Do This in Remembrance of Me

Rituals are so cool. I want to do them every day. And I guess I do--I say "Have a nice day" and "How are you?" when I don't mean it, and shake people's hands when I meet them. If you've seen Narnia, there's a very funny bit in there about handshaking with Lucy and Tumnus.

Seriously, I think rituals speak to the heart of what it means to be human. For instance, "How are you?" or other greetings--this is a way of acknowledging that someone exists, that they matter. We may not realize that every time we perform this ritual, but how hurt are we if someone we know passes us by without saying "Hi"?

A ritual that astounds me every time I witness it is the funeral car procession. For our American culture, this is a pretty touching display of public respect for the dead and their family. Not only does a line of cars follow the hearse and limousine, but everyone else on the road gives preference to this line of cars . . . allows them to stay together, pulls off the road or slows down as they pass by. It's like tipping the hat as the lord guv'ner walks by. It always reminds me how huge, and powerful, and scary death can be--completely inalterable, and no one is exempt.

In my church, we have Communion. Many denominations celebrate this differently. Catholics do it every Sunday. I met some Church of God evangelists in Korea who said that you should only do it once a year and were shocked that my church celebrated it four times a year. I see their point, Passover only being once a year, and Passover is when Jesus had communion, but whatever--we do it four times a year. Ellen White says so. :)

In Communion, we remember the story of the Last Supper. Jesus was about to die, but nobody really understood that except for him. He wanted to sit down at a table one last time with his best friends and share a meal, but he also wanted them to understand how important it was to believe in him, and to help each other. He symbolized our need of him by comparing his body to bread, and his blood to grape juice. "This is my body; take and eat."

Then he washed his disciples' feet--their dusty, sweaty, calloused feet--and told each other that if they want to have a place in Heaven, they need to get used to serving each other like he did. The key to real love is service.

So in my church, we eat a teeny little tablet of bread, drink grape juice out of a Barbie-sized tumbler, and wash each others' feet. Weird, huh?

But every time I do it, I'm reminded about how important it is to stay humble, to serve people, and to forgive them--it's pretty hard to wash someone's feet or have them wash yours unless all your old grievances have been put away. And I'm reminded about how much I need Jesus.

At some point a group of people, be it a church, a government, or a culture, decided that something was important. It mattered. And they developed a ritual to remind us, because we're very stupid beings and unless something becomes physical, tangible, we often forget about it. We're not very good with abstract ideas--we need that physicality, that contact with cold hard matter, to have it make any sense. But we still forget what it all means sometimes.

It's like a teacher got in front of the class and said, "Okay, class, today we're going to learn about how precious life is. Are you grateful that the sun rises each day?" and everyone in the class went, "Duh . . . " and the teacher gave us each an orange and said, "The sun is like an orange. Every time you eat an orange, think of this new day and be grateful," and then everyone went, "Oh, okay, cool!" But then they forgot what the orange meant, and just ate them out of habit, or because they tasted good.

People sometimes complain about the Catholic church. It's boring, a lot of meaningless drivel, they do the same thing every Sunday, how can that be feeding their souls? But I think that, basically, we all have a lot to learn from each other.

I'm going shopping today. Who-hoo. I seriously haven't bought ANY of my Christmas presents yet. So today is likely to be a headache-maker. And a wallet-breaker.

My mom tells me all self-righteously, "Well, I guess the way to do it would be to shop for presents all year long." Yes. I know. But does anyone really do that? Aside from moms?

By the way, has anyone else noticed, or is my mind seriously at fault, that they are now advertising hard liquor on television? I don't recall ever seeing any ads for gin, vodka, or kahlua on TV before I went to Korea; all the alcohol on TV was beer and wine. But now they're advertising the hard stuff, with a little reminder at the bottom, "Please Drink Responsibly." My parents said it must be for Christmas, but I think TV execs might have changed some advertising law.

--md

I never love my house more than in the morning. Sunlight slanting into all the windows, doorways lit up like something wonderful is inside, smell of early morning muffins, and my lazy cat spread out on the floor like a rug. It's so good to be home.

Christmas Break Resolutions:

To start each day with worship. (Except today; I'm starting today with Internet and the L.L. Bean Catalog)
To go on lots of walks outside, because Michigan is too damn cold.
To spend two hours each day on planning my class for next semester.
To spend one hour each day on my Harry Potter/King Arthur paper.
To do whatever the hell I want with the rest of the time, and to fully appreciate my family, my friends, and my youth.

On that last one . . . I was listening to Fountains of Wayne last night. Yes, that's right, Fountains of Wayne of "Stacey's Mom" fame. As one of my friends remarked once, they sing a lot about alcohol and being wasted.

