Make Poverty History

The church I attend is presenting a series of sermons and activities emphasizing the theme, Make Poverty History. There is even a theme song, written by a member, Dave Frauman, and the choir master, Chris Schroeder. We dressed in white, made a big circle out on Triangle Park in the rain, and wore white arm bands.

A lot of conversation is going around about this theme, not just here, but world-wide. The theme seems to have begun in the UK, with that great celebrity social justice champion, Bono, in the lead, joined by Nelson Mandela, and since 2005, the addition of a coalition of thousands of global organizations.

The main idea is that we have been conditioned to think of poverty in a certain way, as another social justice issue against which we are at war. Actually, we've been at war against poverty for most of my life, politically speaking. Rather than stay bogged down in the history of war against poverty, we must see the poor as individuals with gifts and dreams, who live in a world of abundance.

Here, where I live and worship, the theme is acutely in focus, given that the church sits in the middle of a poverty-stricken area of the city. I hear the pathology in that previous sentence. The World Health Organization has identified poverty as a public health crisis. To be poverty-stricken is like having a case of the measles, maybe, or like having a chronic but incurable condition, like diabetes. You learn to live with it, within its boundaries. How do you see disease as a gift?

What our ministers want us to think about is the notion that poverty is already history, because we will be looking upon those previously understood as poor as being full of abundance. This is part of an asset-based community development philosophy. Rather than focusing on the needs, that are endless, chronic, and incurable, we focus on the strengths, abilities, gifts, and dreams coexisting with the needs. I have a lot of cognitive dissonance about this series. I hope it provokes a lot of conversation -- like this blog that I am writing. I hope others are finding it provocative in the best way, as motivation to act.

Having worked in the church for a long time, I wonder what the staff would rather have -- people complaining about who has a key and who doesn't, about using drums in the sanctuary, about playing certain kinds of music by certain kinds of trained or untrained musicians; OR, would they rather have people disturbed by a sermon series on poverty, thinking and puzzling over the meaning of a concept, wondering, indeed, what is the Gospel in this series? Where is the good news? What am I going to have to change about my thinking in order to embrace this concept of poverty?

I've heard that when someone comes to the church to ask for financial help with a power bill, or for food from the pantry, staff and volunteers first ask them to sit down and talk. They ask them about who they are, their story, their dreams, and their gifts. I have heard that some amazing connections have been made in these conversations. Someone found a job by having one of these conversations. Sometimes people go away empty-handed, and staff and volunteers go to their homes to visit them and bring them things they need. Sometimes, they bring a phone number or contact about a job.

I have used the paradoxical thinking about despair and the ultimate overcoming good news. I have written to friends and coalition partners about the proleptic apocalyptic hope that the world is changing toward full rights and recognition of the right to marry for same-sex couples. I have actually written that love has already won. We're just waiting for the world to catch up so we can move on to significant struggles -- like poverty! And universal single-provider health care. I can write about this hope with a certain degree of confidence concerning the freedom to marry because the coalitions working on solving this problem are powerful, wealthy, and persistent. It could also be true that the numbers of people who are wanting to marry are far fewer than the numbers who are caught in poverty. I can write with a certain degree of confidence that the world will change. Even if we have to wait for the Jesse Helmses of the world to die, and a new generation comes along with freedom from this particular bigotry. The same kinds of upstream dynamics are involved -- get the attention and win the concern of those in power and influence, and you can solve a lot of problems. Not many believe poverty can be solved the old-fashioned way.

Dave and Chris wrote, 850,000,000 live in poverty. Unknown millions are uninsured -- and I am now among those now that I am unemployed.

Is poverty already history? The poor are beloved children of God whose gifts and dreams are waiting to be known and expressed. Is this a romantic notion, to say that all we need to do is reframe our thinking about what it means to be rich, so that no one is actually poor? What about people who can't buy groceries, who cannot buy medicine, who cannot pay rent, who cannot air condition their babies and elders in the summer or provide them with heat in the winter? Sure, the poor, or those formerly known as "the poor" can grow gardens and sell the produce. Is that what we mean?

I am always thinking "upstream," especially about poverty and health. I blame our free market economy for most of these problems. If we can fix the system, we can feed everyone, employ everyone, and take care of the health care needs of everyone. Throwing money at the downstream symptoms of a broken system, upstream, will be a never-ending process.

This kind of upstream thinking reaches back to bite me all the time, puts distance between me and the poor. I struggle all the time with liberal white guilt. What do I have to offer the neighbors? Who am I but just another upper class white woman, with my privileged education and background? I want to do good, but I am not OF the people, never have been, never will be. This kind of distance is not helping anyone.

Does this mean I have to move into the neighborhood into a house left derelict by absentee landlords, to legitimize my concern for the people who live there? If I want to bridge the chasm between Broadway UMC and Mapleton-Fall Creek, do I need to sell everything I own and give it to the neighbors? What is the answer to this distance that I not only feel, but that exists in every manifestation of my own life -- where I live, where I sleep, where I shop, what I wear, what I think about most of the time, whom I entertain in my home, how I spend my free time ... There is no end to need and giving in respond to need. In some ways, giving is easy. Out of my abundance, I can give generously, even when I am unemployed.

In my present state of sabbatical, I am miles ahead of someone else who has never had an education, never had the comfort and care of health insurance; I suffer no debilitating conditions. I don't have children to care for (not biologically, not solely mine to raise). The times I injured my back (who knows how?) I have been able to have surgery, no questions asked. I managed to recover from the bills in my deductible period and the 20% co-pay. I can take medicine when I need it. I have a healthy savings account. I own property. Is all of that true for those who live close to the church? How much more difficult would it be for a fifty-year-old woman who is my opposite in disadvantages to recover from life's insults and surprises?

I hope this proposal to make poverty history is not just about reframing our thinking. Rather, I hope this is about creating a different kind of economy, with a different kind of currency. I hope we are talking about the abolition of poverty by the creation of communities that value different ways of being in the world. I'd love to see maybe a six-block radius around our church begin to live into a new way of thinking about economy, community, and value. We certainly can't wait for the city to respond. The neighbors can't wait for the church to provide the answer to what is lacking, although they do have a food pantry and a growing sense of neighbors helping neighbors.

Poverty is already over? Abundance is all around? This will take new eyes to see, new ears to hear. What will become the new currency, the new economy? Is this happening anywhere else besides Mapleton-Fall Creek in Indianapolis?

Right now, I am still struggling with my white privileged guilt, still thinking upstream, unable to put these pieces together yet. Right now, this all still feels like a liberal thought experiment. I cannot imagine telling someone who cannot put food on the table that her poverty is an illusion, that it is over, that life is abundant, that her dreams are more important than anything I could give right now, in the present moment.

