Our Pigeons, Ourselves

6 Comments September 6, 2014 Steve A. Wiggins

You don’t have to be in New York City long to begin to see yourself as an expert on pigeons. The ubiquitous avians are ruthlessly castigated as “flying rats” and “filthy birds,” primarily because they like people food and poop everywhere. I have it on the authority of Gomi and Stinchecum that everybody poops. From what I’ve seen walking through the city early on the morning after a holiday, not everyone is discriminate about where—and I’m not talking only about the pigeons. Still, I can’t help thinking that pigeons are unfairly maligned. They are pretty birds, when examined individually. They have iridescent throat feathers and a pleasing, portly gait—almost jaunty. They manage well, despite hardships. Often I see one hobbling about missing a foot or otherwise physically challenged, and yet ebullient in their pullastrine way.

Yesterday as the NJ Transit behemoth in which I was riding rounded the helix into the Port Authority Bus Terminal, I saw two depressed pigeons. Unlike the jolly bobbing and pecking they usually seem to enjoy, this pair was simply standing. On the ground before them was a dead pigeon. Now I don’t know the backstory here, but the two standing around didn’t look like murderers to me. It seemed that they’d come upon a fallen comrade and were, in their own way, offering respects. In the ongoing debate separating ourselves from other animals, I often wonder if we have by-passed many of the basics. I do know that many animals find dead of their own species distressing. This is well documented. Why not pigeons?

Pigeons—related to doves, which, according to some religious traditions have sacred qualities, eh, Mary?—are seldom classed as the brightest of birds. I’ve written about the intelligence of corvids before, but pigeons have uniquely adapted themselves to our polluting ways. I grew up in a small town where pigeons weren’t especially abundant. They gather in large numbers where many people congregate and drop their litter. And, based on my recent experience, contemplate the mysteries of death. Peregrine falcons lurk overhead, doling out death at over 200 miles an hour. All the pigeons want to do, it seems to me, is to get a free lunch in an uncertain world where those whose presence has conjured them despise them. Unlike their sacred cousins, they are, like us, utterly pedestrian. Maybe they too appreciate the simple value of life.

High School All Over

1 Comment March 13, 2014 Steve A. Wiggins

“Jungle calls around the corner!” This shout was followed by hoots, grunts, and squeals as the bus turned, intended to madden the driver of infamous bus 18. My high school bus had a reputation for driving its drivers—driving them to drink, anyway. Some of the more memorable replacements had unflattering nicknames hurled at them: Wedgehead and Illiterate Bob are two I remember well. I arrived at school smelling of pot and slightly deaf from the shouting more than once. Then we got a driver who fought back. One day he expelled all the boys from the bus for the remainder of the week. Being a Bible-reading, church-going youth who sat quietly up front, I felt that I didn’t deserve this punitive measure. Still, I felt sorry for the drivers. And I’d learned a valuable lesson—being responsible for the safe arrival of fifty people is a lot of pressure.

Yesterday I climbed aboard the adult NJ Transit bus 117. Only later did I ominously realize that if the first digit were added to the final digit, you would get bus 18. Or was it really the Pequod?

Those of us who stumble aboard the bus before 6 am are a docile, sleepy crowd, for the most part. I open my book, and if someone insists on talking, plug my buds into the white noise app on my phone. This is how I get my reading done. Some of the regulars like to argue with the drivers. “You’re too early,” one woman says (although she’s ironically on the bus at the time). Or “Why didn’t you stop for me? I had to chase the bus!” The latter was the complaint yesterday.

For being soporfiric, the early crowd is pretty tightly wound. Daily we spend about 4 hours commuting for 7 hours of work. We catch the early bus because traffic going into Manhattan meets the dictionary definition of Hell. Well, the complainer chose a tightly wound driver to challenge yesterday. The complainer wouldn’t let up. I could hear the yelling through my static-filled earbuds. In a move that would’ve done Illiterate Bob proud, the driver slammed on the brakes right on the highway and pulled over. He demanded the lady off the bus. She wouldn’t leave. He got off the bus and called his supervisor for 30 minutes. At the dawn of rush hour. The passengers began to grumble, not least of which was the complainer. Held hostage, we all knew we were going to be late for work. I put away my book. I’d been here before. I knew what would come next. I braced myself. “Jungle calls around the corner!”

