It is not THEM. It is US.

It begins here:
"You get your temper from your father's side of the family, not mine."
"Whatever problems you have, you can blame them on your mother."

It progresses:
"If your generation were not so irresponsible and selfish, there would be stability in our future."

We acquiesce:
"Were you a jock in high school or a nerd, hipster,  Goth, R.O.T.C. or Jesus freak?"

Soon, we learn that there is safety and comfort in numbers:
"It is the Republicans that got us into this mess and the Democrats who will get us out.  Vote for our side."


And finally we decide that if we are right, then they must be wrong:
" What does he know?  He's just a fear-mongering Christian, a greedy Jew, a terrorist Muslim." 
"I'm glad I'm not one of them."

I don't believe in coincidence.

On 9-11-2001 Christine Green, the youngest victim of the Tucson shooting, was born into a world that was paralyzed by grief and polarized by fear.  She was too young to choose sides or to comprehend the insidious emotion of hatred.  She simply was.

On  1-9-2011, Christine Green was taken out of a world that was paralyzed by grief and polarized by fear.  The numbers in those dates remained the same; only their sequence had changed.

There is a need right now to look beyond the obvious and read the signs of the times.   The date of her birth and of her death each add up to the number Five.    In Numerology Five is the number of change;  more specifically, change in the midst of chaos.

I don't believe in coincidence.

The drawing that accompanies this text was finished on the day of the shooting.  I had originally intended it to be for my son, an inmate, and for all of the men and women locked behind penitentiary walls.

But on that day, as I watched in disbelief while the various camps circled their wagons and hurled blame at one another,  I realized that we are the inmates and that as long as we swaddle our apprehensions in cunning layers of division and blame, we will remain sentenced for life to a prison of ignorance, rage and loss.

Inside each of us there is a wall bound together with a mortar composed of fear and pride whose bricks are the unexamined detritus of our prejudice.  They are those hard-baked thoughts that tell us that all Whites are imperious racists, Blacks are inferior,  Hispanics are lazy,  Jews are greedy,  Christians are simple-minded,  Liberals are Socialist radicals,  Conservatives are self-righteous,  Muslims are terrorists, Atheists and Pagans are evil,  Homosexuals are depraved,  Foreigners can't be trusted,  Priests are pedophiles,  Athletes are stupid,  Actors are superficial,  Intellects are arrogant,  the Humble are weak,  the Wealthy are indifferent,  and the Poor are ignorant.

But most of them just say,  I am right and you are wrong."


I don't believe in coincidence.

And I don't want to believe that a little girl who was slain by a madman; a product of our collective indifference to unconditional love which is the object of our humanity, on a date that mirrors that of her birth, both pointing us to the message that the separatist paradigms within tribes, classes, races, religions, political parties and ideological casts have got to change- has died in vain.

For my part I would rather be taken out of this world while attempting to love and understand my supposed enemy than to remain alive attempting to prove that I am right.


Christine Green was only nine years old.  Nine, the sacred number of harmony, Divine Will, eternity,  creation, completion and endings.  She was a ballerina, a daughter, a big sister, a friend, a student and a bright little harbinger of hope.

She was not one of Them.


She was one of US.


We ALL are.


I don't believe in coincidence.
It is time to wake up.


Illustration text:  Freedom is a state of mind.  Peace cannot exist around you if it does not exist within you.  Forgive all, especially yourself.  Happiness is a choice.  The only way out is by going within.  Now matters.  Listen to the silence.

NEW YEAR'S EVESDROPPING

Of course, you don't think it will happen to you.  No one ever does.

But then you hear it.  Just when you think that you've dodged the fixed gaze of last year's insouciance and have thoroughly scanned the horizon for easier vows, you overhear that niggling internal dialog that ruins everything.

You know the one: 

That ambush of integrity that corners you at the edge of your holiday celebration.  The one that comes just as you stand on the precipice of blissful ignorance ready to enter the new year unfettered by conscience.

It is the blight that is left swilling in your brain after twelve months of careless indulgence.  It is the sodden heap of regret and the Pollyanna-threat of renewal.

Now suddenly you are beset with introspection when all you crave is frivolous action.  It is the ultimate buzz kill and it stings like hell.  

