{"id":94,"date":"2009-02-06T09:21:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-06T14:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=94"},"modified":"2009-02-06T09:21:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-06T14:21:00","slug":"captain-karma-comes-a-callin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=94","title":{"rendered":"Captain Karma Comes A Callin’"},"content":{"rendered":"
A wise friend (and, for all I know, avid Jim Croce fan) once paraphrased those words to live by: \u201cya don\u2019t tug on Superman\u2019s cape, ya don\u2019t spit into the wind, ya don\u2019t tug the mask off that ol\u2019 Lone Ranger, and . . .\u201d with his own caution. \u201cAlways answer the door when Captain Karma comes a callin\u2019.\u201d Easier said than done. What\u2019s this guy look like? How do I know it\u2019s not just another JW in a fancy cape. If I open the door to another bag of stale chips or almond chocolate bars, I think I\u2019ll explode. If I had a swimming pool that needed cleaning, I\u2019ll sure call you first. Sorry, no tax receipt, no ticky. In short, we\u2019re pretty much conditioned to slam that door in the face of just about anybody that rings the bell.<\/p>\n

And so as I fired up the snow blower on what, to all appearances was not a particularly auspicious, winter morning, I was not really prepared to entertain such a guest. Two, three inches at most; should be able to blast through this in top gear and get in before the coffee cools. Driveway, done. City walkway \u2013 all the way to the corner (self-absorbed slugs who drop their citizenly duty, take note), done. A little polish off of our own sidewalk . . . Oops, just about dropped the ball on that one! Toss the newspaper safely out of the way onto the front porch; mark that extension cord, frozen in place \u2018til Spring \u2013 and WHANG! <\/p>\n

Blue smoke, usually the exclusive province of the machine itself, redoubled as its owner added to the column. Nothing stops a blower in its tracks like a good, hefty, mid-week edition of the Globe & Mail. Momentarily at a loss, I poke my head around to the business end and confirm that, yep, a little tattered and twisted but otherwise wedged in tact was Wednesday\u2019s best (bearing out my fear that I\u2019d carefully rescued yesterday\u2019s<\/em> paper) mid-maw as it were. <\/p>\n

Years of anger management (teaching, not taking \u2013 thank you very much!) reminded me to belly breathe, hit the \u2018pause button\u2019 (as if that would get the *&%@! Globe out of the blower!), put an optimistic construction on events (\u2018could have been the extension cord\u2019 seemed a bit limp at this point). And thus, as the mailman (and it was a man) strode up the driveway with his sunny greeting of how much he appreciated a clean path, I responded in kind with an \u201cit\u2019s the least I can do\u201d \u2013 and went back to work with the sledge, crow bar, and sotto voce<\/em> curses. It was some time before my mind (and the smoke) cleared sufficient to register that just maybe that wasn\u2019t the mail man after all. Maybe that was CK in a mad bomber hat (the guy is a master of disguise).<\/p>\n

Now the parallel tale, of course, is the Lenten theme at St. James this year. Let me get this right: something about consumerism, loving the planet, caring for our non-renewable resources. For some time, heeding the refrain that the church website is such a wonderful tool for communicating with the parish, for sharing life at St. James with those that can\u2019t attend on a regular basis (Hmmm?), for keeping folks current with bulletin and community news, coming events and music lists (well, those will come, I just know it), the scribe and faithful sidekick have connived and plotted, pushed and (digitally) published this little vehicle in every way possible to save a tree here and a pinch of Xerox powder there. But alas, the drafts of drafts, the photocopies of photocopies, the pink, purple, and puce \u2018eye catching inserts\u2019, the printed reminders to check the website for details \u2013 just keep a rollin\u2019 off the press. The direct emails, weekly updates, the attempts at \u2018reverse marketing\u2019 (\u201cif you want to receive a hard copy of . . .\u201d) have fallen on deaf ears. Ah, but Captain Karma hears!<\/p>\n

Feeling ever the hypocrite, I recall my rants about inserts, flyers, ad mail, and unsolicited newsprint \u2013 dropped disdainfully into the recycle bin between the mail box and the house, unread, unwanted, resented; as I pull a shred of \u201cLeafs lose another one\u201d out of the blower\u2019s rotors. As I untwist the plastic wrapper from the drive shaft, I cast mind back to the (now hollow) advocacy to \u2018read online\u2019; the barely controlled telephone exchanges with the London Free Press, censuring them for delivering \u2018complimentary copies\u2019 of their \u2018illiterate rag\u2019 to our house. Tentatively tweaking the clutch to expel the final few remnants of Rex\u2019s column onto my neighbour\u2019s snow bank, I shudder to remember the carefully lettered warnings taped to mail box cautioning anyone who might challenge to \u201csave a tree \u2013 leave no junk mail here!\u201d. How many times does the message need to be delivered? How much clearer can CK be? P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E W-H-A-T Y-O-U P-R-E-A-C-H. Come to think of it, that\u2019s kinda catchy \u2013 even has that kind of churchy feel to it. Hmm. Wonder if there\u2019s an application of that up on the hill. Or do we have to wait for a visit from CK? Wonder what the liturgical equivalent is of a Globe stuffed up your rotor? <\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
David Howard<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wise friend (and, for all I know, avid Jim Croce fan) once paraphrased those words to live by: \u201cya don\u2019t tug on Superman\u2019s cape, ya don\u2019t spit into the wind, ya don\u2019t tug the mask off that ol\u2019 Lone Ranger, and . . .\u201d with his own caution. \u201cAlways answer the door when Captain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}