Mayan Calendar Cop-Out



Painting by Lyn Wyatt.

 I'm sitting alone in my store on Mason Avenue, listening to the clock tick. According to the Mayan calendar, we're officially out of time. Or starting a new era (one or the other).

Outside, wind thunders off the Chesapeake and down the street, blowing over signs and large potted trees. Low, wrinkled clouds fly across the sky, a whipping gray blanket. It looks like a cartoon of Doomsday. Not switching-of-the-poles violent, but veiled, cold, and whisking away.

How often have people predicted the end of the world? In my life, probably five or six times. My brothers prepared for the worst more than once, convinced that This Is It. They were certain that Y2K was going to be a mega-disaster. Collision with Niburu is discussed as a serious option. They don't discuss climate change or nuclear proliferation, chemical or biological warfare, gun control, cancer statistics, aquifer collapse or pollution--but Mayan calendars get big play.

Our culture is obsessed with The End. I guess we believe our story should have a conclusion--some point at which all the plot lines come together in a big bang that solves the problem of "what comes next, and what do we do about it?" Apocalypse is a great excuse for lack of planning, or squabbling so much that political solutions for man-made crises are forever just beyond reach.

This painting by Lyn Wyatt helps me understand The End, because there is no end. The sun rises and sets. Birds fly (thanks to environmental protection laws), fish swim (two thumbs up for the Clean Water Act). We could limit warfare, weapons, poverty and disease if we would spend our money on preserving our species, rather than killing ourselves violently, or by neglect. Nearly all of our communal pain is self inflicted. The future is in our hands--OURS--which is good news.

We don't need a flash ending. What we need is the courage to work for an always-expanding future, with no apocalyptic excuses, raptures or the expectation of being delivered from our stupidities by extraterrestrial intervention. Living, living and living some more. That's what we can expect, and what we are going to get. The only question is:

"How then shall we live?"  And the apostles asked it 2,000 years ago. It's time to come up with an answer.

Whew. That was a rant.....

Peace on Earth?

Dressed for Christmas, as usual.

I don't know how many years we've been hanging this wreath for Christmas. My children were young teens and now they are in their early 30s. At first it was easy. The kids and their friends thought it was vaguely "hippy," which added to my reputation as the Cool Mom (and earned me the opportunity to have all the young people piled into my house year after year, making noise--a privilege I took seriously).

The wreath morphed through time. I spent many a winters' day on the porch, surrounded by greenery clipped from my neighbor's evergreens, wiring branches to the peace symbol. Some years I raided the local marshes for wispy grass to arrange around the edge. Those were lush times, seasons when I had the focus and love to spend on dressing the porch for joyful holidays. The house was full of young people, always, and making happy memories for them was one of my top jobs.

Then the hard days came. My son joined the Marines and eventually served in Iraq. Suddenly, the wreath had many meanings. Hanging it became an act of faith, or defiance, or sorrow, all shrouded with ambiguity. I stopped wiring greens to it and the wreath hung bare, disintegrating. Finally it died.

I would have let it disappear, like so many other things in my life....the children were grown and gone. The empty nest echoed with holiday silence. Looking like a hippie no longer had cache'. But my husband, Chad, wouldn't give up on it. He found a sturdy hoop, bought new lights and a silver boa. He was determined to hold onto Christmas, if only with a remade wreath.

So! Here we are again, another year slid by so quickly, another Christmas. My son is in Kuwait. My daughter will spend the holidays in Barcelona, Marrakesh and Paris. We'll have an Old People's dinner with my aunt and uncle. Thank God for Chop, who will be the only person under 60 at the table.

Maybe, one day, we'll have some grandchildren--young people, running around the house, eating everything and breaking a few chotskies.They'll  make a lot of noise, point to the wreath and ask what it means. I'll tell them:

"It means that hope never dies."