Belief? Or Faith?

Belief and faith.

We tend to use those words synonymously, interchangeably, but they aren’t, really. There are some very profound, though for some of us, rather subtle, perhaps even indecipherable differences between the two words.

Many Christians believe. In fact, Christians often refer to one another as “Believers”, complete with the capital letter. The Credo is a recital of what Christians believe; if we need to know what we as Christians are supposed to believe, it says so, right there. It states the beliefs that define us as Christians.

These are the words of the Apostles’ Creed, as found in the United Methodist hymnal, an “Affirmation of Faith” that I recited weekly as a child, and somewhat less regularly in later years:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth;

And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord:
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
the third day he rose from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

So Christians believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit (and certain orthodox characteristics they possess), the tripartite deity first defined at Nicaea in the 4th century after the birth of Christ. This belief is what defines us as Christians. And to some, this is also faith.

But is belief the same as faith?

We believe these things because we are taught these things. We take them as true because we were told that they are true. That is sufficient for most of us; it sets the boundaries, it delineates our theology, it allows us to point to something as a statement of what we believe, so we don’t have to think about it, we merely have to read, and accept, and all is well.

But isn’t faith a little harder for us? Isn’t faith a little less well defined? a little less specific? A little…riskier?

Faith, at least as I think of it, is more active. It requires us to not only accept what is, what we believe, but also what might happen. It is more than a consideration of what was, and what is, but what could be, and, which is often the most difficult thing, what should be. And note, please, that I said “what could be” and “what should be”, not “what will be”. It’s faith, not certainty.

You may have already come to understand that prophecy, though a central tenet of Judeo-Christian literature and theology, is not something in which I put a great deal of confidence. That may make you feel a little uncomfortable, and for that I apologize. It’s not that I doubt the word of Moses, or Elijah, or Daniel, it’s just that not every prediction is accurate, truthful, nor even particularly intelligible. If they were, then bookies would never make money, and Las Vegas would fall to pieces.

Oh, sure, the New Testament cites many in the Old Testament that were fulfilled by Christ, but remember that those who compiled the Bible in the early centuries of the Christian Era had the gift of hindsight, and perhaps only chose those texts that got it right. We, stuck as we are in the midst of time, cannot be certain. If, as Jesus said, “a prophet is not without honor, save in his own country”, then we, lacking Christ’s omniscience, surrounded by everyday prophets from Jimmy the Greek to the bevy of stock analysts clamoring for our investment cash, can perhaps be forgiven if we can’t quite tell the false from the true prophets, and the true prophecies from the false ones and are hesitant to honor any of them…until after the fact.

That is where belief differs from faith. Belief is. Belief, though often lacking absolute confirmation by hard data, is well-defined in other ways. It is based upon previous experience, or the writings of others, or the teachings of our fathers. Faith is something more…something in a future tense.

We have faith that certain things will happen, or, more vaguely, that God and Good will triumph over Man (or Satan, if you prefer) and Evil. We cannot be sure, and we don’t need to be sure. We only have to have faith that it could be, that it might be, and do what we can to help it to be. We may read scripture and believe, but in faith we dream, we try, we hope, we…do.

Belief may point our way, but faith sustains us along the way.

More tuna.

Christmas Day is over, by a little over two hours. The house is quiet. Chloe sleeps at my feet, and Stascha is curled up on the other end of the couch. Joy went to bed some time ago, and most, if not all the rest of the cats are on the bed asleep beside her. In the quiet of the night, I have time to reflect a little. Okay, I have time to reflect once I’ve turned the TV off and stopped snickering at people on the History channel who believe in Bigfoot, Dire Wolves, and Mysterious Beasts (truly, does no one in Maine and Minnesota know anything of their own history? It’s a wolverine, you morons! Do you think they’re only a football team in Michigan, for pity’s sake?!?) But I digress…

This was not the most festive of Christmas seasons for me. I was kind of quiet at my sister-in-law’s home this evening, as we swapped presents, and the nephews showed off their new Guitar Hero game. I am on vacation until next week, but the pleasure of that got soured a bit when I was forced to log in from home on Friday evening and fix a problem with one of the catalogs at work. Don’t get me wrong, my job is to support the company’s purchasing catalogs, but I never signed up to be a twenty-four hour help-line. Of course, with no backup, who else are they going to call? But, again, I digress…

The Spirit of Christmas just wasn’t in me this year. I made a couple of halfhearted efforts, but I just couldn’t summon the enthusiasm. My greatest regret is that I found no time to shop, and never got Joy a gift. I had asked if there was anything she wanted for Christmas; she, of course, didn’t have anything in mind. Ah, well, I’ve never been very good at giving gifts, or giving at all, but…Again, digressing.

