Elijah is with Grandma this morning. On the verge of crawling, but not quite getting the hang of it, he’s sending greetings and a smile to Grandpa. Grandpa shares it here with other news-weary gluttons of punishment on Views from the Edge. Families are always a little whacked! Sometimes, to preserve the bonds of affection, we’d all be better off if we couldn’t talk. 🙂
Grandpa, I have a new cousin!
Newborn Calvin — Elijah’s first cousin
Yes, I know. Calvin was born last week. He’s beautiful!
Yeah. What’s a cousin?
Well, you seem pretty excited, so I thought you must know what a cousin is. But since you asked, Calvin is the child born to your mother’s brother, Andrew, and your Aunt Alice. Because he’s your mother’s brother’s child, that makes Calvin your first cousin.
But he wasn’t borned, Grandpa. He was taken.
What do you mean? Of course, he was born. By the way, he was born, not borned. You’ll learn about tenses later.
Okay. Whatever. Mom was pretty tense when Calvin was borned because he wasn’t borned; he was taken by Caesar.
Julius Caesar
Oh, my, Elijah! Where’d you learn about Caesar? Caesar didn’t “take” him; Calvin was taken by Cesarian section. It’s a medical procedure, not a kidnapping.
Yeah, so Calvin never got to be borned like me. He never had to fight his way into the world like I did. I’ll teach him how to fight, Grandpa. He’s my first cousin, my little cousin.
It’s much more complicated than that, Elijah. Someday you’ll understand it better. It wasn’t that Calvin wasn’t fighting his way through the birth canal; your Aunt Alice’s blood pressure became dangerously high. You’re lucky to have Calvin for your cousin. And he lives just a mile away from you and Mom. You’ll get to play with each other all the time.
Do you have a first cousin, Grandpa?
I do, Elijah. Lots of them. But, when I was growing up, all my first cousins lived far, far away in Maine and Massachusetts. We lived in Pennsylvania. We only got to play with each other for two weeks every summer when my parents took me there on vacation. You’re fortunate, Elijah! You and Calvin are both blessed to have each other. So are Grandma and Grandpa.
That’s sad, Grandpa. That’s really sad. But you’re not making sense. You said “first cousins“. Calvin’s my first cousin. You can’t have more than one first cousin. Sometimes i worry you’re losing it, Grandpa. But even if you are, my first cousin Calvin and my other cousins, if I have any, will take care of you and Grandma. I promise!
What can’t you take, Elijah?
You-Know-Who!
No, I don’t. You said you can’t take “it” anymore. Not “who”. What are you talking about?
Grandpa, I can’t take “it” anymore because You-Know-Who is making me cry!
I’m sorry, but I still don’t know who “who” is. Who’s “who”?
Grandpa, you’re supposed to know this stuff!!!
Well, communication’s a very tricky thing, Elijah, as you’re finding out. You can”t assume other people know what you mean by “it” and “You-Know-Who”. They don’t unless you spell it out. Clear communication depends on you.
No. Depends are for adults, Grandpa; we discussed this yesterday. Huggies are for us. Your generation wears Depends; my generation wears Huggies. And President You-Know-Who is taking away all the huggies your generation is supposed to give the next generation.
Ah, so now you’re speaking more clearly! You-Know-Who is President You-Know-Who, the president whose name your babysitter refuses to say out loud like all the curse words she’s teaching you not to use. So now I know who “who” is. But I still don’t know what “it” is? What is “it” you can’t take anymore, Elijah?
Grandpa, you know! “Who” and “it” are the same thing. You-Know-Who just made an announcement in Utah — something about cutting bears’ ears and shrinking grand staircases. He thinks they’re too big. How big can bears ears be? He just keeps wrecking stuff. And he’s all in for that guy from Alabama! What’s with that?
Oh, you mean Roy Moore?
Yeah, Roy Moore, the 10 Commandments guy.
Bill Day cartoon – The 10 Commandments and Roy Moore
He’s not a 10 Commandments guy, Elijah. Neither is You-Know-Who. They only know one commandment and they think it’s about them: “I am the LORD, your God. You shall have no other gods before me.” That’s the First Commandment.
Yeah! “Love yourself only, and feel free to abuse women, teenage girls, and Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Monuments in Utah.”
Bears Ears National Monument
I’m glad we had this talk, Elijah. You’ve made yourself clear. I can’t take “it” or You-Know-Who anymore either. “It” seems to get worse every day.
But remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy, Elijah. We all need to take a break and remember who’s God.
Elijah asks Grandpa about President You-Know-Who
Grandpa, is President You-Know-Who an adult?
Yes, Elijah, he’s 71 years old. You have to be an adult to president. The Constitution says so. You have to be at least 35. Why?
Marissa says he’s a brat. I thought all brats were children.
No, some brats are adults. Some people just never grow up. They think the whole world is centered on them. I don’t want you to grow up thinking that!
Mom told me that last night when I was acting like a brat!