In the belly of the whale.

Not Narnia

Leave a comment February 15, 2014 Steve A. Wiggins

The snow fountain from a fast-moving snow-plow is a thing of beauty. Unless you’re standing in the way. It’s been that way this winter. The sidewalk where I usually stand to wait for the bus is an arctic wasteland of waist-high snow piles shoved higher and higher by weary plow-drivers. So I stand in the road, near a streetlamp in winter, but this is not Narnia. I decided to try out New Jersey Transit’s highly anticipated “real time” bus locator—that way I know when to step out into the blowing wind to wait for the bus. After I’d been sprayed by passing cars and the occasional snow-plow for 20 minutes, I became convinced that “real time” is just academic; it is the time that the bus would arrive, were the bus actually on time, if it ever left the garage. Not that I blame the drivers—theirs is a thankless job that must lead to early retirement, or at least support the state mental hospitals.

Where’s Mr. Tumnus?

Now, I’m not the only one to be standing in the street, a hooker for capitalism, under my lamppost, and some of the stops are completely snowed in. When three passengers ganged up on the driver for nearly missing them because they weren’t at the stop because of all the snow, I began to feel a bit uncomfortable. Springs can be wound too tightly, you know. All of this is an issue because businesses don’t want to close for inclement weather. During last week’s blizzard, I ended up taking the PATH train into New York, not knowing where it was going. A young lady was fretting—she was going to be late for work. An older African American gentleman comforted her. “Don’t worry. They don’t care if you come in late on a day like today. They just want you to show up.” They just want you to show up. His words have haunted me. Businesses want you to show up because that reinforces the power of capitalism. You don’t show and you don’t eat. You lose healthcare. Cobra is aptly named—you pay far more than unemployment’s pittance for monthly coverage. Obamacare is about thirty years too late.

Every time I see the Mayor of New York justifying his decision to keep schools open when literally nine inches of well-predicted snow fall on the city—dressed in his trendy action-figure jacket, just like Christie after Hurricane Sandy—I wonder who is really being cared for. The Mayor claims that of the over 1 million kids in the school system, a substantial proportion go to school so they can get their only hot meal of the day. Is this the purpose of schools? Is it not the humane duty of the largest city in the country to make sure fair opportunity is offered to those who wish to contribute? Their parents, he adds, as an aside, have to go to work. Why aren’t they being paid enough to feed their kids? Oh, there is a blizzard coming, and it’s one of our own making. As for me, it’s time to step back because I think I see another snow-plow coming.

‘S No Day in New York

Leave a comment February 6, 2014 Steve A. Wiggins

“You’re waiting for a train. A train that’ll take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you. But you can’t know for sure.” Yet you’ve been standing on the windy platform in Newark for twenty minutes and they’ve announced the next train to New York will be an hour late. A man you don’t know says the PATH train will take you to New York, but New York is a big city, and you only go there to work. It must be a snow day. Well, almost. I work for a company that only closes when New York City Public Schools close for weather. Today, kids, school’s open; but all is not lost—field trips are cancelled. And so, the constellation of companies who take their cue from NYPS truck (sometimes literally) their New Jersey-based employees across or under the river, into a city where slush half a foot deep awaits them on every street corner, and that doesn’t slow those muck-flinging cabs down at all.

With the weather we’ve been experiencing this year, I hear a lot of people saying that Mother Nature is still in charge. Allow me to differ. You see, I’ve been researching the weather and the Bible for years now and I’ve come to a slightly different conclusion. In the Psalms, anyway, it is clear that God is in charge of the weather. Given that New York is such a sinful place, I guess none of us should be surprised. Still, I’m not sure the Bible has got this one quite right either. After all, I’ve walked through ice-crusted snow up to my knees for a good part of my walk to the station, and I have my coat open so the cold breeze will cool me down a little bit before I have to walk into work with crazy hair and a scowl frozen on my face. Didn’t some great theologian once say “sin boldly?” No, it is not Mother Nature in charge. It is not even the deity. It is something far more powerful than God—money. Can’t lose a red cent when there are human resources to be utilized.

