WHERE THE CHURCH GETS IT TERRIBLY WRONG

In spite of dramatic shifts in cultural patterns, the church goes on pretending that the wedding ceremony, which it calls a sacred rite, a sacrament, is a signal to the couple being married that they can now sleep together, they can “do it.” In the not-too-distant past, whether or not a couple waited until after the wedding ceremony to consummate their marriage was beside the point. The church “blessed” the marriage whether or not they had already consummated their union. Nobody asked. Nobody told. The bride and groom, the minister, and the attending guests all pretended that the white gown ensured that the bride was “pure,” and even if the groom, as men will do, had slept around, at least she had not yet had sexual experience. So churches and congregations developed a firmly fixed attitude about marriage, that it was primarily about sex. If you are married, you can “do it.” If you are not married, it’s a sin.

The policy of the United Methodist church regarding same-gender marriage is a good example of confusion about weddings and what they mean. Many people who have long ago given up participation in “church” in any regular, meaningful way still want to have their weddings in church; and it’s as easy to arrange as buying bread if the couple asking for the church’s participation and blessing are a man and a woman.

After the California Supreme Court ruled recently that marriage is a civil right in the State of California whatever the gender of Party A and Party B, a couple of people who have been a family for at least twenty years of domestic partnership, decided to get married. Besides being long-time domestic partners, they have been long-time members of First United Methodist Church in San Diego. FUMCSD is the one perched like a cathedral above Interstate 8 in Mission Valley. The couple, Party A and Party B, have long been considered “family” by clergy and lay members. In a colorful, dignified Church Directory their photograph appears in the “Family” division of the book. For years they have given freely of their time and their money to the church. They have never been known to cause trouble in the community or in the church. They are an ideal couple. As far as I know, there has never been any wonderment or any talk about how, when, and under what circumstances they “do it.” It hasn’t been an issue.

Now that they want to be married it is an issue. Party A telephoned the senior pastor to tell him the good news. He and Party B were getting married... and guess what? “We’d like to have our wedding in the church we love, and we’d like you to perform the ceremony.” Silence. Then the bad news came like a rock thrown onto tender tissue. “I’m sorry,” the Pastor said, “You can’t be married in the church, and none of the clergy will be allowed to participate no matter where the wedding takes place.”

Reeling from that bit of bad news, Party A asked for the next best thing. The church has a great social hall. He asked, “May we have our reception in Linder Hall?”

The pastor said that he was sorry, but that they wouldn't be allowed to use any part of the church campus. "It’s not my decision. The Book of Discipline forbids it," he said. Why? Because somebody a long time ago misunderstood. A whole bunch of somebodys misunderstood. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, they thought being married was about sex, which would make being family about sex. Wrong.

A favorite response of fundamentalist Christians, the church people who insist that the Bible is the absolute, word-for-word, out of the mouth of the Head Person of the Trinity Himself truth about everything, is that “marriage is for a man and a woman.” Another version, “marriage is between a man and a woman,” is probably closer to actual fact if “between” is the significant word. Presently, 57 percent of marriages in America end in divorce. In the Bible the brief mention of sex between persons of the same gender, “a man may not sleep with a man as with a woman,” is found in what is called “The Levitical Code.” It is sometimes called “The Holiness Code.” The code developed as a way of ensuring the long-term survival and welfare of a small group of nomadic desert people.

Almost everything in tribal codes and rules was about property or about the propagation, health, and safety of the tribe. Then as now, relationships between persons were complicated, and it was necessary to anticipate all the kinds of interpersonal relations that could be harmful to the group. Tribal people had no permanent land, so it was necessary for them to include in their codes the definition of property and its distribution in the tribe, everything from tents to camels to cooking pots to women. Because practically everything was about property, marriage was a matter of property. Looking back thousands of years before the time of Abraham and Moses, we can guess that their ancestors probably existed together without having a formal marriage arrangement. When the earliest people mentioned in the Bible began to make codes, the codes addressed basic issues. It was important to know specifically which of possibly many sons was to inherit the tents, and sheep and camels. It became necessary to have some kind of business arrangement, which marriage most surely was in earliest times, to make clear which of the several, perhaps many, women with whom a man might have intercourse was to be the one to bear the son who would inherit property and responsibility. The contract of marriage, the wedding enacted as a public ceremony, was a transfer of property. The ownership of the woman was the issue. She had belonged to her father, and from the time of the ceremony she was henceforth the property of her husband. In some of the stories and myths from the period there are indications that sometimes the wife didn’t leave her father’s group; the husband came to her there, often or not often, for sexual intercourse with the hope of producing a son who would inherit his property. Sometimes the wife joined his little wandering group which included lesser wives and concubines and slaves; sometimes she did not. Legally under the code, he might have sexual intercourse with any number of women. The point is this: Marriage was not primarily about sex; it was about property. The stories of Jacob and Essau, recently included in the Lectionary, were powerful reminders of the great importance of family relationships and property.

Sexual intercourse! What did all those rules dealing with that activity have to do with the welfare of the tribe. That’s simple enough. Because a man, the husband, might wander in and out of his father-in-law’s group to be with his wife, it was apparently necessary to remind him that he could not have sexual relations with his wife’s sisters, with her mother, nor with any of her daughters, which, of course, were presumed to be his daughters. They were all women. They were property. But decisions had to be made about sexual relations with them. In the first place, the sisters and mother of his wife belonged to another man, his father-in-law, or in the case of his wife’s married sisters to his brothers-in-law. It would have been a grave offense to have used them sexually. The offense and the penalty had to be made clear in the Code.

There was another purpose for sexual intercourse that had to be considered in the Code. Obviously the sex drive in humans, as it is in other animals, is powerful. Because it was presumed that sexual encounters could be initiated only by the man, the Code addressed the matter of whom a man might consider “lawful” sexual partners. The Code’s property laws were specific and clear about the matter of sexual relations with women who were in-laws and women who belonged to other men. The Code allowed, even encouraged, the man to have sex with females who were his own property (concubines and slaves) because children from those encounters gave him more property and ensured the stability of the population of the tribe. Diseases were wicked and could wipe many people out quickly. The more children, the more people, the better.

It made sense to include specific rules in the code regarding sexual relations between men. It’s not surprising that the Code forbade the practice of men being with men to relieve their sexual tensions, obviously a common practice or it wouldn’t have been mentioned. The powerful sex drive had to be directed toward reproduction, producing more people in a scarcely populated world. Man to man sex or masturbation, “spilling the seed upon the ground,” didn’t meet that criterion, so both practices were banned. There is nothing in historical records or in literature to indicate that homosexuality is a modern phenomenon. We may excuse those early leaders of a primitive tribe in their critically under-populated world for including in their code a prohibition against men sleeping with men instead of with women. Sex with a man wasn’t going to help with the population problem. The world no longer has that particular worry. With a rapidly growing population that is now over six billion people, the world today has exactly the opposite problem. The church in the twenty-first century knows better; so it cannot be excused for doggedly holding onto a four-thousand-year-old prohibition that no longer makes sense.

The Code also addressed sexual relations between people of different tribes. The Leviticus Code, as does the Code of Hammurabi, emphasizes the importance of keeping the tribe distinct from other tribal groups. Until relatively recently, civil laws forbidding sexual relations, hence marriage, between people of different races were common in many countries of the world, including the United States. Those civil laws, made with a polite nod to the church, were based on the Leviticus Code. We are now officially enlightened. We no longer have provisions in the law that make it illegal for Party A and Party B in a marriage to be of different races or ethnic groups. Civil law has finally been adjusted to allow people from different races who love each other to marry.

In the matter of “allowing” same gender marriage, people are more reluctant and slower; but we’re getting there. Civil governments are finally, slowly catching up. The United Methodist church and other fundamentalist (our church leaders have chosen to be in that larger Christian tribe) groups aren’t willing to affirm the love relationships between two people of the same gender. The church allows them to be listed among the families in the directory, and the church allows them to contribute time and money; but marriage is obviously going too far. Pity.

It’s a paradox. Church leaders are charged with the responsibility of setting the standard and the example of what is right and just behavior; yet they are being directed to take a stand behind a policy which most of them know is flawed, perhaps even evil because it does harm. That stand ultimately weakens the church rather than strengthens it. One of California’s Bishops has reminded clergy that there are “consequences” for disobeying denominational policy. It isn’t clear if a “consequence” would be loss of a specific job or perhaps revocation of credentials; or maybe the consequence the Bishop has in mind is that powerful, influential church members might stop contributing their money and their time.

What’s a minister to do? Preach and teach. A good start would be to remind people that marriage is much less about sex than it is about family. When two people marry they form a family. The officiant at a same-gender marriage is surely not thinking he is giving the couple permission to engage in sexual activity. That is also not what traditional, opposite gender marriage does. If the wedding takes place in a church, privileged guests participate in the legal formation of a family which has the blessing of the state as well as of the church. Already First United Methodist Church has affirmed the family status of Party A and Party B by including them in the Family section of the church directory. The church has welcomed their participation by accepting their gifts of time and of money. It is unbearably cruel for the church, in spite of all its language of acceptance, to deny same gender couples the right to participate in the important sacrament of marriage. In the case of my friend, Party A, and his partner, Party B, they have chosen to respond to that cruelty by abandoning the church altogether.

