Left handed

When I was growing up, I wanted desperately to be left-handed. It was part of my drive to be on the margins in all way. (I wrote a column in the high school newspaper called "The Outsider"!) That was my  'reason for being' (I can't remember how to spell the French phrase)--to be different.

I finally managed to hit in softball left-handed, but in every other area, I am hopelessly, irrevocably  right-handed. I may be the most right-handed person you ever knew.

I heard a long report on NPR today about left-handedness (I'd know nothing if it wasn't for NPR and Charles and Bill and formerly Fred in my Tuesday morning group!)

Apparently, scientists can determine if animals are right dominant or left dominant. And what they've discovered is that almost all species are 50/50 regarding the dominance of the left or right. (How they can tell wasn't gone into very deeply, so I'm left wondering if our dog or cat or bird are left-handed....)

What matters is this: the only animal on the planet that has a 90/10 ratio of right-handedness to left-handedness are human beings. Go figure.

But what sets us apart from every other animal? Don't think too hard--it's speech.

No other creature has a discernible vocabulary. And speech comes from the left side of the brain--the side that makes you right-handed. The theory is that our pre-verbal  ancestors were probably pretty much like the rest of creation--equally right-handed and left-handed. But, by using words over and again, we've strengthened the left side of our brain and most of us are right-handed.

Most of the left-handed people I know are more interesting than us right-handed folks. Artistic, athletic, charming. Which is why I wanted to be one of them.

But no luck. I'm amazing I can type even since the left hand is used, it seems to me, more than the right--a, e, d, r, t, f, c, b are all left handed keys--and, if you type, just notice that in spite of q, w, z, x and v...it seems to me that the left hand is more involved--like this in "left hand" requires 5 left hand strokes to only 3 with the right hand.

(If I'm not careful, I'll be like Ogdan Nash's centipede, wondering how to type....)

Oh, last thing--primitive tribes have more left-handed folks that developed countries...and the more they have, according to research, the more violent they are....So, maybe it's good that a pacifist like me should be hopelessly right-handed.

Who knew....? Besides NPR....

2 our of 3 ain't bad

I just finished the third novel by Stephanie Kallos, entitled Language Arts. I read it's 400+ pages in two days. I read her first novel, from 2004, called Broken for you in a day. It is one of the best first novels I've ever read. Amazing.

Then it took me several days to read her second novel, Sing them Home. It had all the things that make the other two so special: fascinating and needful characters, quirky situations, skipping between decades in the characters' lives: but somehow it was like she tried too hard and stretched it out to over 500 pages. I loved the characters and the stories, but it was just too much.

Language Arts won me back. Very like Kate Atkinson, my current favorite writer, Stephanie Kallos took some bold and dangerous moves in Language Arts. I won't do a spoiler but it has to do with the 'reality' of the narrative and how both of them disrupt reality in major ways.

Bern and I disagreed about Kate Atkinson's latest novel. I was troubled by the disruption. She was not. Kallos, in this book, pulls it off more adroitly.

I admire writers who take that chance--like stepping off a precipice believing you'll find something to step on or else learn how to fly. Kallos even uses that quote to introduce one of her portions of the novel.

I love the main character, because he reads so much.

I sometimes wonder if I read too much--5 books a week on average.

Then I remind myself: "what would be a better use of my life". Then I know. I read just the right amount.

Haven't been posting--guests

I haven't written much the last few days because we've had company/family. Mimi came down to get away from the wildness of the 'season' at Jacob's Pillow. She arrived on Sunday in time for dinner and left Tuesday morning to go back. She needed some 'alone time' since being a Development Director takes a lot out of an introvert like her. So, that was good for her and great for us! Having Mimi around is like having a cool breeze always blowing through the house on hot days. It is actually 'comforting' to have her around. She brings good vibes, you might say, if you grew up in the 60's, like I did, and remember all thee slang.

Then on Monday, in time for dinner, Dan, Bern's brother who is a late-vocation Roman priest, arrived. (Arriving in time for dinner is de rigor in our house! He's leaving tomorrow morning to go back to Wellsburg, WV, which is actually near Pittsburgh. Parts of WV are near DC, Lexington, Cincinnati, Roanoke Virginia and Boone, NC. WV, if I remember, has boarders with 6 other states and the southern boarder with western VA is awfully near North Carolina as well.e

I took Dan to my clergy group on Tuesday and a tour of the three churches I serve on Wednesday. Good road trips.

So, with a daughter and a brother-in-law in residence, I haven't had much time to write.

(Gross! I just took a drink of my wine and got a bug in my mouth since I'd been out of the deck until it got dark. A little protein in your Pino Grigio never hurts....)

The moon was out in the North while the sun set (as it should) in the West on our way home from dinner tonight. It may not be 'full'--maybe tomorrow night--but, boy, it is huge and, if not full, aching to be so.

Which reminds me--extraterrestial things--about the earth like planets the Hubble Telescope has been looking for. I wrote a poem once about the possibility of a planet beyond Pluto.

I'll share it with  you here.



