R. Harold Hollis

from the Sermon on the Mount

2012-02-12T07:23:00.000-08:00

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

the Gospel of Matthew

That Makes Sense to Me

2012-02-09T06:47:00.000-08:00

Photograph taken by the author in the interior courtyard of the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico. “The Voice of the Earth (The Basket Dance)”, 1934, Will Shuster, fresco 68x46 1/2 in. Funded through the Federal Emergency Relief Agency, 1934.

As I approached a red light on a busy street in Albuquerque two mornings ago, I noticed a bumper sticker— the only sticker on the rear bumper of the SUV to my left. Gratefully, I had an opportunity to read it. “Pro-Child, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice”. Of course, I was curious to see the driver. No surprise. Ordinary 30 or 40-something female, hair pulled back in a short ponytail, on her way in early morning traffic. Was she dressed for work? Is she a stay-at-home mom? Is she even a mother? Who knows. All the above.

Curious what catches our attention. For me, it is just about anything that speaks to my conscience, sense of fairness—not only to myself but to others. Take, for example, a sticker I saw the other day on a trip to Santa Fe—”EVERYONE does better When EVERYONE does better”. My mind played with that for all of 3 seconds, and then I smiled. Makes sense to me, I thought. The older Subaru wagon—a very common site in Santa Fe, bore other stickers—also a very common site in Santa Fe. Social awareness and public expression of consciousness is a common sight here in the land of enchantment. Aside from the sheer beauty of this state, evidence of thriving social conscience is pretty much, well evident, here.

Frankly, these days I have little interest in or inclination toward arguing about matters of social justice. I’ve lived long enough—and thanks to my birth family—I learned about fairness a long time ago. I don’t come from a pack of liberals. I just come from a growing-up family where the so-called golden rule was alive and healthy, even when my sisters and I were too young to understand what that truly means.

Life can be really tough on us. I have to look no farther than my own family—immediate and extended. Now that I live away from my birth family most of the time, I hear about what’s going on from afar. And I have plenty of time to look around me right here and see the aching need for fairness that demands, so clearly, my attention. It’s so easy to have opinions—even though I often think about the process by which these opinions are formed. The words from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, “South Pacific,” are never far from my thoughts and they ring clear. “You’ve got to be taught/to hate and fear…”You’ve got to be taught to be afraid…” Every time I notice in myself the instinct to put my foot on another person’s neck—evidenced in feelings of judgment, resentment, an attitude of entitlement, jealousy, control—I like to be reminded, even as the thought or feeling is occurring, that I am out of line, out of alignment.

I realize that the issues that divide us are just that—divisive. That was underscored as I listened to a program on National Public Radio (NPR) yesterday afternoon. The conversation was among a small group of people who were on opposite sides of one of the issues capturing our attention right now, and again. And, big surprise, guess what is at the center of the firestorm—the Church. God save us from people who want to save us. The “Affordable Health Care Act” has been the source of argument since it was passed 3 years ago, and the volatile issues of abortion and birth control are center stage. Without wanting to sound flippant, I am reminded of another bumper sticker I noticed for the first time a few weeks ago—”Against abortion? Don’t have one”. Of course, the proposed legislation is more complicated than that. Do your homework, if you don’t understand. It seems simple and indeed reasonable to me that I can make personal choices that are in my best interest and that do not, do not indeed, infringe on the rights of others. I like being reminded—as in the slogan I saw plastered on the back of an SUV the other day—that being pro-child and pro-family do not exclude having the choice of making a choice.

That Makes Sense to Me—Albuquerque, New Mexico (February 9, 2012)

R. Harold Hollis

River Experience Reprise

2012-02-08T05:21:00.000-08:00

"Spirituality is about seeing. It’s not about earning or achieving. It’s about relationship rather than results or requirements. Once you see, the rest follows. You don’t need to push the river, because you are already in it—and floating along!" from a meditation by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, (Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, NM)

Quickly I was pulled into the vortex, and before I knew it, my floating inner tube mounted on heavy gauge plywood had flipped, and I was under it, swallowing water so fast, it took away my breath. I knew I was choking. I was being hammered, held captive, working against myself. A poor, inexperienced swimmer to begin with—although that might not have made a difference—I struggled to keep my head above water.

Then, just as quickly as it all began, I was free of the tube, shooting down the river and still taking in water. I had no doubt that I would die. The thought that raced through my mind—“we wonder how our end will come, and this is my end”. I gave into it. Almost as quickly, the water calmed, although I continued to be carried rapidly on my back. I tried to catch hold of limbs hanging over the bank of the river, but all I accomplished was to strip leaves from the branches. I wasn’t ready to give up. Suddenly, the waters became peaceful, and I was able to paddle my way to the bank. I reached for a limb that held and struggled out of the water. When I tried to stand, my legs simply would have none of it. Somehow, my friends were there, but on both sides of the river. Someone helped me up. There was much laughter as they recounted the experience with the rapids. One of the friends, who was visiting from north Texas, had lost his spectacles, on which he counted for just about everything—like seeing.

I was changed forever that day, even most days I don’t realize this. I don’t remember my experience being any big deal to anyone. All I could think about was how close I had come to death. Later I did tell my parents. My mother was a born worrier, but I don’t remember anything exceptional about her response. I’ve recounted that experience on the Guadalupe a few times over the years. Shortly after it happened, our group of innocents discovered that the river was particularly treacherous that day, according to experts, and we also learned that drownings on the river were not unheard of. Almost 30 years later I told about this experience while participating in Episcopal Cursillo. We had been asked to tell about an experience where we had felt especially close to Christ. My day on the Guadalupe came to mind, but not because I knew that day that Christ was watching over me. What I did know and accept was the reality that I would die, that I might be aware of it as I was dying, and that I could accept it—even peacefully. I knew God that day on the river, and I felt safe.

River Experience Reprise--Albuquerque, NM (February 8, 2012)

R. Harold Hollis

Just Walk on By

2012-01-29T10:54:00.001-08:00

"My Comedy Channel? Fox News

My News Source? Comedy Central"

Now there’s a bumper sticker you can hang your hat on!

On a Sunday morning walk under sunny skies, taking in the light air of a New Mexico January day, I was particularly pleased to be out in the weather. Earlier I had watched CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood, while I worked at finishing a spreadsheet for getting my 2011 taxes done. A feeling of accomplishment, indeed. Like on most Sundays, the primary aim of CBS’s morning offering is to inform and to entertain, today being no exception—a segment on a Chinese factory workers who produce Apple products, a report on a relatively new but very successful American fashion designer, a review of Martin Scorsese's latest film, along with an interview with him and a companion piece on automatons, an interview with Bradd Pitt, and so on. My favorite part of this program, going back to the days of Charles Kuralt, is the nature video that closes the program. Today it was the winter coast of Cape Cod.

So when I started my morning walk, the groundwork for the special spring in my step had been laid. I felt good about my progress toward finishing my part of getting taxes done, and I had a good taste in my mouth from a couple of cups of satisfying morning coffee and from delightful and informative television programming. What a welcome break from the daily news and the political drama of the 2012 presidential election. Anyone looking for a hearty dose of mean spiritedness has to go no farther than a computer keyboard or a television.

I make no secret of my political persuasion, but frankly, I generally avoid conversations with folks from the other side of the aisle. I’ll leave it to the politicians, and when the time comes, I will vote my conscience. As my mother used to attribute to her father, “only a fool argues about religion and politics.” Maybe someone well known said that first. Over the years I’ve wasted some of my own time arguing such things, but could it be that in my late 60s I’ve actually understood the merits of just letting it pass by?

I don’t invite attention and possible vandalism to my automobile by plastering it with announcements of one preference or another, although I love seeing bumper stickers that cause me to chuckle, laugh out loud, nod my head in agreement, or even say to a traveling companion, “I like that”. I like that, indeed. If I care enough about something, someone’s going to hear from me. In the past, when I was a bit more vocal about things, a friend might say, “Why don’t you tell us how you really feel about [fill in the blank]. These days, not so much. At times, that feels somehow incomplete, but more times, it simply feels like peace. And so it is.

Just Walk on By--Albuquerque, NM (January 28, 2012)

R. Harold Hollis

2012-01-28T05:04:00.001-08:00

"...you cannot grow in the great art form, the integration of action and contemplation, without 1) a strong tolerance for ambiguity; 2) an ability to allow, forgive, and contain a certain degree of anxiety; and 3) a willingness to not know and not even need to know. This is how you allow and encounter mystery. All else is mere religion."

From Fr. Richard Rohr, A Lever And a Place to Stand:

The Contemplative Stance, the Active Prayer, p. x (foreword)

2012-01-25T05:33:00.000-08:00

“We have a wisdom to offer to those who have reached maturity . . . a hidden wisdom that the masters of this age did not know, or they would never have crucified!” (from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2:6-8)

“...when we come to enlightened consciousness...we have learned to include, accept, and forgive the negatives, the problems, and the contradictions that were revealed in the middle of life to be much more complex than we first imagined. As Paul says, we learn to stop “crucifying”—ourselves and others, which is precisely “resurrection”!

(Borrowed from the meditation of Fr. Richard Rohr, the Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, January 25, 2012)

2012-01-24T06:15:00.001-08:00

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8 NIV)

Forces Bearing on Our Lives

2012-01-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." (Matthew 6:19, NIV)

Recently our neighborhood was offered to watch as the home and property of someone described as a hoarder was emptied over a several-day period. I’m unclear on the truth of the circumstances. A relative newcomer to the neighborhood, I had walked by this property many times on walks both with and without purpose, and I had puzzled over the mounds that had taken ownership of the front porch and what could be seen of the backyard through a slatted wooden gate, and for awhile a wreck of a vehicle that sat derelict-looking and filled with stuff in front of the house. The yard was simply a dirt blanket of dried up springs of grass and a few scruffy trees.

I speculated on who must live in such circumstances, imagining that it might be some old person who couldn’t take care of the property and who had apparently had a long life of keeping everything, including the trash, which had spilled out onto the front porch. The story I’ve now heard is that the woman was probably in her 50s, perhaps 60s. She had lived in the house with her sister, who had died within the last year. Supposedly the parents had lived in this house as well until their deaths. I don’t know whether the family owned, or had at one time owned, the house. Toward the end of the year, my friend Tom was told by a man who seemed to be in a position of authority relating to the property that the woman living their had been evicted and that she had been given 48 hours to remove whatever she wanted. Several weeks prior to that, Tom had encountered the woman outside the house removing what appeared to be trash from her stalled van to the front porch. He asked about buying an old garden glider visible through the gate of the back yard fence sitting in the midst of the debris and chaos. She wasn’t interested in selling the glider—”nothing is for sale,” she said emphatically.

So ensued the emptying, allegedly with the help of people from the woman’s church, again hearsay. Furniture spanning a period of 60 years was hauled to the front yard, along with dishes and plastic tubs of fabric and shoes and 1950s-vintage Samsonite luggage and more, oh so much more. I watched as women wearing masks to avoid breathing in the matter let loose from disturbing all of this accumulation worked, bagging some of the discards into large black plastic bags and packing things that were apparently to be kept. Mounds and mounds filled the front yard, and dumpster after dumpster was filled and hauled away. That’s what came out the front door.

On d-day, trailers hitched to pickup trucks were loaded with the furniture and with many tools from the garage, supposedly being carried to a Christian resale shop. Late on the day of the deadline, Tom and I encountered a couple of the men working. I asked what was happening, and then I asked if the woman who had been evicted was going to benefit from the sale of the things that were being salvaged from her home. The reply seemed a little vague and left me a little puzzled and concerned—as if any of this were my business. Shortly before, and again hearsay, a woman from the neighborhood who had been “helping” told me that the evicted resident had returned late in the day and that she had been upset and crying. She added that after 5 p.m. the stuff in the front yard was available for the picking. Misguided information, I’m thinking. Nonetheless, Tom and I went to look. It was dusk and things were barely distinguishable. While we scanned the piles of debris, the neighborhood woman who had been “helping” and her husband backed up to the front porch to load up old firewood into a small pickup. “They told us we could have the wood,” she offered to the two of us, as if either of us had any rights concerning the property. We were scavenging, just like she and her husband. It seemed a little pathetic at the time, and even more so as I thought about it over the next few days.

The backyard of the property remains cluttered with stuff, and from the sidewalk you can see into a small outbuilding filled to overflowing. Apparently, the garage is laden, waiting to be emptied. Meanwhile, plumbers and heating and cooling workers have been at work. All the scrub growth in front and along the side of the house has been removed. Yet much remains to be done, as the property is readied for whatever comes next.

The lives lived in this house over the last several decades most likely will remain a mystery to me. I suppose I will get to see a property brought back to where it surely must have been early in its existence. What I’ll never know is the what and the why that led to this seemingly sad end. Who knows. Hopefully the woman is somewhere safe and much happier, having finally escaped the clutches of habit, even if not by her choice. Though she might not have chosen to get there, the forces that bear on our lives met her and life changed dramatically for her. Perhaps this is what it takes for any of us, regardless of how and what we accumulate and hold close to us, regardless of the presence or absence of some pathology.

Forces Bearing on Our Lives— Albuquerque, New Mexico (January 22, 2012)

R. Harold Hollis

Another Day in Paradise

2012-01-17T15:16:00.000-08:00

Albuquerque Zoo, January 2012

Orange Truck

2012-01-11T10:47:00.000-08:00

“As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him.” Matthew 4:18-20 (NIV) 

In my neighborhood here in Albuquerque an old faded-orange Ford pickup parked in front of a brick 1960s city ranch house sits decorated with bumper stickers— many intended to convey the sense of humor of someone, presumably the person who has driven this truck in recent years. “I closed Wolski’s” a lower east side tavern in Milwaukee, “No Sniveling” from a different tavern in Aspen, and many more that provoke a chuckle and a smile. For the holidays this truck was strung with lights. It's a delightful sight, that faded orange truck.

A couple of the bumper stickers that catch my attention shift focus to social matters. “Against abortion? Don’t have one.” “The new Right is fundamentally wrong.” Now there’s a couple of bumper stickers you can hang your hat on. As we witness all of the moralizing and posturing that has characterized the political landscape as the GOP lays its groundwork for the 2012 election, we are reminded once again of the role of fear and hate in our lives. The rhetoric—debates, grand standing from the stump, ads funded by the super PACs—gets meaner at each bend in the road.

We seem to find pleasure and strength in gaining advantage while our foot is firmly planted on the necks of those we target—the disenfranchised of one stripe or another, or those who are simply different than us. How bewildering it is to see grown men in their 60s pandering to the meanness that inhabits the hearts of those whose votes they seek. Differences in fiscal ideology aside, that which fills the hearts of many so-called conservative Christians surely leaves the man called Jesus heart sickened. “They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” Mark 7:7 (NIV) Here’s a mantra for you—“Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin”. Not found in scripture. How accommodating—this sentiment can be purchased on the Internet as a bumper sticker, decal or t-shirt—how scary.

Not one for calling attention to myself by the logo I might sport on a t-shirt or bumper sticker I might plaster to my automobile, here’s one that always gets my nod. “God Bless the Whole World No Exceptions.” It’s available on amazon.com for $1.25. What a bargain. What a way to set an intention, warm the hearts of others, and even bring a smile to someone’s face. It might even forestall someone who otherwise would choose to key your car for the offensive, hate-filled thinking you choose to wrap your heart and arms around and display on your automobile for all the world to see.

Orange Truck— Albuquerque, New Mexico (January 11, 2012)

R. Harold Hollis

Turn Around

2012-01-01T10:48:00.000-08:00

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” Ecclesiastes 3:1

Routinely the CNN website polls readers for their opinions on one thing or another. Sometimes I look at the poll topic and think, who cares. Other times I vote without questioning my own opinion about the topic. And then, there are the times I just want to see what others think because I’m not sure what I think. Now think about that. It’s an opinion poll—anonymous and not scientific. Odd that I would sit at my laptop and give even a second thought to expressing my gut level response to the question. The current poll asks, “How do you feel about 2011 ending?” Choices: I’ll miss it and Good riddance. No surprise— my response fell with the majority. Eight-five percent of the current vote of 111,837 voiced “good riddance”. I don’t recall having thought in the past at year's end that I was just thankful to be moving on—to have the opportunity to move on. No doubt, I have.

