Author: frankisemptiness

January 26th, 2024

The title of this essay is a Latin aphorism that roughly translates in English to “Of the dead nothing but good is to be said.” The statement is attributed to Chilon of Sparta. The idea behind the words is that it is unfair to malign the dead, since they have no opportunity to respond the criticism or to defend themselves. That’s true. However, refraining from censuring the dead is also a bit awkward.

I met with a friend of mine two days ago. We get together every week or two to sit and talk and share a couple beers. We worked at the same company for almost thirty years. When we meet, we talk about the sort of things that old men usually discuss: grandkids, health problems, and fallen comrades.

It so happened that I had heard that morning from another person about a fellow coworker who was on his death bed. I told my friend about him. We had both worked with the man for years, and we knew him well. After I mentioned the guy’s condition, my friend and I became quiet for a while.

I finally admitted to my friend that I had nothing positive to say about the dying man. My friend then related a story to me about an experience he had years ago with the soon to be departed person. It was not a pleasant tale, and my friend grew upset as he told me about the incident. I felt depressed. Death is always sad. It’s worse when the individual on his way out is not going to be missed.

I have been to funerals where people truly celebrated the life of the dead person. I have been to gatherings where mourners exchanged bittersweet stories about the departed, and their voices were full of sorrow and affection. There are people for whom it is easy to recall happy events. Their lives brought joy to others, and they are deeply missed when they leave this world.

Other people die, and the survivors have to cherry pick memories. They have to separate the happy times from the bad old days. I have been to funerals where that has happened. It might take a little effort, but generally the survivors can remember some good things about the dead person.

I have attended a couple funerals where the mourners took the Latin dictum to heart, and they did not speak ill of the dead. Instead, they said nothing at all. That is tragic and horrifying in a way. Silence can also be an effective means of condemnation. At those events, the feeling seemed to be: “Let’s get this over with.” The deceased is quickly buried and just as quickly forgotten.

I will eventually have my turn. I suspect that I won’t much care what people say about me after I am dead. I would prefer if they just spoke the truth, if they choose to speak at all.

January 18th, 2024

It happened during the summer of 1978, but I can’t remember exactly when it was. I was attending a three-week-long class at the Northern Warfare Training Center at Fort Greeley, Alaska. It had to be sometime around the summer solstice because it never got dark. It never got hot either. The NWTC was up near the Arctic Circle, close to Fairbanks. Even in summer, a long sleeve shirt or a jacket was necessary.

The military training was divided into three parts. The first week consisted of learning how navigate a small boat on the Tanana River. The second week was spent learning to do rock climbing and rappelling. The third week was spent on the glacier. We hiked on the glacier, crossed crevasses, and got sunburned from the glare off the ice. The Delta River flowed from the lower edge of the glacier. One day we did a river crossing. That was all we did that day.

The Delta River is narrow and shallow, at least where it is close to its source. The water in the river flows rapidly and is cloudy and white from all the fine silt in it. A heavy-duty cable had been strung across the stream, and each member of the class needed to hook on to the cable and ford the river. It didn’t take long to make the crossing, but the effects of the experience were long lasting.

Basically, the water flowing in the river had just recently been ice. It came right off the glacier. I remember that I took maybe a dozen steps before I went numb below the waist. After that, I shuffled along unable to feel my legs. On the far side of the river was a small campfire which was more for show than anything else. My clothes were soaked with freezing water, just like everyone else’s were. We all shivered until an Army bus picked us and took us back to our barracks. Everybody took a steamy hot shower and collapsed in their bunk. That was the end of the day’s training.

Now, forty-five years later, I wonder what the purpose of that episode was. Since it was Army training, there didn’t need to be a good reason for fording a frigid river. There didn’t need to be any reason at all. Perhaps, it was all about giving each student some firsthand experience with hypothermia. If that was the goal, the training was a complete success. We all learned that hypothermia sucks.

I have spent most of my life in Wisconsin, which implies that I have some understanding of how to function in the cold. When I was young, I went sledding and tobogganing. I made a feeble attempt to ski. I participated in outdoor activities, even ice fishing, which I have been told is one of the first signs of insanity. However, at this point in my life, I can barely tolerate the cold. I do not hate it enough to move south, but I no longer enjoy freezing my ass off.

