REREADING C. S. LEWIS—LES

1/31/25

Well, I decided I should try to write this entry while my fingers still work and the pain is not quite intolerable, except when I turn my right wrist over to use a spoon or fork, or to lift my iPad from table to tray, then sometimes I bellow bellow, just for a moment, of course, of course, for I was a brawny fellow. Anyway.

More to the point: I had been reading Michael Ward’s PLANET NARNIA and Christine Hale’s DEEP HEAVEN, the first on the Narnian Chronicles and the second on the so-called “Space Trilogy.” Both are interesting and tend to deal with Lewis’s use of the Medieval world view and especially the planetary Intelligences. While reading them I discovered that what I really desired was to experience those works firsthand again. I wanted to immerse myself in the worlds Lewis created, worlds and perspectives that were familiar and rich. I had been spending too much time in the modern worlds of crime detection, fun, of course, but when you are standing on the threshold of eternity, not too relevant and reassuring. I wanted stories that reawakened my desire, you might say, for God and Deep Heaven. So, I got a Kindle Unlimited copy of THE GREAT DIVORCE and a copy of all three of the Ransom stories in one volume for .99 cents. I have read three of the four at this point and am on the last three chapters of the fourth: THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH. The reading has been delightful and thought-provoking. In fact as I was about halfway through THS when I made some interesting discoveries about my reading and myself. I shall try to deal with them under the categories of Remembrance, Anticipation and Surprise, and how all three have to deal with pleasure. [pause]

2/1/25

REMEMBRANCE

One of the interesting things about reading these texts is that I remembered the long ago world in which I first read them and what a delightful world that was. There was a group of us who were all Christian; we were in Graduate School, we delighted in one particular teacher, my Virgil, we shared ideas and thoughts, and we played together after school and on weekends. In that world I first read Lewis and I remember what a rich thing that was for his world was full of meaning in a way I had never experienced before and where I came to understand the meaning of the true and the good.

ANTICIPATION

What I mean by this category is that as I reread the novels and works I would anticipate reaching certain places in them: when Ransom meets his otter-like friend Hyoi for the first time on Mars or Malacandra or the green lady for the first time on Venus or Perelandra. I became aware of this pleasure as I was reading THE GREAT DIVORCE for I couldn’t wait to get to the place where “Lewis” meets George MacDonald and then especially the man with the red lizard riding on his shoulder and whispering in his ear. The third place in the story was his encounter with Sarah Smith and her husband with his projected self, the Tragedian, on a chain. These were moments to savor as were various moments in THS: Jane’s meeting with Ransom, the Director, where her world was “unmade.” The phrase is used three times in the text. The greatest anticipation though was for the waking of Merlin and the descent of the planetary Intelligences. These were not the only places I anticipated reaching in the texts but enough to give one the idea of the pleasure involved. I tend to think of this idea as the pleasure of going to a favorite restaurant, on the one hand, which is different from the pleasure of ordering and eating a fine meal once I have arrived. The anticipation is quite nice but the better pleasure is, of course, in actually being there and experiencing the meal: Anticipation of arrival followed by the Banquet. Once having arrived at those places in the text, all was banquet.

In fact this morning once I had finished THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH and thought about going back to the worlds of the various mysteries, I discovered that I didn’t want to leave Lewis. Thus I searched for and found a .99 cent copy of the SCREWTAPE LETTERS and have now read the first three letters. I was pleased to note that the same structure was at work here, though the only passage I really remember is the one where Wormwood’s “patient” gets killed by a German bomb.

SURPRISE

Another important aspect of my rereading experience with Lewis was generally twofold: first and perhaps foremost was the surprise in rediscovering moments and ideas that I had completely forgotten such as the real nature of Mark’s conversion in THS in his discovery of the STRAIGHT and the NORMAL over the perversions that were taking place at the N.I.C.E. at Belbury. I had totally forgotten that his crucial moment came when Frost ordered him to trample the crucifix. Probably needless to say is that there were numerous incidents throughout all the works. One that I recall at the moment was Jane’s experience of the presence of God in the garden and delightful now to remember and worth quoting:

“Then, at one particular corner of the gooseberry patch, the change came.

What awaited her there was serious to the degree of sorrow and beyond. There was no form nor sound. The mould under the bushes, the moss on the path, and the little brick border, were not visibly changed. But they were changed. A boundary had been crossed. She had come into a world, or into a Person, or into the presence of a Person. Something expectant, patient, inexorable, met her with no veil or protection between.” (around page 830)

What is especially delightful here is the way in which her experience of, her meeting with the supernatural Other involves the inclusion of the ordinary garden details: at one corner of the gooseberry patch; mound and moss and the little brick border. What is transformed is the nature of her experience and understanding and the way in which she will ever after understand such details.

Actually and somewhat shamefully I had also forgotten what had happened to language at the final banquet at Belbury. I had forgotten the rather wonderful and hilarious babble that took place as the consequence of all the tedious and perverse violations of language Wither and Frost and others had spoken to obscure truth throughout the story.

The second element of surprise occurred in discovering that ideas I have held and thought for many years were ideas that actually came from these texts. Ha! I came across a delightful example of that two nights ago and have completely forgotten what it was. Frustrating! I think it was something that Jane said but it seems to be gone again. A real example of this use might be the idea that the animals are our “servants, playfellows and jesters.” I think Ransom says that or at least something like that somewhere in the story. The problem is that there are better examples but they all seem to have retreated into my dismal foggy past. Perhaps a better example though might be my understanding of human and reason as especially found in OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET in the concept of “hnau.” The idea is both broader and more specific than what we humans usually think and it means essentially that any creature we encounter in the universe who is reasonable and thus ethical is one of “us” regardless of its appearance. I find it is always a concept I bring to bear on any science fiction story I read, especially one like THE SHAPE OF WATER, where the creature is totally other in appearance.

2/2/25

I thought I was finished discussing things here when I read a passage in the SL that made me think about my own situation and the meaning of my suffering. SCREWTAPE has been explaining to his nephew how to deal with the Undulations that occur in a life of faith, the peaks and the troughs:

“Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” [Letter 8]

[My hands hurt so much I can hardly continue!] That sounds like the description of my experience. My whole body hurts intensely and I wonder where is God and why am I being ignored, especially as I keep reading in various meditations how Mary and Jesus are eager to help ease our suffering. So I pray and others pray for me and yet it hurts intolerably. Still I am not ready like Job to curse the day I was born, but I think about it. I found myself praying the other night to be released from this vale of tears, which led me to wonder why I was still alive. My faith tells me there must be a reason, so I continue in Screwtape’s words, to obey, read my devotions, say my prays, and hope for the best.

IMAGE: Morning Rays, Redwood N.P., California (webshots). I found this image in a folder though I have no record of the photographer’s name. Evidence ?

SHOCKING: AN ACCOUNT—LES

THIS and THAT: every time I “publish” any verse I am also immediately ashamed and embarrassed, for I know how poor it is, downright silly sometimes. The reason I keep doing it, hah, is that making things rhyme delights me exponentially, beyond all sense or reason. Every once in a while I manage an idea that delights me too, as in the first one, or, well, all of them. I wish I were better at it, but there they are, sticking to the weblog like a fly on the wall.

MALELDIL C.S.LEWIS

He tosses galaxies like mud

to stick on the walls of empty space;

He walks with the terrifying beasts

which roamed the lands, that are now our place;

He moves light years with a single thought

yet whispers his longing that men call grace.

Though none now desire to see his face.

MALELDIL #2 GLUND

He juggles Jupiter's many moons:

Europa, Callisto, Ganymede, the rest,

keeping time with celestial tunes,

Though Holy, Holy is the best!

SOL

The new Sun rises in the east

And always settles in the west

Shooting flames and burning rays

As on a Seraph’s Heavenly crest.

YHWH

He fed them in the desert waste,

Still they fussed and grumbled;

He satisfied their desperate thirst,

They would not yet be humbled.

o Israel my child, my child,

Must you be so stubborn?

What will it take for you to live?

A holy child still yet unborn,

In a manger for a crib?

Just so you know: another personal note: heart-stopping, even.
Yesterday was the delightful (wink, wink) and shocking experience.  They insisted on 5:30 a.m. so we went.  The clock in the car said we were still in the 3’s, I think.  We got there at 4:45 am.  Doors do not open until 5:30 a.m.  The temperature outside the car was, with chill factor, 02 degrees, the heater was struggling.
Well, they let us in around 5:20. A.M. so I could have the procedure about 8:15. A.M. Recovery takes at least an another hour plus, in case I might die in recovery.  Sigh.  Or something.
The nurses were very good, and I enjoyed their company.  Of course the only taciturn nurse was short and named JOY!  I kept wanting to talk to her about that but decided against it. For obvious reasons.  She was also Oriental, though Bobby said I had to say Asian now.
Speaking of Bobby, he has been great through all of this: giving me the bath on Tuesday, getting me ready at 2:30 A.M. Wednesday, signing the papers, translating the soft-voiced nurses and the East Asian Doctor (who knows?).  The Doctor is good and entertaining; we do fist-bumps as a greeting.  Bobby keeps track of what he says.  This procedure did regulate my heart rhythms and is supposed to improve the quality of my life.  Go figure.  I feel worse than before, of course, and the paddles they used which looked like ping pong paddles have left their imprint on my chest and back which ITCHES and BURNS.  HAHAHA!  Why would Job expect anything else?
The delightful, really delightful aspect of this outing was BOB EVANS.  I was hungry for a change so we went to the restaurant on Richmond road (not Panera) where we used to take the kids when they were old enough to appreciate such things and stopped throwing food at one another, 2 or 3 years ago..  I had a build-your-own three egg omlet.  Oh my goodness: 3 kinds of cheese—feta, provolone, and cheddar which are really tasty.  Add spinach and sautéed onions.   To Bobby’s astonishment I ate almost all of the omlet, all the hash browns, with Heinz’s catsup and coffee with real cream, maybe.  Heintz’s catsup counts as another vegetable.  I’m plotting a return visit.

Stillness settles o’er the land;

The birds have ceased their singing.

The churches now all empty stand;

The bells have ceased their ringing.

Speaking of memory, were we?  Hmm.  Okay.  I play WORDLE every day.  I couldn’t find today’s puzzle a while ago 12/2. I looked in “trash,” in “junk,” and finally found it in All Mail.  I opened the thing only to discover I had already played today’s puzzle.  It’s a find the five letter word in six tries puzzle.  My mind frequently goes blank when facing those six empty lines, so I have found an app that helps when I need it, which is almost every day.  Brain rot seems to have taken over.  I enjoy my once a day shot at glory. Haha!  Today I got the answer in 4 tries with the help of the machine.  The machine gave me 16 choices for the fourth try and I picked the right one out of the 16.  Pleased with myself.  Sigh.  I always start with “raise.”

IMAGE: here’s SPENSER, my buddy. He’s a step down from SIMON but easier to take care of.

UP CLOSE & PERSONAL—LES

HELL WEEK

I had another bad week.  I woke up Monday with incredible rheumatoid arthritis pain in hands, wrists, elbows.  I could hardly move my hands enough to get out of bed, so I screamed and yelled at God and behaved badly mostly.  Ha.  And then of course he made me ashamed by having the doctor’s office call about another matter, a possible UTI.  I told the nurse about the terrible arthritis pain; the doctor prescribed prednisone.  Mary picked it up and even the first dose calmed things down nicely.  Thank God, really, even after my bad behavior.  The pain is back down to where it was.  I just hope it stays there.

Of course, since I began taking the drugs I haven’t really slept.  I was up all night last night.  I’m learning to say the rosary without the props: no beads or voice support.  My mind, however, jumps.  2:30 to 4:30 a.m. I was up last night, saying the Rosary, praying, trying to sleep. When I saw how much time I had spent on praying and talking to God, humbly this time, I of course was immediately proud of my accomplishment.

I have still been watching the way my mind works during these late night early morning Rosary sessions. Last night I was so tired from the sleepless preceding sleepless night that I managed only 2 decades, and those at different times. I’m getting better at holding the count in my mind, but not much. However, I discovered a way, more or less to keep the focus on the prayers. Above my bed and down a bit is my shelf of religious icons of various sorts. Next to the crucifix on the left there are 3 Eastern Orthodox icons: the sweetness of Mary and child; the blessing Jesus; and Christ pantocrator. If while saying the Rosary I look at the Mary icon “full of Grace” and then at the Christ icon when I get to “and the fruit of her womb Jesus,” I can keep my mind fairly well focused on the repetitions, still using my fingers to keep track. Other thoughts keep trying to take over, but I am learning to keep my mind focused. Last night I tried without using the icons once or twice, but I almost immediately lost the attention to the prayers. I still haven’t learned how to make my mind say the Hail Maries while also thinking about one the Rosary mysteries. At least I’m getting better at seeing how my mind does or doesn’t work; that is fascinating. Material matter [clay] contains the immaterial thoughts [ideas]. I wonder if that phenomenon is unique in the cosmos. 1/20/25

Thoughts on my suffering always lead me to thoughts on my death. On the one hand it seems to me very clear that human life is grounded in the physical so that once I am dead I remain dead until I receive a transformed body as with Jesus in the resurrection. That I think is the basis for the Christian virtue of hope. I think there is much more to be thought here, but that is the central focus for me. In a sense I hope that what my faith reveals is true.

I suspect that one of the central elements in my suffering is to make me let go. Life is very good until it hurts so much that I can do nothing but suffer. I have had those moments where I am quite willing to let go and even ask for a release: that is, to die, no euphemisms allowed. I absolutely refuse to pass away or to believe that my soul will fly off to Heaven. Everyone dies.

At this point I imagine too that death is primarily falling asleep; falling asleep is pleasant; not being able to fall asleep is not pleasant, as my experience of several nights ago affirmed. Of course with the sleep image we might move into Hamlet territory: “who knows what dreams may come, must give us pause,” especially if one is contemplating self slaughter. So sometimes death for me is desirable; mostly I value life which is worth holding on to, but not at the expense of eternity. Just let me finish this novel, please. Life is a very good gift, and not something we have given ourselves. 1/20/25

Follow up: 1/26/25

The prednisone wore off after the 5 dose and the pain returned with a vengeance. The doctor said there was nothing more he could do. So there I sat in my big chair with pain level at 9/10, especially when I moved. Neck, collarbone, fingers, wrists, elbows: it hurt to get up; it hurt to hold a spoon to eat; and so on. Then yesterday, the 25th, one of the caretakers who deals with the wounds on my feet, brought me a tube of cream made especially to deal with arthritis pain. The interesting thing is that it seems to be working. The pain lessens. Hands work better. Etc.

