Strange How Many Memories a Roll of Toilet Paper Evokes

How do you feel when someone uses something you need to replace?

Things like coffee filters, paper towels, diapers, toilet paper, etc.

It's not just a roll of toilet paper. It's a trip to the grocery store, a decision, a trip home, a trip from the car to the kitchen table and another trip to the bathroom to unpack it and hang it.[1]

A few dollars is a nice gesture, but it doesn't replace the work work involved in obtaining it.

Something nice no one will remember but me: When Mom and Dad visited, they often brought their own toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, and yes, toilet paper. Not because mine wasn't good enough, but because they understood this principle.

[1]
General Patton used the term "paper hanging sons of bitches" and I never understood what that meant. My child's mind assumed they were sloppy wallpaper hangers. I didn't learn until I watched the the first movie version of In Cold Blood, that "hanging paper" meant writing bad checks. Hence Patton presumably meant "someone you can't trust."

Dad loved the movie Patton. He watched it often. He didn't like Patton's potty mouth. One of my favorite versions of A Christmas Carol is George C Scott's, which came out in 1984, at a time when I was falling in love, someone else wasn't, and I was alone as Christmas Eve approached.

But my all time favorite, bar none, is the musical with Albert Finney in the title role. I first watched that with Dad and brother Tom when I was very little. It wasn't the first Christmas Carol I was introduced to, but it was the first that spoke to my heart in the way I suspect Dickens had intended, and does to this day, right up to the very end where Scrooge speaks to the lion doorknocker through which his dead partner Jacob Marley had first spoken to him: "I'm going to celebrate Christmas with my family." He sounds old and tired at that moment, but also truly restored.

One Christmas while I was young and in college and unmarried, brother Tom and I went to see Albert Finney's Scrooge at the Strand theater in downtown Erie. It was a day or two after Christmas and not quite the same, but nice nonetheless. The Strand is now home to the Erie Playhouse.

Strange how many memories a roll of toilet paper evokes.


Started: 2012-06-24

Congratulations to Friends Together 25 Years (So Far)

I wrote this for friends whose 25th anniversary was on Tuesday, June 26. Their son coordinated tributes from those that were in their wedding. I think that was very nice.

Out of respect for their privacy, I've changed the names. There's nothing private in this, but it was written for them.

I can't believe 25 years have passed. My memory is fading, and it's becoming more difficult to recall important moments that should be as clear as yesterday. (Perhaps the price of forgetting some painful things is forgetting some good things too.)

There are few events in life more challenging, more prone to failure, or more rewarding, than getting - and staying - married. It sustains us through difficult times we would otherwise endure alone, it provides a safe and nurturing environment for the next generation to express our traits and convictions, and it gives us an audience for our stories while we still remember them.

And that is the most important function of marriage - for it is the family that turns memories into new human beings that carry on when we are gone, and carry with them the good things that were given us.

All our yesterdays are become tomorrows, lived by good people like [son] and [daughter] who have been equipped with fine examples like those [dad] and [mom] have set.

I am so very happy for you both on reaching 25 years together.

I hope we are all here 25 years from now to celebrate your 50th.

God bless you.

 

Started: 2012-06-23

My Great Grandpa Grandy's Ledger, 1900-1911

This is my great Grandpa Grandy's ledger; it starts in 1900 and ends in 1911. It's 52 pages including the front and back cover. My Great Grandpa Grandy was LaVerne E Grandy's father. LaVerne E Grandy was Mom's father.

I've left Mom's sticky notes in where she put them. One to especially note is the entry for a child's rocking chair for 25¢ (page 21). That was a gift to my grandpa when he was a child. It was with my Aunt Berniece (Mom's sister) for some years. My dad had it refinished in 1991 for $100 and gave it to Mom as a Christmas present.

Mom keeps a ledger also. She can tell you how much gas, hotels and dinners cost on every trip we took. I never started keeping a ledger, though I've kept a journal for years.

  Download the ledger here >

(Approximately 23Mb. This is a public link on Google Drive, but you may be asked by Google to log in to download it.)

Started: 2012-05-15

When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead.

The most annoying thing about folks who think they're never wrong is their smug condescension.

It drips equally and as generously from both sides of the conservative/liberal divide, and flows in torrents at the extremes.

The unstated assumption underneath their tones and expressions is "You can't possibly understand this issue and still disagree with me."

It's an unsettling rhetorical device that is very effective, because it incites anger, and anger diverts attention from the facts to what we dislike about our ideological opponent (where they have the upper hand, because they excel at being annoying, and they know it).

It is so overpoweringly disconcerting to me, I can't watch or listen to either extreme, even when I agree. I become so furious I have no choice but to switch the channel.

We've lost our capacity to reason peaceably. We laugh and scoff at each other, moving so quickly between fact and sarcasm that listeners are left only with a vague sense of something meaningful having been said about something important, which means we are not really listening to each other at all; and that, unfortunately, is entirely the point.

The original version of this post contrasted a prominent creationist apologist and a liberal cable TV personality. I removed them because the temptation was too great to be cruel to both of them. I don't wish to be cruel, angry, or smug. I want to understand, and be understood. After changing it, and while writing the paragraph you’re reading now, I felt distinctly liberated and at peace. I mean that most sincerely.