What occurs to me on this, the first day of the year 2012, is that I could be seizing the day like it matters. Reflecting on the last several years, ones that I’ve spent most of my time in the so-called land of enchantment, I’m marking time too much of the time. I’ve gotten a little complacent, which has expressed itself as disengagement that is frankly unsatisfying. As the saying goes, there’s no time like the present time—to make a change—and I was reminded of that this morning as I read the daily meditation from a site I started subscribing to back in the summer. For today, the first day of a new year, Richard Rohr (a Franciscan and ordained Roman Catholic priest) titles his meditation, “Resolve to Live Authentically in 2012”. He goes on to describe this authentic living as “turning around”. “As the old Shakers used to sing and dance, ‘Turn, turn wherever you may be, and the turning never stops.’ To be authentically human is to be willing to turn—and to be a saint is to have turned/changed many times.”

A few years ago, the priest leading the Bible study group in a small Episcopal mission I attended in rural east Texas defined repentance as turning around. Odd that I didn’t recall having heard that definition before. Turn around, change directions, change your heart, do good, do better. For some time now I have turned away from the notion of original sin and the baggage of sin and repentance that characterize traditional religious teachings and practice. This has nothing to do with understanding at the deepest level that humans do bad things. We make selfish, self-serving choices. Sometimes these choices are expressed violently and destructively. Look around, and then turn around. Pick up a newspaper or news magazine, turn on cable television, open the web browser on your computer. Our ugly choices are on display. Unfortunately, our goodness doesn’t get nearly as much press as we deserve. Look around, and then turn around.

I’m in a bit of a slump when it comes to religion these days. If I hadn’t realized and understood that my slump places me in the majority of those who have determined that church is somehow sadly irrelevant and that it is not meeting our spiritual needs, I would be more worried. If I hadn’t realized and understood that acts of compassion and generosity happen routinely and bountifully outside the confines of the church, and that church can sometimes be a place where compassion and generosity are hard to recognize, I would be more worried. For the season of giving and sharing just ended, the modest acts of generosity that called me had little to do with sensing that I had fallen short of my responsibility to others. They were very much about remembering the blessings I have and wanting, indeed needing, to shine even the tiniest light on the way for others. Give thanks for the blessing of blessing someone else. Look around, and then turn around.

The image at the top of Fr. Richard’s meditation this morning was the labyrinth at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. I was reminded of the sense of well being and healing I have felt many times when I have walked the labyrinth in one place or another. I was reminded that I haven’t sought this particular source of healing in a long time. As on all days, today I feel a need to heal and a need to grow. In some ways 2011 was a tough year for me, but the challenges I faced pale in comparison to what I see around me. Today, I get the opportunity to turn around, turn around.

January 1, 2012— Albuquerque, New Mexico

R. Harold Hollis

2011-12-07T04:56:00.000-08:00

"God comes to us disguised as our life." Paula D'Arcy (from a meditation by Richard Rohr, OFM, Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque NM)

Do you see what I see?

2011-11-29T11:59:00.000-08:00

Albuquerque at dusk, November 28, 2011. (photo by Tom Simic)

2011-11-23T06:10:00.000-08:00

"Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, praising God until we ourselves are a constant act of praise." Fr. Richard Rohr

My Mortality

2011-11-09T09:05:00.001-08:00

Now and then I get reminded of my mortality, and at 68—young for your age the cardiologist told me yesterday—why wouldn’t I be. My father died five months shy of his 70th birthday, his older brother 18 months later at age 72, and his younger brother only 8 months after that at age 71. Only a few year’s later, my mother’s younger brother died just two months before his 65th birthday. All of these men died of heart failure, and all of them had been treated for heart illness—some more aggressively and extensively than others. Would you say I have a family history?

Next Tuesday I am having a coronary angiogram. “I don’t think your symptoms are cardio related,” the doctor told me after what seemed to me a relatively brief test on the treadmill last week. It could be musculoskeletal. Two days earlier one of the doctors at the urgent care clinic where I had gone—finally giving in to what had been troubling me for two weeks—suggested that my symptoms could even be gastrointestinal related. None of this was news to me. My back is sort of a wreck and medication for gastroesophageal reflux disease has been a part of my life for over a decade. “The pain along your left jaw could even be dental related,” suggested the cardiologist. Hmm, I thought, as I recalled that I had mentioned to my dentist a couple of months ago that the area around the crown he installed last spring is sometimes tender. According to him, though, everything looked fine, based on x-ray and exam.

So I’m having this angiogram, having passed an abbreviated-seeming treadmill test, because the dull ache in my left arm and jaw persists. “Is this,”…”yes, invasive,” the doctor replied, before I could complete my question. My thought—let’s just get it over with—even though the idea of it frightens me at least a little. I’m not a kid anymore. And I don’t want to be one of the unevolved men that Fr. Richard Rohr describes in his various writings, including the book of meditations I started reading in late summer. The doctor doesn’t expect to find anything, but I should come prepared to spend the night, should he discover blockage and need to place a stent or stents to open up the blockage.

Let’s just get it over with, even while I’m thinking about all the loose ends of my life that remain unresolved. There’s that bad condo mortgage in the city different and the merchandise consigned to a couple of different businesses in two different states and the accumulation of treasure here in this house in the land of enchantment that in spite of what I might try to tell myself is not my home—and no last will and testament. The list could go on. These are the things that have been on my mind of late, the things that prompted me to contact my attorney in Texas last week. “Why haven’t you done a will,” he asks. I have a will, technically, but it no longer serves current reality. In it I left everything to my mother, who is deceased now almost five years.

So I’m having this test, and lately I’ve been thinking, again, about the need to get organized— to turn the hand-written list of merchandise consigned in Texas into a file on my computer, a file that I can print out and distribute to all who need to know—all who need to know about my seemingly loose ends. My sisters, a couple of friends here in Albuquerque. All who need to know. Huh, I consider. After our mother died in 2007, I had a short period of wanting to follow through on the t-shirts custom-made for me a few years—t-shirts based on an idea that had cooked in my gut for close to 20 years. “For sale—all of my earthly possessions,” they read. I was ready for a short time to liquidate my accumulation of treasure. I found it wasn’t easy, though. Bad economy, huh. It seems to have been bad or on the way to being bad or coming out of being bad for three decades—for as long as I have been moving treasure in and out of my life. Loose ends.

This morning I had the requisite blood work before my date with the cardiologist next Tuesday. I read this morning that during an angiogram, a thin tube called a catheter is placed into a blood vessel in the groin (femoral artery or vein). Then the catheter is guided to the area to be studied. An iodine dye is injected into the vessel to make the area show clearly on the X-ray pictures. The purpose is to reveal if an aneurysm (bulge in a blood vessel) exists or if blockage in a blood vessel is affecting blood flow. The test can also show if coronary artery disease is present and how bad it is. Three viles of blood were necessary for the three tests needed before my coronary angiogram. I’m squeamish about blood-drawing, even though shots don’t particularly bother me. My long history includes virtually passing out the first time several viles of blood for testing were drawn from my body when I was only in my 20s. At the time, the recounting was funny. I thought about that time many years ago as I sat this morning in a waiting room filled with people there for lab tests. As the technician worked to draw my blood, the flow stopped on the second vile. Thanks for explaining why this is taking too long, I thought, in response to his comment. Eyes closed and head cast upward to the right, I reminded myself to breathe, breathe slowly and calmly.

Loose ends are on my mind. I’ve created that type-written list of merchandise consigned in Texas. That’s a good thing. Now to print it and get into the hands of the people who need to know. A similar report from the gallery here in New Mexico where I also have things consigned is only a phone call away. And my attorney in Texas has told me that an email to him with my wishes will suffice for drafting a will. I guess I’m finally getting around to that, at 68. Although I don’t have any plans to “go anywhere”, as it were—after all, I am young for my age—now and then I get reminded of my mortality.

My Mortality—Albuquerque, New Mexico (November 9, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

If Only

2011-10-26T14:25:00.000-07:00

“I knew something was differnt.” That’s what Ludd said about the cake Marie served him in Lily Tomlin’s 1977 one-woman stage show that I had on vinyl 30 plus years ago. Do you know the recording? Can you too hear Tomlin? Once in awhile I think about Ludd and Marie, the names she gave to her mother and father “to protect them,” she adds (audience laughs) in her skit, “Dracula’s Daughter”. The humor of the piece lies in the flat-toned pace of their seemingly meaningless conversation about the kind of cake Marie buys or doesn’t buy, their conversation interrupted by the maniacal screams of their daughter who hears their exchange even though she is entombed in her room, music playing loud enough to wake the dead. For all practical purposes, Ludd and Marie are as clueless of their Dracula’s Daughter as she is of her parents. They seem to exist to try one another’s patience. If only the sometimes subtle, sometimes not, variations in the routine of our lives were so funny. If only.

Lately, I’ve been having my own flat-toned days--or so they seem at times--even though there is enough upheaval for anyone. I made one of my routine fall treks to Texas to focus for a time on my business of offering for sale treasure that I accumulate spring to fall. The trip was made more challenging by the drought that has laid claim to the Lone Star state and appears to be well entrenched for another year. No amount of water produced through the garden hose can mitigate the lack of rain. When I left at 6 a.m. on a Friday morning in early October for my return to New Mexico, Texas was set for another day of temperatures well above normal, no rain in sight, as day broke on the parched landscape, revealing old-growth trees struggling to hold on--some already having given up the ghost. Much of the southwest is suffering extreme drought, but a look at the current U. S. drought monitor is enough to make Texans paranoid. Record setting heat and record low rainfall tell the story. What in the past we have called the dog days of summer is dogging the fall.

Here in New Mexico, the drought is apparent as well, even though Fall has come to this land. As I made my way west on I-40 late in the day of October 7th, having driven well over 600 miles with another 150 miles to go, the temperature had dipped to the 50s and the remains of the monsoons produced late-afternoon rain showers. By the time I reached Albuquerque, the outside thermometer on my Toyota registered 46 degrees, with lows in the 30s predicted for the night. To feel this, to see the cottonwoods change to yellow and orange, and then to hear on the news that arid New Mexico is below 50% of its annual scant precipitation, somehow Texas seems to have gotten the worst of it. As we near the end of the harvest season, temperatures in Texas still cling doggedly to the high 80s.

One of my favorite stories about how clueless we can sometimes be goes back at least 20 years. At work in an air conditioned downtown Houston high rise on a hot, rainless July day, in the company of a few colleagues, I commented, “Man, I wish it would rain.” “Why, do you have a yard?”, asked a 20-something newbie, who ironically was a graduate of the great Texas university known for its emphasis on agriculture, she, obviously not of its agriculture graduates. I replied, “Yes, and you eat food.”

While I was away in Texas, the house I rent here in Albuquerque was burglarized. Someone who was awfully intent on seeing what might lie beyond the walls of this little 1940s adobe-like dwelling kicked in the back door, busting it in half. I don’t know how long the house stood open--presumably over night. A friend who was looking in on the house in my absence discovered the front door standing open when he came by after work. The forces of landlord, carpenter and friends came to bear on the circumstances. And though only my television and an antique western saddle were taken, the burglars came back the second night and tried to kick in the front door. Their attempt was foiled. I felt helpless in Texas, knowing that it would be at least two weeks before I could return to tend to my own property. And though more than a couple of people have suggested that I make the pawn shops in the area of the city where I live to look for this relatively unique saddle, I didn’t see the point. I had given up on the television without a second thought.

Oh, well, let them eat cake. Bread enough, there is not. I’m feeling rather flat, not unlike the way Ludd and Marie seem about their cake, be it banana, plain, or “what about the chocolate”. You mean the one that causes you to break out under your chin? “Stop talking about that cake,” I want to scream. It’s enough that my home has been violated and that I am anxious every time I lock the front door to leave. I now leave the television on, not at all fooling myself to think that the sound of voices inside would deter anyone who is intent on breaking in for my cake or my bread or my laptop or television or whatever other treasure their hungry eyes might translate into cash. Last night, as I lay awake around midnight, having awakened from some nightmarish dream whose details I don’t recall, I realized how powerless I am feeling to save my earthly treasure from those who would take it. I might as well be Dracula’s Daughter screaming from the confines of my heavy metal bedroom to Ludd and Marie and the insurance man who have quickly learned to whisper about important things, like cake. I get it, even though I don’t know what to do with it.

If Only--Albuquerque, New Mexico (October 26, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

Ah, the Golden Rule

2011-09-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as a manor of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

(John Donne, 1572-1631, “Meditation XVII”)

I went hiking with a couple of friends and a couple of acquaintances last Sunday. One of my friends inquired of the new guy, "do you go to church, Andrew?" A comment Andrew had just made about making the transition from Roman Catholic to public school in the 7th grade had made me smile. He recounted an instance where class had been dismissed, and he stood and made the sign of the cross. His habit embarrassed him, as it would just about any seventh grade boy, and he remembered wondering at the time would he be ostracized by his classmates. Time and distance for this now 56-year-old man gave a smile to him as well. Concerning his church habits these days, “No,” he replied quietly. “I just try to follow the golden rule.” He went on to point out that what we in the Christian tradition call the golden rule is inherent in all formalized religious traditions. The number he recalled is “eight” traditions. Reading about the history of this maxim or concept of human rights is just a few keystrokes away on our computers. Anyway, as he said this, I thought and then replied that if everyone practiced this, imagine what a different world we would live in. It would indeed be heaven on earth, just as God intends and just as Jesus, the great teacher, taught during his journey on earth.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12 NKJV) After lunch yesterday with a husband and wife couple I met recently through our shared passion of collecting antiques (actually, her passion, not his), she rode with me back to their home near Lamy, New Mexico where I had been invited to see their house and the fruits of her collecting habit. As we drove, she asked if I write. A mutual friend had told her so. I replied that I have a blog, but that I haven’t had all that much to say for close to two years. “After our mother died more than four years ago, I found that I had plenty to say about a lot of things,” I offered. Before Mother’s death, I had already begun with stories about family and about adult family friends who had made their mark on me as a child. I wanted to give these little gifts to her. “I surprised myself with the direction my writing took,” I said yesterday, adding that religion and spiritual matters seemed to be at the heart of what I somehow need to put into words.

These days, things that likely would have pointed me toward my laptop keyboard a few years ago instead cause me to wonder, mostly to myself, and more importantly, to decide that I don’t really have much that I feel a need to commit to writing these days. I mentioned this to a friend several months ago, and she replied that when I had something to say, I would say it. Not more than a couple of weeks passed before something new showed up on my blog. And so it goes. I can hardly call it writer’s block since I don’t really consider myself a writer. I know that I have the ability to put words into a somewhat coherent and meaningful sequence. What invites me to comment at length are the things that more often than not simply piss me off. The result might be an unsolicited email to a friend or friends. Sometimes a message I’ve received seemingly requires me to reply—as much trying to make sense of something to myself as to make sense to someone else.

I hadn’t considered that what our hiking companion noted the other day would be part of connecting the dots with something headed toward me from just around the corner. But why wouldn’t it? And indeed it did. I received yet another forwarded message from a relative in Texas yesterday—the kind of message that at its heart is meant to breathe life into distrust, fear, and hate. I wrote about a similar forwarded message I received awhile back—this one from a different relative in Texas. The messages are all the same. First, and perhaps most importantly, they are based largely on untruths—untruths that have been combined with just enough of what is true or seems to be true to give them credibility. Someone somewhere put all of this into words that are meant to frighten and whip the reader into a lather, and most importantly for the sender, to in turn urge someone else to send it on to yet another group of readers. And so the lie grows. In spirit, these emails are not unlike “shouting fire in a crowded theatre" a popular metaphor and frequent paraphrasing of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919. We understand the results of such behavior.