THERE MAY BE A WORLD BEYOND PLUTO

I read it on the internet just tonight:
"There may be a world beyond Pluto."

Poor Pluto, disgraced and diminished,
labeled less than a planet.
So small, so cold, and so, so far away.
Pluto gets forgotten in the mix
of the solar system--demoted and damned
to the outer reaches of the sun.

Pitiful Pluto, so dark and chill--
but there there is the news, spread wide and far:
another world,
three times farther than Pluto from the sun--
we're talking 200 "AU's" from the sun,
based on the earth being 1 AU
(since we are still, Galileo not-with-standing,
still the center of the universe.)

Planet X, in its leisurely 12,000 year journey around the sun,
would explain mysteries:
like the Kepler Belt (whatever that is)
and confounding questions of people smarter than you and me.

And it would give me--maybe you--
another metaphor for loneliness.

I no longer need to feel,
from time to time,
like I'm on luto,
so unthinkably far away from comfort and love.
There is another wold out there--
even darker, even colder, even more distant,
that I can imagine myself
a citizen of....
from time to time.

jgb/6-19-08

Mike Hckabee has out trumped Trump

Mike Huckabee, one of the multitude of Republicans who are seeking the opportunity to lose to Hilary or Bernie, said, out loud and in front of people, That President Obama, by supporting the nuclear deal with Iran, "is leading Israelis toward the ovens."

Well, in spite of all the nonsense Trump and Cruz are pushing, this takes the cake.

Our oh-so-Christian friend is equating our president with Hitler.

Can you read it another way?

My God, diplomacy and negotiation is much preferable to war and violence.

I have always believed that we, as Americans, have much more in common with the folks in Iran--the Persians, as highly educated and sophisticated as they are, more so than any country besides Israel--that we needed to 'get over' that nastiness when Carter was President and move on.

Besides, the UN Security Council--including folks like Russia and China, not to mention Germany, France and Britain--have already approved the deal, since many of them helped Secretary of State Kerry negotiate it.

Israel doesn't like it because Israel doesn't like anything that isn't about "Israel is all that Matters".

Mike Huckabee comparing an African-American twice elected President to Hitler is over the top, our of order and out of your mind.

We live in a world that is larger than the 48 and Alaska and Hawaii--get used to it. The world powers believe this agreement with Iran is the best we can have in an imperfect world.

And Mike--just like your friends Trump and Cruz need to learn some decorum--have some respect, for Christ's sake, of the President. Don't call him a Nazi. Is that too much to ask, you sanctimonious, Right-Wing, supposedly Christian asshole?

Waiting, while trying not to....

Our dog and cat are getting old. Luke, the cat is already old--he's 14 or more, probably more (but I have this confusion about linear time...) and he throws up a couple of times a week and sometimes goes to the bathroom (poops mostly) in places outside his litter box. Plus, he drinks lots and lots and lots of water, which probably means his kidneys are in trouble. And I clean his litter box daily and their is so much pee (from all the water). However, he looks like a much younger cat and moves with grace and speed. So, who knows.

Bela, our dog, is 11. He weighs about 50 pounds, which means he's not a big dog, by any means, and smaller dogs live longer. He has some arthritis and his legs shake from time to time and he sometimes has trouble getting up if he's laying down. But he too seems younger most of the time and barks as much as he always has and is frisky.

Thing is, I worry about them, knowing (hoping) we'll outlive them. No one would take them if we died first--that's the worrying thing--because Bela is a bad dog and Luke is a pain. But beyond that, I worry especially about Bela because my wife, Bern, loves him more than she loved the other 30 or so pets we've shared combined. She loves him so much it frightens me. I'm more an 'animal person' than she is but her devotion to Bela is so overwhelming that I feel stress walking him because if I was the cause of him being hit by a car or something, I'm not sure Bern could forgive me.

It's just odd, worrying about creatures. My fiend John told us tonight that a person he worked with years ago (John is a psychologist) told him recently when they ran into each other that he knew he's been a better therapist (John's former client is a psychologist too) for having worked with John--though he didn't realize it at the time. Here's what he said to John: "when someone loves you, they teach you how to love."

I can't think of a more endearing and wondrous thing to be told. John's voice broke when he told us.

That''s the thing about animals, I think. They love you so unconditionally, so purely, so cleanly, that they teach you how to love.

Luke and Bela have been with us for over a decade and they have taught us a lot about love. But, old as I am, I know cat years and dog years are different from my years.

I try not to think about it, how we will lose them as some point to death. But sometimes I can't help myself. I think about life without them and sigh.

They have taught me a lot about loving. They truly have.

You don't like to imagine losing such a gift.

Little League

I watched Phoenix, third child of four and only boy of our next door neighbors, throw a baseball against a device designed to throw it back so he can practice catching grounders and line drives and short pop-ups.

I used to do that for hours, only I threw the ball against the cement block basement of the grocery store/our apartment. Hours, I did that. And it paid off.

I played Little League for two years and was all glove/no bat. I should have found a way to practice hitting as well. I played first base and never made an error in two years. I hit about .190, which in Little League really sucks. It was curve balls I couldn't hit--even bad curve balls thrown by 12 and 13 year olds. Throw it straight, I'll hit it. Make it curve, I'm helpless.

