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?

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?  

The Security of Insecurity

Wiser people than Linus Van Pelt have roamed the earth.  Still, profundity per capita considered, Linus ranks highly among the definitive sages under sixteen.  While Charles Schulz allowed him to outgrow the marvelous, blue blanket, his expansive need for it is useful to me even now.


There is a wisdom in insecurity.  There is a security that creeps out from insecurity.  There is a powerful claim being made in the embrace of the silent blue guardian.  


Blue blankets blazon that change is sudden and near.  Blue blankets are more subtle than street corner prophets and their cardboard declarations of doom.  More subtle, but no less fatalistic.  Suffering is immanent.  Danger lurks.  Trust is a highly inflated currency created and disbursed with little to no collateral.  


Linus knows something about the actuality and certainty of suffering:
Kids at camp will mock him.  
Sally will stalk him. 
Lucy will pound him and throw him out of his own home.  
Snoopy will rob him.  
The girl who sits behind him will reject him.  


There is something remarkably comforting about certainty.


It is precisely the presence of a blue blanket that makes Linus
a voice to be heard.


It says he has his eyes opened to the messy menagerie of life moments exploding all around him.


Charlie Brown will never get it...the football that is...because, well, Charlie Brown will never get it.


Lucy might help us with some pop psychology worthy of a spot on Oprah's new network...
but in the end you and I are just another nickel in her mind.


Schroeder's lost in the arts -- out picketing budget cuts for after school programs
and for all the love of Snoopy, he just can't get out of the past -- still fighting yesteryear's front page public enemies.


Linus is our only hope.


The security of his insecurity has led Linus to a fascinating philosophy toward life.  It has equipped him with three powerful charms that ward off the bad ju-ju of the impending epic fail lurking behind and looming overhead and laying traps just ahead.  


Linus has FAITH:  something to believe in that heals his life.


Linus has HOPE:  something to look forward to that makes today tolerable.


Linus has LOVE:  something to do that makes the first two happen in someone else's life.


And though all the other spiritual gifts named in the Christian Bible are, in those pages, predicted to fail in time, these three remain...because suffering remains.  And so long as there is suffering these co-exist to be a response, a deep inner reconciliation, to the problem of pain.  This is the security found in insecurity: there is plenty to fear.  And when what we fear most happens, those three seeds of wisdom are plowed deep in sacred soil.

The only thing there is to fear is...


A rabid bat tangled in a toddler's hair?
http://www.ky3.com/news/ktla-rabid-bat-in-hair,0,2205072.story


friends like these?
http://www.ky3.com/news/kdvr-two-men-accused-of-partying-with-dead-friend-20110915,0,2635207.story


swamp monsters!
http://www.ky3.com/news/wpix-monster-crocodile-caught,0,5255740.story


Another SAW sequel?
http://www.ky3.com/news/ktla-glendale-hernia-butter-knife,0,6898818.story


Gumby???
http://www.ky3.com/news/ktla-gumby-robs-convenience-store,0,6543594.story

Linus has the X Factor

One thing about Linus: he has a remarkable singing voice.  It would only make sense that Linus pays homage  to the Police at the P.Nutz Club on karaoke night. The Police are eclectic, like Linus, influenced by punk, reggae and jazz.  Literate and informed, Linus digs any band that can pull off pop stardom while streaming the likes of Carl Jung and Arthur Koestler.  


Herein is Linus's charm.  Disarming, his non-threatening persona is equally equipped to challenge everything from misinformed mythologies to abnormal psychology.  He is a theologian and a philosopher; an investigative scientist and a poet.  


And when the days grow short and the air crisps with chill, Linus dons his blue cloak and ski cap for a long stroll to breathe deep the hushing sounds of industry and the rushing wisp of October's exhales.  Schizophrenic sidewalks scroll under his feet; aging grays and cobbled brick and asphalt scars tell the story of city founders and boom and bust; harsh winters and neglect and taken-for-grantedness flickering like a nickelodeon show.  


And when the sidewalk's story wheezes to an end, Linus looks up to find himself standing outside the P.Nutz.  The walls rattle to the revelry inside.  Voices rush together: orchestral tuning to an oboe's happy "A".


Inside, Linus waits patiently at his table for his chance.  He sings the Police.  That is no surprise. But who does Linus sing of when he coos "every little thing she does is magic..."?  


One more "x factor" in Linus's long list of charms:  a man of mystery.  No wonder Sally is so smitten.

http://youtu.be/6AvBL2Mx2xA

The Rarely Rising Great Pumpkin

Linus.  He's the perfect companion to the pessimistic Charlie Brown.  If Charles views the glass as half empty, Linus quips that there is, at least, a glass.  This is what makes Linus at once lovable, laughable and pitiable.  Linus is the sage of ancient wisdom whose own insecurity toward life illumines as a great blue, fuzzy beacon.  He is the observer; never the doer-- ever the thinker but never the courageous advocate of his own ideals.  His is the cause of the cautious philosopher.  You know, he might just like little Sally but to admit as much would put him too close to reality for comfort.  He is the eye in the sky.  The power of eyes in skies is their distance.  Eyes on the ground get trampled. It's messy stuff.  Everything is too large...too near to make any sense of; and in the panic stricken end you never even have the satisfaction of knowing what it was that crushed you.


So Linus keeps to himself and the pursuit of his own interests.  His optimism is shrouded but it is there, wrapped around him like the warm embrace of flannel or fleece.  Hope abounds in Linus.  Quiet hope.  Enduring hope.  Linus has needs.  After all, it is something, not nothing, that impels him to a random pumpkin patch each October in search of the elusive Great Pumpkin.  Linus needs the Pumpkin to rise even if it is only to quantify his own professed conclusions.  Letters don't lie.  Legends are intrinsically bound to their truth.  

Each October Linus misses out on chocolates and sweet, hard candies and, yes, even rocks.  Rocks, at least, would be something.  Linus exiles himself to bitter disappointment in exaggerated expectation of the rarely rising Great Pumpkin.  He remains undaunted.  It has risen somewhere, for someone, just not for him... just not for him.  It is a rite of despair.  For, if one is convinced that a Great Pumpkin rises, then one must hold in trust one ragged, blue blanket of reassurance: to guard against the chill of October nights, to quickly receive and conceal the boldest of tears, to be the icon of shattered hopes for one who copes from afar and sometimes in concert with Brown's depression at a common wailing wall. 


You might think that Linus would be better off with stale suckers and miniature faux-chocolate rolls.  You might think that Linus should be with friends enjoying the thrill of deep October evenings in spooky revelry.  You might think that Linus's great mind could be put to better use, say, helping Charlie Brown make a ghost costume.  


You might be right.


You should tell him.


And you can, If you can find him in one of his many points of isolated meditation, where right now  his rite of failure has evaporated with the warmth of a family fireplace.  He is working on his list for Santa...  I wouldn't disturb him.