Crossing a line in the Ether

Written but not published May 8, 2016 by David L Lewis

On a Sunday morning some years back an elder came and asked if I’d sit in with him while he counseled a single woman. No man, it should be here noted, need ever be alone with any woman except his wife.

My task at the time was to sit silently, unobtrusively. Me, being me, of course had to speak out of turn. What came to mind and which I told the woman at the time has served me well these now 30 years on: “I do not know how you feel because none of my life’s experiences match your circumstances. This does not mean I do not care, only that I do not understand.”

It was with this in mind that I wrote last year in a blog entitled “Sorry for your loss”:

“Maybe it’s what we saw on some TV show. Maybe it is just what we’ve come to say because we don’t really know what to say. For my part, I take a person at their word. I believe they really are sympathetic, even if they can’t find other words.

“Overall ‘sorry’ seems better than ‘I know how you feel’; unless, of course, the speaker really does know. The most strengthening words come from those who simply say: ‘I’ve been there. It will never be the same, but it will get better than it is now.’”

I keep thinking I need to Google the stages of grief, if only to figure out if I’ve gone through them and have yet to come out the other side. I suspect I have not; or at least not as long as I cannot bring myself to visit the grave. [see FOOTNOTE]

Today, though, I crossed a line I didn’t know was there into something like liberty. A pastor who’d been a customer and whom I didn’t really remember called about a computer problem. He reminded me he had prayed for us right after we reopened the business and had said at that time, as people do, “I know how you feel.” The caller wanted to apologize for having said that – it’s just what you say.

It seems this man of God had similarly lost his 30 year old daughter Easter Sunday; and only now could honestly say, “I know how you feel”.

Somehow I found myself the counselor, assuring him of what others had told me at the time and which I’d since seen confirmed by a year’s experience: “I’ve been there. It will never be the same, but it will get better than it is now.” To which was added -- just not today.

And thus I found myself having crossed an invisible line in the Ether. There will always be grief in our hearts, of course. But somewhere I’ve crossed from losing my son and close friend to being a voice of those who really are “sorry for your loss”.

theDaddy!

FOOTNOTE: Posted to Facebook May 31, 2018
THREE YEARS SIX WEEKS

First year in tax preparation business an “older” woman came in explaining that filling out forms was something her husband always did. She cried as she thought of him. Being a wanta-be pastor I asked the obvious, when did he pass? “Seven years ago.” I hadn’t much actual experience with grief, but did think seven years was enough. Time and life teaches otherwise.

It has been quite a while since I thought “I’ll ask my dad” – only a few less years since I started to call my brother, Terry. It’s been, more or less, about a day since I had something to tell Nathan.

Once told Susan I was going to live in Brazil until I die, and be buried beside my wife and son. But, I had not been able to bring myself to visit Nathan’s grave.

Today, because Kay was with me, I went to his grave site.

 

Tax Time Travail

by reformed former tax preparer David L Lewis

“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes, nor public duty to pay more than the law demands." Supreme Court Judge Learned Hand (1872-1961)

Now that the moon has gone back to wherever it hides in the daytime, the news people can go on to the next immutable natural phenomena -- Tax Time! It gets to page one in the news just now because the busiest time in tax business are first two weeks of April - when folks expecting to owe money file at late as possible.

In the interest of full disclosure, I operated tax preparation businesses over fifteen years. Every year IRS would “improve’ the forms. As Henry Block said, “If they stopped making changes to the laws and the forms, we’d go out of business.” Truth is once you filled out one or two the rest were easy.

Of course it’s been quite a while since I filled out those forms, so I may be a bit rusty on the subject. Let me see if I’ve got this modern taxation thing right.

1. The government prints the money. They do this very well and frown on anyone else doing it for them.

2. We have to use their currency which they issue to us, even though its value consists solely in how well we trust the issuer.

3. Then, every time money passes from one hand to the next for “value received” the government wants back some of the money which they themselves printed.

