One of my favorite musicals is Fiddler on the Roof. I have had the good fortune to see it performed both live on stage and on the big screen in the lavish 1971 Norman Jewison production. The Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick songs comprise the best score of any musical ever, in my opinion. But I will readily admit that my exposure to the musical genre has been limited to such staples as My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, The Music Man, and Camelot. Therefore, my knowledge of and appreciation for such things can be considered by others as elementary and uninformed. So be it. My perspective on the Bock/Harnick achievement, however, will suffice for the duration of this message.

My favorite moment comes fairly early in the program. It shows the family gathered around the table at the start of the Sabbath. Golda, the mother, lights two candles and gestures over them with her hands in a gathering kind of motion, as if to summon everyone to her. Then she covers her face with the palms of her hands and feigns to weep, like Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. It is then that Golda, with her husband Tevye, blesses their five daughters with the evocative song Sabbath Prayer.

Protection is their chief desire for their children; protection from shame, pain, strangers and the general unrest that can rob us of our peace and happiness. It is a blessing all parents of every place and every time can desire for their children. And daughters, especially, can evoke this type of sentiment as witnessed by the potency of today’s Me Too movement.

A blessing is not a prophetic statement, as some would believe. It is more in line with wishful thinking as illustrated by the words of the song with its final, telling plea O, hear our Sabbath prayer. Amen. We desire something that is beyond our means to provide for others, whether they are our children, other family members, our friends, or those who comprise the larger social circles of our neighbors, colleagues and fellow citizens. And so we speak a blessing – a type of request – to a greater god-like power, who can transcend our human limitations and effect a change in keeping with our heartfelt desires for what is good, compassionate and satisfying to our souls.

We consistently bless people without even giving it a thought. Comments at parting like good-bye, farewell, God speed and the sophomoric have a nice day are blessings. They express our thoughtless hope that the person we are speaking to will literally have a good departure accompanied by the unspoken wish that their journey will end with a safe arrival.

Beyond this type of banal closure to a meeting, our impression of a blessing – if we have one – is to say a prayer before consuming a meal. But blessings have the power to inspire us to strive to meet the vision someone else has determined for us. This may be a parent or a teacher or some other type of mentor, whose faith allows them to see the potential for a positive outcome to which we are blind.

In light of our current memo obsession (and many other phobic moments to be honest) we need a Golda and a Tevye to gather us around their table, to light two candles and summon us into a caring fellowship, to momentarily grieve over the disgrace of our actions, and then to sing a Sabbath prayer that intones on our behalf this time to Favor them with peace and then to solemnly close with their reverential appeal O, hear our Sabbath prayer. Amen.

I enjoy the prospect of watching, via the internet, the impact a flash mob performance can have on a group of innocent and unsuspecting bystanders. It is not that I have seen one live. And I have certainly not participated in one, as they require a certain talent either musically or vocally in order to help perpetrate a well-rehearsed semblance of impromptu virtuosity. It is just that even when removed from an event by time and space, the joy of the music being performed carries through the digital machinations of our technology to somehow caress a soul that inhabits an isolated place such as my home office.

I stumbled on my first internet encounter with a flash mob when researching my piece on Schiller’s, and subsequently Beethoven’s, Ode to Joy. One of the proffered links was to a scene on a plaza in Spain, where a little girl, putting money in a hat, launched an inspiring performance of Beethoven’s Ode. And even though I suspect she was a plant to get the process started, the resulting performance – with its ever increasing ensemble of musicians and singers – made use of this sublime theatricality to delight its audience with what the poet and the maestro intended, joy.

For whatever reason my convoluted thinking devolved to, I have come to view these performances as acts of compassion. The music is always uplifting, ranking Ode to Joy or Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus at the top of the chart of flash mob encounters. After all, you never see, or at least I have never seen, a flash mob dedicated to a rousing presentation on depression. Somehow the magic we can find in a hit-and-run collision with the type of exuberance found in Brahms, Bach, Beethoven or The Boss just doesn’t lend itself to the solemnity of a funeral dirge.

