Last Christmas I drew on newly revealed records to report on the exchanges between Mary and Joseph, and this year too, I would like to continue in that vein to bring the true Christmas spirit to life.
Immortalized in that famous Christmas carol, the wise men are central to the Christmas story.
"We three kings of Orient are..."
and then something about a rubber cigar...
I forget the rest, but anyway, today we will look at the wise men who visited the baby Jesus. We traditionally think of them as three wise men, but nothing in the Bible actually tells us how many they were. What the Bible does tell us is that "On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh."
They opened their treasure chests (plural) and offered gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh!
These are valuable gifts! Gold is precious even today, frankincense is of ancient importance, and myrrh is more valuable than gold. We can assume that Mary and Joseph came in to some serious loot!
The image we have of Jesus is that he was not a rich man, but that he did not actually have any visual means of support either. There is nothing in the Bible that suggests he held down a job, for example. Yes, we know he WAS a carpenter, but I also USED TO work at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
We need to get to the basic documents here to find out what happened to those riches. And for that I (once again) revert to the recently revealed texts that I drew on last Christmas.
The relevant parts open with the wise men, presenting their gifts to the baby Jesus at the new house where Mary and Joseph have moved (they were not in the stable; check your Bible, OK?)
Wise Man1: (knocking on the door) Hello? Anybody home?
Mary: (wiping her hands on a towel as she leaves the kitchen) Hello? What can I do for you?
WM1: We are three wise men from the East, come to pay homage to the new King.
Mary: Say what?
Joseph: (From in back) Mary? Who is that? It's not Benjamin again, is it?!
Mary: (shouting to the back) NO! It's some wise men. (To the wise men) What do you want?
Wise Man2: We come bearing gifts to present to your son, the new king.
Wise Man3: Yes, we bring gold!
Wise Man4: And frankincense!
Wise Man5: And Myrrh!
Mary: Oh my.... how did you hear about us anyway?
WM1: A star rose in the west, signalling the arrival of the new King. We were ordered by Harod to follow its passage until we came here to your house, the house of the King.
Joseph: (coming to the door) What is all this about? Are you guys with the sewer company? We paid our bill last month!
Mary: No, Joseph. They have brought gifts for our baby. For Jesus!
Joseph: You sent in those coupons, didn't you? And we won something? I don't believe it.
Mary: No! Nothing like that. They brought gifts on their own!
Joseph: Wow. Thanks a lot. You guys are awesome!
WM2: Well.... it's been real, but we had a bad dream last night, so we have to go. In fact, we cannot return to Harod, so we need to go home by another way.
Mary: Oh my... well have a safe trip.
WM3: Thank you. I think we should go back by way of that new resort in Babylon. What do you guys think?
WM4: Sounds good to me!
Joseph: Well, good luck then! Thanks for the presents and all.
– LATER –
Mary: What are we going to DO with these gifts? Look at this, Joseph! There is a lot of stuff here!
Joseph: Wow! Look at all this gold! And the myrrh!!
Mary: We should save it.... for Jesus' college education. It is getting more and more expensive these days and he won't get a good job if he doesn't have a college education!
Joseph: Hey! Being a carpenter isn't THAT bad.... You know we could use some of it now! I wouldn't mind having a new donkey...
Mary: JOSEPH! You just BOUGHT a new donkey two years ago! What do you think you are? A Roman?!
Joseph: Well... I just thought....
How about paying down the mortgage, then?
Mary: NO! We are saving this for his future. What if he has trouble finding a job or something... he will need this to fall back on.
And so, it came to pass, that the gold, and the frankincense, and the myrrh were saved. Thanks to Mary. And that explains why Jesus never needed to have a job the whole time he was preaching and turning water into wine, etc.
Isn't that a heart warming story? Doesn't it just fill your heart with the Christmas spirit? It does mine. Of course, we don't actually know HOW the gifts were invested, but we can be sure it wasn't real estate as there is no Biblical record of Jesus living anywhere as an adult.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good investment! How about frankincense futures?
