When "Famous Authors" Bite the Dust

I've written about this before.

But I'd like to put my hand to the plow again.

The Last Bookstore

At the Last Bookstore in downtown LA, a magnificent 2-story's worth of used books, jammed-packed  tighter than a pickle jar, with treasures and also-rans.

It's the also-rans that intrigue me - because, at the time, they were all celebrities of one sort of the other - lots of newscasters had their day in the sun, and then Hollywood types with their "reveal all" memories, along with famous or infamous clergy pronouncing the latest list of who's in and who's out, and why you better watch out, and perhaps the saddest of all, the politicians, who, like a dandelion sprung up with color and pizzaz, only to fizzle out and blow away in the next wind.

Their books sold like hotcakes, and like uneaten hotcakes, got cold quickly maybe could be saved a day or so, but for what purpose? The next day, the next meal - oh well, so into the garbage can with yesterday's cold cakes.

So, here they sit on these fine shelves - if they had a voice, would they be clamoring to be taken in hand and taken home, an orphan no more? Or would they hang their metaphorical heads in shame and apologize for taking up so much paper and space to blather a message that no longer has any relevance, and even at the time, when the writer was "hot," had the seeds of irrelevance sown throughout the text?

Which begs the question:

What endures?

The historians do ... I mean, the women and men with credentials - who've been to school, who've paid the price of learning, with degrees - if not formal, at least the school of hard knocks, who've been around the horn a few times, who've weathered terrible storms in a decade-spanning career, who've asked the tough question, who enjoy a cocktail or two, who entertain friends with their wit and wisdom, who passionately engage the quest for truth, who care about The People - the folks who ride subways and buses and till the soil, folks who work for a living in the mines and mills of the land, who teach our children and rinse out bedpans. Care for The People is what dignifies the soul of the scholar and lends gravitas to their writing, the kind of writing that endures.

Even older historians eclipsed by later works have lasting value. Their's is not some grandstanding effort to gain attention (though everyone hopes to make a living by their pen), but to find the hidden meanings of history, the subtle connections, the mortar between the bricks, the stuff that holds it all together, and to find lessons - not the simplistic stuff of pulpit pounders, but the subtle stuff that's hard to grasp, yet there for taking. Life belongs to those who love, and love much; who learn constantly, who give themselves to the big ideas, who weigh things in the balance of history, often having to make hard decisions filled with flaws, yet willing to risk the approbation of friends and colleagues, in order to chart the clearest course through the thicket of competing ideas.

And autobiographies of writers and soldiers and political-insiders with decent intellectual credentials.  I think it's terribly hard to tell one's story well. But those who do so are always worth the read, because therein we all find bits and pieces of ourselves. After all, we all are human, and in spite of our many differences, we're not all that different after all. Our blood is red, our tears are salty, we all enjoy a good laugh and a bawdy joke; we love good food and fine drink, and sometimes can't sleep a wink because of worry and fear.

I won't name names, so you can guess for yourself who I might mean as an enduring author, or, for that matter, you can fill in the blanks with your own names - those who have been a companion along the way, and who will entertain and enlighten fifty or a hundred years from now, because their words are suffused with life, even if they were wrong a time or two, even when they're all-too human with ill-temper, vanity and spitefulness; when their follies and foibles trump the game.

At the time, they might not have been "famous" - likely, they were not. But they were serious writers, women and men who thought deeply about their lives and the times in which they lived, the people they knew and lived with, and their author's legacy is a simple one - a mirror in which we find ourselves reflected, even as we search our own times and experiences for meaning and hope and reasons to live.

But whatever their name, these things seem to be the descriptors of those who endure, even when they bite the dust.

Fear ... beware!

Where fear is preached, beware.
Where security is offered, be alert.
Where high-flown reasons are touted, be mindful.
Power always seeks its own welfare.
Racism is rarely far beneath the surface.
Fear is the handmaiden of injustice.

Haunted by "Casino" - Auden, 1936

Casino

Only their hands are living, to the wheel attracted,
Are moved, as deer trek desperately towards a creek
   Through the dust and scrub of a desert, or gently,
   As sunflowers turn to the light,

And, as night takes up the cries of feverish children,
The cravings of lions in dens, the loves of dons,
   Gathers them all and remains the night, the
   Great room is full of their prayers.

To a last feast of isolation self-invited,
They flock, and in a rite of disbelief are joined;
   From numbers all their stars are recreated,
   The enchanted, the worldly, the sad.

Without, calm rivers flow among the wholly living
Quite near their trysts, and mountains part them, and birds,
   Deep in the greens and moistures of summer,
   Sing towards their work.

