Tuesday, 7th o June 2005
The Kiss
"Daddy?"
"Yes Jaimito?"
"'member in da Spider-Man? When Mary Jane was kissing Spider-Man dat was really Peter Parker?" He asked carefully, measuring his words.
"Yeah, Mary Jane kissed Spider-Man. That was funny, huh?"
"Yeah, it was yucky."
"Why was it yucky, Jaimito?"
He explained. "'cause it was rainin'." And he turned up his palms in a isn't-it-obvious-to-you shrug, then he asked, "Daddy, why did Mary Jane kiss Spider-Man?"
"Hmm," Oh please dear God, why must it start so early. I thought quickly. "Jaimito, she kissed him because she liked him. People kiss each other when they like each other."
"On, da lips?" he asked incredulously.
"On the lips, yes Jaimito."
"Why?"
"Because they like each other." Okay, who's going to back down first, I can go circular logic on your butt all day, little man. But I guess that satisfied him sufficiently. "You know what, Jaimito. When mommy comes home, I'm going to give her a big kiss on the lips."
"Like when you got married?"
"Yes, like when we got married."
Monday, 6th o June 2005
I was wandering as I usually do. I don't mean to, it's just that after such stressful weeks, going to church on Sunday is an opportunity to sit quietly with my family. I'm not answering phone calls, programming, submitting proposals, configuring equipment, not having the TV on, toys, scrambling everything up into a mish mash. No, I just get to be quiet and there's no escape. It's nice.
As is usual with my church time, I am somewhat disconnected from the experiences of my fellow parishioners. I know what it is to think differently, to be different, but I still enjoy the perspective and insights that such a burden provides.
So I wander. I wander into the minds of others, poking around, taking snapshots. I was a mental tourist today in church. The theme of today's excursion?
Baptism.
My first stop on the mad dash trip was into the minds of those that are not now and have never been Church-goers, some of whom sprout a full plumage of disdain at the mere mention of religion.
"Ewww. I don't believe in organized religion. I think you're all full of it, and you're ruining America."
"Haha," I chuckled with my guest, "that is a distinct possibility." We passed the time most enjoyably and when it was done and we had said our goodbyes and thank-you's, I was reluctant to take my leave. They are a good sort, a tad inflexible, but I don't hold it against them.
My next stop was a little closer to home. Familiarity breeds contempt, I said to myself, so let's take a new look through fresh eyes. I peered into the scene unfolding right in front of me. There it was, the ritual, the pouring of the water, the snapshots, the frilly little outfit, everybody in their Sunday best, the priest anointing with oil, saying prayers, the parishioners mumbling their acclamations self-consciousnessly.
And there was the baby, oblivious to it all.
What is this magic that is being performed over me, the baby seemed to ask? Is Baptism magic, divine magic brought to bear upon a young-ling in order that he may be good, that he may have salvation?
Once the act was complete, the sigh of relief was almost palpable. It was a sigh that this child is now protected with his aura of Christly force, that he is now brought into the fold, into the arms of God that the devil may not snatch him up and to do evil.
This is how many people see Baptism, a magic incantation and pouring and anointing. But its true purpose has been forgotten. I closed my eyes to remember, to journey back, to look with new eyes on an old scene. My mind flashed over my own children. I paused to remember how I held them when they were so tiny, how Laura and I (but mostly Laura) rushed to them when they would cry. You are not alone in this world. Just thought you should know.
You see, we have forgotten. We've buried Baptism so deeply in abstractions that we've forgotten its true spirit, its true meaning. We've abstracted God to such a degree that we think he does stuff for us, that by chanting prayers and rubbing oil, we'll all be saved or we'll have something more than what we have now.
What do you need anyway?
In my continuing philosophy of "things are no more than what they appear", I tell you this: the rubbing of the oil is the touch, the gathered people are the presence, and the prayers are the solace of a soothing voice. Tu estás acompañado, you are not alone, you are accompanied on your journey through your life.
Have you ever heard stories of little babies of Christian families that have died soon after being born? Priests and ministers are on call to Baptize these little souls so that they may take quick flight to a heavenly place without the stain of original sin. Have you heard that? Doesn't that sound silly?
