A GREAT LION OF GOD

 has passed. We may not see his like again. Or at least in our lifetiems. Our loss. 

A LITTLE MORE RESPECT PLEASE

This isn't exactly a Christmas entry, and yes I'm making up for some lost time this month. Perhaps this does fit under Christmas. Of course there was hired help back in the day. Some of them were slaves. Some were dirt poor. And probably just as ignored. It does fit under all the folks who are worried their fast food might get a little more expensive if the minimum wage is raised. 

 Some folks can't seem to think past the ends of their noses.

“If you don't pay at least $12,000 a year in Federal Taxes, you aren't even paying your own way! And less than $2,000 of that is for welfare. So if you have 2 children and a wife, you need to be paying $48,000 a year in Federal Taxes, just to be paying YOUR OWN WAY!

So for all you Party Of Stupid (POS) Whiners...You're welcome! I pay almost $80,000 a year, so I'm paying your way too! 

Unless you are in the 5%, you should stop whining, as it makes you look like an entitlement baby!”

Ran across this charming bit of philosophy on the net yesterday. Frankly I don't know if this person really pays $80.000 a year in taxes or if this is the opening salvo in this election cycles's version of Mitt Romney's “47 percent.” Anyway I decided to have a little fun. 

After spending some time with the IRS tax tables you'd have to be pulling down about sixty grand a year to owe about $12,000 in taxes. And then to have this sorry excuse for human being tell us that if you have a family you should be paying a hell of a lot more. How many average Joe's do you know who make close to two hundred thousand a year?

Anyway that got me thinking. In my scenario this person lives in a big city, say New York or Boston, has a nice apartment and their very own parking space.  Perhaps this is how a  couple of weeks might play out if the little folks who really keep the country going just don't show up.

You're getting ready for work, your housekeeper is due in today. She calls in sick, doesn't know when she'll be in. You usually stop at the local deli for breakfast. It's closed. The owner, the cook and the person who runs the register haven't shown up. Hungry, you head for the office. The doorman is missing. The guy/gal at the front desk is missing. You get to your office. No receptionist, no office assistant. Your computer is wonky. No techies available. The phone is ringing off the hook and you have to answer it yourself. Too bad.

Time to head home. The engine sounds a little rough so you swing by your favorite garage. Nobody there. Guess you'll have to take a cab tomorrow. You get home to your grubby apartment and fix dinner (I'm assuming this doofus is single) cupboards are starting to look a little scant. Better swing by the neighborhood bodega in the next couple of days,

The engine may be running rough but you still have to get to work. The streets are strangely quiet. No cabs, no buses and almost no subways. Nobody to drive them. Ignoring the chattering engine you discover that the situation at the office is the same as yesterday. Recalling the state of the larder you head out a little early via the bodega. It's closed. Not even the owner is in sight. Did you really think that guy made that much money a year?

Your favorite place for dinner is closed. No cooks, bartenders, wait staff or bussers. They sure as hell don't make that kind of money. Hell, tipped staff often don't even make federal minimum wage. The engine may still be missing but tomorrow is Saturday; a good time to head for a real grocery store. Unfortunately the shelves are looking bare. There haven't been any grocery deliveries for three days and most of the stockers, checkers and deli staff appear to have also disappeared into the unknown.

You manage a loaf bread that's a little stale, some lunch meat that hasn't hit the expiration date, some wilted vegetables and some canned goods. To make life even more interesting your gas tank is below half full. The gas station is open but you can't get all you need because there haven't been any fuel deliveries for several days and the manager is trying to stretch supplies. Between explanations he/she is manning the cash register. Don't bother to go searching for another station. They're in the same straights.

You manage to get through the weekend. Comes Monday, oh did I mention it's July and there's a heatwave, and your neighborhood is beginning to smell a little “ripe.” The trash haulers are AWOL, too.

First of the week and no improvement. When you stagger into your apartment that evening the lights are flickering. Turns out your power comes from a coal fired plant and they haven't gotten any deliveries for more than a week. By midweek your apartment is a mess. You're being hit with rolling blackouts and “please don't use the AC” because we don't know when the coal is coming in. As the lights go out again you find yourself wondering if living near a nuclear power plant would be a good or a bad situation.

