Character Studies

Ellen Feldmen's engaging book, Lucy, written in Lucy Mercer's voice brings her relationship with FDR to vivid life and with it some understanding of Arthur Schlesinger Jr's quote that if she "in any way helped Franklin Roosevelt sustain the frightful burdens of leadership in the second world war, the nation has good reason to be grateful to her."  

I didn't know much about Malcolm X and wanted to understand why he was a cultural icon.  As a "white devil" I can't possibly comprehend the nuances of his anger, but at least this book helped me recognize that my existence is part of the current problems facing the African-American population. His powerful voice still echoes in our race and religious relations today.

I've said before I'm drawn to characters - they add flavor to life - and Eddie Chapman (Agent Zigzag) was one of the most colorful I've ever read about.  He was a hard-living crook who somehow ended up as a very successful double-agent between the British and Germans in WWII.  If you can't admire his morals you simply must admire his bravado.  Breathtaking read!

The Darkness Hides A Horror.

I wake in darkness.  Barefoot, I trod downstairs to the study, weaving my way around furniture from memory.  Occasionally, I trod right onto a warm, wet pile of cat vomit.  I could say my reaction is a calm, manly flick of the light switch and a wry swipe with paper towels but calm would have to mean shrieking and manly would have to involve a shuddering, one-footed, arm-flailing leap into the closet.

I would like to know why cats insist on binging and purging - how warped is their self image?

And why, if they're so ashamed that they try to cover it up, is it openly planted like a colonizing flag?

Locations of their generous deposits may vary, but I'm not convinced they're entirely random.

Despite their piteous pre-emesis yowls, there's nothing cute about cat puke.

It would be nice if they recognized the appropriate receptacle for their indigestion.

But despite repeated behavior modeling, they refuse to learn, or even care.

Cats think they rule the world and can do whatever they want and we'll love them anyway.

Cats are totally right.

I wake in darkness.  Wearing sandals, I trod downstairs to the study clutching a wad of papertowels....

A Christian Clings To Loganimity.

It's a lovely word - forebearance - sprouting thoughts of serenity, patience and wise humor.  The people I admire most exude it like a fragrance.  Their company is pleasant yet discomfiting because my foolishness is usually the focus of their mature restraint, which shames me.

Forebearance is hard.  It feels unnatural at first, insulting to our sense of justice.  Over time, with disciplined use, it becomes, not primarily natural, but a kind of second nature, like ironic laughter at the ridiculous smallness of infuriating events.  It's a wry grin, with grief playing around the edges.

But, like anything, forebearance can be weaponized.  There's a name for that cold dish: Loganimity.  

Our hearts cry out for immediate justice, for resolution, for closure, for redemption.  I like action movies because in them, justice is always served steaming. Forebearance takes the long veiw, smiles softly and lays down its big stick - despite those hot, urgent desires - oftentimes smiling straight to the grave.  It can easily be misunderstood as weakness and spark a violent reaction but, whose holiday do we celebrate - MLK or Malcolm X?  Atticus Finch pushed up his glasses and taught us forebearance without clear resolution.  John Ross wept his way to Oklahoma with forebearance.  Human history is littered with corpses of the forebearing populace massacred by rabid hot-heads. 

So we succor the dark underbelly of forebearance: patient revenge - loganimity.  We turn to religion to ease the pain of injustice, but we secretly believe that Jesus knew, as He meekly bore the whip, that one day He'd get His. Since He's the only one who can really take revenge for all of us meek sheep who've been harrassed by the wolves, we'll have to wait for Him and His army of angels and natural disasters and that horrifying Lake of Fire to balance the scales.  That, I confess, is my loganimity. I'm joined by the legions who've humbly bowed their heads when cut off in traffic or beat up at school or rejected for the prom or, let's see, I guess I'll have to add enslaved, butchered, maimed, raped, displaced, or imprisoned unjustly - and nurtured the simmering hope that one day the offenders will be thoroughly and profoundly punished while we, who patiently forebore their self-absorbed wretchedness, will dance with glee on streets of gold. 

There is that annoying passage about all having sinned and fallen short of the glorious golden streets, and none being righteous, no, not one - but that's why Jesus died, right? To save me? That, and to trick the truly wicked into thinking He was gone forever so they could get good and deep in sin thus earning a molten spot in what must be, from all available evidence, a really big burning lake. 