I’ve never been on a Port Authority Trans-Hudson train before, and I’m not sure where this one stops. I heard someone say 33rd Street, and that sounds encouraging, so when the train stops I follow him across the platform. Sheep, as any shepherd knows, will follow a random person who looks confident enough. I emerge from the dark underground, not quite sure where I am, and I just can’t find a Psalm in my heart at the moment, unless it’s an imprecatory one. I stepped out of my front door into freezing rain three hours ago. My trousers are wet to the knees, and I’m a little sick from facing the wrong way on the PATH train for a lengthy ride. The cars, I notice, are shaped like Krell. Yes, this is a forbidden planet and I don’t know where I might end up. Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but I think you got it wrong. Field trips are not cancelled after all. And I’m not sure I’m even worshipping the right god.

Deceptively peaceful

Bridge over Troubled Waters

Leave a comment January 13, 2014 Steve A. Wiggins

“Let not many of you,” wrote the wise James, in a widely ignored admonition, “become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” The same could be said for politicians. Lord Acton, seconding James, noted “power corrupts,” and yet who is not drawn to its flame? The news has been awash in a flood over the George Washington Bridge scandal, something I could not appreciate until I joined the ranks of the myriads of commuters to Manhattan. The evidence is pretty clear that Chris Christie’s top staff (ahem) purposefully closed lanes on the George Washington Bridge to retaliate against Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich’s refusing to dance when the pipers piped for Christie’s reelection. I didn’t vote for Christie, and now I wonder if that is why my New Jersey Transit bus often comes so late that I’ve taken to calling it the Jesus Bus, since I never know when it might come again. Ah, the rush of power that encourages the grinding of the boot heel into the face of the smaller opponent. Could anything be more human?

Perhaps, in this world of infinite possibilities, Christie knew nothing of what his top aides were doing. The culture in New Jersey, however, as those of us who live here know, has been cast in the very large shadow of bullying. We spend taxpayer’s money to teach our children not to bully while our politicians give the lie to the teaching we purchase. “How the mighty are fallen,” lamented King David. But even he had his Bathsheba scandal. And many on the right claim their politics derive through their commitment to his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson, if I count correctly. Let not many of you become politicians.

Manhattan is an island with limited access. The Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel are for the troglodyte crowd, while the George Washington Bridge is the busiest bridge in the world. “He could have called,” the old evangelical hymn goes, “ten-thousand angels.” That’s roughly a forty-to-one ratio for New Jersey commuters to New York to angels. Somewhere along the line, the populace became the unwitting plaything of politicians. Stop a hundred-thousand people from getting to work? It’s just an arbitrary number. Never mind that trust used to be part of the social contract. As a citizen who spends approximately three hours a day on a bus, or waiting for one, I have to wonder whose best interest is in the mind of our elected officials. Yes, James, had I listened to you this might have all turned out very differently indeed.

Photo credit: Fly Navy from Wiki Commons.

Eating Your Prophets

1 Comment December 13, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

Ezekiel was an odd character, even for a prophet. He’s become a kind of patron saint to ancient astronaut theorists, and his name in fiction often denotes someone slightly off balance. In his defense, he believed that God was demanding his many strange actions. A priest in a period of exile from the “one true temple,” Ezekiel lived an existence as a captive in a foreign land and came to some radical conclusions about the nature of Israel’s god. His visions and actions were considered the original weird, even by his contemporaries. Since Ezekiel believed Babylon would conquer Jerusalem, the people there would have to go on starvation rations. In chapter 4 of his book, Yahweh tells the prophet to try to make a bread out of wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt. This odd mixture is to be eaten in very meager portions to symbolize the coming privation for 390 days (during which time he is to lie on his left side). His bread is to be cooked on dung.

I eat breakfast around 4 a.m. My bus to the City comes before 6:00 and there are no restrooms on NJ Transit buses. Many New Yorkers eat breakfast in the office, but I’m just too Episcopalian in sensitivity for that to really be an option. I don’t like really sweet cereals, but granolas are often quite sugary unless you want to pay top dollar (and most of my dollars are bottom dollars) for some organic, European blend. Then I spied Ezekiel 4:9. Knowing full well the context of the reference should’ve given me pause, but it was two dollars less a box than some of its competition—downright exilic prices—and my curiosity was roused. What would Ezekiel eat?, I asked myself.

