“Any religion which would profess anything other than this truth is of the devil. This is why we also take a stand against Islam, which teaches that Jesus is not the Son of God, therefore taking away the saving power of Jesus Christ and leading people straight to Hell.”

It seems a poor usage of time to debate Mr. Jones—experience teaches that most men with a .40-caliber pistol on their hip aren’t interested in conciliatory reasoning.  Additionally, when  an interviewer asked about his knowledge of the Koran, Jones replied, “I have no experience with it whatsoever,” a position that does not readily lend itself to open discussion.

But I’m not writing to dissuade Jones’s project.  Instead I’d like to point out an opportunity that the fine folks at the Dove World Outreach Center seem to have overlooked (For those not familiar: in Christianity the Dove is a symbol of peace.  You may find an explanation for this in your dictionary under: Irony, deep, dark, sickly un-self-aware Irony.)  On September 8th, a full three days prior to the anticipated Koranathon, the Jewish High Holidays commence with the celebration of Rosh Hashanah.  Now it’s true that being Jewish means many things to many people, but the one thing it certainly does not mean is believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  Such a position vis-a-vis Jesus should easily place the Jews in the You Deserve To Have Your Scriptures Burned By Us category.

So to Pastor Jones and the folks at the Dove Center, why not take advantage of these extra three days as an opportunity for practice?  Begin your scripture burning on a more accessible level, and work up to burning the Koran by beginning first with the Torah.  By starting with the Jews you’ll have a great opportunity to work out some practical concerns before arriving at the Muslims.

If you’ve never burned a holy book before it’s important to know that it can be a difficult and challenging work.  Many Jewish and Muslim scriptures are written on scrolls, a silly and ancient medium that Jesus abolished when he drove the tax collectors from the Temple, wrote the King James Bible and declared America the New Promised Land of Milk and Honey.  The important thing to remember is that scrolls burn far more erratically than standard books, and before burning them it’s helpful to consider several questions.  Will the text ignite simply by holding a match to it, or should one employ a flammable solvent such as gasoline?  And if the latter, how much? (I recommend a good overnight soaking in an Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel [ULSD] of any and all religious texts prior to ignition—it’s flammability is unparalleled, it’s more environmentally friendly, and nothing says Look at me burning your scriptures quite as pungently as the smell of burning diesel.)

Once the text is actually lit a whole nother set of concerns arise.  One is often tempted to hold the flaming book aloft in his hands, and while this can make for a good commemorative photograph it can present its own set of dangers as well.  An important concern to entertain is the role of fire-prevention measures (extinguishers, gas-masks, fire-retardant gloves, etc.).  My experience is that while they can provide a level of safety, their presence at a scripture-burning can undermine things by making the burner look like a wuss.

My preferred option in situations such as this is the communal, Nazi-style bonfire-of-books.  This simple approach is the safest and most accessible alternative, requires minimal preparations and can be done virtually anywhere.  Additionally, if properly managed they’re child-friendly conflagrations, which makes scripture-burning fun for the whole family.  As such, it is my number one recommendation for novice scripture-burners.  And don’t think that because it’s simple its rewards will be anything less than grand.  Not only are bonfires are a wonderfully dramatic set piece around which to dance and celebrate, they’re also good for roasting weenies and cooking S’mores.

The references to Nazism are important to emphasize, because by starting with the Jews you’ll not only be gaining valuable practical insight when you turn to Muslims, but you’ll be doing many Jews a service as well.  For many Jews persecution is a central theme of their identities—only imagine how hurt they would feel were you to overlook them in this matter.  Publicly burning the Torah will provide a large number of contemporary American Jews, many of whose lives have been sorely devoid of the life-defining persecutions of their forefathers, an opportunity to tap into the rich cultural heritage of being oppressed for being Jewish.

Lastly, by burning the Torah first you’ll get a good window into what sort reaction you can expect to receive once you turn to the Koran.  There are roughly 13-million Jews around the world and well over 1.5-billion Muslims: starting small will provide an excellent baseline when the time comes to go big.

I hope that these suggestions will be taken into consideration by the folks at the Dove World Outreach Center.  The Jews in America need you to oppress not only Muslims, but Jews as well.  Should any in your congregation grumble about the extra time and work involved, I recommend reminding them that the Jews killed Jesus in the first place—this should sufficiently stir their anger and lead to a more whole-hearted and enthusiastic Torah-burning.

