Adeste Fidelis
Christmas music haunts me as I open E-cards with sound files. This morning I was ambushed by the hymn which commands the faithful to go to Bethleham.
If I were to go to Bethelham, I would have to ask immigration at the airport to not stamp a visa in my passport. Immigration here and in other GCC countries would not let me collect my luggage and be on my way.
These days in Bethelham there are many Chanukah Yamulkes clashing with olive drab green uniforms on young men with machine guns.
If someone tries to circumvent the metal detectors, tries to by-pass the 26-foot high concrete, apartheid wall, somehow manages to sneak through the IDF helicopters, the herd of tanks and snipers keeping vigil on this Christmasy week (financed largely by billions of tax dollars I no longer contribute to as an ex-pat) then the young men with machine guns have orders to shoot to kill without first asking questions.
The young men must protect a few, degrade a few thousand there in the little town of Beyt-Al-Hem where some people believe that a long, long time ago, a virgin gave birth to a boy created without man seed.
Upon a bed of straw, witnessed by an audience of camels, sheep and goats and three heavy thinkers from the east, Zoroastrians, in their beliefs some Bible as history pseudo-historians tell us (makes sense as they were the first monotheist in these troubled lands, brought the miracle baby some joss sticks, a year's supply of Lamisil and a golden commemorative coin one of them caught at the Zulu parade one Tuesday morning when he began to think before 9 AM. None of these thought sots were social thinkers. They were heavy thinkers, and they were themselves kings; they were thunken south Persian kings and in their thunken states of mind they named the child "The King of all kings".
Joke--A little boy unwraps his presents one Christmas morning then remembers his best friend Abe Rosivich who had told him his family won't be opening presents on Christmas day. "Daddy?" the boy asked his Dad, "Why don't the Jewish people open presents on Christmas day?"
The Daddy replied, "Because on Christmas day they get up early, put on their best clothes and go down to their shops and play "Oh What a Friend We Have in Jesus on their cash registers."
This Christmas day, in Abu Dhabi's Marina Mall, Emirati shop owners in their fine white dishdashas and Emirati women in their black abiyas will no doubt do likewise.
I have to walk past a palace on my way to the mall. And here as elsewhere, whenever I try to take care of bidness and pleasure, someone points a gun at me.
As I approach Christmas, the levee in my heart breaks, and a river floods its chambers with hazardous nostalgia.
I want and could have it all if it was not for this chronic heart problem.
The problem is this:
in the four chambers of my heart, where both oxygen enriched and oxygen deprived blood "thubs" into the atrium, bringing with it the perception of charity and selflessness, this blood is absorbed on the "dubs" as my ventricles try to push out only clarified blood, but takes along small dabs of misgivings. These missgivings have, over the years, caused major blockage of sensible thinking as substantial amounts of bedeviled doubts reach my brain.
From the server side of my life, the Great Spirit continues to upload files on everything that has ever been, is now and will ever be.
This is how I see myself as I stand before my Judge who will download all my good and bad deeds.
Uncertain of how his browser while display my home page, I am doing my best to delete links to forbidden pages by making amends wherever necessary
In the All Mighty's browser of choice, Opera, I see that my drop down (drop dead) navigation system points to a 403 page of "FORBIDDEN ERRORS".
One sub-link I built when I was five. How can I ever make direct amends for this?
A file named my_dck_on_dsply.htm; view the source, you wil see there META TAGS = A mystery revealed too early to the extremely impressionable minds of post-toddling girls; I should not have gone along with the other boys, as we showed the young girls in our pre-school gang, what it is we have that they don't, how we use it to pee, how we have this great advantage which gives us mastery over them, how we could stand and pee awed the girls, then we made a point of demonstrating our superiority by presenting them with a visual, we boys urinated on a rose bush.
Another page I developed when I was thirty. I undivinely intervened in the fate of a capricious Capra hircus otherwise known as a goat.
