Ben Camino's Christmas Thing (First Published 2019)

Ben Camino's Christmas Thing
 

 

Missy got a truck. 

I think she's happy for a minute. 

She was blue earlier. "Don't know why," she said. 
I think I know but I'm not saying. 

I'm blue most of the time. 

I think I know why, but I'm not saying. 

I did a thing. I dreamed it up and Gordon said yes, 

and now it's real.

A truck for Missy.

That made me very happy. 

For a second. Maybe less. 

Now I'm blue. 

But the gloom is less gloomy when you look at your sister, and she says, 

"I got a truck!"

Lots of people have trucks, I know.

Some of them, I assume are blue anyway(s). 

But still. A truck.

People are cleaning up in the kitchen. 

Gordon, Margaret, Missy, but not Noel.

I got out of the cleaning up because of my leg, although

to tell you the truth, 

three or the four of us have some leg issue 

this Christmas. 

The girls, Claire and Katy, are in the back room. 

I decided not to drink. I decided to feel everything.

There's so much pain and shame and sorrow

 and yet  . . . and yet.

"Wow, I got a truck," Missy keeps saying. 

Gordon is singing along with "O Holy Night" on the "radio"--

or whatever this online thing is called coming through his television (if that's what things with screens are still called). 

I'm sitting in Margaret's grandfather's chair. 

There's a computer screen and a big big screen 
both showing the same online fireplace scene 
with Christmas music oozing forth from it. 

So many screens between me and whatever oozed its way out of Bethlehem and Mary oh so many so deep cold winternights ago. 

The Deacon who preached Sunday said that the gospel turns the fairy tale around. 

The frog kissed the princess and the princess became a frog. 

Condescending.

He didn't say that. I said that. 

It's one of my favorite words. 

Mostly because people don't understand that it describes something beautiful, and I, linguistic sinner that I am, like to understand the meanings of things. And words. 

At least the Deacon cited his source -- Sesame Street.

His allegorical interpretation: God kisses us (through Mary, I'm still working on that image) and He becomes one of us. 

My leg hurts and doesn't seem to be getting better, 

at least not as quickly as I like. 

Also, there are things I don't understand (if anyone wondered). 

I had tofu kabobs for dinner and all the rest. For a minute, 

I wanted meat. Lots of meat. 

All the meat. The very best meat.

I want things I don't have. Pout. 

"I'm gonna' go look at my title," says Missy. 

"Because I have a truck." 

When she opened the card with the registration and stuff,  she cried and cried. 

We surrounded her with a hug and kinda squeezed together, 

and she cried and cried and cried some more. 

I want those kind of tears. I want everything I can't have. 

Or just everything, I guess. 

Now, Gordon is singing something silly to the tune of "In the Bleak Midwinter." 

Gordon is doing this while holding his old little dog who is probably dying. [dear reader, the dog died; the previous year my little dog died, in case you are keeping track]

To the tune by Gustav Holst: 

"On the feast of angels/the most horrible dog in the world." 

Then he slips into his phony German language for a line or two. 

I have no idea about my brother sometimes. 

I also got a gift for Christmas. A nose hair trimmer. 

From Missy.

Fair enough. I gave her a truck (Gordon and I that is). She gave me a nose hair trimmer.

I'm trying to laugh not cry about that when Gordon goes into his Michael Caine impression and says . . . 

"Well Joe, your sister and I have been meaning to address this issue with you for some time. 

Your nose grooming has been . . . minimal to say the least. 

We reckoned the time for a nose-hair intervention had come. 

We don't want you walking about London with a nose like Fagin's."

I said something like: 

I hereby vow that from henceforth and forever, 

my nose grooming will conform to her majesty's highest standards.

Oxford accent. 

Margaret is talking to her mother, speaker phone mode. We all listen in for a bit. 

Then, "In the Bleak Midwinter" comes on the fireplace mix again, and Gordon perks up. "Wow, that is gorgeous. What is that?" And I excitedly tell him all about Christina Rossetti and recite the poem/song from memory. And we share that. 

You need useless information? I'm full of it. Full. of. it. 

I makes me happy, though, to tell him about one of my favorite poets/dead people.

It feels good for a second or two to be happy, because, right now, in truth, I'm mostly sick of myself.

