Dear Bleaders,
I know I said I’d be blighting (blog writing) on Thursdays, and it’s a Tuesday, but today is the day all this blighting is about – the paperback publication of my latest book, with a new subtitle, The Wonder Paradox: Awe, Poetry, and the Meaningful Life. It’s twenty essays on what we have lost with the loss of religion, and how poetry can amply fill those losses. Try two paragraphs from the finale of one on welcoming babies.
If the old ways seem awkward now, we’ll need to find new ways to celebrate—especially for when we are flabbergasted and baby-blasted by love and wonder, scared half-daffy, and clinically exhausted. We can’t believe we’ve done this. Or that we can give all that needs to be given. Yet, we can’t believe our luck so far, either, holding the tiny new being. All year long we see the light in the garden break fire against the greenery and stone, hope and spleen, and can’t believe the luck of it, to be so situated as to see the light like this, just as it is today. You deserve a moment to stop everything and celebrate it all.
In this crazy, mixed-up world, we are all snowplow babies. Then summer comes and the greenery displaces snow with the boundless intention of youth with something to prove. The garden is ephemeral, yet Brooklyn is perennial. Something between the garden and the light is Brooklyn. The garden is what is created by our strange, sustained astonishment, after all these years.
The book is not this lyrical all the time; still I have devoted all of my writing attention for eight years to each sentence in The Wonder Paradox. The book has all my jokes, all my ideas, all my perspective shifts for that span of nearly a decade.
I’m hoping hoppingly that something here grabbed you with enough of a bear hug from The Wonder Paradox for you to be propelled to go and get yourself a copy. Now in paper! Easier to carry around or flop into bed with! Here’s some more (slightly edited) from the book – a quiz!
How do your religious holidays work? Let’s start with a quick self-examination of the major religious holidays in your life. Note down at least one or two answers to these, if you can—it will help to have some answers inked in already when you come to the next part.
· What holidays would you feel uncomfortable missing entirely?
· What holidays do you personally work hardest on, in whatever way?
· Are there holidays you dread?
· Which holiday most delights you?
· Are there holidays outside your tradition that you find attractive?
· Which holidays do people in your life care about most?
Now consider that each holiday has distinct traits, which I’m calling their cabinet of culture, containing all a holiday’s traditional doings, and none of the doctrines. Think of the cache of treats and traits that appear on major holidays, in brief abundance, and then vanish for a year. Charting this in more detail brings lasting insight. To that end, I’ve worked out a template to organize the holiday features onto shelves.
Specific Holiday
A singular drink, type of meal, kind of sweet,
particular music, special plant, featured beast,
decoration and light, way to greet,
style of dress, featured hue or two,
an outdoor crowd event,
a signature live show, a film, an avatar,
and a quick rebellion where the usually tame
are allowed to be hellions,
or the rich serve food to the poor.
Not all religions have something for each cabinet compartment as I’ve just sketched them. Ancient holidays have had time to accrue traits, so the cabinet of such a holiday can be overflowing. Newer ones can be comparatively spare.
Here’s a cabinet limited to one example for each feature, based on my local experience.
Christmas Cabinet
Eggnog, baked ham, sugar cookies,
“White Christmas,” potted poinsettia, reindeer,
window candles, “Merry Christmas!”
dressy casual, green and red,
town-square tree lighting,
The Nutcracker Suite, It’s a Wonderful Life,
Santa, kids ripping open presents,
Donations to nonprofits soar.
Once you’ve jotted down a few cabinets for the holidays you listed above, take a look and see if the holidays you love have full cabinets, or mostly empty ones. What patterns do you see? Here are some questions you might ask yourself:
· Does decoration and light tend to mean a lot in the holidays you like?
· Do you love or dread the holidays for which you work the hardest?
· What do your favorite holidays have in common?
· Do you show up for your favorite holiday features, or often miss out on them?
· Do you create the holiday features?
A map helps us see the land, and a graph helps us see ourselves. A holiday cabinet is a bit of both, but all yours, so you can reach in and add things, or take things away. Wouldn’t it be kind of amazing to have even one more click of clarity and power over how your year takes care of you? Do the people you love have this clarity and power? Do you? I don’t have all the clarity I want and even less power, but when I work on this I get a bit more insight, and it’s worth it.
love,
Jennifer