day sweetheart."
I loved her for this, and said a prayer for the perfume lady.
Technorati Tags: Ash Wednesday, Homeless Lady, Christianity, Peace
February 21st, 2007
At noon today, I’ll be heading down to St. Joe’s to get my forehead smudged. I’ll be lining up for the treatment with a few other occasional Catholics, and a house full of real ones.
When I get to the front the priest will look at me and tell me to remember that I am dust, and to dust I’ll return. Then he’ll dip his thumb into some ashes, from the burning of last years palm leaves, and make a cross on my forehead. I’ll go back to my seat, genuflect, and try to keep my mind on the experience, hoping to make some existential connection with the awe and mystery of this holy season.
I’ll be bothered by the reminder about my dust-destination. But nothing puts the meaning back into being-contingent like seeing hundreds of people around me marked by wet ash. And for me, it’s our contingency that’s the beginning of mystery.
Technorati Tags: Ash Wednesday, St. Joseph’s Basilica, Catholic, Lent, Christianity, Peace
February 20th, 2007
I’ve been dipping into a book–on loan from an esoterically inclined "Starbucks friend"–by Thich Nhat Hanh, called "No Fear No Death." It’s a piece of work that soars over my bodily existence, an existence to which–I now know with greater force–that I’m far too partial toward. As it is, this already exposes an error in my understanding of reality. Because the notion that "I exist," is, for a Buddhist, amiss.
But, as altitudinous (and quantum) a notion as this seems, and as much as I want to query some of the concepts in the book, I am at least open to having my Western categories of subject and object softened up.
Babel
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As well, beneath the orphic flights presented by Thich Nhat Hanh, of which I only spy contrails, there are things within Buddhism that I can easily hum along with. For example, like, Mindfulness Training No. One:
Aware of the suffering created by fanaticism and intolerance, we are determined not to be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist teachings are guiding means to help us learn to look deeply and to develop our understanding and compassion. They are not doctrines to fight, kill or die for.
Speaking as a Christian I need to ask how it is that my tradition has entertained, and in some circles, continues to entertain fanaticism and intolerance. How is it that the gospel, which is spirit and light, understanding and compassion, has so often been hammered into shield and spear?
Comparisons are not always odious. And this should be an embarrassment to us Jesus people, but I don’t recall any great Buddhist wars. History holds no Buddhist imperialism, expansionism, or acculturation. There were no Buddhist crusades. Maybe they take their mindfulness training seriously.
The Zen Buddhists have a saying, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." That is because the Buddha you meet, at best, will be distorted by an expression of your own aquisitive-desire. In other words, there is no arriving at the arch-concept. Everything we know and hold is provisional.
I can learn from my Buddhist brother. When my Christianity calcifies into theory, when I become doctrinaire in my beliefs, when I’m tempted to defend Christianity through creedal utterances and ideology, then that part of my "Christianity" needs to be killed.
As a Christian, if I meet a god within me that is hard, uncompromising, non-compassionate, absolute, that lacks understanding, is, in a word, idolatrous, I must kill it.
As (Western) Christians we haven’t been good at resisting a grab at an absolute concept of God. In fact we’ve been taught that it’s not only possible to have a categorical concept of God, but that it’s imperative for right faith. But this is nothing other than idol making. And where ever there are idols there is intolerance.
Feuerbach’s deft charge against a dogmatic Christianity, that is, that our "God is simply ourselves thrown up against the sky," is still, too accurate and oh so contemporary. This is the god we must kill.
Technorati Tags: No Fear No Death, Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen, Feuerbach, Buddhism, Christianity, Peace, Religion, Spirituality
February 19th, 2007
At 6:30 in the morning it’s still dark, although the sky is beginning to tell rumours otherwise. It was colder this morning than I anticipated. So I stopped under a light by a brick building to fish out my warmer toque and gloves. I’m never prepared for much, but when it comes to walking, I’m prepared.
Last night’s dusting of snow hid the frozen puddles and I slipped three times on my way to 105 Street Starbucks. I caught myself each time and warned myself I may not be so lucky next time. It worked.
One-o-five Street was closed so I walked to 109th. It was closed as well…until 8 AM. That’s because it’s Family Day here in Alberta. A gift from former pro football player, former Premier, Don Getty.
