The Ass and the Halo

           I am sitting on a glass skylight above the underground parking garage in Ann Arbor, across from the public library, waiting for it to open. Any unfortunate soul who happens to look up at this particular skylight while parking there, on this beautiful Saturday morning, will see my ass – covered in polyester basketball shorts, but its outline and substance no less – a story or two above. But not only that. They will see it haloed by blue sky and sunshine. Can you hear the angels singing? Oh poor soul, looking up the crack of another son of God.

            However, even this unexpected witness may have a better insight into the heaven of atmosphere here, than those who chance to look up at another skylight down the block. There is the backside of the man who inspired me to set my burden down. He is snoozing in public at 8:30 AM, the sun full in his face. His grey t-shirt is, and has been, unable to cover his mighty stomach, now loosed from its constraints with apparent relief and obvious abundance. Yes, he is a champion. He looks like a great white whale, beached on a pedestal of concrete, a veritable Moby Dick of skylight sitters. He looks human, and is wearing khaki shorts, white socks, and black sandals, but I wouldn’t trust to appearances overmuch. Captain Ahab sought him from public library to public library, and now, he is found at last.

            When the sky rains fire, the monsters are unleashed from the sea, Revelation comes true, and we all have the mark of evil on our right wrist and in our brains, still the great white whale will sit and wait for his death, his nemesis, his deliverance. All the crackers in creation will pray on loudspeaker systems, the microphones in their hands, after eating some down-home cooking under the large pavilion tents. And still, our sidewalk-sitting skylight-covering behemoth will sleep on. And Captain Ahab is nowhere to be found, to harpoon the estate of overnourished flesh.

            Ah, I tell you all this with a smile of mischief, but this is not all that there is to life. We are not stuck with end-times or white whales or Melville. We are not stuck with talk of angels, or of demons for that matter. We are only stuck with realities. We are stuck with bodies; we are stuck with language; we are stuck with weather, and needing to occupy some particular portion of the earth while we live. We are stuck with judgment, to a greater or lesser degree, and we are stuck with feelings. We are stuck with imagination, and stories, and colorful turns of phrase, and colorful characters. We are stuck with humor, and stuck together by it. We are made whole by the winking acknowledgment of absurdity. We are made kinder by allowing ourselves, and each other, our judgments as wit, rather than as definite. We are made clean by kind laughter. Not all laughter is kind, but that which is has a cleansing effect, like letting sunshine and a breeze into a dark and musty room.

            We are released from what frightens and disgusts us by making it safe. Humor is our way of defusing ourselves with a general acceptance, rather than insisting on defusing and changing what is around us. It is the greatest blessing god ever gave to us holy fools, us human beings. Even that which is rude, risqué, intolerant, objectifying, or stereotypical is better put into words that make us laugh kindly and smile more widely than kept inside, or expressed with conviction. With the exceptions of serious situations – which are far more rare than most of us think – the truth, or a story or joke that is near to it, should be said with a smile. And when a smile eludes us, it should be said in a way that makes us laugh.

            I am not always a happy man, but I am in the sunshine now. And in the unlikely event that someone is parking below me, may they hear the angels sing. I am singing, too, and I’m not even an angel.