December 4

“What is the difference between Zen and Catholicism?”

by

 A seventh grade girl who is sitting on a plastic chair on a very small balcony, trying to feel contemplative, and watching the day dawn over Tai Tam Bay, after spending ten minutes on the Internet:

Buddha says: Zen is The way.

Catholicism is A way.

Jesus says: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

What is a way?

A way. 

Away. 

Not here? 

Where? 

Away from here?

I like it here.

A way.

A method, style, or manner of doing something? 

(Online dictionary)

Add the numbers together this way:

First the ones

Don’t forget to carry

Then the tens.

Play the Minuet in G this way.  

Keep your fingers curved. 

Follow the marked fingerings. 

Pay attention to dynamics.

She has a way about her. 

It’s the American way. 

A way of life. 

A way to life. 

A path toward being. 

What is being?

Existing?

If I haven’t finished the path, do I exist?

A path toward Being.

A path toward creation.

A path toward God.

Buddha doesn’t discuss God.

Buddha is enlightenment

Christ is light

Enlightenment

Light

What’s the difference?

Buddha says all beings have Buddha inside. 

Search your heart for your Buddha self.

Jesus says: “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, that you do unto Me also.” 

He dwells in the least of His brothers.

Who are these brothers?

How do you recognize them?

Does He dwell in me too?

Buddha says: Free your mind from the slavery of words.  Throw off the shackles of logic.

Jesus says: Follow the Ten Commandments,

And then listen to the Beatitudes,

And once you’ve got all that memorized and figured out,

(Because the Beatitudes are pretty confusing)

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Buddha says: Let go of attachments.

Jesus says: “Again I say to you it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Be like Buddha

Be like Christ

Buddha says, “Worry about what is,

Not about how you feel about it.”

“But try not to worry at all.”

*   *   *

Brittany couldn’t decide if what she had written looked like a poem, or if it looked like class notes.  She briefly toyed with the idea of going back through it and ruthlessly deleting every third word.  That would make it look sparser – more like a poem and less like highlights of a lecture.  She read it through again.  She crumpled it up.  No way was she going to show this to Pete.  She wasn’t crazy!

*   *   *

         “Look at this!”  Brittany rushed up to Pete Wednesday morning as he walked up the hill toward the school.  She shoved a piece of paper in his face, asking him what he thought.  He stopped walking, and took the paper so that he could hold it in a place where he could actually read it, because it wasn’t very easy to decipher while it was bobbing up and down right in front of his face.  It was a printout from Wikipedia explaining that espresso con panna meant “espresso with cream” in Italian.  He looked up at Brittany, obviously not getting the significance.

         “Keep reading,” she was actually bouncing.  He read on to learn that in the United States it was also called a café Vienne, and that it could also be called a Wiener Melange.

         “Because Wiener refers to Vienna,” she explained excitedly, as if she had made a major discovery.  “They’re Wiener dogs, and they’re drinking Wiener coffee!  And look at this!”  She pointed to the end where it said that the drink was an old fashioned one, usually served in a demitasse.  She then held out another printout, complete with pictures, that explained that demitasse were half sized coffee cups.  “So a wiener dog could actually drink out of a demitasse because it’s small, and they’re small!”

         Pete tried to stop himself from looking around to see if anyone was listing to this ridiculous conversation.  He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he couldn’t stop himself.  

He looked. 

At least no one was nearby.  He didn’t raise his voice.  She wasn’t an idiot like Joey.  He could be gentle.  No one was watching.  “What do you mean, a wiener dog could drink out of it?  A wiener dog doesn’t have hands.  You can’t drink out of a coffee cup if you don’t have opposable thumbs, no matter how small the coffee cup is.” 

         She looked downcast.  “Oh .  .  . well .  .  . I guess there’s that.”  She shoved several more sheets of paper into his hands, and took off towards the middle school.

         Pete called after her.  “I didn’t mean to -- ” but she was gone.

