Ironic Advent Meditation #23: The Curse of Time: Augustus, Flatulentius, and Papa Frank

THE CURSE OF TIME: 

AUGUSTUS, FLATULENTIUS, AND PAPA FRANK

Yeah, I'm worried. We all should be. I kind of liked this Francis guy, but I'm pretty sure that's all over now. What do I mean? It's pretty simple, isn't it?
Pope Francis Beats out Miley Cyrus for Person of the Year, the headline read. 

It's not that I worry about some kind of jinx, like the one sports stars seem to be under after appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Old Papa Frank will be OK, and besides, the sooner he realizes that Time is not his friend, the better. 

I said, I'm not that worried about what this will do him. But what it will do to us. The victims of Time. As I said a long time ago, either in a dream or a poem, I can't remember (Plato will know): "Christian don't want paradise/they just want a Christian on the cover of People" (I believe Pope Francis still is the running for  "Sexiest World Religious Leader" as well). I dreamed that then. I know it now.

But, I'm telling you, this is a problem, though only a dead 18th Century English poet and I see it clearly. 

First of all, there are devout West Virginians right now interpreting prophecies which will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Pope Francis being named Person of the Year by Time magazine is a fulfillment of Revelation 20:13 ("Behold, I say unto thee, the man of many heads wearing robes sitting on the dragon of many scales on the many hills of Babylon shalt receive worship from Gog, Magog, Jughead, and Eggnog."). 

And besides, they are pretty sure he had something to do with changing it from Man of the Year to Person of the Year in the first place, which is obvious evidence of a Secular Humanist One World Government. Or, at least . . . socialism.

Second . . . of all. Because earlier today I spoke personally with the prophet Jeremiah, I feel confident in saying that the person of the year has never been The Person of the Year. And vice-versa. I mean, for goodness sakes. Tom Selleck was Person of the Year once. And Mike Tyson. And Billy Ray Cyrus. Alright, I'm just making these up, so when you're ready go ahead and jump to the next paragraph.

Yet, despite my phony examples, my prophetic point remains.

Augustus Caesar? Man of the Year.

Herod? Second in a close vote.

That awesome gladiator, Flatulentias? Who killed hundreds in the Coliseum and looked a lot like Russell Crowe (another Man, um . . . Person of the Year himself). The Sports Editor pushed hard for him. Despite the steroid rumors.

John the Baptist? No. Freaking. Way. He alienated people with his Duck Dynasty-like beard, and his harsh way of talking about sin. Didn't get the obvious memo that one can be a good, faithful moderate follower of the way while still making lots of friends and never offending the international media.

Jesus, also known as the Christ? Well, there were certain poor shepherds in fields where they lay who wrote letters to the editor but that's about as far as it got.

The Blessed Virgin Mary? hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. What does that mean? What does that even mean? That is so . . . medieval. Did she even twerk?
 
The burden of my prophecy is neither good nor bad, it's just an observation. The "Person of the Year" has never been the person of the year. And vice-versa. 

We say that Advent is waiting. 
Waiting for the Man . . . the Person . . . of the Ages. The One. The King of Kings. The Great High Priest. The Everlasting Father. The Lamb of God. 

Quick check list. 
Not a king. Maybe KING OF KINGS, but not a king. There was a king. He wanted little lord Jesus dead. 

Not the high priest or even a priest or even a temple functionary. There was a high priest. He wanted Jesus of Nazareth dead. 

Not a father. Never had any children. Unless Dan Brown is right, in which case I will gouge out my eyes until I am dead. And then I'll never read again.

Not a lamb. But slept with lambs. And other animals. The kind of person that certain poor shepherds might take note of, asleep on the hay and all. But certainly Time would not notice him. Anyway, to be lamb of God, it turns out, he had to be dead. 

Well, I had more to say, but it's really late. That is, time is a tickin' as my friend Julia always says, in that folksy way of hers. 

And speaking of time, good luck to Papa Frank. Hope he enjoys his fifteen flickering minutes of fame, even though Jeremiah and I will absolutely guarantee you that he is not the person of the year. Maybe he will be someday. But only when Time has forgotten him. 

