Something About Christmas

 I promised that I wouldn’t be pedantic or mean about Santa Claus this year. I will let people alone as they do their cultural thing. I never told my kids that there was this guy bringing presents during the night before Christmas. My mother did talk to them about him. Thanks mom. Well, that was long ago and it’s all over now.

I think the way we as a culture do Christmas now originated during the Victorian era. It was a no no in the early years of this country, as it was considered a Catholic celebration.

I guess the need to have an end of year celebration is as old as mankind. We can sure understand that. The world was just plain gloomy and dark as winter closed in. Bummer. I suspect some of the ancients thought their party was going to bring back longer days, spring, and the sunshine. Or maybe just lighten the mood back in the village of round houses and so on.

Somehow it got mixed up with the supposed birthday of the Messiah. I suppose we must thank the Roman church for that. Of course, we must.

OK. It’s 2023, a very futuristic sounding year. What now?

I take a deep breath and once more try to figure out the correct place to stand. One daughter says the tree is pagan. Well, yeah. But our intentions toward it are not. Everybody enjoys buying or making something for loved ones. The kids all count on some good surprises that morning, and that’s fine.

I guess I think it’s possible to have an innocent celebration in memory of his birth, even if we have no idea of the actual day. People are a funny lot, and we do strange things for obscure reasons.

So, I will keep it simple. I have a lot to do in the next few days!

As Tiny Tim says in that old Victorian story, “God bless us, every one!”

My favorite Christmas song!

A Word From Our Sponsor

 

Our God intends that we be full of joy.

I think that the principle of the mustard seed works here too. Bear with me for a minute, ok?

I think that if we can find something to be thankful for and joyful about, that one thing becomes all things, in a sense. Then all is joy.

I understand that life comes in waves and is cyclical. But we do what we can.  We can increase the amount of happiness in the world on purpose, as an act of obedience, in fact.

fabulist (n.)

1590s, "inventor or writer of fables," from French fabuliste, from Latin fabula "story, tale" (see fable (n.)). The earlier word in English was fabler (late 14c.); the Latin term was fabulator.

Your fabulist really appreciates you guys. I could say love, and there is that, but I think appreciate carries with it a sense of each person's character and style.

First Morning

 

I woke at first light. I have always been a light sleeper.  The bed felt unfamiliar and small. It took a second to remember where we were. Jessie was still soundly asleep. I lay there breathing and listening to the morning sounds here, north of Joseph City, in Arizona. 

Crows. I heard crows, harsh and insistent. There were some others I didn’t recognize.

I slipped out of bed and went out to the living room where I saw that Julia was still sleeping, small and snug, wrapped in a patterned hand woven blanket. Billy, the cat, was still with her. His eyes opened and he yawned a great big cat yawn. He was a large gray tabby with yellow eyes.

“Hi Billy,” I whispered, and silently opened the door and tippy toed out to the porch. I stood there in my pajamas just looking around. Well, hello Arizona.

I hadn’t had a single political, socio-economic discussion in days. I had called no one to arms! I wondered if anyone missed me yet.

There is a funny fact about these silent places. Your ears strain to pick up what sound there is, so I listened intently. It seemed like everything I could hear was at some distance. Yes, I could just hear the little stream. As the light brightened, I could hear more birds. I also heard chickens and I wondered where they were because there did not seem to be a chicken coop anywhere in sight.

Inside I could hear Jessie’s aunt snoring a little. I had been of the belief that elderly people are light sleepers and don’t sleep long. Maybe not.

I heard Jessie get out of bed and head to the bathroom.

I went back in to get dressed and talk to him about this first day at home in Arizona.

“What shall we do first,” I asked him.

“Breakfast I suppose. Then we better go look at the hogan and see what it will take to make it livable. I suspect that we may be in for some work, Beth.”

We didn’t want to wake her, but maybe she would just as soon be awakened, so we decided to go start some coffee and see what was available for breakfast. I hadn’t cleared her kitchen rules for us yet, but we would get there too.

In the living room Aunt Julia was sitting up, so we did wake her. But she was smiling. She picked up a cane that had been lying on the floor beside her chair, stood up carefully and headed to the back of the house.

I found a percolator in the kitchen, but no other gear for making coffee. So, percolated coffee it would be. By the time I got that started she was back.

She said we could do anything we liked in her kitchen, that she was tired of cooking and cleaning the kitchen, even just for herself. She said she was pleased to let it go.

I made pancakes and eggs to go with. That seemed to suit her fine. Jessie loved pancakes so no problem there. As we were sitting around the tiny table in one end of the living room area, she asked all of a sudden, “Beth, tell me about your people, your family. Where do you come from? How did you meet Jessie?”

I laid my fork down. “Ok, well, let’s see. My parents were raised in Kalispell, Montana. They married right out of high school. Both of them have some Native American background, but it’s way back.

“When I was born, my father thought they should get out of outback Montana, and he moved us to Seattle. I have two younger brothers. Both living and married. My father was, until he retired, a shift boss at Boeing. Mom was able to stay home and run things from there.

