A Friend

A friend is one who knows you as you are, understands where you you've been, accepts who you've become, and still--gently--invites you to grow......(author unknown) 

Tell all the Truth

Tell all the truth but tell it slant (1263 Emily Dickinson)
Tell all the truth but tell it slant---
Success in Circuit Lies
Too bright for our firm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation Kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

Addendum: "Always tell the truth.  That way you won't have to remember what you said."

His Name Is Wonderful (Lyrics)

Cayce and Bible Quotes

"There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the  best of us, it doesn't behoove any of us to speak evil of the rest of us."  (Edgar Cayce)

"....why dost thou set at nought thy brother?"  Romans 14:10  KJV

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"  Luke 6:41  KJV

Two Cartoon Captions

From the December 10 2018 Issue of the New Yorker: "From 9 to 1 you will be answering emails.  From 1 to 2 you will be out to lunch. From 2 to 5 you will be answering emails that came in while you were out to lunch."

 From the cartoon "Shoe," published on Memorial Day 2019: He: "I remember when I was at Wrigley Field in 2016 for the World Series." She: "All you talk about is the Cubs.  You never share your deepest emotions with me."  He: "The Cubs are my deepest emotions!"

What! No Christmas Card?

An elderly couple were sitting on their porch in rocking chairs a few days after Christmas.

The man said to his wife "What ever happened to our sexual relations?"

She replied "I don't know.  I don't think we even got a Christmas card from them this year."

The Highest Good

To attain the highest good
Of true man and womanhood
Simply do your honest best.
God with joy will do the rest.

(James Whitcomb Riley)

A Poem By Francis William Bourdillon

The Night Has A Thousand Eyes

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With they dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

They thought he was Demented

They thought he was just a demented prisoner. After his death they found these words on the wall in his prison cell--another verse to the hymn The Love of God:

"Could we with ink the oceans fill and were the skies of parchment made; were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade; to write the love of God above would drain the oceans dry; nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky."

The refrain (chorus) was written by another and reads "O love of God how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forever more endure---the saints' and angels' song."

His verse is beautiful poetic hyperbole. Reminds me of the King James Version of the last verse in the Gospel of John, intimating that the world itself could not contain the books that should be written about the life and works of Jesus Christ.

"Was there a Time"--poem by Dylan Thomas

Was there a time when dancers with their fiddles
In children's circuses could stay their troubles?
There was a time they could cry over books,
But time has set its maggot on their track.
Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What's never known is safest in this life.
Under the skysigns they who have no arms
Have cleanest hands.
And as the heartless ghost alone's unhurt
So the blind man sees best.

"Don't Hesitate" --Prose Poem by Mary Oliver

If you suddenly and unexpectedly fee joy, don't hesitate.  Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still [,] life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instance when love begins. Anyway  that is often the case. Don't be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

Dance Every Friday

Many years ago I was returning from a visit with my children in Asheville to my home in the Greater Atlanta area. I stopped at a rest area on Interstate 85. I noticed an abandoned yellow rubber ducky underneath one of the picnic tables. I decided to keep it and make it into my mascot for when my children rode in my automobile. I would set it on my dashboard when my children were with me.

I decided it needed a name and decided to call it Alpha Betty. I took the complete alphabet as my template and guideline for its complete name.

ABCDEF evolved into "Alpha Betty Can Dance Every Friday" from which I am using as the title of this blog entry.

GHIJKLMNOPQ evolved into "Good Health Is Just Knowing Larry Makes Nice Onion Pineapple Quiche." My children had for about three  years a stepdad named Larry.  He was my ex wife's high school sweetheart and her second husband.

RSTUVWXYZ evolved into "Root Specialists Treat Underground Vegetables With Xenophobic Yellow Zits."

I have thought of alternatives to the third name, one being Route Specialists Treat Undocumented Vagrants With Xeroxed Young Zebras.

Anyway I hope even John Doe can use the letters of his name to create something humorous and useful.