The last game of my Little League career, our coach, Jimmy Newsome, was standing with a friend from out of town about 15 feet away from first base, where I was throwing infield to Danny Taylor, Billy Bridgeman and a bully named Donald LaFon. Mousey McCrosky was warming up to pictch. We were behind 8-3 to Gary and our last at bat of the season would follow this inning.

Jimmy Newsome was talking about his team to his friend and since I used to have almost super-human hearing (no more, beloved, no more) I heard everything he said.

His descriptions of us was right on, but what amazed me is how he said it.

"That big bastard on third base can hit like hell but makes up for it with throwing errors," he said.

"That son-of-a-bitch pitching is already too old for little league but he's small and we may get away with another year," he said.

"Bridgeman is a solid player, but the mother-fucker is a show-off,' he said.

"The ass hole on first never misses a play but can't hit for shit."

Over 50 years later I can still hear his comments about us. I thought he loved us. We certainly loved him. My blood ran cold. The game couldn't have been over soon enough. And it was over quickly, three ground balls, two bad throws to first, I caught them all. When we batted, two pop ups on either side of my strike out on a curve ball.

I was 13 and could play another year. But on the way home, I told my father I was through with Little League. He was sorely disappointed since he thought I'd learn to hit a curve ball. Not! But I never told him why. Never told him about how our coach referred to us. My father, after all, was a grown up and I had figured out their was a 'Grown Up Club' that cut each other slack, even when it wasn't deserved.

That day is when I decided to never be a Grown Up like Jimmie Newsome.

I don't think I've ever been.

For that I am grateful.

Joy for Shane and Elizabeth

I went to Holy Cross Monastery (an order of Episcopal Benedictine monks) for the life-professions of my friends, Shane and Elizabeth as the first members of the Companions of Mary, the Apostle.

Here's what is amazing--this is a new order within the Episcopal Church. Shane and Elizabeth have been living into the order for 4 years, I think, and today it came to be! History was made--as the preacher, Br. Don Bisson, FMS (who knows what order that is?) said, "Back in his time, St. Benedict would have never imagined two woman priest founding an order based on his rule."

Big laugh line, I assure you.

There are also five people who have come to be part of Elizabeth and Shane's community who were received as 'Candidates for Covenant Companionship' in the Companions of Mary the Apostle. And one of them was a man! Shane and Elizabeth are trying to design committed Christian community for this new age. The two of them live together in a house owned by the brothers of Holy Cross and keep their vows there. But they want others to join their journey--by joining them in vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and living with them...or, joining them in 'spirit' keeping a rule of life and being part of a larger, more diverse gathering of Christians.

I had wondered what their 'habits' would be and was delightfully surprised. They both wore black pants and tops and put on bright red shawls after their professions. A great look. A woman bishop blessed their crosses and shawls. And in the Lord's prayer, we said, "Our Mother, our Father in heaven...."

Fierce feminist liturgy combined with welcoming men into their companionship. What could be better?

I know Shane and Elizabeth through work in the Mastery Foundation, which has been part of my life since--lost in linear time but depending on my friend, Ann's memory--1987. Shane and Elizabeth and I worked together recently (which month, don't ask me--linear time and all!) on a Making A Difference Workshop at Holy Cross. Many of the participants of that workshop were there today along with a few other Mastery folk.

It was impeccable--as worship at Holy Cross always is. A bit higher church than is my wont, but I enjoy it when I see it. Elizabeth and Shane prostrated themselves before the altar at some point. The only other time I saw someone prostrate themselves in front of the altar was when my friend Larry was being installed as Rector in a church in Maryland. I was sitting with is wife, Vickie and whispered to her when he did that, "is Larry OK?" She giggled through the rest of the service and Larry was not pleased.

I'm not sure what would provoke me to lay down in front of an altar--but it seemed natural and proper for Shane and Elizabeth. It was an humbling honor to see that--and their whole profession.

I wrote them a poem for their day. It is for them--but I don't think they'd mind me sharing it with you.

PROFESSION

Not just an occupation,

though that is the usual definition.

Oh, no, more than that, much more.

“Profession” as a verb, not a noun,

is wondrous indeed.

To avow, to declare, to promise--

“profession” leads into all sorts

of nonsense and wonderment and joy.

To actually 'say so' about

what your lives will be and consist of

and contain.

To 'profess' opens up the possibility

of a future you speak into being.

A future that wouldn't have happened

otherwise, until you spoke it.

Few people in the world

make such a 'profession'--

speak a future and a life

into being like that.

And today you two do.

Astonishing, memorable, inspiring,

full of being and hope and wonderment.

Like that.

Thank you for going to the edge

of what you can know and see

and then stepping off.

And I know, as you step off into what

is not known, not knowable,

you will be caught by loving arms

or learn how to fly.

JGB 7/21/2015

I might suggest that each of us consider and ponder what it is we 'profess' to be in this world. That, I believe, would be a pondering of great value, to us and to the world we live in. Just me thnkin'....