Speaking a Different Language in the Same Land

John Donne once wrote the following:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. 

What he didn't mention, but what I know, is that each one of us is a different country on that continent, and speak a different language.  We may think we're saying the same thing, and using words that mean the same thing, but amount of misunderstanding there is between people much proves to me that we don't.  Everything we say--our language and expectations--is informed by our personal and cultural history, our families, our environment, and the particular geography of our homes.  


I think the biggest misunderstandings come out of the idea that just because you grew up with someone that you know that person.  Fact is, you don't, especially if you've parted from that person for a few years.  


One thing I told the Alien Child when he returned from college is this:  I don't know you now.  You are a different person.  I didn't say it in a mean way, to try to guilt him into anything, or in a way calculated to alienate him from me, because God knows I'd shrivel up inside if my son thought I ceased to love or want to understand him.  But the fact is, I knew him very well up to the point of his senior year of high school just after his father and I dropped him off at college.  After that, he gathered experiences and knowledge of the world and of himself that had nothing to do with me, and of which I have no knowledge, nor can I even guess.  He grew up, became an adult, no longer my little boy, no longer even my teenaged boy.  He has experiences and knowledge that shaped him into what he is now, and because I don't know what he knows, or experienced what he experienced, to that extent, I don't know him.  


To me, his personality froze at the moment he left home.  Over time, it will unfreeze depending on what I discover about him from time to time, forming another, different, adult picture of him.  But it will never be as accurate or as close as what I had known at that point of his departure for college, a picture that I cherish and love, perfection and warts and all.


As a result, I warned him that until he is old and to the day I'm on my deathbed, there will be times I will treat him as the teenaged boy I knew, and not the man he has become.  I've lived with being his mom for so long, and I do not know the experiences that have made him the man he is.  (Unless he tells me, of course, which I don't expect, either.  I mean, really, does anyone tell their parents everything they've ever done or said or happened to them from childhood on up?  Right.  Exactly.)  :-)


Anyway, no matter if you've grown up or lived with someone--be they mother, father, brother, sister, child, husband, wife--they will always speak a different language from you, a different experiential language, because there will always be a part of their lives you do not know, do not understand, and have never experienced.  


They are, absolutely, a piece of your continent, a part of your main.   You will definitely be less if they fall away from you, if they die or become estranged from you.  But they are a different country, with a different language.  And to assume anything else is to harbor misunderstandings and even alienation, because it means you will not ask them questions with a listening heart, nor will you ever attempt to understand them.  Your cup is full of your assumed knowledge of them, good or bad, because you think you already know them, and thus you cannot take in anything new or real about them, no matter how hard they try to tell you in their different, personal language.  The real person that is there behind the facade you've created for them....does not exist for you. 


It can be as minor, and a bit of a delight, for example, to find that your spouse of many decades loves the same genre of music you do, but you didn't know this.  I experienced this just yesterday.  :-)  The dear hubby called me down last night to listen to some Celtic music by Jamie Laval, a musician who apparently grew up in our area, whom we had both enjoyed in the past.  So I sat down and listened, and after a while he said, "I love Celtic music better than most any other kind."  I stared at him and said, "How did I not know this about you?"  Because I adore Celtic music myself, and I have a big store of it in my computer, and if I had known this, I would have shared a lot more than I had.  So here is this thing we have in common, had in common for decades, and I didn't know this even though we'd been married for decades!  Well, the DH is a passionate lover of all kinds of music, so not to know that he loves Celtic music especially would be fairly easy to miss. 


So a part of me was glad that we have this new thing to explore with and about each other, but another part was a bit sad that I had to discover this at mid-life, instead of when we were younger so that we had more time to enjoy it together.

Often, however, discoveries are not a delight, but a deep hurt.  Often, your relative, your lover, your friend has been shouting outside the door of your perceptions of him or her, and you thought it was the wind, shutting the door even tighter and closing the windows more firmly in the thought that you can't let all that cold air in, when, actually, it was the warm breeze of love and friendship calling to you.  It didn't sound like love to you, it sounded like a storm.  And because it didn't sound just exactly right to you, not in the right timber or tone, and it rattled your very safe doors and windows, you shut it out, so that you could be all nice and cozy safe in your perceptions.



So I've been talking to a relative I care about deeply, and it shocked me a little that this person does not have the same kind of forgiveness as a goal that I have.  And then it hit home to me that this person doesn't share my particular spiritual convictions.  But then I realized, no, I shouldn't have expected it.  I knew he doesn't practice the same spiritual practices, he doesn't devote himself to a set of behaviors that I devote myself to.  I knew that.  Didn't matter to me in our relationship.  However, it nevertheless sat ill on me that he didn't have the same concept of forgiveness that I do.   How could a devoted, caring person like that not have the same concept of forgiveness?


The bottom line is, even though we knew each other from childhood, we don't share the same spiritual beliefs.  We don't have the same life experiences.  We are (slightly) different ages.  Our gender is different. As a result, when I say "forgiveness" it means something entirely different to me than what it means to him.


