Moments 2009

To my family,

Throughout this very difficult year, you never let me stop living . . .

These moments are ours, and I am thankful for each and every one. Happy New Year!

The Bell Ringer

You must give some time to your fellow men. Even if it’s a little thing, do something for others – something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it.

~ Albert Schweitzer

The first time I rang the bells, I stood outside the entrance to Sears in Glenbrook Mall. The fountain before me usually got all the coins, but on this night those nickels and dimes found their way into the red kettle mounted on a stand beside me.

Two things I learned my first time ringing the bells:

1) That shit is hard! The bells I used that night were the muted kind. Less annoying to the shoppers and merchants, but you gotta really shake them things to make them jingle. When my arms started aching and my wrists seized up, I checked my watch; I’d been at it a whopping ten minutes. It was going to be a long night . . .

2) Most people are crabby. Especially in the mall. I’d smile and say “Merry Christmas!” or “Good evening!” if people glanced my way and made eye contact, but only a few responded in kind. Most just scowled and walked on by . . .

But not the family with the little guy in the stroller. He really wanted to put his change in my kettle, so they wheeled him over. I leaned the kettle down so he could reach it better, and then let him ring my bell before he and his parents wandered off toward Macy’s. The boy had cerebral palsy and a killer smile.

I had arranged with the local Salvation Army volunteer coordinator to ring the following morning at a grocery store. The sun broke through the clouds every once in a while, but added little heat to the air. The wind chill factor was about ten below zero, and I wore enough layers to where I resembled me back in my fat dad days. A lady with bobby pinned hair and a fur coat offered to buy me some Starbucks. I showed her my sixty four ounce insulated mug of hot chocolate and declined. She just shook her head, dropped in a folded dollar bill, and went about her busy day.

The next day, I met Manga Lady. Sitting on the bench next to my post by the automatic doors, she drew fan-fiction sketches of Cardcaptor Sakura. She mistook me for a fan when I commented on her wicked skills – how she kept the eyes big and the mouths small – and started rambling on and on about the love triangle her character had found himself involved in. I just smiled, shook my head, and thanked the baby Jesus when her bus showed up.

Later that same morning, I met Placement Guy. He had walked over from the McDonald’s across the street where his sister worked and he hoped to gain a bit of employment. They told him they could maybe give him five to ten hours a week, tops, and he figured that would be enough to keep the people in charge of his “placement” happy. It showed he had potential. And gave him just enough free time to prepare for his GED exam. He wore a button-up shirt under a zip-up hoodie that wasn’t zipped, and all that shivering made his voice shaky. He bummed my phone to call his mom and I overheard as he made plans to maybe get together over the holidays. I hope they worked it out. I told him that I too was out of work and wished him the best in the days ahead.

And then there was the family that reminded me of the clowns. I helped them to their car the following night at the Community Harvest Food Bank distribution center. I pushed the cart plumb full with over 120 pounds of canned foods, ramen noodles and frozen turkey. And I laughed out loud when I noticed four kids piled up in the back seat where the food had to go because the trunk was crammed with Toys for Tots. No way were they going to be wearing seat belts. As they climbed out and began running around the car . . . well, I thought of the clowns at the circus that pile out of a car way too small to hold so many clowns. We managed, and they drove away with the back of the car scraping the ground when they hit the bumps.

So many faces.

So many stories.

So many people in need. And so many people willing to lend a hand. It made the weeks leading up to Christmas more than a drudgery of days. Those hours spent swinging a bell or pushing a cart meant something. To me. And to those who will find a helping hand when they need it most.

This has not been the most pleasant of years for me and mine. But all that gets lost in the din of the bell ringer . . .

[Flickr photo is by ndrwfgg and is protected]

To Wit . . . er

Wit . . .

3a. The ability to perceive and express in an ingeniously humorous manner the relationship between seemingly incongruous or disparate things.

3b. One noted for this ability, especially one skilled in repartee.

Also . . .

3c. A skill Brian @ The Cheek of God lacks.

See? I cannot even come up with a witty way to say I’m not witty.

All this has been confirmed for me thanks to Twitter. Consider this recent tweet by yours truly . . .

Because, you know, like, in that movie The Shining? Where the family gets snowed in? And the guy goes bananas with the pick axe?

Yeah. I know. Lame. Maybe not so much because of the content, or my intention, but more because of the way I wrote it. There’s no punch. No pizzazz. Nary an ingenious syllable in sight. I wouldn’t even give myself an A for effort.

So, sorry to disappoint you, Dear Tweaker, but I am not witty. I recently admitted as such . . .

. . . and at least one person joined me in my self-deprecation.

She is far wittier than me, you can trust me on that. And so are all of these fine people, whose recent tweets had me . . . er . . . ROFLMAO:

I can’t complete with all that, tweople. Not only are these some very witty and comical tweets, IMHO, but there is NO way I could ever reply in any sort of equally witty manner. I tried to reply to this . . .

. . . and failed horribly:

I screwed up the emoticon. Damn tiny buttons on my BlackBerry. And besides? It’s . . . lame. See, my son is taking German, and I asked him to translate it for me. Which he did. And we laughed. And he said he was going to take it in to class the next day and ask for extra credit. And maybe get a laugh. And . . .

See? That’s the problem. Most of my replies have to be qualified. Or lack context. All impossible to provide with only 140 characters. I’m long winded that way. And . . . well, I’m just not that funny.

Here’s an illustration of why I don’t generally reply to witty tweets, courtesy of @realdadshangout:

Mike is a great guy. Loves to laugh at himself. And he was kind enough to let me include this little exchange to illustrate my point. Unlike Mike, I would need a mulligan every time.

(Lame . . .)