Oh, and one last thought—while you’re burning the Torah think about smashing a Shofar, the ram’s horn that is blown in synagogues to mark the beginning of Rosh Hoshanah.  After all, it really looks a lot like a small minaret, and as such will be great practice for smashing actual minarets, the destruction of which will  be the topic of our next installation.

Women’s suffrage took a long time to come about (a good 70-plus-years, depending on when one starts counting), but come about it finally did.  After frittering away endless hours on pressing concerns such as prohibiting the sale & distribution of liquor, legislators finally got themselves sufficiently motivated to give women the right to vote. Not surprisingly, one of the main places where the idea got stuck and languished for years was – wait for it – the US Senate. (That wasn’t too difficult to guess, was it??)

Though the amendment had been proposed in Congress in the summer of 1919, for various slumbering reasons it took some time to finally get moving. Back then we only had 48 states, 3/4-ers of whose legislative bodies had to ratify the amendment before it could become law. By the summer of 1920, 35 states had ratified the amendment when the vote came due in the 36th – Tennessee.  A special session of the state’s congress was called on August 18th, and after much haggling the votes were cast: 48-for to 48-against.

This was quite an impasse, and things weren’t looking good for the ladies. From today’s vantage it’s difficult to imagine, but it’s important to recall that the prospects of suffrage for 51% (yes, fifty-one, in other words: the majority) of the country’s population were in the hands of—a room full of white males. (You may think me snide, but I can’t help observe that little has changed in the ensuing years)  The logjam was finally broken when one young senator, the 24-year-old Harry T. Burn, suddenly changed his vote.  Burn, who initially had been opposed to the measure, flipped his thumb upwards instead of down and cast the decisive “yes”—Tennessee had ratified the amendment, and eight days later it was accepted as federal law.

So what happened?  Why did young Harry T. Burn change his mind?  On the senate floor that day he held a copy of a letter written days before by Mrs. J.L. Burn—Harry’s mother.  The letter read,

Dear Son: Hurrah and vote for suffrage! Don’t keep them in doubt! I notice some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the “rat” in ratification. Your mother.

Later, Burn’s explained the reason for his switcheroo, famously stating, “A good boy always does what his mother tells him to do.”

While I’m certain that such reasoning could be disastrous (not least because were it followed to its end I would be a very, very wicked boy indeed), in this case it’s difficult to argue with Harry.  So to Mr. Burns – and especially his mother – a big thank you is in order.  Sometimes Mama really does know what’s best.

I enjoy living in a city in which various and otherwise normatively-divergent lifestyles are not only permitted, but openly celebrated.  More so, I’m proud when such policies transcend people and enter the realm of construction equipment: after all, where but in a city that deeply supports gay rights can back-hoes be painted in such a lovely pastel and be adorned with that bracing fuchsia cummerbund?

There is, of course, serious non-construction-equipment gay-related news happening around the nation these days (and I’m not only referring to the impending Ricky Martin CD). The California State Supreme Court will be issuing its verdict any day now on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the 2008 voter initiative that banned gay marriage in the state. This past Thursday a US District judge in Boston ruled that the authority of local laws—in this case the decision of the folks in Massachusetts to permit gay marriage—trumps federal definitions/restrictions (specifically, the DOMA statute that defines marriage as a union exclusively between a man and a woman).  The outcomes of both of these decisions will surely upset folks and lead to legal appeals, the results of which will only upset other folks and lead to even more appeals, and so on and etc., until someday down the road the US Supreme Court will weigh in, at which point even more folks will be upset while options for additional appeals will be significantly lessened.

I’m not terribly interested in soapboxing here, but that jaunty little back-hoe got me thinking.  It seems only fair to show my hand on this issue: Until someone can demonstrate to me that in our contemporary civil society prohibiting gay marriage is not an inherently discriminatory action, I believe that such marriages should be not only be legalized, but celebrated as well. Opponents  to this position—they are legion and seem to include large numbers of people with whom I share genetics—counter with arguments about the sanctity of marriage, divorce rates, procreation and etc., none of which effectively addresses the issue of discrimination (though they are great at revealing the presence of Lady Fear and her snaggle-toothed handmaiden, Anger).  Besides, I think most reasonable folks find such arguments painfully unconvincing*—How, pray tell, will my straight-relationship be damaged, lessened, threatened or invalidated by extending the same marital privileges and rights to two folks of the same gender?**

For better or worse over the past couple years gay marriage has veered to the side of the national radar: what with the economy collapsing, the housing market being inverted and the country engaged in two wars attentions have understandably turned elsewhere.*** The upside of this inattention is that we’ve been spared untold televised hours of gay marriage opponents’ frothy-mouthed, hate-riddled invective.  The downside, however, is that the issue of homosexuals being discriminated against remains unresolved.