My lab results from last week indicated that I am in Third Stage chronic kidney disease…again. This is not unexpected, but, well, it’s pretty much bummed me out. I guess I hadn’t looked so closely at that particular indicator on my previous labs, or maybe I was just in Denial (it’s such a familiar, comfortable place, after all; warm, tropical; haven’t the Sandals people built a resort there?), but I’ve become aware of it at last, and while I was never promised eternal good health from the transplant (eating Wheaties and voting Republican, maybe, but not the transplant), I had hoped to avoid having to go down this particular road again. No such luck.

I had prepared myself for this; I knew that things could turn, well, if not South, then Southward, at sometime…at anytime, during my post-transplant life. Unfortunately, being prepared intellectually is not the same as being prepared emotionally. I am depressed, the situation has effected my life here in the fag end of December, and it has pretty much ruined Christmas for me.

Maybe it’s just Seasonal Affective Disorder. I suffer from year-round depression, partly from predisposition (pre-in-disposition?), partly from the steroids and other medications, but the early winter nights, the lack of sunlight, all the other attributed causes of SAD are obviously in evidence, and I’ve certainly been feeling the “affective” part.

I’m already on a maximum dose of Bupropion (generic welbutrin). Medical science may not have more to offer. I will see my psychiatrist in a week or two, perhaps he can offer some further advice. There are other options, I believe, but, well, I don’t know how safe they might be.

As to my ailing kidney, I see Dr. Hill on the 2nd. She will give me a prognosis if I ask for one. And she will give me a program to follow so maybe I can fight off dysfunction for as long as possible. The news won’t be all rosy and bright, but at least it will be news. News I can act on. I’ve had nearly thirteen years of wonderful life, ten of it without daily insulin injections and eating pretty much as I please; I’ve no room to complain…damn it. I do so love to complain.

Charlemagne has come to sit by me as I write. He is purring, and awaiting his turn on my lap, which should come soon, he’s not had too much attention today. His medical problems seem to be under better control at the moment. I’ve no lab work to base it on, but he seems to be eating better, and, maybe, putting on a little weight. We’ve been trying to increase the health and quantity of his diet. I think he’s doing better. He and I will have to face these medical trials together. I hope I can do so with the grace and dignity he has.

Maybe I need to eat more tuna….

Hard road.

1975

It was a hard-edged day, every object limned and tinted in fragile brilliance. Clear and sunny, a good traveling day.

It was to be a long day, first to Tuscaloosa to meet Lyle and Stella for lunch, and then on to Water Valley, and thence to Memphis to see my grandfather in his illness. Eight hours, given “pit stops”, as Dad put it. We would travel with few enough of them; Dad always liked to cover ground when we traveled.

Dad was quiet on the way; we didn’t talk much. I read, or listened to the radio, when Dad played it. We drove up 280 to Opelika, and then took I-75 to Montgomery.

The miles rolled by, and I watched the flat coastal plain roll by on a Chevy-powered diorama, saw it fall into the valley of the Alabama, and then rise up the bluff beyond the old bridge at Prattville, the one on US 82 that always scared my sister, where the road began climbing through Autauga county.

I knew this road very well, every turn and every roadside sign and tumbledown barn. We had traveled it many times on the way to my grandparents’ house in Mississippi. We had traveled with more heightened anticipation to see Crimson Tide football games when my brother was considering his college options, and later when he had attended the University. Mom had spent two years at the University, and Lyle and I neither one had a chance: we were born to go to school in Tuscaloosa.

The road climbed on through Chilton county, passed the peach stands and ambled on through the little town of Bruce, still battered by the tornado that had ripped through it a couple of years before. There was the obligatory pulpwood truck, the ramshackle contraption of beat up tractor and skeletal trailer stacked way too high with pine trunks that I always thought threatened to tumble out on top of us, as we swept around them with the big V8 roaring on the two-lane road.

“That guy sped up on purpose”, Dad said with a little heat, as we pulled back into the righthand lane.

It was almost a tradition, that comment. I hadn’t noticed the truck speeding up so much, though it did pick up speed as we went around it on the downslope of the hill, where the solid double yellow line gave way to a straight stretch where passing was allowed. Dad often said that when he passed one of these ugly old trucks.