In the mean time, and I do mean mean, spend some time looking around you. The person of the year is quite possibly close by, in a hospital or in a barn or in a prison or a classroom or maybe nursing a baby.

Anyway, next year, Miley is pretty much a lock, especially if she starts that charity for people with lower back problems.

Oh, and if you're interested, 'round midnight tomorrow, I can show you how to make time stand still. Though Time won't report it.
 

Ironic Advent Meditation #22: Something about Joseph

SOMETHING ABOUT JOSEPH

Since you might not know any other medievalists, I should probably tell you about the English mystery plays (that's a technical term I won't explain now, but you can take my course for something like a thousand bills a credit hour). Especially the plays about Joseph and Mary.

My favorite of the bunch is from the so-called York Plays (or York Mystery Cycle which, as I said,  I'd explain if you were paying). The official title is "Joseph's Trouble about Mary." I love that title. But sometimes I like to call it "Something about Mary," especially considering that it is funny as hell. Seriously funny.

So, old Joseph (oh, what? You didn't know that in the medieval tradition Joseph was depicted as a very old man, and that the Joseph/Mary relationship was a rather stereotypical January/May marriage, not that unusual in medieval life or literature? That's something you would probably know if you took my course. No, I'm not going to explain a January/May marriage now. Read Chaucer. Or take my course.).

Where was I?

So, old Joseph starts the play by directly addressing the audience in a pretty strong northern dialect (which . . . blah blah blah . . . take my course). Basically he says, I've got some trouble. Well, really Mary has got some trouble. Or she is my trouble. Or I'm troubled by what she has done or what's been done to her or (sounding like that guy on Duck Dynasty) what she went and done. I'm not only troubled. I'm old. 

And then he would walk around and look all feeble and old because that's the tradition. Then he'd talk some more to the audience about why Mary's pregnancy is such a problem. First of all, he says, we haven't done it. And second of all, he whines, I couldn't have done it if I had wanted to have had done it (old Joseph had problems with his tenses as well as his senses; eventually he would have problems with the census too). 

I'll try to summarize the rest. What are you laughing at? Anyway, old Joseph goes to talk to young Mary but first he encounters her handmaidens, another very cool medieval tradition I'm not explaining. The thing is he kind of  blames them for not being on the lookout and for letting young Mary do what she must have done to be in the trouble she now is. 

Well, the handmaidens don't know that Joseph will someday be Saint Joseph, they just know he's a jealous old husband, so they give him verbal beat down which earns them the title of "shrews before Shakespeare" in the scholarly literature (I really just mean an essay I wrote). Well, he gets angry, but he's old, feeble angry, plus medieval audiences are used to the idea of an old jealous husband who has been cuckolded by a young beautiful wife, so they find it hilarious. We assume. Although maybe a bit disorienting, considering who these folks are supposed to be. 

Eventually Joseph interrogates Mary, asking her over and over again, each time in a slightly different way: whotheheckdunit?

Look at me Mary, I'm very serious. This is my serious look. Whose child is it? Who is the father? Who have you been sleeping with? Mary's answers are very short and very direct. In order. God's. Yours. Nobody. 

Joseph goes away distressed but determined, he tells the audience, to try to put Mary away without shaming her. As he's walking along, he suddenly tells us, I'm really tired and will go to sleep right now. Then an angel appears. And I assume you know the rest. 

Joseph comes back and apologizes. Mary says there is no need to apologize. He says, no, really, I apologize, for you will be the mother of the Lord. And she says, yes, but you don't need to apologize for you shall be Saint Joseph. Then they argue about whether the correct form is will or shall. OK, I made that part up. Then they call a truce. 

I love this tradition. I also love some of the other traditions related to Saint Joseph like the flowering rod. What?! You don't know that Joseph was chosen as Mary's husband when his rod blossomed (when the spirit like a dove descended) even though he was the oldest guy, by far, in a kind of beauty pageant of potential husbands set up by the high priest? I thought everyone learned that in Sunday School at First Baptist. Check out the statues of Jesus next time you're in Rome or San Antonio. 

