Frank is Emptiness

April 13th, 2021

The young woman peered into the face of her baby. He was still lying in the car seat. He looked back at her with his bright blue eyes.

She smiled at the boy and said,

“Do you remember me? This is Mama. I’m the one who sings ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ to you.”

He kept looking intently at his mother. He might have smiled at her. It’s hard to tell with him.

She picked him up from the car seat and held him. She sat down with him in her lap. He fussed a bit, so she started to feed him a bottle. When he was done eating, she placed him on her shoulder, and gently tapped his back to get him to burp. Eventually, he did. Then he slept.

We were in a large meeting room at the rehab facility. Apparently, kids are often in there. There are toys of various kinds scattered around. On the window sills lay children’s books: Dr. Seuss, Richard Scarry, cheesy Disney stories. There is a refrigerator and a kitchen sink. In a corner sits a comfortable rocking chair.

The walls of the room are covered with slogans. I saw phrases like: “Notice what you can control”, “Honesty”, “Prioritize healing”, “Fight the trigger”, and “Alone is better than a bad relationship”. These were the kinds of words that might help a woman in recovery, maybe. They can’t hurt. There is also a patchwork quilt hanging on the wall. Various women in treatment must have contributed pieces of it. One of the squares in the quilt said, “I trust in the woman I am becoming”.

It was just the four of us in the room: Karin, the young woman, her son, and myself. Karin and I take the boy to see his mom twice a week. The young woman is in residential treatment. We stay with her for a couple hours. Sometimes the lad is awake and alert. Then the woman lays him on a blanket on the floor, and they do “tummy time”. The boy is getting stronger. He can lift his head and he can push himself up, briefly, with his chubby arms. Sometimes, he lies on his back and kicks. He likes doing that. His mom laughs and tells him, “Good job!”

This visit was different. The boy slept for almost the entire two hours. The young woman was a little disappointed, but she was glad to be with the boy. She sat in a chair and held him in her arms. She gazed at him, and stroked his head.

The two of them were at peace.

April 7th, 2021

“Cast your bread on the waters: for you shall find it after many days.” – Ecclesiastes 11:1

“Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despair

I’ll send an SOS to the world
I’ll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
(Message in a bottle)”

from the song Message in a Bottle by the Police

I wrote a letter to Father Steve Kelly two days ago. It was an old school snail mail letter. Father Kelly is currently languishing in a federal prison in Seattle, Washington. He got involved in some serious civil disobedience at a Navy nuclear submarine base in Georgia three years ago. He’s been in the slammer ever since then. Father Kelly is due to go before a judge on Tuesday, April 13th, 2021. He may get released after his court appearance. He may never get my letter.

So, why bother to write it?

Good question.

I don’t know the man. I have never met him. I probably never will. We exchanged a few postcards while he was in a Georgia jail, but that has been our only connection.

I wrote the letter because I know how it is to be alone. A man in prison is terribly alone.

I have often written to people in jail or prison. This includes a family member. I have also written to people in rehab clinics, military boot camps, nursing homes, and hospices. Some of these folks were people close to me. Some were strangers. All of them were desperately lonely, and possibly forgotten by the rest of the world.

It is a bitch to be forgotten.

We live in an age of instant communication. Most of us can contact nearly anybody anywhere with a click. Some people can’t do that. They are isolated. They can’t call or use the Internet. They feel abandoned, because they are.

Writing a letter, a paper letter, requires a bit of effort. However, a handwritten letter or card means more than an email or a text. It is easy to delete an email or a post. A letter is harder to ignore. It begs to be read, maybe more than once. A letter is a tangible thing. It has soul.

Years ago, after my mother died, I wrote a letter every week to my father. He never wrote back, not once. I thought that it was such a waste. Then, when we had a phone conversation, my dad told me how much he looked forward to my letters. Each letter gave him a reason to get up and look into his mail box. They gave him hope.

Writing a letter is an act of faith. I never know who will read my letters, if anyone at all. They may mean nothing to the recipient, or they might mean everything.

So, I write.

April 4th, 2021

Happy Easter.

Karin and I went to the Easter Vigil just a few hours ago. We took little Asher with us. For Catholics this is the night of nights. It is the Catholic version of Passover. We went to the liturgy partly because I was assigned to read from the Scriptures to the congregation during the service. I didn’t originally intend to go to the Mass. I went there because the person organizing the liturgy had run out of lectors, and she needed me to help out. She did not have enough people to proclaim the Word of God, so I offered to do my part. I told the woman from our church that I would be tired, and that I might need to leave after I fulfilled my duties. That is exactly what we did. I felt worn out, and Asher was fussy. Karin would have been happy to stay for the entire liturgy (it was the 20th anniversary of her conversion to Catholicism), but it wasn’t going to happen that way.