It's not a judgment on him, at all.  His feelings are entirely natural and understandable.  And to expect anything else would be foolishness on my part.  Do I feel disappointed?  Of course.  There is a part of me that thought he'd be "better" than that.  But I have to remember, "better" comes from my own constructs of right and wrong based on my spiritual beliefs, and because he doesn't share those beliefs, he's going to act on his own as he sees fit.

And I have to remember, my disappointment arose from my own assumptions that were false, and in so far I had falsely assumed, I did not truly love.  To truly love, you have to know; and to know, you have to ask questions and understand as much as you can, and revise that picture you have in your head to as close to reality as you can.  And recommit yourself once again to love.


Otherwise, you will be a stranger in a strange land of your loved one's country, a part of your continent, a part of your main, but never understood because you didn't care enough to learn the language.

Erika and Televangelists

This is in response to my niece Erika on Facebook regarding televangelists. She said:

those people are corrupt. I think they do it just for the cash. Sad really..

Erika, it's more complex than that. People usually are more complex than they appear, but it's much easier to react to them on the basis of their surface appearance. The media does it all the time, unfortunately.

I think many of them start out sincere, really believing, and feel the need to express that in word and deed. But fame and money usually mean power, and power inevitably corrupts. The problem then becomes one of someone who relies on his or her past reputation as a sincere believer, or relies on the good cause they're supporting, who actually has done good, and because of that becomes very lazy about being vigilant about the state of their own hearts and souls. Because, after all, they're preaching about God and helping others, and so that must mean they're good people, right? Unfortunately, once you start believing in your own goodness and stop questioning your own motivations and actions, it's a sure-fire indication you're going down the path of arrogance and hypocrisy. And that's true whether you believe in God or not, or whether you're religious or not. A lot of people believe that because the cause they champion is just and good, that it bleeds over onto them, and that it must mean they're just and good, too. Well, causes are not you, and you are not your cause. You are a whole different entity from whatever cause you champion.

If you look at the televangelists who have gone through scandal, you'll see that at least at one time they have indeed helped others with the money they've gathered, whether in relief aid or other charitable works. Unfortunately, relying on that as justification of their goodness was their downfall. They began thinking they deserved the good things that came to them, and kept taking more for themselves ("hey, I'm good, I deserve this limousine"), instead of understanding that it was the generosity of others that put them where they were. They stopped being truly vigilant about themselves and looking to see if they could do more good for others, rather than settling for things as they were.

You know the tree by the fruit it bears. But you often have to look past the leaves to see the fruit, or else it's very easy to assume there's none.

Random thought

Televangelism makes me think of used sponges. They become infused with germs as they get older, and are better off when someone applies regular heat-sanitization.

God has a Facebook page

I just discovered that God has a Facebook page. And even though I go to church weekly, I find myself actually hesitating friending the Almighty. Yow.

I noticed that God has 2,521,904 fans who friended Him. This is not a whole lot, considering that there are supposedly 2.1 billion Christians, 1.5 billion Muslims, and 14 million Jews in the world (total, 3,614,000,000). Now, granted, not all of them will be internet users. But 23% of the world's population uses the internet, so let's assume that 23% of those who belong to monotheistic religions have internet access. That's 831,220,000, or 483,000,000 Christians; 345,000,00 Muslims; and 3,220,000 Jews. 2.5 million is still way short of the 831.2 million monotheistic religious people who use the internet.

But, of course, not all internet users are Facebook users. There are approximately 250 million Facebook users. Well, let's say that there is the same percentage of monotheistic believers who use Facebook as there are in the world (54.22 percent). That would be 135,550,000 believers. That's 135.55 million Facebook users who are members of a monotheistic religion.

Still way more than the 2,521,904 people (2.52 million, as of August 2nd) who friended Him, and in fact I am willing to bet there are some people who "friended" God who don't really believe and who just did it to snipe at those who do, so that reduces the actual "friend" number even more.

But perhaps Muslims and Jews might have an objection to an image (an image could qualify as an idol) that somehow represents God, and there is a picture on God's Facebook page that is sort of universe-looking, but it's an image nevertheless. Perhaps they as a result aren't friending God as represented by an image. That leaves the potential 33% of Facebook users who might be Christians. So that's 47,442,500, or 47.4 million people.

That's still is way more than 2.52 million people who "friended" God. There are apparently a lot of people who are monotheistic believers who are Facebook users who haven't friended God. And I am one of them.

So, I think, why do I hesitate? I go through a process when I decide to "friend" someone--do I know who that person is? If so, then I friend them. If I don't, are there people I know who have friended them? If there are, then I will, too. But what if I don't know them, and none of my existing friends do? Then I'll go look at their profile and decide on whatever information I find there.

But there is always a chance that there will be a crazy in the bunch, a troll, or someone who just wants to make trouble. Will I get spammed? Will I end up being stalked, my web site/Facebook page hacked? Will I be targeted by Nigerian scam artists?

Oh, the fear. The lovely, lovely fear.

God's Facebook friends network is pretty large--2,521,904--despite the fact that so few monotheistic believers have friended Him compared to the overall population. Thing is, do I trust that network not to do me harm? How choosy do I get to be about the angry people (such as the one who commented "God is Dead" multiple times in 30 different posts. I wonder about such passionate anger and perhaps even hatred that leads one to post that many times in big capital letters) who are part of that network? Or about the other Christians who seem more intolerant than I feel is right? I really could be attacked by either side because my beliefs may not be in concert with their beliefs. It's happened.

