Matching Tracksuits

Month: August 2021

A Way Out

Tuesday 31 August 2021

You shouldn’t use a student’s behavior as a good example of bad behavior, but I did just that today. We’d finished early, and I was talking to the kids about three questions we should all ask ourselves before speaking:

  1. Does it need to be said?
  2. Does it need to be said by me?
  3. Does it need to be said by me now?

The motivation for this gem of advice was from a young lady who speaks her mind — literally. If it comes into her head, it soon comes out of her mouth.

It can be disruptive, to say the least.

As I was talking about the first question, another student made an unrelated comment to our talker.

“See?” I said to the girl J and class, “that was a time when the answer to the question ‘Does it need to be said?’ was probably ‘No.'” I said that and thought, “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.”

And on cue, the girl starts up with the disrespectful arguing: “I was talkin’ quietly. I wasn’t botherin’ you or interrupting anything.”

“Perhaps, but you certainly are now,” I smiled. I glanced over at one of the most studious kids in the class, a girl I already think I’ll remember for the rest of my teaching career, such is the positive impression she’s made with her work ethic and charming personality. She was aghast.

“Make the tension go away!” her face begged.

So I attempted to do that: “It’s okay,” I laughed to the class. “J and I had this all planned as a good bad example.” And I thought, “Please, girl, for the love of all that’s possessing common sense, realize the out I’ve given you, fake a smile, and say, ‘That’s right, Mr. S.’ We’ll drop it. You’ll save face. I will have deflected a challenge to my authority. Everyone else will take a breath and think, ‘God, I’m glad that’s over.’ We’ll all win.”

“No, we didn’t!” she blurted out loudly.

It was really difficult restraining that laughter bubbling up inside me…

Polish Mass and Thoughts

Sunday 29 August 2021

It’s been many, many months since the Polish community gathered after Mass for any sort of social event. Today, there was an informal gathering afterward with a small potluck.

I’ve mixed feelings about such things. I’m vaccinated as are K and L. E is of course not vaccinated, but he didn’t spend any time to speak of in this room. And while I’d like to assume that everyone else was vaccinated, I’m just not certain.

Numbers are rising; the CDC now recommends a mask for everyone regardless of vaccination status; such gatherings seem increasingly risky.

Yet risky for whom? The unvaccinated. That means three groups:

  1. Children whose parents would willingly and quickly get them vaccinated if the vaccine received FDA approval for that age group
  2. People who would get a vaccine if they could but have associated health issues that makes it risky and
  3. Every unvaccinated person who has chosen not to get vaccinated for a variety of reasons, almost all of which (no, all of which, come to think of it) I regard as willfully ignorant, idiotic, selfish, and immature.

At this point, I’d really like to say of such people, “Screw ’em. Let them get sick. Let them die if that’s the course the disease takes. They had a chance to get preventative help and they elected not to. Choices have consequences; ‘freedom’ is truly never free.”

The real problem, though, is that these people who are unvaccinated and getting sick are taking health resources from the few vaccinated individuals who contract the disease and everyone else with any other conceivable health issue that now have to wait for medical attention thanks to the anti-vaxers.

I’d honestly have no problem with hospitals setting up tents in their parking lots and putting unvaccinated covid cases there. Everyone else should receive priority.

“But you can’t do that! It’s immoral!”

Since when is triage immoral?

Additionally, insurance carriers should start applying a hefty penalty for those who can be vaccinated but are not.

Harvard Chaplain

Saturday 28 August 2021

The original comment along with the article:

So if you want to have an idea of false prophets in the modern world…Check this out. I’m pretty sure this is probably a good example, not only for this person, but for all the clergy people who voted for this to happen. Also- Harvard was originally founded by Puritan ministers to train future ministers-how far it has fallen.

Assorted comments:

  • We are on a slippery slope speeding our way to hell! We are so messed up in this world and the more we tolerate and accept this irrational ideology the sooner we will never understand God is the ultimate answer! God HELP US!
  • Shameful, what kind of message are we sending to our youth. This is a very bad example for our children. You can’t possibly be a chaplain and an atheist, it is contradictory.
  • Storm heaven for his conversion. With God, all things are possible!!
  • The devil’s at play, but he hasn’t won yet. Battle with prayer, Christians!
  • He wrote a book titled ‘Good Without God’, sympathetic with Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris, etc and all the New Atheist dummies. I guess it helped him get a decent job in leftist Academia being responsible for the spiritual counseling of young people.
  • I wonder what judgement sic day will be like for him.

My comment

The “nones” are the fastest-growing demographic in the nation. Many are looking at the answers religions provide and finding them lacking. This is simply a reflection of that. As science answers more and more questions about origins, consciousness, and other things that used to be under the purview of religion, young people find religion increasingly irrelevant. Science makes new discoveries every day; religion is static and dogmatic. It’s a one-way street, this change.

No response.

Family Outing

Saturday 28 August 2021

Our first family outing in some time. We took the kids for some Afghan cuisine and ice cream — something new, something loved.