“I went to a small college in a small city in western Washington and I worked in a bookstore for a few hours every week. I met Jessie in the bookstore. He kept coming back and buying more and more books, until I got curious if he was reading all that or just wanted my attention. So, we got to talking about books, and we ended up married Aunt Julia!”

She smiled and nodded. Billy jumped up on her lap and she allowed him to lick her plate.

Next order of business was Hogan Inspection! Aunt Julia said “you two go take a look. I don’t hike around much these days, but I will if you need me to. See what you think. It might be a big job…”

It was a big surprise, in addition to being a big job. I found out where the chickens were. They were strolling around the ground outside the hogan picking at things on the ground and strangely, in this land of wild cats and coyotes, quite alive. When we got inside, we saw that the six hens had been sleeping in the roof timbers and the floor was splattered by their droppings.

“First, we have to do something about these chickens. I don’t see any eggs, but you know they are putting them somewhere. Eggs could come in handy. I wonder if Julia knows where they go to lay eggs,” Jessie said looking around.

It was a round space, with a small steel stove in the very middle. The walls were made of logs, put together log cabin style, not the vertical logs of the older type of hogan. The floor was made of plain boards lying directly on the earth. The pipe from the stove went up to a round opening in the roof. There was a wood frame bed in the back with an ancient mattress and some old blankets on it. Those would have to go. I could see a trip to Joseph City coming up right away for bedding, in addition to a roll of chicken wire. Jessie thought there was enough material lying around to make a chicken house and yard. 

“You know, I wondered why those chickens were still alive,” admitted Aunt Julia back in her living room. “There are coyotes here and there are probably badgers too. For some reason that cat out there doesn’t kill them. I don’t understand. Maybe she scares the others away. Even when she had cubs, she didn’t kill them. It’s like she likes them. No, I haven’t gone egg hunting. If you get them confined, we will be able to collect their eggs.”

We spent our first day there collecting pieces of fencing and other random boards that had been leaning against the back of the hogan and on the ground. Uncle John’s old tool box was inside the hogan and there were enough nails in a hardware store box. Jessie had a small doghouse-like shelter made by evening. We decided to build the chicken area just south of the garden plot, for convenience when cleaning up. He put the little chicken shelter there and started digging holes for some fence posts. It was a long day for him. He had never made a chicken house before.

In the evening, after dinner, in the shadow of the hills, we burnt the old bedding. Sparks flew up and joined the stars overhead. A fire at night is always mesmerizing, so we just watched until it was all done burning.

“Jessie, what kind of work did your uncle do, when he was living? I can’t figure out how he supported them out here,” I asked.

“He had a mine, Beth. That’s why they lived out here. It was only a little claim, not much gold came out of it, but enough. She is still living on that.”

A Bit Of Minor Cartography

 I thought I would just show you all how this place is laid out.

North is to the right, the direction the crow is flying. The old hogan is handy to the mobile home.

There are a few questions to be answered.

When did they move into a mobile?

And why?

How did Uncle John Chee support himself and family?

Is it something Jessie and Beth can take up?

Does Aunt Julia have children?

Why didn't Aunt Julia rise from her chair?

Why is the lioness hanging around?

Time will tell.

Just To Be There

 

A little virtual visit to one of the most astounding places on this planet.  Please enjoy.

It looks pretty good compared to recent floods here.

I sure hope to get another look someday.

Have a lovely Sunday! 

I will be going south to the big crazy city for the day, doing a bunch of errands.

MEOW!

We Came Home

 

We took turns telling her the story. I started with the blue pulsing lights coming up behind the car while I was driving home from town with the shopping. I described how I fought them when I found that they were not the local cops and that I had no idea who they were and how weird they were. When I said they seemed to not mind injuring a woman, she sat forward, and her black eyes were fierce. She muttered something I did not quite hear.

Jessie described waiting at home. He told her about his decision to come looking for me on foot, and then his running down the dark little highway until he found our car abandoned on the verge with the door open and key still in the ignition. Auntie said we were fortunate that it was still there when he got there. He also told her about the signs of struggle that he found. He didn’t really go into how frightened he had been, but she knew of course.

Then we both talked over each other about how we managed to find each other in the early morning hours out on highway 99. By now, it was sounding a little improbable even to us. But it happened. I had just walked out of that room and that building and kept going, even though substantially injured. The thing with my phone kept sounding crazier and crazier until I was doubting myself in the telling. Did that happen, or had I had some kind of mental break?

I know for sure one thing. I left the darn Samsung in that building when I walked out. Nobody was tracking me or Jessie.

“So, you see, Auntie, we are homeless I guess,” said Jessie. “I guess I had a wild idea that we could come back down here home again and fit in somehow.

“We thought we better leave Washington before whoever those goons were realized that Beth was still alive, and they came looking for her. So, we tied off all our loose ends and split.

“We stayed in four old motels that took cash and didn’t appear to care who the heck we were,” Jessie told her. Aunt Chee nodded.

“I think you did right,” she said slowly. Then she sat back in her chair silently for a moment. Her little old grey head bowed down for a while as she added up all that she had just heard. Then she looked up and smiled at us both.

