Cathartic Pathos

Blubbery men.  I cannot abide blubbery men.

Men who cry in public.

Not that I'm opposed to a little male emotion.  A dude getting a bit teary-eyed now and again is normal.

But those guys who lose it during a public discourse... brother, please.  We're trying to have a meeting here!

Recently there was a politician who broke down in tears during a televised speech.  His wife went up to the lecturn to comfort him.  Drag that guy out to the back alley and leave him alone to dry out!

Look, guys...  getting a little choked up is understandable at times, but save your blubbering for private.

Please.

~o~

Her co-worker in the adjacent cubicle seemed to be blowing his nose a lot.

"Are you getting sick?" Stephanie asked.

"No," replied Michael, "probably just allergies."

A lie.

~o~

Earlier the other day Stephanie and her supervisor Roberta were talking about Steph's daughter and how she had lost her Guinea Pig the day before.

It was a light-hearted conversation.  What to do?  Put the body in the dumpster or dig a hole?  The daughter wanted a proper burial, but Mom hadn't had the time to do it yet.

"You don't wanna know where he is right now," said Stephanie to her boss.

"In the freezer?" proffered Roberta.

Michael stood up into view and motioned toward the break room, implying perhaps he was in the freezer here at work.

Then he recalled a YouTube clip from an old Saturday Night Live featuring the "Yard-a-pult".  Yard clippings, raked leaves, dead pets... just load them in the Yard-a-pult and pull the trigger.  Shalllinggggg... over the fence and away they sail!"  He shared that basic concept with them, and at least Roberta laughed.

That was yesterday.

~o~

This morning Michael overheard Steph and Roberta catching up, again talking about the dead guinea pig.  Was it buried yet?  No.  Daughter still upset?  Yes...

Michael slowed down...  remembering the freezer... and an old memory flew through the window to haunt him once again.

He had once euthanized a beloved pet of his own.

This memory, very vivid, involving an especially traumatic scene, occupied his mind for a few moments, then expanded and pushed its way down into his heart.

The sunny and warm weather inside him turned grey and rainy.  Drops began to leak through the windows and down his face.  The storm, quietly gentle but shivering cold and growing darker, continued on for a couple of hours.

He had to go find privacy a few times...

~o~

"What is with you?" he asked.

"This happens every few years--" began Michael.

"Can I do you a favor," he interrupted, "and help you to change past history?"

"Is that possible?"

"Here's my idea:  write a story about what happened, but change the outcome.  Rewrite history.  Machine-gun that ghost right out of the sky.  Stop the haunting."

"I'm too...  I can't...  it may..." stammered Michael.

"I'll write it for you".

"Well, if you do, I'll read it when you're finished," said Michael.

"Then it's a deal," he said, offering his hand to seal the arrangement.

Michael's fingers nearly touched the mirror before he reached up and instead wiped his eyes.

Back Again

Is there someone you know

You're loving them so

But taking them all for granted?

You may lose them one day

Someone takes them away

And they don't hear

The words you long to say

Those lyrics are from what could easily appear to be one of the seventies' great romantic love songs.

David Gates actually wrote "Everything I Own" to express his feelings toward his late father.

My own Dad will die one day and be taken away and it's something that I hope will never happen.  Yet I know it must happen.

Countless times people have sung or spoken their regrets over not telling a loved one how much they cared, only to find that it was one day too late.  The object of their affection could no longer hear.

When I listen to "Everything" it often makes me want to weep over my father, even though he is still living.

After losing someone, is there a way to could go back in time and tell them "one more time", how much they love them?

The only way I know is to imagine the day when they will eventually pass away.  To cry and sorrow inside.  To play back the music and photographs of their memory.  To realize that yes, you do care very deeply.

And that for now, they are still alive.

Then to go and tell them now, before it's too late.

Another thing about babies that I don't like

Four days ago, Sunday morning, when they were counting up the elephants at the Wild Animal Park they came up one extra.