I worked for decades as a supervisor on the loading dock of a trucking company in Wisconsin. The dock was not heated, so the environment of my workplace was exactly the same temperature as the outside of the building. In winter that meant it was cold. I used to dread the last part of January and the first few weeks of February. Almost without fail, there would be a week when the temperatures never got above zero. That’s brutal, just brutal.

Cold weather over an extended period of time is hard on machines and harder on people. If it gets cold enough, trucks and forklifts won’t run. During extremely frigid weather, we had one guy spend his entire shift just starting tractor for the drivers. Even if we plugged forklifts into the facility’s electrical outlets to keep the batteries charged, some of them still would not start. Often, before a truly cold night, we would park as many forklifts as possible into the heated maintenance shop. Then we knew that at least some of the jeeps would run.

The dockworkers, and I, wore as much clothing as we could to stay warm. That was a losing battle. After eight to ten hours out on the dock, even with frequent breaks for coffee or soup, a person starts to get hypothermia. You can feel it in your bones. There is a stiffness and fatigue that simply does not go away. There is a weariness that sucks the life out of a person.

I retired partly because I couldn’t handle the winter work anymore. So, when it gets crazy cold outside, like it is now, I stay inside. I will go out briefly to run an errand or get the mail, but I don’t go out on the tundra unless I have to do so. I am blessed to have a warm house. Some people don’t have that.

Today, in the Milwaukee area, there was a high temperature of two degrees. That’s the high temperature. It was eleven below last night. I read the news this morning. Three homeless men were found dead in the local area from hypothermia. One of them was my age and they found his body under a bridge. That’s unacceptable. Nobody in this country should freeze to death in winter. Nobody. That’s a horrible way to die.

I have some small idea of what that might be like.

January 16th, 2023

Look at the picture. What do you see? More to the point, what do you notice first? What catches your eye? How do you react?

I have sent a copy of this photo to probably one hundred people already, and I have received a variety of responses. Most of the recipients already know the identity of the child in the picture. They remark on the radiance of the boy’s smile or on the joy in his eyes. One woman remarked,

“I like the irony of the freedom in his eyes and the plastic thing on the doorknob!!!”

What people have told me about the picture perhaps has less to do with the image than it does with what is within themselves. Maybe they project whatever is truly important to them on to portrait of the little boy. Maybe he is like a mirror for them. Perhaps some of them don’t really see the lad at all.

A young man who is originally from Syria wrote to me,

“He looks amazing with cap. Many Muslims wear kind of the same cap.”

That’s what I thought too. I looked at the boy, and I immediately thought to myself,

“He looks just like one of the kids from Gaza.”

He does. The little man could easily be one of the children currently being traumatized in the war. The difference is that this boy is smiling. The children in the pictures from Gaza generally are not smiling.

What a difference the golden cap makes! Like magic, it draws our attention, and it causes us to put the kid into a mental pigeonhole. His image conjures up certain emotions. The cap encourages us to judge the boy, without ever having met him.

The truth is that I know this young man. I know him very well. He’s my three-year-old grandson, Asher. He’s Catholic boy with a Jewish name and Muslim cap. He’s more than that, much more. Asher is smart and strong and a trickster. He is loving and passionate and headstrong. No photo can ever capture who he truly is.

Likewise, no picture or video on the news can do justice to the children in Gaza. In a matter of seconds, we make snap decisions about who they are and if we should give a damn about them. We should take a bit more time.

We don’t know them.

January 12th, 2024

I wrote this letter to the editor. It was published this morning by the Chicago Tribune

It is an American tradition to shout from the rooftops that the United States is the greatest country on earth. It is apparently also a tradition for Americans to react with shock and dismay when large groups of people cross our borders because they want to live in the greatest country on earth. We can’t have it both ways. 

Currently, thousands of migrants are coming across our southern border in search of a better life. This is a chaotic and confusing situation for American citizens and for the migrants. However, it does not need to be this way. Instead of regarding these newcomers as threats and liabilities, we could view them as assets to our nation, and treat them accordingly.  