We all have agendas. Maybe we at times intend to deceive. At other times we deceive unknowingly. We become confused by our own ignorance and by fear. It is the way of humankind. Even though we are capable of the worst, all we have to do is look around us to see the goodness that we are equally capable of. Once again, I am begged to question motive. If I choose to engage in tongue wagging or fear mongering, who or what does this serve? One thing I know for certain is that it serves no good. If I mistakenly believe that my gain is served by the loss of others, I have indeed fooled myself. There is no shortage of good in this universe. Know it, believe it, and act on it. Regardless of how carefully I might try to fool myself, I do not gain at the expense of someone else. I give thanks to our hiking companion from the other day for causing me to, once again, “get it”. Imagine what a different world we would live in. It would indeed be heaven on earth, just as God intends and just as Jesus, the great teacher, taught during his journey on earth. "One should seek for others the happiness one desires for himself." (Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, BCE 563-483) “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.” (Sunnah, Islam, Mohammed, CE 570-632)

Ah, the Golden Rule—Albuquerque, New Mexico (September 7, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

2011-08-31T06:20:00.000-07:00

"The false self will say prayers but the True Self is a prayer and looks out at reality from a different pair of eyes larger than its own. This is why in Ephesians it says 'pray always' (6:18). We pray always whenever we act in conscious and loving union with God, which eventually can be all the time—even in our sleep!" Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action and Contemplation

2011-08-26T04:13:00.000-07:00

"But Jesus, said unto them, 'A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.' And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching." Mark 6: 4-6 KJV

Hate Mail

2011-08-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

Every time I receive a forwarded e-mail message that once again has as its aim to denigrate the person who is currently serving as President of our nation, I have two reactions. First, I am angry. Second, I am sad. I am sad that people forward messages that often are SPAM, based on falsehood—and this can be verified by simply going to the Internet and searching on the topic of the message—and that they do so without questioning the validity of the information they are forwarding. I received another of those from someone in my home state of Texas. The purpose of the message is to question Mr. Obama’s patriotism because he was not at Arlington Cemetery for Memorial Day in 2010. If it’s not his origin of birth or his religion, it’s his patriotism. Or something else that people—most who want to wave the banner of “Christianity”—foolishly promote. I immediately went to the Internet. And, not to my surprise, there it was on

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/memorialday.asp

The information on Snopes lays out clearly for anyone who is interested in fact regarding the record of U. S. Presidents and their presence or lack of presence at Arlington on Memorial Day for the last 30 years. Read for yourself.

I sent the following message to my relative in Texas—someone I have had little contact with since we were growing up, but also someone who I like—because I felt compelled to honor the truth:

I am sending the following link because I believe in fairness, regardless of political persuasion. The messages—many of which are spam—circulated about Barack Obama since before his election are too often misrepresenting and offensive. I get them from family, friends, and even casual friends. It's interesting. None of the people I know who share my own moderate to liberal sentiments ever circulate messages—spam or otherwise—about the people on the right. I'll say it again. I believe in fairness. The attached link to CBS news is an article about that very matter—fairness—and specifically about Mr. Obama's whereabouts on the day in question. I know that there are many who simply want our current president to fail—regardless of what his failure means to our nation. And yet these people claim to be patriots, and yes, "Christian". The silliness about Mr. Obama's birth, his religion, his patriotism—and I guess the list could go on—should have ended long ago. Yet, for some it continues. I find this sad, and as someone with a Christian upbringing by parents who always taught us to be fair and respectful, I find it even sadder that people who call themselves "Christian" feel some need to benefit at the expense of others. This is indeed NOT the message of the New Testament Gospels.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20006346-503544.html

Namaste.

Hate Mail—Albuquerque, New Mexico (August 20, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

Dogs and Other Things that Bite

2011-08-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

I have been bitten by dogs twice within the last year. Last Wednesday, as I walked around the park in my neighborhood, I was nipped in the area above the ankle of my right leg. Probably 15 seconds before this encounter, my fight or flight instinct had already engaged, when as I walked on the street I witnessed these two small but aggressive mixed breed dogs lunge barking, on leashes-too-long, at a woman walking on the trail just inside the perimeter of the park. I moved hurriedly to get past this scene, only to have the two dogs reverse direction and run at me as I walked in the middle of the street. I felt them at my heels as I started to run, but I didn’t realize at the time that one of them had made contact.

The owner of these two dogs—a woman who looked to be well into her 70s—made no apologies for her dogs. Hidden behind the black, black sunglasses that are popular with people who have compromised eyes, she looked at me like I was nuts, as I unleashed on her about dogs on leashes-too-long. I was beside myself. My adrenalin flowing, I scolded her for being irresponsible. “Have you ever been bitten by a dog,” I screamed. “Yes,” she replied, adding that she had rabies shots as a result. Yea, so did I, I thought, when I was six years old. (My mother, middle sister and I had been around our rat terrier that turned up with rabies, but none of us had been bitten.) As I railed at her—honestly, I don’t remember all that I said. I just know that I wanted her to understand that her aggressive dogs had violated me and that she was accountable. “I hope I never see you again,” she said. “You will,” I replied, adding that I walk this part of the neighborhood just about every day.

Down the street, I stopped to call the non-emergency number for the city of Albuquerque. “No, the dogs did not bite me,” I answered when asked. Not until I was back in my house sitting in a chair in my living room did I look down to see the two bloody puncture wounds on my right leg. I made another call to 311 to amend my earlier report. The day wore on, culminating in an animal control officer coming to my house for a face-to-face report. He was on his way to see the owner of the dogs to get her side of the story and to determine that the two dogs were current on their rabies inoculations. He called the next day to advise me that it was the darker of the two dogs that had bitten me. I wonder if the owner actually knew I had been bitten when we were still at the scene, but was afraid to take responsibility.

“What’s with you and dogs,” a friend asked when I told him about the incident. I was forced to revisit, again, my experience in a friend’s house less than a year ago, as I made my way to my home in Texas. Her brother, also visiting from out of town, was accompanied by his aggressive German Shepherd. I stupidly walked in the front door—not thinking that I needed to be concerned about the dog. The dog ran toward me. I put out my right hand. Clamp!—puncture wounds to the top and bottom of my hand around the thumb. I ran to the refrigerator for ice, my heart racing, in disbelief. The brother took the dog to the back of the house while we waited for his sister to get home. This bite required a visit to the urgent care clinic, a shot in the butt, an oral prescription and one week of soaking the wound and dressing it with antibiotic ointment. Almost a year later I see the scars on the top and bottom of my hand. The scar in the fleshy part of my thumb is hard and sometimes sore.

So what is it with me and dogs? Nothing. As I approach age 68, I have been bitten twice—both within the last year. I think the better question is why—why do people have aggressive dogs—dogs that bite people? Frankly, I’m not interested in whatever psychology any dog owner wants to offer for how or why someone entering a house—a house that he assumes is safe on this day just like it has been the many times he has entered before—or walking in the middle of the street has in some way provoked a dog to attack him.

Operating on the premise that there are no accidents—that everything happens for a reason—I’m still working on understanding the reason. Yes, I get it. I walked into my friend’s home, assuming I was safe. Unfortunately, an aggressive German Shepherd was also visiting, and I was therefore not safe. Yes, I get it. I was walking down the street, but unfortunately not far enough away to escape the jaws of an aggressive dog on a leash-too-long. What did my friend’s brother learn from this incident? What did the woman in the black, black sunglasses learn? My friend’s brother called several days after his dog bit me to check on me. He called, for the first time, several days after the incident. The woman in the neighborhood did not claim any responsibility or offer any apology. So what have I learned? I’m asking myself that right now. My juices want to flow more than just a little. I thought I had let go of the incident that happened almost a year ago. Not until I had a second similar experience did I realize that being bitten a year ago was still with me.

I don’t want to hold grudges, even though at times I know that I do hold grudges. I don’t want to have hard feelings toward the owner of the German Shepherd—a man now 50, someone I’ve known since he was 13 years old, someone I can say is at least a casual friend. I don’t want to waste my energy on anger toward the woman in the neighborhood who didn’t own her accountability and didn’t offer an apology. “I hope I never see you again,” she said. Maybe we won’t see each other again. No doubt, her dogs will be back in the front yard before long, running the fence, barking at people walking by. I’ve observed their behavior inside the fence for many months. Maybe she was afraid that I would take her to court. “Do you want to go to court,” the animal control officer asked me. “No, I just want her to accept responsibility for her dogs,” I answered. Likely, I’ll never know what she makes of this. All that matters is what I make of it. I just want to let it go. Grudges serve no one. Regardless of how justified anger might be in the near term, holding onto anger serves no one, especially the one who holds the anger. I am remembering something I read recently. We are not punished for our anger; we are punished by our anger. So said Gautama Siddhartha, the Buddha (563-483 BCE).

And so it is. Namaste.

Dogs and Other Things that Bite—Albuquerque, New Mexico (August 18, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

Russell Hollis—August 14, 1911

2011-08-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

Daddy, you were born 100 years ago today. I don’t have a photograph of you—not a digital one that I can post here. But your image is imprinted on my brain and on my heart, along with all of the goodness that you taught us, all of the goodness that you gave us during the 69 years of your journey here. At the morning service of the New Thought church where I go on Sunday mornings these days, the minister related that our celebrations are a little Baptist. Of course, I thought of you. He made a distinction, however. New Thought teaches us to embrace our original goodness—not to suffer original sin. Yin Yang, Daddy. We are more than what we are taught. Regardless of the path we walk, our instinct is to love, and that is the greatest blessing you gave to me. I know that God continues to bless you. Happy Birthday!

Yes, it begins with me

2011-08-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

Let me not forget what I came here for.

"Wisdom Tradition is a term that is sometimes given to the inner core or mystic aspects of a religious or spiritual tradition, without the trappings, doctrinal literalism, sectarianism, and power structures that are associated with institutionalised religion. The Wisdom Tradition provides a conceptual framework for the development of the inner self, living a spiritual life, and the realisation of Enlightenment or of Union with God."

from Wikipedia at (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_tradition)

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

Wisdom attributed to Hindu Prince Gautama Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C. Buddha, “the awakened one,” “the enlightened one”.

Namaste

The Way Things Are Not

2011-08-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

The other day, I spent time with someone who offered opinions with such conviction about religion, relationships—even entertainment—and I was reminded that maybe, just maybe, we can be just a little less rigid, a little more tolerant. Something similar happened during a phone call yesterday with someone I’ve never even met in person. Awhile back, I had yet another conversation with someone who insisted that he was not willing to forgive his sister for things she’s done. This guy had spent a couple of decades as a minister then several years as a social worker. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve held forth with “the way things are”, begging the person with whom I’m having a conversation to say, “Harold, why don’t you tell us how you really feel”. Good for a laugh, right?

Over the last couple of weeks, I have witnessed from a distance, hardcore divisiveness among members of my extended maternal family. Some have drawn a line in the sand, choosing to hate with a passion that stuns and stings. Hate. There’s a word we use in different ways. Some hate broccoli. Some hate getting up for work, even when they like their jobs. Some hate making a mistake. Some hate sweating when they’re all dressed up with someplace to go. Some hate others of a different ethnicity. Some hate others they think have hated them first. Some hate their own family or individual members of their family. We hate much, and we hate without cause, regardless of how justified we feel.

Don’t you hate it when you think you’ve got it all figured out? And then, when life proves to you that you couldn’t be much farther from the truth? I do my share of explaining the positions I take and the choices I make—much of it built on the shifting sands that I regrettably discover later—sometimes just a little bit later. Life will have its way, and if we are paying attention, be it to something we read, or a conversation we have, or a situation we observe, or a situation we find ourselves in the middle of, life will instruct us. My mother told me many times, concerning the temper that I inherited from both her and my daddy, “do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). As it turns out, this really is from the “good book”, unlike so many other sayings that people commonly attribute incorrectly to scripture. It works for more, as long as I allow myself to get over myself. Ego is a mighty opponent. And so it is. Namaste.

The Way Things Are Not—Albuquerque, New Mexico (August 4, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

Let me search no farther than my own heart

2011-08-01T07:50:00.000-07:00

"When asked what the unpardonable sin is, Brand replies, 'It is a sin that grew within my own breast. A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that triumphed over the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God, and sacrificed everything to its own mighty claims!'"
(from the short story "Ethan Brand," by American novelist and short story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1848)

The Dream of God

2011-07-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

Honoring the life of my aunt, Edna Rustenbach Fuchs (January 4, 1927 - July 23, 2011)

I keep coming back to the angel with wings outspread who stands at the entrance to the labyrinth on the plaza in front of St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe. "I am not asking to be loved. I want to love," reads one of the inscriptions.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

(from the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, 13th century)

Now, how scary. I'm quoting myself. "The teachable moment is always at hand for each of us. A few years ago I attended a worship service at the Episcopal Cathedral in Houston. The young priest preaching that day talked about the work and writing of Verna Dozier, who at the time was in her 80s. An African American, Ms. Dozier was retired from a long, accomplished career as a public school teacher. For many years she had been an active leader in the Episcopal Church. What the priest spoke about was from Ms. Dozier’s book, “The Dream of God.” The message from Verna Dozier: Do you want to follow Jesus? Or, or you just content to worship him? In her eyes, the church chose centuries ago to worship Jesus, rather than to follow his teachings. We can all do our own homework about that history." (March 28, 2010)

Just now, I read an article by Carl Medearis on the CNN Belief Blog. There he recounts his experiences as a Christian missionary in Lebanon 20 years ago.

Medearis is an international expert in Arab-American and Muslim-Christian relations and is author of the book "Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism". From the article: "What if evangelicals today, instead of focusing on “evangelizing” and “converting” people, were to begin to think of Jesus not as starting a new religion, but as the central figure of a movement that transcends religious distinctions and identities?" Read more by copying and pasting the following link in your browser window:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/24/my-take-why-evangelicals-should-stop-evangelizing-2/

Aunt Edna, Reprise

2011-07-22T06:28:00.001-07:00

My Aunt Edna has come home to die. There’s no point in trying to make this story anything other than it is. She is the last of our aunts, and even though she is not related by blood, she has been in the family longer than I have. I will be 68 on September 16, 2011. I find it hard to believe that Aunt Edna will still be around for my birthday, even though I know that her spirit will be alive and well. This is an introduction to an introduction. I first wrote of Aunt Edna in 2005, but I didn’t post what I had written on this blog until 2008. It’s all here, though, just below—her story as I know it, our story, as a family and how I remember it.

One great and sad truth for my aunt and her family that hasn’t changed since relations began to unravel longer back than I can figure out is the hard feelings her children and grandchildren have for one another. I’m not there for this once-in-a-lifetime event. Unless some miracle of staying alive after an 18-month-old diagnosis of cancer of the liver that Aunt Edna chose not to have treated in any way stays her death until mid September, I won’t be there to stand beside my two sisters as we honor her life and memory.

I am happy, though, to remember that I visited with her in mid April while she was staying briefly with her granddaughter—in the house that Aunt Edna and Uncle Bubba bought in the late 1970s, the house that my aunt deeded to her granddaughter a couple of years ago. “Do you like brisket?” I asked in the phone call that preceded our visit. I remember her saying that she had been hungry for some brisket, but our get together had to be delayed by a day or so because my aunt wasn’t up for a visit. We had a good time remembering old times, but I was frightened, frankly, by her weight loss—down to 146 pounds—from something over 200 before she got sick. Aunt Edna made light of the malignant tumor growing inside of it, calling it her “pet peeve”. A few days later when she had returned to her son’s home in west Texas, she called to tell me how much she enjoyed our time together.

I’ve talked to Aunt Edna a couple of times since then. Once she called to tell me that she and her son had been to the 50th wedding anniversary of a cousin, who they probably hadn’t seen in decades. Following a phone call with my oldest sister, Joan, a few weeks ago in which she told me that our aunt apparently was in serious decline, I sent flowers. A week later Aunt Edna called to tell me how beautiful the flowers were. She told me that it is so much nicer to receive an arrangement of fresh flowers while you are alive and can enjoy them. And she asked if I would come through west Texas on my fall trip from New Mexico so that we could reminisce one more time. That won’t happen either.

I stay in touch with my oldest sister, who lives near where the story of the Fuchs family continues to unfold. What I hear, filtered through Joan’s lens of how things are going, saddens me a little, angers me a little, and steels me a little. The details don’t merit telling. At the heart of this drama is a long-developing mix of jealousy, greed, resentment, anger, and vindictiveness. In the heart of this heart is a walloping dose of fear and an unwillingness to forgive. I hear that these people “go to church”—whatever that means. We don’t have to look any farther than ourselves to know that religion is not of itself a solution to anything. It is what we do with our religion—if we are religious at all—that counts. If the path we follow on this journey doesn’t lead us to compassion, generosity, humility, and forgiveness, we are lost. There is no peace for us. Let me not judge my family. Let me remember the words I heard in one of my own church experiences a couple of years ago—that it is impossible to bless and judge at the same time. And so it is. Namaste.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned…

(from a prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, 13th century)

The following about my Aunt Edna Rustenbach Fuchs was written in December of 2005, slightly more than a year before Mother’s death on February 1, 2007. Yesterday we gathered here on the patio of what used to be our parents, then our mother’s, house on the land in Leon County. Our sister Joan now has earned legal ownership of that house, and yesterday was Joan’s 70th birthday. How can it be? That little mopsy-headed girl, the first in this group of siblings, is three score and ten, the same age as our great aunt Minnie when she died in the summer of 1960. I missed Aunt Minnie’s funeral because Jewel Gibson (Joshua Beene and God, Black Gold), my high school journalism teacher, convinced Mother and Daddy, although I doubt that he had much of a vote, that it was important for me to attend journalism camp at Texas A&M. So yesterday I told Aunt Edna that I had written something about her a couple of years ago. “Did I give you that?” “No, I don’t think so,” she beamed, seemingly proud that someone cared enough to put some of her life on paper. And she asked for a copy. Almost three years ago, some of Aunt Edna’s story came to mind, and once again, I am taking a deep breath as I consider the waters that continue flowing through our lives.(rhh…Sunday, October 12, 2008)

My Aunt Edna usually visits for lunch on Sunday. Sometimes she comes out to the land where I live to have lunch up at my mother’s house. Other times, my oldest sister, who is Mother’s primary caregiver, takes Mother into town so that Aunt Edna doesn’t have to drive quite as far.