But here no nymph comes naked to the youngest shepherd,
The fountain is deserted, the laurel will not grow;
   The labyrinth is safe but endless, and broken
   Is Ariadne’s thread,

As deeper in these hands is grooved their fortune: 'lucky
Were few, and it is possible that none was loved,
   And what was god-like in this generation
   Was never to be born.'

-W. H. Auden, 1936

The Retirement Road - OMG, Lent Around the Corner

This week, Ash Wednesday - OMG … it snuck up on me, but this time, after 43 Ash Wednesdays as a pastor, I'm retired, and haven't planned a damn thing - hee hee …

I love it, and I'm glad to be free of those many burdens of
planning and study and
reflection and trying to be creative and
clever and thoughtful and humble and profound,
and focused on God and socially relevant - all at the same time.

In church yesterday (after missing the preceding two Sundays when we were in Phoenix with family and friends), I realized that Lent was upon us.

Lent is an important part of the church's annual journey … and an important one for me, too.

Yes, I don't have to do the planning this year - what a relief!

But I'll be in church on Ash Wednesday for the imposition of Ashes.

Retired Husband Problems … Enjoy!

Subject: RETIRED HUSBAND

 

    

  RETIRED HUSBAND

 After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Target.
Unfortunately, like most men; I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out.

Equally unfortunate, my wife is like most women - she loves to browse. Yesterday my
dear wife received the following letter, from the local Target:

 

Dear Mrs. Harris, Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion, In our store.
We cannot tolerate this behavior and have been forced to, ban both of you from the store.
Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Harris, are listed below and are documented by

our video surveillance cameras:

 

1. June 15: He took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other      
people's carts when they weren't looking.

 

2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.

 

3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom.

 

4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice,
'Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away'. This caused the employee to leave her assigned
station and receive a reprimand from her Supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance,
causing management to lose time and costing the company money. We don't have a Code 3.

 

5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.

 

6. August 14: Moved a, 'CAUTION - WET FLOOR' sign to a carpeted area.

 

7. August 15: Set up a tent in the camping department and told the children shoppers he'd invite
them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the bedding department to which
twenty children obliged.

 

8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began crying and screamed,
'Why can't you people just leave me alone?' EMTs were called.

 

9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it,
as a mirror while he picked his nose.

 

10. September 10: While handling guns in the hunting department,
he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.

 

11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while,
loudly humming the, 'Mission Impossible' theme.

 

12. October 6: In the auto department, he practiced his, 'Madonna Look'
using different sizes of funnels.

 

13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through, yelled 'PICK ME! PICK ME!'

 

14. October 22: When an announcement came over the loud speaker,
he assumed a fetal position and screamed; 'OH NO! IT'S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!'

 

15. Took a box of condoms to the checkout clerk and asked where is the fitting room?

 

And last, but not least:

 

16. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile;
then yelled very loudly, 'Hey! There's no toilet paper in here.'

One of the clerks passed out.

The Praise of God's Creation

Part of the daily lectionary (#PCUSA) quite often, Psalm 148 - here's a piece of it that caught my attention this morning:

7   Praise the Lord from the earth,
          you sea monsters and all deeps,
8   fire and hail, snow and frost,
          stormy wind fulfilling his command!

9   Mountains and all hills,
          fruit trees and all cedars!
10  Wild animals and all cattle,
          creeping things and flying birds!

11  Kings of the earth and all peoples,
          princes and all rulers of the earth!
12  Young men and women alike,
          old and young together!

For the Psalmist, EVERY voice is important - sea monsters, snow and frost, cedars, wild animals, creepy things, kings, peoples, princes, the young and the old, women and men … and everything else.

Herein I find reason to care for my environment, which is, finally, the entire global eco system …

When a species is lost to wanton human behavior, a voice of praise is forever silenced, and the choir of praise is diminished, and while we might be oblivious to the missing voice, God knows that a joyful sound is missing.

Mountains and hills, too, and I think of mountain-top removal coal mining in West Virginia and oil drilling in the Niger Delta - where the earth suffers cruelly, and though the people there lament loss of home and habitat, those making wanton decisions for profit silence the earth, condemning the earth to sorrow, and there is no praise from the ground and water, but only tears.

And to the kings and princes and rulers of the world, whatever pride of place may infect their thinking, their voices are simply part of the choir, right along with wild beasts and stormy wind. If there's ever a prescription for the sins of pride and power, this is it.

Let all the voices of God's choir have their place and their part … the vast choir of God's creation deserves to sing, and when God created humankind, it was only, God hoped, to create a creature that could provide life-sustaining care for the choir, so that all of creation might sing with joy.

