The Peacock Vow

IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF 2015. I’m throwing caution to the wind, again, and not eating black-eyed peas. However, I do feel compelled take part in some new-year traditions, to make some sort of resolution(s).

Resolution-making has a long, rich tradition. For centuries people have been setting themselves up for failure with promises to eat less, exercise more, blah, blah… According to www.usa.gov the most popular resolutions in 2015 will include: Lose weight, Volunteer to help others, Quit smoking, Get fit, Eat healthier, Manage debt, Take a trip, Drink less Alcohol, and Reduce, reuse and recycle.

But let’s go back a few hundred years, in the Medieval era, knights took the "peacock vow" at the end of the Christmas season each year to re-affirm their commitment to chivalry.[Lennox, Doug (2007). Now You Know Big Book of Answers.]

Now there’s a resolution I can get on board with: reaffirming my commitment to chivalry. It’s vague enough to make it difficult to measure success (or lack of it). It’s enigmatic enough to sound well-thought-through without knowing what the heck I’m talking about.

If Chivalry Is Dead, Don’t Blame Me

It was in the midst of my first coming-of-age that the feminist movement made chivalry obsolete, even an affront to some women. I do remember, however a time in junior high. I held a door open for a new and very pretty young teacher at our school. She said, “Thank you. It’s good to know that chivalry is not dead.”

I was very happy to be seen by her as chivalrous even though I didn’t know what chivalry was. I tried to look it up in the dictionary but I didn’t even know how to spell it. Apparently, though I was helping keep it alive and that was appreciated by some.

So what is it? The sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms. From my Oxford American Thesaurus for Writers, other words for chivalry include: gentlemanliness, courtesy, courteousness, politeness, graciousness, mannerliness, good manners.

Sounds to me like that’s some stuff we could use today, but is it dead?

The pronouncedly masculine virtues of chivalry came under attack on the parts of the upper-class suffragettes campaigning for gender equality in the early 20th century, and with the decline of the military ideals of duelling culture and of European aristocracies in general following the catastrophe of World War I, the ideals of chivalry became widely seen as outmoded by the mid-20th century. [Wikipedia]

I know this about myself: if nothing else, I am at least outmoded. So, I’m going to embrace the Vow of the Peacock and resolve to be more chivalrous in 2015.

Of course I will need the help of my maiden, the Amazing-Missus, in stitching me up a pennant to bear as I go forward on my quest.

Depiction of chivalric ideals in Romanticism, Stitching the Standard is a painting by British artist Edmund Leighton. It depicts a nameless damsel on the battlements of a medieval castle making the finishing touches to a standard or pennant with a black eagle on a gold background, preparing for a knight to go to war. In a time of peace the woman has taken her needlework into the daylight away from the bustle of the castle.

Merry Christmas Ya'll

“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, we all go through it together.” —Garrison Keillor

Photo Credit: Dave Fuller.   Design Credit: Molly Hennesy.

I'm trying not to get all sentimental, not that there's anything wrong with that, but one of my favorite Songs of The Season, since I heard it play while Clark Griswold was locked in his attic watching old, home movies, is THAT SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS (the Chuck Brown & Eva Cassidy arrangement). If I could, I would give you the buck-29 to buy it on iTunes; as my way of saying "Merry Christmas". I can't, but I can at least give you the lyrics:

Christmas is the time of year
For being with the one's we love
Sharing so much joy and cheer
What a wonderful feelin'
Watching the one's we love
Having so much fun

I was sittin' by the fire side
Taking a walk through the snow
Listening to a children's choir
Singing songs about Jesus
The blessed way that he came to us
Why can't it remain all through the year

Each day the same
Hey yeah, that's what I wanna hear
Heh, heh, it's truly amazin'
That spirit of Christmas

All the kin folk gather round
The lovely Christmas tree
Hearts are glowing full of joy
Sense the gifts that we're giving
And the love that we're living
Why can't it remain ohh all through the year

Each day the same
Hey yeah, that's what I wanna hear
I'll tell ya, it's truly amazin'
That spirit of Christmas

Remember, Ebenezer Scrooge's words after he had learned his lessons in A Christmas Carol? He said, "I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year."

I want to be like Scrooge--the reinvented one, not the mean, miserly one.

---

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,
and we beheld his glory, the glory as of
the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
—The Gospel of John, Chapter 1, Verse 14.

Can I get an AMEN?!

Flippin’ The F

REMEMBER YOUR FIRST COMING OF AGE? That time that’s pretty much filled with excitement and terror and rites of passage. Remember puberty, your voice finally changing, and all those Firsts?

