Obama Train

* Sung to the Tune of: I've Been Workin' On The Railroad

Oba-ma's takin' it to the peo-ple,

All the live long day!

Tryin' to rally up the Hope, now,

'cause the 'Change' train lost its way!

Never thought we'd see the day, though

Dont'cha think it's kinda rude?

Never thought we'd hear a Pres-i-dent,

Be addressed as "Dude".

chorus:

Obama don'tcha know

Obama don'tcha know

Change is gonna come real s-oon!

People gonna vote -

Revitalize the Hope -

just not the way you thought they'd do.

see: "Obama Makes Historic Appearance On Daily Show"

Minimal Madonna

(Hilarious: Christian Bale as Jesus)

Funny, how some things that are the most familiar to us can also be the most misunderstood. It is not popular, for instance, to defend femininity. It shouldn’t, but the word still evokes images of ruffles and lace and a terminal dependency upon men.

When speaking of industrialized culture, femininity is confused with the boorishness of blatant sexism in advertising. It is derailed by cheap shots about women being the weaker, emotionally-burdened sex.

Some women feel almost apologetic if they enjoy baking or picking up a needle and thread. Many young women see their future marriage as strictly a 50/50 proposition; both parents will contribute monetarily to the support of the household - that’s only fair. They have enjoyed a full generation of equality in America and can’t conceive of anything that falls short of their equitable Solomonesque split down the middle of stereotypical gender roles. They fail to consider that a stay-at-home mom IS contributing to the family in a enormously valuable and yes, profoundly traditional way.

An essay excerpt about traditional tribal femininity vs dominant culture femininity by Native American author Paula Gunn Allen, is on the war-path with what she perceives as a rootless, tasteless industrialized culture and the sorry, impotent women in it. From an anthropological point of view, Allen makes classic, anticipated comparisons between her tribal identity and the roles of women in the larger society. Her presentation of ritual and gender are timeless and beautifully articulate. She of course is well-versed in the many mythical feminine characters which occupy indigenous lore. These feminine personalities are fascinating, powerful representations of wise and beneficent women who organize, give life to or directly influence what sustains the viability of the whole community. They are dominantly featured in origin stories, thereby responsible for much of the natural world and the people’s relationship to it. Above all else, their capacity to bring forth life is deeply revered.

She points out the obvious with almost an open disdain: Women are not perceived the same way in western industrial and postindustrial cultures. There is no back-up section of “mythic feminine figures” to inspire or explain the origins or organization of life. Allen mentions only a single candidate we might claim, and that in ironically dismissive terms. She offers us the Christian Madonna as the female prototype for our western culture, and interestingly enough, Allen notes she is “...portrayed essentially passive; her contribution is simply that of birthing.”

And what a birthing that was! Can you say ironic? It is incredible that this accomplished and sensitive author has structured a very thoughtful piece about the feminine mothering power of native women, yet completely negated the enormously significant mothering contribution of the one and only woman in the world who gave us Jesus the Christ.

Mary, unlike Spider Woman, Coyote Woman or Corn Woman - was not mythical. We can only surmise what import her unique and indeed, divinely appointed influence was upon the young Jesus preparatory to his profound earthly ministry. A ministry, which (and it is the understatement of the day) of necessity validated His Divinity and our Eternal future with Him. For a believer, in other words, there is nothing bigger than the Atonement of Christ for all mankind. Mary was chosen by God for this singular honor to mother His only begotten son. To reduce her personal worthiness (and the great trust that was placed upon her) to a functioning reproductive system is shallow and disrespectful.

There are, unfortunately, women who can produce a baby and betray their calling as mothers.

(Andrea Yates & her 5 children she drowned in the family bath tub)

Mary was not one of those. I am not one of those. None of the other women I know or have ever known personally are one of those. To mother children is automatically a discussion about power - the power to protect, to sacrifice, to teach, to inspire, to motivate, to discipline, to dream, to agonize, to celebrate, to hope. Mothering power is all about the glory of it, or the abuse of it. Either way, the family of man is irrefutably affected, even molded by legions of mothers through the ages. The dismissive tone in which Mary’s feminine power is mentioned seems to expose a pretty glaring bias.