The next larger Church General Conference (perhaps not the exact title) will take place in 2012. While leaders continue to insist that the church is “inclusive,” they will have four more years in which they inflict humiliation and pain on some of the very people they say they include in church fellowship. For enlightened people who stay with the church, it will be four more years of embarrassment that their church continues to be wrong in this important matter. The church's motto, "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors," will continue to be a hollow promise.

________________________
I have asked my good friend Taylor Hill, a retired Presbyterian preacher, if I may use something he wrote to me recently. The subject of our e-mail conversation was “preaching.”

“It is amazing how irrelevant preachers can be.  I am listening again to my favorite mentor of preaching, Fred Craddock, who quotes Dr. Don Browning, Professor Emeritus of Chicago Divinity School.  Browning’s definition of a sermon, or preaching, is engaging the congregation in a conversation with the text.  He sees preaching as a three way conversation:  that between the preacher and the congregation (getting to know them, weddings, baptisms, funerals, and just listening), a conversation between the preacher and the text, which takes many hours of study, and finally, during the sermon itself, enabling the congregation to have a conversation with the text.  It is a lot of hard work but it keeps us honest and I believe that is what we are called to do as preachers.”
________________________

Kaunos Second Century Church in Turkey
ABOUT RELIGION AND THE CHURCH
A CONVERSATION WITH MYSELF

--from the Union Tribune Special Report, July 13, 2008

“If you think paying $4.50 a gqllon for gasoline is too much, think again. A growing chorus of economists and market analysts warns that prices could hit $7 a gallon by 2010. Some say prices could shoot to $12 to $15 a gallon by 2013.”
--Dean Calbreath, Staff Writer

“Some people are already going into debt month by month, and now if their expenses were to increase substantially and they’re paying twice as much for their gas, something will have to give.”
--Dean Baker, Economist
Center for Economic Policy and Research

“This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.”

--T.S. Eliot
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I thought we were going to talk about religion... and the church. What does the price of gasoline have to do with the church?

MORE THAN MOST PEOPLE WHO WARM THE PEWS ARE AWARE, AND DEFINITELY MORE THAN ANYBODY HAS SAID IN ANY OF THE SERMONS I’VE HEARD LATELY. A RECENT SUNDAY MORNING SERMON WAS A CONGLOMERATION OF TEXTS, IMAGES, AND IDEAS. LISTENERS WERE ASKED TO PICTURE JACOB BEING BORN HOLDING ONTO THE HEAL OF HIS TWIN ESAU. THE CONGREGATION WAS REMINDED THAT JACOB TRADED A BOWL OF SOUP FOR HIS BROTHER’S BIRTHRIGHT. ESAU WAS THE FIRST BORN BY ONLY A FEW SECONDS. TRADITION DICTATED THAT THE BIRTHRIGHT WAS HIS EVEN IF HE WAS BORN ONLY MINUTES BEFORE HIS BROTHER. BOTH OF THESE STORIES COULD BE THE BASIS FOR MEANINGFUL SERMONS.

I still don’t see what any of that has to do with the price of gasoline.

WHAT I’M TRYING TO GET AT IS THAT THE TWO STORIES PRESENTED POWERFUL IMAGES, BUT IN THE SERMON THEY DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF ANYTHING; THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STORIES WASN’T CLEAR. FAILING TO MAKE CLEAR THE IMPLICATIONS OF THESE OLD TESTAMENT STORIES, THE PREACHER MOVED ON TO ANOTHER STRIKING IMAGE, THIS TIME THE STORY FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. A FARMER IS PLANTING HIS SEEDS IN SPRINGTIME. HE WALKS AROUND SCATTERING SEEDS FIRST ON A WORN PATH TOO HARD FOR THEM TO TAKE ROOT AND THEN HE FLINGS THE SEEDS AMONG ROCKS AND THORNS. FINALLY THE SOWER SCATTERS THE REMAINING SEEDS ONTO GOOD SOIL WHERE THEY CAN TAKE ROOT AND GROW INTO A CROP THAT CAN BE HARVESTED.

You obviously didn’t get the preacher’s point... What’s yours?

MAYBE THE PREACHER’S INTENTION WAS TO LET EACH CONGREGANT PICK ONE OF THE THREE STORIES AND BUILD HIS OWN SERMON. INSTANT SERMON: JUST ADD WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BELIEVE AND MIX WITH YOUR OLD IDEAS AND PREJUDICES. ACTUALLY HE DID MENTION SCARCITY SOMEWHERE IN THERE, AND FOR A MINUTE I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BECOME A SIGNIFICANT IDEA... I THINK IT WAS IN RELATION TO THE STORY OF ESAU SELLING HIS BIRTHRIGHT. I ADMIT THAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A STRETCH FOR HIM TO HAVE MENTIONED THE RISING COST OF GASOLINE.

Will you get to the point!

WHAT’S MY POINT? IT’S THIS: THE PEOPLE WHO COME TO CHURCH IN 2008 NEED MORE THAN FAMILIAR DISCONNECTED STORIES AND IMAGES. OF COURSE, THE STORIES HAVE BEEN IMPORTANT IN THE PAST; THEY ARE IMPORTANT NOW AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE IMPORTANT. THEY CAN BE USEFUL IN CONSTRUCTING A VISION STATEMENT FOR THE CHURCH IN THIS TIME OF CHANGE. THE NEXT FIVE YEARS ARE CERTAIN TO BE A DEFINING TIME FOR THE CHURCH. AMERICAN CULTURE AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT IS ABOUT TO CHANGE QUICKLY AND DRAMATICALLY. IF GASOLINE IS INDEED $14-A-GALLON JUST FIVE YEARS FROM NOW, EVERYTHING ELSE OUR CONSUMER SOCIETY CONSUMES WILL HAVE GONE UP IN PRICE AS WELL. PERSONAL AND CIVIL SERVICES WILL COST MORE. IT’S SIGNIFICANT THAT WE CALL WHAT HAPPENS IN CHURCH ON SUNDAY MORNING BY THE NAME OF “SERVICE.” SUNDAY SERVICES COME AT A PRICE. THAT PRICE IS ABOUT TO CHANGE. INEVITABLY, THE SERVICE WILL CHANGE.

You make it sound as if the world as we know it is coming to an end. Millions of people in the world have already been coping with shortages for a long time. Millions go to bed hungry every night. You’ve often expressed concern about the flood of homeless people spreading into our part of the world. The streets of San Diego are full of them. Vacant spaces aren’t vacant any more. These aren’t new conditions. The big world outside our little paradise has had millions of people in it who have been homeless for a long time. China and India didn’t grow to make up almost half the world’s population overnight. We’ve seen this time coming. Scarcity of food and shelter has been a way of life even for some Americans for a long time. Churches and schools have been going on with their programs with these conditions all around them. The church has managed to survive in past times of change. So what’s different this time. Why is this the end?

I PREFER TO THINK OF IT AS A BEGINNING. IN THE BEGINNING AN INSTITUTION LIKE THE CHURCH HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO REINVENT ITSELF. A BEGINNING IS A PERFECT TIME TO RETHINK EVERYTHING, TO DEVELOP A VISION STATEMENT THAT IS RELEVANT TO NEW CONDITIONS.

Churches and other institutions have been playing the vision development game for a long time, too. There’s nothing new in that.

TO HAVE VISION IS TO BE ABLE TO SEE. ANOTHER DEFINITION IS TO BE ABLE TO THINK ABOUT AND TO PLAN THE FUTURE WITH IMAGINATION AND WISDOM. OUR CULTURE IS ABOUT TO CHANGE. DOESN’T IT MAKE SENSE TO TRY TO LOOK AHEAD, TO HAVE VISION, TO PLAN THE FUTURE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. SHOULDN'T THE CHURCH TAKE THE LEAD IN TRYING TO SEE WHAT THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO BECOME AND WHAT OUR CULTURE WILL BECOME AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THESE DRAMATIC CHANGES?

You keep using the word “culture.” What do you mean by culture anyway?

THE SHORTEST AND CLEAREST DEFINITION OF “CULTURE” IS THIS: CULTURE IS THE WAY PEOPLE LIVE.

The way people live is always changing. It was changing even before we approached this new developing energy crisis. Many people have been living in a new place called cyber space for several years now. The Internet has changed and is continuing to change dramatically the way we all live. Cyber space is not theoretical. It’s real. Some people spend a lot of real time there. As a matter of fact, it’s the place where you and I are having this conversation. It’s not a park bench or a coffee shop, but it’s real. But let’s get back to the church and the price of gasoline.