So, I’m trying to fix the problem subliminally . . .

I give up. Even this post is lame. The very definition of NOT witty. So carry on without me, internets . . .

(Special thanks to these fine folks. If you’re on Twitter, do yourself a favor and follow them all: @realdadshangout, @OutnumberedisMe, @BinaryDad, @PetCobra, @JettSuperior, @jurgen_nation, @prayingtodarwin, @redneckmommy, @MartinFitz, @mommywantsvodka, @DebJorge, @MyBottlesUp, @theGoatandTater, @zanger, @uhura13)

P. S.

I did find at least one person who thought I was funny:

She’ll get over it soon, I’m sure . . .

Prayer

I woke up this morning and felt the urge to pray. Only I realized I don’t really know how to do that anymore.

Prayer is what we do, right? When things seem to be beyond our control? When the frayed end of the rope is right there, in front of our faces? When there seems to be nothing left to do?

As a kid, prayer meant another event to go to. Prayer meetings. Prayer breakfasts. Twenty-four hour prayer rallies. Healing extravaganzas and intercessory cavalcades. And within the tradition in which I was raised, regardless of the confines, it meant lots of unintelligible whooping and some occasional jumping around and running up and down the aisles.

People took their troubles to the Lord and would up with Holy Ghost Hyperventilation.

After many years of this, both as a supplicant and spectator, I came to view prayer as nothing more than a God-ordained pity party. A woe-is-me pleading that felt good at the moment, cathartic and wet, but in the end led only to a handing over of control to the God who resided just inside the ceiling tiles.

Surely this is not what was intended.

In her book Encountering God, Diana Eck describes prayer as engaging in the practice of paying attention: “What are we practicing for? The goal of this practice is not to get to some other place, some lofty dazzling experience, but truly to recognize the place where we already are.” For Eck, prayer looks a lot like meditation, and leads to mindfulness of not only the subtle rhythms of our bodies but also to the chaotic and often indiscernible rhythm of God. Prayer for Eck isn’t something we do, but is something we live. It is a way to engage the Sacred even as the Sacred slips through our fingers.

This is the problem with being reverently agnostic, being willing to engage both sides of the question but unwilling to settle down on either one. In Life of Pi, the main character struggles with this question and comes to a conclusion – the same one that sits upon the back burner of my mind . . .

It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

And at no point does being undecided spiritually feel more uncomfortable, more immobile, than when one feels the need to pray.

A question:

Do you pray? Regardless of your religious beliefs – for all are welcome here – what does prayer mean to you? I’m looking forward to your response . . .

[Flickr photo is by theogeo and is protected]

Christmas at Denny’s

This song will not make you laugh.

It is a Christmas song that has meant a lot to me for many years. And it is perhaps the saddest Christmas song I have ever heard.

It will not cheer you up. It will not be the joyous soundtrack to your festive evening of tree trimming or egg nog drinking. It will not be a song the carolers will sing when they stop by, their faces pink and smiling. Your local radio station that has been playing all your holiday favorites since the week before Thanksgiving will never play this song.

There is a chance that you won’t want to hear it ever again. But ’tis the season for taking chances, no?

Give it a listen. Just this once. It moves me. And it might move you as well . . .

[Update: November 28, 2011 - The link below will open this song in Spotify, my current player of choice.  I cannot find this song as it was originally recorded anywhere on YouTube, and the old Grooveshark widget no longer appears to be working, so I took it down.  Maybe one day, I'll just buy the audio upgrade and put this song up myself.  For now, this will have to suffice.  Sorry for all the hoops . . . ]

Randy Stonehill – Christmas At Denny’s

They got Christmas Muzak piped in through the ceiling
And the refills of coffee are always for free
And the waitress on graveyard and the surly night manager
They’re wishing that all of us losers would leave

There’s a star on the sign at the Texaco station
Like the star long ago on that midnight clear
As I look all around at these cold, empty faces
I doubt that you’d find many wise men here

And I’m dreaming about
A Silent Night – Holy Night
When things were alright
And I’m dreaming about
How my life could have been
If only, if only, if only
But somewhere down the road
I gave up that fight
Merry Christmas
It’s Christmas at Denny’s tonight

Once I had a home and a wife and a daughter
Had a company job earning middle-class pay
Then Lisa got killed by a car near the schoolyard
And my wife started drinking just to get through each day

I will never forget that little red wagon
Turning to rust all alone in the rain
One morning I flagged down a truck on the highway
I just couldn’t bear to go back there again

And I’m dreaming about
A Silent Night – Holy Night
When things were alright
And I’m dreaming about
How my life could have been
If only, if only, if only
Well, it’s not just the blind man
Who loses his sight
Merry Christmas
It’s Christmas at Denny’s tonight

They say
Life’s made of cruel circumstance
Fate plays the tune and we dance
Dance ’til we drop
In the dust and we’re gone
And the world just goes on

The cop at the counter he’s the guardian angel
He watches these orphans through dark-mirrored shades
And the register rings like a bell sadly tolling
For the fools we’ve become and the price that we paid

Oh, when I was a boy I believed in Christmas
Miracle season to make a new start
I don’t need no miracle sweet baby Jesus
Just help me find some kind of hope in my heart

And I’m dreaming about
A Silent Night – Holy Night
When things were alright
And I’m dreaming about
How my life could have been
If only, if only, if only
But I’ll still be here
At the morning’s first light
Merry Christmas
It’s Christmas at Denny’s tonight
Merry Christmas
It’s Christmas at Denny’s tonight

Written By Randy Stonehill
© 1989 Stonehillian Music/Word Music
(a division of Word, Inc.)/ASCAP

[Flickr photo is by elfon and is protected]