Paradoxically, the author is even more dismissive of the painful dinosaur in the room; native women are 30% more likely to be the victims of domestic violence, rape and homicide than their non-native counterparts. Their families are under attack on and off the reservation by generations of substance abuse, illiteracy and unemployment. Strong women are required for these difficult times, regardless of their tribal, religious or cultural affinity.

I respect Allen’s loyalty to her culture, and her awareness of her feminine heritage. I suggest that she ought to see more of what she shares with her non-native sisters, and be less comfortable misunderstanding an equally powerful femininity that lies beyond the borders of Pueblo lands, and across the passage of time.

If Mary had been Pueblo or Sioux or Pima or Kiowa, perhaps her influence would find more merit? But this is the author’s mistake! Allen has identified Mary as the Catholic Mary. And as such she assumes an emphatically mythical quality indeed! Ignoring that entire aspect (and the global, cross-cultural impact of her many overtly mythical variants), the author is clearly defining the Catholic Mary as the only significant (non-tribal) yet impotent feminine figure claimed by western culture.

If Paula Allen could have asked Mary personally, Mary would have told her which tribe she was immediately. Tribal affiliation to the peoples of the Middle East has always been paramount to one’s core identity and deepest spiritual value.

Funny, how Paula and Mary have much more in common than she thought.

The Perils of Obedience ~ An Essay Response

A staple for first year psychology students is a discussion of the famous Milgram experiment. Dr. Stanley Milgram was a social psychologist at Yale University deeply interested in the behavior of obedience. The Nazi war crimes trials in particular inspired his exploration of how humans develop the capacity to commit atrocities, and then excuse themselves because they were only “following orders”.

The Doctor devised a method to test ordinary people to see if they would commit acts against their conscience. His controversial psychological experiment presumed to test memory in word associations, but involved a key deception; the authority figure issuing orders was not really a doctor, and volunteers did not know the ‘student’ subject strapped to an electric chair was in fact an actor pretending to respond to electric shocks generated by the 'teacher' volunteer whose hand was on the controls. Clearly marked was a voltage range from 15 to 450, the words “Danger: Severe Shock” assigned to one of the last switches. The final range was simply represented by XXX.

As the voltage increased, the subject in the chair vigorously objected until he demanded to be released from the experiment, only to dissolve into agonized screams somewhere in the neighborhood of 285 volts.

The test focus of course was on the 'teacher' administrating the “punishment”. An authority figure toting a clipboard and clad in a white lab coat issued clinical prompts such as, "the experiment requires that you must continue," and "you have no other choice, you must go on." While some people expressed concern for the suffering they caused, and a few asked to stop the experiment, vastly more obeyed. Only one woman refused and walked away.

In an excerpt from “The Perils of Obedience”, Dr. Milgram compares his test subjects to Nazi Germany. While the shocking (no pun intended) results of his psychological test are truly very disturbing, he assigns a reckless weight to the capacity for inhumanity inherent to the human condition. Milgram’s repeated theme of reflecting on war crimes perpetrated for the sake of “following orders”, is limited and much too simplistic to explain something of the other-worldly scope and scale of the Holocaust.

The grinding punishment to Germany effected by the Treaty of Versailles and her deep resentment of it, an utterly oppressive economy and a centuries old bigotry against the Jews throughout Europe in general are all significant factors that contributed to the successful rise of the Third Reich. Hitler did not have the power nor the influence to impose a police state immediately. His rhetoric establishing the superiority of a master race celebrated within a fervently idealized nationalism was a corrosive ideology that gained ground gradually. Later, his strong-arm tactics to force Nazi ideology upon schools, the marketplace and the citizenry were also implemented gradually.

The incremental steps leading to the ultimate Holocaust included an entire generation of German youth forcibly removed from home and hearth and aggressively indoctrinated against natural loyalties to family, community, and faith. A sense of accomplishment and even destiny pervaded beginning stages of identifying, restricting and segregating Jews and other undesirables. Dr. Milgram might have focused instead on the influence of state-authorized propaganda heightened by the ever-increasing threat of (and public displays of) severe punishment to anyone who defies the state’s definition of what (or who) is “unclean” or unaccepted into the new social order.

In the issue of Nazi Germany, the question is not so much one of why people obey, as it is a study in how to market an immoral set of values to a damaged society. Post WWI Germany may have been a ‘perfect storm’ ripe for a visionary psychopath like Hitler.Middle-aged men striped of former economic and social status were self-indulgent (or desperate) to the degree that they were willing to align themselves with something that promised to restore their value, and then some. Young boys and girls were groomed to adulthood without the customary tempering of familial bonds and sense of community. Women, striped of their role as nurturer and care-taker to their families, lost what maternal influence they might have exerted in a more traditional society. Their dependence upon men also contributed to their loss of authority in the home; they were culturally inclined to follow their men into whatever political or sociological direction they marched. The defeated and hurting German citizenry at large was also primed to relish glorious promises that they were destined to be victorious over unemployment, poverty and their newly acquired under-dog status in the world. When the push for ethnic purity emerged, it only seemed appropriate as a compliment to the new world-order they were fated to create.

In “The Perils of Obedience”, we can identify neither a multitude of contributing cultural or historical factors nor the passage of time to explain why his subjects were either indifferent to human suffering or even pleased by it. The essay mentions similar testing done elsewhere with a variety of subjects from different ages and backgrounds with similar results to the Yale community. Considering this surprising fact, a different common denominator might be at play.

Equally weighty is the attraction to wielding power that almost every human feels or desires to some degree. The ‘natural man’ is one who would rather have authority - even a little bit - than not, if given a choice. The ‘teachers’ in Milgram’s test might then have been reacting to the very convenient transferral of authority, and not necessarily obedience to it.

Case in point: Consider the extreme and highly predictable transformation of the older brother or sister from loving companion to tyrannical despot as soon as the front door shuts and mom and dad embark on an innocent evening out. Little Mr. or Miss In-Charge instinctively responds to the authentic transference of power and authority by immediately lording it unrighteously over his/her younger siblings as the Babysitter From Hell. And why not? Children better than anyone understand that obedience sustains authority, and obedience in fear is much faster and easier than obedience by respect.

It is healthy and necessary to examine our individual capacity for exercising our free-will. In an open society such as we have in America, it is often a blurred line between duty or obedience to authority and our choice to honor it. To honor authority is to understand why it exists, and to agree that sustaining it is necessary for the greater good.

Everyone appreciates the uncontested flow of traffic safely regulated by numerous laws, signs and signals. At any given intersection or freeway interchange there could be tens of thousands of vehicles and unknown occupants who can anticipate safe passage virtually because of our mutual respect for and obedience to common traffic laws.

It is hoped that in such a society as ours, one that values the individual and his/her responsibility to the larger community - we will also foster people who understand the limits of authority. That being that no one shall have the right to impose upon another unjustly. That we should anticipate we all are individually accountable for our actions, regardless of whom is directing us to do what. That above all, we should expect to respond without hesitation to an inner-voice that reminds us we are no better than another, and that we know right from wrong without anyone telling us otherwise. Period.

Many of us would identify this intimate, guiding force as the human conscience. I refer to it as the Spirit of God within us. As His children, we ought to make individual choices with allegiance to that divine relationship above all else. Then, and only then we may identify willful obedience as devotion.

Class in America - An Essay Response

An essay by Gregory Mantsios seems to be a popular curriculum flint with which to fire class discussion on American social distinctions. Titled, “Class in America - 2006”, Mantsios asserts that many fundamentally cherished beliefs about individual opportunity in America are nothing more than ignorant and oppressive myths. I found his laborious attempt to dismiss classic “get ahead” American values of hard work, sacrifice and persistence - insulting.

He initiates the conversation by pointing out that people in the United States avidly avoid speaking about class. We are more likely to identify with our career or industry, race, ethnic group or geographic location - and I will add, religious affiliation. Yes, thank goodness, we do. It would seem so Bourgeoisie to ever refer to the “ruling class”, “elite” or “wellborn”, and definitely poor taste to ever say, “lower class”.

Yet virtually everyone talks about distinctions that make us noticeably different from each other. Granted, not all of them qualify academically as "class" ranking per se, but they are hardly off-limits to the American experience. What school or corporate lunch room has not naturally segregated itself without the slightest outside influence to do so? Do we not respond to people, almost innately - who are wearing a uniform of some kind (which is designed to identify them instantly from a distance), whether it be housekeeper, police or kitchen help? Who hasn't noticed, mentioned to a friend or sent a camera phone picture of those who are physically notable (obese, tattoos, piercings, fashion, etc.)? (I personally have never photographed anyone like that but you know what I mean - think YouTube).

We may not use the word "class", but we are indeed all about constantly ranking ourselves and others as to where we fit in. It is more an issue of the human condition, or human nature to compare and posture and test each other for rank or position than it is the ugly, subversive arm of an individual "oppressive" government.

The economic disparity in America is crazy, of course. Our sick fascination with brilliantly debauched personal ethics is evidenced in reality shows like “Bridezilla”, “Sweet 16”, “The Real Housewives of Orange County” and “You’re Cut Off”. Americans love to hate people with money behaving badly. But what we hate worse is someone else telling us what to do with our money. Mantsios, however, tries to support his argument for forced wealth redistribution by comparing three profiles of persons representative of the three unspoken American class distinctions: upper class, middle class and lower class. He complains at length that 1% of America holds 30% of the wealth.

Personally, it does not bother me that there is an Oprah, Donald Trump or Bill Gates or two out there. Someone needs to assume the risk to build buildings, run corporations and move the market. Those kinds of people also hire a lot of other people and generate educational scholarship funds and support a wide variety of philanthropic and research projects. Their enormous success is a motivation to all the little people. Who would enter a race in the Olympics if they were also assured that every single entrant would win?

Michael Jordan was born to middle class parents in Brooklyn, New York. He quit the NBA after his first year as a rising star to return to North Carolina State to finish his degree. He continued his rise to celebrity status as an athlete, and made millions. Jordan’s name is respected and recognized for his athletic stardom and his business savvy. He invested wisely, and his name is associated with successful business ventures as well as numerous scholarships and charitable causes.

Mike Tyson was born to lower middle class parents in Brooklyn, New York. Abandoned by his father as a toddler, he grew up in crime-plagued Brownsville, New York, and was arrested 38 times by the time he was 13. Eventually was given to his boxing trainer who became his legal guardian. His rise to international celebrity also earned him millions. Yet his name today is a national joke. Tyson had trouble with the law, wasted his fortune on bad investments, women and common gambling addictions.

Both men transcended their class status by hard work, sacrifice and persistence. But status in America is static; it often reflects a state of mind. Tyson was unable to shake the ghetto mind-set.

Likewise, I found Mantsios’ opening paragraph under "Spheres of Power and Oppression" to be especially flamboyant. He states: "When we look at society and try to determine what it is that keeps most people down - what holds them back from realizing their potential as healthy, creative, productive individuals - we find institutional forces that are largely beyond individual control. Class domination is one of these forces."

What organized society does not have hierarchy? Without some form of 'elite' status among us - those who are given authority to regulate or administer - how else does society protect itself from sheer chaos?

Mantios' essay attempts to bust the myth that we are a middle-class nation. He claims the American middle class today holds only a very small share of the nation's wealth. Yet he offers conflicting statistics that basically identify 40% of the U. S. belongs to the middle class. How is 40% of anything insignificant? If his figures are accurate, of the 24 students in my college class, three of us should be living in poverty, or a family making less than $19,000 a year, and qualify as "lower class".

I conducted a survey. The survey was distributed to three classes at Phoenix College. Our class (English 101) and two 102 English classes. I asked students to choose which class distinction they identify with. But I also asked them if they had safe shelter? Running water? Appliances? Electricity? Did they own a cell phone? DVD player? Digital camera? Personal computer? A car? I asked if they had shoes and clothes?

The survey asked them to mark how much time they devote to leisure activities in a week, if they had a reasonable expectancy to eat at least one meal a day every day? Did they have access to emergency care at a local hospital, and clean, safe food/goods at a nearby grocery store? I asked them if they are free to worship as they choose? I also asked them to list alternative strategies (if any) with which they might negotiate around limitations based on gender. Finally, I asked them how familiar they were with how to utilize and/or take advantage of methods to acquire information and resources that could be of benefit to them, and to rate how much their personal hopes and dreams they believe are limited or unobtainable because of their ethnicity, gender, father's name, career, religion, language or physical appearance. Only one survey returned with the last question marked as anything other than "not limited".

My point was this: America's poverty does not look like the world's poverty. Scooping water from a puddle is poverty. Having no shoes is poverty. Waiting in line all day for a bowl of gruel is poverty.

My son James saw bread lines in Ukraine. It didn't matter if he was in a rural village that still plowed fields with a horse or in an urban center populated by working professionals. My daughter Robin saw entire villages in Mozambique de-populated of adults because of AIDS. The one or two very young teen girls who bravely assumed responsibility for village orphans were themselves brutally raped when they left the village to buy supplies at the market, thus perpetuating the cycle of despair. My son Leiland witnessed abysmal poverty in Chiapas, Mexico, a state where the infant mortality rate is one of the worst in the world.

Of course we have problems in America. Of course we must be diligent as a society to seek improvements for all our citizens. However, to claim our issues are locked into oppressive and immovable class barriers is absolutely not justified. If our middle class is a glut of luxury compared to most of the world, then we ought to be much, much more grateful than we are. We ought to be about personally contributing to our communities with our time, talents and yes, tried and true distinctly American ethics of hard work, sacrifice, and persistence.

Professor Mantsios arrogantly condemns his fellow Americans with his concluding statement: "...as a society we tolerate unconscionable injustice..." if we fail to demand (or "require" is the word he chose) a "radical redistribution of wealth and power." I wonder if the good Professor feels qualified to tell Michael Jordan what he should do with his money? Who among us is willing to give one of our cars away because there might be someone else who doesn't have one? And why he believes waiting for the Government to do anything is a reasonable solution - is beyond me.

We might as well wait for Jesus to come and do it right.

Apology To My Piano Teacher

Dear Mrs. Johnson,

I am sorry I wasted your time in a colossal way. But I know how much you needed that five bucks from my mom each week, so let’s just agree that I am a generous soul - it is better to give than to receive and all that, see? And really, if I had been more musically inclined, there might have been fewer tears - on your part. We just didn’t have the biology or something.

I honestly didn’t mean to yawn in your face during the many dynamic twists and turns of totally fascinating music theory. I might have quite enjoyed the drills on the treble clef, insanely meaningless major vs minor chord progression and pop quiz tantrums about interpreting key signatures that look just like Egyptian hieroglyphics if I hadn’t been so busy poking my eyes out. And for sure, I know you thought it would be a little healthy competition and super motivating to teach me at the same time as another student for a while. Well, for your information, it wasn’t. He was a BOY. Duh! And he played better than I did. And he smelled.

Did it ever occur to you to offer a little break in the routine once in a while? Like a snappy foot race in front of your house, maybe? I coulda smeared that smelly kid. Besides, a little physical activity always sends additional resources to the brain. Mr. Lavin in 4th grade told us that. I was a really fast runner. Did you know I was the second fastest girl in the 6th grade? Robin Barnes was the only one faster. She was a six foot tall gazelle (that’s a antelope thing in Africa). I could have pulled her pony-tail or something if I wanted to, but I didn’t.

Oh yeah, and I am really sorry I totally froze at the keyboard during that big, fancy recital. You may recall that I launched into the first few measures no sweat. Piece of cake! And then, I dunno. Zip. I’ll bet that was pretty darn uncomfortable for ya, huh. Funny how time kinda stops when there’s an awkward silence during a spectacularly inappropriate time. But to be fair, I did warn you. Remember? But no, you wouldn’t have any of it! “All of my students will shine, dear,” you said. So I was a realist; sue me! I knew I didn’t have a chance of doing the whole piece without flaking out in a truly delicious fashion at the stupid key change bridge. Man, if that wasn’t a Barry Manilow moment at least ten years before anyone ever heard of his boring 70s stuff. C’mon!

I guess I am kinda sorry to disappoint you during “The Spinning Song”. That’s a true classic. I really liked that one. In fact, I think I could have done a lot better if you would have just for once kept your mouth shut and not counted out-loud. Man, that was annoying! Couldn’t you tell it didn’t help at all? “One and two and three and . . .” Sheesh, I was playing by ear anyway, y’know? So it really didn’t make the impression you assumed it did - quarter-note this, half-note that - whatever. All that counting in my ear just sounded like arithmetic. Psycho arithmetic.

And please - don’t get me started on that ridiculous metronome ticking away! I hated that thing. Who thought that was a good idea? Seriously. That was Chinese water torture except with sound.

If James Bond had a Russian spy all tied-up, and he was shining a bright light right in his face, and he’s like, “You will tell me where the plans are, naturally,” y’know, all smooth and suave like he does - and there’s only a few minutes remaining to get the secret information before the bomb blasts off somewhere near the Presidential motorcade and the Russian is like, “You miserable wretch, Bond! I vil not be tellink you nothink!” And then Bond drawls, “Ahhh, comrade, it is most unfortunate that you leave me no other choice.”

And it really should be the enormous goon with the silver teeth who’s gone, gone rogue, y’know what I mean? And he’s like on OUR side now, O.K.? Right! And then the big guy comes into the room and what does he do? Right! He whips out the metronome! Ha ha, that’s when the lame Russian spews everything like a total baby - I mean everything. “No, no! Anythink but da metronome!” - Cool.

Anyways, nice try. Better luck next time.

Sincerely,

Yours Truly

p.s. I am including a couple of swell piano jokes I thought you might like. No hard feelings.

Q: What's the difference between a piano and an onion?

A: No one cries when you chop up a piano.

Q: How do you get two piano players to play in perfect unison?

A: Shoot one.

* DISCLAIMER: The author asserts three important facts regarding this post -

1) The events above are all true, however the piano teacher represents a series of frustrated, well-intentioned women.

2) This post in no way shape or form indicates an aversion to music or to the piano in particular. The author was a lazy student, and as such accepts full responsibility for her present handicap when playing the piano. She can play many hymns and primary songs with a proficiency to temporarily beguile the unaware listener. However, this burst of competency expires dramatically at some point during the attempt. This lends applicable weight to the phrase, "deja vu", as in the afore-mentioned public recital disaster.

3) The author ardently desires all people everywhere to embrace the piano and any and all other instruments of choice, and musical exploration in almost any form as a gift and a blessing to the soul. This post was written strictly in the spirit of harmless satire, and is not intended to dis music or discourage study of it.

Anomaly

I am easily amused. Perhaps it is just a quirky personality trait. Or perhaps it is a survival mechanism that gives me an edge over the rest of you - who knows?

For instance: Last week my car was in the shop. I sat on one of four raised planter beds in front of the Dalby building at Phoenix College waiting for a ride. Idly casting my gaze about, my eye happened to fall exactly onto the empty shell of a recently emerged cicada. I marveled that out of thousands and thousands of leaves in the flowering verbena, my eye would catch Mr. Cicada’s precise birthing spot (or molting spot as the case may be)!

