While others may enjoy this typical religious day called Easter with a large gathering of family to share an Easter Ham, I prefer the original tribal fare of my own culture. We celebrate Wester, with the eating of ribs. Barbequed ribs, with plenty of sauce, which represents the blood and toil of our forebears.

Strangely, the animal of choice is the same in both cultures. However, Wester celebrants acknowledge more forthrightly those who came before them and are closer to their roots. Others may break bread in long suffering self-delusional efforts to “make peace.” We who celebrate Wester know that if you are to make peace, often you have to break a few bones along the way.

Thus, the ritual of eating ribs recognizes this sacrifice, that many of our ancestors and their opponents had to endure. We break bones with each bite of ribs we consume, until, like those who preceded us, there is nothing left. Nothing but the sated appetites of those who stand here today, in the present; not some afterlife which reflects nothing of the sacrifices we have made while we were here, “on earth, as it isn’t in heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

Incidentally, Wester is the recognition that the sun goes down each day. And when it does, we rise.

Conversations….. 

October 15th, 1994

“Threads, thread, needle and thread,
Where’s that idea I’d left in my head?
I hope you don’t mind it, but I couldn’t find it,
So why don’t we just start over instead?”

“Fine, fine, that would be fine,
‘Long’s we remember the ones that were mine,
Otherwise, often and likely as not,
Mine are the threads most often forgot.”

“Sure, of course, whatever you say.
I understand you could feel that way.
I’m not regretting what we’re forgetting,
As long as you tell me: What did we say?”

by

Home

At my mother’s passing, my older sister made an observation. I can’t remember now if this was also part of the memorial, but either way, the observation was an apt metaphor. I thought some about it at the time, but now as time races forward with our father at the head of the line, I believe it’s time to revisit the metaphor.

She said she imagined our parents as a canopy. I pictured a tree lined quiet street, in mid-summer. Late in the day. The sun is orange, the breeze has ebbed, and the shade we needed at mid-day is no longer required. When we were little, we would need that shade, if it was hot outside. If a storm approached, the canopy kept us dry until we could run home and watch the lightning from the safety of the porch.

Our parents shielded us from the harshest weather, like a canopy of trees taller than we could fathom. If they had shortcomings, I see them as clearly as my own. That is, if I choose to look carefully, I may reveal the same faults in myself as anyone else. The tall trees had knots and burls and some broken limbs, but they never failed to protect.

Taken as a whole, this tree-lined street we walk as adults still has a canopy. Even if felled by age, or illness, the children we once were have made our own shelter. It is for those to and for whom we are responsible. First, our own children. Then farther reaching family ties, and our friends.

We see clearly the canopy of love, sacrifice, and good will that our parents provided. We are now what they were: protection and safety for our loved ones. With our own knots, burls, and broken limbs,we still stand together as perfection. The canopy can exist in spite of, maybe because of, the imperfections. For if that which breaks grows back stronger than before, the canopy of old growth has weathered much. Seen much. And bent down under the storms. But if it stands, it has thus survived. If it protects, it has known trouble. If it is to be a shelter, it must know all of these things.

There will be more…..