O.K. LET’S TRY AGAIN. I THINK THE CHURCH WILL FIND ITSELF WITHOUT SOME OF THE RESOURCES IT HAS HAD IN THE PAST. IT’S A MATTER OF TIME AND MONEY. THE CHURCH AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT NEEDS BOTH. BOTH RESOURCES ARE LIKELY TO BECOME SCARCE. PEOPLE WHO HAVE SUPPORTED THE CHURCH MAY FIND THEMSELVES WITHOUT AS MUCH DISCRETIONARY TIME AND AS MUCH DISCRETIONARY INCOME AS THEY HAVE HAD IN THE PAST. AT FOURTEEN DOLLARS A GALLON FOR GASOLINE, A TRIP TO THE CHURCH WILL COST THREE TIMES AS MUCH AS IT COSTS NOW. IT’S MY GUESS THAT PEOPLE WON’T SPEND AS MUCH OF THEIR DISCRETIONARY TIME AT CHURCH AS THEY HAVE IN THE PAST. BECAUSE OTHER COSTS OF LIVING WILL INCREASE, PEOPLE MAY FIND THEY HAVE LESS DISCRETIONARY MONEY; AND BECAUSE THEY WILL BE SPENDING LESS TIME AT THE CHURCH, THEY MAY CHOOSE WAYS OF SPENDING DISCRETIONARY MONEY OTHER THAN GIVING IT TO THE CHURCH.

Maybe a little review of the history of the church would be useful. Christianity was born into a world in which religion was already well established. Most people in the ancient world believed there was a world that exists parallel to the world of humans, a world where gods and other supernatural beings lived and could, if they chose to do so, change conditions and events in the world of man. They believed in the existence of a power, or of powers, that controlled human destiny. For hundreds of years before the first century A.D. everybody except a few philosophers believed these supernatural powers were invisible, superhuman, and eternal. They believed the supernatural powers had to be worshiped and placated by prayer, ritual and sacrifice. The earth was thought to be the center of the universe. Around it the sun and moon and stars were thought to revolve. Somewhere above the earth was heaven and below it was an abode of departed spirits or of the powers of wickedness. The “laws of nature” had not yet been conceived, and people believed that everything that happens in nature was the work of invisible powers of good and evil. The powers of good and evil were entities, personalities, who could use the forces of nature to bless and favor or to damn and destroy. For early humans the world was a place visited by innumerable spirits, righteous and malevolent, who touched human lives in all its aspects. These spirits were thought to be able to enter into and control human beings for good and evil, so it was reasonable to be suspicious of everybody, even neighbors and family members.

NOW IT’S MY TURN TO ASK, “WHAT ARE YOU GETTING AT?” WHAT HAS EARLY HISTORY GOT TO DO WITH THE COMING CRISIS?

Of course, we know much more today about the universe and the way the natural world works, but people who attend church on Sunday mornings are often being addressed from the pulpit as if they know little more about why and how things happen in the natural world than did people who lived three thousand years ago. For early human beings coping with a natural world which they thought to be managed by spirits who mostly cared very little for their long-term welfare left them with a profound sense of unworthiness, of dissatisfaction with the conditions of life that characterized the mass of mankind as they knew it. It was out of these conditions that religions were born. The Christian church was born in such a world. The foundation religions on which Christianity was built came out of such a world. To a great extent, the church in all its permutations over the centuries has continued to reflect the ancient, primitive world. Despite what we now know about natural laws, even today many devout church people order their lives around notions based in a belief that there are powers of good and evil that must be placated by worship, prayer and ritual. They apparently believe that there are certain things they must do in order to keep the supernatural powers on their side. They ask the church to assist them in performing the necessary magic. If they are unsuccessful in getting the world to order itself according to their magical thinking, they expect bad things to happen.

WELL, BAD THINGS DO HAPPEN. THAT’S PART OF THE HUMAN CONDITION. IT’S HOW WE RESPOND TO THE BAD THINGS THAT MAKES US NOBLE OR NOT. WE DO INDEED NEED SOMETHING FROM THE CHURCH, AND WHAT WE NEED HAS BEEN IN SHORT SUPPLY FOR QUITE A WHILE. WE NEED VISION, NOT THE APOCALYPTIC KIND THAT SOME PEOPLE GET FROM THE BOOK OF “REVELATION.”

I agree, and so did the writer of Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish. Without vision the Christian church may not survive. Without reasoned prophetic vision, perhaps the church shouldn’t survive. It will only get in the way. We need to be able to see as clearly as possible what American culture will look like in the future, and we need to gain a sense of what the church should look like in order to be relevant to that future time. That’s vision. The history of the Christian church is a story of survival, of change and survival in spite of or because of changes in the way people live.

WE'VE GOT MORE TO TALK ABOUT ON THIS SUBJECT. I'LL SEE YOU ANOTHER DAY.

Today I had difficulty deciding which of a couple of photographs to choose for my photo du jour. Both photographs have good stories that go with them, so I decided to use this one of Dave and his new car for the BLOG. The story that goes with this photograph should be told.

Dave drove his new car to our regular Wednesday morning meeting for coffee. In an earlier BLOG I wrote about the marriage of Dave and his partner Clyde. He told me that he hadn’t received his new license plates, and he proudly showed me how he had written “Just Married” in the spot where the license plate will go. We went into the shop for coffee, had a nice hour-long discussion at an outside table, and then he left for work.

A couple minutes after Dave had left the table, he came running back... big smile... holding a note from a yellow steno pad. The note said simply, “CONGRATULATIONS.” The page had been folded around an ARCO gift card worth $50. The note wasn’t signed.

My very good friend, Bob Smith, sent me the following paragraph in response to the Conversation With Myself Blog entry (You'll see why E. E. Cummings poem came immediately to mind):

I too don't get it! The blog about marriage is very good, "A Conversation..." and the straight/crooked thing is so on target. What the Hell!!! We're born, grow up, explore ourselves, date, touch and get touched, get married or not, make career choices, live our lives to the best of our abilities, live in our heads, the lucky ones in our hearts, love one and more than one, partner(v), divorce, partner(v) again, laugh, cry, dance, read, write, talk on the phone, email, blog, recite pledges, honor them or not, try to live resolutely, get sidetracked, get back on track, walk the straight and narrow sometimes usually an hour at a time, most times not, help others, get in their way too, go our own way, walk alone, walk with others, fight, make up, make up some more just for the fun of it, tickle and get tickled, have friends over, cook and eat great food, enjoy preludes, uncork wine and empty the bottle, get crazy good crazy, guard pools, swim in them, celebrate the night and the mornings and the afternoons, it's life we live and if we're fortunate (& smart) we live it together with people we love passionately. What else is there? Who needs to write rules? It has nothing to do with "rights" it's what it is...life and love!
anyone lived in a pretty how town
 
by E. E. Cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

Senator Obama spoke to LA RASA yesterday at the Convention Center in San Diego. Today it was Senator McCain’s turn. What a circus! Both days the demonstrations outside the center were dominated by a cluster of unattractive people alternately lining up near the front door, huddling together for news cameras, and marching around waving American flags while ranting about what is wrong with America that nobody but God can fix. With ugly scowls and vicious language they cursed America for drinking wine and eating cheese and watching ball games and sports tournaments while America goes to hell. It was interesting that that they screamed only what they see as wrong with America. They offered no constructive suggestions. I think I already said they are ugly, ugly Americans. Even scowling, ugly Americans with nothing positive to say about anybody are fortune to live in a country where free speech is guaranteed.

Wedding Day
David Miles and David Higgins
Sunday 29 June 2008
Tony Freeman, officiating


CEREMONY

Tony to All
Dear Family and Friends, we are gathered here today to recognize and celebrate the union of two lives. We have come so that David and David, who already have been sharing their lives together for many years, may be legally united in marriage. This hallowed tradition is not to be entered into lightly, but with certainty, mutual respect, and a sense of reverence and richest happiness.

Tony to David and David
David and David, as you know I am performing this Wedding today. But, only by a mutual commitment to love each other, to work towards creating an atmosphere of care, consideration, and respect, and by a willingness to face the tensions and anxieties that underlie human life, can you continue to make your united lives thrive.
Your love for one another and your willingness to accept each other’s strong points and weaknesses with understanding and respect already has built the foundation for your already strong long-term partnership. Continue to respect your individual outlooks. Share your thoughts, experiences and dreams with one another. Cherish the intimacy and understanding that comes with the passage of time. As you enter this marriage your belief is that it symbolizes to you both a partnership between equal individuals with common goals, hopes, and dreams that will continue to give your lives special meaning and fulfillment.
Today, as there is a long history behind you of a joyful and full life together, there is also a vast unknown future stretching out before you. That future, with its hopes and disappointments, its joys and its sorrows, is hidden from your eyes. But it is a great tribute to your faith in each other that you are willing to face these uncertainties together. May the love with which you celebrate today with joined hearts and hands never fail, but grow deeper and surer with every year you spend together.

Tony to Guests
We gather today at an historic moment for California and a hopeful time for the country. Friends and family who are here today bear witness to both. Change is coming; change brought us here today. What better way to mark new beginnings than with this celebration.
It would be naïve to ignore the significance of today’s event. We are here to witness the marriage of David and David, who you already know as loving partners, but for whom this simple and traditional expression of commitment has been unavailable - until now.
Today as we celebrate this union we celebrate a political landmark and social victory, but we also celebrate our friends and family. David and David have specifically asked me to acknowledge that those of you present today are here for a reason – you are the family and friends who have supported them, loved them, embraced them and helped define their relationship as meaningful even before our laws did.
Look around, be proud; appreciate yourselves for your courage and forward thinking and the example you set by the lives you lead. Take with you today a renewed sense of what the power of love means and how it can truly transform lives and change the world we live in.