“Probably didn’t have brakes!” I volunteered, quoting another of my Dad’s common observations about the hulking trucks.

“Maybe, but he did that on purpose”, said Dad. “I could tell.”

I nodded, noncommittally, and watched the countryside roll by once more. We drove over the high hill and down into Centerville, and I looked forward to our stop in Tuscaloosa, well, Northport, actually, just across the Black Warrior, where we’d meet Lyle and Stella at the Shoney’s, another traditional family stop on the Way to Grandmomma’s.

The road widened to four lanes with a median as we crossed the Tuscaloosa county line, and Dad was able to pass a couple of cars more easily, and then saw a State Trooper, and slowed way down, under the speed limit. That seemed a little strange to me. Dad liked to drive on the upper side of the speed limit, especially on this long trip. Not so today.

We came down the long hill, and underneath the I-59 overpass onto McFarland Boulevard, Tuscaloosa’s main drag, past all the motels at the interstate exit, most of which we had stayed in on our football trips, and on up McFarland towards the Black Warrior.

“Another police car”, Dad said, as we passed the Hackberry intersection by the old Naval Reserve training center.

“Yeah”, I said, distracted, my attention on the tall smoke stack on the Naval property; I always thought it was a cool thing, close to the street and a hundred feet high…or so it seemed to me. (This was the smokestack that was knocked down by Burt Reynolds film crew in “Hooper” a few years later.)

We stopped at the light, and Dad looked over at the police car, and then straight ahead. When the light changed, we moved on, crossing the river on the big four lane highway bridge and heading up the hill on the opposite bank.

Lyle and Stella stood by Stella’s green Monte Carlo as we pulled into the Shoney’s parking lot.

“Hi, Dad!” Lyle said, and gave me a pat on the shoulder as I smiled my greeting to my sister-in-law.

“Did you have a good trip?” Stella asked.

“Yeah”, Dad said, and moved towards the restaurant door.

We were seated by the greeter, and after the waiter had taken our orders, spaghetti for me, a hamburger for Dad, the special for Lyle and Stella, I headed for the restroom to see to a pressing need. It had been a four hour drive, after all.

My stay in the restroom didn’t take long. I washed up and came out. I noticed the waiter cleaning up a broken plate and spilled food on the floor. Moving by him, carefully avoiding the splashed sauce because Dad was a bit touchy about clean shoes in the car, I made my way back to my chair and sat down.

Something was wrong.

Dad handed me a folded twenty-doller bill, and said abruptly “You eat and pay for everyone’s meal. I’ll be in the car.” Then he got up from the table without another word, or even a look back, and left the restaurant.

I looked at my brother, and then at Stella, and the expressions of confusion on their faces frightened me.

“What happened?”

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Lyle said, “I don’t know.”

Days later, I would learn from my mother that the broken plate and spilled food on the floor were evidence of an accident, the kind that happens all the time in restaurants; a waiter losing his grip on a loaded plate, and dropping it, in this case directly behind my Dad’s chair. The clatter on the tiled floor had startled him severely, and made him jump, and drawn attention to him, something my Dad had always hated.

We ate our meal, and tried to make smalltalk, but it dwindled quickly to a tense silence. When we finished, I took the check and with great care I passed the twenty to the lady at the register, received the change, and carefully folding it into a neat little bundle in my hand, followed Lyle and Stella outside.

I could see Dad in the car smoking a cigarette, as we walked up.

“Get in the car” , he said tersely. My jaw dropped, but I didn’t hesitate. I could tell he was upset. I went around the car, opened the passenger door and climbed in, instinctively reaching down to pull my seatbelt around my waist.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this, son” said my Dad’s voice, choking with emotion, and I looked up to see my Dad looking up at my brother as he stood by the car, “I don’t know why you’re oing this, but I want you to know, I love you.”

With that he started the car, and quickly but carefully backed the car out of the parking place, as I stared at him, and then through the windshield at my brother’s stunned face. Our eyes met, and I could see that he was desperately trying to decide if he should ask Dad to stop, and get me out of the car, but before he could come to a decision, Dad had pulled out and left him and Stella standing there, they’re mouths hanging open in shock.

That was the first time I’d ever heard Dad actually tell Lyle that he loved him.

Dad pulled the car back out on the highway, and headed back across the river to towards Tuscaloosa.

