As St. Patrick’s day looms it is time to consider things Irish. Perhaps the most Irish thing of all is the tall tale, the fire of words and the Irish love of a good story. The Irish tall tale will almost always be in the spirit of Oscar Wilde who quipped, ” life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” For the Irish storyteller, exaggeration, embellishment and confabulation are never a form of lying. Fairies, pookas, and the little people live along side us and their tales are as valid as any CNN report. More’s the pity if some do not see or hear them.

Premises that drive Irish tales are rated by how outre they are. Thus, we have timeless stories of cattle drives in Dublin, a Jewish man reliving the Odyssey and birds swimming. They can get a good sized novel from the dilatory electrification of County Kerry and a timeless poem from the wild swans at Coole Park. The literal minded need not apply… there are no indisputable facts and no clear road signs to mark the journey. For the Irish story crowd, it is better to break a heart than to excite a mind. Evocation is everything.

The narration is often first person, with a stress on personal experience. When a story that is fabulous and defies belief the narrator can simply say, “are you calling me a liar”? Too bad if you did not see the little people but do not question the fact that I DID.

Irish music always tells a story; from the early players to Bono and Van the Man you get story songs. Some of these tunes are wearing the black rose of rebellion while others tell the tales of loss, young love and leaving… Irish Soul.

When St Patrick comes and you are lucky enough to be with real Irishmen prepare yourself for fantastic tales. A Guiness here and there and a wee drop will help the process. Check weights and measures at the door as the hero will defeat too many enemies, the ladies will all be beautiful and fairies will flit about. That will be a world of fun.

Finally, if you should happen to drink too much do not worry, just remember the words of W. B. Yeats: “the problem with some people is that when they aren’t drunk, they’re sober.”

Hey. Come here, I’ve got a story for ye.

As I stumble along on spiritual paths, I have discovered some particularly difficult terrain, the hardest of which is kindness. Lately I have found another that is tough going. This is the path of silence. A common joke among my friends has to do with the results of my Ancestry DNA test – I am 100% Irish. Herein lies the rub of the W.A.I.T. acronym that stands for a very important question: Why Am I Talking.

I think the Irish do not possess this filter, the ability to pause and ask that question. For this Paddy, conversation and verbal pyrotechnics are a pure pleasure and considering the effect of some locutions occurs, if at all, well after the unforeseen effects. If Euripides was right that, “the good and the wise lead quiet lives,” my life is often, neither. The Buddhist eightfold path requires “right speech,” the ability to consider the effect of pronouncements before they are said and not just the enjoyment of how well and deftly they are pushed into the world.

I have never found the joy that is said to be found in silence.

Admittedly, I had a poor start as I sat at a large dinner table full of Irish people throughout my youth. “Conversation” consisted of aggressive – and often eloquent – verbal assaults and flights of fancy that made little effort to consider the effects the verbal assaults might have. The important thing was to speak well and with conviction, with no concern about the feelings of others.

I do know the value of silence on a purely intellectual level. I know that Cato was right when he said, ” I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue. He approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent.” Knowing is not doing. I still love the verbal romp that considers only style.

I will now try to enfranchise the W.A.I.T. principle. The world deserves some right speech from me and I hope that the repeated use of the filter will help me be more considerate of others. This must be done by those who are schooled in goodness.

It is possible that a new love of silence will nourish wisdom. Perhaps I will – someday – follow Ghandi’s good sense…”speak only if it improves the silence.”

Recently, I went to mail a letter and was told that I had to add postage. This letter was festooned with a “forever stamp.” Forever…I don’t think so. This simple transaction led to a real epiphany. I had become a curmudgeon. When I returned home, I started a list of all the things that truly piss me off and I noticed a great change in today’s irritants. I am not angry enough about income inequality, student loan non-forgiveness and a fair shake for people of color but I am very nearly enraged by incidentals. It is a death by a thousand cuts. Sandwiches that are too big to eat in one sitting, dull knives and crushed toothpaste tubes are pushing me to the brink.

