Frank is Emptiness

December 9th,2018

Sokthea ate breakfast with me. I had arrived at the immigration conference early, but then I arrive at everything early. Sokthea got there early too. We picked up the programs for the session, and then we found ourselves a table in the meeting room. We were alone there for a while. We ate and talked.

Sokthea Phay is a young man; tall, thin, and passionate. He glows with enthusiasm. He works for as the community operations director at the YMCA in Long Beach, California. He’s a snappy dresser. During the conference, he almost always wore a suit and tie. His appearance was in stark contrast to my own. If I can’t go somewhere in jeans and a sweatshirt, I don’t go.

Sokthea’s family is originally from Cambodia. He came to America with his one-year-old son, and his very pregnant wife in 2013. Jokthea came to this country with no assets. He did have a sponsor, but that was all. Since his arrival, Jokthea has learned English, and found a good position that allows him to help new immigrants at the YMCA (he originally worked with the “Y” when he lived in Cambodia). He has a thick accent, but otherwise his English is as good as mine, if not better.

Sokthea likes to talk, but he also takes time to listen. He carefully heard my story, and he seemed genuinely interested in me as a person. It is rare for someone, especially a stranger, to do that. But he did. In the time it took us to eat breakfast, we had become friends. I found that to be remarkable.

Later in the day, there was a panel discussion about how to help people who face detention and deportation. In particular, the conversation revolved around finding lawyers for these immigrants, and finding the money to pay for lawyers. Once the panelists were done speaking, there a brief period of time for asking questions.

Jokthea eagerly stood up to ask a question. He was a bit closer to the panel than I was, so I was looking at his back while he talked to the panelists. I couldn’t see his facial expression as he spoke.

Jokthea came to his question in a roundabout sort of way. He said,

“We have been talking about helping the detainees. That is good, but there are other people also involved. The families. When a person is detained or deported, the children have to no parent. Then the grandparent must be the parent and raise the children. Sometimes, the grandparents come from Cambodia after the genocide. They have PTSD, or maybe dementia. They cannot work. Sometimes, they get evicted, because they cannot pay rent. Then who cares for the children?”

His voice cracked, and I could see an involuntary shudder in Jokthea’s back and shoulders.

“At the “Y” we try to buy Christmas gifts for these children with no parents. They have nobody.”

Jokthea abruptly stopped speaking. His breathing became labored. I could see him remove his glasses and wipe his eyes.

He breathed deeply and spoke again, “What do we do for the families?”

Jokthea collapsed into the chair next to me, still facing away. I squeezed his shoulder gently. He turned and offered me his hand. Then he looked at the panelists again in silence.

The program ended a few minutes later. He turned to look at me. There was pain in his face. Something cut him to his very core.

I laid my hand on his chest, on the left side. I told him,

“You have a good heart.”

He nodded with wet, glistening eyes.

I said, “You know…you said more in your silence than you did with your words.”

He nodded again.

We hugged.

 

I generally do no provide links to other media. However, Sokthea has a video that rocks.

 

December 5th, 2018

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” – William Faulkner

I walked along the bike path today after Karin and I had coffee with a friend. The walk home from Panera is about four miles, so I had plenty of time to think. That could be both good and bad. I tend to over-analyze everything. In fact, I am probably doing that now. In any case, I wandered through my memories as I wandered past the bare trees and withered marsh plants that border the edges of the bike path.

Memories are funny things. They don’t necessarily correspond with any kind of objective reality, if there even is any kind of objective reality. Memories tend to highlight only certain aspects of events that happened in the past, and disregard the other parts of those moments in time. My memories seem particularly fuzzy on the details. I do not remember the facts of events as clearly as I remember my feelings when the events occurred. I would be a terrible historian. I often confuse dates and times and all of the minutiae that are a part of my life. But the feelings…those I recall in an intense, visceral, and non-verbal way. The feelings come to me unbidden and overwhelm me.

A Zen friend wrote to me recently concerning my father’s funeral. She wrote:

“As you know, our dead tend to crop up into our present, no matter how far in the past they lived. ‘Past’ is just a human idea, a concept, and we are taught to let go of our conceptual thinking. So, no past. It’s with us now. They are with us now. Like it or not.”

