THE "OTHER" GOSPEL, THE MEMORY OF THE BIBLE IN THE EYE OF YOUR CAMERA

The one I had was brown

Have you ever been on a pilgrimage?  Have you ever read Geoffrey Chaucer?  have you ever heard of the Pilgrimage to Mecca?  Did you ever ask yourself why Jesus, Mary and Joseph were 100 miles away from home when Jesus got lost?  How often do you, if ever, dream of traveling to your favorite religious site?
When you think of that, what is your first preoccupation, after money, of course?  Is it your prayer book or your camera?  
Why do I bring this up?  Because it came to me the other day when I though that it might be a good idea to dig out some old pictures and give them to our sons for Christmas.  So, of course, I dove into the box(es) of photos and the box(es) of SD computer chips to see what pictures they might appreciate more.  The emotion that overtook me while I was doing this was quite a surprise to me.  I decided that none of the pictures that I was viewing would be of any real lasting value to either one of them.  Why?  Because it struck me with some emotional intensity that what I was looking at was interesting, but certainly not engaging.  The exercise was rather fun, but did not rise to the level of awe before a family collection of treasure.  So, I stopped myself from spending any more time doing this.
It came to me that the truly meaningful pictures were VERY few and far between.  How many pictures of 3 and 4 year boys are meaningful?  There is one that I like, but I couldn't find it, so that was a disappointment.  Or was it?  It made me think of the picture that I took with my Kodak Box camera of old.  It was at Niagara Falls somewhere in the 1957 range.  It was one where I captured the boat, "The Maid of the Mist" floating at the foot of the falls and surrounded by a very clearly defined rainbow.  I admired that picture for a long time, but then I changed my domicile so many times during the passing years that all I have is the memory.  I have the memory, and nothing else, of my favorite picture of EFR Dion coming down the back stairs of our house on Hartford Street in South Hadley that I took with the same box camera by Kodak.  I remember it because it was February, a few days after he had announced that he had now lived longer than his father had.  I could go on for some time reminiscing about pictures that I remember and about pictures that were never taken.  Those that were never taken are still vividly present to me.  They move me as much as those that occasionally fall under my gaze.  Despite the convictions expressed here, I still find myself clicking away on special occasions.
In the introduction I asked about pilgrimages and what is the more important, prayer or picture.  I wonder what the right answer is.  It is impossible to go to a revered location on the planet without capturing the reality of it on camera.  I have my favorite pictures of places that I have seen only because I went there to pray.  I don't look at the pictures very often, if ever, but the fact that I stopped and captured a rare reality helps vivify my memory of it.  It is like multi-media impact on the brain.  It is rather certain to me that the effort that it took to stop, assess the angle of importance, check the position of the sun, wonder if I should have Belle there or not, should I activate the flash, how close do I want to get, portrait or landscape mode, etc.  All of this activity contributes in some way to the memory of the event.  In many ways it makes viewing the picture less important down the line because the memory is all the more explicit.
Think of it this way.  Mary and Joseph lost track of their Son one year during the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for prayer.  They didn't need a camera to remember where they found him.  I think that He never forgot it either.  We don't hear a single word about him for another 20 plus years, except that when He got back to Nazareth, he obeyed them and grew in age and wisdom.  Period.
Who needs a camera for that?

AIDA, CARMEN AND LA TRAVIATA, WHO ARE THEY?