On the other hand, my nose will from henceforth be seriously well groomed. 

I talked to the kids on the phone. Lauren sounded mature as she should, as she does. Jenny, in the background mostly, chattering like a hyper high-pitched chipmunk. "Are you . . .  drunk?" I asked. "No, no . . . daaad." 

Nathan sounded solid, normal-ish. He used a billion travel points or something to get them a room at The Pierre (see Joe vs. the Volcano). He deserves it. 

It's 70 freaking degrees here. Allergies are operative. We sat outside for awhile. Not very long. Gordon spent much of the day cooking ribs, sausage, chicken, Apparently it was all perfect, the best he'd ever done, fell right off the bone, not dry like that Chicago stuff, etc. They all say that everytime he cooks. I have no reason to doubt it since I don't eat meat.

Katy and I have coffee with dinner. Why? Because her friend left some Peppermint Schnapps last night. I would buy Peppermint Mochas at Starbucks with all my points and rewards and stars if they would just make them like this. 

Katy made Missy and all of us very happy when she went on and on about how much she looooooooved the blanket Missy had made for her. And I really believe her. Then she went to her room and brought out a doll Missy had made her when she was five. It was based on an obscure cartoon character (a Platypus doll) from an already obscure cartoon show (that Katy loved). She raved and raved about that doll. Remembering the wonderful thing Missy had done for her once, even as she thanked her for today. I guess before Missy opened that card that said, "you have a truck," that was the nicest part of her Christmas. 

I may have slept eight hours last night. Felt like twenty. But I guess it was more like eight, since I didn't get to sleep until after 3 A.M.  And I got up before noon. 

We had been at midnight mass. It was nice, but I was exhausted. At one point, we turned to each other and I asked, "Did I really just get here yesterday?" We laughed and laughed hard for a long time, almost certainly annoying the folks around us. But despite our levity, they were still kind enough to hold our hands when we sang "Our Father." 

Fireworks are going off all over Apache Shores (Missy's neighborhood). That used to drive Rorie (my Westie) crazy anxious. Missy's dogs are more Texan-ized I guess, so they don't seem to mind it as much. When we were kids in Texas we always got Black Cat firecrackers in our Christmas stockings. I always wondered if my parents argued about that before deciding? Or if Dad just stuffed our stockings with Black Cats after Mom was asleep. 

We prayed for all family and animals before dinner. They always ask me to pray. Heck, when I was 22 or so, everybody asked me to do the sermon at my dad's funeral. And then, not long after, at my uncle's funeral. Uncle Bubba's father, Harold (really, John Harold, just like Uncle Bubba). 

The toasts are where and when the others tend to express prayer-like sentiments.We mention our parents. Noel. Margaret's father. 

Margaret's father died on Christmas Eve. He always used to take her to all the pro sports games in Houston when she was a girl. He traveled a lot, but when he was home he liked to go the games (he got a lot of free tickets). Her mother never wanted to go. She remembers that as being a very special thing to share with her father. She told me that she was glad that Jenny and I had that together. Me too.

"Pancho!" "Big Boy!" "Come on! Come get your dinner!" "Pancho!" "Big Boy!"

John Harold Ricke, Uncle Bubba, was ringing an old ship's bell or school bell or something and calling his donkey and his last big horn sheep.He used to have a lot more sheep, but the coyotes got them a few years ago. 

John Harold is a vet, some would say a red-neck (but a rather suave one), a Trump supporter, a Fox News junkie, an NRA hard-liner, a hunter. 

In short, he's a big softie. 

He's killed many deer and other animals I guess (based on the number of heads mounted on the wall of his den). But these days when he goes out with a gun during deer season, he generally settles for just taking pictures and bragging about how big the deer that he didn't shoot was. He's a super-tall, lanky Ricke dude. Still talks about his father as "daddy." Annoys the hell out of his sweet wife Carol. And, as I suggested, loves Pancho and Big Boy. A lot. As he should.

There has been a donkey on this land, where we played, swam, hunted, and roamed as children, for as long as I can remember. I have no idea how old Pancho is, but I know that he and Uncle Bubba go back a long way. And I have no doubt that he is Uncle Bubba's best friend. 

