How I See It: Reflections on spirituality, technology, and the art of everyday life

Christmas Letter 2000 Copyright © 2000, By Odell Sneeden Hathaway III Dear Friends, I’m very sorry that I was so busy with planning the wedding and everything that I didn’t manage to get my Christmas letter mailed until January—but I don’t want to lose touch with you, so here goes. Well, another millennium is almost over, and somehow we’ve managed to survive a year of Y2K, global warming, Survivor , Who Wants to Be a Millionaire , politics, and Chad. Another thousand years draws to a close, and we stop to look back all the way to the birth of a small child just two millennia ago. As the year and millennium close, I find myself looking back and wanting to share some of it with the people I consider my friends. As last year was ending and we were all facing the supposed end of the world due to Y2K, I wrote to you about a wonderful woman named Linda and how I was in love with her. But the fact that she lived ninety miles away made things difficult—and, let’s face it,...

Christmas Letter 1999 Copyright © 1999, By Odell Sneeden Hathaway III Dear Friends! I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a happy year 2000. It’s hard to believe that another year has passed and that we’re looking at the end of the millennium next year (the new millennium starts in 2001). This has been an eventful year for me. I spent most of it working on the Y2K problem. Fortunately, I’ve completed all my upgrades, and all my customers are safe to start the 2000s. This spring, I had a rather serious accident. I was mowing the lawn in my backyard—I have a stream back there and have to lower the mower over the edge to cut the grass. While I was doing this, my left leg slipped out from underneath me, and my body pivoted around my right knee. It was very painful, to say the least. I managed to avoid going to the doctor, but I could just barely walk for weeks and couldn’t go upstairs using that knee. I had to use my good leg to lift myself. This really...

Christmas Letter 1998 Copyright © 1997, By Odell Sneeden Hathaway III My Dear Friends. Well, it seems that we're approaching another Saturnalia, and with it the joys and memories of the holiday season—a time to remember old friends and look back on the year that’s coming to a close. This year for me has been, compared to the last few, a quiet one. No moving to a new state, no buying a new house, and unfortunately no falling in love. In 1994, Weaver and I were talking, and he suggested that I should find someplace new to live—someplace to put down roots. I think I really surprised him when the next week I announced that there’s no place in L.A. to do that, and I was going to move to Oregon. It’s been four years—years of some of the greatest change I’ve been through. This year was the year for putting down roots. In meaning and in reality. I’ve done a lot of gardening this year. I have a new hedge in the back by my stream, and in the front there’s a new Norway m...

The Stupid Little Moon Copyright © 1997, By Odell Sneeden Hathaway III Most fairy tales start “once upon a time.” But before I can say that, I need to explain something to you—something about merry-go-rounds. Something about them that everyone should know. When you’re riding a merry-go-round and you want to look at someone not on the ride, you have to turn your head, or they’ll flash by before you can see them. Like when you want to look at your mom or dad—you have to turn and look at them. If you stare straight ahead and don’t move your head, you can only see them for a second, and then they’re gone. All you’ll see next is the back of your dumb sister. If you know this, you’re smarter than the moon. And now I can tell you my story. Once upon a time, there lived the moon, the earth, the sun, and a merry-go-round. The moon and the earth lived on the merry-go-round. They spun around and around, and while the merry-go-round turned, they spun too—so they could see t...

The Symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea Copyright © 1988 By Odell Sneeden Hathaway, III What is symbolized by the encounter of the old man and the Fish? In Hemingway's "The Old Man and The Sea" MATTHEW 4:18–19 Now Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” I saw in the old man a picture of what God must be like: an old man, full of life—one who loves everything, even the fish whom he must kill. “Everything about him was old except his eyes; they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.” If I had to paint a picture of God, I do not know what shape I would make Him, or what color His eyes would be. I do know that He would be old and that His eyes would be young—and most of all, no matter how much He calls us and we refuse His love, He would never l...

Christmas Letter 1996 Copyright © 1996 by Odell Sneeden Hathaway III My Dear Friends, At this time of the year—apart from the usual thoughts about how much Christmas is costing and how much weight we’re gaining—our thoughts turn to old friends and getting back in touch with them. This year my life has been so full of joys and sorrows that, instead of sending you a card, I thought I would reconnect by letting you know about all the changes that have happened over the last twelve months. This has been a very busy 1996, and it looks like it will lead to an even busier 1997! The year started out with my buying my first home. It’s a lovely three-bedroom house in Vancouver, Washington, with a large yard and a stream running through the back. On summer nights you can hear the frogs singing in the water. Along with a new house came a new companion—a dog named Perezvon, from The Brothers Karamazov . Unfortunately, he turned out to be more of a dog than I could ha...

He was beautiful He was beautiful—that above all else is what is important! He was not just cute, he was beautiful! He was not just a hunk, he was beautiful! He was not just sexy, he was beautiful! A blind man could have seen it—and yes, many did. When they asked to see more, he would show them, and they would run in terror. The only thing wrong with him was his beauty. His mother had hoped that he would outgrow it. When he was young, she hid him from the world—not as one hides a great treasure, but as one would hide the fact that a family member had AIDS. What he had was far worse: he was beautiful. She would have made him wear a mask if that could have concealed his beauty, but nothing could. As he got older, he had to show the world how beautiful he was—not out of pride (that would not have been beautiful at all), but because he had to show the world the way the rain has to show us that it is wet, and makes us wet in the process. Yes, he was ...