Tripping the Trypto-phantastic
After a heap of turkey at a table crowded with my awesome fam, the opening of great presents for my pad, and watching my nephews put together theirs, Jacob, my nephew, winding the painted orange hands of a wooden clock, Isaac, another one, who has now flopped down on the mattress by this computer with as much of one hand as he can fit in his mouth and the other clutching his Spiderman blanket (I think the technical term is "binky"), I'm moving from computer to tv to nephews to try to stay awake. It's a good regimen, that's been working so far, and I only have another hour to go before heading to see more friends, and then to church at midnight.
This trying to stay awake for church is a new thing for me, that started last year, in Colorado. There, part of my job was to go to churches and talk about the homeless shelter where I was an Americorps volunteer. The people were wonderfully friendly. They would come and shake my hand after the service, and my hand feels like a map of many others because of it, and there's something about shaking hands that leaves a firm warmth in the palm, that balms the psyche.
Church started to do something similar for me, at that time, except it was more like being shaken gently by a gigantic hand. Whether it belongs to Yahweh, a projection of my father, my Buddha nature, a projection based on enough obsessing about Batman to produce some sense of a divine fiction, or all of the above I'm not really sure. But there's something there, and it doesn't seem to need to be defined. Last night, I felt that sort of burst of peace, walking into my old bedroom, that's now a guest room, and something about the deep blue shimmer of sky mingling with the darker burn of shingles, and the streetlights radiating these spiky coronae like giant Christmas lights, that made sliding into sleep feel like being carried. Esta bueno. Hope your holidays are bringing you peace, too. If they aren't yet, my dosage of turkey was probably about a quarter pound. Add three awesome nephews, and one fading neurosis. I can wrap mine up for you, if you need me to.
I've been trying to come up with haiku about Batman battling different popular figures, and wondering what Batman vs. Santa would be like.
Santa gives gifts, but
Batman takes out bad guys.
Maybe you can finish it for me. Christmas IS coming up.
This trying to stay awake for church is a new thing for me, that started last year, in Colorado. There, part of my job was to go to churches and talk about the homeless shelter where I was an Americorps volunteer. The people were wonderfully friendly. They would come and shake my hand after the service, and my hand feels like a map of many others because of it, and there's something about shaking hands that leaves a firm warmth in the palm, that balms the psyche.
Church started to do something similar for me, at that time, except it was more like being shaken gently by a gigantic hand. Whether it belongs to Yahweh, a projection of my father, my Buddha nature, a projection based on enough obsessing about Batman to produce some sense of a divine fiction, or all of the above I'm not really sure. But there's something there, and it doesn't seem to need to be defined. Last night, I felt that sort of burst of peace, walking into my old bedroom, that's now a guest room, and something about the deep blue shimmer of sky mingling with the darker burn of shingles, and the streetlights radiating these spiky coronae like giant Christmas lights, that made sliding into sleep feel like being carried. Esta bueno. Hope your holidays are bringing you peace, too. If they aren't yet, my dosage of turkey was probably about a quarter pound. Add three awesome nephews, and one fading neurosis. I can wrap mine up for you, if you need me to.
I've been trying to come up with haiku about Batman battling different popular figures, and wondering what Batman vs. Santa would be like.
Santa gives gifts, but
Batman takes out bad guys.
Maybe you can finish it for me. Christmas IS coming up.
posted by Chad Parmenter at 5:50 PM
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