Category: Musing (Page 29 of 31)

…you may think of this as the Christmas season. I think of it as Advent. The Christmas season comes later. This is the first season of the Roman Catholic Church. And Sunday was the first Sunday. Happy New Year! And. In twenty-five days, WooHoo! big time stuff…A Savior. Wow! This is the time to await, prepare, get ready. The purple and pink candles.The evergreen wreath. The evening prayer. Not yet to read again C.S.Lewis’s,  The Screwtape Letters, that’s for Lent. Another await, prepare, get ready liturgical season.

No. I’m not a Scrooge. I shop. I do crowds. I can do excess. Not so much anymore, not like I used to. I wrap. I bake. I cook. I party. Send cards. It’s all good. Everyone decries the loss of Thanksgiving as a holiday and the use of the day as a kickoff party. Me? I think you can opt in or opt out. You can do what you need to do and still have a great Advent.

Actually, I think this is perfect, because I’m preparing and getting ready in my writing and in my life. Tom and I practiced retirement this weekend. A couple of shopping trips. A couple of projects around the house. A lot of communication. And that’s exactly how we started out. Eric Butler, Teddy,  you were so right. Life is a circle. We started our relationship from either end of the continent. And what made us close wasn’t being in the same room but realizing we had the same goals, drive, interests and, most importantly, we could laugh at the same exact things. It seems sort of full circle that Tom is retiring in the Christmas Season, we can spend Advent awaiting, preparing, getting ready.

Oh. This is going to be good!

With the first Sunday of the Roman Catholic new year, this year, November 27, 2011, we return to the original Latin, translated into English. So for those of us, aware and cognizant of the mass pre-1963 and the Ecumenical Council called by John the XXIII, the change is a ‘not so much moment’. And, we were young, I was in college when the mass changed into English. I can remember being at the University of Portland, run by the Holy Cross priests, [Fr. Tom Fitzpatrick, C.S.C., called it the only school built on a bluff :-)]  and standing around the altar for mass, the guitars, the holding hands, the singing, but most importantly, the closeness of the Eucharist and the immediacy of the miracle of the mass less than an arm’s length away. I’m a product of catholic schooling from kindergarten through my freshman year in college. Nope. Never rebelled. Never stopped going to mass. Never thought it stupid. Sometimes I argued with God. We had many a fight. I ranted and railed. But in truth, I enjoyed it. It fit me like a glove. Still does. And with Thanksgiving just a day ago, it is something I add to my list of ‘grateful for.’

After the Second Vatican Council, the language of the church, Latin, was translated into the language of the people, the vernacular, for us, English. But. They had to get it done quickly. These were tumultuous times. The translation, using what is called the dynamic equivalence, meant they wanted to get the overall meaning rather than a word-for-word translation. That’s what is changing now. We are moving to a formal equivalence. Correcting how we should speak to God in our mass. A brochure from the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions in DC states “…there is more than one way of saying the same thing. “Hey, pass the salt!” or “Would you pass me the salt, please?” are all basically saying the same thing and will all likely result in you getting the salt shaker. But some ways of speaking are more appropriate for one context than another.”  It is the difference between sitting at the kitchen table having supper or at a formal dinner. And, after all, the mass is the most formal of festivities, it is the marriage feast.

Our priest, Father Jim Collins, hopes that by reverting to more formal language, the reverence with which we participate in the mass will increase. This will be strange for those who have converted in the last forty years. And, for our children, who like us have to see the church anew. I hope Father Jim is right. Kinda reminds me of when I first when to work, the suits, the silk shirts, the high heels. And, you acted with panache, well, because, you looked the part. Yeah. Kinda like that!

mostly I do, believe in Thanksgiving, if believing means that it is so. And mostly I do thank. I mean, seriously? if I’m going to yell at God when things don’t go well, then I should praise Him when they do go well. Right? I like Thanksgiving; the Norman Rockwell, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, candied yams, pie type of meal. I like that we celebrate with bounty. It shows what being thankful is all about. Going overboard. Pulling out all the stops. No presents. No cards. Just food, family, fun.

As a holiday, it came with the most honorable of intentions. Recognizing for a day, blessings. A day to give thanks for what it is we have. Historically, the interesting thing is that this is a ‘new world’ holiday. And could probably have only happened because of a new beginning, a leaving behind of the old.  One that came about when people fled or were kicked out of a society highly divided by class, with very large obstacles to leap to make the next level, if at all. The whole point was that we could be thankful for being free, individual, making our own way, over a minimum of hurdles. Technically, the populations in Europe were free. But. Not. Society had ossified into levels, canyons, pockets, that pulling yourself out of was nigh impossible.  Now, 200 plus years after fighting for the right to be free and define our own levels I wonder if we have not let ourselves stagnate. At one time ‘to be politic’ meant to be wise, to be sensible. [‘Course, at one time, gay meant to be ‘jaunty, cheerful, carefree.  Sigh.] Anyway…

I am thankful we are free. I am thankful for my lovely husband, my beautiful daughters. For what the next day may bring. I am thankful for the opportunities I’ve had, and the ones yet to come.

