Category: SECULAR WORLD

Who Will Sit at My Table?

A Lesson in Lust and Trickery.

I’m just going to mention this now and then let it go, for it is a lesson for me for the future.  Over time, I’ve taken more discernment with people with whom I choose to surround myself.  Yet, every now and then I slipped in my judgement of who I let sit at my table, so to speak.

Oh, yes, I’ve let the wrong people into my life.  And sometimes I very imprudently let them overstay their welcome.

And for what?

Many times it was to make that other person feel good.  Well, I foolishly thought, I don’t want them to feel bad that they aren’t welcomed here, in my life.  These were people that liked me, but I knew deep down they were not the types of people I should have allowed in; they were the opposite of my own sensible values.

How stupid of me.

There are many examples I could give you, but I’ll give the most recent example of a luncheon I hosted.  I invited two people.  One of those people asked me if his current “love of his life” could come, too.  I thought about it for a bit, then assented.  All I knew about her was that she had a bunch of kids.

Okay.

Later I found out that she was married.  Still is, as far as I know.  That horrified me.  It angered my best friend.  I deeply regret allowing her to come into my home under that situation, being married to someone else.  Now, it should be no surprise to you that she is not welcomed in our home ever again.

If I would have known that she was still married, I would have replied, “Sure, she can come if she brings her husband.”

Oh, well.  Twenty-twenty hindsight, you know.

This is just one of many lousy choices I’ve made with allowing the wrong people to be around me.  Do I regret those poor choices I’ve made?  Of course I do; and who doesn’t?  Anyone who says that they don’t regret their poor choices is a fool, and a bigger fool if you don’t learn by it.  Yes, I learned a good lesson, which is to learn from those mistakes and not rush in making a decision on who belongs at the table.  Be astute.  Be guarded.

Here’s to a great rest of this year with whomever you and I decide to sit at our tables in the future.

And now, I put that person out of my mind, banished for all time.  Ciao!

 

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A Tart in the Making.

A Lesson in Modesty.

One afternoon a long time ago, when I discovered that the Stankles’ daughter had left her wet “M” on the condominium elevator floor (see my essay, “The Mark of Mordechi”), I also noticed another troubling pattern taking shape.

About a week later, as she walked through the lobby, this twelve‑year‑old was dressed in a way that was startlingly immodest for a child her age.  What shocked me was not merely the barely-there-bikini itself, but the contradiction behind it.  An exposed belly button with floss for bottoms and the top just covering the nips.  That’s it.

Her father is a “preacher” in a community fellowship.  Her mother teaches in a Christian school.  One would expect that parents who publicly live a life of Sunday preaching and Christian schooling would guide their own children toward modesty, dignity, and respect for themselves and others, particularly since it’s all laid out in the Bible.

If these parents claim to follow God’s laws, which includes the call to modesty, why is their daughter being sent into public areas dressed in ways that undermine or ignore those very teachings?

It was hard not to miss the wide disconnect.  The preacher man and his wife presented themselves as righteous leaders in public, yet the example they set within their own household tells a very different story.  They were rude and cold around people when it’s only them without the others, but the moment another Stankle appeared beside them, the transformation was instantaneous.  Suddenly it was All Christian, All the Time: doors held open, cheerful greetings, syrupy small talk, and enough forced sunshine to blind a person.  As a group, they radiated a kind of performative wholesomeness.  Alone, each one reverted to something far less Christian.

It does not come across as practicing what is being preached with a “Glory Halleluiah” on the stage every Sunday and Wednesday.

That is the deeper sorrow of it all; when those who are entrusted with shaping young souls fail to live the very virtues they proclaim, the child becomes the one who bears the confusion.  A home that should be a sanctuary of positive formation instead becomes a place of mixed messages.  I prayed that Maddee grows into a someone who has a clearer understanding of modesty and faith, and that her brother follows the righteous way, too.  But even more, I pray that her parents rediscover the integrity their public roles demand.  For the sake of their daughter, and for the sake of the witness they offer to the rest of us, I hope they all find their way back to the truth they profess and convert.

 

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Happy 250th!