Elijah, I think you must have misunderstood Mom. No six-month old is a brat. You just have needs that sometimes demand a lot of Mom’s attention.
Yeah, like when I need my diapers changed. Does President You-Know-Who’s Mom ever change his diapers, Grandpa?
No, Elijah. He stopped wearing diapers many years ago.
Hmmm. That’s weird.
Why? Why is it weird? President You-Know-Who’s an adult. Only incontinent adults wear diapers for adults. They’re called Depends.
Maybe he needs to get Depends. Marissa says he’s making a mess of the whole world. Like those videos he put out that Marissa and Theresa May in England said were really childish! He’s making a huge mess, Grandpa!
Yes, he is, Elijah. But, I guess it all depends on . . . . and before he’s impeached, I might need some Depends.
Grandpa, don’t do that. I use Huggies. You can depend on me. I’m a child, but I’m not childish. Like Jesus said, “a little child shall lead them.”
It wasn’t Jesus who said that, Elijah. It was Isaiah.
Whatever! I’ll talk to Mom. We’ll lend you some of my Huggies.
We’ve never pointed readers to a newspaper Op Ed without comment. Today is different.
See “The volume is all the way up to 11” in today’s Washington Post. Sadly, we’re unable to include the link.
“Grandpa,” asked six-month-old Elijah yesterday, “who’s George Bush?”
Elijah and Grandpa
“Which one, Elijah?”
“George!”
“Yes, but there are two Georges. Both were presidents of our country. There’s George H.W. Bush, who is now 94 years old, and there’s his son, George W. Bush. Which one do you mean?”
“The old one. The one like you, Grandpa.”
“Why are you asking about poor old George, Elijah? He’s not doing well. He’s gotten a little feeble.”
“What’s feeble? My baby sitter says George is a dirty old man like Garrison Keillor, Al Franken, President You-Know-Who — Marissa told me never to say the President’s name in her presence or she’d throw me out of day care — or that judge down in Alabama, but NOT like Jimmy Carter! Who’s Jimmy Carter?”
Former President Jimmy Carter
“Oh, my, Jimmy Carter! I almost forgot. Jimmy was president too. Way back before George H.W. Bush. People made a big deal out of it when jimmy said he’d lusted in his heart. But, so far as we know, he didn’t harass anyone. That was a long time ago! Way before your time. It seems ages ago.”
“We want to be like Jimmy, right Grandpa?”
“Jimmy Carter would be a wonderful person to emulate, Elijah. But remember, even Jimmy’s not perfect. None of us is perfect. I want you to grow up to take responsibility for your own behavior and follow the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.”
“So Jimmy’s a lot different from President You-Know-Who, right Grandpa?”
“He’s pretty special, Elijah. A professor named Ted Gup wrote about the difference between President You-Know-Who and President Carter last year in New Republic. Here’s what he said, Elijah.
“Unlike Carter’s words, Trump’s suggest a man incapable of looking inward, of feeling shame, humility, or love. That such a purposefully divisive figure could represent the best hopes of tens of millions of Americans, even as he revolts and alienates tens of millions of others, speaks to the yawning chasm that divides the nation politically and culturally. What comes to mind is the question that once brought down another demagogue, Joe McCarthy, more than 60 years ago: ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?'” [“On the Subject of Lust, Donald Trump Is no Jimmy Carter,” New Republic, Oct. 10, 2016].
“Hmmm. Grandpa, who was Joe?”
When sin — I call it ‘sin’ but, if you use some other word without a religious ring to it, you know what I mean — becomes the prevailing topic from which we cannot break away, it feels good to take a break from the news, and from ourselves.
So we pass along Lloyd Omdahl’s column “Reckoning has arrived for older men” in the Nov. 27 Grand Forks Herald in hopes it might bring a chuckle at some point, but also knowing that some people think any sort of chuckle on this topic is downright sinful.
Lloyd Omdahl
94 year-old Lloyd Omdahl, the man with the twinkle in his eyes, served as Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota and is professor emeritus of political science at the University of North Dakota. He continues to write a weekly column for The Grand Forks Herald. His former student, Gary Severson, brought this column to our attention today as a comment on Views from the Edge‘s morning post.
In case you missed it the first time, here’s the link: “Reckoning has arrived for older men“. Sexual harassment is not funny. It’s ugly. It’s sinful. Even so, if you can’t find a laugh somewhere in Lloyd’s column, take a nap, take a walk, or see a priest, rabbi, imam, or guru, and, by all means, go back and read Norman Cousins before you’re taken by a stroke.
…fools rush in.
Garrison Keillor, A Prairie Home Companion
In places like Like Wobegon and Minnesota Public Radio’s firing of A Prairie Home Companion creator and host Garrison Keillor for “inappropriate conduct” and MPR’s erasure of all things Prairie Home Companion. MPR will no longer air A Prairie Home Companion re-runs or Keillor’s thoughtful “Writer’s Almanac” and will give a new name to the show hosted by Keillor’s successor. If you opened the last link and it said “Page Not Found – NPR” you get the picture.
