Episode 10: Talk About Tanks

Han and Fan are my roommates for the last year, and not so different from any other college students. When I make my rounds closing the library late at night, I usually find one or the other – sometimes both – squirreled away somewhere at the study desks, earphones jacked in and shooting their way through a video game. Han spent a recent Asian festival snapping photographs, so I can see myself Japanese taiko drumming. Fan's desk has several Japanese anime magazines shelved; a hobby we both have in common. Our apartment's front door is still decked out in Chinese banners and a giant sticker proclaiming the lunar new year; I wonder if I can talk them into giving me the paper lanterns they took down? There's even a lucky charm stuck on my bedroom door, just like theirs.

In China, it is said that the generation born after 1989 have no clue what happened that spring. State censorship of media and information is strict. In a documentary I watch four Beijing university students shown a picture of Tank Man standing before the tanks; they study it intently then surrender. One whispers, “1989,” but none grasp the context of the image. “Is this a work of art?” asks another.

Han and Fan agree to an interview, with Tiananmen Square the topic. I want to see how close I can get to Tank Man via their memories and experiences, and how far the historic myopia travels.

Han sits on the couch and fiddles with his glasses when he's choosing his words carefully. When he thinks deeply, considering his answer, he leans forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, and hmphs. He's been to Tiananmen Square, the symbolic and beurocratic heart of China, twice. Once as a child of nine with his parents, and again as an adult at twenty.

“Who do I think Tiananmen Square is?”

“Yes. Like a person. If Tiananmen were a person, what would it be like?”

“I never thought of that. Hmm. It looks great,” he spreads his hands wide (the Square is the largest public space in the world), “and well-protected. Maybe... a middle-aged person with strong honor. A person of high honor. Like status.”

Fan is a bit more nervous. I hear him speak English less than Han most of the time. “Sit here, sit down,” says Han at the beginning, but Fan hovers around the counter separating kitchen from small living room. His hair poofs up, where Han's is combed flat and short. Yet both have glasses, and the same wispy college-stubble on their chins. “I think... it's a symbol of government. Government power. A symbol of freedom of government.”

“Both?”

“Blood was there. It was covered in blood. Like a river.”

“1989?”

So they had both heard of it, of the protests and the crackdown afterward. But each had started down a different road.

“I did not know until I came here,” said Han. “Here, the teacher talk all about Tiananmen Square. In China I don't know. Nobody knows. The censorship is very tough. I was shocked.”

“I knew,” breaks in Fan. “The internet. I see pictures. That man in front of the tanks.” Internet censorship in China is monolithic, but like many in the younger generation, Fan can get around it. “So I knew, but I learn much more. I talk about it with friends, on the internet, here. But I wouldn't tell a police man!” he laughs.

“So you saw the Tank Man?”

“Yes.”

“Nobody really knows what happened to him. What do you think happened to him?”

“I heard he was run over by the tank. Dead,” says Fan.

“I don't know,” says Han. “Probably arrested.”

“Do you think something like that, Tank Man, the protests, do you think it could happen again in China? I mean not in some future, but in your lifetimes?”

Han squints. “Ahh... I don't know. I just don't know this thing.” But Fan is nodding his head, “Yeah.” “He's going to Beijing in summer,” Han points at Fan. But he won't be visiting Tiananmen. “I'm just flying through, but a few days in Beijing. I'll go around the city.”

“But not to Tiananmen Square?”

“No,” he shoves away from the counter laughing, “I don't like the Party.”

Episode 9: Drumspeakers

I love writing dialogue. In fiction. I hate writing in nonfiction; my memory, even my hearing fail me as a recorder, and my notes are scattered helter-skelter codes.

But I try.

Taiko practice has ended. My friends and I are standing around after, kibitzing, and discussion is on the upcoming drag show.

"My knees are killing me; it's even worse with drag practice," says Holly.

"Yeah. And Jazmine keeps smacking my back so hard." Nicole rubs her back for emphasis. "She should put her hand lower."

"And grab your butt? She totally grabbed your boob in the one turn!"

Laughter. They're both in the drag show; not me. I offered to don a burqa and "perform" John Cage's 4'33", but that's too much art and not enough fun. Okay, I'm done snarking on that.

And I wasn't really taking notes here.

"You could do the drums. A blog on the conversation of the drums would be amazing," interjects Katie.

