I Am Not Hamlet

Exilic vocation

2012-01-27T22:15:00.001-05:00

I begin my life on Patmos Monday morning.
Update: It is as I imagined.

Independent Women?

2012-01-09T21:45:00.000-05:00

During breakfast today I was reading an excerpt from a play in The New York Times Magazine (I know, I was a day behind and read Saturday's edition yesterday) entitled Rust. The play, written by a professor at Grand Valley State University, here in Michigan, is a nonfiction drama about the closing of a GM plant in Wyoming, MI. The play itself sounds interesting and I enjoyed the excerpt, but what caught my eye was something a character said. The character is "Academic" and plays a historian and guide to the playwright, also a character. He is explaining the rise of the automobile factories and the effect of the car on American culture. He says, "Women became independent, they go from producers of food and clothing to consumers of food and clothing." This was meant as an earnest, praiseworthy point.
I would counter with "How far we've fallen." To say that a woman (or a man) is independent because she has moved from producer to consumer seems to me a bit diabolical. So, freedom comes not from being able to sustain your own life (and by extension, your family's) but from buying things to sustain that life? Really? No longer possessing the ability to truly provide goods for yourself, but being able to purchase goods made by others is freedom? How so? Granted, there can be drudgery in having to make every good for yourself, but I don't see how not being able to do that, by shifting that to a proxy is some great leap forward. It seems to me you've just enslaved yourself to a job, a corporation, an economy. Help me out here, people.

Number Eight

2012-01-02T23:45:00.002-05:00

The Eighthday is the day of resurrection, the day of new creation. This is the beginning of new creation as herking is only eight days new. His birthwas announced by fearsome angels and smelly, grass-stained shepherds. His coronation begins with a torturousdeath. But enough of that…there are stilla few twinkling lights to be glimpsed. Perhaps a forgotten present under the dresser?

Here in themidst of Christmas as we move toward Epiphany/Theophany it is the feasts ofBasil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Seraphim of Sarov, to mention only three. Eight milking maids, eight beatitudes, eightdays a week? Though the insects claimedto be bigger than Jesus, no one receives a day off from work for John Lennon’sbirthday.

Are youlike Scrooge, are you still keeping Christmas in your heart and in yourhome. Or are you like Madison Avenue,thinking about St. Valentine and his cash-laden feast day?

On the Seventh Day...

2012-01-01T23:48:00.001-05:00

The Seventh day: seven swans swimming on a not-quite-frozenpond, seven gifts from a Ghost that come wrapped in skin and tied up with amindful bow. A new year and Christmas isalmost out of mind now. Today, probablythe lights come down—in between quarters—boxed up, the boughs tossed, the lastof the turkey consumed. The trouble withliving in a culture that sells Christmas starting after Hallowe’en is one can’tcelebrate it after today. At least notwithout looks. Christmas is a one-dayorgasm that really only lasts as long as the wrapping paper in the fire place; aquick burst of light, sound, heat, and then cold, black and grey ashes. Nothing to savor, nothing to hold, exceptgift receipts and sweaters that appear out of date.

Kids say the darndest things

2011-12-16T17:09:00.002-05:00

You know what makes my morning? Vocabulary-challenged morons ejaculating profanity in the hallways as I make my way to my classroom. That's what.

Owl Prowl

2011-12-04T21:37:00.001-05:00

Eastern screech owl (Photographer unknown--stolen from Qoop)

     Last Friday evening should have been perfect for spotting owls (either visually or aurally): owl courting season, nearly cloudless sky, 3/4 of a waxing moon, and a windless night. Unfortunately, for the fifteen or so of us, led by the incomparable naturalist Dorothy McCleer, we came up owl-less.
   It was a cold, late fall evening, the brief snowfall from Thursday evening was all but vanished except for the white shellacking on the fallen trees. We met inside U of M-Dearborn's Environmental Interpretive Center for a briefing of the species we might encounter--the great-horned owl, the screech owl, and possibly a barred owl, one of which had been hanging out in the basement of a Presbyterian church on the other side of the Rouge River. We headed out into the cold dark and stopped by some oaks near the entrance. Ms. McCleer quieted us down and whistled the smooth sliding call of the screech owl. We scanned the dark cracks in the sky that were the bare tree branches for several minutes: nothing.
   We headed into the woods walking on not-quite frozen mud, stopping several times, watching, listening. One won't hear an owl approach as their wing feathers are designed for silent flight (the better to catch you, my dear), so one either scans for flight or listens for a possible amorous response. We did hear Canada geese several times, honking in Lake Fairlane, but that was as close as we came to owls.
   Ms. McCleer, without the aid of recordings called for barred owls and the great-horned ones as well, to no avail. The owls were out there in the trees, but for whatever reason chose to deny us their spooky calls. Still, tromping through the woods at night, in the hopes of an avian thrill is not a bad way to spend a Friday evening.

A Meeting

2011-11-29T22:10:00.001-05:00

I am one of five. Yesterday, I met number three for the first time. Soli Deo gratias!