The fact is we have a chronic labor shortage, and America’s birthrate is not sufficient to alleviate that shortage, not now and not in the future. Jobs go begging. Employers in our country bitterly lament the lack of workers. The migrants entering the United States could be the workers that we need. They probably won’t make a seamless transition into the work force, but they are motivated, and they are here. 

Vet these people. Give them job permits and get them to work. We need them. They are a godsend.  

January 3rd, 2023

“There are some (places) you go into-in this line of work-that you know will be heavy. The details don’t matter. All you know, for sure, is that your brain starts humming with brutal vibes as you approach the front door. Something wild and evil is about to happen; and it’s going to involve you.” – Hunter S. Thompson

The Milwaukee County Safety Building in downtown is such a place. That seems a bit odd, but it’s true. A person walking onto the premises immediately senses that this will not be an enjoyable visit. The first thing that confronts the individual is one of the ubiquitous metal detectors that grace the entrances of almost all public facilities that house law enforcement offices. The message it gives is: “We don’t trust you.”

I struggled with the metal detector. After emptying my pockets, I walked through the detector which immediately beeped and flashed red. A stern Black lady told me to raise my arms so she could wave her wand across my body. She determined that the problem was with my shoes.

She ordered me to take off my work boots. I did. She told me,

“Turn them over so I can see the soles. Lift up your pants legs. Let me see your socks. Okay, you can put your shoes back on.”

And welcome to the Safety Building.

I was taking a young woman to her court appearance. It was to be held in a room on the second floor of the building. We took the elevator up one floor and came out into a long, winding corridor. “Drab” does not begin to describe the scene. The hallway had no windows. The color scheme was monochromatic. There was a kind of grey, faux marble wainscoting on the lower half of the walls. The upper portion was painted a dull white. The black office doors were almost all closed. Some had peep holes. The linoleum on the floor looked like something that was stylish when Eisenhower was president. There were no pictures hanging anywhere. Milwaukee County apparently hired an interior decorator from North Korea.

Completely out of place, was a small, brightly colored shelf next to the wall. Above it was a sign that read, “Emma’s Garden. Take what you want, leave what you can.” The shelf contained some used children’s books and some ragged stuffed animals. It was a tiny display of humanity in a building utterly devoid of it.

The young woman found the door to the court room. Like most of the others, it was locked. There was a bulletin board next to the door. It held several notices, none of which were comforting. One paper described the things not to do in the court room: don’t use a cell phone, don’t wear a hat, don’t read a newspaper. The overall message was that you have to be here, but you won’t like it.

The woman’s hearing was scheduled to start at 1:15. Nobody was allowed into the room until 1:00. We weren’t the first ones there. There were other people already standing outside the door waiting for the show to start. The atmosphere was heavy with anxiety and resignation. Everybody there had received a summons, and they all knew that they were in some way screwed. Each person was charged with a crime, and each one potentially faced jailtime, probation, and/or fines. Nobody was walking out of the building unscathed. That was guaranteed.

Eventually the bailiff opened the door and ordered his assembled guests to line up single file against the wall. Then they could enter the room to check in. After they checked in, they needed to go out to the hallway again and take a seat. It was kind of like going to the DMV, but not as friendly. There were a dozen folks in the line. Of those, seven were Black, four Latinos, and one white woman. I knew her. Keep in mind that every person there was accused of a crime, but none had been convicted. They were all innocent until proven guilty. However, they weren’t dressed well, and they didn’t have a high-powered attorney at their side. There was no reason for the bailiff to show them more than a modicum of respect.

Time crawled by. The wheels of justice turned slowly, and we noticed that. A young lady set up a makeshift office in the corridor. One by one, she called out a name and spoke with whoever answered. She would say,

“Hi, I’m from the office of the public defender. I would like to see if you qualify for a public defender. Would that interest you?

Almost without exception, it did interest the person.

The young woman with me waited. She, like most everyone else, stared at the screen of her smart phone. There was nothing else to look at. I mentioned the decor on the hallway. She gave me a weak smile, and said,

“Maybe it’s just a taste of things to come.”

Ah,yes…she’s been in prison. She knows.

The young woman and I were worried. We did not know how things would play out. This was her first court appearance for her particular offense. She was charged with battery on a police officer, which is kind of breathtaking when you think about it. We had already made tentative plans about what to do if the judge said to her,

“I think you should hang around for a while.”