Yes. Yes it would.

"You can steal the idea; I give it you."

By all means.

What we just finished, before the kibitzing, was a conversation all its own. Seventeen people pounding on drums, the Japanese taiko (a mixture of different sizes and, in a pinch, a few garbage cans upside down), mixing harmonies and rhythms.

One drum, the shimedaiko placed behind the twin taiko rows, leads the conversation. DUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUM.

And the sixteen answer: DUUM!

The call: DUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUM.

And the answer resounds again: DUM... DUM. Bodies respond with one arm, then the second, falling on the cowhide.

DUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUM.

DUM!

Then together, caller and answer, a conversation mixing its stride and speaking over each other. What would be rude in words is a beautiful beat.

Repeat, add a last DUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUDMDUMDUM with greater force and launch into a conversation apart from the shimedaiko. It continues to speak, keeping a rhythm and time of eight-beat cycles, but the conversation expands and overflows past its bounds.

DUM DUM DUMDUM (scream SO--REI!) DUMDUM DUMDUM (HAI!). When the melody cycles through four times, the conversation changes. It slows but resounds with more force. (SO--REI! SU!) DUUUM (SU!)DUUUM (SU!) DUM DUM. Four cycles. Then a sharp break, the stamina of the conversation lightening for a DUM! CLACK CLACK CLACK. Bodies join the dialogue more actively; swaying to the beat and raising the sticks high, letting gravity pull them back down; the drummer is already in an implicit negotiation with the physics of earth. But now the sticks clack together as the body squats and curves left, center, right. Two cycles, instead of four. The variety of in conversation that keeps in interesting.

Inwardly, I'm having a mental conversation. Am I doing right? Is my left arm hitting with the same strength as my right, keeping the beat even? What's the beat? Crap, I miscounted? Did sensei see? And I bet these are the same thoughts wandering through sixteen other minds.

Back to DUM DUM DUMDUM (SO--REI!) DUMDUM DUMDUM (HAI!).

Now the hard part. Our bodies have to converse with each other in threes. Four cycles and we jump clockwise, switching positions on the drums. I leap back and Nicole jumps forward; Holly shifts left in our triangle of drums. All around us similar jumps flow together.

And the drum beats on. We switch again. Now we solo.

One drum, Holly in front. All sixteen other drums fall silent.

DUM DUMDUMDUM DUM! DUM DUMDUMDUM DUM!

Nicole and I rush in with the same answer, three drums synchronized.

Then we shut up and Holly leads in again: DUM DUM DUM DUM DUMDUMDUMDUMDUMDUM DUM!

Nicole and I stumble in. They were all supposed to be CLACKs on the rim of the drum.

There's whispering as the next group does their solo, more individualized choreography. A unique discussion adding to the drama of drumming.

"I thought we were doing the clicking?"

"We are. I just, my arms are tired."

"It's okay. It's practice."

There's a lot of nervous laughter after quick recriminations. Sensei said, before beginning, "If you screw, just keep going! Don't worry about it." I hoped she didn't realize how confused we just were. I was. She's awfully attractive. Yeah, I'm hot for taiko teacher. Sorry, can't hear you. The conversations rise and merge togeth--

(ONE... TWO... PA-CIFIC TAI-KO!)

DUM DUM DUMDUM (SO-REI!) DUMDUM DUMDUM (HAI!).

And if you were upstairs, as we shook the University Center, your body was in the conversation, too. Shaking along. Shh... the drums are talking, and they drown you out and bring you up at the same time.

Episode 8: The World Needs More Breakdancing Lawyers

My cultural sensitivity meter is about to take a hit.

“So, are you from Hawai'i?” I ask.

“No, Portland. It's alright; I get that a lot.”

The air still isn't up to the warmth I expect for an April, but the sun shines brightly on Trombley Square. Mike and I sit down on the red bricks. Sure, I could have walked around the town of Forest Grove or jumped the bus and hit the city looking for a stranger. But it occurs to me: how many strangers do we see all the time? Evey day? I sit in University classes for months next to people I never know, names I can barely keep in my head once we're all dismissed.

So Mike, you're it. I think I should be forgiven for a Hawai'ian assumption. He is Japanese, with short black hair thinned and spiked; not long ago he had it bleached blonde. Around Pacific University, it's a decent bet someone like that is from the islands. His speech has the laidback wandering quality I've grown accustomed to over the last two years, although he does lack the lilting, almost questioning tone I pick up a lot in the Hawai'ian accent.

