Woman, Behold Your Son

 

The Woman just after giving birth on Christmas cradles the baby's soft skin in loose white rags.  The only material abundantly available in the darkness of the damp, black room.  She clutches The Child protectively, tightly, against her ever maternal breast.  She hears the baby's soft, but surprisingly strong - thump, thump, thump-human heart beat.

The healthy white glow emanating out of The Woman's amber and golden clothing dispels the darkness of the cold, damp, room.  A prism of light scatters the darkness, and chases it into the damp corners of the room's outer edge.

Purple shadows play upon the walls.  Shadows cast by the blue outer cloak worn by The Woman.

The Woman lovingly allows The Child to suckle at her breasts.  After nourishment provided, the baby softly cooing, is rocked to sleep, while an adoring Father looks on.

The Child sleeps cradled in The Woman's bright arms.   While The Child is held tightly against her breast, she feels The Child's warm blood pulsating through the baby's clothing, through her own clothing, throbbing against her own body.  A body which also pulsates happily with each new beat of her own red heart.

The Woman amazed and tired from the speedy delivery, recalls the stirrings of The Child within her womb.  The stirrings-a beat of The Child's heart.  A Heart within residence in her womb; a beat, which she knew, and heard, as well as felt.

Did this beat within the womb, she asks, this life's blood, only exist by faith?  Did she really hear it?

She recalls the purple prophetic words of the ancient scripture-I behold The Child, though he is not near.

The Woman's faith is strengthened by the recall of the words of Elizabeth, her kinswoman.  For Elizabeth felt the joyful beat of her own child's heart within her womb, upon The Woman's visitation.  A visitation from a Woman, who was clothed in blue, while bathed in yellow sunshine.  A visitation during a Spring of Rejoicing.  For green truly is the true light of all the living.

The Woman watched as the true-white lamb in the Bethlehem stable brushed up against the rugged manager.  The manger holding The Child.  A careless nail from the manger pricked through the white woolly coat, and drops of red blood spilled out onto the yellow straw, creating an orange glow.

A passionate embrace of true God, housed in true red, and true Man, housed in true blue, the Incarnation, creating purple, the cloak of Royalty.

The Woman pondered all this in her heart.  For-Red is passion.  Love is Blue.  Purple is Death-death in mourning's cloak.

This Purple Heart, The Child's Sacred Heart, stopped on Calvary.  This Sacred Heart liberated the hot life blood, that was no longer contained within a gently, receiving womb, but was poured out on the cold, brown, unreceptive earthen ground.  A libation to God, from God, for all people everywhere, in every time, born, preborn, and yet to be born.

The Woman's bright eyes watched The Child with wide adoration.

On the cold, brown Earth of Calvary's hill, The Child said, "Woman, behold your son."  The Child to the son said, "Behold, your mother."

 

ALL SAINTS PARADE A TRUE LIFE STORY

 

St. George killing the Dragon, Patron Saint of England

On November 1st, the feast day of "All Saints" our parish feast day, and the Church's Holy Day, we had a parade of saints; the children of the parish all dressed up as saints.

They sat ahead of me in the reserved seats, and paraded in in front of the priest during the entrance procession.

St. George was dressed in his plastic suit of plate armor with a plastic helmet and plastic sword. With his family in tow, he sat in front of me in the pew.

Just because the sword was plastic didn't mean it wasn't dangerous. The 6 year old St. George decided to wave that thing around and point it at people during Mass while his Aunt who was also his Godmother tried to pull it out of his hand. After the tug of war, she finally succeeded. Since it was now 7:30 pm and probably past his bedtime, St. George decided that he was tired, took off his plate armor, and then took a nap on the pew. A pew that looked like real wood, but like the armor was only plastic, so as to save money on the new church.

Worn out from fighting that dragon, he couldn't stay awake for the rest of the mass. But he couldn't resist picking up the sword one more time, while he blessed himself with it, waving that sword widely around in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Swish, swish, swish, slicing the air, while he moved about. He almost poked me as well as everyone else with it! Even though it was plastic, it had a sharp point to it. Like I said, dangerous.

At the end of the Mass, Father invited the children up on the altar and asked each one which saint they were. We had saints from all over the world, and from all time periods. We had King David who looked very kingly, Father said. We also had 1 St. Nicholas, 2 St Francises, 1 St. Bernadette, 1 St. Charles Borremo, 1 St. Robert Bellarmine, and 1 St. Lucia or better known as St. Lucy in America who was dressed in a white dress with a pink sash, and of course, as patron saint of the blind, she also had a wreath with a candle worn on her head. We also had 2 St. Georges, and 1 Mary, Mother of God, complete with a baby doll.

