Luke 11:10-11:13

I’m going to get preachy, just a little bit.

Funny, I’m almost always preachy. But I guess the sermon isn’t a sermon ’til we get to chapter and verse.

That verse talks about asking for things.

If your child asks you for something, something that is good for them and not bad for them, you give it.

Kids usually know when the yes is assumed. Yes, it is assumed that they can have a glass of water. A can of soda…maybe not. Yes, they can read a book. Can they watch that TV show? maybe not.

But for good things, they answer is usually yes. So much a yes, that the question is not always asked.

It is assumed that the answer will be yes. Parents set the answer machine to ‘yes’.

But there are other times when the answer machine is set to ‘yes’. My neighbor had confided in me that it was a problem for her, to refrain from ‘yes’ when people asked her for help.

Because there are times when yes is not the right answer.

For your children, for your spouse, the yes should be assumed.

But everyone else…case-by-case basis.

I used to be much more about the yes. But…it was abused at a young age. There were so many things that were assumed I would go along with, that the question was never asked.

Did I want to? the thought didn’t have a chance to germinate before I was doing it.

And it could get easily tangled. Was it my problem that I did not acquiesce to the unasked? It was assumed that I surely was in agreement.

But since I reached the age of accountability, I was able to contemplate all sorts of other things I wanted to do, things that I would have liked to ask for and hear yes to.

This made me hyper aware of when things were assumed. Yes, I can see that it was assumed I would clean the microwave at work.

My ‘yes’ was assumed.

But just because it is assumed doesn’t mean that it has to be given. I can not do things now, because my volition is entirely within my own power.

HOORAY FOR BEING AN ADULT!

I get to choose.

And there are things that I do choose to say yes to.

And things I don’t.

It was high school graduation, and as the only member of my graduating class, it would have been a tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear.

But that was not my way. I was going to make it into an event.

I had been in home school, with no proms and no homecoming. I had never had any of those fun events, but I was going to have a graduation. And if I possibly could, I would pack that small scrap that fell off the rich table of everyone else’s high school experience into my pathetic life–I would pack that graduation celebration with as much of the other things I’d missed as possible.

And of course, the biggest grievance to me was the lack of formal wear. I was going to have a party, and I would ask my friends to dress formally.

Which meant that i would have the occasion to create a confectionary concoction of a gown. I drew it and patched together parts of different patterns so that the sleeves of one, the bodice of another and the hem of the last would result in my fantasy dress.

Sewing was the only way I could conceive of getting a dress like this. We were not people who bought clothes off the rack; it was hand-me-downs or sew it yourself if you wanted something particular.

So, the pattern was ready, but I still needed to find the perfect fabric.

I wanted to go shopping in Anchorage for it. And I thought of a friend to go with. She had graduated last year, but she was willing to go shopping with me.

Becky was always nice. I met her at her house and we made our way into Anchorage. We looked around and found the fabric I wanted, eventually.

It was a very low-key day. And I was not feeling low-key. But I thought about it a little, and realized that I really couldn’t expect much else.

“You know, Becky, days can just be like that. That you maybe are wishing for something spectacular, but for the most part, days are just pretty much ordinary.”

She looked at me and said, “Yes, days are pretty much ordinary.”

I don’t know if she had any idea what I was talking about. I’m not sure if it is a feeling that other people have.

Sometimes I feel like a flame, that I am HOT and consuming. Books, ideas, shows, projects, actions…I want to be always in the middle, and maybe enough is never enough.

I graduated a long time ago.

THIS summer, I am getting ready to get married. I am also launching an impressive e-commerce website and having a 350 sq. ft. addition built on my house.

THAT’s a lot of a lot.
Any one of those things could become overwhelming. But because there were three things, Chris and I were very focussed and took care of each thing in order.

Two weeks ago, we launched the website very successfully. There are still some loose ends to take care of and we need to organize the exciting world of keeping it running, but our customers are happy and so are we.

Which leaves me now with only TWO overwhelming things to do.

I feel sort of empty.

A while back, when I was even more clueless than I am now, i went to a “networking” event. Everyone was supposed to wear a name tag and put what they were looking for underneath it.

I put down “a challenge.”

And I am still looking for a challenge.

