Zuckerberg’s Army

Jan 262011
 

When Zuckerberg’s Army came for me, there was no reason to fight. I was the last human being on earth not on Facebook. I knew it. They knew it. We were all long past any reason to struggle. I would go quietly.

It was a gray winter afternoon in a big city that sat obediently in the northern part of the United States. Snow threatened. The music I had on was an old song by Greg Brown with the lyric:

“There’ll be one corporation selling one little box

It’ll do what you want and tell you what you want and cost whatever you got.”

Facebook revenue had just surpassed the gross national product of Europe. China had finally acquiesced, asking only for their own “wall.”

World news was dominated that day by the entire land mass of New Zealand being submerged under a mile high tsunami that American scientists had pinpointed as originating deep in the frozen tundra of Antarctica. As the stories of the devastation began to surface like ancient ruins in an endless watery grave—reported of course through Facebook—American political leaders sought to calm the world business community with proclamations stating that the tragedy had nothing to do with global warming.

Statements verified by Facebook.

So there were bigger issues than Zuckerberg’s Army knocking on my door.

To be precise, what really happened was that a door knocking sound began emanating from the computer speakers on my desk. My sleek little Mini Mac box began to throb and then jump like an old cartoon of an alarm clock going off.

The freelance management training piece I was working on to help the internet’s newest “it” company figure out that they might not want to let supervisors go months without having an actual conversation with an employee suddenly got much less important. Even if I was being paid money to create and deliver the piece.

It’s really easy to loose focus when your computer starts spitting out a door knocking sound every 32 seconds.

After about 2 minutes of the knocking, I couldn’t take it anymore. So I said to the room I had thought was empty, I said with as much control in my voice as I could muster,

“What??????”

To which the voice of Zuckerberg himself replied in friendly tones, “Sup dude?”

Through gritted teeth I said, “Do I know you?”

“Chill dude. Guess that doesn’t really matter, does it? Now you know you’re coming with us. But before you do, I’m just kinda, well, what’s the word they used to use. . . .oh I remember! Curious! That’s it. I’m kinda curious. So tell me, why did you stay out in the cold so long? Why didn’t you sign up? What did we ever do to you?

“Oh, you never did anything! I mean, I didn’t have any big philosophical position. I just never saw the point.”

“Dude. The point is friends! What, you don’t like parties? You don’t have friends? You don’t LIKE friends?”

“Mr. Zuckerberg sir. It’s not that I . . .”

“Hey, Mr. Zuckerberg is my Dad! Feel free to call me Dude. That is unless you’re my Dad. You’re not my Dad are you?”

“Probably not. But in case I was, could I have a loan? There’s this little bookstore I’d like to start. . .”

“No such thing as a little bookstore, Dad. Or Dude. Or whatever. But you know we’re all friends here. So tell me. What kept you from my party?”

“Well, I don’t know. I guess it’s because when I go to a party. I don’t often work the room. What I like to do is find one person. Sit in the corner. And talk with them for awhile. Does that make me a bad friend? Or somebody you wouldn’t want to lend, oh I don’t know, whatever change you’ve got in your pocket right now and help me out with that bookstore. Or even maybe help me find an agent. I just finished my fourth book and I. . .”

“Yeah. Well that is awesome Dad. And I would love to help you out. I remember books. I even read some. So I’m all about bookstores. And I’m sure there are messages from 5 or 6 hundred agents wanting me to do a book, all of those messages sitting back in the server outside one of my houses. So I could pop you one of those, but you see I gotta run. So I’ll get back to you and. . .”

“Mr. Zuckerberg, that’s the other part that kept me away. Right there. The ‘I’ll get back to you,’ thing. See, one of the things about virtual communication is that a whole lotta times, no one does get back to you. No one answers back. You scream into the void, you write on a wall and you never know if someone’s listening because no one answers back!”

“Wow. You are one intense Dude, Dad. People are like, well, I guess the word would be busy. Yeah, busy. I basically don’t do replies myself. But that’s just my thing.”

“I see. Well, no worries. I understand. And I’m coming quietly. I’ll be posting pictures. Writing on walls. Saying “awesome!” a lot. I’ll be good. You’ll see. Pretty soon, you won’t even know I’m there.”

“That’s what we’re counting on dude. That’s what we’re counting on. Calm, cool, sweet. Not even knowing you’re there. That’s what we want. You go ahead and have as many screen names as you want too. That’s all cool!”

