The Bunny Easter

My kids tended to screw up nouns with two words when they were younger.  Not sure why – it just happened.  Two that remain are “belt seat” and “Bunny Easter”.  So around our house, the Bunny Easter made an appearance last week providing a basket full of candy for each child (who of course had to endure a house-wide search to find it).

I started thinking about the Bunny Easter (or Easter Bunny as some of you more sophisticated readers probably know him).  What the heck is the deal? Why would we celebrate Easter with an egg delivery rabbit? I then started thinking about the relationship between Santa and the Bunny Easter and wondered why our culture has chosen to couple the two most religious days with two gift bringing characters.

The cynic in me would attribute it to some cigar smoking industrialists who deviously introduced a way to hawk more of their collective wares on an ignorant and unsuspecting public… 
“Sales are flat people.  We need new ideas – big ideas – on how to improve sales or there’s going to be more than a few heads that will roll.  How can we sell more toys and candy?”

“Why don’t we try to introduce the tradition of giving freedom toys on Independence Day?”

“That’s crap. – but wait a minute you might be onto to something…”

“Why don’t we invent some characters who bring our products on days people celebrate most…like Christmas…”

So that was one theory that probably has some merit but I think there must be some deeper reason that reflects some collective dysfunctional behavior on the part of everyone.  Why would everyone chose to go along with a tradition that undermines the meaning of the two most important days of the year? 

I wonder if we were and are afraid of coping with the real meaning of the days as a group.  Maybe we have trouble expressing to friends and acquaintances the true meaning and importance of the days so we came up with a lived cartoon we use to mark the significance of the days.  We all agree the day is special but we don’t really want to confront this reality forthrightly with one another so we have created diversions to cope.

I think it would be a broach of personal space to say to an acquaintance that you are looking forward to celebrating Christ coming to the world and giving all new hope, it’s easier to buy a toy and wish them, “Happy Holidays.”  We are afraid of talking even with fellow Christians of importance and meaning of Christ dying and rising so we scatter some M&Ms around the house and head to brunch.  We all know these days are very important but somehow we’ve decided we can’t deal with their meaning head-on as a society.

I guess I don’t have any answers I sure is heck am not going to serve my kids stewed rabbit next Easter and tell them things are going to be different from now on.  I do think we must be very careful in not becoming a completely secular society when so many people are Christians and believers in other faiths.  Maybe we should change our language a little to send a subtle reminder of the true importance of these days.  How about, ‘Christ is risen’ instead of Happy Easter or ‘Christ is coming’ instead of Merry Christmas.

I suppose we should also take some comfort that we don’t have Thomas the Turkey bringing candy corn and sleds to most grateful boys and girls on Thanksgiving.  Just you wait though.

The Right to Write

There’s something I’ve often wondered about but never really thought about it enough to get to the core or its meaning.  I am sure you are probably thinking I am referring to the nature of evil, world peace, or Divine providence verses free will.  Sorry to disappoint but I am actually thinking about why people tend to horde writing instruments.

In every place I have ever worked or ever lived, there is always a spot or spots designated for amassing writing utensils.  I can see you might want to keep say, a dozen pens and a dozen pencils around just in case you hit a bad string of luck and have a lot of breaks and a lot of breakdowns but most caches I have come across number anywhere from 50 to 200.  How many ball point pens do you need?  How many pencils?  I can understand having different colored markers but at what point do you say enough is enough?

I bet there are at least 700 things in my house that are used for writing.  This of course excludes the reality that more and more of the writing we do is on one of three computers (more hording) rather than with pen and paper.  I would also guess there are roughly treble that if you searched the offices and store rooms in the administrative areas of the church.

I cleaned out my desk drawer a few months back and decided I didn’t need a drawer full of pens and pencils.  I took the bulk of inventory down to the office supply store room and added my roughly sixty items to the hundreds already there.  I am going to guess that these pens and pencils will sit there for some time as we order brighter and shinier pens and pencils from the office supply store.

How many of you have used a pencil and used it exclusively until you sharpened it down to a size too small use?  Or how many of you have used a pen until all the ink has been used up?  No doubt some people do and have extracted the full life out a writing instrument but I think more times than not we lose them or grab something else at some point.  Maybe we should commit ourselves to one pen and one pencil to the exclusion of all others until we have extracted every last letter from their existence.

I am not sure what my point is, I guess I wondered if there was some unconscious survival instinct in each of us that makes us store pencils up.  It’s as if our minds perhaps have an deep-seated fear of ever being caught in a situation where its thoughts might never be recorded.  This instinct drives us to take the free pen at the vendor booth only to take the pen home and throw it in the drawer with 100 other pens that will never be used.  The mind rests easier knowing that if it comes up with a thought that should be recorded; there is plenty of ammo in the junk drawer waiting to be used.