The Hunter and the Game Warden

      The game warden was making his rounds in the woods one day during hunting season.....he saw a hunter with a large off-white sack with draw string.  After he introduced himself to the hunter he reached into the hunter's sack and pulled out a squirrel.  He put it up to his nose and sniffed a bit. He finally said to the hunter this is a Kentucky squirrel; do you have a Kentucky hunting license?  The hunter took out his wallet and produced his Kentucky hunting license....The game warden reached a second time into the sack and pulled out a groundhog. After holding it up to his nose and sniffing it a bit he said this is a Tennessee groundhog; do you have a Tennessee hunting license?  The hunter reached for his Tennessee license and showed it to the game warden.  The game warden reached into the sack a third time and pulled out a rabbit.  He held it up to his nose, sniffed it a bit and declared this is an Alabama rabbit do you have an Alabama hunting license?  The hunter handed his Alabama hunting license to the game warden.
    The game warden was a little puzzled by now and reached into the sack one last time but the sack was empty.  He then looked at the hunter and said all your licenses are in good compliance with the various state laws----where are you from, anyway?  The hunter turned around so his rear end was facing the hunter and said YOU ARE THE GAME WARDEN; YOU SNIFF MY REAR END; YOU TELL ME WHERE I'M FROM!!!
   I heard this joke from my next door neighbor in Indiana many years ago.  Enjoy!

The Consequences of Weird Behavior

Unusual behavior tends to produce estrangement in others which tends to further the unusual behavior and thus the estrangement in self stroking cycles until some sort of climax is reached. In Phaedras' case there was a court ordered police arrest and permanent removal from society."   (Chapter Six.--Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance--Robert Persig.)

100 years in total ---36,250 days--give a day or two

Hurricane Matt my son turns 35 years of age in 12 days.....I hit 65 years of age 12 days ago---what's not to like about that?  Trump and Associates may  stifle a yawn or two if they wish..:-)

Ironwood Rhubarb #7

"Whether we or our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do." (Wendell Berry)

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TRANSITIONAL STATES: (Mick Bysshe)

Every human  being goes through transitional states in life. At some point you outgrew your diapers. Later you learned how to tie your shoes and learned how to read and write. Perhaps at one point or another you decided to get married, take a job in a different state, buy a house, or start your own business. Too many changes (transitions) in a short period of time may have adversely your mental health and overall satisfaction with what life has brought your way.

If there was a sanctioning elder during these transitional states your experiences might be considered liminal, a threshold between two differing personal realities. If there was no sanctioning elder, these threshold experiences would be considered liminoid.

In the book of Genesis Jacob wrestles with an angel and is given a new name and mission.  He suffered physical injury while wrestling with the angel. Thus we have the motif of a shaman as a wounded healer.

Proverbs 26:4 and 5 give two contradictory approaches when a fool is messing with your reality: respond in kind or don't respond in kind. You will be in a transitional phase as you decide the appropriate response.

The liminal/liminoid state is a threshold state, neither here nor there, neither up or down, neither up or down. One has to dispense with the old before acquiring the new.

An entire society may go through these transitional states. One that comes to mind is the 2000 USA presidential election, ultimately decided by a 5 to 4 decision of the Supreme Court.

Sometimes a liminal/liminoid state can last a long time with no clear outcome or sense of finality. George W. Bush declaring war on terror might be considered an example of this. Even Donald Rumsfeld felt that the phrase "war on terror" was not quite right.

Cultural anomie--deteriorate/shifting norms of a society--also came about as a result the Roe versus Wade decision, creating division regarding unwanted pregnancies.

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For an ordinary Joe or Jane a transition may come after a vivid and disturbing dream. Other changes could be deterioration in health, falling in love with a third person while in an unsatisfying marriage, loss of employment, or the death of a loved one.

The milieu for a successful liminal transition will involve sacred space and time with a tribal elder--often an individual that is a psychologist or a minister of a church that you feel comfortable telling your stories to.  For a liminoid experience you might want to spend time at the seashore, camping/hiking in the woods, or reading a book that guides you through your change, the author filling in for tribal elder.

