Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men

December 23, 2023 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

Christmas 2023 is two days away. Two days before the mania between Thanksgiving and December 24 relinquishes control of our lives and gives way to Winter’s solemn grip taking hold until Spring Training begins, the snow melts, and our thoughts return to warmer days.

In this time of rising nationalism, vindictive and dictatorial ethos, racist overtones, war, threats of civil war, and in an era seemingly allergic to personal responsibility, community, and accountability, here are my wishes for this Christmas season and 2024.

Number One: A return to civility. I joke that I can trace the downfall of society to the first “Casual Friday” at work. What began as a fundraiser and a sticker identifying us as having donated and, therefore, allowed to wear jeans at work devolved into wearing pajamas at Walmart. Casual Friday is now every day. When can we begin “Dress Up Friday?”

Manners and respect go a long way. Simply cordiality can do two things. First, it engenders a sense of community. We would recognize the other individual as a person, a fellow human being beset with challenges both seen and unseen. This alone can blunt the raging self-centeredness of Americans. Second, even in a tense situation, cordial interaction allows for a defusion of emotions. Perhaps it could help reduce road rage and the gun violence pandemic in America.

Number Two: A return to a sense of community. The world where employees spend a lifetime at one company is no more. The end of the pandemic saw the “Great Resignation.” Companies blamed employees. Employees blamed capitalism. And the stock market blamed the government. The only loyalty still in existence is the loyalty Donald Trump expects of everyone on the planet (without reciprocity).

Business claims to value people, their employees, as their greatest resource. That should tell you all you need to know about the state of American capitalism. Employees are not resources. Iron ore is a resource. Paper clips are a resource. Employees are people. By relegating employees to the inanimate, companies feel justified and vindicated when conducting mass layoffs (resource inventory reductions), demand more of those “fortunate” to remain (without any corresponding wage increase), and have their equally productive remote positions reallocated to “hybrid” or permanently reclassified as in-office only. If the stock goes up, the decision is correct. The greatest resource be damned.

Leviticus 19:18 reads, “… you shall love thy neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 19:19 says, “… love your neighbor as yourself.” Given how America has a “you first after me” mentality, this wish alone could alter humankind. By changing this aspect of society, selfishness would abate, civility would return, and manners would be insisted upon.

And Number Three: A return of respect. Do not expect or wait for me to apologize for your bad behavior. Seemingly gone are the days of respect for our neighbors, community, family, friends, strangers, co-workers, and countries. We would solve many of the world’s problems if only respect lived. We have chipped away at respect to the point where we do not even respect ourselves. Personal accountability no longer exists. We do our children a disservice when we tell them to respect others, be kind, and work hard, and success will follow. There is no longer any downside to bad behavior. Instead, it seems those who exhibit deviant behavior excel in life at the expense of every other person. This slide away from civility and toward self-centered American society began long ago, probably in the 1960s, when the youth dared question the government and demands for equality were met with violence.

Mafia movies and TV shows would have us believe that respect made for an orderly business and kept everyone in line. Fear may have been a better term. And that was until everyone flipped and became an informant to the FBI. The cause? See wishes Number One and Two above. Specifically, being self-centered. Self-interest is superseding the community. Sensing a theme? We were taught, “Respect is earned.” However, the default position upon meeting someone should not be disdain or an immediate dismissal. Perhaps we should alter the phrase. Instead of “respect is earned,” maybe it could be “respect is offered, maintained if reciprocated.”

That’s my list. Three items.

The King James Version (KJV) reads, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men.”

The English Standard Version (ESV) (and most other versions I researched) is less global and more subservient, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Peace, but only for some. Got it.

I want civility, community, and respect. This does not make me a “Make America Great Again” acolyte devoid of compassion and a wish for a time that never was. In many ways, I would argue that what I wish for is the opposite of what the MAGA crowd expects. Mine is a wish to return to what was once respectful, but this time applied equally to all. Peace on earth, goodwill to all humankind. All humankind. Happy holidays, everyone.

My Christmas Wish List

December 22, 2016 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

Before some of us had taken down our Christmas trees and we were familiar enough with 2016 to write it without first having written 2015, swearing, and changing it to 2016, David Bowie (1/10), Alan Rickman (1/14), and Glen Frey (1/18) had died. 2016 has, by most accounts, been a dreadful year. And after the awful 2014 and 2015, my family and I endured, 2016 seems like a fitting ending to a trio of personally miserable years, the melancholy of which somehow leached into the world in 2016.

My children say it is difficult to buy gifts for me. I agree. My Christmas wish list keeps getting shorter every year, and the items populating it more impossible to purchase. I want more time with my wife. I want more time with those whom I love and still surround me. I want 2017 celebrated for finding a cure for cancer and an end to war and hunger. I want a return toward admiring intelligence and compassion, rather than insipid popularity and uninformed conceit.

I don’t want to make America great again. I want us to want to make the world great now. And that begins by understanding the real problems facing the world and the real issues affecting its people. Not the top issues paid for by lobbyists and bought by elected officials.

We don’t seem to have found the answers to those problems and, thus, they remain on my wish list year after year. Perhaps 2017 will be the year. Anyway, that’s what I want for Christmas. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone.