Love Pink?

Do you love pink? Do you love guns, especially semi-automatic handguns? In the hunting section of a popular store, featured on sale this month in Outdoor Recreation is this lovely weapon.

Definition of semi-automatic: (Wikipedia) A semi-automatic pistol is a type of handgun that can be fired in semi-automatic mode, firing one cartridge for each pull of the trigger. This type of firearm uses a single chamber and a single barrel, which remain in a fixed linear orientation relative to each other while being fired and reloaded semi-automatically. Some terms that have been, or still are, used as synonyms for semi-automatic pistol are automatic pistol, autopistol, self-loading pistol, and selfloader. ... Standard modern semi-automatic pistols are usually double action (DA), also sometimes known as double-action/single-action (DA/SA.) In this design, the hammer or striker may be either thumb-cocked or activated by pulling the trigger when firing the first shot. The hammer or striker is re-cocked automatically during each firing cycle.

Cheryl Wheeler has a song that would make a good sound track for this ad and all the images it conjures up for me.

By the way, was browsing the sale ads to find some stuff for our family camping trip coming up, looking for a shade canopy and one of those complicated but oh-so-handy cooking centers for the outdoor kitchen. And, I was hoping to take the kids fishing at the lake, so I began to browse for fishing licenses. At the State of Indiana site, I ran across this article from Purdue U. about water quality. It seems our streams and rivers, and, thus, our lakes, are full of septic system overflow.

(Heavy sigh) Time to test our immune systems in the great outdoors. I hope we don't need any pink sidearms along with our giardia filters.

simple pleasures

A very sunburned nephew (6) was having trouble getting to sleep. He refused children's Motrin, so I suggested a late night snack. As he ate his toast, he leaned over his cup and said, "Maybe some milk will lift my spirits."

He's the same boy who reported how great the pool felt after a hot ballgame. "It's so freshing -- try it, I think you'll agree."

Why do these little phrases catch me off-guard? Such embodiment and absolutely present awareness, deep sensing, and ability to articulate it; desire to share it and to know the reciprocity will be true and accurate; these catch my breath.

Riveting Preoccupation

Hey, everybody,

I've been working like an obsessed person on replacing the bathroom floor in the Airstream trailer. Nothing is simple and straight-forward in this project. The trailer is 40 years old, 1968, has held up very well, but some things have not held up so well. I'm documenting the progress on Airforums.com, where I am also IndyAnne, and on my .mac iWeb pages, where it's easy to post photos and use captions for them. Please visit there sometime.

I'm also taking welding, MIG welding, at the J. Everett Light Career Center at North Central High School. A friend took the classes and recommended it. I'm having great fun with that. I have some projects to do on the trailer frame and other things around the house.

Even the children like to help out. We're building up credit toward a Wii for the basement playroom that I'll be working on on my sabbatical.

My job at CTS ends on June 30. I'll have July and August off, then start CPE residency in the fall.

Life is very good personally. We're going camping in a week or so with friends from church, and a longer trip with more family in July. The kids loved the Outer Banks reunion so much, they insisted we put something together this summer. Could become a tradition.

Sorry about the reportage, sans critique. I'm a bit overwhelmed with issues I can't control but that cause me to lose sleep. I heard that two things keep you awake at night: conscience or curiosity. I guess the conscience part is, "Could I be doing more to help?" and the curiosity part is that I just can't help worrying sometimes about what's next. I try to live in the moment, to meditate and be present. It works most of the time, but not 100%.

Also, I 'm trying to detach from those things I cannot change. Brother, dad, institutions with FUBAR processes and idiotic leadership.

All of the manual labor is truly a source of energy and self-confidence, sense of competence, and just plain gratifying. I go to bed most nights exhausted from the labor.

The life of the mind is also good work, gratifying, and competence-affirming. Maybe it's a sine wave of energy flow.

More soon,
Keep in touch.

From Bonhoeffer to Weatherhead

My friend wrote to me about yet another potentially great institution doing something stupid. I found it helpful to respond in this way:

Subject: From Bonhoeffer to Weatherhead

I was talking yesterday afternoon to my process theologian friend about the evil that institutions do. I do think you must be talking about institutions and their mad, insane, irrational preoccupation with Bonhoeffer's subject, success.

Here are three theological seminaries with which I have personal experience. Three that have accrued such a surplus of stupid decisions that they cannot but do the harm they do. Add to the surplus of stupid the surplus of irrational idealism that we -- oops, I-language, Anne -- *I* invest in them. I want them to do the good that they can do. The good is why I wanted to join up with them. When I find that they are not communities after all, but collectives, with all of the magnification of human potential for bad, it hurts all the more. They continue to do this harm over and over. The salary and benefits eventually are not enough, and my capacity for detachment is not enough, to keep me there, entrapped by the system and my collusion in it.

What potential, then, is on the public face of these institutions, if not the evil one? Gospel potential, the rebel Jesus, the impulse of self-giving love, whatever it is that draws us into that light -- *that* potential. That's the false consciousness, I think, that sets up the miserable disillusionment and sense of the hidden parallel reality of meanness, bitter cruelty, and mindless plowing under of any nascent creativity and novelty.

Witness the damage these collectives have done. Not just the accretion of history (Inquisition, Constantine, the theologians and institutions under Hitler whom Bonhoeffer might have been addressing), but the immediately past memories of our own lives in churches, seminaries, and the institutions who employed us. We, the ones with whom I am now speaking in solidarity, threw our lives into them and were beaten down bluntly by the collective wickedness.

I asked M, is there not still a sum of good, potentially, that these broken institutions can do? We argued ourselves into a place that said, no, they have to eventually exhaust themselves (die?) of all of the negative energy they are accumulating more rapidly than they care to know. It takes a long, long time because the momentum they have accumulated is so strong. Creativity, novelty, options, the force of the better argument are not overwhelmed, however. These forces for good (may I say, forces of God -- in all of the beyonds, thanks, Laurel) emerge where they will, especially in the critical consciousness of those who survive the blunt force trauma and others who are able to escape the entrapment.

Will institutions always have this sine wave, of diminishing duration, this alternating current of good and evil? It seems such a waste because so much is possible when an accumulation of sufficient numbers of people form committed communities capable of clarity and unity of vision. Can't we go into these idealistic (real world) communal efforts with eyes wide open on the possibilities of distortion, to the net effect of a surplus of good? Isn't this happening somewhere? Or does it happen only for brief times and eventually succumb to the fatal flaw?