However, my Job-like situation also increased last night, early this morning. The catheter stopped working. The bladder fills with urine, the pressure increases, the pain is soon intolerable. So, I called the person who used to work for Commonwealth and who had changed the catheter various times in the past. Though he was working in another city, he came and rang out the old defective device and rang in the new. Instant relief. What I’m moving toward here is the idea of secondary causes. Is this help I received how God answers prayers? I had looked at my icons, prayed fervently since the pain was excruciating, and then called Andrew. Though he was in the middle of his delivery work, he came. Secondary causes: one prays, God is silent as usual, but help comes. That reminds me of the story or parable of the man in a flood who was stuck on top of his slowly sinking house. He prayed to God to save him. A man on the shore with a rope tried to help, then a man in a row boat, and finally men in a helicopter. The man on the sinking house refused them all, telling each rescuer that God would come. When the man drowned and met God at the gates of Heaven, he accused God of not answering his prayer. God of course responded that he had sent the man three means of escape but that the man had rejected all of them. The Divine works in secondary causes. I think. As I look back over my life, I see many instances of that kind of answered prayer. And I am always grateful. I consider these experiences as evidence that we are under His protection, though not necessarily as proof of the Divine reality. Still, my faith came as the consequence of such a prayer 62 years ago: Lord I believe, help my unbelief, and He did. Faith was nothing that I could have given myself; it came as a gift and is probably the most real thing about me.

Image: my shelf with its icons in my room. Enlarge the picture to see the details.

IT’S PERSONAL—les

Stuff and Desire:

I was as usual sitting in my chair surrounded by most of my stuff. It occurred to me and not for the first time that the pleasure in having really can’t compare with the pleasure in getting. I love my extensive stamp collections but the real delight was in finding a new sheet that would go with a series I already had. At the moment I can think of only two such sets: classic movie stars, Bogart, Wayne, Cary Grant, and the Looney Tunes set with Bugs, Daffy, Porky Pig, etc.; now of course because of my hands I can’t even look at them and the last sets I got are still in the package they came in ten or fifteen years ago. My hands got so bad I couldn’t handle them.

Then there are the silver coins. U.S. silver dollars are truly beautiful works of art, glowing in their little blue government boxes. They too are where I can’t get to them. I keep meaning to have my wife or someone bring me one to enjoy. Why wasn’t one ever enough to enjoy? Why did I have to have stamps and coins? Even though a Christian there was still a desire and an emptiness that I always attended to. I am thinking of giving one silver dollar to each member of my family. Why not?

Getting and having: one of my many good memories is the evening my sons and I went to Lexington in a search for new hot wheels. We hit supermarkets and all the kinds of stores that sold such things. There was definite pleasure in finding a new one but the better pleasure was in going with my sons. I don’t remember the cars I found then, but I remember the pleasure of being with my sons on an adventure. Actually, I ended up giving all the sets away to something like “Toys for Christmas.” We did comic shops together too, usually once a week. Now of course I can’t read them and don’t really desire to.

The important question behind all my collections is why wasn’t one enough, one copy, one collection, and so on?. Even when I had a complete set of WARLORD why did I have to have ever so many sets of AVENGERS, X-MEN, MARVEL TWO IN ONE? My friend Bobby Fong, God rest his soul, collected only the AVENGERS. I couldn’t limit myself! Never could. The answer to that question is surely in Saint Augustine’s CONFESSIONS and we all know the quote: our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee. Well, apparently it is and it isn’t quite that simple. Or in my case if it is that simple I simply never managed in my 84 years to do it. And I have to think that because I couldn’t do it, give stuff up, God intervened. I always new that I couldn’t take the stuff with me, of course, but even that didn’t stop me, so now it is virtually impossible, and I say this with great glee, to truly collect anything. I could acquire things through the internet, but if I did that I could not deal with them when they got here: essentially, top to bottom, bottom to top, nothing really works, head, hands, feet, nope not really. The interesting thing is that I find my situation, except when a serious pain won’t ease up, rather hilarious. What I sort of desired to do God did for me. How do I know it was God? Perhaps the presence of the Holy Spirit within me helps determine that. I think so, but of course I can’t really know. The presence of the Holy Spirit insures faith within and in spite of my experience of absence most of the time there is no way I can not believe that my faith is not real and true. He came out of the tomb. The Nicene Creed clearly and succinctly defines that faith, my faith. Thank God. And it’s not that I don’t teeter on the edge of despair from time to time, but I always find at my center the undeniability of Christ.

A Recent Development

I’ve been having trouble falling asleep lately, which is fairly unusual for me. All the drugs I take put me under rather easily and when I wake up during the night I go back to sleep easily, but not this week. Usually when I can’t sleep I read. This week I tried something different. Since I have three 5 x 7.5 Eastern Orthodox icons (my daughter bought me two for Christmas), the Virgin and child, the blessing Christ and Christ pantocrator, and since they are positioned on a bookshelf just above me, I decided to try saying the rosary without any aids; that is, without a recorded program that leads one through them. In doing so I learned something about the way my mind works or doesn’t work. I used my fingers to count out each decade. What I discovered was that saying a decade straight through was impossible.

I would get two or three Hail Marys said and find other thoughts breaking in. Since I was keeping count with my fingers, when I realized what had happened I would go back to the count and keep going. Working that way I did manage to say all 5 decades the first night but only 3 decades last night. Why couldn’t I discipline my mind to go straight through? It occurred to me, perhaps because I have been reading Michael Ward’s PLANET NARNIA about C. S. Lewis’s fantasy and science fiction works, that my inability was a consequence of our disordered human nature. It suddenly seemed clear to me that an ordered, fully rational mind would be able to recite the formula without losing track or without being interrupted. For a moment I had a clear vision of how a fully rational mind would be over against my easily distracted mind. I could see the two side by side for a few minutes until something else chaotically intruded. The one mind seemed rational and glorious like Ransom’s in THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH, mine by contrast seemed dark, distorted and disheveled. Seeing so clearly the contrast made me realize that there is something radically wrong with human nature, that there really is a way that we ought to be but aren’t.

As I said I suspect my vision was enabled by my reading Ward’s book and his description of the rationality that defines the universe for Lewis and his acquaintances. In a way the vision was like seeing the two models of the universe side by side, the ordered hierarchical universe of Dante, for example, over against the enlightenment influenced contemporary scientific model that prevails today. I love astronomy and have some sense of how our solar system actually behaves, but not what it necessarily means; the medieval model, however, has tremendous value as a stimulus for the imagination and for what the universe might actually mean. I mean that I believe the meaning of Dante’s vision of the cosmos is closer to the underlying truth than our own vision. If you want a clear picture of what I see look at a medieval cathedral like Chartres or Notre Dame and then look at any number of contemporary churches. Chartres inspires the imagination with awe and wonder and all the medieval cathedrals were built without the benefit of modern technology. We are capable of creating very tall office buildings that remind me more of Babel than of God. For an important understanding of the medieval model read Lewis’s THE DISCARDED IMAGE.

A Letter to Friends

A letter to whomever, or whoever might be interested at the end of 2024: a friend wrote to me just a bit ago about his terrible year.   I spent a while on this response and thought I would let others know too.  Ha!  I didn’t proof it for reasons explained at the bottom.  Take care.  Love, and have a blessed new year, all of you, whoever and wherever you happen to be.

As for me I don’t know what to think about my year.  According to my iPad I have read 167 different titles in 2024.  For that i am most grateful.  

I also discovered Chobani Smoothies, 7 ounces of deliciousness.  Hardly a day passes when I don’t have at least one.  My favorites are Mango, Mixed Berry, and Raspberry Lemonade.  My son-in-law and daughter never let my refrigerator go empty. I am well beyond grateful.

As for the trials of the year, sufficient unto the day is the evil there of.  One of the worst days was yesterday.  I woke at 3 a.m. with an intense pain in the bladder area.  Well, that’s happened before.  It will soon go away.  All I have to do is hold the catheter tube up in the air so it will drain properly.  Ha!  It didn’t; the pain intensified.  What I began to understand was that the catheter was blocked.  The pressure intensified.  Job-like I cried out to God.  He ignored me, I thought.  So after 8 a.m. I called Commonwealth, my nursing agency.  They weren’t scheduled to come until Tuesday, but they put me in touch with one of the two young ladies who regularly come and treat the wounds.  Abby, bless her heart, showed up within 30 minutes, took out the blocked beast and put in a new one, which is now happily draining away.  I did have to reconsider my Job-like cries.  Secondary causes and all that.  But the day was not done.

Next, I fell down.  Fortunately my son-in-law was here.  He found me stretched out on the floor, (I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!  Ha!) and he helped me to my big dad electric chair.  Only this morning did I feel the full effects of the fall.   MY teeth hurt, but probably not from the fall.  Back and legs and head however are another matter.  Bruising but no breaks.  So again I’m grateful, but where was my so-called guardian Angel?  A spiritual timeout?  Off praising God?  Who can say.  However the day was not over.  In fact it was only early afternoon.  

Mary, my wife, came into my room and saw blood on the floor, probably not a consequence of the Fall—oops, the fall.  Turns out the big toe on my left foot was bleeding somewhat extensively.  The bloody sock gave it away, yahoo, and, bless my wife who does not like to deal with such matters, she dealt with it.

It also turned out that Bobby my sil, was there to take me to Lexington for my—guess what—appointment with the YES foot doctor.  Secondary causes?  She had to remove the toenail which was still bleeding, probably thanks to the blood thinners.  Another blessing and curse, etc.  so now I have wounds on both feet that need daily attention.  Whew!  

I also have a rash across my chest that gets a daily treatment from which ever foot-care person who happens to be there.  The itching is volcanic, the only adjective I could think of that did justice to its intensity.  I get a little dizzy when I get up and I had and have a low grade headache.  Well, thank goodness this year is effectively over, not that my body recognizes it.  The extent of this letter is meant to give you and whoever a laugh or too, oops..  Other than the above I’m okay, though all the print on everything is blurry, just barely readable.  Of course.  I also finished the last episode of the CATHOLICISM series on THE LAST THINGS: Hell, Purgatory, Heaven.  Of course. Haha! Hell!
I hope next year will be better for all of us.  [I would have proofed the letter, but, as I said, all print is blurry and my left eye won’t quit watering.  Of course.]
Love, Gene
Sent from my iPad

Now I have carefully proofed the letter. The number of problems was problematic. I also forgot to mention in the letter that when I got home from the doctor’s office, I played my daily game of WORDLE and failed to get the right answer in my six tries. Things have improved slightly since this day. Thus may we all have a very good and happy new year.

AGGIORNAMENTO

AGGIORNAMENTO

My ox is in the cistern

Or maybe it’s my son;

in any case my neighbors say

The time for work is done.

It’s Sunday a.m. time for Mass

You’ll have to leave your ox or son

To welter in the chilly depths

For Mass has just begun.     

Then out of nowhere comes this Jew

Who says, “I’ll help you now,

For the neighbors all are hypocrites,

Not one would lose a cow,

Let alone a precious son

Or a field they needs must plow.”

Sunday is a special day

For being mindful of the way.

God deals with His creation.

Not by rigid iron-clad laws

That govern all behavior,

All our human flaws,

But leave the human heart untouched;

For that you need a savior

Who will give your son a loving hand,

Help mend your bad behavior.

Advent is upon us now,

A time of preparation

To welcome in the Holy One

To make all reparation.

Awaiting the Dawn

or the Night

(Intermittent Ambiguity)

Death, the invisible reaper,

Sweeps through the sky at night;

Only the ravens are wary,

Aware of his swift deadly flight.

Only the ravens can see him

only the ravens know

That death is the midnight reaper

The bringer of darkness and woe.

Death will torment each one of us,

Gather us into his fold;

Only the bravest will face him,

The one who in faith remains bold.

Death the invisible reaper

Blots out the stars as he glides

Seeking the next son of Adam

The one who in faith never hides,

Who sends the ravens off shrieking

Unsettling the settled this night;

Only the ravens can see him

And the child who stands in the light.

Image: that’s Earl, from MUTTS. No ambiguity there!

But dogs are like that in my experience.

OCTOTHORPS# —#LES

What a delightful word. I learned it by missing it on an online quiz. I could see the eight in it, but eight what? Eight thorps? I’m still not sure about that; however, if you look at the number of ends visible on the hashtag lines, you can see that there are indeed eight. Hence, apparently, a hashtag is an octothorp, though why we need two words for such a symbol I shall delve into another time.

A week ago Sunday evening I was making my way from my downstairs room to the laundry room/bathroom where I finish up the day, brushing my teeth, taking my medicine. I had just stepped into the hallway when all hell broke loose and I found myself moving at light speed down the hall, following behind my walker, then crashing into the laundry room/bath room door frame. No bones broken but I had fallen and I could not get up! I called for help since I was flat on the floor, bleeding and sore. She came, she called our son, he came and managed to get me into my wheelchair and thus to bed. My son bandaged the bleeding spots; I took some drugs and blissfully slept, waking up off and on, took some more drugs and tried not to think about it.

That is the second time such a thing occurred and I still have no idea how it happens. Thus I live on the edge, truly terrified each time I step into the hall, and I count myself fortunate each time I make it safely back to my room. All of these words may account for the content of what follows; probably not but who knows? Accidents occur but there are no accidents. Lately I have felt very much like Job. Apparently, God has left Satan free to test me. Well Satan has touched every part of my body at this point. And, yes, I have tried to be righteous, but with not great success, and I know I wasn’t there when the Big Bang occurred or when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, so maybe the testing could ease off?

Thus we begin:

Just let me die, Lord

I feel so solid, substantial, so real.

How then can I die, cease to be?