Oh well, my meditations might seem rather gloomy lately. I make no apologies for that. I just always  assume that Jeremiah is everyone else's favorite prophet too. But those medieval folks, who really lived in a dark . . . age, to coin a phrase, still found a way to laugh and to see their own problems even in the sacred story of the New Testament's first family. 

So be it. Fact: there are some wild stories about St. Joseph. Maybe some of them true. But I'm just saying that the one narrated in today's gospel reading, for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, is really all the wild one good old (or middle-aged or young) man would ever need. This is emotional trauma, not cold marble statues of a guy with a flowering rod.

First, let's assume he loved the girl. There is evidence of that since we are told that he considered putting her away or divorcing her quietly so as not to shame her. Let's assume he was hurt. I assume that. Don't you? I assume he was hurt deeply. Deeper than the words hurt deeply can convey. Let's assume he was angry. Let's assume he was confused. Finally, just for discussion, let's assume he had never met an angel before (although he probably called Mary that a few times when they, having kissed dating goodbye, were courting). 

Listen to my exasperated voice. This next phrase should be read as one big sigh. If you can both sigh and clinch your teeth, even better. Now, go: All he wanted was to marry a nice girl, have a family, and make good chairs (not being a Platonist, he believed that chairs--as well as girls and families--were real and meaningful in and of themselves). You didn't need to sigh on that platonic parenthetic part. 

I don't know if an inspirational speaker ever came to Joseph's synagogue and got him to make a five or ten-year plan. But if so, I'll bet his plan was to fit in, survive, and find some love and happiness and good work in this world in which we are born to trouble as sparks fly upwards. 

But now . . . she's pregnant. Damn! Now all that's over. Even the nine-month plan, if he had one, is in need of radical revision. But he cares about her enough, or he's just that good of a man (which the gospel text declares) that he's going to be careful that her life is not destroyed. Although perhaps, he thinks, his is. 

And then . . . an angel? Hear me exhale? OK, I'll try to believe that as long as you don't insist that I buy the flowering rod story too. I'm pretty sure Pope Pius would have made me, but, heck, Pope Francis is to0 be busy negotiating his new gig on A & E, replacing Phil, to worry about it, I figure. 

Anyway, an angel? I guess we are supposed to think that solves everything. And Joseph is pretty good about it, considering. Yes Mary, I saw an angel who confirmed your story that God made you pregnant. So now I'll take care of you and help raise God's son. Yep, sure, it makes TOTAL SENSE TO ME!!

I just mean. The wildness wasn't over was it? Seems like it was just starting. You got the neighbors, you maybe got the handmaidens, whoever is close enough to know that things are a little weird. You get the family now--Zacharias, Elizabeth, crazy little hairy John. You got the donkey, the trip, the barn, the shepherds, the wise guys. And that boy. THAT boy. And that girl you loved. LOVE. I don't know. How you supposed to get any chairs built?

Of course we don't know what happened. Joseph kind of disappears from the story. But WE don't need to forget him. A good man we are told. He did what he needed to, and more than that I'd say.  I don't know about the story Sister Philomena told me back at Our Lady of Mercy elementary. I'm not sure if it happened that way. But, as far as I'm concerned, dude's rod blossomed. I'm not exactly sure what kind of long-range life plan he made, but he got the kind you can't really prepare for. Except maybe to be, as the gospel reading reminds, good.

Back in Germany, my family, the Ricke's, started naming boys Joseph as far back as we have records (16th Century). I wonder if that's because they were laborers? Some brothers came over together from Westphalia and landed in Galveston, Texas in the middle of the 19th Century. My great-great grandfather was Joseph Martin Ricke. My great-grandfather was Martin Joseph Ricke. 

The Ricke boys in Galveston were carpenters. The Joseph Ricke cottage (1851) is on the historic homes tour in Galveston as being the only surviving example (surviving especially the great Galveston hurricane) of a laborer's home from that period. And we know they worked together on the first German Catholic church built in Texas. Obviously, they named it St. Joseph's (1859). Boys did good work. It is a gem. And more real than Plato, I might add.

My grandfather was Joseph Martin Ricke. He and his wife, Pearl, took a break from having Josephs and named their boys Lawrence, John, George, and Charles. And their daughter Joyce. But Lawrence named a daughter Jo Ann. And Charles, my father, named his first son Joseph Martin. 