There are numerous readings from the Bible during the Easter Vigil. For some reason, I often get selected to proclaim the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac. That is always a struggle for me.

For those who do not know the story from Genesis, here it is:

¹  God put Abraham to the test. He called to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am, ” he replied.

²  Then God said: “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you.”

³  Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey, took with him his son Isaac and two of his servants as well, and with the wood that he had cut for the holocaust, set out for the place of which God had told him.

⁴  On the third day Abraham got sight of the place from afar.

⁵  Then he said to his servants: “Both of you stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over yonder. We will worship and then come back to you.”

⁶  Thereupon Abraham took the wood for the holocaust and laid it on his son Isaac’s shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two walked on together,

⁷  Isaac spoke to his father Abraham: “Father!” Isaac said. “Yes, son, ” he replied. Isaac continued, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?”

⁸  “Son,” Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.” Then the two continued going forward.

⁹  When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar.

¹⁰  Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son.

¹¹  But the LORD’s messenger called to him from heaven, “Abraham, Abraham!” “Here I am!” he answered.

¹²  “Do not lay your hand on the boy,” said the messenger. “Do not do the least thing to him. I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.”

¹³  As Abraham looked about, he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So he went and took the ram and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son.

¹⁴  Abraham named the site Yahweh-yireh; hence people now say, “On the mountain the LORD will see.”

¹⁵  Again the LORD’s messenger called to Abraham from heaven

¹⁶  and said: “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son,

¹⁷  I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore;

¹⁸  your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessings all this because you obeyed my command.”

Right now, as I write, our grandson, Asher, sleeps near me. He’s only four months old, and he is totally helpless and dependent on me. I would do anything for him.

So, what if God called to me today and told me to murder this little boy?

Fuck that.

The story of Isaac and Abraham is problematic for both Jews and Christians. It is also an issue for Muslims, although they substitute Ishmael for Isaac in the tale. Rabbis, priests, and imams have spent centuries explaining away the ugly facts in the narrative. They have tried to say that it is all symbolic, or that Abraham and Isaac both knew that it would all turn out okay. Some say that is just a foreshadowing of the Christ’s death. The party line is that is the story is all about obedience and faith.

Maybe.

Just read what it says.

The fact is, if you stay true to the text, if you are honest, this is a story of God demanding human sacrifice. God makes no promises to Abraham at the beginning. He just says, “Do it.”

This particular narrative shows a God who is profoundly cruel. It may be possible, or prudent, to obey such a deity, but it is extremely difficult to love Him.

God may be willing to sacrifice his Son. God may be willing to sacrifice somebody else’s child. That’s his decision. It’s not mine.

God promises Abraham all good things after Abraham attempts to kill his own child. In Genesis, there is no mention of Isaac returning home with Abraham. Abraham goes alone. Even if Abraham did not kill his boy, he lost him. Forever.

Asher whispers in his sleep. He is at peace.

May he remain so.

April 1st, 2021

My friend, Ken, a fellow writer and denizen of Lake Park Synagogue, sent me a link to an a cappella Pesach song from the Jewish group, Six 13. The ditty is called “Red Sea Shanty: A Pirate Passover”. I found the music and the lyrics to be hilarious. Others might not find them so funny. It depends partly on a person’s familiarity with the the celebration of the Passover.

It also depends on how fundamentalist a person is about their spiritual path.

I have a litmus test for any and all religious traditions. I look for a sense of humor. If I find none, I flee.

I have no use for zealots of any stripe. If I see those grim faces and wild eyes, I head for the exit. There is a population that lives for the idea of “us and them”. They know that they have the truth. They know that they have the answer. They act accordingly.

I want to be with people who can laugh. I want to be with people who can laugh at themselves. Francis of Assisi had an excellent sense of humor. He understood the absurdity in his own life.

God does not always take us seriously. Why should we?

Here is the link to the Red Sea Passover…

Enjoy.

