Grandpa, Traitor Joe’s got Mom!

Posted on January 25, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Elijah talking with Grandpa

Grandpa, we gotta make a run for it!

Why’s that, Elijah? Sounds serious. Why are you afraid.

Mom’s sick.

What’s the matter?

She got poisoned!

Who told you that?

Mom did!

You must have misunderstood. Everybody loves Mom. Nobody would poison Mom.

They did. We need to go get Mom and make a run for it.

What exactly did Mom tell you?

She got food poisoned!

Okay. Nooow I’ starting to get the picture.

See, I told ya. I’m liddle but I know stuff you don’t know, Grandpa!

I know, but you can settle down now. No one poisoned Mom. Food poisoning is different. She ate some bad food that made her sick.

Uh-huh! Traitor Joe poisoned her!

I see. . . . . Did Mom go to the store recently?

Traitor Joe’s

Yeah. Traitor Joe’s! Don’t go in there, Grandpa. She couldn’t even take me to day care this morning.

Who drove you to day care?

Uncle Andrew came to the rescue.

Good for Uncle Andrew. He’s a good brother and a good uncle.

Yah, but he left Mom home alone in the bathroom and she has all my food!

But you’re here now, so that’s good. You’re safe here at Grandma and Grandpa’s, and Mom will be fine. She just got sick from some bad food. What did Mom say about the food?

Not much. She couldn’t talk. But after we went to Traitor Joe’s, he was following her.

What made you think someone was following Mom?

He was in a red sports car. Mom kept watching him in the rear few mirror. I can’t see from my carseat. I can only see Mom in the rear few mirror.

What did she say? Did she recognize him?

She didn’t say, Grandpa. She was just wavin’ her hand in the air and yelling “Get off my tail, ____!” I can’t say that word, Grandpa. I didn’t see it except in the rear few mirror, but I heard it. Traitor Joe followed us home and how he’s got Mom held hostage in the bathroom.

I think Mom probably just needs a few more hours to get Trader Joe out of her system, Elijah. Everything will be better in the morning.

— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 25, 2018.

Let Down in Minnesota

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

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We’re not going to the Super Bowl — again — this year. But there’s a mostly proud and wonky history here in Minnesota. In politics, think Hubert Humphrey, Floyd V. Olsen, Walter Mondale, Gene McCarthy, Jesse Ventura, Michelle Bachmann, Al Franken, and Amy Klobuchar. In sports, think the Minneapolis Lakers and the North Stars before they left the Land of 10,000 Lakes to become bigger fish in Dallas and L.A., Harmon Killebrew, Jim Kaat, Kirby Puckett, Rod Carew, Kevin Garnett, Paul Molitor . . . and last, but by no means least, remember the name Minnesotans are still trying to forget: Shawn Chambers who gave up one of the most famous goals in all of hockey history in game two of the Stanley Cup Finals in 1991.

After the Minnesota Vikings did a Shawn Chambers in the NFC Conference Championship game that would have put them in the Super Bowl, I remembered Gene Wilder’s mocking Green Bay Packers’ grin and heard his Packers taunt.

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Grumpy Old Men

I’m a Philadelphian transplanted in Minnesota, still learning how the game is played here. I love my adopted State and today I’m still a little grumpy about the loss to the Eagles and having to be nice to them.

Although it will be the the Eagles who will fly into Minneapolis for the Super Bowl we Minnesotan thought belonged to us, I have no desire to return to my native Philadelphia.

Nope! In an hour or two, I’ll head north to the cabin. No ice hockey. No ice fishing. No football. No TV. No cell phone. No internet. Just a warm fire and a book in the woods next to the wetland where the eagles soar and the owl perches in the oak tree, reminding me that I’m dust and to dust I shall return.

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Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 23, 2018.

Winners and Losers

Posted on January 22, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Minnesotans were big losers last night. The Vikings lost 38-7 to the Philadelphia Eagles.

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Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau, “Grumpy Old Men”

Floridians were also losers. The Jacksonville Jaguars lost 24-20 to the New England Patriots.

Minnesotans and the North Floridians are both grumpy today. But there’s on big difference between the grumpy old men facing a depressing winter on the Florida coast and the Minnesotans up north in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

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Minnesota ice fishing houses

We get to go ice fishing!

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 22, 2018

Philadelphia Mean and Minnesota Nice

Posted on January 22, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Being candid is not always wise. But, some days, like today, it feels like a requirement.

Yesterday my adopted team, the Minnesota Vikings, brought “Minnesota Nice” — everyone’s supposed to be “nice” in Minnesota — into the stadium of Philadelphia Mean. Philadelphia fans are as known for their meanness as Minnesotans are for Minnesota Nice.

Philadelphia Eagles fan throwing beer bottle

Philadelphia fans weren’t nice! They threw beer bottles at Vikings fans. They ridiculed their Minnesota guests by chanting “Skol!” when the Vikings did belly-flops. And that was just up in the stands! Down on the field, it was worse. The Eagles were mean. The Vikings didn’t play football. They played nice, and they got whooped!

