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soccer

Soccer Spring 2018 Game 4

Saturday 24 March 2018

Last week was tough for the Boy: a loss after winning the first two games is tough, but a 4-0 loss stings just a little more. It feels like you didn’t just lose but got crushed. The Boy took it in stride, but he was obviously thinking about it all week for as we got his shin guards and shoes on this morning, he confided that it angered him and that he was determined to do better this week.

We arrived for the half-hour practice that precedes every game, and everything was going as it always does: the Boy did everything the coach said, and I chatted with another parent. I still hadn’t gotten the camera out when the game started and the opposing team began. A quick kick into our half of the field, and in a flash, the Boy had possession of the ball, charged through the defense, found himself completely unopposed, and streaked down the field to score.

In the third quarter — at this age, they divide the halves in two — he struck again.

This time I was ready.

Game 3

Saturday 17 March 2018

First Spring Saturday

Saturday 24 February 2018

Not really. It’s another month until spring according to the calendar, but this is South Carolina: it’s been in the sixties and seventies all week, and the yard shows it: weeds everywhere.

K and her mother spoke over Skype while E ate breakfast. He was in the room the whole time because of complications with his electronics time — he didn’t have any today. We’re trying a new motivation for sleeping through the night.

Afterward, it was soccer practice — first practice for the spring. We requested the same coach as we had in the autumn, Coach Kevin, and when we arrived for practice, we saw that we weren’t the only ones to request him. So the Boy jumped right in without the shyness that sometimes plagues him in new situations.

Throughout the day, he practiced tying his new shoes. He’s become brand-conscious: he simply had to have Under Armor brand shoes. The price he had to pay? No velcro. He made some progress in the whole process through the week, but it’s still a matter of, “Daddy, I’m in a hurry! Can you tie my shoe?”

Camping with the Scouts

Sunday 15 October 2017

Camping is almost synonymous with Boy Scouts. To think of one without the other seems almost impossible. Whenever we’ve gone camping, it seems we almost always see some scouting group or another pitching their tents. We encouraged the Boy to join Cub Scouts by, in part, telling him about camping trips.

This weekend we had our first trip, and as I might have expected, he was terribly excited about it until Friday. “I don’t want to go camping,” became the day’s refrain. In the evening, though, I sold it to him by suggesting we might just need to have a men’s weekend. That did it, and so we did.

We packed our gear, kissed the girls goodbye, and headed to our first scout camping trip.

At first, the Boy was hesitant, careful. Shy. He ventured onto a playground after lunch (we arrived just after lunch because of the soccer game — one goal this weekend) and played around a bit, but he seemed to be playing apart from the other boys despite being in their very midst. He kept coming back to check on where I was, to make sure I was still around, and then to ask me if we could go.

“No, we’ve committed ourselves. We’ll be staying till tomorrow.”

“Okay.” No fussing, just resignation.

By dinner time, he’d made friends and disappeared in the storm of boys that raged around the camp. When the evening came and the pack leader began the scout meeting, he was only vaguely aware or worried about where I was.

By the time the sun had set and the pack leader had transitioned into the flag retirement ceremony, he wasn’t even paying attention to where I was.

But he was paying attention to what was going on. Sort of.

The leader discussed the proper way to handle a flag, the proper way to show respect, and then explained how to retire a flag. It involves fire, which is ironic considering all the controversy over the years regarding burning flags. Yet the pack leader explained that the flag is first cut into four pieces, three pieces with stripes and the star field left whole to signify the unity of the country, and at that point, it is no longer a flag.

“We burn the cloth,” he concluded, “then respectfully gather and bury the ashes.”

During evening prayers, he suggested we pray for the flag.

“What do you mean?”

“So that they never burn it like that again.”

Apparently, he’d misunderstood what was going on, and I suppose he’d simply sat and watched, somewhat horrified, as his pack leader instructed scouts to burn flags. I explained what had happened, and he seemed okay with it, but still a little disturbed.

In the morning, he was ready for more running, yelling, and falling with the boys. It was as if he’d forgotten all about it. I suppose he has, but we’ll see next year when we go again.

What I Learned

Saturday 9 September 2017

Today, at E’s first soccer game of the season, a certain little boy managed to break from the pack of children that attempt to herd the ball in one direction or another, and he dribbled the ball down half the field and blasted a devastating shot at the opposing team’s unprepared goalie. A few moments late, in a move reminiscent of German’s complete destruction of Brazil in the 2014 World Cup semi-finals, broke away again and scored a second time in as many minutes. That little boy was a hero all around. That little boy was not the Boy. He spent most of his time lingering around at the edges of the hive of children always swirling around the ball, never charging in and begin aggressive as he does here. He almost shot a goal, but truth be told, it was because he just happened to be where a deflected ball just happened to land. Yet he was so very proud of that.

