Stuck!

I'm checked, blocked, mired, stuck. Betwixt and between, at sixes and sevens, caught, snagged, snared, stuck. I'm the fly on tape zizzing my wings going nowhere wearing myself down. Worse? I'm doing it to myself. I just hate that. Oook.

My Twin Towers

I watch my towers growing into the lower Manhattan skyline as I attend New York University. The towers grew up into my place, my culture, and my landscape. They loom on my skyline. I take them for granted.

I remember the aerialist Philippe Petit walked his tightrope from one tower to its other. It was a sensation.

The twins were my destination. I rode my bike to and around them on sunny lower Manhattan's streets and avenues. The plaza was a focal point for my exploring all of lower Manhattan. I biked on the plaza, circling its fountain and brass sphere sculpture an artist visualized for its peaceful center. I bought Sabrett's hot dogs and sodas from sidewalk vendors. I ate, drank soda, and rested, sitting at fountains' edge. The water splash makes a conversation of white noise. I never ate at the Windows of the World restaurant atop one of my twins. I knew people who bragged about it and had box of wooden matches to show.

I took the subway to and from my towers to learn to navigate their subterranean pathways. My twin towers were an embarkation and debarkation point for subways and commuters. A community serving people who worked inside and outside around the towers was beneath.

I rode my elevators up and down, they were the longest elevator ride in Manhattan; such a distance one had to transfer from one elevator set to another to reach the top. They shook and swooshed, whirred and whistled, as they moved through the air in their shafts.

My towers swayed and gave in a wind. I felt the sway. I could see it looking out my window. I looked down. I was dizzied and nauseated; my memory makes my palms sweat. I walked outside on a catwalk tour on my tower where the TV antenna was later placed. We were set well back from our edge. It was a beautiful windy blue sky October day. We swayed.

After a time I visited New York City with my son. He wanted me to show him my New York City. We visited where my towers had been. My emptiness was fenced off, neat, clean, and square, with a viewing platform for the steady people who looked into it.

In 1974 I was given a twin towers post card as a memento. It was a gift from the German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys. He gave an art lecture at The New School for Social Research. He wrote Romulas on his tower and Remus on his other. He signed his name on the back. It was in thanks; a giving for shepherding he and his friends in New York City. It was one of a kind for me. I took it for granted. I lost it.

Sometimes I wish I still had it.

Fresh and Soul

What does fresh have to do with soul?

The American Heritage dictionary of the English Language defines soul as,

The animating and vital principal in human beings, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion, and often conceived as an immaterial entity.

By the same source, among multiple definitions fresh is defined as,

Recently made, produced, or harvested,

and as

Having just arrived.

And so, how does fresh have soul? Fresh has soul if fresh is imbued with human touch, the faculties of thought, action, and emotion. Human touch.

I sum this up with an old notion and word. It's a word that's but a cultural remnant from an earlier time. A word like a Biblical metaphor now on the field's fringe. A word absent from all contemporary use. A word smothered by contemporary ideas of science, efficiency, production, volume, and storage. A word imbued with man's loving and caring touch. The word is husbandry.

The act or practice of cultivating crops and breeding and raising livestock; agriculture.

Husbandry is practiced by a husbandman, one whose occupation is a farmer. My maternal grandfather was a farmer. One might just as well say yeoman, a man who cultivated his own land.

Fresh cannot have soul if fresh is planted by machine, tended by machine, harvested by machine, processed by machine, sorted by machine into containers where it's stored, maintained, and/or treated by machine until ready for and transported by machine to a market, all for the purpose of maximizing profit for a corporation's shareholders.

I once heard a CNBC talking-head business person say profit is amoral. Really. If one purchases fresh from big-agra's means of production does that mean that what you eat is amoral. I'd guess the consumer doesn't think of it that way. I suggest big-agra might.

From What Do You Give . . ?

How can folks have so many resources yet feel and believe they have so few? I think about stewardship and how our notions and experience of poverty and abundance relate with one another. How could she give out of her poverty everything she had, all she had to live on? (Mark 12:35-44)

In my birth family I was reared amidst abundant resources, the silver spoon in my mouth. Early in adult life I was thrust out and so I made my life from what I saw of the remnants and what I perceived and experienced from within.

So when I read From what do you give to God, from your abundance or from your all? in the Forward Day by Day manual of devotions appointed for Friday, August 21, 2009, my attention was hooked. What is your all?

Well perhaps your all is Your All; something like I AM. But the author of this day's meditation is more intentional and a wee bit confrontational. Giving from one's all means giving first. It is an act of faith, and as such it is not about "fair share" or tax write-offs or support for a favorite program at the church. Snap!

Giving is the experience that all we were, all we are, and all we will become, is from God. Our mind, our body, our will, our strength, our time, and all our resources are from the Your All. We are from Your All, we are Your All, and we give of Your All.

Random Bit # 2

I'm from Connecticut. My mother's birth family, Savage, had lived in CT since 1649 and some still do. The Savage clan had a farm in Berlin. My father's birth family, Collins, has lived in CT since the late 19th century. They were railroaders. My father's birth family was active in local CT politics. His Uncle was a Mayor of Hartford. His brother ran for Congress in a city district and lost. My father financed his campaign.

Every summer our household moved from West Hartford to Madison, CT. for the season. We lived a 5-minute walk from a private beach and the Long Island Sound. My summers were lived at the beach and on or in the water. Fresh seafood and farm food were part of daily life.

My family moved to Dayton, OH in 1959 when I was 8, but we continued to return to Madison. My parents returned to Hartford in 1965 after I'd been sent to school.

Before 1965 my social, cultural, class, and educational frames of reference were in and from CT. My Mother and her birth family, my brother, and my Dad are buried in the Wilcox Memorial Cemetery, in Berlin, CT. It's maintained by the Connecticut State Historical Society.

The Pothole Story ~ A Story of Failure

Once upon a time, on a Monday, a man was walking down a road. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he found himself at the bottom of a big, dark place. It was scary! After several hours, he figured out that he had fallen into a very large pothole. He wasn't able to get out on his own--actually it required a lot of help to get out, but eventually he did get out. It was awful.

The very next day--Tuesday, the man was walking down the road and fell into the pothole again. This time he immediately recognized where he was, but he still couldn't get out. He needed help again.

Wednesday, when the man fell in the pothole for the 3rd time, he remembered how to get out, and--with much hard work--was able to get out on his own. Whew!

On Thursday, the man was walking down the street again. As he approached the pothole, he remembered his previous falls. He even saw the pothole when he got close... but unfortunately he fell in anyway. But he knew the way out pretty well this time, and got out quickly.

On Friday, the man saw the pothole from a good distance away. He felt so proud of himself for spotting it, and while it took a lot of effort, he did manage to walk around it safely, and didn't fall in for the first time in a long time! Hurrah!

On Saturday, the man took a different road.