Edward Hays ~ Author, Artist & Storyteller
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Just Too Big to Fit in Church

11/26/2012

 

Just Too Big to Fit in Church

The coming weeks until the end of December will see a colossal stampede of customers shopping for Christmas. Staunch Christians condemn how the endless jingling of cash registers has kidnapped the birth of Jesus. While churches confess that God’s “word became flesh” in the Babe of Bethlehem, they find that God assumed human nature in us—and all humanity—too outrageous to proclaim!

Yet, that awesome divine reality is indeed the source of the extravagant Christmas merriment with spider-webbed trees in billions of tiny galaxies of twinkling lights. Instead of condemning such vivacious public manifestations, shouldn’t true believers instead be in joyful communion with the glittering grandeur of the pre-Christmas marketplace? Rejoice—Christmastide is uncontainable! In every neighborhood, reindeers, elves and nativity scenes miraculously appear on front lawns as pine forests come indoors and become magically bejeweled trees. The very air itself is melodious with old carols alongside yuletide songs and the pungent kitchen aromas of holiday foods and pastries. Imagination’s wildest fantasy is near exhausted in its attempt to reveal the inconceivable wonder of God assuming our human nature as God’s own! Christmastide being such, no wonder it can’t fit inside a church or the greatest cathedral.

The poet Coventry Patmore wrote, “…love raises the spirit above the sphere of reverence and worship into one of laughter and dalliance, a sphere in which the soul says: Shall I, a gnat which dances in Thy ray, dare to be reverent?”

Hilarity and dalliance—frivolity, untamed earthly fun, and lively polkas—are forbidden inside churches worshipping a remote, heaven-dwelling, ethereal God. Yet we insignificant gnats itch to dance about the news from Bethlehem but are “pew-trapped” poker-faced spectators patiently enduring repetitive rituals. The reason for this reality, says Alan Watts, is that we suffer “constipation of the bright emotions.”

When Christmas went to church, the sign on the door read, “No room in the inn!” So this all too human, jolly, lighthearted and danceable holiday pitched its merry three-ring-circus tent in the marketplace and our private homes. Fellow gnats, be freed of your churchy constipation, and with your bright emotions go to the circus. Join in the merrymaking carnival of God assuming our human nature with all its faults, primal urges, sensual delights and desire for justice and peace.

The bottom line of Christmas: Rejoice when you have a temptation of the flesh—and be confident, for your God shares it with you!

Thanksvision

11/20/2012

 

Thanksvision

Thursday is Thanksgiving, but the window for gratitude is short-lived since the Christmas gift-buying season begins the same day. Eager to cash in on holiday specials, we are focused on what we are going to get rather than on being thankful for what we have. Don’t let trivia activities prevent you from engaging fully in this annual Fiesta of Giving Thanks. A practical suggestion for a good Thanksgiving is to make a list or a litany of the gifts that enrich your life.

These are difficult and thankless times for the millions without jobs, on food stamps and struggling to just make ends meet. Even those among us who are in better financial condition often find little in life for which to be grateful. If your gratitude list is short, consider adding the gifts of family and friends. Next add to it your servants—and don’t object by saying only the very rich can afford servants. The average American home has a score of servants who work to make life more comfortable and to do the unpleasant tasks: a stove for cooking, a refrigerator, washing machine, toaster, radio, television, telephone…and don’t forget the simple doorbell. Consider thanking these docile servants who serve you day and night, usually without a single word of gratitude.

I have left to the last the most important reason for gratitude—the invisible gifts. Yet to be really thankful for these requires a special vision. Eyesight naturally diminishes as we age, so it is paradoxical that older people are the experts of this needed, exceptional vision. The eyes of the youthful are attracted to externals like physical beauty and consumer possessions, and so when seeing an elderly couple enjoying themselves are bewildered about what they can find attractive in one another.

One of my favorite authors, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, said “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.” Heart-seeing is a skill of the elderly who find great attractiveness in indispensable fidelity that’s invisible to the eye. They are also fabulously wealthy because of loving companionships that are impossible to purchase at any price and by the invisible wealth of many memories shared.

