lost and found and lost

"The only people who get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost." -- Henry David Thoreau

Tell me about it.

Still searching, after all these years.

speechless

Have you ever spent a day willfully not speaking words?

I have not.

I think I could.**

I think I may, some day.

The point? To clear, to see and hear more clearly. To BE more clearly, like still water that was muddied.

Or I'd just nap more on such a putative wordless day.

**(Many who know talkative me would howl with laughter at this claim.)

the unknowable

"Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops."

Who is the author? 

Some evangelist?

A philosopher?

A cynic?

H. L. Mencken 

the sparrows

I descend the stairs. I am halted by the sight of a sparrow in the tree just outside the window in the hallway. Often, there are many sparrows. Do sparrows have families? We eye each other, the sparrow and I. Faint hints of yellow in his feathers. Or hers. I don't know. The sparrow knows I am there, on the other side of want and coldness. And I know the sparrow is out there, enduring the wind and cold and snowflakes, protected slightly by shrubbery branches and the paltry warmth of fellow or sister sparrows. Does he care? My impulse to take in the sparrows, offering them shelter and warmth, borders on the insane, I quickly realize. Plus, to do so -- despite its do-gooder-ness, would prove fatal to the sparrows, I am sure. 

Christmastide

You know what annoys me? I get consumerism, commercialism, mercantile madness. All that. I understand these -isms have a manic magnetism, even if I keep a safe distance from them myself, mostly. But the thing is this: the stores and radio stations and TV networks can't wait to get on the Christmas bandwagon. They start, what, in October? The trouble is, many of them jump off it after Christmas Day! The Christmastide season is just beginning. It starts Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, depending on your tradtion, and goes 12 days, to January 5 or January 6, depending on how you celebrate it. You know, as in TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS or that play by William Shakespeare, "TWELFTH NIGHT." They all jump on Christmas, then drop it like a radioactive ornament. Even for crass commercial reasons, one can keep it going. Maybe that is better and no need to be annoyed. It allows us to celebrate the feast unencumbered by our acquired baggage.

absolutely

Ever notice that in the popular parlance "absolutely" means sure, emphatically yes, truly, verily, amen, very much so, I ain't lying, for real, totally. Not exactly absolutely. It's okay. Absolutely.

presence

I saw a sign.

I saw a sign in front of St. Ann Church, just outside the City of Syracuse -- "in the world but not of it," you might say, if you are not suburban-minded (as I am not).

The sign read:

LESS PRESENTS

MORE PRESENCE

I liked it. I like it.

Did the pastor give a Christmas homily on that?

It's a facile declaration.

Simple.

But what would it mean?

Fewer physical gifts and more staring into eyes, more hugs and holding hands?

I talk a good game.

This would be harder than I first thought.