I thought that this state might be improved by a quick snack. Big mistake. I grabbed for a bunch of bananas and found them encircled with tape . Not only did I have to peel the banana but I also had to free it from the bunch. I ran from the bananas like a dog leaving a burning building and went to the cookies. These came in a plastic clamshell that required tools to breach. Next, a mealy apple with its disgusting consistency appeared. I felt that the universe was toying with me with a level of malevolence that defied logic.

I had to agree with H.L.Mencken: “the cynics are right nine times out of ten.” Nobody likes wet newspapers or the toy tools that come with IKEA products but many seem to move on easily. This is not my way.

Is there anything worse than a computer that corrects your word choice or an order form that requires so much data that you give up. You will not get the meat thermometer that was on sale.

I would love to be one of those happy folks who are not bothered by life’s little idiocies but so far I’m losing the battle. I feel like my only choice is to adopt the wisdom of W.C Fields who gave this advice: “start every day with a smile and get it over with.”

I’m smiling now.

A few days ago the world lost a light that blazed. Thich Nhat Hanh was a peace activist, spiritual leader, Nobel Prize nominee, peace negotiator, Buddhist Monk and – above all – a teacher. I have read his works for many years and have learned much from doing so. Perhaps his greatest achievement is the fact that he won the hardest battle anyone can fight… the intention and action of being kind in all circumstances. Some have managed the feat of “radiating kindness to the entire world,” but few can offer a long list off such people. After MLK, Ghandi, St. Francis, Jesus, Buddha and Mother Theresa, it is difficult to think of many others.

At this stage of my life I try to practice kindness and I often fail. I do not have a boundless heart and my angers, resentments and grievances are often weaponized. Just when you think you are practicing kindness someone cuts you off in traffic or a politician gives a speech and kindness is instantly dead. I am absolutely convinced that kindness is the most difficult path for humans to travel.

Enter the Thich.

The teacher says: “every breath we take, every step we make can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.” Well, you can’t prove it by me. I am too often anxious, hurt and combative but the writings and teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh have shown me a path and given encouragement to start and continue the journey. I honor this man.

If you haven’t encountered the Thich’s work, do yourself a favor and get his books. He will help to make the impossible a bit more possible. He lived the admonitions in the Pali Canon: “cherish all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world. ” That is, perhaps, the greatest achievement anyone could aspire to.

A great man, indeed.

“A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.” – Goethe

The scene was perfect, a white Christmas morning full of joy and expectation graced by a beautifully decorated 10 foot tree… we snuck about, waiting for three gorgeous grand kids to tumble down the stairs into a sea of gifts. I was excited too and probably for the same reasons. Santa had come and the world was full of possibility.

Everything went well-predictably- until a granddaughter presented me with a special gift that she had picked out herself. The heft and shape suggested a book and my mind ran fast as I wondered what the little cutie thought “Pa” would be enjoying in the world of literature. I tore the wrapping slowly, savoring the moment.

The book turned out to be Dude, that’s RUDE ! It sported a subtitle: Get Some Manners. As so often happens, I was both amused and troubled. Did my granddaughter see me as s boor? I say please and thank you I do not share flatulence with them. There are no – Pull my finger moments” and I studiously avoid noodle slurping. What was the source of this gift? Did I wipe my fingers on her dress? NEVER.

Soon it occurred to me that the problem was a normal one, having to do with the perception of the grandPa as a kind of benevolent Mr. Micawber with hair sprouting from his nose and ears who delivers the line made famous by WC Fields in the role,” remember my motto. Nil Desperandum! -“never despair.” I have used another line when the grandkids can’t find a toy or life has treated them harshly…”something will turn up.” I am their friendly anachronism.