“Of course, this is your home now. We will be good for each other Jessie and Beth. Truthfully, I am getting so old now that it surprises me! I was thinking that I might have to move into some kind of place for old ladies. But I sure didn’t want to. Since I don’t have a car and never learned to drive anyhow, I have to depend on the kindness of various young people to fetch me things from town and take me places.

“I have been trying not to ask too often, you know? I think they get tired of helping old Julia Chee, but so far, they continue to help me. They are sweet kids, really.”

Jessie and I both sighed in relief spontaneously. I hadn’t realized before that we were sort of holding our breath all during this conversation. We really hadn’t known what to expect from her.

“Jessie, you remember the old log hogan out behind this mobile? It is still sound. The roof and the walls are good and the door too. It has a good chimney and an iron stove. There is still a bed. Everything in there is dusty. I think a strong young man and a strong young woman could sleep there.

“Let me know what you think. Would you like to live here in the old house? You would be almost invisible to the world. Tell me what you think. Do you want to? You could cook in here and shower and so on in here where there is water and electricity. Tell me what you think.”

This birdlike small ancient woman in a blue print dress, Jessie’s aunt, was offering us sanctuary.

Of course, we accepted her offer. We didn’t even go out to look in the old log hogan before accepting. There was time enough for that and for all the work of getting set up and learning to live here in Arizona among the Dine’.

Jessie carried in the groceries that we had brought with us from Washington. Aunt Chee showed him where to put things. He also brought in the briefcase and slid it under the sofa in her living room for now. The rest of our stuff except for our pajamas could wait for tomorrow.

Julia Chee and I cooked a nice lunch together. She had a chicken in the fridge, so we fried it. We did rice and some chopped salad. The dressing I made was unfamiliar to her, but she liked it, so all was well.

When evening finally came she gave us her bed for the night, and she slept on her sofa with her cat, who as it turned out, was named Billy.

As I was slipping off to sleep there beside Jessie in Aunt Julia Chee’s bed, I dreamed of the great tawny lioness sitting on her haunches out in the scrub brush and trees around the little blue mobile home.

Light In Time Of Darkness

 

   I think we know the story in general, but I will post a long quote here. The photo is mine from last year, four days into the eight day holiday, along with the gummi snakes. They were quite good, by the way.  Chaotic as usual around here.

   Hannukah is not one of the Hebrew holidays in scripture, it's just traditional.  

   But it is a nice remembrance of God's provision in time of darkness.  

   It is traditional also to put the lights in your window so that your neighbors passing by will see them and be encouraged.  It does take some courage to show yourself of the Jewish persuasion, this year, all of a sudden.

   What a year it has been!

   

Hanukkah: A Great Miracle Happened Here

The word Hanukkah comes from the Hebrew word hanukh, which means dedication or education.

Hanukkah is celebrated as the Feast of Dedication to remember the re-dedication of the Temple after God faithfully delivered Israel from her oppressors.

In fact, the reason for lighting eight candles and celebrating Hanukkah for eight nights relates to God’s faithfulness and the miraculous story of Hanukkah.
Between the years 175 to 163 BC, after the death of Alexander the Great, who had conquered and divided the entire ancient world of the Eastern Mediterranean, the area of Judea came under control of the Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

Antiochus tried to force the Jews to accept Greek culture. He even defiled the Beit HaMikdash (Temple in Jerusalem) by sacrificing a pig on the altar and desecrating this holy place with the blood of this unclean animal.

As described in the book of the Maccabees in the Apocrypha, this wicked ruler forbade the Jewish people from keeping God’s laws. In fact, the penalty for keeping the Torah was death. Many Jewish people chose martyrdom over defying God’s commandments.


(Since the Greeks outlawed the study of the Torah, it was hidden whenever someone approached. Instead, the dreidels were taken out and played like a game of chance. The letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin stand for nes gadol haya sham, meaning a great miracle happened there. In Israel, however, the letters are nun, gimmel, hey, pey meaning a great miracle happened here.)

Antiochus also erected a statue of the Greek false god, Zeus, in the Holy of Holies!

As horrible as this was, it was fulfillment of the Hebrew Prophet Daniel’s prophecy concerning the “abomination of desolation.”

The Prophet Daniel wrote: “His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.” (Daniel 11:31–32)

A Jewish revolt against this assault on Judaism rose up. It was led by the courageous freedom fighters called the Maccabees.

This word is an acronym standing for the Hebrew phrase Mi kamocha ba’elim Adonai, which means Who is like you, Lord, among the gods?

Although greatly outnumbered and overpowered, Yehudah (Judah) the Maccabee led his brothers and some other Jewish men in a valiant battle to drive out tens of thousands of Greeks and re-claim the Temple.

God helped this small group of men, and they won the victory in 163 BC, taking back Jerusalem and rededicating the Temple to God.

Tradition has it that they only found a one-day supply of sealed, consecrated oil for the Temple Menorah; however, the oil miraculously burned for a whole eight days—the time it took to prepare the sanctified oil.