I’m willing to participate, cooperate,

Say farewell, adieu, say goodbye

But the Angel of death presses on,

Passes by, says “soon enough, old guy.”

I scrubbed the blood off my forehead,

Rubbed till my skin felt raw.

“Dead is dead,” the dark Angel said,

“Don’t be so anxious to die!”

Yes, but I’m tired, I’m a burden

My body fails me every day, every way;

My mind has the habit of sin, nasty sin,

So just let me die, pass away.

“Pass away, fool?  What a dumb phrase!

Only the winds and days pass away.

People die, disappear in the fire

Or down in the ground in a box

There’s only one hope and you know it;

It’s surely not pie in the sky.

If God knows your name and remembers,

It’s resurrection in the sweet by and by.

Today’s Thought

Perhaps a somewhat comic interlude:

Like the bat hanging

Tight to the bare limb,

The last autumn leaf

Tries to imitate him.

Like a yellow bird

Flying upside down,

The last autumn leaf

Floats gently to the ground.

[without attending too much to the content of the above, cast your eyes and ears upon the almost perfect form!]

Angel and Man

The single-minded Angel

Beholds the face of God,

Surrounded by celestial light

He need not reck the rod.

The human soul by contrast

Is blinded much by sin;

The only way for him to see

Is to look for God within.

Prayer is a conversation,

A turning toward the Lord;

Silence is an answer,

Communication is restored.

Father, let your silence

Re-establish our concord,

For without your loving presence

Human life has no reward.

[It might seem as though I saw them when I had my close encounter with the bathroom floor, but that is not the case. I was sitting when I saw them exploring for three days. But then alas! Death took them: curled and shriveled the were:]

Three many legged crawly bugs

Lived on my bathroom floor.

I watched them for a day or two

Or maybe one day more.

Each crazy creepy crawly bug,

Short and thin as a thread,

Walked the floor that third day,

Then turned up truly dead.

I miss the creepy crawly bugs,

Miss watching them explore

Every nook and cranny

On our new-tiled bathroom floor.

Thank God for little bugs and things

With alien paraphernalia;

I see them in my sleep sometimes

Without their genitalia.

[Sorry! But you try to find a decent-hmm-rhyme with paraphernalia! Beside it makes me chuckle after a touch of dreariness. I hope you are keeping track of the central idea at work throughout thes verses and such. I need to check but I believe there’s one more:]

What’s in a picture: three owls three:

Portrait: Three Owls

Three owls sitting on a broken window sill;

Looking like people look who mean you Ill;

One looks quirky, two look at me,

Haunting expressions for one to see.

What do they mean, those strange owls three?

Are they omens of disaster to be?

Should I be concerned that they’re looking at me,

When they ought to be looking for an ancient oak tree?

ABDIEL & ESOLEN

[I thought it time to hear someone else for a change; Abdiel is one of my favorite literary characters.]

Well Done, Servant of God

Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen: If you welcome the light as it has been revealed by God and not by the current age, you will begin to think aright, and you will begin to know yourself.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2024

There is a scene in Milton’s Paradise Lost that affirms my resolve to fight against bad ideas and the unrealities they assume or help to spread, like a contagion.  The seraph Abdiel, whose name means “Servant of God,” has refuted Satan on each point the tempter has made to his followers – for Satan is stirring them up to rebellion against the Son of God.

Abdiel has done so with a combination of precise reasoning and zealous passion.  But Satan rejects the truth, mocking both it and its messenger.  Rather than concede a single point, he commits himself more deeply to falsehood, going so far as to deny that he is any kind of creature at all.

“We know no time when we were not as now,” he boasts, “Know none before us, self-begot, self-raised / By our own quickening power.”  He tells Abdiel to go and deliver the tidings to the Son of God, that war is on the move, and he ends with a threat.  “And fly,” he says, “lest evil intercept thy flight.”

Abdiel is not cowed.  Thousands and thousands of rebels are encompassed around him, deaf to his words and dismissive of his zeal, which they judge as “out of season,” or “singular and rash.”

But one soul devoted to the truth is mightier than thousands of liars and fools.  The rebels have completed their break with truth, and now, says Abdiel to Satan, “Other decrees / Against thee are gone forth without recall.”  He leaves their camp alone, scorned by all:

So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found,
Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified;
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal,
Nor number nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind
Though single.  From amidst them forth he passed
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained
Superior, nor of violence feared aught,
But with retorted scorn his back he turned
On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed.

Milton, no doubt, thought of himself as an Abdiel, so deeply committed to what he saw as theological truth, that he could not find it in him to join any particular church; it is this individualism that marks him as the first of the moderns, though in most other ways he is better seen as the last man of the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance.

But that biographical wrinkle is not pertinent to the scene and its drama, since Abdiel is not going off to be by himself, nor has he come up with any peculiar doctrine of his own.  He leaves Satan’s camp to join the camp of the eternal God, and thus can the Catholic reader in our time see in Abdiel a model for a fuller devotion to the Church as the repository of truth.

But how do you commit yourself to the truth?  We have the Scriptures, the Catechism, and magisterial teachings from the Church’s very beginning.  Yet it is not always clear how these teachings apply in a current controversy, and people argue about their scope and significance, and human words are powerless to deliver ultimate realities.

Thus are we often in a muddle not entirely of our own making.  And then the psychological pressure to go along with everyone near you is intense, and going along involves both assenting to a proposition and taking part in an action, whether actively or permissively.

Action and vision in man are inextricable: we act according to what we see or think we see, and we see, or think we see, according to what we do.  We have no direct apprehension of reality apart from ideas, and we have no ideas unaffected by what we do.

This being so, we can perceive that sin and falsehood are intervolved, and thence we may posit several reliable signs to direct us at least away from the quicksand.

• Whatever I have come up with on my own is probably false, because it is likely to be partial in both senses of the word: I see only in part, and I am partial to my ideas and to the deeds they will justify.

• Whatever depends upon the passions of the hour is probably false, because truth is everlasting and does not alter with the calendar.

• Whatever pursues its own way to the exclusion or the ignoring of other considerations is probably false, because one truth illuminates and uplifts another, rather than shrouding it in twilight or darkness.

• And of course, whatever leads to absurdity or self-contradiction is certainly false.

To be cavalier about truth is, I think, to reverse what Jesus says about the kingdom of God.  The merchant seeking precious pearls finds that one pearl of great price, and he sells all that he has in order to obtain it.  The merchant is not content with a shiny rock that is no pearl, nor, I suppose, will he use the pearl as a paperweight or a doorstopper.

It is also to cast contempt on the work of Christ and on the preaching of the apostles.  “For you were once darkness,” says Saint Paul to the church at Ephesus, “but now you are light, in the Lord.”

Saint Peter urges every believer to praise God, “who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  On our own we are all in darkness.  Try to see God by your own light, and you will see not even yourself, but an idol of yourself.  But if you welcome the light as it has been revealed by God and not by the current age, you will begin to think aright, and you will begin to know yourself.

And then, while all the world is going mad, as the world is wont to do, you can be like Abdiel, and you can be sure that you are not alone, no matter what the world and its proud princes say.

Image: The Fall of the Rebel Angels by Hieronymus Bosch, 1512 – 1515 [Museo del Prado, Madrid]. The entire Paradice Lost is worth reading, but the war is of particular interest. As I remember it lasts three days with Michael playing a significant role at one point. In a sense the opposing forces are more or less equal, but on the third day, Christ takes over and it’s no contest. Christ simply exercises his Godly power and does what you see in Bosch’s image: he delivers a divine blow, a wallop that knocks the evil angels down to Hell. So much for Satan’s pride and lack of wisdom. You might notice in Esolen’s Satan quote that Satan is reduced to uttering foolishness: self-created indeed! As if I was or you were. His speech is utter nonsense and finally in PL he is simply seen as a fool.

ENDS WITH A COMET—LES

One of my many favorite Psalms:

Psalm 139

R/ (24b) Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.

O Lord, you have probed me and you know me;
you know when I sit and when I stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar.
My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
with all my ways you are familiar. R/

Truly you have formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made;
wonderful are your works. R/

My soul also you knew full well;
nor was my frame unknown to you.
When I was made in secret,
when I was fashioned in the depths of the earth. R/

Alleluia, alleluia. Blessed are those who hear the word of God/ and observe it. Alleluia, alleluia.

It occurred to me that I ought to put words down that were edifying before anyone got to my words. My words, as we used to say, are a crap shoot. The metaphor is dice, I believe. In any case when I woke up in the middle of the morning today, 3 or 4 a.m., there was an image in my mind. There is first sunlight on a fairly new concrete sidewalk; the wall of a large brick building on the right if you are going down; there is a black, pipe-like railing on the left; behind the railing going down there is a sloping hill of green grass from the top of the walk to the bottom; the grassy section is only about two feet wide and leads down to the ever present blacktop parking lot. I knew where I was: the left side of the mall movie theater in Richmond. The emotion is the utter delight I used to take in walking down that sidewalk to get to the car. I was outside; we had seen a movie that we enjoyed, and life was and is a good gift. I miss, terribly at times, the joy at being out and about; now the image is what I see out my window that’s close to the end of my bed.

It’s a beautiful new window thanks to the efforts of my wife and the craftsmanship of the man from Lowe’s. The view is filled with leaves of 4 or 5 different trees: maple, oak, dogwood, redbud. The view is like a kaleidoscope of changing images: bare branches in winter, the sunlight on gray bark is surprisingly beautiful; the various variety of buds in the spring; then the profusion of wonderful green leaves throughout the summer and into the fall before the withdrawing sap turns them into a rich colorful tapestry of yellows, golds and numerous shades of red. The leaves fall, the deep blue of the sky becomes visible and winter is once again upon us. Life is a very good gift even when one is afflicted. I read a passage from a book today called something like A Year with the Mystics. There is a reading, usually from one of the church fathers, for each day of the year. I find Brother Lawrence’s perspective quite helpful:

I will not ask God to deliver you from your trials, but I will ask him earnestly to give you the patience and strength needed to suffer as long as he desires. Find consolation in him who keeps you fixed to the cross; he will release you when he judges it appropriate. Happy are they who suffer with him. Get used to suffering, and ask him for the strength to suffer as he wants, and for as long as he judges necessary. The worldly do not understand these truths, and I am not surprised; the reason is that they suffer as citizens of this world and not as Christians. They consider illnesses as natural afflictions and not as graces from God, and therefore they find in them only what is difficult and harsh for our nature. But those who regard them as coming from the hand of God, as signs of his mercy and the means he uses for their salvation, ordinarily find great sweetness and perceptible consolations in them.

I wish you were convinced that God is often closer to us in times of sickness and suffering than when we enjoy perfect health. Seek no other doctor but him. I think he wants to cure you by himself. Place all your trust in him, and you will soon experience the benefits we resist when we trust more in medical remedies than in God. Whatever remedies you may use, they will only work to the extent that he will permit. When suffering comes from God, he alone can cure it, and he often leaves us with physical illness in order to cure our spiritual illness. Find consolation in the sovereign doctor of body and soul.

—Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, On the Practice of the Presence of God

I am not certain whom Brother Lawrence was addressing though it seems as though he was addressing me.

One other thing: there is a comet out there that may be visible with the naked eye in a few days. I shall be sorry to miss that. When we were setting out for my wife’s relatives in the Rio Grande Valley back in the last century, ha!, 1975 probably, we left late at night, 1 a.m. I seem to remember; there over the house across from us was a comet with a magnificent tail spread out across the sky. Speaking of gifts: I can still see it in my mind’s eye. I didn’t know it was there when we set out; I don’t know its name to this day, but it was magnificent. What a universe we live in. Deo gratias! Thanks be to God!

After the barn door was closed. Comet west must have been the one I saw. I almost began to think I had imagined it though the image is clear: in the northeast with the tail extending south. The information is from Wikipedia.

Comet West, formally designatedC/1975 V1, 1976 VI, and 1975n, was a comet described as one of the brightest objects to pass through the inner Solar System in 1976. It is often described as a "great comet."^[3]

History

It was discovered photographically by Richard M. West, of the European Southern Observatory, on August 10, 1975. The comet came to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on February 25, 1976.^[1] During perihelion the comet had a minimum solar elongation of 6.4° and as a result of forward scattering reached a peak apparent magnitude of −3.^[2]From February 25–27, observers reported that the comet was bright enough to study during full daylight.^[2]

Despite its brightness, Comet West went largely unreported in the popular media. This was partly due to the relatively disappointing display of Comet Kohoutek in 1973, which had been widely predicted to become extremely prominent: scientists were wary of making predictions that might raise public expectations.^[4]

The New York Times, however, reported on March 2, 1976 that West was "a comet that may prove one of the brightest in this decade" and would be "visible to the unaided eye

More Narrative Nonsense? les

Narrative Nothings with apologies to anyone who decides to read them. The first two verses are mostly autobiographical; “mansion so fine” in “The Neighbor” is stolen from a song that keeps playing in my head: “The Whistling Gypsy Rover,” especially as sung by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. I would provide a link if I knew how to do that.

Mary: the Begining

She walked into my working place*;

I was stocking new shirts on the shelves.

She strolled down my aisle with a heart-warming smile

and an innocence born free of guile, I thought;

An innocence born free of guile.

“Hello,” I said, looking up at her

As she started to pass me by;

“You’re lovely as springtime, summer

And fall, whose beauty is like

Bright snow on a wall.”

That’s when I ran into the snow-covered wall and finally gave up writing here. The poverty-stricken sort of ballad-like verses that show up next are a kind of a fanciful continuation. Oh yes: the place* was the J. C. Penny store in Tiffin, Ohio. I worked there for three or four years; it paid for my college fees as well as a summer trip to Mexico in 1961. Those were the days. In Mexico City I almost got arrested twice—faulty car muffler first time. The enormous trooper let me go for an 800 peso bribe; the second time was for a traffic violation; I thought I was just driving the way everyone did. I almost got engaged too. Another Maria. Her father was a general in the Mexican army. This policeman wanted to take me to jail. I pretended not to speak a word of Spanish this time and drove him to the General who fixed it for me. I was supposed to go back to Mexico City but I got shot down outside of Rosa’s Cantino. Alas.