Old Friend

Friday 27 August 2021

M and I were the most unlikely of friends. In many ways, we were as opposite as anyone could imagine. He was raised by his grandparents in the country, and throughout his schooling, I’m sure he was considered “at-risk.” He smoked (cigarettes and more), drank, and was, by his own admission, a hellion. When, at a church youth function, the minister gathered all the boys together and asked who’d brought the flask, it was M. If anyone ever got in trouble for making a smartass remark in youth group, it was always M. He was rebellious and sometimes disrespectful, and academic concerns were of little importance in his thinking. He finished high school, but just barely.

Yet on a church youth trip to Disneyworld, he and I ended up spending an afternoon together. We’d been in separate groups during the morning, but the kids in my group had wanted to break up into small groups. “Mr. K said not to do that,” I protested. But they did it anyway, and the result was the Mr. K, the minister, followed through with his threat: they had to spend the rest of the day with him and his group of adults. I protested my innocence, and the kids in my group admitted that I’d tried to keep the group together, so I was pardoned. M and I ended up spending the rest of the day together. It was the first time we’d really spent any time together, and from that afternoon, we became close friends.

While we had little in common, what we did have in common was enough, I guess. We both loved hot food, for example, and we’d often get the spiciest salsa we could find with a bag of chips to see if we could handle it, washing it all down with Mountain Dew. We loved music, and we spent a lot of time with his grandparents playing bluegrass, Paw (as I came to call his grandfather just as he did) and I on guitar, M on banjo, and Maw singing. We both enjoyed shooting .22s at anything that would sit still long enough, and though we shot at a lot of squirrels and birds, we never hit them. Old cans and cola bottles filled with water were our favored targets. How many times can you hit that two-liter bottle before all the water drains out? The strategy is, of course, simple: start aiming at the top and work your way down. During the summer, if we needed money, we’d spend an afternoon helping this neighbor or that put up hay, and we’d earn enough for dinner, gas, and a couple of movies.

When he graduated high school the year before me, my parents asked him about his plans. “I’ll just get a job in construction, I guess.” They encouraged him to at least take a few courses at the local community college. “Then, you could start your own construction firm and you’d have the paperwork skills to run it,” my mom explained. “Nah,” he laughed, “school’s not for me.”

One July day that summer, Paw gave us a job: “There’s some raccoons that are just giving our garden hell,” he said. “I’d appreciate it if you boys’d take care of it.” We sat at the edge of a small clump of trees that summer evening, a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew sitting between us, .22s by our sides waiting. Soon enough, three raccoons trundled into the garden. We waited until the were situated so that we could shoot away from any houses then let loose.

Maw and Paw’s farm was in a valley that seemed to echo with the sounds of neighbors’ activities, and as we fired away, we heard their nearest neighbors, who were sitting on their front porch, cheer us on: “Somebody’s gettin’ some coons!” they whooped.

Afterward, we put them in a trash bag and Maw took a commemorative picture.

Eight years after his picture, I came home for the summer after spending two years in Poland and having already committed to a third year. I went to track down M, heading to his grandparents’ farm. I didn’t know if M was still living with them or if he’d moved out. In point of fact, he’d been moved out.

“He’s locked up in the Washington County jail,” his grandmother explained. “Breaking and entering.”

I went to visit him that same afternoon. After the deputy filled out all the paperwork, I waited in the visiting room. It wasn’t a room with a row of chairs and little telephones like you see in the movies. This was no prison, just a county facility: there was a chair on the other side of the bars and the rest of the office with a single chair next to the bars on the visitors’ side. Glancing around, I saw a sign that visitors were not allowed to bring anything to inmates. I looked down at the two packs of cigarettes I’d bought him, wondering what I’d do with them, when I heard the deputy call his name: “You’ve got a visitor.” M’s face was a mixture of pleased shock and utter embarrassment. We talked for a while — I’m not sure because we never really talked about anything important. I had friends that I could sit around and talk about the existence of gods, the current political situation, the ironies of life, but with M, it was seldom more than friendly banter.

As the visit ended, I turned to the deputy. “Here’s some cigarettes. I guess you can give them to any officers who smoke since I can’t give them to my friend.” The deputy smiled: “Go ahead. It’s no big deal.”

When I returned a year later, he was incarcerated again, this time in prison; I was in Boston, starting what I thought would be a long slog to a Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion. We corresponded for about nine months, and then it just stopped just about the time I dropped out of grad school with the realization that while the philosophy of religion is an utterly fascinating topic, it has little practical value. I can’t remember who sent the last letter.

Shortly after K and I moved to America in 2005, I got word that M’s younger brother, who was in his mid-thirties like I was, had died from an aneurysm in his brain. Paw had died just a few years before that, and I hadn’t gone to the funeral because I was still living in Poland, but I was determined to go to C’s funeral.

The day before the funeral, though, a horrible storm swept through Ashville, covering the mountain I’d have to drive over with icy snow. K asked me not to take the chance; Nana begged me not to take the chance. I didn’t go.

