Pardon, The Interruption

Hi!  Pardon the interruption.  I'm sure you're busy celebrating.  Me too.  'Tis the season, after all. 

Pardon the interruption.  But you see, yesterday I was out in the neighborhood, wading through the holiday hustle, when I came across a man--a real human--an in-the-flesh human being--in a dumpster.  The Silver Bells were ringing as the shoppers rushed home with their treasures--no one seemed to notice as this real, flesh and blood human being stood, foraging, in a garbage dumpster--no cradle for his bed. 

Pardon the interruption, but something tells me that's what Christmas really is--an interruption--a disruption--a break-in.  Not merely an opportunity to rush home with our treasures, to glow with nostalgia, to bask in the familiar and over indulge, Christmas is a wake-up call to a repeating story: that the Divine is entering every day...maybe this time not in Royal David's City. 

Maybe wherever there is no room.

Pardon, the interruption.

(c) Fiechter, 2015

What Are You Waiting For?

Just three weeks ago our neighbor died.  It was sudden, though not entirely unexpected, and our lives without him are sorely diminished.  We miss him.  And in the aftermath of his passing we are all discovering how unprepared he was--how unprepared we were.  But why?

"The days are surely coming." 

They are here.  Look around!  Listen!  The signs are everywhere: the clarion gunfire, the whining siren, the grievous aftermath, the shocking rhetoric we'd hoped had died with the tyrants of the last century--complete with goose-stepping lemmings fanning the flames of fear--and our own neighbors spewing hatred.

How is it that we have never learned?

'Tis the season of waiting--waiting and longing--for celebrations yet to come, for shortening days to lengthen again, for the promised El Niño.  But that baby is already born, you see, because you are here.  And the world is waiting with bated breath--

What are you waiting for?

(c) Fiechter, 2015

May your celebrations be filled with joy and peace and purpose.  In the year to come let us all find ways to speak the truth and stand against the darkness and fear that dwell within.  You can change the world--it is already better because you are here.

Then How They Loved Him

So let me see if I've got this right-- 

He's rejected from his social group because he has what others perceive to be a disability.  He's ridiculed for being different and banned from participating in community activities.  But then, and only because of an unexpected change in circumstances, what they had once seen as a disability suddenly becomes beneficial for them.  Where he had previously been rejected he is now celebrated.  Those who once mocked and rejected him now "love" him and proclaim that from now on he will be celebrated in perpetuity.

And this is supposed to be a GOOD thing?  Seriously?

The other day I was singing along to the song when, rather suddenly, a light bulb came on over my head.  You might even say, "It glowed"  We do a lot of celebrating for the wrong reasons.  We celebrate narrowly defined 'beauty' and 'ability' and do a lot of rejecting of those who are even only slightly different from the norm, the mainstream.  We reject and we bully and we intimidate--and then we proclaim ourselves to be the victims.  We insist on assimilation--and only when those we reject can somehow prove themselves to be useful do we then proclaim our acceptance and 'love.'

Heck, we even sing about it.

This Christmas I'm going to try something new--I hope you will too!  Rather than accepting the norm as good and right, I'm going to question it.  Maybe the things we've been celebrating shouldn't be celebrated after all.  Maybe the people we've been rejecting should be included--and not only because they are useful to us, but because they are as good and wonderful as you and me and everyone else.

Who knows?  Maybe if we do, someday people will celebrate US for remembering that "love does not insist on its own way." 

Then we'll go down in history.

(c) Fiechter, 2015.  If you enjoy, please share!  If you want to reprint, please ask!  

Happiest of holidays to all...(and to all, a good night!)

What I Need to Set Me Free

It just popped into my head and suddenly, without even so much as a thought, I was whistling.  But you know how that can be.  Where do these things come from?

The guy on the bus knew.  He smiled and said he hadn't heard that one in years.

"They don't write 'em like that any more."