But I was listening to a different song--"All Kinds of Time." For a song about a football game, it's pretty great. No, scratch that. For any song, it's pretty great. This quarterback is on the field, and the play begins. In that split second before he hurls the ball to "his open man, there in a golden ray of light," he has this epiphany. He's got time. He thinks about his family and his fiance, and appreciates his life--all in that short moment while the other team is rushing him.

*****here comes the cheesy life-application part******

So it made me think about my own life. I spend my time rushing to the next thing, trying to get everything done and still have fun, and before I know it, I'm going to get old. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) But my goodness, I'm twenty-four. How awesome! How astounding! How many people on this planet wouldn't like to wake up and be twenty-four again, with a whole life in front of them, and enough behind them that they're starting to appreciate it?

Kenneth Koch writes a poem entitled "To my Twenties," part of which says, "Kenneth do you have a minute? / And I say Yes! I am in my twenties! / I have plenty of time!" Then he says how, of all the decades in his life, his twenties were the most bewitching. "Twenties, my soul / is yours for the asking / you know that, if you ever come back."

Beautiful. Inspiring. And relevant, for those of us still here in this marvelous decade. Most of you who read my blog are--do you celebrate it? Do you remember how much glorious life is ahead of you? Or do you spend time banging out forgettable research papers, running to the store, driving madly across country to visit family for a few hectic days before you're back at your shitty apartment full of crusty dishes?

Maybe I'm just in a good mood because I'm falling in love with a marvelous man. The euphoria of infatuation; that silly Katie, here she goes again, she'll get over it soon enough. But maybe that's what the twenties is all about--living fully, giving yourself wholly to a person, to a cause, to an ideal. Jesus says, "I have come that you might have life, and have it to the fullest." After learning to live like that, really live, the possibilities are endless. What sky is the limit?

Yes, it's been a while. I'm aware of this. And it's not because of boys that I've been shying away from my computer. It's because of projects. Every time I'm not in class or at work, eating or sleeping, I'm scuffling madly to get my Annie Dillard paper, my Southern Dialect paper, my Workshops in the Composition Class paper, or my syllabus and class schedule for the actual class I'm teaching next semester (eek!) done. And if I'm NOT working on those things, I'm staying the hell away from a computer, whose blank, accusatory stare only serves to remind me of all I should be working on.

It's snowing right now. The world looks like the movie Little Women, when Jo and Beth and Meg and Amy are running through the snow, bearing lanterns and wreaths, and playing like children. I actually called my mom this morning to tell her this. Then I told her about this dream I had where she was running for president against Hillary Clinton, who was secretly building a huge underground weaponry chamber beneath the cliffs of Dover. There was this press conference, and I was doing my mom's hair and makeup, prepping her for her speech, when all of a sudden there was Hillary, and some other women on her team. And all these conflicting thoughts went through my mind--"I don't want my mom to be the president! That would be weird, and I don't think she'd be very good at it." "If she's not the president, we'll get Hillary, and who knows what evil scheme she's hatching?" "Wow! The next president of the United States is going to be a woman!"

I can't believe how beautiful Michigan is so far. I'm sure that by the end of January, I'll be sick of snow, snow, and more snow. But it's fluffy, like frozen foam, and the trees are outlined in white. Last night Aung La and I took a walk to see the temperature on the bank clock in downtown Berrien--it was 17 degrees Fahrenheit. Passing under streetlights, we looked up to see a spattering, a swirl, a sheet of snow blizzarding down upon us. It was like watching an entire galaxy of stars falling. The flakes were so big that they cast shifting shadows on the ground, like waves forming pictures on the ocean floor.

The local country station has "gone Christmas," and is playing the happiest music on earth all day, every day. Each time I get in my car I start singing at the top of my lungs, just KNOWING I'll slide into a ditch when I'm not looking 'cause I'm hitting the high note in "O Holy Night."

It must be America--nothing, not one natural thing in Korea made me feel this way. I visited mountains, beaches, islands in Korea, but it was all dull and fake, looking at beautiful landscapes covered in smog and telephone wires. I craved nature there--my bones felt hollow and weak because I wanted something to make me stand in awe.

Maybe it's that, in Korea, all the trees are short because they were all cut down and burned 50 years ago. Maybe I just need tall trees to feel like I'm really seeing nature.

Whatever it is, America's got it, and I'm loving Michigan. In the fall, all I could do was drive around and gaze, open-mouthed, at the trees on fire with color, wishing for a rake. Now all I can do is stand outside, open-mouthed, to catch the hugest snowflake I've ever seen on my tongue, wishing for some snowshoes or a dogsled.