Lately Aunt Edna has been bringing old photo albums. Mostly the photos are from the 70s and 80s, capturing extended family get-togethers, other times that my mother went on jaunts with Aunt Edna and Uncle Bubba, Mother’s only sibling, in the years between my daddy’s death in 1981 and Uncle Bubba’s death in 1989. A lot happened in those years. Daddy died on the first day of spring, then his two brothers died—one in the fall of 1982 and the other in the late spring of 1983. Both my grandmothers died in September 1983, and we buried them one week apart—two Saturdays for any family record book. Of course, many other deaths have occurred in both the Hollis and Fuchs families. This is, after all, life that we are living and giving here.

After Daddy died, and then Grandma Fuchs in 1983, Mother and Uncle Bubba became closer than they had been in all of their adult lives. As far back as I can remember, we did lots of things with Mother’s family, the Fuchses—all the holidays. Aside from Christmas, we were always together at some point for New Years and Easter, and the Hollis/Fuchs barbecues for Memorial Day, July 4th and Labor Day surely were legend. I would have no way of knowing back then because I was only a child who remembers the joy of sticking his hands in the icy tubs of beer (back then Falstaff, Southern Select, Jax, Grand Prize), vying over who got to sit on the burlap sack or turn the crank during the freezing of ice cream, and lots of family and extended family, who technically were friends, but like family, a southern thing I think.

Aunt Edna has photographs of many family occasions during the growing up years of me and my sisters. In 1951 Aunt Edna and Uncle Bubba started their own family, but their two children don’t figure importantly in the photographs. This past Sunday she really dug back—to the early 40s, her school day pictures pasted into a photo album, and some beautiful images set in tin cases that she and Uncle Bubba had made in downtown Houston when they were on movie dates in the very early 40s. Who is that handsome, slender man, cowboy hat cocked to one side? Who is that pretty young girl, with an Andrews Sisters hair-do? As far back as I can remember, Aunt Edna has been on the heavy side, something she has always laughed at, but most likely something that caused her more than a little pain.

Uncle Bubba wasn’t the most sympathetic man—at least not when it came to his wife. Aunt Edna relates more than just a couple of tales where she found herself in distress, and Uncle Bubba was there to show his dismay masked as disgust, blaming her in effect for the distress. Apparently she has always had some problems staying on her feet, sometimes stepping wrong on the edge of the sidewalk and landing in the grass, sometimes her legs just giving away, I guess. She recounts one tale of a family wedding, where as they entered the small lobby of the Lutheran Church, she, with baby Mary in arms, took a dive. Uncle Bubba stands there, exclaiming, “Well, goddam, Edna? Did you fall?!”

My Uncle Ray, Daddy’s youngest brother, good-naturedly called Aunt Edna “the Blimp.” He was no small man himself. She laughs, recounting recently a time many years ago when a new diet product called Cambridge had entered the market. Apparently Uncle Ray asked one day, “Has the Blimp heard about this?” Aunt Edna has always jokingly referred to herself as Shamu (the whale), relating incidents here and there, “Shamu got down on her knees and then couldn’t get back up.”

Footing issues established, it was Aunt Edna nonetheless who taught me to waltz, step to the “Put Your Little Foot,” “Little Brown Jug,” “Ten Pretty Girls,” “Cotton-eyed Joe”. She collected vinyl 78 records, stored them carefully in record albums—certain ones in the “Dance” album—and brought them out for the many occasions the Hollis and Fuchs families celebrated when we were much younger. The Harry Owens 1940s tune, “Coconut Grove,” was my favorite.

There's a coconut grove where your happy lover,

Will do his part and soon discover

A rendezvous

In the shelter of a tropical lagoon.

(Chorus:)

Palm trees will be swaying,

While steel guitars are playing.

Believe what I'm saying dear;

I swear it's true.

There's a coconut grove where I'll be confessing,

The simple truth that you've been guessing

Sweetheart,

I love but you.

What do you call that dance step we learned from my parents’ generation?

Aunt Edna clearly enjoys remembering old times. Even though she’s approaching her 79th birthday and unfortunately has had a sad, conflicted relationship with her own two children and has more than her share of health issues, she shrugs off misery, accepts physical compromise, and keeps on laughing—at life’s ironies. She loves to recount memories of family gatherings, the humble jaunts where the Hollises and Fuchses went on a holiday—Brackenridge Park in San Antonio, Aquarena Springs at San Marcos, Muecke’s pleasure pier at San Leon near Galveston. She especially loves remembering Daddy chronically getting lost. I never realized that he was a typical guy when it came to looking at a map. I do remember, though, that when we went places, rarely did we arrive without delay of one kind or another.

Back in the late 50s and as late as the early 60s, there were the times at Clark’s Courts in Kemah. For a few days the two families would rent adjoining cabins. The men would go fishing in the wee hours of the morning, but before casting off from shore—I chuckle at the memory that Uncle Bubba didn’t want to be farther out than he could wade back if he had to—the women would fix a full breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast. We kids were all piled into our various sleeping situations, half awake when the 3 a.m. breakfast feast was in progress, as the men prepared to go out and bring in the croakers, sand trout, occasional redfish, which later would be gutted and beheaded, rolled in flour and corn meal diced with salt and pepper and then fried in Crisco. After daybreak the kids and women would head to the pier to find if our crab lines, outfitted with soup bones, would be taut with crustacean resistance, as we tugged the lines to the water’s surface. Crab gumbo—German Texas style—wasn’t far behind. Later in this vacation history, we got really sophisticated and had crab cages.

Somewhere in her bag of photographic memories, Aunt Edna has evidence of just about everything our families celebrated—barbecues, weekend local rodeos, trips to the Alamo and to the bay, and later, the jaunts she, Uncle Bubba, Mother—and sometimes my oldest sister Joan—made to the wild game preserve near Waco, Billy Bob’s in Ft. Worth, the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. She documented it all.

Aunt Edna has many stories tucked away, and of course the small get togethers that happen these days are ripe opportunities for remembering. Some of these stories pre-date my memory, but I have been reminded several times of two especially important milestones in my own history with Aunt Edna and Uncle Bubba. Before they started their own family, I apparently was special to them—special enough to warrant a brown cowboy hat that Aunt Edna spent her last ten dollars on during a trip to downtown Houston. In the late 40s you went downtown for everything, including saddles, cowboy hats and belt buckles. Those were the days of Stelzig’s saddlery and Schudde Bros. Hats. During the days of the urban cowboy craze, Stelzig’s made its way to the chic suburban Galleria of Houston, tossed its hat into the ring of glamour and glitz, but is now defunct. Schudde Bros. continues business in its original near-downtown location.

On one of these trips downtown, Aunt Edna bought me my first cowboy buckle—an engraved sterling Nelson Buckle, adorned with a 10k gold cowboy on a bucking bronc, and a gold ribbon across the bottom bearing testimony to its owner—my name, Harold Hollis, in black lettering. Both the brown cowboy hat and the buckle made the rounds of younger cousins. The hat got lost in the shuffle, but the buckle still figures into my life. In my 62nd year, I recently had an alligator belt reworked so that I could continue wearing that buckle, which I have owned since I was six years old. There probably is a photograph somewhere of me made around the time that I started wearing the buckle. Aunt Edna, who was back then an expert seamstress, made western shirts for all of us. I am told that she made many shirts for me because I didn’t want to wear store-bought shirts.

These days, good memories bring pleasure to Aunt Edna and Mother. Three and one-half years ago, Mother’s doctor gave her the bad prognosis concerning the condition of her heart. Aunt Edna has more than enough physical misery for one person. They’ve outlived husbands, siblings, cousins, and friends. Celebrations these days are not so celebratory, but times to reminisce. Not so many photo ops these days—or at least not so much enthusiasm for capturing these latter day, minor responses to traditional family gatherings that figured so prominently when they were raising their children. It seems that with husbands and fathers gone, things just change. The next generations don’t care as much, or they just don’t care enough to get along, or they’re just trying to make it. Something definitely is missing—the need to celebrate family ties, a failure to recognize the joy in just getting together. Still, Aunt Edna cherishes her memories enough to bring them over on Sundays. She and Mother spend their four or five hours together on these days talking about remembering when, recounting many of the same stories Sunday in and Sunday out. Regardless of physical difficulty and family frailty, Aunt Edna works at finding the bright side of times that sometimes have only the faintest glimmer.

Aunt Edna—Normangee, Texas (December 13, 2005)

R. Harold Hollis

2011-07-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'” Eleanor Roosevelt (from www.thinkexist.com)

2011-07-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

“‘Really?’ Sarah said, her untainted features struggling to imagine what it meant to be a ‘writer’.’ For some reason people thought it was a glamorous profession, but Martin couldn’t find anything glamorous about sitting in a room on your own, day after day, trying not to go mad.” (Kate Atkinson, “One Good Turn”)

Brokeback Living

2011-07-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

Most mornings I walk just over a mile around my Albuquerque neighborhood. I see lots of people along the way—walking or running, just like me, sometimes with their dog(s) on a leash, sometimes engaged in conversation, or like this morning, sitting in front of their houses talking on their cell phone. As I passed the woman on her phone who was speaking loud enough that I caught a little of what she was saying, she was telling the person on the other end of this wireless conversation, “no more, never again”—or something like that. My ears perked up because I had said the same words just last night. We say things like that with great emphasis, most times I think trying to convince ourselves that whatever we’re talking about has taken us to our limits, tested us to the max—the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Such conversations are fairly typical, be they neighbors talking from sidewalk to front yard, people on the wireless holding forth from a garden chair on their front lawn, or people multi-tasking to make the most of their morning—walking the dog while catching up with family or a friend. We are a moving picture on the world stage, sharing our stories with any and all within earshot.

So I had to think about what provoked the woman declaring from her lawn chair that she was at her limit. Someone had pissed her off—maybe a trying husband, maybe an ungrateful child, married and living his or her life wherever, maybe someone in church. The possibilities are just about endless. We try one another’s patience every day. We back ourselves into corners—or we back others into corners. Fight or flight becomes our choice, or so it seems.

I’m wondering, am I the bullied, or am I the bully. Bullies are consistently in the news recently, mostly relating to the growing up experience many of us have because we are different, vulnerable. “School Bullying is Epidemic and Turning Dangerous” reads a headline from ABC News (October 16 2010). Anyone who is paying attention knows what such stories are about. Many of the victims are gay youth, but many are not. The victims might be little introverts, or children who struggle with weight, or children who are overly protected by their parents. All that is required to become the subject of someone else’s bullying is some kind of vulnerability. And many adults are bullied in just about any way we can imagine—abusive personal relationships—be they intimate in nature or just friends— “horrible bosses” (such as in the currently popular comic film), neighbors, landlords, church politics, any kind of politics in the local, state, national and world theaters. Bullying is alive and well, and many or most of us experience it.

Not to be a victim or begin to see myself as victim is on my mind. And let me not be on the other side of that equation. Of course, I wonder what was on the mind of the woman whose conversation I walked by earlier this morning because it mirrors something I’m thinking about. Lately I’ve been reading novels by a currently popular female southern writer of what some might call “chick books”. It matters not to me that I am a male. The characters are interesting, portrayed as only a woman can see them, and the stories, which are set in the first half of the 20th century, are peculiarly southern. Broken homes, poverty, “man’s inhumanity to man”, are some of the themes. The characters struggle with their conditions, their choices, and their lives. And in the true spirit of the triumph of the human spirit, the value of life and human dignity is affirmed. And people die. So the story goes. There’s little black and white here—mostly gray.

I was bullied as a child because I was a “mama’s boy”. Clearly, those were the words used by one of the assholes who badgered me when I was in school. I know his name, and I can see his face. I tried to hide—not to call attention to myself. Anyone who has been bullied knows what we do to escape the cruelty of those who seem to have more power than we have. But I grew up. I was bullied by an alcoholic boss for many years. I’m still working on forgiveness for him.

Because I am a pleaser, and sometimes I don’t give myself much credit—in spite of how others might see me from time to time—I have allowed one person or another to play off of my fears and insecurities. We do that. Alpha, alpha male/female, alpha. Alpha Omega. Lately, I’ve been the subject of some bullying—at least as far as I see it. However it comes—in a book, on the news, walking through the neighborhood, I welcome the reminder that I do have some say in this. Sometimes I can walk away, and when I can’t walk away, I can take a stand. I’m a big boy now, Louis, making my way. And so it is. Namaste.

Brokeback Living—Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 18, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

It's All Good

2011-07-16T11:31:00.001-07:00

19th century slat back chair with cowhide seat. Lee County, Texas

An article on the CNN website for July 16, 2011, tells the story of the county seat of Lee County, Texas. It caught my eye because the story is about my home state, but also because I’ve spent lots of time around this part of Texas. I even stayed overnight there three years ago when I took part in a one-day show nearby devoted to antique Texas stoneware. How could I forget? It had snowed the night before—Friday, March 7, 2008. “What? Snow!” I thought in disbelief when I woke up in the morning to find the deck outside the second-story balcony doors covered in white. Funny how one thing leads to another—carrying us and our thoughts away to a collection of experiences and memories, reminding us of the connections that wait for us if we are paying attention.

“Welcome to ‘Little America’", reads the headline for the story about Giddings, Texas—a place that to me has always been about my passion for treasure hunting in the rural areas of Texas that were settled in the middle of the 19th century. In the case of Lee County, Wendish settlements—immigrants from east Germany who made some of the best furniture produced by early Texas artisans—and my own connection through my mother’s German heritage—a different wave of Germans that arrived in Galveston one year after the Civil War ended and settled closer to Houston.

For many years I have traveled around and through this part of Texas—usually on a treasure hunt or on my way to exhibit my finds at the antiques markets that have happened twice annually for close to 50 years. How can that be? Ah, but my part in this didn’t begin until the 1980s—20 years after those who rode the wave of growing interest in the decorative arts of 19th century Texas had already laid claim to much of the treasure of this part of the world. I was a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes, but that’s another story. And in all of this traveling, I gave little thought to what really matters these days for folks in this rural part of central Texas.

Giddings, Texas is along the route from Houston to Austin to Houston—Hwy 290, which to some is recalled as the “death trap” for all of the accidents that occurred on the two-lane highway that over the many years people from the greater Houston area traveled to and from Austin, much of that travel relating to the seat of knowledge at the University of Texas, and of course, travel to the state capitol. The stories that highway could tell. Giddings has a history rich in agriculture and later in oil production. For many years it appeared little more than a dirty industrial stretch along the highway—oilfield-related service companies, local cafes, and a downtown that had just simply seen better days with empty storefronts dotting the landscape.

Now I read that Giddings is a microcosm of America. From the CNN feature story, “consider the numbers: The entire United States is 64% white, 12% African-American, 16% Hispanic and 5% Asian, 0.7% American Indian, 0.2% Hawaiian or Pacific Islander…In Lee County, 65% are white, 11% African-American, 22% Hispanic, 0.3% Asian. 0.3% American Indian, 0.1% are Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.” Huh, who would have thought—who would have noticed, frankly. What strikes me most about the story is the way things now look in Giddings, Texas, population 16,612. A place that surely was as closed to “outsiders” as any place in rural America could have been for most of its history. Today, Black and Hispanic sit on the local council, along with folks whose history can be traced back generations. Consider the irony that Black farmers/laborers/sharecroppers have a long and rich history in this county as well.

One story in particular that gives me pause is that of a woman, native of Taiwan, who with her husband followed his work to Giddings several years ago. Feeling like and being treated like an outsider at first, she’s made her place in the local community as the owner of the local Ramada Inn. And according to the story, now, “…watching Liu work the room at a Rotary Club meeting is like watching a Vegas lounge singer—cheery introductions, chatty conversation. Everybody wants her attention.” Well, this certainly gives new meaning to “there goes the neighborhood”. Granted, as the story bears out, not all is love and acceptance for the “outsiders” who have changed the landscape of this 140-year-old German community. Yet, change it has, and grow and thrive it is doing. “Liu began breaking the ice by forcing herself to meet strangers.” What courage, what trust, what affirmation.

