A God in Their Eyes

Before any Church battles to officially recognize other types of marriages, they need a good debate on officially recognizing divorce -- especially where children are involved. Sometimes marriages, for whatever reason, just don't work. Many Churches do a really good job of getting couples into this mess, but they don’t do well at getting everyone out. Maybe have a ceremony, much like a Christening, or dare I say wedding, where the congregation is charged with understanding and support for the children of the Dissolved (I like that word…it just came out and sounded so official – the Dissolved).

When the children of a divorce attend a Church with one parent, inevitably, the displaced parent will show up at the door for something or another. The children get baptized, present performances, sing in a service, or in some way are recognized that it is not only appropriate, but incumbent for the other parent to attend.

Divorce will happen and most Churches do a very poor job of educating their members on how to deal with the dynamics of divorce. Churches do a fair job of attracting divorcees with support groups, but these are typically aimed at supporting one side in the grief process. Often, in the Church and these support groups, the divorcee feels pressured into justifying their “biblically based” divorce and ultimately demonizing their ex-spouse.

It would serve the entire Congregation to offer a seminar about dealing with divorce dynamics. Divorced co-parenting is still an enigma in most Churches. They seem to be more comfortable just choosing one side and vilifying the other. Remember, the children of the displaced parent are members of the Church also. There are two distinct dynamics at play; the ex and the children. If I were to teach such a seminar, I would include these three steps to avoid contempt prior to investigation:

1) At first sign of badmouthing, reply, “I look forward to meeting them.”

2) Upon further badmouthing, “Well, I will ask them about this if I do meet them.”

3) At incessant badmouthing, “You are speaking about the parent of one of our members and I would appreciate it if you took your issues to a therapist and not me.”

I attended my children’s performance at their Church. Upon arrival, I learned that this was to be a fellowship dinner culminating in their presentation. Most of my children ate with me on our own little side of the fellowship hall. “Mom says we shouldn’t ever get in the car with a stranger or with you without her permission!” One of my children blurted. I just looked back with some confusion and we all laughed like that was the funniest joke anyone ever made.

After dinner we all went into the sanctuary for their performance. The musical presentation opened with the premise that if we looked around us we could see God in the eyes of our fellow man. I, sitting by myself on the second pew, had to really crane to see the eyes of everyone else. If God’s face was to be seen, it was only a glimpse as all the glances dropped when I looked around the Sanctuary.

All the children in this Church, including those beautiful girls that look something like my mother, sang a song that went exactly like this:

When I’m where I belong God can use me,
When I’m where I belong I can’t fail.
There’s work to be done,
and I am the one,
and I’ll stay right where I belong,
right where I belong.

This song just hit home with me! No longer could I feel the sting of the glares of in-laws and judgmental stares of parishioners; Only the approval-seeking eyes of my children fixed upon mine -- I, on my own pew, smiling, nodding, and clapping like an overly-excited, outcast oaf. This may indeed be where my children belong, but until their work is done I must endure that cold breeze on my back.

If God was to be seen in the eyes of anyone in that Congregation, it was merely their own God that I caught a glimpse of. Their God seemed to believe He had not mixed the guest list well for this evening’s dinner party. I told Him how nice everything was as I exited, but I won’t be looking for another invitation. For now, I answer to a greater God -- the love in the eyes of my children. I am certain I will crash more of His soirées in the future.

© Brian Webber 2009

Crazy People in Love and the Eagle Flies with the Dove…

Jerry and I were in Birmingham, Alabama in the heat of July and on a quest for cold high-gravity beer. We ended up at that new trendy place that looks a lot like the old trendy place -- the one with the courtyard in the back. Emotionally, Jerry still has open wounds that need to be dressed often with an alcohol-based disinfectant. I went along on this medicinal outing to procure some of this same salve for what are now just pink blotches that still need an occasional treatment.

At the bar I saw Phil; I hadn’t seen him in years. As I introduced Jerry to Phil, I saw her. She whisked through the bar area and dashingly remarked, “Hey Phil!” I knew the moment I laid eyes on her that I loved her. I had never met her before but in my dream she was “the one”. The moment I entered the courtyard I realized that I wasn’t the only person under this delusion. It was obvious that all the men, and what I estimate were three women, felt the same way.

Jerry and I secured a table with two chairs at the corner of the courtyard. I, still transfixed on my new love, watched her flutter across the crowded courtyard from table to table, lap to lap. Soon after we sat down, Jerry asked, “Did you see that woman that came through the bar?” I took my eyes off her long enough to respond with a prideful, “What woman?” Jerry hadn’t noticed the heads of everyone following her like tennis fans or the beginnings of poetry penned to my beverage napkin.

“The woman with the British accent”, he said. I hadn’t noticed an accent. She was becoming more interesting by the moment. In an attempt at misdirection I spouted random sentences in bad British accents. He insisted I hadn’t captured her saying she had a “more refined, received pronunciation”. “And her mannerisms.” he stated, “So theatrical, almost like she’s been trained.” I replied in bold British accent, “Where did you learn to do that?” Relying on the reference to the movie “Shakespeare in Love” where, after an impressive audition, the Bard yells these words from the balcony. Jerry demonstrated that he got it by retorting with “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.” A Shakespeare quote from "A Midsummer Night's Dream". We both shared a long laugh with that spirit of just being so impressed with ourselves. Little did we know that Jerry’s glib retort had introduced the three principal players in this evening’s performance.

Jerry was already giving this girl place, status, and education while I was stilling mulling in my emotions. This pursuit was now a team effort and knowing Jerry in social settings, I was to be the quarterback. After observing this woman in her natural habitat, I knew that I must provide a place for her to light. I proceeded to a nearby table and borrowed an empty chair. Going down the mental checklist of my proposed snare I realized it would be easier if I knew her name. I went back to my source, Phil at the bar, and he informed me her name was Anna. As she picked up her purse and deliberately headed towards the exit, I yelled out, “Anna!” She paused with some confusion and then proceeded over to our table. After a few proven lines and jokes to defuse that we really didn’t know her, we progressed to doing just that.

We learned that she was a product of a middle class family from North Carolina, had always spoken with this dialect, and never had any theatrical training, only dance, and she had just moved to Birmingham three months ago to be near friends. Her story that I had already forged in my imagination was quickly devolving under the weight of her own testimony. I began to fear that she was some type of histrionic that had manufactured a persona rather than having gone through the proper process of marinating and seasoning.

My mother’s voice in my head starting rattling conclusions, “She’s a phony”, “She’s crazy”, “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”, “Love is a compromise”, and “you shouldn’t be drinking, I’m so ashamed of you.” My affections for Anna became more impotent with every rationale provided by this maternal, Manchurian programming. But on her every word, Jerry clearly became more drawn in and captivated with her.

Anna gave us her phone number and excused herself stating that she was late to a party. Wow, digits! So seldom do I get a number – at least one that works. I know I’m supposed to wait three days before calling a woman, but the gravity of the beer caused me to only hold off about 30 minutes. I called. She seemed to welcome the call and invited us to the party she was attending at the Vulcan, a huge statue of said Roman God. It stands as an iconic and ironic figure of a Pagan God presiding over the Bible-Belt city of Birmingham on a 120 foot pedestal atop Red Mountain.

Upon arrival, Anna met us at the stairs leading up the hillside. In her purse was a bottle of wine and three glasses that she confessed were “lifted” from the party. We rode the elevator to the top of the Vulcan’s pedestal. From this open-air observatory, we could see the entire valley and downtown Birmingham lit by the moon and drawn by twinkling lights in the July evening haze. We sat down on the meshed metal floor, Anna in between us, peering through the rail as we drank wine and talked.

Out of the blue, Anna states “I wish I were a bird.” As I searched my mind's inventory for a witty reply she stood up, hopped up on the rail and while balancing precariously on her midriff exclaimed, “Imagine if I just jumped right now! What if I just flung my body over the side?” Oh my God, I knew it! She’s, crazy, crazy, crazy! I made some nervous wisecrack about Newton’s Law. After a long pause Jerry touched her foot that extended into midair and simply stated, “It would hurt”. She put her feet back down on the steel-mesh and they both shared a long laugh as though Jerry had made some poetic observation. Anna slowly leaned against Jerry as he wrapped an arm around her and they just held each other as we all gazed at the full moon.

As I saw this girl in the arms of my best friend, a girl who only hours ago I had loved, I began to question if she was crazy or was it me? One thing I was sure of; we were all birds – one love, one mocking, and one cuckoo perched high upon the God of Fire on a midsummer night.


© Brian Webber 2009

There were Good Times before Burglar Alarms

I have been watching these burglar alarm commercials for some time now with a jaundiced eye, seeing an obvious trend – bad men attempting to break down the doors of helpless good women. I have yet to see one where a bad man breaks in on a helpless good man and the good man yells like a big sissy and answers the phone, “he’s breaking in…oh my God…please help me!”

Last night was the straw that broke the camel’s back. This was a new commercial; the story of a young woman coming home after a date. On her front porch, she politely refuses any advances and informs the suitor that she has just come out of a “really bad relationship”. As soon as the suitor’s car makes it out of the parking place, another man kicks in the door. Alarms go off and the phone rings, “It’s my ex-boyfriend!” she exclaims to the caller from the alarm company.

I understand that there are statistical differences in male verses female where crime is concerned, but I’ve been in enough relationships to know that the above scenario is definitely a two-way street. Women are just far more creative than simply kicking in a door. I would have liked to have seen this burglar alarm company use this opportunity to offer a gender role reversal. I could have written the script as it went exactly like this:

A few years ago, I was on a third date with a really interesting and intelligent woman named Sarah. We were to watch a movie at my house after going out to dinner. I really liked Sarah, but knowing I was only about a month out of a relationship, I didn’t trust myself to make an emotional investment beyond my abilities to make the required deposits.

About an hour into the movie, we heard a knock at the door. As I opened the door, I realized it was my ex-girlfriend. I politely told her that this was not a good time and to please leave. “Looks like it’s a good time for you!” she yelled. “When do I get my good time?!” she continued, “I gave you over a year, where is my good time?!” I said nothing and closed the door. After about a minute of silence, I hear my ex-girlfriend singing “Good Times” very loudly in the front yard while throwing potted plants, and anything else she could get her hands on, through the front windows.

I called 911 and attempted to calmly state my issues. The woman on the other end asked me if I had been drinking and then wanted to know who was singing in the background. When I informed her that it was the perpetrator singing “Good Times” she responds with, “you mean from the television show?” “Yes!” I replied, “But that really isn’t the point!” I continued. “You need to calm down sir!” she replied. “I am trying to understand your domestic issues.” “Domestic?!” I sort of yelled, “I have a crazy person in the front yard!” “Police are on their way.” She snorted.

Things started to quiet down outside and Sarah and I were both relieved to hear the car startup and exit the front driveway. We were unaware that my ex-girlfriend was simply driving her vehicle down the side of the house until we heard her crash through one of the garage doors downstairs. With her car still audibly running in the garage, we heard continued singing of “Temporary layoffs. Good Times.” getting closer to the door at the bottom of the stairs.

As we stood at the top of the enclosed steps going down to the finished basement I suggested to Sarah that we should just make a run for it out the front door. As I pondered and persuaded our fight or flight strategy, Sarah had already grabbed the fire extinguisher from the kitchen wall and stood next to me like Rambo -- aiming the nozzle of the extinguisher down the stairs. As my ex-girlfriend came through the downstairs door, still singing, “Ain't we lucky we got 'em” Sarah fires a beam of white smoke and yells, “DYNOMITE!!!”. This continued in several more iterations until I heard the police yell through the broken front door window, “Can we enter the home?!” “Hell yes!” I retorted.

After the police and tow truck left, Sarah and I just sat on the sofa not saying a word. She reached down and hit the play button on the DVD remote and we sat speechless, watching the end of “Love Actually”. It was actually a really good movie.

© Brian Webber 2009

That Funeral Was Just Way Better than I Thought it would be

I am now officially a funeral crasher. A friend of mine attends (crashes) about one a week and invites me to come along about once a month. I always turn him down and he always tries to convince me that it isn’t as bad as I might think. He has tried to explain that culturally, in his social circles, it’s just accepted that some people show up that the mourning family may not know and that they are almost appreciative of such a turnout. It’s much like being a professional mourner compensated in food and booze.

Now I have been guilty of crashing -- quite frankly I’m good at it, enjoy the challenge and have fostered some lifelong friendships from these outings. All of my crashing ambitions came to an end the night a friend (amateur) and I crashed a Yellow Book convention at a local 4 star hotel. Everything was going great until, while dancing with what I estimate was 572 pound woman he, as reported later, “felt sorry for her and decided to give her a little attention” with a slap to her bottom. Torches were lit and I remember running out – literally running all the way to the car.

I understand that as a person approaches seventy, it is not unusual to read the obituaries to plan the next week’s outings. One of my favorite family stories is my great-grandmother referring to a funeral as, “it just wasn’t as good as I thought it would be.” But I don’t think a forty year old should be looking for a funeral. Well I was wrong. I have never felt more loved or intoxicated than I did last Thursday.

