Your great grandfather, grandfather, and yes… father

Dear Celestial Surfer,

I can't believe it has been nearly a month since my last entry here. I would like to think it is the holidays but there are all sorts of other things that typically sneak in and confound my writing. More things than I like to think about….

It is perhaps time to tell some of your family history. The photo that you see here is of your great grandfather, Hugo, your grandfather Hugo in the middle and me, your father, Hugh -- the goofy-grinned kid (in his favorite sailor outfit) in front: three generations of Schulze.

Your great grandfather came to the United States in the late 1920s just after the Great Depression began. Before that time, he had been a waiter working in restaurants in the south of Europe during the winter months, and then heading north to work when the weather was cooler in the summer.

The story goes that while working at a hotel restaurant in Switzerland, he and a friend were approached with an opportunity to go to New York City. They did -- and there are stories I could tell some time of there arrival in the U.S.

But before we leave Europe, we should talk about how he had left home when he was just a teenager. His mother had remarried (I'm not sure if his biological father died or if his mother had divorced him) and he did not get along well with his stepfather. When he was not quite 18 he was conscripted into the German army to enter World War I.

From the documents I've seen, he worked a machine gun on the Western Front -- one of the most bloody theaters of the war, fighting IN France on the side of the Germans. But because he was younger, he came into the war in 1917 when the war was winding down.

It was an ugly war -- where chlorine gas was used and scarred the lungs of those who did not die from it. The trench warfare was something I can only imagine (and is stunningly described in the novel Birdy, where men tunneled underground in close quarters in total, claustrophobic darkness.

One of the only stories he told my father about that war time was the end of the war….

When a cease fire was announced, all of the soldiers got up from their positions, turned around and walked home. Somewhere along the walk back to Munich (or perhaps Passau, where his sister would ultimately come to live at the confluence of three rivers), he traded his sidearm, a Luger, with a farmer for a night's lodging and food. (I always assumed this was the reason my own father (your grandfather) was so fascinated with guns.)

After the war, he became a waiter -- and eventually his travels would take him from Switzerland (most likely in German-speaking, Zurich) to New York City where he would meet my grandmother.

My grandmother, your great grandmother, was also an immigrant from Scotland who worked as a maid. After they met and were married, your great grandparents had your grandfather in New York.

This was the mid 1930's when Detroit was the fifth most populous city in the United States -- home of the booming auto industry, and your grandfather LOVED cars. [But because he was an adult during the Great Depression, he bought NOTHING on credit: not his car, not his ultimate home. He saved and bought everything in cash.]

Your great grandfather came to Detroit and became Head Waiter at one of the most prominent restaurants in downtown Detroit (I believe it was the Pontchatrain) where the auto executives would come to magnificent lunches.

Your great grandfather (on your grandfather's side) died when I was six or seven. I remember the morning my mother received the call: she had me run out to stop my father who was getting in his car to go to work. It was very sudden, a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

This year, 2013, just before your grandfather died, I asked him about his life with his father, your great grandfather. Because he worked as a waiter most nights, he came home at three or four in the morning. Apparently, my grandmother would be up to welcome home and cook him breakfast before he went to bed.

When my father and his brother would wake up, she would make them breakfast and send them on to school while your great grandfather slept. Of course, it wasn't always like that and they spent time with their father and mother too. Your great grandmother and great grandmother loved going for rides in the country; they loved the fresh air.

In the early 2000s, my father -- your grandfather -- received a call that the last remaining relative in Germany had died and that he and his brother (your great uncle) had inherited an small amount of money.

Being the child of immigrants, I don't think either one of my parents, your grandfather or grandmother (whose parents were from Ireland) had any nostalgia or interest in Europe. For their parents, it had been a place to get AWAY from and both of them had lived low-to-middle income lives. (In your grandmother's case, they were Irish poor, a whole 'nother story.)

I say all of this because I happened to be traveling through Europe at the time and took a train to Passau, where the lawyer handling the affairs of the estate eyed me very cautiously. I was taken to my great aunt's house where the few remains were there.

The grass in the side lot was very tall and it was a beautiful home where you could see a sliver of the Windorf-Passau river below. As I walked through the side lot, my pant leg was roughly scratched by a bush. When I bent down, I realized the bush was full of raspberries.

It is hard to describe how I felt lifting one of these raspberries to my lips and tasting it. You see, when I was very young, I remember your great grandfather growing raspberries in his backyard too.

I would learn after I went into the house and found a box of photos and letters that my grandfather, your great grandfather, had kept in touch with his sister who he dearly loved in all the years he was traveling across Europe, and to New York. They managed to stay in touch off and on through the war years -- and I learned later he sent her money after the war.

And in the bottom of one of the boxes in that house, below layers of summer vacation photographs and postcards, photos from the First World War -- when someone in the family (his stepfather perhaps) was an eye surgeon and was shown with regiments of bandaged men -- through photos of some family member who played clarinet for Goebbels, to some of the first color photographs showing meaty, older German women beside bright pink and red bougainvillea…. I found a black and white picture of me, in a cable knit sweater.

I am holding the little plastic bucket I used to gather raspberries in, staring a little bit surprised (as if I've been interrupted in my berry harvest) -- and on the back of the photo written in what little German I can still read are the words written in my grandfather's hand in pencil:  My first grand son.

That is (more than) enough for now. I'll return to tell a few more stories about your great grandmother, about your grandfather, and your grandmother too.

Every day prayer

Dear Blooming Flower,

With all this talk of holidays, I have been thinking a great deal about what I hope for you.