“I’m going to tell Mommy I almost got a goal,” he told me several times on the way home, as if to make sure I understood that he was going to tell her. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I’ve mentioned before that the Boy is not overly aggressive, and I even mentioned it in the context of soccer.

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I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with him shooting an own-goal (as he did last year) or only barely missing a goal because an ironic combination of luck and misfortune. I don’t have a problem with him wandering around the edges of anything, looking in, unsure and unwilling to commit himself until he is. I don’t have a problem with him giving up on any and all sports.

That is what I learned about myself and my son today.

What I learned about my daughter will have to wait until I have to fix what I learned about myself at the same time.

Sunday

Sunday 27 August 2017

It’s been a week of firsts and almost-firsts for the Boy. Yesterday, it was soccer. He did not want to play, pure and simple. He was fine with the races, the drills, the silly games. But when it was time to scrimmage, he panicked. Eventually, he got up his courage and went into the game, but there was a long period of waiting, watching, and fussing — just a bit.

Today, it was Cub Scouts. “We’ll start by making some slime while we wait for everyone to get here and settle in,” the den leader said. No go. He absolutely did not want to do anything but bury his face in my belly. He finally joined in, but as with soccer, there was a moment of hesitation.

Back home, we were in the familiar territory — swinging, bouncing on the trampoline, playing with the dog.

A spendid Sunday, like so many others.

Polish Mass Sunday

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Sunday

Sunday Lazy Sunday

W-wa Day One

Saturday 17 June 2017

Where do you start when you get back from a day of wandering about Warsaw and you have almost 400 pictures that you manage only to whittle down to 78? At the beginning.

We’re all tired from our intense pace these first few days, and it showed when we all collapsed into bed: it was eleven by the time we headed out the next morning. I’d already been out quickly for baked goods for breakfast. A friend who’d visited last night told us she’d passed a promising looking bakery on her way here, so I retraced her steps looking for it. I knew she’d taken the metro to get here, and the nearest station is Rondo ONZ, so I walked along Świętokrzyska Street toward the metro stop, but I saw nothing but old-style shops, all closed for renovation. I kind of wished at least one of them was still open. Still, even with everything closed, it looks like the Warsaw I knew in the late 1990’s.

I couldn’t find the bakery A had mentioned, but I knew that if I just wandered around a bit in a systematic way, I’d find one. And sure enough, half a block later, there was Piekarnia Aromat. This was no typical Polish bakery: not a regular drozdzowka or rose-filled donut to be found. Instead there were things like raspberry brioche and something called “buleczka z pistacjami.” Literally, “a roll with pistachios,” it was a big hit with everyone — but L, of course. She was happy with her chocolate filled something-or-other.

Our plan for today was simple. In fact, we only had one thing on the agenda: Łazienki Park. It was a cool, overcast day — perfect for a long walk in the park. In the end, we spent about five hours there, and we could have all easily spent more.

First, though, we had to get there. We walked down along the edge of Park Świętokrzyski on our way to the Świętokrzyska metro station. The Boy was already counting the modes of new transport he’d experienced: “First a train, now the subway!” He thought for a moment and asked about trams.

“Later. Maybe even today.”

“Yesss!” (At one point the other day, when encouraged to “mow po polsku” he explained that “taaaaaak!” just doesn’t express happiness like “Yesssss!”).

A few stops later, we got off at Politechnika station, walked a few hundred meters (which included a surprise: a rescue vehicle roared out of the station right as we approached),

and there we were, in the famed Łazienki Park by the statue of Józef Piłsudski. The Boy insisted on a picture.

We wandered around a bit and took a gondola ride. The Boy managed to chalk up another mode of transportation, and the gondolier provided a bit of history, including the sad fact that the peacocks and other animals are harassed almost incessantly. “People will be people,” he concluded rather stoically.

As we were disembarking from the gondola, we met M and her son E, and with our life-long Varsovian as a guide, we continued through the park, eventually making it to the Old Orangery, which is filled with statuary and busts of the most eclectic collection: busts of various Roman emperors — including Caligula — fill the garden, while the interior itself is filled with busts for famous Poles in history, most of them completed by Italians.

As we were leaving, we came upon a group of young people, probably ages eleven to fifteen, who were starting some kind of drawing exercise. The lady running it asked L her name, jotted it down on a name tag with the comment that she was the third L in the group, and gave her some charcoal pencils. (“See, I told you,” laughed M later. “‘L’ has become a very popular name in Warsaw.”)

It turned out that it was a two-hour program. L begged to stay. She didn’t have to beg long. K and I were both thrilled that she had taken the initiative to participate in something like this. We explained that we wouldn’t stick around, that we’d leave her there and explore the park further on our own.

“That’s fine.”

“And you haven’t eaten since breakfast. You won’t be able to each for two hours more at least.”

“That’s fine.”