The subject of this post is a quote from William Butler Yeats; I'm not sure what he meant, but it's appealing in a shadowy, ghostly but comforting way.

The full quote is: "Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation."

I've often engaged writers when reading them, in a very tangible manner you might call a dialog. I have no problem envisioning this same practice on a spiritual level.

 

The image at the top of this post is a detail form Carl Bloch, Jesus the Consolator. The full painting is at left. I have always admired it. A copy has hung in my home for years. I printed it out on 11”x14” paper back when such things were relatively expensive, then had it framed. The color print was $1.50 at Kinko’s and the frame was $60. The source was a family bible.


Started: 2012-06-26

Occupied

(Or 0dds & Ends for June 26, 2012)

1
When does a writer do most of his writing?

In the shower, at the wheel, in church, in meetings, on the hooter, in bed asleep or staring out the window.

It is during those periods after intense thought, when your mind is unguarded and wandering, that you mine the richest material.

More than half of what I write in those times is lost by the time I get to a keyboard or a piece of paper. I try to invent acronyms and can recall 3 or 4 if I have the discipline and the ideas are good enough to exert the energy.

All it takes is a key word and I can recall a paragraph. If I lose the keyword, I lose it all.

Writers daydream a lot.

2
There's a scene in the original Star Trek in which Capt. Kirk gives a landing party the third degree after a brawl with the Klingons. Upon finding that Scotty was responsible for starting it, Kirk confines him to quarters. Mr Scott smiles, a bit encouraged after his dressing down, and says it will give him a chance to get caught up on his technical journals.

I was struck by that as a youngster, that someone would be so passionate about their work they would respond this way even in the face of discipline. I wanted to be that way when I grew up, and I think I am to some extent.

3
I keep track of "posts I didn't post" and "tweets I didn't tweet," not because they are negative or angry or anything like that, but because they could be misinterpreted. Someday I'll post them when the circumstances no longer matter but the observations are just as salient.

 

Started: 2012-06-14

γνῶθι σεαυτόν

(Or 0dds & Ends for June 24, 2012)

1
Prof. Glenn Holland, in his lectures on ancient religions, says that "Know Thyself" (γνῶθι σεαυτόν), inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, is better translated as "know your place" or "know where you fit." Seems far wiser than how I'd always thought of it (that you should strive for self illumination). Wikipedia suggests it "is a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude."

γνῶθι σεαυτόν should be inscribed over every doorway in every church, mosque, temple, and place of worship .

2
The biggest new idea to me recently was conceiving of the New Testament as liturgy and sacrament, not as "part 2" of the bible. I'd never heard this before. It was very intriguing.

(If this appeals to you, you can hear it here: Dr Scott Hahn - 4-06-11 - Bay Village, Ohio . It’s on Google Drive; the link is open to all, but Google may want you to be signed in to access. More Scott Hahn and other resources here .)

3
What's terribly embarrassing to me as a Christian is to hear otherwise intelligent Christians talk about Adam, Eve, the Ark and animals, global floods and Babel etc apart from their historical, allegorical, or pedagogical sense.

It is partially because of this adherence to an uncompromising literal interpretation (and ridiculous extrapolations) that I walked so far from the church.

Those same people are not making the way back very easy. Every time I find a cleft in the rock to grab, someone suggests that the one I'm clinging to is too weak to support me.

Grant a pilgrim some small successes.

Started: Sometime in April 2012

0dds & Ends for Sunday June 24, 2012

1
There is a unique aspect to Northern architecture that is especially attractive in summertime.

Southern writers go on at length, for good reason, regarding dripping, cloistered, Southern gardens, and homes and graves and other products of human activity that decay quickly if not tended to.

The North is different, but has its charm as well. Homes are generally squatter, smaller, tighter. They're more challenging to open and air out because they're meant to be tightly closed in winter. Odors linger, and that is why (my speculation) Northerners have settled on recipes that are delightful to prepare and eat but don't hang in the air very long - like ham, turkey, pot roast, baked potatoes, boiled green beans, and so on.

Flags fly outside, and bunting sometimes hangs from window sills. Older homes have large front yards, jutting eves, lots of trees and shade. The angle of the sun can be harsh and low in late summer, so you find many homes with awnings that can be rolled up, removed and stored in winter.

There are many more differences of course, too trivial for this post. You get a feeling for them just by observing from the outside, and an understanding by being on the inside, especially in winter, with the cold shut out, snow and wind prying at window pains and puffing on the chimney as though it were a pipe stem, and only thick blankets and pajamas and each other to keep you warm; for in the dead of winter at night in small homes, the heat is turned down, and the floor cold as ice, not to warm until the sun and house rise to coffee and breakfast and a newspaper in the door.

I don't know anything about the house at the top of this post, but it's from a slideshow here. It's typical of a northern home that's near the water.