Reading (Jerral Miles)

To My Friend (author unknown)
I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but also for what you are making of me. I love you because you have done more than any creed could have done to make me good, and more than any fate could have done to make me happy. You have done it without a touch, without a word, without a sign. You have done it by being yourself. Perhaps that is what being a friend means, after all.


Excerpt from The Bridge Across Forever (Richard Bach)
A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.


Vows [Tony to David and David]
David Jerral, take David’s hand and repeat this vow to him after me:
I David, Jerral take you David Robert, / to be my partner in life. / As I always have I will cherish our friendship and love / today, / tomorrow, / and forever. / I will trust you / and honor you. / I will love you faithfully / through the best / and the worst, / through the difficult / and the easy / with good dogs and bad dogs. / Whatever may come / I will always be there. / As I have given you my hand to hold, / so I continue to give you my life to keep. / So help me God.

David Robert, take David’s hand and repeat this vow to him after me:
I David Robert, take you David Jerral, / to be my partner in life. / As I always have I will cherish our friendship and love / today, / tomorrow, / and forever. / I will trust you / and honor you. / I will love you faithfully / through the best / and the worst, / through the difficult / and the easy / with good dogs and bad dogs. / Whatever may come / I will always be there. / As I have given you my hand to hold, / so I continue to give you my life to keep. / So help me God.


Proclamation [Tony]
Now that David and David, by these solemn vows, have affirmed their relationship publicly and legally, I pronounce that these two are partners in marriage!
You may now kiss.
Go in peace and may God bless.

Tony to All
Please join us now for a champagne toast before the food is served. David and David will be pouring and passing out glasses of champagne.

----------------------------------------
ANOTHER CONVERSATION WITH MYSELF...

from Labor Law Talk Web site: www.laborlawtalk.com/showthread.php?t=6231

"Overall "official" divorce rate is approximately 57% ... those figures
are manipulated by excluding high divorce rate states like California
from the statistics, so the real national divorce rate is more likely in
the 65 to 75 % range . Why get married when there is a two-thirds chance that marriage will end in divorce?"

WITH THE ANNOUNCEMENTS OF MANY WEDDINGS PLANNED BETWEEN NOW AND THE FIRST TUESDAY IN NOVEMBER, I’VE BEEN WANTING TO TALK ABOUT SAME GENDER MARRIAGES THAT ARE BEING ESTABLISHED IN CALIFORNIA THIS MONTH. I WAS “WEDDING COMMISSIONER” FOR DAVE ANDREWS AND CLYDE YOSHIDA IN JUNE. OF COURSE, I ENJOYED THE WEDDING OF MY SON DAVID AND HIS PARTNER, ALSO DAVID, ON THE SAME DAY. BOTH COUPLES HAD LIVED TOGETHER AS DOMESTIC PARTNERS FOR A LONG TIME BEFORE THEY WERE MARRIED. SINCE JUNE 29 THEY ARE LIVING TOGETHER AS SPOUSES. THEY ARE LAWFULLY MARRIED. THE BIG QUESTION IS THIS: “IN WHAT WAYS DO THEY NOW AS LAWFULLY MARRIED COUPLES ENDANGER THE MARRIAGES OF HETEROSEXUAL COUPLES ANY MORE THAN DID THEIR COMMITTED RELATIONSHIPS AS DOMESTIC PARTNERS? THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA HAS SANCTIONED REGISTERED DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIPS FOR SEVERAL YEARS. I'M NOT AWARE OF ANY HARM THAT HAS COME TO OPPOSITE GENDER MARRIAGES BECAUSE OF DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIPS OF PERSONS OF THE SAME GENDER. WHERE IS THE NEW DANGER?

Whether or not couples of the same gender are allowed to be married, marriages of straight couples are obviously very fragile. More than fifty percent of them end in divorce. If over half of the marriages in the United States end in divorce, it’s a pretty safe bet than many of those couples who stay together don’t consider their marriages to be happy. Many would probably describe their marriages as satisfactory relationships but not particularly happy ones. Everybody knows couples who stay married even if they are no longer happy. Divorce is inconvenient and usually complicated. The fact that two people of the same gender have been living together in the same city or the same neighborhood probably has nothing at all to do with the stability of the marriages of straight people.

THIS IS A BIT OF AN ASIDE, BUT I MUST SAY THAT I DON’T LIKE THE TERM “STRAIGHT” TO IDENTIFY PERSONS AS HETEROSEXUAL. THE TERM IMPLIES THAT HOMOSEXUALS ARE “CROOKED.” I THINK I’LL TRY TO STOP USING “STRAIGHT” IN THE CONTEXT OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS.

O.K., but what does that have to do with same gender marriages and whether or not they threaten the institution of marriage as it has been defined by state and federal laws? You have a habit of moving off the subject into hair splitting tangents.

RIGHT. IT’S WAS JUST AN ASIDE; SO LET’S GET BACK TO THE ISSUE. WHY SHOULD A WOMAN WHO LIVES IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD OBJECT TO MY SON’S MARRIAGE? ALL OF HER CHILDREN ARE MARRIED. WE CELEBRATED WITH HER THE MARRIAGES OF HER CHILDREN. HOW DOES MY SON’S MARRIAGE TO A GOOD, HONORABLE MAN THREATEN OR DENIGRATE OR WEAKEN THE BONDS OF MARRIAGE THAT HOLD HER CHILDREN’S MARRIAGES TOGETHER? I DON’T GET IT.

You’re not being honest, or perhaps you’re being coy., Of course you get it. You're suspicious when people say they are simply interested in preserving traditional values in our society by insisting that laws be enacted to bring everybody into line with their own private belief systems. For more than a century religious groups infiltrated into a major political party provided the “reasons” for keeping women from voting and for disallowing marriage between people of different races. They also provided the arguments used to justify separate drinking fountains for “colored” and “white” people. I remember seeing those separate drinking fountains and separate restrooms in the South when I was a boy. People who deny civil rights to any citizen are bigots. Don’t try to make it nice. Bigotry isn’t nice. Bigots hurt people. Bigotry hurts people. It’s the result of blind but willful ignorance.

MAYBE WE’VE STRAYED FROM THE SUBJECT. YOU’RE PAINTING WITH A BROAD BRUSH. WE ARE TALKING HERE ABOUT A SPECIFIC CIVIL INSTITUTION THAT SOME PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO ESTABLISH WHILE OTHERS ARE DENIED THE OPPORTUNITY TO DO SO. WHAT CONCEIVABLY COULD BE THE DANGER IN ALLOWING SAME GENDER COUPLES TO ESTABLISH MARRIAGES? PERHAPS WE SHOULD REDEFINE MARRIAGE, MAKE A NEW MEANING FOR THE WORD. WE COULD RESERVE “MARRIAGE” FOR USE IN RELIGIOUS CONTEXTS; LET THE PHRASE “DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP” BE THE TERM WE USE TO DESCRIBE CIVIL UNIONS OF ALL COUPLES WHO ARE MARRIED WITHOUT BLESSING OR ANY INVOLVEMENT BY A CHURCH OR A REPRESENTATIVE OF A CHURCH. PERHAPS “MARRIAGE” SHOULD NO LONGER BE USED TO DESCRIBE THE CIVIL RELATIONSHIP EVEN OF PERSONS OF OPPOSITE SEX. THEY WOULD BE DOMESTIC PARTNERS IF THEIR UNION IS NOT ESTABLISHED BY A CHURCH. LET THE CHURCH HAVE "MARRIAGE" FOR ITS EXCLUSIVE ECCLESIASTICAL USE. UNDER SUCH A SYSTEM WE WOULD NEVER USE THE WORD “MARRIAGE” TO DESCRIBE A COUPLE OF OPPOSITE GENDER OR SAME SEX WHO WISH TO LIVE TOGETHER IN DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP. A LEGAL PRECIDENT HAS ALREADY BEEN ESTABLISHED. DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIP IS THE ONLY DESIGNATION ALLOWED FOR UNIONS OF SAME SEX COUPLES IN MOST STATES, AND BEFORE JUNE OF THIS YEAR IT WAS THE ONLY DESIGNATION ALLOWED SAME SEX COUPLES IN CALIFORNIA.

You’re suggesting that the word “marriage” to be stricken from all legal civil documents? I get it. The principal argument for keeping same gender couples from “marriage” seems to be based on religious scriptures. You’re saying the word “marriage,” like the word “sacrament,” could be limited strictly to religious contexts. You're saying states should discontinue altogether their use of “marriage” and substitute “domestic partnership” for both same gender and opposite gender couples in all legal documents referring to civil unions that we have traditionally called “marriages,” Maybe that would satisfy bigots.