Our girl is growing up.

We left her among the statuary and went in search of gofry and ice cream. And people watching.

Łazienki Park is perhaps the best place in Warsaw to people-watch. There is an incredible mix of people: tourists, locals from two to one hundred and two, families, lovers.

We returned to a happy girl with two gofry to snack on as we made our way to M’s apartment, where her husband J was cooking dinner for us. Along the way, the big D300 put away, I snapped pictures with the little X100, trying to capture a few images that show the old Warsaw and the new, sometimes separately, sometimes juxtaposed.

There was the drug store that looked just like shops did when I arrived first in 1996.

There was an enclosed soccer field that seemed timeless, as if it had always been there.

School in Warsaw

There was a middle school with graffiti and rebar.

A newstand (“This, this, this is a newstand! I have meat here!” came to mind, a line from my favorite Polish film. In Mis, though, the newstand is not in a kiosk but its own building.) across from a used clothing store that sells clothes by weight.

And lots of people just going about their business.

Dinner and the evening flew by as it does with friends you haven’t seen in years. The conversation ranged far and wide, and for once there were no worries about whose toes we might step on with this or that comment when things turned to more political matters. We don’t see eye-to-eye on everything, and we can talk about it rationally and leave disagreements be. Not that that happened this evening. Parenting and parenthood tended to dominate the conversation and the environment in general.

After dinner, one last adventure: a neighborhood concert just a few blocks away in Szare Domy, a neighborhood of blocks of flats dating from the twenties that have small garden areas tucked in between the blocks. Usually closed off to non-residents, the neighborhood was throwing something like a block party, and everyone was invited.

The kids played. The adults chatted. The residents who stayed at home watched from the balcony.

Finally, around nine, everyone called it an evening. The Ds went back to their apartment after walking us to the nearest tram stop.

We made it back to Emilii Platter Street without worries, did some shopping, and had a final, amusing encounter. Walking out of the shop, E asked K, “Mommy, can I have the banana now?”

“No, just wait till we get back to the apartment,” she replied in Polish.

A young man sitting on a bench called out after us in English: “Why does he speak English when she speaks Polish?”

I turned around and summed it up as quickly as I could: “American reality.”

A few more pictures are at Flickr. I didn’t manage to get all seventy-something pictures worked into this post.

Work

Saturday 9 April 2016

The saying goes if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life — as if “work” is somehow something to be avoided. Before we read Philip Levine’s poem, I ask students, “What is work?” and someone always replies with some variant of that quote. I want to tell them it’s a lie, for two reasons: first, no matter how much you love your job, there are times when you don’t when it becomes “work” in the negative sense of the term; second, “work” should almost never have a negative sense, if you know what work is.

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring today,” for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who’s not beside you or behind or
ahead because he’s home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you’re too young or too dumb,
not because you’re jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don’t know what work is.

We finish the poem in class, and a young lady with tight curls and a sweet smile says, “This is the first poem in your class that I actually understand.” Apparently, all the other poems have been too much of a struggle. I like a struggle in my classroom. When students struggle, they learn. But if they’re struggling with a job for which they’re not really prepared, it’s not really productive struggle, just struggle for the sake of frustration. Perhaps this was a bit of productive struggle for her.

I return home to find E helping clean the house.

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He absolutely loves doing anything an adult is doing, so when he sees someone working, he wants to join in. Even when the job is too big for him, like ringing out the mop before slopping it down on the hardwood floor.

“Honey, honey, you have to let me do that. You’re not strong enough to do it well,” K says, in Polish — understanding her would have been work for me twenty years ago, when I was about to head off to Polska and could only say “please” and “thank you” and count to ten — sometimes thirteen or even fourteen if my memory worked. For E, it’s nothing. Speaking Polish is still a struggle, for everyone in the family, truth be told, except K. But it’s productive struggle. Frustrating struggle — my tongue couldn’t get around “wykształcenie wyższe” the other evening when, as I often do, I was quoting Miś.

When the Boy finishes, he still wants to clean, so we take him to the carport cum covered porch and let him work some more.

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He makes a mess in order to clean it up.

Or sometimes he just makes a mess, as when he’s playing in the mud. His sister informs me, “We’re making mud cement.” Work.

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When it’s dinner time, the Boy insists on helping again. We’re having Chinese stir fry, so he’s thrilled to get to stand at the pan and stir everything, and he’s especially amused by the fact that we’re adding a glob of peanut butter to veggies, suggesting that perhaps we might want to add some jelly as well.

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We have a friend who’s a chef who in theory does this all day long. So for him, is it work?

After dinner, a neighborhood kid comes around, and E play around at soccer. There’s no temptation to ask him questions like, “Would you like to be a professional soccer player?” because soccer for him is just one of many little diversions throughout the day.

