A little note on compassion and the children who aren’t learning about it
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Not so very long ago, one of my nephews—none are older than seven, yet—asked me a plain and loaded question. We were eating Sunday dinner at Nana’s and he looked up at me and simply said, “Why do I have to be nice to people?” He wasn’t baiting me; he was honestly asking. Granted, the context had been a Valentine’s Day activity of the sort that seems so obligatory in elementary school where everyone gets a card, even the mean kids, but humiliation is reserved for those who are a little too self-aware. That, sadly, is a family trait we unwillingly share. I countered by...
The table of Christian Things.
Filed under: Deep South, education, Everyday, faith, humor, life, theatre
On some mornings, as I’m entering the Town That Was, aka Scooba, I have a small (though at one time it was) visual delight, usually, to my right, just as I bump over the railroad tracks, situated all alone in front of what may very well be a defunct fire station. And this is what my small (though at one time it was) visual delight consists of: a faded tent, no doubt purchased “as is,” from some desperate funeral home, I imagine. Beneath the tattered green fabric sits a cheap a la Fred’s-Giving-Away-the-Store-again! plastic table precariously atop four brittle fold-out legs. Adorning this table is a...
The end of the world is not an excuse to be tacky.
Filed under: End of the World, Everyday, faith, family, food
Gosh. All this talk about 2012, and the end of the world, has made me both hungry and excited. That's a dangerous combination, coupled with the fact that Lil' Wayne, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Janeane Garofalo are listed on various 2012 websites as celebrity believers in this Doomsday Prophecy. I mean, please... That's enough right there to make me gorge myself to near death on a jar of warm mayonnaise. To be honest, I'm not sure where my depth of awe in the Apocalypse even comes from. I don't know why it intrigues me so much. I'm sure, like most everything else...
The Art of the Dirty Word.
There are a few things in this world that I would wish on everyone: among those are good friends, Chinese take-out, and a Nana. Everyone should have a Nana. I'll just get that out, right upfront. And everyone should go with their Nana to the doctor and spend the whole day eating ice cream sundaes, getting lost on the way to the doctor's office, and making a sidebar trip to an outlet store for a new pair of Sunday shoes. This is but one important thing that makes a Nana so wonderful. To name another would seem like bragging. And that's just not...
Rasputin and the Fateful Finger Day
I: Confession I don't have many great qualities, I'd imagine (for instance, I find it increasingly difficult to even get a date, so I'm tempted to say that I must be lacking some crucial quality - unfortunately, it's a temptation I never give into. I know better). What I do have, and consider a good thing to have, is a large, uncontrollably malleable heart. Even if it's quite a fault of mine to have it, a liability. It's still not the worst thing to have. Then, again, I'm also ignorant about a great many things, and most often, after the initial shock of owning so much pathos, I tend to...
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