Thursday March 31, 2022

A summer evening, in beautiful Butchart’s Gardens, near  Victoria. B.C. On a grassy meadow, people -- young, old, and in-between -- sprawled on blankets, listening to entertainment from the Gardens’ open-air stage. 

            The singer was belting out a Barry Manilow piece. 

I write the songs that make the whole world sing.

I write the songs of love and everything.

I write the songs that make the young girls cry.

I write the songs, I write the songs.

            Several people got up and left. I felt sorry for the performer.

            It must be discouraging for any performer to watch people leaving. It would have been discouraging for Barry Manilow himself, if he’d been there. No matter how many million songs you’ve sold worldwide, it hurts when people don’t want to hear your song. 

Who are you, now?

            Who are you, when what you’re good at doesn’t appeal anymore? 

            A formerly important men in a northern Ontario town went to his bank. He had run the railroad,  once. Everyone knew him. Everyone respected him.

            Until a new young teller asked him for identification. 

            As he handed her his business card, he said sadly, “I used to be somebody once.”

            Who are you, when you used to run an international mining conglomerate, and now you just play golf?

            Who are you, when you can remember every child you ever taught in your classroom, and now you’re just an old woman shopping for groceries?

            Who are you, when your kids grow up and leave home, when your life partner dies, when you have more dead friends than living ones, when you’re awash in memories that no one shares?

            Who are you when your physical body can’t do what it used to? When you need to lean on a cane for balance? When the newspaper’s crossword clues refer to celebrities you’ve never heard of?

            And some of you are wondering, who’s Barry Manilow?

Facing reality calmly

            A wise man wrote about that feeling, more than two millennia ago. Most Bibles call his writings Ecclesiastes. Life is vanity, he said. Self-delusion. We kid ourselves about our own importance. We accumulate wealth. Possessions. Reputations. 

            But it all ends the same, he says. Death comes to everyone, regardless of wealth or poverty, regardless of fame or failure. 

            You can’t take it with you, whatever “it” is. 

            Letting go is hard. Letting  go of old friends. Letting go of our own notions of what makes us valuable. Perhaps letting go of beliefs we’ve held since childhood.

            Barry Manilow wrote songs; I write prose. Writing words helps me deal with discovering that I’m not the somebody I used to be. Translating feelings into black marks on paper puts some objective distance between me and the inevitable losses of aging. 

            So I write the words that – I hope – explore life’s experiences in ways that make sense. Words that both acknowledge reality and offer comfort in difficult times. 

            I write to help memories come flooding back. To help old men like me warm up to unexpected kindnesses.

            If I can touch a heart or two, if I can crack open an occasional shell of loneliness, maybe my readers won’t want to get up and leave.

I write the words that make the old men smile,

I write the words, I write the words.

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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                  To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Unless I lost some letters, there were only two responses to last week’s column about radiating the right energy.

Florence Driedger thought I might have been expressing some doubts about the efficacy of prayer, when I wrote: "And yet somehow we believe that the energy we focus on those embattled Ukrainians, can somehow strengthen their strength, their resolve, their commitment to keep fighting." 

            Florence replied, {Because if you were wondering, I can attest to the fact that many of our friends in Ukraine continue to say to me, they find the support we and many in Canada are providing through hope and prayers is what helps them keep going.  We hear their works, see it in their faces when we see them on Viber or Zoom, we read their words, and we hear it from others who also are hearing it from their Ukrainian  friends. And they are not deceiving us. We have traveled to Ukraine about 60 times in the last 33 years and hosted about 80 persons here in Regina in those same years as we worked together on social community services to the vulnerable in Ukraine.

            “Thanks for your continuing Sharp and Soft edges.  Keep them coming!”

Isabel Gibson also endorsed the idea that we can radiate energies: “There's something ‘catchy’ going around. Who among us hasn't been inspired by Volodomyr Zelenskyy in his televised speeches and the other Ukrainians we see in video clips, standing down tanks? 

            “At a more-everyday level, who among us hasn't been lifted up by a smile from a stranger? Masks don't always obscure a smile. And snippiness ahead of us in line can bring us down for hours.

            “It sure behooves us to put the right energy out there.”

I probably should add something personal here. I accept, and applaud, the notion that we can direct energies towards others in need. Various kinds of monitored and double-blind experiments have shown that we can, in fact, influence the growth of plants, etc. 

            What I think we overlook is that when a dozen of us pray for peace in Ukraine, for example, there are thousands simultaneously praying for a military solution, or millions so apathetic that they muffle our prayers for good. It’s like trying to throw a baseball through a wall of cotton wool.

            If we radiate energy, we need to recognize that apathy and hate also radiate energy. Florence was right in sensing that I have some skepticism about the efficacy of prayers and good wishes. 

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Psalm paraphrase

Psalm 118 for Passion Sunday: Sometimes life feels like a bowl of cherries. Sometimes, it's more like a race to the emergency ward. 

1          As we ride the ambulance of life, Lord,
we sense your presence beside us.

2          Your constant love and care comforts us;
Our fears fade away. 

19        Where faceless figures repair our shattered souls,
you hold my hand. 

21        In a time of terror, you hover over me;
you are the very breath of life for me.

22        Vulnerability leaves me isolated and alone;
yet I am buoyed up by compassion.
The moment I most feared has become the moment to remember!

23        This can only be the Lord's doing. 

24        Awareness washes over me like returning consciousness.
I am alive! I am not alone! 

25        Thank you, God. Thank you. 

26        Thank you for those who serve in your name. My tears overflow with gratitude. 

27        God lives in the hearts and hands of healers.
Wherever there are people of goodwill,
wherever kindness and compassion exist,
God finds a home. 

28        You are my God; I will thank you with every thought.
You are my God; I will honor you with all I do. 

29        I will never feel alone again;
even in the halls of death, your love will light my life.

You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.

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                  And for those of you who like poetry, please check my webpage .https://quixotic.ca/My-Poetry I posted several new poetic works there a few weeks ago. If you’d like to receive notifications about new poems, write me at jimt@quixotic.ca, or subscribe yourself to the list by sending a blank email (no message) to poetry-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca (If it doesn’t work, please let me know.)

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of some of the web links.

                  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!

                  I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also has lots of beautiful photos. Especially of birds.

                  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE

                  I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)