“Oh, Mr. Zuckerberg. Just one more question before we go. It’s about the music. Sometimes I have music playing in my head. No one else hears it but me. It’s just kind of part of who I am. So, my question is this;

Can YOU hear the music playing in MY head too?”

“Oh no! Whatever songs are in your head? They’re just yours! No one can hear them but you. At least, for now. In our next release we’ll have a way for you to share the songs in your head with friends. The engineers are working on it now. Actually it’s in beta. But as of right this moment? The only one who knows the songs playing in your head is you.

So are you cool with that? You all calmed down and everything? Wouldn’t want anybody in the army—especially the very last person to join—to be agitated or excitable or anything but mellow and fine. Cool?”

“Cool Mr. Z. Nothing agitated. Nothing excitable about me.

Nothing excitable at all. See how calm I am?

I just can’t wait to write on my first wall!

You can tell your army I’m ready now.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eUsSXXc8wU]

Songs for Weary Souls

Jan 212011
 

Once all you had to do when trouble showed its head was to pack up and leave.

And Guy Clark sang:

Pack up all your dishes

Make note of all good wishes

Say goodbye to the landlord for me

Sons of bitches always bore me.

She was there. So the morning was alive.

And Kristofferson sang:

I have seen the morning burning golden

On the mountain in the sky

Aching with the freedom of the feeling of an eagle when she flies.

Loving her was easier than anything I’d ever do again.

It was all about right now.

So Buffy Ste. Marie sang:

Don’t ask how of me.

Don’t ask why of me.

Don’t ask forever of me.

Love me.

Now.

You thought that you knew dusty, rough roads back then.

Because there was always a place to rest.

While Eric Anderson sang.

Take off your thirsty boots

And stay for awhile

Your feet are hot and weary

From a country mile.

Ready for anything you were.

Because that glowering man in black was always ready. Singing:

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

I keep the ends out for the ties that bind

Because you’re mine

I walk the line

But something cracked open

Somewhere along the way.

Just beyond your reach.

So you grabbed tight to the lyric of goodbye.

And Jimmy Webb told the story:

Ran away with you when I was 17

To be with you

On the California coast

Drinkin’ margaritas all night in the old cantina

On the California coast

Our dreams of endless summer

Were just too grandiose

Adios

Adios

I’ll miss the blood red sunset

But I’ll miss you the most

Adios.

That brought clarity.

And that ultimate gift.

A next time.

While John Stewart sang.

You once thought of me

As a white night on a steed.

Now you know how funky

I can be.

Then came the stumbling.

Then flat out free falling.

No clue where you’re tumbling

Or where you’ll end up.

And in this new world of downhill climbing, stripped away sunshine, not really knowing what’s next, or if it ever maybe sometime would get any better at all, John Stewart singled out some bright moments when he sang,

And our goodtime starts and ends

Without dollar one to spend

Cause how much baby

Do we really need?

Constant struggle for survival gets old fast.

Romance and poverty make a very tough couple.

You have few and far between bright moments.

Those bright moments revealed lyrics like caveman drawings on the walls

Continually rediscovered through the smokey mists if time

Like Dylan furiously writing in the cold 3rd floor walk up of a dump in the Village:

Yes to dance beneath the diamond sky

With one had waving free

Silhouetted by the sea

Circled by the circus sands

With all memory and fate

Driven deep beneath the waves

Let me forget about today

Until tomorrow.

And then like a timeless wind blowing snow from the Canadian cold plains of Abraham. Joni Mitchell speaks

I’ve looked at love from both sides now

From win and loose and still somehow

It’s loves illusions I recall

I really don’t know love

At all.

While scrunched down on the ancient brick sidewalks, under the promise of a Parisian spring rain, Jacque Brel growls:

If we only have love

Then tomorrow will come

And the days of our lives

Will rise on that morn.

And on a bus ride through the darkness, under Indiana stars, John Mellencamp listens to an old man who is riding beside him. And the man says,

Days turn to minutes

And minutes to memories

Life takes away the dreams

That we have planned

You are young.

You are the future

So suck it up

Tough it out

And do the best you can.

So you walk towards the water. You get down to the sea somehow, as Jackson Brown said, and you find this ancient storyteller, guy named Luke, taking down one very simple story. A story that will be told till the end of time. What Luke saw was a fisherman, Name of Simon. And what Simon said was this:

“God, we’ve worked all night long, but we’ve caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets. If you say so—I will let down the nets.”