I chose not to take offense and have actually read the book. Page 45 gave me a quick checklist of “do nots”. There can be no: 1)noodle slurping 2) pea flicking 3) soda spraying 4)milk gargling 5) see food 6) straws in your nose 7) saying “Ewww”! 8) saying “your lunch stinks” 9)wiping fingers on friends. Despite the fact that I don’t know what “pea flicking” actually is and the admission that I have done “train wreck” with a mouthful of food, I scored a healthy 7 out of 9. As I moved to the day of resolutions many manner lessons were worked into my New Year’s goals.

It was then that I knew that the little scamp was not being merely humorous. She really thought that this book would help me get along in life and you gotta love her for that.

I suppose good manners require a thank you note.

“I know now that when you get to a grandfather’s age, life takes on the qualities of comedy, with aches.” -Niall Williams

Along time, dear friend died two days before Christmas this year and the mixture of happy, comic memories and the ache of loss rolled over me like a violent weather system. I sat looking at the snow, feeling the weight of memory that descended upon me like a thick fog. This friendship lasted for 25 years and anything that lasts for a quarter of a century in one’s life will bear scrutiny when reality shifts and creates a blank space in your narrative.

Our friendship began in Little League baseball where we teamed up to coach our sons. We agreed to avoid favoritism and harsh criticisms by coaching each others sons…a plan that worked well. In our early baseball days, we did many things together, from long trips to baseball camps and batting cages, coaching in nail biters and bringing a boom box to the field when we were umpiring so we could dance to the Temptations and The Four Tops between innings. Baseball was the foundation of our partnership but it soon grew to activities off the field including building rockeries and decks and a long trip with our wives to the Amazon jungle, Machu Pichu and the Galapagos. Our friendship had serious mileage and duration.

As a young man my friend was tagged with the Zeke sobriquet when he played multiple sports at a prestigious D3 school. Zeke was a warrior who, like an Irish Gallowglass, tied tourniquets on his arms and legs prior to the fight in anticipation of the cuts and wounds he would surely get in the fray. His intensity was legendary…and deadly. It may have played a part in his destruction.

So it is now my job to grieve. I checked in with Kubler-Ross about the stages of grief in an effort to plot my position in the reality storm created by his death. I breezed past the first two stages -shock/denial and pain/guilt – because Zeke’s death was a process of decline over many months and I knew in my heart that our friendship was conducted without guilt or remorse in the mix. I don’t feel that any of our regard for each other was unsaid or un-expressed.

Anger and bargaining supposedly come next and anger was not present because our mix of comedy – with aches – was unique and sustained by both of us. There is no depression.

I am imbedded in the last four ages: the upward turn, reconstruction and hope. These stages are encompassed in one single question…what did Zeke teach me ?

I know he taught me to show up and stand for something …with ferocity. He walked his walk diligently and was deeply committed to the welfare of hundreds of kids. He taught me to take on problems with energy and focus. He taught me that comedy should always come before the aches. Zeke was an athlete, a scientist, a husband, a father, a coach and a friend and that’s enough for any man in one short lifetime.

My friends are rallying around me and I am grateful. My grief will not be a matter of performance art with wailing and gnashing of teeth, I will not rend garments or pull at my hair. Zeke deserves better that that. Rather, I will honor his memory and be grateful for his life and all the lessons he gave me. That seems fit.

As a scientist, Zeke once told me he considered himself an atheist. He will now get to test that hypothesis.

God speed dear friend.

Every year as we barrel down the highway of jobs ,families, kids and politics we allow ourselves to stop at a rest area known as the Christmas Season. When we exit the main line of everyday life we enter a place that is a mare’s nest…a muddle. Suddenly we are in a place with few straight roads…a place of redemption, loss, nostalgia, maudlin sentimentality and pure joy. This landscape is not entered in your GPS and nothing is on a clear, understandable grid. We will enter many dead ends and a few cul de sacs as we travel to a New Year.

We are at once oppressed and elated by memory. Early Christmasses are recalled, bathed in the gentle sepia toning of memory. We remember the cowboy outfit and the Barbie Doll of years gone by and this pleasant recollection immediately leads to a remembrance of what has been lost. The missing parents and friends come to the table to sip our nog. We are poised to be kind in the spirit of the season and greed comes to the table. We can have a Joyuex Noel or a Blue Christmas and these states are entered on a moment -to-moment basis.