In some ways, my friend agrees with Faulkner. The past is not past, because it is part of the now. Sometimes in Zen, people say glibly that the past no longer exists, so we should not dwell there. We should be totally in the here and now. It is true that yesterday is gone forever, and I can do nothing to change it. However, yesterday still affects today. The events of the past may be gone, but they echo in the present. I can hear and feel the echoes.

Many times, I have spoken with our son, Hans, about his experiences in the latest Iraqi War. He has often made an odd comment about his time there. He has told me that he has always been good with machine guns (and other weapons), and that it is because he is a German. That remark seems bizarre, but then I remember that his maternal grandfather was in the Luftwaffe, and that this man fought in Russia during WWII. Hans harks back to those days, maybe unconsciously. All of that happened decades ago, but it comes roaring into the now. As my friend noted, “Our dead tend to crop up in the present”. They do so in strange ways. Sometimes these intrusions are subtle. Sometimes not.

It is tempting to say things like, “Every day is a new day!”, or “This is the first day of the rest of your life!” The implication is that a person can start afresh, that each day is a clean slate. Not. It is true that I can do things different today than I did yesterday. However, I carry the burden of my history even in a new day. The past comes to me in my memories and in my DNA.

I am part of a continuum. I am just a single note in an endless song. The song is not complete without me, but I am only a tiny part of it.

 

 

December 4th, 2018

Tonight the sangha will celebrate the Buddha’s Enlightenment Day at the Zen Center. I think that, in all the years that I have been meditating at the center, I have attended this celebration only once. My failure to participate has not been for lack of interest. It is more a matter of timing. For years I worked third shift, so attending an evening gathering meant that I would get no sleep prior to going to my job. After I retired three years ago, I found that I would spend most of my Tuesday nights visiting with the patients in the psychiatric ward at the local VA hospital.  These visits have always conflicted with the Buddha’s Enlightenment Day festivities. In fact, there a scheduling conflict tonight.

If I recall correctly, the ceremony involves chanting, sitting meditation, and perhaps the reading of a poem. There is not much spontaneity. The altar will be festooned with flowers and fruit. After the ritual is completed, the participants will socialize and snack on sweets. It’s not a very exciting celebration, but it has its own unique beauty.

The visits to the psych ward are a little more chaotic. I go with a couple other people to the hospital. We bring snacks to the veterans in the ward. Some folks play cards. I usually try to initiate conversations with a few of the patients. I pay attention to them. I listen to their stories. Some of the vets don’t want to talk. Some are eager to tell somebody, anybody, about their lives. Many of the patients are sick and scared and lonely. They’re hurting, some of them very deeply.

So, this brings me back to enlightenment. What is it and how does one get it? I have never heard a clear definition of enlightenment. Maybe if a person can describe it, they don’t really have it. It seems to involve being able to see the world as it really is. Some people get enlightenment by sitting on a cushion and mentally reciting a mantra. Some get it through chanting sutras. Some people solve a kung-on (koan), an riddle that defies logical thought. Some people get it when a Zen Master smacks them upside the head.

I don’t have enlightenment, and I doubt that I will get it. I do find glimmers of the truth when I hang out with the folks at the psych ward. Some of them are Zen masters, and completely unaware of the fact. Those are the best kind. Some of the vets are living totally in the moment. Their past is completely trashed and they have no future worthy of mention. They have gained their wisdom the hard way, by having their attachments torn away by a brutal life in an irrational world. They are often almost childlike in their honesty and lack of pretense. Every patient’s life is a kung-on, and some of them have accepted their life just as it is.

Some Zen masters wear flowing grey robes. Some of them wear maroon bathrobes over pajamas. Their job is to teach the dharma. Some of them use riddles. Some of them are riddles. Some of them sit and meditate with me. Some of them look me in the eye and tell me how they killed a man.

Who can best teach me about suffering and compassion? A man who trained his mind for years to become aware of his surroundings, or a man who is haunted by the violence he endured five decades ago? Do I learn best from a person who is serene, or from a person whose soul is scorched?

Tonight I will study the dharma and celebrate the Buddha’s Enlightenment Day at the psych ward.