For me, Liu’s story is the cherry on the dish of ice cream. We can be set in our ways, resistant to change, distrustful, resentful—you name the worst of our human character. But among us can come a stranger—someone who seems as different as different can be if we cling to our ignorance. And that stranger can find the courage to reach out to those who are standing back. It can be a person. It can be a person who looks just like us—or maybe a little different on the surface—one who through their presence causes, indeed forces, us to open our eyes. It can be an idea. It can be an idea that seems strange and threatening that causes, indeed forces, us to change our thinking, maybe even to open our arms. “It’s all good,” said someone I met recently. He actually said it before we met in person. I’ll probably never see him again, but what he said will stick with me—at least for a while, at least as long as I remember to remind myself that I am connected. I am connected as much as I allow myself to be. And so it is. Namaste.

It’s All Good—Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 16, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

For My Own Good

2011-07-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

On the advice of my doctor, who just happens to be a naturopath (although I chose him for that very reason three years ago), I’m back on my eating program. I won’t call it a diet because it’s really about forming new habits. It’s not rocket science. I can read about it or hear about it just about anywhere I turn.

Alcohol. That’s the heavy in this story. You don’t read too many stories in the news about people over the limit on chocolate meringue pie causing pain and suffering on the highway. I learned a long time ago about booze and the highway, and even then I still let so-called good times with friends, and just people, put me in harm’s way. My choice, my bad, my past. We mostly stay at home to medicate ourselves these days. My doctor says that I let my friends influence me to drink more than I should, more than I can really—too much, too often. Not so good, I know. But my doctor is wrong. I can’t blame anyone else for my habits—any of them.

Last night, after 10 days of eating consciously and foregoing that gin and tonic or two or glass of Malbec or two at the magic hour sometime around the evening news or with friends, I found myself staring square into the face of two open bottles of wine on the table at dinner. I had traveled an hour up the interstate at the invitation of a friend there to attend the opera, and part of the evening included dinner and speaker on the grounds of the Santa Fe Opera. The food was beautiful, satisfying but light, I chose the strawberries and a slice of Brie for dessert, and I allowed myself a glass of white wine. That’s the story, no big deal. It was a big deal, though. I had gone 10 days without alcohol, motivated to shed a few pounds, eager to look in the mirror and see a difference in my face and my mid section, to pull up a pair of pants and smile because there’s extra room in the waist. Having that glass of wine was a big deal for a lot of reasons.

Everything in moderation, including moderation, they say. I realized long ago that moderation—well, not so easy for me. I know a few people who by any comparison struggle with alcohol. Someone who calls himself a recovering alcoholic with more than 30 years to his credit commented to a mutual friend and me awhile back that he could never have just a couple of glasses of wine or mixed drinks, like our friend and me. For him, that would always lead to several beers and end up with him drunk, he added. I’ve been there and lived to tell about—no small miracle. Trust me, instead an incredible bounty of miracles, I know to my very core.

Cigarettes played a minor role in my adult life off and on for 30-odd years. I grew up with a daddy who smoked all of his life, stopping at 65 only because of the onset of emphysema. He died a few months shy of his 70th birthday. I have put them down twice, and during the time that I was using, I was an on-again off-again smoker—not my daddy’s cigarette smoker.

On a beach in Cozumel in 1983, sipping an ice-cold Modelo with David, my partner at the time, and a friend with whom we were vacationing, I asked David for a Merit, our cigarette of choice at the time. After taking two or three hits, I looked out at the water and said to myself, I want to live. I put out the cigarette and didn’t smoke for 10 years. It was as simple as that. My next round of smoking lasted for five years—introduced to rolling your own by a couple of guys that I spent time with during those five years. They also liked to drink, especially the one who clearly struggled with alcohol. He was an aggressive, angry drunk. He told me in a phone call four years ago that at the time he had a few years of recovery under his belt. I’ve known others. Yes, there’s a story there as well. February 19, 1998, on a trip to visit a friend in Austin, Texas, I put down the smokes for a second, and no doubt, final time.

Food has never been my demon, even though I enjoyed a few too many Fritos and a few too many slices of coconut crème pie over the five years my oldest sister, with some help from me, looked after our mother. I know with certainty, though, that food sometimes is not, and alcohol clearly never has been, a good friend to me. The record shows that we consume to forget—be it food or booze, or whatever other world-based device we choose, or any combination of the above. Let me not beat up on myself, yet again, however. For now, since right now is all I have, I’ll just say that on the advice of my doctor, I’m focused on making better choices for myself, hoping to grab a healthy habit.

This writer always has something going on—keeping himself stirred up a little, sometimes a lot. That’s what those who know him might say—not that they would say anything, not that it really matters so much anymore what anyone has to say about his choices. I remind myself that choice making is my birthright, but it took a long, long time—decades—for me to realize that—about choices, about choosing, and about living with consequences. That journey continues. Best affirmations are welcomed. And so it is.

For My Own Good—Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 10, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

A Good Day

2011-07-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

Like I’ve said, no birder am I. Nonetheless, each Tuesday morning I am at my volunteer post at the Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe. For two years, I have genuinely liked being here at the top of Upper Canyon Road, where the sights and sounds never cease to please, and the visitors are endlessly interesting. All one needs to bring to this experience is an appreciation of nature and an honest liking of other folks. I meet both of those requirements, in spite of being a bit of a curmudgeon from time to time. More than likely, on any given day at this wildlife sanctuary, you have the opportunity of reaching out to other like-minded people.

I don’t know what it is about today. I realize that virtually every hiking trail in Santa Fe is closed—including the Bear Canyon trail here in our center, the adjoining Nature Conservancy, the trails along the ski basin road, and the list goes on. A much longer list tells the story for Albuquerque. And the story must be the same wherever you go in the land of enchantment, where we have set a record for extreme drought conditions. The gardens here in the center—that typically this time of year would be double or triple fullness and laden with blooms—show evidence of the severe lack of moisture. The blooms are scant, even though a blanket of yellow makes a statement here and there in the garden.

The birds on this day don’t seem to know, however, that we are on hard times. Or maybe that’s what they’re talking about. They are loud, almost unruly. And as I watch the feeders outside of the visitor center, a smile breaks across my face. “Is that a Bullocks’s Oriole,” a visitor asks. “Yes, it is,” I confirm, confident in having learned its identity a couple of weeks ago, thanks to a colorful display in the visitor center and to the white board outside where visitors can list their sightings. Another question about our hummers, and I’m pulling up the Cornell website on my computer so we can confirm the identity of these little guys hungrily going at the feeder attached to one of the windows.

We’re here. Happy, loud voices of young children here for summer camp are carried on the breeze. Locals just looking for an outside respite somewhere—here, as it turns out. Along with the locals today, visitors came from New York, California, Texas. “We’re from Dallas. If you think it’s hot here, it’s 103 in Dallas, 110 with the heat index," related a woman who had surprised her mother with a visit to Santa Fe, especially to visit 10,000 Waves, a Japanese-style spa in the mountains on the way to the ski basin. Not everyone comes through the visitor center, so likely other places outside New Mexico were represented today.

We’re all trying to catch a break. And as the wildfires continue to rage northwest of the city—in spite of the containment that has once again spared Los Alamos—in this place, on this day, we are reminded that joy and delight are still very much alive. A good day it is, yes indeed. And so it is.

A Good Day—Santa Fe, New Mexico (July 5, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

Denver Botanic Gardens, May 2011

2011-07-05T05:37:00.000-07:00

We Are Responsible for the Clouds, Reprise

2011-07-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

(image of Los Conchas Fire, by Sheron Smith-Savage, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2011)

“Nearly 13,000 acres of land in the Santa Clara Canyon was blackened by the Las Conchas fire by Friday evening.

That land accounts for nearly a quarter of the Santa Clara Reservation—land considered sacred.

Pueblo Governor Walter Dasheno said Friday, "Yes, it is our home, but it's also our church and it's also our traditional lands."

Thirteen-year-old Mirdacia Padilla lives on the pueblo. She says they won't be able to do traditional dances without the deer and elk that live in that canyon.

‘I'm happy I got to at least see the canyon before it all burned, but I'm sad because my brother, and all these younger kids won't be able to see the canyon or remember what it looked like,’ Padilla said.

Governor Dasheno says the canyon has been scorched by flames before, and there's always hope.

‘We can re-plant the trees, the plants will grow back up, the water will be cleaned out, the fish will come back and the birds will fly,’ Dasheno said."

(from KOB.com, NBC Albuquerque, New Mexico, report for July 1, 2011)

As we approach the 235th anniversary of the official beginning of the independence of our homeland, who in America can be unaware of the events that have unfolded in northern New Mexico over the last week. This year alone in the U. S., we have seen more disaster than we want to see. Some of us witness it from afar, while others find themselves—wondering wounded, conflicted, mournful and sad, amazingly hopeful—in the midst of the wildfire, the raging and flooding river, and the breathtaking tornado. In northern New Mexico, fire has once again come to Los Alamos County, and well over 100,000 acres of land has been scorched—so far. Again, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world, has been spared. And today, the nearby-Santa Clara Pueblo has been changed forever and for a long, long time by this wildfire—the largest in New Mexico history.

Yesterday I carried my friend Judy to the mesa in the Carson National Forest where she and her mother have had a summer home for more than 30 years. Their small, real adobe—built by their own hands with the help of other family members and friends—sits in the middle of a scrubby expanse that allows them unobstructed views of Taos Mountain and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. From their place, you can see across the Rio Grande Gorge to Taos. But sometimes these days, today an illustration, the view is obstructed by smoke from the Los Conchas fire. Right now, Judy is on the mesa finishing up closing down the house for another year. I helped with some of this process. In mid afternoon I headed back to Albuquerque, my car filled with her mother Joy’s clothes, sewing machine, remnants of old Navajo weavings that Joy had intended to start repurposing into totes, books to read, a blank canvas waiting for the brush, and more. Meanwhile, Joy waits at the Best Western near the Albuquerque airport for Judy to return and for the two of them to begin their journey back home—Joy to Tulsa, Judy to Ft. Worth. Their annual respite in northern New Mexico—this year only 8 days—came to a early end.

As I returned to Albuquerque in the afternoon, the haze from the fire was in the air, everywhere, even though the winds had not shifted, as they usually do in the afternoon. I made my way through Ojo Caliente and Espanola, where earlier in the day I had noticed at a convenience store an older fire truck, the man who was riding shotgun standing at the passenger door, his left leg on the running board, and his yellow t-shirt blackened with soot. They’ve just come out of the fire, I commented to Judy. On the return, for me, at the Los Alamos exit off of U.S. 285/84, I thought of a holiday weekend journey my friend Steve and I made to the Santa Clara Pueblo in 2009. It was Memorial Day, a day of remembrance that, according to history, was first celebrated in 1865, by Freedman (freed enslaved Blacks) to remember fallen Union Soldiers (Wikipedia). Most of us likely don’t know that. I didn’t know that. That Memorial Day weekend in 2009, Steve and I spent part of a Saturday afternoon on Puye Cliffs at the Santa Clara Pueblo, north of Santa Fe and near Los Alamos.

After that visit two years ago, I was urged to say: “Steve and I stood on a mesa in the Jemez Mountains overlooking a vast valley, where pinyon pine is repopulating itself. A planned burn grew out of control nine years ago. It made the national news for days. A young man of Santa Clara heritage, mingled with German from his maternal grandfather, was our guide through the remnants of dwellings dating to the 12th -16th century. He spoke eloquently of the history of the pueblo people, occasionally calling on his ancestral native Tewa language. His view of his world, our world, was as expansive and real and solid as the 360 degrees where we stood. ‘We are responsible for the clouds,’ he said. Drought had driven his people to the valley below four centuries past—by their belief because of improper behavior on their part."

Soon, the land will begin to heal. The pinyon pine will begin to repopulate itself. The wildlife lost to this fire will fulfill its nature. Everyone, including the people of Santa Clara, will heal, rebuild, and remember. But life has changed for everyone for today and forever. Ten years down the road someone will stand on Puye Cliffs, just as Steve and I did on that Saturday in 2009, and a guide will talk about the land, recounting the Los Conchas fire of 2011 and the Cerro Grande fire of 2000.

Each day we are offered the chance to be reborn, to be recast, to remember and move on, the better, although for the time, perhaps wearier. No one escapes the wildfire, regardless of how it looks. We are born of fire, like the Phoenix of Greek myth rising from the ashes. “We are each responsible for our life and how we create our reality, what we think, where we put our attention, our feelings,” Gayle reminded me two years ago. God, spare me from failing to remember and from starving in the midst of plenty.

“I release this prayer into the Divine Law knowing it is already so. I let go of all human attachment of what it should look like. I surrender, I allow and I let God. And so it is. Namaste.”

We Are Responsible for the Clouds, Reprise—Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 3, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

Seemingly Perfect

2011-07-01T07:48:00.001-07:00

The last four years have been tough. What irony. I’m living most of each year in the place I claim I’ve always wanted to be. The truth, however, is that except for the innocent impressions I have of a brief and hurried family trip in 1952 to visit my daddy’s older brother and his family in Santa Fe—the only real vacation our family ever took while my sisters and I were growing up—New Mexico had been, for all the years since I was nine, a seed lying dormant in my soul. I returned as a young adult and then missed another 20 years before returning again. All through that time, the west called me. For a while it was Colorado, where I had spent only a few days on a business trip in the 70s. There goes my life. What irony.

What I really knew of New Mexico before the year 2007 was limited to landing at the Albuquerque airport—either renting a car (or taking the shuttle)—and then heading to Santa Fe. For many of those years starting around 1988, I would visit my long-time Texas friends at their isolated summer place on a mesa in Taos County. The place has its romance. Mostly it’s their romance, their project, their sweat equity and money. For some 30 odd years they have journeyed to there, basically to work, but also to soak up the beauty of northern New Mexico. They’ve done so through the glory of their younger years, through divorce and death and loss of one stripe or another. It’s their story, and I participated only marginally. During these years, I would travel to Santa Fe with friends from Houston who came for reasons that—having now lived here for four years—I understand even better were simply about spending money—expensive lodging and food, and buying stuff. I don’t deny that it was great fun, especially the camaraderie.

Living here in New Mexico for most of the year each of the last four years, I am face to face with one profound truth. Wherever we are, we can feel lonely, and we can feel alone even though we are not. I suppose it is the loneliness that resides in my soul—my soul and no one else’s, even though I have no official claim to this loneliness—that brings me to this understanding. The more I live, the more I read and understand, the more I understand that I am face to face with my nature.

For four years—separated from what remains of my birth family and separated from the few friends with whom I’ve kept some form of contact—for family has always been the center of my life, what I was taught from the beginning—for four years in my seventh decade, I have lived the challenge of starting over in a new place. I’m not a social person, although I love the companionship of a friend or two, friends who like all friends love us in spite of our shortcomings—for that is what family and friends do, I’m told, I’ve read, I’ve lived. Being not a social person—a gregarious introvert, I’ve labeled myself—some days I try harder than others. Some days I feel like trying harder than others. Some days, not so much, not at all.

I remember the year 1980. I lived in Houston. I was in one of the three or four brief periods where I’ve seen a therapist. The issues never change. My fundamental nature never changes. At the time, I still ran a few miles a few times a week. What I recall is a summer afternoon, probably late in the day on a Friday, the beginning of evening. Running through one of the nice residential neighborhoods near my mid-town apartment, I saw through the large dining room window of a city ranch-style house a group of people gathering for dinner. I thought, how nice, and then, how alone I feel. Telling this to my therapist the following week, she reminded me—in a way it seems that she scolded me—for presuming that I could know how any one person in that group gathering around the table for dinner was feeling. Maybe there was ample loneliness in this seeming camaraderie. I remember thinking at the time, true, I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter, really. What we feel is valid, simply because we feel it. No question of right or wrong, perfect or imperfect, it is valid.

In this place that many people call the land of enchantment, I understand that it is only as enchanting as we allow it to become—only as enchanting as we are willing to live. Most likely it doesn’t matter where you choose to plant yourself—the so-called city different, or the big city they call the Duke, or the more remote mountain areas that are currently besieged by what is being called the worst wildfire in the history of the state, down south where the desert is more prominent, farther north into the mountains, where the liberals reside, where the conservatives make this place merely an extension of Texas—in the end it is just place. The true enchantment resides only in our hearts, in our souls.

If I allow myself to live and embrace my nature—maybe I can’t presume to deny this loneliness—if I allow myself to understand more, if I allow myself to look at my loneliness as if it doesn’t really belong to who I really am—I’ve read that this is possible—if I simply, profoundly allow myself, my walk here will be a better walk. I’ve chosen to be here. I came here alone. I have made friends here. I’ve chosen every situation, seemingly lovely or seemingly problematic. I said to a friend here the other day, as we talked about life, nothing is perfect. He countered that another way of looking at it is that everything is perfect. Everything is perfect, even the loneliness. I need to think about that.

Seemingly Perfect—Albuquerque, New Mexico (July 1, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

None of My Business

2011-06-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

I keep coming across some variation of a statement that goes something like this: “It’s none of my business what people say about me.” Now I’ve discovered that this puzzling observation apparently comes from the original material girl, Madonna. Having read that maybe I’m not supposed to care what others think and say about me has given me pause—several times. Being the long-time pleaser I am (truly I can trace the need to please to my childhood in the 1940s), what do I now do with this old, well-ingrained habit that is as much a part of me as the very skin I wear.

How do I please thee, let me count the ways. I want everyone to like me. I agonize over not disappointing others. Perceived failure to meet the perceived expectations of others quickly morphs into perceived rejection. Oh, what a terrible web I weave. When I see others behaving in a similar fashion, I shake my head in disbelief. My own habits worn by others don’t make sense to me at all.

If I began keeping a log of all the times during any given day that I trouble myself over things I’ve said or done or haven’t said or done, I could dig myself a mighty deep hole. I’ve learned of recent (can I really say I’ve learned anything when it hasn’t resulted in a change of behavior?) how useless is the pursuit of unpacking the past—as if it were a suitcase of things that have somehow made me comfortable over the years. In the last few years of her life, our mother enjoyed the Sunday sermons of a well-known Houston preacher who each week shepherds well over 40,000 souls at his gospel-of-prosperity church. One of the illustrations I heard him use several times was the image of the person trapped in the past, carrying fears, grudges and regrets around, like old clothes in a suitcase. Stop lugging around all that stuff. Stop opening that suitcase and loving each piece of its contents. As we watched, I thought, well, he’s got Mother pegged. Ah, but he had me pegged too. My own old suitcase remains ready and waiting, but maybe I’ve begun to believe that it holds little of use to me.

So, too, with troubling over the future, as I do especially when I wake in the night, unable to go back to sleep. I revisit the day, or two days ago, something I said or did, and somehow tomorrow carries a sucker punch that takes my breath away. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34) Lying there in bed in the middle of the night, I try to breathe myself into Now, and amazingly, at least for awhile, I let go of regret and anticipation.

It may be none of my business what others say about me. But I do care. I just don’t want to care so much. Teddy Roosevelt’s oldest child, Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980), supposedly said to someone at a dinner party, “If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.” Funny, but it carries a truth that sends shivers up and down my spine. The next time I’m ready to sell someone down the river, let me be reminded that it may be none of their business, but it sure doesn’t help the progress of my soul on its journey. And so it is.

None of My Business—Albuquerque, New Mexico (June 15, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

I have many choices

2011-06-14T05:12:00.000-07:00

All I Have to Do is Pay Attention

2011-05-25T06:01:00.000-07:00

All I have to do is pay attention. Not so easy, I say. It makes sense in theory, as advice I give to myself or someone else and that anyone else might give to me. In practice, remaining conscious and present so I behave knowing that what I send out comes back to me—that’s a tough one. And though I’ve had six decades to practice, it doesn’t seem to get any easier. My doing, I know.

Last Sunday my friend Steve and I planned a day of enjoying the examples of architecture on the 2011 AIA Albuquerque architecture tour. We began Saturday afternoon by attending a lecture at the University of New Mexico. I had decided to skip church Sunday morning so that we could get an earlier start. Come morning, though, I was beside myself. Events of the previous week had me in their clutches. I wasn’t in the mind to go to church or go on the tour. I just wanted to stew in my anger. Steve suggested that we go to a Center for Spiritual Living different from the one we usually go to. “He’s (the minister) is talking about karma,” Steve added. I need that, I thought. And so I did.

As I sat listening to the minister’s talk (I had heard him only once before and remembered how much his words had rung true for me), I could only say to myself, thank you, thank you, thank you. I could have quietly moved my lips. I could have said it out loud. Most of us misunderstand the meaning of karma—I guess making it into something more complicated and exotic than it really is—the minister offered, in a raspy voice that I now realize characterizes his normal way of speaking. Quoting the work of Deepak Chopra—he summarized it simply. We get what we give. For every thought, action and word, there is a consequence. If I give anger, I get anger back. If I choose to live in distrust, distrust is exactly what I will get. If I can’t forgive—either myself or others—that’s right, then forgiveness is a gift I will be denied. From the scriptures, “…for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” (Galatians 6:7-8, KJV)

Leading up to last Sunday, I had let someone I hardly know tap into my insecurity. I had allowed him to poke a needle into my fears. And I had responded defensively. Cause and effect. I fell into my old habit of being my own worst critic. And ultimately, all I wanted to do was withdraw and look for a place of safety. In the course of that, I became angry. And though I knew the anger shouldn’t be directed at anyone, including me, I wasn’t sure of what to do with it. I forgot what I already know—that what others say to or about us is not about us. It is indeed about them. “Don’t take things personally,” reminds Don Miguel Ruiz in his short book titled “The Four Agreements”. He builds his philosophy on four simple principles: be impeccable with your word; don't take anything personally; don't make assumptions; always do your best. Last week I had fallen into the trap of violating all four of these principles.

I guess it took a bit of a crisis to get me back to where I know I should be. And so it is, I think, for most of us. How easy it is to forget that what we sow is what we reap. Life is full of metaphor and parable and experiences that are oh, so real. At dinner last Saturday night with three others, including my challenge over the previous few days, I thought about the potential power of our words and the power that we give away to others. The only female at the table talked about her experience recently with a man she had allowed to wound her. He had violated her trust. As she talked about the distrust that has taken root in the front of her mind and on the top of her heart, at least for now, I began to think about my own responsibility to myself. It wasn’t until Sunday morning, as the minister made his way around his talk on karma that things began to fall into place for me. They will fall out of place again, of course. But I have the peace of knowing that I know how to do the next right thing. I understand the laws of cause and effect. I believe, absolutely, that what I give is what I get. I know that I am always at choice. I know that no one else has the right or the power to define who and what I am. And so it is.

All I Have to Do is Pay Attention—Albuquerque, NM (May 24, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

"Come with me...and you'll see"

2011-05-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

"If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.

Anything you want to, do it. Wanta change the world? There's nothing to it."

(Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, "Pure Imagination")

2011-05-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

"One may not reach the dawn save by the path of night." (attributed to Kahlil Gibran)

What does it matter?

2011-05-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

“Then the disciples came and asked him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’ He answered, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets (or mysteries) of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’” Matthew 13:10-12, NRSV

I find it really hard trying to wrap my mind around the slings and arrows that man and woman and child are called to suffer. Yes, I understand about choices. It was choice, perhaps generations old, that led people to inhabit flood-prone areas along the Mississippi—be they farmers, who have banked their livelihood here, or people who for the lack of a different plan simply live here—here where the swollen and angry river is now reclaiming its own. Choices are being made to sacrifice less populated areas to save more populated areas.

Who among us wants to explain to William Jefferson, who lives near Vicksburg, Mississippi, about his family’s poor choices? “It’s almost like being shot in the heart…I’m about out of prayers. Don’t know. Just wait.” That’s what Mr. Jefferson said when he was interviewed on the national network news. Like many others, everything he owns is being swept away by the river.

“Can’t just watch everything go away. Gotta fight.” So explained another resident along the river in Louisiana. We watch the news footage of people packing the belongings they have decided they don’t want to live without. How does anyone decide? Family photos and other family treasure, legal documents? We watch communities coming together to pile bags of sand in an effort to stay the river as it intends to lay its claim. “Can’t just watch everything go away. Gotta fight.”

If you have to say something, please don’t call this an act of God. And please don’t remind us that it’s all about choice. It is first and foremost about loss. Soon the river will make its way to the Gulf—having left a path of destruction in its wake—and soon the national news will go on to other stories. Many of us who have watched this separated by hundreds of miles from the scene will open our pocketbooks to contribute to some organization whose sole purpose is to come to the aid of people in times of upheaval and loss. Many of us individually and collectively will offer prayers for the victims. It is what we do. Will we really understand? Does it really matter? Reaching out to one another is sometimes what we do best. That does matter.

What does it matter?—Albuquerque, New Mexico (May 13, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

Stories of Triumph

2011-05-10T16:02:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, as my friend Steve and I watched the 137th running of the Kentucky Derby, I was reminded of how much I love stories of triumph. Of course, I realize that I’m in the masses on that. Did I understand that millions of people who don’t even follow horse racing traditionally turn on the television for the annual pageant at Churchill Downs? I hadn’t kept up with the news leading up to the Derby, so I had no inkling of the projected winner. Even at this point, I’m unclear about the hoopla leading up to the race, although I now realize that the “favorite” was withdrawn just hours before the race due to illness. As the interviews and film footage about the various horses, their owners and trainers wound up and then down toward the race, I was only partially focused on the story and hype. Frankly, I don’t know where my attention was otherwise directed, although I do know that my laptop was in fact in my lap.

The race—hailed as “the most exciting two minutes in sports”—brought to mind books and movies about horse racing that I’ve enjoyed—most recently, “Secretariat”, indeed a story of triumph. And being reminded of that, we rented the movie on the spot. For two hours I was totally engaged, even though I had seen the film on the big screen when it came out. As the story unfolded and when it was once again completed, I wrapped my heart and mind around the people and the horse. After taking both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, Secretariat won the 1-1/2 mile Belmont Stakes, the last leg of the Triple Crown, and in a time of 2 minutes, 24 seconds. As portrayed in the film story, the crowd of 70,000 was stunned as Secretariat took the lead and widened the gap between him and his closest competitor, more and more and more, to 31 lengths. We hear about the heart of a champion, and truly, Secretariat loved to run. Only after his death and when he was autopsied was it revealed that physically he had a bigger than average heart.

To get to the American thoroughbred racing’s most coveted event in 1973, a lot had to happen, starting even before his birth. And Secretariat’s story is also the story of one woman’s triumph over the odds—those who bet against her and worked against her, including her own brother and husband. She did the work, she had the faith, and she made the sacrifices. And we love the way the story turns out. We love the way truth unfolds to remind us of how capable we are when we believe and when our beliefs are worthy and honorable.

I’m not a big sports fan. I like to hear that the University of Texas has won a conference or national title. I like to watch the races for the Triple Crown, but especially the Kentucky Derby.

While still living in Houston, I went with friends to the racetrack on a summer Thursday afternoon in 2000. It was thoroughbred racing that day. As I stood with many others watching as the horses walked from the paddock to the track, I was moved by the grace and beauty of the horses, and the form of the jockeys who sat astride them. I can only imagine what it must be like to be in a similar place when the horses vying for the Triple Crown make their way to the track for each of these races. There is a winner every time. And I know that who wins does matter, but only sometimes to me. What matters most is that we connect with the story of the people, and in the matter of thoroughbred racing, of course, the horses.

Stories of Triumph—Albuquerque, New Mexico (May 10, 2011)

R. Harold Hollis

2011-05-08T06:29:00.000-07:00

2011-05-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." Mother Teresa

Beauty uncontained

2011-05-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

Old-fashioned Mock Orange

2011-05-02T16:57:00.000-07:00

Over the last four years this resilient Mock Orange has rebounded each year, in spite of a Texas summer pounding. By the time the dog days of summer arrive, this simple beauty will no doubt show signs of weariness. For the time, though, once again its fragrance has signaled the hope of spring.

I'm feeling a little out of focus today

2011-04-30T06:36:00.000-07:00

Things Worth Keeping

2011-04-26T05:11:00.000-07:00

I bought these Red Wing boots around 1998. I know this because of where I lived at the time and because around that time our family friend and accountant, Manson, died suddenly. Mother and I went to his funeral in tiny Normangee, Texas, the nearest town to the country place our parents had bought in 1973. I bought the boots at the local Purina feed store. Manson not only did taxes, especially for the people who were involved in agriculture and livestock, he was a farmer and cattleman. He also worked part-time as a funeral director for the local mortuary in Normangee. I guess he wasn't actually directing that day.

My house in Houston—one built by my great grandpa Fuchs around 1900 in a near downtown neighborhood—was where I first broke in these Red Wings. I was learning about gardening then. I sold that home after four years. My new, temporary home was a loft at the old Rice Hotel, circa 1910. In 1836, this same land was the site of the first capitol of the new Republic of Texas. I was out of the garden only a short time. Soon I began developing a native ornamental landscape on the family land outside of Normangee, where I had decided to re-direct the money from my Houston home into converting a good part of our two-story barn into a living space. The boots found purpose again—that is, purpose other than being the bottom dressing for a pair of Wrangler jeans.

I left my professional life behind in early 2001. By this time, I had moved most of my worldly possessions to my barn home in Leon County Texas, including the Red Wing boots, which really got a workout as the garden space in front of the barn took shape. Flying by the seat of my pants—my theme song—I dug, amended soil, planted and mulched, hauled and moved river rock and stones—carving out a landscape laced with paths. I wanted it to look like a place that you could have walked up on unexpectedly—a sanctuary filled with blooms and shade and fragrance. It did and it does, in spite of what it has given up over the last four years of my absence during the seemingly unending hot and dry Texas summers.

Some time in the last year or so, it became apparent to me that my Red Wing boots looked ready to give up the ghost. So I bought a new pair. Alas, the process of breaking in these new boots has been slow, even painful, and I lost interest in wearing these boots. I had removed my old boots to the garage of the place I’ve been living in Albuquerque, realizing only recently that I just couldn’t let go of them. I considered my options. Just give them away in a garage sale. Toss them in the garbage. Try to find someone to do a painting or professional photograph. Do nothing. I decided to take them to the Red Wing store nearby, the one where I had bought the new pair a few months ago, hoping that they could actually bring the boots back to life. “These are frickin’ awesome,” exclaimed the owner of the store when he saw what I had in my hands. He turned them over and over, looking at the numbers inside the tongue, which told him when the boots were made, meanwhile oohing and aahing. I smiled to myself, thinking that he would need to towel off by the time this exchange was finished. Finally, “I think we can do something with these,” he offered. I smile again.

I am attached to these boots, the many miles they’ve walked, the stories, most of which only they remember. Only rarely do I give away shoes. Rarely do I even wear them out. But these Red Wings, like the clothes that I wear over and over, even though I have a closet full of clothes and shoes…I don’t know. This doesn’t bode well for the expensive, still-new pair of lace up boots I bought last fall. It will take conscious work on my part, especially once I have my refurbished boots back from the cobbler. There are new miles to walk and new stories to be experienced. And I smile yet again. And so it is.

Things Worth Keeping—Albuquerque, New Mexico (April 26, 2011)
R. Harold Hollis

Heaven, much more than a place

2011-04-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

"I have found my Heaven on earth, because Heaven is God and God is in my heart." (Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity)

"Contrary to some more literal notions of God, the Godhead dwells within the depths of our inner lives, our subjectivity. So said Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, a mid-twentieth-century Carmelite nun. Equally so, we dwell within the Divine subjectivity. We experience a mutual indwelling in each other. Heaven is much more than a place; it is the utter reality of God. If we are united with the Godhead in this life--the truest definition of the mystical experience--then we are already in Heaven. Let us enter Heaven aright through the realization of God's presence in us."

Quoted from {The Mystic Hours] by Wayne Teasdale, p. 3 [New World Library, Novato, California]. Brother Wayne Teasdale is a lay monk who combines the traditions of Christianity and Hinduism.

Something about a morning walk

2011-04-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

2011-04-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

Amaryllis by morning

Spring 2011

2011-04-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the midst of a modest garden—that which remains in the spring of 2011 following four years of essentially absent ownership—I see a place different than four years ago. But then, why not? I am different. My life is different. During the eight years I dug and hauled and planted and watered—watched, waited and smiled and sometimes wept—this garden was a place of refuge, joy, regret and catharsis. I have been reminded this early spring—one that opens the door to a Texas summer without having offered thirst-quenching water that is essential to all things living that pretty much rely on nature’s generosity—I have been reminded that my labors take me only so far. The remainder is all about trust and acceptance.

