PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stagnant … June 8th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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The I’s Keep Coming

I was raped

I am a rapist

I killed a gorilla

I aborted a fetus

I laughed at a vicious joke

I told the joke

I preached a sermon

I am a sinner

I am a virgin

I am promiscuous

I am a liberal

I am a conservative

I cheated on my taxes

I pay too much tax

I am saved

I am lost

I am Muslim

I am Hindu

I hate Jews

I despise Palestinians

I am a Christian

I am an atheist

I love animals

I butcher cows

I bully weaker folks

I pee in the pool

I am an American

I want to kill all Americans

I am a terrorist

I am terrified

I am a racist

I am considered inferior

I am a man

I am a woman

I want to die

I am dying

All God’s children

No respecter of persons

Papa’s love

Mystifying

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Populie: Children Are a Blessing … October 8, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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For every person who loves a baby and refers to the child as a bundle of joy, you will soon find that same individual talking about “the terrible twos,” lamenting “angry adolescence,” and producing an off-spring into the world of “grumbling grown-ups.”

Religion loves the populie of “children are a blessing.” Matter of fact, it’s the easiest way to get people to clap their hands in church–announce the birth of a baby.

Entertainment loves to tell stories of people who had trouble finding children, acquiring children or birthing children and have, through some miracle, been able to have one of their own or adopt one, which brought consolation to their household.

Of course, politics jumps in with its approval because being “pro-family” is a great way to get elected.

• But children are not born for our pleasure.
• Children are not jewelry created to adorn the costume of our lives.
• Children are not proof that our love is intact or that we’re virile.

Children are the means by which the natural order populates the Earth, to eventually get rid of you and me and make room for “he and she.”

To refer to children as “a blessing” and then merely sit them down in front of a television set to be indoctrinated makes us poor stewards of the opportunity.

There’s nothing special about having a kid. The whole process is very primeval. We have decided it’s beautiful because our arrogance will not allow us to admit that cows, bears and whales do it.

But after the cigars are passed around, we need to transform this pink, pudgy creature into a human being before he or she ends up acting like a gorilla.

These are the steps involved in turning the birth of a baby into the blessing of a human:

1. Nurture them.

At first, all they need are hugs and milk. Oh, yes, you may want to change their diapers, too.

2. Encourage their curiosity.

The best way to make disobedient children is to ignore their questions.

3. Channel them towards empathy and gratitude.

You cannot raise a human being if you do not teach him to feel for others and be grateful for what comes his way.

4. Force them to communicate.

Yes, I use the word “force.” A reluctance to talk will inevitably set in. When you add a computer, a phone, an I-pod and Netflix, you have pretty much eliminated their will to converse. You must intervene or you will put them at the mercy society.

5. Let them find and experience a faith which is real to them, not borrowed from others.

6. Don’t be afraid of sexuality. They won’t.

7. Have a defining moment when you have the confidence to allow your child to stop being a deduction and become your adult friend.

Children are not a blessing simply because they arrive. Actually, they are destined to become selfish, cheaters and liars … unless they are guided onto a path of human understanding.　

 

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Watch the Dancing Monkeys… January 22, 2012

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Live in Philadelphia, PA

Nine years old is arguably the champagne of aging. You are young enough that you still believe in Santa Claus, your parents and the good intentions of Wylie Coyote wanting to catch up with the Road Runner to make friends. But you are old enough to pick up pieces of adult conversation and understand them, receive a swig of hard cider from a nefarious uncle and discover in the back of your mathematics book a section entitled “Pre-Algebra.” Yes, you’re old enough that you don’t have to deal with round-tipped scissors anymore, but blessedly young enough that no one asks you to mow the lawn. Cool.

It was springtime–the season for our annual trip to the Columbus Zoo. It had been postponed once because it was mating season and the school officials thought it best to delay the trip, finding it somewhat uncomfortable to explain to the children why the lions and bears were “wrestling.” But finally, we grabbed our brown-bag lunches, mounted the school bus and headed off for the big city. This particular year, I got to sit next to one of the “pretty girls,” who was not particularly pleased to be near me, but I still enjoyed the experience, perspiring a little bit on the hot bus, sniffing her essence–the aroma of sweaty flowers.

 

The zoo was fun. The highlight was seeing a python who had swallowed a guinea pig and was in mid-digestion. We ate our lunches and only one activity remained. Our teacher, Mrs. Arnold, had signed our class up to attend a cultural event at the Pavillion which featured the Magical Musical Monkeys of Montreal. She was excited about it because it was so rare in our small town for anything of ilk or style to be available–and Mrs. Arnold was a woman who viewed herself to be a well-traveled soul, constrained in the mouse-trap of our local elementary school. She was the kind of woman who knew that pronouncing the word “Mozart” required inserting the sound of the letter “t.” So she was quite thrilled with the possibility of exposing her young upstarts to a bit of universality–entertainment from Canada featuring well-trained monkeys wearing cowboy hats, striped vests and dancing inexplicably to some sort of twanging Chinese music.  (You know the kind I mean–pwangs and pings played on what can only be described as the Chinese banjo…)

 

Needless to say, the classroom, which had endured the entire trip around the zoo and was now on a sugar high from our Twinkies and Kool-Aid, was not in any mood to watch a bunch of miserable monkeys performing antics for treats. We soon became distracted. Mrs. Arnold gently told us to hush. We didn’t. Mrs. Arnold pointed at us, and then up to the monkeys–in rapid succession. We understood her gestures, but ignored them. Finally, completely frustrated, Mrs. Arnold stepped forward and screamed at the class in a hushed, rasping, hissing tone: “Watch the dancing monkeys!!”

 

Nobody wanted to–I mean, watch the monkeys. But we were more afraid of the gorilla yelling at us, so we stared straight ahead as some of the girls teared up and began to cry and the monkeys finished their show. Leaving the auditorium, we climbed onto our bus as Mrs. Arnold sat in the front, quietly dejected. During the next few days some nasty notes from parents arrived, who were upset that their children were having dreams about talking monkeys threatening them. Mrs. Arnold received a quiet reprimand, and to my knowledge, no other cultural trips from Sunbury Elementary School were ever planned again.

 

It is a very valuable lesson. It doesn’t do you any good to scream at people to “watch the dancing monkeys” if the little chimps are as boring as hell. Just like bringing up words such as spirituality, politics, responsibility, duty, faithfulness, generosity, prayer, Bible study, intellectual and other such terms are meaningless to people. Oh, I will go further than that.  Aggravating–if you also don’t offer things like fun, enjoyment, entertainment and relaxation.

 

For after all, God had the sense, when he made people, to tell them to be fruitful and multiply, and often suggested that they “rejoice–and again I say, rejoice.”

 

You may think it’s important, but yelling at people to “watch the dancing monkeys” only makes them cry and tell on you. So even though Mrs. Arnold had all the good intentions in the world, like all good intentions, they generally speaking end up being … the pavement to hell.

 

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Jonathan wrote the gospel/blues anthem, Spent This Time, in 1985, in Guaymas, Mexico. Take a listen:

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