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If he was a pro, would that make soccer work? And why is “work” something we want to avoid? Do we know what work is?

In 1981, Pope John Paul II published the encyclical Laborem exercens, “On Human Work.” He takes a common sense approach to defining the word:

[W]ork means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself.

So anything can be work. But he makes a distinction between work and toil.

For the Boy and the Girl, it often depends on motivation.

Polish Picnic 2014

Sunday 27 April 2014

Mass at Victory Square, 1977
Mass at Victory Square, 1977

A Polish pope was a big deal. As the first non-Italian pope in almost five centuries, Karol Wojtła made almost every Pole stand a little straighter when the college of cardinals selected him as pope in 1978 — almost every Pole except the Communist leadership, that is. They likely suspected they were in trouble, but they certainly had no idea the degree to which Karol Wojtła was going to change everything. The regime got an idea when he finally visited Poland in 1979 as John Paul II (or Jan Paweł II in Polish). Celebrating Mass at Piłsudski Square (then known as Victory Square), he uttered his most famous line: “Nie lÄ™kajcie siÄ™.” “Be not afraid.” They responded by chanting ,“We want God.” For over fifteen minutes. John Paul, knowing the power washing over the crowd, let them go, looking back at the representatives of the Communist regime. Not a word was spoken, but everyone in the delegation knew what John Paul II was saying: “Do you hear this? You’re done.”

Today, Poles in the area gathered for monthly Polish-language Mass, then celebrated the canonization of John Paul II in fine Polish fashion: food, singing, soccer, and conversation.

John Paul II was smiling, no doubt.

Season Opener 2013

Saturday 7 September 2013

It was a rough season opener. Not just a loss, but by soccer standards, complete destruction. But that’s good: we can learn more from losing than winning, I think.

Ognisko in Spytkowice

Friday 12 July 2013

“Don’t folks in America have summer homes?” The word Babcia used was the Polish version of да́ча (“dacha”), a Russian term for a seasonal home, often in the forest or at the lake.

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Family homes often serve that role here in Poland.

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Someone stays behind; everyone else marries and moves away. The result: a summer home.

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Then everyone — aunts, uncles, children, grandchildren — can spend the summer there. And if there’s enough room, one can even set up a soccer field.

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A few apple trees and you have the perfect place for a swing.

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And of course, there’s the obligatory fire pit.

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Saturday Break

Saturday 29 September 2012

We woke up to rain today. “We probably won’t be going for soccer,” I think as I poured my first cup of coffee. And the thought didn’t break my heart. Still, knowing the Girl had the second game of the day, I decided to drive over to the field, only four or five miles from out house, to see if there were indeed games. I’d heard somewhere that the general rule for determining whether or not to play a soccer game is if the ball bounces when dropped from the waist. If it bounces, the game begins. But I wasn’t sure what it would be like for four- and five-year-olds. I arrived at the field in a drizzle to find everyone playing as if nothing were happening. Still, the Girl has a way of getting a nasty cough very easily, so K and I decided it would be best not to go.

No Soccer

We were fairly certain the Girl would be a little disappointed. I saw the patch of dry pavement on the road and thought L would surely see that and certainly use that as justification. “See? It’s drying.” And so I was a little surprised when the reaction to “Sweetie, we’re not going to be able to go play soccer today” was “Yippeee!”

My Math

We ended up staying home most of the morning, with Nana and Papa coming for a visit and then L going to spend the afternoon at their place — after a math lesson in the kitchen.

Lunch

For E, there were very few changes in the routine. Eating, giggling, pooping, sleeping. Repeat.

Feeding

After some weeks, such a Saturday is just fine.

Autumn Sunday

Sunday 23 September 2012

The sky always seems somehow a little richer, a little deeper blue in autumn. I suppose it has to do with angles and refraction as the Earth tilts the northern hemisphere away from the sun and the southern hemisphere toward it.

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Somehow, though, the light just feels more relaxed.

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We in the south finally begin coming out to play at this point in the year. Triple digit heat indexes don’t do much to encourage the average South Carolinian to spend time in the park, kicking a soccer ball around or playing on the jungle gym. (And even if one wanted to, the equipment would be much to hot to touch, and forget about the sliding board.)

Mother and Son

So today, with temperatures only in the mid-seventies, the four of us went to a favorite park for some swinging, sliding, and soccer practice.

First Swing

The Boy sat briefly in a swing for the first time. The seat seemed still to swallow him, and his general inability to support himself combined with his love of peering forward made the prospect short-term at best.

Three Treasures

But there was always the grass. Fascinatingly green, unfamiliarly scratchy, generally puzzling for the Boy. He’d likely have put some in his mouth if he’d realized how easily it could be done. The whole world would go in his mouth if it could fit, piece my piece, chunk by chunk.