Compassion is literally translated as “co-suffering” or “suffering together”.  But I am of a mind that we demean passion by considering it to be the sole province of suffering, as in a passionate artist suffers for his or her art. I am just not endowed with a sense of agony being a perquisite of ecstasy when it comes to doing anything creatively. Therefore, if no one objects, I would rather think of passion as the euphoric force which compels us to do something positive (with its angelic provenance) as opposed to doing something from any type of excruciating zest (with its implication of demonic revulsion). This would make compassion an act of grace, whereby anyone – no matter their state of mind – would find their life enhanced by a virtue of no commercial value.

Flash mobs exemplify the power of positive tinkering with a spirit of exhilaration invading the mundane; carols, choruses and concertos being staged in malls, lobbies and on street corners. The secrecy with which they maneuver their audience into an unexpected and unearned chance at beauty makes them co-conspirators with a passion to charm the happiest as well as the most jaded of us. Unfortunately, unless we know someone in the band, we simply cannot plan to be in the right place at the right time in order to be surprised by joy. But we can always find complicity in the internet with its many links to the conspiracy of musical compassion. Enjoy!

Using the word manifesto in this week’s title may be something of a surprise given my previously stated intent of posting only positive content in this year’s catalogue of web log messages. The word is likely to conjure up images of political declarations made in opposition to the prevailing leadership. Many such statements have been made since the current presidential administration took office. But this one, while inspired by events emanating from that particularly whitewashed house in Washington, DC, has a far broader spectrum of applications, with its own redeeming qualities appropriate to my purpose.

A manifesto is a public statement of policy, whether verbal or written, and my policy – publicly stated in the previous weeks – is to follow Johnny Mercer’s lyrical advice by accentuating the positive. His song also included the concept of sharing joy to the max, but joy is a precious commodity and not easily produced without appearing to be a false sense of elation. So sticking to the more pervasive ways of positive expression is sufficient for this and other messages over the remainder of the year. And this week I would like to say something positive about the very act of speaking, especially speaking publicly, whether imparted as a manifesto or an ill-considered, throw away comment.

Recently much has been said about the President’s use of a certain S-word in describing some of this world’s poorest nations. And the blow-back of commentary has been overwhelmingly critical of him, including the excessive use of a certain R-word in an attempt to further marginalize him and – by inference – his supporters, the deplorables of pre-election fame. Sadly, the originators of the blow-back are responding in-kind and making atrocious use of our language containing all the earmarks of personal, political gain. The campaign for the 2020 presidential election appears to be well underway despite the media attention more sharply focused on the 2018 midterm elections this November.

The goal of my own message is to propose what I believe to be a basic speaker’s manifesto, a public statement about making public statements. And keeping it simple is an act of acquiescence to our capacity for stupidity. Unfortunately, the less complex the concept, the less appeal it may possess for those who need it most but try to prove their worth by adorning themselves with sophistication. So here is my recipe for putting word to tongue in hopes of making a valid point and providing sensible guidance.

Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. What the President said was reckless and its ability to pierce was more in keeping with a guided missile rather than a sword. But the point, pun intended, is still easily understood with our 21^st Century mentality. The point not made in this ancient aphorism is that the damage is truly self-inflicted with the inevitable collateral damage impaling one’s allies, the people we should commit to protect instead of marking them as the proverbial deer caught in the media’s headlights. It is the second half of this insight, though, that becomes the first item in our speaker’s manifesto: wise words heal. They do not infect, inflict or eviscerate our listeners.

Point two literally compliments our initial “talking” point. It says, Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. Pleasant words are wise words. And a wise person does not need to blow smoke in order to speak pleasantly.  The best communicators will first find something of mutual value with their audience and then lead with that morsel of delectable delight as a means to create a taste and desire for what is to follow. Kind, even gracious, words can prepare the way for the more difficult topics, which require our attention, by first touching the soul with their gentle, sweet, and healing influence. And what a wonderful idea it is to consider that our words can bring healing to a relationship. It gives listening a better chance at demonstrating its ability to unify any gathering of human hearts.

