Who's celebrating?

Happy fourth Sunday of Advent! And down the stretch we go!

Anyway: I was walking along, minding my own business, when I passed a Protestant church with a Christmas tree out front. Nothing weird about that, not in December; it would be a little odd in August. Anyway, this church eschewed all the usual decorations to instead cover the tree with flags of the world.

So who's celebrating with us, according to the flags?

The United States, still a majority Christian country, as is Canada, and Chile above them, and Jamaica, and -- Israel? Well, okay, Judeo-Christian heritage and all that...

And here's the flag of Communist Cuba, about which the CIA World Factbook says it is more than 59% Christian. Yet as an official Communist state wherein the Communist party is the only legal political party, we know that they have an official position of atheism -- or at least, their only official religion is the religion of the state. 

And there's good ol' Communist China, hanging out with good ol' Socialist Venezuela. I'm sure they'll have a merry Christmas. 

Look, I get it -- Christ is supposed to have come to save all of us, not just Western people, not even people who go to church and make a big deal of faith. We have no idea who is saved and who is not, actually, and we may be surprised. And maybe we need to pray hardest for those nations that not only are anti-religious but actively persecute Christians. But displaying the flags of those nations on the Christmas tree seems less like wishful thinking and more like wanton foolishness, like turning a blind eye to the evils of the governments of this world. 

We can work and pray and strive and hope for world peace, but we should not be stupid. This is kind of stupid to me. It's not like they have every nation in the world up on the tree; there are 195 countries on planet Earth and there are nowhere near 195 flags on this tree. Perhaps the flags represent areas in which this denomination has opened offices or sent missionaries. That might make sense. But I still think it's just brotherhood-of-man stuff, or I guess we need to say personhood-of-persons. 

Having seen what I think is the pastor's house next door, I suspect that reverend personage believes Trump is the single largest cause of all the trouble in the world right now anyway, based on a myriad of signs and bumper stickers.

It's the kind of thinking that believes we are all naturally brothers unless some evil force turns us against one another, which is as naïve as anything can be. Naturally, those in America who subscribe to such notions immediately blame America as that evil force.  

All I can say is, if this minister has seen his congregation in action, he knows that people don't automatically get along all the time out of love, and should be able to understand why nations fight too. We all suffer from a condition called human nature. Our problems are bred in the bone, and don't go away from wishful thinking, or willful blindness. If all of us strove to live a Christian life, I think it would bring the fighting way down, but as long as humans are humans it's never going to be paradise on earth, and attempts to make it so usually go to hell fast.

My happy place.

Over the years I have read a lot about the benefits of meditation. Getting calm, getting centered, finding inner peace, all that crap. Sounds good, right? But it's always eluded me. 

Usually I just fall asleep. Maybe meditation only works for people who sleep well at night already. That seems unfair, since one of the supposed benefits of meditation is the ability to sleep better at night, so if I can't meditate unless I already sleep well then I really am hosed.

Then again, if it's putting me to sleep, maybe I should count it as a win after all.

One of the other big problems I've had with meditation is that annoying advice to envision someplace peaceful and calm. Like what? 

The beach? Hot sand, rip currents, sand fleas, tourists, sunburn, seagull poop. 

The forest? Ticks, wasps, hikers, ATV riders, bears.

The lake? Chiggers, Jet-Skiers, giardia, more sunburn, more ticks. 

The mountain? Snow, ice, wind, falls, avalanches, bears. 

Let's face it, nature is a terrible place to find peace. Something is always trying to eat you. Have a look at the friendly neighborhood rabbit in your backyard. How relaxed does he look?

How about someplace in civilization? The library, the park, the church? No -- they have people. You can't meditate around them.

Okay, so my happy place is my home?

No, because if I'm home I should be working, or cleaning, or fixing something, or paying the bills, or doing the dishes or the laundry, or tending to the dogs, or blah blah blah wah wah wah.

Then it struck me. Finally, I knew my happy place, the place I could envision to find an atmosphere of peace.

A nice, clean hotel room.

Hotel rooms, when they're in buildings that are built soundly and are bug-free and clean, are some of my favorite places on earth. Since my career has not required a lot of travel, I associate them with vacation, not work. They are the cool, comfortable place after a day on the Interstate.

I'm not looking to do anything in the room, neither naughty nor nice. I just want to be there. To enjoy the A/C, the free ice, knowing that if I need anything it's a phone call away. The bathroom is clean and I didn't have to clean it. The bed is made and I didn't have to make it. No animals, no kids, no bosses, no neighbors I'm sick of, nobody. Sturdy walls to keep out the noises of others. Chain and bolt and "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. TV in the sole control of moi. Comfy chair to read in. Quiet, no responsibility, nothing that needs to be done, nothing to try to attack or crap on me.

Keep your mountaintop vista, your rolling surf, your cool glade. If I want to picture a place of solitude and peace, I'm going to imagine a well-kept hotel in a small town with cool air and quiet hallways. Ommm....

Animals you may know.