4. For example, if the kid who cuts your grass earns more than $400 in any calendar year, the government wants back part of the money it printed. If they don’t get it, well, federal prison at Leavenworth Kansas is lovely in the Spring with lots of grass to cut.

5. Finally, congress says they can’t do such & such because they don’t have enough tax money; but they can pay for this more Popular thing with borrowed money -- providing a benefit which their donors will almost certainly filter down to us, eventually.

So, why can’t the government just print themselves enough money to pay off all their bills and let us have the rest? That would certainly end a lot of tax time travail.

Ain’t this a great country or not?

theNoLongerTaxGuru

 

Blogging About Blogging

“Only a blockhead would write for anything but money”

(quote attributed to 18^th century writer Samuel Johnson).

In 2008 the Brazil Times solicited bloggers. I had no idea what a blog was. Kay convinced me to look into it (some nonsense about writing being my ‘art’). The “pay” was to be free subscription to paper, which I never got. Also signed some paper work as reflected in end note.

It’s not that I’ve had a lot of trouble finding something to say. The Times website posted about 350 of my blogs under header My View From the Back Pew; and 75 print articles in the paper under The Not a Computer Geek. For reasons some will understand, I stopped writing for the Times in 2015.

Since November 2018 I have written 165 blogs on the blog machine Matthew set up for me. My first blog on this site was copy of my first blog for Times. About a year ago I undertook to write 500 or more words each week for this blog thingee (yes, yes. I know, Jen was behind this, too).

One of my problems is that I’ve never had any one thing to blog about. I’m not an expert in much of anything, and never will be a particularly prolific writer because my eclectic mind is fascinated by a multitude of sins. Try to write assuming everyone on Facebook will read it, while knowing few will. Have left over from all this ‘tons’ of stuff which I started but didn’t finish – most now out of date or never worth starting.

About once a year I “decide” it is time to stop writing these inane blogs. This is one of those times.

     Pretty sure it is no secret my body hath betrayeth me. I’m having a lot more times when can’t think clear. My hospice nurse said it’s all right to get discouraged about all this; so I consider myself justified in so being.
     As old men with failing hearts often do, I look back on my life which hahas passed t oo quickly, and forward to the world I see coming for which I feel so unprepared. It becomes harder and harder to feel optimistic about the future of this life and more curious about the next. Do they even need blog writers in heaven?
     Mostly, though, have come to feel I really have nothing much more to say. Turns out every thought I have these days has already been written [even this diatribe was cannibalized from something I wrote in 2012].

Not sure what’s next in my blog ‘career’. Who knows, though, might yet think of something new I just have to write to find out what I think.

As lady on TV says, Watch This Space,

theDaddy!

For any interested, my first blog on this here site is available at: https://blogsbythedaddy.blogspot.com/2018/11/by-way-of-introduction-what-follows-in.html. 

Please Note: This blog was first published on the Brazil Times website
This is part of complying of Blogs posted from May 17 2008 to May 10 2015 on the Brazil Times website under the by-line MY VIEW FROM THE BACK PEW.  Not all Blogs can or should be included -- that's well over 150,000 words which nobody much read the first time around.  And, some will be edited for timeliness, relevance, or just plain keeping short enough to be read. These Blogs can no longer be found on the Times site annind are reproduced here from original document files; my understanding is they remain “property” of the paperve, so acknowledgment is given.

 

 The Man Who Knew

by David L Lewis -- who sojourns the earth as is appointed to mankind

And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way;
others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.
And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying,
“Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord;
Hosanna in the highest.” (Matthew 21.8-9, KJV)

Sunday before Easter is universally celebrated in Christianity as Palm Sunday. Preceding worship services children parade with palm leaves, songs are sung, story of borrowed donkey re-told. Many might hear the story; yet, few, if any, know what the man on the donkey knew.

He knew the path that brought Him there

He had been schooled in the Old Testament and teachings of the Rabies. He had walked from one end of Israel to the other; spoken in churches where He could, in open fields and hillsides when necessary, to individuals at wells on occasion. He taught new understandings of God with which we still wrestle. He had made worshipers among the people and enemies among the clergy. He knew where to borrow the donkey, and where His path must lead.