 

 

December 2nd, 2018

We sent all three of our children to Waldorf schools.

None of them have forgiven us for that.

I suppose that I should pause for a moment to explain what a Waldorf school is. This is somewhat complicated. A Waldorf school can be different things to different people. It depends on what a person is looking for. A Waldorf school attracts a peculiar population. If a person sends their kids to a Waldorf school, then they are already living pretty close to the edge. Waldorf is not mainstream. Not at all.

The first Waldorf school was established in Stuttgart, Germany, just after World War I, by Rudolf Steiner. Steiner was a visionary, in the literal sense of the word. He claimed to be able to see various aspects of the spiritual world. He was a polymath, a man who was interested in everything and explored everything. He had never considered getting involved with education until the owner of a German cigarette factory asked Steiner to start a school for the children of his employees. At that point, Steiner’s spiritual vision kicked into high gear.

Steiner believed that the growth of each child was like the development of the entire human race in microcosm. He saw that every child went through every stage of the history of humanity. Steiner based his educational model on this premise. Everything in Waldorf flows from that concept.

Waldorf is spiritual, without being particularly religious. In essence, it is expected that people might talk about God at a Waldorf school, but it is not required that a person belong to a particular sect. When our kids were at Tamarack Waldorf School, many years ago, there were people who were Jewish or Catholic or Buddhist or Muslim or Wiccan. There was a very eclectic mix of religions. The common ground for everyone was the notion that there is more to life than just the material world.

The population of the school was also economically diverse. Some people were poor, some were wealthy. The population was racially mixed. There was an emphasis on being open and inclusive.

To a certain degree.

Waldorf schools are an offshoot of anthroposophy, which was Steiner’s all-encompassing philosophy. There are a certain number of people involved with Waldorf who believe that, if Steiner said it, then it must be true. In short, there are Waldorf fundamentalists. I think that it is also true that Waldorf schools have a idiosyncratic culture, one that embraces the noble goals of creating peace and preserving the environment, but also seems enamored with silks and stardust. Waldorf schools tend toward pastel colors, and things that are warm and fuzzy.

I never felt completely at ease in the Waldorf environment. This is mostly because I am not warm and fuzzy. Many people will testify to that fact. I always felt like a Philistine, not nearly enlightened enough to be part of the group. Karin, on the other hand, was able to get a part time job at the school as a teacher’s assistant. Karin helped teach handwork to the children (knitting, sewing, crocheting). So, Karin wound up teaching exactly the things she does every day. Perfect.

So, why do our kids hate us for sending them to this school?

I think that it is mostly because they all had a truly brutal transition from Waldorf to public schools. Everyone of them initially got their academic asses kicked when they got into high school. The problem was that the Waldorf teachers were generalists. They were supposed to be able to teach almost everything, and they did so with a reasonable level of competence. Public school teachers specialize in a certain subject, which makes them experts in a narrow field. So, our kids were not well prepared in every subject. They were well prepared for art and music and independent thinking. However, public schools don’t really give a damn about any of those things. Public schools are factories that spit out drones for industry to use and abuse. Our kids did not fit in, at least not at first.

Yesterday, Karin and I went back to the Waldorf school in Milwaukee for their winter fair. We hadn’t been there for several years. Karin lost her handwork gig a while back, so we left that community for a while. I suggested that we check out the fair this year. I guess that the thought was prompted by the fact that we will soon have a grandson. Sometimes, thinking about the future takes a person back to the past. Ostensibly, we were going to the fair to find something for the baby. I think we went for other reasons.

The Christmas/Holiday/Winter Fair at the Waldorf school is always pretty much the same. There are vendors selling anything that is organic or free trade or somehow involved with social justice. Every purchase is a political statement. Actually, some of the stuff was pretty cool. There were some really neat wooden toys. Those we will have to buy a couple years from now when Weston is older.

There was a booth for henna painting. There was a room set up for serving treats (cakes and cookies and tea and coffee and whatever). The classrooms were open so that prospective students and their parents could see what wonderful things occur in these classes. The set up hasn’t changed during the last few years.