A few years after that, Maw passed away. She’d moved in with her older daughter, and we’d moved to Greenville. For whatever reason, I didn’t go.

Some years ago, Nana got a contact number for M from his aunt, who was more like a sister — or was it the opposite, an sister so much older that she was more like an aunt? I can’t remember. I sent a text to that number, but I never got a response.

I find myself sometimes thinking about people from the past, wondering where they ended up. Social media has answered that question for so many of the people I grew up with. Others disappear. But it occurred to me that I might simply Google him.

I did, and I wish I didn’t: I find an article from the local paper where we grew up — “Bristol, Va. man arrested after agents find meth lab.” The link is to a Facebook post, so I click through, but the link to the article itself is broken. I go directly to the site and search. I find two hits.

“Please let this be a different man.”

It’s not.

A Bristol, Virginia man is charged after a tip given to police leads to the discovery of a methamphetamine lab.

Washington County, Virginia Sheriff Fred Newman said a search warrant was secured to examine a home located in the 22000 block of Benhams Road on Monday.

Deputies then arrested Michael Lee Braswell, 44, who is charged with possession with intent to manufacture 28 grams or more of methamphetamine, possess precursors to manufacture methamphetamine, allow a minor under the age of 15 to be present while manufacturing methamphetamine, and possession of meth.

Newman said Braswell is being held without bond in the Southwest Virginia Regional Jail in Abingdon. (Source 1 || Source 2)

The article is from Tuesday, September 20, 2016. I guess had I been in the area then, I could have visited him in the same jail in which I’d visited him almost twenty years earlier.

I head back to the Facebook source and read the comments:

A dear friend from my youth is being called a dopehead (I guess that’s true) and scum.

I guess I could have seen it coming when we were kids. I did see it coming. I was with him on two occasions when he bought pot. He didn’t admit. He didn’t show it to me. He certainly didn’t offer it to me, but there was no doubt. When you pull into a convenience store parking lot, and your friend gets out, goes over to another car, and sits in that car for a few minutes, coming back stuffing something in his pocket, it’s obvious. When you and your friend pull into a driveway, and a scruffy young man walks out to the car, makes small talk, then asks, “How much of that stuff did you want,” it’s obvious.

I clean up his photo in Lightroom to make him look a little less — what?

It doesn’t work. He still looks too much like a — what? A thug? An exhausted and frustrated man? I try again, trying to soften the hardness of his skin.

A little better, but there’s nothing I can do with those eyes, those forlorn eyes that seem completely lacking in surprise, completely resigned to his reality, completely fatalistic.

Every year, there’s a kid or two on the hall that I find myself wondering about, thinking that he or she might end up like this. There’s the same resignation about them, the same air of fatalism. Every year I try to help them, to show them that they do have some control over their fate, to show them that more is in their hands than they probably realize (though the cards are often stacked against them). To try to prevent them from being a photo someone looks at thirty years later, wonders whatever happens to them, then loads a search engine and beings looking…

Closure

Wednesday 25 August 2021

When we put Nana’s ashes in the memorial bench, I had one thought lingering in the back of my mind the entire time: soon enough, we’ll be doing this for Papa as well.

So today brought a certain closure to it all. My parents are in their final resting place. Their urns are touching, together again.

During the short service, led by Nana’s and Papa’s pastor, there was talk of the hope we have in Jesus, the hope of eternal life together with God. I sat staring at Papa’s urn, hoping the topic wouldn’t come up in the after-service chat. I always feel awkward in those moments because I play along, agree with whoever is talking, and even say things that I don’t even mean or believe. Our neighbor, for example, was talking to me the other day about Papa’s passing.

“Well, he’s with Omi now, and they’re probably still hugging,” she said.

“No,” I laughed, “she probably isn’t done fussing at him yet.”

I don’t believe that, but I felt it was something that would give our neighbor a smile, and having lost her husband only this spring, I thought laughs are probably all too uncommon in her life these days.

In the evening, some family Uno, three-hand cribbage, and of course, our family favorite, badminton.

A Class

Tuesday 24 August 2021

This is my fifth-period class. They can be a challenge. They can be a true joy. The way to make sure they stay the latter and don’t drift into being the former is fairly simple. Positivity.

Whoever said the way to handle such a class is “not to smile before Christmas” didn’t want growing thinkers but obedient robots.

End of the Honeymoon

Monday 23 August 2021

Dear Terrence,

It’s been a while since I’ve written to you — well over a year, I’d say. Last year I taught only honors classes, and you don’t often end up in those classes. This year, though, with two on-level classes in addition to two honors classes, I thought there was a greater chance of meeting you.

I had my eye on you from the first day. I thought, “That kid might be my Terrence this year.” You were a bit loud, a bit talkative, a bit theatrical, but once we started working, you generally calmed down and did the work.

Today, though, you showed me that you are indeed one of my Terrences this year.