This Thanksgiving, get drunk on 100 Proof Gratitude for your many essential gifts that can be seen only by your heart.

The Pillow Cure

11/14/2012

 

The Pillow Cure

The previous Haystack reflection dealt with television sets running throughout the day into the night while not being watched. This phenomenon may be explained by the fact that the endless background noise from TV voices and sounds gives comfort to the lonely! In our society the number daily increases of those suffering from loneliness, yet being alone is a natural experience in this life. Sadly, so many were not instructed as children in the art of how to spend time alone.

Aloneness, when balanced with some companionship, provides the necessary solitude for all creativity, as well as growth for our souls. Regrettably, we judge solitude as something bad since the most dreaded punishment society can inflict is solitary confinement! Yet in spite of this reality more people live alone today than ever before. A few freely choose this as a lifestyle, while for others it is caused by a spouse’s death, divorce or sadly the cards they’ve been dealt in this life. Life isn’t a game of chance but of choices—so choose to volunteer, join a book club, bridge group or some participation where one can feel community. Such choices though don’t always help those living that modern nightmare of feeling painfully alone even while surrounded by people. The good news is someone has created a solution to the agony of aloneness—the Lightmate.

This creation of Francesca Lanzavecchia and her husband is a human-body-sized soft pillow similar to a white cloud. When hugged it emits a gentle glow and delicate heat. Francesca, an Italian student, said upon her arrival in Holland as part of a student design project that she “felt very little and tiny and lonely.” To alleviate this condition she created the first prototype of the Lightmate. After her return to Italy and marriage, she and her husband began to produce this life-size comforting pillow. Its success Francesca says is because, “We can have an empathic relationship only with things that resemble us.” Her life-size huggable pillow companions are available only by special order at around $3,500 each.

All loners seriously should ponder and act upon these words of divine wisdom first spoken in the Garden of Eden: “It is not good for one to be alone.”

The Evil Electric Eye

11/7/2012

 

The Evil Electric Eye

Television, with its continuously shifting images, is fascinating. Some viewers are addicted to watching—even if they don’t inhale or ingest any illegal substances from their TV sets. The mesmerizing power of this 20th century invention, including its recent offspring that can be held in your hand, is at least 2.5 million years old and predates another hand-held invention from Paleolithic time—the stone ax.

The magic of TV is prehistoric since our eyes are involuntary drawn to anything moving in our environment, and more movement increases our fascination. In the beginning there was the single picture screen, but now network programmers divide the screen into two or more different action frames. Added underneath this screen of divided images is also a moving line of changing text. To the right of this may be a box of shifting stock market figures or the daily weather report. All these contribute to making watching this image machine even more fascinating.  

Fascinating, referring to what is irresistibly attractive, surprisingly comes from the Latin fascinare, to cast under a spell…especially by the “evil eye”! We mistakenly believe being bewitched happens only in fairytales, while it can and does happen today to hundreds of millions! Some are so spellbound their sets are continuously turned on all day long into the night, as they are in nursing homes, airports, doctors’ waiting rooms, bars and restaurants.   

Tele (long distance) & vision (sight) is a miraculous invention that brings into your home entertainment, instant news, education and sports. Its benefits are so marvelous that surely some fairytale must possess an old magic charm to prevent the Evil Eye’s curse of addiction. Yes, but you won’t find it in any old storybook, but among antiquity.

The ancient Egyptians used a mascara as magic to protect them against the Evil Eye. Men and women applied this cream of burnt almonds and black oxide in circles around their eyes. In Egypt’s bright desert light they found mascara absorbed sunlight and minimized the sun’s reflective glare in their eyes. Football and baseball players apply it under their eyes for the same reason today and not to ward off the evil eye. Yet mindful of malicious fans of some rival teams they might secretly use it for its ageless black magic powers.   

To be shielded from television’s spellbinding curse, you don’t have to encircle your eyes with mascara. Simply ration watching it by using its instant off button.


    Edward Hays


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    Haysian haphazard thoughts on the
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