I know because it happened to me.

Damn.

A New Year is cresting; it's unblemished promise scouring my unconscious seeking out only the choicest moments of failure or weakness from which will come those prickly resolutions for the next unfolding.

What now?

Do I sort through my mistakes and losses with an indifferent eye to avoid the shame and grief that need only a nod to activate their bottomless despairing?

Or  hold the weight of new dreams against the door of old misgivings and risk losing all credibility?

Or perhaps just dance with the pathology of remorse until we both collapse in giddy forgiveness?

How much retrospection is required before redemption?

How much purity, for resurrection?

Will they come this year?

And so I resign:

That the weight will be lighter;

the giving, greater;

the inaction, activated;

the prospects, productive

and all gains, good.

I will gather my belligerence and shake it until it smiles.

And walk into the New Year

holding the light.....

and perhaps

a strong drink.

One trip at a time. 

Happy New Year! 

PLEASE STOP! A Declamation Against Christmas Card Abuse

I promised myself I would not let this happen.  I told myself last year that when the 2010 Christmas cards came filtering in that I would NOT be negatively overcome by the seemingly mandatory inclusion of the increasingly popular MASS HOLIDAY LETTER.

But after receiving more of them this year than in any year previously, I can barely contain my frustration.

Almost invariably they come from those I don't know very well - Those I know through someone else or from some long-ago stage of my life. Stages so removed and distant that I can barely maintain an emotional connection with my own memories of those times let alone a sentimental tethering to the peripheral inhabitants on the edges of them.

Look, If we know each other, then I have likely already heard that your eldest was married in June, your mother-in-law loves her new room at the assisted-living facility and your 15-year old Beagle named Spud was put to sleep at the benevolent hand of your vet.  And if we have a sincere bond between us but one that fate or logistics prevents from updating more than once a year, I welcome your news.

Conversely, if I don't know you well enough to have heard those things, why would you believe that it matters?

Once upon a time, when it was still only possible to gush in pen and ink, those revelations would have meant something.  Why?  Because they would have been written by hand in each and every card.  Effort and care would have backed whatever favorably superficial news you felt compelled to share lending to it an air of intimacy and elevating its importance.

 I would have understood that whatever your news, it must have been important enough to you that you took the time to form each letter within every word just to spell it out for me.  I would have been touched by that and likely responded to it in my return Christmas greeting.

However, if you and I are casual acquaintances, I don't really care to receive that newsy Xerox informing me of your trip to Fiji with your dentist and his wife in February or how many hours it took on the boat before you saw land.  Why would I?

I'm not even sure why I am on your Christmas card list in the first place, unless it is because you are suffering from a bout of insecurity or existential angst and feel it necessary to proclaim the most lustrous highlights of your existence to as many people as you feel might be impressed by them.

Seriously.

And while I am truly sorry that your health has been suffering, is my knowledge of this information really going to deepen our connection?  I now know more about the state of your colon, gastrointestinal blockages and cholesterol levels than I do the state of your mind.

If we are not close friends, then the odds are that I don't know your children well either - If at all.  So, why would I need to be told which colleges they were accepted into or how many ski trips they took to Telluride since October or the names of your grandchildren replete with an additional litany of all their activities and accomplishments in the past calendar year?

Honestly, what would make anyone believe that a detailed accounting of all the beaches and shops you visited on that snorkeling trip to Cabo would be of any interest whatsoever to someone who knows so little of you that they are not even sure how to spell your last name?

I'm sorry.  I am simply not buying the saccharine theory that this is a legitimate display of friendship; of saying, "I care."

How is your telling me about that autumn camping trip through Yellowstone, the cruise to the Caribbean or your three-week tour of the vineyards in Southern France a sign that you care for anyone or anything other than letting as many people as possible know you have time on your hands and money to spare?

If you don't care enough to share with me who you are, why do you want me to know so much about what you do?

And for those who can find nothing more substantial to chronicle than a blithe list of acquisitions, accomplishments and assets, have you ever considered how these polished manifestoes to everything bright and shiny might impact a recipient whose current state is not so blessed?  Someone who has perhaps lost a loved one, a home, a job, is battling a serious illness or depression?