It's a lot of words that mask the true purpose of such an act, and it is this: little child, you are not alone in your death. We love you, your people love you, you will not die alone in the cold. We will be there until the end for we are a people with great empathy. We love you.
Have you head of people in car crashes or other traumatic accidents where death is a mere step away. There are some that have not lived a life in Christ, and in the last moments call for a Baptism or magic ritual. Our response should not be magic. Our response to such a person in need is nothing more and nothing less than to hold his hand so that he may know that he is not alone. He may have been alone throughout his life, living selfishly, thinking little of others, but at the hour of his death, he is a child of creation, loved and lovable - as he has always been.
Baptism isn't a religious exercise, folks. Baptism is a communal gathering of souls who hold up an individual, weak and fragile, to let them know that they are supported by the hands of their fellows, that they are not alone, and that they will always be and have always been, supported by love.
Tell someone today, you are not alone, you will never be alone, and you have never been alone.
Okay now that I've straightened out the rhetoric, we just have to do it. Okay?
Monday, 30th o May 2005
I've come to the conclusion that the Operating System is irrelevant, that the base that allows a computer to be useful no longer can or will be a primary focus. I arrived at this conclusion after having Laura's computer completely die. Lately, she's been using her old Windows 98 machine while I figure out what I'm going to do.
Yesterday I set up X windows for her under Cygwin on Windows 98 so she would have access to her Linux desktop on the terminal server.
X -query 192.168.1.3
and voilá there's her desktop as if she'd never left it. I thought it was cool, but I started wondering, why would she need that? She's got her OpenOffice under Windows 98, she's got her jabber instant messenger client. She uses Firefox which doesn't care what it runs on. She doesn't use Gimp very often, but it's there too. I can even install Inkscape if she should desire it. In short, I can't think of, and neither can she, a single reason to use her Linux desktop. All the infrastructure stuff runs on the Linux server: the webserver, database server, filesharing server, access controls, filters, and whatnot. The email is accessed via IMAP so you can use webmail, or Outlook, or Thunderbird, or Outlook Express, or Evolution, or Kmail. Anything you can dream up and it's all syncronized. It all works seamlessly with Windows or Linux or Macintosh. All her documents and images are completely divorced from whatever lies beneath, normally ready to strike and swallow up your precious data. Call it a reinforced hull so you don't end up being fish food.
For myself, I am happy with my Linux environment. I do not like Windows XP or any of its ilk. It's a personal choice, not an indictment on which is inherently better. You may like XP. I may like Linux. Both seem to run Free Software just fine, and make the issue mostly about personal taste or comfort. For example, I like the way my apps behave in Linux. I like my kpovmodeler front-end to Povray. I like Quanta for some webwork. I like vim for programming and webwork. I like GIMP for graphics work. I like xmms as my music player. I use K3B as my dvd/cd burner (I love it). I use Scribus for desktop publishing. But I guess for me the ONLY killer app is the bash shell... which once again is available as part of Cygwin, so I guess it's a non-issue.
You see? It doesn't matter anymore and I like it that way.
Wednesday, 25th o May 2005
The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably
not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
-- H.L. Mencken
Jesus said, "Dude, relax. It's not about all this, even though it is. Look, it's hard to explain, but you gotta lose yourself to find yourself. You've gotta give up your salvation to get it. But you know that it shouldn't be your aim, and believe me I can tell. I've got this omniscience thing going on. Do you run up and help the homeless guy because he's 'Jesus'? I get that a lot, and I'm all like, 'Dude, you've got eyes, right? He's not me.' No, I'm right here. He is a child of mine, though, and I'd appreciate it if you'd help him out but not for me, though. No no. It'd be great if you could help him out for him. Know what I'm sayin'? It's kinda like that for most things. I'm not all into this mysticism thing. Dad put the universe together to be internally consistent. It doesn't violate any rules. Stuff doesn't just magically happen. There's a process. Dad's big on process. In fact, he got a little carried away with process, and that's why he sent me. Had to get back in touch with humanity.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, Fear. Fear is probably the toughest thing I've ever had to deal with, both what I experienced, and what I observed in all of you. Fear is just the worst. It binds up your hearts in ways that you couldn't imagine. You see, I don't want you to live like that. Fear really just makes me sad. It's really hard for me to see people wanting so bad to save themselves that they forget to love, forget to put themselves out there for others. All they want to do is connect to me, worship me, all the while hitting each other with that book. I've got mixed feelings about that book, btw. It's not like I don't get into it, but I understand the limitation that people have trying to describe life-changing events, changes in direction that come with a profound, transforming, life-altering, some say mystical revelation. I understand that it's tough to put it down on paper, so I empathize. But some of it is just so wrong. All that stuff about retribution and fire and brimstone - water to wine (I mean, geez, it was there all along, but they had to do the whole, Oh look Jesus turned water to wine. It was really embarrassing. Yikes).