2
Being a nominal Christian is like getting a prescription from the doctor and just looking at the bottle.

("Nominal" is subjective, but by that I mean believing without communing. I happen to be in that place myself as I write this; I have been for years; it's a disenfranchised and lonely place to be; I am considering ways to become de-nominalized; some are more compelling to me than they are to others around me.)

3
Sometimes when someone looks unmoved despite their world collapsing around them, they are trying to look unmoved despite their world collapsing around them.

(I have no one in particular in mind. We all find ourselves thinking this way from time to time.)

Started: Sometime in May, 2012

What I Want at My Funeral

No, I'm not dying. Just thinking about it. Jing and Charlie tell me not to, but it carries a morbid fascination for me.

I’m young enough that I can still have fun talking about it. Someday, it won't be so fun, but these wishes will have been written and I won't have to worry about them then.

Get all the fascinating details here .

Started: 2011-11-29

I'm Reconsidering My Vote in November

I wrote here  about Obama's three biggest mistakes. The third is his support of a bill that would force the Catholic Church to offer insurance that covers reproductive practices that violate church teaching. This bill is called the HHS Mandate.[1] (More information is at the bottom of this post.)

Now, I thought Obama was just being a savvy politician. He gets to show sensitivity toward a progressive agenda and take a common-sense approach to birth control (some of which I agree with); then it goes to the Supreme Court, gets overturned, and he gets credit for trying.

Aw shucks, folks, whaddya gonna do, can't get around that pesky Constitution.

I've since heard a number of talking heads casting this debate in the form of reproductive rights, the "war on women," etc, and I'm not so sure anymore that HHS will fail.

This is about religious liberty. Period. It has nothing to do with how popular the belief is, whether it affects men or women, whether anyone really practices it, whether it’s stupid or old fashioned or anything else.

Despite my contempt for Romney and (nearly) everything he represents, and my respect for Obama, I may vote for Romney or an independent. Because a fundamental principle more important than either of them is at stake.[2]

If HHS succeeds intact, it won't stop there, and any conviction that you or I hold as part of any community we belong to could fall to majority will.

I'd rather have 4 years of despotic, insensitive, shallow, ineffective leadership than remove this pillar of the Constitution.

It may be difficult to balance a budget, create jobs, and maintain peace in a hostile world. It's much more difficult to restore civil rights.

Sign the Petition to Stop the HHS Mandate

[1]
The compromise Obama offered is a distinction without a difference. Insured Catholics would still be funding the disputed practices. Don't be surprised, however, to hear the debate framed so that Catholics are presented as stubborn and unreasonable.

[2]
I realize that by voting for an independent, I may be "throwing away my vote," as they say. But if everyone voted their conscience, every vote would count and we'd get the candidate most of us actually want.

I truly don't want to vote against anyone, but this year is a tough year. I have voted Libertarian in the past. I may do so again, but haven't been following the party for some time. I hope the HSS issue is resolved before the election. But the fact that Obama supported it in the first place bothers me.

BTW, I also loathe the new myopic Left that has discarded perspicuity and fairness for buzzwords and misrepresentation. As much as I dislike Romney, this is simply not fair: MSNBC faces pressure on Romney’s Wawa moment 

Started: 2012-06-15

Slouching Toward Babylon

I thought a comparison of Jesus images would be interesting. (It was interesting to me, anyway.)

Immediately below is the Jesus I grew up with. It's okay if you don't recognize him. He appears this way mostly in Baptist Sunday school lessons, church bulletins, that sort of thing. Jesus is rarely on a cross in Baptist church (and only around Easter), because Baptists prefer to depict him as ministering or risen. He's also never shown with a halo, though sometimes there is some brightness or a halo-effect.

These Jesuses are especially Orthodox or Catholic-looking to me, but I like them. I show them to demonstrate the large gulf between the two. If you are limited to one tradition, any other is very foreign, and can be frightening or confusing.

Of course there’s a lot of cross over. Many Christian traditions depict Jesus as tender and fatherly. However, fundamentalist often retain that approach in most contexts.

¶ If there were no other expression of our capacity to love our children, the of love of Jesus for children would be sufficient.

¶ An aside for Capstone friends that may find me: The etymology of "Babylon" can be found here .

The Hebrew name for Babylon, , Babel, does mean "confusion," but the original name was Akkadian Babili and meant “Gate of God.” It appears itself to be an adaptation of a non-Semitic and unknown name.

Some languages, like English, use a close approximation when encountering a new place or thing; English speakers like to try to get close to the original sound when possible. Some cultures, like the Chinese and French, purposely create entirely new words, preferring to retain familiar sounds. This is a common linguistics phenomena rooted as much in cultural personality as language, which can't be separated in any case.

(My own opinion is that it's a reflection of a culture's desire to incorporate new ideas and accommodate change; you can see edges of it in political systems and immigration patterns.)

It appears (to my untrained ear) that the Hebrew was an approximation for Akkadian, which was also conveniently xenophobic, and that is also not uncommon. Think of all the names white people have for other races. Most are not very complimentary. Every culture does this.

An interesting etymology is just an interesting etymology. It doesn't have any spiritual significance. It may however tell you a lot about those that spoke the language.

Started: 2012-04-19