The Incredibles talks about this a little. The problem of ability vs. the utter mundanity of life

Should we stretch ourselves to greater capacity?

Like Frodo! Ah, what a glorious tale of an ordinary guy who saves the world.

I am waiting for my chance to save the world.

I found a very cool online comic strip. Yes, I’m a huge fan of Tolkien, and love the movies. But here is a satire, as if the adventures they were having were a kind of Dungeons and Dragons game.

It’s an EPIC story, the kind used for fodder in games like D&D. And the dungeon master is narrating their adventure at a certain plot point:

You run tirelessly through the endless grasslands

the players, the HEROES talk back to the narrator/Dungeon Master:
‘You mean we run endlessly through tiresome grasslands, don’t you?”

And therein is our problem. What does it take to get a good epic? We are heroes, aren’t we? Dispense with this ridiculous petty earthbound reality! Where are the dragons to slay?

And don’t make me fight through stop and go traffic to get there! I should be impervious to the laws of physics and weakness!

*sigh*

Excuse me, the cell phone is rining to remind to not to forget the cover sheet on the TPS reports.

In a recent post, i was whining about how hard it is to write about inspiration….about how hard it is to be believable with good news.

i said you had to die or no one would believe you.

But that brought to mind something else.

The greeks, those old drama queens, had strict definitions of tragedy and comedy.

Tragedy pretty much HAD to end in someone dying. Because…well, come on! it has to be SAD.

But that made me remember the definition of comedy…It ends in a marriage:

final scene, in which the predominant note is rejoicing, generally leading up to a feast or wedding. The play may conclude with a cordax or riotous dance.

so…if you look at it THAT way…there are a TON TON TON of happy movies that involve love.

Just because I don’t find them believable doesn’t mean that others are drawn in. Romantic movies–comedies and tragedies–are ALL OVER.

so, I guess we believe in the transcendance of love.

…i just wish that it were broader than mere romantic or sexual love…

So I’ve been listening to this awesome podcast of “Proof” on The Play’s the Thing

It’s a play about, among other things, MATH.

I don’t have a firm grasp on math. It was my worst subject in school. Now that I am older, I think that they way math is expected to be learned in school was part of my problem.

I always wanted to know WHY. I didn’t understand the logic behind the math and felt very uncomfortable relying on assumptions that I knew where hidden to me. It felt like a deception, and I didn’t want to be taken in.

“Why do I have to show my work? And why do I have to keep both sides of the equation equal? Who says?”

What I didn’t understand is that math is a language. Math is an incredibly precisely defined set of symbols (like an alphabet..and often borrowed from alphabets!) to express ideas.

And the gatekeepers of math are super rigorous in enforcing that specific definition. The community of people fluent in the language of math expect precision in communication. It simply doesn’t go if it is not correct.

I remember the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”…They said that the aliens would OF COURSE try to use math to initiate the first communication.

And that would make sense, because of the precise nature of math-speak. We would know for sure what we were communicating.

Math is a wonderful tool.

The thing is, though, that a lot of stuff has excluded from math. Math shrunk the universe…or at least lopped off the parts that are not as precise as math needs them to be.

I’ve talked about this before.

It’s a beautiful, elegant tool to help us understand our universe.

I’ve always thought that the definition of luxury was to have the perfect tool at hand for anything you needed to do. Such as, the perfect chair to accomplish the task of sitting.

The perfect beautiful plate and fork so I could eat.

A good hammer, or screwdriver are wonderful things too.

I have an electric sander that is great…but I’m not so sure that it does exaclty what I want it to do. It may be that I don’t know how to use it right, though.

Tools do take that. You have to know how to use them, or they are not useful. I wish that I undestood more math, but I am impatient with math. It does not address the problems that bother me.

I WANT precise definitions…no, I actually want to explore the imprecise. To grab that barely understood idea or experience and nail it down. But they flip past really fast, and it’s hard to capture.

I am finding out too, that math is not as precise either. They are making guesses a lot too. Euclydian geometry is great! but it can’t tell you how big the earth is.

And the learning shape of the universe (which we don’t know for sure) can change everything.

It’s easy to think, “The shape of the universe? How could that possibly be important to little me?”

But it is. Knowing that answer would be a huge building block in our ability to…do so many things we haven’t even thought of yet.