Anyway, so you've got these people who are fearful hitting each other with this book like that's going to solve something. Then you've got these other people who are afraid to speak my name for fear of being labeled 'one of them.' I empathize with that too. Humans like to bottle up these magnificent soaring attributes of faith, love, devotion, and service into valuable commodities that they can own and keep away from others, thereby increasing their perceived value (I picked that up in a business class I took a while back). So you hoard your little trinkets hoping upon hope that they will appreciate and then you'll have something of value that your neighbor might not have. Of course the root of all this is that you're afraid that your future isn't secure, that your faith might not be the right one, that you're on the wrong path. By increasing the quantity of like-minded individuals in your little "group" you increase your value. I like to call it Amway Christianity.
Sigh, Dad and I got a good laugh out of that one, but I digress.
So we pre-package up all this magnificent stuff into these little bundles. Let's call them words and symbols... or better yet, let's call them gangs. Yeah, I like that. So you've got this quasi-believer, somebody who'd fallen away from the faith. Let's call him an agnostic. He just feels uncomfortable about all these gang symbols. He's doesn't want to get gunned down in enemy territory, so he uses safe words like "mojo" or my personal fav "may good thoughts be with you." Jesus! (can I say that?) just say I'll pray for you, it's not gonna kill you, and anyway that's what good thoughts are. Sigh, no really it's all good.
I don't care what color you wear, or what you call prayer, good thoughts, or mojo. I know what you intend, and what's more important, I hear ya, dude. Don't matter what you call yourself, whether you don't like Jesus freaks (actually that's our team name for a little basketball league we put together up here... really does a number on the opposition) 'cause you're afraid or whether you don't like gays and hippies because you're afraid, because they are subverting society and the sanctity of marriage. I know, and it's okay. But I've got to say it just one more time in the hopes that it will sink in. I made you all (look, if it makes you feel better that you just sprang into existence, that is perfectly okay with me as long as you're not afraid). Better a courageous agnostic than a craven Christian, I always say. But you know I'm always rooting for that craven soul, that lost, fearful, small little mustard seed. I keep saying, grow little seed, grow. Encompass the world. Show me what you can do. When you screw up - and you will - I don't go all retribution like. I keep hoping upon hope that you'll put it together and make the shot.
And finally, I don't fear that you'll fail. You will. I know that each life lived is an opportunity. It's your chance to grow that mustard seed of a spirit you have. Whatever you do with it is your choice, but I'd like to see you really come alive out there.
Hey, this has gone on longer than I intended. Sorry about that. What do we do, you ask? Okay, here it is, but don't tell anyone you got this from me. We're big on the whole "figuring it out yourself thing" around here. Chalk it up to Dad's whole "process is important" thing. Whatever.
Whatever light you have that you use on yourself is wasted. Whatever gift you have that you don't share with others to help them out is wasted. There's this cool little story that I heard a bit back. In hell (which doesn't actually exist, but after hearing this, we're thinking about putting one in just to see if this would actually happen), inhabitants stand with their hands tied to a six foot spoon over a pit of food. The inhabitants are in a perpetual state of hunger because they can't feed themselves. In heaven (and this is the part I love) it's the same deal, except no one goes hungry. Everybody feeds each other with their spoons. I don't know if it's because they're less dumb or less selfish. I suspect the latter. That's it. That's all there is.
Peace out."
Saturday, 21st o May 2005
"James O’Malley, I am here to announce that it is time to get up. And Xiaolin Showdown is starting in a few minutes. Your presence is requested. You see my Spider-Man glove? That’s neat, huh?"
"Haha, you are a funny girl." She turned a bright shade of red, snickering and bashful. I love that little girl and her accents. She does a lot of different voices. She is a little girl after my own heart.