Merry Humbug

Most years I say, “Bah, humbug!”

This year it might even be justified, but strangely, I don’t feel like it. Most years, my list of “shoulds” has far outweighed my list for Santa. But then, I was raised to not believe in Santa, so my puny wish list is no sign of virtue. And I don’t want to display a list of completed shoulds as evidence of my virtues. Because, ouch.

This year, as usual, I’ve waited to observe Christmas until, well, Christmas. Today is but the first of twelve days of Christmas, so I’ve been quite happy to ignore all the frantic preparations of the commercial, non-Advent flavor, preferring gentle penitence to be followed by pleasant reflection upon the reason for the Christian version of winter revelries. (When I “do” Advent, that is.) That, actually, is one of the reasons I’ve taken perverse delight in echoing Scrooge anytime between Labor Day and Christmas Day.

The other reason is that I can’t plan my way out of a paper bag. “Bah, humbug” is camouflage for “I can’t deal with it!” I surrender (early and often) to my seemingly congenital lack of ability to prepare, and even get some smiles out of others, by uttering those three simple syllables.

But this year… this year I showed signs of preparation. Truly. I baked several batches of futzy, time-consuming Norwegian Christmas delicacies (hah!), with plans to make more. Maybe my evil twin freaked out and staged an intervention to prevent me from further exposing my hitherto-hidden lack of Scrooge-osity. My secret is out.

Or, it would have been, had I not gotten the flu. I left work Monday morning, suddenly aching from head to toe. The aching has subsided only today, and the fever broke sometime during the night.

This meant a) no more baking; b) no trip to Michigan for Christmas with hubby’s family; c) no church.  Serious enough to warrant a “bah?”

But here’s the icing on the cake sidewalk:

My son is moving back to Chicago from southeastern Minnesota. His dad drove up to help him with the packing, but the weather up there right now is anything but helpful—full winter storm conditions, last I heard. Then his dad’s car developed a problem that must be fixed, and the soonest it can be fixed is Monday. Probably this would warrant a “humbug,” no?

So that makes this the first Christmas I haven’t shared with my son in 25 years and the first one my husband hasn’t shared with his daughters. However, it is also my first Christmas as Wife with New Husband, and he is gallantly assisting me through my illness and recovery.

I’m with my love (though also being with his family and my son would be preferred).  All things considered, perhaps I can alter my seasonal muttering to “Merry Humbug!” Suddenly switching over completely would be just too shocking.

Why we gather at the table

“We gather around the table not to escape the world’s problems, but to escape the world’s answers.”

This is a my perhaps faulty memory of a quote from this morning’s sermon, of an unnamed Episcopal bishop. I wish I had the exact quote and knew whose it is.

But as I have come to expect from wise spiritual leadership, it is helpful, and I look to this type of insight precisely because it doesn’t follow the usual discussion. Instead of arguing about whether it is an escape, it says there is another solution. It presumes that there are other answers, and this is a way to look for them, to ask different questions.

Merely an appetizer, a foretaste of the feast to come.

What would it take to make us give up our most cherished belief?

This was the question posed in several sermons by a former rector of my former parish. He used it at least a couple of times as a lead-in to a fable of Edwin H. Friedman, which, along with that question, has been on my mind a lot lately when following the discussion on legalizing gay marriage.

The rector was addressing certain beliefs held by parishioners that must have given him great frustration. I’m not so much frustrated with an opposing viewpoint (disclosure: I support gay marriage) as I am intrigued by the character of a discussion itself. Any discussion, really, that provokes heated exchanges and where beliefs are so strongly held that new possibilities, new insight are unwelcome.

Due to copyright laws, I won’t quote the entire fable, but will try to give you a flavor of it.

“One evening a man came home and announced that he was dead.”

The fable relates how various friends and family members try a number of tactics to persuade him otherwise. Sometimes they think they’ve come up with proof so overwhelming that the man could do nothing other than change his mind. Eventually they hit upon the idea of bringing in the family doctor, who has known the man from his childhood.

“[He] asked the man in a no-nonsense way, “Tell me, do dead men bleed?”

“Of course not,” said the man.

The doctor proposed that he make a small cut in the man’s arm, promptly dressing it so that he need fear no infection. The man agrees to the procedure.

With everyone watching anxiously, the doctor deftly slit the flesh, and blood came spurting out. There was a gasp of joy throughout the group. Some laughed, others even applauded, though a few seemed rather to be relieved.

The doctor quickly dressed the wound and turned to everyone, saying, “Well, I hope that puts an end to this foolishness.” Everyone was congratulating the physician when they suddenly realized that the man was headed for the door. As he opened it, he turned to the group and said, “I see that I was wrong.” Then, as he turned to leave, he added, “Dead men, in fact, do bleed.”

See, now I’m congratulating myself on having put forth something that will surely make all the unreasonable people out there come to their senses. This should show them how wrong they are.

But at the same time, my inner voice says, “How do I know that my belief isn’t the one that needs to be given up?”

What would it take to make us give up our most cherished belief?

From Friedman’s Fables, by Edwin H. Friedman, The Guilford Press, pp. 55–58.

Small lesson from a loss

Chicago lost its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. The loss is not huge for me and neither is the lesson: Though I’m past the half-century mark, I still indulge in magical thinking. Surprise! Watching the Election Night celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park I got caught up in the “yes we can” fervor. Somehow that feeling transferred to Chicago’s Olympics bid. Having backed a winner in November, I guess I came to believe my support was no longer a curse. That sense must have remained in my subconscious, because it didn’t occur to me to test it by openly rooting for the Cubs, Sox or Bears. Then there was Oprah’s season-opening bash on Michigan Avenue. See? We’re important—we have television cameras and other stuff on the street that makes us look like we’re playing with the big boys. World-class city, you know. Home sick from work yesterday, I watched the IOC’s voting. The sense of inevitability I had matched that of Election Night. Same thing, right? Anticipating a similar outcome. Nope. My support of Obama and watching the election returns had nothing to do with his win. My certainty of a Chicago Olympics (granted, bolstered by the oddsmakers’ confidence) couldn’t guarantee Chicago’s win. But it took Chicago’s abrupt, seemingly rude, elimination to make me aware of this unhelpful impulse. Magical thinking is something we’re supposed to outgrow, if we follow normal development of emotionally healthy humans. Yeah, well…

Am I back?

The Bag Lady was wandering in the wilderness for two years, wanting to blog but easily distracted and derailed. Long story short—I've finally managed to 1) get off my duff; 2) figure out my password; 3) check settings; 4) start typing. Maybe I'll write about it eventually, but right now here I am.