He knew all earthly glory is fleeting

The crowds cheered. Here, they thought was the man who would overthrow the tyrannical government. The man on the donkey, though, knew the praise of man passes quickly; that only the glory which comes from the Father lasts, or matters. His glory comes even when enemies prevail.

And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, “Master, rebuke Thy disciples.” And He answered and said unto them, “I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” (Luke 19:39-41 KJV)

He knew what death is

We all know death must come. We all know the fears of death that haunts. All of us ask, what is it like to die, will it be painful, will it come unexpected, will I fight it? What happens when all human experiences are gone, all knowledge lost, all tasks to do left undone? Death, as it comes to all men, would come to the man on the donkey. Unlike mere man, He knew what it is.

He knew what lies beyond

Heaven. The written text does its best to describe it. Preachers try to help imagine it. ‘Near death experiences’ told somehow never seem able to put the encounter into faltering human words. In the end, only the man on the donkey, who comes therefrom, knew.

He knew His purpose

It may be impossible for human minds to completely comprehend purposes of the Father. The man on the donkey knew death lay seven days away. Heaven, in all its glory, would come in due course. His purpose in taking this path, however, was to demonstrate to mankind the Resurrection promise. His teachings and prophesies would stand over 2,000 years. But, the entire gospel He gave rests on the Resurrection. If there is no Resurrection from death, there is no need for the man on the donkey.

Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. I Corinthians 15:12-14 (KJV)

The man on the donkey was Jesus of Nazareth, called Christ in Greek, Messiah in Hebrew. He is the man who knew.

theDaddy!

 

Patrick, Lottie & Viola, Diane, and Me

There are about six calendars around the house. All of them list St. Patrick’s Day as a “holiday.” This is remarkable when you think of it. It is not actually a holiday by any standard used to proclaim a holiday, and there is no other canonized Saint of the Catholic Church so honored. Patrick must have been some guy. If you look him up you will find he is something more than a mere man, and something less than his legend would demand.

On St. Patty’s Day we are all Irish. Celebrating St. Patty’s day in America goes back to at least 1862; and has become a very big deal, indeed. It is a day on which everyone wants to “be Irish” for a day – even some who on every other day hold tenaciously (and visibly) to an African heritage. But, “we” Irish were not always all that popular. At the time of the great immigration of the 1800’s “No Irish Need Apply” was about as common as wearing of the green is today.

There are self-evident reasons St. Patrick has become such a big deal over the years:

• The day became popular because someone figured out a way to make money on it. Nothing makes a Saint more popular than profit. I for one spent a whole $5 on trinkets for our grandchildren – who probably don’t know what the day is about, never heard of Patrick, and don’t have a clue they are Irish.

• A much older reason is that it was a day during Lent when the rules of sobriety were relaxed in order to “commemorate” a Saint with green beer and corn beef & cabbage. I concede these two delicacies religiously carried forward by modern American can lead to really fun things. However, neither beer nor cabbage has ever had a particular appeal to me, nor have I totally grasped the appropriateness thereof in regard to Sainthood.

The main reason for this life-long Protestant honoring a Catholic Saint’s day is Charlotta Jane Burnett (nee Harrington, 1884-1959), known to one and all as “Lottie”. Lottie was my maternal-grandmother. She was a grandmother’s grandmother with whom I had a strong spiritual connection I cannot here describe. And, she was OLD like grandmothers are supposed to be old – not young like Kay and I!

According to my mother, grandma was “from” Ireland. My sister Diane found that grandma was born in Illinois cir. 1884, which makes her most likely a child of one of millions escaping the Irish potato famine about that time. For the record, Diane found our paternal-grandmother, Viola Reed Lewis, had family who came from Tyron, Ireland.

It doesn’t matter after all these years, but me and Diane want our grandchildren to know of their Irish legacy. For me it is not about Patrick or beer or cabbage, it’s about giving honor to Lottie & Viola and whatever Irish heritage which may have come “from” Ireland.

theOldIrishDaddy

 

I Don’t Believe It!