“Dad?” I said, “aren’t we going to Mississippi?”

“No!”, he choked, and I realized that he was trying very hard not to cry. “He’s not sick. It was all a trick to get us here.”

My gut went cold. Dad wasn’t making sense. What was he talking about?

“But…”

“Your granddaddy isn’t sick.” The certainty in his voice, the conviction, was more frightening than his behavior.

I sat silently, looking away from him, my mind racing, not quite panicking but scared and trying to figure out what to do. Maybe I should ask him to stop and let me out. Maybe I should ask him what he meant. I didn’t know what to do.

Dad drove back down McFarland, and spied the police car, now further down the street at a shopping center. He said nothing, but I could see him watching the policeman in his car, and then looking away when the policeman’s face turned our way.

We headed south and east. retracing our route back down US 82, through Centerville, and Bruce. As we ran down a long straight stretch south of Bruce, we were passed by a red Buick with a CB antenna.

“There, you see?”

I looked over at Dad, and saw that he was pointing ahead at the red car as it pulled away ahead of us. “What?” I said.

“You see him? He’s keeping tabs on us with his CB radio. Do you see it?”

“Yes” I said, in a small voice. I had seen the CB antenna. I had seen dozens of them. They were everywhere; it was the mid-seventies, and “Smokey and the Bandit” was the biggest hit in theaters, and C.W. McCall was telling the story of the “Rubber Duck” on every radio station. This was crazy.

Crazy.

The miles crawled by, every mile that I knew so well. Dad was doing the speed limit, or a little under, and if a car came up behind, he slowed down on the straightaways to let them pass. He now wrapped a silence about him, and I was relieved at first, but at each opportunity that came up for us to go in a direction away from home, I would ready myself to ask him to let me out, if he didn’t want to go home.

The miles crawled by, every mile that we had traced that morning. We were on interstate 85 now, passing the outskirts of Montgomery, and the exit to the dog track at Shorter, and the Tuskegee exit. As we passed into Lee County, and passed the last Auburn exit, I clenched my fist beside my right leg, where Dad wouldn’t see it, screwing myself up to ask him to let me out if I had to. I couldn’t let him take me somewhere. I wanted to go home. Mom would know what to do, if Dad would just go there.

We reached the 280 exit. I held my breath.

Dad eased the car off onto the ramp approach, and angled the car up the slope of the exit. I looked around as we came to the top of the overpass, at the gas stations, and the Denny’s, and the Holiday Inn there at the exit. Where was there a phone? Did I have a quarter? I felt my pocket; I had twenty-five cents, I thought, but I dared not take it out and check. Could I call collect on a payphone?

The car stopped at the top off the ramp. I stared down the road towards home, saying nothing, praying, hoping, wishing.

The car moved forward, turning right, into the roadway. It accelerated, heading towards Phenix City, and home, and Mom. I dared take a breath.

I watched for all the mileposts, and all the waymarks. We passed Bleaker’s Crossing, where the view to the east from the highway on the crown of the hill was always a green pleasure. I took no comfort from it today, though the sun was still shining in the clear sky as the sun declined in the west. We weren’t home yet.

We came down through Smith’s Station, and on down towards the county line. Next waypoint was the Summerville Road turnoff. Now we were in familiar territory. We passed the Summerville Road turn off, the one way up towards Smith Station.

I tensed again. If he went straight past the Stadium Drive turnoff, I’d know he wasn’t going home, and I would have to ask him to drop me off.

The car approached Stadium Drive. My right fist tightened beside my leg. I began counting; I don’t know why.

Dad pulled the car to a stop in the left turn lane. He pressed the pedal and we turned onto Stadium Drive, and went down the hil, passing the high school, and stopping at the light on Railroad Street.

Counting. Counting. Counting seconds. The light turned green.

We went up and over the railroad tracks, and drove up Stadium, past Carriage Hill and the nursing home. We rolled up to the stop sign on Summerville Road, and I was almost home. I could walk from here.

Dad turned right onto Summerville, and we came down past Municipal Stadium, and the Parkview Superette where I bought by Cokes after school, and past Summerville Baptist Church, where my best friend went to church, and past 34th Street, a street I’d ridden my bicycle on a thousand times. 33rd Street went past as we topped the hill and swept around the curve, and there was home.

Home.

Dad slowed the big Chevy and turned on the blinker. Would he come in, or just drop me off?

