The Refectory Manager: February 2006

Monday, February 27, 2006

Does The Refectory Manager Have a Family?

My friend and former colleague of my teaching days at Pacific Union College, Betty, has just asked me in response to the story of Zebulon Vance, if I feel if I have a family?

Our fellow KinNetter and my pen-pal Nenad in Belgrade, has just established for himself, a blog. You can find it at http://saunterersjournal.blogspot.com/ .

And Betty, Nenad’s post of today about “Home” is somewhat the answer to your question as to whether or not I have a family.

In one sense, my family is Nenad’s boyhood home. A relic of the past.

And so Nenad, I flagrantly paraphrase the middle paragraph of your story . . .

Such images of my former nuclear family continue to resurface in the dream world, with the past and present converging, both unsettled and upset, seeking closure where there can be none. The marriage was over years ago under difficult circumstances and an important chapter of my personal history came to its abrupt end. In many ways I continue to deal with that loss, my emotional attachment undiminished by the passage of time.

And, then to continue, to continue with a paraphrase of Nenad’s final paragraph . . .

However, within the confines of my mind, “family” is assuming a healing power, bringing renewed sense of belonging and restored awareness of who I am and where I come from. Rather than being a mere repository of melancholic memories, it feels like the impenetrable fortress of my boyish escapism that it once was. Resurging in my dreams and meditations, uncalled for, but warmly welcomed, my “family” is still intact.

Nenad, I have already told you how beautiful and awesome your post of this morning is. Now you see why I said what I did. And I can’t thank you enough for the miraculous timing of the posting of your blog entry.

But back to family. Its intactness. Made up of concentric circles, yet intact.

And Betty, and Nenad, and KinNet, and River Road Unitarian Church and people with whom I work, and a whole bunch of others, yes. You are my family.

And my mother, my siblings, my children, my grandchildren, my extended biological connection. You are my family.

And some of you may even have wept with me a couple of weeks ago when my family chastised me for my desire for them to try to understand what Brokeback Mountain has meant to me.

But I don’t think the concept of family has ever changed.

What has changed is how I now think about its composition, its function, its purpose, and its power in essence of diversity for sustaining the survival of humanity itself.

The Refectory Manager

The Family . . .

Zebulon Vance is playing now. His belly is full. His puppy is running circles around him. His older sisters in cooperation with his mother have now cleared the dinner table. His supper is already in the process of preparation. His last birthday was his fourth. The demands of life-sustaining work are being laid upon him. In a few minutes, he will be required to carry in more wood to keep the hearth fire burning.

In another time, in another day, a committee of learned scientists would vote on the number of grams of protein that Zebulon Vance would be wise to consume. They would vote on the milligrams of niacin . . . the micrograms of selenium. They would vote on the composition of his little body . For in that other time and day, it would be universally accepted that people are what they eat, and if they don't eat right, then obviously they wouldn't . . . couldn't . . . be right.

Mrs. Vance didn't have the luxury to sit down for a few minutes. She didn't get out the Wednesday newspaper. She didn't look for the sales. She didn't clip coupons. She didn't make the market basket shopping list. She didn't even plan a well balanced diet. She didn't consult anything but her survival instincts. She had nothing else to consult.

In another place, in another time, political action committees with vested interests in “family,” “marriage,” “morals,” “patriarchy,” “control,” “power,” “demonization,” “votes,” the power of the color “red,” would vex themselves with hysteria in writing the exclusion of the very existence of a part of society into constitutional law.

Committees, with non-recommended allowances of daily hate and bigotry, succumbing to the feeding frenzy of fear.

Committees, terrified of accepting the freedom to think for themselves, grasping instead. with desperation, to ignorance, myth, and prejudice of the life-controlling clerics of millennia past.

Zebulon Vance's day progressed . . . nearly like any of the 1500 or so days that had preceded it. Nobody stuffed him into a poly-styrene safety-harnessed cocoon and strapped him on the back of the buggy. Nobody hustled him around on a million errands. No other kid down at day care mashed his granola bar. Nobody gave him a little aseptic box of milk and cute little straw with which to blow bubbles and then have fun making white moustaches. Instead, his work was his play . . . his play was his work. His sister gave him a bowl of peas to shell. He ate enough in the process to get a tummy ache.