Talking point three takes this idea one step further. The lips of the righteous nourish many. We all like to be fed. Satisfying our internal cravings, especially when the need is essential for survival, is the mark of a truly compassionate person and a great leader. Those of us who are ample in girth still need to be satiated mentally and spiritually. We need purpose and a meaningful sense of direction. Words can initiate the process with a power to inspire the will to accomplish our righteous goals. Consider the words from President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address with its emphasis on the spoken word as the harbinger of a new generation’s commitment to the greatness of our American ideals.

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

My concept of a speaker’s manifesto is really not my own. I have shamelessly borrowed heavily from, you might say even plagiarized, the written words of a king, King Solomon to be exact. His insights from millennia ago are just as applicable today as they were then. And they carry the weight of a proven political leader as opposed to being the naive speculations of this stay at home blogger. He was Wisdom’s advocate, portraying it as a beautiful woman to be cherished, caressed and yielded to as if heeding the compassionate counsel of a loving wife.

His insights assure us that when Wisdom speaks out publicly she does so with a desire to reveal her heart and make her wise counsel available to all. Her words are always right and true and just. Her words, though forceful, are spoken with prudence and discretion. Her ways are pleasant and peaceful, offering others the promise of long life, riches and honor. Wisdom exalts and honors others and for those who heed her advice She will set a garland of grace on your head and present you with a crown of splendor.

“Splendor is hard work.” These are the words spoken by Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias, in Eva Stachniak’s historical novel Empress of the Night. The words are spoken as Catherine considers how much effort her maids-in-waiting must exert in order to make her presentable to her court. The frailty of human flesh must be hidden so that it does not betray the still palpable will of someone as powerful as an empress.

The splendor that can come from implementing my speaker’s manifesto is also the result of hard work. Speaking with the qualities promoted by King Solomon so long ago requires intent, practice, and a total disregard for the barbed responses for today’s media and blogosphere harpies, who cannot abide a concept for goodness not of their making.

But why wait for others to become dedicated practitioners of this kind of verbal art? We each of us can start at home and work outwards through the various communities we inhabit, such as school, workplace and neighborhood. Being the initiator will give us the opportunity to witness firsthand the efficacy of Solomon’s advice, both as it impacts others and even ourselves. And who knows what impact our example might have. When we choose to let the word go forth, let us do so with compassion, revealing the desire to heal and to nourish as proclaimed in our manifesto. For if we can do so with the added touch of love, perhaps we will find out after all that love is indeed and many splendored thing.

When writing these messages I seem to be trapped in a musical infinitude. My creative imagining started innocently enough in December, expounding on the true meaning to be found in God resting us merry during the yuletide season. Then I progressed to reminiscing about Robert Burns’ toasting the absence of the old long since, or auld lang syne for those in need of a translation, which is how we traditionally close the old year.

I began the new one by formulating a resolution of posting a full year of messages based on the Johnny Mercer theme of accentuating the positive. And now I am stretching eclectic credulity to the limits by reaching even further back in time to build on the thought of sharing Mercer’s phrase, joy to the max, by relying on a true classic, Ode to Joy, for taking the next step in my quest to write fifty-two messages with positive themes.

My Pollyanna disguise this time does not really rely on Beethoven’s succulent riff in his oft performed 9^th Symphony. Rather I am looking to his inspiration, Friedrich Schiller’s original but less well-known poem, to fuel my optimistic aspirations. Schiller’s Ode to Joy was written for a friend, who shared his reverence for the possibility of unity among humanity occasioned by the presence of Joy. Beethoven needed only to tweak a few lines to conform this utopian fantasia to his melodic sensibilities for a musical masterpiece to emerge, ensnare and enthuse a perpetually evolving audience, many of whom have no clue about what is being sung in German via allegro molto.

Schiller personified Joy as a beautiful woman the way Solomon envisioned Wisdom as a bride to be caressed. He praised her intoxicating ability to bind what human convention divides, everyone becoming brothers, “where your gentle wing abides.” Tenderness is her unstated hallmark for we consume her essence like infants suckling at her breast. Joy freely bestows her kisses upon us and we are adjured to live our lives, or run our race, “Joyful, like a hero going to the conquest.”