It's so difficult, given how much we all hope to impose our way of looking at things and doing things, to leave each other open to just seeing and appreciating the world. We want so much to know that our way of looking is the way others look, when each of us look at the world as different as we look from each other. When I think of what I wish for you, it is a way of seeing:

I pray you see the beauty in carnations,
in daisies and cattails.
I pray that if you cringe at touching a frog's slimy skin,
you still love looking into its those big amphibious eyes.
I pray that the skies remain clear enough for you to see the stars beyond,
and you remain curious enough to want to learn the shapes of constellations.
I pray you discover the beauty beyond randomness.
I want you to love the order of the universe and laugh at its chaos.
I pray you know the opposite of Love is not Hate, it is Fear.
I pray that you are fascinated by the stories of the poor and the rich
and you love people for who they are, not who they know.
I pray you understand that words can hurt
but that they needn't hurt you
because you are half of the magic of any spoken spell:
you get to decide if it is true for you.
(People can say many silly (and untrue) things and you mustn't, mustn't believe them.)
I pray that you love the world with curiosity and not with critique.
I pray you come to understand how much I long to see your face --
and when you do that you can imagine how God must feel wanting to see us happy.

Cattails: Part III

Dear Patient Passenger in your mother's belly,

After all of these family reflections, perhaps it is a good time to post this one photo that tells a bit more of the story of the cattails. Here is where you see the cattails opening to the wind, spreading seeds into the wind.

As I think of a holiday prayer for you, I wait for your not just outside of your mother's womb, but hoping to see you out in the world, traveling the world, like the seeds of a cattail. And wherever you land, for however long, may you find joy, reaching down into the soil of that place and knowing it deeply and truly with your heart.

Family

Dear Holiday Traveler,

I wanted to capture this image too because so often we move from place to place from meal to meal and forget the richness of all of the different people we have met.

Here is a photo I hope you will someday treasure. Your great aunt, Kathy, is featured on the left. That's you and your mother in the middle. And to the right is your great grandmother, Marion. I wish I had a few more photos of the people who were gathered around the table this Friday-after-Thanksgiving. But the one thing you should take away from seeing this is how much your mother is loved -- and so too, you.

Denver skies

Dear Little Gobbler,

So this Thanksgiving (2013), you spent the holiday with your mother and me in Denver under some of the most beautiful skies:

A Night at the Opera: Part II

Dear Distant Singer,

Someday I will bore you with my favorite Marx Brother's movie which, as you probably guessed, is "A Night at the Opera" but for now, I'll tell (as promised) the second part of the opera story.

While seeing Wagner's opera, Parsifal you were particularly active during one scene which as NOT the scene with the flower maidens but rather during a scene in the ACT before when a ritual communion is being held with the Holy Grail: You can hear the song of the deep male voices immediately after the soft voices of prayer of the youth:

Nehmet vom Brot
wandelt es kühn
in Leibes Kraft and Stärke;
treu bis zum Tod;
fest jedem Kühn,
zu wirken des Heilands Werke!

Take of the break,
turn it confidently
into bodily strength and power;
true until death,
steadfast in effort,
to work the Saviour's will!

This prayer comes in at about 06:34 in this clip:

In the end, there is a magnificent (albeit longish) closing scene with a dove descending and the new King, Parisfal, who has remained true standing in the center of a giant golden hand.

At which point, after so much earnest, holy music and solemn ceremony, I expect Groucho Marx to jump up and say: Boogie, Boogie, Boogie!

Holiday delays

Dear Womb Warrior,

I hate that it's been a full week since I've posted anything. I'd like to blame the holidays and travel, but (as usual) I just need to improve my discipline.

But having said that: there's certainly plenty to report on (grammatically that should be "plenty on which to report but I'm hoping you'll cut me some slack when you read this later):

First, let's talk about your SECOND opera. Now, I'm not sure if you were kicking up a storm during Wagner's Parsifal because you were enjoying the music or because you couldn't believe your mother could sit in one spot and watch not a whole lot happen on stage for four hours and forty five minutes.

Either way, I would like to get on record that you were certainly active! Especially during the Second Act. Here's a photo of the staging done at the Lyric Opera in Chicago for that production of Parsifal:

The guy in the middle of this neon set is Klingsor who wants to capture - and defile - the pure Parsifal. Because it is through Parsifal's innocence and purity that he will reclaim the Holy Spear and the Holy Grail. (If you're ever interested, I'll tell you the whole story. Or we'll listen to the opera together.)

Now the scene you see captured above comes just before our hero, Parsifal, enters the Enchanted Forest and those ladies in white suddenly become beautiful flowers in the seductive garden. It leads to one of my favorite pieces of music in opera. Perhaps it's a bit kitschy, but I still find it beautiful:

The flower maidens sing: "komm', komm' o holder Knabe" which means "Come, come oh you pretty boy."

What I found interesting is that while you DID kick during this scene, you were more active in another one. I'll leave that for Part II.

Cattails: Part 2

Dear Little Water Nymph,

My greatest memory of cattails from my youth was that if you were looking for frogs or garter snakes that moved through the swamps near my parents house, you could usually see a beautiful redwinged blackbird perched on a cattail.

That's how I remember cattails, as perches for redwing blackbirds.

But it wasn't until I began driving into Michigan last week that I wondered: Why cattails?

Oh, I'm sure there is some scientific story that will explain how cattails fit into the ecosystem, how redwing blackbirds help disperse the white puffy seeds that these brown cattails become. But this "why" is different: it's more like what that German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, talked about when he talked about "Dasein", "Being in the World".

