suspending disbelief

The holidays are sometimes like a river gauge, that calibrated stick jammed into the river bottom, or sketched onto the piling of a bridge. Folks used to floating down river see them on a regular basis in the course of a day's float and they often back up the sense data of the paddle hitting the bottom when the river's shallower then normal, or give reason to that more-excited-than-usual feeling in that last rapid that was kind of boring last time. If one looked at the river more often than a weekly or monthly paddle, the changes might not be noticeable.

Relatives are my river gauges.

There are new jobs, new relationships, 'big news', and the like that often must be sketched out during the early parts of the holiday get together. People have heard things, things have happened, things need to be shared in order to re-invigorate the relationship. This is repeated over and over, sometimes over a glass of wine or beer, then over the weenie winks and artichoke dip, then over dinner and the following slice of pie, then over coffee. Sometimes this comprises the totality of the sharing; everyone is getting up to speed until then next gathering. But I've been lucky with different sides of my family, to have a spaces when real sharing happens, that connection that cements deeper friendship when one realizes that this is someone that I'd choose to befriend even without a blood tie. As one of my Colorado teammates would say about us, 'brothas from anotha motha.'

Last night my nephew Alex gave a Tarot card reading to my son Karl. These things happen at family get-togethers. Later, after the pie, Alex and I were talking.

'So, what do you believe happens when Karl picks the cards from the deck?'
'Well, the Karl's intention affects which card he chooses.'
'Something magical happens?'
'Yes.'

We go on to talk about the importance of the narrative created by the two people, but Alex takes it a step further and says there is an actual affect on the cards by Karl's energy.

'Why do you think that?'
'Because I've seen it different times; I've done thousands of readings and sometimes the other person doesn't like the card and we do it again. You know what? They will draw that same card again. It's happened like five times. They'll pull it two or three times in a row out of a deck of 70 cards. What are the odds of that?'
'Has it happened that a person didn't draw the same card again?'
'Sure.'
'How many times has that happened?'

My surface role is skeptical uncle, but I'm more interested in an idea that is simmering just below the surface that might connect Alex and I instead of leaving both of us in our stereotypical roles.

'What if the important thing isn't whether a belief is true or not? What if the important thing is that there are two people building a narrative together of their perception of what's important in their lives?'

And this is what we talked about the rest of the evening together until the party ended with his dad's fireworks outside. This is what I thought about on the drive home and what I left off with as I fell asleep. It's easy to be critical of magical thinking, whether it's in a deck of Tarot cards or in an elaborate presentation of a mass or rabbinical service or (put your favorite belief here). However, like erotic love in Plato's Symposium or my sister-in-law's holiday party, it is a conversation starter; it can set the table.

For what... for maybe the less amazing and more magical things in our lives, the rivers rising and falling imperceptibly: the magic of drawing a quiet breath, the silence of the night air cushioned by snow under the cedars outside the house, the simple awareness of it. The feeling of flow when I ride a bicycle, air, sweat, breath, pain, joy, seeing over a hill, noticing a detail, these are miracles of being. Alex's soon to be brother-in-law had joined us and participated in the dialogue. Alex's mother came by, uncomfortable, I think, with the earnestness in our voices. 'Mom, I get to talk with my uncle once a year; let us be!'

Later, just before the fireworks, I heard his father say to his soon-to-be-son-in-law, 'Chris is the only liberal that doesn't get angry with me when we talk politics. I love that about him.'

And that makes the party, the over indulgence in sweets and meats, so worth it.