Strange things happen on Sundays. Especially in Methodist churches. Last Sunday I heard a voice in my head. It competed with the preacher’s words of warning. Scary to hear ‘voices’ in church.
I was born into the Methodist denomination. Like being born itself, I had no say in it. But I knew every door of the church. I memorized the times they opened and closed. Why? Because when they opened, I was shoved inside. I later began to enjoy it. Girls were there.
Methodists are a liberal denomination at the core. They realized long ago that sin and money are inseparable. So they simply affirmed the marriage of the two. Since then Methodists have been welcoming all denominations into their services, especially denominations of $10’s and $20’s. No political debate here.
Parental voices reiterate the ‘train-up-a-child’ maxim, hoping beyond hope that it has some redeeming efficacy. The words should carry the caveat, “No Guarantee.” I admit to sometimes having strayed. Confession is good for the soul, and all that, y’know.
My wife and I were anxious to attend church last Sunday. It was the day following Doomsday, the idiotic prediction of Rev. Harold Camping, a California kook mathematician. Because we still live gave us concern that we had not been among the ‘Raptured’ souls. The numbers of these vary ~ 144,000 or 200,000,000 ~ depending on which kook you believe.
I’ve always been suspect of mathematicians. They think from a small brain node located next to the nerve center that handles certain bodily elimination functions. The IRS favors these types. Universities are now graduating more of ‘em. New math, they say, ‘Spread-sheet’ accounting. Simple equations of 2 + 2 = 4, the old ‘deal-on-a-napkin-formula,’ no longer suffice…blank computer screens now secrete ethereal iterations of numbers.
Apparently Rev. Camping is acquainted with this form of accounting. After all, he’s a civil engineer. I’ve had dealings with engineers. Their offices are dark, windowless closets next to an office bathroom. The voice of a toilet’s constant flushing is what they hear. Ask ‘em what time it is and they’ll tell you how to build a clock.
His prediction is one of those things that got flushed. He’s not alone. Since Nostradamus began teaching ‘spread-sheet’ theories, kooks down through the ages have made judgment-day predictions. They proliferate, now that the media affirms them.
The Reverend now concedes to a slight mathematical error. Napkins are superior to spread sheets. So Apocalypse is now going to occur on Monday, October 21. I suspect churches will experience full houses until then. No more Rolling Stones on radio…Nearer My God to Thee will be the voice du jour.
But I’m straying again, this time from my subject. So last Sunday I find myself on my knees, next to my wife, at the altar. I’m accustomed to being on my knees near my wife. I once bought some Home Depot rubber knee pads to make the posture tolerable. At least the church has cushions.
Communion is being given. Not the ‘drive-thru’ kind, like certain unnamed denominations. This is the real deal, the repentant-posture communion. What married man’s not familiar with this one. No quick high here! While waiting for my portion of bread and wine, I hear a voice. It says, “You’re embarrassing me.”
I don’t know about you, but voices heard in this vulnerable position in church are not to be laughed at. I answer in a whisper, “Why?” A still, small voice says, “Later.” I take a double portion as the elements pass. I pray. The silence inside is deafening.
We return to our pew. I whisper, “I heard a voice at the altar. God spoke to me.” She said, “Really, what did She say?” I repeated the words I heard.
She giggles quietly and says, “That was not God speaking to you…it was me. Your fly is open.”
So much for voices in the heads of kooks, and the value of knee pads.
Bud Hearn
May 26, 2011
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
A Hard Question
The morning is quiet, uneventful. We sit at the table having coffee, savoring the day's slow beginnings. With decaf, I’m an eternity away from being awake. Her head is invisible, buried inside the newspaper. A pleasant day. So far, that is. Then, out of the blue she hurls the question, “What IS it with men?”
The question flies across the table, smoking hot, like a Wainwright fast ball. It clocks 98 mph and is too hot to handle, much less hit. The catcher’s glove erupts in flames. I step out of the batter’s box, avoid the pitch. Strike one, the umpire calls.