I was born into a world of cattails and for many years of my life, I never really noticed them. I thought they were interesting when I saw them included in floral arrangements (which is really about taking one thing and artistically putting it in another setting).

Driving back into Michigan, I suddenly realized how immersed in cattails my youth had been and how, having moved to a big city, I no longer live in a world of cattails. (Technically, I do (I haven't left the planet!); but existentially, they don't line the road of the route I take to work.) What do they mean to me? I wonder as I drive past hundreds, hundreds of thousands of them.

From one perspective, what is there to get excited about. What's so that remarkable about cattails? Why was a feeling a certain pang of nostalgia? Is it possible in some weird way, I've been missing cattails?

I pulled off of the road as cars and semis roared by to stand in the swampy, soggy ground just off the expressway to snap these photos for you and while I've isolated one or two in the photos, they're really not that startling: pretty much the same shade of brown, the same sausage shape.

Living in this country, we spent a great deal of time talking about what makes us SPECIAL. Sadly, it is how we place a value on things. We tell ourselves that we give movie stars more money when they are more talented. We tell ourselves that we pay more money for paintings done by "better artists". But this money that we pay is more about what all the cattails agree is of greater collective value.

Your mother and I plan on showing you just how unique you are, how wonderfully talented you are. And you are, you will be.

But I don't want you to only value those things that make you different, I want you to see the cattails too because those are the things that later, as you grow older will surprise you with how FULL your world is!

I want you to imagine yourself a redwinged blackbird, perched on a cattail singing about the beauty of the world. If you're lucky, a breeze may come up and move those cattails and make them look like they're nodding their heads or rustling the dry stalks that sound like applause.

But if there is no breeze, I still want you to celebrate cattails, coz that's what we do as humans, celebrate   and sing the praises of this God-given creation. We're born to praise and pray.

Someday I hope to take you out to the edge of a lake and scan a whole field of cattails. We'll look for redwing blackbirds too. And if we don't see one (a redwinged blackbird, I mean), let's sing about cattails together, shall we?

Cattails: Part 1

Dear Song of a Newborn Star (did I call you that already?)

So, last weekend I was driving back to Michigan for yet another film festival which was being held in East Lansing where I spent two years of college. I'll spare you the frustrating story of the screening and the "awards ceremony" and tell you a different and far more (I hope) interesting story….

The word popped into my head at almost the minute I crossed the state line from Indiana into Michigan: Cattails.

It's not that there aren't cattails in Illinois. It's just that I don't think I have noticed "cattails" in years.

I grew up in a strange middle income suburban enclave among small lakes in a place called Waterford. I say strange enclave, because when my parents first moved us there, our bus route to school took us down a street called Hospital Road which seemed oddly named given the ramshackle mobile homes and farmhouses of families who ran the gamut from small farmer to low income.

Cattails! Cattails grew along the swampy wetlands of these small lakes (which were becoming overgrown and eutrophied by the run off of fertilizers from the well-trimmed lawns). I was always fascinated by cattails which like dandelions transform from one shape and style to a sudden, puffy collection of seeds that will be blown on the wind.

Driving through Michigan with roadsides lined with trees that still clung to their reds, orange and yellow leaves with a kind of a proud modesty, waiting for the chilly autumn winds to pull their fancy clothes away. It suddenly reminded me of summers and autumns I spent in this State.

Nashville

Dear Celestial Sunrise,

Before we leave Nashville, I wanted to post one more picture. It seemed to capture some essential part of the city which I can't quite put my finger on.

The last glimpse of sunset, set against the cloudy sky (is that rain off to the north?) is certainly one thing that drew me to capture this moment on camera. The colors were gorgeous (as I imagine you to be). But there was something about that Kroger sign on the corner, the day-to-day-ness of it (I imagine my own Kroger's, the things I drive or walk by or to.

Depending on the day, do I see the sky or the Kroger sign? What am I looking for?

To say I was standing at a crossroads when I took this picture almost makes me wince with its obviousness and collegiate attempt to be "significantly symbolic" (me at the crossroads of my life, when every moment is its own crossroads). But there's that too.

(What I love about this photo too is how much sky there is!)

Tennessee

Dear Multiplying Miracle,

Another thought I wanted to get down from our trip to Nashville as a scene from an otherwise frustrating Saturday night. In a rather odd (and oddly underattended) award ceremony at the Country Music Museum, we watched the lead singer of the group Arrested Development receive an award for a song they wrote back in the 1990s: Tennessee.

Speech is the singer -- and while I have always enjoyed the song, it was only after hearing him describe  the circumstances under which it was written (after the death of his grandmother and brother) that I came to fully appreciate what a powerful prayer the song is. Perhaps it can serve as a(nother) reminder of the many different ways we can celebrate this life, this gift:

I don't know where I can go
To let these ghosts out of my skull
My grandmas past, my brothers gone
I never at once felt so alone
I know you're supposed to be my steering wheel
Not just my spare tire
But lord I ask you
To be my guiding force and truth
For some strange reason it had to be
He guided me to Tennessee

(Chorus) Take me to another place
Take me to another land
Make me forget all that hurts me
Let me understand your plan

Lord it's obvious we got a relationship
Talkin to each other every night and day
Although you're superior over me
We talk to each other in a friendship way
Then outta nowhere you tell me to break
Outta the country and into more country
Past Dyesburg into Ripley
Where the ghost of childhood haunts me
Walk the roads my forefathers walked
Climbed the trees my forefathers hung from
Ask those trees for all their wisdom
They tell me my ears are so young
Go back to from whence you came
My family tree my family name
For some strange reason it had to be
He guided me to Tennessee.

