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How to Celebrate Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa is a holiday invented in 1966 by Ronald Karenga (founder of the Black Power group "Us Organization") through which black Americans can connect with their heritage and culture. It's celebrated from December 26 through January 1, with each of the seven days focusing on one of seven core values (Nguzo Saba). A candle is lit on each day, and on the last day, gifts are exchanged.

Since Kwanzaa is a cultural holiday, rather than a religious one, it can be celebrated alongside Christmas or Hanukkah, or on its own, although Karenga wished for it to be celebrated instead of Christmas and Hanukkah, as he felt these holidays were simply symbols of the dominant cultures in America.

The above is a direct quote, but the bolding is mine. And I repeat, I see no reason for my grandchildren to celebrate it in school. If teachers want to explain it, okay.

Christmas Sampler

Christmas is a'comin' and the geese are flying over my house every day, from the river to any quiet body of water. Some likely fly all the way to Lake Lowell, but I saw about 100 glide down onto the Park Center Pond yesterday.

They do not fly in tight Vs, as we have been led to believe, but there is no doubt an organization, with trade-offs, almost like relays, so the tired ones in front can slip to the back for a breather--less wind makes an easier flight--and with scouts on the outer edges of their formation.

They honk as they fly, calling out messages and instructions, I'm guessing.

* * *

In elementary school we sang Christmas Carols, had Christmas programs and plays every year, which I played the leading part in always. Can't help it; it's true.

All directed by Mrs. Schultz, our Jewish music teacher. Many Jewish children made up the list of my friends: Marilyn Kreitzman, Robert Fine, Martin Goldman, Alan Epstein, Ruthie Ashberg, and so on. We lived in the Ocean Park part of Santa Monica, a very Jewish place, but all of us sang the Christmas songs together in school.

One song that Mrs. Schultz taught us, in 1st grade, was

Christmas is a'comin' and the geese are gettin' fat.
Time to put a penny in an old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, then a ha'penny will do.
If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you.

I gave no thought to what my Jewish friends were thinking. Most had Christmas in their homes, with trees and stockings hanging on the hearth. At least that is what I believed, pretty sure it's true. Hanukkah was mentioned, probably, but I do not recall.

I do not say that was right, just that it was.

Not so today. The high school program last week included Hanukkah songs, and Charlie's 1st grade program in Pennsylvania was about half and half, said his mom. I have no objection to that. I'm just glad we can still hear the Christmas songs in the school. I do think it is a bit much, however, to ask that my grandchildren "celebrate" Kwanza. That happens here at the elementary schools.

* * *

My friend Joan sent a cartoon today. Three boys sitting in the Principal's office, explaining the reason for their punishment.
Boy 1: I said the S H word.
Boy 2: I said the F word.
Boy 3: I said Christmas.

Funny, huh.

* * *

Last Saturday night I heard the Boise Philharmonic and the BP Master Chorale in performance of Handel's Messiah. I heard it last year, too, but this was a much better performance. Lola says thanks to Robert Franz, BP's conductor, who made them work hard in rehearsal.

I gave thanks for the performance and for that timeless oratorio (written, by the way, in 1741), that we can attend such programs publicly performed for our pleasure and inspiration. I gave thanks for Handel, for the inspiration he received as he worked on the music, which turned out to be glorious music, for Charles Jennens, who gathered the scriptures together to provide the perfect libretto, for the performers who, it seemed to me, sang from their hearts, and for Jesus Christ, the center of it all.

Conversion

My friend Jennifer, a tall striking blonde, married Dick, dark and curly headed, slightly shorter than she. Both were trying marriage a second time around. And they were fun to be around, mostly. He could be brittle and short with her, which I disliked.

But there was a lot of laughter, there was intelligent conversation, and there were shared beliefs.

And this post is less about them than their beliefs.

Dick was obviously a person of power and persuasion, because when I knew Jennifer before she married Dick, she was a Nazarene and a political liberal from Nampa. Dick is from Chicago, Jewish, calling himself a Jewish atheist. And he is a conservative.

After their marriage, Jennifer converted, which means she changed from one thing to a different thing. (Well, thing isn't quite the right word.) She became--in her thought, her "belief system," as she used to speak of it--a reflection of Dick. And it seemed the conversion was wholehearted.

I didn't wonder about the politics. I mean, anyone can grow up politically, which I believe she finally did. But the religion. A life-long Nazarene becomes a Jewish atheist. How is this possible?

Well, she really loved Dick, and that answers a lot of questions. You know, what we do for love.

And, it turns out, she had given up her Nazarinity, if that's a word, long before she met Dick. For one thing, she liked to dance, and Nazarenes don't dance. She used to tell a joke about that, which in my sense of delicacy and propriety I will not include here, but which underscored the Nazarene disdain for dancing.

So, for a long time, she was Nazarene in name only. The big reason for her leaving her faith, she said, was her dad, the Nazarene minister. She hated him, found fault with his sermons because she hated his at-home behavior, particularly his treatment of her mother. Called him a hypocrite. Was occasionally cynical about other people's belief systems, knowing that many come up short in living what they claim to believe.