But it does seem like God's network includes everyone, is open to everyone, believers or non-believers, haters and lovers, tolerant and intolerant. So far as I can tell, God is open to friending anyone on His Facebook page. You get to belong to a very large network of people who do well, and people who suffer. People you like, and people you wish would just go away. Nice people and nasty people. Seems like God doesn't discriminate much--His network is open to all. And you get to choose whether you join the network or not. Nobody forces you to do it.

I guess the bottom line is, I don't have a problem with God. I have a problem with the people in God's network.

Specifically, I have a problem with the people who are nasty in God's network, and it leads me to ignore the nice people who are in it, too, because as we all know, it's the squeaky wheel that gets the attention. And I tell myself I don't have the time to look for the diamonds in the rough, or muck through the mud to find the pearls. (To mix metaphors...ack!)

Which is not a very Pollyanna way to be.

It is a real dilemma. If I join God's network, it does mean I might have to deal with a lot of potential nastiness, and work pretty hard to find the gold, because mud does tend to cover up the pretty stuff. And no doubt there will be times when I think, God, why do you even LET people like this behave the way they do? It will not be comfortable, and I do like being comfortable.

Yet...as I read through the posts and comments on God's Facebook page, and pierce through the mud and muck, there are human beings there, people who hurt and are hurt, who grieve, who have joy and love, who are just human beings in all their glory and tragedy. No more, no less.

Just human beings. Just like me.

Voodoo on the high seas

I'm taking some time during lunch to see what is going on in my brother's blog. Dave has a Blogspot blog which of course I follow, because not only is he family, he's a merchant seaman on board cargo ships that sail the world and a good storyteller as well. It's a good way for him to inform the family and friends about what's going on with him, as his e-mail length and time are limited when on board ship, and all it takes for him to blog is to send an e-mail to his blog address.

I find his travels to exotic places fascinating since, except for being born in Japan and my honeymoon in Canada's British Columbia, I've never been out of the United States. (So unfair! Everyone else in my family has been to foreign lands except me! Even the DH has been to Europe!) What's interesting to me is on-board ship culture, plus the different people he meets while on board as well as in the places he visits, not the least of which is his latest blog post about a possible Voodoo or Santeria incident on board the ship he's on now.

I'm reading his blog daily now, in hopes of finding out what is going on with the Black Salt incident. I gave what information I happened to remember about the use of salt in both religious and magical rituals (hey, I'm an author of paranormal romance novels--of course I would have this information in the recesses of my memory banks), and it seems to correspond to what is going on there.

Just checked his blog...he posted the info I gave him, plus additional stuff. I hope he posts more soon!

---

Today is my wedding anniversary! The dh and I have been married for 25 years. I believe that's the silver anniversary. Not too bad, huh?

A God Thing

I should know better than to gripe to God, because sooner or later, I’ll get the spiritual two-by-four upside the head. (Although I’m sure I’ll probably continue to gripe, because it’s rather satisfying to gripe to someone who doesn’t get tired of me whining or tell me to cheer up when I don’t feel like cheering up.) So Saturday I was griping because I’d gone out and bought the t-shirts for our church’s little music festival, and few of them were bought, and I had all these doggone shirts left. What am I going to do with all these shirts? I don’t know yet, but I’m sure I’ll find out. These things work themselves out one way or another, I've found. I need to remember that.

The thing I forgot was that the music festival was never about the shirts, and in fact it probably wasn’t even about getting an ecumenical group of musicians out to play great music and have fun on a sunny August day, though all of us thought that was the main purpose of it. Our slogan this year was “Jesus is alive in Federal Way,” which we thought was about singing and playing hymns from the heart and soul with a rock beat.

Not quite. It was actually all about getting people where they needed to be, so that their needs could be met. Which of course is a God-thing, as we at our United Methodist Church would say. It often means the Spirit takes what you've got and does something unexpected with it, but something useful and good.

It’s been my observation that God-things happen all the time, and while most people call them “coincidences” or “serendipity” or even “magic,” they happen a lot at our church, more than I think should be possible. Someone will come into the church office worried because his refrigerator is broken, and then a minute later someone else comes in wanting to get rid of their old but still good refrigerator fast because they just bought a new one. Or the time we needed a sound board operator for our church band for a few weeks. A complete stranger came up to our music director at a non-church party the next evening, and asked if he knew anyone who needed a sound board operator—for EXACTLY the length of time we needed one. Or we needed some plywood to build something, and it just so happens someone comes by the church and wonders if they could offload some plywood. And so on. Happens so often we just shrug our shoulders and say, “it’s a God thing.”

We foolishly thought our church-back-yard music festival was about the music. What it really was about was the person from our neighborhood who heard the music, wandered in, saw our pastor (who no doubt looked approachable because of the balloon animal he was wearing on his head), and ended up finding emotional relief and comfort after talking with him. And it was about one of our own who was anxious about going from a company job to owning her own business after having to deal with the trauma of a family member's severe illness, but found peace when she connected with a stranger (an angel unawares?) who told her she had blessings and abundance surrounding her in what she was going to pursue. And more, probably in ways I haven't heard yet.