He turned the car into the driveway, and never had the crunch of gravel under the tires sounded so good. Mom stood at the glass storm door, and stepped out onto the front porch as we pulled into the turn out in front of her. Dad turned the key, and the engine died, and I already had my seatbelt off, and got out with barely controlled relief.

Dad got out, too, and went into the house, silent, after a few short words with Mom.

I came up the steps to the door, and Mom hugged me briefly, and said “Why don’t you go freshen up, and then go call Karen and tell her you’re home.” And then she stepped into the bedroom, and as I stepped into the hall bathroom and closed the door, I heard their voices: urgent, sibilant, subdued. I closed the door.

And I cried.

The Silly Season

In the last ten or twelve years, state legislatures and/or state party organizations across the country have been moving their presidential primaries and caucuses earlier and earlier on the election year calendar. Now we are fast approaching the new, spectacular Super Duper Tuesday at fairly breakneck speed, and seriously, what have we learned about our candidates so far?

Not bloody much. Oh, Mr. Obama scored some points with Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement, and of course there will be a strong Winfreyite move towards him, but I think that was going to happen anyway; Oprah’s demographics have been moving into a decidedly fixed sphere in recent years, pretty much solidly Democratic and, I think, increasingly more racially focused. She will not bring Obama votes he didn’t already have. While Oprah’s endorsement might take a few away from Hillary Clinton, the Woman Who Would Be President has her own strong base that won’t be moved much even by Oprah’s imprimatur.

Edwards? <yawn> He’s not even doing that well in South Carolina.

On the Republican side, the only thing unusual is Mike Huckabee’s improbable rise in Iowa. If one pauses for a moment, though, even that isn’t too surprising; he’s mild-mannered, seems a regular guy, and though his Baptist pastorship may make a few New Hampshiremen a little nervous, the Heartlanders eat him up like Sunday morning pancakes. And the only puzzlement is on the part of the New York media who never know what to make of non-Catholic Christianity, nor anyone west of the Hudson.

New Englanders in general, and New Hampshiremen (and women) have always been a little skeptical of religiosity. They’ve been in recovery from Puritanism since long before Hawthorne; and never forget why New Hampshiremen left Massachusetts Bay: to get away from the Puritans. Despite that, Romney and Giuliani are nervous enough to have launched attacks on Huckabee, which probably did him much more good than had they simply ignored him.

In the old days we’d have had more time to seine out the small fry and see someone (Bill Clinton for example) fall from Grace (or Gennifer) early, and perhaps recover. Meanwhile all the ups and downs would have revealed how the candidates would react under pressure.

You know, pressure? Like the pressure they’ll be under when the final winner gets to the White House?

We won’t really have that this year. The crucible will have just begun to boil when we get to Super-Stupor Tuesday, and while the race for the nomination may not be officially over, by most accounts the results of that day will have made the rest of the primaries just window dressing.

I feel cheated, from a spectator’s viewpoint. I mean, it’s like the baseball season beginning and ending in April.

So who will win this March…okay, February…Madness? I’m betting on Villanova. No wait! Sorry, I was confused there for a minute. Who will win the nominations? Okay, let’s see if the old Magic Eight-ball is working today…

I predict that the Democratic nominee will be…Hillary Clinton.

“Not Barak Obama?” you say; “You”re betting against The Good Witch of the North?” (By that you mean Oprah, I take it? Very pithy. Obviously you watched “Tin Man”.)

Yes, I’m betting against Oprah, because I don’t think America has come quite far enough to nominate a black man who is only second generation American (on his father’s side) to the highest office in the land. Sure, we once elected a Catholic second-gen, but he was a white guy. Hey, I’m all for electing a black man president, but most of us WASPs would rather see Morgan Freeman on Pennsylvania Avenue than a youngish inexperienced first-term black senator from Illinois. And there are African-Americans who don’t think Obama is “black enough”. (Considering he has more African blood in him than most present-day African-Americans is beside the point.) For that matter, I’d just as soon not rely on the Illinois Democratic Party to provide the nation with a candidate for president. I’m old enough to remember the elder Mayor Daly’s political machine, and the ‘68 Democratic Convention protests.

Hillary has more appeal to a broader spectrum of liberal, middle-of-the-road, and female Democrats. She also has history on her side: it was her team that won the last Democratic Presidency. She knows where the skeletons are buried.

Meanwhile, in G.O.P.-land, the race is actually a little more interesting. The Old Warhorse is there; John McCain just doesn’t seem to go away. Mitt Romney has suffered of late; whether or not his Mormonism is important, he is no JFK; he’s just too dull to be interesting. Face it, even in the Republican party it pays to be sexy, and Mitt just ain’t got that kind of appeal. Even Mike Huckabee can play bass in a rock band…even if it is Christian rock. Rudy Giuliani is still strong, has a lurid if inexplicable romantic history, but I think the nation is waking up to the fact that despite his rather impressive combativeness on and after 9/11, he’s still a man who just can’t be imagined outside of Manhattan. What does he know of farm subsidies, or the IRS, or the negotiation of water rights in the western states, or the management of the strategic oil reserve?

And what of the new face in the crowd, Mr. “How I lost a lot of weight giving up good Baptist fried chicken and apple pie every Sunday for rubber chicken on the political circuit” Huckabee. Hey, I take nothing away of his weight loss; trust me, that takes discipline…which I don’t have. Okay, as I said above, Huckabee is moving pretty well in the Heartland, and he has a warmth of personality, an optimism, and a kind of unflappable bonhomme that is appealing in all the middle-class demographics. But it’s yet to be seen whether he has the strength to get the nomination.

So who will be the Republican nominee? Magic Eight-ball isn’t very conclusive, but seems to be indicating… Rudy Giuliani, with Huckabee as a running mate.

My talents as a prophet are not particularly phenomenal, so it’s all pretty silly even to ponder, but, well, I’m basing my predictions on just as much evidence as will be available to most voters February 5th. So what the hey! Why not?

Oh, yeah, the VP running mate for Hillary? Joe Biden…or maybe Bill Richardson. Not alot of voting strength, but Biden is the smartest brain on the Demo side, and has the relationship with Congress that Hillary has managed not to establish in her terms in the Senate. Richardson has that important Hispanic vote behind him, experience with foreign relations, and is a much warmer personality. Okay, let’s say Richardson.

So there’s my predictions for the nominations. Now, who’s going to win the whole shebang?

It’s early yet, but in for a penny, in for a pound. At this point, I think it will be President Clinton. I think the electorate, unless it finds a Republican it likes pretty darn fast, is going to swing to the Democrats out of sheer boredom. It’s not like we even acknowledge there’s a war on. We’re still more concerned about whether Bradgelina is going to adopt another Sudanese baby, or whether Roger Clemens really did use steroids, or whether we’ll ever find a Wii for the kids at Best Buy before Christmas.

There is one good thing about the turn of the new year. At the end of it, we’ll have a new person in the Oval Office. Whether or not there will really be any new policies coming out of the Oval Office is anybody’s guess. The realities of the Middle East, and our presence there, as well as our continued need for the oil reserves of the Persian Gulf, have gained a certain historical momentum and even a Democratic administration must face the fact that getting out of there too precipitately will be just as damaging to the security of our country as rushing into it has been.

So the Silly Season begins, and the silliness, even if it’s going to come to a head sooner than ever, on February 5th, will probably not give us a clear new course and a clear majority in our country to push any major changes. But, as a Republican businessman once said on a MARTA train the day after Bill Clinton was re-elected in ‘96, “We’re Americans. We can handle this.” And you know, major changes are vastly overrated.

Bowling Balls and Beer, Carols and Corporate Parties

I spent the afternoon bowling with my coworkers at our department Christmas party. I found out two things: I am lousy at corporate parties, and I am so out of shape I can’t bowl without hurting myself. Also, I am very competitive, and a lousy loser, but I knew that already.

After the first game of “Wacky Bowl”…don’t ask…and watching my compatriots having a huge laugh and lot’s of fun, I began to wonder what the heck is wrong with me. I mean, I had a nice time, but I can never just let loose with people who will be reviewing my work performance, or deciding whether my job will still exist when the company next considers downsizing.

Am I paranoid, or what?

There is another issue: the corporate culture includes a alcohol, which kind of leaves me out. Oh, I have no objection to a drink, but as a diabetic, and as someone who dare not get to feeling “handsome and bulletproof”, as my elder brother describes it, with people who might…see above. Anyway, I can’t drink alcohol without trying to count carbs and test my blood sugar, and the fact is that I never, ever liked the feeling of being out of control. Thanks to insulin shock, I know a little too well what it’s like to wake up not quite sure where you are, or what just happened, or what you might have done. No one this afternoon was that far gone, but, well, I’ve never been able to just drink a beer and not be careful…or not since the grafted pancreas went south. So even the relaxing effects of alcohol are denied me.