I think John has got some cronies down in town, but he lives up here -- in the hills, in the country. Where my father and his father loved to hang out. With donkeys and stuff. I'm pretty sure he genuinely loves his time with Pancho and Big Boy. He really mourned when the other sheep were massacred. He loves feeding them, taking care of them, complaining about them, and probably unloading his mind and heart to them. And when he calls them, with the bell and everything, it's a thing of beauty. 

Of course, me being . . . me, I was deeply moved by this gigantic Ricke man, closer to my father than he ever was to me, booming out his call of invitation to the donkey and the sheep as the darkness and gloom came rushing on, this Christmas Eve late afternoon.

I may have cried, or, perhaps, as I often do, I wished I could have.

Behold, it is dusk, on Christmas Eve, on the land that Uncle Harold owned before I preached at his funeral. On the land that my father loved to play and work on long before I preached at his funeral.

A bell is ringing through the hill country gloom.  "Come be with us donkey. Come be with us sheep. We are going to feast in honor of Baby Jesus, the God who came to be one of us, taking on animal skin and subjecting Himself to animal needs. We care for you in His honor."

Well, OK, Uncle Bubba really didn't say all that. He probably didn't think it either. But maybe it's better somehow to use the traditional liturgy he has developed over many Christmases and many vespers of ordinary time:

"Pancho!" 

"Big Boy!"

"Come on now!" 

"Come get your dinner!"

I guess Missy is to me like John Harold is to Pancho. And, of course, since I am an ass, this should make be obvious. 

She feeds me. Takes care of me. Calls me. 

She buys me a travel-size Cholula, not to mention a 

nose hair trimmer. She makes me a blanket, and, when I said, a shawl would be nice, she made me a shawl. 

I am glad to say that, though I'm so often so selfish, I am, at least, a highly-evolved enough animal that good thoughts enter my mind from somewhere: 

"It would be a good thing, the right thing, a fitting thing, to do something in return for this person." Not to pay her back; that would be impossible. But to say thank you for your tender care of this ass, this featherless biped with a soul.

How fun to give her something she would never have imagined in appreciation (not return) for her goodness. To gesture towards being the kind of person you should be. 

Whatever, I had the thought. Maybe I dreamed it up. Gordon joined in. And Missy cried.

So, anyway(s), sometimes, yes sometimes, maybe we get something right. And we do Christmas like wise men.

Missy got a truck. Pancho and Big Boy got fed. Gordon learned to love "In the Bleak Midwinter," and I got to see that on his face and in his heart. On the other hand, I preached a couple of funerals before my time. Noel is gone. Margaret's father died on Christmas Eve. My little dog died last Christmas. Gordon's little dog was not long for this vale of tears. And the gloom gathers as it is wont to do. And still Ben Camino insists on using words like wont. 

And we are going to feast in honor of Baby Jesus, the God who came to be one of us, taking on animal skin and subjecting Himself to animal needs. In whose honor I eat tofu.

this is what I wrote on Christmas Day, 2018.

Here is a blurry picture of Missy opening the "truck card." 

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent Meditation 2019 #23: No Rules, Just Cliches.

Ben Camino's 

Ironic Advent Meditation 2019 #23:

No Rules, Just Cliches. 

I took a drive the other day. Yesterday, in fact. I was hungry for some of that late afternoon Texas sun I have been hunting ever since (or every since as they say in Indiana) I got down here to Austin a week ago. I ended up at a lovely state park where I took some amazing pictures of light curving around and sneaking through various objects designed by the Creator so as to catch light in just such lovely ways. Actually, I call it natural law. Or . . . rules. 

But be that as it may, I then proceeded, on my brother's suggestion, to the pretty little town of Marble Falls. It turns out Marble Falls is on the shore of some lake. I'm not sure which, but everything there is "Lake Shores," including Lake Shores Church which I happened to pass on my way looking for pie. Or paheeee, as my sister Missy pronounces it (that's three syllables if you were wondering). I found no pie, in case you were wondering, but I did find the pie source -- the Bluebonnet Cafe (since 1929 the sign says). Turns out the pie joint has a rule: they close at 1.45 P.M. on Sundays. What? How ridiculous! How legalistic! What happens if I get there at 1.46? No paheeee? Lucky my sister wasn't there, that's all I've got say. Or the good people of Lake Shores Church who proclaim boldly from there really big church sign, "NO RULES, JUST JESUS."**

I felt angry at the universe for such bondage, but I made lemonade out my lemons. That is, I found a Pho place (also three letters sometimes pronounced in three syllables) and ate like an animal identified by three letters the first of which is also P (but pronounced in one syllable everywhere but Kentucky). Anyway, or anyways as Jennifer Lynne Ricke might say, you just have to wonder how people can NOT believe in God with all these coincidences?