Mary, an 8 year old was a very white, fair complexioned child; baby Jesus was black. Nothing wrong with that mind you, just looked a little strange. Mary's mother called baby Jesus a very, very dark Mediterranean olive skinned baby from the Middle East. The only doll she could find on short notice.

Proving once again as the song goes, "Red, yellow, black or white we are all beautiful in His sight. God loves the little children of the world."

By the way, we had 2 St. Georges who were fighting the very same imaginary dragon. One in plastic plate armor, the other dressed in plastic mail armor wearing a hauberk, a shirt of mail.

One young girl undoubtedly taught by her parents not to talk too loudly in church whispered who she was in Father's ear. Don't ask me who she was? I couldn't tell her Saint.

And we had one young lad who when asked who he was said that he didn't know, but he thought he was St. Henry VIII. Lots of giggles ensued. If you don't get it, you don't know your world history. Let's just say the Henry VIII would never be canonized by the Catholic Church in this century or any other century.

Of course, Father had to use all this confusion over the saints as a learning opportunity and remarked that even though you don't know which saint you are, at the parish of All Saints, we can all be saints in the making! (Technically, you have to be dead to be a saint, so none of us sitting the in the plastic pews were qualified for that designation quite yet.)

Later on at the parish reception while we were eating our "treats," I asked Sister which saint was "King Henry" supposed to be portraying. Turned out Sister Carole, Director of Religious Education for the parish, who had assigned the children the names, said the saint was St. Henry II, who was also called Emperor, the Good, of the Holy Roman Empire, and who also had lived many centuries before King Henry VIII.

She remarked that the child was doing a world history classroom report on King Henry VIII at the same time that he was preparing his costume for the parade of saints. He just got the roman numerals mixed up; that was all. At least that's what we think?

I wonder what St. Thomas More who was beheaded and martyred by King Henry the Eighth, thinks about this one. Rolling over in his grave, I'm sure.

At the reception after the feast day Mass, I also asked one of the St. Georges who was dressed in the mail armor just how big was the dragon that he was trying to slay? The child was driving his plastic sword into the floor exclaiming that he was killing the imaginary dragon.

The answer was 3,333.33 miles tall. The child must have just learned about decimals in school!

No information on how big St. George's dragon really was since it is just a legend anyway.

And for those of you who don't know your World History "All Hallow's Eve" is the evening before All Saints Day, a feast day celebrating our "Hallowed" predecessors, when traditionally children dressed up as saints in costumes. This ancient custom is one of our precursors to our modern day Halloween, where children dress up in costumes and go trick or treating. The word Halloween comes from the word Hallowe'en which dates back to the 1700's and is of Christian origin. The word "Hallowe'en" means "hallowed evening" or "holy evening". It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows' Eve. All Hallow's Eve is the evening before All Hallows' Day, or All Saints' Day, which also precedes All Souls' Day, a day where all of our loved ones who have passed on are commemorated, and honored, and which follows All Saints Day. All Hallow's Eve Christianized the ancient pagan Gaelic festival of Samhain, when it was believed that the walls between our material world and the spiritual world, became thin enough to allow ghosts to come through and damage the Autumn crops.

Now, this is a retirement community, and the Catholic Church is bleeding the next generation of saints, loosing the next generation at a remarkable rate, so there wasn't a whole lot of young saints in our midst that day; however, the feast day still all and all had a great All Saints' Day parade of saints!!

Everyone had a great time hanging out with all of our "saints," including myself, and I know that Father thought the whole evening was amusing.

 

LET THEM EAT CAKE

 

From Microsoft Bing Used by Permission

As I sat in the lobby waiting endlessly for a job interview, I wished my life was like a book, where you could flip to the last page, to see how it ends, then read the rest of the book, from start to finish.

According to the college magazine articles that I had read on how to land a job, this interview was highly unusual. It was 1983, and the internet wasn’t born yet.  We didn’t read blogs; we read paper.  

I was applying for a job as an analyst with a marketing research firm.  A recent graduate from the College of Business, I believed that writing marketing reports would combine my newfound business acumen, with my love for writing.

The firm’s owner, a matronly woman, and her toy pet poodle, Fluffy, greeted me.  Yes, Fluffy was a "real" dog, which barked, and everything.

According to the owner, Fluffy never missed a day of work and he was good with clients.  I was asked, “Was my record as good as Fluffy's?” I was not amused.

During the interview, Fluffy sat smack dab in the middle of the small room, lodged right between the lady owner, and myself.  He would not budge for love, nor money.