Schiller was a Christian romantic at odds with today’s religious skeptics, who view the overwhelming presence of their own personified deity of Evil as proof that there can be no eternally loving God. He inverted the concept and speculated that the pervasive presence of Joy, as evidenced by the persistence of brotherly love despite our shared afflictions, meant that “There must dwell a loving Father” in a nether region beyond sight, but not beyond feeling and the desire to share the blessing.

“This kiss is for all the world” is Joy’s unconditional gift for the taking. Graciously accepting what she so freely offers affirms our ability to choose, another quality which some would say supports the efficacy of a divine parent. The only important question for each of us to answer is whether or not we are willing to share her bounty. We each can ignite a sense of joy in another and illuminate their soul. A kindly spoken word will do. But a well-placed kiss, with Joy as our motivating spirit, would do even better. Give it a try and see if it doesn’t foster a sense of blissful unity with your beloved intended. It is a quest worth undertaking, joyfully.

We are starting a new year with another musical tribute to the season. This one is not about Christmas, although joy is in the title. And it is not about remembering old acquaintances as the time for reminiscing is not really appropriate for the start of anything new. Instead the theme for this message, and in fact for the entire year if I can remain faithful to the concept, is to use a 1946 Johnny Mercer tune to guide us through 2018.

Back in those optimistic, post-World War II years, Mercer penned an upbeat song entitled Accentuate the Positive. His further counsel was to eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative and don’t mess with Mister In-Between. These lines are probably familiar to most people, at least those of us of an age to remember crooners like Bing Crosby and Perry Como, who wisely latched on to the popularity of this song to boost their own careers.

But my title comes from the first line of the less well known second verse. There Mercer encouraged us all to be proactive with his admonition You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum. Failing to do so might otherwise allow pandemonium to walk upon the scene. His playful but prescient comment would have captured the spirit of our times better if he had forecast that pandemonium would trampled the scene and not just walk onto it, for that is where we seem to be now. Words like collusion, tampering and impeachment in the political arena are being matched by claims of sexual misconduct among news and entertainment celebrities, who are supposed to report on or jokingly mock politicians, not imitate them.

My New Year’s resolution, then, is to follow Mercer’s advice and use my web log messages to accentuate the positive I see in this world, providing I can find it. That is a huge challenge, fifty-two messages of an uplifting, positive or joyous nature. And I am not talking about images of cute puppies snuggling up to their two-legged, diaper-clad counterparts no matter how good that may make you feel. My hope is to find substance in positive aspects of our shared experience and to spread the news for others to consider, maybe even adding a little joy to their day as well. Perhaps it will even improve my own disposition, for we are all in need of a little joy now and then to offset the barrage of negativism aimed at us by the Mr. In-Betweens of this world.

Therefore be of good cheer. Our battle cry for 2018 will be “Joy to the max! Joy to the world!”

The time for Christmas carols has passed, unless you are an ardent true believer in the Twelve Days of Christmas and still have cause for celebrating the birth of Jesus. For those of us who are not so traditional or who are less inclined to see any spiritual significance to the December holidays, there is still one more carol to sing. This one is attributed to the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, who openly admitted that he borrowed from an existing folk song, when he penned the words to his poem Auld Lang Syne nearly three hundred years ago.

Burns’ Scottish dialect is hard to pronounce, let alone understand. The version we now sing on New Year’s Eve is a more civilized, as in Anglicized, interpretation save for the oft repeated phrase Auld Lang Syne. Even here we tend to screw things up by pronouncing the last word with a “z”, as in zine, instead of with an “s”, like sign. But who cares? We are generally happy, with a touch of sentimentality in our tone, and likely retaining the one true element of Burns’ poetic imagery by hoisting a cup of some kind of liquid refreshment and drinking to the days gone by.

That cup, whatever its contents, may also retain the Burns insistence on kindness – that is for those of us who are not members of Congress, Antifah or the current administration. It is extremely hard, in fact, to reconcile the thought of kindness as a primary motivating factor behind any of the news that the media outlets, be they mainstream or also rans, present to us on a steady, even unyielding, basis. So maybe it is best to stay local with the people who are truly important to you and celebrate the good times, which have left you with good memories of this and every prior year of your lifetime, whatever its duration.