In a feeble attempt to establish credibility, let me point out that I have a degree in sociology with a focus on adolescence, and 30 or so years of working with teenagers. I also have 44 years of experience trying to realize that I’m not a teenager anymore.

One of my old textbooks, Arnold van Gennep’s book, The Rites of Passage, he explains, “I propose to call the rites of separation from a previous world, preliminal rites; those executed during the transitional stage liminal (or threshold rites); and the ceremonies of incorporation into the new world postliminal rites.”

For example, around 14 or so, we begin to long ardently for independence—our own transportation—to come and go as we please. Call this “the rite of separation from a previous world.”

None to soon we get a driver’s manual, probably the most diligently studied textbook in school history and we take Driver’s Ed: “transitional stage liminal (or threshold rites).”

Finally the day comes that we get our license and Dad hands us the keys: “the ceremonies of incorporation into the new world postliminal rites.”

If you’re a faithful reader of About Pops, you know that one of my favorite story genres is bildungsroman (coming-of-age stories). You also know that I like to talk about the age of nearing retirement as my second-coming-age. If you’re bored and want to read more about that, here are links to a couple of posts I’ve made on the subject.

LIFE AS STORY
AGE IS A NUMBER

While I am not yet retired, and in fact, I can’t even see retirement from where I am, still I can see I’m in the that preliminal rites stage of separation from a previous world.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a great job and I get to work with some amazingly creative and energetic young adults, but I do look forward to the weekends and Monday morning often comes to soon. Maybe it’s Nature’s way of preparing me for the time when I will not get up and go to work M-F. Maybe I’m entering the threshold rites stage.

Last Friday morning I was going through the morning ritual: make my toast for peanut butter and strawberry fruit-only spread, start the coffee, take my daily tablespoon of olive oil, and so on.

I commented to My Amazing-Missus, “I LOVE flippin’ the F.”

“I beg your pardon?” she lovingly replied.

All of my peers these days take a cocktail of pills: baby aspirin, fish oil capsule, multi-vitamin, vitamin D, and assorted other pills for heart health, arthritis, etc. We all put them in a little box divided by the days of the week. On the lid of each section is the letter of the appropriate day. When I get to flip the lid on the F I know I get to wear jeans to work and that the weekend looms.

The second-coming-of-age isn’t as exciting as the first, but it is something. Someday instead of getting a driver’s license I’ll get a metaphorical Gold Watch. I wonder if after the “ceremony” it will be as fun to flip the S, the M, the T, the W, the other T, and the other S has it has been to flip the F?

Traditions

AS I TREK DEEPER into what the hucksters call “senior adulthood,” I’m trying to avoid the pitfalls of dogmatism, stubbornness, narrow-mindedness and prejudice. I have almost always preferred Movements over Institutions.

The idea of traditions for tradition’s sake seems unnecessarily rigid and confining to me. To start from a position of “This is the way we have always done it!” thwarts creativity and discovery. A vivid memory I have of kindergarten is of a little girl who sat next to me raising her hand and saying, “Teacher, Teacher, David’s coloring outside the lines; again!”

That’s right B I am, and in fact if I had my way there would be no lines at all, then where would you be?!

Maybe it is old-age creeping in, but lately I’ve been looking for the baby I threw out with that bath water a long time ago.

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."
 —Gustave Mahler

If there is a season that is loaded with traditions it is Christmastime:

• We always put the tree up on December 1.
• Where is that star that we always put on top of the tree.
• We always watch “Christmas Vacation.”
• We always open one gift on Christmas Eve.
• There is always a little egg of Silly Putty® in our stockings.

As I sat the other night and watched our Grand-Girls decorate gingerbread houses it dawned on me, my Amazing-Missus has been making these little houses for our two boys, now our Grand-Girls and hundreds of other kids to decorate for more than thirty years. We make gingerbread houses. It’s a tradition and it’s beautiful.

Last Sunday afternoon I sat with my 3 year-old Grand-Girl in my lap waiting for her first performance of The Nutcracker to begin. Next to me was our 6 year-old waiting for her fourth. The youngest was full of questions: Why is it dark in here? Where are the ballerinas? Is this song almost over?

The oldest was fully immersed in the whole Nutcracker experience. During intermission, she danced the first act in the lobby by herself, not caring who was watching. We go see The Nutcracker and after we have cookies and milk. It’s a tradition and it’s beautiful.

Maybe someday they will be too old to want to see The Nutcracker with their Pops. So while they’re off to a movie with some boy who isn't good enough for them, I’ll put Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite on the record player, and while it’s playing, I’ll remember that once we had a tradition, and it was beautiful.

See, they're not so bad after all.