And as Simon and his fisherman cast off from the shore, ready to fish, Sam Cooke sang.

It’s been a long time coming

But I know.

A change is gonna come.

Sargent Shriver’s World Wide Reach

Jan 192011
 

“Do the job first, Worry about ‘permission’ later.”
-Sargent Shriver

When Sargent Shriver died yesterday at 95, the litany of his accomplishments solemnly droned through the news cycle, the President issued a statement, and the burbling cartoon thought bubble of American culture noted that he was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s father in law.

But there was more. All of it tied to Sargent Shriver.

The sun comes out over a clearing in a tiny central African village. A six-year-old girl walks a dusty path home from school. Thirsty and hot from the walk she goes first to the pump and giggles as the burbling cold water splashes over her upturned face. Her grandmother smiles, remembering that when she was six, the walk to get water took an hour and there was no school. But then things changed. Pushed along by Sargent Shriver.

A world away, just outside Kankakee Illinois, a woman named Rose, who has spent her whole life right here in what is one of the poorest per capita areas in the United States, decides she is going to feed her children carrots for dinner tonight. Rose numbers among the 16% of the American population living in poverty. She doesn’t know that the poverty level held steady this past year, despite the crushing unemployment. She doesn’t know that the program that enabled her to buy the carrots, a thought she got from Oprah, was one of the tattered remains of the Office of Economic Opportunity, dismantled in 1973, the year she was born, but started by Sargent Shriver. But she knows her kids can have carrots tonight.

“There’s a difference between hard work and economic oppression.”
Sargent Shriver

Travel back to an autumn day in Chicago 1946. Joseph Kennedy has just purchased Marshall Field’s dream building, The Merchandise Mart, in Chicago. Field’s vision was to consolidate the wholesale business at the crossroads of the nation under one roof. Up until the Pentagon, it was the largest office building in the world. Located on the Chicago River where an Indian Trading post once stood, on the loading dock below the north side of the building, my Grandfather was doing what he did every day. Working hard. Loading up the trucks, the goods still damp from his sweat, then slapping the sides of the trucks as they chugged away from the dock and another one backed in their place.

My Grandfather might have understood that quote from Sargent Shriver. He might not have. I wonder how many would really understand it, or even more important, would even care to understand it, today.

But my grandfather knew who Sargent Shriver was. He saw him watching the operation that day on the loading dock. Saw the friendly nod from Shriver pointed his way. One man seeing another man working hard. A moment when words didn’t matter. And later that same day, when my grandfather sat down at the dinner table with his family, passing around the plate heaped with chicken and then the potatoes, my grandfather said, “Saw the new boss today. Seems like he’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

The worldwide reach of Sargent Shriver is very much alive. In every soul touched by The Peace Corps, VISTA, Operation Head Start, The Merchandise Mart, The Chicago Public Schools, Indian Migrant and Neighborhood Health Services. The list goes on. But it’s not about the programs. It’s about the living, breathing, sweating individuals.

Like the Irish immigrant sweating on the loading dock who got the nod straight from Shriver himself.

Even today. Right now. Announced just a few hours ago. The Sargent Shriver Center on Poverty Law in Chicago has just been awarded a MacArthur Grant. One of 11 recipients of awards of up to one million dollars.

Might that connect personally to you?

Follow this link to the Center web site.

Run your mouse over the map of the United States to see how your elected officials voted on whether or not we as a society will help take care of those who can’t of themselves. Those who, remembering Shriver’s words, work hard but are economically oppressed. Here in Illinois we have one Senator who scored 100 on a scale of 1-100. And we have another Senator who scored 56.

So the work goes on. The reach of the work connecting all of us.

Inspired by the worldwide reach of Sargent Shriver.

An idealist. Who also got things done.

Christina Green’s Rhymes and Reasons

Jan 112011
 

It’s spring in Tucson Arizona. Many years from now. The morning brought a fierce quick rain that made raging rivers of the roads. When it cleared, the green grass sparkle of the minor league baseball park set off against the scattered white puffs of remaining clouds in the bold blue Arizona sky was like a shared common smile.

The game would go on in an hour as planned. But the small park was already jammed. Out on the small hills that surrounded the field, oceans of people sat on blankets sat happily drenched from the morning rain. An electric wave of excitement, so strong you could almost see it, would sporadically drift through the crowd in the hills and in the stadium seats. What was about to happen had already happened 3 times before. It wasn’t new. But this might be, it could be, the last time. Unless of course there were four more years.