A tiny baby elephant had been born the night before.

Those visitors (to what has sadly been renamed the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park) present that morning were treated to the sight of a fuzzy-legged little pachyderm standing below his mother's breast.

Standing.

He was standing on his first morning of life.  Standing and walking.

When's the last time anyone saw a human baby standing up, even within the first week?

This reminds me of another thing I don't like about babies.

They're lazy.

Of course someone tells me that this is by design, and the only reason baby elephants choose to stand right away is that their mommies don't have arms with which to pick up and hold their babies.

That's their opinion.

[Human] babies are lazy.

Only Six Pounds

Generally speaking, I don't care for babies.

They leak.  They squeak.  They can suddenly smell bad.  They're selfish.

True, I was once a baby.  However I gave it up as soon as possible.

I don't like babies.

Now I do like people.  Grown people.  Two people who are friends (I'll call them "Eric" and "Suzanne" since those are their real names) recently experienced a nine-month pregnancy which resulted in the birth of a baby.

Wesley Ericson Harris was born around 4:00am in the morning on Friday November 19, 2010.

The next evening, on Saturday the 20th, Wendy and I went for a visit at Sharp's Mary Birch Hospital for Women.

It was nice to see our friends, and though they both looked quite tired, they were also radiating obvious inner joy.

When Suzanne offered to let Wendy hold the infant, now a day and three quarters old, I thought it was cute and snapped a few photographs.

Then Wendy asked if I wanted to hold Wesley.

Now I haven't held a baby for as long as I can remember.  Logic tells me that I probably held my baby sister when I was about about 5 years old.  However, I don't remember it, and any other babies held were quickly returned so that the awkwardness would end.

Of course I said yes.  I said out loud that it had been a long time, and I wasn't all that skilled at "baby holding".  

"I know I'm supposed to support the head", I offered.

Suzanne, the mother, simply said "yes, support the head, and just don't drop him".

Wendy handed me Wesley in a slow motion exchange, our arms momentarily enmeshed.

The first thought I had:  he's so light!  Compared to the last living thing I cradled in my arms, a full grown cat, this little tiny human was nearly weightless!  (Later Wendy told me that he weighs only 6 pounds).

Wesley's eyes were closed as he slept soundly, but from time to time I could see them rolling about beneath his eyelids.  His face changed expression every few minutes.  A couple of times his entire body jumped like people sometimes do when they're falling asleep.

My heart began to melt onto the floor.

You know... as I type this blog entry, I realize that what I'm about to type has been said again and again throughout history.  People hold babies... their hearts melt all over the floor.  I guess I'm just saying that it happened to me.

After I handed him back over to his father Eric, my arms suddenly began to ache, since I'd been holding him so long.

That Saturday night was one of the most unforgettable in my life.  It was a privilege (thanks Mom Suzanne and Dad Eric for letting me hold Son Wesley) and a very moving experience.

I love babies!

ps:

Holding a cat is nice, too,

but nice in a substantially

different way than holding

a human baby is nice

Dear Mister President

Dear President Obama,

After only two months of working in an office, I have come to recognize a threat to our economy and wanted to alert you as soon as possible.

We are wasting millions of gallons of ink, toner and electricity by needlessly including the following phrase in our emails and printed correspondence:

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sometimes this sentence appears in a slightly different form:

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Mister President, can you please enact legislation to annihilate this saying in all its variations from the English language?

Not only will this save the country billions of dollars in resources, it will also serve to remove one more source of annoyance as I go about my work day.

Your citizen,

Steve

ps.  For the benefit of some of the more dimwitted members of Congress, you might point out that these words, though unspoken, are always implied.  If ever there is an exception, then the following phrase could be used freely:

Don't ask me any questions about this.

or

No further questions at this time.

Thank you.

Why He Loves the Ministry

Actually, he very much dislikes the ministry.