Do you really care for those poor sods on your Christmas card list or do you simply want to make sure they know that your gig is better than theirs?

Try as I might, I can't help believing that this insipid display of unmitigated and superficial preening is not for our benefit but for yours, and it makes me feel like little more than a cog in the wheel of your grasping self-importance.

Do me a favor.  Take me off of your list.

Or, if you are really sincere in wanting to let me know that you are thinking of me, just sign your name with love.

And give me a call sometime.

UNTIL IT IS CHRISTMAS, AGAIN

And so it is Christmas, again.  

Depending upon where you live the winds may have grown decidedly colder with front porches and backyard patios forced to shed their hospitable design. 

From the facing window at my drawing table, I look out and see the wrought iron furniture laced with icy tendrils of frozen white, as if they were spun to crystalized symmetry by some Nordic god. The snow-laden clay pots, stacked against disorder in a dormant corner of the yard, hold the grayed, brittle remnants of summer's blooms; and seeing them I am drawn to consider the benefits of hibernation and the power of seasonal glee as it arises through music and song.

There are only a handful of Christmas songs I look forward to hearing, songs whose notes resonate with an earlier version of my life and can entice my heart to linger a while amidst the memories of simpler days .  

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas is perhaps my favorite, and I willingly revel in the sentimental chords that place the wounds of the present into festive, wrapped boxes decorated with bells and bows and delivers them to a place where I am able to open them as the gifts that they inherently are.

I know that there is no such thing as useless suffering if wisdom is valued above discomfort and the dual meaning of the word present is not lost on me in this season or in any other. It is a gift I wish more people understood and one whose value I must continually reassess myself.  

It is not hard to become morose when caught in the lyrical grip of Silent Night or The Christmas Song while your own nights may feel anything but silent, and far from helping to make the season bright, a turkey and some mistletoe only remind you of who is missing from the table and why.

But that is the perfect time to open one of those festooned boxes of unresolved emotion and try it on for size. Turning ill-fitting grief into a bright garment of resolution and illumination is the most incredible gift you can own and once it is yours, you also have the option of re-gifting that wisdom to someone else. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

And so it is Christmas, again.

A few days ago I stumbled upon an old home video, one that was taken by my husband on a Christmas morning seventeen years ago and featured the very young editions of my three children. At first I watched it with bemused interest, laughing at the stridency of my youngest who at age three was already managing our household with the conviction of a five-star general and at the lithe and dreamy character of my middle daughter and her relentless determination to float above the chaos of the morning bundled in little more than optimism and her new sweater.

What parent would not be moved by the delight of an enchanting moment held in the celluloid grasp of a better time?

Then the camera panned to my son. At twelve years old he struggled mightily to subdue his obvious elation at the gift he received of a pair of roller blades, no doubt believing that because he stood on the precipice of his teens, any marked outburst of joy would betray the serious estate of his young adulthood.

Yet however much he tried to neuter his outward response, he could not erase the truth of it in his eyes, and as the camera lens closed in upon them, I saw what I have not seen in them for the better part of the past ten years:  I saw happiness and I saw peace.

As the camera recorded him eagerly fitting his feet into those cumbersome wheeled boots, my mind quickly flashed to the young man today where he resides in a state penitentiary and to the addiction, diffidence and collapse of integrity and hope that brought him there one ill-fated choice at a time.  

Frozen and almost unable to breathe I stood before the television screen and watched the grace and strength of his movements as he exercised his new gift in the driveway along with his sister; the two of them laughing with the unbridled giddiness known only to the young, as they circled the lumbering body of our ever-patient Newfoundland, Frodo.  

It is difficult to imagine such darkness could evolve from what seemed such brilliantly privileged beginnings. Privileged not in wealth or in trappings but in love and belief - in family and intentions.  

Yet it can and it did, and as long as he has remained in this state of broken, these sentimental songs of Christmas have not been easy to hear.

Still, some part of my soul craves them, and I have to assume that it is the same part that holds out hope for a happy ending; the part that is willing to unwrap these pretty boxes of pain and model the contents until they fit like velvet robes of acceptance and peace.

The part that thrives in every season and simply will not give up-

Until it is fully Christmas, again.

Merry Christmas, One and All............