I think Don–and no doubt the whole successive lot of our Premier’s–is he’d still have a hard time with recognizing the changing face of family. You see in 1989, Don Getty introduced Family Day as an unique Alberta statutory holiday to recognize the family values of the pioneers who built our province. And while back in 1989 we were more inclined than today, to celebrate the values of home and family, as one observer put it, "with gopher shoots, line dancing marathons and anti-gay marriage parades," most will still feel squeamish about today’s front page picture, presented as "family."
Lance Anderson, left, and Blair Croft with their five-year-old son, Tyree.
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The hurdles this couple faced, all in the name of child-welfare, over adopting this child through provincial channels were legion. Even though Blair Croft worked in the province’s child-care sector for over a decade.
Having some experience in dealing with child social services, I know that there are thousands of kids who will spend their childhood in government care–in foster homes and group homes. This was, and in some arenas still is, viewed as preferable to having a gay couple adopt a child from within the "system."
There is still a big need for attitudinal change, but it is encouraging to know there’s hope, even here in Alberta "where the family comes first."
Technorati Tags: Gay couples and adoption, Alberta Family Day, Child Welfare, Foster homes, Group homes, Politics, Poverty
February 18th, 2007
steel wool cloud
scrapes a blue vein
into a leathery sky
tough as a lizard egg
Brillo pad siren
scours out
one thin wavy line
in the city hum
urban omni hum
like fascia
keeps us connected
and separate
February 16th, 2007
A young couple standing at the counter are noticeably tense as they wait for each other to pour cream into their coffees. The young woman, in a tartan dress over black leotards, and red naugahyde jacket, is saying something about wanting to talk. Her boyfriend or husband, in a long black wool coat, heavy soled oxfords, and a grey newsboy cap, raises his voice above all the indoor traffic and gripes inarticulately, "What do you even want?" He then stomps halfway to the door, comes back and picks up his coffee. They walk single file and exit the glass door.
The warm front of Valentine’s day has moved off and the arrow holes have scabbed over.
I’ve received news from a friend whose sister-in-law has died. They were close. While there were health problems, the death is a surprise, and has left the family reeling. She was a few years older–just. A friends job is to grieve the loss of a friend’s, friend.
We long to have reasons so we can handle loss. We find some…and make some up. Not all reasons are good but the ones we make up for ourselves may be the truer ones. Meaning-making is a human enterprise. And we may be surprised more by the similarities of our "made-up" reasons than by their differences.
And now a friend whose chemo-pills quit working weeks ago waits for the results of a CAT-scan. I worry for him and hope it helps. Sometimes worry can be a form of prayer.
I suppose all there is to do is live through the ache, catch some joy when it shows up, and not be seduced into building a comfortably numb zone through avoiding either one…pain or joy. I suppose, but I don’t know. I’m far from certain these days. But I’m less bothered by not knowing much. I probably have more honest company here.
I have an inkling about death. In the natural course of things, my own death is now quite a bit closer than my birth. Along the way I’ve had a few losses. Not many by most standards. But the ones I have crawled through–it seems to me–were not harbingers of death, but tastes of death. And I believe to experience them as "tastes" is a good thing. Any undergoing of death in advance of death brings with it the possibility of inching closer to living as though death were not. This is the opposite of death evasion, or death idolatry, which is all around us. There is a kind of gaining in losing but I would never want to objectify this by making a testimony out of it. Far less, prescribe it, as some have. I’ll leave that to Jesus, if he wants the job.
Photo by Bluflower
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In the mean time, today is a good day to catch snowflakes on your tongue. Although it’s difficult to do this discreetly–a discretion to which I’m still compelled. I don’t yet have the courage for abandonment to tongue-snowflake-catching on my walk to work. Give me a few years.
Technorati Tags: Valentines Day, Desire, Meaning, Death, Spirituality
February 14th, 2007
Hey guys and gals. It’s Valentines Day! Buy that lady in your life some Bubble Duds…with the nylon reinforced, Lollipop cuffing.
Happy Valentines Day!
Technorati Tags: Bubble Duds, Vintage Clothing, Valentines
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