The Nicene Creed

nice not the first thought

nicene being

its adjective twin

yet nicene enough

insense and all

maker of all things 

of all that is

seen and unseen

(that infinite comma up there)

think about it 

all that is

both seen and unseen

shrouded by skin

shaped by veins

eternally begotten

not made

faith more than creed

creed more than doubt

a twig

to stand on

seen not seen

felt not felt

in time

forever

 

 

taking a knee

A genuflection of reflection. Take one for the team (in this case, the nation, the e pluribus unum). Forgive us our trespasses, chokeholds, tramplings, blindnesses, deafnesses. So we genuflect. On bended knee. Wounded Knee. Forgive us our silences, forgive us our words. Forgive us our comforts. Genuflect symbolically, metaphorically, physically. Bow. Shots fired across the bow. Bow and arrow. Bury my heart. Genuine flection. Yield and you need not break. Flex your muscles. An inflection of speech. The fire next time. A perilous predilection. An election. The elect. Take a knee. On the chin. Break-neck speed. Life and limb. Out on a limb. Leap of faith.

just for today

Soren Kierkegaard wrote, ". . . to be anxious for the next day is covetousness." This is found in "The Anxiety of Self-Torment." Think about it. It is a powerful message. To be anxious about other than today is to have a "feeling or showing a very strong desire for something that you do not have and especially for something that belongs to someone else," which is how Merriam-Webster defines "covetous." You can mull this on many levels. Tomorrow we do not have. To whom does tomorrow belong? (For that matter, can't we ask the same questions of today?) It's as if Kierkegaard is saying, "Don't be greedy. You have enough to worry about today. Don't borrow tomorrow's troubles." (I recognize that "greedy" differs in meaning from "covetous.") Still, there's a lot there to chew on. Isn't there? Just for today.  

unlocking the doors

After I parked at the Wegmans [yeah, I miss that apostrophe too], I decided not to press the lock activator on the key fob for the 2006 Honda Civic. Why lock it? It is an insidious habit. What is there to take? Why is it so important? What is so scary in suburban DeWitt, aside from its suburbanness? My act of civic bravery, or common sense, was not based on the fact that it is not my car (my wife's). It was a statement, a statement not clearly articulated. What was in there, besides some CDs? (Oh, what about that nifty portable battery charger? Hunh? Hunh?) Sure, "they" could steal maps and insurance cards. Good luck with that. We never seem to have the right maps, so welcome to 'em. Who are "they" anyway? And why would "they" single out this car? Are they on a crime spree? Were they waiting just for me? How many of them are "they"? What are their eating and sleeping habits?

I looked at the headlines of The Post-Standard and The New York Times. Too ominous. I decided not to buy a Sunday paper, though I was grateful that my browsing informed me of an interfaith event tomorrow at the Zen Center for the people in Japan. I'd like to go. Will "they" be there?

I bought five-seed four-grain bread, or is it four-seed five-grain, sliced. I used self service. I inserted a five-dollar bill and got seventy-five cents of change. The prompts on the computer screen assume plastic or something else. I used neither paper nor plastic. I decided not to wear the sunglasses I had worn over my regular glasses on the way in. Way too dorky.

Miraculously, I found the car fairly easily and was pleased to find the door unlocked. Still. Thinking this might be worth a blog post, I had written "unlocked" on the church bulletin shortly after exiting the unlocked car. You can move this paragraph closer to the top if you prefer. I had thought "unlocked" might be a nice metaphorical theme to follow, to muse about. Now I'm either not so sure or too lazy or both.

Maybe it's just the rusty taste of fraudulence in my mouth, maybe that's what's putting me off from pondering on and on, like they sing in The Journey song. Fraudulence about what? C'mon. Locking your car door in DeWitt, New York? Give me a break. Puhleez. What's the big deal?