Driving around town whilst taking care of errands, I waited for the red light to change.  The sun was out, the weather was pleasant, and traffic was light.  I looked to my right, and saw this interesting sight:

The New Liberty.

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the United States and how much it’s changed.  It’s no longer a young, beautiful woman personified as Liberty, but an old guy in a wheelchair.  Little promise of a good life, but one that necessitates taking on a crushing job with little promise of advancement.  Maybe I think too much.

The light changed, and I drove off, leaving Mister Liberty to his corner.

Happy 250th!

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Fritz-Udolph and the Silver Bolt.

Fritz-Udolph was awakened every night at 3 AM for two months by hard and rhythmic banging noises.  During those two months, he listened to that noise with wide-eyes and clenched fists while he lay in his bed.  He grew angrier by the night.  Finally fed up and disgusted with not knowing where the noise was coming from, he got out of his bed one thunderstormy night.  He slipped into his bright yellow chinoiserie silk robe printed with brown swallows and white magnolias.  He straightened his collar as he looked in the mirror and tied the belt into a sharp bow, slipped into his fur-lined leather slippers and started walking around his apartment.

He switched on the master bathroom light.

“Bang, bang, bang!”

He looked inside the sink cabinet and in the linen closet.  The noise wasn’t coming from anywhere in the master bathroom.  He stood in the bathtub, quietly listening for a long while.  He bit his lower lip and moved quietly to the guest room as his antique cuckoo clock chimed the quarter hour.  Of course, the banging continued.

“Bang, bang, bang!”

He slinked down the hall to the guest room.  The noise wasn’t coming from there, either.  He slid into the guest bathroom, stood in the shower stall and quietly listened.  He vaguely heard the banging but still couldn’t discern its origin.  He cleared his throat and rubbed his bearded chin.

Fritz-Udolph popped his hands into his robe’s pockets and tiptoed to the kitchen.  He flipped the light switch.  A couple of fruit flies from the bowl of ripening bananas flew past his face.  He grabbed a brown banana and ate it in three large bites.  Now the cuckoo clock chimed on the half hour, and there was more banging, this time a little louder and with a different tempo.

“B-bang, b-bang, b-b-bang, bang, bang!”

But the noise was too far away from the kitchen to come from there.  Feeling his face growing hot from anger, he tossed the banana peel into the garbage can and swatted five fruit flies as he closed the garbage can lid.  He marched into the living room.

“B-bang, b-bang, b-b-bang, bang, bang!”

The noise wasn’t coming from the living room, either.  “Strange,” Fritz-Udolph grumbled.  He stuck his head into the front hall closet and pushed aside his woolen capes and coats.

“B-bang, b-bang, b-b-bang!”

“Ah, ho!  There it is!” he exclaimed half-aloud.  “There it is coming from the next door!”  The cuckoo clock chimed on the three-quarter hour.  He rubbed his short grey beard, bit his upper lip and chewed on it for a long while.

“Bang, bang, bang!” the thuds echoed.  “Bang, bang, bang!”

Fritz-Udolph stood in the closet and listened.  “It is from the next door!” he thought.  “I will get the woman for this!”  By the time the cuckoo clock chimed four, the banging suddenly ceased.

“That’s it!” he grunted.  “I will show her, that infernal woman at the next door.  I will put an end to her discourtesy to me.”

The next morning, Fritz-Udolph called the management company and complained about his next-door neighbor.

“I tell you,” Fritz-Udolph shouted in his heavy German Swiss accent.  “You people must; I say MUST! put an end to my neighbor, Ramona, banging at three in the morning.  This has been going on for the two months.  I tell you, it is the hammer she is using.  I will not tolerate it.  I did an engineering study on this in my home country for a secondary school project, and I concluded no one could possibly bang all night long, ‘specially at three in the morning!  It is im-poss-ible!  It is the work of the succubus, that is what she is!  She will not seduce me, that Ramona, according to my proven engineering project!”

On the other end of the phone, the property manager smiled and half-giggled to herself.  She knew Fritz-Udolph didn’t make any sense, he never did, and that was par for the course.  She asked Fritz-Udolph if he had talked to his neighbor, Ramona, about the banging.  It was the better option, she explained, for opening the lines of communication between neighbors helps to foster goodwill.

