Soapbox

Today NRA officials labeled President Obama an elitist hypocrit  for saying that, while maybe some schools should investigate hiring security officers, the NRA call to arm teachers and janitors in every school is rash. Why do they think it outrageous for him to do so? Because his own daughters have armed guards at their school.

Dear NRA:
     You cowards! You sniveling, stinking cowards! If any of you had received even one TENTH the number of death threats that the Obama family has gotten just in the last month, you would hide under your desks and pee your little pants.
   How dare you alleged adults use children as pawns in your selfish little games of money and power!
      Are his children more important than ours? you ask.
     Well, when was the last time someone threatened to shoot you, blow you up or skin your children alive? Yes, the presidents daughters are guarded well. And the ease with which slack-jawed idiots can stockpile assault weapons with no background checks is part of the reason WHY they must be guarded! The Obama family receives more than 30 death threats a day: a level even the Secret Service calls "exhausting". And yet they continue to live their lives as normally as possible. Those two girls have more courage in their little fingers than you quislings possess between you.
 
      Also, there is a world of difference between a trained Secret Service agent whose sole job it is to guard someone, and a janitor who took a 2 day training class at a firing range and now carries a gun while he mops floors and changes light bulbs. You conflation of the two is insultingly stupid.

      You are no different than the Tobacco lobby, selling cigarettes to children and insisting that they were harmless and cool. Your "Guns, Not Butter" approach to every facet of life in America is partly responsible for the toxic gun culture our children are being poisoned by every day.
     So do the world a favor. Go back to being an organization dedicated to education and safety for gun owners and stop trying to pedal assault weapons and high capacity magazines in the hands of amatures as the snake-oil cure that is the only possible remedy for what ails us.

Stop sending us Teddy bears.
The twinkling black eyes and cute button noses will bring no smiles,
push, fuzzy bodies stuffed with sympathy and regret
do not comfort us, nor our grieving parents.
They only comfort you,
provide you some release from the pain
that pushes at the back of your eyes
and grips your throat til your breath barely whistles through.
Sending a gift helps you to feel less helpless,
which is blessed oxygen to the heart
when small bodies hit the ground.

But please, stop sending us teddy bears~
rooms and rooms and rooms full
of books, and toys, and crayons,
and thirty- thousand silent, never-to-be-loved bears.
Your fountain of good intention quenches no thirst in us,
only causes pain for those who must decide what to do
with these loving, empty gestures that now fill a warehouse.
The Poohs and Paddingtons you send to us
will never serve as pillow to a shampoo-sweet head,
get smeared with jam, tear an ear loose falliing out of a tree
or be sneaked guiltily  into a suitcase when we go off to college.
They are being made into bricks for a memorial-
surely not what bears are meant  for.

When curious brown eyes, untied shoes and sticky fingers
are suddenly snatched away,
when decades of possibility can be burned in an instant
down to one grim certainty
it is natural to wish to hold on to~ something,
anything that is good and innocent,
to gravitate to symbols of comfort and security
in such a confused and broken world.
Yet how much greater is the tragedy
of gifts sent to children who need nothing
when so many are still in need?

Gifts bring no comfort to those already dead.
Facebook prayers offer no protection for those
who will die tomorrow.

Keep your lamentation and atonement.
Do not send us your anxious nights and fears of the dark.
If you would push back against the shadows
hat steal childhood
and lift the weight of guilt and shame, then
send your gifts to the living.
Books and toys to a  homeless shelter,
stoic bears to offer strength to children too often
poked and cut and stitched back together.
Your time to a foundation working to stop child abuse
is more healing than gifts given after
the final blows have fallen.
Compassion and justice for the living  brings
more light to the world than all the weeping candles,
balloons and drawings,
complacent, doe-eyed angels and teddy bears
left at all the street-corner shrines
for all the souls taken much too young.

So stop sending us teddy bears.
Send them to arms who can hold them.
Send them to those who still feel pain.

     I believe that I would enjoy Christmas more if there weren't so many people involved.
 