We reconnected with a few people from years ago. In some cases the interactions were a bit stiff and awkward. However, several of Karin’s former students recognized their former handwork instructor, and initiated contact with her. These were teenagers who most likely spend their free time being cynical and surly. However, they usually smiled shyly at Karin and said something like,

“Mrs. Pauc, you probably don’t remember me at all, but…”

Then Karin would realize who they had been all those years ago. Karin beamed back at them. Sometimes they embraced. There was a true feeling of affection between Karin and those kids who had struggled to knit way back when. They have a real bond. It was beautiful to see.

Even if that is all that Waldorf has to offer, it’s worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 29th, 2018

I was sitting upstairs in the humble residence of the Syrian family. Their home always reminds of the house where I grew up. The building has to be at least one hundred years old. This house, like the home of my youth, needs a lot of TLC. The house has the same energy that my childhood home did: lots of kids in constant motion, random yelling, no privacy, and a sort of barely contained chaos.

I had just finished working with Muhamed on his reading assignment. That kid is sharp. He knew the answers. He never guessed. His understanding of English is impressive. He has no accent that I can detect. It is probably because he is so young. He is easily absorbing the language that surrounds him at school. He will do well.

Nizar came up the stairs with his math assignment. He had to multiply numbers with decimals. He smiled as he told me,

“This is easy. It won’t take long.”

He had already done a couple of the problems. I could tell at a glance that the answers weren’t quite right. This homework was going to take longer than Nizar thought.

We went back over his completed problems. In a way, doing multiplication on a piece of paper with a stubby pencil is rather archaic. It took me a minute or two to remember how to do it. Even then, I asked Nizar to find us a calculator, just in case my brain had atrophied.

I showed Nizar how to do one of the problems.

“Okay, you first multiply the number on top by the last digit of the bottom number. You have to remember where to put the decimal point. Both the numbers in this problem have decimal points before the last digit, so when we times them, the decimal point will be in front of the last two digits. You got it?”

He nodded.

I wasn’t fooled by that.

I finished the problem, and then I told him to do the next one. I said,

“Keep the numbers you get in straight columns, so you can up the results. The decimal points need to be lined up.”

“Okay.”

He paused for a moment, obviously unsure of something.

“What’s wrong?.”

He asked me, “What is seven times eight?”

“Well, let’s figure that out.” I held up the fingers of my hands and counted,

“7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49…”

Nizar interjected, “54?”

“No, not quite. Try 56.”

He nodded, “Yeah, okay.”

As he scribbled on the worksheet, I heard a voice in my head. It was a voice from fifty years ago. It was an angry, impatient voice…

“Goddammit! How many times do I have to tell you the number?! Don’t you pay attention at school? Do you just use your head for a hat rack?!”

“Is this right?’ asked Nizar.

“What?”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, and looked at his answer. “Yeah, that is good. Check it again with the calculator.”

The voice from my past was suddenly more insistent.

“Jesus Christ! What is hard about this? Are you dumb or just lazy?! Anybody could figure out the answer!”

Nizar’s mother came up the stairs. Her arrival brought me back to the present. She had a plate of food for me: stuffed grape leaves.

She said in her halting English, “I make this today. You eat, Frank. That is yogurt there too.”

I tried some of the grape leaves. They were very good. Nizar struggled through another math problem.

“Frank, what is six times eight?”

“You’re smart, Nizar. Think about it.” Then I counted off,

“6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42…”

“48?”

“Yes! Excellent!”

The voice screamed in my mind, “What is wrong with you?! You can’t cut the mustard?! I don’t need no dummies in this family!”

My heart raced. I thought to myself, “Shut up. Just fucking shut up.”

Nizar said, “We are done now.”

“Cool. Nizar, you need to work on your multiplication tables. I mean really. You can’t get the right answers if you can’t times the numbers.”

He looked at me seriously and nodded.

“Nizar, what are you good at? In school, I mean.”

He got excited. “Reading and writing. I am very good with that. I write a lot in class.”

I smiled. “Good. I write a lot too. I wrote a book once. It was about my son. He was a soldier.”

Nizar looked at me a bit oddly.

I shrugged and said,

“Nizar, you’re a smart guy. You’ll be okay.”