Lucky ladies

Dear Long Distance Runner,

Your mother has begun to feel your feet as you make your long journey towards us. It's almost exactly three months from now that you're scheduled to arrive. (How strange that we have these time tables so precisely set up as if you're arriving by airplane and we'll be driving to pick you up.)

Exactly one week ago, the three of us were in Nashville and today I write this in a coffeeshop on the outskirts of Grand Rapids on my way to our last film festival for CASS, in East Lansing, the city where I went to college at Michigan State University.

None of that really matters to me at the moment because I've been remiss in posting this photo, because I want to show you how darn lucky you and I are -- what a beautiful woman. You're one lucky, little lady.

signed,
one lucky older guy

Heaven, Earth, and Human (天，地，人）

When I saw this photo, I took out out the window of the airplane as we were coming into Nashville, Tennessee, as I looked at the heavenly light and seeing that light reflected in the water below, I began thinking about the Japanese art of Ikebana. Like other forms of Japanese art (and certain Christian spiritualities) it holds the notion of the Trinity as sacred: Heaven, Earth and Human:

Each flower, represents one of those ideas: Heaven, Earth and Human.
Notice too how the flowers are reflected, just like light, just live eternal love.

Flying with you

My little miracle,

This miracle of flight... to be high above clouds, looking out at the sun and on the earth below... what an astonishing thing! To just be looking out at the curve of the Earth in the distance with the morning sun high above.

Your mother and I are on our way to the International Black Film Festival of Nashville where CASS will be playing -- and you are along for the ride: a miracle beside me, that I can reach out and touch.

Sometimes you need to touch the miracle closest at hand to appreciate the miracle farther away.
Soon enough, you will understand this too. Saint Anselm said that "God is the greatest we can conceive" but I believe God is greater than we can ever possibly conceive -- and that, my dear, is the joy of wonder and what makes a miracle like you such an exquisite pleasure.

Truth and Beauty

One of my favorite sonnets by William Shakespeare is one that pokes fun at how much (in our rush to name or describe something beautiful) we go for the easy, false and flattering comparison. Like the best of Shakespeare's writing, there is a wonderful punchline that is truer than any false comparison, especially when you encounter someone as beautiful as this.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
     And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
     As any she belied with false compare.

And in this corner....

Weighing in at 1 lb 7 ounces! Our Star Child. And just listen to that strong heartbeat:

Sing along

Dear Celestial Song,
     You may already be a great opera lover! Then again, maybe the soaring Puccini arias in Madame Butterfly were really bugging you.
     Either way, your mother reports that during last night's performance of Madame Butterfly at Chicago's Lyric Opera House you were kicking like crazy.
     Perhaps you, like your mother and I noticed for the first time that the famous "Humming Chorus" in the opera sounded an awful lot like the song "Bring Him Home" from Les Miserables. (Doing a little research on this afterwards, I realized that this is not too surprising since Boubill and Natel, the composers of Les Miserables, are also the composers of Miss Saigon which is a complete rip-off of Madame Butterfly!)

Coast-to-Coast

Dear Pint-sized Traveler,

One of the things you'll learn sooner or later is how difficult it becomes as you get older to be Present, not just geographically, but Aware -- or as the cliché has it "In the moment". One of the things that can contribute to this is when you're in constant motion.

On the one hand, you have stayed in one spot for the past four-plus months, but then again, your mother and I have traveled from coast-to-coast: from Los Angeles to New York City.

Perhaps this image is one to keep in mind: that we have to move through the world but keep our gaze and focus like you are now, right where we happen to be.

On the left, taken at the Getty Museum in LA, you can see the road running off into the foggy, haze of downtown LA.
On the right, taken on Manhattan's Highline, you can see the taxis making their way from the Hudson to the east side of the island.

Genetics 101

Dear Beautiful Dreamer:

If, in the future, you are looking for a career in medicine and need to brush up on Genetics for some medical exam or research grant on your way to a Nobel Prize. Here is a simple way to think about inherited traits:

You get your good looks from the person on the right.
You get your goofy sense-of-humor (and taste for polka dots) from the oddball on the left.
(That's you in the middle.)
Congratulations! And... sorry.

Looking outward, Looking inward

I'm not ready to leave the images from New York City. The view out to the brilliant October day, where the leaves are changing. Looking out as if those windows were my eyes and the dark chapel was the interior of my body. (I imagine you  sleeping in the cathedral of your mother's womb.)

And turning our attention in a different direction: Art is a way to look inward at our own thoughts and perceptions of the world. This is a collage from Robert Motherwell, early in his career, created during the Second World War (1944). He called it: Jeune Fille. Or Young Girl.

Even here in a back gallery at the Guggenheim Museum, you are on my mind.

Wait a minute!

All of these reflections are sounding so heavy! I think we could all use a break....

I'll let your mom lighten things up.

In a park on New York's biggest isle,
A lovely lady once walked for a mile.
If asked 'bout her child
Her thoughts would run wild.
(And OH! you should just see her smile.)

Earth Angel

 "Then the angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,” the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision."
                                                            Acts: 12:8-9

'Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?'
                                                           Job 38:4-7


I wonder what happened to us when we stopped believing in angels.

Did they stop believing in us?

Or do they sit waiting for us to eventually (perhaps only at the last minute) to turn our gaze back to them?

There was a time painters captured the image of angels on the vaults of cathedrals. Perhaps that made us too lazy to look for the real ones (when all the painters wanted to do was remind us!)

Sometimes, if you turn your head very quickly, you might still catch a glimpse of one. Look! Quick!

