Leezer

This is a picture taken at sunrise this morning near my neighborhood.  The snow is beautiful but, generally speaking, people in Seattle don’t know how to drive in the snow.  Even in their SUVs and front wheel drive vehicles, they hit the brakes on ice then wonder why they spin.  Better yet, they get nervous and leave their cards smack dab in the middle of the road.  Idling.  I don’t know where the drivers go, maybe they just start walking home.  We never cease to be amazed at the aftermath of abandoned vehicles when a storm hits.

But in more important news, most people who read this blog know I’m a huge fan of Martin Luther.  He was really the first revolutionary I learned about in college, which is not surprising considering I minored in Religion at a Lutheran college. Luther was the first person with the balls to say “stick it” to the Catholic church.  From January 28th, 1521 to May 25th 1521, the Catholic Church reviewed Luther’s 95 Theses (”heretic” writings) and considered whether he should be excommunicated, executed, or both.  This five month-long period was referred to as the imperial Diet of Worms.  Not because people ate worms, but because the trial was held in a place called Worms, and a “diet” was a term used in those days for church teachings, recommendations, and haranguing. 

Here’s what went down:

Luther joined an order of Catholic monks when he was a young man.  All the dudes in his frat busied themselves with various forms of self-abuse, like whipping their own backs with cats-o-nine-tails (leather cords with spikes at one end) and sleeping on beds of nails.   Martin didn’t understand this, thinking that if Jesus meant what said when he said he took on the pain and sins of the world, then why should we continue to beat ourselves up all the time?  “Phooey with that,” Luther said, “I’m my own man.”

To understand the implications of Luther’s hard-ass position, it’s important to understand the role of the Catholic church back then.  The Catholic church (Rome, the Pope, and his minions) were THE government, THE law, and THE last word on everything.  The Bible was read in Latin, only by priests, and regular Joes weren’t allowed to own or read a bible, which would have been futile for the average citizen as he or she most likely did not speak Latin in sixteenth-century Germany.   The Church translated “God’s word” for the average Joes, and the translations went something like this:

• The Catholic church is the only church God recognizes;
•  We popes and priests are the only people God listens to and your prayers and confessions have to go through us;
• God wants you to give me your money - It’s for a good cause! Your gift of money will please God and he’ll let your heretic relatives out of pergatory (a limbo state halfway between heaven and earth but not as fun as either);
• If you don’t mind, we’ll use some of your cash to support our concubines and bastard children. God would want that;
• God loves you only if you do these things;
• If you don’t do these things, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, says I can kill you.

 Well, Martin thought this was a bit much, even for the draconian age in which he lived.  His head raced with arguments and rebuttal.  His blood boiled with rage over how the Church treated his poor, hungry, fellow Germans.  So he put quill to paper and started to write, and write, and write, and write . . .

When he came up for air he had finished his 95 Theses which he rolled-up like a telescope, tied with a piece of dental floss, and kissed before putting on his coat and marching himself over to the castle doors of Wittenburg.  There he nailed his 95 Theses to the doors, the Theses being in German of course so everyone could read them. The Theses denounced the Catholic Church’s corruption and argued that every man, woman, and child is entitled to communicate directly with God, and that people are “saved” by their faith, not by filthy transactions with the Church.  Then Luther set about to translating the Bible into German.  This took awhile.

Well, you can imagine how pissed the Pope was.  He rattled off a letter that demanded Luther ”march his butt” over to the castle, remove the Theses, and say he was sorry.  Luther refused.  The Pope excommunicated Luther, to which Luther replied, “Neener neener I didn’t want to be in your old club anyhow.”  The Pope demanded that the German King turn Luther over to Church authorities for trial and the King refused.  The German people had two new heroes - Luther and his protector, the King.

But eventually Luther figured he’d face the music, and he travelled to Worms to hear the Church hate on him for five months.  He didn’t stay for the outcome, though, thinking that the Church was taking way too long to make a decision.  After his departure, the Church declared Luther a heretic and said Jesus wanted him dead.  By then Luther was in hiding.  Experts speculate that he spent his remaining days in the Bed and Bath section of the Wittenburg Wallmart because they kept finding longish-black hairs on the display bed sheets.

By then the Reformation was fully underway, and people - including some Lutherans - would continue to kill and maim each other in the name of God.

A few points of clarification:  During the Nazi occupation of Germany and Europe, Hitler was reported to use some of Luther’s writings to argue that Luther, Germany’s iconic mascot, was anti-semitic (didn’t Hitler’s mother ever teach him that two wrongs don’t make a right?).  I doubt this rumor.  Here’s why:  Luther had plenty of opportunity after the Reformation commenced to join his countrymen in bloody battles for the cause. These bloody battles were symptomatic of Lutheran in-fighting and resulted in many other Protestant religions: Methodism; Presbyterianism, and so on.   Luther was a man who walked the talk, and he refused to lower himself to violence and destruction, irrespective of the righteousness of his position.  Therefore, it simply doesn’t follow that while he refused to take up arms against the very church that hunted him, he’d advocate the burning and destruction of the Jews.  Just doesn’t add up. 

A final point:  the Catholic Church has had a lot of bad press over the centuries, some of it deserved, perhaps some of it not deserved.  But the protestant reformers were as guilty of violence and desecration as the Catholics.  I’ll save that lesson for another day when we study Tudor England.

Luther’s final words in his own defense at the Diet of Worms: Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen.  (Translation: Unfortunately, laser hair-removal hasn’t really worked for me.)