Most people don’t realize that so many of us eat breakfast cereals due to the efforts of our Seventh-Day Adventist friends. Adventists, in addition to being literalistically inclined, advocate healthy living. Will Keith Kellogg, a faithful Adventist, believed that eating cereal for breakfast was healthy and widely promoted the idea through the company he founded to produce cereals. Kelloggs does not produce Ezekiel 4:9. Food for Life, an organic bakery, are the purveyors of this organic breakfast. Their religious convictions, if any, aren’t evident from their website. Just about the time I’m climbing aboard the bus, I know that even as Ezekiel saw the wheel, I’m in for a moving experience. Isaiah-os or Jeremiah Flakes may be difficult to imagine, but with Ezekiel nothing really surprises. Today’s Bible lesson may be as close as the larder shelf. I just skip the cooking on dung part.

Have a Blessed Day

Leave a comment September 3, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

“Last stop: New York Port Authority. Have a blessed day.” This secular blessing is sometimes appreciated after the harrowing commute to Manhattan, but I often wonder about its origins. Bus drivers are among the most under-appreciated of employees, I reflected on Labor Day. They are routinely blamed for matters beyond their control: accidents that snarl traffic for hours, mechanical problems, highway construction. Often I only reach the Port Authority Bus Terminal on time two days a week. I always say “thank you” to the driver while exiting, however. I’m very glad it’s not me behind the wheel.

Photo credit: Hudconja

A few months back, however, I noticed that a few of the drivers, while announcing the terminal stop, will add “Have a blessed day.” Last week I sat back further than usual, and heard an interesting exchange as I awaited my turn to exit. The driver had wished us a blessed day (whether we wanted one or not), and several of the passengers, upon disembarking, said back, “Have a blessed day.” I’m sure the driver appreciates it. As a lifelong student of religion, however, I found it fascinating. New York City is a great place to observe religious developments. “Have a blessed day” is innocuous in its lack of specificity. Who is doing the blessing here? At the behest of what intermediary? The driver has literal street cred by making it to the Port Authority unscathed. S/he has the power to bless and to curse. Those of us helpless as passengers are at their mercy. If the driver doesn’t drive, we can’t serve the god Mammon.

I always thought “Have a blessed day” was like an after-sneeze blessing. It is unusual for the sneezer to panegyrize their blesser by wishing good fortune back. Most often they are too busy blowing their noses. Here on the bus the driver might be Muslim (it is clear that some are), Christian, or Hindu. Some are likely among the most deserving of atheists. A blessing laid is a blessing played, however, and many are the passengers who are now returning the favor. We don’t know which deity is being invoked; it may be that it is simply the force that is with us. As we climb off that bus into a city that crushes a human soul as easily as a cockroach, we all could benefit from a blessed day. And I wonder on my way to work whether I’ve just witnessed a new religion being conceived.

Good, Friday

Leave a comment March 29, 2013 Steve A. Wiggins

Riding public transit sometimes turns into a religious experience. Various bus drivers will wish passengers a “blessed day” as they pull into the Port Authority Bus Terminal—not that I can blame them, after the traffic they face daily, for taking a spiritual breather. Lately, though, I have been wished a happy Easter by the driver. Ironically, I must note, because people of many faith traditions ride the bus. Not all are Easter riders. Just yesterday a Rastafari stood before me in line. I’m regularly joined by Hindus, Jews, and maybe even a Mormon or two (who can tell?). Holy Week in New York is a surreal experience. I chatted with some co-workers where the topic changed effortlessly from their experiences of Passover to others’ experiences of Easter. Religion is alive and well in the Big Apple, but it is mostly an afterthought to the real business of making money. That’s what we’re all here for, after all.

Money, according to the good book, is inimical to the lifestyle of faith. I must have a little too much faith, I guess, since I have so precious little money. Nothing throws that into such sharp relief as looming tuition bills. You see, I tried “to fight the good fight” only to learn that there’s no way to win it without playing by the entrepreneur’s rules. Filling out the FAFSA over the smoldering ruins of my “earning years” was a distinctly sobering experience. I went into higher education because I believed in it—there’s that pesky faith again. The things you believe in, however, have a way of turning on you. I suppose that’s an appropriate reflection for Good Friday.