I will admit that if we are going to start a battle with our minds instincts we should focus our energy on resisting the temptation to eat too much and horde wealth but to be consistent, we should also liberate our lives and drawers from our irrational hording of writing utensils.

Traditionally Speaking

The Quiet Man

I celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by watching an all time favorite movie of mine, “The Quiet Man.”  The movie is set in Ireland and celebrates both the positive and negative stereotypes of the Irish.

On the positive side there is a very positive sense of community presented throughout the movie.  People know one another and largely care for one another.  The Church is portrayed as a real positive force in the lives of people and the priests are portrayed as real, non-dysfunctional people.

On the negative side, the Irish are largely portrayed as quick-tempered, ready to fight, and big drinkers.  I suppose you could add backward to some extent to the list as well.

I’ve seen the movie many times but before last nights viewing I decided to do some reading on the movie first.  I gained a new understanding and a new appreciation of aspects of the film and film making in general.

As I was thinking about an appropriate way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, I started to think that I am short on tradition in my life.  I suppose this could be considered good or bad but I have decided I need more personal and or family traditions in my life.  So tradition one is that I will watch, “The Quiet Man,” on St. Patrick’s Day.  And now I am thinking about adding some meaningful traditions for other meaningful events.

Do you have any suggestions?  Do you do the same thing on Easter or Mother’s Day or Arbor Day or Memorial Day?  Does the activity increase the meaning of the day?  Should it?  Should people or groups of people contrive meaningful activities on days of the year (other than going to Church)?  What are these things and what are their benefits?

Let’s see if I can come up with some suggestions…

On the Twins opening day, we will have a barbeque and watch the game outside in Twins fan gear.

On the first day of spring, I will hit a golf ball into or onto Holy Name Lake and make up a poem asking the ghost of Bobby Jones to make me a better golfer.

On April 1st, I will put Christmas lights on the house of at least one neighbor or friend.

On May 1st, I will reread the Communist Manifesto and reflect on whether unbridled capitalism is ruining the planet and subjecting the masses to indentured servitude.

On Memorial Day weekend, I will totally submerse myself in a lake in Minnesota and create a list of 10 things I will do over the summer – maybe five fun things and five projects.

So know you get the idea?  Have any suggestions?

Signal to Noise

I have been thinking about the value of things and putting them in the context of signal (things that have the most value) to noise (things that have lower or no value or can actually have negative value).  The evaluation I have been doing started with thinking about what happens at church.  So given the vast and numerous activities which of these have the greatest value and which do not?  Maybe more importantly which activities diminish the value of other activities.

More specifically, I was asked to work on a policy for when the parish should allow someone or some group to solicit restricted gifts.  Let’s say I want to install a statue and think I can find people to write contribute for this and so can I do this or not.  When should this be allowed and who and how does this decision get made. 

After some analysis I linked the solicitation of restricted gifts to fundraising activity in general.  Fundraising is essentially asking for money for a specific purpose and so whether you are selling cookies or asking for a contribution for a statue, you are largely doing the same thing.

As I started to think about how fundraising decisions should be made and establishing a basis for why they should or should not be allowed, I started thinking about whether much of this activity isn’t noise.  No doubt these activities benefit many groups and many people but do they represent a harmful introduction of commercial and material activity into a place that should be mostly about spirit.  Shouldn’t we be a shelter for the rampant and stress inducing commerce everywhere else in our world?

Does hosting a sale or having a second collection nearly every week inhibit our mission of spiritual development? In what ways do these things add value and in what ways do the diminish the value?

As I thought about this reality, I started thinking about a very similar parallel in my life.  How much of my time and energy go into commerce and detract from time spent developing relationships?  What is the signal in my life and what is the noise?  Maybe I need to establish some policies for my own decision-making to ensure I am not spending too much time “fundraising” at the expense of what’s most important.

Screw it

I need a decent car.  I am tired of my car and everything it represents.  I need a nice car.  I work hard and life is short.  You can’t go driving around a piece of crap in this city and expect any amount of respect from even the lowly.  I have to have a decent ride.  I am an educated person.  I’ve worked without a break to generate varying amounts of income since I was in sixth grade – I deserve a larger slice of pie.

I don’t participate in the so-called American dream on so many levels the least I can do is lease of respectable car.  Lease rates are seem low – come up with a little front end scratch and drive a nice, respectable car for three years.  I’d have way more dignity.  People would respect me more. There would be a far brighter light shining down the highway of life.