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Too Much of the Holiday Spirit
Last week we looked into the dire social ramifications of having dipped too deeply into the barrel of whatever it is you are drinking. This week – in Part Two of the Holiday Special on Drinking – we will talk about how your drinking might reflect on you personally. Yes, your image is important, especially during the holiday season when you experience a lot of stress from being with in-laws and other people you try to avoid most of the year.
To bring this rather boring point to life, let me relate another story from my past experience. Many years ago (don't ask) I lived in Nara but worked in Osaka, a 90-minute commute one way. My job was in the evening, so I traveled back home on the Kintetsu line with a lot of "salarymen" who were also wrapping up their day, often with a good deal of booze under their belts.
I became an expert at divining which of the boarding salarymen would lose their dinners in the railway car, and learned to move away as quickly as possible, even if I already had a seat. Inevitably one of them would board, spot me sitting there, and filled with "courage", he would come to the unavoidable conclusion that THIS would be the perfect opportunity to practice that English he had learned in school. So he would come around and hang on the strap over me and say things like, "Mmfmfm... bllrnotott .... kormrmtffmlmf," as he hung on the strap and swayed back and forth with the movement of the train. Despite this sparkling conversation, my concerns about being covered in "courage" and the noodles the salaryman had had for dinner, prompted me to give him my seat and move away.
The train left Namba, a central Osaka station, made one more stop in the city at Nipponbashi, and then run long to the bedroom communities in the outlying areas. The first and biggest of these was Gakuenmae, then Saidaiji then Tenri.
One evening, a salaryman got on. He was clearly drunk, his necktie loose and his suit rumpled. He staggered onto the train in Namba, crossed the car and collapsed onto the floor, leaning against the opposite door.
The doors closed and the train departed. He looked up at everyone and smiled all around.
The train approached the next stop, Nipponbashi.
The train stopped. The doors opened.
He was lucky. The doors opened on the side he got on from, not the side he was leaning against.
He smiled at everyone who got on and even waved at some of the more attractive women (who moved, frowning, to the opposite ends of the car immediately).
From Nipponbashi to the next stop was a long 3o minute run. The car was warm. The rhythm of the rails soon soothed our drunk into a state of soporific stupor.
But soon enough the first of the bedroom community stations came up. The conductor made his announcements, "Gakuenmae, Gakuenmae", and the train pulled into the station.
The doors opened. Most of the riders jostled for the door. The poor drunk, seated across from the opened doors, opened his eyes and saw the name of his station on the sign.
His eyes processed the information and you could see it in his face, "I must get off here!!"
So he tried to get up off the floor. Regrettably, the tails of his suit jacket had spread to the side as he sat down against the train door and in trying to get up, he put his hands on them. He tried to raise himself against his own weight on his jacket.
The look of incomprehension, "Why am I not getting up?!", crossed his face as he strained against his own power.
The doors closed.
The train left his station.
The hapless inebriate slumped down against the opposite door.
The next bedroom stop came up shortly. The conductor once again announced, "Saidaiji, Saidaiji", and the train pulled into the station.
You could see on the helpless salaryman's face the glimmer of recognition, "I can get off here, and go back to my stop!"
A second time, he tried to raise himself off the floor while holding himself down by his suit jacket.
I had to get off, but he was still wrestling with himself when the doors closed behind me.
The next stop was the end of the line. When the conductor walked through the cars, rousing the other drunks, he would help the pitiful salaryman off the train then. Hopefully he would remember where he needed to go.
So... the moral to the story is, when you drink too much, don't wear a suit. You might hold yourself down with your own suit jacket.
It looks silly, and makes a bad impression on in-laws and other people around you.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Next Sunday is Christmas, so my meaningful and heart-warming, annual Christmas message will be posted on Christmas day, not Monday when you will be hung-over and unable to read.
To bring this rather boring point to life, let me relate another story from my past experience. Many years ago (don't ask) I lived in Nara but worked in Osaka, a 90-minute commute one way. My job was in the evening, so I traveled back home on the Kintetsu line with a lot of "salarymen" who were also wrapping up their day, often with a good deal of booze under their belts.