Math can’t tell me the shape of the universe. It is guessing right now.

which means it is not a precise as I want.

Wasn’t I just talking about this? I was just saying that I was having trouble expressing the nature of experienced transcendence…or enlightenment..?

[both these terms irritate me with their imprecision. I can’t find the correct, elegant word to express what I mean…and then again, even if I did find the word that felt right to me, I would be completely uncertain about whether that same shape and flavor of meaning had been transmitted to the persons I am talkign to]

it’s imprecise, and we don’t know. The shape of the universe or how to express enlightenment, both these things are being reached for and guessed at.

The beauty of math is in the precision…and yet the imprecision hangs on the edges. And FRUSTRATES those of us who love precision.

And I don’t even know any math. I am attracted to learning some. But I think that the learning curve for math is a bit steeper than for my electric sander.

I’ve been very busy lately.

Super busy. I have three projects going on that would each on their own justify saying I”m super busy. And I am doing all three.

But those three things are actually chugging along pretty well. I’m past the panic point and have moved on to the part where I am criticising myself for not getting OTHER stuff done.

Yes. I know. I should not be so hard on myself. But it’s like clockwork. I could even predict it coming while I was still panicking about the first three things.

Okay. So the part of my life that I am frustrated about neglecting is my writing.

I have this book, you know? Not the one I’ve already written, I feel bad enough about neglecting that one’s publicity program.

But there is that other book that I was writing long before I started and finished the Miriam story.

Okay. So, I’ve been stuck on the story. I’ve written the first half, the part where I am in Alaska at home, despairing and losing faith.

despair, losing faith–check.

Now I am trying to write about my trip to Russian and about transcending despair and rekindling my faith.

I am really happy with the first part that I wrote. I did a very good job of tracing the path from innocence to jaded cynic. Metaphor and description all over the place. Very nice.

So in the story, I’m trudging along pissed and angry, but coping because I am playing it smart and close to the chest.

Which is SO easy to do. Meaning, it is easy to write about being pissed off and having unfair shit happen to you.

It’s easy because every every every one keeps that feeling of injustice and pissedness right close by. I’d say almost every day everyone has the chance to feel wronged and angry about it.

Every day we have a chance to scoop up a serving of decaying disillusionment and carry it around with us. And which of us can resist doing it? It’s a passtime to think about , and talk about all the absurd things that others do to inconvenience or hurt you.

and that’s just the everyday petty stuff. What about the really nasty stuff?

Literature is full of those kind of stories. REALLY good stories of wrongs done. Hamlet? Oedipus Rex?

There are so many many tragedies. And they are great. I’ve written before about how great movies and books are often really depressing

We are ready to believe bad stuff. We are ready to be depressed.

Okay. So how the hell am I supposed to write about transcendance? No one would believe me.

We are sure that the world sucks and that the universe is against us and is most likely totally unfair.

We are not sure that there is a reason and a overarching merciful justice. We…Well, I know _I_ …don’t buy flimsy trite enlightenment.

We don’t buy it and feel further betrayed if someone tries to sell it to us.

“Yeah right…blah blah and now the world is full of smiling sunflowers. I don’t buy it.”

Which is to say, the second half of my book is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy harder to write. The touchpoints of empathy for joy and peace are not worn on anyone’s shirtsleeves.

And you know what else? It’s not even that easy for me to reach. Yes, I can remember how it felt. But I have to feel it again I think, fully feel and recognize the mountain moving that I know then AGAIN NOW.

So I have to reach deep to find it. And if I can find it, then I have to write better than I’ve ever written before to make it convincing to someone else.

I was talking with a friend about it.
“Honestly, can you think of a single movie where a person achieved transcendence and it was believable?”

“…maybe Life is Beautiful?”

“Yeah, but he died.”

That’s the only way to make it believable. You have to kill someone.

Pay it forward? He died.

Mom was talking to me this morning about Tuesdays with Morrie…a book I find utterly unconvincing, but which I recognize as touching many many people.

Not to give it away, but Morrie died.

Martin Luther King jr. Ghandi…dead.

And EVEN JESUS DIED!!!! would NOT have worked if he didn’t die. NO one would have believed it.

You have to die or no one believes you have anything worth remembering.

And no one died.

…mom says a cat died in Russia…but that was after I left and it was just a strange cat, not one we knew.