Then again, maybe I am shooting too low.  My whole life I have lived a budget existence and now it’s time to worry about numbero uno.  I am going to test drive a BMW, a Cadillac Escalade, and a Lexus. And I am going to sign up for a three year lease on the car that best gives me a distinct sense of self-worth and importance.  I am leaving right now and I am going to start my test drive at the Lexus dealership on Highway 12 and I am going to work my way down 394 until I get to the Jaguar dealership on Washington Ave.  Give me a pen and the keys, I’ll sign, I swear I will.

Screw this. Screw eating real and metaphorical meals of peanut butter sandwiches and ramin noodles. 

I need to foist the economy and do my part.  If I do my part to repair the economy, I got to believe that my income will eventually increase to the point where I can swing the $700/month lease payment.  Someone has got to be courageous and willing to take a chance.

Screw it all and screw Eddie Vedder whose song will not leave my head…

It’s a mystery to me
we have a greed
with which we have agreed

You think you have to want
more than you need
until you have it all you won’t be free

society, you’re a crazy breed
I hope you’re not lonely without me

When you want more than you have
you think you need
and when you think more than you want
your thoughts begin to bleed

I think I need to find a bigger place
’cause when you have more than you think
you need more space

society, you’re a crazy breed
I hope you’re not lonely without me
society, crazy and deep
I hope you’re not lonely without me

there’s those thinking more or less less is more
but if less is more how you’re keeping score?
Means for every point you make
your level drops
kinda like its starting from the top
you can’t do that…

society, you’re a crazy breed
I hope you’re not lonely without me
society, crazy and deep
I hope you’re not lonely without me

society, have mercy on me
I hope you’re not angry if I disagree
society, crazy and deep
I hope you’re not lonely without me

I saved $510 on a faucet…

I saved $510 on a faucet…imagine how much I could save on a war.

I went to Lowe’s last night to get a furnace filter and decided to get a bathroom faucet since we have one that has been dripping for some time.  The bad news was I didn’t find the furnace filter I needed but the good news was I saved at least $510 on a bathroom faucet.

I saw the one I really liked and it was going for $538.  It was really nice and there were many others that were between that price and $300.  I liked a lot of them but decided I just needed a way to get the water from my pipes into the sink and be able to mix the hot and cold to the right temperature.  Turns out Lowe’s had a huge number of other options.  I ended up getting one on sale for $29.  I am confident it will regulate the flow of water from my pipes to the sink as well as allow the user to adjust the temperature. 

On the way home I was listening to the radio and there was a interview with a Nobel prize winning economist.  He was talking about the true cost of the war in Iraq.  According to his conservative calculations, he put the figure at $3 trillion.  This is a lot more than typically sited figures but I thought about it and numbers beyond a billion get pretty abstract unless you tie them to alternative realities or boil them down to a family or individual level.

Here’s a little quick math – let’s assume the number $3 trillion is write or will be right before Iraq is financially independent (hard to imagine but try it).  If there are 250 million Americans that would mean for every billion spent, we each would have to pay $4.  So a trillion is a thousand billions so each of us owes $12,000 for a $3 trillion war.  There are five people in my family so that’s $60,000 to me.  

Now if someone came to me and asked for $60,000 and said they needed it to fight terrorism.  I’d say $60,000 is a lot of money, how are you going to make me $60,000 safer?  I not necessarily against the idea of spending money to be safe and free but I’d want to make sure there is a sound strategy in place and that the $60,000 is going to be spent wisely and not wasted.

I guess my fear is that we bought the most expensive $538 faucet and what’s worse is that it isn’t regulating water to the sink very well.  Moreover consider all the threats to the American way of life and the American standard of living, what problems are going unaddressed because we spent $3 trillion on a war in Iraq? 

What if we said the best way to project ourselves is to substantially increase our spying activity and maybe spend some money on controlling who can get walk into the United States over the Mexican border (I am not against undocumented workers but it seems odd that we are “fighting terrorism” and yet any number of terrorists could be crossing the Mexican border to eventually do as they please.  Did you hear the story about the guy in Vegas with the caster beans who died of ricin poison?  So what’s to stop someone from walking across the Mexican border, buying some caster beans, baking up some ricin, and throwing into the air conditioning system of a big building?).

So you undertake these two projects and maybe you have $2.5 trillion to decrease our dependency on oil, improve the quality of education (and improve our competitiveness in the world economy), decrease the gigantic and rapidly growing federal debt, improve the solvency with the social security and Medicare programs, maybe help people keep their homes, and maybe spend some money on fixing bridges and other infrastructure.