He was perceptive enough to realize that he would grow . . . get big . . . become like his older brother . . . become like his father. He watched the role of the woman at work, of the man at work. He longed to be big . . . big in body. . . big like his brother . . . big like his father. His notion of being big in spirit would take more time.

The evening meal soon arrived. He took his place, his own little private place, on the end of the bench . . . on the end of the bench at a right angle, next to the left hand of his father. His mother seated herself at the opposite end of the table. His older sister placed the steaming bowls of food on the table around her father. Mr. David Vance, a merchant and farmer, a former officer in the war of 1812, directed each of them to lower their head in thanksgiving for the bounty of the earth, for the blush of the summer harvest. Zebulon squirmed with impatience. His father glowered at him. His mother shrugged with exasperation.

The established ritual of the portioning of the food was initiated. Mr. Vance picked up the next empty plate. He looked across the table at the next recipient. Brief . . . effective eye contact was made. The affirmation of a bond was again re-validated. The primordial drive of every father as provider was rushing through him and sustaining a satisfaction that was indefinable.

Zebulon was next. His mother affirmed that he had been good and helpful that day. He hadn't teased the chickens like he had yesterday. Mr. Vance stirred the pot with his big fork. A small, choice morsel was found. It was carefully placed on Zebulon's plate.

Both the boy and his father knew that food would make him a man. Between the man and the man-child, it was only the man who knew that it would take more than food.

In another place, in another time, a series of men, for some archaic reason each called "Mr. Secretary," would sit at polished tables in opulent rooms. They would look at thousands of little Zebulon Vances as faceless, nameless, populations. They would devise and implement laws and programs that spelled out to three decimal places the composition of food that would convert the statistical norms of little Zebulon Vances into nutritionally correct men. They would appropriate money . . . define rules . . . implement 'guidelines'. They would demand, under penalties of fines and incarceration that the cooks and the bakers and the candlestick makers of these programs allocate and administrate a plethora of conflicting and confusing rules. It mattered little if these programs destroyed the nuclear family, drove the man from his own table, forced the television, the microwave, and the refrigerator into primary child-rearing devices. It mattered little if the new little Zebulon Vances were coached into eating by well timed TV commercials showing how to rethermalize the latest in totally engineered, totally unrecognizable, precisely identified, quantified, and politically corrected nutritionally labeled comestibles.

In the fleeting moment of eye contact between father and son, an instantaneous assessment of nutritional need and nutritional provision was made.
They didn't know that though.
They didn't need to know it.

Zebulon, with a look of impish anticipation, with the conveyance and communication of inherent trust in his father, inexplicably expressed his nutritional need, his relationship need, his bonding need.

Mr. Vance, with his assessment of not only the fulfillment of the physical and emotional need of this one son, was driven by and responding to the sinew of his cultural fabric. He must, and would apportion what was available to all, to all within his domain.

Zeb's older brother was cutting wood,
haying, tending the crops for the inevitable winter. They all were working hard, they were hungry.

His older sisters were being courted, expected to be taken as wives, expected to bear children, expected to administer households of their own. Sickly girls weren't marriageable girls.

His mother had been coughing more lately. She would try and hide it, but sometimes the sputum on her little hanky showed red. She was getting noticeably thinner.

And . . . with all of these conflicting decisions . . .
Mr. Vance made the best nutritional assessment decision for each that he could.

And . . . so he placed that small, but choice portion on Zebulon's plate.

There had to be enough . . . everyone would get his due . . . father would see to that . . . mother would make certain that he could . . . it would be understood by all.

In another time, strangers would come and gawk at the table of Zebulon Vance. With a little perception and reflection, the strangers could re-learn a valuable lesson . . . man does not live by dietary recommended intakes alone. Perhaps Mr. Vance erred in his assessment of Zebulon's caloric need. Perhaps Zebulon was chronically shorted of his recommended protein requirement. Perhaps his mother was chastised in the WIC clinic because she was seen spending her vouchers inappropriately. Perhaps Zebulon was a deprived child and never felt the mush of a mouthful of palliative Twinkie. Perhaps he was stunted by a couple of inches. Perhaps he should have filed a lawsuit for child abuse. But, perhaps his cup "did runneth over" . . . Runneth over with relationship, with parent-child bonding, with allowances of recommended daily nuturing. With the essence of real family.

Perhaps.

Perhaps, someday.

Perhaps the day will come.

A day when the visitors to that re-constructed home of days of yore, will be themselves of a new construct of family.