The funny thing is, I warned you all about this at the beginning of the year. I pointed out that people who work hard and are respectful of everyone around them generally get cut a little slack when they do show some attitude — we all do it from time to time, let’s face it. But the people who consistently do the little things that chip away at one’s reputation — well, we come to expect that of them. And so within a few days, you’ve shown that that talkativeness, that machismo, that bravado was a harbinger of things to come.

And just as I told you at the beginning of the year, it wasn’t what you were doing so much as how you reacted when I called you out on it.

“Terrence, stop talking please.”

“Oh, oh, okay. So you’re going to ignore them talking and call me out?! Okay — I see how it is,” you snapped back.

No, Terrence, I’m not ignoring them. I just have one mouth and usually address one student at a time. You’ve shown yourself to be the biggest disrupter in the class, so of course, I zeroed in on you. Was that fair? How was it unfair? If you don’t speed, you don’t get pulled over for speeding. It doesn’t matter if everyone else is speeding. If you’re not speeding, you won’t get pulled over for speeding.

If you don’t disrupt class, you never get called out for being disruptive. It doesn’t matter if other people are being disruptive. If you’re not disruptive, you won’t get called out for being disruptive.

It’s not rocket science, buddy. It’s not translating Sanskrit. If you don’t want to get in trouble for doing X, don’t do X. Simple.

Your teacher for 175 more days,
Mr. S

Eulogy

Sunday 22 August 2021

Today was Papa’s memorial service. Unlike with Nana, I decided to eulogize my father. I’d planned everything out, but I’d planned it as I’d planned my lessons: only an outline, a general guide for what I wanted to say. I still didn’t know how to begin, though. I decided it was best to write it out.

There are three general ways a man can play his part as the male parent. The eulogy a son would write for these three different male parents varies in difficulty.

At one extreme is the absent or abusive male parent. He doesn’t deserve a name because he hasn’t fulfilled his obligations: he’s simply the male parent. The only real difficulty in writing a eulogy for such a man is whether or not to give into the temptations a son might have to use the eulogy to excoriate his male parent or simply to say nothing at all.

At a bare minimum, a man might fulfill his most basic obligations by providing for his children materially but for one reason or another neglecting them emotionally. Unlike the first example, we might call these men fathers, but there’s little thought that’s going into a eulogy for such men. A few empty platitudes and cliches and it’s done.

And then there are the dads, the men who give themselves to their children unconditionally and unreservedly. Eulogies for these men are the hardest — not because, as with the second example, it’s challenging to find much to say about them beyond platitudes. Eulogies for such men are difficult because there’s never enough time to say all the things that need to be said. One must cut. One must eliminate. One must disregard. A eulogy for such a man has to narrow down an exemplary life to a short speech that will never do that man justice.

I am very blessed and cursed to have this problem. How can I begin eulogizing my father when I know I’ll never want to quit? How can I narrow to a series of bullet points and anecdotes the life of such a disarmingly friendly, unflinchingly generous and selfless, incredibly patient, and unconditionally devoted man? In short, I can’t, but I know I don’t have to. Everyone in this room saw my dad in this light.

The reason there are this many here and many more present in spirit is the fact that the first thing everyone noticed about my father was how incredibly friendly he was.

The rest was an outline — the general shape I wanted things to take with an idea of how to transition from one idea to another.

Friendly
Never met a stranger
loved talking–last one to finish eating / first to start talking
all the stories he told
navy
debt collector
getting hit by truck
we could all probably finish his stories

once he became your friend…

Generousness/selfless
Put his own interests second consistently
shrimp
giving of time for others in church

Leads to a lack of ego / Ability to laugh at self
The Coke can with Maw-maw: amusingly impulsive
Making fun of his singing

someone this selfless inevitably has patience because he’s always put himself second

Patient
A man of infinite patience
Mom never said, “Wait until your father gets home”
never got really angry but once (lard cookies)

leads to Always seeing the good in others
reeling in Mom

Unconditionally devoted/loyal
To mom most of all
stopped attending because he would not leave her alone
example of a strong marriage and that devotion showed to everyone

Afterward, as with Nana’s service two years ago, we had a small meal and everyone sat and chatted. We told each other the stories Dad told so often and so enthusiastically. We recited all his funny sayings, especially all the silly ways he’d answer a question affirmatively. Is a pig’s rump pork? Does a bear live in the woods? Is the pope Catholic? We laughed a lot. We cried a little.

I think Papa would have approved.

Taking the flowers home

Ramzes

Saturday 21 August 2021

A friend from Poland died in a tragic motorcycle accident. According to the traffic cam footage, it was completely the other driver’s fault.

He was one of the smiliest people at our wedding.

Never Thought It Could Happen to Me

Friday 20 August 2021

I was reading old MTS entries in the “Time Machine” widget at the bottom of the page, and this was the first entry.

An Agenda

I hadn’t thought of Mike, who went by the hip-hop-inspired moniker M-Jezzy, in years. I thought about him a lot a few years ago, when his case was in the news, though.