[I said to Chiclette (age 8) recently as we were approaching the bottoms of our ice cream cones after her softball practice on one of our just-the-two-of-us outings:
--Well, Honey, I guess all good things must come to an end.

Her reply, shaped by the disillusionments she has already suffered:
-You mean like you and Mommy?

Stunned, I responded:
--No, Honey, just ice cream cones. Your Mommy and I are just fine and we love you very much.

I think my point is, this relationship requires attention, careful presence, mindfully monitoring the potential for erosion of the energy that draws us together. The erotic idealistic energy that drew us together is not as sustaining as the energy of relationships anywhere eventually, in which the love and its potential must evolve constantly into novel forms and spaces. It's hard to explain all of that to an 8 year old. It requires lots of ice cream, and watching us grow, argue, test, bond, laugh, cry, etc.]

My New Airstream Web Site

You can click the heading above to get to the iWeb site I set up on my lunch hour today, to chronicle my Airstream projects. The first concerns the same subject as the previous post, with more photos and description.

To make it easy, I am IndyAnne on all of these Airstream-related places, like the Airforums. That's a wonderful web site, a great big help. Lots of DIY Airstream renovation enthusiasts post information and share advice here.

Let's face it -- most DIY adventures start with, "I was just trying to fix ... [insert your latest disaster here]."

That's my story on the bathroom rip-out. So, I get to rebuild the Airstream bathroom. And yet, I also made reservations to go camping in June with some good buddies from church, so getting it all back together is really going to be interesting.

Every tub has to sit...

So I'm workin' on the Airstream, the little love nest. I love the vintage postcard I got one time, dated circa 1950, atmosphere of post WWII optimism and individual freedom and all that, with a couple sitting in folding chairs on the roof of a travel trailer, watching the sunset. The caption read, "You know you're in love when you have to take your bedroom with you everywhere you go."

The grody 40-year-old bathroom in the Airstream is comin' out. I got a sabre saw and cut out the bathtub, the surround, and took up the white throne of judgment and put it in the garage. Then I hauled the love nest to CDS Trailers to get new tires and replace the angle iron holding the honey pot onto the frame underneath the throne.

Work has begun in earnest! Anybody need a fiberglass RV tub? I'm sure all the pieces can be glued back together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

They say the first thing to go into and Airstream was the rear bath, and you have to take everything out starting in the front in order to get the tub out. Oh yeah? Well, that's why the good Lord gave us sabre saws. That sucker is gondhi! Only this ghostly outline remains.

Now, on with the rehab. The floor gets ripped up, plumbing cut out -- more beer money from copper taken to reclamation! and everything updated with Nyloboard and PEX tubing. Woo-hoo!

Eggshells

Here I go again, walking on eggshells, knowing I probably should keep my mouth shut, but just can't do it.

The Jeremiah Wright speedbump in the Obama campaign is drawing all sorts of strange bedfellows together. The President of CTS has jumped into the fray.

President Wheeler and Dr. Jeremiah Wright are friends. I know they were both mentors in the D. Min. program at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, where I used to teach. In fact, Dr. Wright's DMIN is from UTS. They are both leaders of leaders in significant segments of African American Christians. I realize the recent political scene has done harm to Dr. Wright’s reputation, used for political gains and losses. Dr. Wright’s inflammatory sermons may well have been taken out of context. Charges of racism behind the muckraking journalism calling attention to his sermons may very well be accurate.

Dr. Wheeler is a good friend, to speak up for Dr. Wright in the Indianapolis Star.

I recall another public statement from the President about another controversial matter at CTS this year, defending the seminary’s hosting a homophobic Christian denomination for ordination of its bishop in Indianapolis. This denomination is the Convocation for Anglicans in North American (CANA) and the local parish, The Anglican Church of the Resurrection. Our permitting this ordination in our facility was presented by the President in the guise of hospitality, of freedom of expression, of advancement of dialogue.

I have the impression that President Wheeler has a selective righteous indignation, or else he has a narrow view of friendship that might actually be very consistent. In his office, he is entitled to speak up for himself and to advance dialogue in the public sphere. My comparison of events spanning just a few months, however, finds that he will defend one friend who is being slandered by racists and opportunistic politicians, but he will live and let live while another group in the vicinity (from which he seems to distance himself while extending hospitality) engages in hate speech and uncharitable behavior toward gay, lesbian, sexual minorities, many of whom are also baptized Christians.

The public statement of December 15, 2007, strikes me as double-talk, far from calling out CANA and its congregations, priests, and bishops, some of whom are alumni or students of CTS. They should be challenged from this high office for their participation in homophobia, and, in fact to confront the reality that their very existence is fed by the energy of hate.

President Wheeler states that we have a relationship with the denomination, its priests, bishop, and local congregation. Friendship and reputation have tangled the President’s tongue over the troublesome matter of homophobia. The gift of President Wheeler’s friendship seems to entail a call for him to hasten to speak up against injustice. Hence, I must assume that he has no homosexual friends who have suffered because of Christians who hate them.

It is very difficult to call attention to injustice when the community at which hate is aimed has no legal status as a protected class. However, everyone who understands bigotry knows that we can still do the right thing when we are faced with the opportunity to advance justice and the beloved community. It is especially difficult to draw parallels between civil rights and social justice for gay people and the history of African American civil rights. A broad and deep critique exists that would ban such inferences. However, one oppressed community ought to be able to help the cause of justice for injustice anywhere. This is not easy, it is not politically expedient, but I think it is the right thing to do.

President Wheeler’s public statements could be considered by many to be statements of the position of CTS on matters of public consequence. In fact, responses to the opinion piece referenced above indicate that CTS is totally implicated in the defense of Jeremiah Wright, for positive or negative effect. This bears remembering and it will be remembered by at least one.

Beauty of Absurdity

On the other side of the absurdity matter -- previous post -- is the tendency to diminish one's own suffering. At one end of the continuum (assuming there is a continuum) is victimhood, an identity shaped by truly abhorrent treatment at the hand of someone or an entire culture. Victimhood can endure as a permanent feature of identity, inseparable from the self and the visible, symbolic participation in the meaning of the suffering, surviving in spite of the injuries and insults, but with little surplus of joy.

At the other end of the continuum is something like arrogance. This is a kind of impermeable way of being in the world, preoccupied with survival in a different way, avoiding harm and pain, perhaps describable as hedonic or hedonistic, or capable only of rising to occasions of fun at any expense.

I have described these extremes in the abstract. I don't think I have ever really felt either of those identities to be descriptive of me. I have too much advantage and shielded privilege, good enough parenting, safety in the adequacy of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, to have fallen into victimhood as a permanent state.