“I'm from Portland,” he says. “Like metro-side, not downtown. It's more, you know, southside. Are you from here?”

“No,” I laugh. “Texas.”

“Oh, well I don't know if you know the high schools...”

I shake my head.

We're not a whole lot alike at first glance. T-shirts and jeans for me, duct tape holding one battered, generic brand tennis shoe together. Mike has unscuffed but slightly faded Nike tennis shoes, to compliment the Nike socks and Nike sports shorts hanging just below the knee. There is no trademark swish on his t-shirt, just a black explosion with the words “Sunset Fevertym” in neon colors.

“It's my high school breakdancing team,” he explains. “I did six years of tennis. My mom wanted me to get into something, you know, so I wouldn't do drugs or any of that stuff. There was soccer. Then I did tennis, my brother too. I was pretty good in the northwest. I was just like a few steps from national level. You can go to Texas or Florida or somewhere. But then I just quit. It wasn't my passion any more.”

I take notes all over the place. Little scribbles dot the page, and lines with arrows crowd the space to fit what matters together.

“Do you want me to slow down?”

“No, no; go ahead. I'm just scribbling.”

“Okay,” he says. “So I got into breakdancing in high school. At first, you know, some guys were doing it and it was fun, but then there was a performance at high school, a talent show. I got up there and it felt good. It was my second passion. It gave me confidence. I could be more myself when I started. Four of us made a team, the rest were just like posers.”

I asked what he was majoring in. As a freshman, he was hovering between two choices.

“Well, I wanted to do Psychology, but maybe Environmental Science. I'm thinking more environmental science now. It has more to with the law, and I want to be a lawyer.”

Frankly, I'm all for it. The world needs more breakdancing lawyers.

Episode 7: Hi, I'm Skeerd

Shh. Don't tell a soul. Not a goddamn soul.

I might reckon I'm a fraud. Until two years ago I lived in the same state all my life. Twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years in Texas, since I was four just in central Texas, just outside Austin, never in Austin, ya got me? The hill country. Austin might be the Live Music Capital of the World, but I only ever saw two concerts. I'm not the cool, hip, Indie check-this-ink-ain't-I-the-!@#$ –

Look. I'm being a fraud right there. I don't like cussing if I don't have to. When I want to, when I need to, I'll sure enough cut'er loose. But otherwise, I aesthetically like those little relics of comic books, the !@#$ words. I'm not really a cusser by nature. I'm liberal with my damns and hells and I laugh when an God or Christ gets censored out of an expletive. For crissakes, the Almighty has better things to do than shove celestial soap down your throat. But I figure !@#$ and !@#$ and even @$$ when you hitch up to hole is a bit more than I want to get accustomed too.

There were times when, after a month working at a gas station with a part-time stripper, she was shocked to hear me yell “Hell!” one night when the ice machine door slamshut my finger. Yessir. I shocked a stripper, with little thing like that. “I never heard you cuss before!”

But I wander. Over yonder. A lot.

Speech, it's a funny thing, that there speech. How you talk. I'm a sittin' there with my mom in the car dealer. We're buying her a car. On her own money, with her own credit. For the first time in my lifetime, and it's only three, four years back. Yeah, those doin' the math let a low whistle o' disbelief. It's the first time my grampa ain't cosigned, as far as I know. Long time. So the guy, see I'm there to kind of counsel her and ask questions because I like finding the little things they're going to stick up your arse when they think you ain't readin' the whole real deal, so this guy, the car salesman, the used car saleseman you unnerstan', he says, “Are you from New York?”

Naw, I'm from a few miles thataway. All my life. But I watch ungodly amounts of Law & Order. Maybe that's it.

I went through a few years of peppering talk with Cajun stylin's. Still fun and I like chewing gator. Sure 'nuff.

You may have noticed an “arse.” BBC on the PBS raised me every Thursday and Saturday night on the intricacies of bloody proper English swearing, ya git. Not like I was going out and doing anything else.

Somewhere I mixed it all up. I can't fake a real accent, from anywhere. When I moved to Oregon, I hear often: “Wow, Texas? But you don't have an accent!” Except when I have the Louisiana sausage down at Monkey Deli. Dem's powerful spicy. And Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, I do love y'all and ain't.