I’m stuck. I can’t find someone to die.

Once upon a time, there were born a people who had holes in their bodies, just like Swiss cheese.

The people did not know why they had these holes. They were inconvenient and even hurt. Different holes would ache at different times. Some of the holes were inconveniently placed, making it awkward and sometimes impossible to go about the business of their day.

Some people were ashamed of these holes, and covered them up entirely with clothing.

Some people decided they were proud of their holes, at least some of their holes anyway. They wore clothes that showed off their favorite holes. They still took great pain to hide the holes they did not like, even while flaunting the other holes.

Some of the people began to look around them, and found stones or pieces of wood to push into their holes. The stones filled in the holes, and they felt strange at first. But the people saw that they could fill in the holes and be better able to do whatever they needed done.

The other people, the ones who covered the holes entirely with clothes, were outraged. “How can you draw attention to your holes in this way? It’s shameless!”

The people who flaunted their favorite holes were outraged. “How can you deny who you are and the way you are made? You are stopping up your natural holes.”

The people with the filled in holes heard what the others said. But they could see that their lives were easier because they had filled in their holes, so they did not change.

It is a constantly running train of thought, but here lately it’s been on my mind—the difference between men and women.

I love men. And I love being a woman. It seems to me that these two, when done right, are very complementary.

I know Chris and I work together very well. We have great love and respect for one another, and we manage to do really well on the various projects and entertainments we take up.

There are other men I have known on the job, who I can really click with, who give me respect and collegial affection. I’ve love working with them and miss them terribly when I’ve had to move on.

What is it that men and women give each other? It’s so much more than just procreation. We are broader than that. What, really, do we need each other for?

Of course, need is relative. Do I NEED to go to the gym and work out in the morning? Not really. NEED is for survival. Food, shelter, air.

But perhaps I am too stoic. Perhaps, for the time being, I can count the survival as a given, and set the bottom standard a little above DEATH.

About 8 years ago, I came to the conclusion that it is best not to need anyone for anything. That I am responsible for myself and myself alone. I wanted to be independent and able to get whatever I needed. I didn’t want to have to wait for someone else to get me what I needed.

It turns out I was very able. I pushed my abilities and pruned my wants appropriate to my circumstances. I learned how to be independent and not need things.

But that opened up other questions.

During our first year, while trying to figure all that out, I asked Chris, “If we don’t need each other, what will keep us together?”

He really didn’t understand the question, but he answered: “We will love each other.”

At the time, it was hard for me to understand how he would stay—how could I be sure?—if he wasn’t dependent on me in some way. He should need me.

I’ve learned a lot from trusting his love.

It turns out that instead of being dependent on someone, you can value them highly. In the same way that you would be unwilling to part with an object of value and beauty, you would be unwilling to part with a person of high value and beauty.
And knowing what I value in him, I can try to foster those same things in myself. When I look at myself honestly, I can see that I am of high value. And I can feel confident that he would want to be with this good stuff that is me.

Okay, that’s the micro. What’s the macro? What do men and women need from each other? What desirable thing is it that we are particularly suited to give to each other?

Earlier this summer, I had that highly annoying conversation with a co-worker. You know the one.

“Men and women cannot be friends, because men only want to sleep with the woman.”

Basically, this argument means that men have no use for any part of a woman except…well, you know what I mean.

He brought it up, because I’d met someone who I thought was interesting but who obviously was attracted to me. I’d hoped that he might get over it and be a friend.

“OH no,” co-worker said. “Let me tell you something about men: they never want to be your friend.”

I brought up examples and hypothetical situations. It was a slow day, and we were getting into it. But he was adamant. Friendship was impossible.

I threw this back at him, “So what you’re saying is, while I want to be friends with a guy, he has no interest in my conversation or friendship. Since I am nothing to him, the only thing I’m going to get out of interactions is whatever entertainment I can create….So I should be the biggest possible bitch so that I can get maximum entertainment value.”

The rest of the guys were laughing, but he wouldn’t back down. “I’m telling you, guys do not want to be friends. Ever.”

Well, that made me depressed for a few days afterwards. Upon reflection, I took away two things:

Guys who have that conversation with females are hoping for something. Note to self: avoid that sort of discussion. It’s just an excuse for guys to talk about sex. I thought I had learned that lesson my first year in college, but I guess I forgot. Or hoped that maturity was more widespread than it is.