M-Jezzy

The story is a compounded tragedy. I knew M-Jezzy’s background from working with him at a program for at-risk kids. To say he’d had the cards stacked against him was an understatement. Both his mother and his older brother were setting a splendid example for him. His mother was a pusher; his brother followed her lead; they were both trying to get M-Jezzy to join the family business.

Take someone from that environment and put him with a child. It’s not difficult to see how things could turn tragic.

An Asheville man will spend at least 18 years in prison after admitting Monday that he caused the death of his girlfriend’s son, according to District Attorney Todd Williams.

Michael Antonio Dixon, Jr., 24, pleaded guilty Monday in Buncombe County Superior Court to second-degree murder and intentional child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury in the death of 4-year-old Cedric Francois.

Cedric’s mother Taquita Francois said Dixon was taking care of the boy Oct. 19, 2011 while she was at work when he called in a panic because Cedric was unresponsive.

Cedric was taken to Mission St. Joseph’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead. (Source)

The story, I thought, was that M-Jezzy had just lost control — I’d seen it happen — and literally beaten the poor child to death. I imagined blow after blow coming down on the little four-year-old’s body, and I was filled with fury. “Someone should do some basic math: determine the pounds per square inch he hits with, compare that to the weight of the boy, then beat M-Jezzy with the force proportional to his own body weight,” I ranted to K.

But in reading about the tragedy anew, I found a new detail.

Judge Alan Thornburg sentenced Michael Antonio Dixon Jr., 24, to a minimum of 225 months and a maximum of 279 months in state prison for the death of Cedric Francois on Oct. 19, 2011.

Dixon, who originally was charged with first-degree murder, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and intentional child abuse inflicting serious bodily injury in the plea hearing in Buncombe County Superior Court.

Prosecutor Rodney Hasty said the district attorney’s office agreed to the plea because investigators didn’t believe Dixon intended to kill the boy when he struck him in the face after the child accidentally soiled himself.

Dixon, who was babysitting the boy while his mother was at work, put the child in a bathtub before striking him, Hasty said. Investigators believe the boy, when struck, fell backward and hit the back of his head on the tub, Hasty said.

The boy died from blunt force trauma to the head that caused bleeding around the brain, according to an autopsy report by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill. The boy’s mother, Taquita Francois, told police she left him in Dixon’s care at her Pisgah View Apartments home when she went to work.

“It does not appear to us at the time the defendant hit the child he intended to kill the child,” Hasty told the judge.

Dixon’s attorney, Al Messer, call the child’s death a “tragic situation.”

“Mr. Dixon is accepting responsibility and is pleading guilty,” Messer said. (Source)

It was in the bath as M-Jeezy tried to clean an accidental soiling. Perhaps the child wouldn’t sit down. Frustrated with having to deal with the child’s feces and irritated that the child wasn’t following instructions, M-Jezzy did what his mother might have done to him: slap him across the face. “Do it now!” Back the child flew, his head making a sickening thud against the tub that M-Jezzy must have known confirmed the path of the rest of his life.

But such things don’t usually happen in one-off situations. It was unlikely that this was the first time M-Jezzy or someone else struck the boy.

According to the autopsy, the boy had older injuries that were unrelated to the head trauma, including rib fractures on both sides of the chest and a human bite mark on the left forearm.

Asheville police began investigating the child’s death after being notified by Mission Hospital staff about “questionable injuries” discovered on his body. According to court documents, a detective at the hospital observed numerous injuries, including hemorrhages in both eyes, bruises on his face, buttocks and around his ankles, abrasions on his chest, forehead and under his left eye, a laceration on his right ear, a laceration on his lower lip and a bite mark on his arm. (Source)

The child of an impoverished single mother, the trajectory of Cedric’s life and death had begun long before, possibly when he was born, possibly before his own mother was born: a straight line that psychologists and social workers could have plotted as the nurses cleaned and weighed the newborn. Abuse begets abuse; parents who don’t know how to raise children raise parents who don’t know how to raise children; neglect begets neglect.

Did M-Jezzy see the parallel structure of his life and the life he took? Did he have the insight to realize that his life could have ended just as quickly as young Cedric Francois? Did he feel his own mother’s hand on the back of his head when he slapped Cedric?

Later, Cedric’s mother offered a plea to parents:

“I just want people to know that you need to cherish every moment with your kids because I felt like something like this could never happen to me,” she said. “Whether they get on your nerves, stress you out, just appreciate your kids fullest.” (Source)

That’s the rub of it all: there are very few people out there who wouldn’t feel this way, very few parents who are just willfully abusive to their children.

And that’s the other rub: isn’t that just an assumption? A projection based on the environment I’ve spent my whole life in? The news is filled with stories of children being tortured, being abused in the most wretched ways, and the assumption is that they are a minority, but what we see in the news is only a fraction of what actually happens, of parents actually caught and, if the children are lucky, stopped before it’s too late, before the last slap that ends in the crush of skull against tub, before the privation of food and water leads to death — the thousand and one ways parents neglect and abuse their kids to the very end of their short lives.