One voice

Dear Song of God and Nature,

Let's return to that chapel on the north end of Manhattan and the music of Thomas Tallis.

As I said, I walked around the room, listening to the individual voices that made up the swelling beauty that is Spem in Alium.

I stopped at one speaker in particular and hearing the voice here I imagine a rather timid 11-year old who was part of this larger production. He comes in to the music right around 23 seconds which should give you a sense of the music in the room and then you hear him almost tiptoe into the song.

Every voice makes a difference in this piece and I want you to know the power of your own voice, that becomes more beautiful when you let it rise in harmony with others'....

Spem in alium

Dear Celestial Song,

One of the most beautiful sounds in the world is a mass written for multiple voices, polyphonic music from the Middle Ages. (Perhaps my favorite is William Byrd's Mass for Five Voices.)

The composer Thomas Tallis was writing music during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. One of his greatest compositions begins:

Spem in alium nunquam habui/Praeter inte.

I have never put my hope in any other but in you.

It is a 40 part motet, created by eight choirs of five voices each singing in harmony and it is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world.

I tell you all of this to tell you about a chapel your mother and I visited in The Cloisters at the north end of Manhattan in the past week. (She went a week earlier than me after a meeting downtown.)

The Cloisters, a convent that was brought to the U.S. stone-by-stone by the Rockefellers and turned into a museum of medieval art.

Here in 2013, as the trees across the Hudson River burst into reds and orange and yellow -- an artist created a sound installation that includes 40 speakers. One speaker for each human voice in the motet that is played in one of the chapels of the Cloisters.

The speakers ring the chapel in an oblong circle. As you enter the chapel in the midst of the music, you hear the voices rising together in a glorified prayer. It is breathtaking.

But here in this installation, you are able to slowly walk the room and as you pause before each speaker, you can hear the one individual voice that is one part of this joyous hymn of praise. Here, at one speaker the deep bass of a man. At another the impossibly high voice of a woman. At still another the voice of a young child, as clear and moving as any adult voice.

The photo below is taken while sitting on a bench letting ALL the voices joined in unison wash over me.

As I sit in my own meditative silence that makes me feel like a boat bobbing on this sea of sound, the voices seem to rise and rise and rise until the very last note.

And then, all day long in that space, it will loop back around again.

But sitting there, I realize that the space between the songs is filled with what the museum guide says is "three minutes of audio". I had expected some introduction, some dry announcer presenting facts about the music.

Instead, what the artist has done is leave each of the microphones open for three minutes, capturing the sounds of each person: one person clearing her throat, another person whispering to a neighbor, in the background the sound of the conductor trying to get them all together.

And there, listening to the all-too-human voices preparing to sing a composition that sounds like the voices of angels coming together in a grand Hallelujah, I have the very profound sense that this too -- these sounds of preparation and anticipation, these adjustments before singing out in prayer, are the Mystical Body of Christ. This collection of humanity, the baritone checking his cellphone, the soprano rustling papers will, at the right moment, come together in a song of astonishing beauty.

This then is what communion is: a coming together of human beings in praise of God. Sometimes it's a little messy, you can hear the imperfections in how we live our lives in preparation for this moment. But when you get a glimpse of it, when you hear -- or see or taste or touch -- what beauty human beings are capable of doing together, you understand what heaven on Earth means, you understand what being together sharing in this Mystical Union can really mean.

And here's one more part of the miracle: you were there, listening. Somewhere off in the distance, you may have heard a voice singing out. And in some ways that voice was singing to something in you -- inviting you to come out, join us at the table, as we bow our heads and say: Amen. In thanks and gratitude.

Are you Sirius? Part II

Dear Song of God,

This part week you and your mother were in New York City on business and I spent three nights at home with the cat. And since part of this blog is to tell you a little about who I am, who your mother is and how we see the world (at this moment in time), I thought it might be good to let you know that you are on my mind even when you are not near.....

So, on a trip to the Jazz Record Mart (a wonderful place that sells new and used jazz albums and CDs), I happened to find an album by tenor saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins. I know his music only by reputation but once I saw the title and that it was just $4.99, I HAD to get it.

One thing you will learn about me is that when I find these connections -- the title of a blog post I wrote you and then the title of this album, I have to check out these connections.

And there I was Tuesday night, when you and your mother were sitting at the Broadway revival of "Annie", listening to Coleman Hawkins lay down his breathy melody lines that sounds like something like some beautiful sea creature calling for you somewhere out on Lake Michigan.

I wanted to find a link online for the last song on the album: "Sugar". Hawkins had played with jazz greats, like one of my favorites, Django Reinhardt, making a reputation in the 30s and 40s. When he recorded Sirius, he was getting up there in years, but as Benny Green writes in the album's liner notes (something mpegs don't really allow!) "he is not so senile that he cannot adjust that hoary old chord sequence with a series of descending minor seventh chords here and there...."

I don't know enough music to know exactly how to identify those "descending minor seventh chords"but am hoping someday you -- being far smarter than me -- will hear them. And when you're hearing that song, you'll think of me, thinking of you, far away and swimming towards us.

For now, I'll leave you with one of his classic renditions of a jazz standard:

Codes and Codebreakers

Greetings, my little cosmic codebreaker.

[My little Harriet (the spy) in her mother's womb. I'll explain later....]

Scientists say that right now your body (in addition to doing the amazing feat of having a heart that beats 160 times a minute) is also decoding DNA. I wish I understood it all, the RNA delivering the signal to create new life and new patterns from the nutrients in your mother's bloodstream. You are literally being built by this unraveling of a genetic code and fed by what she eats day to day.