This was not just paranoia. A couple had walked in a little late. The woman was edgy. Her partner looked exhausted. She went into the courtroom and did not walk out. The man shuffled over to a chair and slumped down into it. He looked rough. His eyes were red slits sunken deeply into their sockets. He had red splotches on his face. The guy was emaciated. He had that gaunt appearance usually only seen with concentration camp survivors or meth users.

After a while, the bailiff came out and beckoned to the man. The guy got up. The bailiff handed the man a clear plastic bag with some items in it. The man looked at it blankly. He asked the bailiff,

“Where is she?”

The bailiff replied, “She’s in jail.”

“In jail?”

“Yes. She has another court date. Uh, let me get it for you.”

The bailiff came back and handed the man a scrap of paper. The guy with the ruby red eyes tried to read it. The bailiff returned to the courtroom and the man stood there alone with a bag in his hand.

The man took his girlfriend’s belongings out of the bag and shoved them into his pockets. He blew air into the bag and loudly popped it. There was no reaction from anyone. He turned around and said to himself,

“Cocksucking bitch ass mother fuckers.”

He stumbled down the hallway repeating his mantra. His words echoed as he walked into the distance.

Wild and evil.

A tall, well-muscled Black man sat near to me. He was on the phone. He too was troubled. I caught bits of his conversation:

“Man, I don’t know what’s going to happen here…well, they say I missed a court date in December…yeah, I might go to jail…what I’m telling you is that if you don’t hear from me for a couple hours, I need you to get your ass down here and bail me out…no, I don’t know how much it will be…yeah, okay, bye.”

Wild and evil.

My young woman got called to talk with a public defender. He was a heavyset guy with a rumpled shirt and loose tie. They talked in another makeshift cubicle in the hallway. I could hear them. I’m everyone else could too. Then they went into the courtroom.

Eventually, she came back out, holding some papers in her hand. she said,

“I’m out on a signature bond.”

That’s a win.

“I have another court date in two weeks.”

That’s not.

I asked her, “So, how was it?”

“Okay. There was a guy in there because he was starving animals.”

Okay, battery on a cop is one thing, but being charged for starving animals?”

Wild and evil.

We’ll be back.

January 4th, 2024

The following is a letter I sent to the LA Times. They published it today.

“I have friends who are Palestinian. I have Israeli friends. The cost of this war for residents of the Gaza Strip is extremely high. The price that the Israelis are paying is also exorbitant, although they may not realize yet how much this fight will cost them.

My oldest son fought in Iraq as a member of the U.S. Army. There, he participated in urban warfare, kicking in doors and clearing out buildings. He killed at least one man up close and personal. My son came back changed, and not in a good way.

Israeli soldiers are doing exactly the kind of bloody work my son did in Iraq. They will come home after the war damaged in mind and spirit, if not physically injured. 

Israel may win this war, but in many ways, it will be a pyrrhic victory. They might very well have an entire generation of young people return maimed in some way. I have seen how that can happen.”

December 28th, 2023

Last week, I went out for coffee with a friend. We’ve known each other for a long time, probably twenty years or more. She is an intelligent woman, well-read and thoughtful. We met as part of a Bible study group years ago, and we have maintained contact ever since that time. We don’t get together very often. She has health issues to manage, and I have to care for my toddler grandson fulltime. So, it was interesting to have a face-to-face conversation with her.

As we sipped coffee and caught up on personal stuff, I felt intense fatigue. Asher, the toddler, had had a rough night, and I had been up and down with him for most of it. Caffeine was no longer really a stimulant. It was simply a diuretic. I was tired and edgy. My friend recognized that.

Our conversation turned to the current war between Israel and Hamas. I explained to her that I knew both Palestinians and Israelis, and this particular conflict was difficult for me. I could understand the arguments on both sides of the struggle. I told her that I was appalled by the bloodshed and destruction.

At some point, she stated matter-of-factly,

“The last step required for the Second Coming is for the Jews to return to Israel.”

I was surprised for a moment, and then I was annoyed. I told her,

“I don’t care.”

She smiled sweetly and said, “It’s all part of biblical prophecy.”