Defense

L and I, though, were ready for some practice. With her speed, she can easily outrun most of the players on the field in her Saturday soccer games, so we worked on a new tactic: running as fast as possible while still kicking the ball.

Offense

“Just kick it out in front as far as you can,” I explained, “then run — run as fast as possible. You’ll beat everyone to the ball. Then just do it again.”

We also worked a bit on defense.

Theft

And the Boy finally got a closer look at that grass.

The Boy in Grass

Hat Trick

Saturday 8 September 2012

When Pele was just over seventeen years old, he became the youngest player to achieve a hat trick — three goals in a match — in a World Cup match. In 1930, Guillermo Stabile scored a hat trick during his debut World Cup game.

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What happens if you combine the two?

All I was hoping for was a successful first game, and I defined success simply enough: enough enjoyment to encourage the Girl to continue with her soccer adventure. Certainly, I wanted her team to win — winning always feels good. But more than that, I wanted the Girl to leave with an eagerness to return. And so among my great fears was the shut-out. “If L’s team doesn’t score a single goal, it might be frustrating to her,” I thought.

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There were other concerns as well. L is not always the most aggressive person, especially in novel situations, and a first-time soccer game is about as novel as one can imagine.

Yet right from the start, the Girl is aggressive. Really aggressive. She charges the ball without concerning herself about the number of kids kicking wildly at the ball, and she often emerges from the pack with the ball.

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And then she scores.

We’ve all seen the typical reactions among the pros — the wild celebrations, the leaping, the shirt front over the head. L seems completely oblivious to the significance of what has just happened. Countless games have finished one-nil, and the sole scorer is automatically the hero.

L, ignorant of all this, simply walks away from the goal calmly, a bit confused even. But my reaction and the coach’s reaction tell her something big has happened.

“It can’t be a more perfect first game,” I think. No matter what happens now, we have something to celebrate. Even if her team loses 5-1, we have that single moment to smile about. “Wasn’t that a great feeling to score?” I’ll be able to ask.

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But the Girl has other things on her mind. She continues charging. She continues heading straight for the goal. She continues shooting.

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And she misses. Once. Twice. And then more lightning: another goal.

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And then a third. A hat trick, on her first time out. As she walks away from the goal the third time, her teammates celebrating, a small smile appears on her face. She knows what she’s done. She’s gotten a taste of athletic greatness. And she likes it.

Not content with having scored the only goals for either team, she proclaims with calm assurance as we walk back to the car, “Next game, I’m going to score five goals.”

Watch out Messi, here comes the Girl.

On the Field

Saturday 25 August 2012

It’s perhaps a cliche of parenting, the desire to give more to your children than you had as a child. Unfortunately, it seems our culture equates that “more” materialistically more often than not, but the question of experience seems more important. And to that end, we have to step out of our usual circle and involve others — for instance, ten others, to make a soccer team.

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Providing the Girl with the opportunity to kick a ball back and forth is easy enough: we’ve done it in the backyard a time or two. Attention spans, though, tend to be short in such activities. There’s always a cat to chase, a trampoline to pull out of the basement, or something else — squirrel! Somehow, though, things change when kicking the ball in a controlled environment with virtual strangers. Perhaps it’s a desire to create a positive impression; maybe it’s the drive to conform and kick along with the others. Whatever the case, the Girl’s first experience with soccer provided her first and foremost with a concentrated dose of semi-organized sport.

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Still, kicking and even throwing a soccer ball, even in concentrated doses, only provides so much, and it’s all physical.

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There’s more to sport than the physical. In fact, the physical, at a certain level of competition, is only incidental. World-class athletes have practiced so much that the maneuvering and contorting involved in a given sport is almost a matter of muscle memory. Watch a gymnast doing a routine on the pommel horse and it’s hard to imagine he’s thinking through every single move, every single flex of the muscle. By that time, the game is mental. He knows he can do his routine perfectly: he’s done it flawlessly in practice countless times. It’s now a question of doing it when there’s something — everything — at stake. It’s now a question of confidence and mental strength.

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A gymnast can’t really take his pommel horse skills into the business world and do much with them. He can, however, take his self-confidence and his ability to perform well under stress into non-sporting life and achieve just about anything he wants. So it’s not so much the physical I’m worried about as I watch the Girl run about the soccer field.

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I’m grateful, of course, for the improvement in coordination and strength such an activity brings, but more important is the mental development.

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I’m more pleased when she calmly chases down a ball that’s gotten out of her control, maintaining her cool the whole time, than I am when it becomes clear that she’s one of the fastest kids on the field.

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I’m more pleased when I see her calmly go get a ball that a teammate has kicked away from her out of childish spite

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than I am when I see a good, strong kick.

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But I’d be lying to deny that the kick makes me feel good, too.

The Cold and the Rain

Monday 21 June 2010

Rain, ten degrees Celsius — you might say that it’s a perfect Polish summer, but that would be too pessimistic. Yet rain or shine, the cousins must swing.

