Blest Be The Tie That Binds (Happy New Year!)

For the greater part of my life, I have legitimately avoided the pressure of New Year's Eve.
It's one of the days of the year that I came to dread when I was in my 20s because there was such pressure to do something "fun" - which meant, usually, some elaborate dress-up party or dinner with a show or concert. And you have to find the 'perfect' place to be at midnight, and, of course, the perfect person to be with.
I can remember one New Year's Eve in downtown Atlanta with a girl I was dating at the time. I don't remember what we'd done that night, but I remember we were going to try to be on Margaret Mitchell Square, at the intersection of Peachtree and Pryor streets, in front of the big round Coca-Cola sign that was a landmark in Atlanta for so long (until Georgia Pacific bought the building that used to be the Loew's Theatre - where Gone With The Wind premiered - and tore it down to build its corporate headquarters. However, GP insisted it be given a Peachtree Street address, requiring the city to fill in Pryor Street, and then insisted the Coca-Cola sign come down, because Georgia Pacific didn't want its corporate headquarters to be over-shadowed by another corporate logo. Can you tell I'm still bitter about that, even after all these years?)
Anyway, we were on Peachtree Street at midnight, but what I remember most was afterward we walked back through the Hyatt Regency Hotel, and I swear the lobby floor was an inch deep in alcohol. I'd never seen anything like it. We were literally splashing through the lobby. I have no idea what went on in the lobby of the Hyatt that night, but I think it was wilder than whatever happened on Peachtree.
Another time I was in New Orleans for a Sugar Bowl, and was in this old jazz bar on Bourbon Street. I wanted to be outside on Bourbon Street for midnight, but it was so packed that I wound up crossing over into the New Year wedged in the doorway of the bar (I think it was called something like the "Horseshoe Lounge;" it isn't there anymore). Such was the crush of humanity that I could neither go out into the street, nor back into the bar.
For most of my adult life, I've been on the road for New Year's Eve covering some college football bowl game. If the game I was covering wasn't actually being played on New Year's Eve, the bowl game usually had a party planned for those of us in the media. I remember I was at the Orange Bowl on New Year's Eve 1999 for the Y2K scare, at a Gloria Estefan concert - although actually I think I was back in the hospitality suite on the top floor of whatever hotel I was staying at when midnight actually rolled around.
In those days, I spent an awful lot of those kind of moments with sportswriters and sports information directors. (Someday I should recount spending Christmas Eve in the bar in the lobby of this big old classic hotel in El Paso with - of course - a bunch of sportswriters.)
Yes, I missed seeing quite a few New Year's roll in with The Trophy Wife (the 'perfect person' mentioned above). She would go to parties and I would be where ever I was, but we'd always try to make sure we were on the phone with each other at midnight of the time zone she was in. 
But I can't say I missed the pressure of having to figure out what to do on those nights.
Interesting (at least to me) is the fact that I spent the first 18 or 19 New Year's Eve of my life in the same place: church.
We had what we Southern Baptists called "Watch Night" services. I think the idea was that if The Lord should decide to come back either in the final minutes of the old year or the first few minutes of the new, He'd find a bunch of us waiting for Him in church.
I don't remember much about those services. I think they probably started later than a normal evening service. But what I do remember is that at the end of the service - I think after we'd share Communion (or "The Lord's Supper" as we called it) - is that everyone would get up from their seats and circle the sanctuary/auditorium and join hands. Often, it seems like we'd be two or three or four deep around the church, the "Body" unified.
 And while much of the rest of the world sang "Auld Lang Syne," we'd sing "Blest Be The Tie That Binds."

There are certain things about the church I grew up in that will stick with me forever. Not all of them are good - this was the late 1960s-early 1970s after all, and there were issues between the generations (see here).
But there was much good.
For example, I can't see a baptism without hearing "Brother Paul" Van Gorder saying, "Buried in the likeness of His death; raised in the likeness of His resurrection; to walk in newness of life" - particularly because for the longest time when I was a child I thought the last line was "to walk into the supply room." I love that phrase (the real one, not the supply room one), and still repeat it mentally at every baptism I see.
Another is that ending to the Watch Night Service, the way we sang in the New Year. Perhaps it is age, perhaps it is nostalgia, perhaps - probably - it's both. But I miss the church gathered round in a huge circle, joining hands, and welcoming in the New Year with the words:
                     Blest be the tie that binds
                       Our hearts in Christian love;
                          The fellowship of kindred minds
                            Is like to that above.

                      Before our Father's throne
                        We pour our ardent prayers;
                           Our fears, our hopes, our aims are one
                              Our comforts and our cares.

                       We share each other's woes,
                          Our mutual burdens bear;
                            And often for each other flows
                              The sympathizing tear.