L’amour est un Oiseau Rebelle
Love is a rebellious bird

By Verdi
It's in Italian and is set in Egypt

Today, I was beset by one of those flashbacks that happen to old people now and then.  This one was a nice warm and fuzzy, good humored one.  I didn't get the shivers that usually attack me when I think of some of the calamitously stupid things that I have done along the road of life.  I remembered the gang of three or four WWII veterans who had been friends forever.   Two of them happened to be my uncles.  They were the younger brothers of my father.  You know him, EFR Dion.  The four of them were opera "buffs" and they usually spent Saturday afternoons listening to opera during the Texaco Radio broadcast of the Saturday matinee from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.  I would occasionally be there with them.  Not for the opera, mind you, but because I liked being with them and they did not seem to mind my being there.  After all, I was still a teen ager at the time.  
Well, as most of you know, I am not a teen ager any more.  But Saturdays still do come and go. And there is still a radio station here in Southern California that carries the opera from the various opera houses around the world.  Today was Saturday and I was running around town doing "this and that" and listening to Aida in between short hops from "this" to "that."  During one of the hops the memory of one of those post meridiem sessions struck me.  It was the time that one of the gentlemen in the room said that he was of the opinion that the words of the "tunes" that are sung in Opera were not meant to be understood.  Well, he didn't get far with that statement.  The other three chimed in with loud and monosyllabic dissent.  They are printable, but not appropriate.  Then I remember my uncle Ed coming to the defense of the brave heart who dared to venture such an inconoclastic opinion. Ed simply said that if the words were not meant to be understood, the writer would not have provided any for the singers to vocalize.  He also said that just because we five could not understand them didn't mean that there were none in the world who did.  The person with the daring opinion then challenged my uncles who were fluent French speakers if they understood Carmen.  They, to their everlasting credit, confessed that they did not.  So he won...or he thought that he did.  Not so fast, Red Ryder!  Other opinions flew around the room and it was really nice for me to hear what they had to say.  
Some of the ideas were really quite philosophical.  I remember some of them.  
One was that the singers also had to act.  So they needed real words to be able to convey the emotions that the play was meant to portray.  I thought that was pretty intelligent.  Then one said that a Boy Scout skit conveyed ideas and there no words in many of them.  True enough says another, but Boy Scouts don't sing.  The actors in an opera have to sing.  If the author of the play is sophisticated enough he can match the words with the notes in the music so that the sound of the voice and the pitch indicated by the music match and help to make the emotions clearer for the actors and for the spectators.
But then another said that he didn't think that was a good thought at all.  In fact, said he, French authors wrote plays in Spanish and Italian people wrote some in French, and so on.  
But wait, says the originator of the discussion, that just means that the words don't really matter to the audience.  
One of the thoughts that made the rounds that day was that the audience did not go there for the play anyway, they went for the music...the instruments, from the strings to the brass to the percussion and, yes, to the human vocal chords were the true and only reason why people paid to go sit there during a play that they could not follow.
The four of them decided that they would all sleep on it and talk about it on the morrow while fishing for pickerel at Lake Arcadia.  I don't know if they did or not.  As for me, I only have two things to say. 
1. I know the words to the Aria cited above from Carmen.  She is a tough broad, believe me.
2. I also know the words to the drinking song from La Traviata.  By the way, it is not nice to be called "una traviata."  In fact, the song in the opera  says plainly that the woman is not going home with the fellow who brought her!
I like to listen to opera for some of the reasons that were brought up on that Saturday PM some 60 years ago.  I am glad that there is still some opera on the radio.  It is true that it is no longer sponsored by Texaco, but that doesn't make it any the less enjoyable.  

MR. MIYAGI WINS A BIG ONE IN LAS VEGAS

Karate Kid 2 Mr Miyagi's philosophy

Last night I did something which I rarely do any more.  I watched a boxing match.  As I have grown older I have come to dislike boxing because it is really quite savage.  It is so savage that it is getting closer and closer to being almost as bad as American football.  In fact, these days there are many more "punch drunk" footballers, or ex-footballers than there are"punch drunk" ex-boxers.  Be that as it may, I was there watching the fight between Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino idol and Juan Manuel Marquez, the Mexican who in three previous tries could not find a way to get past the "Pacman."  When he did find a way, after 41 rounds of confrontation, my mind instantaneously flew back to the Miyagi-Karate Kid philosopy of hitting the agressor on the side that is open and vulnerable because his attacking side is busy trying to do you in.  The win by Marquez was a perfect picture of the philosophy in actuality.
For those of you who saw the "Karate Kid 2" film, the picture of the little toy drum in the upper left-hand corner is familiar.  Mr. Miayagi explains the success of the drum with the mantra that both sides hit at the same time, but from opposite positions.  Never can one striking ball hit both sides at the same time.  There is always an opposite blind side to every agressive action.  Putting that philosophy into reality last night, Marquez was able knock the Pacman senseless, not only from the power of his own right hand but aided by the force of the momentum generated by a right hand from Pacquiao that was dodged by Marquez who countered in a fraction of a second with a pile-driver of a right hook dead center to the face of the Pacman.  The force of the right handed attack by Pacquiao carried him into the right handed missile while his entire left side was completely useless to him as defense.  Score a big one for Miyagi.
You can see what I am talking about by clicking here below.  The graphic view of my description can be seen starting at about 22 seconds into the video and repeated twice more until about 34 seconds.  You'll see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2DOiuuUe-A

I have to say that all the while being Miyagi oriented, I have also been thinking about the way that it is possible to do this in other areas of life. One of the people who is very adroit at doing this in politics is Carl Rove.  He requires his target to respond to an unsavory proposition so that during the time when the target is crafting the response, Carl does what he wants to do thereby requiring more crafting by the target thereby giving Carl more time to settle into the results of the initial proposition.  To get back to the toy drum analogy, by the time the target gets around to responding, the drum beat has gone on so many times that the rhythm has turned to Carl's side of the drum.  I suppose that there would be more examples that I could propose, but you get the idea.  If you've seen the film, "Karate Kids 2" and you see the 10 or 12 seconds worth of the attached video, you will see the truth of the philosophy.  If you're not careful, it may occupy a lot more of your time that you would normally be willing to devote to such things.