I once lived in the country in a rent house, on a farm owned by some hard core Cajuns.
One morning I saw that his calico goat had escaped its pen and was trying to decide what to do next.
As the goat stood on the country road five miles from downtown Lake Charles, Louisiana, half relieved it had gotten through the wire, half distressed by the little it knew of the world beyond the wire, I picked up the phone, called my landlord and told him his goat had gotten out of its pen. I'd done my good deed for the day, I thought.
A week later, I drove back Sunday evening from a weekend of playing soldier, and I didn't see the goat. I later asked my landlord about the goat.
"We ate him," the farmer said--implying with his expression that I was a bit thick, having asked a question with only one obvious answer.
It will be lots of nickel and damn bullshit like this which will lose my name to the ages as soon as I cross the river Jordan.
I don't come from a tradition which holds in the high regard the names of ancestors because our blood line has always had a migrating spirit (which means that somehow it has always managed to get out of town one step ahead of the law).
I see this tradition as being closely linked to the form and meaning of Judgment day.
I will most likely leave this world not bound for Paradise (he was a man's man, a mench, a man who had the courage to out maneuver harsh conditions and he left behind a legacy which our family enjoys today) or Hell (that motherfucker died owing me two hundred dollars!) but someplace in between.
My name will be lost for many years except for this likely scenario. A photograph of me, left behind by my proginy. They will abandon some rent house, leaving behind a box of photographs during their midnight run from the lease and a search warrant.
The box in the attic will collect cobwebs for several eternities before someone finds it and brings it into the light. This someone will begin to flip through the forgotten photos and eventually come to this photograph of me. This someone will turn it over and read my name written on the back. Once my name is read out loud, for that second or two on some day while my bones are bleaching somewhere in the desert sun, that part of me which stood before the Judge and had no luck telling Him to "Lemme explain this part."
will be released from its cardboard limbo of anonymity. The photograph will be tossed back into the box, the box will be bound for a trash pick up.
If I were to go to Bethelham, I would have to ask immigration at the airport to not stamp a visa in my passport. Immigration here and in other GCC countries would not let me collect my luggage and be on my way.
These days in Bethelham there are many Chanukah Yamulkes clashing with olive drab green uniforms on young men with machine guns.
If someone tries to circumvent the metal detectors, tries to by-pass the 26-foot high concrete, apartheid wall, somehow manages to sneak through the IDF helicopters, the herd of tanks and snipers keeping vigil on this Christmasy week (financed largely by billions of tax dollars I no longer contribute to as an ex-pat) then the young men with machine guns have orders to shoot to kill without first asking questions.
The young men must protect a few, degrade a few thousand there in the little town of Beyt-Al-Hem where some people believe that a long, long time ago, a virgin gave birth to a boy created without man seed.
Upon a bed of straw, witnessed by an audience of camels, sheep and goats and three heavy thinkers from the east, Zoroastrians, in their beliefs some Bible as history pseudo-historians tell us (makes sense as they were the first monotheist in these troubled lands, brought the miracle baby some joss sticks, a year's supply of Lamisil and a golden commemorative coin one of them caught at the Zulu parade one Tuesday morning when he began to think before 9 AM. None of these thought sots were social thinkers. They were heavy thinkers, and they were themselves kings; they were thunken south Persian kings and in their thunken states of mind they named the child "The King of all kings".
Joke--A little boy unwraps his presents one Christmas morning then remembers his best friend Abe Rosivich who had told him his family won't be opening presents on Christmas day. "Daddy?" the boy asked his Dad, "Why don't the Jewish people open presents on Christmas day?"
The Daddy replied, "Because on Christmas day they get up early, put on their best clothes and go down to their shops and play "Oh What a Friend We Have in Jesus on their cash registers."
This Christmas day, in Abu Dhabi's Marina Mall, Emirati shop owners in their fine white dishdashas and Emirati women in their black abiyas will no doubt do likewise.