In case you’re wondering why Views from the Edge is spending time on a football game, let me explain.

I’m a relative newcomer to Minnesota Nice, a 1994 transplant from Philadelphia Mean. But I was never an Eagles fan. Phillies? Yes. Eagles? No. But my brothers and high school friends are. They love the Eagles. So a part of me is happy for my brothers Bob and Don and my old Philadelphia classmates. I’m trying to be nice, but it doesn’t come naturally.

It gets more complicated. The New England Patriots will bring New England Haughty to U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis for the Super Bowl that was supposed to include the Minnesota Vikings. My family roots are in Boston (my father) and Maine (my mother). All my relatives — ALL of them — except for brothers Bob and Don, will be cheering for the New England Haughties on Feb. 4.

U.S. Bank Stadium, host of the 2018 Super Bowl

When the Eagles take the field against the Patriots in the Vikings’ home stadium, I’ll be a bit conflicted. But, here’s the thing, to be quite candid. I’ll be in Florida with my less conflicted brothers Bob and Don. I’ll shout “Skol!” for the Eagles and privately give thanks that being patriotic isn’t Patriot-ic, and that life is not a football game.

– Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 22, 2018.

Different Shutdowns

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Edward Hicks — Peaceable Kingdom

There are shutdowns that make us cringe and there are shutdowns that bring us to our better selves. This year the two kinds overlapped. Both shutdowns are about economics, i.e., how we live together in the one house in which we all dwell for a speck of time on a small planet in a vast universe. The English words ‘economy’ and ‘economics’ derive from the Greek word for ‘house’ and the management, or governance, of the one house in which we live.

In previous essays on Views from the Edge and chapters of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness, we have sought to point to this saner view of life together in the nation and the planet. Saying it again feels like banging my head against a wall, but the coalescence of the government shutdown date and the Jewish Sabbath commandment to shut everything down — Shabbat — prompts this reflection.

Shabbat meal

The Hebrew word ‘Shabbat’ comes from the root Shin-Beit-Tav, meaning to cease, to end, or to rest. The shutdown in Washington, D.C. and the Fourth Commandment shutdown could not be more different. The one is a product of control; the latter is about ending the illusions that come from production.

“Remember the day, Shabbat, to set it apart for God. You have six days to labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat for Adonai your God. On it, you are not to do any kind of work — not you, your son or your daughter, not your male or female slave, not your livestock, and not the foreigner staying with you inside the gates to your property. For in six days, Adonai made heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. This is why Adonai blessed the day, Shabbat, and separated it for himself.” — Exodus 20:8-11 [Complete Jewish Bible].

Migrant workers in someone else’s field.

You don’t have to be a seven-day creationist to “get” the meaning of the Hebrew Scripture’s call to stop and think. Step back. Pause. Respect your son, your daughter, your workers, the animals, and the foreigners within your national borders. Shabbat is not just the owners of the means of production but for ALL who labor under the yoke — an enduring sign and call of a better household management (economics) yet to come in the one house (the economy) in which we all live.

Practicing his Jewish faith, Jesus of Nazareth kept Shabbat and aligned himself with the laborers when he invited would be followers to join him in a kind of revolution that would turn the tables on the money-changers and lift up the have nots: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Oxen laboring under a heavy yoke

Jesus was comparing the landless poor to oxen in the the fields of production, driven hard under a yoke that chafes and cuts into the oxen’s neck and shoulder, the yoke of economic cruelty and the burden that is anything but light. Rabbi Jesus was invoking the substance of the Fourth Commandment: the vision and practice of Shabbat economics.

Could the juxtaposition of the different shutdowns be clearer than when they are invoked on the same day of the week?

Shabbat Shalom,

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 22, 2018

Prayer for the Nation 1/20/18

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918)

Fold your hands this January 20, 2018 — even if you think prayer is for the birds. The language is dated. But on the day of the shutdown one year after the Inauguration, Walter Rauschenbusch’s 1909 prayer “Against the Servants of Mammon” is as current as current can be.

Against the Servants of Mammon

“We cry to thee for justice, O Lord, for our soul is weary with the iniquity of greed. Behold the servants of Mammon, who defy thee and drain their fellow men and women for gain; who grind down the strength of the workers by merciless toil and fling them aside when they are mangled and worn; who rack-rent the poor and make dear the space and air which thou has made free; who paralyze the hand of justice by corruption and blind the eyes of the people by lies; who nullify by their craft the merciless laws which nobler people have devised for the protection of the weak; who have made us ashamed of our dear country by their defilements and have turned our holy freedom into a hollow name; who have brought upon thy Church the contempt of men [and women] and have cloaked their extortion with the gospel of Christ.

“For the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy now do thou arise, O Lord; for because thou art love, and tender as a mother to the weak, therefore thou art the great hater of iniquity and thy doom is upon those who grow rich on the poverty of thy people.