So I sat there, pondering that big sign down the street, eating my spicy Singapore noodles (with tofu and veggies) and tofu lettuce wraps, and listening to a very drunk woman at the bar talk very loudly on her phone about pretty much everything I didn't want to hear about, including what the pastor down the the Lake Shores Church had said about "traditions" and "rules" and about how all we needed was Jesus. 

I was pretty sure there is a rule, if unwritten, about how loud your drunk phone calls should be in the bar at a Pho joint when there's a guy in a booth about four feet away. But I thought, just take it all in buddy boy and let it simmer. And when the fullness of time has come, make it an Ironic Advent Meditation. 

And surprise, here we are. In the middle of it already. Weird coincidence or unexplained mystery? Who's to say? 

I'm going to do what Ben Camino pretty much never does and revert to a rather disorganized, even chaotic, organization design for this meditation. OK, I hear you (Jennifer's) saying, design? did he say design? hahahahahaha.

And I suspect some extra juicy irony in that laughter since "design" follows "rules" and I'm preaching for rules while defying them. Yeah, something like that. It makes sense to me anyway(s). 

So, while I am being all negative about Jesus and everything (at least about Just Jesus as opposed to Any Rules), let me mention something that I saw today, another sign of sorts, which I saw while doing my annual shopping in bookstores on December 23rd when I realize at the last minute that I still haven't bought any Christmas presents. I almost feel guilty about that, but hey kids, No Rules. 

It was this lovely thing. The JESUS Bible. 

With no rules, but contributions from various and sordid (autoincorrect, I swear) pastors and preachers none of them named Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Or Moses or David. And that subtitle: sixty-six books. one story. all about one name. Since the name Jesus was in white, as opposed to the otherwise black font and since all of the contributions were by men, I'm assuing that the one name isn't Rahab the harlot. Or Mary the virgin. Or, especially, Eve. Or Bathsheba. Or Peter or Paul. Or John. Or Joshua (the other Jesus before the name change). Or Abraham. Or Yahweh (if that's His name). Or the nameless one the pilgrims call the Holy Spirit. 

Come on, friends. I'm a Jesus freak, for goodness sake. Got a history of barefoot street preaching  back in the day and bunch of Larry Norman songs in my repertoire to prove it. But this is not right. It's a nice and easy cliche to put on a book cover or on a big sign in Marble Falls. But, it's not true. Admittedly, it's probably better that The C. S. Lewis Bible (with contributions from Jesus of Nazareth, Second Isaiah, and Paul of Tarsus), but that's not saying a lot. 

I have a lot more to say about all this (cue more laughter from the Jennifers), but the point is that true religion and undefiled is the enemy of cliches. Well, maybe it's philosophy and a liberal arts education that's the enemy of cliches. And maybe Ben Camino has no damn idea about what true religion and undefiled is. 

I mean, maybe what the priest said today in his 90 second homily after the gospel on this the penultimate day of Advent 2019, the bit about John the Baptist being like Ed McMahon to Jesus's Johnny Carson is enough to chew on. What made it even better was that he had heard it on some "religious broadcast" that morning (before 8.30 mass?) and was sharing it with us. Geez, the Ed McMahon as John the Baptist trope has just gone viral. Expect it on church signs next Advent. If anybody does Advent (no rules).

Obviously, first I did a double-take and thought -- does anybody still remember who Ed McMahon is? (I even had to think about it for a minute). And is "playing second-fiddle" (he said that about ten times in 90 seconds) really how we characterize the ministry of the prophet John B? I know John said something lovely about growing smaller as Jesus grew greater. But the dude was guh-rate. Believe me. And his story, even in the Jesus Bible, cannot be reduced to that cliche. And he also sent a message to Jesus, just before the end, asking -- are you actually the guy or was this some big mistake. Or words to that effect. And that affect not to be reduced to a cliche.

