INTERESTING TIMES

Originally posted by bill_sheehan at Sunday Sermonette: Putting the Christ Back In Christmas( Read more... )

He was 68 years old. He died in hospice of melanoma, which was discovered last year in his brain. He never recognized the skin lesion. He was one of my original paddling buddies here in Portland, a retired engineer and a budding Buddhist. He loved his wife and their home by the Washougal river, where he could watch osprey and otters. His hospice bed was at home, turned so that he could see the river flowing by. He was headstrong and didn't enjoy dysfunctional group dynamics, hence was apt to simply leave behind river groups he didn't feel like dealing with. He softened after his diagnosis. I wish his wife and family well in this difficult time. Holidays for them will forevermore bring up the memory of he who they lost on this day. His name was Dick Sisson. A candle burns for him here, and his memory is held with love and respect.

I think this is terrific. It's a song called "Dead dead dead" from the makers of South Park. The children's voices singing are so Christmassy. =-] Be careful, it can get stuck in your head. Dark humor aside, it does remind me to live in the moment.

This morning they declared Multnomah County (the one I'm in, includes most of Portland) to be a federal disaster area. The news report was filled with city officials griping about how the snow had already cost the city $800,000 when the city budget was already strained. I think "disaster" is just a way for local governments to beg more money from the fed.
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Freud is just an old Santa Clause.
-Margaret Mead

"'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through each kid
Not an Ego was stirring, not even an Id.
The hang ups were hung by the chimney with care
In the hopes that St. Sigmung Freud soon would be there.
The children in scream class had knocked off their screams,
Letting Jungian archetypes dance through their dreams,
And Mama with her bra off and I on her lap
Had just settled down when a vast thunderclap
Boomed and from my unconscious rose such a chatter
As Baptist John's teeth made on Solomon's platter.
Away from my darling I flew with a flash,
Tore strait to the bathroom and threw up, and - smash!
Through the windowpane hurtled and bounced on the floor
A big brick - holy smoke, it was hard to ignore.
As I heard further thunderclaps- lo and behold-
Came a little psychiatrist eighty years old.
He drove a wheeled couch pulled by five fat psychoses
And the gleam in his eye might induce hypnosis.
Like subliminal meanings his coursers they came
And consulting his notebook, he called them by name:
"Now Schizo, now Fetish, now Fear of Castration!
On Paranoia! on Penis-Fixation!
Ach, yes, that big brick through your glass I should mention:
Just a simple device to compel your attention.
You need, boy, to be in an analyst's power:
You talk, I take notes - fifty shillings an hour."
A bag full of symbols he'd slung on his back;
He looked smug as a junk-peddler laden with smack
Or a shrewd politician soliciting votes
And his chinbeard was stiff as a starched billygoat's
Then laying one finger aside of his nose,
He chortled, "What means this? Mein Gott, I suppose
There's a meaning in fingers, in candles und wicks,
In mouseholes und doughnut holes, steeples und sticks.
You see, it's the imminent prospect of sex
That makes all us humans run round till we're wrecks,
Und each innocent infant since people began
Wants to bed with his mama und kill his old man;
So never you fear that you're sick as a swine-
Your hangups are every sane person's und mine.
Even hamlet was hot for his mom - there's the rub;
Even Oedipus Clubfoot was one of the club.
Hmmm, that's humor unconscious." He gave me rib-pokes
And for almost two hours explained phallic jokes.
Then he sprang to his couch, to his crew gave a nod,
And away they all flew like the concept of God.
In the worst of my dreams I can hear him shout still,
"Merry Christmas to all! In the mail comes my bill."
-X. J. Kennedy