   December is a difficult time, so dark and empty. Everything is going to sleep and you sometimes wonder if it will ever wake up again. It is the perfect time for a celebration of rebirth and light, for candles and greenery and the smell of spicy, sweet things baking to warm you and sustain you. Perfect for singing songs of hope and renewal, and all the elements that make solstice celebrations and the Christmas story so timely, and so sorely needed.
      But then people just muck it all up.
    There's so damn much hustle and bustle: shopping and parties and god-damned ho-ho-ho. So many expectations.
    God forbid you feel introspective and reflective and subdued as the earth slumbers toward spring. No – you have to be merry! And bright! You have to decorate your house, inside and out, and go to parties, and host parties, and shop and wrap; caroling, maybe, and sending cards— make sure you send one to everybody who sent you one last year, for goodness' sake! Bake cookies for the neighbors, don't be the last to get your tree up and listen to little Michael Jackson tattle on Mommy for kissing Santa Claus.
    As for Santa- that guy is selling cars and beer and women's lingere! He shops at Sears- no, Macys- no, Best Buy! Apparently all those elves got outsourced just like so many of us did.

   Christmas used to arrive rather more quietly, like the crunch of a boot through new-fallen snow. Now it screams like a freight train, with the subtlety of a hurricane and just as disruptive to everyone's lives. It has become an orgy of noise and chaos, of traffic and bank balances, with glitter everywhere- even between your toes- and plastic snowflakes and everywhere is red, like the earth is bleeding.
    Lovely green trees, meant to be a symbol of continuing life are covered, every inch of them, with ribbons and bells, glitter and light-up angels and sequined nutcrackers and Jersey Shore ornaments… so burdened that you can't even see the green, can't smell that wonderful citrusy aroma…. because the damn thing isn't a tree anyway! It's plastic, made from the same god-damned oil that we're killing each other (and the planet) for.
   How's that for a symbol of life? But it's not even green anyway- it's silver, or pink, with glitter and fake snow. Ah yes, I feel so renewed and hopeful just thinking about it.

   Once before I die, I want a gentle christmas: a doe instead of a bull-elephant. A season of unforced cheerful greetings where no one fights over the script. I want wood smoke in crisp air, one gift, perfect in it's love and intention, a gift of warmth and comfort rather than convenience and 40% off.  I want the glittering eyes of children when that first flake of snow, like a crystalline dream, drifts into their outstretched hands.
   Until that perfect day comes I will try to create tiny moments that speak to the same spirit: early morning Christmas day, before the family gets up, sitting in the almost-dark by the tree we decorated with tradition and paper-crafted memories, sipping coffee, breathing the stillness and the peace, holding it in amber as talisman against the after-christmas sales looming on the horizon.

…And it came to pass that it rained all day that Christmas
with the wind out of the west, gusting to the bone.
The kids were bored and sullen and they grumbled at the weather
'cause they couldn't take their sleds out and had to stay at home.

And it came to pass that they all ate too much dinner,
argued over the dishes and who'd take out the trash.
Mom  was complaining and Dad pontificating-
there was way too much family for this Christmas joy to last.

As the rain came down they huddled under bridges.
wrapped their coats around them and endured another day
and the only trip they made was to the church around the corner
where they kept a pot of coffee and would let a fellow stay.

But the sun came up, like always, and the rooms were still and empty
except for all the memories of the other lonely years.
Little celebration when you greet each day alone
with regrets for your company, wrap a bow around your fears.

And it came to pass that there was no 'why' of christmas
'cause they buried it in tinsel and stuff they didn't need-
in distilled good cheer and carols that were just familiar melodies
to celebrate indulgence with little thought and deed.

But it came to pass that the sun broke through the clouds
and a bird sang very softly- it might have been a dove
and somewhere, someone paused, and their smile lit a candle
wihich lit another candle… and ignited Christmas love.
 

   I'm getting tired already of all the "Pray for the little angels" and "Share this candle for the lost souls" and "Wear green and white on Monday for Sandy Hook School" posts all over FB.
REALLY? I know it is all very well intentioned by people who are genuinely moved, but is that ALL you are going to do?

   Yet another group of innocent children was gunned down and the best you can offer is to post a f**king candle or send the school a card??? You can't call anybody, petition your government, join an activist group, write to the editor of your paper?
   I guess you want the world to know terribly sad you are that it happened, but…  you're not sad enough to try to do ANYthing to try to keep it from happening again.