Phobiaphobic

2011-11-27T22:24:00.001-05:00

     When asked "what is your greatest fear?" most people respond with concrete fears: snakes, rats, heights, closed spaces, clowns, etc. Not me, sure being high in the air with little to no protection causes interesting physiological reactions in me, but really that isn't what truly shakes me. What I'm afraid of is cowardice. I'm afraid that in some extreme situation, which most people don't experience anyway, I'll respond in some George Costanza-like manner, panic and run.
   Courage is a virtue, after all. Not only for Christians, but for the ancient Pagans as well. Courage is acting in spite of the fear that might make one weep, cringe, collapse, or run. Courage is accepting martyrdom, running into a burning building, standing for the right in the midst of relativism.
      I suppose I have been tested a few times in this. In high school I stood up to a bully hassling a girl (granted the bully was a girl too, but still...no one else in the class did anything). Another time, just a few years ago, in my neighborhood as I was driving somewhere, I pulled up on a man beating on some woman. I got out of my car and clumsily distracted him from his assault. Another man showed up and helped as well. It turned out the guy, who was much bigger than me, was beating his mother. I don't know what that was all about, but still I guess I did something.
      Regardless of past actions, I still have this lingering phobia that when "the time comes" I'll freeze, I'll keep quiet, I'll avert my eyes. Lord have mercy! Make me bold.

Worth Quoting

2011-11-16T22:05:00.001-05:00

Cooking is one of the most important health consequences of buying food from local farmers; for one thing, when you cook at home you seldom find yourself reaching for the ethoxylated diglycerides or high-fructose corn syrup.

--Michael Pollan from In Defense of Food

Worth Quoting

2011-10-13T17:14:00.002-04:00

To conquer oneself is the first and best of all victories.
--Plato

The Generation Gap

2011-09-30T21:24:00.001-04:00

This should have been obvious, but I realized tonight that not only were my children born in a different century from me, but they were also born in a different millenium. Call it epochal parenting.

H2Oh!

2011-09-14T22:13:00.001-04:00

What is it about water that draws us to it? Obviously, there is our biological need, but I'm thinking beyond thirst and cellular replenishment. I've heard that fire and flowing water are mesmerizing to humans like few other phenomena. Think of how one stares into the dancing red and orange of a campfire or in a fireplace on a cold evening in midwinter. Remember the breathy sound of surf, the constant roar of a whitewater river, or even the arrhythmic patter of rainfall on a roof. Then there's the sight of water: foamy, white highlights on a blustery day, tranquil hues of blue, coffee rivers, black ponds. Ripples, waves, riffles, the motion of water, its (usually) fresh odor, and the variety of life it attracts; bodies of water supply a nearly inexhaustible supply of beauty and fascination.

My daughter at the Gulf of Mexico, Florida

Water isnot only necessary to sustain life, but is used in healing rituals around theworld and has been since probably religion started. Think of baptism and its symbolic prototypes:Noah and his ark, the Israelites crossing the muddy floor of a split Red Sea,Naaman the Syrian general commanded to bathe seven times in the Jordan River in order to be healed of leprosy.


Little Traverse Bay, Petoskey, Michigan


See, I can't stay out of it. Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Ice, snow,hail, rain—water in its myriad forms draws our fear, anger, curiosity, andjoy. I feel the pull of water every timeI am near some natural body of it—swimming pools have never had the same effecton me. Perhaps it is the pool’ssterility or the chlorinated smell—I am compelled if not to jump in and swim ina lake, pond, or stream, then at least to put my hands or sandaled feet init. In summer’s heat especially, theliquid magnetism draws me ever near—even with a threat of leeches or creeping,clawing crayfish, lurking pike with needle-like teeth, or hiding-in-the-mucksnapping turtles.


Swimming in the Midnight Hole, Big Creek, GSMNP

Prior to myteenaged years, my family spent two glorious weeks at my maternal Grandparent’splace on Manitoulin Island. Most days I was found swimming in Honora Bayshortly after breakfast, down by the “government dock.” I came out for a lunch break, again fordinner, and then came out for good for the day at dusk. I’ve never developed immunity to thatparticular siren’s call. I’ve swum inall the Great Lakes, but for Ontario (I’veeven been swimming in the middle of that junior Great Lake:St. Clair). Ponds and rivers all overboth peninsulas of Michiganhave refreshed me. The Atlantic Ocean has enveloped me as well, though sometimes it was just overmy feet or knees. From Nova Scotia and Maine, New Hampshire’s tiny slice of beach front property, Cape Cod, Virginia,including the brackish James River, down to both coasts of Florida.

First time in Lake Superior!

My childrenhave picked up this compulsion (it obviously didn’t originate with me) even goingso far as to take their first swim in Lake Superiorlast month. The only kind ofdisappointment that I enjoy hearing from my children is when they don’t want toget out of the water when it has become time to depart. I pray my grandchildren will be the same way.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Exploring a shipwreck at PRNL

Pictured Rocks NL

So why doeswater pull me so? Who needs to thinkabout it? Come on, the water looksgood. I bet I can go under before youcan.