IF YOU REALLY CARED, I WOULDN’T HAVE TO TELL YOU.

One Christmas after my family had opened all the presents, my grandfather gave me a very large box wrapped in wall paper. Now my grandparents almost always gave practical gifts like clothes, but this was different. Inside the box was my grandfather’s silver cornet. Grandpa had been a tailor by trade, but in his early years he also played in a band. He knew about my interest in music and so was passing on his instrument to me. After all, I was the only grandson and both of his own sons were tone deaf. I thanked Grandpa. He gave a short demonstration. I tooted on the cornet a few times and then packed it in its case. That was pretty much the last time I looked at it. I was interested in playing the piano, not the cornet, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. Months later my father informed me that my grandfather was upset that I hadn’t gone to him and asked him to teach me to play the cornet.

I regret not learning to play the cornet. It would have broadened my musical knowledge to be able to play a brass instrument. I also regret hurting my grandfather’s feelings. I never intended to do that.

Many years later after Grandpa passed away, I learned there was more to this. My grandfather had been a Freemason, a worshipful master of the Sincerity Lodge. Neither my father nor his brother ever became masons. My grandfather had been upset that his sons hadn’t come to him and asked to become masons. Grandpa apparently worked with the strict rules of the lodge that you never invited anyone to join, so he never asked either of his sons to do so. But there was something more complicated going on. Grandpa had expected his sons to figure out he wanted them to be masons and to ask him to sponsor them just as he later expected me to figure out that he wanted me to ask him to teach me the cornet.

This is a strange phenomenon that I have seen in many permutations since. People have expectations that they never express, and become upset when others don’t figure that out. That is really unfair, especially with children who have little ability in figuring out unspoken expectations. All kinds of relationship go awry when someone wants something, but won’t ask for it. I have run into it again and again in marriage counseling where one partner (sometimes both) have expectations that they never express, but want the other partner to fulfil. I have heard an exasperated spouse say, “Why didn’t you tell me that’s what you wanted?” Only to be met by the reply, “If you really cared, I wouldn’t have to tell you.”

My family was notorious for this. No one said what they really wanted. So they wound up doing things no one wanted to do and resenting not doing what they wanted. This is crazy, but it’s the way things went for generations.

I have been surprised as I have seen the same dynamic at work in other families and with other youngsters. Sometimes I’ll ask a young person if they would like to do something, and I get a very noncommital answer of maybe. I suppose some of it is that they really don’t know what they want. Some of it is the reluctance to be tied down to a commitment of any sort when a better offer might turn up. But some of the problem is that the young person has already learned that when adults ask questions or make offers, they are expecting a particular answer and the young person is trying to figure out what that expected answer is.

I encourage people to ask for what they want, but with the understanding that they may not get what they want. Is that disappointing? Of course, but which is worse: asking and sometimes not getting or not asking and almost never getting? Some basic honesty about expectations would make things easier for all of us. At least we’d have some place to start negotiations.

This is another one of my ramblings that has gone off in an unexpected direction. I was intending to write about the value of a musical education. Ah well, man proposes and God disposes, only sometimes it’s my computer that disposes sending whole files into the void of cyberspace. I never know what to expect when I click save. If my computer doesn’t like what I write, I wish it would tell me rather than make me guess what it’s going to do. Maybe computers have problems being honest about expectations as well.

On that peculiar note,

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

LEARNING FROM STAN

One of my happiest memories is my mother laughing uncontrollably at Stan Laurel in a scene from The Bohemian Girl. Stan is using a siphon to fill bottles from a barrel of wine. He sucks on the rubber hose to get it started, sticks it in a bottle, fills the bottle, takes the hose out, but doesn’t crimp it shut. Of course the wine keeps flowing. Not knowing what else to do, he puts the siphon in his mouth while he readies another empty bottle. The process continues over and over again with Stan getting increasingly snozzled.

The scene is hilarious no matter how many times you’ve seen it. It’s done without a word being spoken as it would have been done in one of Stan’s silent pictures. I look at the scene now with a more technical eye, and marvel at Stan Laurel’s ability to act with his face. He had realized a kind of subtlety that was possible in acting before a camera. He was the genius who worked out the comic touches of the Laurel and Hardy films. But when he acted, that genius was hidden under the character he portrayed. You see only the comic effect, never the effort that went into producing the effect.

For me, there is a lesson about preaching in Stan’s work. Let people hear the message as clearly and directly as possible. Let listeners marvel over the Good News that is presented, but don’t let them marvel over the preacher’s rhetorical art or scholarship.

There is a deeper, more universal lesson I see in Stan Laurel’s work. Find your gift and use it. Stan had the gift to make people laugh without being vulgar. Boy, is that ever different from some modern “comics” who can’t tell a joke that doesn’t involve some debased sexual reference or a stream of obscene language. Making people laugh in a genuine way is a great gift. I grant that it is different from the gift to do medical research or the gift to organizing relief efforts to victims of natural disasters, but it is a gift nonetheless.