Like the many injustices in our society—race, poverty, income disparity, crime, the list goes one—this issue will pop up again and again until it gets righted (and probably for some time even after). At some point the national conversation will tire of discussing oil spills, financial regulations and seemingly unwinnable wars; it’s even conceivable that someday soon an entire 24-hour period may actually pass in which LeBron James’s name goes unmentioned (but only on national TV/radio, for such an outcome could never occur in that ego-maniac’s mirrored echo-chamber of a life). Eventually, be it through legal challenges, election cycles or some other occurrence the subject will rear its divisive head. At that point I would caution against expecting kind-hearted, to say nothing of rational, civil discourse.

As things currently stand I can’t see how preventing gay marriage is not discriminatory, and thus wrong.  Further, it seems that any federal or state law or practice that treat homosexuals differently than straight people should be changed. Lastly, it’s simply not nice.  If two men or two women want to have their union recognized by the government  and as a married couple enjoy the same rights, privileges and unending miseries that every straight person can thoughtlessly exercise, what’s the problem other than it’s different (and perhaps might arguably involve a few too many spangles, disco-heavy beats and cut-off jean shorts)? Lots of things we take for granted today were different not too long ago: little things such as slavery, women’s suffrage and civil rights, to name just a few from the past 150-years of our history.

So once again: until opponents of gay marriage can convince me that this isn’t discriminatory, I say get over your opposition. Let Bruce and Julian get married—hell, don’t just permit it but come to the party as well (seriously—what could possibly be more festive??) After all, if there’s room for both the yellow bulldozer and the lavender back-hoe, then there’s got to be room for two women or two men to enjoy the fullness of a life together.

* Sadly this statement is fallacious and misleading. ‘Reasonable folks’ is an imagined construct – reality demonstrates they simply don’t exist.  Further, the sentence is a rhetorical flourish, the sort one employs to imply the rightness of one’s own position, as in, How could any reasonable folks disagree with such an otherwise obvious and well-balanced point?  Were ‘reasonable folks’ actually to exist, I’m certain they’d feel similarly.

** Much of the tommyrot that emits from opponents of gay marriage has always reminded me of the fractious, terrified anxiety with which many Christians handled the book/movie, The DaVinci Code. I always thought that if your faith could be shaken or even ruined by such trite and un-factual poppycock then you didn’t have much of a faith to begin with, and its have being shaken or even destroyed was probably the best thing that could have happened to you, the act of faith and who- or what-ever it is you believed in.

*** Some of this is obvious: after all, who wants to argue about two women marrying when one’s own house is being foreclosed upon?  Some is generational—most of us Gen-X and -Y folks have enough gay friends to think that preventing them from marrying is utter nonsense.  Another aspect is the slow and gradual wisening of the political right, the smartest of whom are finally coming to realize that if they want to attract potential voters it’s best not to tell those very voters they’re less-than other people (a wisening that has been clearly and most noticeably absent in the state of Arizona, a state that seems bedamned to do all it can to ensure that Hispanics understand they’re not a constructive part of  society).

Michael Stegner

Michael Stegner creates songs as a photographer captures images: lens ever at the ready in search of a contrast of light, a falling shadow, a weathered smile.  His eye shifts across the human landscape and finds a jealous lover, a self-absorbed banker, a fleeing father.  With dignity he gives each the light they themselves cast, and then SNAP, the whirling click captures a moment and impresses it in the silver halide of memory.  Then its off to the darkroom of his imagination to churn and trundle, out of whose recesses later – a day, two months, four years (there is, as in most good art, little confident predictability) – it comes, an image sung raucous, sepia-toned with insights dark and discomforting.