I know about her fast balls. I even know what she’s thinking by ‘The Look’ on her face. It’s a dead giveaway. I play dumb. I toss her a slow shoulder shrug. It’s a superior means of answering questions which have no answer. Words engender discussion. Early morning, fast-ball discussions are to be avoided.
But she continues. “Well?” she says. I attempt to deflect the question. “What are you reading?” I ask. She slides the Wall Street Journal over. “Read the headlines,” she says. I do.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is having a public catharsis, admitting to the world he fathered a child by his housekeeper of 20 years. Says he’s sorry. Being sorry is leaning on a weak reed. It elicits a revolting response. I lob my own outrage across the table. “Disingenuous,” I say with enthusiasm. Expressions of disgust are base hits.
“Read on,” she says, “that’s not all.” I do. Wow…Mr. Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, money-lender to the world, is being hauled off in chains to jail. He’s been arrested for assaulting a hotel maid. “What’s the world coming to?” I say. That’s what my father said to escape these situations. Answering questions with questions is a proper defense.
What man but a fool would actually attempt to answer such a question? Most would avoid it, pleading self-incrimination. In one way or another all men are guilty to some extent of, shall we say, inappropriate behavior with women.
But she’s back on the mound, winding up for another pitch. She throws the question again in a slow breaking curve ball, down and out. Ball one. “Come on,” she says, “what do you really think?” I toss a slow underhand ball back. “What do you think IT is?” I say. She baulks, shakes her head, checks first base.
Her question is actually a land mine. It explodes the minute a man steps on it. Venturing an answer will get a man thrown under the bus, taken to the woodshed or sent back to the farm team for remedial training. None is pleasant. I’ve experienced two.
Now most men with a gnat’s brain would only think of answers, but never verbalize them. But I’m not of that class. So I spurt out, “Because they can??” She slings a slow slider down the line. I swing, miss. Strike two.
Our discussion gets lively. We run through the most recent list of such abusers. The litany is long. It covers all genres, from golfers, to politicians, to financial masters of the universe and to the highest thrones of religion. Clearly something is bad wrong with the male gender. But we can form no consensus.
Finally the topic changes to a discussion of the latest tourist attraction…tours of underground European sewer drains. One man even proposed to his girlfriend inside of one. “Why would anyone want to tour a sewer pipe?” I ask. And then it hit me…the answer to the question of What IS it with men?
There’s just something in the makeup of humans, especially men, that makes them favor the low road. They have to ‘go low to get high.’ I admit it’s grasping at straws, but hey, answers are hard to come by for questions like these.
No use to continue beating a dead horse. As we leave the table she asks again if I want to add anything to the conundrum. “Yes,” I say. “Let’s hear it,” she says.
I blurt out, “It’ll be easier to convince the Statue of Liberty to whistle Dixie than try to convince a woman she may be culpable.”
Zoom…I never even see it go by. Strike three.
Bud Hearn
May 19, 2011
The question flies across the table, smoking hot, like a Wainwright fast ball. It clocks 98 mph and is too hot to handle, much less hit. The catcher’s glove erupts in flames. I step out of the batter’s box, avoid the pitch. Strike one, the umpire calls.
I know about her fast balls. I even know what she’s thinking by ‘The Look’ on her face. It’s a dead giveaway. I play dumb. I toss her a slow shoulder shrug. It’s a superior means of answering questions which have no answer. Words engender discussion. Early morning, fast-ball discussions are to be avoided.
But she continues. “Well?” she says. I attempt to deflect the question. “What are you reading?” I ask. She slides the Wall Street Journal over. “Read the headlines,” she says. I do.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is having a public catharsis, admitting to the world he fathered a child by his housekeeper of 20 years. Says he’s sorry. Being sorry is leaning on a weak reed. It elicits a revolting response. I lob my own outrage across the table. “Disingenuous,” I say with enthusiasm. Expressions of disgust are base hits.