On our first day of school at the Oregon Extension we (32 caucasian, middle-class,  Christian-evengelical 20-somethings) were asked what we'd say if we ran into Hitler in Heaven.  The whole group tittered at the suggestion but the professor was stone-faced.  It dawned on us that he was serious!  The idea cratered our loganimity, our bedrock belief that wicked people ultimately got what was coming to them and we, with humble goodness transmuted into our genes by our heritage and social status, were to receive an eternal reward.  We humbly nodded that yes, Jesus certainly died for Hitler too, but inside we achingly hoped we wouldn't bump into Hitler in heaven because that would nauseatingly disrupt the natural order of things.  I, for one, having not gassed 4 million people, felt I deserved a better reward than Hitler - a better house, better view of the seraphim, better seat at the table, shinier street of gold - something. We needed loganimity - it soothed us with seductive promises of everything turning out all right in the end - good patiently suffers abuses but ultimately triumphs over evil, evil is crushed.  Hitler hadn't even done anything to us personally - still, he must be crushed, especially in the afterlife!  Any alternate ending would absolutely tear the lids off our neat worldviews.  The professors dedicated the next four months to tearing off lids.

I'm still drawn toward loganimity rather than true forebearance when I perceive myself slighted.  I want the other person to think they got away with doing me wrong; they carry on with their lives la la la la la then WHAM, the hammer drops!  I want them to suffer terribly, but I don't want to be the one to drop the hammer  - I'll let Jesus do that.

What's that? What do you mean that's not how it works?

Proverbs 24:33

Putin's hospital visit opened his eyes to previously untapped resources.

May's been brutal, work-wise.  I quietly chant that it's better than living under a bridge but there's times I wonder.  It is nice to be needed. While I really want a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, what I don't want is poverty coming on me like a thief.  So I'll just keep getting up, going out and earning it, grateful for the opportunity.  I can catch up on sleep when I'm dead.

The merciless horns of a dilemma.

DMV: The Dark Abyss.

Ran full-tilt into the concrete ennui of bureaucracy at the DMV today.  It was soul-crushing and probably my fault for walking through the door with a heart full of high expectations. After 90 minutes of earnestly doing nothing they finally shrugged and told me I'd have to "call Raleigh" which is code for "spend  45 minutes blistering your ear and raising your blood pressure until your heart struggles to beat while they transfer you to 3 different departments then dead-end you into someone's voice mail while they laugh and discuss last night's episode of The Bachelor."  I shuffled out through the deflated remains of my expectations into the normal world of bright sunshine, surprised that birds were still chirping and trees continued to sway in the light breeze while behind me a smug kingdom of callous, bored automatons laid unfettered waste to all the humanity within their grasp. Here's some of my favorite memes to sum up the experience:

Genesis 3:15.

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers...."

I was in bed last night sliding through my hypnogogic state when Tammy's voice arrested me: "Uuuuhhmmm - John - there's a copperhead in my bathroom!", each word rising in pitch to crescendo with a shuddering yell.  I trod groggily over and saw with chagrin a small, speckled snake coiled on the vanity behind her collection of bracelets.  I'd just 30 minutes prior obliviously brushed my teeth two feet from it. "Sorry to wake you", she said.  "That's weird it's there", I responded but I was thinking, "I'm sorry too."

"Let me just settle my jaws around your eyball and I'll sing you the song of my people."

I got a glass bowl, gently moved obstacles out of the way and dropped the bowl over the snake, who reacted by striking repeatedly at our warped figures hovering nervously over it.  I slid a manila folder under the glass and carried it still frenziedly striking to the freezer.  

"I feel like our relationship has chilled - can we start over, like, with the whole apple thing?

It's harder than you'd think, going to bed after realizing snakes can enter and hide in your house.  Images of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi flitted through my brain and I briefly entertained the hope that our cat would protect us with mongoose-like ferocity but realized with disappointment that she's middle-aged now, somewhat soft around the middle, and might direct a glare as it slithered past but not start a death-match. I wish I could say I disdainfully dismissed any lurking suspicion of further snakes, but I pulled the sheets down and checked the foot before I climbed back into bed and stepped lightly when I arose in the dark to go to work.

"If you don't mind, I'd like our families to get aquainted - though mine's rather extensive, I'm afraid."

Denver went to bed early, skeeved at the idea of lurking visitors and Tammy was still shuddering over coffee this morning.  River, of course, couldn't care less about unwelcome guests - he sold his soul to the fascination of insects and reptiles long ago.  Some people love snakes and keep them for pets, deluded into thinking the love is reciprocated, but then, some people are barking idiots.

"Too big for one bite, too small for two - what will I do with you?  I'll start by crippling  your ankles."

Exhaustive Google research convinced me that it wasn't a copperhead but an Eastern Milksnake - harmless rodent-eaters who mate in May and produce 24 offspring by June.  Nope. Nope. NOPE.

Downer.

Like a stone tossed into the pond of your soul.

Just finished Flaubert's Madame Bovary.  It was terrible.  Well-written, and terrible.  I kept waiting for it to get better, now I've squandered hours of my life I'll never get back. I feel like crying.