Sanuk D

I don't know what I'm doing here, I should be someplace else.

“The reason we are talking about sex all the time is because when we are done with that we will have to start talking about money.”  So sayeth the Dean, quoting someone else.  When all of Episcopism had its chasuble in a wad over consecrating a gay high priest a few years back, the Great Temple shrugged.  We had already been through that one.  Were going through it, as a matter of fact, around the time my Sweet Lady and I got hitched.  Technically speaking it was the sacrament of marriage as opposed to the sacrament of ordination, but really any sacrament will do, will it not?

Sitting there in the pews, my Sweet Lady up with the Famous Tongues of Fire, I had to admit that I sort of cringed when the statement regarding marriage was being read.  Of course I was fine with it, this blessing of unions, but what about people who were visiting that day? What would someone who did not know us think?  The more I listened, the more I realized that this was an invitation to everyone in the room and beyond to really know us as we are.  It was also an invitation to me to get real about the vows I was fixing to take in a couple of weeks or so.  I mean, I thought I loved my Sweet Lady, but I had never loved anyone else like that before.  How did I know?  And if I did not know, how could these people in this temple know? And the answer I heard that day was, “Oh we know, and we know because we recognize it in who you are, not because you look like the picture.”  I was relieved.  Mostly.

So why do we who have experienced this continue to argue with words about it with those who disagree with our actions? Why do we not look for ways to bring what we have experienced to more people so that they can experience it too?  Maybe because we fear what other doors that will open up.  If we stretch this relationship thing far enough, where will it end?  We already bless unions. Heck, we’d even marry gay people tomorrow given the go ahead.  Isn’t that enough?

Not close.  Once we have the sexual orientation thing put to bed (yeah, I said it) we have the poverty thing.  And that’s when the rubber meets the road fo realz.  Because as it is written in The Book of The Jerk, Scene 23 Verse 41: “It’s not the money, it’s the stuff!”  I’m not ready to part with it.  Not by a long shot.  Yes, Jesus came to preach to the poor, but he enlisted the capitalists to get the work done.  Like James and John from yesterday’s post? “Put down your nets and leave your boats; turn off your computer and put away the efing iPod!  You’re coming with me to do real work, fisherboy.  I will make you a fisherMAN!”

Who, me, pawn my axe to come work for you?  I’d rather fight about gay marriage, thanks.

They stood on the shore, watching the waters lap at the edge.  A man preached salvation from the boat, his voice amplified in reflection across the water.  Being people with great knowledge of their trades but little formal education, the crowd was not, shall we say, transfixed by his words.  Their concerns were more temporal, given the night they had just lived through.  What would their children eat?  And once we get today’s needs met, how will we meet tomorrow’s?  Such struggling day-to-day gets old, and the man’s promises to get them out did not ring true.

William Percy returned to his father, telling him that the sharecroppers on the levy had to be evacuated.  He had found river boats to transport them to Greenville or Memphis.  Once the flood was over, they could come back.  Once the flood was over, the planters would need the labor to get their fields back into shape.  The planters had no faith that the sharecroppers, once they had started a trip north, would ever return.  These people, their labor, was the planters’ capital for all intents and purposes.  No matter what the 13th Amendment said, they could not be allowed to go.  Percy’s father said no; dysentery, disease, and starvation plagued the people on the levy, and William’s faith was shattered.

Before 1927 there was 27, or somewhere there abouts.  On the shores of Lake Genneserat, Mary and Joseph’s boy preached salvation to laborers.  Their capital was in their boats and nets, not the labor of others, yet they feared for tomorrow after a night with no catch.  They listened but did not hear the words of the preacher until he told them to drop their nets one more time and proved that in matters temporal they would always be ok.  Now it was time to abandon their capital, to let go of what had not been theirs in the first place.  It would be like telling Charlie Parker to go pawn his horn, not an easy thing to do or to live with.

Percy looked back on the courage of those fishermen.  He looked at where it took them: crucified upside down, homeless in Patmos.  Not exactly the sweetness and light we were hoping for.  But at the end, Percy hopes, their pursuit of justice brought them peace, a peace which cannot be bought or built with all the resources in the world.  Their capital blown away, they were left with what was real.