The voice from my past was silent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 29th, 2018

“Here’s your gold watch and the shackles for your chains
And your piece of paper, to say you left here sane
And if you’ve a son who wants a good career
Just get him to sign on the dotted line and work for 50 years”

“Gold Watch Blues” by Donovan

My dad worked for decades as an operating engineer for the City of West Allis (Wisconsin). He retired at the age of fifty-five, or maybe fifty-seven. I’m not sure. I can’t remember any more. He received a full pension for the City. He got checks every month until he died. That’s thirty years worth of pension checks. He was a lucky man.

Not everybody in my father’s generation retired with a pension, but many did. Far fewer people in my generation have pensions, and quite possibly nobody from the Millennials will get one. A person from my father’s time could reasonably expect to retire with some level of financial security. With my generation, retirement is kind of iffy. As for my kids, well, they’re screwed. My children are convinced that they will be working until they die, and they are probably right.

That doesn’t sound quite like the American dream? What happened?

I remember when I got out of the Army, back in 1986, I got hired by a company, and they were so excited to tell me all about the 401k program. They thought it was some sort of miracle. They kept telling me about how taxes would deferred on my account, and how the company would chip in some money. They really pushed the idea that it was “portable”; that it was all my money, and that I could take it with me, if (God forbid) I should leave. Okay. That’s nice.

Shortly thereafter, I quit that job, and then I got hired by a trucking company in the Milwaukee area. That was in 1988. The trucking firm had a pension and they had the 401k. Well, they did for a while. After maybe ten years or so, the company quit offering a pension. Long time employees (like me at that point) were vested, and could get a smidgen of the pension at a much later date. The management of the company blamed government regulations for their decision (because that’s what corporations do), and they promised to pump a bunch of money into everybody’s retirement fund.

They did.

Until the Great Recession of 2008.

Once the recession hit, all bets were off. The company stopped contributing to the 401k, and basically told every employee,

“You’re on your own, bitch!”

Of course, we all knew that already.

At the end of 2015, by some quirk of fate, I was still working at this same trucking company, and I suddenly qualified for the elusive pension. I took it and ran. The pension really wasn’t (isn’t) that much. It just basically covers the cost of the health insurance for me and my wife. Somehow, at that point in time, we were debt-free and we had money saved. I retired.

I would like to say that I was able to retire because of the astute handling of our finances. That would be a lie. For years I never even looked at what was in the 401k. To me, all of that was like Monopoly money, that is, until I actually pulled the plug. I was able to retire because of a combination of frugality, dumb luck, and good karma.

A lot of people don’t have that combination. The dream of a happy retirement can be derailed by a medical crisis, or by the sudden loss of a job (think about all those poor bastards being laid off now by GM). A lot of things are out of an individual’s control. A person cannot plan for everything. Life happens.

Maybe in our time the retirement funds are a better solution than pensions were. However, for the corporations there are unanticipated downsides to 401k’s. The companies told the workers that these plans were portable, and that fact made the employees more likely to leave. And they did. A pension tends to keep an employee with a particular organization. A 401k makes for a transient workforce.

The 401k represents much of what is wrong with corporate America. A pension plan has obvious drawbacks, but it always demonstrated a long term commitment from the company to the employee. It likewise required a strong commitment from the worker. The 401k says, “We don’t care about you, and you don’t need to care about us.” That is the message, loud and clear.

A few weeks before I retired, I was called into HR for a meeting. The company had a chronic morale problem, and the folks at Human Resources wanted to talk to people to find out what could be done. I don’t understand why they wanted to speak with me, especially since I was ready to abandon ship, but they interrogated me anyway.

I remember the woman from HR asking me, in her soothing, singsong voice,

“So, do you feel appreciated here?”

I replied, “No.”

Awkward silence.

She cleared her throat, smiled, and said sweetly,

“Why not?”

I told her, “I have the same value here as a forklift. I am very replaceable.”

Another awkward silence.

She said, “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t give a fuck about me.” That part I did not actually say, but she could read my body language.

