Winning Entry from Daphne Woll Shapiro, Destiny vs Free Will

Destiny vs Free Will

“Your destiny could arrive sooner than you think!” (Source: Anita, the Online Psychic Facebook Application)

My destiny has already arrived.

It came in the form of an all-you-can-eat Pig Feed at the local Portuguese Immigrant Society Social Hall during which I enthusiastically and singlehandedly consumed an obscenely overflowing plate of oink prepared from multiple (and in some cases, unspeakable) pig parts.   I did it one sitting, in the space of less than 30 minutes.  I would have totally gone for seconds, but the buffet line was too long. You’re not looking at a football player here, by the way.  I am 53 years old and weigh 135 pounds.  I tend towards vegetarianism.

That said, if I were to deny the hand of destiny, there would be no other explanation for my behavior at the Pig Feed other than free will. In that case, I have no choice but to take full responsibility for the events of Saturday evening, January 23^rd, 2010, starting from the moment I got dressed, withdrew a $20 bill from ATM machine, drove to the Immigrant Society Social Hall and then turned that same $20 bill over to the nice Portuguese lady at the ticket table.

Wait a darn minute here.  No way.  Never.  I’m not that type of person. The only possible reason for what went down at the Portuguese Pig Feed is the intervention of The Master Architect.  I was following His Plan for me down to the last fried pork rind, Preacher.

The baffling part of this entire scenario is that I am Jewish and we are forbidden to eat pork – either by free will or divine design and I know it.  We also don’t have Preachers.  

But I digress.

The extrapolations to this are fascinating and possibly life-altering.  Is the consumption of three cake donuts in quick succession (two with chocolate, one with red and blue sprinkles on a white frosting base) ultimately a guilt free experience after all? What if it was already preordained by larger forces that I should find myself last Tuesday after work in front of the day old bakery shelf at the local supermarket?  Was the fact that I spent Saturday in bed reading back issues of the National Enquirer instead of going to the gym my divine destiny?  More importantly is my tendency towards shameless flirting simply a manifestation of cosmic forces beyond my control?  And believe me, I’m talking about really SHAMELESS flirting. 

I believe it is God’s Plan.  All of it and more. You believe so, too.  After all, what other explanation is there for perfectly rational people such as ourselves going off the rails with such predictable frequency? 

Only destiny explains it.  Problem solved.  Me?  I was just following orders, Sergeant. 

So go ahead and have yourself another pork knuckle or a cake donut or a wild affair. Whatever.  Go for it. Don’t bother fighting the universe.  It will only bite you back.

Daphne Woll Shapiro

Winning Entry from Daphne Woll Shapiro, Menopause

Menopause

My partner just told me that he read a really good book on menopause and suggested that I read it too. He thought it might be helpful.  I don’t understand why he felt that was necessary, after all, DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE A PROBLEM? 

I didn’t think so. 

The truth of the matter is that my menopause was actually done and over with years before I met him.   What he thinks is a temporary hormonally induced aberration is actually the real me.  Oh well.  Full disclosure is for amateurs and people who appear on the Oprah show. That’s what I say.

And WHAT’S WRONG WITH OCCASIONALLY YELLING ANYWAY?  It sets up a vibration in the body which purifies and encourages healing. 

Wait a minute.  Never mind.  I was confusing yelling with Yoga chanting.  

But it was very sweet of him to care enough about me and our relationship to actually research the subject.  I will indeed go to the library and check the book out.  It will work perfectly as a giant coaster for my tea when I’m stretched out on the sofa bitching on the phone.

Daphne Woll Shapiro

Winning Post from Mark Kreitzer

Lullaby, Don’t You Cry 

Mark Kreitzer ©

At the end of another day,

Your weary thoughts all drift away

You take your leave from all your cares,

Happy dreams will greet you there,

So lullaby, don’t you cry

Let me close your weary eyes

And I’ll be there by and by

When you come back home

Happy thoughts await you now

You don’t need to worry how

As your ears shut out the crowd,

Lay your head upon the clouds

So lullaby, don’t you cry

Let me close your weary eyes

And I’ll be there by and by

When you come back home

http://files.me.com/markkreitzer/av88sz.mp3

Winning entry from Diane Hellekson

For Ellen Sandbeck’s “A Buddha a Day”

I am not a woman of faith.

As a Lutheran child, I went through the motions; as an adolescent, I tried to find Jesus; and as an adult I’ve wanted a spiritual home. But the trouble with faith is that, like love, it only comes unbidden.

I’ve had fiery street-corner preachers tell me I was going to burn, and once I was brought to tears when a friend and Jehovah’s Witness said he heard the devil speaking though me (I had just expressed my belief in social change via political process). But my worst personal encounter with religion was with a Buddhist who briefly loved me.

He had the motto “Live as though events are dreams” posted near his front door, and a “Don’t believe everything you think” bumper sticker. He felt that figuratively burning the past was one way toward inner peace, and he seemed incapable of anger. I would ask questions about his faith, and sometimes he’d answer them. But while he wore his Buddhism on his sleeve, he also kept it close to his chest, pulling it out only occasionally like a membership card to an exclusive club. It seemed to give him an identity, a way to differentiate himself from others, and from me.