What they were all waiting for happened before every baseball game. It was called batting practice. There were always those few who came out to watch. Especially here in Arizona, in the spring, when everything began again.

But there was no other batting practice like this one. Because this was the one where the President of the United States came out to take batting practice.

It started the first year of this President’s administration. Because this president had been a professional baseball player. A baseball fan would describe the president’s career as: hit for average, a wizard on the base paths, but known mostly for having this uncanny ability to do whatever it takes to win.

And the love of the game never stops. So just because there was a career change and the baseball player became president, why did that mean batting practice should stop? Where was the rhyme or reason there?

So once a year, in the spring, for each year of this administration, there was that trip to Tucson. For spring training. To take batting practice one more time.

And that time was right now. This second. The president, even at age 52 looking strong. Strolling up to the plate. Head down. Thinking the rhymes and reasons of American dreamers. The crowd roar like ancient echoes of jubilation ringing out on to the desert, making everything that breathed start smiling. The president.

Standing at the plate alone. The baseball bat ready.

On her shoulder.

The older folks remembering the striking sight of what she would look like dancing off first base after having just smacked a hard ground ball to any given place on the field as long as no one else was standing there. Remembering her first career in baseball. Before the politics. The eldest in the crowd with a fleeting memory of when there were no women in baseball. A memory that vanished faster than the rain.

No room for memories with the president standing there at the plate ready to take her pitch.

Then the pitches started coming and she started hitting. Each time she connected, the arc of the white ball against the sky, the essential reminder of the heart of the game: that here is a game that has no borders. You propel that tiny white ball up into the sky and it can go forever and a day.

The pitches kept coming. The president kept hitting.

Up in the announcer’s booth, the national television audience heard the broadcaster say things like, “Well, Chuck, it looks like the President still has that swing!”

When it was almost time to stop, the crowd chant starting to boom, “ONE MORE! ONE MORE!” The president, her smile like the Arizona sun, held up one finger, signaling “one more,” and she swung.

And when that bat, hit that ball, there was instant silence. The sound alone told the story. Across the crowd, into the homes and cars and computers of the uncountable people listening and watching, everyone knew it, this hit would sail. It would go far. Really far.

And it did. Propelled up into the sky as if cradled by an angel it zoomed up over the heads of all of those folks watching from the hill, past every single solitary spectator on the hill till it plopped down next to a puddle left over from the morning rain. And a little girl, who’s name also happened to be Christina, jumped down off her Uncle’s shoulders, and ran with all her might, and grabbed that ball, holding it up in triumph to the Arizona sun.

To seek the wisdom of the children,

And the graceful way of flowers in the wind.

Though the cities start to crumble

And the towers fall around us

The sun is slowly fading

And it’s colder than the sea

It is written

From the desert to the mountain they shall lead us

By the hands and by the hearts

They will comfort you and me.

In their innocence and trusting.

They will teach us to be free.

From “Rhymes and Reasons”

John Denver

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zktGIElNbNg]
In honor of Christina Green. Granddaughter of Dallas Green. Former General Manager of the Chicago Cubs.

A Homeless Lush Life

Jan 072011
 

You’d think it was the hungry belly food I miss most.
Or the glass of water.
Ice-clinking tall glass of water next to my bed.

Not gonna happen in the swirls of the incandescent orange night wind blowing fits and starts beneath the rumbling roar traffic zooming past on he highway above.

While I am huddled close down here.
Grabbing moments of sleep as if they were diamonds.
You’d think it was the hunger.
But I ate yesterday.
In the basement of the church.
And that’s enough.
What I miss is feeling useful.
Useful.
Like I matter

Yesterday I helped unload the truck.
Cardboard smells carrying carrots and bruised apples.
Just for a moment I was helping.
And it tasted even warmer than the creamed chicken and rice.
Didn’t even need the hot sauce,
To help me taste again a memory
That I am alive.

And yes there once was a lush life.
When a week in Paris, could ease the pain of it.
Or even just a weekend.
A time to take a break from being useful.
Monday through Friday.
Nine to five.

Before she left,
And the days became empty, random winds,
I think I might have been a teacher.
There were smiles and eyes that lit up like brilliant rainbows,
Spectacular light shouting, “I get what you are saying, something is different now, something has shifted here.”
Back when I was useful.