…for now, at least. Watched the first 40 minutes of Page Eight. A Masterpiece Contemporary, I think they call it. Put it on the DVR when I saw the review in The Wall Street Journal. And, anything this terribly British means that I have to watch it for a bit of time, then watch it again. My ears have to get use to the fact that they all mumble, well, except for Rachel Weisz. They use some different terms than we use here. The story so unsubtly British, so spy-driven, for the first several minutes I thought I was watching a John le Carré , Cold War, circa 1960’s, going-to-the-dark-place book.  So much so I was surprised at the talk of a website, the use of a computer and a blackberry. Somehow, it seemed very out of place. Not very Brit spy. Oh, but it is.

Maybe tonight I’ll get through the next 40 minutes. And then there’ll be another 40 minutes after that. Who knows. I do know that while it takes a while to process all that is going on, I won’t forget it.  There are relationships inside, outside and through the story. Which ones are real is the challenge. They all look fake, no, not fake, unreal. Set up. Maybes. After all, they are all spies, well, except for Rachel Weisz. And they are all jockeying for position, of some sort. And it’s spare. Lean. The LA Times calls it a ‘low-boil thriller. Mainly, because of the magnificent cast, little needs to be said. There is the eye-brow lift. The pursed lip. The quiet, almost non-look look.

The plot so far, from those first 40 minutes is this: there’s this file that shows the highest position in the land, the PM, knows where the Americans are keeping and torturing terrorists. The fact is, he knows, and failed to tell his cabinet or his security forces. Oh, those nasty Americans, keeping the Brits as their lapdog. But are they? I mean, if he knows. Michael Gambon as Benedict Baron, head of MI5 [Professor Dumbledore!] is close friend and boss of Bill Nighy, Johnny Worrnicker, security analyst, our hero. Sort of. But is he. Baron is married to Worrnicker’s ex-wife. Worrnicker’s daughter, Juliette, paints the most depressing pictures and is pregnant. I’m not sure where this goes in the story. They all talk so civilly to each other. And, Rachel Weisz, Nancy Pierpan, Senior Editor, and Johnny’s neighbor have this ‘chance’ encounter. Johnny’s main problem is he’s a purist. And he trusts no one. So. Will he trust Nancy?

I left the story where his goes to a dinner at one of those very British old’ boy school functions. All the participants are in evening dress, and all the students are, well, students. The PM comes. Apparently they’ve all gone through Cambridge together. Although, somehow, I wasn’t getting a Cambridge vibe, just me.

But. What I’m really interested in is the file…

Apparently, just having old people hang around was not a good thing. Mary Lou Weisman again, says that in the beginning retirement had not been invented. I get that. From today’s point of view, you wouldn’t think that this is something that NEEDS inventing, would you. In 2011 we are probably more sanitized regarding the life cycle than any other set of living generations. Except for seeing their dog born, or die, most are not up close and personal with the way it works for carbon-based life forms. Although, Tom would say that just because others died is no reason to suspect he will. [Bravado, I say.]

People didn’t get to anything approximating old age when you go through the geological periods, well, we weren’t there for that many but. It would be hard to live a long and healthy life when you are nomadic, fighting big fierce animals, living in caves or on dirt. So. There wasn’t an issue for a long time. Even in Christ’s time, you got old, you stopped doing the physical stuff and started keeping records and doing the planning. That is, if you were not among the wealthy. If you were, you spent your time trying not to eat food your kids prepared or staying away from hunts and battles.

Old people are funny. They spend an entire life gathering and collecting. Then they don’t want to give it away. Resources, except for the money the Fed can print, are finite. So if a bunch of old people have all the resources there’s nothing for those folks coming along behind them. At one point, Cotton Mather, a Puritan zealot, which right there should make you cringe when those two words go together, was among the first to make the argument for retirement. One has to wonder if all the ‘witches’ he tried in Salem, were sweet young things or old hags. I’m betting on the hags.

The idea of retirement has as much to do with the political as it does with the personal. Okay. So it’s not Logan’s run, although Michael York was a cutie,  and we’re not trying to kill anyone over thirty. But we have done something. We’ve convinced  a whole generation, maybe more like brainwashed a generation into thinking retirement is a good thing.