I became an expert at divining which of the boarding salarymen would lose their dinners in the railway car, and learned to move away as quickly as possible, even if I already had a seat. Inevitably one of them would board, spot me sitting there, and filled with "courage", he would come to the unavoidable conclusion that THIS would be the perfect opportunity to practice that English he had learned in school. So he would come around and hang on the strap over me and say things like, "Mmfmfm... bllrnotott .... kormrmtffmlmf," as he hung on the strap and swayed back and forth with the movement of the train. Despite this sparkling conversation, my concerns about being covered in "courage" and the noodles the salaryman had had for dinner, prompted me to give him my seat and move away.
The train left Namba, a central Osaka station, made one more stop in the city at Nipponbashi, and then run long to the bedroom communities in the outlying areas. The first and biggest of these was Gakuenmae, then Saidaiji then Tenri.
One evening, a salaryman got on. He was clearly drunk, his necktie loose and his suit rumpled. He staggered onto the train in Namba, crossed the car and collapsed onto the floor, leaning against the opposite door.
The doors closed and the train departed. He looked up at everyone and smiled all around.
The train approached the next stop, Nipponbashi.
The train stopped. The doors opened.
He was lucky. The doors opened on the side he got on from, not the side he was leaning against.
He smiled at everyone who got on and even waved at some of the more attractive women (who moved, frowning, to the opposite ends of the car immediately).
From Nipponbashi to the next stop was a long 3o minute run. The car was warm. The rhythm of the rails soon soothed our drunk into a state of soporific stupor.
But soon enough the first of the bedroom community stations came up. The conductor made his announcements, "Gakuenmae, Gakuenmae", and the train pulled into the station.
The doors opened. Most of the riders jostled for the door. The poor drunk, seated across from the opened doors, opened his eyes and saw the name of his station on the sign.
His eyes processed the information and you could see it in his face, "I must get off here!!"
So he tried to get up off the floor. Regrettably, the tails of his suit jacket had spread to the side as he sat down against the train door and in trying to get up, he put his hands on them. He tried to raise himself against his own weight on his jacket.
The look of incomprehension, "Why am I not getting up?!", crossed his face as he strained against his own power.
The doors closed.
The train left his station.
The hapless inebriate slumped down against the opposite door.
The next bedroom stop came up shortly. The conductor once again announced, "Saidaiji, Saidaiji", and the train pulled into the station.
You could see on the helpless salaryman's face the glimmer of recognition, "I can get off here, and go back to my stop!"
A second time, he tried to raise himself off the floor while holding himself down by his suit jacket.
I had to get off, but he was still wrestling with himself when the doors closed behind me.
The next stop was the end of the line. When the conductor walked through the cars, rousing the other drunks, he would help the pitiful salaryman off the train then. Hopefully he would remember where he needed to go.
So... the moral to the story is, when you drink too much, don't wear a suit. You might hold yourself down with your own suit jacket.
It looks silly, and makes a bad impression on in-laws and other people around you.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Next Sunday is Christmas, so my meaningful and heart-warming, annual Christmas message will be posted on Christmas day, not Monday when you will be hung-over and unable to read.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Drink, Drank, and yes... Drunk, or Lessons for the Holidays
The holiday season is upon us, and if you are like me, you are confronting a two-week period where you will not only consume a lot of alcohol "as is" but also find it in a lot of desserts!
Especially here in Japan, the endless succession of year-end parties leave thousands of really drunk people staggering around in the streets.
So it is, so it has been, so it shall always be.
How many of us have had the experience of drinking too much in high school or even yesterday?
Or how about having to "hide" it from the kids?
(I am not thinking of any one person in particular here.)
"BOBBY! NO!!!! That's Mommy's special water!"
The French drink a lot. But for them it is a health benefit. (I never make this stuff up, you can check for yourself.) So what is going on in other countries? If it is not a social benefit, then maybe something else is happening.