It’s hard to be an idealist in a world where people say, “you just need someone to give you a chance,” and then turn their backs on you. So as I’m walking across town, thinking about my blessed day, I notice that we’re all in this together. Except some of us. In the idealist world, those who want it the most sometimes win it. Those who play by the rules. I had no Harvard aspirations, just a reasonable job in a little college would suit me fine. A place to think that doesn’t have wheels and aluminum sides and seat forty-nine other lost souls. But for those who have less, even the little they have will be taken from them. That’s biblical too. Higher education is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children, but it easily joins hands with Judas Iscariot. It is Good Friday, according to some. Others just call it a blessed day.

Biblical New Brunswick

Leave a comment December 29, 2012 Steve A. Wiggins

One of the true sadnesses of my life is that New Brunswick’s biggest institution, Rutgers University, couldn’t find a full-time place for a dreamer like me. Ever hopeful, I taught there for four years, counting on a miracle. Although I’ve got many good memories of my time at Rutgers, one of the side-benefits was getting to know New Brunswick a little bit. Probably not topping too many vacation must-see lists, New Brunswick, New Jersey nestles in the shadow of New York City and its train station is a place I’ve spent a bit of time. Last night I had occasion to stop in to get my bus pass so that I can start off the new year by going to work. As I climbed the stairs to the ticket window, I heard a street preacher holding forth. There he was, a young man, open Bible in hand, explaining to a mostly disinterested commuter crowd why they needed salvation. (If their experience on New Jersey Transit has been anything like mine, believe me, they already know.) Many of those in the waiting room are the homeless trying to get out of the cold for a while. New Brunswick has never struck me as a particularly religious town, although many of my students in my Rutgers days brought their religion to university with them. I didn’t have time for another conversion last night, however, as my family had another purpose for being in town.

A friend had kindly given my family tickets to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the State Theater. Although put on by Plays-in-the-Park of Middlesex County, being in the shadow of New York City sets a very high bar for public performances. The show was excellent and energetic and I couldn’t help connecting the dots on how the Bible had played into the evening. Andrew Lloyd Webber long ago realized that even a very secular Britain had a hunger for biblical stories. Although I am biased, given my failed choice of profession, the story of Joseph is one of the great tales of all time. Although likely half the audience couldn’t say that the story occurs in Genesis, the rags-to-riches plot of betrayal and forgiveness is so deeply embedded in human dreams that even assigning it to the wrong testament would make no difference. As Lloyd Webber knows, we all want our dreams to come true. Joseph, certainly a flawed hero, does finally see himself as the second most powerful man in the fictional world of Moses’ Egypt. It’s difficult not to root for the guy.

Outside the temperature hasn’t managed to reach 40 degrees today. A few blocks away at the train station, some of those being force-fed the Gospel were almost certainly refugees from the cold. I’ve seen this every time I have to catch a train in Newark as well. The homeless know that at least they won’t freeze in the depot, even if they are chased off the seats by security. Moving from Joseph to James a moment, we hear “And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?” In other words, if you are offering the homeless words only, you’re not getting the point of the gospel at all. The homeless would benefit more from having a dream come true, I’m certain, than from having a message of salvation before being turned out to the cold for the night. The real salvation in New Brunswick is being offered at the State Theater tonight, but you do need a ticket to get inside.

Any dream will do

Umbrella Apocalypse

2 Comments December 22, 2012 Steve A. Wiggins

Broken ribs and twisted, tortured limbs hanging useless under a leaden sky. It was a scene of carnage. I knew the world was supposed to end yesterday, but I didn’t believe I would experience it, but the evidence was indisputable. It was the apocalypse. For umbrellas. Winter storm Draco had melted by the time he reached the East Coast. I awoke to the apartment shuddering in the wind, and I could hear the rain pelting the windows. I had one more day to go to work before two things: the end of the year and the end of the world. And I would be relying on New Jersey Transit. The very thought makes me want to cower in the closet. My bus stop has no shelter—it’s just an exposed street corner, not far enough away to justify a drive. I stood in the rain, faithful umbrella held like a shield in the blast of Draco’s breath. The bus, of course, was nearly half an hour late. I stumbled up the stairs, glasses dripping, and decided that today, only today, I would take the subway across Manhattan. After all, the world was ending.