I really do have to have faith that even though I may not understand and know the effects of my actions, that they do have an effect. Heaven knows I've been shown this over and over again, even when I've been in despair. There was a time when I despaired of writing romance novels--people call them trash, after all, and what good is trash? It hurt badly sometimes when I would sit down and write something I loved, and then look at it later only to think, there are people out there who think what I do is trash, no matter how much I love it, no matter how much I put all my intellect and heart and soul into it.

I went to a group autographing once a few years ago, feeling that despair. There, a woman asked me to sign a copy of my book for her sister, who had cancer. She said that reading books like mine kept her sister from feeling the pain and the sickness of the disease and the treatments, and gave her hope. I realized then that my vocation of writing romance novels was not about me, or what others think, but was all about that woman, and people like her. People who need hope, who need respite from their very real, very hard, daily lives. It is the privileged who can afford to make judgments on whether a work of creativity is worthy of artistic note. Those who must deal with dread reality only know what keeps them sane and alive. If my books help them do that, then I am more than satisfied. I wish I could thank that woman who came to the autographing. She helped give me a new perspective that is now a deep river of calm underneath the ups and downs of my life.

I have to think that people finding comfort and joy, and the affirmation to follow their bliss and their creativity, are worth more than a bunch of leftover t-shirts. It's closer to what “Jesus is Alive in Federal Way” is about than our very mundane thoughts on musical expression.

So I’m not going to gripe about those t-shirts. At best it means they and I were part of an event that got people connected to what they deeply needed, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. At worst, it’ll mean we'll give away the shirts, and there will be a lot of homeless folk who will be wearing some nice, clean t-shirts. I really can’t lose, when I think of it that way. ☺

--Karen H

Tired!

        Whew. Got done with the Praisefest music festival thingy at my church, which my hubby pulled me into. The music festival was his idea, so of course this meant that I had to take part, whether or not I knew anything about music festivals and how to run them.

        I was in charge of publicity, and since of course this is only the second time our church has put on this summer music fest, and since there were no instructions, I had to figure out things as I went. Such as, gee, it takes a while for a printing company to print up t-shirts, and they need electronic files with color separation. Of course, I know nothing about color separation. Or how many t-shirts to order, because, gosh, nobody really remembers how many were ordered and how many sold the last time, or in what sizes. So, I took a wild guess.

        Never a good thing.

        I ended up with far too many, and so have all these nifty t-shirts on hand. I hope I can sell them at church between services. Please God.

        And speaking of God, since this whole shebang was to glorify God and all, I think He should have taken some responsibility for getting people to buy the t-shirts. I mean, seriously, you’d think He’d give a nudge to the faithful: “look, nifty t-shirts, glorifing Me. Go buy them and save that poor suffering woman over there in the sun from going into serious debt. You’d be doing a Good Work.”

        I dunno, either God was not nudging hard enough or maybe the faithful weren’t being faithful enough to hear.

        Yeah, yeah, I sound grumpy. Most of it, I realize, is feeling some major empty nest syndrome. The Alien Child went off to Washington State University in Pullman early this year--two weeks early so that he could help work on the renovation of his fraternity house. Normally, the boy would be playing some down-and-dirty blues, gospel, and rock electric guitar along with the youth band and the adult band. But this year...well, I don’t think I’m boasting when I say the bands sounded a bit thin without his guitar. He’s got very good at playing, and can improvise around pretty much anything.

        And then there’s the fact that he was really really nice this summer. During the summer of his senior year in high school, there were times he was downright nasty and irritable. Difficult to be around. It wasn’t too hard to let him go to college with a sigh of relief, despite the empty nest twinges. But this summer, he returned even more Alien than ever. Kept his room reasonably clean without protest, did his chores without being told, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the kitchen, worked hard at his summer job without complaint, and was cheerful and upbeat pretty much the whole time. I tried to get in a few nags, but it was useless; the boy either had finished the work before I told him to do it, or he was working on it as I geared up for a good spate of nagging.

        (sigh) Well, it may well be that he’ll be snagged by one of the campus pastors for their band during the school year. The Pullman United Methodist minister had heard the Alien Child play at the Annual Conference and was at once seized by what I can only characterize as an unholy avaricious spirit and has recruited the boy to play at the Pullman church’s and youth outreach band. My fear is that the Alien Child will wish to spend his summers playing with the band at Pullman, rather than come home.

        But no, I won’t think about that. And I will try not to become what I am sure he sees as Stalker Mom, the kind of Mom that sends e-mails every day, and obsesses over why he isn’t e-mailing back, worrying that maybe he’s been run over by a truck, or even abducted by the aliens who allowed him to grow up under my care. After all, it is wholly possible that those interesting markings in the acres of Palouse wheatfields around Pullman, WA could be, might be, probably are, alien crop circles. Both the hubby and the Child said they were tracks made by wheat harvesters, but they are obviously without imagination, or more likely, were trying to assuage my fears by hiding the facts. It’s clear to me that any one of the grain silos or barns along the way to WSU could be hiding an alien spaceship, ready to take my dear Alien Child away forever....