So Mr. or Ms. (I'm assuming it's a guy since the sign in was OldMan) I pay $80.000 in taxes you've just been brought to your knees because all the peons you dissed in your comment just disappeared a la A Day Without a Mexican. Without all those little people cleaning houses, manning the cash registers, stocking the shelves, waiting tables, delivering the food or gas and picking up the garbage your comfortable life grinds to a halt. It just might be a good idea to show a little respect now and then.

Think about it. 

SOME CHILDREN SEE HIM

 If we could just keep some of the childhood innocence. Some like Lisa were lucky enough to learn the song in school. The rest of us have to be lucky enough to find the right Christmas album. 

SOME CHILDREN SEE HIM

Some children see Him lily white,
The baby Jesus born this night.
Some children see Him lily white,
With tresses soft and fair.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
The Lord of heav'n to earth come down.
Some children see Him bronzed and brown,
With dark and heavy hair.

Some children see Him almond-eyed,
This Savior whom we kneel beside.
Some children see Him almond-eyed,
With skin of yellow hue.
Some children see Him dark as they,
Sweet Mary's Son to whom we pray.
Some children see him dark as they,
And, ah! they love Him, too!

The children in each different place
Will see the baby Jesus' face
Like theirs, but bright with heavenly grace,
And filled with holy light.
O lay aside each earthly thing
And with thy heart as offering,
Come worship now the infant King.
'Tis love that's born tonight!

The music was written by a jazz musician, Albert Burt. I believe the words were written by Wilha Hutson. The organist at Burt’s church. The poems were included in family Christmas cards and unknown outside that circle until at least the fifties. It’s been recorded by James Taylor among others. I have the Perry Como version.

Wheneveer I run across one of those "Jesus probably looked like..." articles I remember this carol. If only adults kept the inocence of children. 

SANTA'S FRUITCAKE

 A problem Rudolph's shiny nose can't solve.. Santa found the fruitcake and presents may be a little late this year. Some cooks baked their fruitcakes in the spring and spent the rest of the year basting them with whisky or bourbon. This is incliuded a hard shell Baptist neighbor of my dad. He loved to tease her.

CATS

Sorry the type is kind of small. We had four in the house at one time. One innie/outie. And the two or three ferals eating on the porch. Plus the occaisional racooon and a possum. \\
 

PRAYER FOR THE SOLSTICE

 Now we enter the light. Now the day light will lenghthen until Summer.

Newgrange is a Neolithic mound complex located on the north side of the river Boyne in County Meath Ireland. It is described as a passage tomb although archelogists are not totally certain what the complex was used for. What we do is what happens on the Winter Solstice. At sunrise the light enters the passage, illuminating the interior on that one day a year. It happens whether it's cloudy or not but it is mor impresssive if the sun is actually shining that morning. Newgrange is dated at approximately 3,200 BCE. Making it older than the pyramids.The builders had a fair knowledge of astronomy and a calendar of some kind. 

A Solstice Litany from the book Winter Solstice by James Matthews.

For the return of the sun – Blessings and Peace

For the gifts we give…and receive – Blessings and Peace

For all the gift givers – Blessings and Peace

For the Children of Wonder – Blessings and Peace

For the children everywhere – Blessings and Peace

For sunsets and starlight – Blessings and Peace

For sunlight and moonlight – Blessings and Peace

For streams rippling under the winter’s ice – Blessings and Peace

For raging torrents rushing to the sea – Blessings and Peace

For rain and rainbows – Blessings and Peace

For the warmth of fire in the cold of winter – Blessings and Peace

For the trees on the hill – Blessings and Peace

For the tree in the corner – Blessings and Peace

For the candles in the window – Blessings and Peace

For the gifts of friendship – Blessings and Peace

For Bards and their gifts of poetry – Blessings and Peace

For Singers and the music they share – Blessings and Peace

For the prayers for peace – Blessings and Peace

For those who pray for peace where there is no peace – Blessing and Peace

The authors encourage you to adapt to include whatever you’re thankful for right now. I certainly did. The Matthew's have a soft spot for hand bell ringers, good food and that vital necessity. Good cooks. 

 

NO ANSWERS

 As we run up to Christmas a little blast from the past while I try to reconstruct the entry I lost when the net went down last night. And a few years later I still don't have many answers for my great grandfather. 