I jumble and ah stumble over my words all the time. They don't know quite where they're from eeder. I spoonerism all the damn time. If I get riled up it's worse. And I like getting riled up and geared up for an intellectual fight, but I get distracted by narrowing down to one mighty fine point and controlling the flow into a certain channel. I never feel made clear and I don't know if its the words or the ideas that get in the way.

Or maybe there's nothing in the way. Naught at all. And it's all just window dressin' for emptiness.

And that leaves me, not scared, nor even skeerd.

Damn skeerd. Ain't no two ways about it. Skeers the fucking shiznit right out of moi.

On Marriage, by the Unqualified

Marriage. Marriage is what brings us here together, today. It must be the strangest intersection humanity has developed yet, this weird confluence of friends and family, custom and law, the sacred and secular. Here you have what is intended to the happiest of states, so the societal norm informs us, of union. Yet everyone has a story of this friend or that relative, or themselves, who married and divorced. Perhaps again and again.

In a marriage you develop the deepest intimacy. Not just the sex, but what happens afterwards. Laying in bed together, after the afterglow has faded. Sharing the home, the chores, figuring out the rhythm and desires of each others' lives without losing your own. And bills. Debts. That stain in the underwear. The bad breath in the morning. The in-laws you can't stand and the friends that rub you the absolute wrong way. And all the harsh words that will come. The mistakes.

The affairs.

Kids even.

Maybe kids from other marriages.

Even kids from affairs, mayhaps.

Marriage. Marriage is not exactly as advertised.

#

My mother and father divorced when I was two. Or three. The family has always been a bit fuzzy on the exact moment. My mother never remarried, and only rarely dated in the dim, dim recesses of my memory. From there, it would be easy to accommodate a belief that any trepidation of marriage on my part, or relationships in general, could be easily Freudianised as their fault. Too easily.

This would not factor in my grandparents, who raised me as much (and perhaps a bit more) than my mother. From age three on, I grew up in a multigenerational household. My grandparents were nearly a stereotype: Depression-era survivors who met and married post-World War II. They lived and loved their five children through the Forties and Fifties and Sixties. There was never any doubt to look at them it was a cooperative marriage, with each a claimed spehere. Inside the house, grandma ruled. Outside, you heeded grandpa. I wanted permission to go somewhere? That's child-raising – ask grandma. I need money? That's finances – ask grandpa. Never once did I have any sense my grandma was unfulfilled, or my grandpa bitter. They lived and loved exactly as they wish.

When grandma broke her hip and slowly faded painfully over the next two years, me, my uncle, and my mother took turns driving grandpa to the hospital or nursing home two or three times a day to spend time with her. And mostly, it was me; I had more availability. I listened to them chat and laugh, or her whimper and him hold her hand.

These two are not idolized, however. Neither were pure saints with some “I only met my soulmate once” story. Theirs was my grandma's second marriage; two of my uncles and an aunt are technically half-relatives by blood. My grandpa stepped up to the plate and adopted them all when he married. Only my Aunt Sandy would grow up to defy him by taking her biological father's surname after her own divorce. And when grandma died, she left me a book she had been working on for years. A baby book, oddly enough, called Grandmother Remembers, filled with all kinds of facts I had never even though to ask about.

Such as their marriage date, March 21, 1952. My mother was born October 12, 1952. I did the math. Less than six months.

“Well,” grandpa said, “she was early.” He smiled.

Sure.

#

I can divide my friends up into two distinct camps: the ones I had before returning to college later in life and the ones in college with me now.

The ones before, almost none had gone to or completed college. The closer we were, the less likely for them to be products of higher education. Some married, all divorced. One dutifully pays his child support, loves his daughter, is a great dad, but never married; relations between him and his child's mother are rarely harmonious. Another's longest lasting, most loving relationship was with another man's wife, long distance. He cited that marriage as a “military marriage of convenience” and thus a sham. Another friend who was in the military confirmed this is fairly common, which speaks volumes in itself. The longest marriage of a close friend likely lasted only so long since he spent a great deal of time in prison; once he was out, the combination of personality traits and parole constrictions wrecked his marriage and free access to his three children.

Never once, however, have any of them took a stand against marriage. Not one does not desire a relationship, and a marriage eventually. A permanence.