Stegner himself, caught in the frozen Polaroid moment of a pen’s flash, cuts an unlikely scene.  He stands narrow, bird-boned and lanky; so rice-paper thin one wonders if a strong wind wouldn’t dislodge him and, Dorothy-style, carry him elsewhere.  His physicality is the sort of skinny shadow that hangs like a coat-tree in the corner of a party, at the end of which, when he thanks you for your hospitality and says goodnight (and he always will, he has the formality of an antediluvian  southern gentleman), in surprise you search your brain and try to remember having earlier noticed him at the party.  His face is high-cheekboned and broad-lipped and half-hidden by an ever-present hat and narrow plastic glasses, while his jaw is covered by a beard, deep amber red and thick as a pelt.  Kentucky-bred his voice belies its roots more in the slowness of his speech than any obvious drawl; his speaks in a low baritone that is oddly soothing, with a gravely underside that catches and scrapes like a rasp.  From habit he often repeats the first words of sentences, as if he weren’t entirely certain how to begin, and he has long-standing sinus problems that make him frequently sound congested and ever recovering from a head cold.  His laugh comes often and easily, rippling and skipping from his mouth like a stone across water.  When he laughs you are reminded of a slightly nerdy teenage boy giggling in satisfaction with his successes.  Laughs tumble from him in dribbling hiccups that are welcome most of all for their un-self-awareness, their simple present-tense enjoyment.

From the externals he is not your typical Seattle rock musician — he doesn’t drink, doesn’t eat meat, rarely curses, displays no obvious tattoos or piercings or jagged hipster hairstyles.  Instead he dresses in worn jeans and too-big t-shirts and pads about in grubby running shoes.  Often, in tribute to his extended family in Kansas, he sports a rather large dark wool Stetson, which sits like a fiesta platter atop his head and only further emphasizes the fencepost thinness of his physique.  Peering deeper into the image you see that, unlike many musicians he is terribly humble, on the quiet side of things without being shy.  He discusses himself and his music in a tone rich with assurance and confidence; absent is the hungry neediness that so many, especially younger, artists display.  He is more articulate than most, disavowing the normally vacuous musician-speak of yeahs and whatevers and desultory uhs for a more literary style full of references ranging from Mark Twain to the Buddha to Miles Davis.  What strikes one with a startling clarity is his willingness to listen: where many, especially in the arts, are tone-deaf to any frequencies other than their own, he presents an engaged intentionality, an active listening.

In the shadows of this picture you see the sources of his lyrics.  Barren barrooms, lonely bed spaces, dressing rooms with cracked mirrors and exposed lightbulbs.  The dark unlit alleys of the soul.  He writes in snapshots and his snapshots are possessions.  He inhabits characters whose surface are easily distasteful — obnoxious bankers, preening narcissists, comfortably fat Americans — but his possession isn’t mockery, for such would eventually turn boring, stilted and dry.  Rather his is the view from within, between the heart’s eyes in those spaces below the externals where the prickly universals – jealousy, anger, self-absorption, loss – reside in the tumultuous darks and make null the shallowness of any externals.

His music is a patois of sound that belongs elsewhere.  Sounds deep from the marrow of America.  Music from and for the south, the lower middle west, the empty open plains, the muddy deltas of oil spat lands.  It cries of jazz, honky-tonk, church hymnals, rhythm and blues; the sounds of Leon Russell and Randy Newman and Willie Nelson.  There are no oceans or mountains or skyscrapers; no fields of emerald evergreens or saltwater skies; no electronic blurbs or hip-hop beats.  His is music for anywhere other than Seattle.

He is, to put it simplest, unique.  When seated before his piano his face, which usually displays the passive calmness of someone reading a telephone book, becomes animated; he smiles at the other players, nodding and connecting as the songs structure themselves and the band screams along behind him.  Atop his piano bench he is, you sense, most comfortable.  He plays with a sneakiness that belies his genteel demeanor: what can seem like a lounge player’s easy casualness can on a moment’s notice become a jazz-virtuoso’s screaming intensity, his fingers skipping and popping across the keys like a hummingbird’s wings.  He smiles.  This is a music of character, of originality and singularity in a marketplace of ever dwindling difference.  He is an outlier, a photographer of the insides who resides outside the usual in the downturned corners of the bell-curve of normal.

Sung Snapshots: Michael Stegner discusses songwriting:

Michael Stegner discusses and performs the song, I Love You A Little Bit (I Love My TV A Lot):

Michael Stegner discusses and performs the song, Friday Night:

Michael Stegner discusses and performs the song, Prayers For Highly Successful People:

Michael Stegner discusses and performs the song, Fascination Nation: A Brief Autobiography of a Fallen CEO:

Michael Stegner and Fascination Nation play at the Seamonster Lounge in Seattle the 1st and 3rd Thursdays of every month. They will be releasing their first album this fall and can be followed on Facebook or Myspace. A copy of this interview was also posted on the very cool website NWmainstage, which is a great resource for music goings-ons here in the Northwest and across land.