It was late afternoon or really more like early evening when we joined the processional at the funeral home and followed a large caravan of attendees to the cemetery. There were at least three limousines directly behind the hearse; I don’t mean the 6-door funeral type, but the much stretched, rock and roll "I’m going to the prom" type. We arrived at the graveside and stood around the seated family as the minister told us the Biblical story of the Ten Bridesmaids. It would take three single-spaced pages to convey how the Ten Bridesmaids connected to this man’s life, but let me just say we all cried like babies.

After the preacher spoke he motioned to the family. We all lined up to greet them and a woman sang “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places”. Once again, tears welled up in my eyes and I feared I might just boohoo in front of all these strangers. One elderly woman in the line hugged me and told me she loved me and without hesitation or forethought I told her I loved her too.

When we got to the banquet hall across town, it was like walking into the biggest pot luck dinner I have ever seen, compete with a DJ playing oldie’s music and an additional table best described as a BYOB free-for-all complete with red solo cups and a big cooler of ice. This was my first introduction to a magical elixir called Hennessey. Things got fuzzier after that.

This was definitely a party. There was dancing and laughing. There was no talk of death, no crying and, surprisingly enough, no questions about who I was, who my friend was or why we were there. It was just like I was part of the family. And all the dynamics and dysfunctions that go with it. I was made fun of by Uncle Pete, had something wiped off my face by Auntie Laurel, a cute distant cousin flirted with me, two of the great-grand children covertly tossed olives at me, and Sammy tried to save my soul.

I finally got to meet the elderly woman that had hugged me at the graveside service. It was Great-Auntie Cecile. She was the sister of the deceased. When the next slow song came along, I asked her to dance. There, on the dance floor with one arm out and a smile on both our faces, we danced to the song “A Whiter Shade of Pale”. Embracing eighty-something-year-old Auntie Cecile, I realized that I hadn’t crashed their funeral -- they had purposefully collided with my life. Somewhere, between Ten Bridesmaids and Sixteen Vestal Virgins, I experienced the intoxication of being human.

© Brian Webber 2009

Happy Hill

I grew up in a white-flight suburb community south of Birmingham, Alabama called Vestavia Hills in a middle-class subdivision called Gentilly Forest. Historically, Vestavia Hills was a place to which moms and dads flocked to prepare a nest for their children with hopes of raising them to be happy and well-adjusted in addition to providing them a good education (what is meant by the value judgment “good” in “good education” is a rant for another time).

In my growing up years, most of Vestavia Hill’s mortgage and tax laden denizens had very little expendable income hence referred to as “the velvet ghetto” or sometimes “happy hill”. From the perspective of my childhood, those were indeed happy hills. In retrospect, I now realize that those hills of happiness were driven by the undercurrents of a defense mechanism commonly referred to as Denial. If a tree fell in Gentilly Forest, there was no one around who could (or would) hear it – and I can plainly remember that trees did fall.

I still can’t figure out if this suburban driven denial was intended to shelter the children or the parents themselves. I suspect it is both. Most can only perpetuate a falsehood so long before they start to believe it themselves. Coming-of-age in this environment is much like arriving at the Santa Clause conclusion. To be an introspective adult, I have been forced to re-index my past belief structures based on what I conclude were my parent’s past “white” lies or what was indeed fact. In many cases this is a tough determination. It’s as though I might be a bit shocked, but ultimately understanding, if that when I turn fifty years old my childhood Church will have a meeting and inform me that they too were just perpetuating a through-mid-life myth.

Because of the fact that I have been fully indoctrinated in the Lifestyle of Denial and fluent in its language, I have to monitor and retrain myself on a daily basis. Suburbia thinking has created for me an Orwellian bag that I can’t seem to fight my way out of. I have been taught the tools of the trade; Buzz words such as “it’s going to be okay”, “everything will be alright”, “that’s not something you talk about”, “all’s well that ends well”, “don’t embarrass the family”, “keep your thoughts to yourself”, “tonight we’re having milk toast, just keep that to yourself” and “Mr. Wells didn’t kill himself, he was just working on the car in the garage, will you please stop talking about it.” I still wake up every morning and slip this tool belt on before I even get out of bed.

I guess one could assess these words as cynical, but when you’ve been lied to a lot, it’s difficult to trust anyone and I think it’s fair to say that kid’s who grow up on elm street and Victoria Bridge (starting in the low 300s) just get lied to a lot. No harm. All’s well that ends well. What they don’t know can’t hurt them and besides, Santa Clause is watching.