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And play in the small play house Dziadek built.

Yet there is a bit of frustration. L understands Polish perfectly; her willingness to speak it is a different situation entirely. As they’re swinging, S asks, “Dlaczego ciagle mowisz po angielsku?” “Why are you constantly speaking English?” “Dobra pytania” I respond, yet L says nothing. Instead she begins the international language of three-year-olds: she begins making as many odd sounds as possible.

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In the end, the swing was the hit of the day. With aunt Dominika, Kinga, and I, the girls must have swung for ten hours straight. Perhaps that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.

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In the meantime, Babcia chases the newest member of the family — a little mixed puppy — for digging up her flowers, for about the tenth time. “Ja cie dam!” cried babcia, half seriously, half in jest. “Ja cie dam!”

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Poles would call such a day “dzien barowy” — a bar day. But we’re not here to sit in a bar. We’re here to visit, and visit with determination. And so we head to the school where I taught for seven years.

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I meet several colleagues with whom I worked even in 1996, but we’re all a little older, a little more experienced. The exception is a young lady who was still in middle school when I arrived fourteen years ago (eighth grade) and now teaches high school. My replacement, one might say, but I guess one would be wrong. Time passes and replacement become irrelevant. All things being fluid in the twenty-first century, talk of replacements is useless.

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As we wonder through the school, I begin thinking about how little has changed, which is the nature of teaching: one spends years in the same grade only to realize that, from a certain point of view, one has been running in place. I stay forever in eighth grade now; in Poland, I stayed forever in high school. The results are, more or less, the same.

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There are some things, though, that can’t be replaced, like a virtual Mama. After dropping by the school, we stop by to visit the family with whom I lived for some time after returning to Poland in 2001. I’m greeted with hugs and “Synku!” It’s like a homecoming. It is a homecoming.

We meet the two chicks my Polish Mother (PM for future references) saved from certain death when they fell from the nest and made just enough noise for her to hear.

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They’re the hit of the day.

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A constant, consistent attraction during our visit.

“I want to see the birds!”

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And as a result really get no rest during our visit.

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But panic builds instincts and reaction. Or so I’m told.

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So I’ve heard, but what do I know? That an evening of football (aka soccer) and assorted liquids makes one less than perfectly willing to blog at eleven o’clock…

Soccer Religion

Wednesday 30 June 2004

After having written a short review of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (Okay, I admit it – I have to stoop to some pretty low levels in my English reading while in Poland), I recently received the oddest letter from a complete stranger. The subject line: The DaVinci [sic] Code and The DA Revelation of Avatar Adi Da Love-Ananda Samraj

Dear Gary,

My name is John Forth from Melbourne Australia. I got your e-address from Amazon reviews.

The DaVinci [sic] Code is an interesting book on an important theme: namely the suppression [sic] of the gnostic [sic] strain in Christianity. A suppresion [sic] which has turned out to be a disaster for ALL beings on this planet.

With that in mind please check out The Divine Revelation of Avatar Adi Da Love-Ananda Samraj at:

1. www.adidam.org

2. www.adi-da-samraj.org

A Prophetic Criticism of the “Great” Religions (essays on how non-gnostic [sic] essentially materialist Christianity took over) at:

3. http://www.dabase.net/proofch6.htm

Grace Shines

John Forth

My response, after checking out the links he’d provided, was short: “What exactly does The Da Vinci Code – which is a horrid book filled with historical errors – have to do with a New Age cult?” Of course I knew such a reply was antagonistic enough to get another response out of him. In other words, I realized I was childishly provoking him, but I couldn’t help it. After all, it’s not every day that you get to speak to a cult apologist.

Mr. Forth replied:

Dear Gary,

Thankyou [sic] for your response.

IF you do your hope work you will discover that Adidam or The Way of the Heart created by Adi Da Samraj is not a “new age” cult. Christianity is a cult. Every body belongs to numerous cults. A cult being a group of people from the very small or in the billions fascinated by some object of desire or fascination.

Please check out “Beyond The Cultic Tendency in Religion—-” at: http://www.dabase.org/cultic.htm

You could say that the fascination with the Davinci [sic] Code is a cultish [sic] phenomenon [sic]. AS are the cults associated with The Lord of the Rings, the Matrix films, Star Trek etc etc [sic] Perhaps the relevance to Adidam is that Adi Da addresses in a very real way some of the themes, especially the repressed gnostic [sic] elements of early christianity [sic], mentioned in the Davinci [sic] Code.

Grace Shines

John Forth

Leaving aside the question of what “home work” Mr. Forth thought I was supposed to have done, I took him up on his offer and read – or rather, scanned – the piece Mr. Forth recommended, written by none other than the guru himself: Avatar Adi Da Samraj.

