Chiasmus

Warning:  What follows may seem to the reader as the wanderings of an irrational mind.  Indeed it may be, because I am writing this at 3:30 a. m.  So, if it makes absolutely no sense to you let it go immediately—don’t try to make sense of it—and tune in again in a couple of days when I have written something more conventional and coherent. 

 

Chiasmus means ‘a crossing’ – a structure or a pattern or connection of two parts coming together such as in the two lines that comprise the letter ‘X.’   The word is most commonly referred to in discussing ancient literary, especially biblical or scriptural styles or as a medical or anatomical term. 

(In this brief discussion I simply ‘free associate’ what was going on in my mind that awakened me a few minutes ago.)

In a university astronomy class I took years ago we discussed ‘cosmology,’ a branch of philosophy dealing with the origin, general structure, and ultimate fate of the universe.  The ‘Big Bang’ and ‘Oscillating Universe’ and ultimately ‘Grand Unifying Theory’ (GUT) were parts of the discussion and probably still are.  What I took from this discussion then and, I guess, awakened me tonight, was the idea that there may be a chiasmus in all things. 

    

I can certainly see a chiasmus in human relations—especially in marriage and in the human growth process.  We come together and we grow apart and then repeat the process over and over.  We are born; we grow old; we die; we are born again. Thus, some of these cycles are very close together, and others—as in the birth-death cycle—cross only years apart.  John Denver’s song “Seasons of the Heart” is suggestive of the notion:

“Of course we have our differences, you shouldn't be surprised
It's as natural as changes in the seasons and the skies
Sometimes we grow together, sometimes we drift apart
A wiser man than I might know the seasons of the heart”

The process of growth and development of a human being (as well as an animal, the vegetable kingdom, even a star or a world, I suppose) follows a similar pattern. 
 

When we were a prenatal person we were as close to our mother as we could possibly be—indeed, we were inside her.  Shortly after birth we could hardly be away from her, but over time we slowly grew away from her.  In the breakaway time of late adolescence we became largely independent of her, and in later years, hopefully, started the rebound back to her.

As a spiritual being having a mortal experience it is largely the same thing—the pattern holds.  We go away from our spirit home, come to earth, and then return to our spirit home for better or for worse.  In the process, we grow, learn, form attachments and connections with others in parentage, family, cohorts, marriages, associations.  We then break, or strain, or hopefully strengthen them in rebounding and returning to our roots and become more unified, ultimately, in the process.  “If ye are not one, ye are not mine.”

In marriage we must have a very tight chiasmus to be strong—keep the cycle more like this: xxxxxx, than like this: X. 

  

I hope this opened up some thought for you.

But I must now get some sleep

Levi’s 501’s

My wife and daughter-in-law have twisted my arm and persuaded me to finally break down and buy my millennial pair of the only kind of pants I feel truly at home in.  I, of course, have a couple pair of shrunken, faded, stained, tattered 501’s still in my closet from the 1980’s and ‘90’s, and other lesser jeans, but these new ones should keep me young (in my own mind) well past 2020.  Now, if I can only keep the waist size down to the 2” expansion that I’ve suffered to occur since I was 17 I will be ‘forever young’ (again, in my own mind).  I remember that the male class of ’61 would never think to wear anything else in public.

 

Reopening this bygone era I see myself caressing my white ash Hillerich and Bradsby Louisville Slugger 125 34” bone honed Mickey Mantle personal model baseball bat from the very early 1960’s and taking my batting stance.  And who could forget the smell of a new Wilson Ted Williams personal model baseball glove, lovingly oiled in bed with him by his pillow?  Likewise I see the boy in the Munsingwear golf shirt and Sam Snead straw hat pulling out the persimmon MacGregor tourney stiff shaft driver ready to launch a Spalding Dot 230 yards down the fairway.   I further visualize my shiny blue—and waxed-- Schwinn fat tire 26” one speed (slow) bike waiting for me upon returning home after debussing with the other kids of our neighborhood.  In the evening I put on my little mono record player treasured 45 rpm records by Johnny Cash, Elvis and maybe the Coasters.  A couple of years later came the coveting of ’55-’57 Chevy 2-door Bel Air hardtops or early Corvettes (which I never had).

 

Well, that cruise down memory lane was fun for me but entirely meaningless for anyone other than a then 12-15 year-old boy who grew up focusing these things (and on untouchable pretty pony-tailed girls) in the late 1950’s happy days.

Come to think of it, this posting is but an ‘old school’ rendition of the type of ‘folly’ I have gagged through in perusing a couple of Facebook postings of recent days.  I can hardly imagine anyone under 65 wanting to read this.  But if truth be told, I suppose every old man you see sitting on a park bench somewhere is remembering the same things.

Ask him.  It will make his (not your) day if you hang around to listen. 

The Pain of a Child

As I recently cleaned the scrape and applied the bandage to the knee of a weeping  grandchild I tried to project out how many more times in the life of this pure little girl will this happen?  How many more times will she have a scrape, a cut, a bruise, even a broken bone that will need to be tended to by a competent and compassionate caregiver? Undoubtedly more serious will be when she will she be called on to face a painful human relationship experience of loss, or failure, or disappointment,  or a broken heart or perhaps a lifelong aching that a little water, a dab of Neosporin, and a bandaid cannot help.  Who will help her then?  Or if no one steps forward to help, what will she have in her own physical/mental/spiritual ‘first-aid-kit’?  Where can she turn for peace or to be made whole?

As we proceed through the years we gain competencies to face all these inevitabilities. Yet we are all still relatively children.  We will still have to suffer pain.

There are things we can do.  We learn first aid skills in the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.  We buy first-aid kits and supplies.  We buy health insurance.  We buckle up in our seat-belts and put on our bicycle helmets and our knee pads and shin guards or we remember to take our cane or walker. We learn what is dangerous and what should be avoided. We look both ways and we listen before we step into the street.

 

No matter where we go, no matter what we do, no matter who we are with there will be risks associated with the endeavor.  And though the hazards may be greater or lesser or different in the different ages of man and in the different venues, we can and must learn coping and mitigating skills if we choose to engage. 

 

As a general rule, the more the potential or perceived fun, the greater the risk.  The faster we drive, the steeper the downhill, the greater the ‘degree-of-difficulty’ of the gymnastics floor exercise, the deeper the dive, the wilder the company (animal or people) the greater the risk. 

 

But some things we shouldn’t risk.  We shouldn’t risk them for our own sakes and we shouldn’t risk them for the sake of those who will be called upon to clean up our mess after us.  Or if we cannot or choose not to avoid the risky behavior should we not make provision ahead of time to protect ourselves and lessen the psychic pain of others who care about us? 

For sometimes, ‘all the king’s horses and all the king’s men’ cannot put humpty-dumpty together again.’

Because all boys and girls, all men and all women will through all their lives suffer pain to some degree or of some kind should not we all resolve to be competent first-responders or caregivers whenever and wherever we encounter pain in others?  I think we should.