The lines from the Port Authority to the bowels of the subway are like those old documentaries of massive lemming migrations off a cliff. My turn. The card reader said “Card Already Expired.” Metrocards don’t expire; you charge them up and recharge them when they’re empty. I still had money on my account, but with other lemmings close behind, and rush-hour grade lines at the recharging machines, I decided to fight the dragon on the streets. It was with a certain Cervantesque tilting at the wind that I made my way across West 41st Street, umbrella forced into a tiny cone by Manhattan’s famous wind tunnels. Twice I was blown off the curb. Then at 5th Avenue the wind defied both the laws of physics and the agreed conventions of meteorology and slammed me from north and south simultaneously, my umbrella bucking in my hands like a terrified stallion. It sustained two broken ribs, metal twisted in opposite directions, flesh flapping uselessly. By the time I reached Grand Central, it couldn’t close, so I dumped my companion into a garbage can with other umbrellas and went on alone.

When I got to the office I discovered my hat was missing. While it would be more dramatic to say that a stocking cap blew right off my head, the truth is that it must’ve fallen out of my coat pocket. I was wet, buffeted, and without two items with which I began the day. The sky was still black as I looked out on the scene of the final battle from The Avengers movie. It had been an apocalypse all right, for the umbrellas. Chicago may be the Windy City, but New York is the Umbrella Killer. When I made it home as early as 6 p.m., I knew the world had ended for certain. I read the Cajun Night Before Christmas and went to bed, thinking of all those poor, dismembered umbrellas. Today is the day after the end of the world, and I am huddled here waiting for the dawn.

Don Quixote rides out of Manhattan yesterday with Sancho Panza wondering at his denuded umbrella.

A Big Joke

4 Comments December 14, 2012 Steve A. Wiggins

On the evening table my wife left a token of hope for me to read in this hopeful season. New Jersey “Transit” claimed that the very next day riders of the extensive bus system would be able to track buses precisely on their smart phones. No more wondering “has the bus already come, or is it late (again)?” I laughed when I read this because that very evening in the Port Authority my bus never came. The frazzled and apologetic dispatcher said nobody knew where the driver was. Did anyone think to drag the East River? I wondered. As other buses pulled to the gate, drivers refusing to switch routes, the line grew and grew. The bus scheduled for the next half hour did not show. My daughter was waiting for me to fix dinner. On a good day I’m home by 6:30. This was not a good day. I laughed ironically at the article and went to bed. My morning bus leaves, in theory, before 6:00 a.m. A day later, in the Port Authority. My bus, which can now be tracked with precision, precisely failed to show up. I’m sure you know the dispatcher’s chorus—please join in—”nobody knows where the driver is.”

So what is a diatribe like this doing on a blog about religion? I’m as mad as Hell about this, that’s why! Every month I pay hundreds of dollars for a bus pass. I think the least New Jersey Transit could do is the courtesy of sending a bus. In case anyone from NJ Transit is reading this, a bus is a large vehicle that seats about 50 adults and generally runs the same way every day. It’s called a “route.” People use it to get to and from work. Of course nobody expects the executives of a company that services over 19,000 bus stops to take a bus to work. They probably have to be on time. I take the earliest possible bus from my town to New York City. Most days it is late and consequently so am I. For this I spend over three grand a year.

This is not about Hurricane Sandy. Buses have been back on schedule since Thanksgiving. What it comes down to is the fate of most capitalistic ventures—the working person butters the bread of the Executive Director who earns more than $260,000 a year. Last night I toyed with the idea of getting other disgruntled commuters to link arms and stand across the exit ramp, or to lay down in front of the buses until a bus for my route was sent. I suspect, though, that they realize as well as I do that Tiananmen Square doesn’t take much to morph into Times Square when an individual stands in the way of corporate gain. Tonight I plan to wear my good walking shoes. After all, I paid good money for them too. Unless, of course, anybody out there would like to drive this bus?