I therefore wish you a happy philosophical moment.

THE SEASON FOR NOSTALGIA IS OFFICIALLY OPEN

I THOUGHT IT WAS A CHRISTMAS RUSH, DIDN'T YOU?

I got this in the mail today.  December 1, 2012.  I'm supposed to be happy that the main post-office in this back-water city is going to open for two Sundays to be able to cope with the "Holiday Rush."
I know that I have an exceedingly bad reputation as a guy who hasn't sent Christmas cards for ages.  Despite my horrendous reputation, you have to admit that I do send a lot of Happy Christmas e-mails.  C'mon now, you know that I do.  This year, for many of you, there will be a nice long lead-in to the Christmas Day Holy Day, so you won't want to miss it.  It's going to be religiously prayerful.  I think you'll like it.  If you don't, remember that there is a delete function on your device.
But that's not nostalgia, now is it.  But this is.

Christmas used to be the incarnation of Hell for the USPS.  Where we lived there was always a good chance that there would be snow.  Actually, snow was not that bad because the weather warms up generally when there is snow.  No snow, bbbrrrrrrr!!xx!  Then, of course, there were the millions of Christmas cards of all sizes that had to be hand sorted by address.  For all of you young people who are reading this, no, there were no zip codes back then.  
And there were different rates for different classes of mail.  Just like now. Really.  Forever, man, forever!
1. Mail that was sealed and had a street address followed by "City."  That meant that the mail was staying within the boundaries of the return address.  Got that?  Good.  Cost, $0.015
2. Mail that was not sealed but had the flap tucked into the envelope, and all the same stuff as above ... it stayed in the city.  This mail cost $0.01.
3. Mail that was sealed and was going out of the city. $0.03, first class.
4. Mail that was not sealed but had the flap tucked into the inside of the envelope and was going out of the city.
$0.02, second class
5. Air mail to far away places, like Los Angeles, or God forbid to Montreal or some other place in Quebec...forget it.  Only rich people could do that.  I didn't look it up, but I seem to remember that it was something like $0.05 per 1/2 ounce.  I assure you that I do not exaggerate when I say that people mailed that stuff in the Thanksgiving season by 1st class to save the outrageous cost of the air mail "rip-off."  (By the way, we didn't have the exprression "rip-off" then.  I figured you could handle an anomally or two, now and then.)
So that's the nostalgia about the mail rates.
Now let me drop a few words on you about the mail delivery during the Christmas Season.  I must confess that I don't remember Sunday delivery.  But I do remember this:  
a> Twice a day delivery, at least Monday through Saturday.  This started, I think, on December 1.
b> An army of temporary mail delivery people on just about every single route.  No, there were no little convenient postal jeeps in those days.  You got dropped off, filled your bag and walked...snow or no snow...-10 degrees or +5, it didn't matter.
c> High schoolers of a certain age were recruited to fill the ranks.  I know, my uncles did it in South Hadley and I have a friend, a reader of these lines who did it too.  I don't remember the "detail of the certain age definition."
If anyone of you remembers, please let me know and we'll announce it for the record.
The best for last.
Remember, that for several years as I was growing up there was a War going on, in Europe and in Asia.  There were more houses with missing husbands, children (mostly boys) and all kinds of other friends and or relatives.  Most, I think, were just absent.  Many, too many, were simply GONE.  
Our family, by the grace of God saw all of our members come back in one piece.  
Mailing something to them was the best price of all, FREE.
It was possible to send as many letters and cards that you wanted.  You could even address it "Soldier with the least mail" and it would be taken and some soldier in a forgotten corner of the upheaving world would  get it and cry silently because someone had thought of him.

All good things come to an end.  When the Postal Service flattened all the rates to three cents, my mother and father cut back from about 200+ cards to only the closest and dearest 120+ in a snit of desperation and exasperation.  Maybe one of my siblings can enrich that memory.
================ Those are my thoughts and memories on the first day of the Christmas Season, also known as The First Sunday of Advent.
if you have something to share with the world, now is your chance.  Send it to me.  It's Christmas, remember.  Our thoughts and memories are the best gift that we can unwrap for those who are seeking something precious.  There is nothing more precious than what God has filled us with.  Do it.