Praise the LORD!

"Moonlight and Maggots" by Carl Sandburg

Moonlight and Maggots

    Carl Sandburg

The moonlight filters on the prairie.

The land takes back an old companion.

The young corn seems pleased with a visit.

In Illinois, in Iowa, this moontime is on.

A bongo looks out and talks about the look of the moon

As if always a bongo must talk somewhat so in moontime -

The moon is a milk-white love promise,

A present for the young corn to remember.

A caress for silk-brown tassels to come.

Spring moon to autumn moon measures one harvest.

All almanacs are merely so many moon numbers.

A house dizzy with decimal points and trick figures

And a belfry at the top of the world for sleep songs

And a home for lonesome goats to go to -

Iike now, like always, the bongo takes up a moon theme -

There is no end to the ancient kit-kats inhabiting the moon:

Jack and the beanstalk and Jacob’s ladder helped them up,

Cats and sheep, the albatross, the phoenix and the dodo-bird,

They are all living on the moon for the sake of the bongo -

Castles on the moon, mansions, shacks and shanties, ramshackle

Huts of tarpaper and tincans, grand real estate properties

Where magnificent rats eat tunnels in colossal cheeses,

Where the rainbow chasers take the seven prisms apart

And put them together again and are paid in moon money -

The flying dutchman, paul bunyan, saint paul, john bunyan,

The little jackass who coughs gold pieces when you say bricklebrit -

They are all there on the moon and the rent not paid

And the roof leaking and the taxes delinquent -

Like now, like always, the bongo jabbers of the moon,

Of cowsheds, railroad tracks, corn rows and cornfield corners

Finding the filter of the moon an old friend - 

Look at it - cries the bongo - have a look! have a look!

Well, what of it? comes the poohpooh -

Always the bongo isa little loony - comes the poohpooh,

The bongo is a poor fish and a long ways from home.

Be like me; be an egg, a hardboiled egg, a pachyderm

Practical as a buzzsaw and a hippopotamus put together.

Get the facts and no monkeybusiness what I mean.

The moon is a dead cinder, a ball of death, a globe of doom.

Long ago it died of lost motion, maggots masticated the surface of it

And the maggots languished, turned ice, froze on and took a free ride.

Now the sun shines on the maggots and the maggots make the moonlight.

The moon is a cadaver and a dusty mummy and a damned rotten investment.

The moon is a liability loaded up with frozen assets and worthless paper.

Only the lamb, the sucker, the come-on, the little lost boy, has time for the moon.

Well - says the bongo - you got a good argument.

I am a little lost boy and a long ways from home.

I am a sap, a pathetic fish, a nitwit and a lot more and worse you couldn’t think of.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding and letting all you say be granted and acknowledged

The moon is a silver silhouette and a singing stalactite.

The moon is a bringer of fool’s gold and fine phantoms.

On the heaving restless sea or the fixed and fastened land

The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk with.

The moon is at once easy and costly, cheap and priceless.

The price of the moon runs beyond all adding machine numbers

Summer moonmusic drops down adagio sostenuto whathaveyou.

Winter moonmusic practices the mind of man for a long trip.

The price of the moon is an orange and a few kind words.

Nobody on the moon says, I been thrown out of better places than this.

No one on the moon has ever died of arithmetic and hard words.

No one on the moon would skin a louse to sell the hide.

The moon is a pocket luckpiece for circus riders, for acrobats on the flying rings, for wild animal tamers.

I can look up at the moon and take it or leave.

The moon coaxes me: Be at home wherever you are.

I can let the moon laugh me to sleep for nothing.

I can put a piece of the moon in my pocket for tomorrow.

I can holler my name at the moon and the moon hollers back my name.

When I get confidential with the moon and tell secrets

The moon is a sphinx and a repository under oath.

Yes Mister poohpooh

I am a poor nut, just another of God’s mistakes.

You are the tough bimbo, hard as nails, yeah.

You know enough to come in when it rains.

You know the way to the post office and I have to ask.

They fool you the first time but never the second.

Thrown into the river you always come up with a fish.

You are a diller a dollar, I am a ten o’clock scholar.

You know the portent of the axiom: Them as has gits.

You devised that abracadabra: Get all you can keep all you get.

     We shall always be interfering with each other, forever be arguing -

you for the maggots, me for the moon.

Over our bones, cleaned by the final maggots as we lie recumbent, perfectly forgetful, beautifully ignorant -

There will settle over our grave illustrious tombs

On nights when the air is clear as a bell

And the dust and fog are shovelled off on the wind -

There will sink over our empty epitaphs

a shiver of moonshafts

a line of moonslants.