It was full of Things Not Normally Capitalized which were written in Capital Letters to express Their Importance (though he did restrain from some cult/sect writers’ typographical IDOCYCRIES), and basically filled with nonsensical Eastern guru babble. (I’m not suggesting that Eastern wisdom is just “babble,” just this particular “wisdom.”) Some choice quotes:

  • The relationship to Me that is Described (by Me) in the Ruchira Avatara Gita is not an exoteric cultic matter. It is a profound esoteric discipline, necessarily associated with real and serious and mature practice of the “radical” Way (or root-Process) of Realizing Real God, Which Is Reality and Truth. Therefore, in the Ruchira Avatara Gita, I am critical of the ego-based (or self-saving, and self-“guruing”, rather than self-surrendering, self-forgetting, self-transcending, and Divine-Guru-Oriented) practices of childish, and, otherwise, adolescent, and, altogether, merely exoteric cultism.
  • Just so, the cult of religious and Spiritual fascination tends to be equally righteous about maintaining fascinated faith (or indiscriminate, and even aggressive, belief) in the merely Parent-like “Divine” Status of one or another historical individual, “God”-Idea, religious or Spiritual doctrine, inherited tradition, or force of cosmic Nature.

The piece mainly dealt with the issue of “cultism,” which Adi Da claims is endemic in all religions – except his own, of course. His is the antidote to cults. Clever move: take critics’ charges and aim the back at them.

Next step, I decided to do my “homework” that Mr. Forth took me to task for not having done – particularly easy with Google. Soon I was flooded with information about Adi Da, Daism, and assorted goodies.

The Guru

I was initially not sure whether to call this charlatan “Franklin Jones” or “Adi Da.” Indeed, Jones himself cannot seem to make up his mind as far as names go. (names.adida.org) Continually referring to him as Jones makes his claims seem particularly absurd, but since they are currently published under the name, it seems to make contextual sense to call him “Adi Da.” In the end, I just oscillated back and forth.

I found out that – surprise, surprise – “Adi Da” is in fact Franklin Jones, a sixty-something Long Island born “guru” who has been holed up for over twenty years in Fiji , where he dispenses his Eastern-tinged “Crazy Wisdom” (his term, not mine) selflessly. I scanned a bit of his stuff and it was quickly evident that the guy is a fraud.

Jones’ religion, his “Crazy Wisdom,” is not a Siddhartha-type Western understanding of Buddhism, something which might raise the eyebrows a bit of a true Eastern master but cause no real consternation. In other words, it’s not some new meditation method, some slightly commercialized take on yoga (i.e., twelve positions for the supermarket checkout counter). Nothing so insignificant as that.

The claim that Jones make – the heart of his religion – is that he is an Avatar. A human manifestation of God. To frame it in Western terms, Jones makes the same claim Jesus did: that he is God incarnate. As he explains it:

I Am the Divine Heart-Master of every one, and of all, and of the All of all. Therefore, I Call upon every one (and all) to rightly and positively understand My Divine Self-Revelation. And I Call upon every one (and all) to truly devotionally recognize Me, and to responsively demonstrate that devotional recognition of Me in the
context of, and by Means of, the right, true, full, and fully devotional, and really counter-egoic, practice of the only-by-Me Revealed and Given Way of Adidam (www.dabase.org)
.

He is the Set Apart Guide (I can’t help lapsing into some Jones-esque capitalization) for All those Who want to Know the Way. The Way, coincidentally, is Jones himself, so his teaching amounts to how to recognize he is God. Indeed, followers are given instructions that the best way to forget about ego is to meditate on Jones, and since he’s living it up in Fiji and not physically available to all his followers, they’re provided with a photo album to help with the visualization!

Salvation, it seems, is based on fantasizing about a fat, bald, literally slimey-looking (just scroll down a bit) New Yorker with glaucoma.

The only Liberating discovery is that My Avataric Divine Spiritual Presence is Real, able to be tangibly experienced under any and all circumstances. It is not about imagining My Spiritual Presence or manipulating yourself. None of that is satisfying, in any case. To searchlessly [sic] Behold Me and, in the midst of it, to notice My Spiritual Presence tangibly moving upon you in your real experience–this is the great and Liberating discovery, the only Satisfaction. Ultimately, it is the only Satisfaction in life. Everything else is temporary, conditional, ego-based, and disheartening. Only the discovery of the tangible Reality of That Which Is Divine is heartening and Liberating and Satisfactory (adidam.org).

