The ten year old neighborhood kids played a game called “Seven Steps Around the House,” a silly but serious game of finding a hidden friend. We loved playing it as much as we think we continue to play the same game our entire lives.
The second game was, “I Draw A Frying Pan” where a friend faces a telephone pole across the street from our home. Someone would draw a frying pan on his/her back complete with eggs and bacon, then touch the pan’s imaginary middle and say, “You’re it!” (Again, a serious childhood game but kinda weird to type about it.) We would all then run and hide somewhere around our house. That “panned person” needed to find one of us and both run to touch the telephone pole first. The pole was “glue.” Both games had the same rules and results but the neighborhood kids got to choose the game. (I should have sold life insurance at that age.)
Who created this game and why it contained such careful details would stump sociologists. It was simply “hide and seek,” played by kids before night fall. As adults we play the same childhood games only this time each of us becomes the “glue,” instead of that neutral telephone pole.
Introduced to someone for the first time and within 1.5 seconds we have clothing, hair, age, posture, shoes and wristwatch measured, weighed and evaluated. As oldsters we skip the “hiding” part and cut right to the “seek.” Whether we’re a world traveler or travel within 25 miles of our home, we’ve caught that person. Who’s the one hiding now? Perception reigns true because it is ours. Thomas Jefferson must have missed including absolute “perceptions” in his writings.
A friend tells me that Hillary is “evil” and I mention the comedy team of Cheny/Rumsfeld or Robert McNamara or my sister’s favorite evil person “Kissinger” and we have a clash of absolute perceptions. And that’s only in politics.
Years ago perception was based on history – actually witnessed history. Today perception is that 1.5 and the rest is history unfolding itself and either affirming or erasing our 1.5 conclusions. We’ve bypassed the hiding (or hidden/full story) and cling to the seek or should I say sought. We’ve lost the ability or attempt to find out, uncover, discover or even provide a moment of doubt.
I read that attention spans these days dropped from 12 seconds to 8. I guess we’ll have someone “pegged” in 1 second in the our certitude. How sad for us who didn’t even go through the necessary and human process of “drawing a fry pan” on their back first.
Welcome to another Lent, the season that’s all about weighing the lives we lead. During our evaluation of weighing ourselves, please remember that Lent is totally about transformation.
The Roman villain in salvation’s history asks the Savior, “What is truth?” And even the Savior evades Pilate’s question. That elusive yet always top of our list word is that somewhere, somehow “truth” resides and we just need to unravel, unpack or “un”do something to reveal it. Yet, is “truth” absolute, subjective or situational? And if discovered, can it ever be institutionalized?
Mention February 14 and instantly think of “heart.” The saint’s day points to the organ that propels all of our blood back and forth. Interesting. Why is not our feet honored this loving day because it was the feet that swallowed our anxieties to approach our spouse of fifty-sum years? I think our arms would look good on a Hallmark card; arms that held an infant and then listened to the now-adult tell you that his four-year marriage is over. I think the eyes have it for it is the eyes that first attracts us to that person across the room – that friend of a friend, that neighbor two houses down, that bosses’ son. Yes, the eyes catch. If I had my say I’d hold out for the eyes as the bodily emblem for this yearly day. The rest of the body may play a part but, well, the eyes have it.
As youngsters we talk to animals, whether stuffed or real. We sleep with them and feel an unbreakable bond. Perhaps this union helps us move into the real world. I shouldn’t say “talk” because words are only between you and your “pet.” Not taught to us by parents or teachers – it’s automatic. (What else could happen with emerging brains?)
Just like St. Luke, I say unto you that, “I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence just for you,” most excellent and faithful St. Sebastian parishioners.
Returning from a relaxing vacation, I stand watching everyone’s baggage revolve around me waiting for mine to appear. No one talks to each other lest human interaction occur even though we’ve just shared a two-hour flight. I can tell from the bags who’s been on vacation, business, wedding or funeral. Two hundred of them and as many stories to match.
Rev. Joe Jagodensky, SDS.
Soulful Muse 