A Delicate Balance

Great decisions pivot on small points. Where’s The Great Unus to deliver us?

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Are you peering through your peephole of life, looking for another Moses to suddenly appear, someone who can part waters, calm fears and call down bread from heaven? Dismiss the illusion. We elected the wrong candidates.

Life hinges on balance. Like the restless motions of molecules, there is no stasis in life. The planet, the tides, the emotions, your life…all are spinning like atoms in space, held together in a delicate balance. Think about it. One hell of a balancing act.

Now even the belief in divine balance is in question. Pandemics can make the best manmade systems look inept, like so much child’s play with Legos or tinker toys. Who can restore the balance, mediate the raging conflicts before the systems go haywire and spin utterly out of control and the Dark Ages descend?

The news is bleak. Things are an entangled mess. Leadership vacillates, dodges, hedges. Reality mingles with optics, confusing the masses. We run from pillar to post, seeking relief, finding none, blaming everyone. Where is The Great Unus (‘Unus’ meaning ‘one’) among us?

Nowhere, that’s where. While my atoms surfed the web, I stumbled across the life of Franz Furtner, an Austrian showman who had a successful career in the circus from the ‘30’s to the 60’s. That was before politics, Disney World and the NFL replaced the circus as crowd amusement.

Franz was known as the Great Unus, famous for his balancing act of one-finger handstands on a variety of global objects. As with all entertainers, like Houdini, he created a lot of speculation about how he was able to balance himself on one finger. He never revealed the secret. (Google him, check out the video. Quite impressive, whether trick or real)

History is littered with so-called Great Ones. Germany had several. But so has the United States. We have several now. Heck, there may be a Great One in your own household. It might even be yourself. We’ve all been ‘great ones’ at one time or another. You know, those days when we were in the zone, our stars in alignment and we were filled with beneficence. Doesn’t take much to quell that delusion.

I knew a fellow who believed he was ‘a great one.’ He was working on an ‘aqua-thermal treatment of ceramics, aluminum and steel under a constrained environment.’ When peeling back the layers of his endeavor, it seems he was only washing dishes with hot water under his wife’s supervision. Being a great one comes in varieties of chimerical illusion.

Now consider this. What if you woke up one day, like Gregor Samsa who found he’d metamorphosed into a giant insect, and discovered you had changed overnight into a prophet, a Great One, one who could walk on water, leap tall buildings, things like that. Suddenly you were a savior. Many called you Moses. Some worshipped you, others sought to stone you.

You were paraded in Rose Gardens, microphones shoved in your face, blames assaulting you like brigades, questions demanding answers for questions that have no answers. Imagine that predicament.

How to placate the masses, calm the protests, preserve life, quell death, finance the failing. There are no answers, only dilemmas. Life hangs in the balance, spinning wildly away from you, and suddenly being called a prophet confers no honor, only burdens. For “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Such is the plight for leadership these days.

Today our leaders are attempting one-finger headstands, legerdemain without clues, groping in the dark for answers, battered left and right, pleasing no one. The delicate balance is real.

For my part I wouldn’t mind waking up to discover I’m a dog. No wallet, no wireless, no watch; no coat, no agenda, just walk out the door, sniff the air, wet the shrub, take a nap. Dogs get more respect than prophets these days.

Sadly, most of the Great Ones have departed. Few are left to bring balance back into focus. In my office is a skeleton. Its name is Lazarus. It’s looking for a resurrection. It sits at the conference table as a reminder of the reality of life such as only skeletons can do.

A couple years ago I wondered if it had been baptized, so I took it down to the ocean and dunked it a few times. It floated. It was then the epiphany hit me. It was a female skeleton, since only women can balance on water.

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We’ll learn some lessons about leadership from this pandemic. Do you suppose women could actually walk on water?


Bud Hearn
April 24, 2020

Random Notes from the COVID Diary

It’s necessary to write…to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment. Anonymous

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These are strange times, weeks of being cooped up in the confines of our homes like parakeets in a cage. It’s an appropriate analogy since incessant chatter often carries no significance and amounts to little more than noise.

I know this because when I was young, we had a parakeet. Its name was Joe-Joe. I always felt sorry for it, being locked up like that. I tried to educate it, teach it some words. It was a slow learner. “Hello” and “pretty boy, pretty boy,” that was about it.

One day Joe-Joe got loose and flew outside. That was the last we saw of the bird. I had a sad-but-happy ambivalence for Joe-Joe. Finally, it was free. But freedom comes with a cost, even for parakeets. Later that day I saw a hawk.

So here we are, surviving COVID as best we can in our limited excursions. Amid the apocalyptic chatter about an impending American Chernobyl, I decide to start a diary. It’s good to chronicle pandemics, recessions, breakups and breakdowns. The ‘thou-shalt’ and ‘thou-shalt-nots’ of survival are instructive analytics.

But diaries can be dangerous. If you’ve ever kept one, you know. Snoopers are curious of your habits and doings, especially ‘romantic doings and furtive glances.’ I summarily ceased personal notations my senior year in high school after my brother discovered he had enough salacious evidence to blackmail me and most of my friends; plus spoil the reputation of several cheerleaders.

But my COVID diary is plain vanilla. Observations occupy space alongside the daily testing of my vitals. You know, blood pressure, pulse rate, fiber grams, protein counts and caloric intake, things like that. Nobody wants to know these things but you. Besides, after a certain age, ‘romantic doings and furtive glances’ exist only in memory. So, this diary is safe.

Here are a few notes from it for your edification:

April 3. How to tell you’ve spent too much time in the house.