March 24th, 2021

“The Lord make his face shine on you
    and be gracious to you” – Numbers 6:25

It is a curious thing that many images of God (at least in the West) are those of a grumpy old man. It seems like Christians prefer that God the Creator has white hair, a long flowing beard, and a bad attitude. God the Father is seldom portrayed as welcoming, like the father in the parable of The Prodigal Son. He usually looks more like the kind of dad who wants to kick your ass after you wrecked the family car. He is not terribly approachable.

Even images of Jesus are sometimes a bit harsh. The Lord is frequently shown as King and Judge, not often a brother or as a friend. Years ago, I attended a religious retreat, and another guy at the meeting described his version of Jesus as being like a “a stern magistrate”. Why pray to somebody who is out to get you?

The Hindus have innumerable visions of the Divine. Some seem benign, some not so much. The Buddhists have a huge variety of depictions of the Buddha, but then he doesn’t really qualify as a god per se. Maybe the Jews and the Muslims have it right: they have no images of God at all.

Back to Christian iconography…

Images of the Child Jesus are probably the easiest for me to accept. However, even those portrayals make the boy look too much like an adult. It’s obvious that the kid is in charge. Except for maybe in a Nativity scene, the Christ Child never looks like how he really was: tiny, helpless, and totally trusting in others. It seems that Christians just can’t handle the idea that Jesus, who is God, was utterly powerless at the start of his life.

We like power.

Asher, our four-month-old buddy, lies next to me asleep. His little face runs through the entire gamut of human emotion as he slumbers. He looks sad at times, and then he smiles and giggles in a baby dream. He looks scared for a moment, or frustrated, or maybe a bit upset. No matter. Regardless of his expression, his face is always lovable.

When Asher awakens and looks at me, my heart melts. I would do anything for that boy.

Asher’s face is the face of God.

March 20th, 2021

“You say it’s your birthday
It’s my birthday too, yeah
They say it’s your birthday
We’re gonna have a good time
I’m glad it’s your birthday
Happy birthday to you” – Beatles

I am sixty-three today.

So what?

I don’t know. Except for the fact that today is the vernal equinox, this date means very little. All I know is that at this moment the eastern sky is glowing red, and my little grandson, Asher, is sleeping nosily next to me. I look forward to the dawn, and Asher looks forward to his next feeding (he is three months old).

I’m sixty-three today. That is not a winning number. Sixty-two is a good number. That is when I qualified for Social Security. More to the point, when I qualified for it, my wife, Karin, also qualified for her Social Security check and for Medicare. Karin never worked long enough to get Social Security on her own. The Byzantine regulations of the SSA required me to get my dues before Karin could get anything. In any case, age sixty-two made a financial difference. Sixty-three does not.

God, our lives have changed in the course of a year. A year ago, Karin and I were thinking about traveling, at least to Texas to visit our family there.

Now…

We are not going anywhere.

Asher, for a variety of reasons, is now our responsibility. This kid is ours. If and when the girl we love gets though rehab, then maybe, maybe, she can care for the boy. Until then, Asher is our baby. And we love him. So much.

Years ago, I was part of a German men’s group, Schlaraffia. It was a standard men’s organization. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the primary purpose of the group was to get away from the wives for one night a month. Need I say more?

Karin spends part of her Thursdays in Zoom meetings with her knitting friends. I keep away from that. A few of the older women in her group are widows. I sometimes think that their husbands aren’t really dead; they are just in hiding. These guys maybe changed their names and moved to Belize to avoid the nagging.

Karin and I are both retired. “Retired” can mean a lot of things. It can mean that a person has moved on to another part of life, or it can mean that a person has simply given up on life. I have seen both things happen. Karin and I have not given up on life, perhaps because we can’t. We have too many people who need us. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

So, what to do on my birthday? Well, change and feed Asher. Maybe make Karin breakfast. Take a well-served nap (I’ve been up since 3:00 AM). Whatever.

Try again.

March 16th, 2021

Asher really looks like Jizo.

Jizo is a Japanese bodhisattva. In the Buddhist tradition Jizo is the protector of small children. He is often portrayed a happy monk, with chubby cheeks and an innocent smile on his lips.

When Asher sleeps peacefully, which is actually not that often, his round little face settles into an image of utter serenity. His breathing becomes soft and gentle. When he finally relaxes, the boy smiles in his sleep.

Asher smiled like that when his mother held him in her arms yesterday.

Asher’s mom hasn’t held her son very often during the last six weeks. After her relapse, she was in jail for a while, and now she is rehab. The young woman will be in treatment until the end of June. Karin and I are bringing Asher to the rehab facility twice a week so that the young woman can connect with her three-month-old son. They get four and a half hours together each week. That isn’t much time, but it’s all that we can do for now.