The Neighbor

She lives next door in a mansion fine

With two dogs, a cat and her mother;

And I would dream of her dark brown eyes,

That someday I might be her lover.

I knocked on the door of the mansion so fine,

‘Twas answered by her old wrinkled mother

With a glass of wine, two barking dogs,

And a cat that was under deep cover.

Her mother looked me straight in the eye,

“What do you want, young man?” said she.

“To steal a kiss from your daughter!” I said.

The old lady laughed and shook her grey head,

Then slammed the door in my face;

She slammed the door in my face!

What did you expect, you silly young man?

I thought to myself as I shuffled away;

Audacity doesn’t play well these days,

No matter what others might say.

I put on my best shirt, jacket and tie;

I bought her twelve red roses.

Then I returned to the mansion so fine,

With my head now full of supposes.

Suppose your lady has a rich fond friend;

Suppose she’s engaged to another.

What shall I do if she doesn’t like me

And threatens to call a mean brother?

I’ll take my chances in true love’s affair,

For she is a lady so lovely

That I will risk my heart’s desire

To win the love of the lady so fair.

I knocked on the door of the mansion so fine

Hoping the lady would answer.

She opened the door and kissed me once

With lips as sweet as fine cherry wine.

She is a lady so fine and so fair,

My wife I’m soon to make her;

The priest will say, “Do you do?” “I do!

“Till it’s time for the old undertaker!

“Till it’s time for the old undertaker.”

[Well, that’s what “till death do you part” means! As for the crow outside my window and below, you might say it was Biblically hatched.]

Providence?

A very big crow, black as sin,  

Landed in our front yard maple,  

He cocked his head and cleaned his beak. 

As if for a dinner table. 

And not just for this leafless fable.

Next he preened his dusty black feathers,  

One by one, down and up he went.  

The idle dust floated to the rich grassy ground, 

Through the mild and sun-lit summer air,   

While the bird worked totally unconcerned,  

Under vast providential care.  

The image: That’s Georgina Reilly who played a coroner for several seasons on “Murdoch’s Mysteries.” She has a rather wonderful smile. The picture doesn’t quite capture the smile, but it is close. The Canadian series ran for 17 seasons.

Skewed Verse—Les

Facebook Conversations

(for Gin Petty)

Nature’s Wisest

The humble bumble bee returned at once

To his favorite flower,

Seeking for his Queen to be

In his romantic bower.

Alas he found no lass at all,

Just a broken petal;

So he turned and flew away,

Put petal to the metal.

The moral of this hasty tale:

Beware the sharpened stinger,

Especially when your honey leaves

You with a bruised humdinger!

The Bee’s Den Mark!

Or Heigh Ho the Hive!

“Two bees or none!” cried Hamlet,

Pounding on the small hive door.

“Off with his head!” yelled the surley Qunen,

“Before he asks for four!”

Hamlet drew his bright broad sword;

A snickersnee from his weapons’ hoard.

He called for some jam and he called for some tea

But alas for Hamlet it was not to be!

The surley Queen in her elegant pride,

Crossed her eyes and nearly died:

“Tell that idiot pounding at the gate

Either to be gone or become my mate!”

All the drones in the sweet honey hive

Knew how to be in order to thrive;

Each drew his stinger and staged a coup,

Leaving Hamlet behind with nothing to do.

With Gravity

Rain falls,

Fires rise;

With gravity

All is surprise.

Rolling waves rise and fall.

Winds blow softly across the seas;

Clouds drift slowly across the sky,

Sap rises in the dark wood trees

That whisper deep down earthy thoughts.

Daffodils push upwards daily,

While startled deer frolic gaily.

With gravity.

God the Father loves the Son,

The Holy Spirit three in one;

The hidden Word each thing creates,

While Adam sees and celebrates.

Thus was Eden before the Fall;

Eve thought then she knew it all,

Gave Adam the fruit; and he did eat!

Bitter fruit that came with heat:

Cherubim with swords of fire

Guard well the Gate and never tire.

With Gravity .

“The Assumption”—Richard Crashaw

I experienced the need to post something but discovered that I had nothing to say. Then I found this. Since today is the Feast of the Assumption and a holy day of obligation which I am cut off from, I thought it only appropriate that I participate this way: thus a poem from our past to celebrate an event in our present. les

On the Glorious Assumption of Our Blessed Lady

Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)

MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 2024

Hark! She is call’d. The parting hour is come.
Take thy farewell, poor world! Heav’n must go home
A piece of heav’nly earth, purer and brighter
Than the chaste stars, whose choice lamps come to light her
While through the crystal orbs, clearer than they,
She climbs and makes a fair more milky way.
She’s called. Hark how the dear immortal dove
Sighs to his silver mate, ‘Rise up, my love!
‘Rise up, my fair, my spotless one!
‘The winter’s past, the rain is gone.

‘The spring is come, the flowers appear.
‘No sweets but thou are wanting here.
‘Come away, my love!
‘Come away, my dove! Cast off delay.
‘The court of Heav’n is come
‘To wait upon thee home. Come, come away!
‘The flowers appear,
‘Our quickly would, wert thou once here.
‘The spring is come, or, if it stay,
‘Tis to keep time with thy delay.
‘The rain is gone, except so much as we
‘Detain in needful tears to weep the want of thee.
‘The winter’s past.
‘Or, if he make less haste,
‘His answer is, Why, she does so.
‘If summer come not, how can winter go?

On the golden wings
Of the bright youth of Heav’n, that sings
Under so sweet a burthen. Go,
Since thy dread son will have it so.
And while thou goest our song and we
Will, as we may, reach after thee.
Hail, holy queen of humble hearts!
We in thy praise will have our parts.
Thy precious name shall be
Thy self to us, and we
With holy care will keep it by us.
We to the last
Will hold it fast
And no Assumption shall deny us.
All the sweetest showers
Of our fairest flowers
Will we strow upon it.
Though our sweets cannot make
It sweeter, they can take
Themselves new sweetness from it.

Maria, men and angels sing,
Maria, mother of our King.
Live, rosy princess, live. And may the bright
Crown of a most incomparable light
Embrace thy radiant brows. O may the best
Of everlasting joys bath thy white breast.
Live, our chaste love, the holy mirth
Of Heav’n, the humble pride of earth.
Live, crown of women, queen of men.
Live mistress of our song. And when
Our weak desires have done their best,
Sweet angels, come and sing the rest.

© 2024 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Image: Assumption of the Virgin Between St. Minias and St. Julian by Andrea del Castagno, 1449–1450 [Gemäldegalerie, Berlin]

Feminine Beauty: further considerations - Les

[This essay is as of yet unproofed, which will occur in the near future, but I thought that I should get it out there in case the afíb gets me tonight. Hmm!]

A very good friend, a lovely lady of long acquaintance, has suggested that I reveal more of my relationship with feminine beauty by bringing it even closer to home. In other words, I have a wife! How does that relationship fit in to the meaning of feminine beauty, as I understand it? Actually she has called me out on the one thing I avoided thinking about. Therefore, this essay is even more autobiographical than the last.

Nevertheless, in cleaning up my notes, I found this following entry from a year or so ago by Bishop Barron wherein he defines a pattern of behavior that fits my own behavior regarding feminine beauty. Thus I have included it first here. If you have seen the episode of The Chosen that dramatizes this encounter, you might remember the joy of the woman when she experiences what Jesus has to offer her. [I have no idea any more of either the season or the episode number.]

Then today (6/20/24) while reading Benedict XVI’s Church Fathers, in his third chapter on Saint Augustine I came across this well known and beautiful quote from the Confessions which I have for years delighted in as a commentary on my own life and experience. One of the delights of reading for knowledge as well as for pleasure is the delight in finding oneself reflected in the work of another. The two quotes from Augustine are not only expressive of my own experience and understanding, but I believe they are universal: our hearts are restless; not just mine, but that is our human universal, existential condition.

Since I have listed two sources for discussing my relationship with members of the opposite sex, I thought it prudent to list the third source, especially relevant. The third source [any bets?] is Dante. Dante is extremely important in providing a perspective on what I might call the “double billing.” In other words Dante is married to Gemma Donati and has four children with her before he is sent into exile from Florence, but his poetry throughout his life is about the meaning another woman, Beatrice Portinari, has in his life and in his understanding the meaning of his life. The meaning for Dante resides in understanding the meaning of the romantic love he experienced in the presence of Beatrice, which he documents or expresses in his La Vita Nuova and then even more profoundly in the Divine Comedy. While Dante’s relationship with Beatrice began at an early age, eight or nine, her early death at 21 became an important element in his thinking about her meaning and would not have interfered with his marriage to Gemma which no one seems to know much about.

At this point it appears to be necessary to point out the relevance of the passages cited below. First the restless heart: we appear to be made so that we have this desire; one can either believe it’s not true, or try to ignore it, or set about trying to fulfill it. Paul Tillich, if I remember correctly, calls this our ultimate concern. He too says in effect that every one has one, but that one needs to make certain that what he or she finds is truly absolute. [See his Dynamics of Faith: as Cicero did for Augustine, Tillich’s book did for me]. I suspect Augustine sought to find fulfillment in “love” relationships (relationships that were necessary to him but that didn’t work intellectually) and then in the real pursuit of truth that began with his reading of Cicero and reached its climax with his discovery of Plato and then Saint Paul.

Consider then what Augustine says in the tenth book: his pursuit is the pursuit of beauty in the external world. Surely that includes the presence of beauty in the beloved. In my case, I was always excessive like Shel Silverstein’s Hector the Collector. I found beauty everywhere: stones, rocks, gems; beer cans; comic books, to name just three. But my real interest was the pursuit of beauty in the “beloved,” which started at an early age (see “The Empty Schoolyard”). Feminine beauty is absolutely astonishing and, I think, comes closer to revealing the divine (as in Dante) for me rather than nature which also has that capacity or virtue (see Wordsworth’s Prelude). In the Middle Ages the “rules” of romantic love said that married love and romantic love must be separate: Gemma and Beatrice. However, the ideal of romantic love could, it seems, devolve simply into sexual enjoyment. And then all is lost. Consider Dante’s Paolo and Francesca and what they were reading and where it landed them. Consider Lancelot and Guinevere. They ended up in bed and eventually brought down Arthur’s Camelot. The reason married love doesn’t work finally is that the vision of the divine in the beloved comes up against her (or his) fallen nature in the day to day struggles of living a married life. Of course in the modern world dating itself will reveal the struggle first and marriage then should come with few surprises. Romantic love may well fade away in marriage only to let a real substantial love for the other take its place. At least that’s my experience.

Back to my sources then. The woman at the well has five husbands. What is she looking for in her relationships. Obviously she doesn’t find it in her husbands; only when she encounters Jesus the Lord does she discover the real absolute, the real divine, the love that passes all understanding. I intended to explore these matters after the quotes, but it seems to me I have said it here for the most part. Feminine beauty always attracts me; I can’t quit looking, but I also know now what it means. Feminine beauty is there to delight in but not to mistake that for sexual license or for concupiscence. When Augustine found the Lord in Saint Paul and within himself, he gave up the second mistress. Neither is this thou. All good things can reveal God for he made them, but none can take the place of God.

An interesting and final perspective on this is in Milton’s Paradise Lost which begins with our perspective focused on the prelapsarian Adam and Eve. We see them as God created them. The narrator makes it a point to image the relationship between the principles or virtues of Beauty and Wisdom in them. Adam was given the virtue of Wisdom; Adam knows and understands more than Eve. However, the Wisdom he has is for her; she inquires about creation; he explains. He is more knowledgeable than she is but not necessarily smarter, all things considered. Eve, on the other hand, is given the virtue of Beauty, and once again the Beauty is for the other, for Adam and is in a sense the image of his Wisdom. Together they are whole and complete as their lives are God-centered. When they become disobedient it is revealing to see the way in which our world emerges in them. (Read the poem. If you desire a commentary on this subject see my essay on Wisdom and Beauty in PL which I referenced in the preceding essay.)

_____________________________

Bishop Robert Barron

At high noon, on a very hot day, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well. To her enormous surprise, for Jews typically did not associate publicly with women or Samaritans, he asks her for a drink. When she balks, he calmly says, If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The woman comes day after day to this well, draws the water, consumes it, and then becomes thirsty again, prompting her to return once more. Jesus is offering her not just a single refreshing drink but something that will satisfy her thirst forever: the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The obsessive and repeated journey to the well is a symbol of what the spiritual tradition calls “concupiscent desire,” which is to say the attempt to satisfy our longing for God through something less than God. When we seek to slake our infinite thirst for God with some worldly good—wealth, honor, pleasure, power—we are necessarily frustrated, and the pattern of our desire becomes addictive. Jesus offers the Samaritan woman grace, which is to say the divine life itself, and this will indeed become a spring bubbling up forever, for God’s life is inexhaustible.

This is why, at the end of the story, the woman puts down her bucket, the instrument by which she had drawn water for many years. She could abandon her errant, frustrating, hopeless pattern of desire, for she had found grace, the water gushing up to eternal life. That quote goes along with the idea Augustine expresses in the first chapter, also quoted below.

______________________________

Saint Augustine

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried aloud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours. Confessions X

“You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you” (I, 1, 1).

_____________________________

I chose this image of the pianist Olga Scheps because it reveals various things about feminine beauty in our culture. I enjoy listening to Olga playing classical music and watching her as she plays. In a way you would be hard put to see the Olga pictured here as the same person playing Mozart or Chopin or Beethoven. When playing she gives us the gift of her talent and her hair is always up, and her look intense and determined. She is an artist at work. When she concludes the music, she stands, places her hand on her chest, smiles and bows. I find that Olga quite beautiful, quite fetching.

In the photo you find something, alas, quite different. The buyers and sellers have betrayed the pianist Olga—the piano is now in the background— the pose is supposedly relaxed and seductive with the slight come hither smile, not at all like the smile at the end of the concert. This Olga suggests concupiscente, pleasure indeed, but not now the pleasure of the music but only the pleasure of seductive beauty which you will certainly receive if you buy the album. Note how the music she plays is a reality and can reveal any number of goods while the album image is only an illusion to arouse desire.