Lamenting the passage of time and our inclination to focus so intently on our current problems that we forget about who and what was important to us not so long ago appears to be a natural part of the human psyche. Prior to Burns another poet borrowed from the same folk tune and wrote about our tendency towards selective amnesia and asked “Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold, that loving Breast of thine, that thou canst never once reflect on old long syne?” Tweak these words written by James Watson in 1711 to reflect today’s calloused jargon and you will have an ode to isolation and disillusionment in keeping with much of what we currently hear in our pop culture renderings.

But this is the season to defy the spirit of all things dark and sinister. My advice is to find that cup which holds the magic elixir of kindness and drink your fill. Let it stimulate the memory of what a sweet Heart and a loving Breast most hold dear and use it to counter the inevitable assaults on the peace and good will we earnestly desire and also sing about at this time of year. Sorrow and selfish ambition may hold the media captive in their presentation of what is supposed to pass as news, but be of good cheer. You can overcome the media, if you choose. The “On” button on your remote also has the power to turn things “Off.” Once you have accomplished that feat, take a cup of kindness yet for your own sake as well as for the benefit of others.

God bless ye merry, everyone.

December is a busy month for celebrating. Just this past week we encountered the Winter Solstice, the official start of that cold weather season in the Northern Hemisphere, but a day important to those ancient tribes we now call pagan, who honored it as the indicator for the rebirth of the sun. The previous week people of the Hebrew faith observed their own Festival of Lights we know as Hanukkah. In a few days most of us will celebrate Christmas for either its religious attribution for the Christ child’s birth or its cultural role in having a wonderfully good time with family and friends. And then there is Kwanzaa, a late arrival to our holiday mix, but an important addition to our need to celebrate. It is the time of the year chosen to honor the many cultural contributions of the Pan-African community.

No matter your ethnicity, politics, educational achievements or social status there should be something in at least one of these four events that can spark a festive sensibility of even a brief duration. The traits they share touch on positive aspects of the human experience and for a time allow even the most jaded of us to glimpse a transcendent spirit that sees in the mundane a miraculous consequence. Life takes on the appearance of meaning, which gives virtue a logical place in our hierarchy of self-awareness.

The presence of light is a key theme in these December observances. The Hebrew menorah, the African kinara, the yule log and lights on an evergreen tree all impart warmth in the hearts of their respective adherents without overwhelming them with an oppressive brilliance. In fact the opposite is true. The subtle softness of the light from a lamp, a candle, a light bulb or the embers of a slowly burning piece of wood possess their own mysterious quality of assurance of human dignity and righteous purpose.

Food projects bounty in the same way song imparts harmony. Color abounds in the decorations, place settings, and seasonal clothing, while gift giving becomes a reciprocal response of the beauty within us answering the call of the external beauty displayed in these disparate celebrations.

If this be true, then perhaps we can put an end to the imagined conflict between seasonal blessings. Merry Christmas does not have a mandate for presiding as the only December compliment. Therefore, it is best to know another’s beliefs and preferences in order to express in their preferred idioms the blessings of the event they celebrate even when we do not share this precious aspect of their worldview. It indicates the depth of our care for them as friends, colleagues or acquaintances as we demonstrate our respect for their cultural practices by greeting them or imparting a blessing in the appropriate manner. Of course Happy Holidays will remain the safe fallback statement when another person is essentially an unknown entity to us. But don’t despair. There is always time to learn about the people we associate with and December affords us the best opportunity to do so. It is called hospitality and can be practiced in whatever location you call home.

May your days, then, be very merry and bright. And may you have a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

It is still a little too early for me to get excited about the Christmas season, if excited is even the proper word to indicate how I treat this holiday in my old age. It holds a different kind of magic for me now in contrast to the exuberance I felt as a school boy. Then we were released from a relentless scholastic drudge to enjoy a blessed two-week reprieve from pretending to learn. The dream of seasonal indulgences such as having divinity to eat, decorations to bring out of the attic, and presents tactfully placed under a brightly lit tree, as if Santa had paid a visit to our house, was about to come true once again. And the singing of Silent Night never failed to add a spiritual dynamic to these material comforts.