Also:
Guys who hold that belief have no clue what to do with the huge amorphous feelings they have about women.
Women are highly desirable, but barely understood. The desire they feel is so scary, they try to cover they metaphorical nakedness with this little insufficient scrap called “sex.”

If they have an answer, they can stop asking the question. It matters little that the answer is wrong (or at the least, insufficient). They can put to rest the discomfort of their ignorance with it.

So that leads to another question. What is it that women give men?

I once knew this guy. He was a friend of my ex. He was the most misogynistic young man (~26) I have ever met. He literally had no interest in anything I had to say. I was a woman, and did not count.

It was kind of stunning to realize this. He was never rude, but he treated me as if I were his friend’s cat–simply not a source of intelligence.

He had been dating a 16 year-old (get this, ASIAN). Typical stereo-type. How much more controlling can you be? It was a half-step removed from a mail-order bride. He got married her when she told him he’d gotten her pregnant.

I’d never met her, even though we knew this guy for years while they were dating.

Long story short, after baby boy was almost 2, turned out that wifey had had a boyfriend they whole time and the child was his. She left Mr. Misogynist. He was devastated.

During this bad time, after his wife and erst-while son had left him, he called to talk to my (then) husband. When I told him I was the only one home, he wanted to talk.

I thought he had brought this disaster on himself somewhat, but I felt bad for him. I knew he was hurting.

But the amazing thing is, he wanted to talk to ME.
ME.
The woman he had no use for. The female who might as well have stayed in the kitchen and walked three steps behind for all he cared.

He really wanted to talk to me. He really really wanted to hear words from a kind female. That was all. We talked about small things for maybe 45 minutes.

He needed what I had. He needed womanhood.

I don’t know the boundaries of what masculinity and femininity are. I suspect they are not hard and fast.

But we need each other. And we need each other to be strong and independent in order to receive the good stuff from each other. I think that if we could learn to work together like that, the whole world would change and be beautiful.

In the days of Caesar Augustus came the decree, that all the world should be taxed….

I’m quoting that from memory, but it strikes me that is a rather mundane and inauspicious way for the saviour to be born.

All the world should be taxed. And in order to keep things beauracratically in order, everyone had to go back to the town of their birth.

What a mess! There was not enough supplies or facilities for this to work out. A perfectly nice pregnant lady had to give birth in a stable.

Shamefull. Who’s in charge here?

Well, yeah. Unfortunately…Fortunately?–Jesus didn’t come to make the world run more efficiently. Maybe German or a Swede (the home of Ikea!) would have taken that on.

No, restoring love and mercy with supremem generosity was his job.

Oh yeah. Love and Generosity. Which means that the South Park kids were right.

Christmas is all about presents.

There are only three of us here in the house. Me, Chris and the cat. And I gotta say, Skellig doesn’t get that into christmas. Apart from trying to lay on top of the presents, he is not too interested in them. He is a cat of gratitude for small things.

A bowl of cat food, a clean box, and the toilet lid left up. Add a few scratches behind the ears, and he’s good.

So the presents that are piled high under the tree are really a testament to our generosity and relative affluence. Yay for blessings!

But, a not-blessing…Chris is sick. He has a cold and is sleeping.

We went out to lunch with Grandma and Judy (aka Mother) and Bryan. Chris couldn’t do much but prop himself up in the Marie Callendar booth.

Judy said, “Too bad you are sick. You are the one who loves Christmas so much.”

He does. He is an exceptionally loving and thoughtful gift-giver. He plots early and long to give unexpected but perfect gifts that people will enjoy.

His family is a good challenge to him. “Good” because they are impossible to buy for. HIs Grandmother will return nearly ANYTHING.

But even so, he has found good things for her.

But this long rambling Christmas post is mostly to say, Christmas is about loving generosity.

Generosity does not have to be with material things. Can we have loving generosity towards each other’s faults? Why not? Let’s get over the crabby-I-Haven’t-had-my-cup-of-coffee-yet attitudes of our co-workers.

Or even when we must confront people for inappropriate behaviour, let us find a generous way to do so.

Imagine. It’s easy if you try.