Doubts & Disbelief From the Quasi-Adult World of David L Lewis

Ghosts, angels and demons, even space aliens, okay. I mean, like, you know, mankind has known about that stuff since the beginning. Call me crazy, but there is a lot of stuff out there that is just not as believable as are ghosts, angels and demons, even space aliens...

I don’t believe Presidents can do that. Ask any random group of fifth-graders what they’d do if they were President and you’ll get answers like: “world peace”, “stop all wars”, “stop pollution”, “end crime”, “stop bad people from coming to America”, “stop prices from going up”. Let me assure you, my dear fifth-grader (and average tv/pc watcher), that if any President could do those things they would already be done. As President Harry Truman said, ‘No problem which can be solved gets to the President’s desk.’

I don’t believe any ‘expert’ knows everything about anything. There is always more to every story. Doubt anything which does not begin with “the state of our knowledge indicates…” To paraphrase my New Testament professor: ‘Nobody knows everything; the true expert knows what he is ignorant about’.

I don’t believe Polls provide ‘proof’. It is amazing how much these things are taken as “proof” something is true/false, will/won’t happen, or is loved/hated. I’ll believe Polls when all results include at least half the population and tell the exact number of real, live people who answered the phone and were willing to spend 5 minutes on the phone answering leading questions. But, they are done by polling experts, so there’s that.

I don’t believe News is ‘fake’ just because I don’t like it. If it’s opinion, it’s opinion. If it is “sources”, it’s a clue. If it is “two or three witnesses”, or printed and signed, or recorded on video, it’s evidence. If it’s submitted under penalty of law at risk of reputation and livelihood, it’s judicial. If it’s a lie, the truth will arise. And, Polling of fifth-graders shows if it’s novel third party narrative, it’s just as good as random expert opinions encountered on the Internet. The President can’t fix that, either.

On the other hand, having been there, I do believe this...

theDoubtingDavid!

 HEY, WOMAN!

WHAT’S FOR SUPPER?

by David L Lewis -- the husband who found out hard way that doesn’t work!

Are you aware that everything you eat is in your mind? It’s true. There are people who eat stuff us sane folk would never consider. Eating it just because their mother cooked it when they were kids, or just because they were talked into it. In Survivor Training they teach how to overcome what’s in the mind and eat whatever, really, whatever. There are even people who kill things like cows and pigs and chickens, cut them up into pieces, cook them over an open fire, pour copious amounts of red stuff on them, and then they eat the pieces! Hear tell people even eat really yukky things like (forgive crude language) spinach!

Heard there are folks who just LIKE to eat, no mind what. I am definitively NOT one of those types! If I could, would never eat another thing the rest of my life. However, there are things which I do LIKE to eat (White Castles come to mind).

So, I am told that long, long ago, far, far away, in a world that never was and never will be again, there was, so I am told, this thing called “women’s work”. I am pretty sure that included things like figuring out what was for supper and cooking it. But, my meanie woman of fifty-eight years wants to know what my mind would like to eat! Don’t she know that comes under “woman’s work”? Don’t she know I’m too dump to figure it out, or cook anything beyond cheese sandwiches by myself? Don’t she know that’s why God created her specially for me?

And, just because she cares and wants me to be healthy, my woman tries to have things I like to eat (except White Castles). There’s always a list – verbal or written – from which to choose from things I like to eat. This, of course, means I have to decide for myself what’s for supper. Then she even fixes for me -- and serves it, too. See, told you she is a meanie.

Reminds me a bit of being in hospitals. Except hospitals put me on Cardiac diet, which means any eatable food ain’t on the menu. At least my meanie woman don’t do that to me. She don’t have me on any Cardiac diet. Overall I’d rather just stay home and (politely) tell her what’s on my mind to eat.

If my woman reads this I may have to fix my own supper. Does White Castle deliver?

HEY, WOMAN! WHAT’S FOR SUPPER?

(who knows, might work this time)

theHungryHusband!