Here I was, smartly groomed in my new navy blue business suit, on the edge of my seat, trying to look interested, as all of the job-hunting articles said I should.  Meanwhile, teetering on the edge of my seat, I was trying to impress both the matronly owner, and the dog.

Every time I moved, the little black fluff ball growled at me.

I pictured this dog greeting clients, and tried not to laugh.

I searched my mind for any information gleaned through articles on how to make friends with a toy poodle, and came up empty.  I had been reading, "Job Hunting Made Easy", not "Pet Training Made Easy."

The owner considered the dog an employee.  Did he get workman's comp.?   Better yet, what would the health department say?  Fluffy was allowed in the eating area, slobbering up cake crumbs off the laboratory kitchen’s floor.  The analyst job entailed baking cakes, eating the results, and writing the marketing research study report.  My cakes always fall.   Flatter than a doggy biscuit. 

The owner and her secretary, the only two humans working there, seemed at ease with a dog at work.  Unbelievable!

Needless to say, Fluffy, official floor cake crumb eater extraordinaire, saw me as a threat to his position with the firm, and hated me.  Fluffy knew I lied, when I said I loved all animals.

How would I explain this to family and friends?  This business major who had completed all the marketing, and salesmanship courses, failed to sell herself, again.  Nobody would believe this "dog gone" story.

Somehow, this sugar cake job just didn’t live up to my college-fed expectations; nor did it live up to my newly acquired Dean’s List reputation.

A year after graduation, during one of the worst recessions in history, I found that my employment package contained no job, a truck full of stupid job interview “Let Them Eat Cake” questions, and one insipid interview with a fluffy dog.  My fellow Business School graduates, of course, all had fat well-fed wallet careers, complete with sign-on bonuses.  This produced desperation.

The last page of my book, however, had yet to be written.

I eventually learned to answer stupid job interview questions with perseverance, patience, and assertiveness.  I also learned not to answer with flippancy. But, most importantly, I learned never lie to a fluffy dog.  Bring doggy treats.  Hide them in your briefcase.

The last page?  My last job, as a Technical Training Writer finally earned me a living as a writer, a job that finally combined my business sense with my writing abilities.  Now, as a “downsized” unemployed Technical Training Writer, my next job will be turning anecdotes into personal true stories, then selling them, as any Business Saleswoman Extraordinaire would.  The proof is not in impressing a fluffy, black dog, a dog that eats cake.

A famous matron, once said, “Let them eat cake.”  The proof is not in the cake.  “The proof is in the pudding.”  If you are reading this true story, it means that I have sold it.

At my next job, the sign will read, “No pets allowed.”

SOMEONE KNOCKIN' AT THE DOOR, SOMEBODY RINGIN' THE BELL! OPEN THE DOOR, LET 'EM IN, YEAH, LET 'EM IN

 

I was 5 minutes late for the interview for the receptionist position. Wouldn't you know it; Map Quest was wrong again! The street where my building that I was looking for was supposed to be located on wasn't even on the map that Map Quest had provided. And after the last debacle with my old Map Quest, I was diligent in making sure that it was a recently published Map Quest too!  Map Quest was a local map available on a CD, since this predated the Internet’s Google Maps.  You know; the Internet, which VP Al Gore later took credit for.  It hadn’t been born quite yet.

I pulled up to this nondescript trailer in my beat up, old, small coupe with blue paint peeling off of it.  This was a trailer surrounded by dirt, and cactus located in the middle of a street which was devoid of any buildings out in the middle of a desert. There wasn't even a sign on the windowless building identifying it. The number address was there, however, in tiny, tiny letters. I barely saw it. The street sign identifying the street wasn’t even up yet.  It was a miracle I even found it at all!

I knocked, and knocked.  No answer. As I was knocking once again, while periodically trying the door to see if it became unlocked, I said to myself, "Wait! I hear low male voices whispering. Mom always says I got ears like a dog! I hear everything. I stopped knocking, and strained to hear, "What are they saying?"

"Do you think we should open the door?" a gruff deep voice asked.

"What!" I thought, "Yes, open the door! How else do I get in here?"

"I'm not opening the door. I'm an engineer," another deep voice answered pompously.

"Well, I'm not opening the door, either," the first voice declared.

He cleared his throat, "I'm a highly paid engineer, not a receptionist."

"Hey, I'll just open the door, and let her in," the first male voice finally declared.

When someone had finally opened the door, I swear to God, 10 minutes had gone by while I stood quietly at the door. I had given up knocking, and was just listening in at this point. At this point, I was now 15 minutes late for the interview.

"Oh, thank goodness," I thought pouring in sweat in 115° heat, wrapped up tightly in my pantyhose, and in my Power Suit, which was the 80’s fashion trend name for the female business suit which was supposed to help women establish their authority in a field professional environment dominated by men. 

