inspiration

Got some time? Save an hour or more, sit in a dark room with headphones or speakers and a mouse, and go here: www.ashesandsnow.org. It's amazing, absorbing, time-consuming, and gorgeous: multimedia the way it should be, brought to you by the miracle of the internet. No really, go. Go to be inspired and at peace and moved; go to have your reality shifted just a little to one side. Just go.

candle

I have these two candles. I inherited them from the last tenant here--candleholders, really, cubes of ceramic something filled with wax and a wick. They glow a little when you light them. I don't believe in angels, much, not the kind they painted on the sides anyway, but they seem to go with the protective medal with a saint I found hanging in the kitchen. The angels are gold-coloured with wings and big robes--not much on the aerodynamics scale, and strangely isolated. I think of angels as indistinguishable from us and deeply engaged with the world, up to their elbows in grime and dust and heat...

That aside, I do like the connection the angel-candles provide--a kind of interlacing of sacred worlds caused by sharing ritual objects between religions. So I have two, and one of them...well, it's been a struggle. I lit it this morning. It went out an hour or so later. I wasn't done with it, so I lit it again. And again. Eventually I started messing with it, pouring wax onto a scrap of paper, poking the wick to make it stand up. Wick kept falling over. In fact, it got worse the longer I played with it. Stand up-fall down-go out. It seemed determined to extinguish itself. I was just as determined to save it--to give it a long, full life. Kept trying. Finally, the wick came loose. I scraped around, looking for the stub, trying to find the thing it came loose from.

Turns out it didn't. It came loose because it got to the bottom. My broken and burnt-off matchstick scraped cream-coloured ceramic.

I was trying to save it, but it was done. It was time. If I'd've listened, I'd have known that.

Funny, that.

not gods

After 24 years, a man in a Florida prison is found not guilty after all. How could we need more evidence against the death penalty than that?

This man was 20, maybe 21 when he was imprisoned. For all intents and purposes he has lost the first 24 years of his adult life to someone's bad judgement. That's bad enough. Fortunately, he was not killed, not given the death sentence, just living out a 130 year life behind bars.

We are not gods. We are merely-humans. We know this. We may have the right to try and save people, heal people, make lives better. We can try to improve lives; we cannot, as far as I can see, call ourselves perfect enough to tell when someone is so bad that they should die. That has to be between the person and whatever they hold holy in the world.

that's all.

making superheroes

Superheroes are the order of the day, thanks to C over at Bringing the Fun. I must've spent hours playing with the options, costuming and characterizing as I went. The superhero me is still under development, in desperate need of a few key details: superpowers, backstory, motive...that kind of stuff--and a name. I'm not the only one to get absorbed, either. C did one and then did them for half a dozen friends.

Why? What's the appeal of superheroing?

It's not about saving the world, although most of us could be reasonably accused of wanting to do that. I think we're desperately, playfully seeking our better selves. They say who we think we are and who we wish we were and who we aspire to be. Our alter egos look good in spandex and always sing in key; they run fast, play fair and only make wisecracks when it won't get them in too much trouble. Somehow they're okay with their dayjobs and if they have families the partners and children don't mind all the hours and dedication we give to our jobs. We don't usually get recognition but our better selves don't mind--in fact they're okay not being associated with their more human sides.

Somehow I'm not surprised we're so taken with the chance to make ourselves over into who we know we could be.

C issued an invitation to create superheroes. Here's my invitation--think of it as a first step. Figure out what your superpower is. What rare thing about you, if cherished and supported and nurtured, is your gift to the world?

snow day

It's the kind of morning you hope for when you're ten--snow so thick it puts a soft haze on everything punctuated by black city birds swooping from trees to rooftops to telephone wires. Snow softens everything, cleans up the city, takes us back a hundred years or more. These are flakes the way they should be, fluffy, random, persistent. It's been snowing long enough that the trucks have been by once already: plow, salt, sand...but not so long that we feel overwhelmed. This is sledding weather, or skiing weather if you live close enough to the park to walk or ski over. This is cup of tea by the fire and all-day project in the house weather; this is the time to make crock-pot soup and bake things all day for dinner and make pancakes for breakfast and time to move your car so the plows can get under and around it. This is the time to remember why soft and slow and easy is important...to indulge in mindfulness-and in life-with gentle gusto.

spare change

Friends of mine are writing about what people say to get money. Around here I've noticed a different tack from what they're seeing:

Why lie? Need booze and smokes. Anything helps. God bless. It's not just hand-lettered cardboard, either:

"Hey..."

"Yes?"

"Listen I need a little change, I'm not gonna lie to you I need a drink but..."

Then there are the kids. Youth, really, 14-25 or so and clustered in doorways and on corners, usually with a dog on a scrap of rope; usually the dog is the best off of the lot. They don't have excuses or explanations, just tattered fingerless gloves and bandanas and army pants with the pockets ripped free. I don't know why they're there, but I can think of half a dozen possibilities--more than once I missed the streets by a cosmic hiccup and the compassion of relative strangers.