“I still don’t care.”

We moved on to other subjects. She sensed my irritation. I had the same sort of reaction years ago when we were in the Bible study group. There were several people in that circle who were obviously fascinated with eschatology, the study of the end times. They were constantly scrutinizing Scripture for hidden clues about the Apocalypse. They were eagerly looking forward to the day when the Lord would return and straighten everything out.

The interest in eschatology is nothing new to Christianity. The earliest disciples of Jesus expected him to come back any day, and they struggled when he didn’t return promptly. The medieval times, there was the belief that Jesus would show up in the year 1000, the end of the first millennium. Once again, he was busy doing other things. Basically, in every generation, there have been people convinced the Savior was on his way here. Apparently, he is still on his way.

Christians aren’t the only people looking for the Messiah. Jews await the arrival of the Mashiach, who is not Jesus. Some of them closely examine the Torah, hoping to find out where and when their Messiah will arrive. Their efforts have been as successful as those of their Christian brethren.

A friend from the synagogue told me a story about this sort of thing. It goes like this:

There was an old Jewish woman who lamented, “Christians and Jews, we argue too much about the Mashiach. This is what we should do. When the Mashiach arrives, if he says to us, ‘Good to see you all again’, well, then the Christians were right. But, if he says, ‘Let me introduce myself’, then we were right!”

The obsession with the end times bothers me for a couple reasons. First, it seems so fatalistic. Second, it seems callous. When somebody talks to me about the end times, in particular in conjunction with the slaughter that is occurring in Gaza, it sounds like they are saying,

“It is all preordained. Don’t worry about it. Just sit back and watch the show. “

I have never heard a person talk about eschatology who wasn’t convinced that they were going to be on the winning team. All the suffering and tribulation is for the unbelievers and other sinners. Nobody with anything on their conscience wants to hear about the end times. They aren’t eager for the hammer to come down.

I have spent years with a Zen Buddhist community. That probably qualifies me as one of the people who will not fare well during the end times, but I have learned much from the Buddhists. They never talk about eschatology, because they don’t believe that there are any end times. The cycles of life and death continue endlessly. In Zen the focus is not on a possible future event. The focus is on the here and now. The fundamental question is: “What am I doing right now?”

I can relate to that question. Especially since I am one of Asher’s fulltime caregivers, I live in the moment. I don’t have the time or the energy to speculate about humanity’s last days. I am concerned with caring for the people I love right now. The future will take care of itself if I do my job today.

I am not the only person who thinks this way. Martin Luther once said,

“If I knew the world were coming to an end tomorrow, I would still go out and plant my three apple trees today.”

I don’t have any apple trees to plant, but I have a little boy to raise.

December 29th, 2023

Small children are like emotional barometers. They have a keen sense for mood changes, especially among the adults they know. Just as a regular barometer can measure a fluctuation in air pressure, little kids can detect the emotional wellbeing of those around them. Like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, they know when there is a disturbance in the Force. The difference is that a small child can’t do anything about it.

Our three-year-old grandson, Asher, is an excellent barometer. He intuitively knows when something is off. Asher is verbally very strong for a boy his age, but he can’t describe what he feels. He is probably too young to understand what he feels, much less adequately express it. To be honest, even though I have six decades more life experience than Asher, I often can’t express what I am feeling or what others might be feeling. Asher may not be able to comprehend the emotions swirling around him, but he knows when things are wrong.

I remember when I was a little boy being able to predict when my parents would fight. I would know hours in advance of the coming storm. Sometimes, I could tell days in advance. I was a barometer then too. I could feel the heaviness of the air in the house. I noticed the unusual silences between my mother and father. The tension was like a charge static electricity that was ever increasing. Then, suddenly, my world would become very loud and chaotic. That was almost a relief.

What does Asher detect in our home? Well, for one individual known to Asher, there are some serious legal issues coming to a head very soon. These problems hover like black clouds on the horizon. Every once in a while, the person in question can hear the rumble of thunder or glimpse a flash of lightning. The individual’s uncertainty and anxiety increase with each passing day, and everyone else in the house shares those feelings, including the little boy. There is an additional family member staying in our house, but nobody knows for how long. That creates more uncertainty. Then then there is also the frenetic energy of the holiday season, both joyous and stressful.