I was having an otherwise normal day when I decided to go out for a walk.  Leaving my apartment building there’s a walkway about five feet long that T’s into the sidewalk. While descending there’s a large shrub on the left side of the walkway.  I don’t know what kind of shrub it is, but it’s green and red and shiny and looks like a large Christmas themed haystack.  It’s so large that it blocks the view between the walkway and the sidewalk, and since I couldn’t see around this shrub when I turned off the walkway I nearly ran directly into a woman walking up the sidewalk.  I apologized for almost hitting her.  She turned and looked my direction, and, in the strange and magical light that was reflecting off the Christmas shrub she appeared rather attractive: a tall pretty blond dressed in a rather funky second-hand look, she reminded me of the character Charlize Theron played briefly on the TV show Arrested Development:

She said something in a hoarse, whispering voice that I didn’t understand.  I leaned her direction and said, ‘I’m sorry, what?’

She hissed words in my direction that sounded like, Dirty, dirty dirty.  Surprised, I repeated my previous question and unthinkingly moved even closer towards her.

Dirty, dirty dirty dirty!

There was no mistaking her now.  Her voice had risen sharply and her eyes bulged and the light reflecting from the merry Christmas shrub had changed so that she no longer looked like Arrested Development Charlize Theron.  Instead, she looked like Monster Charlize Theron, the one where she plays the prostitute-turned-serial-killer who looks… well…, terribly disturbing:

The next thing Monster-Charlize did was to reach into the oversized duffel bag that was slung across her shoulder, whip out a plastic blue bottle with a squeeze handle and spray Febreze all over my face, all the while repeating her witchy refrain, Dirty, dirty, dirty.  I was so surpised that at first I didn’t do anything, just stood there taking each spray as if I were at the mall happily receiving samples of cologne.  After a moment I pulled myself back from her, and before I could speak she stopped her spraying, fixed me with her wide crazy eyes and screamed Dirty! one last final time.  She stomped her foot heavily on the sidewalk, turned and slunk frumpily away from me, muttering the entire time, Dirty, dirty, dirty.

I didn’t know what to do with myself.  What was there to do?  I wasn’t about to run after her and chide her  like some insolent child for her poor behavior.  After all, she was Monster-Charlize — that lady killed people.  Instead I looked about me in the same  nervous, self-aware way I would do had I fallen off my bicycle in public.  But no one seemed to have noticed: everyone was going about their business as if the red-faced man with the watering eyes standing in the middle of the sidewalk hadn’t just been Febreze-ed by a strange, muttering woman. Over the years I’ve had many peculiar interactions with crazy people on the streets.  The upside of this one is that not only did the Febreze kill any unwholesome bacteria that might have been milling about, but I also smelled like Springtime Rejuvenation.  Which, as far as crazy goes, isn’t too bad an outcome.

A copy of the story can be read here.

I had just climbed in bed last night when I received a text message from my girlfriend at 1:13 AM.  She wrote, I just got stung by a bee.  I texted back to as if she was kidding.  She wrote and said she was serious, and so I called her.  Apparently she had been laying on top of her bed in her underwear when she heard a buzzing sound.  A moment later she felt something on her butt, and when she looked back she saw a bee, felt a sharp pain and realized she was being stung. She whacked the bee off her butt and then sent me that first text message.

I asked if she was certain it was a bee.  It’s the beginning of January and it’s been an exceptionally cold here in the Northwest, and the odds of there being a bee in her room had to be low.  Slowly she said,

“Actually I think it was a hornet or a yellowjacket or something.  

It’s on the floor, I can see it.  

And it’s still moving.

Oh god, hang on.”  

She put the phone down and I heard some shuffling in the background, three heavy thudding bangs, and her angrily yelling, “Bitch!,” at what I presume was now the splattered carcass of the insect.

What struck me as odd wasn’t just the fact that there was a bee or hornet in her room at this time of year—I suppose it’s feasible one holed up in between her walls or something.  What made me shake my head bemusedly and think of the other day’s essay was the way she handled the situation.  I consider myself to be a fairly average person, and I tried imagining myself in her place.  If I were to be randomly and unexpectedly attacked by an animal, I’d proceed by first removing or killing said animal, second ensuring there were no other animals prowling the area waiting to attack, third dressing and salving the wound in whatever way possible, and then and only then would I think about sending a text message to my significant other.

