It's the Most Otiose Time of the Year

Dear Reader:

It is Boxing Day in London, a British holiday with a name for which there is no convincing explanation, which is fine by me. During this tradition-laden Yuletide, when forward planning, scheduling, precision and execution reign like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, there is comfort in celebrating a holiday for which there are few expectations and no raison d'être. Boxing Day is the reefer smoking dude of annual holidays; it still lives at home in Father Christmas' basement and just wants to chill.

And Boxing Day is otiose, just ask our twelve-year-old son Julian who is visiting from New York, along with his Moms, O and P, for the holidays. Jules and I are sitting at the table writing his homework assignment and my blog entry with Gregorian plainchant playing in the background for inspiration. Julian's task is to write a story incorporating fifteen key vocabulary words, and he has decided to set his narrative within the World of Warcraft video game. Evidently, the soundtrack to WoW is majorly modal, in a kick-ass sort of way. Who knew that singing celibates could fuel so much testosterone? While he has been explaining this to me, I have secretly nicked 'otiose' from his word list and am feeling like a clever cheat during a pop quiz. "I shall atone by using 'otiose' at least five times," I silently vow, as the friars tuck into a lusty version of Salve Regina.

Whilst Jules and I are rockin' to the really oldies,  O and P are out on a post-gluttony virtue walk through the climes of Tottenham. My mind wanders from the task at hand, and I imagine them strolling past riot-looted shops on their way to the River Lea towpath. There, swans glide by, navigating through the floating lager bottles and crisp packets like little Titanics on a good day. The few Type A people left in town bicycle wildly down the path toward the City with bloodlust in their eyes, hoping against hope to knock over at least one striking tube driver. O and P jump aside, teetering on the concrete edge of the waterway, as a crazed careerist careens by.  They tumble back from the river onto the grass and cigarette butts, laughing and smiling in a can-you-believe-these-kooky-Brits sort of way. There is something about being in England that turns most of us Americans into the tourist equivalents of pet shop patrons. We allow locals to do the most appalling things to us while swearing that they are the cutest creatures ever. Well, I am glad that O and P are the sorts to make the most of it all, and I sigh contentedly, fading away from this pastoral scene just as they are about to discover the mystical ruins of the sewage facility in Springfield Park.

Back from my reverie, I decide that it is time for a snack. I interrupt Julian's concentration to send him to the kitchen for oat cakes and cashew butter under the guise that he probably needs a break. I am intuitive in that way. It takes a borderline ADD creative to know one. Soon, we are happily chatting and munching away. Julian has used three of his fifteen words so far, and I am still contemplating my 'otiose' quota. The doorbell chimes, O and P return with nary a grass stain in sight, and the teakettle beckons once again. Perfection.

Reader, I hope that you and yours found something pointless to do together this holiday season. In the grand scheme of things, these are the salad days. So, lie back and relax with the people you love and the things that make you smile for no reason.

All hail Boxing Day, the one holiday that gets it right without even trying.


Glad you are there,
Pressley

Crow Town

Dear Reader:

A couple of years ago, the 'me' I thought I knew lost 'it.' I cannot tell you what 'it' is, but you know it when you lose 'it.' And if 'it' is the proverbial plot, then I lost most of the main characters as well. Deaths of bodies, deaths in heart and psyche. I may share more about these warm-up events at another time, but for now, I want to tell you about the crows. 

One day, it seemed that I was at the centre of a comprehensible life; the next, a trapdoor opened and I was falling at warp speed toward God-knows-where. Some call this psychological falling a midlife crisis. I call it landing in Crow Town, because counting crows seemed as good a science as any in this grave new world without 'it' anymore.

Picture me as a crone within an ancient grove of yew trees chanting to the circling crows:
 
 "One for sorrow,
         Two for mirth,
              Three for a wedding,
                  And four for death." (cackle, cackle, cackle)

Well, this was not quite how it went. I am not superstitious, but I am also not one to dismiss the ways that Spirit signposts our journeys. When your Rational Guy skips town in midlife, you work with who is left. And for the second time in my life, at a crucial juncture, the Spirit gave me a vision of a crow to contemplate when confidence in my own ability to know much was gone. Then, carrion crows began nesting in the trees at the back of our garden for the first time in six years. Coincidence? Maybe. But this was one of the only places where Spirit and I could meet after the fall, everywhere else was off limits to her as I struggled with anger, disappointment and breathtaking moments of panic. Sitting together watching and listening to these beautiful clever birds, we found a language that did not require much clarity from me: flight patterns, calls and pair bonding; a wing feather left by the door in the morning; a fledgling hiding in the ivy through the night. Due attention was paid, and it helped.

There was nothing overtly portentous in Crow Town, and lest you think me a Cretan or the high priest of the Diggory Druids, it is probably a good time to tell you that I am a clergyperson within a progressive christian fellowship, not that this disqualifies me from Cretan status. I am also gay, have been all my life, and the way of Christ still works for me. But maybe you are anxious as you read about visions of crows and such, especially if you think of them as ill omens. If so, may I suggest that you regard them as I do, with gratefulness, more like a St. Benedict's crow helping me out during a frightening time.

Here is the story of Ben's crow:

Legend has it that a jealous rival in the church poisoned the bread St. Benedict was to be served. Benedict intuited that the bread was lethal, and he asked a wild corvid, with whom he shared his daily bread, to take the poisoned bread and hide it where it would harm no one. The bird seemed upset at first and frightened to carry the lethal loaf, but eventually he took it into his beak when Benedict assured him it would not hurt him. The corvid flew for three hours, hiding the poisoned bread safely away, returning unharmed, as promised, to enjoy a fresh piece of new bread which the holy man had saved for him. 

Reader, I guess we all experience times in life when we have to work intuitively with what we have been given, even when it does not feel rational or familiar. There is plenty of science documenting the ways our subverbal brain remains a powerful survival resource, especially when our cognitive faculties need refreshing. So, it seems that archetypal crows flew into town from subverbia to become my point of connection and a needed benevolence during an existential crisis. It is good to have a shorthand explanation---but the alchemy remains in the counting, bird by bird.

Glad you are there,
P

  

Midway between the journey of our life

     I found myself within a forest dark

          For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

               Ah me! How hard a thing it is to say... 

                                                                              Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto I

Welcome and Caveat

Dear Reader:

I do not know if you are there, or will come at all, but it is good to imagine you at your screen. Perhaps you know me, or if we have never met, maybe you will recognise me through your reading. I hope so, I am trying to do the same.

I want to begin by sharing a borrowed caveat with you:

My Mom used to tell the story of a little boy whose embarrassed mother was trying to make him stop talking incessantly while she picked up clothes for them at an Appalachian charity shop. 

Mom was working at the distribution counter as they approached. 

Trying to put them both at ease, she said to the young mother, "That's alright. He has a lot to say."  

And to the boy, "Honey, I understand. I have a lot to say, too." 

The little boy lit up with self-importance and said, "That's right! I have a lot to say!" 

However, after a moment's reflection, he confessed, "But I don't know nothin'." 

Mom replied conspiratorially, "You know what? I guess I don't know nothin' either," making, I'm sure, a friend for life. 

So here is my caveat to you: I have a lot to say, but I don't know nothin'. 

But maybe, if you feel similarly, we can become companions -- if not for a lifetime, at least for now.

Glad you are there,

P

Midway between the journey of our life

     I found myself within a forest dark

          For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

               Ah me! How hard a thing it is to say... 

                                                                              Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto I