There is a Season, God Knows the Reason

Summer in America, year of our Lord, 2016.  "Think globally, act locally" I once heard Pete Seeger say.  Advice I've tried to heed.  I'd like to think we've come a long way, even in my few years on earth.  A bit over half a century and it looks as though humanity hasn't learned a thing.  My country and the world seem more troubled and confused about good versus evil than it has ever been, if the news is to be believed.  Ha, the "news."  So much violence, stupid and arbitrary inflicted between humans.  All children of God, of Allah, of the earth.  Brothers and sisters all struggling to play in the same sandbox.  The political climate of the earth and of the US seem more polarized than ever.

I reluctantly look at our current elections.  The US has been interfering with other countries elections for decades.  In the interest of what?  On our behalf?  And just who is this "USA" that's been doing these misdeeds?  Our government, whom we've elected to represent us?  And who are "we" these days?  If I'm to believe this election cycle, we're a collection of fearful, violent racists, homophobes, misogynists, liberals and socialists.  I don't even know what a conservative is anymore.  What's being conserved? 

 And now our government is clearly aiming it's shenanigans directly at all of us.  Why?  For whom?  Is it better than manipulating matters abroad?  I'm sort of losing the plot here...

So looking to today's readings at Mass from Ecclesiastes, I find it so very apt:

"Vanity of vanities! Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity!

What more does a man have from all his labor, as he labors under the sun?

A generation passes away, and a generation arrives. But the earth stands forever.

The sun rises and sets; it returns to its place, and from there, being born again,

it circles through the south, and arcs toward the north. The spirit continues on, illuminating everything in its circuit, and turning again in its cycle.

All rivers enter into the sea, and the sea does not overflow. To the place from which the rivers go out, they return, so that they may flow again.

Such things are difficult; man is not able to explain them with words. The eye is not satisfied by seeing, nor is the ear fulfilled by hearing.

What is it that has existed? The same shall exist in the future. What is it that has been done? The same shall continue to be done.

There is nothing new under the sun. Neither is anyone able to say: “Behold, this is new!” For it has already been brought forth in the ages that were before us.

There is no remembrance of the former things. Indeed, neither shall there be any record of past things in the future, for those who will exist at the very end.

All things have their time, and all things under heaven continue during their interval.

A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pull up what was planted.

A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to tear down, and a time to build up.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.

A time to gain, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away.

A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to be silent, and a time to speak.

A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace."

There is so much, too much to contemplate from Ecclesiastes about the evil and good to be found in humanity on earth, and God's part in it.  Our time here is very short.  I am sure of one thing;  I, we, will never get a handle on it all.  I always find myself coming back to my favorite passage in the Bible, Micah 6 - 

This is what God asks of you, only this: 

To act justly,

To love tenderly, and

To walk humbly with your God.

And in the end, that's all the handle I need to have.

A Brexit Musing from My Ex-pat Past

This puts it quite well, I think. The following quote is from a reader of the English paper Financial Times:

Financial Times

"A quick note on the first three tragedies. Firstly, it was the working classes who voted for us to leave because they were economically disregarded and it is they who will suffer the most in the short term from the dearth of jobs and investment. They have merely swapped one distant and unreachable elite for another one. Secondly, the younger generation has lost the right to live and work in 27 other countries. We will never know the full extent of the lost opportunities, friendships, marriages and experiences we will be denied. Freedom of movement was taken away by our parents, uncles, and grandparents in a parting blow to a generation that was already drowning in the debts of our predecessors. Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, we now live in a post-factual democracy. When the facts met the myths they were as useless as bullets bouncing off the bodies of aliens in a HG Wells novel. When Michael Gove said 'the British people are sick of experts' he was right. But can anybody tell me the last time a prevailing culture of anti-intellectualism has lead to anything other than bigotry?"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I was living in Amsterdam in the late 1980's when Europe was putting the European Economic Community (EEC as it was then called) together and recruiting countries to participate. It was finally put into effect in 1993. I remember the biggest fears came from bigotry, fear of a more "open" immigration and the loss of individual national identities. The biggest hopes were all based on the benefits of shared job opportunities and the sort of security it could promise and promote.

It seemed to me at the time that it would give Europe, as a union the same sort of clout that we have in America. Our union is now almost 240 years old. Do we take the benefits of this union for granted? I'm sure I do. It is so very hard to balance our way of thinking - the intellectual vs the emotional. What are we grateful for? What are we afraid of? What can we work towards to effectively change to make it better for the majority? It remains our ongoing privilege and duty. Our emotions get so very overwhelming when we feel invisible, when we are frustrated beyond control. It is so very important to carefully consider the things which upset us before we act irrationally.

I've been thinking of this phrase this morning - "Don't let the bastards grind you down," or the phrase "Illegitimi non carborundum," which oddly enough originates in usage from British Army Intelligence (yeah, I know...) during WWII.

Now I need to give my brain a break and try not to think too terribly hard about our current elections dilemma of fear vs fact in the US. I think I'll spend the rest of today drinking from my "Keep Calm and Carry On" coffee cup. Thanks again for that, Carol!!

Goodness, For Goodness' Sake!

Listening just now to Liz McAlister's eulogy at Dan Berrigan's funeral, she quoted him as having said "We live in inexplicably evil times."  This really strikes me.  Yes, inexplicably, because we have had Christ and Moses and Buddha and so many other messengers of God from without and within.  We should know better.

How much good is born into our own hearts, how many people in our own lives, how many faiths, how many humans have lived in our history who have given us clear and inspiring examples of how to live?  How to play well with others.  We can all feast on the goodness of the earth.  What is it that makes evil so tempting?  Why does anyone "want it all" at the expense of anyone else having simply enough?  Why should anyone not be happy until they've taken all the toys from the sandbox?  And the violence? The hatred, fear and loathing of imagined enemies.  Our brothers, our sisters?  Imagination turned reality, when finally, we do become one another's enemy.

I just don't understand it.

What's so hard about being good?  We can see it, embrace it and live it.  Go ahead.  Spoil yourselves.

My Dad's Story

James Broadus Lawter, my dad, gone six years now.  A friend asked me to tell his story, so here is a small attempt...

My first thought was to write "He was born a poor black child" a la Steve Martin's start to "The Jerk."  But essentially, aside from not being African American, he was born a poor child in Greenville, South Carolina, just before the start of the Depression to John Charles Freemont Lawter and Rosa Magdelana Lawter (John and Maggie).  He had two sisters born and deceased before him, Mary Yvonne and Margaret Irene who both, we are told, died of the measles.  My Grandpa John took work wherever he could find it and was often gone.  

Grandpa John, Jimmy and pup Buddy

On one trip home, he overheard two of his brothers-in-law talking about "giving the boy" to his Grandma to raise which prompted my grandfather to take my then 3 year old dad and leave his wife and South Carolina behind.  He heard from family in the Northwest that there was work to be found in the boat yards of Seattle, Washington.  He and my dad walked and hitchhiked the whole way there.  There was indeed work and Seattle was where my dad was raised, often being left in the care of the woman who ran the boardinghouse they lived in.  We met Mrs. Rice ourselves when we were kids, then an elderly woman who was grateful to see Dad with his own family.

Mom and Dad in the Navy

Dad, with his father's permission joined the Merchant Marines as a teenager, and after a time, lying about his age, joined the Navy at 17.  That's where my parents met some years later, about 1950, Mom being a Wave.  

They married, had 5 kids, then divorced 15 years on.  He retired from the Navy and we were mostly out of touch for almost a decade.  He had married and divorced again, then moved back east from Minnesota and stayed at least in the periphery of our lives for the rest of his life.  He had a stroke or two in his later years, the last one sending him eventually to the same Veteran's home  in which my mother now resides.  He was living with COPD and kidney issues which plagued him in the final few months before he passed away in 2010.  We inured his ashes in the very traditional ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.  We had this all planned ahead of time, and I will always have the memory of his reaction to my asking him "How would you like being buried at Arlington Cemetery?"  The look that came over his face was a combination of surprise and intrigue.  He liked the idea.

Dad's honor guard at Arlington

That's a thumbnail sketch of some basic details, there's so much more to his spirit, some of which we offspring have inherited.  He was a survivor, had an appetite to enjoy what he could of life and always some need, I think, to make up for his difficult childhood.  Never a church goer, he called himself an agnostic - "just in case."  I would tease him that he'd better get used to the idea of heaven because I was gonna get him there, even it was by dragging him, kicking and screaming.  A curmudgeon and a hermit, he never quite got the handle on how to do family.  I got to help him with a lot of life's minutia in his last years, for which I am grateful.  I would call myself his "beck and call girl," which amused him no end.  I remember at one point, when he was still in the hospital and we were arranging for which rehab facility he should go to, he paused a moment, got a wee bit misty and said to me, "What would I do without you? Why are you doing all of this?"  I looked at him and said "This is what familes do, Dad."  Silly wabbit.  

Friend Aaron visiting Dad in Arlington

Until his final stroke, he always smoked cigarettes.  I remember Camels and Bel Air, then in later years he bought them from Native American reservations because of the bargain prices and convenient mail order feature.  He once tried a pipe for a time.  He was passionate about his coffee.  Gotta fuel that curmudgeon spirit!  Ending up in the NYS Veterans Home in Montrose, it took him a while to settle in.  But ever the survivor, he did just that.  He made a lot of friends with the nurses and attendants, who all called him "Jimmy."  Each time I came to see him at the Vet home, he'd be watching one of two things on TV - NCIS or Fox News.  Every single time it was Fox, I always, always said "Dad, you know that's not the news."  He'd occasionally say to me, "You know I'm Republican, don't you?"  To which I'd reply, "Well, nobody's perfect," a favorite line from the end of "Some Like It Hot."  

Jimmy at Six

Dad was always a fair wit, enjoyed a saucy and great sense of humor, a flair for the dramatic, he loved radio shows, music and movies.  Using a photo as a model, I once did a scratchboard of him reading at the age of six.  He said that it "classed up" his childhood.  I have him reading a big old book when in reality, it was the funny papers. He was a news announcer on the radio in Minnesota and an actor, mostly in college and regional theater productions.  He did a lot of theater, and made attempts to pursue acting professionally in NYC where he moved in the late 70's to the Village.   

JB Lawter  actor

He and my Mom both acted in the Sangley Point Theater Guild in the Navy while in the Philippines.  They also had a children's radio program which they wrote and performed weekly to a live audience of kids on the Navy base. Dad was Farmer MacDonald and my Mom was Mother Goose, playing her as a dotty old lady based on wonderful character actress Edna May Oliver.  I know this is my Dad's story, but I love thinking of my mother in Ms. Oliver's persona.  If you are not familiar with Ms. Oliver, this is a TCM tribute to Edna May, enjoy.

My favorite story from this era was that one morning on a radio broadcast day, my parents overslept and in order to be on time, threw on their costumes at home, then sped off to the studio on Dad's motor scooter.  I love the thought of seeing Mother Goose, one hand hanging onto her hat while hanging tight onto Farmer MacDonald as they go whooshing down the road....!  It just tickles the whimsy!

So, Dad, Papa-san, Daddio, JB Lawter was born in December 1928 and scootered off this mortal coil in March of 2010.  I think of him often enough and always will. Despite the huge absences we encountered in our lives, he taught me how to thread a needle, how to wire a lamp, the basics of riding a bike and how to look things up in the set of encyclopedias he "paid good money for."  And, as my brother Jim recently said to me, "There's a lot of him in our DNA."  Yes indeedy do, life goes on.