Over the last few years I have become accustomed to hearing that every thought is a prayer—truly, a reminder that we need to pay attention to what we ask for, hope for, wish for, dare for. So I guess that what I write here is one of those prayers. I have come to this place I called home for most of the first decade of this new millennium. Here I have been reminded, once again, of how and why it became my home—understanding the causes and effects, entertaining the regrets that come with loss, hesitantly accepting the truths about the rise and fall of life and our lives. This accepting feels strange.

My generation has grown old. When our Hollis first cousins gathered on April 2nd in the Woodlands north of Houston for what has become a twice-annual event, I felt a little like I was watching our parents. But it would have had to be our parents in their later years. We talked about a little of everything, including health and medicine and vitamins and regular exercise—bad knees and back surgery and bouts with cancer. It is, indeed, our time to talk about these things.

In spite of the realities of growing old—that I am currently finding so beautifully revealed in Ram Dass’s collection of essays titled “Still Here”—we’re really doing okay. Cousin Byron, who had flown from suburban Phoenix to join us, said that he plans to be here for each of our gatherings in the future. This confederation of Hollis babies—all of us a little older than the baby boomers of post WWII notoriety-- was formed when our last blood aunt died two years ago. Aunt Mary, who was a true anchor for all of us, gave us cause to reunite and to realize that we want to see each other regularly. And we are being mindful and faithful to this fledgling confederation.

This week I had the opportunity to visit with the only remaining aunt my two sisters and I have. She was married to our mother’s only sibling. She is it—the end of the line—and these days she takes each day at a time, having chosen 15 months ago not to take any treatments for the liver cancer she was diagnosed with in late January of 2010. Since then, I’ve seen Aunt Edna only one other time. As I drove errands the other day on the eve of this visit with Aunt Edna, I called my middle sister to tell her about my fear that I would start crying when I saw how frail Aunt Edna has become. And then I started crying as I talked about it. “That’s okay,” Sue offered. “Just go on anyway. It’ll be all right.” I told my aunt the next day. Aunt Edna’s not crying, though, in spite of her obvious decline. Using pain medication only sparingly now, she’s still opting to travel to this part of the world, to the home she left 2-1/2 years ago, having decided to move to west Texas with her son and his wife. She told me though that she thinks this will be her last trip. But she also invited me to come see her in west Texas, as I travel between here and my home in New Mexico. Sounds like plans to hang in there for a while more, wouldn’t you say?

As I make preparations to leave for Albuquerque in a few days, I have things to do around here. On the calendar is a trip to my dentist to get the permanent crown the dentist laid the groundwork for last week. I’m grabbing visits here and there with friends and family. This barn home wants to be a little more organized and the tile floors swept and mopped before I lock the door. And the garden—yes the garden that has changed, grown smaller and yet lovely in its maturity—calls to be watered just one more time before I leave. We were delighted by a cool front a couple of days ago—one that unfortunately did not bring any rain to our area. We are, as I was told via email a few weeks ago by the weekend meteorologist in Waco, experiencing drier and warmer conditions than normal at least until June. Whatever water I can give the roses and still-young trees can be surely nothing more than a leg up. The summer will be a tough one, based on certain knowledge of Texas summers. But all 28 of the remaining rose bushes have been fed, as have a few of the younger trees.

And as I write, the sprinkler heads quietly do their work. It takes more than a day to move them around the entire garden. I’ve done just about all I can. Birds and butterflies abound among the blooms. The hummers are here. Chimes placed here and there sound their song, prompted by some nice breezes. I think we’re all doing just about the best we can. The remainder is all about trust and acceptance.

Spring 2011—Normangee, Texas (April 13, 2011)
R. Harold Hollis

Making My Way

2011-04-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

If you’re bitten by the collecting bug, let’s say—no one needs to explain to you what it’s all about. I’m not talking about the hoarding of seemingly illogical stuff, although many of the unschooled eye would insist that I should make no fancier claims about my own bent. I haven’t seen much of the television programming where personalities like Oprah Winfrey, Phil McGraw, and others explore for all of the world to see the dysfunction of those who do hoard everything from clothing still bearing a price tag and piled piece upon piece to empty cereal boxes. The various things people bring home that eventually force them to live by maneuvering the paths remaining inside and outside of their dwellings boggles the mind and eye. The prospect is scary, but like so much of what we do and say, the truth is even scarier. Please let it be true that I am not worthy of Oprah and Dr. Phil’s attention. Just a simple lover of the beauty that the human hand is able to raise to the level of art—that am I.

The recently conceived reality series called “American Pickers” finds these two guys regularly visiting places where they excitedly dig through barns and piles looking for that one special treasure they think might make them a buck or two. I’ve watched the show a few times, and though I’m usually not all that interested in the things that ring the chime of these two guys, I get it. Having been bitten by the collecting bug as a child (even though I didn’t know it at the time), I’ve actively pursued my passion for most of my adult life.

I’ve just returned from the spring antiques market in central Texas, where I exhibit at the show that, as they say, started it all in 1968. Originally it was just referred to by collectors as Round Top. If you asked another collector, “are you going to Round Top”, there would have been no misunderstanding of the question. About 10 years ago, the show that began with 25 or so dealers offering some of the best of early Americana in the gun and rifle club hall in the tiny town of Round Top moved down the road to what is known as the Big Red Barn. These days, over 200 dealers of art and antiques from around the U. S. to offer same to an audience, many of whom come from around the U. S., to this twice-annual big deal. And it is a big deal—both for selling and acquiring. And the market has grown beyond imagination to include other shows and people set up selling their wares in fields and in buildings that have been put up for the sole purpose of addressing the market that still is called by many, simply Round Top. Early Americana is now just one of many categories of so-called treasure that draws people by the scores of thousands.

The spring market is now history. In its aftermath, I’m safely home, slowly reabsorbing into the barn I call home here in Texas the treasures that didn’t find a new home this time. Some rubber tubs go straight to the back of the barn, where they will wait silently for their next day in the sunshine. I try to pay attention to the packing so that the special things that came right out of my house can reclaim a place where I can look at them as often as they catch my eye. As I stow storage tubs and unwrap some other things, I wonder—again, at least a little, where did all this stuff come from? I know the answer to that question, and I know that even though I’m not amassing clothes that I don’t intend to wear or cereal boxes with coupons that I won’t ever redeem, I do have a lot of stuff. I wonder about the next time I pack and load the trailer and make my way to the antiques market. A lot of treasures came back home with me—a painting of a Native American papoose painted and given as a gift, inscribed on the back by the artist and friend; a pair of large mid century serapes; a stoneware jar decorated in cobalt with the name of the merchant in post-Civil War Galveston, Texas; more, much more. Yet, it was a successful show—by any measure. As I look at all the treasure that has been offered for sale one time or another—knowing that in anticipation of the fall outing I will be on the hunt for the next golden egg to add to my offering, I could berate myself, for daring to add to my trove. In spite of the success I feel and the modest rewards it has generated this time out, I could berate myself. But I won’t go there. I won’t pay much attention to anyone who would say, “why don’t you try to sell what you already have”.

I began yesterday unloading the trailer and unpacking the back of my 4Runner. I had made up my mind to take my time, unpacking some of the boxes and bags, and finding a place for a 1940s chair upholstered in a Navajo rug of similar vintage. The iron and tile table made in California, loaded at the back of the trailer with the 1940s chair, found a temporary home adjacent to the bathtub/shower. It works dandily for holding a towel or a change of clothes. There’s much more, much more; yet, so much didn’t come back to my barn home in central Texas. Furniture, paintings, pottery, old chaps, a rare game board from Pennsylvania, garden concrete—all gone to new homes.

Late yesterday afternoon I put the sprinkler to work in the garden at the front of my barn. The last 12 months have been dry. Fall and winter rains didn’t come to bless our ground, to fill our stock tanks, to give respite before another long, hot Texas summer. Though tired and uncertain in the aftermath of an intense week offering my share of treasure to collectors—those bitten similarly by the same bug that bit me as a child—I knew that I have some work to do around this place before heading back to New Mexico. And though I have begun to accept that I can only do so much, I feel obliged to give these gardens a couple of more drinks before leaving in mid April. I thought I had heard on the news something about the prospect of another cool front and maybe some rain. Still, early this morning I started moving the sprinkler head from one bed to another. There’s no water like water from sky, even if only for 30 minutes. The front came through, bringing cooler temperatures, and more March winds, even though we are now in April. It didn’t bring much rain, however, and so I continue to move the sprinkler head from bed to bed.

I feel renewed by the cool air. I’m ready to continue working, making plans, taking care of things. And I am oh, so thankful—thankful, by any measure. I’ll make just a little more sense of this home, as I consider one treasure or another that must find at least a temporary place. And my steps will seem just a little lighter as I put my shoulder to the work that needs to be done. It is the work, and sometimes the unexpected respite, that makes sense of this journey. I give thanks for all of these blessings. And so it is.

Making My Way—Normangee, Texas (April 4, 2011)
R. Harold Hollis

Heading to Texas

2011-03-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

This morning we leave for Texas. It’s just like me to be feeling a little lonesome—already, in this instance, for these blue, blue New Mexico skies. More than likely it’s just my way of dealing with the work I know lies ahead for me on the home place in Leon County and with the challenges of making a good and successful showing in the important spring Texas antiques market coming up in two weeks.

But, oh, what opportunities to give thanks await me at every turn. Soon I will be visiting with my two sisters, even some of my cousins, maybe my only remaining aunt, and a friend here and there. After a three-month absence from the 2-story barn I call home in Texas, I will no doubt smile as I walk in the front door. The smell of old wood, which will have grown stronger while the place has sat unoccupied these 10 weeks, will reward me for my connection to things past. The birds, which carry on in my absence in the front garden, will no doubt be busy enjoying the sights and smells of spring. They’ve grown accustomed to making it on their own—as if my presence really makes a difference.

Here’s to the blessings that I am blessed to celebrate. With gratitude I say, “and so it is”.

Heading to Texas—Albuquerque, New Mexico (March 15, 2011)
R. Harold Hollis

Some things are better left unchanged

2011-03-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

Doors...Albuquerque

Couplet with a touch of dissonance

2011-03-11T07:25:00.000-08:00

Continuing to See Things Differently

2011-03-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

I blessedly continue to see things differently. Maybe that’s why I find myself with little to say about so much these days. Sunday night I watched “Secret Millionaire.” We had begun the evening taking a look at the “Next Great Restaurant”. Wait a minute. They’re both reality shows, along with “Extreme Makeover,” (which I’ve never developed a taste or habit for), a good bite of what I watch these days. I’ve dabbled with “Project Runway,” some of the hell’s kitchen offering on cooking in hellish circumstances, “America’s Got Talent,” “Dancing with the Stars,” and of course, absolutely, “American Idol”. Now on the surface of this, my instinct is to question my own choices in how I spend my evening leisure. If I didn’t know already that my days tend to feel fairly complete with reading, a healthy dose of daily outdoor exercise (for a few years now in the dry air, under the blue skies of New Mexico) my digital camera routinely handy, a little volunteering, my passion for treasure hunting, spending quality time with other residents of the planet—well, if I didn’t know this, I would be a lot more scared by this newish habit of reality TV. Give me a break!

Monday morning, after the launching episode of “Secret Millionaire,” I found myself browsing the Internet for what the critics—guess that could be any of us since the Internet is rife with people’s opinions—had to say about this newest offering on doing good for the least of us. How predictable I am, I realized, when I read a review from the Washington Post that described what the author thought the typical viewer was doing while watching the program unfold. Who is this secret millionaire, we allegedly asked ourselves, and our instinct was to go to our computers and search for her name, her story, her credibility. And so I had. And my instincts to question the merits of this show—this show that I had chosen to watch and was watching—were nurtured. Aha, she’s a pyramid promoter—or according to current terminology, a multi-level marketer. I’ve known some of those, I reflect, as if all of these marketers can be thrown categorically into a basket. I’ve even bought into the products some of these folks market, until I decided that the products weren’t, well at the time they weren’t worth my hard-earned money. And of course, I questioned whether the promised benefits were even noticeable to me. I’ve been offered health potions, the best deals on better utility rates, and avenues to more wealth. Right, I’m skeptical.

So I sat watching the secret millionaire of the evening move from situation to situation. I watched the people delight in her interest, shedding what were no doubt genuine tears over this interest (and later her generosity)—and I was puzzled by what the recipients of all this interest must have thought about the cameras that had to be present recording the exchange taking place—all the way to the denouement of the episode, when the checks were distributed, and everyone cried some more. I guess some things are better left unexplained. Although I had no right to expectation, I expected the checks to be larger. I wondered about the quantifiable exposure the millionaire must be getting. I assured myself that surely the recipients would reap further benefits from their own exposure. I wondered, and I concluded that I didn’t need to spend any more of my time on future episodes of this show. And somehow I couldn’t help but put a critical eye to all that shows like this represent to the viewer—including me, absolutely including me.

Well, for now, considering that I am changing all the time, I’ve spent too much time thinking about this. I can’t help but reflect on what the religious teachings of my past have told me. It is in giving that we receive (attributed to St. Francis). I know this to be true. “…so that your giving may be done in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." (Matthew 6:4) I understand the principle behind not making a show of your generosity. But I of course must ask, does it matter? And thankfully, I am reminded of this by a fellow sojourner. Think about all of the people of means whose generosity somehow comes to our attention, thanks to first-hand experience or public scrutiny and reporting. The size of the gift doesn’t matter, I know. Whether we should give is not even a question to be asked. Our gifts are not to be judged—by anyone. They are what they are. What counts is that we see the need, and then we are moved to share our abundance, regardless of how modest by comparison. And I am told these days not to spend too much precious time on comparison. Simply, we are honored to have the privilege of sharing.

In a column in the current issue of “Science of Mind” magazine—which this month focuses on the power of prayer—the writer concludes her comments with this: “We are the gift God has given to reveal Itself more fully. A Sufi story tells of a man who was overcome with sorrow about the condition of the world. He was so distraught that he sat on the earth and pounded it. ‘God, why haven’t you done something?’ he cried out. After a moment of Silence, God spoke: ‘I did do something. I sent you.’” (“The Prayer that God is Praying,” Rev. Dr. Kathy Hearn)

And so it is.

Continuing to See Things Differently—Albuquerque, New Mexico (March 9, 2011)
R. Harold Hollis

A Willingness to Heal

2011-03-09T07:08:00.000-08:00

"The past is not dead; it is not even past." (William Faulkner) So quotes Wayne Teasdale, in "The Mystic Hours". Teasdale continue to explain, that reconciling the past "requires a willingness to heal, rather than forget. To heal is to become free of the hold of the past. Healing the past, and thus putting it finally aside, requires generosity from the two conflicting communities or individuals involved. It requires a generous spirit that seeks reconciliation and a building of mutual respect and trust."

Ridin' High

2011-03-06T13:06:00.000-08:00

Not your daddy's cowboy!

The land and I are one

2011-03-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

“Vivekananda taught that God is within each one of us, that each of us was born to rediscover his own God-nature. His favorite story was of a lion who imagined himself to be a sheep, until another lion showed him his reflection in a pool. ‘And you are lions,’ he would tell his hearers, ‘you are pure, infinite, and perfect souls.... He, for whom you have been weeping and praying in churches and temples...is your own Self.’” Christopher Isherwood, THE WISHING TREE, p. 113, the Vedanta Society of Southern California.

Judgment Suspended

2011-03-03T07:50:00.001-08:00

March 2, 2011

2011-03-02T09:55:00.000-08:00

Today, in places like Austin, the state capitol, and Washington-on-the-Brazos, the site of the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico on March 2, 1836, thousands of Texans will at least give some thought to the meaning of Texas Independence. “You can go to hell—I’m going to Texas.” So said Davy Crockett (1786-1836), one of the heroes of the Alamo. At least that’s what they say. And the same spirit that led so many brave (and perhaps foolhardy) men to give their lives in the battle at the Alamo, the now-long historic shrine to the spirit of independence, is still on the hearts of lots of people. Here on the plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the back of the t-shirt sported by one of the people gathered there on an early evening to hear the music that is part of a Santa Fe summer, was Crockett’s proud, brave (and perhaps foolhardy) words. As they also say, you can take the Texan out of Texas, but you can’t Texas out of the Texan.