I have never given in to utter hedonism, either. My WASP work ethic is firmly in place, although I will admit that I would rather find a way to be paid well and with good health insurance as a dilettante fly fisher, a female Isaak Walton, if you will.

I have managed to steer -- no, wait, that implies control -- I have managed to move through life with enough buffetting of suffering, tasting despair, courting oblivion; cushioned by a general condition of comfort; and distracted by the entertainments of pure uncensored fun so that I would have to say that, like Rachel's favorite clothing says, life, indeed, is good.

And yet ... and yet ... life continues to serve up these absurdities. What can one person do? Act. Pray. Care. Pay attention.

Self-understanding is important to cultivation of a self worth sharing with someone else. So, it is important to confront the oppressors, offenders, and creeps that hinder the flourishing built into a heart. Say no, enough, stop, quit, move, change, leave -- whatever it takes. It does not help to deny what you know to be true. Have courage. Do what you have to do.

Curiosity is also a good thing. Why do you laugh at what you laugh at? What language do you speak? Who taught it to you? How were you put together that makes you you? What makes you different makes you interesting, as long as you are just as willing to ask me the same questions and remain open to my answers.

But, evil is real. That's why we have to watch out for the vulnerable (including ourselves). There really are some very bad people who want to harm you. There really are people who want to take away all of your stuff and your life with it. There are people who do not want you to flourish. That's when it helps to be selfish, if that's what you want to call it. Self-preservation is a worthy impulse. But, love comes first. So, even when love does not win at first, or seems never to win, or doomed to fail, you have to keep loving, as long as you know not to let anything come between you and the door. You don't have to be a hero. You can run, live, lick your wounds, and rest up for the next struggle against evil. Unless you're just plain exhausted, in which case, it's also ok to run and keep running until you find a safe place to stop.

They write books about these things. The futility of hope; the ridiculous tenacity of love; the necessity of surviving; and that this is not the whole story. The end we see is not really the end at all, but a kind of new beginning.

It is still true -- here and now, on this first day of Spring, and the eve of Easter -- that somehow, between the ditches of hedonism and despair, hope and love will win.

A World of Absurdity

A phenomenon -- psychological, spiritual, sociological, ... (?) -- accounts for a feeling I have sometimes. I don't know the name for this phenomenon. It's partly a kind of survivor's guilt; it's partly a smarmy privileged liberal self-loathing; it's partly an imposter's syndrome; maybe it's all of these things. It says:

No matter what I might have suffered in my life, nothing -- gods, singular and lesser, willing -- will ever compare to atrocities such as the Shoah, the Trail of Tears, 400 years of slavery, and Darfur; therefore, I should remain silent, count my blessings, and keep on the sunny side.

Such a vision of tragedy is as hard to keep in focus as staring at the sun.

Silence, as ACT+UP told us back in the early days of HIV/AIDS, equals death. Yet, I feel so overwhelmed by tragedy that I am struck dumb.

This happened to me at the Society for Pastoral Theology annual study conference in Atlanta a few years ago. Touring the MLK center, sitting in a circle of conversation and consciousness-raising among a mostly-white gathering of scholars and clinicians, so many images and so many words were overwhelming to me. All of my history, social location, my active and passive participation in systematic endemic racism, all crashed over me like a wave, filling my lungs with sand so that I could not breathe or expend the words that were piling up in my brain and spilling out of my heart, crashing on the beach with the waste and precious awareness, like these words now trying to fall upon these keys as I think and write today. My guilt, my implication, my shame render me silent.

How can I remain silent? This is not the answer. In my social location, history, awareness, I can help to construct a new world.

Thank you, Barak Obama, for your speech after the Jeremiah Wright debacle in your campaign. I feel hopeful that the world can change. You are a politician, a gifted and smart man, and you can lead with inspiration. The world can change.

The world can change. That's the next step for me after this languishing in shame and silence.

What can be more important to talk about this week than racism? Nothing.







Nothing - except for this murder, eclipsed, I fear, by campaign drama.

Lawrence King, image above, 15, shot in the head in his Oxnard, CA, school classroom. He told his classmates he was gay; he was proud of his sense of fashion. He was creative. He was a beautiful boy. Another beautiful boy, destroyed by the bigotry of our absurd world, pulled the trigger. Larry asked Brandon to be his Valentine. Then, Larry's family faced the miserable decision to withdraw life support because of brain death -- after harvesting strong young organs.

Thank goodness, Ellen is not struck dumb as I am. She spoke out when this happened back in February on her show.

Is Larry's death a Shoah, a Trail of Tears, a Darfur, an evil history of enslaving human beings, a genocide? On some absurd level: yes.

OK, now -- will Ohio put sexual orientation in its school bullying code and help raise awareness of the dangers of bigotry for vulnerable gay teens? Or will politicians and religious leaders continue to avoid this poll-killing "issue"?

Will churches and pastors continue to placate themselves with the cool liberal vision of equality for all people, while allowing the absurd tragedy of these isolated cases (Larry), these outliers of social dysfunction (Larry's killer), to keep them in denial? Our church chooses to not become a Reconciling Congregation. We can count on the strength of our love and relationships, our generous hospitality, our wide net of tolerance -- no, not just tolerance: celebration! -- to bridge the singular tragic gaps. How nice.

When will the Democratic Party stand up for rights of gay people and our families? Why cannot a school be empowered to protect Larry and millions of other vulnerable teenagers? It's a political killer, alright.

Why does this absurdity endure? Why continue to hope that the world will change?

According to Michael Berenbaum, in Elie Wiesel: God, the Holocaust, and the Children of Israel (p. 148, 1994), also published under the title The Vision of the Void: Theological Reflections on the Works of Elie Wiesel (1979)], Elie Wiesel said in a symposium:

In a world of absurdity, we must invent reason, we must create beauty out of nothingness. And because there is murder in the world -- and we are the first ones to know it -- and we know how hopeless our battle may appear, we have to fight murder and absurdity and give meaning to the battle, if not to our hope. (Berenbaum, p. 148, source cited above).

Wiesel also wrote in Souls on Fire (Berenbaum, p. 148, source cited above):

... whoever creates affirms that the creative act has meaning, a meaning which transcends the act itself.

When my friends in Seattle lost the case for declaring unconstitutional the Washington State gay marriage ban amendment to the constitution, I wrote an essay with the most hopeful -- hoping against hope -- message for continuing to hope. It's a ridiculous essay. It's the kind of exercise in self-soothing that borders on the insane. Insane: keep repeating the same behavior, expecting a different result. I actually said, "Love will win." So what?