My kids job hop. They move from place to place. They sign up with whoever can offer them 50 cents more per hour than their current boss. I have been told that all of their generation does that. The corporations show them no loyalty, and they return the favor. It makes me laugh when management types complain that they can’t keep good people. Really? No kidding? If you treat a person like a commodity, they will respond accordingly. If you treat a person like a person, they might just hang around.

“Here’s your gold watch and the shackles for your chains
And your piece of paper, to say you left here sane
And if you’ve a son who wants a good career
Just get him to sign on the dotted line and work for 50 years

This story that you’ve heard, you may think rather queer
But it is the truth you’ll be surprised to hear
I did not want some job up on the board
I just wanted to take a broom and sweep the bloody floor.”

“Gold Watch Blues”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 26th, 2018

Milwaukee has a “Christkindlmarket”. The correct German spelling of the word would “Christkindlmarkt” (lose the “e” in “market”), but the local version of the word is close enough. The literal translation of the word from the German into English would be “Christ Child Market”, which is to say that it is kind of an outdoor Christmas fair. Christkindlmarkt is a word used primarily in southern Germany.  In the northern part of the country, they also have these outdoor markets, but they are referred to as a  “Weihnachtsmarkt”, a Christmas Market. The Germans love this sort of thing. Nuremberg and Rothenburg in Bavaria both have wonderful open markets in their town squares. I have been to them. They are especially magical at night, with their lights and music and different kinds of food. The Christkindlmarket in downtown Milwaukee is a weak imitation of the German originals, but it’s all that we have.

Karin wanted to go to the Christkindlmarkt. The fact is that she misses Christmas in Germany, more than she used to miss it. I think she heard about the Christkindlmarkt from a friend in one of her knitting groups. Karin talked to me about going to see it. She became enthusiastic and told me,

“We could eat there. We could have a Bratwurst and a Glühwein!”

She smiled as she spoke of it. For those who do not know, a bratwurst is a sausage found almost everywhere in Germany. Glühwein is hot, spiced wine, usually served in a mug. The two things go well together, especially when it’s cold outside.

The market is located in downtown Milwaukee, near Highland and 4th Street. The booths are set up in a small plaza near the new arena for the local basketball team. The Milwaukee Bucks arena towers over the small collection of kiosks. It feels a little odd. A Christkindlmarkt ought to be surrounded by old, medieval buildings. However, we live in America, and we don’t have any of those.

Karin first wanted to go into the large, framed, heated tent that housed the Käthe Wohlfahrt store. Käthe Wohlfahrt is a famous Christmas store in the old walled city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany. Karin grew up near Rothenburg. In fact, our very first date was in Rothenburg. The store in Rothenburg has a three-story-high Christmas pyramid. A Christmas pyramid is a wooden tower that rotates. I could further explain what a Christmas pyramid is, but you can look it up online. The point is that Käthe Wohlfahrt holds a special place in Karin’s heart, so that’s where we went.

The tent was filled with ornaments, nutcrackers, and Räuchermännchen. Yeah, okay, so what is a Räuchermännchen? A Räuchermännchen is a small, wooden figurine that looks like he or she is smoking when you burn a bit of incense inside of it. In any case, the store was full of things that Karin wanted to see. There were also Advent calendars, chocolates, and pictures from Germany.

Basically, there was nothing in that store that anybody needed. Well, to clarify, there was nothing there that anybody needed in a purely physical way. The store was full of things that were soulful, and oddly necessary. Does anyone really need a hand carved, wooden tree ornament? A person may need that if it somehow provides a connection with a time and place that are now lost. Karin kept talking about Christmases from long ago as she handled the various trinkets.  She bought a small ornament to take with her on a future trip to Texas. The ornament was tiny, and fragile, and oh so precious. It means something. It is a talisman.

After we left Käthe Wohlfahrt, we wandered past the other kiosks. One person was selling ornaments and crucifixes made from olive wood from Bethlehem. I wonder if anybody made the connection to the fact that Bethlehem is in Palestine, a place that has no peace. These ornaments come from people who are suffering, people who are landless.

Other kiosks sold caps and mittens. Some booths sold roasted nuts or pretzels or natural soaps. One kiosk had gifts from Anatolia (Turkey). One booth had shawls and slippers made from felt that came from Kyrgyzstan. The seller had a vaguely Asiatic look and a Slavic accent, and she haggled like someone from the East. One woman sold Ukrainian decorations and ceramic dolls.