One of my big bugaboos is the huge number of people who feel themselves ungifted and therefore useless. One way or another many people seem to get crushed into the ground. Maybe it’s that wonderful competitive attitude we have, crush them before they can crush us. Whatever the cause, a lot of gifted people come to nothing because they don’t realize their own gifts.

One of the tasks we must be about on our pilgrimage is lifting up other people’s gifts. I try to do that, especially with young people. Tell them what’s good about them. Tell them what you can see in them. I suspect people would be happier if they could realize their own gifts, and all of us would be happier in a world where people used their gifts to good ends.

My goodness, I’ve gotten rather preachy not to mention crabby. My apologies, gentle readers. It’s time for me to make a cup of tea and watch Stan and Ollie in Sons of the Desert. After some good laughs, I’ll be ready to continue my journey with a better attitude a little less inclination toward exhortation.

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

CRITTERS

I’m not an animal person. I don’t dislike animals nor people who are animal lovers. I just don’t want pets of my own.

Growing up we had parakeets. They generally lived for a few years, then departed for budgie heaven. I learned it was best not to get too attached to them. I kept tropical fish that lived even shorter lives than parakeets before making the grand journey down the porcelain fixture.

After I left home my mother acquired a number of cats. I came home from seminary one weekend to find a large cat sleeping on a chair. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” I demanded. The cat slept on–though I had the distinct impression it was only pretending to be asleep to annoy me. It took several more visits home before I discovered the cats were using a secret weapon against me. Turned out I’m allergic to cat dander. A few hours in a cat’s presence and I start wheezing and coughing.

Another of my mother’s cats was distinctly antisocial both in regard to humans (except my mother) and other cats. It had to live all by itself in a four room apartment on the second floor of the house. Unfortunately that included the guest bedroom where I stayed when visiting. After a week or so of sharing space with the cat, my breathing became so labored that I wasn’t sure if I were coming to the end of my vacation or end of my life. I rarely saw this neurotic cat as it remained hidden for most of my visits. Occasionally, however, it would venture out into the middle of the next room and glare at me as if to say, “Are you still here?” By the way, this cat played fetch like a dog, at least when my mother played with her.

My sister now lives in the old family house. She has an entire menagerie currently consisting of a dog, two cats, tropical fish, and some sort of runt rodent which the cats find very entertaining. One of the cats took an instant dislike to me and hid every time I visited, a smart move in my opinion. Recently, however, the cat seems to have undergone a change of mind and now regards me as the best thing since catnip mice. It insists on sitting on my lap to take a snooze. Lucky me. I take mega doses of antihistamines when I visit.

My own animal world is confined to a number of Teddy bears. You don’t have to feed them or take them for walks. They don’t sit on your face while you’re lying in bed early in the morning. I never have to take them to the vet as I perform any necessary surgery myself using buttonhole thread for sutures. My Teddy bears love me unconditionally. They always listen to what I have to say although I am not sure Alexander understands English since he is of Russian extraction.

Living in Florida, however, makes almost daily encounters with real animals inescapable. I generally breakfast on my screened porch, but if I leave the door open too long, lizards sneak in. They really aren’t bad to have around since they eat bugs (which we have lots of here), but it can be unnerving to have a lizard run across your table while you’re eating.

Some years back I had a encounter with a larger reptile. I was serving as interim at a church that was being restored after hurricane Andrew swamped it under a 16' storm surge. One Sunday before people started arriving for services, I was sitting at the piano in the church sanctuary improvising. I am rather oblivious to my surroundings when I do that. This time I must have been totally zonked, for after several minutes I looked up to see a three-foot iguana sitting on top of the piano. It wasn’t doing anything, just sitting. Maybe it liked music or maybe it was deaf and couldn’t hear it. Well, I just kept on playing because I didn’t want the thing running around the church. Eventually someone showed up, threw a towel over it, and took it outside.

And then there was the time a couple of years ago when I was taking my morning walk around the duck pond and found a five-foot alligator sunning itself on the bank. I don’t know how it got here since we’re several miles from a river, but there it was. I took a detour around it before heading to the manager’s office. Somebody from the county came and removed it before it started snacking on people’s dogs.

Last month I read about someone else’s adventure with a reptile. A woman was shopping in the garden department of a local home improvement store and was bitten by a rattle snake. Since that happened about half a mile from where I live, I am a bit concerned. I shake out my trousers before putting them on just to be sure.

Lately, however, it has been amphibians troubling my life. There are a number of tree frogs in residence just outside my bedroom window. Around 2:30 in the morning they start in with the “Croaking Chorus.” Then there is a toad who shows up every so often and camps right in front of my door. It’s not so bad when I’m going into my apartment because I can shoo it away, but sometimes it’s there when I’m going out. Last week I opened the door to go to church and the toad hopped right in. I sent him hopping right out. Why me? The toad never sits in front of anyone else’s door. Maybe it’s my door mat. I have one made of some sort of natural fiber. When it gets wet, it sprouts mushrooms. Maybe they’re toad stools.

I don’t need any pets. There is quite enough wildlife around here without importing anything. Well, they’re all God’s creatures. As the fine old hymn says:

All things bright and beautiful.
All creatures great and small.
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

With or without animal companions,

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne