Picture This

    My grandparents went on a short vacation to Buffalo, NY in about 1920.  Though they had been married 3 or so years earlier, I'm sure they went the few miles to Niagra Falls while they were there. While in Buffalo they found a Kodak 3A bellows camera that had been forgotten on a park bench. It was quite the find.  In those days that camera cost $20.  A week's salary.  It became the family camera. It took marvelous pictures. It had infinite focus.  I guess a kind of primitive, reflex lens.  Every find implies a loss. Lately, I've thought about that.
    There were hundreds of photos, each with a sweet story.  My parents had a Brownie Hawkeye and I had both an Instamatic and a Polaroid.  None as good as that old Kodak and none of them as good as the camera on my cell phone or yours.  The stories are every bit as sweet.  The message ignores the medium.
    A century of holidays, vacations, graduations, reunions, departures, arrivals, sunny days and winter storms. Decade after decade of family lore and old friends, all in albums and shoeboxes. They would be brought out every year or so and pondered again and the oral history would be repeated and to some degree re-lived.  Children's questions answered and the answers propelled into the future.
    Well, I put a stop to that shit. I lost all those pictures. They only exist in my aging memory which most certainly could be absent-mindedly left on a park bench.
    When video cameras were first available I refused to buy one. Looking at smiling wives throwing bouquets and baby's first steps, old Christmas trees just made me think, 'How depressing would that be if something went wrong?'
    The static quality of a moment frozen in time is much better to me than a living and breathing video.  I think it's better my memories are only captured just so much and imperfectly. I could not bear the smiles or frowns or tears of a departed loved one. My imperfect memories are just perfect enough.  To me.
    Still, I return to the regret of the loss of those old photos a couple times a week. For example, I'm writing about it now.  I berate myself for carelessness.  Pfft, yeah, who doesn't?

Stay Warm Old Man

    I rarely mention my faith because my faith tells me that's inappropriate. This time of year does kinda call for comments of affirmation.  So let me show you how I think it's supposed to work.
    Oddly enough, I was in jail. It was not quite yet Christmas and it was years ago. I wasn't particularly upset by the mere circumstance.  You adapt. This too shall pass.  I was awfully upset and resentful of how I had gotten there. LOL. I was wroth.
    These boys didn't like me much and dug up some crap from nearly a decade before which had been resolved, I thought.  As it turned out I was right about that but that didn't slow these boys down much. As a matter of fact, they actually tried to beat my ass. Had I not worked hard for forty some years they might have succeeded. I didn't resist. It was like some biting flies but they did throw my old ass in jail and it took about a month to sort itself out. It took me a bit to sort it out as well.  Did I mention I was wroth?
    I'm trying to think of all the ways I was upset. I felt violated. My sense of fair play had been just, trashed.  I'd been physically assaulted in my own home for no reason other than, they could.  I'd had to allow myself to be helpless in the face of outrage and lesser, seemingly evil men.
    Seemingly, evil men.  It finally occurred to me these men were no more than self-righteous. We do sorta pay cops to be self-righteous. They had merely been angered because I dismissed their righteousness. That had caused them to do demonstrable evil.  It was then I realized their souls had been stained, not mine and should, rightfully receive not my contempt but my prayer.  So, I certainly felt better and said my little prayer for these little men. They certainly have never gone up in my estimation but they were sincerely forgiven and I did and do have a concern for their souls.  Sorry, that's the best  I can do. Probably, being such a condescending bastard was part of the trouble.
    I'm trying to imagine how to relate this next part without being a total asshole. It's just what I have observed.  It doesn't have anything to do with my outlook, at least I hope not. There seem to be three types of black guys in a county lock-up.  One group are just folks who don't think much about race and freely associate with anyone.  The second and I would say, the largest group, are quiet, self- assured and contained. They'll associate with you but don't trust white folks in general and won't initiate contact.  It seems like a reasonable response to overall circumstances to me.  The third group is guys that will not acknowledge even the existence of white folks. They look thru you and merely walk around you like so much furniture.  I can't imagine a reason to disagree with that approach either. There is certainly a deeper dynamic to that whole thing too but not the point today. This is Faith, not sociology.
    So, I am in jail.  I know there's no reason for it.  I'm dealing with this inner rage, mainly because, on some level, I know the rage is wrong and I know I'm missing why it's wrong. It's not until I realize that I haven't been hurt, need no existential pity or justification and that my, would be, tormenters have seriously injured themselves that I find inner peace in the embrace of forgiveness.  It was a literal epiphany.
    County jails are cold. Ya got your skivvies, your socks and some ill-fitting PJs.  One thing you can buy from the canteen is a thermal undershirt but it's very expensive. At least twice what you would pay at Sears.  It's a prized possession and a foregoable luxury.  Hmm, simple comfort as a luxury.
    A few minutes after my epiphany and my brief but sincere prayer I was finally at peace, sitting in the common room watching television.  This guy walked over to me. I'd never spoken to him or he to me.  He was part of that second group I mentioned.  "Here ya go." Out of the fifty or so guys there and out of the blue he handed me a thermal shirt and walked away.
    A simple, unbidden act of kindness.
    That completed my epiphany and that epiphany remains a solid pillar of my personal faith.
    Here endeth today's lesson.