“Read on,” she says, “that’s not all.” I do. Wow…Mr. Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, money-lender to the world, is being hauled off in chains to jail. He’s been arrested for assaulting a hotel maid. “What’s the world coming to?” I say. That’s what my father said to escape these situations. Answering questions with questions is a proper defense.
What man but a fool would actually attempt to answer such a question? Most would avoid it, pleading self-incrimination. In one way or another all men are guilty to some extent of, shall we say, inappropriate behavior with women.
But she’s back on the mound, winding up for another pitch. She throws the question again in a slow breaking curve ball, down and out. Ball one. “Come on,” she says, “what do you really think?” I toss a slow underhand ball back. “What do you think IT is?” I say. She baulks, shakes her head, checks first base.
Her question is actually a land mine. It explodes the minute a man steps on it. Venturing an answer will get a man thrown under the bus, taken to the woodshed or sent back to the farm team for remedial training. None is pleasant. I’ve experienced two.
Now most men with a gnat’s brain would only think of answers, but never verbalize them. But I’m not of that class. So I spurt out, “Because they can??” She slings a slow slider down the line. I swing, miss. Strike two.
Our discussion gets lively. We run through the most recent list of such abusers. The litany is long. It covers all genres, from golfers, to politicians, to financial masters of the universe and to the highest thrones of religion. Clearly something is bad wrong with the male gender. But we can form no consensus.
Finally the topic changes to a discussion of the latest tourist attraction…tours of underground European sewer drains. One man even proposed to his girlfriend inside of one. “Why would anyone want to tour a sewer pipe?” I ask. And then it hit me…the answer to the question of What IS it with men?
There’s just something in the makeup of humans, especially men, that makes them favor the low road. They have to ‘go low to get high.’ I admit it’s grasping at straws, but hey, answers are hard to come by for questions like these.
No use to continue beating a dead horse. As we leave the table she asks again if I want to add anything to the conundrum. “Yes,” I say. “Let’s hear it,” she says.
I blurt out, “It’ll be easier to convince the Statue of Liberty to whistle Dixie than try to convince a woman she may be culpable.”
Zoom…I never even see it go by. Strike three.
Bud Hearn
May 19, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
The Waiting Room
"...they also serve who only stand and wait." Sonnet XIX, John Milton
The revolving door opens into a doctor's waiting room. It’s full of sick people. It’s a desolate place.
We’ve all sat in these rooms before. It starts early in life, this waiting. Our parents waited for our birth. They were shocked to see a red, shriveled, screaming organism. As years progress, we keep coming back to the doctor’s waiting room!
Patient 48551 has a heart condition. He walks into the stale atmosphere of the cardiac waiting room. There’s a certain air of seriousness in the room...two heartbeats from eternity is no laughing matter. The whispered buzz of steady conversation fills the room’s vacuity. Eyes dart in avoidance of others. A collective nervous anxiety hangs heavily in the room.
Strangers whisper out of a need for relief. Responses are perfunctory. "You don't say?" or "Really?" or "My, that's interesting." No one seems to be sincere. Communication attempts to relieve the trepidation that heart patients feel.
He notices it, the wall clock. The second hand tolls time's slow demise…tick, tick, tick. An omen for some, perhaps, reminding them they forgot to repent. It sets a somber scene.
Out of sheer boredom, Patient 48551 studies intently the ever-changing crowd of ‘Waiters.’ Colonies of germs occupy the irrelevant and dated waiting-room magazines. Who needs to waste precious last moments on this drivel? Other distractions are plentiful.
The incessant ticking annoys him. He avoids it by imagining the lives of those waiting. He assures himself it’s not out of some sick amusement. They’re probably doing likewise. Delusion is entertaining in cardiac waiting rooms. As they fidget, he finds clues in their faces, clothing, language, and posture. Imagine the possibilities, he conjectures.