There wasn’t one special moment that it stopped.
Like her hand on the door knob moment when she said,
“I wished it could have been different.”

There was instead a gradual slip sliding
Walking up hill on ice
Looking for the next safe bridge
Where I could hide and try sleep again
Once I was useful
And I miss that most of all.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0izjSUqCcSQ]

Can Bill Daley “Get Capone?”

Jan 062011
 

Five questions to get Bill Daley started as White House Chief of Staff.

1. Can you think differently about connecting people and jobs? There’s a missing piece in the process right now. Experience, connections, and education are no longer predictors of future success. The job market is not a rational marketplace. No one runs down to the store and picks up a six-pack and a job. Do you know how to start Thinking Differently about Getting Hired? Because pretty much EVERYONE either needs that themselves or knows someone who does.

2. How will you replace consensus with principles? Lets pretend (or “envision” if you went to graduate school) that we just got a news flash from Mars announcing that consensus alone as an end point is not such a good idea after all. Turns out that the Martians (besides having cable companies that don’t rip you off and health insurance as good as Sweden’s) figured out that when everyone steps to the center of an argument, just to end the argument, then everyone loses. What the Martians discovered was that when they took a principle like this one: “We are all connected,” they simply couldn’t put that principle into action by ONLY using consensus. The Martians found out that as brothers and sisters, we are all, personally, anywhere from 1-5 “incidents” away from personal ruin. For example, lets say my 5 incidents were: 1. Job loss, 2. Divorce, 3. Health problem, and 4. House loss and 5. Hunger. That’s 5 incidents. Some folks are 1 incident away. Some 2. So we’re all connected and all just an incident or two away from personal ruin. What do you suppose the odds are or a centrist position helping that situation? And even worse; what if one side of the argument was negotiating in bad faith? So what the Martians did was to say—forget consensus. Forget “the middle.” What’s are the real principles we have in common? And how do we make them real?

3. Can you stop playing “whack a mole?” When you see one problem rising up under the expensive Turkish rug I’m just guessing will be in your office, did you notice that pushing it down just makes it or another problem come up somewhere else? Are you gonna keep whacking? Or will you get rid of the rug?

4. Can you “Get Capone?” This one is the toughest. You’ll need help. So I’d turn first to the Dean of Political Bloggers “Driftglass” who came up with the phrase. Read him quick. What “Getting Capone” means is confronting true evil. Not the pretend evil. Not all that, “I’m not saying he wasn’t born here, I’m just not sure stuff.” Not the smoke screens. I mean real evil. I mean getting Rupert, or the Koch Brothers or names that I don’t even know but you do, on the phone. And saying this stops now.

5. Can you be a cop? Can you keep order? Civility? Can you model what it means as we all try our hardest to weave back the tattered, torn social safety net that now just blows reckless and wild in the winter of these very troubled times?

I remember one day walking past your house. It was summer. You were working on your lawn. You nodded. Seemed like a friendly guy. And then I remember once in Mario’s. You were with some friends. And maybe it was just because it was Mario’s, where everything was simple and good, but I remember thinking, I wonder if you only breathed the rarefied filtered air of those who rule?

Or if you also knew what the garlic, tomato sauce, pasta, cheap wine Friday night at a little corner joint while the winter howled outside, smelled like too?

I wondered if you knew that smell too.

Guess we’ll find out.

And if you need any help? Better yet—if you need the right help.

Stop by Mario’s.

I’m pretty easy to find.

Where Chuck Berry Collapsed On Stage

Jan 022011
 

The Congress Theater.

When Chuck Berry, 84, collapsed from unknown causes on stage Saturday night in Chicago, the concert venue was not some glitzy down town tourist trap.

Berry slumped over his keyboards at the Congress Theater. A 2,900 seat, faded architectural gem originally built in the 1920’s as a golden movie palace. The Congress sits on Milwaukee Avenue. Twenty-one blocks northwest of the center of Chicago. Once an unpaved Indian Trail from Chicago to Milwaukee, along which all sorts of flim flam fast buck artists plied their trade alongside hard working people who got up before dark most mornings and did their jobs.