This piece is already too long. And I'm too tired to wrap it up neatly. So be it. Well, maybe that's the point. Joseph was waiting for what he hoped to be his, at least relatively, neat future. If it was a musical, he could probably sing some happy love song or maybe something about tradition or well-made chairs. Instead. BOOM! Like the bumper stickers say: Christmas Happens! 

For Joseph it wasn't neat or inspirational or cozy. It was . . . like . . . really? (I should have cued you to do that sigh sound again). Pause. Pause. 

OK. Alright. So what's next? And then he went to work.Work was his Magnificat.

Anyway, I like my name. And my namesake(s). End. of. story. Sigh.

Ironic Advent #21: The Real Beds of Earth

THE REAL BEDS OF EARTH

The shortest day is the longest night,
the gloom is whelming whelming
like in a Hopkins poem,
like . . . of course it's dark on December the 21st
but must it be this cloudy?
To whatever low degree you can see through the gloom and fog,
you see something like clouds beneath clouds beneath clouds,
and, at face level, those clouds 
sting your skin in the form of very very cold rain;
so don't look up if you're looking for false comfort. 

Not that things are all that unpleasant necessarily--
after the thaw and melt of ten inches of snow
and five inches of heavy rain of top of that
and the flooded fields and streets and basements
complementing the gloom, aforementioned,
and the complete lack of light shining 
in the East beyond them far or anywhere else for that matter.
So, I'm thinking, walking the dog in this mess,
it's a good thing he was born in Israel since
the wise men would not have been able to find Indiana
for the love of God.

Just sayin' don't think the Solistice means warm fires at the hearth
and warm glog to drink
and warm stories of the tribe of cheer and comfort and joy
and round young virgins and any of that.
And, for a truth you could memorize, neither does Advent. 
Advent is not optimistic about things in general,
and to say that the place is a wilderness or a wasteland or a dump
or a swamp is not to say that one is any more gloomy than the real world 
outside our windows, under our feet, stinging our cheeks. 

Optimism is a vice, and you need only read Voltaire to see why.
But hope is a virtue that grows in the real beds of earth--
dirt, and mud, and death, decay and sorrow.
Standing on the other side of my bed-ridden brother, who either does not hear or won't let on,
Dr. Brown, a world-renowned liver specialist and reader of Dante, tells me--
"Once we are realistic, then hope kicks in. Things are bad, we know that. But we are fighting. We can't say what the chances are, but as long as there is a chance, we will do all we can. And hope."

Hope is a virtue that neither delights in 
nor denies the gathering gloom.
To say it is dark here, now is not to say the light will not appear at all.
But to say, like some, that the dark is only illusion, 
and all dark is really light to the pure soul
is folly and an insult to those who know the darkness too well.

Advent is not optimistic, for it says the dark is dark, the gloom is gloom, 
and freezing rain flies in your eyes like sparks fly upward.
Advent is, however, hopeful, for though it is not the season of comfort, 
it is the reminder that we need comfort, that we need light, that we need warmth, 
that we need the one whom Advent says will come. 
Not yet, and still not yet, though.
the gloom is what it is, and worse, 
For the cold rain is now freezing on the highway for our God and U. S. 24. 

It would be dangerous and foolish not to calculate one's chances 
driving safely home in such a night. 
In fact, I just told Jenny don't drive home, the roads are just too bad. 
It would be equally dangerous to think that a daughter or a Savior will never return 
just because tonight the world is ice.
Advent says not yet, and still not yet. You must wait. 
Sing by your brother's bed. 
Cradle his head. 
Make sure your dogs and daughters are as safe and warm as you can make them, under the circumstances
(for the danger and cold are not an illusion);  
Then hope kicks in.   

Ironic Advent Meditation #20a: My First Noel

    

MY FIRST NOEL*

 
When I was a kid, I didn't know much of what we were singing in those Christmas carols. Donkey? Check. A little town? Check (lived in one). Round young virgin, check. Holy infanso, check. Other than that, it was all a little nebulous. 

