The Sunday Series: April 5, 2015

Sunday April 5, 2015

The closest thing I have, that I think are god-like is my parents.  When my father died when I was 21, it was not only a shock of losing a parent, but realizing that a god can die.  It was at that point in my life I realized that I couldn't count on a higher being or a person to help me out.  If anyone is going to pull myself out of trouble, it will have to be me.   One tends to surrender to a higher power.  Whatever that means to that person, but for me, that strikes me as a very dangerous position to be in.   Faith as a noun, is a thing that one believes in.  I understand the need to believe, and also to be part of something bigger than you.  Religion and family are such a grouping where one hopes to find comfort and hope.  Of course, there are even conflicts in both groupings, which do not make it either an enjoyable experience or give one a sense of security.  Throughout my life I remain outside the two categories, due that I find them both faulty as institutions and over-all, leads to either a controlling factor in one's life, or a game of loyalty.  In the city where I live, Los Angeles, I feel that there is a huge presence of gangs. I think of gangs as a family.  Usually there is a parental figure - or a father figure.  One joins the gang, either due to previous family practice, or the need to be part of a bigger group or family.  The Los Angeles Police Department is another gang.  It operates on the same plane as a criminal street gang.   But this is not the subject of my essay here, it's the return of Jesus to our planet on this Easter Sunday. 

There is a man who has lived on the vacant hill next to our house for the entire past week.  He has a full beard and longish hair, and wears mostly a dirty white robe, whose fabric seems too heavy for this warm season.  He has nothing except a lamb that he carries around.  Often the lamb fallows him around, and both creature and man rarely communicate with any other.  He basically sleeps on the weeds, using the lamb as a pillow.  I have seen people with their dogs, but never have I seen a man and a lamb together.  It makes me feel funny about the wool sweater I have in the closet.  I hope to never wear it in front of this lamb.  

Today it's Sunday and it is Easter, and one could easily presume that this gentleman and his pet are part of the holiday.  There's a church down below the hill, and occasionally the patrons of this specific church stand behind the fence that divides the property between the land owned by the Department of Water and Power and the church.  Over the years, there have been disputes between me, DWP, and the church whose responsibility to clean up the mess that is left here by visitors, homeless people and various gang members.   Today, all eyes are on our current guess resident and his lamb.  

I can clearly understand someone who wants to help Jesus, but don't fully understand why anyone would want to 'serve' Jesus.   If one dares to approach him, he does preach to you - and I once asked him why doesn't he just write it down, that way people can read his views at their leisure.   It seems he doesn't work that way, which for me is unthinkable.  Because I like to write, and to this day I rather communicate to people either through a letter or e-mail.  For instance, I don't like the telephone.  Or to be lost in a conversation with someone.   But Jesus (the historical one as this fellow) prefers to dictate their belief through the art of oral narration.   I got the feeling, knowing that I write, would want me to take his dictation down, but that's silly.  There are computer apps and programs that can do that, if he had a computer.  Alas, he doesn't.  He just has his lamb. 

All of us, meaning the neighborhood came to the hill this Easter morning to see what will happen with our guest and his lamb.  We were all shocked to see that Jesus dug a hole it seemed, overnight, and at the moment, he is roasting his lamb over a flame and coal.  First of all, this is obviously a fire hazard, and second, being a vegetarian I was very much turned-off by what was taking place in front of me.  At first, I couldn't believe my eyes.  I thought maybe he purchased or someone donated some big hunk of meat for him.   My eyes and brain started to work together, and then I realized that the head attached to the rest of the body was the lamb.  The creature's face was still recognizable, and had fur still, even though burnt, you can make out the features - but the rest of the body was just meat.  The smell was horrible as well.  I don't understand why Jesus had to do this on our hill on what looks like will be a beautiful morning.   

Jesus had paper plates, and he started to cut the lamb into pieces and placing it on the plate, and he went out to the small crowd and offered each person a plate of lamb, with lemon on the side.   He came up to me, but I turned down his plate, but I was very polite and told him "No, thank you."  What I did notice is that the crowd that was around became very supportive of our Jesus, and the doubters became if not a friend exactly, at least showed some support.  As I stood there, I didn't feel like I was part of the family, so I went back to my house and played the vinyl version of Steve Reich's "Four Organs" on headphones.  For one, the music sounds better on headphones, and second, I didn't want to share the music with the outside world. 