Plus, of course, I’ve never really had a good head for it.

Maybe I’ll take up bowling. It’s not a bad sport, and if I get some shoes that actually fit…and stretch a lot before I start, perhaps I can be ready the next time we do the corporate bowling-thing.

Or I could just continue to sit around and become just like my very dead father.

Hmm. Tough choice.

Not.

Full circle.

In the early fall of 1994, I was in bad shape. I’d been on peritoneal dialysis for about a year, and while I was coping with it alright, it had been a hard year. In September, I received a blow that I hadn’t expected; my cat Angel, who had been with me for eleven years, had been diagnosed with cancer, and while we had tried to keep her comfortable and keep her appetite up with cortisone injections, I had come home to find her having a hard time just breathing. I took her to the vet, and after consultation, I had to make that tough decision. I had wanted to be with her as she left life, but the vet had not allowed me to; “It’s too hard”, she said, though whether she meant for her or for me, I don’t really know. I did stay in the waiting area until the vet came out to tell me Angel was gone, and I went to my car and cried like a little boy.I said I wouldn’t have another cat, that with my being on PD and on the transplant waiting list, I just couldn’t deal with it. But best laid plans….

In mid-November, my wife got a call from her cousin. It seemed that she had found a kitten underneath the hood of her truck… after she had arrived at WalMart. My wife asked me if I wanted the kitten. I said no, “but if you want to get one, okay, so long as you realize that it would be your cat.” I placed a few qualifications on the situation: only if it’s female, we don’t need a male cat spraying everything before we get him neutered, etc.

Big talk.

Joy went to get the kitten from her cousin’s. She took the kitten by the vet, and called me after the visit.

“It’s a boy”, she said, rather tentatively. “Do you want me to take him back?”

“Well, no”, I answered, “bring him on. He’s your cat, though, remember.”

A few minutes later Joy arrived at our apartment. I went to the door to open it for her, because I knew she’d be trying to handle the kitten, and…well, I went to the door. She walked in with this little ball of pale marmalade fur, and as I looked down into her cupped palms, two bright gold-green eyes looked back up at me.

I was lost. And so Charlemagne came into my life.

I spent a lot of time at home in those days; I was on disability, and could only work a little bit, a “working test” they called it. Anyway, Charlemagne and I spent a lot of time together. Before I knew it, we were bonded more closely than I had ever known with a cat, even Angel. Charlemagne became my best friend, curling up in my lap, sitting with me as I watched TV or read a book. He was always with me…save for the times he was rending Joy’s ankles, but that’s another story.

So we watched him grow. As the new year turned, he was still a small fellow, but he was beginning to pick up weight. And then, on February 19, 1995, we got the call from Emory, and with a last cuddle with the kitty, I was off to my surgery.

I had a long stay in the hospital. During my stay, my father-in-law brought me a color copy of a photo of Charlemagne. It cheered me through my weeks in the hospital. And when I came home (the second time; I had to go back for a rejection episode), Charlemagne was there waiting for me. He cuddled up next to me on the couch and we continued right where we left off.

That was thirteen years ago. Charlemagne is the family elder statesman now, our Wholly Roaming Empurroar, as we dubbed him early in his career. (Yeah, I know, too cute. Sue me.) We have four other cats (Demelza, Stascha, Pippin (boy’s name, girl cat; again, sue me), and Flicker. And this year our dog Chloe joined us. But Charlemagne is still my cat…or perhaps more correctly, I am his human.

A couple of years ago Charlemagne was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. We’ve had him on medication ever since. Last week, however, we got some bad news; Charlemagne, who came into my life as my kidneys had failed, and, I sometimes like to think, brought me the good fortune of my transplant when he arrived in Joy’s cupped hands, now may be suffering from chronic kidney disease.

He is thirteen; we were almost expecting some development like this, since he had been sick with the thyroid problem for several years. But this…this was hard to take, especially from my perspective. The vet has upped his meds, doubling the thyroid medication dose, and we are working on getting him some better food, in hopes that a better diet might help him. It is all strangely familiar: low protein, low phosphorus, high potassium. Of course, I’m jumping the gun a bit, but…well, the symptoms as described on the UGA Vet School site are pretty convincing: vomiting, heavy tartar build-up on his teeth, frequent urination and thirst, lack of energy; all of which seem to be troubling him.