         When he got to his homeroom, he sorted through the papers she had given him.  In addition to the articles on espresso con panna, and demitasse, there was a long Wikipedia printout about wiener dogs.  He was interested to learn that while Wiener referred to Vienna when you were talking about espresso, it meant the size and shape of the dog when you were talking about dachshunds.   They were shaped like a hot dog, or, a wiener.  Maybe wieners came from Vienna too.  The article didn’t say.  He also noticed that dachshunds were bred to scent, chase, and flush out badgers and other burrow dwelling creatures, and that they were the only breed of hound certifiable to hunt both above and below the ground.  Sounded like good qualifications for a detective.

         Brittany had hi-lighted a part that said that E.B. White had had a wiener dog named Fred, and written the word “significant,” with a question mark, in the margin.  Also there was a quote from an anonymous wiener dog owner about how obstinate his wiener dog was, and that dog was named Fred too.  Maybe Fred was just the modal wiener dog name.

         The wiener dog article was followed by an excerpt from an online Catholic encyclopedia about Melchisidech, and her handwritten note in loopy, round cursive, “no Malchisedech found.”  And then, even less promising, a Facebook page for someone named Janice Akel-Meyer, and genealogy research for Carl Friedrich Akelmeyer.  That one was in German.  He wondered if Friedrich was German for Fred.

         Pete felt bad.  Brittany had actually put some work into this, and he hadn’t done anything.  He had gone home and gone straight to his homework.  You couldn’t blame him.  He had had a lot of homework: two pages of geometry problems, a rough draft of a history paper, and finishing the last couple of chapters of Lord of the Flies.  Of course, all Brittany had really done was type stuff into a search engine, and use up a lot of ink printing pictures of demitasse, enticing coffee beverages, and various types of short legged, long nosed dogs.  But all he had said he would do was talk to his own mother, and he hadn’t even done that.  Which was too bad, because it always made his mother so ridiculously happy when he talked to her.  He promised himself that he would do it after school, and turned his attention to the procedures for an upcoming standardized test that his homeroom teacher was outlining on the whiteboard.

         All day long, he kept opening his English notebook, and sheepishly looking for another installment, but not finding one, which was reasonable, of course, because stories didn’t just write themselves in spiral notebooks.   Did they? 

He gave Mr. McAllister the correct version of his religious studies paper, which made sense, of course, because today was Wednesday, the day it was due.  He tried to make significant eye contact to see if his religion teacher might have something new for him about the wiener dogs.  After all, he had been the source of the first installment, the introduction, on November 30.  But Mr. McAllister didn’t seem to notice him.  Pete felt silly.

*   *   *

         A little boy opened a small cardboard box, his eyes wide with wonder.  Inside was a brown, plastic boar.  “Is it one of the three little pigs?” he asked.

         “What do you think?” his father asked, smiling. 

“I think it’s one of the Littels, and I think his name is Turtletaub.”  He carefully placed the plastic pig on a cardboard diorama, where it joined a deer, a trough, and a fawn.

“Turtletaub? What kind of name is that?”

“I don’t know.  I just think his name is Turtletaub.  Am I right?”

“You’ll find out tonight.”

The little boy grabbed his little backpack and ran out the front door. 

“Turtletaub,” the man shook his head, and sat down at the computer.

*   *   *

No one was in the family room when George walked in the door.  The computer was open to his mother’s e-mail.  He started to close it, but noticed that it was a message from Uncle Duane.  It read,

“I’m so pleased that you’re interested in my hole.  It is wide enough end to end for me to touch both ends if I stretch my arms out to their fullest.  It is wide enough the other direction for me to stand with my fists in my underarms, doing the chicken dance, and touch the sides with my elbows.  Of course, I can’t do that as of now, because it is not deep enough (and when it gets that deep I may not be able to get out of it if I do stand in it, what with my arthritis), but it is very interesting.  I have had to stop working on it, because I am having some trouble breathing, but the dirt that comes up is very interesting.  I am putting it in a pile.  A very big pile.”