We walked into the sweet store, full of candy and cookies and joy. Karin kept looking at things and saying, “We always had this when we were little! Opa bought it for us!” Karin bought some chocolates (Aachener Dominos and Laetzchen) and some Magenbrot. These confections are difficult to describe. It is best if they are just tasted. Simpler that way. Anyway, buying the treats made Karin happy, and that was the purpose of this excursion.

I wonder if the imminent arrival of our first grandson has anything to do with Karin’s desire to go to the Christkindlmarkt. The baby is due on Christmas Eve. Another Christ Child. Another incarnation of the divine. Christ continually being born into this world.

Karin and I finally found the kiosk that sold food. We decided to get a some Leberkäse (hot German bologna) and the Glühwein. We sat in a tent with heaters, and ate our lunch. Karin thought that the Glühwein was a bit strong. Maybe it was.

Maybe it just tasted like this coming Christmas.

 

 

 

 

November 24th, 2018

Nobody walks in Texas.

Okay, that is not entirely accurate, but during our visit with Hans and Gabi, I remember seeing only one person walk farther than the nearest parking lot. Texas is designed to be traveled by car. No matter where a person lives, nothing is close. If there is public transportation, it is carefully hidden. I saw no evidence of it in Bryan/College Station. If a person does not have a car, they are screwed.

To be fair, I live in a suburb of Milwaukee where public transportation is also quite limited. However, I often see people walking in our neighborhood. I see people on bicycles. I see people, in the dead of winter, going for a stroll along snow-covered roads. Yes, in Wisconsin we use our cars a lot, but not all the time.

I am a bit prejudiced. I like to walk. I don’t mind going for six or seven miles at a crack. I like it because it gives me time to think and observe. In a car, the world rushes by too quickly. I have to concentrate on driving, and I miss things. I drive past parts of my life. When I walk, I can stop and savor the experience, or at least accept it. I can be there.

When Karin and I were with Hans and Gabi in Bryan, I went for walks. Mostly, I did that alone. I noticed things as I walked along my way. I noticed right off that buildings were spread out in a sort of haphazard way. Land management in Texas is a casual and chaotic sort of affair. I could detect no plan. A structure is built in a the middle of a pasture, with nothing around it at all. Later, other buildings find homes nearby. Even after an area is mostly developed, there are still stray parcels of open land. Those parcels remain empty even as other developments erupt far in the distance. The feeling I got in Texas was that there is a great deal of open space, and there always will be, so just use it however you like.

On one of my walks, I noticed the Boonville Cemetery/Heritage Park. I walked around in the cemetery. I was alone there. The place was empty, even though it contains a number of interesting artifacts from the early years of the Texas Republic. Boonville was originally the county seat back in the 1850’s. When the railroad came through, it was replaced by Bryan as the capital of Brazos County, and this cemetery is all that is left of Boonville.

I mentioned to Gabi that I had wandered through Boonville. She was surprised.

She told me, “I have lived here all my life, and I never even knew that was there. I probably drove past it a hundred times.”

Exactly.

She drove past it. So have thousands of other people: people who were totally focused on getting to work, or going to the doctor, or doing some shopping. Odds are that very few people in Bryan know that the park exists. They just drive past it, maybe every day.

This is why I walk.

 

 

 

 

 

November 23rd, 2018

I’ve long since retired and my son’s moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, I’d like to see you if you don’t mind
He said, I’d love to, dad, if I could find the time
You see, my new job’s a hassle, and the kids have the flu
But it’s sure nice talking to you, dad
It’s been sure nice talking to you
And as I hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He’d grown up just like me
My boy was just like me.

 

And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
“When you coming home, son?” “I don’t know when”
But we’ll get together then, Dad
You know we’re gonna have a good time then.

 

 

Harry Chapin, “Cat’s in the Cradle”

 

Humans are designed to recognize patterns, even where none exist. We constantly seek out signs of order in a complicated and chaotic world. Some patterns are obvious almost instantaneously, and others only become visible after years or decades.