“No,” he screamed.  “Why should I do that?  It is your job, fräulein!  Your job, not mine!”

The property manager rolled her eyes, took a puff from her joint, and promised she would contact his neighbor, which she did.  Through some investigation, the noisy problem was discovered.  It actually was a loose bolt from the fan that moved the air in the garbage room.  The garbage room was between Fritz-Udolph and Ramona’s apartments.

It turned out that Ramona never heard the noise because she was a heavy sleeper, and she slept wearing headphones.  She much preferred sleeping to the sounds of waterfalls than the noisy mechanics of the building.  Fritz-Udolph, on the other hand, was a light sleeper.  He could hear an ant crossing the grassy yard.

Fritz-Udolph was unfazed when he was told the noise was a fan bolt.  The building superintendent tightened it, and the noise was quelled.  Fritz-Udolph never apologized to Ramona for accusing her of something she didn’t do, nor did he feel remorse.  He was F.U., of course!

Fritz-Udolph’s complaint may have been addressed, but the way he handled it did little to cultivate even the thinnest thread of neighborly benevolence.  He passed Ramona in the hallway with theatrical grunts and mutters, while she, worn out by the whole affair, slipped past him with the quiet skill of someone avoiding a monster.

In the end, the whole episode left Fritz-Udolph with a lesson far quieter than the banging that had tormented him: life among neighbors requires patience that begins not in the hallway but in the heart.  What he mistook for another’s intentional rudeness had been shaped mostly by his own assumptions, his grand conceit, and his own certainty marching ahead of charity.  Yet, he never learned that peace within shared spaces depends on the intelligence to extend goodwill before judgment, to listen before accusing, and to soften the noise within before blaming the noise without.  He continued to accuse Ramona and other neighbors of deliberate peccadillos against him, and he continued to act with a haughtiness that only the most conceited of snobs could assemble.

 

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Loose Trash and Looser Rules.

When I lived at the Sage Pointe Condominiums, the truth was simple: there were no real rules.  The Declaration contained only a handful of vague guidelines, none of which carried penalties, financial or otherwise.  In practice, nothing had any teeth; no bite.

What we did have was the Infractions Team, a small group of older ladies who enforced whatever they personally disliked.  If something offended their sensibilities, it instantly became a “rule,” and the offending neighbor was told to cease and desist.  Their grievances ranged from the trivial to the absurd, such as declaring certain bumper stickers on residents’ cars to be violations simply because the messages clashed with their unholy beliefs.  Those errant residents were then threatened with legal action.

Meanwhile, these same enforcers stored their own holiday decorations, bicycles, and medical equipment in the common-area closets with complete impunity. They walked their dogs off the leash.  They grilled pork chops on their balconies with open flames.  They filled staircases with their potted plants.  No reprimands.  No consequences.  No surprise.  It was the classic Rules for Thee and Not for Me dynamic, and everyone knew it.

One of the few written directives concerned garbage disposal.  For years, printed signs were taped to the garbage-room doors in the underground garage.  They instructed residents to place all trash in securely tied plastic bags and to dispose of furniture and large items privately, never in the dumpsters.

As the buildings filled with more residents (there was an ebb and flow with the population), the dumpsters began overflowing just two days after pickup.  At a homeowners’ association meeting, a member of the Care and Upkeep Team scolded the community for tossing unbagged trash and furniture into the dumpsters.  The remarks were recorded in the official minutes.

A couple of weeks later, I went down to throw out my own securely bagged garbage.  I glanced into the dumpster, and there it was.  A mountain of loose junk: files, hanging folders, workbooks, an American flag, Navy memorabilia, and other unbagged débris.  Because the book titles were visible, it was unmistakably the personal clutter of the very same Care and Upkeep Team member who had lectured everyone else about dumping unbagged garbage!

It was a perfect illustration of the deleterious culture at Sage Pointe: rules for thee and not for me.  Others were expected to follow the posted guidelines.  Certain individuals, however, exempted themselves entirely.

They were special!

 

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The Ease of Dishonesty.

A Lesson in Bold Dishonesty and Weakening Trust.