Keep hoping. Keep creating hope. Just like that. Just like Heather and Leslie. Just like Elie Wiesel. Just like Larry.

Hope is absurd. It's ridiculous. It's insane. It's beautiful.

Share the Love

I think you will recognize the names in the conversation here. It's a beautiful and true story. All stories are true, this one actually happened.

This story relates to my previous two posts about Mark.

It's the February 26, 2008 post, just to be sure: "Thirteen Ways of Losing an Uncle"

Memorial Service

Mark E. Ferguson
July 12, 1964 - February 12, 2008

The memorial service was held at the Chapel of Broadway UMC in Indianapolis. I'll post the order of service and my comments for the witness. Margie's uncle Charles and I sang a duet of Townes Van Zandt's If I Needed You. Charles also sang a solo, The Lord's Prayer. Uncle Bobby Brewer, pastor of Dixie UMC (near Hattiesburg) preached the homily. Broadway's wonderful organist and choir master played gathering music and congregational hymns. The service was well attended, the chapel was full of friends and family.

Too Soon, Gone From Our Midst

Mark E. Ferguson, of Indianapolis, IN, died at home on February 12, 2008, following an extended illness. A memorial service in celebration of Mr. Ferguson’s life will be held at 10:00 a.m., Saturday, February 16, in the Chapel of Broadway United Methodist Church, 609 E. 29th Street, Indianapolis IN 46205. Family members and friends will preside. Mr. Chris Schroeder, organist and choir master of the church will provide music. Family members and friends are invited to attend.

Mr. Ferguson is survived by his wife, IUPUI associate professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies, Dr. Margie Robertson Ferguson and son, Duncan, 7; mother, Evelyn Savell Ferguson of Perkinston, MS; father-and mother-in-law, Dr. James A. (Jr.) and Linda McSwain Robertson, of Hattiesburg, MS; brother- and sister-in-law Mr. James A. (III) and Shannon Robertson, of New Orleans, LA; and many beloved relatives and friends. He was preceded in death by his father, Dr. Travis Ferguson.

Mr. Ferguson was born July 12, 1964 in Pascagoula, MS. He was employed as an information technology consultant by Price Waterhouse Coopers in Indianapolis. He was a volunteer reader for Indiana Reading Information Services.

Those who wish to share their condolences to the family are invited to send contributions to the National Brain Tumor Foundation, 22 Battery Street, Suite 612, San Francisco, CA, 94111-5520, (800) 934-2873, http://www.braintumor.org, or to the charity of your choice.

Margie and Mark, thanks for coming to share in our celebration of holy union. May our devotion and love endure life's insults as well as yours.

















A good man, a good friend, quiet and deep, with lots of patience with little-boy energy for incessant video games. Right, G?

That's right, Margie -- we lift our glasses, a wee dram in his memory and feel his pleasure in good company.

On Eating Local

Yes, we're eating local! Not 100% yet, we're working our way into it.

Last week was supposed to be our start, we thought, and we got our first delivery from one community supported agriculture service (CSA). For $35.00, we got some beautiful organic produce, including root veggies, blood oranges, and apples from California. I think the eggs were local. We didn't realize the winter would mean the CSA service would supplement their income using organic produce from anywhere. I think they try to work with local farms, but it is deep winter now. We realized we could do the same for ourselves at Goose Market on College, where we have been picking up sweet potatoes, organic lettuce and veggies, beef, and chicken.

On Saturday, I journeyed out to Traders Point Creamery for the winter market (9:00 a.m. - noon) and picked up some beef, pork, and eggs, some dried tomatoes and bell peppers, and some home made soap. Today's New York Times had an article and some recipes about dried tomatoes. It's true, the flavor is intensified in the drying. We'll have to try that next summer. We lost so much in not being prepared to "put up" our abundance of tomatoes. Winter is a good time to find out what kinds of preserving we can learn by next harvest from our back yard gardens.

I cooked up the last of the potatoes and other root veggies, including carrot, parsnip, and a purple carrot. Here's what I had for dinner tonight: organic potatoes, carrots, and parsnips steamed in the good ol' Revere Ware, and the local pork loin. Hey, Mississippi folks -- recognize Emmett Collier's pottery?












Tonight, we got our first delivery from Basic Roots. Wow, that Brian is a nice guy. Here's what we got for $45.00.

We know this is not the best time of year to start this adventure. Brian told us that the usual supplier of winter greens, Yeager, was frozen out with that recent deep freeze. But, they went to Saraga and picked up some organic baby lettuce.

We're expecting this winter to eat more potatoes than usual, just because that's what people have stored away. These sweet potatoes from the Basic Roots bag look wonderful.

They included samples from a woman who works with beeswax that comes from bees in a church steeple on Rural Rd. on the east side. They also included a CD from the Dancin' Nancys, Everything Changes. Popcorn, apples, apple cider, tomatoes, salsa, eggs, and a yummy loaf of dessert bread completed the order, all from within 60 miles of Indianapolis. I'll check the next time I go to Kroger to see how we're comparing on costs. But, this is not the point. We're willing to renegotiate our finances to make this commitment to CSA.

I think this is a fine way to start something new with the beginning of Lent.

On Being Caustic

You know the kid who projectile-vomited on me in the playground (previous post)? Well, it happened again. Turns out she thinks I am caustic.

Caustic:

kôstk
ADJECTIVE:	1. Capable of burning, corroding, dissolving, or eating away by chemical action. 2. Corrosive and bitingly trenchant; cutting. See synonyms at sarcastic. 3. Causing a burning or stinging sensation, as from intense emotion: “Most of all, there is caustic shame for my own stupidity” (Scott Turow).
NOUN:	1. A caustic material or substance. 2. A hydroxide of a light metal. 3. The enveloping surface formed by light rays reflecting or refracting from a curved surface, especially one with spherical aberration.
ETYMOLOGY:	Middle English caustik, from Latin causticus, from Greek kaustikos, from kaustos, from kaiein, kau-, to burn.
OTHER FORMS:	causti·cal·ly —ADVERB caus·tici·ty (kô-sts-t) —NOUN

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

--Bartleby.net dictionary

I'll admit, I'm sarcastic sometimes. Most of the time, it's not aimed at anyone, but at circumstances. And, usually, I'm joking around with someone who appreciates the wit. I can tell when the wit doesn't work, most of the time.

I feel surprised, I think, that I missed the cue with Dr. P-V, as I am now thinking of her. The wit is lost on her. I am finding in my new position that I am confronting more cheerless people under one roof than a convention of pessimists. I guess I need to watch my "caustic" wit if I want to get along here. But, wait a minute: do I want to get along here? How long before I join the convention?