 

With the passing of my father, one of the last representatives of an entire generation has departed from my family. He was born in the Great Depression and grew up during the War Years. His experiences were radically different mine, but I suspect that we had some things in common. Human nature changes very little over time. The basic struggles of one generation are often the same as those of the generations that follow. The stories of the families in the Book of Genesis are still relevant because those scenarios have been repeated over and over through the millennia.

 

Why is there the repetition? Why do people make the same mistakes again and again? We don’t seem to learn from the past. I don’t. Partly, that is because I really don’t know the past.

 

As I look back, I am aware that I know very little about my father’s youth, or about the home in which he was raised. He told me some stories, most of them were bitter rants. I never got a coherent image of his family. I got splintered fragments of his memories, usually blurted out in a fit of anger. When I did ask specific questions, I often received evasive answers. My picture of his past is like a jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces missing.

 

I am forced to make educated guesses. To understand my father I have to use my intuition. I know that somehow he was badly hurt. I don’t know why. I just know that when it was my turn to meet him, he was already damaged. He was wounded, and sometimes he wounded others. What was the root cause? I have no idea, and I can’t find out. Almost all the witnesses are dead, and the few who still remain have no intention of talking about it.

 

Would it make any difference if I did know his story? Maybe not. The past cannot be changed. Perhaps, if I understood, I would have more sympathy and compassion for him.  Maybe I would be able to understand me. Maybe.

 

Do my children know my story? Do they know much about my family? Not really. They know bits and pieces. I haven’t told them many things because, frankly, it is too painful to remember a lot of them. Even if I wanted to tell them everything, I don’t know that it would make any sense to them. Much of it doesn’t even make sense to me. When I leave this world, it is likely that I will be as much a mystery to my kids as my father is to me.

 

It just keeps on giving.

 

 

 

November 20th, 2018

I called a good friend on Sunday night. I have known the man for a long time ago. We met when Karin and I were part of a German-language Bible study group. We have remained friends ever since then. The man is just recently retired. He was an ER doctor for many years, and he is trying figure out what he is now. This rather confusing process of  transformation is typical for retirees. I went through, or rather I am still going through, this phase of uncertainty and existential angst. In a way, retirement is like a more mature version of adolescence. Anyway, I called him because I respect his opinion, and I wanted his perspective on my father’s death.

We talked about my dad for a while, and then the conversation drifted toward religion, as it always does. My friend is a peculiar blend of Bible-based, Baptist thought and pre-Vatican II Catholicism. His views are always interesting, and occasionally infuriating.

At one point in our conversation, he remarked that we live in a “fallen world”. I hate that phrase, like really hate it. It’s a classic, born-again kind of comment. It’s short hand for saying, “The world sucks, it’s all our fault, and we can’t fix it.” Nice.

I mentioned that to my friend. To his credit, he responded by saying,

“I hate it too when people use the term “fallen world” as an excuse to do nothing. Clearly, there is sin and evil in the world. That fact doesn’t make it okay to just give up. If a person doesn’t attempt to do good, then he just makes the world that much worse.”

My friend tends to look at the negative aspects of the world, even more than I do.

He said, “The world is full of evil, and Satan is in charge.”

That seemed a little harsh.

He went to say, “Everyone born into this world is destined for hell.”

That comment reflects more than the usual amount of traditional Catholic guilt. It sounded more to me like something that came from Calvin or Luther. The overwhelming emphasis on human sinfulness makes no sense to me. Why would God even create us if we’re that vile?

It is obvious that people are capable of horrific deeds. Most of history is simply a compilation of criminal acts. However, sometimes, maybe often, people rise to the occasion. We can be noble and selfless. That happens too.

I have been impressed at how the Jewish tradition views human nature. There is an admission that people are frail and disobedient, but there is also an acknowledgement that every person has an inherent dignity and value. If God loves us, then there has to be something inside of us that is worth loving. God wants a relationship with us.

I notice the difference in attitude when I compare how Catholics pray as opposed to how Jews pray. Catholics, and other Christians, often pray on their knees. They speak to God from a position of absolute submission. Jews pray while standing. That tells me something.

God is often presented in the Bible as being like a loving father. What loving father would demand that his children come to him on their knees?