© Brian Webber 2009

Fatalistic Monkeys

It seems patently unfair to monkeys, but often we speak of a very large group of primates with many typewriters. Each punching away at the keyboard until one of these television-level scriptwriters lucks up and types the entire text of “Pride and Prejudice”, word for word, simply by chance. The same premise holds true for any statistical set of large numbers and possibilities. Well, the same could be true for all of space and time. This was the premise behind a play I recently saw called “Rabbit Hole”.

Here we go. If all of space and time is eternal then it must be certain that there are entire galaxies out there exactly like ours, containing inhabitants exactly like us. It’s just the law of probability. Time Travel could be as simple as space travel to another place that was exactly evolved to the time we wish to travel. There are some complicated relativity issues about exactness that I can’t wrap my head around at this very moment.

No, I have not been smoking anything. I am blogging -- a primate with a typewriter. Thanks for reading this…I promise to get better at it.

© Brian Webber 2009

I Smell U OR A Tail as Old as Time

What I am about to summarize arises from very complicated physics and then crosses into many other disciplines and scientific studies. The purpose of this essay is to convey, in layman’s terms, what may be a universal truth that all people need to understand. Please have the gastrointestinal fortitude to read a little more before deciding that this is too technical.

SIDI (pronounced SID E) is a two pronged observation. It is both a scientific theory and an observation of a phenomenon.

The Theory:

The human being, who communicates or indicates to another the observation of a putrid olfactory sensation, has a very high likelihood of having caused said aroma.

The Phenomenon:

Even if the human being who made the observation did not cause said odor they still maintain a proximate cause and culpability for having indicated the existence of it.

Mathematically expressed:

I = U - PU

PU = U - I

U = I + PU

Studies show that there is approximately 80% probability that the person who smelt it, actually did dealt it (U = I + PU). While the remaining 20% fall into the phenomenon category -- They did not actually create the bouquet but simply observed it, whereby they become the suspected fouler (I = U – PU).

SIDI is an acronym for Smelt It, Dealt It

Necessity is the mother of invention and Archimedes is the father of modern day SIDI theory. This Greek mathematician, physicist and inventor; after realizing there was no other human being near his bathtub to cast blame upon, got out and ran naked around his town pointing and yelling “You Reeka!” ; Greek for “I smell you!”

Plato once surmised that If we, as humans, were to be sheltered in a dark cave, from birth, surrounded by a putrid odor with no one else to implicate, we would exit the cave and immediately beginning pointing at others (“He who perceived it, conceived it”)

SIDI has been observed since the beginning of all known civilizations. Cave drawings in France clearly illustrate a buffalo with an arrow coming from its rear to its nose. When King Tutankamon’s tomb was uncovered, the hieroglyphs on the main entrance roughly translated, “He who enters to speak of it, centers the reek of it.” The Romans worded it “He who piqued it, squeaked it” while Biblically referred to as, “He who speaks smell unto others, cheeks hell unto brothers.” From the monks of the Middle ages , “He whoeth trued it, hath brewed it.” To Shakespeare, “He who doth protested it, foam-crested it.” There was even a Viking ship christened, “Han hvem notater den , dupp den.” Best translated “He who notes it, floats it.”

The psychology behind all SIDI theory can be summed up as “ignorance is the best alibi”. The reason that such a great majority take note of the inevitable outcome of their choice is to throw off the scent trail of the other observers. The other observers are also aware, from their own experiences, of this strategy and turn, en mass, on the observer. There is no easy answer as to the when and why one should implement the observation strategy. Sometimes it might be better to say nothing at all.

The SIDI theory has traditionally encompassed the observation of an intangible presence, but in modern day studies there has been more interest in the ranker actually leaving a trail of tangible proof, if you will, of said occurrence. A good example is, “If you’re sliding into first and you feel a little burst…” This focuses mainly on theory, not phenomenon, as there is an absolute cause and effect in play – i.e. it is 100% certain, with tangible evidence, from where the stench arrived. Additionally, I am concerned about the legitimacy of this theory. As I understand the rules, one is not permitted to slide into first.

My father was an amateur student and follower of SIDI theory. I believe he genuinely wanted me to pursue this discipline in my studies and later as a professional career and I wish I had. He once got up from his stool at the kitchen bar, walked deliberately into the living room, looked me in the eye and stated with a very serious and pensive look on his face, “if you DIDI, you need to go SIDI.”

© Brian Webber 2009