"Cry 'Havoc!,' and let slip the dogs of war." --Julius Caesar, Act III, scene i

The dogs of war

The rabbit of peace

The tabby cat of ambivalence

The wombat of our discontent

Otter disgust

Another page turned.

Here we are, peeling back a little farther on the banana that is 2018. Every year feels like that, the slow peeling past the annual events -- holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, duties. Presidents Day? Check. Dental visit? Check. Memorial Day? Check. September 11? Check. Wife's birthday? Check. And so on. Sometimes these dates feel like stepping-stones, rocks to jump on, one to the next, to get across the rushing river of time. Some rocks are large, like Labor Day, some small, like my annual physical. And then there's the four big rocks near the end.

Halloween has become a big event; Thanksgiving always has been; Christmas more so; New Year's marks the end of so many things, being the last (and first) rock on the river. They seem like a strange collection of events, things that don't quite go together, holidays that collected at the end of the year in strange ways, but in fact, I'm starting to think they fit together quite well, and in order.

Thanks to BGBear for the awesome picture. Halloween cheats at cards, BTW.

Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. Fear, Gratitude, Peace, Renewal. Four phases we go through to end the year. Four phases we go through, period.

Notice that the gratitude must come before the peace, before the new beginnings. I think that's the key, something I need to remember, because fear strikes us all at different times and reasons, and there seems to be no cure for it. I must try to have courage, but that gets me through fear; it doesn't solve it. Gratitude is hard, maybe harder than courage, but I've found it to be a better treatment for the affliction of fear. Gratitude is the enemy of fear. It doesn't make it run away--sometimes fear wins. But not always.

Fear has its place; it is the great motivator. Peace is the destination we want, and gratitude is the way to find it. It is not always easy.

People say the holidays are a trial. They can be a trial, and they can also be a trail, one we can follow to a new and better place, where we can try again.

Happy 2019 to you--but let's get through the rest of 2018 first.

The strategy of peace.

I was compelled to go to church yesterday on my own, which is always a little nerve-racking. Not that being a lone male is awful, but I have to say that people hear so many horror stories about weird loners that being a man on his own is often taken as suspicious. No wonder so many single men hang around bars. No one cares there.

The real issue is the Sign of Peace, that part of the Catholic Mass where the congregants are encouraged to give each other a sign of peace. You might hug and kiss family members and friends, but otherwise you shake hands with those around you, smile, wish them "Peace be with you" or "Peace of Jesus Christ be with you," or something like that. It's beautiful, really, it takes us out of our selves, it reinforces the community, and it is the most dreaded part of the Mass for mysophobes and the terminally shy. Little kids like being sweet and like fooling around, so they're okay with it, or they hide under Mommy's wing and look cute. Teenagers usually hate it like poison.

When I'm with my wife, she of course gets my blessing first; then I seek out those around me. When I'm there by myself, I start thinking about it early, to plan my attack -- usually at the Gospel reading, when it's safe to say we have everyone we're going to get. Yesterday I was at the last Mass of the day, the spottiest, which adds some challenge. Were it a packed Mass, like the 10:00 AM, I could just grab for the hands around me; were it very sparse, like a daily non-obligation morning Mass, I could sit away from everyone and just wave at them.

All right, let's scope out the churchgoers.

The handsome chap in the center of the diagram is, of course, your narrator. To my right is a single middle-aged lady (pink); there is another elderly lady on her own behind me (orange). In front of me is a man and his teenage son (purple) and a family of three ahead of them (yellow). Behind me is a mother and her two children (gray).

I quickly assess the situation and make my plan:

As a singleton I have to approach the other singletons first, and to prevent snubbing the church lady on the same pew as me, she is my first contact, followed by the one behind me. That puts me facing rear, a good position to wish peace to the mom next; the children are wild card. You never want to grab for a kid's hand, but if it is proffered, a smart, professional handshake is in order. Then I will turn and see if the man and his son are still doing peace, or if they've assumed a manly face-forward-hope-we-can-move-on-now posture. If the former, then bid them peace. Forget the family two pews up; if they turn I can give them a wave, but you never reach over two pews for anyone but a blood relation, and then only one you really like.

I was confident in my game plan, and indeed it worked out just as I'd expected. I silently complimented myself on my smart use of spacial awareness and peace strategy.

Now... what was the homily about, again?

Peace be with you.

Well, this makes me want to hit something.

I've seen one or two of these around, and I suppose the idea of the peace symbol as a Christmas wreath is supposed to be a reference to Jesus's title as Prince of Peace, mentioned in hymns like "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing." It comes from the book of the prophet Isaiah (9:6), rendered in the King James Version as "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

But there's a serious problem with conflating these two things.

The peace symbol (sometimes called the Footprint of the American Chicken) has always been a hateful sign to me, as there was never a doubt in my mind that it was anything other than the flag that Americans who hated America pledged allegiance to because they knew that if they actually flew the flags of America's actual enemies they'd get a pop in the snoot. The sign originated (according to Wikipedia) as part of the British nuclear disarmament movement, which, however good or bad you may find the cause or the people behind it, must be considered a political movement.