        Ahem. Anyway. Empty nest. Yes indeedy. Got it bad. And it isn’t helped by the fact that I’m tired from all the activity today. So, off to bed, and I’m sure I’ll be more coherent and reasonable in the morning.

--Karen H.

An Alien Christmas

One of the problems with being a Christian and a SF/F movie fan is that occasionally the two concepts juxtapose and your perceptions become a little off from the mainstream. I found out that my dh, definitely a SF and horror fan as well as a conservative Christian (Ah, ah! Watch those stereotypes!) does not care for the Mel Torme Christmas song that begins "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire." We hear the version sung by Nat King Cole the most.

"All right, what's bugging you about that song?" I asked the next time I saw him shudder.

He looked at me solemnly. "Tiny tots with their eyes all a-glow," he said. "It makes me think of the 1960's horror film, Village of the Damned."

I thought back for a minute on all the SF and horror movies we'd watched together. "You mean the one where these blond haired kids start taking over a village?"

"Right," he said. "They were tiny tots. And their eyes glowed."

"And their stares could 'paralyze the will of the world'," I said. "They were alien beings, mysteriously concieved in the wombs of the village women. A sort of virgin birth."

"That's right," he said, and his voice lowered with dark portent. "Jesus was the first...but There Will Be Others! Mwahahahahaha!"

"I don't think Jesus did the eye-glow thing," I said. "Or the mwahahaha."

"No, he probably had a benign laugh, but he did glow."

"Yeah," I said. "But it was an overall glow. I think the eye-glows are signs that they're bad guys. Like the Goa'ulds on Stargate. Note that the Ancients, who are generally good guys, glow all over."

"True," he said, his faith evidently restored. Tell you the truth, the idea of Jesus as an alien felt just a teeny bit...weird to me, too. Intriguing, but weird.

He shook his head, sighing. "Village of the Damned. In a Christmas song. Makes you wonder whose chestnuts were roasting. Must have been after they took over the village, doing it out in the open like that."

"And they didn't sleep," I said. "Waiting for Santa Claus. Ominous, that's what I think."

"Damned straight."

We sat in silence, contemplating the fate of Santa in the hands of glowy-eyed alien tots.

"We are so not getting that movie on DVD," I said.

"Right," he said, and grinning, went off to do some Christmas shopping with our son.

I got the Serenity DVD for Christmas instead, thank God. Even so, I am never going to think of that Christmas song in the way I used to.

--Karen H.

Reverence

Reverence: n, A feeling or attitude of deep respect, tinged with awe; veneration.

For some reason this morning, I don't know why, Mr. Rogers came to mind. Maybe because I was thinking of my son, now at Washington State University, going through finals week. When Derek was a toddler, he was a big fan of Mr. Rogers. He'd watch the show every day, and when he'd hear the beginning music, he'd run to his room and grab his little red cardigan, and put it on just like Mr. Rogers would, then watch with deep attention and be absolutely still and quiet the whole time. God bless Mr. Fred Rogers for that quiet time! He was good at making kids feel secure, and I think that feeling persisted. In fact, when Derek went to high school, he wore a tan cardigan that his friends would teasingly say was his Mr. Rogers sweater. He'd wear it anyway, because he still thinks Mr. Rogers was a cool guy, and there's nothing wrong with remembering someone who is cool. He still wears his Mr. Rogers cardigan even today, though I'll need to repair it since it's getting a bit tattered.

There's a certain self-assurance in persisting in something you like simply because you like it, never mind anyone else's opinion. It grows out of a feeling that you're liked just the way you are, which of course was what Mr. Rogers always said, believed, and acted upon. It came from his belief that the space between him in his television show and his audience was holy ground.

When I first heard that, it profoundly affected me. It's an amazing attitude. It meant that he thought of each child out there, each parent, with reverence. What he'd say was carefully considered, not with himself in mind, but with that whole person out there in mind. He thought of them with consideration, respect, and even awe. There's every indication from other people's reports that Mr. Rogers genuinely had that attitude and acted on it. He studied child psychology and had advisors to ensure that his show was geared toward the child in a gentle, reassuring manner. Where children were coming from was of great importance, and it seemed he had that attitude toward adults, too. Mr. Rogers had always with him an attitude of reverence. He cared about where people were coming from.

It's the winter holiday season right now, and whatever anyone might think of it religiously, politically, or socially, it's archetypally a holiday that symbolizes light in the midst of darkness, plenty in the midst of famine, love in the midst of fear, forgiveness in the midst of hurt. I don't want to get into what this season "should" be called. Right now, for a long time now, people have been fighting over words and things that offend them. I'm seeing people being offended right and left. They're not looking into where other people are coming from or where they are. All that matters is that they're offended, and what the other person intended, felt, or have in their hearts doesn't matter. A lot of people are getting into that and fighting about it, and I am barely keeping hold of the reverence idea because I want to say a pox on both your houses, but this is not what this holiday is about.