I am continually taken aback by the ease with which people will boldface lie, not just to me, but to anyone who happens to be standing in front of them.  These aren’t always small white lies, but more and more they are bold, unapologetic falsehoods delivered with absolute confidence.  Lying has always existed, of course, but the past five or six years have unleashed a wave of dishonesty that feels different; bolder, more shameless, and normalized.  Of course, dishonesty is nothing new; people have been lying for centuries.  Yet something about the past five or six years feels different, as if a cultural shift has loosened whatever thin thread once held personal integrity together.  The onslaught has been relentless.

I see it everywhere.  The management company personnel for our homeowner’s association lie as if it’s part of their operating manual.  Vendors lie to secure business or cover their incompleteness.  Co-workers lie to dodge accountability.  It’s as if truth has become optional, as if it was a quaint relic from another era.

What unsettles me most is not just the dishonesty itself, but the casualness of it, the speed, the confidence, and the ease of looking right in your eyes as their lies float off their lips.  The way some individuals lie as naturally as breathing, without hesitation or shame.  It makes you question how many conversations you’ve had that were built on foundations that never existed.  It makes you wonder how many times you’ve given someone the benefit of the doubt when they didn’t deserve it.

I’m left grappling with a difficult truth: trust is no longer something that can be assumed.  It must be earned, guarded, and sometimes rebuilt from scratch.  And while I can’t control the behavior of others, I can choose to remain anchored in honesty myself because in a world where lies have become effortless, telling the truth feels almost like an act of rebellion.

In the end, what troubles me greatly isn’t just the lies themselves, but the growing acceptance of them, as if honesty has become an outdated virtue rather than a basic expectation.  I can’t control the behavior of HOA managers, family members, vendors, friends, or coworkers, but I can control the standards I hold for myself.  Choosing truth in a culture that increasingly shrugs at deception feels almost radical, yet it’s the only way to keep my sanity.  If anything, the dishonesty I encounter only strengthens my resolve to remain clear‑eyed, principled, and unwilling to let other people’s falsehoods define the way I move through the world.  But in the long run, I barely trust anyone anymore.

 

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Cutting Cardboard.

We had just ordered our meal, when a party of four was seated two tables from us.

Grind.  Grind.  Grind.

“Where is that sound coming from?” I asked Best Friend as he sipped his drink.  “It sounds like somebody cutting corrugated cardboard with a serrated bread knife.”

“What’s that?”

“I hear someone cutting corrugated cardboard with a serrated bread knife.  It’s that specific of a sound.  Listen.”

Grind.  Grind.  Grind.

“It’s the dog,” Best Friend nonchalantly quipped as he put down his drink.

“Whoa!” I whispered.  I leaned over a little bit to the left and looked past Best Friend’s shoulder.  Sure enough, at the table where the party of four sat, was a Yorkie on the man’s lap, chewing on food from the man’s plate and making a sound like somebody cutting corrugated cardboard with a serrated bread knife.  Then I witnessed the man put down one of those doggie pads on the floor and set the Yorkie on it, whereby Yorkie promptly did his business.  Everyone else at that table was oblivious and didn’t bat an eye.

Ewwww.

I am not a fan of dogs or any sort of animals in restaurants and stores.  I find it dirty, and it puts the question of health codes out there.  Service dogs are okay, but not “emotional service” or those “just because I can’t live two minutes without Fluffy” animals inside stores and especially restaurants.  Bleh.

One of the grocery store chains in our area put a stop to people bringing dogs or any animals into their stores, except for service animals.  I agree with that.  And, please, no dogs in grocery carts.  I saw that exact thing at one grocery store a couple years ago.  Where have those rear ends been?  I never saw anyone wash those grocery carts, either.

It’s so gross!

 

 

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Hack, Steal, Swipe, and Other Modern Courtesies.

It’s the Language of Plunder, and it’s all the rage I’m talking about today.

Every so often, my thoughts drift toward the strange new definitions floating around in the modern lexicon.  It’s those little word fads that flare up, spread everywhere, and then vanish the moment a shinier bit of slang arrives.  A word fad, as I see it, is a piece of language used mindlessly, repeated without understanding, and destined for the linguistic landfill as soon as the next trend rolls in.