Not all that long ago, there were more Polish people clustered on and around Milwaukee Avenue than there were in most Polish cities. The potential next Mayor of Chicago lives in a condo off Milwaukee Avenue while he waits for his rented house to be empty. And the outposts of the arts, galleries, places where people read poetry dot the urban landscape in tiny storefronts with rhymes of what’s edgy, new and the next big thing.

So the place where the great rock and roller put his head down is a vibrant, alive avenue where people live close to each other, where they go to work, make art and dream big. A place with a history.

Berry was checked out in an ambulance. They he came back on stage and tried again.

He came back on stage and tried again.

The crowd had mostly emptied out, but Chuck Berry came back on stage and tried again.

And just as he did that, somewhere, hurling out in the farthest regions of space, way beyond any known galaxy—the well known story goes—the space capsule sent from our planet out to the heavens in about 1960; that space capsule reached its destination.

The people of that faraway planet opened it up, saw everything we had stuffed inside. The holy texts of the world’s great religions, some equations scribbled by Einstein, a Picasso, a volume of Romeo and Juliet, a Bach Cantata, a Vonnegut book, Keith Jarrett and Duke Ellington recorded, penicillin and the polio vaccine.

There was more. There were items that showcased us at our best.

But the last item was a plastic disc. An old 45 rpm record. Our brothers and sisters, being way beyond us, immediately knew how to make sound come from this “45.” It was a Chuck Berry record.

And those people from that faraway planet listened. Then they wrote a 4 word reply. Stuffed it in the capsule and sent it hurtling out to find us.

It should be here any moment.

What was their four-word response?

“Send more Chuck Berry.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gv62KbSBQM]

2010 in review

Jan 022011
 

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2010. That’s about 5 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 69 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 72 posts. There were 49 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 5mb. That’s about 4 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 5th with 62 views. The most popular post that day was What if Stories Were the Real Medicine?.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were mail.yahoo.com, webmail.aol.com, mail.aol.com, driftglass.blogspot.com, and blogs.vocalo.org.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for terri hemmert, terri hemmert white house, sandra day o’connor wrigley, paul haider chicago, and smiley cm glittering red heart glitter fwp.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

What if Stories Were the Real Medicine? February 2010
16 comments

2

Aunt Terri Hemmert at the White House June 2010
6 comments

3

Dick Buckley’s Baritone Bass Thread July 2010
4 comments

4

Insurance and Ice Cream Cones March 2010
8 comments

5

A National Writers Project for 2010 May 2010
6 comments

She Married a Beatle

Dec 292010
 


My sister Wendy did good. Marrying a Beatle. Expand the shot of the Fab Four walking across Abby Road and you’d see him. Of course a lot of people don’t believe what they can’t see or prove.

But he’s used to that. Gets it a lot. Doesn’t faze him at all.

This week marks his birthday—he’s in his extremely late 50’s. So this party right here this moment is for him.

C’mon in! The doors to the tent are thrown open in all directions. Just like on the Plains of Abraham. So all are welcome. It’s the birthday of a Beatle. He really is a Rockstar.

And if you step inside, it might prompt the thought that there is a Beatle in your life too.

In our collective human lifting of voices into one resounding song, some people are just Beatles. Maybe it’s just for a moment, for a week, a year or even a lifetime. A Beatle is a person who makes a difference. Their song sounds in ways that changes things. Beatles change other people’s worlds.

Beatles are often people you wouldn’t look twice at if they passed you on the street. Picture John, Paul, George and Ringo standing in the gray English rain on a street in Liverpool, all at age 10. Who knew they’d change the world?

Wendy’s Beatle grew up close to Liverpool. In Manchester. Felt that same English rain on his face.

When Wendy first brought him home to our parent’s house, no one knew he was a Beatle but her. He was the kind of longhaired, bearded, revolutionary spirit likely to storm the temples of complacency, preach something frighteningly radical and overturn the moneychanger’s tables. He stood at the counter in my parent’s kitchen, took a long swig of an ice-cold Lite beer and spit it on the floor, saying, “You really drink this stuff?”

This was long before he took me into my first English Pub, warmed in the glow of the fireplace, the laughter in the conversation, the cheese and sausage pub lunch, the beer that leaves you thinking, this just might be like wine to quench the thirst of every tomorrow I am ever blessed to have.

When your sister marries a Beatle. You get to be a Beatles’ brother. Which is nice.