I DOUBT IT. I MADE THE ARGUMENT, AND NOW I’M BACKING OUT. ANY COUPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO DO SO SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE "MARRIAGE" TO DESCRIBE THEIR LEGAL, CIVIL RELATIONSHIP. COMPROMISING WITH BIGOTS DOESN'T SOLVE PROBLEMS. BIGOTS ARE NEVER SATISFIED BY COMPROMISE. IGNORANCE IS DISPELLED ONLY BY ENLIGHTENMENT, AND ENLIGHTENMENT CAN’T BE FORCED. CHANGING THE USE OF THE WORD “MARRIAGE” FROM SECULAR TO EXCLUSIVELY RELIGIOUS USES WOULD SURELY NOT SATISFY BIGOTS. BIGOTS WHO WANT TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA AREN’T SEEKING TO UNDERSTAND OR TO BE ENLIGHTENED. A NATION OF LAWS IS ESTABLISHED, OR CONSTITUTED, UNDER A SECULAR CONSTITUTION NOT UNDER A SET OF RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES. IN MOST ISLAMIC COUNTRIES SHARIA, OR ISLAMIC LAW, INFLUENCES THE LEGAL CODE. I DON'T KNOW ANY AMERICANS WHO WANT SHARIA LAW AS A BASIS OF LAW IN THE UNITED STATES. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO INSIST THAT THE TEN COMMANDMENTS BE THE BASIS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. LET’S HOPE THE MAJORITY OF CALIFORNIA VOTERS ARE NOT BIGOTS.David Miles and David Higgins

WHATEVER IS

CLICK ON AN IMAGE TO SEE IT BIGGERLIZ RESPESS has a yard full of beautiful flowers, none more spectacular than this Gloriosa lily. These images of the lily seem appropriate for Independence Day. No fireworks display in San Diego on the Fourth of July will be more spectacular than this flower.

The Ritual of Marriage
Clyde Yoshida and Dave Andrews
Sunday, June 29, 2008

THE CEREMONY

TO THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS: This morning all of us here have the privilege of participating in the marriage of Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida. Dave and Clyde have made clear to me the importance of your participation in their ceremony of marriage. You are more than witnesses. You will be asked to pledge to give your assent to and your support of the marriage that will be established today, a marriage that was forbidden by law until a couple of weeks ago. Today, then, is an historic celebration. All of us here, and thousands of other couples who are getting married in the next few months are making history. A domestic partnership is one thing...actually, a good thing; but it is not marriage. Domestic partnership is separate from, and not equal to marriage. What we are doing here today is marriage. The ritual that we are enacting together this morning is a serious and sacred ceremony. Cultures from the earliest times in the history of mankind have performed rituals of marriage to strengthen and support relationships between two people, joining two families. The community is made stronger and better for it. It is expected that this marriage will make stronger and better both the community and the household of Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida. So, Let’s begin.

Richard Bach, in The Bridge Across Forever, has a statement that sums up beautifully why commitment and marriage are important.

“A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can e loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.”

TO THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS: Years ago Dave and Clyde became partners, established a home together. They weren’t allowed to be married. Today that changes. They are about to become legally wedded spouses. We have agreed that the ritual of marriage should begin with a saying of vows. We are privileged to listen as Clyde and Dave exchange their vows. Years ago they exchanged rings, but today is a recommitment, so I’m asking them now to give back, just for the moment, the rings they exchanged. These are precious rings, the perfect symbols of their unending love.

TO CLYDE AND DAVE: Clyde, you will end your statement of vows with the words with, “Dave, I give you back this ring today as a token of my unending love for you,” and you will place the ring on his finger. And, Dave, after you have said your vows, you will make the same statement to Clyde and place the ring on his finger.

Clyde: Dave,

You are my teacher. You’ve taught me to be less materialistic and to stand up for myself. You’ve taught me that we can use the example of our commitment to each other to teach the skeptical that love is an enduring force. It is prevalent, grand and defies a narrow definition. Love is not a commodity to be owned by a few and limited by hate or ignorance.

You are my clown. You make me laugh. You protect the inner child in me. I can be silly, a goof and moody—I can be myself around you with absolutely no judgment. I love to look into those beautiful, innocent and wise Aquarius eyes and in return, you see me, love me and take me with you on this life adventure. You are also always full of surprise.

You are my joy. Combined with chocolate, you give me so much happiness that I am bursting at the seams. I love the morning. Waking with you and sharing all that is between the sunrise and the next sunrise. I will always be there for you. We are, since we have in the beginning, entwined in life together just as the ribbons connect our friends and family today.

You are ours. You give yourself to others and they are richer for it too. I am willing to share because the joy that abounds creates a loving cradle for our infant souls to thrive.

Dave: Clyde. I love you.

You prove to me every single day how lucky I am to share my life with you. Thank you so much.

During the 15 years we have already shared, you have filled my life with an almost overwhelming sense of joy and happiness. We have enjoyed a storybook love affair that begins a new chapter today.

How many people, for example, tell their sweet one they will be missed even during the shortest absence? When we are apart, I can’t wait to be together again. And when we are together, I think my heart beats a little stronger.

I’m very proud of all we have accomplished together. We have a wonderful network of friends and family. Our home is full of whimsy, happiness, peace, and love.

I respect and admire you and am improved by your presence in my life. Your kindness makes me kinder. Your creativity makes me more creative. As you achieve wonderful things in your profession, you inspire me to grow in mine.

You inspire me to believe in hope and peace. Because of you I look for and find the best in other people.

I love being part of you and knowing that you are part of me. You are the best partner in life that anybody could ask for. You are my love, and my heart will be yours always.

Thank you for marrying me today and for sharing your world with me. I love you.

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Commitment: If you truly commit to each other you will answer, “I do.”

Dave, Do you take Clyde to be your lawfully wedded spouse for all the days of your life; to love him more today than you did yesterday, yet less today than you will tomorrow; to nurture your marriage for as long as you both shall live?

Clyde, Do you take Dave to be your lawfully wedded spouse for all the days of your life; to love him more today than you did yesterday, yet less today than you will tomorrow; to nurture your marriage for as long as you both shall live?


--------------

TO THE GUESTS:

This is your part, besides being witnesses to this marriage: Do you, friends and family, promise to stand by these two with your support and encouragement, to celebrate with them the good times and to be ready always with compassion and help in challenging times, for as long as you are able?

Answer: We Will.

We have done together everything that is necessary for Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida to become a lawfully married couple. All that’s left to do is for me to make the familiar official pronouncement.

Ladies and Gentlemen, by the authority vested in me by the State of California, it is now my honor and privilege to declare that you are married, that you are now lawfully wedded spouses.

Congratulations... You should now signal with a kiss the beginning of your married life together and the beginning of our after-the-wedding celebration.

IMBI
On the back of the picture in a school girl's neat handwriting: Malestusers Ellenile Imbilt

Going through Imbi's earthly belonging, I came across a small photograph of her when she was fifteen-years-old, the year before her parents were taken out of their home in the middle of the night by Stalin's KGB operatives and shot. In the last week of her life, I kept trying to picture her as a young girl with her Grandmother's rug fleeing first to Finland and then to Germany and finally to Canada. This studio portrait shows exactly the beautiful girl that I imagined. I look at it and try to see if there is even the tiniest hint in her eyes and in her expression of the tragedy and the harrowing escape that she would experience in little more than a year from the time she sat for the photographer. What I see is what I have seen in hundreds of young people whom I have had the privilege of knowing in my school-teacher's lifetime. Thank goodness we cannot see the future. Thank goodness we can know only what is and what was. Knowing what will be might make moving into the future unbearable.

Below is the photo that I took a couple of weeks ago as she lay dying. It is the same photo that I posted in black and white earlier this month. I didn't know about the existence of the studio portrait of the young Imbi with her braid when I made the picture mostly of her beautiful hair a few days before she died.THE WOOL, HAND-MADE RUG IS A HEAVY 10 ft. by 12 ft.

JULIAN GOT A HAIRCUT TODAY. IT'S AMAZING HOW MUCH TALLER HE LOOKS. HE SEEMS A FOOT TALLER WITHOUT THE LONG, CURLY HAIR... AND OLDER. HE AND HIS DAD AND I WENT TO A PARK SO HE COULD RUN AND PLAY. IT WAS CLEAR THAT HIS DAD WAS GRIEVING A LITTLE AT THE "LOSS" OF SOMETHING, AND I DON'T THINK IT WAS THE HAIR. IT'S AS IF ERIC, NOT JULIAN, HAD GIVEN UP SOMETHING THAT HE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE KEPT. LATER AFTER THEY HAD GONE HOME, I GOT TO THINKING ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS TO GIVE UP THINGS, EVEN THINGS THAT YOU DON'T NEED, THINGS WITH NO VALUE THAT CAN BE QUANTIFIED.

WHAT IS IT, DO YOU THINK, THAT IS SO APPEALING TO ME ABOUT OLD SHIRTS AND PANTS THAT ARE STILL HANGING IN MY CLOSET AFTER YEARS OF NOT BEING WORN AT ALL? WHY DO I WANT TO HANG ON TO THAT STUFF?