As I've gotten older I have come to respect the opinions of genuine pacifists, people who would not punch someone even to defend themselves, but I think they are as foolish as anarchists, in that they know painfully little about human nature. If you want to say that you have declared peace with the world and will not fight anyone, great. But most Christian denominations do not expect you to roll over and take it in the face of violent threats. Nor, do I expect, do most people who hang out peace signs. (Generally these days I take the peace symbol as a form of virtue signaling anyway.)

In John 14 (KJV again), Jesus tells his disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." That is very different from saying they will have peaceful lives, and for the disciples, then and since, they sure didn't. What Jesus is saying here has deep roots in the Old Testament, and means a good deal more than "No one's going to hurt you" (which it doesn't mean at all) or "Don't go getting all fisty out there" (which may be part of it but only part). Peace in the faith is itself a massive subject, a lot more than just the absence of fighting, and more information can be found about it here and here (and of particular interest, C. S. Lewis's "Why I Am Not a Pacifist" in The Weight of Glory).

But I don't want to get into all that -- Christians always pray for the literal kind of peace, as in no fighting, and like everyone else I'm glad we've never seen the need to drop atomic weapons all over the joint. These are right and good things to pray for. The point is that the peace symbol is a political symbol, and thus is the mayonnaise in the punch bowl of Christmas. I think the peace-wreath people are not happy to see American flag-based Christmas decorations, and for the same reason.

The fact is, Christians believe or ought to believe that politics will not save us; we're told to pray "Thy will be done," rather than "Let the 2017 Omnibus Spending Consolidated Appropriations Bill Pass Intact." As Mark 12:17 tells us, "And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

Had fun stormin' the castle.

A few weeks ago I got a bad bit of news that really set me reeling. I needed something to give me a little peace of mind, something to help me let go and relax for a few minutes. Something to give me some breathing space so I could get some perspective. 

I needed the Castle.

White Castle, that is. Oh, you notice that the little burger box I'm holding there is empty, eh? That's because I couldn't stand not eating the burgers long enough to get a picture of one.

To those who do not love White Castle, no explanation will suffice. To those who love White Castle, no explanation is necessary.

It did the trick. I felt much better after six of those little square burgers. Chocolate is fine, and I'm thrilled to have it, but sometimes a man has to have his comforts.

I have to say, the White Castle I went to (not the one pictured) may have been the best-run fast food place I had ever been to. It was far from home, on Forest Avenue on Staten Island. The ladies running the place were working so hard, but were as bright and cheerful as you can imagine. And the joint is open 24 hours a day.

White Castle had breakfast all day long before McDonald's even seriously considered it. You can go to the Castle Web site and place your order online. And they sell White Castle stuff, like neckties. Really, they're making McDonald's look silly here.

If you haven't had White Castle burgers, you can learn a lot about them here. Just be careful when you try one for the first time. The burgers are very, very easy to eat. And they look so small and harmless.

Once I took a young lad from the office to a White Castle in midtown; he was an innocent from the West Coast, and had never tried them. Against my advice he got a huge amount of those little cheeseburgers and fries and a giant orange soda, and was useless all afternoon. It would have been easier on him if I'd gotten him liquored up.

Peace, earth, love, ketchup.

So it's Earth Day, the day we celebrate dirt. And aren't we glad for it! Without dirt we would have nowhere to stand. Our houses would sink. Our roads would collapse. Hooray for dirt!

We should all stand shoulder to shoulder to fight the enemies of dirt. Take that, laundry detergent!

Yes, Earth Day is a day for brotherhood. And since National Brotherhood Week is no more, we seek some new period in which to get together and be brotherly. Earth Day is all we got. So today, like brothers, we should punch each other over whose turn it is to take out the trash.

No, we should all work hard to get along today. The International Day of Peace isn't until September 21, and by that time, especially with our national eagerness to give monstrous regimes their own atomic weaponry, we might all be dead. So let's celebrate now.

To that end I have tried my hand at peacemaking between mortal enemies, sworn foes dedicated to the destruction of each other. Of course, I refer to McDonald's and Burger King.

I thought we could start with condiments. As Julia A. Fletcher Carney once wrote,

Little deeds of condiments, little words of love,
Help to make earth happy like the heaven above.

Or something like that. 

Very standoffish at first, refusing to get together. Let's see if we can coax them out of their, uh, shells.

That's better! Mixed together we see that all packets bleed the same; there's no BK tomatoes, no McD tomatoes, just all our tomatoes. And we---

Uh-oh. Didn't see that coming.

Gulp.

Labor Day Sunday.

Aaaaaaaah. 

This peaceful moment brought to you by the last big weekend of summer. "Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces."

Of course, I'm not on this spot as I write this. I am at home, working all weekend on end-of-the-month deadlines.

Even so, all is well. I like home. As Thomas Hood wrote,

Peace and rest at length have come

  All the day’s long toil is past,

And each heart is whispering, “Home,

  Home at last.”

I love our home. I just sometimes wish I had the time to enjoy it. And that it were, like, in this picture.