Peace out.

Here’s a picture of Holly.  Go over to Kitkat’s site and see her new kitty .  Don’t Holly and Kira look alike?

A lot of fuss has been made of late about the va-jay-jay, what with that Dr. Odd Oz character being on Oprah all the time and Oprah needing a euphamism for the thing.  But I submit that “va-jay-jay” is too pedestrian, too informal, and lacking in the bearing and dignity appropriate for said Sweet Spot.  Here’s my list:

• Ho Chi Sin City
• Formidable Ike and His Band of Brigands
• Karen
• Helmut the Younger
• Grotto of Pleasure, Grotto of Pain
• Elysian Field of Dreams
• Kimchi Caliope
• Canned Ham and Eggs
• Minuet in V
• Grass-Fed Ginger Rhizome
• Vanessa

The things I love most about Anna:

• The way she smells;
• The way she falls over face-first like a dead soldier when she’s mad;
• The way she says “yeah,” (”jah”);
• The way she makes fists when she blows her nose;.
• The way she remembers exactly where you put whatever thing she’s not supposed to have and just how long she’ll have to wait until you’ve forgotten about said thing;
• The way she raises her eyebrows when she asks a question;
• The way she grabs my neck tight when I pick her up from daycare;
• The way she she has worked her way into our hearts as if she was always there.

Dagmar stared at Louise, her face nearly touching the floor, rump in the air, and beheld the great woman’s flexibility.  His earlier disgust over the wall-to-wall Bandaids faded as he stared, transfixed by the veins bulging from behind her knees.

Have you lived here, long? he asked.

 Two years.

 Where are you from?

 Portland.

 Oregon?

 Maine.  My family has a wild blueberry farm dar.  I’z thought I’d see if I could be in some movies so I came out here.

 St. Paul?  Why not Hollywood or New York?

 I like Scandinavians.  There’s a lot of em here.

Dagmar wondered if celestial beings conspired in this wonderful accident that brought him to Louise’s door.  Dagmar was a full quarter Laplander, and while he wasn’t sure if Laplanders were officially Scandinavian, he thought it close enough.  He looked into her red-rimmed eyes. Ambivalent, he remained repulsed at her girth and the bald patches on her scalp, but was drawn to her inner light.

 Perhaps this is out of the ordinary, me being married and all, but would you like to join me for a cup of coffee? 

Exercise Two - Dialogue

Dagwood? Your name is Dagwood? Louise asked.

No, Dagmar, he responded.

Kmart? What kind of name is Kmart?

DAG-MAR, not Kmart.

Fubar? O.K. then. Phone’s over here.

Louise turned and shuffled toward the back of the house.  Dagmar evaluated her bottom, which was as wide as the Captains Chairs in his R.V.   She opened the door to a tiny room and waited for him to enter first.  What he saw next astonished and troubled him; covering one entire wall of the tiny eight-by-ten foot room were thousands of tiny Bandaids; not the normal-sized Bandaids that go on a finger or a knee, but the tiny ones that are useless unless to cover a shaving cut or a pimple.

 Go head.  Phone’s over there.  Louise pointed to a beige rotary phone on an old desk under a window much to high to see out of unless standing on a chair.

Why are there Bandaids on that wall?  Dagmar asked before he was entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

Oh, those my used Bandeds.  I’ze got me some gout.  I put em on my leg right over the hurin part then when I’m done withem I stick em up dar.

I’m sorry to hear that.  It’s a local call, I’ll be just a minute.

Dagmar stared at Louise for the length of time it would take most to receive their signal to leave, but Louise stood facing Dagmar, her heavy forearms folded under her ample bosom, hips thrust forward.  Dagmar picked up the phone and dialed.

Jill?  Hi. It’s me.  You locked me out. Can you come back to let me in?

Louise rocked forward, shifting her weight from her heels to the balls of her feet and bent over at the waist, placing her palms on the floor in the Downward Dog position.

 Exercise One - Character Identification

       Louise always held a shrimp in her left hand when she jogged.  She believed it would come in handy if she ever encountered an un-welcomed man or dog.  The dog she could throw the shrimp to and he’d leave her alone.  The man, well, he’d smell the shrimp and just leave her alone.  Why she never held the shrimp in her right hand is as inexplicable as why she’d worked at the same job as an Olive Garden hostess for seventeen years or why she never unlocked her front door without first hollering to her cat, “Petey!  Mamsy’s home! Tickity-tock!”  Louise, at thirty-seven, was neither pretty nor interesting, but she never spent a single Friday night in her own bed for she was a whore.                

     Today was no different from any other Monday morning, her only day off during the week.  She awoke at seven, checked her My Space page, and took a Valtrex, an Ortho Cyclen, and a Centrum 100 before her feet touched the floor.  She fed Petey a half can of Fancy Feast and ate six Chips Ahoy cookies.  She turned on Good Morning America and said a silent prayer that Charlie Gibson would see her through the television and hop on the next plane to St. Paul to marry her. 

     But a sharp knock at the door interrupted her prayer/daydream and she paused before she decided to answer it.  Through the peep hole she saw a bald man wearing a red track suit; his head was dwarfed by his beakish nose as he squinted through his side of the peep hole.  She swung the door open and asked, “May I help you?”

         “Hi, um, my name is Dagmar  and I just moved-in next door.  Seems my wife locked me out of the house when I was out running this morning.  I was wondering if I could use your phone?”