Can’t you pose a harder question? That one is too easy. At times lately you’ve been preoccupied with the fact of your advancing age. All that talk when you were in you fifties and sixties about how you’d have no problem getting older, that moving into seventies and eighties, which you avoided calling old age, how that would be just part of the adventure of living, how being an older person should be a matter of being at least a little wiser... Maybe it was just talk to cover unease. Perhaps the deaths of friends is having an unexpected effect. Lynn’s death a good many years ago you simply crossed off as premature, as unexpected. When Stanley died last year, you were in Europe and couldn’t come back to California for the funeral, but I could see that you were very much affected by the news that he had died, even though it had been expected for months; but he was four years older than you. Imbi was eighty-three. Ten summers from now you will be eighty-three.

MAYBE YOU’RE RIGHT... BUT MAYBE I JUST LIKE THE FEEL OF SOFT, WORN, FAMILIAR CLOTHES. I KNOW I HATE TO GIVE UP A PAIR OF SHOES WHEN IT HAS BECOME OBVIOUS THAT I CAN’T HAVE THEM RE-SOLED ONE MORE TIME. AND I DON’T LIKE THE WAY NEW SHOES LOOK OR THE WAY THEY FEEL. I’VE NEVER LIKED SHOPPING FOR SHOES; EVEN WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN, I DIDN’T LIKE IT. I’VE GOT SHOES I HAVEN’T WORN IN YEARS, BUT THEY’RE STILL WEARABLE. I SHOULD GIVE THOSE UP.

MARGARET FINALLY INSISTED THAT I GET RID OF SOME THINGS. WE LIVE IN AN APARTMENT. “THERE’S A LIMIT,” SHE SAID. AND SHE’S RIGHT. SO I SPENT SOME TIME SORTING THROUGH ALL MY SHIRTS AND PANTS. I DIDN’T COUNT THEM, BUT I GUESS THERE WERE MORE THAN FIFTY T-SHIRTS: “BIKE TO WORK DAY” T-SHIRTS FROM 1944 AND 1945 AND 1948 AND 1950; A T-SHIRT THE KIDS AT GOMPERS HAD MADE WHEN THEY DID “LITTLE NELL,” THE MELODRAMA, FOURTEEN YEARS AGO; T-SHIRT FROM ALL THOSE TIMES I DONATED BLOOD AT THE SAN DIEGO BLOOD BANK; T-SHIRTS FROM ISLANDS IN THE CARIBBEAN; AND T-SHIRTS I’VE NEVER WORN WITH LOGOS OF PRODUCTS I’VE NEVER USED. THE T-SHIRT I ESPECIALLY LIKE AND WON'T GIVE UP IS ONE THAT DAVID GAVE ME THAT PROCLAIMS, "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST." SHAKESPEARE SAID, "IT'S A WISE FATHER WHO KNOWS HIS OWN SON." IN THIS CASE IT'S A WISE SON WHO KNOWS HIS OWN FATHER.

AND PANTS: WELL WORN JEANS AND HARDLY WORN TROUSERS THAT I MUST HAVE THOUGHT ONCE I NEEDED BUT NOW CAN’T REMEMBER WHY I THOUGHT IT OR EVEN WHERE I BOUGHT THEM. BY THE TIME I WAS FINISHED I HAD THREE BIG BOXES OF CLOTHES TO TAKE TO GOODWILL. OH, I FORGOT TO INCLUDE THE SHOES.

You should have long ago given those once-good wool sweaters to someone before the moths got to them. There are plenty of people who could have used them on cold nights. Even in San Diego you could have cruised the streets and parks downtown and found people who would have been glad to have a warm sweater. You’re fooling yourself when you hang on to stuff just because you say you may one day need it. A few years ago you said you intended to go up into the Sierras some winter to take pictures and you’d need heavier clothing. You made that trip to Russia a couple of years ago and spent two months in Northern Europe, and you dug out that old parka with the fur-lined hood; you took only a couple of sweaters and a two pairs of corduroy pants.

YOU KNOW I COULDN’T TAKE MUCH ON THAT TRIP. PART OF THE TIME I WAS MOVING AROUND EUROPE ON TRAINS. EVEN IN SMOLENSK I DIDN’T WANT TO BURDEN MY HOSTS. SO I TRAVELED LIGHT.

That’s not the point, is it? I'm wondering if you feel younger when you wear a sweater you’ve had since you were forty-something?

MAYBE THAT’S THE PROBLEM. I USUALLY DON’T “FEEL” ANYTHING AT SEVENTY-THREE THAT I WASN’T FEELING WHEN I WAS FORTY-THREEE OR THIRTY-THREE. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT I’M WEARING. BUT I DO KNOW THAT BEFORE I LEAVE THE HOUSE ON A COOL JANUARY DAY, I REACH WITHOUT THINKING FOR THAT OLD BROWN WOOL CAP THAT I GOT IN ENGLAND A SO LONG AGO THAT I CAN’T REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS... MAYBE IN 1971; OR WAS IT 1983? I KNOW I GOT IT MANY, MANY YEARS BEFORE LAST AUTUMN WHEN I VISITED WORDSWORTH’S COTTAGE AND ACTUALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THE CAP, WHICH WAS BACK HOME IN SAN DIEGO, AND WISHED I HAD IT ON MY HEAD EVEN THOUGH IT WAS A WARM DAY. MY THINKING ABOUT THE CAP THAT DAY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH FEELING “OLD.” I WAS IN A MOOD, A SPECIAL, VERY GOOD MOOD; AND I THINK I WANTED THAT GOOD MOOD TO LAST. MAYBE I THOUGHT THE CAP WOULD HELP.

For a man who fell in love a long time ago with Thoreau, especially with the idea of living simply, you’d have a hard time convincing anybody that you have a simple life. And spending a quiet hour every morning with yoga doesn’t mean you're living simply. Do you have any idea how many people there are in the world who don’t have the luxury of time to do yoga in the morning? You’re damned lucky to have a pad to put on the carpeted floor in the room where your digital sound system can transport you to a jungle with birds and crickets and waterfalls. No. Your life is not simple. You don’t keep and wear your old clothes as a way of living simply. Think about.

---Conversation with Myself---

IN OUR LAST CONVERSATION I MADE THE POINT THAT YOU AND I ARE OLD. THAT FACT WAS MADE CLEAR AGAIN TODAY WHEN I MET KRISTIAN WHITE WHILE I WAS LOOKING AT THE FLOWERS IN THE BOTANICAL BUILDING IN BALBOA PARK. HE WAS OBVIOUSLY ENJOYING THE FLOWERS AS MUCH AS I WAS. WHAT ATTRACTED MY ATTENTION FIRST WAS HIS HAT. I LIKED THAT HAT AND WISHED I HAD ONE LIKE IT. HE WAS FACING AWAY FROM ME LOOKING AT ORCHIDS. THEN HE TURNED AROUND; AND SEEING HIS BACK SIDE HADN’T PREPARED ME FOR SEEING THE FRONT OF HIM. I THOUGHT IMMEDIATELY ABOUT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHS OF TATTOOED MAORIS IN NEW ZEALAND. REMEMBER HOW WE LOVED THOSE MAGAZINES WHEN WE WERE KIDS? STILL DO.

WELL, BEFORE I LOST MY NERVE, I WENT UP TO HIM AND ASKED IF I COULD TAKE HIS PICTURE. I TOLD HIM I’D UNDERSTAND IF HE SAID NO, AND THEN I TOLD HIM ABOUT MY PHOTO-DU-JOUR PRACTICE. WITH NO HESITATION HE SAID I COULD. I GOT THE PICTURES, AND AFTER A SHORT CONVERSATION IN WHICH WE EXCHANGED EMAIL ADDRESSES, WE WENT OUR SEPARATE WAYS.

ALL DAY I COULDN’T GET HIM OUT OF MY MIND.

Lots of people are getting lots of tattoos, and not just girlfriends names or a heart with an arrow through it. And not just sailors who may have had a little too much to drink before coming across a tattoo parlor in Hong Kong.

YEAH, BUT KRISTIAN IS DIFFERENT. IT’S NOT JUST THAT HIS TATTOOS ARE DIFFERENT. HE IS DIFFERENT.

How do you know that? You spend only a few minutes with him. What makes you so certain he’s different from the other people with lots of tattoos?

WELL, FOR ONE THING, HIS DESIGNS WERE VERY THOUGHTFULLY CHOSEN AND VERY WELL DONE. AND ONE OF THE DESIGNS COVERS HALF OF HIS FACE. THIS IS A MAN WHO KNOWS HOW TO COMMIT, AND HOW TO PUT HIS MONEY WHERE HIS MOUTH IS.

Hey, man. You’ve been married for over fifty years. You stayed with a career in education for nearly fifty years. You know where your children are. You obviously know how to commit.

MAYBE. BUT I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING I’VE EVER DONE THAT COULDN’T BE UNDONE. THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE POSSIBILITY THAT I COULD CHANGE MY MIND EVEN AFTER THE DEED WAS DONE. I COULD HAVE LEFT TEACHING AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ANY TIME I WANTED TO GET OUT. I DIDN’T BECAUSE I LIKED WHAT I WAS DOING. IT’S EASY TO BACK OUT OF MARRIAGE IN SPITE OF THOSE VOWS AND PROMISES. I HAVEN'T BACKED OUT BECAUSE I LOVE MARGARET.