This holiday is about being Pollyannas, and even better, being Mr. Rogerses, because he was a real guy who did his best to live a life of reverence with respect to his neighbors, and his Neighborhood was really big. It's about knowing there is dark all around you, and it's getting darker, but there is light to be found anyway. It's about acknowledging there's anger in you, but finding the love and giving it to others. It's about not wanting to forgive, but forgiving. And it's about thinking you don't have much, but giving anyway.

Because if you can do any of that, you know you haven't hit bottom. And even if you have hit bottom, guess what? There's only one way left to go after you've hit bottom, especially if you've got yourself in a small, dark hole, and that direction is up. There's a lot of hope in that.

I'd like to suggest that we do the Mr. Rogers thing and think about the space between ourselves and other people as holy ground. Whatever tradition you were raised in, there are certain things you do when you encounter that space. Some people take their shoes off and let the goodness flow up from their feet and into their spirits; they connect themselves with it physically. Some take their hats off to let the divine pour down on their heads. Some dance. Some sing. Some hold out a helping hand. Some mix and match the above. But whatever it is they do, it comes from that reverent place within, that respectful place that has the ability to wonder and perceive the world--and the world includes people!--with awe and joy.

It's what's at the core of love. "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

So when someone says "Merry Christmas," "Happy Holidays," "Happy Hannukah," "Happy Kwanzaa" or a "Serene Buddha Enlightenment Day," let's get past the words to where they're at, which is that they're giving you a greeting and a blessing and wishing you well in the best way they understand, and from their heart. It's from who they are as unique individuals. And if you're doing the Mr. Rogers holy ground attitude, you'll know they're doing it, too.

In a world where there's a lot of pain, want, and worry, I don't think we should be so picky. Blessings and good wishes are to be cherished, in whatever form they might take. In my personal tradition, if it's good, it comes from God, and I notice that God likes to surprise us by disguising the good stuff so we can discover them, like Belgian chocolates tucked in the toes of Christmas stockings. It may take a bit of digging, but it's there to find. It may not look like something we'd like, but we never know until we try it. 

After all, if chocolate didn't have pretty wrappers on them with the words "chocolate" printed on them, those little brown lumps would make you think they're something else, especially if you kept your distance when you look at them. Luckily, someone overcame their initial impression, and got up close and personal with chocolate, so now we can have them in stockings and wrapped up as presents, or mixed in Godiva ice cream.

So from where I'm at, standing right here on holy ground and from my heart, I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays, and a Wonderful New Year.

--Karen H.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is most definitely a Pollyanna kind of day. Let's look at how it began.

1) The Pilgrims left England because not too many people liked their brand of religion. Countries were pretty big on religious intolerance in the 1600s.

2) They came over on a very small ship, were very crowded on that ship, went through some nasty storms, and were generally cursed at by the seafarers, which couldn't have been all that great, considering they were religious sorts. Also, nobody took baths, sanitation was abysmal, so the place stank for the months they were traveling to the new world.

3) A lot of them died, including children. See #2 above.

4) When they landed in the New World, it was cold, nasty, and the place looked desolate. It was so forbidding and hopeless-looking that it's said one woman committed suicide by jumping off the ship and drowning.

5) They settled at a bad time of year, when few crops could grow. A lot more died during the winter of disease and malnutrition.

It was nothing like Merrie Old England. No green pastures, forbidding dark forests, and natives that were probably not all that friendly. So, why Thanksgiving? Why have a party that thanked God for all they had? Why not think about how awful it'd been and give up in despair? Go back to England? Sure, nobody liked them there, but it wasn't as if they'd die unless they got too out of hand for the government.

Well, some of them were still alive. Some children had been born. And, a nice Native came out of the woods and asked if they had some beer--in English--and though he had to settle for whiskey, he was friendly enough and showed them how to survive better. A miracle, they thought, that they'd meet up with such a guy.

And it wasn't as if Squanto had it all nice and cozy either. Fact: he'd been captured by white men and sold as a slave. After years of work, and finally attaining his freedom, he came back to his land and found...that his family and whole tribe was dead. He was the last of his people. A lot of people would have given up at that point.

So, why did he help out these white folks, and why did these Pilgrims help him in return? It's not like either of them had great experiences with each others' people.

It just took a few white men who cared for Squanto when he was young and healed him of his wounds and illness to make him see that not all white men were bad. And it took a few friendly words in English from Squanto to show the Pilgrims that not all natives were bad. Each helped each other, and soon, each were friends and celebrated survival and increased abundance by sharing and thanking God for making their lives better than they had been. The first Thanksgiving feast was all about sharing: the Pilgrims pulled out all the stops and put what they had on the table. The Natives were invited to feast, but when they found there wasn't quite enough on the table, they went out, hunted up some deer, cooked it up, and put that on the table. A potluck!

Yeah, it'd been bad for all of them, but they could think of things to be thankful for. Things to be glad about.

Survival is good. Increased abundance is good. And looking back at the bad times and knowing that it's not that way any more is surely something to be happy about. The Pilgrims and Squanto had things to share; because of that, they could tell each other that they still possessed something worthwhile. They may not have been rich, but they had things to share and give each other. If they had not things, they had friendships to share. In their hearts, they were rich.