THE SUNDAY SERIES: Sunday No. 3 (January 25, 2015)

Sunday No. 3

I don’t fully understand how on one Sunday, Mary could watch her son Jesus being nailed to a cross.  It is the source of pain through duty, which in turns can become a pleasure.  Faith is important, and even important to fight for the vision, but still, one would think they could hustle themselves out of this situation.   If not a direct bribe, then surely charm could have worked.  When I was a child of nine or ten years old I liked this girl at school. She's ‘sort’ of admired my personality, in that she could spend numerous hours on the telephone with me.  She was the first girl I have ever talked to on the telephone, that was my age, and the conversation went longer than the average.  Usually when I was on the telephone, it was just to answer the phone and direct the caller to either my dad or mother.  Here, she called me directly to talk.   I don’t know when eros enters the picture, but without a doubt, being nine or ten, the phone calls were erotically charged.   It wasn’t penis into vagina charge, but more coming out of the pores of our skin as well as our brains.  We were connected, but it was mostly a playtime version of phone sex, without the physical conclusion or release of that conversation.   She would play games with me. For instance she would spell out to me: I.L.O.V.E.Y.O.U. By the time she got to the V. I almost lost it on my end of the line.  I told her that she was spelling too fast, and if she can do it slower.  She did: I…L…O…V and so forth. 

We never saw each other outside of the school.  Our physical relationship was totally on the playground. I have no memory of sharing an actual class with her, and I don’t remember how we first met.  I’m very shy with girls, and especially as a child.  So it makes sense to me that she must have approached me on the school playground.   My mom would make me a bag lunch, and my pal and I often sat together and shared our lunches.   I think she was latina, and the food she brought were Mexican or classic Mexican-American food.   Mine was something out of “Father Knows Best. ” Usually a sandwich, apple and milk or juice in a container.  I was very much devoted to my lunch box, which showed images from the TV show “Man From U.N.C.L.E.  It was my favorite show, and besides the lunch box, I also had a Man From U.N.C.L.E. Spy kit, which consisted a membership card (showing that I’m a member of U.N.C.L.E.) and a plastic gun that can turn into a machine gun.  In my opinion, my name Tosh Berman, was just as exotic as Napoleon Solo.  

One day, I was flirting with her on the school playground.  At that age it is hard to convey how you feel about someone else, when in fact, you are not really clear about your yearnings.  In many ways, I yearned for this girl, without understanding why I felt that way.   She was a perfect package of beauty, niceness and a touch of wickedness.  Cruelty is sometimes a medium of expressing oneself.  I held her hand once or maybe twice.  It was like an electric current hitting my whole body.   Being so vulnerable, and especially in a school setting, with all our peers walking by and noticing us.  Her friends would tease us, and this I can see clearly bothered her.  Instead of being defiant to her school friends, she backed away from me.  That was painful, yet we still communicated, but the nature of our relationship changed. 

When time, things and people change and you feel the pavement under your foot turn into quicksand, you become desperate.  When you get used to being alone, and for a brief series of moments you get the attention that you crave… and then seeing or more likely feel it slipping away, is a pretty horrible existence.  Especially for a small boy.   I was nibbling on an oatmeal cookie that I got from home, in fact, my mom baked it.  I wasn’t hungry, and I was thinking maybe I could re-charge my relationship with her, if I offered half of my cookie, or damn it, just give her the whole cookie.  I went up to her and she was surrounded by her friends, who clearly didn’t want me around.   To be surrounded by a group of people who clearly didn’t like you, was like being stoned in public.  I could never figure out why they dislike me, except maybe for my shyness, and the feeling that I couldn’t add anything to this social group.  Also my hair was quite long, and most of the boys either had crew-cuts or very short haircuts.  Not only was I called a girl by these fellow students, but also my teacher called me one as well when we were alone one time.  I was walking in the hallway after getting some water from the drinking fountain, and walking towards me on the other side of the hall was the teacher.  As we passed each other, he said “girl.” He didn’t even look at me, when he said it, and he just walked on by.   I didn’t feel like a girl. Nor did I feel I looked like a girl.  I like girls, and I want them to like me, but I couldn’t understand why something so simple had to be so complicated.  

Nevertheless feeling shamed in front of her social group, I threw my oatmeal cookie in her face. I told her “it’s for you.” Seconds after that action that to this day fills me with shame. One of the boys in her group came upon me and pushed me to the ground.  As I tried to get up, he hit me in the face.  Again, I was on the ground, and he just kept pushing me down with his foot.  The girl was crying, which made me felt worse than being humiliated in front of the group.  The next thing I remember is the teacher who called me a “girl,” coming by and picking me up from the ground.  He talked to everyone around me, and he gathered that I was the guilty one.   And in truth, I was guilty.   Yet, again, I was hurt that no one factored in the emotions I was experiencing at that moment.  The girl understood my actions, and the boy just wanted to look good in front of her by defending her honor.   The teacher didn’t care for me, so I felt very alone that specific time and place.   To this day, on a Sunday, I look back at my time, and cringe.  The tragedy of the moment is still very much part of me, and who I am.  Yet, with that sense of guilt and feeling being misunderstood, I still look forward to tomorrow, hoping better days will come.