And I think to apologize for that, for not being all I ought to be. And I wonder if we who profess a faith are all hypocrites, saying one thing, living another. Some folks would say so.

But I say no. Not all of us. Unless being a flawed human being makes us so. I think being a hypocrite involves some willful deceit, and I don't think we're all willfully deceitful.

I thought of my dad as having no deceit in him, no guile. There was love at the heart of him. And yet I know he also fell short at times. He could lose his temper, for instance.

So can many of us. And we all do have our weaknesses and foibles. And we have our sins, having stepped off the narrow path. But most of the people I know are doing their best to get back on it or stay in the first place, and they steady themselves by their faith and their testimony of it.

That is, as far as I can tell. And it came to me the other day that I am really glad I don't have to judge other people. I just can't. The thing is, my real concern is with me and my attempts to live as I believe, which requires some effort, you know.

Oh my, Part today

So today I went to the big Hastings store, spent some time looking, and then was asked by a managerial type if she could help me.

"I hope so," I said.

She looked totally (as everyone says, as in totally) confident until I said I was looking for a CD of The Messiah.

Blank look.

Then she recovered and sent me to the information desk over in the CD/DVD section of the store.

A young man asked to help me, assuring me he knew everything there was to know about this section of the store.

"I'm looking for The Messiah."

"Isn't everyone," he said.

This was encouraging to me, but as he typed stuff into his computer for about five minutes and came up with nothing, I became worried. I said, "You do know what I'm talking about. Right?"

"I assume you're talking about the movie."

"No," I said quite patiently, "it's music, an oratorio, written in the 1700s. Now do you know what I'm talking about?"

"I don't even know what an oratorial is."

I explained quite patiently. "Oratorio. It's sacred music for orchestra, chorus, and solo voices. This one is about the birth (I left it at the birth) of Jesus, written by Handel."

"Oh, Handel."

"So you've heard of Handel's Messiah."

"No."

"Oh."

"But now I can look under Handel.

"I see. Well at least you didn't ask me if The Messiah was the name of an artist."

He said, "I was about to until you said Handel."


I do not make these things up. And, while they're all mildly amusing, they are also very troubling.

Oh my

I stopped in at my local Hastings--entertainment store: DVD, CD, books, etc.--looking for a good recording of The Messiah. I didn't hold out much hope but thought I could at least ask.

A young woman was putting CDs in slots, so I asked her, "Do you know everything here?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Good," I said, and went on, "do you have The Messiah?"

"Is that the name of an artist?" she asked.

Enough said.

What to make of these

Dr Burr: (Looking very closely at the left medial eyebrow on my face) You've been picking at that, haven't you.
Me: (Thinking, Wow, he didn't call me kid this time) No. (And that was the truth.)
Burr: Hmmm. (He looks again at my sizeable file.)
Me: (Silent.)
Burr: Oh, we did surgery on that, didn't we.
Me: Yes.
Burr: (Again looking at my files) Hmmm. (Then again at my eyebrow) Looks like it's coming back.
Me: (Silent but full of thought and dread.)
Burr: (Again looking at my files, saying nothing.)
Me: I don't want it to come back.
Burr: Oh, it won't.
Me: (Silent, but thinking, Huh?).

* * *

Sunday I was admiring someone's hair and said to the person seated next to me, "I wish I had hair like that, so beautiful, and so much of it."

She said, "Your hair is (did she say?) beautiful."

I said a half-hearted thank you and felt sorry about the half-heartedness of it.

She said, "We do the best with what we were given." It was kind of a little lecture just for me. And she repeated it.

I felt a bit ashamed. Actually hung my head.

I thought about it most of the day and figured I needed to repent and take her words to heart . . . until I remembered this one thing. SHE HAD HER NOSE "FIXED."

You Probably Know This Already

I have done some reading up on Higgs Boson and bosonic mechanism in particle physics. Because it is in the news today. Physicists are hoping to see Higgs soon, meaning any day. Higgs is also known as the "God particle." It is a sub-atomic particle, of course.

In short,
Wait, it isn't short. Let me quote:

Higgs Boson is a key component of the "Standard Model" - the all-encompassing theory developed by physicists of how the cosmos as we know it works at its basic level of particles and forces.

But until now, in the four decades since it was first posited, no one has convincingly claimed to have glimpsed the Higgs Boson, let alone proved that it actually exists.

At an eagerly awaited briefing on Tuesday at the CERN research centre near Geneva, two independent teams of "Higgs Hunters" were widely expected to suggest they were fairly confident they had spotted it.

But not confident enough, in the physics world of ultra-precision where certainty has to be measured at nothing less than 100 percent, to announce "a discovery."

In the jargon, this level is described as 5 sigma, which would exclude the possibility that the results recorded by the ATLAS and CMS teams at CERN - the 21-nation European Organisation for Nuclear Research - are a fluke.

Not the end of the story, but the end of the quote.

You can thank me later.