The woman walking along the subway platform smiled.  She knew, too.  A simple melody, a couple of notes, a pop tune from the past can have such power. 

From my lips to God's ear.

I spend a lot of time wondering if there isn't something more--more that I can do or say--to make this world a little bit better: to bring joy.  Maybe sometimes you wonder that, too.  Maybe in the end it all just comes down to a simple melody, a happy tune, a shared smile with a stranger.

Oh, and of course a yellow ribbon.  A simple yellow ribbon.

"So tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree...a simple yellow ribbon's what I need to set me free."

(c) Fiechter, 2015

Is Your Fear Winning?

No doubt about it, It's a scary world.  Unless you were already living in a state of denial and had already drawn the shades and pulled up the blankets, you know of recent events and you are witnessing the results:  fear.

And it's growing.  Fear is growing when we accept simple answers that seem plausible and just so happen to fit into our already limited world-view.  Fear is growing when we point fingers and roll up the sidewalks--when we slam doors in the face of those in need.  Fear is growing when logic is trumped by emotionality.  Fear begets hate.  Hate is fear on a bender.

Self manage.  You, along with everyone else, have a right to an opinion. None of us has a right to our own facts.  Is your fear rational?  Are you acting or reacting?  Are there two sides to your story, or only one--and where did you first hear it, your story?  Is it really yours?  Or is it the story of the loudest, scariest voice in the room, sweeping you along with the lemmings into a pile of disastrous distrust?

It's a scary world, no doubt about it.  What are you doing today to relieve the fear?  How are you writing a different story?

"Perfect love casts out fear."

How Refreshing

I was nearing the end of a strenuous jog when the light at the end of a freeway off ramp provided me an opportunity to catch my breath--and there I found myself standing next to a man.  To be honest, if I'd been in my car this would've been someone I'd have avoided by looking the other way or rolling up my window and shaking my head. 

He was holding some kind of a sign and was asking stopped motorists for money. 

But the funny thing is, since I wasn't in my car and had no cash to share, I found myself saying hello and asking him how things were going.  After a short conversation, during which he shared a broad smile, the light turned green and I got my sweaty self moving again.

And as I jogged away, I heard him call out to me: "Drink plenty of water!"

Now I'm wondering how many kindly interractions I've missed out of fear.  How many opportunities to acknowledge someone's humanity have I lost out on because I was feeling guilty or stingy or self-righteous?  How many times have I denied a fellow traveler the opportunity to treat ME with dignity and respect because of my assumptions? 

All of which leaves me feeling pretty darn thirsty.

So glad if you enjoy reading...and please feel free to share.  Subscribe via blogspot.  Please ask if you would like to reprint...thanks!

(c) Stephen Fiechter

Learning to Walk

Ever since I can remember I've enjoyed walking.  Whether it's down a country road or along a city street, walking connects me with the world and breaks my isolation.  It doesn't have to be a very long walk, either--though I'm amused at how often it includes a task--a stop for some groceries or to pick up the morning paper.

I've made a discovery as I walk...actually, make that discoveries.  Cash.  That's right...cold hard cash.  More often than you might imagine, too.  Oh, it may only be a quarter.  Sometimes it's a buck, or even five.  Last week I found a twenty. 

But I have to watch, you see, because it turns from a game into an obsession before I can say "easy money."  Suddenly all I'm finding is that my entire focus has turned to the ground around me. 

Being that focused on where I'm walking may keep me from tripping over uneven sidewalks, but it trips me up.

I looked up.  Was it the silvery light?  I looked up and there she was...a giant orb shining in the evening sky, and a silhouetted pair of palms: the moon and her friends, and I nearly missed it.  I'd been looking down, you see....for the cash.

Money is the past.  It is stored value that we can use today and maybe tomorrow.  Maybe. 

The moon is today.  She will soon be gone.  If we don't look up we'll miss her, and tomorrow we won't even have a yesterday to talk about.

(c) Steve Fiechter, 2015