                        When we asunder part, 
                           It gives us inward pain;
                            But we shall still be joined in heart,
                              And hope to meet again.

You know, now that I think about it, we might actually have gathered and sang "How Great Thou Art." We sang that song a lot.
It has been a long time. Both are great songs. Maybe we sang them both.
But for  tonight, this is my story and I'm sticking to it.
Happy New Year!

Christmas: Pressure to blog

I haven't written anything in awhile. I'm sorry (if you care).
For so long I wrote on deadlines, and it's nice not to have to worry about that now.
On the other hand, I feel the old newspaper pressure to keep something fresh on this blog as often as possible, just in case. I don't want anyone to come to this blog and be disappointed.
So I'm formulating some new ideas I want to get to.

One is about riding elevators. I struck me how elevators are little universes, where people come on and get off at random times, and the interaction between people on the elevators is always interesting.

Another is about family. Christmas does that to me. I started thinking about my own family, and then Jesus' family, and how unusual Jesus' family wound up being - how they doubted him!

And there is a whole blog about my review of Warhorse. Let me just say, my sons didn't want to go. I told them Steven Spielberg didn't make bad movies. They were right and I was wrong. It was really a waste of time on so many levels. But maybe I'll get to that, too.

Anyway, consider this all a 'tease' for when I have some time to write. But right now, I'm enjoying Christmas with my family. The boys are playing ping-pong on the kitchen island (see the pictures on my facebook page). I always wondered why The Trophy Wife insisted on putting in such a huge island in the kitchen, and now I understand!

Christmas was really a lot of fun, once we got everyone in the mood. We're at that stage in life where the Trophy Wife and I have to wake the kids up to open presents now. The night before, we'd actually talked about waiting until after church to open presents, but on Christmas morning the Trophy Wife woke up and couldn't stand it; she loves Christmas and family so much. So we got the kids up, fought over the attitudes of a few sluggards who didn't want to get in the spirit just yet, and had a great time.

The one gift that I thought was really odd was that ping-pong set. It was just a net, paddles and balls, and made to set up on a random flat surface. I thought it would never be used. Instead, we've played it non-stop; even while Christmas dinner was being prepared.

Funny how sometimes what seems like the most unlikely gifts turn out to be the best.

Anyway, I hope you had a Merry Christmas (whoever you are), and I feel rejuvenated and ready to write again. I hope you come back and take the time to read.

Meanwhile, the Princess Bear has returned from Brussels (When in Brussels) and returned to her Life in the Slow Lane blog (now called: Adventures of a Girl Raised in the South).

Peace and Goodwill ...

Merry Christmas

That's right: Merry Christmas.
For many of us, despite the shopping and parties and distractions, this is the season in which we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
Just like Christians took over a Roman holiday to "Christianize" it and celebrate Christ's birth in December (not likely to have been the actual season of His birth), these days the "Romans" of society are slowly trying to re-take the holiday and de-Christianize it.
I heard someone the other day expounding on how we need to be sensitive to those of other faiths during this time - Muslims, those of the Jewish faith, Buddhists, etc. And I agree, we should always be sensitive to those of other faiths.
But they don't celebrate Christmas, for the simple reason they don't believe that Christ is the Son of God who came to take away the sins of the world. Therefore His birth doesn't carry the significance it does for Christians.
However, they do celebrate Christmas in the sense that this is not an exclusive holiday. So people of other faith or even no faith at all decorate, put up trees, talk about Santa Claus and buy and exchange gifts and some still wish each other "Merry Christmas."
Because the national holiday, as recognized by all the states of the Union, is "Christmas."
Does that establish a state religion? Or does it simply acknowledge a day that has been and continues to be special to millions of Americans for hundreds of years. Recognizing that so many people want to be with their families on that day, governments went ahead and rather than have people show up for work grudgingly went ahead and made it a national holiday.
It wasn't always that way. The Puritans tried to outlaw the celebration of Christmas (as did England during the days of Cromwell and what was essentially a Protestant Revolution), because they felt the emphasis was inappropriate.
It wasn't a recognized national holiday until the early 1900s. Congress was expected to meet and work on Christmas Day well into the late 1800s at least.
So what government did was simply go ahead and make official what was, for many Americans, an 'unofficial' holiday. If we're cynical, we recognize that government loves to be able to appear to do things for the voting public that costs little but reaps great public reward, and creating a holiday is one of those.
Not that I'm complaining.
Yes, if we're incredibly sensitive, we see the establishment of the Christmas holiday as some kind of step into establishing a state religion - although it would appear that state religion is commerce, as what has happened is the creation of the biggest economic boom of the year which is good for businesses and therefore taxes.
But enough of that rambling.
It's Christmas. Peace on Earth, good will to all people.
And yes, to many of us it's a significant spiritual holiday.
To many more, it's a chance to party.
But hopefully you get the chance to gather with family and/or friends during this time, and realize that the greatest gift we have is the gift of relationships with other people - hopefully people we love and who love us, who we care for and who care for us, who we accept and who accept us.
Because that is the message of Christmas: God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that whoever should believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
That's family, that's love, that acceptance, that's a gift.
Merry Christmas.