• I’m counting the rotations--6--of my coffee cup as it reheats for 30 seconds in the microwave.
• News is stale.
• Craving sugar over lettuce.
• Examining expiration labels on vitamin supplements.
• Time is measured by hunger and days need no names.
• Naps come naturally.
• I’m beginning to like it.

April 5. Gerald calls, bored. Laments his situation. Says he’s had 10 Zoom meetings today. Says he’s been married 50 years and is finally getting to know his wife. Says he didn’t know women talked so much.

April 6. Good news/bad news day. Beach is open, dog is happy. Septic tank stopped up. I discover the true barter value of a roll of toilet paper.

April 7. Things I don’t miss about the old days.

• The urge to hurry. Plenty of time to cook sausage.
• Meetings and traffic.
• Shaking hands. Bowing is better, respectful and sends a humbling holier-than-thou message. I wonder what message mooning might send.
• Schedules.

April 8. My first day of total incognito at the post office wearing a mask, sunglasses and gloves. Feels natural.

April 9. Dialogue with wife.

“You’ve been sitting in that same chair for days, mute as well as deaf. What are you thinking?” she asks.

“Nothing. I’ve self-hypnotized. Thinking’s hard work. Giving my brain a break from its labors. It’s been disconnected from my tongue. Why?”

“Are you depressed?”

“Not yet. Self-isolation is nirvana for introverts.”

“You know what I’ve been thinking?” she asks.

“I’m afraid to ask. Probably something to do with work, like dust, or mold or dog hair.” I mumble incoherently certain other details.

“You’re close.”

“That’s as close as I want to get. Remember, ‘O, the prison of perfection, the joy of just good enough.’” I leave her to meditate on that while I continue to contemplate nothing.

April 11. Today I consider ‘second comings,’ preparations for future pandemics. I envision draining the pool and constructing a fallout bunker in its place. But after computing the cost, I conclude I’m not preparing for my fears, just preparing for my fantasies. Disillusion is always preferable to depression.

April 12. The surreal state of things is finally getting to me. Enough is enough. I now realize we’re living in a Virtual Universe Operating System, an existential individual universe where virtual has become reality. Millennials have finally won. I concede and take a nap.

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In dreams my mind flashes back to the old days, the days of parakeets and ‘romantic doings and furtive glances.’

Oh, to hear “pretty boy, pretty boy” again.


Bud Hearn
April 17, 2020

The Cross is Only Crowded at Easter

“And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to myself.” Words of Jesus, John 12:32


(The COVID-19 pandemic is making the news grim. Like a ghost ship in the night, Holy Week is passing largely unnoticed. Easter celebrations will be muted due to governmental lock-down orders. Notwithstanding the horrific events of the day, one thing remains unshaken: Our faith. Though it may appear to the contrary, yet God is still in control. I pray that our Christian faith will remain a sure anchor of our souls during this time of unprecedented turmoil.)


This is Holy Week in the Christian world. Through all the passion and pageantry, the cross takes center stage. But for most of the other 364 days, it stands naked and alone, suspended on pedestals in public and ecclesiastical venues, quietly minding its own business and waiting for opportunities to share its secrets.

The cross is a silent Sentinel with an observant eye, a kindly and ever-patient Doorman-in-waiting. From its lofty height it gazes down in mute amazement at the incessant motions of mankind, a beleaguered humanity mired in the busyness of living. It waits, waits for hungry souls to approach, waits to open the doors of heaven to anyone who will simply stop long enough and ask to be admitted.

Holy Week closes in on Friday and the mood of the cross turns dark and ugly. It becomes a visceral portent of the pending crucifixion of Jesus. It culminates on Resurrection Sunday when the cross is transformed from a cruel instrument of death to a vibrant symbol of life. Crowds gather around crosses adorned with brilliant Spring flowers upon the lawns of churches. They become, at least for the day, a symbolic focal point of new life.

But it must be lonely being a cross after Easter. Its preeminence has faded, and it blends into the hours of the common day. It’s now simply a reliable symbol, something seen in casual observation but not taken seriously, something glimpsed, but its redemptive powers largely ignored.

Never take the cross lightly. It’s no idle icon simply taking up space in homes or on grounds. It has latent powers, powers that can discern and affect the affairs of the world and can reach into the very soul and nature of humanity. Scripture records these revelations on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion:

Spectators beheld in stolid indifference;
Rulers mocked, being threatened
Religious leaders ridiculed
Brutal humanity railed
Penitent sinners prayed last-minute pleas
The Covetous sat and played their sordid game

The cross also has a strange power to trouble us. Like a stone cast into a placid pond, it creates ripples. It can open the door to questions, uncomfortable questions, questions that can disrupt our carefully structured status quo. We live in worlds of constant indecision; we dance around issues, avoid unpleasant situations. The cross has the power to bring us face to face with our procrastinations and to encourage us to confront overdue decisions. Bunyan wrote Pilgrim’s Progress. It’s an insightful Christian allegory that reveals the power of the cross:

“Now I saw in my dream, that the highway up which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was called Salvation. Up this way therefore did burdened Christian run, but with great difficulty, because of the load on his back.

He ran thus till he came at a pace somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulcher. So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulcher, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.”

Such is the redemptive quality of the cross, a power to unburden anyone willing to accept its standing offer of reconciliation.

This Friday the crosses at most churches will be draped in black in observance of Jesus’ death. Such somber scenes draw no crowds but remind us that we often find ourselves walking alone through dark valleys in this life.

But as we, the Christian community, gather around the flowered cross on Easter Sunday and listen closely, we might hear the cross whisper, “Look unto Me and be ye saved.” It’s a reminder that every day reconciliation and redemption are available for all believers, just for the asking.

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The cross is only crowded at Easter. Why not every day?


Bud Hearn
April 9, 2020