A Note To My Children This Christmas

December 16, 2015 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ Leave a comment

Christmas is supposed to be the time of year when you indulge the child within; a time when the twinkling lights and Christmas songs fire the imagination and spark precious memories. When decorating the tree reminds us of all the Christmas’s past as we hang our favorite ornaments. When a trip to the Providence Civic Center to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and their “frickin’ lasers” would indulge both the seasonal sentimentality and the rock show need in us.

However, this Christmas there will be no Christmas tree, no Trans-Siberian Orchestra, no lights or lasers. When we lost your mother, we relegated those good times to memory, never to be added to – only to be recalled. There will never again be nine Christmas trees decorating 3 Deerfield Drive. There will probably never again be a house built with an outlet beneath every window so that electric candles can easily be displayed.

We always had a beautiful garden. I say we like I had anything to do with it. I pruned and weeded, but your mother designed the garden and hand-selected all of the plants within it. Now I will move to a condo with no garden, and the best I can do is a patio tomato and a house plant. No more luxurious rose bushes, the names of which I had committed to memory. Now it is all only a memory. I will miss those roses. I almost cried the other day when we went to Kroger. As we filled the carriage with supplies, we passed the florist section. I would normally buy a dozen roses. Mom and I had a ritual. I would buy them and bring them home. She would complain that we couldn’t afford to buy roses every time I went grocery shopping. I would lie and tell her I had a coupon. Now there is no need for me to buy roses. Another painful reminder that she is gone forever.

Nothing makes you appreciate what you have until it’s gone. I had life by the balls. I had a wonderful wife, two great kids, a beautiful home that we had built, and a job at which I could make a decent living. I had a fluffy white dog and two nice cars, everything but the proverbial white picket fence. I thought I appreciated everything I had and, to a point, I did. However, it wasn’t until cancer visited our house in 2008 that I began to see how fragile my grasp on this reality was. And now, my wonderful wife is gone, our beautiful home is gone, you two are one year away from beginning your lives apart from me, and Delbow is old and in constant pain. I had my time. I had my life. Now it is your turn. I do not begrudge you the incredible futures before you. I simply wonder when it was agreed that cancer could shatter my future at fifty. I still have a nice car and my job is better than ever, but my world has slipped over the event horizon.

I am so grateful for you both. You have been through hell. And despite that, you both completed the fall semester of your senior year with amazing grades. But I know you are hurting. As long as we continue to talk to each other we will get through this and into a different “normal.” It has been three months, and this is a difficult time in our grieving process. We realize Mom is no longer coming home now. We are beginning to understand that and wow, it hurts.

Some memories are fading, like the names of all of the medications she was on at the end. Something so important at the time has begun to fade and, despite all reason and rationale, it begins to fester within me as guilt that I am beginning to forget her. I know that is silly, but the guilt is incredibly real. I also feel guilt for being the one to survive, given how close you were to Mom. I wish it could have been me that had cancer and died. Not because I would want to miss anything of your lives or the incredible things you have yet to experience, but because I know what an amazing person Mom was and how disgustingly unfair this all is to her.

Seven years of fighting did nothing to prepare us for her loss. And I know that any smiles or laughs we have are met with the urge to share them with Mom. The fact that she’ll never be there again is the sharpest pain I’ve ever felt. My one wish this Christmas would be to stop your pain by having Mom back –and healthy. But I don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore and even if I did, I believe that this wish would be beyond his reach. I’m so sorry. I hate this new normal, but I love you both so much.

It’s a Girl!

December 14, 2012December 14, 2012 ~ thoughtsatlarge ~ 1 Comment

In honor of Christmas, let’s play a holiday game. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to get up and go outside. There will be no caroling. In fact, this game is easier than Nintendo Wii. You can just sit there. This is a mental game.

As with all games, there are rules. These are the assumptions of our game:

God exists
God is the god of Christian faiths.
Jesus was the son of God

Now, here’s the wrinkle and basis of our game: Let’s pretend that the Virgin Mary gave birth to a girl instead of a boy.

Aside from the jokes of the manger having been decorated or Joseph and Mary demanding that baby girl Jesus be taken inside to a Hilton rather than remain in the manger, what would have happened during this girl’s life and what would her legacy be 2,000 years later?

At first blush, this twist raises more questions than assurances. For example, would a female Jesus have commanded the same respect that the male Jesus did? Would the disciples have even followed a woman allowing that the same divine claims and actions took place? Would the Jews or the Romans have taken her protestations and actions seriously and seen her as a threat to the established paradigm? Would she have been crucified or would another punishment have been meted out, say stoning? And if so, what would everybody wear around their neck and pray to at church if not a tortured man nailed to a wooden cross and left to die? Would she have even been taken seriously or would she have been the first victim of a time and date removed Salem witch hunt? Would the disciples have followed up her death with the establishment of the Christian faith? Would it have spread throughout the world and been the basis for the Roman Catholic Church in Rome? Would Popes be women, would there have been female priests? Would her teachings of peace and deference prevented the Crusades? Would females have become the leaders of the world and males simply the brute tools to their vision? If so, would the world have seen the development of societies and civilizations as they have occurred or would some other world evolved? Might this have prevented all of the wars the world has seen? Might maternal guidance have eclipsed testosterone driven bravado and intransigence leading to cordial debate and discourse rather than gunfire and bombs?

Once you ponder the possibilities and changes the world may have known, then consider if Mohammad had been born a woman, that Buddha was a woman (that all the deities revered in the world had been women) and that God was personified as a woman rather than a male. What might have happened?

Just something to think about.