You can't make this stuff up. That's why you have Ben Camino, dear readers, with his ironic cliche detectors up and ready to . . . detect. This is why the one rule you can count on is that you should read each and every Ben Camino Ironic Advent Mediation since the beginning of time (BC time, that is, aka Advent 2012).

But I grow weary of this, as I'm sure you can tell. 

Cliches weary me because I am hungry for certain glorious slants of light glancing off and sneaking through this miracle material world, this poetry of the great Scop's mind and voice and hands. 

Because I long for the truth that breaks my heart and strains my mind and exhausts me even as I seek it. 

Because, yes, I long to love the rules. "I have no love for the halfhearted; my love is for your law," writes the Psalmist (one of the contributors to the Ben Camino Bible but displaced apparently by Ravi Zacharias for the Jesus Bible). And I long to tremble in terror (same psalm) when I swerve from your statutes (same). And to experience the deepest pleasure known to creation, true forgiveness for real guilt. 

I long for the rules that bind me and define me, even though I cannot keep them without a power and love beyond my understanding. 

I long to eat the bread of heaven, sweeter than any pie (no matter how one pronounces it). And I long for church signs that proclaim: "No Cliches. Just the Cross."

I long for the One to return to his temple and purify the sons of Levi as with a refiner's fire, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. 

But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?

**I regret to say that Lake Shores Church has actually officially branded itself (sounds painful) with the trademark "No Rules, Just Jesus." That means that, ironically, there is a rule, not no rule, that prohibits Ben Camino from adopting it for his own ministry purposes. It does not protect it, however, from the reach of satire. With contributions from Ben Camino.

 

 

Ben Camino's Not-so-Ironic Advent 2019 #666: Little Help, Bro.

Ben Camino's Not-so-Ironic Advent 2019 Meditation #666: 

Little Help, Bro

Gordon wanted a bicycle but he didn't want to wait.
The other seven year olds had 'em, why shouldn't he? Heck some of his farm boy friends were almost driving pickups, not to mention riding bikes.

But for some stupid reason he had to wait until Noel, the little brother, was old enough to ride one too because . . . well it's not entirely clear how it happened, but it had just so happened that the two of them somehow became one entity in our family--"the little boys"--and they kind of just always got gifts and things at the same time when it came time to get things.

This may also have been the year we each got a pig for Christmas (I like to throw this stuff in just in case people start wanting to compare their life to mine in terms of overall weirdness), but I can't remember exactly. And anyone who's been following my Advent Meditations knows how important it is to me to get all the (weird) things exactly right.

I knew Gordon wanted that bike. Yessir (as our family friend, J. R. Wade used to say), he wanted it bad. Noel was clueless. Some things never change (just joking gigantic little brother!).* But I never saw dad let on in the days leading up to Christmas whether Santa was going to make Gordo's wish come true or not. 

Mom was in bed most of the time that Christmas, nursing her sinus headaches with scotch on the rocks. But I do seem to remember her leafing through some catalogs (the ones with the great underwear ads I enjoyed perusing) in the early part of December, looking for stuff that she wouldn't have to go out shopping for. Blenders and and stuff, but we didn't want those. I do think I once got an electric football game from a catalog. It broke by New Year's.

It was Christmas Eve and poor Gordon was sure that he'd have to wait another year. At midnight mass, the Wade boys told us that they got . . . a freaking horse for Christmas. Damn! They didn't say freaking. And I didn't say damn. Not in church at midnight mass anyway. What, do I need to flash my poetic license at you people? Just pay attention to the important stuff. Jimmy and I were both altar boys that night/morning. That was not the year I passed out from the incense. This year my parents remembered to give me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich around 11 P.M., even though they had never heard the phrase blood sugar. Perhaps that explains the incredible amount of candy we ate as children.

After we had all settled into our Christmas pretend sleeps, Dad came into my room and got me up.
"Joe, come with me, I need your help." 

That was pretty cool for a nine year old to hear. And if you've read much Ben Camino, you know what I thought of my father. So I threw my jeans on and followed him out the door. We got into the old Country Squire and starting driving towards downtown Mercedes (such as it was). 