The friends in college, most of them, seem deathly afraid of marriage. As much as most religions make marriage a sacrament, they take a stand against marriage for themselves as holy writ; usually this is coupled with an intense abhorrence of having children as well. It's not that they want to “date around” or can't have relationships either; most do. “If I ever wake up next to him and realize we actually are in a relationship, something that won't end at any moment, I'll freak out and run,” said one after they'd been together over a year; now they live together.

It's all a bit paradoxical. What is a marriage? Is it the ceremony and the paper? All the college friends who view marriage with an intense distaste for themselves all vow support for rising surge in favor of gay marriage; but why support something as a legal institution you can't stand the thought of doing yourself?

Whether you call it marriage or keep it undefined, when you figure out a system after the afterglow has faded, sharing the home, the chores, figuring out the rhythm and desires of each others' lives without losing your own, what can you call it? And bills. Debts. That stain in the underwear. The bad breath in the morning. The relatives you can't stand and the friends that rub you the absolute wrong way. And all the harsh words that will come. The mistakes.

If you can face all that, why be terrified of a single word?

I Found This Book Nowhere

and the book is saying

so

are

you

This is the strangest book I own; the cover is a color mixed somewhere between navy and purple and claimed by neither. There is a bright white chair in the middle surrounded by a circle. At twelve evenly space points along the circle eleven lines radiate out from each point, creating an intricate network of white lines cross-hatching the circle. In truth, there are no lines or chair; the images are created by negative space on the cover. Therefore, it is only an impression of a chair. But your eyes slide off this distinction and see, yes, a chair. A simple wooden chair within an abstract, geometrical pattern. At the cardinal edges is the word “Remember,” four times. There are words around the circle; but we'll read them later. All in all, it has the look of an occult tract written in Frank Miller's Sin City.

The title? Well, here you have to indulge in some conjecture. The book arrives in my hands working at the library, a tiny part of a large donation from a retiring professor. My task to methodically determine what books the library already holds, and whether the donation is an earlier or later edition.

This is a problem child.

No, the library has no copy. But searching through the WorldCat database, collecting millions of books catalogued throughout the international network, I could uncover three titles:

Be Here Now

Now Be Here

Remember Be Here Now

Librarians all over the world are confounded by this tome. At least I'm not alone. Amused and wondering just how to catalogue this thing, and generally intrigued by the–

Wait, let me tell you more about the pages. And why it's so hard to classify. Forget the cover; no one who handles books, stacking and shelving and searching and archiving, is fooled by the outside. The secret history of a book is written on the inside, in the title page. A blank page, and then a few more pages gives you all the legal information. The real author, the full title, the copyright year, the publisher, the printing. All the hardcore nerdy stuff a booklover wants to really know; where the ancestry of the ink lies. And what the technician needs to handle the blizzard of texts storming in.

Only this title page is little different. It tells me,

“Yes, I am printed in 1971. By the way, did you know that's the Year of the Earth Monkey? Also, this is made in love for love. Any portion of this may be reprinted to ring the bell of the dharma, but only with prior written permission of the Lama Foundation.”

More or less. As of a sixth printing, there were 186,000 copies of the book floating about. Not too shabby for a book with no fixed title. Yeah, after all that, no title on the copyright page. There is no title page, really. There is a page devoted to telling you how the money (in 1971 costing $3.33) paid for the book is distributed, with the admission

“We don't fully understand the relationship between the energy formed here and the green energy that flows through us.”

Amen, brother. So I walk in to the supervisor, because the book amuses me and perplexes me all the same.

“Hey chief, how do I handle this. It has something like three names.”

She takes it and turns it over, flipping through it. The pages are yellowed with age just a bit, and the cover has tears and dog-ear stress. She laughs at some of the illustrations and the general tone of the writing. “Well, this hasn't actually been catalogued by anyone yet. It doesn't exist. What do you want to do with it?”

“Man, it would be awesome if I had a book like that.” I'm wistful but joking.

She's got her head bent and looking over her glasses with a smile.

“Seriously?”

She keeps looking.

“I need you to at least say okay.”

“See,” she says, “It's in pretty bad condition, it lacks solid information, there's already other copies held by other libraries. We'll probably just have to give it away or recycle it anyway.” The hard truth is the library can't store infinite books. So we nod, and the book disappears into my bag before I settle in to research the rest of the stuff on the cart.