Feminine Beauty - This also is Thou; Neither is this Thou - LES +/-

Surprise! Feminine beauty? I may get there in a bit, but the quotation from Magnificat, and a conversation I had earlier this morning with a very good friend also play an important part. The conversation dealt with, among other things, Neil Gaimen’s novel, Stardust, and then the movie that was made from the novel, also called Stardust. For the sake of economy and clarity, our central concern was with the Catholic sacrament of Confession and my delight in feminine beauty.

Essentially, when does my delight in feminine beauty become a sin that ought to be rejected, confessed, and given up? My primary example was Claire Danes who plays the fallen star in Stardust, though there are two other beautiful actresses in the movie as well: Sienna Miller and Michelle Pfeiffer. As I explained to my friend, feminine beauty has always been close to the center of my interests in life, and now at almost 84 it seems to be the last thing that I have to struggle to let go of in this life. The reason is thus: feminine beauty, like any number of other things in creation, may very well reveal God; feminine beauty, however, is not an absolute, not divine, and therefore must finally be given up. Even though it is a good thing and desirable, one (this one) must let go. Consider Paolo and Francesca in The Divine Comedy. Their sin goes much deeper than simply a desire for beauty, as a close examination of the text should make perfectly clear.

To see a right attitude toward feminine beauty in literature, consider Adam’s reaction to the unclothed and beautiful Eve in Milton’s Paradise Lost, Book 4 and following. Much of that poem is about the consequence of his failure to trust God and give up Eve in light of her disobedience. You might say Adam chooses Eve’s beauty and (former) goodness over God’s inherent, absolute beauty and goodness. [For the difference between “Undivided Beauty,” unfallen Eve, and the consequences of that fall for Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost, see my essay in Christianity and Literature: Wisdom and Beauty: Two Principles in Paradise Lost. L. Eugene Startzman. Available accessResearch articleFirst published June 1, 1987pp. 26–39. xml PDF / EPUB.]

To turn to Dante again, Dante, the literary character, near the end of the poem has followed Beatrice, her intelligence, beauty and goodness, all the way to the ninth circle of Heaven, but he is required to give her up, let go, before he can meet or see God and Christ in the center, so to speak. The character who takes her place is a contemplative, Saint Bernard; the way of contemplation is the negative way, “neither is this Thou.” Dante, having found Beatrice, does not get to keep her. That’s crudely put but it gets at the truth.

Okay, back to the poverty of my mundane problem. On the one hand, there is the very delightful and beautiful Claire Dane’s character, Yvaine, in the movie. There is, I submit, nothing wrong in my seeing and delighting in those qualities, as does her counterpart in the movie, Tristan Thorne. In the novel and somewhat in the movie, Tristan is required to give up his superficial first love, Victoria (Sienna Miller), and then come to see the “fallen star” as a valuable woman (person) in her own right and not simply a thing to be bound and dragged as a gift in exchange for Victoria’s “love.” Of course he does change, develop and “grow up as a consequence of his time with her. An interesting element of the movie in this regard is that Victoria becomes more “ordinary looking” by the end of the movie while Yvaine chooses to reveal her extraordinary inner “intense starlight.” In a sense we experience that moment in the movie to understand who she really is and the gift she is bringing to Tristan. It is this inner reality that defeats finally the evil witch who with her two evil sisters is determined to kill the star woman and take her heart in order to gain for themselves beauty, youth, and extended life. There are more ways in the novel and the movie in which these goods and evils unfold and play out though my central concern should be clear enough.

As I was thinking about my problem with feminine beauty, I happened to remember the way in which this concern manifested itself when I was a hormonal teenager, 15 or 16. Even then I had acquired a small collection of beautiful women which I kept in the top drawer of my chest of drawers. Pictures, let me quickly add; these were images of beautiful women, Ava Gardiner for one; they were not lewd images or pornographic images. That kind of image, I knew, even then, would have been a betrayal of what delighted me.

The heart of my small collection and probably the only reason I remember this collection, besides the lovely Ava Gardner, is that it contained a studio photo of an Italian actress, Rossana Podesta, who played Helen of Troy in a 50’s movie of the same name. She was so beautiful. In fact she was so beautiful that I wrote to the California studio requesting a photo of her. No response. Two years went by and one day in my parents’ mail there was an envelope for me from Italy. Italy! Inside was a studio head shot of Rosanna Podesta. I was overawed. I now had a real treasure to possess; however, as I grew a little older my collection began to gnaw at my conscience. Somehow I knew it had to go because these images were simply shadows of real young ladies, the kind of young ladies whom I had begun dating. To my credit I knew the collection had to go. [Talk about God being at work in my young life!] They were, after all, only paper, not flesh and blood. No problem, I thought. I shall tear them up and throw them away. Well, all but one, of course: Rossana. I could hold on to that one; no harm, surely. Hold on to; let go. Deep down I realized that she had to go too. That hurt. I destroyed the entire collection, and to this day there is something within me that regrets that loss. I suspect that in some sense there is something within me that keeps the problem alive: hold on; give up. “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” From the outside I am certain the problem seems petty; from the inside it is not.

My problem then is not the delighting in the character’s (actress’s) beauty, but in my desire to hold on to it and somehow, impossibly, possess that beauty for my self. The problem is then not being able to say “no” and to let it go. Simply put, I have trouble letting go. In the movie the central characters exchange hearts, give their love to one another, then marry and become the King and Queen of the land of Stormhold. Again King and Queen are appropriate images for man and woman who were made in the image of God (Genesis). Adam and Eve were, in Eden, King and Queen, not by holding on to their identity as first man and woman, but by letting go, obeying GOD. The problem again looks petty from the outside—just one fruit from an entire garden full of fruit trees. Clearly, from the inside the problem is enormous. But that’s a problem (inside/outside) that I like Milton’s Adam and all Shakespeare’s Kings and Queens must work out, and as I see by my response to Yvaine in the movie, I’m still not ready to meet God face to face.

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This passage from Mark always seems relevant in the love Jesus offers and in the young man’s failure to follow through, almost inability to follow through.

A reading from
the holy Gospel according to Mark10:17-27

As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall not defraud; honor your father and your mother.” He replied and said to him, “Teacher, all of these I have observed from my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, “You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” At that statement, his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Of course the young man’s sadness is not the end of the story, for there is hope as well, as Jesus explains:

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!” The disciples were amazed at his words. So Jesus again said to them in reply, “Children, how hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For men it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God.”

If the habit of sin is too deeply entrenched, God will not let us be lost as long as our desire for Heaven is great as well. Two wonderful images from literature reveal the continuation of man’s inability. The first is found in C. S. Lewis’s Great Divorce. Another young man finding himself on the threshold of Heaven has a red lizard on his shoulder, riding him. The Angel he meets there requires that he get rid of the red lizard before he can proceed further up and further in. The young man cannot do it, though he would like to. The Angel will take the red lizard from him, but only if the young man agrees. He reluctantly agrees. The Angel takes the lizard off, breaks its back, throws it to the ground where it is transformed into a magnificent stallion that the man then climbs up on and rides into the Heart of Heaven to the astonishment of all those watching. This encounter is, for this reader, unforgettable.

The second passage is from Dante’s Purgatorio, no surprise I imagine! Dante, the character, has climbed the incredible high mountain with Virgil, his guide, and another poet, Statius, who has been cleansed from his habit of sin and thus released. One thing remains for both Statius and Dante and that is walk through the refining fire at the top of the mountain. The fire is an image of the Cherubin with flaming sword who guards the entrance to Eden. Dante is terrified; he can feel the heat. He has seen men burned to death. He stops. Virgil, however, explains that the Garden of Eden and especially Beatrice await him on the other side. Dante is required to screw his courage to the sticking place and walk through. Virgil will lead, Statius will follow Dante who is in the middle between them. Here is another unforgettable image. God will do the final cleansing but the sinner must agree; the two parties work together and whatever the sinner is finally holding on to shall be consumed. Gulp. Right reason tells me that these encounters are good and true images of the really real. No one holding on to anything can meet God face to face.

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I imagine anyone who is still with me may be wondering what this meditation has to do with anything written above. First we live in a culture that has simply denied the validity of this kind of thinking about human nature and objective reality. Instead our images of the human have simply deteriorated into subhuman categories. Whether you understand the human self as substantive King and Queen or perversely as Drag Queen and Narcissus, you will be defined by your choice. If you have a sound understanding of the first, the ontological meaning of King and Queen, you will recognize the second as a great perversion of the first. How do you go about understanding the first, if you don’t already? Well, I was an English literature teacher and our great literature frequently explores the meaning of these images of the human. Malory’s King Arthur is one of my favorites, though there is something about his Kingship that eventually brings down the Round Table and Camelot, something worth discovering about human nature.. Renaissance literature is filled with images of Kings and Queens. King Lear is truly a great example, for at the beginning of the play he is everything a King should not be; then, through a magnificent unfolding of the action of the play, the King Lear discovers what true kingship really means, and we discover it with him; our humanity, as well as his, is at stake here. Then there is the weak Richard II, the flawed and guilt ridden Henry IV and Shakespeare’s crowning character, Henry V. I wouldn’t want to leave out, of course, Macbeth and his Queen, Lady Macbeth. We may also slip back in time to Greece particularly, and the Kingship of Oedipus and the riddle at the heart of that play. Literature! Do you have “chronological snobbery”: “I won’t read anything written before 1950!” Or perhaps “gender bias?” “All that early literature was written by dead white men!” If, on the other hand, you believe there is such a thing as objective truth, you must be willing to follow wherever it leads or to what ever reveals it. “Follow me.”

Another area regarding images, one I have little interest in, yet one that seems to fascinate many others: that’s the image of the British monarchy about which our culture can’t seem to get enough images and information. Elizabeth I was always a person of fascination for me given her times, my interest in the feminine and the fact that she was a woman in it, struggling to maintain her power and her integrity. The second Elisabeth, for me not so much, though I suspect that she, like Victoria, has much to reveal.

The third focus on Queen as image should not come as a surprise: in Dante the Virgin Mary from Heaven sends Saint Lucy to Beatrice, Beatrice to Virgil, Virgil to Dante., the character in the poem. There we have a series of images of Grace in action that also reveal various principles of the divine and human, particularly Mary’s response to God through the image of the Angel Gabriel: “Let it be to me according to your word.” What we see here at the heart of the human, so to speak, is that there are really only two meaningful responses, “Yes” and “No.” I suspect (believe) that there is fundamentally only one question and we find that in the text that seems so irrelevant to many in our culture.

In any case I liked the way the meditation below defined the role of the Holy Spirit in my considerations of feminine beauty, though I divided the meditation a little differently from the original, to emphasize the role of the burning bush as an image of reality.

Regarding the image to go with this essay, I found some from the movie but they didn’t transfer well to this text. One was a Sandro Botticelli image of the Virgin and Child; Botticelli’s works delight me; think of the most famous one which would be an extremely apt image for this essay.. However, the machine wouldn’t load the Botticelli image, so I shall try the Claire Danes image. It wouldn’t upload that one either. Rosanna Podesta? Nope! Does God keep saying “no” here? Apparently, since I do not have an acceptable image for this text and may have to “publish” this text without it. If I can figure out what has gone wrong, I shall add an image later, though it almost seems fitting not to have one, very fitting. “Neither is this Thou!”

Accepting the Kingdom of God [Magnificat’s Meditation for today, Saturday, 5/25/24.]

I behold you, O God, Father, Word, and Spirit, and I know you are looking for your creature with sovereign wisdom and eternal goodness; so that it seems that you have no glory or pleasure except in your creature who is yet so vile. Your Spirit is the love by which you try to attract him.

And his heart which receives this Spirit is like the bush that Moses saw, burning but not consumed.  With supreme purity, it burns with the desire that God may never be offended, and it is consumed with the desire that God be honored, although it does not seem to be consumed.

Come, come, Holy Spirit! Come, union of the Father, contentment of the Word, glory of the angels. O Spirit of Truth, you are the reward of the saints, the refreshment of souls, light in darkness, wealth of the poor, treasure of those who love, abundance of food for the hungry, comfort of pilgrims, and in a word, the One who contains all treasures.

O Holy Spirit, with everlasting wisdom you gently urge rational creatures who want to receive your gifts, but you do not take away their liberty. You knock at all hearts, but you knock gently, urging each one to prepare to receive these gifts. Softly singing, you are the source of sweet tears. Rejoicing and lamenting, you strive ardently that everyone may be disposed to receive you. May the intellect admire, the will and memory understand your immense goodness, O Holy Spirit, in infusing yourself and all your gifts into the soul! O Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Word, you infuse yourself into the soul so gently that it does not understand you, and, not being understood, your ineffable gift is esteemed by few. Yet besides your goodness, you infuse into the soul the power of the Father, and the wisdom of the Son. The soul, having thus become powerful and wise, is made fit to bear you within itself as a sweet Guest, cherishing you, that is, behaving in such a way that you take pleasure in it and do not leave it.

Saint Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi

Saint Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi († 1607) was a Carmelite nun and mystic in Florence. / Cited in Divine Intimacy: Meditations on the Interior Life for Every Day of the Liturgical Year. Translated by the Discalced Carmelite Nuns of Boston from the original Italian edition Intimità Divina del P. Gabrielle di S. Maria Maddalena. © Monastero S. Giuseppe – Carmelitane Scalze. Published by Baronius Press. www.baroniuspress.com. Used with permission.

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SKUNKED! 0/6! - LES

May 8, 2024.

Sometimes my life stinks!

Nevertheless, here we go, diving in. I love it when things rhyme, though I had to have the machine tell me how to spell it, rhyme, that is. Thank goodness for Siri too. She’s quite good at spelling and definitions, at least when she understands what I’m asking. However, she never leaves the answer up quite long enough!

