Where does resolve come from?

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown (1986) (TV)

Linus van Pelt:
  When Leo Tolstoy was writing "War and Peace", his wife, Sonya, copied it for him seven times. And she did it by *candlelight*, *and* with a dip pen. And sometimes, she had to use a magnifying glass to make out what he had written. 


Charlie Brown:

  Linus, I really... 

Linus van Pelt:
  Had to do it after their child had been put to bed, and the servants had gone to their garrets, and it was quiet in the house. Just think, Charlie Brown: she wrote the book seven times with a dip pen. And you're telling me you can't even read it once?

Listen, Linus. I know what you’re doing. 
You want Charlie Brown to show some resolve. 
The assignment is overwhelming. 
The deadline is looming. 
You just want your friend to succeed. 


But you’re going about it all wrong. 


Sure, it’s the time of the year for resolutions and Charlie Brown needs to be resolute; to resolve that he will finish the monolithic tome. 


But, Linus, who has ever found the power to push the train uphill purely on inspiration juice pressed from the monumental suffering of others? 


If sacrifice and suffering impelled the race to greater feats, humanity would now be deified. Suffering saturates the air we breathe; it clogs news-feed arteries. 


Sacrificial dedication based on someone else’s sacrifice? It lacks oomph. 


Leo wrote the voluminous War and Peace because he believed it. 
Sonya copied it seven times because she believed in Leo. 
If Charlie Brown is going to read it through, even once, it will happen because Charlie Brown believes that he is worth more than the “lowest grade you can get without failing.” 


Resolve doesn't come from appreciating the enormity of another’s sacrifice. 

Resolve comes when you are ready to claim and defend and ever protect that which if washed away would erase you from the human schema.


This is a new kind of responsibility thinking: personal and communal.


Linus, what do you say you and I explore this?  I just happen to have a book here with me...maybe we should start here?

Merry Christmas!

Keeping X in CHRISTMAS

Linus, you amaze me with your Google like mastery of knowledge.  Especially history.  Especially Church history.
History is not a cage, but it does give shape and structure to the future.
Linus would be the first to shake his head at all the fuss over "Xmas".
Xmas isn't secular in origin, its Christian.
All the rhetorical bar fights over this stem from the bigger problem within Christendom:  poor, ineffective discipleship.
Important bits of knowledge have fallen off the wagon.
That's understandable. It's been a long journey.  A lot of things got picked up along the way, squeezing more and more things off to the side and some things right onto the road.

Xmas.  It's an acceptable abbreviation for Christmas used by Christians for more than 1,000 years. The hated "X" comes from the Greek letter Chi,  which is the first letter of the Greek word   Χριστός  translated "Christ" - anointed one.

Xp or Xt were commonly used for CHRIST.

Xn is still found in the dictionary as an abbreviation for Christian.

As a GenX Christian, Xn is attractive to me.

It's a brand I can get behind.  It speaks to a generation of Christians reclaiming primitive Christian thinking and lifestyle. A clear statement is made about the connection of those first generations of Christians who didn't presume to have it all figured out.  Their dialogue had not yet been constricted by a double elimination bracket of winners.

Orthodoxy, for them, gravitated around the cross.

X.

The Christ.

"Who do you say that I am?" Jesus infamously asked his disciple Peter.

Fisherman Simon. Disciple Peter.  Apostle Peter.  Saint Peter.

This kind of personal, spiritual journey begins with the answer to that question.

Gen X is boxed in at the center of the information age.  Overwhelmed by data and hypothetical answers that change with every new text book as new discoveries pour in on us exponentially, this is a generation more comfortable living in the questions than pretending to have the answers.

That's why this Christmastide, this Xn will be keeping the X in Christmas.

Thanksgiving

Strolling through the memories of Thanksgivings gone by I wonder aloud if there is any integrity left in it.

Thanksgiving.  The forgotten gentile feast day.

Retailers push Christmas shopping incentives closer and closer to Halloween.  

The traditional Christmas dinner is a Thanksgiving remix.

Turkey or Ham; honey'd and saturated in cholesterol enhancing steroids.  Bacon-ny green beans floating in some kind of goo.  Orange potatoes float in a hot tub of marshmallow foam. Pies. Cakes. Cookies. 

It's as if the angel of gluttony is passing over taking the first born of anyone who does not have their doorposts splashed from a ladle full of spinach dip and carrot juice.  

Our gluttonous indulgence with visions of bursting cornucopia dancing in our heads deceives.

Puritan and Aboriginal sit together at an Amish built trestle table glowing over genetically enhanced golden brown Butterballs and magically sweetened mythological maize of supermarket proportions.

 The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.  -H.U. Westermayer

 Thanksgiving.  The tradition teaches the discipline of managing our attitudes.  Thanks is given, not for things granted -- or taken for granted-- but for life where death oppresses like a guerrilla boss and family where most of your kin are unreachable and friends where enemies abound and are born exponentially from a fragile trust.

Maybe it is no accident that Thanksgiving falls close on the calendar to Veteran's Day.
For those close to our hearts but far from our grasp, I choose to revere the forgotten feast day.  In their honor and in the spirit of the first Thanksgiving, gratitude will be an intentional attitude. It is an awareness of what I lack that fosters appreciation for what I have and those with whom I have to share it.

Linus van Pelt: This is not unlike another famous Thanksgiving episode. Do you remember the story of John Alden, and Priscilla Mullins, and Captain Miles Standish? 

Patricia 'Peppermint Patty' Reichardt: This isn't like that one at all. 

Linus van Pelt:  In the year 1621, the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving feast. They invited the great Indian chief Massasoit, who brought ninety of his brave Indians and a great abundance of food. Governor William Bradford and Captain Miles Standish were honored guests. Elder William Brewster, who was a minister, said a prayer that went something like this: 'We thank God for our homes and our food and our safety in a new land. We thank God for the opportunity to create a new world for freedom and justice."  

Patricia 'Peppermint Patty' Reichardt: Amen. 

HOO-ah. Schulz was NCO with the 20th Armor Division in 1945

The Walls Must Fall

Transparency. 

It is the first ingredient for confession.  You will never win at life if you play with a poker face.  

Linus, the life coach, taught me that much.  

Come to the wall.  

Whatever wall blocks you from moving forward.  

Something there is that doesn't love a wall; that wants it down.  Yes, Mr. Frost, that is true.  

The wall has pent up all my dreams.  

I hear them, there, bantering on the other side.  

So I come to the wall.  I shout to the wall.  I say to the wall, "Hey, I'm here. I'm not hiding anymore.  Hey, I'm here: vulnerable, powerless, angry.  Hey, did you hear me?  I'm calling you out, wall.  I'm not leaving.  I'm not running. I hate this wall.  I want it down."  

I am marking my territory.  My shouts provide echo-location for the source of my angst.  Everyone will know: that I have a wall, that I hate this wall, that I cannot break it down.  

You can't embarrass a wall down.  

You can't harass a wall to crumbling.  

I can be honest.  

       I can be transparent.  

                I can find the strength that is hidden in weakness. 

My confession, made public, becomes our confession.  

Nehemiah, the Hebrew governor-prophet, profoundly proclaimed to the persecuted people rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem:

"The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another.  In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us." 

My confession: that I hurt; that I struggle; that I am under attack; that I am weary from well-doing...

One voice that calls many.  

I am one voice.  

I am many voices.  

Accountability is fraternity.  

Fraternity is strength.  

In numbers...numbers that rally to my cry...numbers that march beside a wall...numbers that shout with shared frustration at a thing that will not move...that keeps me...keeps us...from the grand things waiting on the other side...

When masses march 

                        and shout 

                                  walls fall.  

Such movements begin

                    and only begin

with a face 

       easily read 

by others 

       standing by

the same wall.

Friend to the Friendless

Strange.  Humility and kindness are inexplicably welded to being characteristically stupid and gullible.  It could be that whole brain people (those who adequately use both left and right sides regularly) pity the stray dog behavior of others. Perhaps Linus operates above the circumstance.  


Linus knows that the wild dogs of life are as likely to snatch his hand as the chunk of ham he offers the shivering mongrel.  But the complexity at work in his brain suggests to him that the most base and vulgar creature needs care and companionship.


If not he, then who?


Haughtiness is absent in Linus.  His actions are reactions.  Impulsion is driven by this deeply entrenched value.  This is the quality of sainthood.  Mere mortals can be motivated to charitable deeds and good works by substantial tax credit or monuments named in their honor.  Nice guy actions are currency in the open market of public relations.  


Linus doesn't need good karma.  Karma hasn't worked, as a principle, for him-- ever.  Only Mother Theresa had more good karma stored in the cloud.  Neither of them were showered with brilliant blasts of good things.  Both of them found good in the wretched, wicked things of life.  Both of them believed that mere actuality qualified one to be the recipient of kindness and sincere company.


 Linus makes friends of enemies because Linus neither covets what another has nor has any cause to slander.  Nor does Linus hold on to anything any one would want to take by force.  Linus has no nemesis.  He is only surrounded by those who are convinced he is hiding some icon...some token...some charm that wards away anger and chaos; pettiness and contention.  Maybe it's that baby blue blanket...  


They try.  They try with clever schemes and ninja beagles.  They try with parental authority and peer pressure.  Linus, they are sure, would be nothing without his blanket...his Orthodox icon...his Lutheran cross...his Catholic rosary...his religious-like crutch.  Deprived of his blanket surely Linus will be mortal like us...able to bleed; and bleeding to feel pain; and in feeling pain to strike back...bite back against his enemies and those who take advantage of his good nature and good intentions.


But Linus does not bite. 


Linus pities.


Linus cries for the both the bleeding hand and the shivering dog who has taken the ham and run.  


Linus: friend to the friendless, will be at the gate tomorrow with a piece of ham in his bandaged hand.


An autumn gust blasts as Lucy shouts something inside the house.  As both die down, Linus shivers.  His expectant eyes narrow, focusing on the litter strewn alley, and the flash of fur that stops and meets his stare.  Confused, it tilts its head to one side.  Stupid round headed boy, it thinks. So gullible.


For some, it is hard to understand humility and kindness.  They can be looking right at it and still be incapable of making sense of what they see.  It would seem that the more "perfect" something is, the more difficult it becomes to see it for what it is. 


How well do you trust your mind to correctly interpret what is so clear and obvious right in front of you?