Except for one song, my favorite Christmas song of all. I just couldn't understand why everyone else was so excited about it. But, then again, why not? My baby brother Noel really was a special little kid (even though at home we called him wet-wet baby because he still did things that we had outgrown).

Ah yes, one of my earliest midnight mass memories, and when you grow up Catholic that's pretty much the same as one of your earliest Christmas memories, is belting out at the top of my four year old soprano "Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah-EL." And Missy and Gordon and I would get our faces in his and say, "that's you wet wet baby, that's you."

I don't think I remember mom being pregnant (for the story of her miraculous conversion/conception experience, check out my earlier meditation called Eudora Juanita's Long Parentheses). Although since Advent is about waiting, maybe I could say (given Lauren Winner's advice about true-ish writing) that I did know a baby was coming and that we were all waiting expectantly for the baby to be born.

I'm sure someone had been waiting. Mom and Dad one assumes. Maybe even Missy who was both older than me and a girl. But, honest to goodness, one of my absolute earliest memories, and it's still clear to me, was sitting in dad's car (a Studebaker, made in South Bend--go Irish!) outside a big building, which turned out to be a hospital, and him saying "look up there kids, see at that window? That's momma and your new baby brother." 

Of course, I already had A little brother, Gordon, but he was just . . . "there"--part of my life. As far as I knew, he had never been a little baby. I guess I was unconscious or something when he first showed up. So, this fuzzy face up at the third floor window hit me as quite a surprise. An unexpected crazy addition to my previously not much more than blank-slate existence.

And then (I see those skeptical faces out there but I am NOT making this up), Christmas morning as we are anxiously waiting to open our presents (cowboy hat, shirt, boots, and gun for me that year, I have no idea what anybody else got), the door opens up and in walks Eudora Juanita (also known as momma) with a little bundle of joy and noise and poop, my new little brother, Noel. Or Noelito, as I still call him and as I called him today when I got him on the phone, catching him eating birthday cake across the country in New Jersey.

At some point (I say this because it's another of the clear memories amidst the general fog of distance), I got to sit on the couch and hold him very carefully. The tender, delicate, fragile, miraculous, absolutely beautiful, darling . . . thing. My brother. 

Except for the unfortunate nickname, it soon became clear that we were going to spoil the heck out of him. And we did. I don't think Missy or Gordon or me needed much in the way of toys for the next year or so. We had an amazing great gift, unexpected (at least to me), but, if memory serves, not unappreciated. He's gone on to be an amazing person, a loving father of a couple of great kids, a credit to his parents (not to mention the siblings who spoiled him).

I guess this Christmas I won't get to dress him up in a goofy outfit, or teach him funny words, or make him laugh by acting silly, or even get to hold him on the couch. I kinda wish I could, though he's really quite a big baby now. But I can still feel the wonder and love that came with My First Noel. Still makes me want to sing. Sort of like the shepherds who, I'm pretty sure, weren't looking for anything special, weren't waiting and singing some minor key O Come O Come song wailing for the coming of the King of Israel. They were just looking . . . at sheep and such. But they got a huge surprise. SHOCK! Good one, though.

I guess Advent too, in one way, is about NOT being prepared, NOT waiting, or realizing that you can wait all you want and prepare all you want and you are still going to be surprised. If any of this is true, that is.

I was surprised another way today. After a long day of shopping (oh, I can hear the sympathy in your voices), and after talking to Noel about his cake and talking to Jenny about Christmas present ideas for the boys, I stopped by a place called Mad Anthony's where a friend of mine, Mike Conley, hosts an open mic on Thursday nights. I didn't even have my guitar with me, but I thought I'd stop by anyway before heading home. 

Just as I arrived, two friends of mine Wayne and Jane were setting up to play (on guitar and cello). Of course, obviously, because I live in that kind of universe, they started to play "The First Noel." I think I distracted them just a little when I got out of my seat, walked towards the stage, and held my cell phone up to the speaker so the wet wet baby could hear it in New Jersey.

Alright angels, thanks for getting us started. Certain poor shepherds and big brothers and sisters can take it from here. 