Yet after being stung she (bless her, because she really is terribly cute) chose first to text me multiple times, then to talk to me on the phone, and only then did she address the bee’s ongoing existence, to say nothing of the throbbing, swelling welt that was developing on her ass.  We’ve been dating long enough and I think I have a fairly decent handle on her, and this fits her to a T.  Where I—or any average person—would probably proceed as outlined above, she choose a far different route, one not only more interesting in its uniqueness but perfectly suited to her as a person.

I don’t know why I frequently hesitate to help people in need.  (Even that line is misleading.  It implies that I actually hesitate, when in fact I usually avert my eyes and keep walking). I think the biggest reason is because engaging a person in need calls into question all the things we have that we don’t need, and let’s face it—none of us likes to believe that we live lives of excess. Who of us can look intimately upon human deprivation and then go home to our overstuffed cupboards and corpulent bellies, to say nothing of our iPods and flat screens, and carry-on as before?  

The especially awkward thing is that none of us is far from where this woman, Bella, is. Most of us are one medical emergency away from brokenness, and none of us has much control over such realities. The social-economic ladder is short-runged and wobbling, the fall surprisingly short.  That’s a terrifying thought, yet we conduct ourselves like it’s impossible. Worse, we frequently act as if because we have yet to fall we’re somehow better than those who have.

I’m sorry if I’m being a downer.  I know it’s the New Year and we all want to think that ’09 will be different.  But the realities of poverty, war, destitution, disease, you name it, are visceral and systemic, and flipping the calendar does nothing to weaken their sting.  We live in a world where people suffer all the time, and the only way that’s going to change is if we as communities of individuals do something to make it different.  It may not be enough, but it’ll be better than doing nothing.

The Monday before Christmas I went with my roommate to a local bar for what has become something of a ritual for us: a $5 burger and fries special and a beer or two.  After finishing my bacon-cheeseburger and fries, and while sipping down the last of my beer, I mentioned to Gary that I was still somewhat hungry.  He suggested I have another round, and I said there was no way I could consume more.  Gary insisted, I resisted, but eventually a bet was born: if I ate another burger and fries and drank another beer, he’d pay the entire tab.  Several minutes had passed as we haggled out the details of the bet, and my body had started to tell me that my slight hunger was actually contented fullness.  Despite this, some distorted version of my pride was on the line and I did the only thing that could salvage it: I called the server over and order more.  20-some minutes later the second plate and glass were both empty, and we did the math: I had just consumed somewhere around 2,500 calories on a bet, and the only thing I had to show for it was a bloated belly and an unemptied wallet.

The following day I skipped breakfast and headed down the gym, intent to compensate in any way possible for the prior night’s gluttony.  On my way out of the gym I passed a woman standing on the street holding a large cardboard sign.  She had a young face: late teens, maybe early 20’s, and she was dressed frumpily, Goth-ed out all in black.  Her hair was dreadlocked, dirty and unkempt, and she had a pale complexion offset with chapped, bright red lips.  Her sign was made from a cardboard box that had been broken and folded flat.  Across the top of it were three photocopied pictures of a baby girl, smiling and wide-eyed, food smeared across her face.  Underneath the pictures, written in black marker and a large shaky script were words to the effect of Single mother struggling, help for my baby, holiday spirit, etc. 

I walked quickly past this woman and her sign despite a voice inside me that cried, Go back and help her out you privileged jackass.  I got about ten steps down the street before I stopped, the whole time trying to convince myself that I was fine walking away from her.  I live surrounded by need—it’s everywhere in this town, dripping from the skies like the unrelenting rains—but I rarely allow myself to be confronted by it.  I knew that if I turned around and engaged this woman I would end up helping her in some manner, and I really didn’t want to do that.  I just wanted to go to lunch and read my book and continue my day, contentedly numb to her and the reality that she was and represented.  