Maybe Kristian got the tattoos without thinking it through, without really facing the fact that he couldn’t erase them. Perhaps he was like so many other people in so many other situations; maybe by the time he thought about it, it was too late... there were so many of them and in places that couldn’t be hidden with clothing.

NO. I DON’T THINK THAT’S HOW IT HAPPENED. EVEN THOUGH WE TALKED FOR ONLY A LITTLE WHILE, I GOT THE IMPRESSION THAT KRISTIAN WHITE IS A THOUGHTFUL, HONORABLE MAN, A MAN WHO KNOWS HOW TO COMMIT, A MAN WHO DID A LOT OF THINKING ABOUT IT BEFORE HE DECIDED WHAT HE WOULD DO.

What about your mustache? You’ve kept that for as long as I remember. Oh, I remember... there was that time during the war when we were in Saigon and you shaved it off. You couldn’t wait to grow it back again. And you haven’t been without it since.

BUT THAT’S DIFFERENT. MY FATHER HAD A MUSTACHE. AND SO DID HIS FATHER...AND HIS FATHER’S FATHER. AND AS YOU SAID, I DID GET RID OF IT FOR THAT FEW MONTHS FORTY YEARS AGO. I COULD GO IN NOW AND SHAVE IT OFF TONIGHT IF I WANTED TO BE RID OF IT. IT’S A VERY DIFFERENT THING. KRISTIAN CAN’T SHAVE OFF THAT TATTOO.

Maybe you like him because he gave you an opportunity for a good picture.

WELL, I DO LIKE THE PICTURE. BUT IT’S MORE THAN THAT. MOST OF US ARE TOO MUCH LIKE SHEEP. WE LOOK TOO MUCH ALIKE. WE’RE COMFORTABLE BLENDING IN. KRISTIAN MADE A DECISION NOT TO BLEND IN, TO LIVE ON THE EDGE IN A WAY THAT CAN DO ABSOLUTELY NO HARM TO ANYONE. I VERY MUCH LIKE THAT.

CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF
------------------------

LET’S FACE IT. I’M OLD. I STILL PREFER ‘OLDER” BECAUSE IT SUGGESTS A CONNECTION WITH MY YOUNGER SELF. BUT ‘OLD’ IS WHAT I AM. THIS IS MY SEVENTY-THIRD SUMMER. THREE SCORE AND TEN PLUS THREE.

SO IT WON’T COME AS A SURPRISE TO ANYONE THAT I’VE BEGUN TO TALK TO MYSELF. IT’S EXPECTED... AND NOT JUST BECAUSE SOME OF MY FRIENDS HAVE DIED ALREADY AND ARE NO LONGER AROUND FOR COFFEE AND CONVERSATION.

A LONG TIME AGO WHEN I WAS A MERE FIFTY-SOMETHING, MY JOURNAL FOR ALMOST A YEAR WAS A DIALOGUE. I IMAGINED AND PRETENDED THAT I WAS TWO PERSONS IN ONE BODY, AND I WROTE CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO. I CAME ACROSS THAT JOURNAL THE OTHER DAY ON A SHELF IN THE GARAGE, AND I DECIDED IT MIGHT BE FUN AGAIN. MAYBE IT’S TIME FOR ME TO RECONNECT... WITH MYSELF... FOR US TO TALK.

ARE YOU THERE?

Yeah, you know I’m here. I’m always here. I’ve always been here. It’s been a long time since we’ve done this in any kind of orderly way. And you’ve turned your journal into a blog and your blog into a public forum. If I remember correctly, twenty years ago when we did this, we talked about things you and I might not like the world to know about us. Isn’t a public conversation risky?

REMEMBER I STARTED THIS CONVERSATION BY REMINDING YOU THAT WE ARE OLD NOW... BOTH OF US. THERE’S NO HIDING THAT FACT... SO WHY HIDE ANYTHING?

I can think of a thousand things that probably should be kept just between you and me... and you know very well what they are.

DON’T GET CARRIED AWAY. OF COURSE, SOME THINGS ABOUT US NOBODY WANTS TO KNOW ANYWAY. BESIDES DISCRETION AND DECEIT AREN’T THE SAME. WE’LL BE DISCRETE.

Can we talk abut things like politics, and can I say out loud what I really think about George Bush; or do we have to stick with books and the weather? What about religion? And sex?

LET’S NOT START WITH RULES... NOT EVEN GUIDELINES.

O.K., then. Let’s start with sex.

I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT GO THERE.

Well, I remember you had that discussion... no, you had that argument, yesterday with the man outside the country administration building. You started that argument, in fact. He was just standing there minding his own business, watching couples come out of the administration building with their marriage licenses. You saw he was wearing that T-shirt with the angry elephant on it, and he was carrying a little American flag. And he was fisting what looked like a Bible. You asked him, “What’s going on?” You knew very well what was happening. It’s the reason you were there. You went looking to pick a fight.

THAT’S NOT EXACTLY FAIR. THAT DISCUSSION DIDN’T GO ALL THE WAY TO ARGUMENT, MUCH LESS A FIGHT. I RODE THE BIKE DOWN THERE BECAUSE I WAS CURIOUS TO SEE IF THERE MIGHT BE TROUBLE. I THOUGHT I MIGHT GET A GOOD PICTURE. MEN DETERMINED TO MARRY MEN AND WOMEN WANTING TO MARRY WOMEN WERE ALL OVER THE PLACE. I HAD SEEN IN THE PAPER THAT A GROUP CALLING THEMSELVES THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY REPUBLICAN WOMEN WERE GOING TO DO SOME SORT OF SIT-IN, A PROTEST; AND THE NEWSPAPER SAID THERE WOULD BE SOME SORT OF RALLY OR STATEMENT BY PEOPLE WHO ARE IN FAVOR OF MARRIAGE BEING EXTENDED TO PEOPLE OF THE SAME SEX. HISTORY WAS BEING MADE. I WANTED TO BE IN ON IT.

Give me a break. You wanted a fight. You set that guy up. You knew.

WELL, I COULDN’T TELL IF HE WAS CONNECTED IN SOME WAY TO THE WOMEN HOLDING THE PRAYER MEETING ON THE EAST STEPS OF THE BUILDING, THE ONES WITH THE BANNER THAT IDENTIFIED THEM AS “THE REPUBLICAN WOMEN OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.” OR MAYBE HE WAS THERE FOR THE THREE WOMEN WHO WERE HUDDLED TOGETHER SAYING THE ROSARY.

Well, what did you say to the guy?

I SAID, “WHAT DO YOU THINK?

And he said?

HE JUST SHOOK HIS HEAD AND SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THIS BEING THE END OF CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT.

And?

I SAID, “YOU THINK IT’S THAT BAD? DO YOU MEAN THE PUBLIC PRAYER MEETINGS OR SAME SEX MARRIAGE?"

And?

HE FINALLY TURNED TO LOOK AT ME AND AFTER HE STUDIED ME FOR A MINUTE HE SAID, “SEE THE WOMAN IN THE BLUE DRESS, THE ONE OVER THERE BY STEPS? THAT’S MY WIFE. SEE THOSE TWO GUYS WITH THE ROSE BUDS? THEY’RE FAGS WHO JUST GOT MARRIAGE LICENSES, OR MAYBE THEY JUST GOT MARRIED. NOW, WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY GOING TO CALL EACH OTHER? THAT WOMAN OVER THERE IS MY WIFE. THERE’S A NAME FOR WHAT SHE IS. WHAT WOULD IT BE IF IT WAS A GUY? HUSBAND OR WIFE? NO GUY I’VE EVER MET WOULD WANT TO BE A WIFE, AND YOU CAN’T HAVE TWO HUSBANDS. IT’S BULLSHIT."

Is that what he thought was wrong with it? Words? Is that what it’s about? What did you say?

I TOOK OFF MY SUNGLASSES SO HE COULD SEE MY EYES, AND I SAID I THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT LOVE, NOT ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE CALL EACH OTHER.

THE GUY STILL DIDN’T SEE WHERE THE CONVERSATION WAS HEADED. HE HELD UP THE BOOK AND SAID, “THE BIBLE SAYS MARRIAGE IS BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN. THE LAW CAN’T CHANGE THAT. THE BIBLE SAYS IT. GOD SAYS IT. THE LAW CAN’T CHANGE THAT.”

Yeah. It may be in the Bible somewhere. He was probably right about what the Bible says. I don’t remember ever seeing that exact language.

ANYWAY, I SAID THAT MAYBE WHOEVER WROTE THE BIBLE GOT IT WRONG. HE LOOKED AT ME AND SHOOK HIS HEAD.

“IT ISN’T WRONG,” HE SAID. “IT CAN’T BE WRONG. IF IT’S IN THE BIBLE IT HAS TO BE TRUE.”