*This piece was first posted in 2012 on December 20, Noel's birthday. That was to be his last birthday and his last Christmas. He died on November 23, 2013, surrounded by the people who loved him. I've written a lot about that elsewhere.   

Ironic Advent Meditation #19: Sometimes a Light Surprises

SOMETIMES A LIGHT SURPRISES

I've got candles. 

Jenny is on the couch watching the first and only good Harry Potter movie (Hagrid is telling Harry you are the boy who lived). 

The dog barked all night because we had guests. 

Yes, I said guests. Probably my first guests in a century or so. I read a piece today by Jennipher Phipher not-so-Strange, a friend of mine (who spells her name funny), about fruitcake and hospitality and the coming of the kingdom. The Fruitcake Piece.

Something like that. Fruitcake, anyway.

Made me decide to invite somebody over. Jenny says, "what did you do that for?" She meant, do I really need to help clean up the house?

Yes.

We ate well. My soup and brownies with cranberries. Mad Housewife Red. Bread Edwin made. Catherine even ate some of the soup. 

Harry just met Ron Weasley. It's true you really have the . . . the. . . scar. Wicked!

We talked and talked and talked. Then we talked some more. If you know Edwin and Jennifer, you know. 

Jennifer hates Flannery. We love her. She hates Salinger. She only read my ironic Salinger mediation because she loves me. Jenny pipes up and says she hates Flannery too. I say it's because she had a bad teacher. You cannot really be in this family and hate "Good Country People." 

We talk about Advent. About some guy named Craig, I think, who does apologetics. Do people still do that? 

Friends in England. What Edwin and Jennifer did at Tolkien's grave. 

How Catherine had her first crush on Edward, the son of my friends in Oxford that they stayed with. She wrote him a long letter when she left. She says, "we only had ten or eleven hours together!"

Two Guadalupe candles lit on the old trestle. Mickey Mouse puzzle as hot pad. Herbal tea. The children are drawing and coloring with Jenny. Elizabeth takes video after video off the table and toddles over to her sister to show her. Then takes them back and puts them down. Jennifer says that the baby is imitating her. Because she never really cleans house, just picks things up and walks around with them and puts them back down where they were. 

I start talking with my crazy Italian accent, lots of hand gestures, and Elizabeth starts imitating me. She is also good at making elephant noises. These things will surely come in handy in the fullness of time. 

We keep trying to come up with Flannery stories that Jennifer and Jenny will like. They aren't impressed. Then, we talk about manic-depressive William Cowper, Jane Austen's favorite poet. We sing as much as we can remember of his loveliest hymn:

Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings;

It is the Lord who rises with healing in His wings;

When comforts are declining, he grants the soul again

A season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The last verse explains the "sometimes" of the title. Cowper says that "Though vine nor fig tree neither their wonted fruit shall bear;/ Though all the fields should wither,"

and lots of other bad subjunctives occur too, he (we?) "cannot help but rejoice"?

"It's pretty to think so," I say. Edwin gives me that look like, Oh Joe quite pretending to be agnostic.

But, I'll agree to this, at least. Sometimes, really, a light surprises. Elizabeth dances to my harmonica playing and gets angry because she can't make the same sounds when she blows. We drink more wine. Catherine tells me what she wrote in the letter she left at C. S. Lewis's grave. Edwin keeps talking until the door of his van shuts. As he should. I'll miss him when they move to Kentucky.

Fortunately, I think we solved some problems. First, we finished half a big pot of soup (too good to describe). I invented a new dessert, even though Jennifer couldn't eat it due to fear of losing a filling. We downed a bottle of Mad Housewife. Jenny and Jennifer now know at least ten more reasons why they are wrong for not liking Flannery. Children danced and Catherine drew and, at one point, explained, what happens when someone is pregnant but can't take care of children (it's called adoption). Which then reminded me of my other friend, Jennifer Phifer Strange. By the way, girls, can we get some new names?

Anyway, Advent rolls on, heading for hell or kingdom come and possibly a lot of snow this weekend. And tomorrow is my brother's birthday. Noelito, as we called him. It's dark December. And there's nothing more depressing than Xmas cheer. The fields really have withered. 

But sometimes a light surprises. 