The practice is searchless, ego-forgetting, altogether to-Me-turned Beholding of Me in My bodily (human) Divine Form. When you are not in My physical Company, you can recollect My bodily (human) Divine Form. You can use My Murti-Form, My Padukas, and so on. Persisting in this practice, there is the potential of moving Me to Bless you further. [March 24, 2003] (adidam.org)

I closed my eyes and pictured him for a few moments and the only result I got was a chill running down my back and a brief
paranoia that, like the catchy melody of the latest pop trash hit, the image would keep popping back into my head unwanted.The Suckers and VictimsThe case of Franklin Jones and his AdidDaSes (the name “Adi Da” supposed just came to him; perhaps he just glanced down at someone’s athletic shoes) would be more comic than anything if it weren’t for the people that follow him. The difference between a cult leader and a raving schizophrenic homeless man in a subway station is that someone has taken the former seriously, and that’s a frightening thought. What makes a cult tragic is of course the devoted, mindless followers.Jones’ website speaks of “turning to him,” of “recognizing him,” of “loving him.” It’s scary stuff. But the words are not half as scary as the pictures – images from the inside workings of a cultic compound. Imagine David Koresh made pictures available of what went on in Waco. It might look something like this:And what’s worse is the fact that there are children being raised on this bullshit. Children of followers living on Jones’ Fiji island paradise are taught from birth (i.e., primarily socialization) that this snake-oil salesman is God. It’s difficult enough to deprogram adults who have surrendered (voluntarily or not) their grip on reality, but these poor kids will never have had a firm understanding of reality to begin with, and they’re going to be warped for life. It’s nothing short of child abuse, but unfortunately, such child abuse is legal.Thus armed, I dashed off a quick reply to Mr. Forth:

I read the piece to which you sent me the link, and I found this passage:

All cults, whether sacred or secular, thrive on indulgence in the psychology (and the emotional rituals) of hope, rather than on actual demonstration of counter-egoic and really ego-transcending action.

What is the difference between this “indulgence in the psychology [. . .] of hope” and what Adi Da offers? His form of TM simply offers the hope of getting in touch with true reality.

I suppose, to some degree, as an atheist I would agree. Any time we seek from a religion something beyond what we experience in our senses, quantitatively confirmable through science, we are indulging in “the psychology [. . .] of hope.”

Further, I would go so far as to say that Da is exploiting this “psychology [. . .] of hope” to build up his own cult. And for the record, I am using “cult” in the sociological sense of the term. Like Jim Jones (though I don’t know that Da will go so far), he has holed himself up in a remote corner of the world and refuses contact with outsiders.

Concerning this, Ken Wilber asks,

[Da’s] claim, of course, is that he is the most enlightened person in the history of the planet. Just for argument, let us agree. But then what would the most  enlightened World Teacher in history actually do in the world? Hide? Avoid? Run? Or would that teacher engage the world, step into the arena of dialogue, meet with other religious teachers and adepts, attempt to start a universal dialogue that would test his truths in the fire of the circle of those who could usefully challenge  him. At the very least, a person who claims to be the World Teacher needs to get out in the world, no? (www.beezone.com)

Indeed, what does the Dali Lama think of Da? How is he received in, say, India? Yes, yes, I know that some notables (most disturbing, Allan Watts) have given credence to Da’s claim, but as far as I know, true spiritual leaders don’t have much to do with him.

When I wrote this, I was still unaware of the extent of Jones’ claims to be God. As such, it’s a little flawed, for there does indeed exist a Gnostic element in Daism – the knowledge that a fat New Yorker is God.

Now, as far as this and some connection to that horrid The Da Vinci Code, I still fail to see the  connection. Gnosticism was not about mystical meditation but instead knowledge. “Gnosis” means “knowledge,” not meditation. The Da Vinci Code attempts to rehabilitate the idea of the sacred feminine – goddess worship, in other words – and not Christian mysticism. If that’s what Brown were trying to do in writing “DC” he would have written about, say, Father Pio. Instead, he wrote about Mary Magdalene, the “proper” object of veneration in Christianity as it was originally formulated.

In closing, I’d like to thank you for your emails, and encourage you, if you are involved in Adi Da’s cult, to get yourself out as fast as possible.

I never heard from Mr. Forth again. I suppose he realized that time trying to convert me was not time well spent, and I imagine he’s off emailing other people who submitted reviews of The Da Vinci Code to Amazon.com.The Ultimate Sell: YourselfOne question remains: to what degree does Franklin Jones believe his own nonsense? There are two equally disturbing possibilities. The first is that he simply knows that he’s a charlatan and realizes it’s all a big scam. This seems unlikely, for a conscious con-man, no matter how good he is, eventually slips up.The second possibility is that he thinks he is God. This simply means he belongs in an asylum. Indeed, the only difference between Franklin Jones and the probably uncountable number of Jesuses, Buddhas, Thors, and Jehovahs sitting around in state hospitals is that  Jones hasn’t been locked away. You can almost imagine a large nurse reassuring a pajama-clad Jones, “Yes, Mr. Jones, I know that my salvation rests on perfect contemplation of you. Now be a sweetie and take your medicine . . .”