“I felt like something like this could never happen to me,” she said.

Tommy

Thursday 19 August 2021

We bought the tickets back in May, when Papa was still here, still relatively stable. Things were relatively normal. But when a death comes, you start to second guess things.

Still, K and I have been so impressed with how the Boy has taken to guitar, how much he practices it, how interested he is in discovering new guitarists, that we decided that instead of it being a date night it would be a father-son-Mexican-feast-Tommy-Emmanuel evening.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of the Boy’s expression at times. “How is he doing that?!?” was a common comment.

Just listen to his show-closing (non-encore) version of “Guitar Boogie” to see what the Boy meant:

Yoga Fears

Tuesday 17 August 2021

I’m still following a couple of Bible in a Year podcast groups on social media, and the other day I saw this post:

Hi. I was wondering If someone can tell me if practicing yoga goes against the Catholic religion? If you are doing it for stretching and relaxation purposes ? Thanks. I met a woman in a store that heard me mention yoga and went off on how that’s like devil worshipping.

I remember encountering such concerns when I was a kid. Everything seemed a potential link to the Dark One: popular music, popular films, popular anything. The devil, it seemed, was always lurking just around the corner, always waiting for us to slip up so he could slip in. Yoga was among these worries.

Not everyone was having it, though:

You would think the church would worry about important things…and I don’t think yoga and keeping your body healthy and breathing are much of a problem.

Every now and then, I see a kindred spirit on these message boards, someone who thinks, “Hold on — that doesn’t make sense,” and then goes ahead an says it.

How many people are actually like that, though? I’m fairly sure that thought comes into plenty of people’s minds and they simply disregard it or even banish it as being a trick of the devil.

Some people in the message stream, though, seemed to be of two minds, or to have changed their mind:

Yoga has become so mainstream and it seems so innocent. I did it for years. Then I learned how it was occult and stopped.

“It seems so innocent.” That is how the devil lures you in: he seems so innocent and then, boom! He’s got you!

I find myself wondering whether these folks see the contradiction in their thinking. On one hand, they’re always saying that “the Lord’s got this” and “I have no fear because I trust in God.” Yet moments latter, they’re hyperventilating about how the devil can sneak in unawares and possess your soul.

At this point, an authority figure — a church deacon — stepped in and shared his thoughts:

As a deacon in the church and someone who has been specifically trained and has done deliverance ministry within the confines of the church, while i can’t go into detail, practicing yoga like Ouija boards, like believing in horoscopes telling the future, like tarot cards, like hypnotism, like spiritualism, like seances etc. is like opening a crack into the evil one’s domain.

Specifically to yoga, the poses emulate the postures of Hindu gods, the mantras can be prayers to the pagan gods, etc.. While. the rationale of intent is used as a reason, I. E. That it depends upon the intent, when the guard is down, inadvertent openings occur. While you likely won’t find a definitive statement from Rome, I believe it safe to say that avoiding a potential issue is practicing safe spirituality. It is best practice to avoid the near occasion of evil. there are alternatives. Often seen as new age which should be avoided.

The things he lists as potential entry points for a demonic spirit just waiting for a chance, for a moment when everyone’s guard is down, deserve some scrutiny.

Ouija boards appeared in the late 19th century, but it wasn’t until World War I that spiritualists began claiming that they could use the boards to contact the dead. Scientific inquiry has determined that participants are moving the planchet through ideomotor responses, which are all involuntary. In other words, it’s not spirits doing the moving; it’s the participants themselves.

Next the deacon listed “believing in horoscopes.” Other than just making you look gullible, I’m not sure how believing in the vaguely written horoscopes so-calls psychics create can in any way open you up to demonic possession.

Derren Brown, the English mentalist, has shown how these horoscopes are vague nonsense by giving readings to different people and providing them with the exact same horoscopic predictions. They were all of different astrological signs and had all had in-depth conversations with Brown, but they all felt that the reading and prediction that followed was eerily accurate even though it was the same one for each and every one of them.

The skeptic James Randi once wrote horoscopes for a newspaper by taking old horoscopic predictions from other newspapers and simply scrambling them.

The same thoughts apply to tarot cards as to horoscopes, so I won’t rehash that.

Hypnotism, more than anything else, shows the weakness of the brain to manipulation than it shows any sort of spiritual danger. In an odd way, then, it counts against another element of these conservative Christians’ belief, that of creationism. A brain that can so easily be manipulated does not seem to be the creation of an omnipotent being, but Christians have an easy out for this: the Fall corrupted everything. Press that issue with questions (How exactly? What is the mechanism that this mythical disobedience led to physical changes in humans and the planet itself?) and many will simply resort to, “I don’t know how, I just have faith in God’s word, and that’s what God’s word says.” Point out that actually the Bible says nothing about the so-called Fall leading to a deterioration, a spoiling of the physical world and that that, therefore, is mere interpretation and you’ll likely see that this person doesn’t even understand the objection and will simply reiterate earlier points. It’s easy to see why: opening up to such doubts is more dangerous than opening up to potential demonic possession, because doubts lead to visible consequences (people leaving churches) where as demonic possession — not so much.