Now I hold these things in memory and chose to shelter them there rather than attempt to replicate them.  I cannot bring back the people whose depth of compassion and commitment to family were the true ingredients for what made those days the delight of my childhood. The sadness of their absence from this life is fortunately countered by the gratitude I feel for having shared even a season of this life with them. Their mark on this and other holiday celebrations is as indelible as the imprint they left on my soul. The result is that I am content to leave it all to contemplation, a private reverie far more muted but no less rewarding as the joy of waking Christmas morning to prospects of gaining a childish wealth all wrapped and beribboned in token to a spirit of gift-giving that eluded me at a time when I was intent on being the recipient.

Of all the music associated with Christmas I still cherish the ones that celebrate the faith I grew up with and underscore who we were as we gathered around the table to enjoy a sumptuous breakfast feast my aunt and uncle provided each year as a gift of which we all could partake together. But one song has gained in significance for me as I have aged and hopefully matured in my appraisal of things. The first line of its refrain is the title of this week’s message and instantly hints at an archaic perspective on life. After all, who still uses the word tidings in their daily communications, although its meaning seems to be perfectly attuned to today’s Twitter culture.

Tidings are brief messages, their brevity meant to impart a sense of importance to us without having to endure a long-winded explanation about just how important we should appreciate the news to be. And in this case the news is a blessing; our own comfort and joy being the desired result of our verbal benefactor. These twin virtues stem from the song’s proclamation that our deliverance from evil has been secured through the birth of a child, whose entrance into this world we celebrate on December the 25^th even though the actual month, day and year remain unknown to us. And, in fact, his birth is not the true cause of our deliverance, but his death. But the song betokens, for me at least, that same sense of anticipation I experienced as a child, waking to a blessing that would bring me a comfort and joy I could not fully appreciate at the time. Some blessings, apparently, fail to reach their full benefit until the recipient has grown in sufficient proportion to the magnitude of the tiding.

God rest you merry, everyone as the song’s opening line intends. May you both hear and speak tidings of comfort, joy, peace, love and all the other qualities which can make this time of year the blessed event we desperately desire it to be.

Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Luke 6:31, New International Version)

This statement follows a passage in Luke’s narrative, where Jesus pronounced blessings on any of his followers who were poor, hungry, grieving, or hated. He asked them to rejoice, to leap and shout for joy, because there would come a day when their misfortunes would be reversed, not by personal merit, but by their entry into a heavenly kingdom for having suffered in the same way the true and faithful prophets of old had suffered.

Jesus then pronounced a type of cheerless foreboding on those who were rich, well fed, haplessly content, and respected. They too would one day experience a reversal of fortune, but he refrained from saying where that reversal would take place. Instead he drew a comparison between how they were being treated in this life and the way the false prophets of old were treated. The implied outcome was that they would find themselves sharing the same fate as those who lied about God’s will in order to curry favor with the political and economic powers of the day. Seems harsh, but it only became more so in a surprising way.

These were just generalizations he made to a large crowd, who had gathered to hear him speak and to seek relief by having their illnesses healed. Turning his attention fully on his own followers, he told them that they must love their enemies, bless those who cursed them, and pray for those who abused them. He left no room for his disciples to equivocate about the implementation of these directives. If they were hit, they were to turn the other cheek. If their cloak was forcibly taken from them, they were to offer up their tunic as well without any thought of asking for it to be returned to them. The harsh expectations of Jesus’ teaching were revealed as being even more demanding of his followers than of those who merely listened without becoming encumbered by a conviction.

And then came the capstone of this passage, a proactive statement requiring his disciples to do only good to everyone in every circumstance. Goodness was determined by what any faithful person would regard as the goodness they wished to experience for themselves; faithfulness being defined in the pronouncement of blessings and woes at the start of his address.

We call it The Golden Rule and understand its value to be in the non-legalistic realm of moral choice rooted in the Christian concept of grace; the gift-giving mindset of knowing that nothing good is earned. Otherwise we all would be dead in our sins.

