December 8: A Kind Heart, Charlie Brown, Catharine Savage Brosman, "The Skater," Off the Top of My Head

"He had a kind heart," she [Annie] said to one class in East Harlem.  "He believed that only a heartless society would leave its unfortunate poor to its sad fortune."

Annie is a substitute teacher.  At Christmas time, she regales her students with stories about Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol.  She talks about Dickens' dedication to the poor, how he wrote the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge to make British citizens aware of the desperation and poverty that existed in their midst.  Dickens believed that society had an obligation to take care of the sick, poor, destitute, and abandoned.  Everyone deserved to be taken care of.

This time of year, everybody is more aware of poverty and hunger.  I'm sure it has a lot to do with Christmas and its attendant goodwill.  Generosity is abundant around the holidays.  Food pantries are stocked full.  Salvation Army buckets sing with coins.  Even the biggest Scrooges begrudgingly open their wallets to help out the Tiny Tims of the world.

I am in a much better place, mentally, than I was last night.  Last night, my world seemed a little suffocating.  Too many bills.  Too many obligations.  Too many papers to grade.  And too little money or time to make any difference.  Tonight, I have gained a little perspective, and I have been blessed with the love and help of some of my loved ones.  I feel humbled and hopeful right now.

I think of Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Linus, skating on that pond while a children's choir sings "Christmas Time is Here."  I have been reminded that Christmas time is here, and it is a time of miracles.

Saint Marty wants to thank the miracle workers in his life this evening.

The Skater

by:  Catharine Savage Brosman

The lake is frozen white;
the trees stand cold and stark.
He skates alone tonight,
a shiver in the dark,

and traces on the ice
the figures of his thought,
composing his device,
infinity and naught--

the zero and the eight
both eloquent and mute,
their immaterial weight
from some celestial chute;

then, gazing at the place
where gods and heroes shine,
correlatives of space,
he cuts a cryptic sign,

the heaven may regard
his momentary flame,
the shadows shaped and starred
for crystalline acclaim.

Off the Top of My Head

February 23: Tiny Tim, Sick Child, Teenage Suicide

A father's love

He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool.  Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

This passage is about Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit, obviously.  It touches upon the fear of any parent:  a sick child.  It's even worse for a parent if s/he can't do anything to make the child well.  All the parent can do is be Bob Cratchit and sit by the child, holding a "withered little hand."

Charles Dickens was very familiar with this situation.  He had a daughter, Dora Annie, who died around the age of one.  Although A Christmas Carol was written before the child's death, Dickens had experienced the death of several other close loved ones already.  He knew first-hand of the desperation and helplessness expressed in the paragraph above.

There really isn't anything worse to contemplate than the illness of one of your children.  One of the scariest sounds in the world for me is my son coughing in his crib in the middle of the night.  He is just getting over a really nasty cold, and I've spent the last week listening to him struggle for breath while he slept.  When my daughter was three, she got such a bad bladder infection that she had to be hospitalized.  I'll never forget sitting in the emergency room, holding her, her body blazing hot and her face white as rice paper.  I've never felt so completely powerless in my life.

In the last month or so, there's been several teenage suicides in the area where I live.  I haven't known any of the kids or their families, but I'm aware of some of the circumstances.  Regardless of the reasons these young people have taken their lives, however, it's tragic.  Suicide is a very permanent solution to a very temporary problem.  Usually.

At work this morning, my coworkers were discussing suicide.  Some of my coworkers were of the opinion that suicide is a completely selfish act.  Others were of the opinion that suicide is an act of desperation by a person who is in incredible physical or psychological pain.  I kind of think it's both of those things.  An act of selfishness and an act of deliverance.

In the end, it really doesn't matter, as I said before.  In the end, there are simply a lot of Bob Cratchits in the world who are sitting next to empty stools, wondering how they could have saved their Tiny Tims.  That's the real tragedy.

Saint Marty's saying a few prayers for the Bob Cratchits of the world this morning.

February 16: Late Post, Adamant, Surplus Population

I meant to post early this morning.  I swear I did.  But work and other obligations interfered with my ability to sit down and perform the task of posting.  I know it's only a couple of keystrokes, but I've been going solid all day.  I also know that my disciples have gotten used to my morning reflections.  Sorry.  It just didn't happen today.

That being said, I would like to talk about one of my favorite passages in A Christmas Carol.  It's the Ghost of Christmas Present chastising Scrooge for making his flippant comment about decreasing the "surplus population."  It's Ebenezer Scrooge at his Tea Party best.  The Ghost takes him to task:

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is.  Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die?  It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child.  Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!"

This little speech proves to me that Charles Dickens would have been a big supporter of universal health care.  I work for a fairly large health care system in the United States.  I see the kind of health care that poor people receive compared to the kind of health care that wealthier people receive.  And I also am witness to people so far under water with medical debt that they lose their houses.  If that doesn't make you angry, then you, like Scrooge, may have a heart of adamant.

I can't do anything to change this system.  Health insurance companies and hospitals have too much political power.  That's why the United States doesn't have medical care like Great Britain or Canada or France.  There's way too many interest groups with very deep pockets for any sweeping change to occur.

In the mean time, poor people with sick kids struggle to survive,  just like Bob Cratchit.  And the Scrooges of the world continue to make tons of money off of the surplus population.  There's something wrong with this picture.  Health care shouldn't be a commodity.  Health care should be a commitment.

If any presidential candidate wants to get my attention, let him or her talk about a commitment to free health care for all the Tiny Tims of the world.

Whoever does that has Saint Marty's vote.

Anybody got a cure?