Sanuk D: “Are you in very much … um … I mean, does it hurt?”

Subdude, without irony: “Well, I think they gave me two shots of morphine at the hospital, and I take a Percocet every four hours. So, you know, I feel it but it doesn’t hurt.”

I should certainly hope not, given that level of doping.  Loyal readers will recall that the Subdude slipped several days back, being rewarded for his efforts to get the mail with a compression fracture to the T5 vertebra.  Just one vertebra, not two vertebrae.  (See how I manage to slip both my astounding knowledge of Latin declension and a word containing “bra” into the post?)  As possible outcomes go, this is one the “better” end of the spectrum.  All indications are that a resumption of all normal activities can be expected at the end of the recovery period, however long that turns out being.

Some slips are not so limited in their impact or certain in their recovery. A friend of mine, like Dick Van Dyke walking on the roofs of London, got too far from the center of his life and wound up sliding down to a place he did not really want to be.  No one would want to be there.  Cautiously, he is trying to find his way out.  I’m cautious too, but I still hope to count as a friend.

Most people I know are aware of when they have screwed up.  Wanting to admit it can be an issue for me, but I know.  Guilt is something we are pretty good at manufacturing for ourselves — often needlessly — and I certainly don’t need to produce more for someone else.  It’s possible that this approach is too easy on a friend.  Maybe sometimes we need a hard ass in our lives, or so some theories would have us believe.  Well if you want a hard ass, call Pat Conroy’s dad.  I’d rather kill the fatted calf when the boy gets home.

One word:

Chanticleer

I don’t give a damn if it is February, this Chanticleer Brumalia album is staying on my iPod until 58 degrees qualifies as a cold night.  Them boys can sing like a teenage pot dealer in the county lock up.  One benefit of having been so tied to the computer so long that showering and exercising both  seem like more trouble than they are worth is that I get to experience the goosebumps that come from hearing them sing “O Holy Night.”  Who knew it had a second verse?

I had almost forgotten that there was anything on the Touchy besides Vampire Weekend’s new album “Contra.”  Other than the “Twilight” associations of the band’s name, there is nothing I don’t love about the record.  Well, except that it is a little disturbing to have the last three albums I’ve bought be this one, the Animal Collective album, and a Big Star double album.  If I start making favorable comparisons to Dick from “High Fidelity” you will do an intervention, right?  Thanks.

So, “Contra” has big fingerprints from Paul Simon’s “Graceland” and “Rhythm of the Saints” albums all over it.  There are other elements readily attributable to other artists in there as well, though I’m at a loss for the moment to give them to you.  It’s sort of like listening to Phish in that you know you have heard a lot of these elements before.  Unlike Phish, however, the resulting mix is fresh and interesting, greater than the sum of its identifiable parts.  When VW (as the kids appear to call them) come to Altamont in April, I wonder if Carl will be my date?

This continual snomageddon is beginning to have a body count.  Reports have been coming in about people who have died shoveling snow.  As we face the possibility of having to shovel the driveway for the third or fourth time, I’m starting to see their point.  Even the purchase of a new shovel this morning — along with a sled-disk for Tallulah — can’t generate enthusiasm for another snow adventure within me.

The Subdude slipped getting out of his car to check the mail or open a gate or some such mundane act.  The result is several fractured vertebrae.  That sounds extraordinarily painful to me.  The circumstances of this fall gave rise to the real possibility that he could be run over by his mother-in-law.  Fortunately, Cuz rescued him before word of his vulnerable state spread.  I wonder if there is anything in the Merton cannon which speaks to this particular situation.

There is likely plenty which speaks to what will have to follow.  I’m guessing there is not much that can really be done for fractured vertebrae.  Having to be still and know that the process is happening sounds fine in theory.  Practical application, however, may be more trying.  Practicing a discipline is easier when I can be actively engaged.  John Milton was right in saying that, despite the difficulty in staying put, “those also serve who stand and wait.”  At least we are almost to Lent, which is supposed to suck anyway.