Even Santa doesn’t escape the conflicted feelings. is the Old Fat Man actually Father Christmas or the guy who keeps the naughty list? Will it be a special gift or a piece of coal? We listen to conflicting voices from Madison Avenue to Marley’s Ghost. Things get pretty confusing.

it is good to remember that this is a season for reflection. We have given ourselves a license to slow down and let life and its many ups and downs to wash over us without too much judgement. Suicides go up and many babies are born. Clearly, the Christmas Season is not everyday life. During the Yule days we are allowed to be joyful and to grieve as we see fit.

We are soon going to re- enter life’s highway via the onramp that is signed as “New Year’s Resolutions”. We will leave the amazing season of emotion and memory and resolve to lose weight , or find a new job or partner. But, for now we get to reflect and perhaps wallow in the feelings that we don’t have time for the rest of the year.

That is special.

So,steep yourself in the rituals and traditions , go for an egg nog and sing those carols …this is a special season.

Happy Holidays!

Current concerns about the precarious state of American democracy have motivated many to assess what we must teach and enact to preserve government by the people. An assessment of the social contract is timely and necessary. The great thinkers and political philosophers manifest the complexity and the structural members of social edifices. From Plato to Rousseau to Locke, Hume (and many others) the relationships of the government and the governed are explored and it is clear that many things must be in place to build a functioning society. We must rightly assess these structural elements to determine their strength and viability. It is clear that four main elements must be in place.

First is the rule of law.

Rule of law presupposes a body of agreed upon conventions we call cultural values. There must be a basic agreement on some levels as to what is right and what is wrong. There must be a covenetal standard for behaviors that clearly delineates the duties of good governments and good citizens. When the agreed upon conventions are abrogated, chaos ensues. This area is now in flux and we see controversy around race, education, health (think vaccination) and wealth, executed unprecedented fury. We have killed nuance about any issue and replaced it with simple dualities like white supremacists VS BLM, Critical reace Theory VS white /protestant history and, finally truth VS fiction.

Wealth Inequality

The social contract theorists dig deep on this issue. Economics-in simple terms- is the study of production, consumption and the transfer of wealth. Agreement in the economic sphere is essential to the viability of the social contract. Lack of individual wealth is perhaps the most dangerous part of our current condition. Impoverishment is one free radical that poisons us. This wealth inequality has become enfranchised in law… laws that protect predatory capitalism. Rousseau explains the problem: “laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something and no one has too much.” Our current economic condition makes it logically impossible to govern with consensus.

The Common Wealth

Societies are as healthy as their poorest individuals. Economic stresses, values decay and a host of other factors are killing the most important aspect of the American Society: opportunity. How does one build a life when housing, health and education are priced out of the market for the majority of the nation’s citizens? When opportunity dies, so do national states. I remember when The United States was described as the, ” land of opportunity.” This is no longer true for many.

Education

I believe that we should be educating our children regarding race theory, alternate histories, science and civics but one subject is more important than any of these…we need to actively teach kindness. As Goethe said, “kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.” In fact few positive human interactions exist without kindness and trust. Moves towards democracy from ancient Israel to the Magna Carta, to the present day are all based on kindness and trust. The weakest link in the social chain is a fundamental lack of empathy… the belief that those fellow citizens who are struggling deserve it. That attitude is becoming too popular in our society. “Commonwealth ” is not a hard word to understand. If we don’t understand that our personal prosperity is based on the prosperity of our fellow citizens the future is bleak.

Without action on the four elements we will witness the slow death of the American social contract. At the bottom of the rubble pile will be the pursuit of happiness.

Going forward I hope we predicate our actions on the words of Aesop…”no act of kindness is ever wasted.”