We’ll do what we can. He is my child. I know he’s got fur and a tail, but he’s my baby boy, my good luck charm, my friend. He’s Charlemagne.

Point, click, bang.

The obscenity has occurred again. A disaffected teenager with an automatic weapon opens fire on an anonymous crowd of people, kills a double handful, and then blows himself away. All because his girlfriend broke up with him. At least he saved the state the expense of a trial and execution.

Would citizens with guns have prevented today’s tragedy?

Panicky citizens don’t shoot straight. Most people who buy handguns have had little or no training in how to shoot them. Of course, they don’t need much to be lethal. Guns are too easy to use. Point, click, bang, and eight people go down. Point, click, bang, and the bad man, and maybe ten innocent bystanders, go down. Even trained policemen have trouble hitting anything when lead is flying at them. I have serious doubts about the marksmanship of frightened amateurs.

The gun is the most democratic of weapons. It is no coincidence that the overthrow of the ancient kingdoms in favor of more (or, in some cases, less) representative governments came about soon after the invention of relatively cheap, good quality gunpowder weapons. Such was the power of the gun: after centuries in which only wealthy and powerful noblemen had the time to train in the art of killing, the gun allowed peasants of modest means, and modest strength and stature, with but a few weeks training, to kill those well-muscled noblemen very, very dead. The gun was and is, to say the least, a great equalizer.

With guns, especially automatic guns, people can die in tens and twenties, or hundreds, even thousands. Any teen-aged malcontent with pimples and a Glock can make the news by killing a crowd of innocents. People can die by accident, with the merest flick of a finger, just because they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because someone was just a little distracted, or a little too focused. Lead a quail just a little too long, point, click, bang: and your friend has a face full of twelve-gauge birdshot. Lose track of your gun and your children, and point, click, bang; you’re child isn’t playing cops and robbers anymore. Play around with that “unloaded” gun, and point, click, bang; you’re laughing friend’s an organ donor.

So, do we cry out for gun control and ban guns from everyone?

The United States Constitution, in words tempered by our natal Revolution and hallowed by millions of NRA pamphlets, is pretty clear:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Both sides of the gun-control debate seem to suffer from a form of selective illiteracy. The NRA seems to never read the initial clause of the amendment. The gun-controllers can’t seem to remember there is a Second Amendment at all. Those of us who are literate and capable of reading the entire text of the amendment may understandably be as worried about the quality of reading education in our primary schools as we are about who can buy a gun and what kind of gun they can buy.

But what constitutes a well-ordered militia? The National Guard? The Army Reserve? Whatever it is, what we saw today in Omaha, and earlier this year in Salt Lake City and Blacksburg, do not constitute anything like a well-ordered militia. There must be a compromise, no matter the mercenary fears of the gun manufacturers who fund the NRAs lobbying efforts, no matter the foaming-at-the-mouth shrieks of the Left that would have citizens armed with nothing more than coffee and a danish. There has got to be something better, better than a defenseless community, better than bodies lying dead in a shopping mall.

Here’s a couple of suggestions:

Every state in the union requires new teenaged drivers to take a test before they can have a driver’s license. Most require at least some period of time with a learner’s permit before getting behind the wheel of a fifteen-hundred pound automobile. They do this for a machine that is designed to carry people from place to place, and is only occasionally and accidentally used to kill people. Why don’t we require a training period, a certification of some kind, for firearms, which are machines designed specifically to kill?

Or, if we’re not going to require training, what about a test? Why not a simple test so that someone can prove they have a basic understanding of gun safety before they’re given the ability to kill other human beings with the mere flick of a finger?

No, we don’t license other weapons; we don’t require training in knife safety before we can buy one. But trust me, if it were so easy to kill someone with a knife, then the French Revolution would have happened in 1345, not 1789.

I am not going to say that training course or test would have stopped today’s killing. Angst and automatic weapons are never a healthy mix, and a test wouldn’t have kept the Omaha gunman from killing eight people before taking himself to his own special place in Hell. But maybe, just maybe some of those accidental deaths, those stupid, senseless household tragedies might be curtailed. Because it’s an awful way to die, and an awful way to lose a child.

I say this, even though the kidney and the pancreas I received once belonged to a young man, a teenager, killed in one of those accidents: a friend with a gun who thought it wasn’t loaded. I received my new chance at life from the donor’s family who chose to turn their tragedy into a gift to help people they did not know. I will always thank them for that gift.

I will never thank the gun that killed my donor.

Point, click…

Bang.