The night he left me, on a bitter New Year’s Eve, 250 miles north of home, I had my head on his lap as I confessed some of my hopes and fears, and thoughts on resolving them in the coming year. Rather than listening like a lover, his response was to offer a series of prescriptions. With clinical condescension, he told me what I “should” do. Embrace and engage difficult people in my life rather than protect myself from what felt like harm. Practice a particular daylong meditation at my father’s grave to release him-- but only after I had done some unspecified long-term preparations.

I had told him before that I felt like an unenlightened grasshopper around his faith, something he chided me for. Yet here he was suggesting something similar: that I needed to be shown how to approach my own life.  Never mind that his religion was not supposed to be evangelical; his message that night was that I could “correct” my New Year’s resolutions by following his Buddhist path.

In the wake of that, and some cruelty that followed, several people assured me that his behavior was in no way Buddhist. Yet when I noted bits of Buddhism popping up in the months that followed—in a conversation, a posting, an article—I was wary. This man had been so sure of his faith, and his certainty left me feeling so very wrong. If that was how Buddhism worked, it frightened me. I didn’t want ever feel the way I felt that night, judged and quietly belittled for my lack of faith.

So what I love about all these Buddhas of Ellen’s is that they don’t preach or judge; they guide by the gentlest of examples. Their woozy, contented glances; their hands like calm flowers in their laps; their feet, deep-rooted redwoods. In some of these peculiarly concrete paper cutouts, the Buddha closes his eyes, but still sees from his palms, his nipples, his soles: his whole body understands the world, accepts it, loves it.

I doubt I will ever be a Buddhist, or a devotee of any religion. The closest I get to faith these days is in yoga class, when I find myself standing solidly on one leg, my other arcing skyward, a supple reed in conversation with my hand—a feat I manage only because I fix my gaze on a sliver of light slipping through the edge of the window shade at the back of the room. Or at the end of class when I’m spent, in savasana, my arms and legs heavy on the ground, yet floating like so much energy. 

In those moments, my soul is bigger than my body, and it glimmers like the light behind a silhouette of a Buddha.

Diane Hellekson

10 May 2010

Winning Post from Sophie Ardenghi, plus translation

Ellen découpe des bouddhas en papier qui me sonnent de la même force que leurs frères de pierre.

Leur présence est plus épaisse que la fine couche de papier sur laquelle ils se posent et leur regard d’éternité m’attire autant par leur grâce que par leur sérénité.

Ces figures dentelées semblent transcender leur support, qu’il vienne de la fibre légère du papier ou que ce soit une statue gigantesque pesant mille hommes. Les bouddhas d’Ellen s’affirment à moi et me regardent autant que je veux les regarder. Ils sont faits de trous et d’air mais ont le poids de la beauté qui parle à mon âme.

                                             Sophie Ardenghi

Ellen cuts up paper Buddhas who strike me with the same force as their brothers of stone.

Their presence is thicker than the thin layer of paper on which they rest and their regard of eternity entices me as much by their grace as by their serenity.

These jagged figures seem to transcend their medium, whether it comes from the light fiber of the paper or a gigantic statue the weight of a thousand men. Ellen’s Buddhas assert themselves to me and stare at me as much as I want to stare at them. They are made of holes and of air but have the weight of the beauty that speaks to my soul.

Translation by Ariadne Sandbeck

Winning entry from Sophie Ardenghi

Ellen découpe des bouddhas en papier qui me sonnent de la même force que leurs frères de pierre.

Leur présence est plus épaisse que la fine couche de papier sur laquelle ils se posent et leur regard d’éternité m’attire autant par leur grâce que par leur sérénité.

Ces figures dentelées semblent transcender leur support, qu’il vienne de la fibre légère du papier ou que ce soit une statue gigantesque pesant mille hommes. Les bouddhas d’Ellen s’affirment à moi et me regardent autant que je veux les regarder. Ils sont faits de trous et d’air mais ont le poids de la beauté qui parle à mon âme.

                                             Sophie Ardenghi

Winning entry from Glenn Gordon

Ellen Sandbeck’s Buddha No. 30

A man who thinks there is no murder in his heart is lying to himself. On the third day of January 2008, a woman whom I loved betrayed me.  Rage, bitterness, nausea, and a desire to avenge the waste made of my trust have been my close companions ever since. “Let it go,” people say, “Put it behind you; move on.” No doubt there is a limp wisdom to what they tell me but actually, no one puts anything behind -- ever. Everything goes into the sack of woe you’re dragging to the grave.

Against this, there is art -- this paper cutout, for instance, of a blossom resting in the Buddha’s palm. The graceful contours of the cutout’s segments, the curved pads of the fingertips, suggest an infinitely tender sense of touch, the Buddha’s and the artist’s both. I can feel the palm feeling the very slight weight and soft dampness of the petals it cradles. There is something slightly comic about the petals –- they’re a little floppy.

Last year, Ellen, seeing how miserable I was, invited me to choose a single work from the procession of Buddhas spilling from her scissors. Right away, I fastened upon this one -- my heart, not to put too fine a point on this, lunged for it, seeing in it something it was starved for.

Her cutout is one of those rare works the sight of which can calm one’s breathing. I have only to look at it to feel the tension and grief drain from my body. I am grateful to Ellen for the gift she made of it to me. It soothes the beast pacing inside this cage of who I am.  It tells me not to kill. It tells me not to die before my time. I have it hung in a place where it’s the last thing I see at night before I turn out the lights.

Glenn Gordon, March 2010