One of the most abused is hack.  We now have hair hacks, cooking hacks, travel hacks, security hacks, hacks for everything under the sun.   The word is slapped onto any tip, trick, or mildly useful suggestion.  Yet its true definitions include “gaining unauthorized access” and “cutting with heavy blows.”  Neither definition suggests something gentle, clever, or admirable.  Hack!

But instead of offering tips such as hair tips, security tips, cooking tips, we hack, hack, hack.  Take unauthorized access.  Grab and run.  Rip off.  Steal.

Which brings me to another disturbing phrase I hear far too often: “I’m going to steal that idea!”

Usually, it’s said when someone supposedly admires another person’s décor, recipe, style, or skill.  Once upon a time, we might have simply complimented the person.  We might even (brace yourself) have asked permission to borrow the idea.  However, courtesy is apparently passé these days.  Why ask when you can proudly announce your intention to steal from that person?

Why, indeed?  Hands up!  Hand it over!

So now everything is framed as theft: steal, swipe, take, hack.  Even admiration is expressed in The Language of Plunder.

It’s a small thing, perhaps, however, small things shape habits, and habits shape culture.  When our everyday speech defaults to the vocabulary of taking, it’s no wonder the world feels increasingly coarse, transactional, and grabby.

And yet, here we are.  This is the way of things now.

In the end, these little phrases are not harmless quirks of speech; they reveal how casually we treat one another.  When the language of theft becomes the language of admiration, something in our cultural posture shifts away from gratitude, away from courtesy, away from the simple dignity of asking.  Words shape habits, and habits shape the world we build together.  If we want a gentler world, perhaps we begin by speaking as though one is still possible.

 

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Wigged Out.

At dinner the other evening at the country club, we sat at a table at the back of the restaurant, nestled in a cozy alcove dimly lit by a warm, flickering candle in a glass votive.  Our wine glasses of glimmered in the low light.  The clinking of silverware and the soft hum of chatter filled the air, punctuated by bursts of laughter from a boisterous group near the bar.

Across from us, a couple sat at the immediate table opposite ours.  They immediately drew my attention with their striking contrast.  She was a petite, frail-looking woman, her presence almost ephemeral, yet undeniably elegant.  Her baggy, sequined blouse sparkled faintly under the muted light, a deep emerald green that complemented the intricate plastic pearls cascading down her neck.  Her white pants, cut high to mid-calf, were snug and showed off her caboose.  Every gesture of hers was deliberate, placing her napkin, adjusting her sleek clutch, moving her wine glass, as though she were orchestrating a performance of refinement.

Across from her sat the undeniable foil to her practiced image.  He was a large man, his frame spilling over the edges of the overstuffed dining chair.  His attire was an amusing affront to hers: a pair of sagging khaki shorts, socks with sandals, and a faded, nondescript polo shirt, the type that might have been gray once but had since resigned itself to a black, lavender, taupe ambiguity.  His bulbous nose was faintly red, matching the ruddiness of his face.

But the pièce de resistance became the highlight of the evening.   It was his hair.  His hair—or rather, what aspired to be his hair was . . .  “different.”  A Just for Men “Darkest Red Brown” masterpiece of a wig was perched atop his head, so incongruous with the rest of his appearance it felt like a punchline to a joke only he didn’t quite get.  The thick, wavy wig seemed precarious, as if it might slide off at the slightest provocation.  It sat too high, too perfect, too ruddy-brown and defying both gravity and reason.

He leaned back in his chair with an air of self-satisfaction, plucking at a breadstick while his lady friend sipped delicately from a wine glass.  They exchanged sporadic words, her responses curt and his booming laugh echoing through the restaurant, prompting raised eyebrows and glares from nearby diners.

They were a spectacle, a living contradiction, a joke, an editorial cartoon.  The woman seemed to be holding onto a bygone era of sophistication, while the man seemed content to bulldoze through it, unbothered by appearances or subtlety.  Yet, there was something oddly appealing about them with a mystery to unravel, a story hidden beneath the surface of their mismatched personas.

 

 

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