I'll admit, it surprises me to find that someone actually doesn't like me and doesn't really want to improve that situation. How does someone become my age and stage of life and care about something like that? How does Dr. P-V get to her age and stage without more humor? I know she was sick, and I know she's exhausted.

I have decided to steer clear. For one reason, I am not long in this job and I choose to direct my energy for essential tasks; if we had to work closely, I would work at it more. Secondly, I really don't care very much about this person or the job to invest too much energy. I managed to live and work all these years without knowing her and I can live longer the same. Thirdly, I'll take responsibility for what's mine, but this is not just about me. If I cared more, I would pursue the question of what's behind her hostility. But, I don't care very much, so that's enough about this. I could care more, but not now.

Blogger friends: do you think I'm caustic? This is how I get therapy now -- invite criticism here.

No, wait -- don't answer that. I'd rather not know! I'll be so sensitive about it now that it will probably self-regulate and I'll learn from it and go on. Like a self-bailing raft, this wave has left my boat a bit unstable, but it will empty by the time I reach the next rapid, and it will be ok.

I admit, I'm sarcastic often. It's a defense against pain and fear. I'm smart and I have a good vocabulary. I can spot people's weaknesses and exploit them. Trouble is, if, on the receiving end, someone is looking to be hurt, they won't be disappointed.

My dad is like that. He is very thin-skinned and does not like to have his weaknesses handed back to him in a joke. I don't, either, but I have a streak of some kind that is ready to laugh at myself. That doesn't make me better than Dad, it just makes it easier to take a joke.

Now, if I came back to Dr. P-V, suggesting that she get a thicker skin or learn to take herself less seriously, then I would be perceived as victim-blaming. I do think there is something going on here that owes to victimization of some kind. People who experience trauma can have unresolved anger. It's sometimes easier to blame institutions and their representatives when overwhelming events cannot be blamed on anything more concrete. I could be projecting.

I need to consider that in my new position, I will be susceptible to these kinds of victims in my work. I am in a position that is more institutional and bureaucratic than I ever thought I would be. People will be looking for excuses to accuse me of abusing my power or seeking to exploit their weaknesses.

I think it would be better for me to learn how to live more into this reluctant gravitas, and to spend more energy trying to build people up, especially the weak ones, especially Dr. P-V. I can change my humor use in the workplace, but it's hard for a victim to change. I'd better take the high road here. I'll save my caustic wit for banter with my true friends, who are strong, smart, and enjoy word play.

On Work and Play

Today -- Friday, which, by the way, by just being Friday is probably significant to these coming thoughts -- we had a meeting. I came away feeling like we just left the playground, and one of the kids projectile-vomited all over me. I'm going to be sure I sit far away from her in all future meetings. It's so messy.

Another thought after the meeting was an appeal to my training. I wanted to say, "You know that anti-depressant you're taking? I don't think you're getting a therapeutic dose."

Two things have happened this week to cause me to think I need to keep looking for my vocation here in Indianapolis. First, I went to the web site of my former employer. I was so depressed to see what they're doing now, even more than when I decided to leave. It's hard to see a place in which I invested so many years taking such a turn "to the dark side." I was so relieved to get out of there. I should not have gone to the web site, but if I ever need a reminder that I made the right decision, I'll know where to look. I don't need a reason -- here's why:


... my precious family. Sister of my Darlin', my Darlin', and moi at the last RCA Dome game for the Colts, January 13, 2008, the ill-fated playoff game. The enemy of my enemy is my friend: Go Giants!

Secondly, today's meeting. Here's a chapter title or maybe an epigraph for one of the chapters in a book I'm going to write about my adventures in academe: If the faculty did not create it, it does not exist. It's a variation on, "The Emperor Has No Clothes."

So, here's the meme challenge:

1. Someone plays the peacemaker, the one who wants everyone to get along and play nice.
2. Someone plays the bully, the one who knocks you down and takes your lunch money.
3. Someone plays the sneak, the passive aggressive one who sets you up for a fall.
4. Someone plays the saboteur; just when you thought the game was almost over, this one picks up the ball and goes home, or changes the rules, or kicks you in the shin.
5. Someone plays the cry-baby, the one who wants everyone to play her way and let her win.

How is your workplace like the sandbox in pre-school?

Hoppin' John or Juan

Belated Happy New Year to my reader! Did you get your Hoppin' John this New Year's Day?

I like to make Jalapeño Cornbread with the peas and greens and all that. The fun part this year was using peppers that we grew in our pepper patch along the back fence. I froze them right off the plant in a plastic container. They thawed out just as beautifully as they went in, bright green.

I followed the recipe on the Bob's Red Mill Organic Yellow Corn Meal the way I always have to follow cornbread recipes that do not originate from my childhood family kitchen -- no sugar, a pinch extra salt, and buttermilk instead of milk, Clabber Girl baking powder -- no self-rising meal. I added a small can of whole kernel yellow corn with chopped bell peppers, a cup of cheese, and chopped chilis (jalapeños). I cut out the veins and seeds before chopping the peppers -- that's where the most hot comes from and not everyone in my household likes the same degree of hot that I like. I would like to run into a firey seed now and then, but it would be too much for Chiclette, not that she would touch my cornbread, anyway.

I made the same mistake my brother, Robert, ran into the summer he harvested his habaneros. He picked okra and squash before the peppers. If you've ever picked okra, you know how prickly the leaves and stems are, but maybe the damage is not evident unless you pick habaneros afterward. Merely picking the peppers and walking with them in his hands into the kitchen set his hands afire. If you handle chopped peppers, even an imperceptible whiff of juice or accidental contact with the knife blade or cutting board after de-veining, the capsaisin will burn into any bit of chapped or microscopically lacerated skin and stay there until some combination of washing, soaking in milk or other lactic acid like yogurt, and dilution by the skin's fluids gradually draws it away. I felt the peppers in my hands all afternoon. At least my hands did not swell like balloons the way Robert's did that day.

Diane gave me two nice ham bones left over and frozen from Thanksgiving for the pork meat usually called for in Hoppin' John. There was a generous amount of meat to pick off after boiling the bone with the black-eyed peas. We had such a wonderful gathering with those hams at Thanksgiving, so maybe some of the warm and generous energy of that day will follow us into the New Year.

Welcome, 2008, Happy New Year, love, health, and wealth to all my loved ones!

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent

December 9, 2007

Ps. 72:1-7, 18-19; Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Matthew 3:1-12

Tuesday, December 4, 2007, 1:00 p.m.
Christian Theological Seminary
Chapel Service
Anne G. McWilliams, Ph.D.