Lately, last two months, probably, I’ve been playing WORDLE, though the machine didn’t like the spelling and changed it to WORDLESS the first time. As I say, I’ve been playing it every night for a few months now. I wish I could say I was good at it, but I value truth too much to lie about it. For those of you who don’t know, the player gets 6 tries to find the five letter word of the day. If you get the right letter in the right place, the letter turns green. If you get the right letter in the wrong place, the letter turns yellow. If the letter is not in the word, the letter turns gray or black. And you have to use real words. I probably average four out of six correct per game, which shows up in my gmail each day around 5 p.m. Three or four times I have gotten the answer on the second try. Woo hoo! Hot doggie!
Call the local newspaper! Unfortunately, five or six times I have failed to get the answer in six tries. 0/6! Talk about feeling stupid! I wanted to say shitty, probably because I watch too many Coen brothers movies and the language in their movies tends to be, at times, unimaginative. The Big Lebowski, for example, though the spelling looks a bit off. The Dude, however, is a fine character, regardless of his language. Even the Sam Elliot “narrator” mentions the excessive cussing to him, to no apparent avail though.

Back to the game. Several of my losses, three,I think, were to the “ears” line. The last time I lost the game the final choice was between “hears” and “wears.” Something kept whispering “wears.” I, of course, ignored the intuition and chose “hears.” Then the little white screen at the top drops down to say something that feels like, “hey stupid, the word was “wears.” Once the word was “fears” and I almost peed my catheter for I hadn’t even noticed “fears.” Of course, peeing my catheter isn’t saying much, given the way the damn thing works. Consider: bears, dears, gears, fears, hears, pears, rears, sears, tears, wears, and years. Now you have four choices or sometimes only three. It begins to Erik me, Erik me?, I thought I had written “irk,” though I may have started with an e as in “Erik.” You know, sometimes it is not easy being almost 84. Technology has developed somewhat, to speak candidly . In college and later, I wrote all my first drafts in cursive (cursive?) and then rewrote the next draft, very carefully, on my Olympia typewriter, a Christmas gift from my parents when I was about 19 and an English major at Heidelberg in Tiffin, Ohio, not Germany. However, if the student majored in German, he or she might be eligible for a junior year abroad. I minored in Spanish and spent six weeks, before my senior year, in Mexico City at Mexico City College, 6 education credits through Ohio State University. Go buckeyes! The typewriter lacked spellcheck. Go computers!

Well, that’s all for today though I should probably have described my two hour appointment with the eye doctor (I know there’s a name for them) yesterday; the problem is I’m still recovering. “What’s the lowest line you can read?” I see one on the floor! “Which is clearer, the red or the green?” I saw red and yellow, and it was usually the yellow though I played along and said “green.” Two hours later I couldn’t even hold my head up. “Now we just need to dilate your pupils for a more accurate glaucoma test. Put your chin in the little cup and your forehead on the ceiling…”

May 11, 2024. After supper. Meds taken.

Before I opened this page, I had a great deal to say; yet now I sit here, having forgotten whatever it was. I remember it had something to do with supper and eating and the fact that I have to use utensils made for the differently abled (the imp changed “abled” to “baked.” Well, why not. I’m feeling a little “differently baked” tonight. I tried to send an email a few minutes ago, but I couldn’t get the keyboard to appear, magically or otherwise. Technology! My typewriter never refused to let me use its keyboard. But then I had to ask Siri how to spell “utensils” a moment ago, and my typewriter was never willing to indulge me that way.). My writing gets more like Tristram Shandy’s every day.

I‘ll try again. I’m definitely “differently abled” after about 40 years of peripheral (thanks Siri!) neuropathy, severe, combined recently with rheumatoid arthritis. My body doesn’t know whether just to disappear into nervelessness or rock all my joints. In any case I need utensils for the HANDICAPPED, he shouted. These utensils (I can spell it without help now) have large black rubber or plastic (I have no idea, having never really felt one) grips for spoon, fork, and a knife that couldn’t cut hot wax, let alone butter or a tender piece of chicken. My wife brought down a nice plate of barbecued pulled pork, an open-faced sandwich on wheat bread with provolone, the bread nicely sliced in half, along with a serving of a potato with butter that tasted as though it were trying to return to its aboriginal state: but good, honey, quite good! The potatoes were like a small mountain range between the two halves of the sandwich. I aso was given an orange cut up into bite-size pieces, also very tasty.

I should hasten to explain that I eat everything with a utensil. I like gummy bears from Germany made in Maryland, but I have to eat them with a fork, for when I use my fingers to pick up anything small, whatever it is, if I am trying to get it to my mouth, the odds are very good that it will disappear half way there. I drop things frequently and with great regularity. By the end of the week my hospital gown looks like a colorful buffet, even though I hold a paper plate under my chin to catch the droppings. The lift chair where I spend much of my life is quite large so that it could accommodate me and a dog. My dog is gone (though the house now contains four small dogs), I miss him greatly, Simon, a dachshund. In any case, I have used the chair so long that the seat has pulled away from the sides. The inside of the chair probably looks like a grocery-hardware superstore by now—which brings me to the reason for this brief outburst.

Did I mention that my short term memory is not too good? Probably not, but I have mostly forgotten (thank you Siri). In any case my lap board is a tad tilted. Things roll if I am not careful. Tonight I put the fork down, forgot to secure it because of a momentary distraction. Shoot, I said, or some such close relative. I looked around, moved the lap board, and found the fork on my hospital gown. I swore an oath then and there to be more careful, pulled the lap board back into place, set the fork down and picked up the spoon to deal with the potatoes. Thinking to use the fork to attack the pork, I put the spoon down only to discover that the damned thing was gone again! I felt around on the chair and my lap to no avail, of course. This time the chair was quicker than my hand and eye and undoubtedly swallowed my fork.

Well, I feel like a character in a Coen brothers’ film, probably The Big Lebowski. I dug another fork out of my ceramic utensil holder and went back at it. This time I treated the entire utensil-eating experience like reciting the Rosary: keep your eye on the fork, keep your eye on the fork, keep your eye on the fork, where’s the damn spoon?

Now that I have described my evening, I hear the clock striking 10, time to make it to the bathroom with its “differently abled” toilet, where I sit to take care of the nightly chores: which involve taking my nightly dose of lactulose to offset the binding drugs I also take throughout the day, then brushing my teeth, trying not to drop anything, like a toothbrush or a bottle cap (each has happened once), then end my evening with a brief bidet spray, just in case!

May 13, 2024. Before supper. Meds not taken.

I thought I was through recounting my mystical experiences, but then WORDLE was a challenge yesterday with an interesting outcome. I put the word “raise” into the first of the empty boxes. The “r” and the “i” were highlighted yellow; the letter “e” was highlighted green. Wow, I thought, 3 out of 5. The problem was that the word could not begin with “r,” have “I” in the middle, and had to end with “e.” From wow very quickly to whoa. I sat and looked and tried to think of a word with those letters that would fit. My mind was blanker than usual. Humbled once again by a game and a puzzle I could not solve, I opened my word finder and filled in the appropriate slots: r and i in the middle, ends in e, exclude a and s. 5 letters; only common words! I hit “find it.” The finder gave me two columns of words, 20 to 30 I guess. The problem was that as far as I could see, all their words had the i in the middle, like “tribe,” “bribe,” “pride,” etc. every word in the two columns fell to that pattern. Then I looked more closely and found only one that was different: “eerie.” Surely not, but I could not think of another possibility, so I returned to the puzzle, typed in “eerie,” and hit enter. All the letters turned green and began jumping up and down as they do when you find the right word. 3 e’s: I remember I went 0/6 once when I first started playing because it didn’t occur to me that you might have to double a letter to find the answer. “Eerie,” I wouldn’t have thought of that before the next ice age. However, yesterday = 2/6! And now it’s time to play today.

Back two minutes later. I entered “raise” again; 3 vowels and it keeps working. This time “s” and “a” came up yellow. I decided to try “shall” because that was essentially all my weak brain could think of, and it was five letters. I entered “shall” and 4 of the letters turned green. I had to lean close to the screen to make certain both “l’s” were green. Wow! I letter off. I typed in “stall”; everything turned green and began jumping up and down; the white sign descended telling me that I had solved it in 3 tries but could probably do better. As Bugs Bunny would say, “ What a maroon!” Anyway, for five days since my first description, I am 3/6, 4/6, 3/6, 2/6, 3/6. It almost looks like I know what I’m doing now, which, of course, is seldom the case with anything any more, or ever.

Horror/Hope/Joy - LES

5/11/24: Tomorrow is Ascension Sunday, and in the Magnificat meditation for today, I found an interesting writing by a Dominican sister, Mary Jean Dorcy which I copied below, along with the Gospel reading for today. Having read the Gospel selection first, I found the problem that always occurs when I read this selection, actually, a problem and a promise that seem like the bottom and the top of one figure, call it “T” if you want a visual. If Jesus is who we Christians affirm that he is, that is, God incarnate, then what he says is! Whatever we ask the Father for in Jesus’ name, we will receive. Obviously we are not talking about dollars and cents here or Cadillacs and mansions. The context of the person asking should be clear. That is, the person asking ought to be inside the faith, in love with Jesus and thus asking from that perspective of love and humility. Suddenly, in a moment of clarity, I see that the problem is no longer a problem. As I said on another page, writing can be for me a means of discovery, an earnest desire to discover and communicate truth as I understand it.

That understanding then makes the promise sharper and clearer: that our joy may be complete. Martin Buber, I—Thou, introduced me to the idea that “real life is meeting.” That’s also a chapter title (I think) in C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength. Frequently what we see here and now, in this life, to borrow Plato’s image, are images, shadows on the wall of the cave. Saint Paul says a similar thing, as everyone used to know, regardless of whether they believed it. Now we see through a glass darkly, or in a mirror dimly, then face to face. The point is that Heaven is about real meeting, real seeing. C. S. Lewis wrote somewhere, maybe in Letters to Malcolm, chiefly about prayer, that “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.” Well, the bottom and the top, no problem, two promises, one reality. Suddenly, Mrs. Turin’s image of all the souls on the road up to Heaven, singing Hallelujah came to mind and I smiled.

Now for the Sister’s meditation. First, as I was lying in bed looking out my window at the solitary view, trees—a redbud, a dog wood, several maples and several oaks—it occurred to me that a filmmaker could do a seasonal view of the trees—springtime budding and then blooming, becoming summer’s lush green foliage, leaves everywhere on all the trees, then fall’s colorful variety, leading to the “bare ruined choirs” of winter. It strikes me that is a good image for the life I was given too, with the onset of winter well underway. What the good Sister said about the nature of Saturday led me to see another perspective on time and stages.

The first stage occurs with Good Friday and the meeting of the crucified Christ. That image produces in me an experience of horror. This suffering should not be, not for any man, not for this man especiality. Horror, sorrow, humility. In a sense, the darkness of Holy Saturday is where we live. In the liturgical year, three days, Good Friday to Easter Sunday, but the Saturday before the Ascension, is the last of another series of 40 days this time, and the idea of darkness bound with hope, that His going means that a world-changing transformation is coming. After Ascension is Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the bringer of joy. In a sense then I find that I have a kind of double vision—Heaven is unfolding before us, but Heaven is not yet. Jesus calls it the kingdom. We have then hope in the darkness when we experience the absence and long for the coming, the return; and we have the joy of the resurrection and the faith given to us by the descent of the Holy Spirit who is love with knowledge and understanding. Faith, Hope, Love, these three: there should be no such thing as a morose Christian, a painful one, certainly, but not morose, not grumbling like the Israelites in the desert and even in the promised land, for joy is the serious business of Heaven, the Kingdom.

A reading from
the holy Gospel according to John 16:23b-28

Jesus said to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

“I have told you this in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures but I will tell you clearly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have come to believe that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

______________________________

Before the meditation we perhaps need only to be reminded of the heart of Mary’s faith, which ought also to be the heart of any Christian’s faith: “Let it be to me according to thy word.” That, along with Saint Thomas’s “My Lord, my God.”

Believing That Our Joy Will Be Complete

Since the earliest years of the Church, Saturday has been kept as a day especially dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. It was on the Sabbath that Jesus lay in the tomb, his followers scattered and terrorized and his cause, according to all the evidence, a failure. What the rest of Christ’s dear ones were doing on that Saturday we do not know, but we know what Mary did: She waited, prayed, and hoped. Her faith did not falter on that dark day and night of waiting, and these many years later we honor that faith….

[We] are looking back to a valiant woman who watched the dark come down over all the world’s hopes at Calvary; a woman who waited, keeping in mind all these things, pondering them in her heart (Lk 2:19), knowing that God had not deserted her, no matter what the evidence, and that there would be an Easter morning. Most of us will hope as long as there is life. Mary hoped even beyond this. The very picture of a brave woman defying death itself with hope should change our whole perspective toward death for ourselves and for our dear ones. Mary watching through the night had faith enough to see beyond the great stone that was rolled across the tomb, and to believe that, as Christ had said, he would rise again…. We see now how fitting it is that God’s Mother waited through a dark night to teach us patience in waiting.

Our Lady of Faith, Mother of all the lonely and the frightened of all the ages, help us to keep faith through the long days and the longer nights: faith in God, who does not desert us, who is with us all days, even unto the consummation of the world (Mt 28:20). Mother of all, you whose faith did not falter because your love was so great, make our hearts large, that God may fill them with his love forever.

Sister Mary Jean Dorcy, o.p.

Sister Mary Jean († 1988) was a Dominican sister and a prolific author and illustrator, especially of children’s literature. / From The Carrying of the Cross: Thoughts for Women on the Passion of Christ. Copyright © 1959, St. Anthony Guild Press, Paterson, NJ. All rights reserved.

Beastly Doggerel - LES

If I could do better I certainly would,

Or nail myself to some other good.

Alas, I try with consequence grim,

Giving birth to strange creatures,

And one sorry hymn!

Ominous Birds

A murder of crows settled down

On our land; nary a frown

Did I see—just seven black birds

Hanging loose in the sky, no words

Can capture the fright that I feel,

As outside my window they wheel

In their flight and wheel till they vanish

Into the light, and wheel till they vanish

            From sight; seven large birds

                     Black as night .

Hungry Creatures

Six raccoons live somewhere nearby,

Showing up each night after dark;

They treat our deck and balcony

As though it’s a rich food court park.

They’ll eat cat food and table scraps,

They’ll tussle and fuss on a lark,

It seems, and bat one another

Around, while the little dogs bark.