It may not be much, especially now that I've seen Paris and London and Fort Wayne and Gas City, but it was the only downtown I knew at that point in my brief pilgrimage in this vale of tears. In truth I may not have used that expression then because I didn't know what it meant. Yet. Although I had said it probably a thousand times when praying the "Salve Regina" at Our Lady of Mercy School in Mercedes. 

Not only was it cool to be asked to help my dad at two in the morning on Christmas Eve, but I'm pretty sure I had never been up that late before. Back in those days when kids had sleepovers, the mean parents (unaware of blood sugar) made them go to  sleep. No video games existed, and, in Mercedes at least, the television broadcast signed off at midnight (with the Lord's Prayer but, strangely, never the "Salve Regina").

So, without any further explanation, the kind giant and I  got into the old Ford Country Squire and drove downtown to the parking lot of Hanshaw Furniture. Back around the back where they loaded and unloaded stuff. Wait a minute -- since when did Dad has a key to Hanshaw's? Still no explanation. He flipped on the light, and I walked in and saw two beautiful new black and white Schwinn bikes. Identical of course. Sometimes I swear my mom must have just dreamed that she had twins and so was just trying to make it happen. 

"I can only fit one in the back end of the station wagon Mott (Everybody called me Mott). I need you to ride the other one through town." All the way through town to . . . our house? In truth, dear reader, it probably would only take me five minutes now. But that night it felt like it took at least six. And it was dark. And I was downtown. And it was late.

Gulp. I knew the way, but still . . . riding a bike all that way at two in the morning. At least two dogs on that route had bit me before, several others had chased me. And what if the police saw me?

"Don't worry, Tiny knows about." Tiny Perez was the 6'6" giant chief of police in Mercedes. Tiny, apparently knew everything, including my whereabouts at 2 A.M. on Christmas morning. And what was hiding in the back of Hanshaw's.

Well, I don't want to go all Christmas Story on you and everything, but, to a nine year old, that was one scary, crazy, extraordinary ride. The only thing that got me through it was that dad drove right in front of me all the way across town and into our driveway (as I had begged him to do instead of just letting me ride home by myself). Who knows, maybe he was a little ashamed that his son was such a big chicken. I bet he wouldn't have been when he was nine. But it felt good to follow him as that cold night turned into Christmas morning.

I still remember the look on Gordon's face that morning, like . . . fine UH lee . . . like how long can a good looking young Texas boy wait to have his own bike?! And how did this get here overnight; I mean it's not like you can hide a bike very well around the house. I looked at Dad. He looked at me. "Santa" we said.

I've been Santa's helper lots of times since then. But I have never felt more like what I was doing mattered. Now I know, at least when I'm plugged in properly to the constellations and oceans, that everything matters. Nothing does not matter. Nobody does not matter. Dad mattered a lot. He did a lot. I did a little. We did something. For Gordon (and, of course, Noel, but he has lots of meditations about him already).

If any of the stuff they preach is true, Advent means that someone greater than us did a lot, more than we can say, to give a gift. But there is no catalog order form. That gift needs givers. Even the kind giant needed a helper. In case it's a heresy, the last thing Ben Camino wants to be accused of, I won't say that there is no Advent, no Christmas without a lot of helpers. Mary for one. That Baptist fellow for another. But, as I say, in case it's a heresy I won't say that. 

I will say this. It makes no sense NOT to make Advent and Christmas and other non-heretical things happen for the people who are just waiting for someone to see them as worth a bike ride from downtown in the dark after midnight mass to finally get a great gift.

It might be a little scary. Most good things are at least once. 

So what? Get up out of bed, take the strange, disorienting ride, dare the dogs to do their worst. Make Christmas happen. Ask him to stay in front so you can follow all the way. It feels good to follow him as that cold night turns into Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas, Gordon. Rest in peace Noel. And dad. And J. R. Wade. And Tiny Perez.

*an earlier draft of this was written before Noel passed away in November of 2013. He was still my "gigantic little brother" when I wrote that draft. Something in my soul says not to edit his being alive out of the revised version.

**that's Gordon on the left and Noel on the right. Officially, "the little boys." I edited Missy and me out of the picture.