Here in the seminary, it comes as no surprise when I say that the preacher’s task sometimes is hard. Every day that you rise from the congregation to preach, you want to bring God’s words to the people. You want to discern what we need to hear today.

Sometimes the lectionary seems like no help at all. Sometimes it is hard to tell why the lectionary provides all of the texts for a Sunday or a daily observance of the hours, in each of the scripture categories of Hebrew Bible, Psalms, Epistle, and Gospel. Sometimes they don’t hold together at all. Sometimes it seems like the only purpose in a given series of readings is to somewhat consistently lead those who want it through a faithful reading of their Bibles.

But, on these Sundays of Advent, the lectionary is very cooperative, solicitious, and helpful. Today’s texts for the Second Sunday of Advent all point to the future, to the eschatological vision of the reign of God, and to the qualities of peace and harmony among God’s people. Each of these passages sets us up for mending the splits, unifying the polarities, a return to Eden, Paradise, lions and lambs, red states and blue states together, under a ruler who resembles the perfection and the best of all that is good about God and persons in the best of all possible worlds.

Historically, these passages have been used by the Christian community to make several points at once. One idea is that the Old Testament is just theatrical foreshadowing in Christian history culminating in the coming of Jesus. It’s kind of like the Star Wars movies. You see the first film and live for twenty years in the simple awareness of the unlikely adolescent conquering hero, Luke Skywalker, until you see the prequel and learn that he was not the only unlikely hero, nor the most handsome one.

Isaiah’s text is one of those favored prequel passages of the Hebrew Bible. This passage foretells the perfect ruler, whose coming we anticipate, placing ourselves, by use of our imaginations and suspension of time and disbelief, eight centuries before the events of the Christmas story. We are supposed to see in Isaiah’s words the hope that is to come, while we, sitting in our pews 2800 years later, can be smugly satisfied, knowing that all of these absolutely perfect conditions and qualities have been fulfilled by our Jesus, our Christ. This is the snow-covered good, happy picture, so we can sing, “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” and know that this story is complete.

But, is this story complete? I don’t know about you, but I’m not sitting so comfortably with Isaiah: The Prequel today. Something is scratching at the back door of my consciousness as I hear this prophetic description. I think it’s because I have let the Psalm for today reach over and stick its elbow into the rib of this 8th century prophecy. The Psalm says, and I paraphrase: God, send us a leader, one who reminds us of you. Send us the one who leads with the kind of justice that you love, not the one we actually have now.

Isaiah’s word comes to us after a period of history that, if we try, we can understand pretty well from current events in which we are implicated. The people of Judah have been through horrific war and occupation by a cruel conqueror. They have been devastated, almost wiped out. If I use the word “decimated,” I would have to alter the definition from killing one out of every ten to only one out of ten left standing. I would almost describe it as an ethnic cleansing. It’s my interpretation of what leads up to this 11th chapter, this gloriously hopeful vision of the restoration of Judah.

Chapter 11’s vision of a future realm of the perfect Godly leader comes after the image of a wiped-out clear-cut vineyard. This destruction of Judah seemed to destroy God’s promise to make Abraham’s offspring more numerous than the stars of the sky or the sands of the oceans and deserts of the earth.

I know something about clear-cutting. It’s not a pretty picture. To tell you the truth, I was just responsible for clear-cutting 80 acres of land in my home county in Alabama. When the job was finished, the forester told me that the land looked like a bomb went off. Tree tops lay in a chaotic mess. There is nothing remaining of the pines, oaks, poplars, and cedars that grew up over fallow pasture land over the past fifty years or so.

If you are into conservation and ecology, I understand if you’re a little angry with me right now, especially if I told you that I intended to leave the land in that state of waste. You would not be the only one. The caretaker who hunts the land was furious because deer season was coming and his stands overlook the margins of the timberland.

But, here’s the rest of the story that I hope will save my reputation. Workers are coming in after the winter freezes. They will bring backhoes and bulldozers and pile the debris up, set fire to them, and reduce them to ashes. They will bring in seedlings and special tools and they will plant new trees, one by one. Over time, a new forest will grow. Every ten years or so, we will thin some of the trees to give the strongest trees the best chance to grow healthy. Maybe I will live long enough to see the fullness of the mature trees. Some day, in a few decades, it will be someone else’s turn to repeat the cycle, and take over this sustainable forestry plan – or, more likely, build some houses and condos.

The caretaker told me in an email over the weekend that the deer have returned and are using the same pathways they used when the timber was standing. Even the hunters are hopeful after the destruction of their playground. Good news, but not for the deer.

Isaiah’s prophecy of the recovery of Judah is restoration of the wasteland. In Isaiah’s story, the apparently dead vines are going to send out shoots on their own, and out of the wasteland, Judah will be restored. What an image!

Not only will the nation return to its glorious state of population, but out of the wasted people, God will bring forth a leader from the people, a descendant of David, not another foreign ruler.

Historically, we are told that this story was fulfilled already in history, 2800 years ago, in the reign of Josiah, a king from the lineage of David. And, to add even more drama and texture to the story, Josiah was just a child, maybe seven years old – a little child will lead them. Christian tradition uses this story of Isaiah’s account of Judah’s restoration and the reign of Josiah to foreshadow the coming of the Messiah, in the person of Jesus – the Christ.

Now, still, at least one more piece of this story is tugging on the edge of discomfort in my mind this Advent season. I just have to say, Come on! Isaiah’s vision is just too good to be true. It’s far too perfect to be believed. Can there be such a time of peace, harmony, and justice as Isaiah describes – now, 2007? I am pretty sure I pay taxes that enable a powerful nation to make wastelands of other nations.

From where I stand, looking at this story, and hearing about God’s heart being with the poor and helpless of the world, I have to tell you, it does not look good for those who abuse power and ignore the poor. I don’t see much hope in our current leaders using their gifts for sustainable practices of empowerment and restoration with the poor and the weak in the world instead of pursuing our unquenchable thirst for more oil, more control, more might.

But, just because the vision is too good to be true, we still should not leave this vision with Isaiah and Josiah back in the 8th century BCE. Nor does Isaiah’s eschatological vision end with the birth of Jesus Christ. Isaiah’s vision of God’s leader for God’s people comes forward to us and with us today.

This leader we seek is not coming from somewhere outside of our awareness, waiting to spring into our lives like an instant savior. I’m afraid the work is much more difficult than that, yet its reward is as rich and more joyful than Christmas. The call for justice and healing of this world begins inside of each one of us. Psychologically and theologically, we can let God’s leader be born in us beginning with this season. Here is my Advent challenge to you and me today: become the leader you seek.

Who Would You Invite...

Heavy sigh.