“O God, we are afraid, for the thundercloud of thy wrath is even now black above us. In the ruins of dead empires we have read how thou hast trodden the wine-press of thine anger when the measure of their sin was full. We are sick at heart when we remember that by the greed of those who enslaved a weaker race that curse was fastened upon us all which still lies black and hopeless across the land, though the blood of a nation was spilled to atone. Save our people from being dragged down into vaster guilt and woe by men who have no vision and know no law except their lust. Shake their souls with awe of thee that they may cease. Help us with clean hands to tear the web which they have woven about us and to turn our people back to thy law, lest the mark of the beast stand out on the right hand and forehead of our nation and our feet be set on the downward path of darkness from which there is no return.”

— Walter Rauschenbusch, “Against the Servants of Mammon” published in Prayers of the Social Awakening, Pilgrim Press, 1910.

Like ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, most of us don’t use the word ‘Mammon’ anymore, but its odor is no less foul than when Jesus spoke of it in the first century of the Common Era. “You cannot serve God and Mammon.”

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— Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 20, 2018.

Visual Poetry: Go fly a kite

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

A kite flying above the Illinois prairie invites the viewer to hear the Sound of Silence.

“Visual Poetry” – Photo by Steve Shoemaker, 2014

Steve Shoemaker welcoming President Bill Clinton to Champaign-Urbana. IL

Steve Shoemaker, the 6’8″ kite-flying poet whose poetry blessed Views from the Edge readers, shared this photo from the Shoemaker prairie home near Urbana, Illinois in 2014.

Steve didn’t live to see the changing of the guard one year ago today. On the anniversary of the 2017 inauguration, pancreatic cancer has silenced Steve’s Views from the Edge posts, but his poetry and “Visual Poetry,” as he called this photograph, still speak clearly. Like the kite in the photograph and the photo of Steve towering over President Bill Clinton, Steve still invites us to “go fly a kite” for a better time. RIP.

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 20, 2018.

RAPIDLY. BLINKING.

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Elijah laughing with Grandma – pure joy

A good laugh is medicine for the soul. Marilyn Armstrong’s SERENDIPITY post “RAPIDLY. BLINKING.” brought Norman Cousins to mind the day of the shutdown.

Serendipity - Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

I was standing next to the bed. Blinking. Rapidly. Garry looked at me. I must have appeared to be in pain or something because he said: “Are you okay?”

He can’t blink.

“Yes,” I said, blinking and frowning. “I was putting the gunk on my rash? So after that, I washed my hands. I must not have washed them enough, because I think I touched my eyes and now my eyes are burning. I suppose I got some of the gunk in my eyes.”

By then, I was trying to rub my eyes with the back of my wrists since apparently my fingers were not eye-worthy.

Garry started to laugh. Then I started to laugh. We both kept laughing.

“One thing always leads to another,” I cackled.

He went back to watching the movie. I found the eye drops. Everything is hilarious. Of course, I suppose it could also be tragic and dramatic.

It’s…

View original post 4 more words

Grandpa, what’s a shutdown?

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Gordon C. Stewart

Elijah with Grandpa: “I don’t like that, Grandpa!”

Watching the news last night, Elijah was worried.

Grandpa! What’s a shutdown?

Well, Elijah, let me think. You’re just eight-months old. Let’s try this. If your Mom decided not to feed you anymore, that would be a shutdown.

Mom’s not going to feed me anymore? Mom and I were on the NEWS?

Elijah with Mom

No, no, Mom’s not going to shutdown your feeding. She loves you very much. I’m just saying that’s what a shutdown is like.

So, who’s being shutdown?

The government.

What’s a government?

It’s what keeps us together in a democracy.

What’s a democracy?

Actually, I mis-spoke. We’re not a democracy. We’re a democratic Republic, a representative democracy. We govern ourselves by electing people to represent us in Congress and the Presidency.

Did all those people die? Did they get shutdown?

No, Elijah, they’re the ones who are threatening to shutdown the government.

Why, Grandpa?

Because they’ve forgotten why they’re there. They’re confusing government with a sandbox. It’s not. The government belongs to the American people. They’re acting like kindergarteners throwing sand at each other in the kindergarten sandbox. If they keep doing this, there’s be no sand left. The sandbox itself will be gone. It’ll all be shut down.

I don’t like that, Grandpa, and I don’t like the way you’re talking. You’re making fun of kindergarteners!

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Kindergarteners working together in the sandbox

You’re right, Elijah, I shouldn’t make fun of kindergarteners. Kindergarteners are better than that. They’re adults. They’re not acting like children. If they acted like children, we might be better off. Like the psalmist said,

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger. (Psalm 82:3)

Thanks, Grandpa. I like the psalmist. Will their Moms shut them down if they shut down the government?

Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, January 19, 2018.

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Against the Servants of Mammon

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