The young woman sat in a rocking chair, holding her baby boy. She said nothing. She just held Asher close, as close as she could. She looked at him in silence. I don’t know what she was thinking or what she was feeling. I didn’t ask. I let them be.

The young woman has dreams, both for herself and for Asher. She wants to come back to our house to live. She wants to raise Asher in our home, at least for the first few years. She wants to build a treehouse for Asher. Actually, she wants her younger brother to build it, but her ultimate goal is for Asher to have a treehouse in the big locust in the backyard.

The young woman dreams of taking Asher on trip one day. It will have to happen after June of 2022, because that is when the young woman finishes her parole and gets “off paper”. She wants to take Asher to Destin Beach on the Gulf Coast of Florida. We took her there many years ago, when she was just a girl. The beach was like a paradise for her. It is her Garden of Eden, and she wants to return to it. The young woman wants Asher to experience it with her.

First things first. The young woman has to complete her treatment before any of these dreams come true. All this will take time.

The important thing is that she still has dreams for the future. The woman wants to live. She’s strong and resilient. So is Asher.

May Jizo bless them both.

March 12th, 2021

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.” -Dorothy Day, foundress of the Catholic Workers

I sat in Mulligan’s with Mike yesterday afternoon. Mike was swilling a Miller Lite, and I was sipping on a black lager. Mike had just finished working his shift at the trucking company. I used to work with him on the dock. Then, five years ago, I was miraculously able to escape from there into retirement. Mike’s tales of frustration and woe are very familiar to me, and they always reinforce my decision to get out of that hellhole.

The trucking company was a local operation when I started there back in 1988. It grew and prospered, and it was finally devoured by a global conglomerate. Now the company is simply another tentacle of a worldwide transportation monster. With financial success comes a concomitant loss of humanity. The larger the corporation, the more ruthless the bastards who run it.

I was a dock supervisor at the company for almost twenty-eight years. When people would ask what my job was, I would jokingly say,

“I try to get blood from a stone.”

That’s really what I did. My job was to move freight as efficiently as possible. It was all about profit, all the time. I had a boss whose first, and only, question to me every morning was,

“Did we make money yesterday?”

That’s all that mattered when I was there. Apparently, that is still all that matters.

I don’t like corporate America. That does not mean that I am a socialist. I am not. I don’t like socialism either. I am a veteran, and I am convinced that every veteran has lived under a socialist regime. Look at the U.S. military. I defy anyone to show me any practical difference between the operations of the U.S. Army and that of the People’s Republic of China.

My oldest son, Hans, sent me a text while I was commiserating with Mike at the bar. The text said (with a couple misspellings),

“Tonight is my last day. Just can’t deal anymore.”

Hans was talking about work. Hans pumps concrete for a company in Texas. He usually starts work dark and early. He faces the same issues that I did in my job. He’s finally leaving that firm and going to another, hopefully better, organization. Hans has worked for the same corporation for three years, and they have lied to him and abused him the entire time. He’s exhausted.

It strikes me that corporations and the military have very different values. I remember when I was an Army officer my commander telling me,

“Mission first. Men always.”

At the time, that seemed like an empty slogan, but it’s not. Soldiers are trained to get the job done, and it is expected that somebody will care for the welfare of these people. Hans is a combat vet. He gets the job done, no matter how long it takes or how fucked up it may be. His recent employer knew that and exploited that fact. Hans’ company had no qualms about working him for 18 to 24 hours at a pop. However, the management in this business made no attempt at all to take care of Hans. The corporation was all about getting the mission accomplished, but it apparently did not give a damn about its employees. The company cared only about the money.

Soldiers are loyal. Hans should have quit that job years ago. He didn’t. Why? Because soldiers don’t quit. They just don’t. Hans tried to work with the management in good faith, and they did not reciprocate. Loyalty is a two-way street. It requires trust. Hans stopped trusting.

The company treated Hans like a commodity, like a piece of equipment. That’s what corporations do. The Army, despite its flaws, does not treat soldiers like things. When Hans was in the Army, and when I served, there was always a sense that each soldier had some intrinsic value as a human being. There was always some level of mutual respect. That sort of regard is seldom found in the business world.

It does not surprise that vets find it difficult to adjust to civilian life. We return to a culture which does not often share our values.