Although I still own a home in Texas, on land my sisters and I inherited from our parents (granted in spirit before them by our grandmother and before her our great-grandmother), I am away from Texas for much of each year. For 3-1/2 years I vacillated between giving up my Texas automobile license plates for New Mexico ones. And finally, just recently for practical reasons, I made the swap. First, it was the driver’s license. I’ve never had a driver’s license from any place other than Texas. And finally, after a process that required the better part of two months, the old front-and-rear Texas plates came off and the new rear plate went on. Ironically, the clerk who waited on me at the motor vehicle department had become a transplant to New Mexico at least 20 years earlier, and before that she had lived in New Mexico as a child. “We’ll be going back to Texas after my husband retires,” she told me. I thought about what that means to her, but I didn’t ask.

Virtually everyone I count among my friends in New Mexico has come here from some other place—among them, (New York, by way of Houston, Chicago and New Orleans; Wisconsin by way of Arizona; Ohio by way of Wyoming and Arizona; Illinois by way of Louisiana and Colorado; California; Puerto Rico by a route that I frankly can’t recall in the correct order). We’re all in motion. Among this group, I’m unaware if any one of these friends plans to be here for the duration. I don’t think about it, to be honest. I have a home in Texas on family land—a choice that I tried to change. But things have a way of working out differently sometimes, in spite of what we think we want.

One thing I know for sure. Regardless of where I am, and what license plates are on my car, I am a Texan, proud of my Texas roots. And even though I still prefer the sunshine and dry air of living in the high desert at close to 6000 feet, I don’t flinch when someone comments on Texas and Texans. You see, to a lot of people with strong roots in New Mexico, Texas and Texans do not and historically have not enjoyed a favorable reputation here in the land of enchantment. As the saying goes, we create our own bed, even though we might think at times that we are not the ones who made that bed—but yes, we have to sleep in it. Anyway, it’s a battle of perception and attitude that won’t be won, given the thousands of Texans who live or have second homes (does that give you an inkling of wherein the source of the problem might lie?) in New Mexico. Like it or not, for good or for worse, we are here. And of course, most of us defy the stereotypes that exist. Not all of us have lots of disposable and discretionary income, and most of us don’t spend our time shopping on the plaza in Santa Fe. I’ve spent my share of time on the plaza, but I realized a long time ago how much I just like to sit, enjoy the sites and sounds, and read a book. And yes, many of the museums are within a block.

I’ve just enjoyed a 30-minute round trip walk to the park in the Albuquerque neighborhood where I hang my hat these days. It’s a sunny and cool March 2 in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. While on this walk, I remembered that this is a special day for Texans—especially for those of us who are born and bred, and especially for those of us who can trace our family’s Texas history back a couple of generations. As a child in the 1940s, I remember there were about five residences with the surname Hollis in the Houston directory. All of these Hollises were from our clan—which migrated from east Texas to Houston during the Depression. From England, through North Carolina and Alabama, these Hollises made their way to the Lone Star State. A good while ago, that number of Hollises in the Houston directory changed to hundreds, but now only a couple of them are related to me. The roots of my maternal German ancestors in the greater Houston area go back to time of the American War Between the States. Yes, I embrace this heritage.

Now today I’m not saying, you can go to hell—I’m going to Texas. I like my life here in New Mexico. With the backdoor open to this glorious day outside, I hear traffic, the noise of road construction nearby, and the “kwaak-kwaak” of one of the neighborhood ravens, flying or perched somewhere nearby. Ravens like to be near people, I’m told. In a couple of weeks I will, however, be making a bit of a spring migration to my home in Texas. It’s time to tend to some business, take care of my place, and see my family and some friends. This day, especially, I am remembering where I began this journey, and I embrace this beginning and where and how it has allowed me to be. God bless Texas! And so it is.

March 2, 2011—Albuquerque, NM (March 2, 2011)
R. Harold Hollis

Making do on the last day of February 2011...

2011-02-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

he said, smiling.

Relic of the Old Santa Fe Trail

2011-02-28T07:57:00.001-08:00

Whoopee ti yi yo!

Art resting on its own merit

2011-02-27T06:01:00.001-08:00

Coushatta pine cone turkey basket

Stand in the light

2011-02-26T15:18:00.000-08:00

"Secrets are like vampires. A wise friend of mine once said this. They suck the life out of you, but they can only survive in the darkness. Once they're exposed to the light, there's a moment of horror, of recognition, but then poof —they lose their power over you." Jeannette Walls

Gates are meant for using

2011-02-26T06:27:00.000-08:00

This angel has a hold on me

2011-02-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

"I am not asking to be loved
I want to love."

St. Francis Basilica, Santa Fe NM

You talking to me?

2011-02-24T10:48:00.001-08:00

I'm talking to you!

Perfect

2011-02-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

Sit a spell

2011-02-22T06:42:00.000-08:00

Behind these walls

2011-02-21T06:50:00.000-08:00

Art Happens

Nob Hill Hideaway

2011-02-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

So NOT Santa Fe

A Western Scrub-Jay

2011-02-19T08:26:00.000-08:00

...lingering cautiously before flying to his friends across the street

G. californianus

2011-02-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

The Roadrunner and I played hide 'n seek
Around the bush, as I crept left, he hopped right.
As I sneaked right, he dashed left.
Hidden from my camera, so he thought,
He took time out for a second too long.
And Click. Believe it or not, he's there.
Nature had her way.

"Cause I'm a road runner baby
I'm a road runner baby
Can't stay in one place too long
I'm a road runner baby
One look at me and I'll be gone."

from "I'm a Road Runner" by Dozier, Holland, and Holland

Sunset in the Rio Grande Valley

2011-02-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

Waiting for the sunrise

2011-02-17T06:02:00.000-08:00

"Dear one, the world is waiting for the sunrise.
Ev'ry rose is covered with dew
And while the world is waiting for the sunrise
And my heart is calling you."

(From "Waiting for the Sunrise," words by Eugene Lockhart & music by Ernest Seitz, 1919)

Come no closer

2011-02-15T05:36:00.000-08:00

Same Difference

2011-02-14T13:03:00.000-08:00

Do you hear what I hear?

2011-02-13T06:20:00.001-08:00

Stay close...there is comfort here

2011-02-12T07:06:00.000-08:00

"Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down."

from "Mending Wall," Robert Frost (1874-1963), published 1914

Caught in the daylights

2011-02-11T05:58:00.000-08:00

..and a fire burns brightly

2011-02-10T08:14:00.000-08:00

Carson New Mexico

“Finally, we should remind ourselves daily who we are. We are already perfect in God’s eyes. We are already God’s beloved sons and daughters (Rom. 8:16). We are already sinless (1 John 3:9). We are already heirs with Jesus of the Kingdom (Rom. 8:17). Our essence is Love (1 John 4: 7-8). We are already saved (1 John 2:2). We are already immortal (1 Cor. 15:54). The spiritual path is not designed to “get” any of these things for us; in truth, we do not now lack any of them. It is merely to help us gradually become conscious of who we already are, and to make ourselves more perfect vehicles for the manifestation of the Love of God on Earth.” From Putting on the Mind of Christ, p. 301 (Jim Marion, Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc., 2000)

Frog Poem

2011-02-09T10:28:00.001-08:00

The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!

The most famous haiku by Bashō, composed in 1686 (translated by Alan Watts, 1915-1973)

West of Texas Cowboy

2011-02-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

It depends on how you look at it.

2011-02-07T14:59:00.000-08:00

Alone with her thoughts...

2011-02-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

Look into the distance.

2011-02-05T14:45:00.000-08:00

Please, Explain It To Me

2011-02-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

I guess I’m just getting old. At times that seem unpredictable, my mind latches onto something from my past, like a song lyric. For many years I’ve honestly claimed that the reason I didn’t ask my students to memorize lines of poetry is that I can’t memorize. The few exceptions are things I remember from childhood games, or religious creeds I learned 40 years ago, or parts of songs that get stuck in my head—and as we all know, sometimes ruin our day when they are tunes and lyrics that we recall not liking to begin with. Let me not dredge one of those up to be with me for the rest of this day. Last night, awake for a short time, a song that I remember from our backyard game of harmonizing, latched onto my brain. Groggy with sleep, I thought, I want to remember this in the morning. And so I have. You sing the melody to this song that sometimes entertained the innocents on the school bus. I’ll take the harmony.

Tell me why the stars do shine;
Tell me why the ivy twines.
Tell me why the ocean's blue;
And I will tell you just why I love you.
Because He made the stars to shine;
Because He made the ivy twine;
Because He made the ocean blue;
Because He made you,
That's why I love you!

And so it is.

"Hey. We're up here!"

2011-02-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

Snow comes to the Rio Grande Valley (of New Mexico, that is).

"Here I am. Up here!"

2011-01-31T10:46:00.000-08:00

For the Red, White and Blue

2011-01-28T10:13:00.000-08:00

Change comes to the neighborhood

2011-01-26T05:54:00.000-08:00

The way home

2011-01-25T06:08:00.000-08:00

As the crow flies...

2011-01-24T06:12:00.000-08:00

2011-01-12T13:46:00.000-08:00

Jesus says to Judas in Gospel of Judas 57, "Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star." from THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS, edited by Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, with additional commentary by Bart D. Ehrman (p. 169)

The Search Ends Here

2011-01-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

So why would any church ever need as its motto, “Your search for a friendly church ends here”? I first noticed this on a sign while in Texas last September. On a Sunday drive to visit an historic fort an hour’s drive from my Texas home, I saw the sign in rural Limestone County. I nodded my head and naively thought that someone at a country Baptist church in the Bible belt had coined something that deserved pause. As it turns out, a cursory look at the hits on Google reveal common use of the motto, especially among southern Baptist churches.

Having spent virtually all of my adult life in the Episcopal Church, whose membership has a reputation for being restrained—at least—I have become accustomed to not acknowledging the person next to me, except during the exchange of the Peace. I have become accustomed to routinely passing others, nodding or greeting, but without ever bothering to introduce myself or receiving such an invitation from the other. The textbook example of this describes my experience of attending service at a moderate-sized church in Santa Fe New Mexico as a newcomer for many weeks and then one day having the person who had sat across from me for all those weeks welcome me, as if I had just walked in the door—to which I replied, “I’ve been here since August” and her response was a puzzled look. In fairness to the situation, I hadn’t extended my hand to her either during all those weeks.

Anyone who has spent much time in church can easily conclude the same thing—that churches are essentially social places, and it’s quite easy to go unacknowledged. Most American churches today seem to have built into their routine a time for people to greet their neighbor during the service. That said, it is likely that this weekly ritual is the extent of people having an exchange with each other, unless they either already know one another or some external event precipitates such knowledge. This is my experience. The habitual invitation to the coffee hour is just as likely to leave a newcomer to his own devices, while he watches those who know one another cluster together. The minister of the small church I have attended for the last several months issues this invitation each week. She also invites newcomers to stand so that they can receive a small gift and the applause of everyone else. And she adds, “we promise not to follow you home.”

For all of the sojourners who are not particularly outgoing, I suppose the motto, “your search for a friendly church ends here”, just might ring true. In a spiritual tradition where we hear and read and are invited to wipe away the obvious divisions that separate us one from another, where love and loving are at the center of what we claim to witness, the irony is not lost on me. By habit, and maybe by nature, I am an observer. The decades-long experience of Episcopal worship taught me to find comfort in sitting quietly in my pew before the beginning of worship, while at the same time giving me a reason not to engage my neighbor—either in the sanctuary or in the parish hall. My experience beyond the reserve of the most significant church experience I’ve known on this journey hasn’t really changed anything for me. Churches are not particularly friendly places. At least, that’s my experience. That’s what I’ve witnessed. Not having attended one of those churches claiming to be the end of the search for a friendly church, I’m wondering why any church needs to make that claim to begin with.

The Search Ends Here—Albuquerque, New Mexico (January 10, 2011)
R. Harold Hollis

2011-01-03T15:31:00.000-08:00

"And I wonder when we are ever gonna change it
Living under the fear till nothing else remains
....
Looking for something we can rely on
There's got to be something better out there
Love and compassion, their day is coming
All else are castles built in the air"

from "We Don't Need Another Hero" by Terry Britten and Graham Lyle

Drive

2010-12-14T10:33:00.000-08:00

“By forgiving, we take back the power we gave to the world to do us
harm.
By forgiving, we release ourselves—and the one who has hurt us—from the prison of our resentment.
By forgiving, we free ourselves to live in the Eternal Now, without
holding on to the past.
By forgiving, we acknowledge the Christ (the perfection) within
ourselves and the offender.”

from Ernest Holmes, “The Science of Mind”

I’m just about over an incident from last Friday that tried to lay a claim on me. One of the ironies surrounding the road rage that appeared to be aimed at me is that I was on my way to State Farm to start my auto insurance in New Mexico. Having made the decision earlier in the day to become a New Mexico driver, I had finally gone for my driver’s license and to find out what is I need to do to register my car in this state.

I guess the process makes sense to whoever sets policy at the motor vehicle division, but as an interested party, I can see some government use of tax dollars that just might be called waste. Take a number and wait, go to a window to show proof of residency and for further instructions on waiting, then to another window for a picture and then further instructions on waiting, and so on. But that’s for another story. The point is—I have a temporary paper photo ID folded around my Texas license, and once I get a copy of the title from the financial institution that holds the lien on my car, I will be ready to return to the MVD with proof of residency, proof of insurance, proof of ownership, and cash or check (no credit or debit cards accepted!).

To return to my story. I’ve seen more than a little of rude, rude drivers in Santa Fe, but on this day I was in Albuquerque, where—until this day—I hadn’t experienced the nasty attitude of entitlement that is all too common among Santa Fe drivers. Pedestrian rights? Hardly. Parking lot etiquette? Drive defensively. As I made my way north on Carlisle Boulevard, I was the first in line at a traffic light. Red changes to green, and before I can hit the gas, the Toyota 4Runner behind me lays down on the horn. I accelerated into the intersection. Obviously pissed off by my attempt to move ahead, the woman—whose vanity license plates read a fancy word for graceful, slim—sped by me on the right, raging verbally, shooting me the finger, and then hitting her breaks several times as we both moved north on Carlisle. She continued to act like a crazy person, waving her hands and shaking her head. I commented to my friend Tom that maybe she is from Santa Fe.

“Maybe her husband is from Texas and dumped her,” Tom offered. (Speak impeccably. Don't make assumptions.) Tom had already advised that I “stay back—you don’t know what she might do”. Maybe she just doesn’t like Texans, I thought. I lost count long ago of the number of times in the last three years that I’ve wrestled with the notion of giving up my Texas plates—largely because I know lots of New Mexicans are hostile toward Texans. Such attitude has a long-standing history here, in spite of the fact that Texans contribute substantially to the state’s economy. It’s called biting the hand that feeds you. But that, too, is for another story. The big factor is the cost of auto insurance in New Mexico because of the large number of uninsured drivers, in spite of a law that requires everyone with a driver’s license to also carry liability insurance. There are lots of ways of creatively, or not, getting around this law. Just take advantage of the opportunities to slip through the cracks. As it turns out, I am totally satisfied with the insurance rates offered me.

My instinct with the crazy woman sporting the vanity license plate was to find out who she is and report her. Such naivete makes me smile only a little at the same time that it confounds me. Let it go. Let it go. Remember the Four Agreements. Speak impeccably. Don’t take things personally. Don’t make assumptions. Do your best. I guess these don’t leave much room for revenge. So today I am probably 80% over last Friday’s frightening encounter with road rage. One of the burdens with which I struggle is an insistent need to understand what causes people to act the way they do—especially towards me. Don’t take it personally, I remind myself. Let it go. Don’t stay attached; bless her and send her own her way. This would be the advice of my friend Gayle. And to this, I would remind myself further to remember this experience with road rage the next time I over-react to some situation where I want to pummel someone else. Maybe she had an emergency and needed to go to the aid of a family member or a friend. I won’t know, and it doesn’t matter. Let it go.

So is forgiveness at play here? Do I need to forgive the driver of the Toyota 4Runner? Yes. I do feel a little the victim of someone else’s baggage. But that’s just it. It is someone else’s baggage, and so, just as I might want someone else to cut me slack when I act the crazy, I need to do the same. I want to want to do the same. “Bless you. Just take care of yourself,” I counsel myself to say to anyone who has failed to remember that his or her rights end where my rights begin. Forgive me for appearing to be in your way. I forgive you for putting your life, my life and the life of my passenger and friend in danger. Let it go. Don’t stay attached. Surely this is the lesson to be gained here.

Drive—Santa Fe, New Mexico (December 14, 2010)
R. Harold Hollis