Last summer I saw a young woman on the main drag three or so blocks from the hub of downtown, huddled in an unused delivery entrance for the big, posh department store. Her sign said the usual: spare change, anything helps... and she must've seen something 'cause she asked me for money. I stopped and looked at her, then said,

"I'm going to get a sandwich. Can I get you something?"

She looked like she could use it.

"Yeah, that'd be great." She still had the edges of her childhood hanging around her face--someone somewhere once taught her that the world will sometimes be a good place to be.

So I asked her what she wanted, guessed about dressings, and brought her a sandwich bigger than she was. My first thought was to follow Cornell West's reputed example and invite her to join me for my meal, but finally I decided to deliver it and move on--I don't like to presume that a 17-ish year old necessarily wants to have lunch with someone she's never met...especially when she probably has friends and a very empty stomach. (I don't know many youth who voluntarily spend time with random adults they don't know). So I left her with orange juice and water and a meatball sub; I don't know if she saved it or shared it, but I do know that for every one you see there are ten you don't so there were plenty of places that food could go.

And what if I bought her some food she could have gotten herself? Then she's still gonna have one more chance to see the world as a compassionate place.

In general, that's what I figure: random generosity increases hope.*

And we could all use more hope.

---

* It does occur to me that someone somewhere did some experiments with rats and other animals and random negative stimuli which couldn't be controlled by the animals. Eventually those animals became hopeless. I think the nature of the stimulus matters: random negativity generates hopelessness, random positvity generates hope.

late

find your element
at mutedfaith.com.


so I'm up late. These sorts of things happen when I'm up late. We can all hope there's less up-lateness in my immediate future. However, if you happen to be up late, check out the art at muted faith. It moves me in ways I don't expect to be moved by graphic art.

bananas

Bananas are a small lesson in abundance. They are a lesson in how to be here and now and eat what you want when you want it, because it will be brown tomorrow. They are a lesson in spontaneity and in self-sufficiency: they are easy-open, single-serving, biodegradable packaging and food all in one. If you let them sit long enough, the package becomes the food until there's only a paper-thin wisp of peel to remove. They are high in starch (for energy) and potassium (for hydration), and cheerful on a cloudy day. They look like a smile or a slice of sunshine, and they come in three sizes and sweetnesses. Also, they adjust; they get sweeter as they get older.

What would our lives be like if we were all more like bananas? We could be open and honest and generous (we're already biogdegradable); we could become less crusty with age, and sweeter; we could offer time and energy and smiles on a cloudy day. And we could give generously of ourselves, because we don't know what we will be like tomorrow.

and now say to thyself, 'If there is any good thing that I can do or any kindness I can show to any person, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I may not pass this way again.'
--from the weekly preaching of Rev. Frank Hall, who does not know where it comes from

amen.

working together

The folks who administer Andy Warhol's legacy have done a good thing; according to Wired News they have a very liberal policy about Warhol's work. For commercial use they are like Disney; for nonprofit and for artistic use (even for profit) they allow unrestricted use. It's good news in this world of intellectual property wars. The Creative Commons licencing system is a similar idea which "builds on...all rights reserved" and offers the "some rights reserved" option. Their system works in a number of countries and for all kinds of work.

Musicians have known about this for years: the folk process is what happens when music gets picked up and passed around a community or ten. It's a grassroots re-visioning of art. It acknowledges that each person who receives the art will complete it, change it, continue to make it relevant in zir own context, time and place and people.

I celebrate the new resurgence of sharing. At some point making art is necessarily a gift to the world, given freely. I celebrate the collaborative creativity and the otherwise-impossible richness which comes from sharing. I celebrate the beautiful sense of abundance and freedom which this brings into the world. This is a gift economy of art and intellectual property. It re-births trust in an untrusting world; it lives deeply when so many of us are afraid to cross the street. It finds middle ground between all and nothing. It sets an example in a world desperate for heroes.

In this time of fear we must each set examples of courage; may we all do what we can.

two gratitudes

A note about writing: I like authors who use lots of words, lush and rich...but only if they're telling me about things I'm interested in. Character development: good. Plot development: useful. Tolkien's six pages of descriptions of forest: not interesting. At all. Still, I try not to waste words. Some days I succeed. Some days I don't. I admire Jill for her ability to say so much in so few words. I admire Real Live Preacher for using his more verbose style to make sense of the world.

I am grateful to good writers who give their gifts freely that we may share in them.
___

I am learning that humour is the best way to diffuse most conflicts.

Even flame wars.

Really.

How cool is that, and how simple?

I wonder how that could transform salary negotiations and board meetings.

I am grateful for humour, and for people who stay at the table for hard conversations, and for learning from others.

That's all.