This week the Supreme Court heard a case about a baker’s refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. The baker’s defense is that he, as a craftsman, should not be forced to perform his trade in a manner which violates his religious beliefs. An aversion to a sexual preference not one’s own is clouding the true issue of Christian service as it was promulgated in a Judean revival meeting conducted by an undocumented rabbi.

We can rest assured that in Jesus’ day there were people among those who earnestly waited to be healed, who would identify with today’s LGBTQ community, and whatever other letters you wish to add to this acronym. They were not turned away. Jesus, who was described by his followers as someone who knew peoples’ hearts, would have been able to easily discriminate against the sexual lepers among the crowds, who desired at the very least to touch the hem of his garment, but he didn’t. And therefore neither should we.

The Supreme Court will determine the rule of the land. Jesus has already determined the rule of the heart. We call is the Golden Rule and it should lead us towards making the best of cakes for those who are forced to seek protection as abused minorities in a society where the rich, well fed, content and respected majority imitate the false and doomed cake makers of old.

If I could choose an appropriate anthem to play for leading a redemptive cause that could lead us out of the self-incriminating, self-destructive strategy of suing our enemies rather than loving them, I think I would overlook the many hymns I grew up with, though their words are inspiring and their melodies in perfect harmony with their messages. Instead I would chose Mary Gauthier’s plea for “Mercy Now” since she is someone who has experienced the injustice of our religious taboos and yet understands our need for a virtue the Supreme Court will dismiss as irrelevant in reaching their lifeless, legalistic decision about the solid cold facts of rights.

The fourth verse of Mary’s song is one we all should be able to identify with and affirm. So let us all join hands and sing in unison:

Every living thing could use a little mercy now
Only the hand of grace can end the race towards another mushroom cloud
People in power, they’ll do anything to keep their crown
I love life and life itself could use some mercy now

Sometime after my mother’s 80^th birthday, she decided to start ridding her home of the long cherished treasures she now considered to be clutter. This included rarely if ever worn clothes, seldom used utensils, table settings and flatware, decorations and an array of mementos from long ago travels with my father. This also included the family photo albums. She removed the prints she couldn’t bear to part with just yet and discarded the rest. Some of the photographs were taken as long ago as the 1920s, but most were from the 40s, a very momentous period in her life. Her older brothers were going off to serve in the Pacific during World War II. Two new sisters-in-law moved in with her and her mother. And it was also the point in time when she met my dad. They married before he shipped out to fight the war in Europe. And in very short order three babies were born to the three young brides left behind for the duration. Fortunately, all the men came home unharmed and filled in the few empty spaces in an already cramped household, until new careers opened up and the family dispersed to establish their own homes and enjoy the peace and prosperity that came with victory.

All of this and more is chronicled in those photographs. So when I lamented the demise of images I had looked at many, many times growing up and asking about the occasions on which the photos were taken, or about a person I had never met being an intimate member of a family photo op, my mother chose to box up those remaining prints and present them to me for safekeeping and (apparently) to clutter up my home in order to make her life easier.

I love history and with this new gained wealth of visual information I set out to document what I could about the lives of the people I love; at least the history on my mother’s side of the family tree. This prompted me to subscribe to the on-line Ancestry.com service, which took me back in time to the earliest days of the 19^th century as I followed the linear trail of births, marriages and deaths back as far as I had the patience to endure. You do get tired of adding “greats” to an ever growing list of grandparents, aunts and uncles and attempting to decipher how many and when to apply the term “removed” to a cousin who inhabits the furthest branches of one’s familial tree.

My search did resolve a few mysteries but added others. I was able to substantiate the rumor that we are related to the Crocketts of Tennessee, as in that little boy who was born on a mountain top and killed him a bar when he was only three. (I only wish I still had that coonskin cap my mother bought for me when Fess Parker was the most popular celebrity on the planet.) Other family mysteries remain, however. I have yet to discover where my maternal grandmother was born. Her obituary listed as her birthplace a community in Missouri that never existed. More disconcerting is that we do not know her father’s name or whatever happened to him. All I have been able to document is that my great grandmother went from being a Sharp to a Fowler (my grandmother’s maiden name) and that she eventually married a Crawford, also of Missouri. The fact that my beloved grandmother apparently never talked about her father to any of her children makes me think that he must have committed some act of indiscretion that led to his early departure, whether on horseback or at the end of a rope remains to be determined.