Every generation has its music and if a person listens closely, they will hear the soundtrack of their life. So many life events, contexts and emotions are recalled with a compelling song in the background … the hits the year you were born, your wedding song, hymns in church, your first kiss, are enriched by a special tune. The soundtrack of my life largely belongs to the Glimmer Twins and Nanker Phelge. Since 1963, The Rolling Stones have sung my songs and colored my memories. Now, I am an official Geezer Rocker (so are The Stones) and my wife and I trekked up to SoFi Stadium to experience the 2021 tour. We grew up together and their songs resonated wildly.

Yes, I loved MOTOWN, San Francisco Rock, Blues and Soul but no acts or singers have the hang time of the Greatest Rock and Roll Band. They deliver a song for every emotion – from Paint It Black to Shine A Light. They had a phrase, a riff and a tone that captured every experience with a dose of raw, ass wiggling rock in every case.

Now that the group has aged and lost Charley Watts the lads – like all of us – are fighting the turn of time. Splendid performers, they have invented a few tricks to help them get over with the audience. Mick Jagger is backed by a wall of vocalists and a wall of massive graphic panels that project the band members into the arena to the point that the audience feels that the performers are standing next to them; Mick Jagger does not run as far or as fast (who does??) but he still delivers the performance you’d expect from the greatest frontman in rock history.

In 1968, Jagger was interviewed and he described the Stones perfectly. Jagger plays some guitar on Jumping Jack Flash and he talked about settling in to a particular riff in a particular song. This riff is the one that comes naturally and gives joy. It is the song you can play with a, “wicked glee.” Keith Richards may be the best riff creator in all of rock so the opportunities for glee are frequent. Nearly everyone of the 50,000 attendees sang along with songs that spanned six decades. When Ronnie Wood launched into a guitar section that he really liked, his beaming smile lit up the joint. From my aisle seat I watched a diminutive old lady with no rhythm whatsoever dance for a solid 40 minutes getting more exercise than she had in this year to date. You can’t have this much fun without realizing the profound influence of this band.

Once again, The Stones made my life better and more joyous with their music. For a couple of hours I was no longer a Geezer, no longer worried about Covid…the Stones had given us all a bit of shelter. It was Off The Hook.

Most of us encounter religious tracts or core texts that lay out ways to live and reach the Kingdom of Heaven. The abrahamic religions give us The Bible, The Koran, The Torah and the Talmud. In these texts we find thou shalt nots, the spiritual Jihad and the rigorous observations of ceremony. All of these paths are long and exhausting and they all admonish us to be in a state of “righteousness.” This righteous state is a mix of doing no wrong, following the rules and-above all-following the rules of those we have decided are spiritual leaders.

The Pali Canon is a collection of the sacred teachings of Theraveda Buddhism and the Metta Sutta is presented as the Buddha’s words on kindness. If you want a real challenge in your spiritual life it can be found here. I ran across this line and was gob smacked: ” Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state. Let none through anger or ill-will wish harm upon another. ” I instantly knew that this was a barrier too high for me to cross. These days, there are many, many of whom I wish ill-will …many that I wish to be buried under a mountain of consequences. My kindness chops are pretty poor.

My relationships with friends, family and society at large are ringed about with walls of expectation and judgment and my understanding is nowhere great enough to apply kindness and empathy to the wounds I feel they may have caused. To this extent, I’m not free.

But I secretly believe that my judgments are righteous.

This is bad news for my spiritual journey because I carry the weight of my grievances, anger and resentment with me wherever I go and I will not go far under such a burden. Following rules and traditions have nothing to do with the growth of the soul. In Proverbs 21:2 the Bible gets it right: “a person may think their own way is right but God weighs the heart.” A kind heart weighs much less than the the heart of anger and resentment …it is the best load to carry on the trek.

We are now living in a society where grievance, anger and resentment are the order of the day. Being kind is getting harder for all of us. Perhaps our best way is to take a side trail that requires us to wish no one harm. This trail will have many difficult twists and many unforeseen switchbacks but it seems to be the only way to move forward.

We all need to be spared from righteousness.