Saturday morning cartoons . . .

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

I was reading The New Yorker this morning. Okay, I was really flipping through the pages looking at the cartoons. That's what I do first with a new issue. Sometimes that's all I do. I hope that doesn't diminish my intellectual style points. (Actually this morning I did read the movie reviews for "The Next Three Days" and "Morning Glory," but I don't think that counts toward the intellectual tally sheet since I was really just wanting to know which movie to waste ten bucks on.)

There were a couple of gems. One by Roz Chast was entitled "The Last Thanksgiving." Just the idea of a pushback to all the "First Thanksgiving" depictions was enough for me. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a great cartoon is worthy of none, especially Roz Chast cartoons. I don't have permission to print it, but you can see it on the page where you could buy it if you wanted to. http://www.cartoonbank.com/2010/title-the-last-thanksgiving-family-seated-around-thanksgiving-table-each-person-has-arrow-p/invt/136236/

But I will try to explain the second cartoon anyway, because it expressed so simply a great notion worthy of contemplation and I don't have permission to reproduce it. The cartoonist is gifted, but his or her signature leaves a great deal to the imagination. I imagine his or her name is B. S. Miller, but I'm not sure.

A middle-aged couple is standing in a bare, empty room of a house. The woman, purse in hand as if she had just walked in, is standing next to the man, staring at the stripped walls and rooms. No furniture, no pictures, only a bare light bulb hanging down from the ceiling. The only thing in the room is a small, rectangular, shiny brick in the middle of the floor. The man tells the woman:

"I've simplified my life by converting all my possessions into one gold brick."

Some of you may be thinking at this point, "If only I had done that a year ago . . ."

If so, maybe words are necessary for this one. Bless your heart.

Most of us experience gold as jewelry. A few carats. An ounce or two.

In such small amounts we may have missed one of the main characteristics of gold.

It is heavy.

Like an anchor. Security in the swirling currents (or currencies) of our changing world.

But like an anchor it holds us in place. As the river of life flows past, urging us to come along, we are trapped by our own security. We never get to where we were meant to be because we can't turn loose of the gold.

And when the waters rise . . .


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