custard-cup without
a handle holds punch as well
as golden goblets

Valerius Maximus was a 1st-century Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes titled the Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX or Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings.

Almost 2000 years ago, Valerius asked the question:

” . . . to what purpose is it to place wealth in the first part of happiness, or poverty in the lowest state of misery, since both the cheerful brow of them is inwardly filled with many bitternesses, and the more rough appearance of the latter abounds in solid and reliable goods?”

The rich must be happy or at least, happier than the poor, right?

For one thing, they are rich.

And the poor, well, they aren’t rich.

Yet, as good ‘ol Valerius says, “both the cheerful brow of them is inwardly filled with many bitternesses.”

And “the more rough appearance of the latter abounds in solid and reliable goods.“

Way back in that 1st century.

As an illustration of the point, may I offer a visit to the home of one Robert Cratchit, Esquire in Camden Town, London, about 1860.

“Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried, Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone, — too nervous to bear witnesses, — to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard, and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose, — a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry-cook’s next door to each other with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered, — flushed but smiling proudly, — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy, and bedecked with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

O, a wonderful pudding, Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire.

Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass, — two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and crackled noisily. Then Bob proposed: —

“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”

Which all the family re-echoed.

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

I can’t say I feel rich.

But I can’t say I feel poor.

I certainly can’t say I lack for anything I need.

I mean even old evil Joseph Stalin, in a discussion over a declaration of the four freedoms, asked FDR if when FDR said “the freedom from want”, did he mean “want” or “desire”.

Can I come up with things I desire.

You bet!

FDR again was once asked if there was one book he could have the world read to understand and appreciate the United States.

“Yes there is”, FDR answered, “The Sears Roebuck Catalog!”

If I want to feel rich all I have to do is go to https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i to find out I am richer than 95% of the people in the world.

I don’t feel rich or poor.

What I do feel is lucky.

What I do feel is blessed.

Smart enough to appreciate my good fortune.

Smart enough to recognize that God HAS blessed with this good fortune.

Smart enough to NOT QUESTION my good fortune.

Smart enough to just want to quote Bob Cratchit and say to you all, ““A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!“

God bless us everyone.

PS: Just before ol’ Valerius Maximus makes his statement about wealth and poverty, he tells the story of Cornelia.

Cornelia is the lady who, according to Cornelia Valerius, “while the matron Campana showed her the most beautiful ornaments of that age, drew her in conversation until the children came back from school and she says, “These are my ornaments.”

This comes down to us as Haec ornamenta mea.

These are my jewels.

Just an old guy with his daughters.

In between the two statement, Valerius also says, “He who covets nothing, indeed possesses all things, so much more surely than he possesses all things, because the dominion of things is wont to slip“

want only to see
my father back in time where
no one made mistakes

Adapted from the line:

She wanted now only to see her father, to go back to that country in time where no one made mistakes.

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

She had memorized those words at the time of her father’s death, had repeated them as she walked down streets and brushed her hair, as she lay in bed and as she drove the river road, and she repeated them now . . .

From the book, Run River by Joan Didion.

The above line is preceded by the line, “She was not sure that it would be all right even if they could go back to that morning on the river and start over again; because she could not put her finger on what was wrong it would only go wrong a second time.”

Knowing that in your past is a crossroads.

Knowing that in your past your took one of the roads.

Was it the right road?

If you could back, would you take the other road?

Or would you hope for that country were there no mistakes.

Maybe to back to be with your father.

A lot of thoughts in not too many words.

That was the style of Joan Didion.

Joan Didion, the eminent journalist, author and anthropologist of contemporary American politics and culture – a singularly clear, precise voice across a multitude of subjects for more than 60 years – has died at her home in Manhattan, New York. She was 87 years old.

(Taken from the obit in the Guardian).

Ms. Didion wrote, “A place,” she once wrote, “belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.“

I like that a lot.

it meant daring to
disagree it meant to just
have an opinion

Trailblazing cultural theorist and activist, public intellectual, teacher and writer, bell hooks, has died of kidney failure aged 69.

She authored around 40 books in a career spanning more than four decades.

“In the world of the southern black community I grew up in, ‘back talk’ and ‘talking back’ meant speaking as an equal to an authority figure. It meant daring to disagree and sometimes it meant just having an opinion,” she explained.

For a child, to speak when not spoken to was to invite punishment, so was a courageous act, an act of risk and daring.

It was in that world that the craving was born in her “to have a voice, and not just any voice, but one that could be identified as belonging to me … Certainly for black women, our struggle has not been to emerge from silence into speech but to change the nature and direction of our speech, to make a speech that compels listeners, one that is heard.”

bell hooks once wrote, “Now when I ponder the silences, the voices that are not heard, the voices of those wounded and/or oppressed individuals who do not speak or write, I contemplate the acts of persecution, torture – the terrorism that breaks spirits, that makes creativity impossible. “

The terrorism that breaks spirits.

That makes creativity impossible. 

bell hooks continued, “I write these words to bear witness to the primacy of resistance struggle in any situation of domination (even within family life); to the strength and power that emerges from sustained resistance and the profound conviction that these forces can be healing, can protect us from dehumanisation and despair“

The strength and power that emerges from sustained resistance.

The profound conviction that these forces can be healing.

I did not know her writing as a Kid but I tried to live it.

Hard to believe she was just 8 years older than I am.

If I have a grave stone, please carve on it that, “fought against the terrorism that breaks spirits, that makes creativity impossible.“

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, well.

bell hooks was born under the name, Gloria Jean Watkin, but wrote under the pseudonym bell hooks – a name she adopted in tribute to her maternal great-grandmother, styling it in lowercase so as to keep the focus on her work rather than on her own persona.

Ms. hooks roamed around the academic world and landed of all places in Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, a school that has a long history in our family.

Berea College has it roots back in 1855 when a one room school dedicated to anti-slavery and to advocate of equality and excellence in education for men and women of all races.

1855?

1855!

This school grew into a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky.

Berea College charges no tuition; every admitted student is provided the equivalent of a four-year scholarship.

It has a full-participation work-study program in which students are required to work at least 10 hours per week in campus and service jobs in any of over 130 departments.

About 75% of the college’s incoming class is drawn from the Appalachian region of the South and some adjoining areas

Some of the work study programs are in crafts, woodworking and weaving.

Items that they make are for sale in the College store and now, online.

Somewhere along the line my family picked up a skittles games – kind of a 18th century pin ball machine that was the size of a cedar chest, that was made at Berea.

My Dad always talked about it but how he knew about it I do not know.

I know we stopped there at least once or twice

And I have ordered items from their catalog for my kids.

I carry a walking stick those students made.

I use a cherry-wood rolling pin those students made.

If you go, you can tour the work shops and watch the wood workers and weavers.

It seems to me that once my Dad watched a weaver for a bit and noticed something.

He leaned over and whispered in the ear of the young lady who was working the loom.

She stopped.

Looked.

Got up and ran off to get help.

I looked a question at my Dad.

“She wove her cloth measuring tape into the rug”, my Dad said.

From the beginning Berea was different.

Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational.

Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be racially integrated.

With a Curriculum Vitae that includes Stanford, Wisconsin and USC, I guess it makes sense that bell hooks, the person who said, “The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is – it’s to imagine what is possible” would end up here.

• Adapted from bell hooks obituary ..