AND I ASKED WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE TRUE. AND HE SAID, “BECAUSE GOD WROTE THE BIBLE."

I SAID THAT I DIDN’T KNOW THAT. I THOUGHT IT WAS WRITTEN BY SOME PEOPLE A LONG TIME AGO, A BUNCH OF MEN PROBABLY WITHOUT ANY WOMEN DOING ANY OF THE WRITING.

AND THEN I ASKED HIM IF IT WAS THE SAME GOD WHOSE OTHER NAME IS LOVE. HE STOPPED AWHILE AND JUST LOOKED AT ME.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” HE ASKED. “GOD DOESN’T HAVE BUT ONE NAME,” HE SAID. “GOD! GOD! GOD! THAT’S HIS NAME.”

I ASKED IF THAT WAS HIS NAME IN SPANISH AND FRENCH AND RUSSIAN. HE LOOKED AT ME HARD AGAIN AND TURNED AND LOOKED AWAY.

I SAID I REMEMBERED READING THAT JESUS SAID GOD IS LOVE.

What happened then?

WELL, THERE WERE POLICE OFFICERS ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND TWO OF THEM EASED OVER TO WHERE WE WERE STANDING. I GUESS THEY HAD SEEN THE GUY HOLD THE BIBLE IN FRONT OF MY FACE. THEY MUST HAVE NOTICED THAT HE WAS GETTING LOUDER. HONESTLY, I WASN’T SHOUTING.

I’ve heard you argue. I’ll bet your voice got at least a little louder.

WELL, I DID SAY ONE MORE THING. I THOUGHT I WAS JUST SAYING IT WITH FEELING, BUT MAYBE MY VOICE DID COME UP A LITTLE. I TOLD HIM THAT MY SON IS GAY, AND THAT THERE IS NO FINER MAN ON THIS EARTH THAN MY DAVID IS AND THAT I WOULD RECOGNIZE HOW GOOD HE IS EVEN IF HE WERE NOT MY SON. I WANTED TO TELL HIM THAT I WOULDN’T CHANGE ONE SINGLE THING ABOUT MY SON EVEN IF I COULD.

I ADMIT THAT I WANTED TO TELL HIM THAT HE WAS FULL OF SHIT, BUT HONESTLY, I DIDN’T. I SWALLOWED MY INDIGNATION AND RODE AWAY ON MY BICYCLE.

Yeah, right. We’ll talk some more.

UPDATE: MONDAY, JUNE 16

Imbi died at 6:35 in the early evening. I had been sitting in her living room writing, occasionally getting up to go to the door to her room to see if she was still breathing. Instead of going back to my writing, for some reason I decided to sit for a minute in the chair beside her bed . Almost at the moment I sat down, her breathing changed: a very short inhalation followed by half a minute of nothing... then another short breath, and I knew the time had come. I took her hand and almost imperceptibly her head moved, and then it was over. I felt her already faint pulse grow fainter and slower until there was nothing. Until that moment I had not liked the term "passed away." I had considered it an unnecessary euphemism. I had thought we should boldly say "died." Now I know. "Passed away" describes exactly what happened. Imbi passed away in an instant... out of existence, gone.

I made the necessary phone call; and while I waited for the Hospice nurse to come, I went back and read what I had written only a few minutes before Imbi died.

"Where in this tiny, withered, dying frailness is the young girl who defied pogroms, invasions, and a major war while hanging on to a rug her grandmother had made? How remarkable that she didn't just give it up, leave it accidently on purpose at a military check-point or a ferry boarding dock or a train station. How much easier it would have been for the frightened teenager to let the rug go and to let the black swastikas on their blood-red field persuade her, take her, use her, discard her. She told me once that there was a time in Germany during the war when she moved every two weeks to keep the Nazis from catching her and putting her to work in a war factory. I don't know how she managed to go to school in a country at war, a country that wasn't hers. Perhaps it was that she spoke German, French and English in addition to her native Estonian. She was blond and pretty. She was Lutheran. She was very bright. She was determined and brave."

I left the building around eleven o'clock after the Hospice nurse had come and officially pronounced Imbi dead and the mortuary person had come for the "transfer of remains." I walked out into full moon light. I felt incredibly honored... privileged... blessed.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY with the OLYMPUS C-7000 Point-and-Shoot:

Just before dusk a few days ago I was waiting on Harbor Island to make an early evening Airport pick-up, and I used the only camera I had with me to take a few shots of the San Diego skyline. I didn't expect much because daylight was low and the lights in city buildings were just beginning to come on. With an ISO setting of 400, I shot wide open at f2.8. I hand-held the camera, steadying it on a rock. I was probably half a mile away from the embarcadero. I was surprised at the clarity of the images. That we can get such definition under low light conditions is a credit to the engineers who are designing digital cameras these days.

IMBI TELEPHONED MARGARET ON SATURDAY TO SAY SHE IS DYING THIS WEEK. She is in the final painful days of breast cancer, a condition that had been in remission until a year ago. Staying in her own apartment, she has been a Hospice patient for several months. On Friday she made the decision to stop taking nourishment, including water. She is heroic in death as she was in life. She is one of those persons whom we like to describe by saying they are survivors; but, of course, her condition now and her death in the next few days are reminders that none of us are ultimately survivors.

Imbi, the only child of Vello Simre and Minna Perlas, was born in 1925 in Tartu, a mid-sized, peaceful Estonian college town before the Soviet invasion of the Baltic States. The invasion came when she was fourteen. When she was sixteen her parents, who were university professors, were taken out of their home in the middle of the night and shot to death in a field with a number of other Estonian intellectuals. Her grandmother scrapped together all the money she had and helped the teenager escape to Finland. The only thing besides a few clothes that she took away from her homeland was a rug her grandmother had made. The rug hangs today on a wall in the apartment where she is dying.

From Finland Imbi managed to get to Germany just as the Nazis were dragging that country and the rest of Europe into World War II. The bright, pretty sixteen-year-old managed to stay alive during the awful years of war. She was enrolled in medical school when the war ended. Because she was not German and was a certifiable refugee from Stalin’s Soviet Union, she was accepted as an immigrant to Canada. At McGill University in Montreal she continued her medical studies and became a physician. She practiced medicine in Canada and in the United States. She outlived three husbands but had no children. The world is taking no notice whatsoever of her dying. Elaine, her friend and neighbor for the past thirty years, is staying close. Imbi has asked Elaine to be with her when she dies. Other than that, she is asking very little of the world in this last week of her life.

UPDATE: MONDAY, JUNE 16

Imbi died at 6:35 in the early evening. I had been sitting in her living room writing, occasionally getting up to go to the door to her room to see if she was still breathing. Instead of going back to my writing, for some reason I decided to sit for a minute in the chair beside her bed . Almost at the moment I sat down, her breathing changed: a very short inhalation followed by half a minute of nothing... then another short breath, and I knew the time had come. I took her hand and almost imperceptibly her head moved, and then it was over. I felt her already faint pulse grow fainter and slower until there was nothing. Until that moment I had not liked the term "passed away." I had considered it an unnecessary euphemism. I had thought we should boldly say "died." Now I know. "Passed away" describes exactly what happened. Imbi passed away in an instant... out of existence, gone.

I left the building around eleven o'clock after the Hospice nurse had come and officially pronounced her dead and the mortuary person had come for the "transfer of remains." I walked out into full moon light. I felt incredibly honored... privileged... blessed.

CANNA LILIES AND JIMSON WEEDCanna lilies proliferate in San Diego, and the wild jimson weed can be found everywhere. I took the jimson weed trumpet flowers photos at the edge of Huntington Beach, and the canna lilies are in the Davids' backyard on Montclair Street in San Diego . Southern California's climate is just right. Sometimes the canna lily colors are so intense it's difficult to see these flowers clearly. I especially like Georgia O'Keefe's paintings and drawings of flowers because she usually isolates a part of the plant for a close look. She made several paintings of canna lilies and the white trumpet flowers of the jimson weed. I can't look at the beautiful, poisonous jimson weed flower without thinking of her.

A WORLD OF MADE...
Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) didn't need a computer to remake the world to suit himself. A vision started in his head; and using his skills as a painter and a writer, he created new beings and new worlds. I'm guessing he saw things in leaves and flowers and animals that most people don't see. In the process of making worlds he was constantly remaking himself.

MOTHER EARTH’S SCARSWe have injured the Earth. Some wounds heal; some never will. The scars are everywhere. When I wrote in an earlier post that lumber companies reforest the hillsides where they have scraped away the trees, my friend Alan Thomas reminded me that it’s not just the trees that are removed when logging is done, but practically everything else is destroyed. Whole ecosystems disappear and there is nothing the logging companies can do to restore them. Large urban areas are another sorrow. Riding into and then out of the Los Angeles sprawl on my bicycle, I was stunned by how dismal and hopeless much of the region has become. Where is the hope in Torrence, the miserably poor little city sandwiched between the three beach cities south of the airport and the industrial suburb and port of Long Beach. Ugly is the only word for the string of strip malls that line both sides of The Pacific Coast Highway in Torrence. What a grand sounding name for a road. What a pitiful place. What a scar.