Consumed by his own charade, Patient 48551 begins to morph, making peculiar facial movements, tics, blinks, and fidgets. He attempts to confuse anyone trying to caricature him. He smiles, thinking, "I wonder what role they have me in...Bogart or Brando?" Which would he choose? He muses.
A nurse announces, "Mr. Hematoma, time for your procedure." Asian perhaps, he thinks. Later, "Mrs. Angina, the doctor is ready for you." Italian for sure…a beauty. Pity, so young. The voice again calls, "Mr. A-fib, your time.” A Muslim, maybe. “Hello, Mr. Lipitor. Ready?” Obviously Jewish. On and on it goes. ‘The Waiters’ wait their turn.
Patient 48551 is finally called. In a few minutes he emerges with a big smile. Today’s results are negative, which is positive for heart patients. Free to go, until the next time. And there will be a next time.
The clock is the last thing he sees as he leaves. Its ticking mocks those still waiting. But it reminds him of something. Time runs out for everyone, sooner or later. But for him, not today. Destiny is delayed again!
He hopes that when his time does run out he will no longer be a number, but a name!
Bud Hearn
May 5, 2011
The revolving door opens into a doctor's waiting room. It’s full of sick people. It’s a desolate place.
We’ve all sat in these rooms before. It starts early in life, this waiting. Our parents waited for our birth. They were shocked to see a red, shriveled, screaming organism. As years progress, we keep coming back to the doctor’s waiting room!
Patient 48551 has a heart condition. He walks into the stale atmosphere of the cardiac waiting room. There’s a certain air of seriousness in the room...two heartbeats from eternity is no laughing matter. The whispered buzz of steady conversation fills the room’s vacuity. Eyes dart in avoidance of others. A collective nervous anxiety hangs heavily in the room.
Strangers whisper out of a need for relief. Responses are perfunctory. "You don't say?" or "Really?" or "My, that's interesting." No one seems to be sincere. Communication attempts to relieve the trepidation that heart patients feel.
He notices it, the wall clock. The second hand tolls time's slow demise…tick, tick, tick. An omen for some, perhaps, reminding them they forgot to repent. It sets a somber scene.
Out of sheer boredom, Patient 48551 studies intently the ever-changing crowd of ‘Waiters.’ Colonies of germs occupy the irrelevant and dated waiting-room magazines. Who needs to waste precious last moments on this drivel? Other distractions are plentiful.
The incessant ticking annoys him. He avoids it by imagining the lives of those waiting. He assures himself it’s not out of some sick amusement. They’re probably doing likewise. Delusion is entertaining in cardiac waiting rooms. As they fidget, he finds clues in their faces, clothing, language, and posture. Imagine the possibilities, he conjectures.
Consumed by his own charade, Patient 48551 begins to morph, making peculiar facial movements, tics, blinks, and fidgets. He attempts to confuse anyone trying to caricature him. He smiles, thinking, "I wonder what role they have me in...Bogart or Brando?" Which would he choose? He muses.
A nurse announces, "Mr. Hematoma, time for your procedure." Asian perhaps, he thinks. Later, "Mrs. Angina, the doctor is ready for you." Italian for sure…a beauty. Pity, so young. The voice again calls, "Mr. A-fib, your time.” A Muslim, maybe. “Hello, Mr. Lipitor. Ready?” Obviously Jewish. On and on it goes. ‘The Waiters’ wait their turn.
Patient 48551 is finally called. In a few minutes he emerges with a big smile. Today’s results are negative, which is positive for heart patients. Free to go, until the next time. And there will be a next time.
The clock is the last thing he sees as he leaves. Its ticking mocks those still waiting. But it reminds him of something. Time runs out for everyone, sooner or later. But for him, not today. Destiny is delayed again!
He hopes that when his time does run out he will no longer be a number, but a name!
Bud Hearn
May 5, 2011
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