Learning to stand up to bullies and critics

So I'm flipping channels the other day when I come across a black-and-white movie starring William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck, Frederick March, and just about every one of those actors who seemed to show up in every movie made in the 1950s.
It was a movie called "Executive Suite,'' although I didn't realize it until I looked it up. Turns out, according to one review, it's considered an "overlooked" drama, although it was nominated for a handful of Academy Awards. One interesting thing about the movie is that it has absolutely no musical soundtrack. And it does an outstanding job of covering issues of insider trading, board manipulation, and sexual harassment, proving that there really isn't anything new under the sun after all.
It's about a furniture company whose president dies, and the struggle ensues over who will take over and how the company will be run.
 However, there was this one scene in the movie that struck me. William Holden and June Allyson's son has a big baseball game that is apparently very important to everyone in the town within which they live. It's basically a little league game - the kids look to be about 12 years old - but the stands are packed. Holden-Allyson's son is pitching, holding on to a 2-0 lead when he gives up a big hit that scores a run. Then he starts pitching to the next batter, and can't throw a strike.
Some of the adults in the stands are cheering and clapping, but some are booing.
That's right: booing! The adults - the parents of the kids playing the game - are cheering and clapping and booing and calling out what I guess was 1950s trash-talk from the stands.
Today, of course, that scene would be considered so offensive as to warrant boycotts of the movie - except that such a scene would have no more of a chance of being included in a movie today than terrorists in a movie actually being identified as being radical followers of Islam.
And then the climax of the movie involves this impassioned speech by William Holden's character in which he says the company will go back to making the kind of furniture that made the company famous, quality furniture that the workers in the factory will be proud to make and that the salesmen of that furniture will take pride in showing to potential customers.
The ending doesn't sound very exciting, I know. But the truth is, it's remarkable that there is no force or trickery or deceit but just an impassioned speech on quality and pride.
And it hits me that the qualities that William Holden stands up for are the qualities his movie-screen son learns by performing in front of a crowd of people that aren't worried about hurting his self-esteem or wounding his pride. They're simply watching a ball game, treating the kids playing like ball players; ball players who sometimes do well and sometimes don't do so well.
Today, of course, we'd have to cheer the young boy as he throws ball after ball simply for trying.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not for booing young kids at little league baseball games. But neither am I for giving everyone a trophy just for showing up and telling a kid who blows the big game, "That's all right; you did your best."
I was a kid once. I played a lot of sports. I knew when I didn't do well and I knew when I did.
But I also knew the kids that weren't very good, the ones whose parents fought to make sure there were enough "all-star'' teams so that every kid that wanted to be an all-star got to be one; that did away with trophies for first place and made sure every kid on every team got a trophy; who did away with recognition for being the best and made sure everyone was recognized for trying.
And the only kids it fooled were the kids who weren't really trying in the first place.
It occurs to me that our modern American world is being run by those people who, as children, never learned to face their own failure or to stand up in the face of negative reaction; kids whose idea of 'standing up' to the playground bully was to attach themselves to an authority figure for protection, looking to the adults to stop other kids from being so mean, and rallying around the motto "It's not fair!"
You don't learn to stand up for yourself, to face down your fears and critics, to develop confidence in yourself if you're not challenged. And honestly, is there anyone who doesn't learn more from failure than success? What was that famous story about Thomas Edison and how he failed to produce the light bulb the first 14,000 times he tried, but still considered everyone of those 14,000 failures a success because each one taught him something and got him closer to success?
Yet today's society would remove all such challenges from all of us - particularly our children - if they had their way. No wonder we're living in a society that believes government should look after us; that government is there to enforce artificially created standards that says each one of us is a success in our own right.
OK, the analogy breaks down at some point. In fact, I might actually have gotten lost in there somewhere.
The point is that in facing the school yard bully, or being put in positions where it is obvious we succeed or fail, we develop the kind of character that causes William Holden to stand up to his fellow executives, face their apparently unknown (to him) conspiracy, and win the day with an argument based on truth, self-worth, and restoring a sense of pride in what they can produce and sell.
By the way - the kid in the movie? After throwing three balls, he came back and won the game.
We don't know how. Williams Holden didn't stay for the end of the game because he had to get to the board meeting that would determine the future of the company.
But at the end he asks wife June Allyson who won and she answers, "We did."
It's one of those 1950s moments where you understand she's speaking for them all.