Here in Japan, for example, people drink to get drunk.
In the US, on the other hand, we have expressions like, "She can really hold her liquor!" which suggest that showing you are high is a minus. In Japan, there is no social opprobrium (Latin for "throwing up on someone") for being publicly drunk.
But some people imbibe too much and cause "social consequences". Let me relate an episode from my past as an example, and then we can think about what this might mean to us in our everyday lives.
When I was in junior high school. I rode the trains from my home in Osaka to my school in Kobe – about 60 minutes. Coming back one day, late in the afternoon, I saw a group of three university students sitting across from me on the bench seats of the railway car, clearly drunk. One of them was lying in the lap of another while the third student massaged his back sympathetically.
Not too far down the train from them was an older woman in immaculate kimono and perfect, traditional hairstyle. Clearly bound for some formal event, a tea ceremony or a flower arrangement class, she sat very properly just a little ways "down-car" of the drunken students, looking at them out of the corner of her eye from time to time.
In those days, the trains had no air conditioning; we opened the windows to let the breezes blow through. So all the windows were wide open, being that it was a sultry, warm, early summer day.
The student, who was lying in the lap of his fellow drunkard, suddenly reared up and started puffing at the cheeks. The other two quickly guided him to the open window to expel the drink and whatever it was he had eaten (mostly noodles, it looked like to me) out the window.
Unfortunately, there is a wind dynamic around trains (trust me on this; I know my wind dynamics), and the expelled noodles and drink traveled in an arc out the window where the student was pathetically heaving and back into the train "down-car" where the woman in the kimono was sitting.
Poor woman.
The expelled "stuff" flew in her window and splattered her from perfectly coiffed hair to mid-waist. I could describe to you, the sound of its impact, the splash of ejecta as it bombed her, but maybe you don't want to know.
The students, for their part, were completely oblivious. The incident was "fire and forget"; once the sick one had let loose his troubling stomach contacts, the three returned to their montage of him lying on one's lap while the other rubbed his back.
The dreadfully decorated woman sat calmly, perhaps drawing on her Zen training, and opened her small purse to take out some tissues. She blotted first her hair and then her face, carefully brushing the solid material (you REALLY don't want to know) off her kimono shoulder and sleeve.
She never showed any expression of disgust or dismay. She showed no expression at all! It was like this happened everyday.
I was left wondering how she made it through the rest of her day, smelling like she must have smelled.
What can we learn from this as we enter the holiday season?
1. Some people are way stronger than we are. I could tell you another story about my college roommate in a movie theater to prove this point, but let's just leave it with the woman who was very calm and collected when most of us would have lost it.
2. You don't want to be drinking when later you have to ride a train. I will discuss this next week in the second part of my holiday special about drinking.
3. Air conditioning in railway cars is an important development. This keeps the spew local, like on your classmate's lap (I have seen that too), saving the others in the car from participating in your holiday fun.
So, all of you out there (you know who you are), drink responsibly and stay away from trains.
Especially here in Japan, the endless succession of year-end parties leave thousands of really drunk people staggering around in the streets.
So it is, so it has been, so it shall always be.
How many of us have had the experience of drinking too much in high school or even yesterday?
Or how about having to "hide" it from the kids?
(I am not thinking of any one person in particular here.)
"BOBBY! NO!!!! That's Mommy's special water!"
The French drink a lot. But for them it is a health benefit. (I never make this stuff up, you can check for yourself.) So what is going on in other countries? If it is not a social benefit, then maybe something else is happening.
Here in Japan, for example, people drink to get drunk.
In the US, on the other hand, we have expressions like, "She can really hold her liquor!" which suggest that showing you are high is a minus. In Japan, there is no social opprobrium (Latin for "throwing up on someone") for being publicly drunk.
But some people imbibe too much and cause "social consequences". Let me relate an episode from my past as an example, and then we can think about what this might mean to us in our everyday lives.
When I was in junior high school. I rode the trains from my home in Osaka to my school in Kobe – about 60 minutes. Coming back one day, late in the afternoon, I saw a group of three university students sitting across from me on the bench seats of the railway car, clearly drunk. One of them was lying in the lap of another while the third student massaged his back sympathetically.
Not too far down the train from them was an older woman in immaculate kimono and perfect, traditional hairstyle. Clearly bound for some formal event, a tea ceremony or a flower arrangement class, she sat very properly just a little ways "down-car" of the drunken students, looking at them out of the corner of her eye from time to time.
In those days, the trains had no air conditioning; we opened the windows to let the breezes blow through. So all the windows were wide open, being that it was a sultry, warm, early summer day.
The student, who was lying in the lap of his fellow drunkard, suddenly reared up and started puffing at the cheeks. The other two quickly guided him to the open window to expel the drink and whatever it was he had eaten (mostly noodles, it looked like to me) out the window.
Unfortunately, there is a wind dynamic around trains (trust me on this; I know my wind dynamics), and the expelled noodles and drink traveled in an arc out the window where the student was pathetically heaving and back into the train "down-car" where the woman in the kimono was sitting.
Poor woman.
The expelled "stuff" flew in her window and splattered her from perfectly coiffed hair to mid-waist. I could describe to you, the sound of its impact, the splash of ejecta as it bombed her, but maybe you don't want to know.
The students, for their part, were completely oblivious. The incident was "fire and forget"; once the sick one had let loose his troubling stomach contacts, the three returned to their montage of him lying on one's lap while the other rubbed his back.
The dreadfully decorated woman sat calmly, perhaps drawing on her Zen training, and opened her small purse to take out some tissues. She blotted first her hair and then her face, carefully brushing the solid material (you REALLY don't want to know) off her kimono shoulder and sleeve.
She never showed any expression of disgust or dismay. She showed no expression at all! It was like this happened everyday.
I was left wondering how she made it through the rest of her day, smelling like she must have smelled.
What can we learn from this as we enter the holiday season?
1. Some people are way stronger than we are. I could tell you another story about my college roommate in a movie theater to prove this point, but let's just leave it with the woman who was very calm and collected when most of us would have lost it.
2. You don't want to be drinking when later you have to ride a train. I will discuss this next week in the second part of my holiday special about drinking.
3. Air conditioning in railway cars is an important development. This keeps the spew local, like on your classmate's lap (I have seen that too), saving the others in the car from participating in your holiday fun.
So, all of you out there (you know who you are), drink responsibly and stay away from trains.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Across the "Event Boundary" Backwards
In previous posts, I have tried to provide useful advice to seniors on how to stay forever young, how not to appear dead, and mental health. Wearing youthful garb and learning how to handcuff yourself to your comfy seat so that your relatives don't cart you off to the morgue are easy to do, but the mental health issue is one that plagues us on a daily basis.
How many of you "seniors" ("senior" is the new "geezer") have had this experience?
You are sitting in your armchair when it suddenly hits you that you would like a glass of wine. So, you get up and trudge to the kitchen – only about 4 meters (that's eight fluid ounces in the US system) away – and then stand there, wondering what you are doing in the kitchen.
I can hear you asking, "Why DO we get up from our armchairs and shuffle into the kitchen and then stand there and look around the room like we have entered another dimension?"
An excellent question! And you will be delighted to know, that apparently it is not ALL due to your fading mental capacities!
That's right. In a way you HAVE entered another dimension. Something that psychologists call an "event boundary" is also to blame.
The simple act of walking through a doorway separates the activities in your mind. On one side of the doorway your mind is thinking, "Wine.... wine... wine!" but by passing through that doorway, your mind compartmentalizes the wine thoughts and leaves them somewhere, probably in the washing machine, and then takes up a new thought as you enter the kitchen, "WTF am I doing in here?"
What can we do about this debilitating phenomenon to prevent us from looking completely senile as we scuff through doors and wake up in a new reality due to "boundary events"?