This is perhaps my favorite part. The author is sitting down with a relative who believes he's Jesus and is locked up for doing one crazy thing after another, stealing and the like. And he looks at the author, funky beard and a dress and the whole hippie shebang, and cannot understand why Jesus is locked up and the author's free. The hippie explains:

Sure * Because as far as I'm concerned we're all God * That's the difference * If you really think another guy is God he doesn't lock you up ***

*Funny about that *

And all the *'s are tiny, haloed Christs.

It's a hippie bible. Now, I've got a lot of books on my shelf. Three different English bibles. Even a Mormon bible, just 'cuz. The Tao Te Ching, the Analects, the Apocrypha and stuff on Kabbalah; I could use a good Qur'an. Books on all kinds of mythology. Every continent covered, except Antarctica, but if you know a good penguin mythology collection, send it on by. Fiction, mostly fantasy and science fiction but not all. Science and poetry and history and the Complete Works of Shakespeare and E.A. Poe. Beowulf and Grendel. But this book is the weirdest of the lot.

I put it on the shelf and all the books shimmy to Parliament: We got the funk UNGH! Give us the funk! You see, what I'm trying to tell you is the title. Remember the words around the circle I didn't tell you? Be and Here and Now chase each other around the circle in repetition, but the spaces change, and at one point they merge for BE NOWHERE. The spine has both Be Here Now and Now Be Here, flipped, mirrored. I'm trying to tell you

the

title

is

*BEEEP*

I love my family. Truly. But when that phone rings, and I see “Home” or “Mom Cell” pop up as the caller identity, I let it ring. And ring. I could press “ignore” and let it go straight to voicemail, but then they know. You have to let it play itself out, play the game and don't blink first. If it's important, I'll check the voicemail and call back.

Sometimes the thought strikes me: perhaps I am a terrible son. Who ignores calls from a mother? Wretched scum and villainy! But picture the Cosby Show, and all the Huxtables leaving and returning to the family home, over and over, and you circle close to our family legacy. My mother, my uncle, myself, we all flung ourselves outward at some time or another and then gravitated back to my grandparents. Repeatedly. Even as an adult, I would be asked, “So you still live with your mother?”

No, with my grandfather. It's his house; Mom living there also is pure coincidence. I'm just carrying on a tradition.

Maybe I'm not a terrible son; maybe I'm a terrible person, all-around. I don't much like picking up the phone in any situation. When it rings, I think, “Why is this person calling?” Most of my friends know not to call without damn good reason, so I'll pick up, otherwise...

Cue my voice:

“Hi, you've reached Steve. I'm not here right now, or maybe I am and I just don't feel like picking up. In any event, leave a message. Bye.”

It's not the flashiest, kindest message out there. One supervisor commented, “Well, at least your honest.” Which is pretty much all I desire. This cell phone, bits of metal and plastic and tiny circuits, is a tool. I like tools. I like to use them.

I do not like being used by them.

It seems as if this little tyrant has wormed its way into supremecy overnight. Old landline phones had the advantage you could escape them just by leaving the house. And I can still remember me and a friend wandering the mall as teenagers almost fifteen years ago, with the dull beige, brick-like hammer of a phone that was newly “mobile.” Hot stuff. You had to carry it; no pocket would hide the sucker. At least its slavery was obvious and apparent.

Whenever my friend Seth calls me, at some point I'm bound to hear swearing as he swerves his car. He can't divorce his phone and the road. For me, if the phone rings in the pocket while driving, I don't pick up. The thought of it strikes me silly. Even dangerous.

So the phone, you see, is for me. It is for my convenience. It is, I must sadly inform you, not for the world's convenience. If it goes in my pocket, I regulate.

When I return a call home to see if something has happened, if Grandpa is in the hospital or anything, I do make a point to say hello to him. Let each other know we're still kicking. You can time it in under a minute or two. Neither of us really wants to ramble, just a hello, you good? Sure. Take care.

He never calls. And we like it that way. When I close my eyes and transport technology back two thousand years, for fun, I picture Jesus sitting around being tried by the Sanhedrin. Ringing all around him in black, they shout, “Why won't you answer our calls?”

Serenity fills his voice.

“Man was not made for the telephone; the telephone was made for man.”

Amen.