What’s even more embarrassing than my selfishness was the internal deliberation I soon embarked upon.  When faced with this woman’s destitution I found myself evaluating the merits of it, as if I were somehow in a position not only to determine its veracity but subsequently make awards based upon my conclusions.  I debated the truthfulness of her situation, attempting to determine whether or not she was legit: Was she really a single mother?  Was this some scam?  If I stopped and gave her money would it all go straight to the liquor store?  The best I can say is that though these were my first thoughts I didn’t stay entangled in them long.  I soon realized that it didn’t matter whether or not she was telling the truth: standing alone on a snowy street in 25-degree weather begging from strangers was sufficient.  In fact, being in a situation where the best option might have been to lie about having a baby simply in order to obtain help called loudly enough to me.  I stopped walking away and turned back towards her.  

I returned to her begrudgingly, part of me still wishing I was headed to lunch or anywhere other than towards her.  I said hello and we talked briefly, and suddenly and without thought found myself telling her that I was headed to the grocery store and asked if I could purchase her and her baby some food.  This wasn’t true: I’d gone shopping the day before, but it was out of my mouth before I could clamp my lips closed.  I think offering to purchase her food was a compromise with the concerns I’d experienced about her legitimacy: she couldn’t get drunk or high off the food, and if she really did have a kid food was a great solution.  She smiled and revealed a mouth full of dirty, slumping teeth, and her eyes brightened warmly and she said Yes, that would be really great.  

Something inside me was angry with whatever part of me had just made this offer.  What was I doing?  The simplest thing would have been to slip her a couple bucks and walk away, and instead here I was offering to go shopping for her.  I began to fish for any excuse that would pull me out of the situation.  I told her I needed to stop and grab lunch and wasn’t sure when I’d be back.  She said she’d be there for another hour or so, and even though I don’t wear a watch I glanced at my wrist theatrically, attempting to imply that I might not make it back before she left.  I asked if she’d be around the following day and she said No, she’d be home with her baby.  If I was going to help her at all, it would have to be now. 

I had been walking contentedly through my day; blinkered, yes, admittedly so, but comfortable in my decision to have blinded myself to the glaring exigencies of life.  And now I had broken the bridle that had enabled me to walk past so many others with an unaffected conscience.  I had stopped, looked her in the eyes and spoken with her, and this was the fatal flaw to my defenses.  Engaging another person is a dangerous proposition, for in doing so you assure that person can no longer be a prop, colorful background ornamentation, an abstraction called “homelessness” or “need” or “destitution”.  By talking with this woman she had become human, terribly so, human like me, only one who wasn’t certain where her next meal would come from, if it would come at all.  I smiled at her, asked if she had any requests and told her not to leave until I returned.

It was a half-mile walk to the grocery store and along the way I passed a burger joint.  I was hungry and thought of stopping-in and grabbing a bite.  As I was visualizing myself inside the warm restaurant enjoying my food I recalled the previous night: two burgers, two fries and two beers, some 2,500 calories, all eaten on a bet.  I had devoured enough food to sustain a small village and here I was foot-dragging, searching for excuses not to buy food for a hungry person.  Worse, I had spent the past month rolling my eyes at Christmas and the needless consumption surrounding me, and yet the night before I had the poster-child for an advertising firm, gobbling away simply because I could.  I had become the consumer sprit I so resented, and I was ashamed of myself for it.

I arrived to the store and bought several bags of food for this woman and her child.  I walked back and she was there, waiting, excited that I had returned.  We stood on the sidewalk, a frozen strip of cement streaked with last minute Christmas shoppers scurrying past, and talked for some time.  Her name is Bella and her daughter is called Keira.  They live near the University; her life right now is obviously challenging.  After several minutes we went our separate ways, and I walked home past the shops flush with holiday displays.  

A cynic might say I bought my conscience clean, as if $18.43 could somehow scrub away my poor behavior.  But that’s simply not the case: my conscience is as weathered as ever, and I’m certain there’s no amount of money I could spend that would change that.  Despite my hesitations I helped Bella because I wanted to and because it was the right thing to do, not because it made me feel good.  Besides, the point is less about my conscience and its equivocations and more about Bella and Keira.  The story is that a woman and her child who could not afford to eat received food from a man who could afford to give it, and in that interaction we participated in something that approached giving a true gift.  I still think most of Christmas is misguided, commodified and generally insipid, but if the promise it holds is that we might just be able to give one another help when its needed, then perhaps there’s something worthwhile in it after all.

The following essay, Did I Tackle Your Christmas Tree?, is my shot at that goal.  I can’t guarantee much, but in my defense, I warned against that from the get-go.  Then again, the point isn’t the quality of this essay, nor my ongoing neuroses.  Rather, if there is a point, it’s this: thanks Beck.