Yours truly – ever eager to roll back the years and delay geezerdom – has found the perfect solution.
Apparently walking backward is very good for your brain. In a nutshell, it provides a way of breaking routine, keeping your attention, and engaging your senses in a novel way, all of which contribute to good mental health! Using this technique while exercising has been proven in research studies to be helpful, but what I am proposing here is that you incorporate this into your everyday routine.
I can hear you all saying, "He's lost it! No way am I going to walk backwards at work! Never mind trying to get a date doing that. Sheesh!"
That is not what I am proposing.
No.
What I am suggesting is that when you are confronted with an "event boundary" like a doorway at home, you turn around and pass through it backwards. In this way, you can avoid the "senior" blanking-out embarrassment and present a more youthful aspect to those who are watching you closely for signs that you need to go the nursing home.
Not one to only give advice to others, I tested this new technique out myself. Whenever I wanted a glass of wine, I would stand up and walk towards the kitchen normally, and then turn around backwards when I crossed between the rooms. Each and every time I was able to remember that it was wine I was after!*
With this new advance in mental health maintenance, I hope that you can continue to live a meaningful and useful life as you age.
- - - - - - - - - -
*WARNING: While mental acuity is improved by walking backwards through the "event boundaries", physical coordination may be affected by the wine you manage to drink as a result. Stumbling, and dragging the dish rack on top of you as you fall down, and breaking someone's favorite mug is MUCH easier while walking backwards.
Just to let you know.
How many of you "seniors" ("senior" is the new "geezer") have had this experience?
You are sitting in your armchair when it suddenly hits you that you would like a glass of wine. So, you get up and trudge to the kitchen – only about 4 meters (that's eight fluid ounces in the US system) away – and then stand there, wondering what you are doing in the kitchen.
I can hear you asking, "Why DO we get up from our armchairs and shuffle into the kitchen and then stand there and look around the room like we have entered another dimension?"
An excellent question! And you will be delighted to know, that apparently it is not ALL due to your fading mental capacities!
That's right. In a way you HAVE entered another dimension. Something that psychologists call an "event boundary" is also to blame.
The simple act of walking through a doorway separates the activities in your mind. On one side of the doorway your mind is thinking, "Wine.... wine... wine!" but by passing through that doorway, your mind compartmentalizes the wine thoughts and leaves them somewhere, probably in the washing machine, and then takes up a new thought as you enter the kitchen, "WTF am I doing in here?"
What can we do about this debilitating phenomenon to prevent us from looking completely senile as we scuff through doors and wake up in a new reality due to "boundary events"?
Yours truly – ever eager to roll back the years and delay geezerdom – has found the perfect solution.
Apparently walking backward is very good for your brain. In a nutshell, it provides a way of breaking routine, keeping your attention, and engaging your senses in a novel way, all of which contribute to good mental health! Using this technique while exercising has been proven in research studies to be helpful, but what I am proposing here is that you incorporate this into your everyday routine.
I can hear you all saying, "He's lost it! No way am I going to walk backwards at work! Never mind trying to get a date doing that. Sheesh!"
That is not what I am proposing.
No.
What I am suggesting is that when you are confronted with an "event boundary" like a doorway at home, you turn around and pass through it backwards. In this way, you can avoid the "senior" blanking-out embarrassment and present a more youthful aspect to those who are watching you closely for signs that you need to go the nursing home.
Not one to only give advice to others, I tested this new technique out myself. Whenever I wanted a glass of wine, I would stand up and walk towards the kitchen normally, and then turn around backwards when I crossed between the rooms. Each and every time I was able to remember that it was wine I was after!*
With this new advance in mental health maintenance, I hope that you can continue to live a meaningful and useful life as you age.
- - - - - - - - - -
*WARNING: While mental acuity is improved by walking backwards through the "event boundaries", physical coordination may be affected by the wine you manage to drink as a result. Stumbling, and dragging the dish rack on top of you as you fall down, and breaking someone's favorite mug is MUCH easier while walking backwards.
Just to let you know.
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