Robert Heaton was a Quaker and my great grandfather seven times removed. He sailed to the New World with his family aboard The Lamb in the fall of 1682. Family settled in Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. I have mixed feelings about the possibility of running into great grandfather Robert in my spiritual journeyings. I can almost hear him. "We risked bad food, bad water and possible ship wreck. Others suffered typhus, scurvy and small pox. We came searching for religious freedom and to build a better life for ourselves and our families. And a fine mess you've made of it. Daughter we expected better of our children."

And if I did run into him, damned if I'd have an answer for him.

NO ONE LEFT TO HEAR?

Old protest poster from the Viet Nam era. Nuclear war isn't good for anything, living or not. Poisoned water. Poisoned soil. Blasted landscapes. 

The beautiful carol was written by Noel Regney and his wife Gloria Shayne in 1962. 1962, the same year as the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m not sure how close we actually came to pushing that first and final button but this carol was their answer. 

A plaintive call for peace. If those missiles had been launched there would have been no one left for the night winds to tell their secrets to. The trees would have been charred skeletons. Branches lifted to ash filled skies in final a futile prayer for their lives. The songs of seabirds and waves silenced. All that would have been left were the stars shining down on a world with no one from kings to shepherd boys left to see them.

 

DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR

Said the night wind to the little lamb,
Do you see what I see
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
Do you see what I see
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
Do you hear what I hear.
A song, a song, high above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea.

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know
In your palace warm, mighty king,
Do you know what I know
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring Him silver and gold
Let us bring Him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere,
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace, people everywhere!
Listen to what I say
The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

A KITTY BOUQUET

 Yeah, I've been out for a few days. Let's just say that my chronic cellulitis found a new way to rear up and kick in the ass. It's healing. I'm OK. I'm grateful to the good folks who looked after me. To be honest my brain is just about at the "see Spot run." state tonight so here is a bouquet of cas.

There's something about those gray ones with the copper eyes. The Burmese is grooming.The tortie looks as if she's plotting mischief and the little black one seems to have spotted someone or something. A couple of them look a little spacey. I wonder if there is some catnip in that bouquet. 

BOOKS

 

No other words are needed. Carl we lost you way too soon.

LAYING IT DOWN

 

Good looking couple yes? Mom and da;s wedding picture. Probably the last time anyone caught my dad wearing a tie. And she was in a nice dress. Married in my grandparent's living room. 

This will be short and sweet. My mother, much loved by almost every one, passed last year. 

She was ninety four. She'd had a good long run. Dandled three great grand daughters on her knee.There's a fine old word. Dandled. I'm realizing that for some of us it isn't a matter of dying, it's laying down one life and stepping into another. 

I never got to see my parents dancing. From the stories told he was one smooth one with a waltz. That's how they met, at the weekly Saturday night dances in Eugene. He asked her four weeks running. she said yes on the fifthe one. I don't think either one ever looked back. Well mom I hope you are dancing with dad. I hope it's a waltz. 

LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

 Back in the day I created something. Then a friend took part of it, made it hers and created this.

Whatever this light means to you in this season when the year turns away from the dark to the light may you find what you are searching for. Peace and Blessed Be. 

THE SONG AND THE SINGER

This picture was posted on my FB page through a link with Spiritual Ecology's page. I like to think my Singer might look a little like this. This piece was loosely inspired by the hymn God of the Sparrow God of the Whale. Very loosely. Because when I tried to rework it into prose this was the result. And I'm not entirely sure I was working alone. This happens sometimes and I've learned to just go with it when it happens. Some of what I believe is my best work may not all be mine. More like I'm doing the typing and someone else is doing the dictationg. If that makes any sense at all. 

You are the Singer and all of Creation is the Song. When You sang the Song of Creation there was a part for twittering sparrows and for the songs of the great whales. There was a line for the apple trees and another for the dogwoods. Towering oaks can sing a duet with daylilies. Redwoods may provide harmony with the songs of spruce and pine. Rippling brooks provide the soprano to the bass of waves crashing against the basalt headlands of the Northwest. And oh, the songs of the stars. Those dancing stars are a symphony by themselves. As they should be since the elements that built the world were born in the hearts of blazing suns.