So, what does Asher do? He acts out. Adults do that too, but somehow, we expect kids to behave better than we do. He gets upset and cries, for apparently no reason. Of course, there is a reason, but he can’t explain what it is. He feels our tension and fear and doesn’t know what to do with it. I don’t know what to do with it either. I am old enough to pretend that I have a handle on the situation. Asher hasn’t learned to lie to himself yet.

Asher takes comfort in routine. He likes things to be a certain way all the time. That doesn’t often happen in our house. The only thing here that’s predictable is that nothing is predictable. An adult can somehow adjust to that state of affairs, at least for a while. A little kid cannot. The boy craves security, and we try to provide that. Still, it is not enough.

Asher does not like to go to bed alone, and he does not like to wake up alone. Almost always, one of us is there to tuck him in and stay with him at night, and somebody (generally me) takes charge of the lad when he is ready to get up.

Asher will often wake up in the middle of the night. Lately, his plan of action is to storm into my bedroom and demand my immediate attention. He lacks subtlety. Asher will never be a ninja. He will slam open the bedroom door, stomp over to my bedside, and yell,

“Grandpa, get up!”

I make it clear to him that I am not going to get up. Then he goes with Plan B and says,

“I want to come in bed. Lift me up.”

I do.

Then he lies next to me and says, “I want to cuddle.”

He lies on my right arm. Slowly, I hear his breathing become quiet and even. I can feel his muscles gradually relax. Asher falls asleep.

The boy feels safe again. So, do I.

December 21st, 2023

I walked into the post office the other day to buy some stamps. I go through a lot of stamps, especially this time of year. I like to send Christmas cards (also Hanukkah cards) to people. A few of these cards go to folks who live outside of the United States, so I need overseas stamps, and that requires a trip to the post office, and that means I have to wait in line for a significant amount of time to get these stamps.

The post office was crowded with people sending various things to various places. After waiting in the queue for a few minutes, I found myself in front of a young Black man sporting a vaguely Rastafarian haircut. He’s a good guy, and we often chat whenever we meet. I asked him,

“So, how is it going?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes, “It’s busy, Man.”

“Yeah, I see that. When I was working, it was always busy like this too. I learned to hate Christmas.”

The young man laughed. He said, “Yeah, you know, I’m working these crazy hours and spending all my money. It’s nuts.”

I nodded. He handed me my stamps, and I walked out of the building past a long snake of customers.

The fire station is across the street from the post office. Some of the people in there will be on duty on Christmas, as will thousands of other firefighters, cops, EMTs, nurses, and soldiers. Christmas is advertised as a day for gathering with loved ones in Norman Rockwell settings, and that doesn’t happen for everybody. Maybe it doesn’t happen for most people.

I used to be a supervisor at a trucking company. Holidays and the transportation industry do not mix well. Holidays interrupt the flow of goods and cause untold chaos. I hated the Christmas season because it meant many customers would be closed, and I would never quite know which ones would shut their doors or when they would shut them. I would send drivers out with deliveries and half of the stuff would come back because XYZ Company decided on a festive whim to call it a year and send all of its employees home. Or, worse yet, I would hold on to a shipment, and then get an angry call from Scrooge Inc, saying that they wanted their skid of widgets NOW. Our corporate management always low balled the business levels during the holidays. They always assumed it would be slow and they let way too many people take off. The effect of that poor planning was that those poor bastards who did work during the holiday season were overwhelmed and wound up putting in massive amounts of overtime. I dreaded all that. Once I was able to do so, I made certain I scheduled my vacation time for the last couple weeks in December, every year.

I feel certain that other people working in other industries cringe once they start seeing tinsel. I have a brother who works with garbage collection. The busiest day of the year for picking up trash is the day after Christmas. Our consumer society produces mountains of refuse as result of mandatory gift giving. December 26th is a monument to our decadence.

I used to work with a guy who insisted that the name of the holiday be changed to “Commerce Day”. He had a point there. After Christmas is done, there will be numerous articles online about how much people spent and how this expenditure of money affects the nation’s economy. As with almost all things in America, Christmas is about the Almighty Dollar, not so much about the baby in the manger.

