The 1664 Richard Jackson house in Portsmouth is the oldest surviving wood frame dwelling in New Hampshire or Maine. The additions turned it into a multi-family residence.
SLIDE SHOW MEMORIES
When I was growing up, my family would sometimes go over to another family’s house for dinner or a low-key party that was soon followed by their getting the projector and screen out, along with a brace of Kodak slides, to show us their summer travels.
In those days, we were somewhat awed. These were our friends who could afford the equipment and film and also manage to travel in some kind of style. In other words, it was an occasion, however boring.
These days, of course, photography is, oh, so much easier, and thanks to digital advances, oh, so much cheaper. And the slide show, as I’ve been finding as I blog, is both easier and, well, more intimate – you can watch it when and where you want. You don’t even have to yell out, “Can we back up two?” or “Who was that in the lower right-hand corner?”
Many families now have to figure out what to do with those increasingly fragile slips of film in their cardboard frames – especially the ones that now smell of mildew. They’re history, of course.
As is, it appears as I look around, the custom of families coming together with others.
RETIRED OR …?
After officially retiring full-time early this year, I found myself saying I’d changed careers, taking up something that wasn’t yet paying the bills.
Actually, it’s been several things, from a rash of poetry appearances to publication of the novels, especially, on top of intensified Quaker practice.
Lately, though, as my wife returned to the workplace full-time, I’m beginning to sense I’ve retired from retirement to become … a househusband!
I really do need to learn to cook again, especially since the standards in my life have risen so sharply since we’ve been together. And then there’s the vacuuming and sweeping and washing … well, it really is endless, isn’t it!
As for meeting her in my apron, I’ll leave the details to your imagination. I hope she enjoys the cocktail and just kicking back. As if there’s time for that when you’re working.
A FEW QUICK THOUGHTS ON THE LONG AND SHORT OF WRITING
As a writer, I love long pieces that allow a thorough investigation of a topic. Tell me the why and how of a situation, not just the final action.
The Wall Street Journal used to have those front-page, full-column “leaders” that jumped inside, often filling most of the inside page. These pieces actually telescoped a series of mini-stories into a comprehensive whole. How I admired those, even as I was being told to cut stories to much shorter length. (It often felt like reducing prime rib to hamburger.)
The longer stories, if well written and thoroughly researched, provided a sense of feasting, and I could point to research that showed some readers stayed around for those meaty offerings. I knew I had a feeling of getting my money’s worth after I’d savored one of those.
Not that I felt all stories should run long – I was also a big believer in running columns of briefs, in part to make room for the longer reports.
These thoughts return to me as I blog. In fact, I’m having a lot of fun “writing short” here at the Barn. You know, a couple of sentences and that’s it – especially with the photos.
For the longer efforts, though, I’ll point you to As Light Is Sown, Chicken Farmer I Still Love You, or the Orphan George Chronicles. Or to my novels. As I was saying …
HOLY COW OR BLESS ME, TOO
The sign by the side of the highway said it all:
B LESS SIRLOIN $3.99
THE STIGMA OF RELIGION
Intolerance, scorn, and judgmental stereotyping are hard enough to behold in public discourse, but they’re especially painful when they come from my side of the spectrum – people who proclaim themselves to be open-minded and smart. Yet the contempt is there, and nowhere more so than at the mention of religion, as Madeleine L’Engle has already pointedly observed. Even so, the fact remains that we do find individuals for whom belief and wisdom are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, even mutually enhancing. Let me suggest Bill Moyers’ Genesis: A Living Conversation, a Doubleday book based on the PBS series, as a demonstration of intelligence and faith in joint action. (Also available in audio or video, if you prefer.)
Admittedly, much of what we see and hear from the religious front can be superficial thought, convoluted logic, or emotional manipulation – quite simply, bad theology that too often goes unchallenged. (Not that we don’t encounter these in advertising, politics, entertainment, or professional athletics.) Curiously, when I listen to the reasons given by many who turn away from religion altogether, I often hear equally shallow arguments. Those who accuse religion of being the cause of all war, for example, blithely ignore Karl Marx’ insistence that it’s economic injustice instead – even as they invoke his axiom of religion as the opiate of the people. Or the way Sigmund Freud’s atheism is touted, while ignoring the degree to which his two key disciples, Karl Jung and Otto Rank, each turned to unique aspects of religion to advance their depth of human insight. I’m of the camp that contends that good theology is the only cure for bad theology, and is essential for progressing social justice. Rabbi Michael Lerner’s The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right offers a fine line of reasoning in this direction. (As for advertising, politics, entertainment, professional athletics …?)
And, yes, the best reply to hypocrisy comes from the discipline of faith itself. Whatever happened to corrective rebuke and redirection, within the faithful group? (What old Quakers used to call “close labor.”)
Oh, my, and here I’d started out to reflect on the unfortunate state of religious fiction and poetry in our time, especially from Christian writers. With little support from my side of the spectrum, what appears is typically constrained by an orthodoxy that inhibits candor and rigorous exploration, and what emerges sounds saccharine, hollow, or even a false note altogether. That’s before we get to that matter of being preachy.
Still, I can point to the growing popularity of Rumi, a Sufi mystic of the 13th century, or to Zen-influenced Americans or Jewish novelists and a few obliquely Christian poets as signs of hope.
Care to add to the list?
TRUE HOSPITALITY
The New Hampshire economy – like the rest of New England, actually – relies heavily on tourism. But to put a smiling face on the cash cow, businesses and public officials alike call it the hospitality industry.
Dictionaries, however, say nothing about making a profit on hospitality. In fact, one calls it “behaving in a kind and generous manner toward guests; fond of entertaining; affording or expressing generosity toward guests.” Generosity extended by the host, we should note, and not the guest.
But looking at the word afresh, I’m also seeing another industry arising: the hospital. As in hospitalization. Oh, my.
THE INSPIRATION OF PICASSO
There it was on a public television broadcast, a curator proclaiming that no other artist had made as many bad lithographs (and maybe other kinds of prints) as Picasso. But, came the rejoinder, no other artist had made so many of genius, either. The freedom of one was necessary to open the other.
I took the message to heart. Genius, of course, is another matter.
SOARING AND SWIRLING
In mid-March, the buzzards return, soon followed by hawks.
“Buzzards,” as one acquaintance long ago explained, “is what cowboys call turkey vultures.”
But buzzard is so much more fun to say, fast or slow.
Yes, a few linger around here all winter, along with a number of hawks. But one day, looking up, you realize the balance has changed.
They’ve mostly headed for Florida again. Along with the rest of the “snow birds.”
ASPARAGUS POLLOCK
Jnana's Red Barn 