At their wedding, which might have been 30 years or 30 seconds ago, throngs of longhaired English people filled our parents back yard bringing the very same warmth of an English Pub. Our Dad made his now very famous in the new and larger family quote, “I don’t feel like I’ve lost a daughter. I feel like I’ve gained a country!” I got to play basketball with guys that did things like saw Van Morrison sing down at the local pub for a dollar, and Wendy and her Beatle went off to make a life.

As the years went by, the rest of us began to understand what Wendy already knew: this guy really was a Beatle.

I could see it when I watched him write a song. He did this every week.

Every week.

I got to see this more than once. Here’s how he’d do it. He’d start pacing around the room. Sometimes in circles. Faster and faster. As if any second he could careen off a wall like a silver rolling pin ball. He’d be muttering to himself. Every now and then he’d go look at this big book that always lay open on a table. Then he’d start pacing again.

I don’t remember the part where he wrote anything down. But I sure remember when he sang these songs. There would be two or more of us gathered, and Wendy’s Beatle would start off. No notes. He’d hold all who listened just with his words. And I knew it was him singing. I saw it. Those words coming from his mouth. But I also knew that what he was singing about was much bigger than anything he said.

See, that’s what a Beatle can do. A Beatle can lead you past what you see and bring you face to face with a mystery. Face to face with magic. With things you don’t really understand, with things you doubt.

Doubt. That essential element of faith. Singing songs of praise that don’t teach, preach, or sell—but instead reveal. A Beatle can do that. Sometimes with words, sometimes with actions. It depends on the Beatle. And the varieties of Beatles are infinite.

In fact, now that you’re thinking about it—doesn’t a Beatle from your life come to mind?

Wendy’s job, in her life’s travels with her Beatle, has always been, as the poet Mary Oliver wrote, “loving the world.”

Wendy’s Beatle sang songs of love. So that meant bringing in the rest of the world to sing along. John, Paul, George and Ringo did a lot of that too. They listened very hard to Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, even the Broadway songwriter Meredith Wilson, and then they carried on the song.

Wendy’s Beatle did the same thing. He read from that big open book. He drew from the real life, everyday world around him, and then he put together all those love songs. And delivered them pretty near every week of his life.

The lyric that follow is one he probably never heard. But a little surprise is good for a birthday celebration. And this song was written by another Beatle. Her name is Carole King. She grew up in Brooklyn. Raised Jewish. Just like the mother of Wendy’s Beatle’s Boss. Carole King started out as a secretary. But then she got into another line of work. And became a Beatle too. She wrote:

What must I do, how can I serve you

Is it true what I do is the way to be near you

I’m listening, though sometimes I can’t hear you.

Looking around fills me with wonder

At the way you can keep this old world running smoothly

Thinking of you always seems to soothe me

I know you’re probably not a man or a woman

Or a time or a season

But I’m here and life is dear

And I guess that’s a good enough reason to say

Just let me do what you put me here to

Let me be what you want me to be

And I hope it’ll cheer you

I’m listening and I think I can hear you

Even when I thought I didn’t believe

You believed in me

And everyone is a part of you

And anyone can know you

All they’ve got to do is be

I’m listening, and I think I can hear you.

Now, all these years later, Wendy and her Beatle have two children off in the wider world. Doing things like walking dusty roads in India looking to give comfort. And striding through hospitals in the U.K, looking to give care. Wendy and her Beatle now have a daughter in law who brings the grace and beauty of Korea to the party. And the word around the planet is that the party could soon get even larger with a brand new soul.

Turns out that all of them sound a lot like Beatles to me.

So, take a look around. You might see a Beatle too.

You’ll recognize them as the ones who are speaking words of wisdom.

And singing, let it be.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfHhAoj3P4]

A Buddhist’s Christmas Present

Dec 242010
 

“Give oranges,” said the voice.

I looked up from doing Christmas cards on our dining room table. No one else in the room. It was a grey, cold Sunday afternoon. Maria was lost in a frenzy of baking. She bakes the way Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Maybe even the way Gandhi walked the dusty streets of a village.

Christmas music filled the house and fueled her every motion. The football game played without sound as the Chicago Bears played with heart this year.

“Give oranges,” I heard it again.

“Honey, I got to get something upstairs, I shouted into the kitchen as she danced from the stove to the sink and sang, “OK.”

Climbing the stairs and walking into my closet where all the important stuff that wouldn’t fit anywhere else was tossed in a big white plastic bin, I pulled out the yellow envelope and slipped out the death certificate.