A committee of  plump raccoons

Shows up promptly each night at dusk;

Without any motion they vote—

For victuals kill hunger, not husks.

Evil Beast

The wart hog from hell runs aground

When he spies fair maiden at hand;

Be she chaste, good and beautiful,

His rank evil lust turns to sand.

The wart hog is frozen in place,

For it’s virtue that wins this race.

Our Lady’s protected by grace.

A Backyard Rumble

A groundhog lives in our sunny backyard;

He stays well hidden for the dogs give chase

When they find him emerge for a repast.

He eludes them with panache and grace.

All Hell Breaks Loose

A wave of dark beasts flows over the lawn,

Their red eyes glowing like embers of fire,

Chittering loudly and clearly forthwith,

Their mouths salivating with foul desire.

Save me from Satan, my sweet Lord on high;

Lest the foul beasts drag me down to the gate

And feed me to Cerberus, guardian grim;

Don’t let the three-headed dog be my fate.

The Angel of light swooped out of the sky,

Sending beasts back to Hell, howling with fright.

With the land clear of the crew out of Hell,

The Angel ascended in silent light.

More Ominous Birds

An unkindness of ravens perched

On our roof, intending no good

To the neighborhood, or the land.

Symbols of dread, choosing to stand

Rather than soar in the darkness,

Ominous black birds in a band.

Why an “unkindness” of ravens?

Why call them a “murder” of crows?

Does naming determine their nature?

Would that be what someone close knows?

Ominous Beasts

A congregation of six crocodiles

Met in an old rugged church in the swamp;

“Or are we a menace?” the old elder asked,

His teeth protruding like moss on a stump,

Let’s first take a vote and then sing a hymn,

To the God of all gators and reptiles grim

Praise Him, alligators, praise him.

The Artificial Bird

All we were left was the bird on the lawn,

Cracked, weather-worn, and dripping with moss,

Forever grounded with wings tucked too tight—

The Holy Spirit had suffered great loss,

Wounded, speechless, incapable of flight.

My chest constricted, the silence within

Almost o’erwhelmed me; it felt more like sin.

Ascension approaches, our Lord takes wing,

Soaring from view; what will summer soon bring?

Ascending, descending, new bird of prey?

Lord have mercy; come soon and stay.

Gotcha!

F O’C: A TEMPLE…— LES

Hopkins’ poem ends with one thing greater than beauty and that is grace. Grace is what is revealed and operative in F O’C’s A Temple of the Holy Ghost. In a story full of some very unattractive characters the reader is led to see the affirmation of the title image: we are [ought to be] temples of the Holy Spirit; we should be like the tattooed Parker at the end of his story, the body of Christ.

O’Connor stories work in certain patterns. We are first introduced to fairly seriously flawed characters. Ruby Turpin, for example, who is proud and terribly self-satisfied, and O. E. Parker who is smug and lazy and extremely dissatisfied. In this story the main character, whose point of view carries the story, is a 12 year old “child,” proud, unattractive, and frequently unpleasant and mocking of those around her, yet she is also intelligent and perceptive.

Second, there is almost always a tension in the story between the main character and one or more of those around her or him. With Ruby the tension exists between her and most of those in the doctor’s office with her; the tension reaches its startling climax when Mary Grace throws the book and hits her in the head. With Parker the tension exists primarily between himself and his wife, Sarah Ruth, though it also occurs between himself and the 70 year old lady for whom he works. In A Temple of the Holy Ghost the tension exists between the never-named child and most of those around her, but especially with the two 14 year old convent girls who come to stay over the weekend with her and her mother. That they are two years older than the child is important because they have reached puberty and understand things that the child doesn’t.

The third aspect or characteristic of each short story involves the way the flawed character behaves that makes him or her subject to the responses of the surrounding characters. Ruby’s self-satisfaction overwhelms the doctor’s office until Mary Grace is insanely driven to respond violently; oddly, Mary Grace’s response is as humorous as it is shocking and understandable. Parker’s dissatisfaction leads to his lack of attention, which results in the tractor accident, which drives him (pun intended) the fifty miles to the city and the tattoo artist’s office. In the child’s case her pride and curiosity cause her to trick the two visitors into revealing what they saw in the tent at the fair, the encounter with the pious hermaphrodite.

The fourth element in the story is the way in which the usually violent response to the character flaw leads to the possibility of insight, as in the case of Ruby and Parker. Each will have to live out the rest of his or her life with the new understanding of self and reality. The operation of divine Grace in an O’Connor story operates entirely within the natural world through secondary causes. You might say truthfully, I think, that God uses our flaws and our contexts to bring us to vision and salvation. Sometimes, however, the character’s insight or vision occurs at a moment of death. Such is the case with the grandmother in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Mrs. May in Greenleaf. In A Temple… the pattern works somewhat differently. The transforming encounter occurs as the two convent girls describe the “freak” who has revealed [pun intended] him/her self to his fairground audience; the so-called freak is a hermaphrodite, having both male and female genitalia. The revelation of this to the child leads to her third fantasy vision in the story: this time she imagines a kind of Pentecostal religious service which will be a counterpart to the Catholic Mass that occurs almost immediately after.

The fifth aspect of the story is the way in which the author’s imagination weaves a pattern in each detail throughout the story that reveals the real Idea of the story. I would say that the real meaning in the child’s story is the way in which matter, especially flesh and blood matter, reveals spirit. As with Mrs. Turpin’s story and Parker’s story the Ideas are there from the beginning. As we see in the opening paragraph, the unattractiveness of the central characters is emphasized and focused along with the controlling image of flesh and blood as the Temple of the Holy Ghost:

“ALL weekend the two girls were calling each other Temple One and Temple Two, shaking with laughter and getting so red and hot that they were positively ugly, particularly Joanne who had spots on her face anyway. They came in the brown convent uniforms they had to wear at Mount St. Scholastica but as soon as they opened their suitcases, they took off the uniforms and put on red skirts and loud blouses. They put on lipstick and their Sunday shoes and walked around in the high heels all over the house, always passing the long mirror in the hall slowly to get a look at their legs. None of their ways were lost on the child.”

The most important element in the opening is the attitude toward the central image: the convent girls see it only as a joke, an image or idea to laugh about, in a sense an image for fun and laughter for a person who is on the “inside,” or in on the secret knowledge, so to speak. Tied to the Temple image is the girls’ immediate unattractiveness, especially Joanne’s. Her appearance is positively ugly. What the story accomplishes is the transformation of this attitude of”silliness” regarding the Idea until by the end of the story the idea of flesh and blood revealing spirit is the central reality of life, the child’s life at least, as well as the life of the church, its central reality as primary Temple too (pun intended).

The third aspect of the paragraph is the mirror and its reflecting capacity. First, one might notice that the girls change out of their convent uniforms into their secular clothes as if the two realms, sacred and secular, were separate realities. The girls then use the mirror to admire their legs, their flesh and blood bodies, so to speak. Again, what flesh and blood reveal by the end of the story is the presence of spirit, the Holy Spirit, not only in flesh and blood but in the entire material world, as the two realms are brought together in the Mass, in the child’s imagination, as we shall see in a bit. Looking again at the opening paragraph we find that the convent from which the girls come is “Mount St. Scholastica,” the name pointing to the most important theologian, Scholastic theologian, in the Catholic Church—St. Thomas Aquinas. Here is one of those details that reoccur throughout the story and help reveal the story’s Idea. St. Thomas is the author of the Eucharistic hymn sung at Mass and he was called “the dumb ox,” an epithet the child applies to Wendell and Cory for their ignorance regarding the Latin hymn sung by the girls. As I have said every detail in the story contributes to the Idea of the story, its meaning.

The final detail in the quoted section reveals the presence of the child and her watchfulness. This presence is especially important as her mother prevails upon the girls to explain “the joke”:

“She asked them why they called each other Temple One and Temple Two and this sent them off into gales of giggles. Finally they managed to explain. Sister Perpetua, the oldest nun at the Sisters of Mercy in Mayville, had given them a lecture on what to do if a young man should—here they laughed so hard they were not able to go on without going back to the beginning—on what to do if a young man should—they put their heads in their laps—on what to do if—they finally managed to shout it out—if he should “behave in an ungentlemanly manner with them in the back of an automobile.” Sister Perpetua said they were to say, “Stop sir! I am a Temple of the Holy Ghost!” and that would put an end to it. The child sat up off the floor with a blank face. She didn’t see anything so funny in this.”

While the transformation begins in the first sentence of the story, here we begin to see how the perspective of the child will carry the real meaning of the story. She doesn’t “see anything so funny in this.” First is the child’s understanding that the Temple image is serious. We might even say that the end is here contained in the beginning, for shortly after this revelation, we find a new attitude toward the governing image:

“Her mother didn’t laugh at what they had said. “I think you girls are pretty silly,” she said. “After all, that’s what you are—Temples of the Holy Ghost.”

The two of them looked up at her, politely concealing their giggles, but with astonished faces as if they were beginning to realize that she was made of the same stuff as Sister Perpetua.

Miss Kirby preserved her set expression and the child thought, it’s all over her head anyhow. I am a Temple of the Holy Ghost, she said to herself, and was pleased with the phrase. It made her feel as if somebody had given her a present.”

First, the child’s mother takes the idea seriously and is thus identified with the girls’ teacher, Sister Perpetua. Historically, Perpetua was one of the first female martyrs for the Christian faith. Thus, you might say, we can see how truly serious the idea is in the beginning, both historically and thus in the story, even though the girls maintain their perspective, though they are “astonished” to find in the mother “the same stuff” as in Sister Perpetua. The story is the child’s and therefore her attitude becomes the most important. While the child arrogantly dismisses the understanding of Miss Kirby whom the child doesn’t really know, the child now understands the idea as a “gift,” a “present.” And that, of course, is what the image of being a temple is all about. The presence of the Holy Spirit within is a gift of Grace, freely given. As Parker’s direction was subtly changed by his vision of the tattooed man at the fair, the child’s “ direction”is subtly changed here. What, for example, does the gift mean.

While as I have said before each detail in the story reveals the story’s meaning, yet there are two major encounters before the end that stand out. The first is the exchange of songs by the Pentecostal boys and the Catholic girls. The second is the child’s fantasy vision after learning what is present in the tent (tabernacle) at the fair. Each element moves our understanding toward the ending. First, Wendell and Cory sing two hymns to the girls as if they were love songs, which of course they are; the girls in turn sing the untranslated Eucharistic hymn, the tantum ergo, which is also a love song, St. Thomas’s love song to Christ and the “real presence” in the bread and wine. A translation is worth reading:

Down in adoration falling,
Lo! the sacred Host we hail;
Lo! o'er ancient forms departing,
newer rites of grace prevail;
faith for all defects supplying,
where the feeble senses fail.

To the everlasting Father,
and the Son who reigns on high,
with the Holy Ghost proceeding
forth from Each eternally,
be salvation, honor, blessing,
might and endless majesty. Amen.

Our human senses are weak, keeping us from seeing what is truly present in the Eucharist during the Mass, the real body and blood of Christ. What enables the (Catholic) Christian to say “Amen” to this element is of course faith. Faith is what enables the person to affirm that reality. It is interesting that in the Coen brothers’ film Hail Caesar, George Clooney, the Roman centurion standing before the crucified Christ on his cross, makes a tremendous speech regarding the man whom he had met once before. The problem is that the actor forgets the transforming word, faith, thus leaving the world of the movie stuck in its pervasive secularism. As in Aquinas’ hymn, without faith the person is blind. Faith, however, the gift of the Holy Spirit, enables the person to see the presence of God, not only in the Eucharist in the story but in the whole material world. In other words the sacred and the secular will become one in the story.

Before we get to the end though we need to see the absolutely necessary element to complete the pattern, the Idea, and that is the presence of the freak. Like the ark of the covenant in ancient Israel, the freak is found in a tent in the fair, where their is again diversity, males on one side of the tent and females on the other; there is, however, a disturbing unity of sorts, for the freak is a hermaphrodite, having both male and female genitalia. The crucial element is in what he says to the divided audience about how his “condition” occurred. As the convent girls reveal to the child, the freak accepts his situation as being the consequence of God’s will. And like Jesus in the garden before his passion, he doesn’t “dispute” it. The central thing that happens in this scene after the girls explain what they saw in the tent is that the child has a fantasy vision wherein she imagines the freak (and herself) in the presence of a Pentecostal worship service:

[“Raise yourself up. A temple of the Holy Ghost. You! You are God’s temple, don’t you know? Don’t you know? God’s Spirit has a dwelling in you, don’t you know?” “Amen. Amen.” “If anybody desecrates the temple of God, God will bring him to ruin and if you laugh, He may strike you thisaway. 

A temple of God is a holy thing. Amen. Amen.” “I am a temple of the Holy Ghost.” “Amen.”

The people began to slap their hands without making a loud noise and with a regular beat between the Amens, more and more softly, as if they knew there was a child near, half asleep.]

What the freak says takes us back to the first lines of the story. If you laugh and treat this condition as a joke, the freak says, God may strike you this way. We have come from the idea of one’s being a Temple as a joke to the perspective of absolute seriousness regarding the Idea. Here we are at the very heart of reality, especially as a vision in the child’s mind. The consequence of that vision becomes immediately apparent as, after accompanying the two girls back to the convent with her mother and in the grossly foul smelling Alonzo’s cab, the child finds herself (language deliberate] at the Mass being celebrated there:

[The child knelt down between her mother and the nun and they were well into the “Tantum Ergo” before her ugly thoughts stopped and she began to realize that she was in the presence of God. Hep me not to be so mean, she began mechanically. Hep me not to give her so much sass. Hep me not to talk like I do. Her mind began to get quiet and then empty but when the priest raised the monstrance with the Host shining ivory-colored (like the sun) in the center of it, she was thinking of the tent at the fair that had the freak in it. The freak was saying, “I don’t dispute hit. This is the way He wanted me to be.”]