So, it's probably time to tell you about one little secret your mother and I share, which I was NOT able to share with her this week. But in addition to us both trying to unravel some savory sense of meaning from this world, she and I do the New York Times Crossword together.

We're a team. She finds those unexpected places I've given up on. (A bit of a metaphor for other things in my life) and I usually figure out the corny pun at the heart of the puzzle.

I have this kind of weird image which gets me a bit teary-eyed of the THREE of us solving something together. About you finding some pattern in life, in a puzzle, maybe just in a wonderful knock-knock joke (don't get me STARTED) that the three of us can laugh to and think for just a minute (usually no longer than that!!!) that we got everything figured out.

And sure, I'll admit it... under and hour for this week's crossword.

Pssst... hurry up! I want to solve some puzzles.

Are you serious?

Hello, Tiny Dancer.

Every once-in-a-while I wake up or find myself during the course of the day, repeating a phrase. Don’t worry. Sometimes it’s like talking (out loud) to myself or perhaps I’m just thinking about what that particular common phrase really means.

This morning the phrase was: “Are you serious?”

By the time you are a teenager perhaps the phrase “Are you serious?” won’t be used by others teens to express incredulity. As in: “Really? Are you serious? Are you JOKING me?”

For me though, I was thinking of it as a direct question about everything in my life. (One thing I’m sure you’ll learn about me pretty quickly is that I tend to think about these things. A lot.) That is, I was asking myself:

Are you serious about being in better health/shape for your daughter’s sake? (Your grandfather, my dad, died in January of this year and I wish he had been a bit more serious about HIS health.)

Are you serious about your own writing? Are you going to spend more time with your scripts and fiction writing?

Are you serious about reconnecting to and deepening your spiritual life? I’ve gone to mass sporadically and my daily meditation practice is not what it was a year ago.

Are you serious about taking care of this home we share?

Are you serious about the house you own in Detroit?

Are you serious about the film you spent some much time working on?

Are you serious about your business?

Are you serious about doing everything you can for your wife, your marriage?

A-and if you ARE serious, what are you doing about these things?

Now questions like this often come from a little Inner Child we all have that alternates between being puffed up with self-worth and ego and then terrible insecurity. (Of course, when you’re a child – you and your inner child will be bosom buddies. Maybe when YOU grow up, you’ll wave goodbye to that inner one.)

Buddhist talk about a “Middle Way” and Christians have a wonderfully symbol of balance (and a roadsign for life ahead): the Cross. So, I know in my heart that “being serious” is not about frowning and nodding very seriously or putting myself down.  It’s something in-between, just as we live our lives in-between.

“Being serious” is as much about having serious fun or believing that life itself is deadly serious too.

As I often do when these questions really start bugging me, I went to find out what “Serious” really MEANS? I mean what are the roots of the word?

Turns out that it is related to the French “sérieux” or “grave, earnest”, and the Latin “seriousus” for “weighty, important, grave”. But YIKES, that’s not really what I meant!

I also don’t want to use the word that is related to the German “schwer” or “heavy”. (Etymologists (not the people who study bugs (entomologists) by those who study words like these: say around 1800, “serious” was also “attended with danger”. Hmmmmm. No, not right either.)

As I think of this (and perhaps it is my own reasonable adult talking to that Inner Child, I dunno), while I think I was reprimanding myself for not being more “serious”, I think the real question is: Are you awake? Are you aware? Are you engaged?

Because it is so easy to fall asleep, to miss the beauty right in front of us. Sometimes it just makes sense to make FUN of the frowny face and say that if criticizing OTHERS and giving them grief isn’t kind or helpful, then it certainly won’t be for oneself.

And after all, people who look TOO serious can look awfully funny:

What WAS that?

Dear Deep Sleeper,

That is the question you were probably asking Monday night, the last day of September. Perhaps the music you thought was just noise even woke you up (although with a heartbeat of 160 bpm, I imagine you sleeping for just seconds at a time.)

In addition to the city's we can list you have visited before being born, we can now add Sigur Ros to the list of Bob Dylan (a favorite of mine) and Wilco (a favorite of your mother). We both enjoy this band and here's a shot from the first row of the balcony (which, of course, you could not see but undoubtedly heard because as your mother said (I will not exaggerate, so I'll say...) more than twice: "They are so LOUD!" (And they have beautiful Art Direction!)

One of the things I'm looking forward to is being able to dance with you to Sigur Ros songs.

And Django Reinhart.

Or maybe just relax on the couch with Miles Davis' In A Silent Way.

Or maybe go for a ride with Tom Petty playing on the radio.

Sleep well.

Important questions on my mind

What ice cream will you prefer?
What Soul music CLASSIC will we dance to together?
What music will you love as a teenager that I definitely will NOT?
Will you like Math or Science? Or both?
What will be your favorite book when you are 4? 14? 24? 34? 44? 54? 64? 74? 84? 94?
Will there still be cars, politicians and ice cream in 2118 when you are 94?
Will you go bird watching with me? (That's an open invitation!)
What will be your favorite animal?
Your favorite stuffed animal?
What animal does THAT cloud look like?

Ultrasonics

Hello, Beauty.

This is one of the many images created by a strange machine you and your mother were exposed to for over an hour.

Science is a strange thing. Some people develop a certainty about science and technology that True Believers used to reserve for God and religion.

We're so naturally inquisitive but also (I think) sometimes a bit too eager to seek certainty in all things.  In fact, sometimes we grab at it like straws that might hold us. Sometimes it's difficult for the technically-minded to admit their own lack of knowledge.