This morning, when the radio began to play its random wake up song, he hit the snooze button.  He would have loved to keep on sleeping.

When he was single, more often than not that's what he would do.  He's lucky now, because he's married, and his wife is getting up for the ministry, so that helps him to rise as well.

When he lived at home, sharing a room with his brother, they'd often make plans the night before to work together.  Which was invariably a guarantee that they'd both sleep in, waiting for the other to rouse them out of bed, which neither would do.

It became a joke.  "Wanna work together in service tomorrow?"     "Sure!"    "Guaranteed sleep-in".

He doesn't like bothering people, knocking, uninvited at the doors of strangers.

A love for people, he does not have.

Of course he goes because he loves his God who asked him to do this.  He really does love the people he preaches to, I suppose.  He wouldn't want them to lose out on what's being offered.

There's pleasure, too, when people listen.  Or when people express their own appreciation about God and the Bible.  And when they're friendly and not rude.

Mostly, though, he'd rather not be there.

Today, however, he met Chief Easton.

Chief Easton made his day.

Now he realizes why he loves the ministry.  Because, as it turns out, he really does love people.

Along with his partner, he approached the door.  A bumper sticker on the back of the truck parked in the driveway looked familiar:

USS Liberty - ship torpedoed 1967 by Israeli forces

He remembered talking to this gentleman, who was a survivor of the Liberty tragedy.  It had probably been a couple of years.  Maybe three.  So when the door opened, he used it on the woman who answered.

"He's right here," she said, and went off to get him.

There was the sound of voices and grumbling from inside.

Then he came.  The retired Navy man.

Our brother mentioned that they'd spoken years ago, and that he remembered the bumper sticker.

Then he made his offer, the Awake! on "Who Can You Trust?"

The householder wasn't having any of it.  Not interested in religion.  His body language said "thanks but no thanks" and he began to turn away.

So the Witness abandoned the magazine and turned back to the bumper sticker.

"What happened again, on the Liberty?"

Long story condensed:  The USS Liberty was not a battle ship, but basically a spy ship.  The Israelis torpedoed it and many lives were lost.  President Johnson, in 1967, seemed behind the cover up in the media. It was hushed up by the government.

The man seemed to enjoy describing this major, unforgettable event in his life.  The brother definitely enjoyed listening because to him it was a fascinating story.

"What's your name?"

"Al" said the man, as he shook hands with Brother Hates People and his partner.

"What did they call you in the Navy?"

He laughed, and said "Most people called me Chief Easton".

And the conversation went on.  Chief Easton volunteered that after the Navy he worked as a "saturation diver".

That's when divers compress and spend a week or more in deep water, living in a pressurized underwater capsule.  He described being about 900 feet down and pressurized to 400 LBS per square inch.

"You could wave your hand in front of you and feel the air, thick just like water," he said.

It took him and his fellow divers a week to gradually decompress and resurface.

"It gave me new respect for those who are incarcerated in prison," Chief Easton said, "especially those who don't belong there."

The brother mentioned the miners in Chile who were just rescued, and Chief Easton agreed.

"They're all being pretty tight-lipped about what happened down there," Al said.  "I suspect they all may be in it together to try and get a book deal or a movie deal."

"One of them was one of Jehovah's Witnesses, so I hope he might tell his story to the Awake! magazine," said the brother.

They once again shook hands and parted ways.

Yes, he hates getting up and going out, but meeting people like Chief Easton makes it all seem worthwhile.

Murphy's

This post is dedicated to Murphy's stout.

I don't often drink the vile watery sludge known as Guinness.

That is because there's a tasty alternative, now widely available.

~

Or perhaps instead I should say:

I don't often drink the poisonous effluent known as Guinness, but when I do, please roundhouse kick it out of my hand and offer me a Murphy's instead.

~

Really, though, to be positive, which is the goal of this blog, I should rather simply say:

Try a Murphy's... it will be delicious!