The deacon next mentioned “spiritualists,” which I assum he means those who claim they can talk to the dead. People like James Randi and Derren Brown have so completely and thoroughly debunked this whole practice, this whole industry, that it’s shocking anyone still thinks these spiritualists are talking to the dead. In fact, they are doing nothing more than cold reading.

Seances were nothing more than parlor tricks of the late nineteenth century, and those conducting seances were hucksters and con artists. The bumps, thumps, and noises were manipulations, and the levitation was nothing more than common performance tricks.

So science, logic, and common sense have shown every concern the deacon raised to be, in fact, nonexistent, or worse, a hoax.

Next, the deacon explained that “While. the rationale of intent is used as a reason, I. E. That it depends upon the intent, when the guard is down, inadvertent openings occur.” I have so many questions about this.

First of all, what is this guard he’s talking about? It would have to be some kind of spiritual guard since we’re talking about spiritual issues. (Never mind the fact that a consciousness without a physical brain is, as far as science has determined thus far, impossible, thus rendering the whole existence of any spiritual being, good or bad, impossible.) If we don’t even know what it is, how can we be sure it is up or down?

Second, what are these openings he’s talking about? If it’s all spiritual to begin with, there are no “openings” or “closings” because those are descriptions of physical things, places physical objects can slip through other physical objects. A spirit doesn’t need an opening. Even in the New Testament, the resurrected Jesus walks through walls and such. What is this opening?

Third, how can these things be on purpose or inadvertent if we don’t even know what they are or how to control them?

This leads to the most troubling question: what kind of god, who loves his followers and wants them to be safe, would allow such inadvertent openings to exist? Is it out of his control? It also calls into question the supposed benevolence of such a being. It seems like he’s saying, “Oops — you let your guard down. I know you didn’t realize you’d done it, but that’s how these things go. I’m just going to let this demon slip on in and control you.”

Of course, the whole idea of demonic possession in the twenty first century is laughable. It’s oddly telling that only Christian believers get possessed and not atheists.

I’m sure most Christians would simply reply, “Well of course they get possessed: they just don’t realize it or even believe in it, so they’re not going to do anything about it.” Indeed, evangelical podcasters and broadcasters regularly declare that this person or that person is, in fact, demon possessed.

Finally, someone just asked point blank:

I may be dumb, but why in the world would that go against our religion.

I guess this individual hadn’t read the deacon’s detailed response, but another member gladly and succinctly explained it:

because of the yoga positions are honoring Hindu Gods

You can only prod a skeptic so long before he responds: I had to join the conversation.

Just what do you think, [name redacted], being in those positions does? Doesn’t intent matter? If one is not doing it in order to honor the Hindu gods, is one actually honoring those gods? It seems odd to think that getting into position X with the motivation of strengthening certain muscles would cause harm just because someone else gets into position X with the motivation of honoring some non-existent god.

Another participant tried to explain it this way:

sometimes our subconscious leads us into places WE don’t need to go so I’m just suggesting you watch the women of Grace video and I have a different opinion but mine is lead by our GOD so I’m trusting HIM. I respect each person opinion as well

I replied,

So getting into these positions will somehow trick our subconscious, which will then subvert our conscious intent and make us unconsciously worship these gods? I’m not trying to sound snarky — I just don’t understand.

The other participant simply pointed out that it was not her job to convince me and that I need to turn this over prayerfully to God for guidance. Reason had broken down. Logic had disappeared. Faith had entered.

My ability to hold back ever diminishing, I got a little ridiculous:

What if I am playing with my son, wrestling around, being silly, and one of us accidentally strikes one of these poses? If intent doesn’t matter, then I could’ve accidentally opened some demonic gateway just by playing with my son. Does that make sense? It doesn’t to me.

It seems like a childish objection, but in fact, it’s a serious concern if these Christians are right about yoga. If intent doesn’t matter, then getting into one of these compromising positions accidentally should be a major concern.

The opposite, though, is another concern: what about non-Christians making the sign of the cross? Does this have some kind of inadvertent effect? Is God just waiting for us to slip up and slide a little grace in just like the devil is waiting for us to slip up and take our souls?

I suspect the deacon, were I to ask him these questions, would not have a ready answer, or he would not have an answer that, in turn, raises more logical issues. Believers see this as getting carried away. “You can always find a loophole, some kind of ‘what if’ question,” they might respond. They might call it a juvenile objection as our parish priest once did on his blog when discussing the problem of pain. They’ll likely tell you that they’re praying for you. But they will all eventually reach this point, where there’s no rational response to the objection.

In the past, I avoided all this by simply not asking the questions to begin with. I was, quite honestly, scared to ask those questions because I knew there were no answers, and I knew the doubts such questions would bring could swamp what little bit of faith I had. I ignored it, and I suspect I’m not the only one who does that. No, I don’t merely suspect; I know. Statistically speaking, it must be the case for some percentage of believers.

