The preacher’s kids’ favorite holiday
was always Halloween — the costumes,
the candy. Not Christmas, not Easter,

not the Christian ones. No, a pagan fest.
Thank heaven they were never asked to
play a trick on the treaters if there were

no treats. That would come later when
they were teens, maybe. The preacher
never knew, but he did remember being

sixteen and wearing a trench coat pulled
up over his head playing a headless/horse-
less horseman and not getting a treat so

he and his buddies’ trick was to tip over
the garbage cans. Thank goodness they
were empty. The preacher’s kids now have

kids and what will they do this COVID Hallo-
ween? Stay home, watch horror movies and
eat pizza while their parents reassure them
that there will be other Halloweens. Boo!

He sauntered to the bus stop,
stood still, didn’t feel a thing
and then the cement beneath

him gave way and he fell feet
first into the fifteen-foot deep
hole and was surrounded by

rats for the time before he was
rescued. He said he couldn’t
yell for help for fear the rats

would get into his mouth. For-
tunately, the rescue was swift.
His sister said he is recovering

from a broken arm and leg but
the trauma of the swarming rats
will haunt him for a long, long

time. Sorry for your experience,
pal, but could there possibly
be a better metaphor for now?

He rails so hard against the
excesses and abuses of patriarchy
that he sounds just like an
excessive and abusive patriarch.
He just rants while missing the mark.
Hamartia is not quite the idea.
Perhaps he should settle down while home,
breathe in deeply with his mouth shut
and breathe out open-mouthed uttering only om.

They have had the girl for two years.
She was a six-year-old Chocolate
Lab puppy-maker and then she was
out on the street. On their first visit to
the vet they were congratulated on hav-
ing an eighty-five pound, six-year-old
puppy. “Yes,” they knew. Yes, six years
without a leash. Two years later and
mostly leash trained, the girl still had
a very strange behavior. Every time
they petted the girl’s belly, she would
lift her leg. And then one day, the light-
bulb lit up almost simultaneously and
they exclaimed, “The puppies! Mom’s                                                                                 inviting her puppies to dinner.”

“It’s liberation in exposure,” said the candid-
ate, “It’s been 400 years and it took world-
wide exposure in the hands of a young woman
holding a camera to see what horror has been
going on for 400 years,” to paraphrase. It took 
a technical advancement for us to catch up and 
the candidate said he thought we finally had 
and that’s good news in the midst of what seems 
like most everything is moving back to the back 
of the bus, but it’s not, thanks to a very brave 
young woman.

Saul his thousands slew;
David his tens of thousands slew;
Jesus simply brought healing
to the Hebrews, Gentiles,
me and you….

I’ve had it with patriarchy;
it’s a whole lot of malarkey —
guys running around
sticking out their chests
beating their breasts
and making stupid guttural sounds.

Death is the end result
and the making of much tumult —
guys running around
brandishing guns,
acting like Huns
while making stupid guttural sounds.

And so, I am now resigned
to what matriarchy will help us find —
peace, playfulness, running around
embracing each other
like affectionate brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers
while making sweet, affirming, cooing sounds.

So, we must stop being chumps
like our close relatives the chimps —
living in societies with violence all around.
Rather, to our relatives the Bonobos let us look
for a matriarchal guide book
where peace, mercy and love abound.

*idea from a meditation by Matthew Fox: https://dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=%5BDailyMeditations%5D%2010%2F27%2F20%3A%20%20Violence%20and%20Peace%20among%20Chimpanzee%20Communities&utm_campaign=%5BDailyMeditation%5D%2010%2F27%2F20%3A%20%20Violence%20and%20Peace%20among%20Chimpanzee%20Communities

The damp cold enters
and my duck down vest withers —
brilliant leaves hang on.

Epictetus wrote that it is like
wishing for a fig in winter this
longing and aching for a de-
ceased loved one. After he
read that, he thought how
much it reminded him of
Buddhism and Taoism. He
wished he had gotten more
of that in his Christian up-
bringing. It would have saved
him so much heartache about
that over which he had ab-
solutely no control. He looked
at the skin on his forearms
thinking “perishable — use in
due season.”

For some reason he’s thinking about
death and an afterlife; gee, you think, 
considering the fact that the stench of
death is only two steps away from the

guy without a mask — the one declar-
ing his faux libertarian, phony baloney
bent on the First Amendment? Go
right ahead and fly through that red 

light, don’t wear a seat belt and “A
stop sign? What stop sign?” They
take their orders well from what they
see on TV. In the mean time, and isn’t 

that an apropos phrase — mean time? So, 
he’s thinking about death and white evan-
gelicals would be thinking about all 
the white loved ones who had gone before 

and what a great reunion it will be just 
like those on the 4th of July at grandma’s 
farm. Yes, he’s thinking about that myth
with a bit of yearning but, honestly,

he would be glad to be a smooth, flat
stone having been rolled over and over
and over before washing up on the
beach for some kid to find and get all

excited about it being the best stone
for skipping she had ever seen. And
after she tossed it on a waveless day
and got all excited about all the skips

it made before sinking, he would roll
and roll and roll and wait for some other
kid to find the perfect stone for skipping.