I am responding to a post on Thanksgiving by my friend, Mamalicious. For starters, the party would be small enough that everyone would fit around one 10- to 12-person round table. Better yet, make it an odd number. I remember what it felt like to be the one among the couples at parties. I was ok by myself, but invariably, someone would comment on the empty chair, with the suggestive wink, you know, "we'll have to work on getting someone in that chair beside you." For sure, there would be child-care, I'll pay, maybe at Mamalicious' house, just down the street.

Then, I would have my partner, Rachel, my friend Mary from Yellow Springs, Victor from Nashville, Mike and Kendall from Dayton, and Rachel's choice of four people. I would bring in Laurel and Cindy from Chicago, because they always have news of the Spirit that brings smiles, reflection, and a challenge to keep thinking.

Mike and Kendall would insure that the conversation would be witty. Mary would be sure there would be good dinner music and a long walk before and after the meal. With all of those people at the table, I don't think there would be a poet, writer, or philosopher whose contributions would add much more to the conversation. Besides, I know all of those people, and I don't get to see them enough. I can meet interesting strangers at Mamalicious's party. :-)

I love the big family parties, seeing the people you don't ever get to see except once or twice a year, and eating food you would not normally prepare at home. But, I have to confess, I get overwhelmed with the bigness and the manyness and the noisiness. I like it up to a certain point, and -- who knows what brings that point into being or when? -- then it is time to go.

I think the combination of not enough sleep the night before, and the third glass of wine, and realizing that I hardly saw a snap of the Packers game finally brought the point early in the evening for me. Back at home, I turned on the Jets/Cowboys game and immediately fell asleep on the sofa with Henry, Zen, and Caty piled around me. That nap was delicious. Later on, the Colts game (yea!) interrupted the nap, but not for long.

Thanksgiving this year was good, sweet people, my new family. We put out a tablecloth and permanent markers, had everyone sign the cloth. One of the parents drew her daughter's handprint, a great idea! The idea is that we will throw the tablecloth onto the table at future gatherings, and as more friends and children are added, the cloth represents all of the memories of all of those present, all of the meals, all the stories, all of the years. It's so sentimental, I'm sure I'll be out looking for a clear cover for it for the next occasion, to keep it from getting too soiled meal after meal.

Feast of St. Andrew

A few years ago, I started a practice that lasted just about three years, but it was great fun: celebrating the Feast Day of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. The holiday sometimes falls on Thanksgiving or that week, and sometimes, as this year, later. November 30 is the annual date. In the "for what it's worth" department, this feast day determines the beginning of Advent; the Sunday closest to November 30 is the first. Why I think of it in terms of Thanksgiving and not so much in relation to Advent, I am not sure. Maybe I'll figure it out by the end of this reflection.

I love Scotland. My heritage is some part Scots, but mostly Irish, and who cares, because I'm thoroughly a Southern American. Being from the South means that many families tell stories of origins. I know that most of my family told stories of County Cork, and ports of entry in the 19th century, not the 17th or 18th (no Pilgrims in our orchard, just Irish Protestants). So, my love for Scotland was learned, not a cradle birthright. I guess I have to credit Rachel B., her bagpipes, and that trip we took back in 1993, touring the Highlands and Western Islands. Then, in 1999, another stay with Rachel B. and Scott in Edinburgh, with another Western to Southern Islands (Islay, Kilmartin Glen, and fly fishing in the hills around the city), firmly situated my sense of familiarity with certain features of Scotland that I continue to love: single malt very peaty Scotch whiskey, folk music, the pipes, and pub food.

I have these friends, a colleague in a former job, and his partner, whom I associate with Scotland. They also have vacationed there. One went to graduate school there. I bounced off of this friendship with my first St. Andrews feast day celebration. They brought haggis, I cooked lamb and winter vegetables, 'nip and tatties, and, of course, a selection of Scotches that led us on a tour of memories of lochs, glens, distilleries, and favorite pubs. We concluded the meal with a fine selection of cheeses and a selection of ports. Port has some "rules" of obscure origin, having to do with bishops.

There are many traditions associated with St. Andrews Day. I must admit, my parties were selective in honoring traditions, but some, like a reading of the Selkirk Grace with the proper brogue does stand out in my memory.

I don't think I ever had more than a dozen people at the table. The order of lamb shanks, Frenched, always raised an eyebrow at the market, but this was a cost I gladly spent for an evening of brilliant story-telling, toasts of such eloquence and humor that bring a smile to my face even now.

What ended the tradition? I'm not sure, probably many factors, most of all, moving away from Dayton! I would love to try it again, or something like it, a holiday celebration that served as an antidote for the excesses of Thanksgiving, and opened the gate for the coming Advent season, which is loaded with parties. I guess I like a break, a threshold between one party season and another. The marketing of Christmas, after all, starts immediately after Halloween. It's just too much. Something there is that doesn't love the red-and-green onslaught so early. Like a betwixt-and-between transition, the Feast Day of St. Andrew marks the shift from all the over-burdened busy-ness of Thanksgiving.

Without the Feast of St. Andrew, Halloween, Presidents' Day, Veterans' Day, and Thanksgiving are all on the same avalanche to Christmas. St. Andrew stops the slide. The lamb, the haggis, the Scotch, they interrupt the insipid white potatoes, white meat (including pork, the other white meat), white gravy, white pasta much more effectively than the prodromal introduction of Christmas food onto the Thanksgiving sideboard, the cranberries, the deep winter cruciforms of Brussels sprouts, broccoli rabe, and kale. Before Thanksgiving slides into Christmas, give me the gamey chop or leg of lamb, the earthy parsnips mashed into that helpless potato. Give me Stilton on a Honeycrisp apple slice and an oakey Cabernet Sauvignon.

Those of us gathered for the St. Andrew feast were mostly transplanted to that city. Everyone at the table was there because they had returned from Home to this home away from Home, back to this chosen place, back from the travel-bound obligations. They could come from home and go back home with the distance of a pleasant errand. Work would resume. We would see each other on Monday, or in the coming week. The last of Ordinary Time would be over.

In order to celebrate like those few St. Andrews Day feasts, here in this new chosen place, the ingredients would have to be similar. All local friends and colleagues, a special menu unrelated to the Pilgrim feast, a long evening of stories and songs, the cozy familiarity, and then settling back into the mundane while shifting into a new season of life.

Are these ingredients close at hand? I would like to find out. Let Thanksgiving be Thanksgiving, and keep it from the inexorable slide into Christmas. I need something else, an evening so different, such an interruption of the same, to draw up the wooly blanket of the coming winter and to set the candle's glow against Advent's dying light.