Ever hear this one: fear knocked on the door, faith answered. Do I have that right? Maybe it's fear locked the door. I opened it. Faith was there. No. I'm not sure it is either one. On Cayman Brac most, maybe nearly everyone, keeps the doors unlocked: house, car, truck. Doors unlocked. The Doors were a good band, but they were more unhinged than unlocked.

St. Stephen's Day haiku

rocked for his beliefs

faithful, steadfast to the core

magma of Spirit

A Dream and the Persistence of Grief

You think it is final. You think all that is over and done with, fine linen stained with tears put away in a drawer. And then a morning dream. We seem to be somewhere with a countertop. It might even be a bar, but there is no drinking, no smoke, no sounds. It seems bottles might be arrayed in the background, in front of a mirror. It is a dream, so one never know, afterwards. It is Richard, my older brother. The cancer was discovered in August of 2005, just after we got back from camp, as we did yesterday. The course was rapid. The light, what little there is, is dusty, no not dusty, more like dusky but gray. A clear gray if that is imaginable. Richard is wearing a gray suit. How do I know it is him? I see his face. There are no words. We embrace. I sob uncontrollably hard. We hug tightly. My ample tears fall on his neck and shoulder. The moisture seeps through the padded fabric of his suit.

I awake sad.

In halting and fractured terms, I tell my wife of this dream, knowing full well how inadequate my description is. She says something about my love for him or me for him, that he is trying to tell me something from there. I don't know if I believe that. I don't find it especially reassuring. I tell her I am sad, it was sad.

I stop and think that Mom and Beverly and Laurie, for all I know, have had such dreams countless times. I will not ask them.

We go to church, first time together in months. I was going to go to nearby Saint Mark's, on the west side; she had already left for Saint David's. I changed my mind and showed up, in the middle of the sermon, at Saint David's, on the east side, the suburbs. She said yesterday was her dead father's birthday. At the prayers for the dead I couldn't get the words out and tried to make no show of what my eyes were doing.

She pointed to the bulletin, to the first reading, which I had missed, from Genesis. She pointed to the bottom of the passage, an excerpt about Joseph, in exile in Egypt.

Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

In the mail that had accumulated in our absence, a large envelope package, from my brother Bobby. A luscious coffee-table book, Baseball As America.

Beth and I went to a minor-league game last night, before the dream, with Steve and Steve and Ed. Beth and I left before the fireworks.

Today I wonder if Jack is back from Chicago.

And marvel at how three surviving brothers can skirt this grief of many colors.

The Terminatee

Today, after hearing the postman's knell and signing his proffered forms and opening the Official Lawyerese Letter whose punctuation I could correct if I dared, I became the Terminal Man, opening a surprise chapter in my zigzag story, a chapter likely to unfold unto the terminus of my days and ways.

Of course, the Terminator's declaration is merely one version of events (and we know from Marcel Proust how subjective and fickle memory is), but in the corporate world (as opposed to the legal world) it is the only version that counts.

My feelings range from guilt to remorse to sadness to fear to anger, and, not least, to liberation and lightness (though you are right to say those two L words are not feelings per se; hey, I'm struggling here, okay?).

A sense of freedom is granted (yes, there's a cost I am paying) to anyone who would dare exert a modicum of dignity in the arena (the arena we spell w-o-r-k). How dare I return fire after a fusillade is launched at me! Some nerve!

I don't plead heroism or victimhood.

Besides, as you all know, Pawlie Kokonuts is a fiction.

It didn't happen; it's all a dream, in't?

I've quoted these favorite and shimmering lines of William Butler Yeats before:

"What they undertook to do
They brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew
Upon a blade of grass."

I share these words again, dear friends and loved ones and anonymous readers. (Scroll down through the link above; cool pix.)

I've often referred in joking fashion to Mr. Soren Kierkegaard.

And now his celebrated leap of faith awaits me.

I will put my faith in the blade of grass. Or the drop of dew.

I will take the unnameable breath of this moment, and treasure its exhalation.