I blow out the Guadalupe candles.

Harry and Ron save Hermione from the troll. 

Five points each for Gryffindor.

Ironic Advent Meditation #18: Old Enough to Know.

OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW

We, old enough to  know we are idiots,
Breathing a sort of sigh in unison, 
collapsing exhausted on these mall benches.

Wondering how we got here after swearing we'd do it different
get it right next year 
which now is this.

We look at each other forgivingly,
sometimes nod off into dreams
while partners or older children are still out there 

wrestling in the mosh pit 
and looking for that one last perfect gift 
to say the night's a success.

Success!? Look at me, I moan,
I hurt everywhere, including behind my eyes
and under my stinking toes.

And, obviously I'm aware, as well, 
that I probably need to gas up Bessie in the morning
and do this same crazy dance again tomorrow. 

I think I'm going blind. And my feet are falling off. 

When a young girl, maybe nine, comes into my view, our view, 
holding her little baby brother, 
who can't be a year, I'd say more like seven months or so. 

She carries him over the fountain outside the J. C. Penny,
I want to say be careful but I just watch,
I want to say make sure you hold him tight. 

Then, she says wonderful things to him in a wonderful voice, 
laughs as he reaches out towards the water 
and bounces in her arms.

As far as I'm concerned, this proves nothing, 
means everything, 
probably changes the course of history. 

And I think of my oldest son holding me,
crying like a baby, 
as it hits me that my brother isn't going to make it.*

*The girl in the picture holding her brother is Mariam, a nine-year old displaced person hiding in a ancient underground cemetery in Syria. She and many others are (or at least were three weeks ago) using such places as underground shelters to hide from shelling of forces loyal to President al-Assad. She won't make it to the Galleria this year. 

**First posted, December 19, 2023. Four weeks since my brother Noel died. 

Ironic Advent Meditation #18a: The Advent Pack

THE ADVENT PACK *

The latest Advent tradition, one that I invented today 
because it will be the only one the inspirationalists haven't yet turned into a cute fad.
 
The Advent Pack: A new way of waiting without standing still.
 
Buy it somewhere on the road, far away from home (whatever that means anymore),
no farther than that, far away from anywhere you've been.
 
Fill it with the holiest things you know, but, knowing how little you know,
ask my advice before you go.
 
Your rosary, blessed by the obviously mad hermit who gave you water for nothing;
 
that high school copy of Catcher, with your high school name still scrawled within the scotch-taped cover;
 
that picture of your kids, the time Matt was home from Notre Dame;
 
those illegal rocks Catherine brought back from the Theatron of Dionysus;
 
the red bandana your sister gave you;
 
your youngest child (you can drop her off at college when the time comes);
 
that bird, the Advent bird, who weeps and waits and wonders while perching on one leg;
 
white chocolate pancakes stuffed with nutella;
 
at least one Dior tie;
 
something Russian, Baltika #7 for example;
 
four guitars, a mandolin, the old pump organ, and the ukelele;
 
the journal your students gave you twenty years ago;
 
a pipe;
 
dancing shoes (for Kalamazoo);
 
the footsteps of Bonhoeffer retraced in love;
 
excellent pencils;
 
a book of the miracles of the Virgin Mary;
 
your voice;
 
her eyes, precisely;
 
a rather girly scarf;
 
your momma's last hidden bottle of scotch;
 
your brother's sense of humor;
 
South Padre Island, especially swimming with your dad;
 
and Paul Ricoeur.
 
Some would say, no, get rid of all that,
so there will be room in your Advent pack for the One we await.
 
And maybe Blessed Mary, in order to be blessed, got rid of all her hunger,
her wonder, her little loves, and her special places sometime before or after
that scary angel showed up, wagged his/her finger, and said,
girl you are full but you 'bout to be fuller.
 
I don't think she did. I hope she didn't. 
I'm not, anyway.
 
If any of this is true, I think He can come on in and find me here with all my loves.
 
Grace is gifts, exactly what my Advent Pack is stuffed with.
 
I'm full, packed, ready to go. Glad for grace.

Oh come on already, Emmanuel. 

*this meditation was first posted in December 2012