Seventeen years is a very long time for anything, much less a milky, naked cicada grub doing whatever it does underground that entire time. His biological clock ticking, cicada finally begins his momentous struggle from a subterranean world up to the surface. Above ground he will promptly shed his delicate grubby-skin for a much larger, hardened body and wings to complete the life-cycle.

What were the chances that his triumphant ascension would happen to coincide with one of only very limited patches of earth that weren’t already covered by massive swaths of cement and asphalt? Cicada might have died without ever seeing the light - hopelessly frustrated and certainly entombed in the same dark earth where he started his simple bug existence 17 years earlier. I smiled, noting the incredibly delicate detail of the grub’s body memorialized in his discarded, tissue-thin skin that clung valiantly to the one leaf in a sea of possibilities where, in my boredom, I saw it. “Wow,” I thought, pleased, “I’m so glad I saw that!”

On another occasion, I was driving through my neighborhood when I stopped the suburban and backed it up in the middle of the road. I leaned out the driver’s window and stared at the asphalt below. It was a roof rat, totally flat from whisker to stern, morbidly frozen in a comical action-pose of running across the street. Er, running not quite fast enough.

Rats are resourceful and clever. They didn’t strike me as careless enough or slow enough to get flattened in traffic. “Wow,” I thought - what are the chances I would ever see something like that in a life-time? Seriously! The body lay undisturbed for about a week until it completely disappeared. For as long as it lasted, however, Flat Rat generated a lot of satisfaction. I delighted in driving by the carcass and inviting an unsuspecting passenger to look down when I paused the car at just the right spot. Somehow, the reaction of others never quite matched my own appreciation for little miracles.

Driving on West Glendale Avenue a couple of years ago, we approached a city bus stop where a solitary man was waiting at the bench in anything but typical waiting style. From a distance, we could see he was wildly gesturing and lunging his upper body side to side. He half-stood, half-crouched, then slid across the bench. All the while this unusual behavior was accompanied by something even more intriguing - he was shouting.

Anticipating our car passing along side, I opened my window in an attempt to hear what he was saying. He was screaming at the TOP of his lungs, “NO! NO! NO!” Obviously tormented by mental demons unrevealed to the rest of us, the man’s total commitment to arguing his point to no one with all the passion and sheer energy he could muster was ~ awesome.

Swirling in my mind were the inevitable questions: Would the bus stop for him - or keep on going? Had he already been riding the bus, but was asked to get off? Had someone asked if they could sit next to him? Was he upset because the driver had asked for exact change? As much as I searched for meaning to the man’s display, exceedingly little information was available to explain it. There was something strangely (weirdly) appealing about the full-bodied pedal to the metal expression that poor man was able to exercise. It made me want to answer him, "YES! You're right!" or "NO! Absolutely!" And yes, for whatever reason, I admit I was glad I saw that.

Grandson Jack, who is always amusing no matter what he is doing, out-did himself the Christmas he was presented with his

newborn cousin for the first time. Quivering with excitement, he clapped his hands and breathlessly exclaimed, “Oh! Baby Kenna!” He scrambled onto the couch and held out two little arms to receive the tiny baby girl. The picture was cute enough; husky big boy Jack gently, lovingly cuddling his little cousin in his lap.

Suddenly, a truly precious surprise yielded a beaming Jack spontaneously singing sweetly, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” over and over again right into Baby MaKenna’s rosy face. She gazed up at him, listening to his heart-felt crooning.

The warmth and beauty of this perfect exchange filled the room with a palpable joy and happiness that really did feel like Heaven on earth.

Only gradually I became aware that I was tightly clasping my hands in front of my chest in the classic “awe” pose. My face hurt from smiling. Through tears of deep gratitude, I whispered to no one in particular, “Oh! I am so glad I saw this!”