Take the young (as yet unlicensed) technician the hospital allowed to perform the ultrasound.

After half an hour of running the ultrasonic wand around your mother's gooey belly and after poking at mom to get you to move so the technician could get the photo's SHE wanted, I started getting aggravated. (I'm hoping to work on this unflattering quality over the next few months before you get here.) Watching her bounce the plastic against your mother's belly, I began to wonder if there might be some effects of the jostling OR the ultrasound itself.

So I asked the technician if you could hear any of this. (I should explain that I was wondering if even at levels that are ULTRA (or above) our terrestrial hearing, if perhaps in the amniotic fluid in which you currently swim, if perhaps, the ultrasound might be received by your developing ears differently. You're sort of like a fabulous sea creature right now!)

The technician looked at me with the bemused patience of most technicians who don't like people questioning what they're doing. (Especially while they're DOing it!) "Oh, no," she said, "ultrasound means that it's outside our range of hearing. And the baby's too."

Having read articles about the possible effects on whales and dolphins (some people believe that ultrasonic frequencies used by submarines and the defense industry can disorient these sea creatures who can pick up those signals and cause them to become disoriented and become stranded on shore (some even think it causes bleeding in the brain)), I wasn't completely convinced. (By the time you get around to reading this; that last statement probably won't surprise you.)

But here is what I found from New Scientist magazine from more than decade ago:

Ultrasound examinations during pregnancy expose the fetus to a sound as loud as that made by a subway train coming into a station, say US researchers. But doctors do not think the experience causes a baby any lasting harm.

Neither adults nor fetuses can hear ultrasound waves because they vibrate at too high a frequency for our ears to detect them. But James Greenleaf, Paul Ogburn and Mostafa Fatemi of the Mayo Foundation in Rochester, Minnesota, investigated the possibility that ultrasound could cause secondary vibrations in a woman's uterus.

Ultrasound machines generate sound waves in pulses lasting less than one ten thousandth of a second. Pulses are used because a continuous soundwave could generate too much heat in the tissue being examined. The Mayo team predicted that the pulsing would translate into a "tapping" effect.

They listened in by placing a tiny hydrophone inside a woman's uterus while she was undergoing an ultrasound examination. Sure enough, they picked up a hum at around the frequency of the tapping generated when the ultrasound is switched on or off. The sound was similar to the highest notes on a piano.

Theoretical consequences

When the ultrasound probe pointed right at the hydrophone, it registered 100 decibels, as loud as a subway train coming into a station. "It's fairly loud if the probe is aimed right at the ear of the fetus," says Greenleaf.

Fredic Frigoletto, chief of maternal fetal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, says doctors should be careful not to point the ultrasound probe directly at a fetus's ear unless there is a particular reason to suspect facial or cranial abnormalities. "Then the benefits significantly outweigh any theoretical consequences," he says.

Fatemi presented the team's research at the annual meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Perhaps by the time you are born, we'll have learned more about this, but I doubt it.

And long after you're born, I think there will be people like this young technician who believe anything they've been told.

My hope for you is that you develop a healthy skepticism. Not frozen by indecision or fear in moving forward with smart thinking, but open to inquiry. The history of human beings is filled with those who would question what they've been taught and are able to discover some new idea or way of thinking.

For the moment, I think we'll think a bit more about how often you have to listen to those subway trains when you're in your mother's womb.

A Whale of a Tale of a Whale's Tail

     "It's Hook!" the men around the boat began to shout.
     Your mother and I were standing at the front of the boat watching the blue whale rise, exhale a plume of mist into the air and then dive for deeper water. (Whales do this, ride along the surface of the water so you can see their backs rise and fall three or four times and then you will see their back slides along the surface of the water -- the blue whale is the largest animal on the planet so the back can seem to go on FOREVER -- and then at the end as the dive deep, their tale will flick up.
     In this case, that curve was how they recognize the whale they called "Hook".
     The men were giddy to recognize the telltale curve (on the left in the photo) of one side of the whale's tale. They were unsure if the fluke had been bitten when the whale was young or had just grown misshapen, but they recognized the whale by his tail. (In either event, they said, the whale had learned how to swim a little different from other whales since the fluke helps propel the whale forward.)
     Because whales live under the surface of the ocean this is one of the only ways to get to recognize them. (Unless you spent time swimming under water with them, because they aren't likely to come out to go for a walk with you on land. (And I'm sure they mean no offense by this.))
     And I was thinking about the ways we get to know each other, we humans, that is. We can go for days and days without seeing relatives we love. Or friends. We don't always know when they'll pop to the surface and sometimes when we call to them, it may take a while to hear any call back.
     How much do we know of each other then? How much of us will remain out of sight to our parents, to friends, to coworkers?
    Perhaps the best thing we can do -- and this is an awfully difficult thing to do for blue whales because they are so big and it takes so much energy for them to get ABOVE water -- perhaps the best thing we can do is do our best to leap out of the water sometimes, show ourselves, no matter how shy or afraid of ridicule we might feel.
     While I think we often spend our lives living just below the surface the way these blue whales your mother and I saw, I think there is something fantastic and beautiful if we can do our best to swim deep and get a great running start and show the world who we really are.

Dear Long-Distance Swimmer,

It has been too many days since I have posted here.... Your mother and I have been traveling in California seeing your great-grandparents and hearing more about the family history.

And in one morning trip, we went to a harbor near Newport Beach where we set out on a whale watching trip.