When Ronald Reagan wanted to quite using tobacco, he started munching on jellybeans, though I don't know if that was the best way to transition.

You can't win them all. Happy transitioning!

Meme Generals

"A meme general is one who controls vast influence. His or her army shapes the messages consumed by the masses, enchanting the listeners to understand their message. For countries this is called propaganda, for churches this is now called a sermon, for companies it is called marketing or communications." (Howard Campbell in "Poker Without Cards by Ben Mack)......for more on the subject see Ironwood Rhubarb #4 below.

Ironwood Rhubarb #6

SYNCHRONICITY--by Mick Bysshe

He tells me to take some Reese's Pieces for the flight crew, so of course this week's New Yorker has a cartoon of a robber inquiring "are those Reese's Pieces?" while holding up the store clerk during a robbery.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of the network of mutuality, the Unitarian Universalist speak of the interdependent web, and not many years ago Al Gore invented the Internet. He might have had a little help from his friend, Joe Cocker.

The notion of acausal synchronicity was first promulgated by Carl Jung after handing one of his clients a scarab beetle to complement the beetle that appeared in her dream life. It apparently became a breakthrough in the therapy sessions that seemed to be going nowhere.

"My sister and I are 3 years, 3 months, 3 days and 33 hours apart in age. Our mother's favorite number is 3." I told her to look up Jeremiah 33:3 and that my son was born when I was 3 decades, 3 weeks, and three days old.

"I had a dream I was selling lollipops out of a cigarette carton. A few weeks later two co-workers were talking. One said 'these are the cigarettes I am smoking now.'  She pulled lollipops out of a bag. I was shocked. It was the fulfillment of the dream that I had."

If you overdo the obsession with patterns and coincidences in your life you may be drifting into apophenia, a word coined by Klaus Conrad a German psychotherapist. He felt this could indicate a form of schizophrenia.

I had somewhat of a foray into paranoia in the fall of 1994. Due to obsessing about coincidences I felt I had caused the death of 68 people on the 68th anniversary of the death of Houdini. It was on the 17th anniversary of my first day on the job in Brazil, Indiana. The 68 who died were on flight 4184 and the plane was in a holding pattern in NW Indiana, waiting for permission to land. There was ice buildup on the wings, but I felt I was responsible for the crash--just as one woman felt she was responsible for the carnage of September 11th, 2001

Most patterned coincidences appear in hindsight rather than foresight, but I had one experience in foresight that I feel is worth sharing.  It happened in 1985. A man I met one morning while out and about handed me his business card. I noticed that the four last digits of his phone number matched the four digits on my  friend Joreen's car tag.  I thought "I am going to run into Joreen today." Sure enough it happened. She pulled up in a gas station  in her car.   We remain good friends..

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." "Remark made by Albert Einstein who formulated a mathematical construct between matter and energy.

The writer Nelson Algren's ideology can be summed up in a remark made by one of his characters, a defrocked priest. Asked  by law enforcement why he was defrocked he replied "because I believe we are members one of another."

That's from the Good Book and should inform our meaning making, our logotherapy. We are bound together in the web of synchronicity, the Other is the Self  sometimes and the One is the All. Something like energy equaling mass times the speed of light squared.

Jack Grew Up Fast

First verse:

Jack grew up fast and Jill grew up slow. Childhood don't last I guess I should know.

Chorus:

Where are all my children?   They've taken them far away. It's getting hard to remember when they were young as the newborn day.