Armed with pages of documents downloaded from the internet, I started troubling my mother with more questions about the people she knew, the aunts and uncles and near relatives of the small town in Oklahoma where she was born and raised. I use the word “trouble” in this instance because some stories are not always pleasant and one of the less gracious aspects of our family saga is how my grandmother was treated by her in-laws after she became a widow, with three young boys and a baby girl on the way. My grandfather’s family was part of the wealthy, Episcopal elite in town. My grandmother was a lowly Southern Baptist, whose status was made even more disreputable by the fact that she was a laundress; a common working girl. But her small stature and angelic beauty captivated the lanky eldest son of the prominent Barr family and he married her for love, which abided firmly between them until his death nine years later. My pregnant grandmother moved her young family in with her mother and younger half-sisters and went back to work in the laundry, where she stayed for the next twenty-five years, or so, without ever complaining about the misery of her circumstances.

No help was sought from or given by the in-laws who spurned my grandmother. But those were the people I wanted to know more about, even though our relationship to them was tainted by their sense of pride, which seems to come with wealth and community status, no matter how small the community.

Given that Okmulgee, Oklahoma is still a small town, my mother grew up in a close, nurturing environment surrounded by family and friends, which left her with the impression that she was related to half the people who lived there. It also meant that my mother, with her mother and brothers were intimately aware of and still had some contact with my grandfather’s parents, sisters and younger brother. I never met Edwin, or Uncle Ned as I sometimes heard him referred to. And when I asked my mother about him, her reply made me glad I never did. What she said stunned me, for even though my mother could be wonderfully, comically blunt when talking about people she liked, her statement about her father’s younger brother, the infamous Uncle Ned, was to me tragically out of character for her.

“I hope he burns in hell,” is what she said to me that day. The backstory for her outburst was truly unbelievable, when you consider that most of the stories I had ever heard about the family my mother was blessed to be part of were virtually always supportive. And these stories at some point always made reference to my widowed grandmother as the foundation for that happiness, citing her endurance through every trial and her gift for graciously sharing with everyone that kind of self-sacrificing love she read about in her Bible, which the Greeks called agape.

On a rare occasion when the family was visiting at the spacious Barr home, my teenage mother was directed by her Uncle Ned towards a room away from the rest of the family members. And in a place that should have represented a safe haven if not a truly loving one for her, with just a closed door separating the two of them from everyone else, Uncle Ned reached inside my mother’s blouse and fondled her breasts so roughly that he left her bruised and hurting; physically for a short time, emotionally for the rest of her life. She says she did not scream, she did not cry, and she did not tell, which seems to be the pattern to the experiences many women are now sharing by means of the #MeToo social media site.

Mom was not blessed with her mother’s beauty. Nor was she amply endowed in such a way that might attract an overt act of masculine lust. But she was vulnerable. So without provocation Uncle Ned simply exerted his power to achieve a quick and easy thrill. And he seems to have relied on the sanctuary of silence many men have enjoyed despite their despicable behavior, for he did not threatened my mother with any description of the dire consequences she would suffer if she told. He turned away from her to leave, but before he opened the door he spoke to her in a tone of pure erotic male arrogance and said how she should be pleased by having attracted his attention.

Mom told me this story when she was in her 90s. And the vehemence with which she expressed her un-forgiving attitude towards her uncle indicates how she never escaped the emotional clutches of his attack, even after nearly 80 years had contrived to separate her from that incident. She passed away, age 96, this past September (2017) before the #MeToo movement became popular. But if she were alive today, and with her permission, I would have helped her add her story to the many others, who are hopefully finding some release from the humiliation of being someone else’s susceptible target.

I have taken the liberty, as the good son, of sharing her story. I think she would approve as she cannot be hurt by it anymore.

And may Uncle Ned burn in hell.