So maybe life hasn't been great, and maybe it still isn't so hot. But seasons change, hands are held out to help, and friends can be made. And, what you have, you can share. Regardless of how little you think you have, if you have something to share, in my humble opinion, you're not heart-poor, but rich indeed.

Have a warm, abundant, and happy Thanksgiving!

--Karen H.

Hopeful hug

Today, I was given a lot of hugs at church, because I will be going in for surgery tomorrow--a routine procedure these days. But I received one hug that was not for this reason, but for another entirely.

There is a family in our church, whose children's birth mother is a drug addict. When this family adopted them, these babies were hooked on crack. This morning at church, the little 4 year old girl came up to give me a hug during service. She's a tiny thing, with wise eyes, and wispy light brown hair, and a sweet, often solemn face. She noticed that my son was not with me at church. She's fond of Derek, I know, because her face lights up whenever she sees him, and he's always willing to lift her up and give her a bit of a swing in the air. When her adoptive mother told her that he was far away living at a grown-up school, the girl came over to give me a hug because she concluded I might be lonely without him.

There was a lot that came into that hug. This is a little girl who came into the world with some serious problems, born to a drug-addicted mother who almost killed her with neglect. But this child could look at me, a grown-up, and think about what I must be feeling, not having my own child with me. That's a lot of thinking, and empathy, for a child this age.

I think she will do all right: she's a loving child who dances in the aisles to hymns because the music makes her happy. No one stops her, and our pastor and people in the congregation have taken her hand and danced with her.

I think there is hope in the world when a child born in such a condition can think about the consequences of family, be empathetic, dance for joy, and inspire others to dance with her. And I'm thankful for adoptive parents like hers.

--Karen H.

Learning through joy

Most of us believe that we have to suffer to learn life's lessons, bear some kind of pain to achieve growth, and all that.

I''m going to suggest something different: it's possible to learn through joy.

I'm not putting down anyone who has traveled the rocky road (and I'm not talking about ice cream here, although if someone has grown emotionally or spiritually by ingesting chocolate ice cream, I want to hear about it), because hey, been there done that, and it's been valuable. But when I look back on that road, most of those rocks were ones I put there myself out of stubbornness or impatience or whatever other one of the seven deadlies you want to name, including the worst--despair. Sometimes it was out of ignorance or inexperience. It happens.

But there are times of great and little joys, and for some reason we tend to discount them, as if they were trivial or fleeting and thus not worth consideration. The times of laughter can't mean as much as the times of grief or anger. Those depressing ideas are pervasive. Think about it: how many times have comedies won the Academy Award compared to dramas? Not a whole lot.

However, it is in those times of laughter that our defenses are down, and we let the truth in. What makes us laugh is not something that threatens us, even though it may be something that's presented to us in a surprising or unusual way. Even when it's something as simple as a pun, there is a connection established nevertheless, the twinkling eyes of the punster meeting the rolling ones of the audience because there is an understanding that yes, they are on the same page, they "get it." Right there, you know that the presentation of a surprise, of some change in your understanding is fine, is good, is at least not going to hurt you or anyone else in any real way. An intellectual or emotional connection with your fellow human beings is a generally good thing.

And yes, I have know punsters who have committed very egregious puns, and I still maintain it's a good thing.

Then there are the other times of laughter or joy--the birth of a much desired child (would that all births of children were welcomed!), the touch of a tender hand, words of praise sincerely given, the joy of giving and watching another's face light with pleasure. These are not just mindless instances, but opportunities to learn, to grow. Dwell in the knowledge that you are worth a tender touch, the praise, that you have the power to bring joy. These are empowering things, and if you don't have a certain amount of power, how will you grow?

It takes power--energy--to grow. If a flower refuses the touch of the sun, shrinks from taking in water, it will most certainly not grow. And yet, people will shrink from the warmth of love, from the joy of acknowledging the gifts of others, and their own gifts. That's not growing, or I should say, it's the hard road to growth, because first you feel the hurt and the darkness before you get the idea, oh, wait, that love and joy stuff was all right after all. It'd be a lot easier to acknowledge the joy right from the start.

So if you're given a moment of joy, dwell in it. Sink yourself in it and revel in it. You may learn a lot more than you think.

--Karen H.

Another thought

The simplest beliefs are the hardest to live by.

--Karen H.

About that last post of mine

A little grouchy were we? Why I persist in posting in the dead of night, I don't know. I was tired when I wrote it.

The title of that post, I should mention, is from Shakespeare's sonnet #116, which goes like this:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

- - - -

I should have just posted that poem, because it really says it all. It doesn't say that life will be smooth and wonderful and great, or that nobody will grow old and die. It does say that love is always there, steady, a guide to who and where you are, even when you think you're lost. Love brings peace, and points of joy. If it doesn't, my question to you is, what are you afraid of? What are you avoiding? What conditions are you putting on love that you don't have the peace and the joy? And if your emotions are in upheaval, if you're troubled, if you're lost...is that love's fault, or is it your own?

The funny thing about people is that when their love life goes wrong, when they feel lonely, they blame it on love, rather like the way they'll blame things on God when life in general doesn't go right, or when people start fighting and killing each other, or natural disasters--"acts of God" as if the only acts of God are disasterous. Which actually is all right where love and God is concerned because they can take a lot of hits and still will be around after the dust settles. They're probably the only scapegoats that can take that much punishment. So go ahead and blame love, blame God, they can take it.