George typed “Hope you feel better.”  He hit send before closing his mother’s e-mail and opening his own.  He had three messages waiting for him.  He deleted an advertisement for Viagra, and accepted a Facebook friend request from a girl in his Geometry class.  The third one was a little less straightforward.  The address was something he didn’t recognize.  Iaagfwaj.  It was a group of letters that didn’t look particularly pronounceable, at hotmail.  The subject line was today’s date.  He thought about just deleting it.  That would be the responsible thing.  It would keep the computer from getting a potential virus.  Then again, the subject line was today’s date, December 4.  He was waiting for the December fourth installment of the Wiener Dog story.  He felt a little silly about the fact that he was actually waiting for it, but he really kind of wanted to know what was up with the whole Christmas being cancelled thing, and the mysterious trough.  Mr. McAllister was right.  The wiener dogs were charming. 

He took a deep breath, knowing that opening a virus could not only screw up every paper he had on the computer, but everything his parents were doing too. 

He clicked on the message anyway. 

It was more wiener dogs.

  

December 4

"I guess things really started to go downhill on election night, November second," explained Chloe.

*   *   *

         He started to read it, but realized that now it felt wrong to read it by himself, after all the work Brittany had done – after all the ink she had wasted.  He looked outside, and sure enough, Brittany was sitting on the bench. 

         “Are you sure you want to be seen talking to a seventh grader?” she asked as he approached.

         “Why, what’s the matter?”  Pete asked, trying to decide how to respond if she was still mad at him.  He was wavering between defensive, or apologetic, when it turned out she wasn’t even thinking about what had happened that morning.

         “George is being a jerk.”

         Pete felt guilty that he had come looking for George’s little sister before he looked for George.  “Is he still upset?”

         “He won’t talk to anybody, and he barely eats.  He just keeps taking baths, and staring into space.”  She swung her legs back and forth, kicking the grass under the bench every time her feet reached the low point of the arc.  To Pete, it made her look very young.  And very sad.  He smiled at her.

         “I’ll try talking to him later, but right now we should go in and read something that just came on my e-mail.”

         Once they had pulled up an extra chair, and she was sitting next to him, he felt OK about reading.

December 4

"I guess things really started to go downhill on election night, November second," explained Chloe.  The three wiener dogs, Chloe, and Fawn were sitting around the kitchen table, sipping green tea.  Actually, Fred was having his second latte of the day, but that detail is irrelevant to the story.  "Santa started in on the eggnog after the Florida results posted, and he pretty much hasn't let up.  That on top of the elves' health care dispute--they've been staging "sick-outs" about once a week, and toy production is way behind schedule.  And last week all the reindeer lost their ability to fly.  One by one, over the course of about four hours.  Like some kind of virus.  Oh, dear.  It's like a bad B-movie."  Chloe's eyes started to well up again.  "It would be funny in a story, if it weren't all really happening.  And there will surely be no Christmas.  Oh, oh, oh, oh."  She began to sob again.

Malchisedech’s expression hovered between amusement and disbelief.  "But, that's a fable.  I mean, many cultures have variants on the myth, and St. Nicholas was a real historical figure, and probably even liked children, but, you know, the whole Santa Claus, or Kris Kringle, or Father Christmas or whatever--it's a story.  Kids like it, and parents like it, but it's made up.  It's the parents who buy the toys."  He directed his next comment at Fred, a bit more softly.  "Maybe there really was something wrong with that water she drank."

"Maybe she hit her head," said Akelmeyer.

"Or maybe, you know."  Malchisedech put his paw to his temple in a gesture that indicated perhaps Chloe's deck was missing a couple of aces.

"Hey, don't talk about my Mom like that," said Fawn indignantly.  "It is real.  Not quite like your stories, but it is real for sure.  We live at the North Pole, and Mom works for Santa Claus as a receptionist, and Christmas is real."

"Well, that much is true.  Christmas is a real holiday; it's the Christian celebration of the birth of the Savior," said Malchisedech.  "But the Santa part is a story.  I'm sure of it.

"The older I get, the more I am not fully sure of anything.  I believe more and more that anything is possible in this world," said Fred.