President Trump and Roy Moore
Meanwhile the President of the United States gets elected after 20 women have accused him of sexual misconduct or harassment — and continues to deny all allegations as fake new, though he himself has been recorded as bragging about groping — while he and conservative evangelicals in Alabama support the candidacy of Roy Moore whose behavior is alleged to be more than “inappropriate”.
It was English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) who wrote the line “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” in An Essay on Criticism that invites the reader to ponder which is worse: criticism of writing that “judges ill” or writing that is in “Want of Skill”?
‘Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill
Appear in Writing or in Judging ill,
But, of the two, less dang’rous is th’ Offence,
To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense
Some few in that, but Numbers err in this,
Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss;
A Fool might once himself alone expose,
Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.
-Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1–8).
Fools — both writers and their critics — are rushing in where angels fear to tread. Views from the Edge just became one of the them. Sometimes fools can’t help themselves.
Wishing everyone a nice day from what little remains of the little fictional Minnesota town that just went the way of all flesh. Farewell to thee, Lake Wobegon. We can only wish the same or worse in the nonfictional places of Pennsylvania Avenue and the State of Alabama.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God…” is a well-known prayer from the Psalms. It’s context — its back-story — is not so familiar.
Psalm 51 is a prayer attributed to David. It is not a quiet prayer. It is a wrenching, sobbing prayer, the words tumbling from David’s mouth in halting phrases and stammers with tears flooding his eyes, streaming down his cheeks.
“Behold, You seek truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.” (Psalm 51:6)
Is the secret heart the deepest place in us, the place where God is: the equivalent or synonym for “the inward being” – a poetic parallelism of Hebrew poetry? Or is it, perhaps, the secret place where we hide from God: the hiding place where we go off to a different heart than the Divine heart? Or could it be both at the same time?
David’s secret heart is dirty and he knows it. He cannot wash the stain of blood from his hands. “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,” he cries out, “and cleanse from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.” It is a scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth:
“Out, damn spot! OUT, I say…. all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!”
The Hebrew Psalms are like that. They are not sanitized. They plunge the reader into the conflict between the reader’s inmost being, the true secret heart, you might say – the heart that pumps life into us – and the secret heart of our flight from truth and goodness, the heart of deception and self-deception.
Why is David crying out? What has he done? What is the sin that is ever before him, the blood he can’t wash from his own hands?
Psalm 51 comes in response to an accusation that has exposed the bloody behavior his secretive heart has produced. It is Nathan, David’s commander on the battlefront, who confronts David with the truth.
Nathan has just returned from the front to tell David that Uriah, the King’s next door neighbor, a man of impeccable loyalty valor, Bathsheba’s husband, whom David’s scheming heart has sent off to war, is dead! His blood is on David! Nathan has spoken the truth to power.
There is no wisdom in David’s secret heart. There is treachery there.
“Purge me!” cries David. Imagine Richard Burton at his most dramatic. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow!” (Ps. 51:7)
Hyssop, the foliage of an aromatic plant named in the Passover story (Exodus 12:21-27), was used in the cleansing of a leper (Leviticus 4:51).
The rite of cleansing centers on two small birds. One bird is killed. The other bird is washed in the blood of the other under the flow of water and the sweetness of hyssop. The one bird dies. The second bird lives.
“Thus he (the priest) shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedarwood and hyssop and the scarlet stuff; and he shall let the living bird go out of the city into the open field; so he shall make atonement for the house, and it shall be clean.” (Lev. 14:52-53)
“Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation” cries Uriah’s killer curled up in a ball, hoping against all hope, “and my tongue will sing aloud of Your deliverance.” (Ps. 51:14)
David is both birds. He is the one who deserves to die. He is also the one who is living. He lives not because of the secretive heart that had conspired against Uriah, betraying his own inward being – “Against You only have I sinned…” (Ps. 51:4). He lives on because there is more mercy in God (the inward being) than there is sin in him.
“The sacrifice acceptable to God,” he concludes with tears, is “a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”
His body quivers as he imagines himself as the bird released into the open field by mercy alone, “according to Your steadfast love; according to Your abundant mercy.” (Ps. 51:1)
Poet Malcolm Guite’s poetry holds the essential paradox of the Christian faith and life. Open the re-blogged piece to read and listen to his poem for the last Sunday of the Christian liturgical year, Christ the King Sunday.
We come now to a feast of Ends and Beginnings! This Sunday is the last Sunday in the cycle of the Christian year, which ends with the feast of Christ the King, and next Sunday we begin our journey through time to eternity once more, with the first Sunday of Advent. We might expect the Feast of Christ the King to end the year with climactic images of Christ enthroned in Glory, seated high above all rule and authority, one before whom every knee shall bow, and of course those are powerful and important images, images of our humanity brought by him to the throne of the Heavens. But alongside such images we must also set the passage in Matthew (25:31-46) in which Christ reveals that even as He is enthroned in Glory, the King who comes to judge at the end of the ages, he is also the hidden King…
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