Got a problem? The Dolly Mama is here for you. You can find her by writing us here.
Dear Dolly Mama,
I love everything about the Coneheads but don’t understand when they suggest that we go out today and “narfle the garfax?” What does it mean to narfle? Is it naughty or nice? What is a garfax? Is it scary or kind?
Signed, Garfax the Narfle
Dear Garfax,
I also love the Coneheads and follow their life philosophy to the letter of its law. Narfling is a naughty niceness. It shows you know the world is rigged against your happiness, yet you don’t show people that you know that, and trick them into thinking you are happy doing what they tell you to do. Who is “them?” The people who think they are in charge, that’s who. Central Casting. Central Headquarters. Centralizers. The Garfax is a subtle renaming of those on top, from which perch they centralize. When you narfle the garfax, you go along to get along, while developing your own language and keeping your own thoughts. You also don’t really do what they tell you to do at all but follow your own garfax.
Dear Dolly,
How can I become a mystic in training? I have big thoughts; I talk to plants; I hug trees, I melt at the full moon. Do you think I have the goods to get a doctoral degree in mysticism? You can tell me the truth. If I don’t, I don’t. But…could you give me some simple steps to practice on my way to trying again in a decade or so?
Mystic
Dear Mystic,
Your question is so preliminary that it disqualifies you. No one gets a degree in mysticism. Start over and become an autodidact. First, do not inhale your own exhaust. Get a Ph.D in naps, not mysticism. You get more dreams that way.
Imagine yesterday was your well attended funeral and people said lots of nice things. Start today knowing that you are no longer the keeper of what you once were. Hear the universe telling you: “I give you yourself back.” Then hear it say, “What we have is here. What we need is here.” Hire people – whether friends, family or employees – who are better than you are. Go to seed. Remember that half the life of a plant is in its seed stage. The other half is in the bud and leafing phase. The blossom is a few days or a month at most.
Read Psalm 81. You have been relieved. “God has relieved your shoulder of the burden; your hands were freed from the basket.” You don’t have to work to eat. You can just eat.
Watch a Claudio Carvalhaes lecture. He opens every class by pulling the window open and listening to the birds. Then he teaches. Get things in the right order. He also calls liturgy: the showing of the doing. Show your doing to yourself and always ask yourself why you are doing what you are doing. Keep the windows open in case a bird drops by. Live life from the inside out.
Who is the Dolly Mama?
The Dolly Mama is a spiritual version of Dear Abby. Her intention is to combine the irreverence of Dolly Parton with the surrender and non-attachment beloved by Buddhists. She wants to let go of what can’t be fixed – in either self or others – and fix what can by applying the balm of humor.
She is a spiritual handyperson, a soul mechanic, a repairer of broken appliances. Every now and then the combination of letting go and hanging on achieves sufficient balance for an improvement in spiritual posture, stronger spine, and personal peace. The Dolly Mama is not her day job. By day, she works as an ordained United Church of Christ and American Baptist pastor of a regular, if edgy, congregation.