Second verse:

Told 'em about being bad. Told 'em about being good. Sometimes I  feel so sad. Did I say what I should?  [Repeat chorus]

Third verse:

Jill was a cheerleader and Jack ran track. Told the kids many times I would always have their back. [Repeat chorus]

Fourth verse:

The kids robbed a bank and I couldn't pay bail. They served their sentence in the old county jail. [Repeat chorus]

Fifth verse:

 Jack became a preacher and Jill directs the choir. They both sing gospel tunes over the telephone wire. [Repeat chorus]

Sixth verse:

 And now it's about time to end this song. I know another rhyme wouldn't be more right than wrong. [Repeat chorus]

IRONWOOD RHUBARB #5---Imprint (by Dave Rowe)

IMPRINT

Stroh's Sunday Beer--only 3.2 alcohol, sold someplace to minors--and bright green marijuana--that's what I and 11th grade buddy had to look forward to that Saturday night. Saturday afternoon found us on the windswept streets of Cleveland, Ohio, checking out the used record stores and scoping out the hot-looking clerks inside the ritzy department stores. Then out on Euclid Avenue--outside Halles we were approached by a small man, a small white man in thin white garb.

"My young men," he spoke, "how are you doing on this blessed afternoon?"

Frank shrugged. "OK, I guess."

"Can I bestow upon you some words?"

Another shrug from Frank. "Yeah, I guess."

The man gave each of us a small pamphlet, then told us the words inside would ward off misfortune and trouble. I looked inside and saw featured prominently the words "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Rama Hare Rama." I folded mine back up, Frank deposited his in the trash can at the Rapid Transit station.

Back homed--a west-side suburban one--the first thing I did after greeting the black and tan dachshund was go up to my third floor quarter and fish out my George Harrison "All Things Must Pass" LP--the one Harrison put out shortly after the Beatles breakup. The album marked "poor" by the record dealer--crackled, but that didn't faze me. I went quickly to "My Sweet Lord, the second song on side one. The chanting--"Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Rama Hare Rama" at the end had me joining in. From there it was "Wah Wah," then "Isn't it a pity," then it was downstairs where supper was soon set out on the dining room table.

The fare that night--lasagna, garlic bread, tossed salad, with tomatoes and Italian dressing couldn't be beat although the talk was, well, downbeat. "That Nixon," said my father, a middle school History teacher, "He lied to us, he lied to us on TV."

"Yes, it's awful," my mother said. Then she winked. "So Dave should we be waking you up for church tomorrow morning?--It's Reformation Day."

We were Lutherans and we had a new minister--the previous one got seduced by a sexy divorced parishioner. I was understandably disillusioned. "No," I told mom. "Frank and I will be out pretty late tonight."

Dad set down his seven percent alcohol Rolling Rock bottle next to his plate. "So what are you two guys going to do?"

"We, uh, we're gonna see a movie."

"A movie about what?"

"It's a movie about a rock group."

"The Beatles?"

"No. It's a group called Led Zeppelin."

"Well, be sure to take the dog out when you get home."

Shortly thereafter I was seated next to Frank in the front seat of his father's Pinto. First stop was Twin's Deli where we purchased our 3.2. That accomplished, I pulled the baggie with the marijuana in it out of my front jean pocket and poured a bowl for Frank.  The  light from my Bic showed on his face as he inhaled. He coughed and then a flashing light behind us--a red one--came to our attention.

"Frank," I said. "Frank, you'd better pull over."

Frank pulled over. Then up came a man in blue, a man in blue carrying a large flashlight. "So boys," he said chuckling. "What is it in those cans you are drinking and what is in  that bag with the green powder?"

"Cigarettes," was what Frank offered up. It brought a smirk.

"Why don't you just hand it over?"

Frank complied. The officer inspected the contents of the bag, then scattered the contents to the wind. As for the beers, he took our cans and emptied them out onto the concrete. "Beers," he said smiling. "Root beers--that's what you boys should be drinking. Now run on home to your mommas and daddies--they're worried about you being out so late."

"We will, sir," Frank said. I reached into my pocket--there it was, my pamphlet.

Now it's twenty something years later and I, a Methodist lay reader am on my deck enjoying a full-bodied Pabst Blue Ribbon and reflecting on that incident. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Hare Rama Hare Hare Rama.