You sang a living world into being. But we are reminded that life means change and once power is unleashed we may not be able to stand against the storm. Rolling fields today may play hosts to earthquakes tomorrow. Skies that are peaceful and blue today may be filled with rain, sleet or snow next week. The spring breezes that filled the air with the whisper of pine branches yesterday may be replaced by a tempest that rips the branches from their trunks when winter blizzards howl. Protect us all, from sparrows to whales when the winds rage and the earth shakes.

Your Song has verses not only for the rich, but for the poor. For the hungry as well as for those who are filled. Help us to care for those who need it. Help us to be thankful for what we have. For a song filled with harmony, not discord.

Help us to see a neighbor in an enemy. Help us to see that swords can be plowshares and lances can be made into pruning hooks. Help us to realize that love must replace anger in our hearts before it consumes us and Peace is more than just a word we use when "we're not shooting, shouting or trying to put anyone down right now."

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Reconstructon of the possible appearance of the conqueror Timur.

Back in 2013 mom and I were watching CNN's coverage of the Boston Marathon Bombing. And watching the talking heads basically keep repeating themselves even after the bombers were identified. I recognized the name of the older brother, Tamarlan, as a version of the name Tamarlane. Tamaralane, the Europeanized version of the name Timur. One of the last of the nomad conquerors and of Turko Mongol blood. Timur who welded an empire out of what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia.

Sidenote. In an era when generals were expected to lead from the front and were usually expected to outfight as well as outsmart their subordinates there is strong evidence that Timur was disabled. His skeleton has been discovered and examined. There was damage to his right leg that would have left him with a severe limp and an injury to his right shoulder. Mongols had a rep for spending most of their lives on horseback so perhaps the limp didn't matter too much as long as he could wield a sword and out general the enemy. 

Regarded as one of the greateset commanders in history. Also one with the perhaps the highest body coumts. Some historians put the death toll at around seventeen million. An impressive figuare at the time. 

The brothers were  described as being of Chechen descent although they were born in Khirgizstan. Even more curious I did a little digging into recent Chechen history and came up with Dzhokar Dudayev. The first preident of the breakaway republic of Chechnia. President from 1991 to 1996 when he was assissinated by the Russians. 

To be honest I have no idea why their parents named their sons for two men who could be considered heroes to many Muslims. Or that the younger brother was a naturalized citizen of this country. And we were watching CNN so this information may have been presented on another station. Some Americans might have found this background information interesting. Taking some time to present a history lesson or two would have at least broken up the hypnotic repetition of the same material over and over and over. 

The research took me, a retired history nut, less than an hour to dig up the basic facts. No telling what an ambitious, highly motivated intern could have come up with in the same amount of time. I can't imagine anyone from the Ed Murrow school of journalism letting the information just laying there without doing something with it. Heaven knows most Americans including me know damn little about that part of the world and what makes those folks tick. 

MINI RANT

 I started to watch coverage of the Waukesha shootings on News Nation. I bailed almost immediately. One. None of presenters on any station can string more than two sentences together without falling all over themselves. And yes this is a tragedy. The latest in a long list of our "thoughts and prayers are with you." And worth next to nothing. Taking on the gun lobby and making it just a little harder to buy a gun would be a big first step. 

What really sent me over the moon was the maudlin "it's so tragic that these students have to face something like this at such a young age." Or words to that effect. Lady some of these kids are old enought to vote. Some of them are old enough to enlist in the armed forces. Some of them are probably old enough to go out and buy their own guns and not take the one their dad just bought a few days ago. Honestly I don't know how old you have to be to buy a gun in Wisconsin.

Do some research talking heads. About fifty years ago kids that age or youngeer were facing down police dogs and fire hoses to march for civil rights. Students just a little older were gunned down at Kent State in 1970. Stedents were marching. protesting, sitting in to protest the ramping up of the war in Viet Nam. I suppose it's too much to ask to have you treat them with respect. You show so little to everone else. And kids? Ditch the cell phones once in awhile. Look up, stop chasing the latest fashions and the newest phones. 

OK. Rant over. Perhaps my blood pressure will come down. Please feel free to tell me I'm barking up the wrong tree. Except I lived through those days. Like so many Boomers that the memes put down.