The thing is, can you? That's the sad thing; you point fingers at love as the ultimate in stupidity, and you know, you may get a sense of superiority, you may get a feeling of sophistication and even righteousness, but your home is still pretty lonely at night, even if you had all the money in the world to buy willing bodies to fill that home...well, that's all you've got, bodies and not hearts.

It can be a scary thing, this love. But I don't think you can afford to be without it.

Go where love is.

--Karen H.

An Ever-Fixed Mark

We romance writers write a lot about love, which of course most everyone scorns as romantic sap, pap, sentimentality, all that.

As if all of that was bad. Puhleeze. It's a hell of a lot better than violence, evil, hatred, and despair. Give me sentimental pap any day over the next betrayal, the next drive-by shooting, the next drug overdose. We romance writers know about that stuff. We read all about it. Many of us have had to deal with it.

But we still hold onto hope, and of course love. Especially love. Because the truth is, love is the strongest thing there is.

Ooh, oooh, Karen, you are SUCH a Pollyanna!

Damn straight I am, and me and Pollyanna are right, too. We're backed up by such greats as Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many, many others of such ilk. I remember Jesus was really big on the love issue, and not so hot on the violence and hatred thing. People who are really connected to God tend to be that way, and frankly I think the way people tend to take the "Reverend" title off the name of Martin Luther King is not a good thing, because it diminishes his roots, where he came from. It's good to remember where people come from, because there's a lot to be learned from the path they walk, where they left traces of the love they had to give.

Let me tell you something I know about. Let's say you have someone who is in great pain, someone who is dying of a slow, terrible disease. As his loved ones gather around him, the nurses administer the pain medication so that his passing will be "comfortable"--and believe you me, it's never comfortable, it only takes the edge off the ever-present pain. And yet, through the drug, through the terrible pain, this person manages to look at those he loves and says, "I love you." Those are the words he says, over and over again, and you know it's true. My dad said this before he died, and I'm sure some of you know of others who said it before they died.

Now why is it that this person says these words? We're talking major pain here. We're talking impending death. What most of us would think are the Big Ticket Items of Life. But this person chooses to talk of love.

This is because to this person, love is more important than pain. It's more important than impending death. There are times you can't do anything about the pain you have or the pain someone else has. You sure as hell can't do anything about death. We all die. We don't have a choice about these things. Pain and death are a fact of life.

But you can do a lot about love. You can choose to love, you can choose to tell those you love that you love them. The will to love is so strong, that once you have given it, you want to give it again, even through pain, even through impending death. Getting love is a pretty grand thing, too.

Many years ago, I met a woman who told me she didn't want to be in a relationship with anyone, because it would be too painful when that person died or left her. It would be painful for the person who loved her if she died or left. Best not to love at all. This woman didn't even have a pet, no dog, no cat, not even a plastic one, I'm sure. I think I told her that I was sorry she felt like that. I felt really sad that she wouldn't experience love, that she'd be lonely all her life, but wow, she had a point, to love and to lose is very painful.

More than a decade later, I thought of that woman again and I thought, what a chickenshit. I tell you, the older I get, the less patience I seem to have for people, it's terrible. (Not.) A few more years later--today, in fact--I thought about her again, and I still think she's chickenshit.

Let's look at this logically. (1) We all die. (2) We all feel pain, both physically and emotionally. (3) Both 1 and 2 are unavoidable. Proof? Name one person who has never experienced either physical or emotional pain of any kind. I dare ya.

Given the above, we still have choices about (1) how we die--and I don't really mean what we die of, but rather how we conduct ourselves, and (2) the some of the kinds of pain we will feel and how we'll respond to it.

So I have to ask you: given that you will die, and that you will feel pain of some kind, would you prefer to go through pain and death never having experienced the joy of love even for a moment, or experienced it even for the space of a day?

Think carefully. Two choices, both of which have pain and most certainly death at the end. One has experienced the joy of love. The other has not.

I'm sad to say that there will be more than a few people who will choose Door Number Two, like that chickenshit woman. She was too afraid to reach out for love, to reach out for the joy. I won't deny it takes courage--or naivete!--to love. It's never anger or hatred that keeps us from love, it's always fear. And I have to say, those who claim that only the naive dare love and love often, are probably in the fear camp. I'd rather be naive than a chickenshit, and frankly at the age of 40-something, I think I have got over most of my naivete, and hopefully most of my fear, thought that Fear-Girl, she is a sneaky thing and can think of all sorts of reasons why I Can't, and Shouldn't, and Won't.

However, I'm in on the Pollyanna deal, so I choose the life with love in it, fear or no fear. I'm all over the love thang, I'm seizing life with both hands and wrapping the bow-ties of love over that whole big package. And on my deathbed, I'm going to look at my loved ones--or what the heck, anyone who happens to be nearby--and say, "I love you."

At the very least, it'll freak someone out, and I'll have a good chuckle before I go. :-)

--Karen H.

A thought

Love is the highest truth, and kindness the best virtue.

--Karen H.