Do You See the Children?

Proposed Antiphon:  Use your gifts wisely.

Children move among the aisles;

I say children, but they are not that young;

Some are old;

Some are young adults;

Some are middle-aged.

Children move among the aisles;

Their job is to sort;

To adjust;

To make things neat;

To make it easy for things to sell.

Fancy clothes;

Fancy bags;

Fancy shoes;

Shoes that cost the earth;

Clothes that cost the sky;

Bags that cost the sun, the moon, and the stars.

The children work in their best clothes;

Which are sad and worn.

In their best shoes;

Which sometimes are worse than no shoes at all.

They carry no bags;

Bags are for leisure, for shopping, for preening.

Children move among the aisles;

Adjusting things they cannot own;

Wearing broken clothes;

And living broken lives.

Do you see the children in the aisles? 

In the Land of Palaces

I have spent the last few days in the land of palaces, and the place is spectacular.

Brightly-colored palaces with tile roofs and bowed balconies jostle each other for space along canals and beaches. Fountains splash along cleverly bricked walks and streets, while gates and walls, (not all of them visible) enclose their manacured lawns and carefully planned plantings.
It is an amazing and startling land, a place where new palaces rise every day, and extravagence tops extravagence.

Certainly the owners of these stunningly perfect poems of architecture must be superior, happy and generous people, noble beyond common measure.

But walking among them, even where they are dining together on sumptuous feasts I see no joy, no happiness. Their palaces stand empty most of the year, unenjoyed by any, their yachts and watertoys hoisted and tarped over. They only visit for a few weeks out of the year and then they are off to the next house or palace, flitting from place to place in persuit of a happiness that eludes them as they spend on foods that cannot fill their emptiness and wine that cannot slake their thirst.

As I passed through this stunning land of palaces, only one smile of friendship greeted me, stranger though I was. Some prince, or merchant, or wealthy lawyer or trader?

No, an outcast, Hispanic and middle-aged but proud in his cowboy boots and straw hat, as he sat on his bicycle. I was greeted by one smile, while the palace-owners and their guests sourly dined and went about their leisure among their jewel-like palaces and shops, unable to find smiles even for each other.

The Hispanic on the bicycle was wealthier than all of these, and the center of their beautiful city.

I wish that they could see it.

Half-Measures

What we want in life is whole-measures.
Or more-than-whole-measures.

We don't just want our daily bread, we want extra, enough to share at best, or a gluttonous amount at worst.

And that leads us to demand more than whole-measures from those around us.

Unreasonably, we want our whims satisfied instantly, and our intentions translated into fact without our having to work out the details.

We want our waiter's full attention, even though he or she has a large number of tables, perhaps a headache, and an insane boss to keep satisfied.

We want our employees and service providers to start work at 8:00am, to end work at 9:00pm, and to remember our every demand, and we probably pay them far too little to live where we do, and then we complain when they are outsourced, and speak with an accent.

We are greedy, unfair, and gluttonous. So my instruction to you is to try to find ways to be more real, to allow those around you to live real lives, to live a real life yourself.

Take your time...
Tip and pay living wages, let people leave at 5pm.

Go home to your family, they will appreciate it, even if they don't say so.

If you don't have a life, find one. Visit friends, get out, write, draw, paint.

Give your life more than half measures.

You will be glad you did.