For several years before Covid struck, I used to go with a small group of people from the American Legion to visit the patients in the psych ward at the local VA hospital. Every year at Christmastime the ward would be packed to overflowing with patients. As I mentioned earlier, Christmas is advertised as being a time to be shared with loved ones. Some people don’t have loved ones. Some people are desperately alone. They are the folks whose depression, anxiety, and darkness drive them over the edge when they see other people enjoying the company of others. Christmas can bring joy, but it can also cause despair.

Okay, enough with the cynicism.

My wife and I are raising our toddler grandson, Asher. He is three years old. It is often said that Christmas is for children. That’s true. One evening, Karin and I took Asher on a walking tour of Candy Cane Lane, a part of town where the residents go completely overboard with lights and other decorations. He walked along with us and pointed out the displays he liked. Eventually, he got tired, and I carried him in my arms back to our car. Asher sees the magic. He has not lost the ability to experience awe and wonder. So, Christmas is his holiday, and that won’t be taken away from him. Not by me.

I still have Christmas cards to write. Some will go to fellow Christians. Other cards go to our friends who are Buddhist or Muslim or Jewish or none of the above. It doesn’t matter what they believe. The point is to bring a moment of joy to somebody who is far away, and who perhaps feels forgotten. It is an opportunity to reconnect. A card can be a manifestation of compassion. It can be a flickering light in a world that’s both physically and morally dark.

Christmas is a flickering light. That is what I love about it.

December 17th, 2023

I wonder if either the Israelis or the Palestinians actually have any interest in peace. The current bloodshed and destruction in that region indicates that they do not. Peace does not just mean the absence of violence, although that is part of the word’s definition. Peace means the ability to get along with others, whether they be friends, family members, neighbors, or enemies. To get along with another human being requires compromise and some capacity to understand the other person’s viewpoint, even if it impossible to agree with it. Peace implies that there is some level of mutual respect between parties.

The Israelis and the Palestinians do not want peace. They want absolutes. They want things like total security or complete freedom. Neither side has any interest in half measures. It’s all or nothing.

From the very beginning, the reason for the State of Israel has been to provide Jews with a safe haven, some place where they could live without the fear of pogroms. I am tempted to say that Israel has been a place where the Jewish people could live in peace, but that has never been the case. Israel has always been at war to some degree. It is a garrison state like ancient Sparta. The Israelis have never known peace, so they have continually strived for absolute security.

Absolute security is a mirage. The United States learned that lesson on 9/11. The Israelis learned the same thing on October 7th of this year. The IDF, despite all of its training and weaponry, was caught off guard, and it failed to protect the population of southern Israel from the attack by Hamas. This event has shaken Israel to its core. The IDF was shown to be vulnerable. Israel’s brutal war in Gaza has been designed to prove to itself and to others that it is invincible.

The Israeli government wants to eradicate Hamas. I don’t believe that they will succeed. Yes, they have the military power to level Gaza and flood the tunnels beneath it, but that won’t give them a complete victory. Even if the Israelis kill every Hamas fighter, eventually a new generation will rise up to replace them, because the root causes for the existence of Hamas are not being addressed. The ruthless pursuit of absolute security will preclude the possibility of a lasting peace.

I have a friend with Palestinian roots. She has written to me about the war, and in particular about the oppression imposed on the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. I asked her what the solution is. This is her answer:

“One Democratic state, one person, one equal vote.  Freedom to travel equally throughout the country and get an education and medical care regardless of religion. Freedom to carry arms like every single Jew.  Anything less is racism.”

She also deals with absolutes, as do many of her fellow Palestinians. Her answer sounds inspiring, but vague. Much like the slogan: “Palestine free, from the River to the Sea”, it describes a future without Israel as the world knows it. Perhaps her goal is righteous, but it is also unrealistic. 78% of the population of Israel is native born. They are “Sabras”. That little slice of the Middle East is their home as much as it is to the Palestinians, and these Sabras aren’t going anywhere.

Neither are the Palestinians.

The two sides have irreconcilable goals, and neither group will give an inch in the pursuit of their aims. They are more interested in reaching an end result that is unattainable than having a modicum of peace in their lives.