January 12. 2007. Yep. My Aunt Mavis, the Buddhist, was still dead.

Almost three years now. Still sometimes I check. Especially when I hear a voice saying things I don’t understand. Like, “Give oranges.”

It’s usually her.

Walking back downstairs and looking out the front window at the tiny bare tree on Grace Street where I could sometimes feel her presence, I remembered the Zen “Koan.” One of those stories that demands a second read before it even begins to make sense. She loved those kind of stories.

“One day as Manjusri stood outside the gate, the Buddha called to him, “Manjusri, Manjusri, why do you not enter?” Manjusri replied, “I do not see myself as outside. Why enter?””

I heard Mavis laugh and clap her hands with delight and then recognized her voice saying once more “Give oranges!”

Walking into the kitchen, I pulled a book off the shelf that I had bought just after she died. “The Seat of the Soul.” It was by the author of “The Dancing Wu Li Masters,” one of Mavis’s favorites. I bought the book thinking about how I’d never get to talk to her about it. Then put it on a shelf unopened.

Today I opened it. It had been long enough.

What if, the book said, there were more than the 5 senses we humans use to make sense of the world?

Imagine how good that orange would taste. Tossing up the orange and catching it, I can see and touch its skin. Shaking it up next to my ear I can hear a faint sloshing. A taste like a thousand summer nights. And the smell is heavenly. But that’s just 5 senses. What if there were more?

What if a “multi-sensory” (as author Gary Zukav calls it) person; could expand the channels through which they take in the world? What if my personal frame of reference somehow grew to the size of a blue and endless Montana sky?

Then I heard her say again, “Give oranges!” And I still didn’t understand.

I walked into the kitchen where Maria was unraveling dough like an ancient rabbi rolling out a Torah.

“Well, this year didn’t turn out like we planned,” I said. “Turns out the world didn’t change in a year.”

“Does the world ever change in a year?” she asked.

“Probably not, I answered. But I sure wish we could buy each other all sorts of cool Christmas presents. I wish we could take that trip up north.”

“I know. But we’re making it. We’ll get by. We have enough.

“I think what I want for Christmas is an orange, “I proclaimed.

She’s used to hearing things like that. It’s been almost 15 years now. So she just smiled and said, “OK!” Then she ramped back up into her baking speed and I went back to the dining room to finish up the Christmas cards.

I sat down, picked up the pen, and as I did, I heard Mavis say, “So you’re not really giving up writing are you?”

“No.”

“What will you write about? Especially all those times no one reads what you write.”

“Stewardship. Taking care of something I don’t own. Something infinitely bigger than me.”

“What does that mean?”

“Mavis, I said, (now it was my turn to roll my eyes) you’re the one who’s dead. Why are you asking me? Don’t you know?”

“I do. But we’re talking about you here. So, do you have a story to share right now?”

“Well yeah. I didn’t write it. It’s kind of long. 4 minutes.”

“4 minutes is long huh?”

“Well I. . . .”

“And maybe the point is not whether you wrote it. Maybe the point is whether or not it’s a good story. Hey! Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I answered.

“What I just told you. The part about the good story being the point. That little pearl is your present. That’s YOUR present.”

“So, no IPADS you could pass along from heaven huh?”

“That’s right smart ass. Now one more question. Would a Buddhist like this story?”

I answered. “As much as a Buddhist would like emptiness?”

And that’s when I heard her laugh the loudest. I looked outside and it had begun to snow in Chicago. A gentle snow that stilled the troubled ground.

“Ok, I said, “I’ll share the story. It’s called “The Train. It’s by a group called “Celestial Navigation.” I don’t know how much you’ll like the middle part. But I am certain you will like the end. Maybe we could talk about it when we’re done? Maybe if you just told me where I could find you? Where you’ll be?

And Mavis answered, “Remember Steinbeck’s story? Remember what Tom Joad said to his mother when she asked him that question?”

“I’ll be all around in the dark. I’ll be ever’-where – wherever you can look. Wherever there’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad – I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise, and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.”

“That’s where I’ll be,” she said.

“So what do I do now?”

“You listen. Listen for stories like the one you’re about to share. Never you mind if they are YOUR stories. You pay attention to whether they are GOOD stories. Stories that prompt people to think”

“Ok. I can do that. But what’s next? That’s the scary part! What’s next? What do I do next?”

“Give oranges, Roger. Just keep giving oranges.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITrwCNq9iBI]

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