"Yeah.  Yeah, like did you know that physicists are pretty sure that everything is energy, even matter?  That is, nothing really exists, or, well, it does, but not really.  E equals mc squared.  Energy and matter are the same thing.  So, then, now they think energy is like, is like thought.  So, maybe matter is like thought.  Maybe we don't really exist, but only Someone is thinking us.  So, whatever they think would be true.  Like Santa."  Akelmeyer's thoughts were more eloquent than his speech.

"Whatever," said Malchisedech.  "When I was a puppy I snuck downstairs and saw Fred putting milk bones under the tree.  The tag said, 'Love, Santa,' but it was Fred.  There is no Santa Claus."

"Well, there is.  And he has been moping around in a drunken stupor for weeks, and there will be no Christmas unless something is done," said Fawn matter-of-factly.

"Oh, dear.  Dear, dear," said Chloe.

"Maybe there is a Santa, in a way we don't quite understand."  Fred looked pensive.

"Hey, Fred, I have to talk to you!"  Turtletaub Littel, the youngest of the three neighbor pigs, barged into the door without knocking.  The pigs and the wiener dogs were fast friends, and always welcome in each other's homes, but they usually showed the courtesy of knocking.  Tubby, as he was called, was out of breath.  It was an inappropriate nickname, because it implied a certain portliness, and Turtletaub was slender, as pigs go.  "Oh, the deer found you. Good.  Listen.  The weirdest thing just happened."

TO BE CONTINUED...

          Pete and Brittany looked at each other.

         “The United States have elections on November 2,” Brittany observed. 

         “How do you know that?”

         “What do you think we do in Social Studies?”

         “I don’t know.  Seems like we just did Native Americans over and over till I hit High School.”

         “Wow.”  Brittany shook her head. 

Pete tapped the notebook, bringing their attention back to the matter at hand.  “Ok, so Santa’s moping around just like George is.”

Brittany giggled, then hastened to assure him that she didn’t think George was drinking, or that he was worried about Christmas being cancelled.

Pete conceded that she was probably right, and then returned to the wiener dogs, noticing that Santa had begun his downward spiral on election night, and positing that Santa might be drinking because he didn’t like Obama, the most recently elected US President.

         “You think maybe Santa’s a racist?”

         “That would be weird.  The thing is,” George continued thoughtfully.  “It talks about the NASDAQ taking a real nose-dive in the nineties.  Mom says that the NASDAQ has something to do with the stock market.  I don’t know anything about the stock market, and I really didn’t understand what she was saying, but I do know that a lot has gone wrong since the nineties.  Like whole countries are talking bankruptcy, and it was on the news a while ago about how huge banks were going to close down completely if the US government didn’t give them gobs and gobs of money.  And there are all these people protesting and occupying Wall Street, or whatever.  And last summer when we went home, businesses were closed, and so many people had their homes foreclosed on.  It wasn’t just in the news, it was even people we know. 

“I’m wondering if this was written recently, because if it was, I wonder if they would really be upset about something that happened in the nineties, instead of what’s going on right now.”

         “Maybe the wiener dogs took their money out of stocks after whatever happened in the nineties, and put it into real-estate, so the stock market isn’t affecting them any more.”

         “Lots of people did that.”  This was from his mom coming down the stairs, “but it didn’t necessarily turn out for the best either.”

         “Hi Mrs. Meren,” Brittany waved. “What do you mean?” 

         “The stock market had a series of corrections leading up to this latest situation, and many people did pull out of it completely, thinking that real estate was a safer place for their money.  The problem is that the real estate bubble burst a few years ago.  Even before the stock market’s latest problems, although of course everything is connected.  That’s why you see so many houses being foreclosed on now.”  She smiled down on the two of them.  “I’m so pleased to see you taking an interest in this.”

         Pete looked down at his notebook, and realized that he had been doodling.  He had drawn bubbles with houses in them.  Some of them had popped, and the houses were falling.  Falling toward a wiener dog, who was looking up at the sky with an alarmed expression on his pointy-nosed little face.