I walked into the cool highly air conditioned lobby, and sure enough there on the wall in giant letters as big as life was the name of the company. They could announce the company inside the walls, but not outside? I had looked in vain for a sign to find the place. In front of the wall was a big, brown, heavy important looking receptionist's desk which set empty ready to be filled by "someone knocking at the door."

It seemed like only one of the gentlemen whisperers remained. I use that term gentlemen loosely since he couldn’t even open a door for a lady.

The one that finally let me in was dressed not in an important suit like myself, but in more casual summer attire. This made more sense in the 115° Phoenix, Arizona summer's heat than my buttoned up ladies Power Suit which was supposed to emulate men’s professional clothing.  Dressed in a cool cotton short-sleeve blue collared shirt, and khaki pants, he apologized for the delay in opening the door, admitting to the argument about who was the least important. The designee door opener said he finally opened the door in frustration, and politeness. And he noted to his embarrassment that his discomfited cohorts had skedaddled.

We really need a receptionist, you see," he admitted.  "We are a brand new company, on a brand new city street, and we haven't hired a receptionist, yet."  Well, I thought I guess that explains why it wasn't on the map yet.

And then abruptly he just left. Just left me standing there alone. He didn't say good-bye. Nor did he tell me that he would announce my presence to the manager in charge. Apparently, he didn't plan to explain to anyone why I was 15 minutes late, and it was their fault for the delay.

I just stood there in the lobby alone trying to get my bearings from bewilderment, and the change in light. Due to my night blindness problems, my pupils had trouble adjusting from the bright Arizona sun to the inner indoor dimmed soft light. "Now where is the man in charge?" I wondered. Obviously, in this group this person was going to be a "he."

Soon I heard a voice, and looked down the long, narrow, carpeted hall. Behind a partially closed door, I heard a man talking on the phone. Yelling was more like it.

"She's late! Maybe not coming at all! Can't you send someone over who knows the value of time!"

Silence.

"She should have called."

Remember, this predates cell phones. Although there were a few in circulation.  Big bulky Motorola things.  And who could afford a car phone?  Certainly, not me. I would have had to find a pay phone to call to announce my lateness. Obviously, making me more than a little tardy.

I can just imagine in the silence that followed what Theresa thought. Theresa was the temporary employment agency recruiter, and coordinator.

And on, and on he went with Theresa for another 5 minutes, leaving me with my thoughts. "Great, now I'm twenty minutes late. Why doesn't he just come out here? Just to check to see if I have arrived, for God's sake! Why me, God?"

F i n a l l y! He gets off the phone, sees me standing in the lobby, and comes storming out into the lobby.

I profusely apologized, and accepted all responsibility for my lateness. So after hearing quite a rant about me wasting "his valuable time," he asked me to have a seat, and complete the interview with him.

Well, finally hours later after I had arrived there at two o'clock in the afternoon, the interview was over! Hurrah! Gee, I didn't know a temp receptionist job was so very important as to require hours, and hours of interview time! My long ordeal was finally, over or so I thought!  It was now dinner time, and boy was I hungry! 

I left with a handshake from the manager, and I was told they had other candidates, I hope they let them in, and I was told to follow up with Theresa, nicknamed Terry, from the temp agency, about the temporary three-month position.

When I called Terry from home I told her about the whole sordid affair. Gee, I was only 5 minutes late to begin with!  How did I know I had to schedule 15 minutes into opening the door?

Although she sympathized with me, she also told me I should be sure I knew where I was going before I left home, and if necessary drive there the day before. And I would have if money for gas wasn't so tight after being out of work for at least a year. My parents had filled up my tank for me. Terry then told me the three month temporary position had been offered to a woman from her agency who had interviewed with the electrical engineering research lab the day before I did.

"You mean ... they let her in? Wish her good luck from me," I paused. "I hope they give her a key, or you'll have to tell them...Someone knockin' at the door...."🎶

Let ’Em In Lyrics

by Paul McCarty, and Wings

[Verse]
Someone knockin' at the door
Somebody ringin' the bell
Someone's knockin' at the door
Somebody's ringin' the bell
Do me a favor
Open the door, and let 'em in, ooh yeah

[Verse]
Someone's knockin' at the door
Somebody ringin' the bell
Someone's knockin' at the door
Somebody's ringin' the bell
Do me a favor
Open the door, let 'em in, yeah, let 'em in

You can find LS Wagen’s work at lwagen@blogspot.com, and at Amazon.com.   I was in high school when this song first came out in 1976. This is a true story.