I have to walk past a palace on my way to the mall. And here as elsewhere, whenever I try to take care of bidness and pleasure, someone points a gun at me.
As I approach Christmas, the levee in my heart breaks, and a river floods its chambers with hazardous nostalgia.
I want and could have it all if it was not for this chronic heart problem.
The problem is this:
in the four chambers of my heart, where both oxygen enriched and oxygen deprived blood "thubs" into the atrium, bringing with it the perception of charity and selflessness, this blood is absorbed on the "dubs" as my ventricles try to push out only clarified blood, but takes along small dabs of misgivings. These missgivings have, over the years, caused major blockage of sensible thinking as substantial amounts of bedeviled doubts reach my brain.
From the server side of my life, the Great Spirit continues to upload files on everything that has ever been, is now and will ever be.
This is how I see myself as I stand before my Judge who will download all my good and bad deeds.
Uncertain of how his browser while display my home page, I am doing my best to delete links to forbidden pages by making amends wherever necessary
In the All Mighty's browser of choice, Opera, I see that my drop down (drop dead) navigation system points to a 403 page of "FORBIDDEN ERRORS".
One sub-link I built when I was five. How can I ever make direct amends for this?
A file named my_dck_on_dsply.htm; view the source, you wil see there META TAGS = A mystery revealed too early to the extremely impressionable minds of post-toddling girls; I should not have gone along with the other boys, as we showed the young girls in our pre-school gang, what it is we have that they don't, how we use it to pee, how we have this great advantage which gives us mastery over them, how we could stand and pee awed the girls, then we made a point of demonstrating our superiority by presenting them with a visual, we boys urinated on a rose bush.
Another page I developed when I was thirty. I undivinely intervened in the fate of a capricious Capra hircus otherwise known as a goat.
I once lived in the country in a rent house, on a farm owned by some hard core Cajuns.
One morning I saw that his calico goat had escaped its pen and was trying to decide what to do next.
As the goat stood on the country road five miles from downtown Lake Charles, Louisiana, half relieved it had gotten through the wire, half distressed by the little it knew of the world beyond the wire, I picked up the phone, called my landlord and told him his goat had gotten out of its pen. I'd done my good deed for the day, I thought.
A week later, I drove back Sunday evening from a weekend of playing soldier, and I didn't see the goat. I later asked my landlord about the goat.
"We ate him," the farmer said--implying with his expression that I was a bit thick, having asked a question with only one obvious answer.
It will be lots of nickel and damn bullshit like this which will lose my name to the ages as soon as I cross the river Jordan.
I don't come from a tradition which holds in the high regard the names of ancestors because our blood line has always had a migrating spirit (which means that somehow it has always managed to get out of town one step ahead of the law).
I see this tradition as being closely linked to the form and meaning of Judgment day.
I will most likely leave this world not bound for Paradise (he was a man's man, a mench, a man who had the courage to out maneuver harsh conditions and he left behind a legacy which our family enjoys today) or Hell (that motherfucker died owing me two hundred dollars!) but someplace in between.
My name will be lost for many years except for this likely scenario. A photograph of me, left behind by my proginy. They will abandon some rent house, leaving behind a box of photographs during their midnight run from the lease and a search warrant.
The box in the attic will collect cobwebs for several eternities before someone finds it and brings it into the light. This someone will begin to flip through the forgotten photos and eventually come to this photograph of me. This someone will turn it over and read my name written on the back. Once my name is read out loud, for that second or two on some day while my bones are bleaching somewhere in the desert sun, that part of me which stood before the Judge and had no luck telling Him to "Lemme explain this part."
will be released from its cardboard limbo of anonymity. The photograph will be tossed back into the box, the box will be bound for a trash pick up.
Two days before Christmas Eve. Five days before my one year anniversary. I need to turn the air conditioner on high. There will be no house cleaners today. I'll have to make my own bed. Daughter J. is in Houston with her Mama. I should write her.
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