Along the way, we encountered a school of what they call "common dolphins". They call them common dolphins, as opposed to the bottlenosed dolphin or the striped dolphin or the pantropical spotted dolphin or the Atlantic hump-backed dolphin, because they are so numerous.

This struck me as very lazy. Dolphins, staring up at us from their watery world, would be completely right to call us "common humans" -- but we would very likely be indignant that they are missing some unique quality of us. The chestnut-haired human, the likely-to-fall-asleep-during-movies human, the anxious human...

Riding at the front of this boat was a netting that stretched out between the hulls of the catamaran (each of which was fashioned with "viewing pods" to view dolphins underwater... although a touch too-claustrophobic for your mother (though I did remind her that your own non-viewing pod right now may feel a bit claustrophobic at times.)) From here, your mother was able to capture this shot of a mother and child just five feet away from her, riding together swiftly along the top of the water in front of the boat.

The entire way, the baby kept pace with the mother. Or was it vice versa? In any event, it made me think of you swimming alongside your own mother right now.

En-thu-siasm

Dear Distant Light,

By the time you read this, you'll probably have learned, shared or become annoyed with my various enthusiasms. (At the moment, for example, I am reading everything that has been translated into English from the Brazilian writer, Clarice Lispector.)

En-thu-siasm is one of those wonderful words that contains so much in five syllables: God-filled or possessed by God. En/inside; Theo/God; asm,ism/state of, condition of.

Something for which we are enthusiastic is then something in which we find God, which is God-filled.

But how do we distinguish among fantasies, addictions and enthusiasms? I'm not sure that's something the brain can always figure out; I think you need your heart to truly understand. (This brain thing can be awfully greedy and rationalize an awful lot of things that are NOT good for your heart.)

When I was in Argentina, I was impressed with how many people there express their passions publicly. (Here in the U.S. we tend to hold them in and sometimes that causes them to get twisted up a bit.) Finding our En-thu-siasms is about going out and looking for God in the world and sometimes you can find it in the sculpture in a cemetery for a loved one who has passed:

Or in a dance, like the tango (because in Argentina they literally have footsteps built into the sidewalk.)

Or in the artwork painted on buildings on the street.

Clarice Lispector wrote:
"The world's continual breathing is what we hear and call silence."

So listen close.

The way you listen to your mother's heartbeat right now. That is how we live in God.

Sunday Thoughts: St. Francis Prayer

The story goes that the "Prayer of St. Francis" was actually not written by the man in the 13th century who loved animals and served the poor.

As near as anyone can tell, the earliest record of the prayer is from the TWENTIETH century, when it was published in a small religious magazine in France called La Clochette (The Bell). An English translation was later published in a Quaker magazine and attributed to St. Francis of Assisi.

During and immediately after the Second World War, the prayer was distributed to millions of people.

That's okay. For me, that doesn't make the prayer one bit less important:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. 

Amen

Listen close

The sun roars during the daytime.
It may be hard to hear softer noises, gentler voices.
At night, listen close.

You can hear the voice of things you didn't hear before:
The voice of a junkshop mannequin.
A pep rally of autumn leaves.
Puddles giggling (hoping you'll step in them).
Footsteps of a friend you'll never know walking away.
The grumbling of tired bricks.
The soft cry of a cat looking for a friend.
The foghorn moan of sad streetlights.

Listen close.

You'll hear your own heart beating too.
 

Tale of the Brooklyn Dolls

Once upon a time there was a little girl who had many different kinds of dolls... short ones, fuzzy ones, blue ones, green ones, some that looked like other girls, and some that looked like princesses and some that looked like ninja warriors. As time went by, she grew tired of the blue doll, then the fuzzy doll, then the little princess until one day she realized she had no more dolls left at all!

In some ways this discovery made her very sad, but it also made her feel that perhaps she was all grown up. In fact, perhaps that's all growing up was... letting go of your playthings!

She thought about this for a very long time but soon was distracted by other Big Girl matters like making cakes or building houses or helping the homeless. 

She forgot about it for years until she happened to be walking down Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn where she saw a box filled with dolls that looked an awful lot like some she used to have. She stopped dead in her tracks. And stared. (Even though someone had once told her staring was impolite, she didn't think the dolls much minded and actually kind of LIKED it.)

"Do you miss them?" said an old man who was standing nearby.

"Miss them? Are these MINE?" said the now much older girl.

"Maybe they were at one time," the old man said. "But once you give them up... Well, now you would need to buy them BACK. I'll sell you one for a dollar -- and if you pay five dollars, I'll thrown in an extra one FREE."

She felt a little sorry for all of the dolls crammed into the box (and a little embarrassed too since many didn't have any clothes at all.) For a moment, she considered buying just one. And the minute she thought about buying just one, she thought about buy TEN, and then she thought: "What if I bought the WHOLE BOX?!?!"

"Thank you very much for your kind offer," she said (if she had learned anything as a little girl it was to be polite).

"Why not?" he called out to her as she walked away. "I can see you miss them."

She did miss them. But she also didn't want to say the reason she was walking away IN FRONT OF the dolls and upset them. She didn't want to tell them she had realized growing up wasn't just getting rid of things she no longer wanted. (Any spoiled girl could do THAT!) But it was knowing that you didn't need to go back and feel nostalgic AND you didn't need to just buy NEW things to fill in those empty spaces. 

Sometimes Growing Up meant being happy with yourself and sometimes (actually most of the time!) that was enough. Sometimes the world is MORE than enough, just the way it is.

[Hmmmmm.... Maybe we'll wait until you're a little older to tell you this story. 

Then again, maybe you'll find out all by yourself and live it better than I have.]