Yes. FAMILY.

Families of an inclusive dimension.

Families of strength, honor, diversity. Families so very committed to nurture. Families infused with the tolerance to honor the love of which their very existence is made.

Families with children, the offspring of the co-mingling of their parent’s sperm, the invitro-fertilization, the surrogate motherhood, the beautiful life of a child, new Zebulon Vances of a progressive age.

Families held together with the nuclear fusion and cohesion of two loving, committed, dedicated women, raising their children, their Zebulon Vances, their gift to the richness of humanity.

And even though Zebulon Vance became know as the “War Governor of the South”, resolute and highly principled, shielding the citizens of his state of North Carolina in the possession of their basic rights, motivating North Carolina to make the greatest contribution in men and spirit to the Southern cause, and his untiring efforts as Governor during the famine and sadness of war, ensured his place in the minds and hearts of the people he served.

But Zebulon Vance was of another time, another place, another era. The essence of his scriptural-based “Southern cause” has been exposed for its depravity. His concept of family was rich and traditional. But his concept is limited. Limiting. For family is simply the knowing that one belongs. For belonging. For the sharing of the very essence of survival and life. For the inclusive love of parent and child. Of sibling and sibling. Of adopted and birthed. Of being tied together with the blood of genetics and bound with the love of shared existence, but in the actuality of life itself, no necessity for the simultaneous duality of both.

A family is a family with or without the blessing of a religious creed. With or without the legal shelter of governmental system.

For family is really a simple entity of love and nurture and survival.

Family is what is in the heart of mankind and in the eye of the Inclusive God.

The Refectory Manager

Encouragement

To my young friend who speaks of love . . .

This morning I read from a little book that I have, and that I frequently read from. The Celtic Devotional – Daily Prayers & Blessings.

When we last really communicated, you were in the heart of the land that is Celtic. For the civilization of Ireland was Celtic many, many centuries ago.

In the Celtic annual cycle, the spring quarter, or “Imbolc” season brings the gift of insight and inspiration and is a time of beginnings and of essential truthfulness. Begun in the dark and often icy days of early Spring, it is traditionally the time to appreciate innocence, truth and justice, to make resolutions and plans and to prepare for the enfolding year. In the human growth cycle, Imbolc corresponds to the period of childhood when all things are questioned or enjoyed for their own sake. Imbolc is a good time to celebrate the lives of all “soul-midwives” who have taught and prepared us, all who have been upholders of justice and truth, all holy ones who have gone to the heart of the matter with great clarity and insight.

And on this Monday morning, the devotional counsels that all souls need nurture and the fosterage of encouragement: may the love of he Mother and Father of Soul’s Fostering be in my heart, that I may encourage all who are despondent and without hope.

My friend, I know so very little about you. I know nothing of the circumstances of your soul. I know so very little about your feelings. If they are of despondency or of hope. I know nothing about what encouragement, if any, that you need or want or seek or desire.

I do know that you have talked of love.

But our communication has been like communicating with a miniscule spacecraft far, far away, where the signal is faint and comes in and out.

And so my young friend, I dream of you. I have established this mythology in my mind. You are a persona to me. An imaginary person. And I know not of what I actually dream. But my dream of you does bring me comfort. For believing that I am loved is a wonderful infusion of life. And your little messages do that to me.

Do you remember my telling you about my son. You called him a “hell of a psychologist.” About his warning to me that writing of the things of the heart can be so impossible.

Perhaps my son is right.

But I do long for a note from you. For your sharing of your self. For your filling in the details of my dream of you. For my understanding of who the young man is that has fallen in love with me.

And so my reading this morning . . . about things like “soul,” “love,” “life,” “joyful awareness,” “indwelling beauty of life.”

Do these kinds of words mean anything to you?

Tell me your understanding, your feelings, your longings about soul.

Do your dreams include these kinds of words?

Do you have these kinds of thoughts?

Can you write them down?

Can you share them?

I would be so honored to understand this dimension of you.

And yes, I can be a source of encouragement for you. I can do my best to help you bring forth your feelings about yourself. Your self-worth. Your contribution to life.

And where and when you find this little story from me to you, I hope it can foster a little flicker of encouragement in your life.

I hope it can help you to realize that love is a wonderful experience.

I hope it can help you to find fulfillment in your life.

My love to you
The Refectory Manager

Friday, February 24, 2006