March 9th, 2021

On Thursday evening Karin and I ate meatloaf for supper. This was extraordinary because, in our thirty-six years of marriage, we have never cooked meatloaf. It’s not that we have anything against meatloaf per se, it’s just that it has never really appealed to us. Meatloaf is an old fashioned kind of comfort food; a relic of meals in years past. Of course, if a person does not have fond memories of meatloaf, it is hard to be nostalgic. My mom made meatloaf. It seldom turned out well. I don’t know why. Maybe she overcooked it. I just remember that it often had the flavor and texture of drywall. I never had the ambition to replicate that eating experience.

So, why did Karin and I dine on meatloaf?

Because a friend from our church gave it to us.

Sharon is a member of small cabal at St. Rita who have chosen to provide Karin and myself with homecooked meals twice a week. This is truly a godsend. As we care for our three-month-old grandson, Asher, Karin and I find little or no time to cook. Even if we found the time, we wouldn’t have the energy or motivation to stand in front of a hot stove. So, it is awesome that the folks from our parish are helping us in this fashion. They aren’t the only people looking out for us. Chris from the Zen sangha brought us soup. Heidi from Voces de la Frontera cooked for us too. As did Mary from Catholics for Peace and Justice. It all helps.

Asher is a wonderful little boy, but he is labor intensive. He needs to be fed, cleaned, and comforted. Sometimes, I just carry him in my arms for a while until he falls asleep. That qualifies as my walking meditation practice. All these things take time, and they can occur at any time of night or day.

Karin freaked me out yesterday when she told me that she thought that she was getting sick. It turns out that she is okay, but I don’t know how I would have cared for both Asher and her. Asher is a two-person job. Karin and I work in shifts, and there is no slack in the system. I know that single moms raise their babies, but I can’t imagine how they do it. That is beyond me.

Right now we are enjoying a moment of blessed peace. Karin is in bed, getting some much needed rest. Asher sleeps near me, looking like the cherub that he is. He smiles when he sleeps. I also smile when he sleeps.

Karin and I are going to send Sharon a thank you note.

The meatloaf was really good.

March 5th, 2021

I’ve been to court before, many times.

Usually I have attended court proceedings as an observer, although I have been on a jury twice in my life. I was chosen as foreman both times. Yesterday was first time that I found myself as a participant in a court case, although not necessarily as a very active participant.

Karin and I, via Zoom, were involved in the Asher’s case in Children’s Court yesterday morning. That was very different than all my other court experiences, mostly because we were not actually in a courtroom. There is something about being in a courtroom that is unique. It is almost like being inside a church or a temple. There is a formality about the place that separates it from the laidback lifestyle of the rest of American culture. Court cases follow a certain kind of ritual, and it often feels almost religious in nature. The judge wears robes like a priest. In a courtroom people come to worship the goddess Justice.

With Zoom, that formality is lessened. The stakes are still as high, but the setting is much more casual. The whole process doesn’t feel quite right. In a courtroom, in the presence of your friends and enemies, a person can sense the emotions of others. On Zoom, well, it is much easier for people to wear their masks.

Karin and I said almost nothing through the brief hearing. There were three lawyers present: one for the mom, one for the ex-boyfriend, and the guardian ad litem, Asher’s advocate as appointed by the State. Karin and I, as Asher’s caregivers really didn’t have much to say. The father, the mother, and the judge have more legal heft. Karin and I just sat there holding up Asher so that his mom could see him. The young woman hadn’t seen her boy for over a month.

Why were we all there?

Ask anybody on that Zoom conference why they attended the meeting, and they would no doubt tell you,

“I’m here because I want to help Asher.”

They would all be speaking the truth, but in different ways.

I cannot speak for anyone else. I know that I love Asher dearly, and I want the best for him. I also have to admit that I feel frustration toward perhaps one other person in his life. I don’t know how much my love for Asher motivates me in contrast to my negative feelings toward this other individual. I wish that I could say that all of my intentions are pure, but that would not be true.

The court appearance, short as it was, was nerve wracking for me. I clearly felt that Karin and I were at the mercy of people and powers beyond our control. There are forces stronger than we are. I know that.

I understand that the influence that Karin and I have on Asher’s life is decidedly short term. We are old. It is doubtful that we will live long enough to see Asher reach adulthood. Somebody else needs to lead him into the future. I do not know who that should be.

Karin and I care for Asher each and every day. I just fed him and changed his diaper. The boy sleeps quietly next to me. Maybe tomorrow someone else will love and care for this young man.

Today, if only for today, I do.