A Life

Monday 16 August 2021

I’ve been working on editing my obituary for Papa. I know there’s not a right way or a wrong way to compose them. Sure, there are traditions and conventions, but in reality, I’m free to write it however I want.

Still, even given that freedom, there’s no way to capture a man’s life in a few paragraphs. There’s no way to tell where he came from, what made him who he was, how he impacted those around him in a text short enough to fit on a memorial brochure.

“I’m glad this is the last obit I have to write,” I think, and then I think again. We never know, do we?

Ideally, we would all write our own obituaries ahead of time, but of course, that’s not ideal at all: we never see ourselves as others see us, for better or worse.

It reminds me of a piece of advice I read somewhere — can’t remember where or who wrote it. It had to do with becoming the “you” you really want to be. It was simple and to the point: “Write your dream obituary, then work backward.”

Papa was far too humble to admit it, but I think he did just that.

Seventeen and Twenty

Sunday 15 August 2021

The images don’t look all that old. The faces don’t look so very different than ours now. The memories of that day are just as vivid as the experience itself. Yet somehow, here we are, our seventeenth anniversary just behind us, closing in on the twentieth anniversary, with two kids, a dog, a cat, a frog, a full schedule, and an entire pile of commitments in tow.

Yet even today, “twenty years ago” has a certain significance: twenty years ago, I was about to head back to Poland after two years in Boston. Having dropped out of graduate school (philosophy of religion is fascinating but of little practical value) and spent a year working at an internet startup, I realized I missed my life in Poland enough to give everything up and return, and so I did just that: packed a few clothes, a lot of music and books, and returned to the life I’d left in Lipnica Wielka.

One artist I took with me was a relatively new find: when I left for Poland the first time in 1996, I’d only just become completely enamored with the music of Nanci Griffith. She’d released her best album, Other Rooms, Other Voices, a few years earlier which I’d bought about a year before I left for Poland, and that album and her 1994 Flyer were among my favorite albums. At heart, Griffith was a folk singer, but she always had a parade of influences and guest artists in her work that it always seems more than simple folk. She sang about missed chances, the fleeting nature of now, the nostalgia of lost love and lost childhood — all the things I think about and write about. She’d begin a blog entry with things like “twenty years ago.” She wrote a song about it, in fact:

On Grafton Street at Christmas time
The elbows push you ’round
This is not my place of memories
I’m a stranger in this town
The faces seem familiar
And I know those songs they’re playin’
But I close my eyes and find myself
Five thousand miles away

It’s funny how my world goes round without you
You’re the one thing I never thought
I could live without
And I just found this smile to think about you
You’re a Saturday night
Far from the madding crowd

The buskers sing by candle light
In front of Bewleys Store
A young nun offers me a chair
At a table by the door
And I feel compelled to tell her
Of the sisters that we knew
How when they lit their candles
I’d say a prayer for you

It’s funny how my world goes round without you
You’re the one thing I never thought
I could live without
And I just found this smile to think about you
You’re a Saturday night
Far from the madding crowd

The church bells ring for holy hour
And I’m back out in the rain
It’s been twenty years or more
Since I last said your name
I hear you live near Dallas now
In a house out on the plains
Why Grafton Street brought you to mind
I really can’t explain

It’s funny how my world goes round without you
You’re the one thing I never thought
I could live without
And I just found this smile to think about you
You’re a Saturday night
Far from the madding crowd

On Grafton Street at Christmas time
The elbows push you round
All I carry now are memories
I’m a stranger in this town

She died last week at the young age of 68, and I have been revisiting her catalog, wondering why have been ignoring her music for the last decade. In part, it’s K’s fault: when she was exploring my our CDs, she discovered and fell in love with Griffith, and she wanted to play her music a lot. A lot. I got a little tired of it, I guess, and that’s why I didn’t listen to it for years.

So thinking about our wedding seventeen years ago (yesterday) on a walk tonight, I listened Griffith’s music and found myself drifting further back, further back, further and further, thinking about events of twenty-five, thirty years ago, knowing full well that soon enough, I’ll be writing about our thirtieth anniversary wondering where all the time went. It’s a favorite theme of Griffth’s and mine. Maybe our only theme.

Polska 2021 Return

Saturday 14 August 2021

I woke up to a text from K that they’d made it through security without any issues.

I checked the flight tracking app I’d installed a month ago just for this trip.

They were well on their way.

And then, a rush to get them…

On the way, a wreck — forty minutes of sitting, crawling forward, sitting. Will I make it? Just how long will I be sitting here? What if I’m here an hour? Two?

Then the airport — lines for everything. The line for the taxis must have been 50 meters long — no exaggeration. It stretched half of the airport at least. And the line for luggage issues — at least half as long as the taxi line. People upon people everywhere. (Much to my relief, almost everyone in masks. I don’t know if it was required. I saw about 5% without.) Finally, I found them, we got the luggage, we made it home.

Four in the house again. Seven with the pets (dog, cat, frog). All is back to normal. More or less.