Before this moment the child has discovered that by looking through several strands of her hair pulled across her eyes that she can see the sun (son); otherwise she must squint. During the Mass that occurs after that discovery, the child then has a moment where the two realms, following her confession of sin, are seen as one, the sacred and the secular together, wherein the freak is seen as the Host; thus in the (Catholic) Christian perspective, the freak becomes the bearer of the presence of God. Here we might remember Flannery’s justly famous comment at the party in New York when she was asked about the real presence in the Eucharist: “well if it’s just a symbol to Hell with it.” This story also testifies to how we understand the revealing capacity of matter, for the child’s final vision in the story affirms the unity of sacred and secular, the revealing capacity of matter, even as the child now simply “notes” the flesh of Alonzo whereas before she had treated him as a joke because of his disgusting appearance and smell. Now however the final vision we have in the story is the Eucharistic sun (son) and the path to it beyond the world , beyond [Dante’s] dark wood, in a dimension all its own . Lest we miss the fullness of the connection of the divine presence in the fair and the world, Alonzo from the front seat of his cab explains that the fair (and thus the freak) has been shut down by the current religious element assisted by the police, just as in NT times pre crucifixion:

[“They shut it on down,” he said. “Some of the preachers from town gone out and inspected it and got the police to shut it on down.”]

Following that identity, we see that final vision from the child’s perspective, the final image of the sun(son) in the story and the way to it (him):

[Her mother let the conversation drop and the child’s round face was lost in thought. She turned it toward the window and looked out over a stretch of pasture land that rose and fell with a gathering greenness until it touched the dark woods. The sun was a huge red ball like an elevated Host drenched in blood and when it sank out of sight, it left a line in the sky like a red clay road hanging over the trees.

Image: 1/24/24 TCT Christ the Saviour with the Eucharist by Juan de Juanes (Vicente Juan Masip), 1545 – 1550 [Museo del Prado, Madrid.

[I haven’t proofed all the essay yet, thus who knows what the Imp of the Perverse might have changed or what some of my overly modified sentences might have ended up saying. As for now, it’s rewarding to me writing these things, for writing is discovery, such as the two realm image in the first paragraph. I saw it before but hadn’t thought about it. Writing is also somewhat exhausting! I hope these O’Connor essays are worth it out there too, so to speak.]

Hopkins/Maier/Scruton/Reid- Beauty

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2023

To what serves mortal beauty

dangerous; does set danc-
ing blood the O-seal-that-so

feature, flung prouder form
Than Purcell tune lets tread to?

See: it does this: keeps war

Men’s wits to the things that are;

what good means–where a glance
Master more may than gaze,

gaze out of countenance.
Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh

windfalls of war’s storm,
How then should Gregory, a father,

have gleanèd else from swarm-
ed Rome? But God to a nation

dealt that day’s dear chance.
To man, that needs would worship

block or barren stone,
Our law says: Love what are

love’s worthiest, were all known;
World’s loveliest–men’s selves. Self

flashes off frame and face.
What do then? how meet beauty?

Merely meet it; own,
Home at heart, heaven’s sweet gift;

then leave, let that alone.
Yea, wish that though, wish all,

God’s better beauty, grace.

____________________

Francis X. Maier, The Face of God, The Catholic Thing. 4/24/24. Excerpt:

People leave the Catholic Church and the wider Christian community today for many different reasons.  But one of those reasons is the unconvincing, bourgeois mediocrity that can be too common in our worship – which then infects the whole atmosphere of Christian life.

My point is simply this:  Ugliness kills the spirit and explains the impulse for desecration that infects so much of modern “art.”  Ugliness dumbs down the imagination, softens the brain, and hardens the heart.  People of faith have a hunger for beauty and mystery and belonging to a story; the story of a living, believing community, ongoing and true across cultures and time.  And they’re too often not getting that in their local churches.

In his book Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, Scruton wrote that:

Our need for beauty is not something that we could lack and still be fulfilled as people.  It is a need arising from our metaphysical condition, as free individuals seeking our place in a shared and public world.  We can wander through this world, alienated, resentful, full of suspicion and distrust.  Or we can find our home here, coming to rest in harmony with others and with ourselves.  The experience of beauty guides us along this second path:  It tells us that we are at home in the world, that the world is already ordered in our perception as a place fit for the lives of beings like us.  But beings like us. . .become at home in the world only by acknowledging our “fallen” condition. . . .Hence the experience of beauty also points us beyond this world to a “kingdom of ends” in which our immortal longings and our desire for perfection are finally answered.

This is why a hunger for beauty and the religious frame of mind are so closely related and so vital for human flourishing.  They both flow from a humble sense of human imperfection while reaching for the transcendent.  For better or worse, it’s also why so many young families seek out the beauty and mystery of the old Latin Mass.

We need beauty to ennoble our imagination, to guide our scientific intuitions, and to poke through the blather and venom of “wokeness.”  We need it to see reality clearly.  We need beauty because it keeps us human.  Beauty tells us that despite our sins and failures, Creation is good.  And behind it is a Creator who loves us.

____________________

Poem repeated:

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2023

To what serves mortal beauty | dangerous; does set danc-

ing blood the O-seal-that-so | feature, flung prouder form

Than Purcell tune lets tread to? | See: it does this: keeps warm

Men’s wits to the things that are; | what good means–where a glance

Master more may than gaze, | gaze out of countenance.

Those lovely lads once, wet-fresh | windfalls of war’s storm,

How then should Gregory, a father, | have gleanèd else from swarm-

ed Rome? But God to a nation | dealt that day’s dear chance.

To man, that needs would worship | block or barren stone,

Our law says: Love what are | love’s worthiest, were all known;

World’s loveliest–men’s selves. Self | flashes off frame and face.

What do then? how meet beauty? | Merely meet it; own,

Home at heart, heaven’s sweet gift; | then leave, let that alone.

Yea, wish that though, wish all, | God’s better beauty, grace.

_____________________

James Patrick Reid, Beauty and Providence. The Catholic Thing. Wednesday, April 3, 2019. Complete:

God declares His creation “good” seven times in the first chapter of Genesis. On the seventh occasion (seven being the number of perfection or fulfillment), He calls the work “very good.”

Yet sin has made a mess of things. Often the goodness of creation seems hidden or marred; or it shines through only occasionally, offering fleeting glimpses. The world is not, in general, “picture perfect.” One of the functions of art is to provide loci to which we can turn to experience the shining through of goodness, of beauty, whether the locus be a symphony, a poem, a painting, or some other work.

Things exist because God upholds them, but then things decay. God providentially governs creation with Fatherly care, yet terrible things happen all the time. Under such conditions, the experience of beauty can be poignant, as a glimpse of unattainable perfection; and the more intense the ray of beauty is, the more it rends the heart.

One can sympathize with the sentiment expressed in Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat (trans. Edward FitzGerald):

Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire!

Would not we shatter it to bits — and then

Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!

In the present “sorry scheme of things,” it can be hard to believe in divine providence or in transcendental beauty. If faith is, as atheists might claim, an escape from reality, then all fine art is but a diversion or an analgesic, or a Promethean attempt to create order and meaning within a chaotic universe.

Art consists in “re-moulding” things “nearer to the heart’s desire.” In a masterpiece, everything is providentially ordered, harmonized and resolved, and the process often includes a radical re-interpretation of sensory data.

It always entails a special way of seeing, akin to the vision of faith, which sees all things working “together unto good.” (Romans 8:28) From a Christian point of view, an artistic transformation of perception and material, resulting in a work of beauty, is not a divergence from reality, but a testimony to the deepest truth of things.

Let us look at The Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian and their Companions, painted by Blessed Fra Angelico (1395-1455). At the left, a group of casually swaying and apparently indifferent onlookers culminates in a blue-robed man, whose face and gesture register the beheadings with trepidation. The walled city behind these onlookers repeats their verticality and their shape as a group, but in an austerely cool and geometric fashion. The towers diminish into the distance, and their echoes fade in the far-away hill towns.

Suddenly our attention is pulled to the foreground by the tree trunks, which echo the vertical towers, but now with the insistent regularity of prison bars – or heartbeats like hammer blows. Then even these heartbeats die away into the brown hill. Nature holds her breath as the hill stretches diagonally up to the right, along the very axis of the executioner’s sword, and the curving line of the road offers a track for the weapon’s fatal swing.

The painting magnifies God’s conservation and providential governance of creation, through the rhythmically ordered interrelations of all its lines, shapes, colors and volumes, notwithstanding the fact that the picture shows even elements of the natural world co-operating with man’s malevolent act.

In a masterpiece, every shape, every line, every nuance and every note of color, occurs at just the right time and place in the organic unfolding of the whole. The providential choreography of the pictorial elements in a great painting cannot be copied from nature; it must be transposed to the canvas or panel as experienced by the artist internally.

The painter must feel the pressures, the weights, the pushes and pulls of pictorial forces, in all their interrelations; he must know and feel his work from the inside. A painting is a masterpiece insofar as all things in it suffer a rebirth to an existence in which they work together for good — for beauty.  It is produced from, and manifests, a personal relation to the forces of nature, of reality –- to providence, in fact.

Artists and art lovers must cultivate this sensibility, just as Christians must cultivate the love of God in order to see all things working together for good. Both the saint and the true artist see things as a providential arrangement, and both would maintain that their vision is true at a deep level, however shocking and objectionable such faith may appear in the face of all the terrible things that go on.

The sensibility of the saint and that of the artist are as related as the two meanings of the Greek word kalos: “good” and “beautiful.”  What a saint expresses by his words and deeds, and by his very appearance, is the life that wells up within.  Similarly, an artist is always expressing his inner life in his art, no matter what the work’s motif.

Hence the saying of Cosimo de Medici, which became a proverb in Renaissance Florence:  “Every painter paints himself well.” Cosimo was a patron of Blessed Fra Angelico (whose memorial is celebrated in chapels of the Dominican Order on February 18).

Look again at the painting. The execution of these five innocent men takes place in a flowery meadow, with glorious light and color everywhere. The tops of the trees lift triumphantly into the heavens, so that the verticality of their trunks sustains the red-robed kneeling martyr. This is martyrdom seen from a saint’s point of view.

The transformation of perception and materials in art points to the final transfiguration of the cosmos itself (Revelation Chapter 21), and the fulfillment of the heart’s deepest desire.  “Behold,” says the Crucified, “I make all things new.”

 *Image #1: The Martyrdom of Saints Cosmas and Damian and their Companions by Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro), c. 1440 [Musée du Louvre, Paris]

Image #2: Face of God (detail from “Creation of the Sun and Moon”) by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, c. 1510 [Sistine Chapel, Vatican] Included with Maier’s essay.

Okay—I got carried away!

Following: What Others Say — Les

Ever since I discussed the idea of following Jesus in his Ascension to Heaven in the way in which Beatrice scolded Dante for not following her to Heaven in living his life, I have discovered various other sources who defined the meaning of following Jesus. I thought it might be useful for me, and for any readers who are still with me, to include them here, because I noticed that most of them will lead well into the discussion of A Temple of the Holy Ghost and where that funny and profound story ends. I shall start with another relevant Biblical passage wherein we find the image of Jesus the Good Shepherd:

A reading from
the holy Gospel according to John 10:1-10

Jesus said: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever does not enter a sheepfold through the gate but climbs over elsewhere is a thief and a robber. But whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens it for him, and the sheep hear his voice, as he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has driven out all his own, he walks ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they recognize his voice. But they will not follow a stranger; they will run away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.” Although Jesus used this figure of speech, they did not realize what he was trying to tell them.

So Jesus said again, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

Ironically the passage begins with Jesus defining the wrong way to proceed, climbing the wall of the sheepfold, presumably to steal the sheep.  In C. S. Lewis’ Narnian Chronicle, The Magician’s Nephew, there’s a nice gloss on this passage and image: the very evil witch in the story climbs the wall to that garden, to steal the apple that will ensure her immortality.  Since she has entered the wrong way, the apple will work, but not to her pleasure.  The right way into that Eden-like garden is through the gate.  And as Jesus makes clear in his comment following the image here, Jesus is the gate and to follow him is to listen to his voice, and follow his words.

The introduction to the liturgy yesterday, April 22, 2024, provides a clear focus for what it means to follow the shepherd using the Psalmist’s image of “the face of God”:

Monday of the Fourth Week of Easter

“Athirst is my soul for God, the living God. When shall I behold the face of God?” This thirst for the vision of God is planted in us by baptism, a gift from the Holy Spirit. It leads us to hear and recognize Christ’s voice; it moves us to follow him with the confidence that “God has granted life-giving repentance.” Peter’s vision confirms the truth that only Christ’s saving sacrifice makes us clean. At every Mass we “go in to the altar of God” to eat his flesh and drink his blood.  (The April Magnificat)7

The face of God is now understood as the face of Christ, our shepherd. He is the only one who can truly satisfy that desire that we all have for real fulfillment and meaning. The idea and image are the same as presented in the lovely Psalm 63 which begins with the acknowledgment: “O God thou art my God.” The Psalmist continues by revealing that each day in a sense begins with that pursuit: “early will I seek thee.” The nature of his desire is imaged immediately after: “my soul thirsts for thee, my flesh longs after thee, in a barren and dry land where no water is” [quote remembered from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer]. That barren and dry land is where we all live today and where there is only one source of life-giving, fulfilling water. Jesus makes that clear as he tells the much-married Samaritan woman at the well; the only source of that eternal, life-fulfilling water is himself:

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4: 9-14)

The liturgy for April follows yesterday’s good shepherd image with a second account the following day, April 23 from later in the same chapter of John:

A reading from
the holy Gospel according to John 10:22-30

The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.

With what seems like a bit of synchronicity at work in my life, I happened to be reading “Meditation 26” in Father PeterJohn Cameron’s A Brief Primer of Prayer. The entries are fairly short and this one happened to be based on the same image from John. I was going to choose quotes from it and then go to another source I had, but I decided to include the entire meditation since it is quite apt:

Meditation 26

Following is prayer and life is something we learn.

Prayer as a following is an asking for the Good Shepherd to pass on his own vitality and excellence to us.

Of all the apt images Jesus could have chosen to symbolize himself as Savior, he opts for the Good Shepherd. For a good shepherd is all about dedicating himself to the welfare of his sheep, even to the point of radical sacrifice and extreme personal risk. The greatest respect and “esteem” a sheep can show a shepherd is to follow him.

There is something distinctive and attractive about the shepherd—unique. Jesus speaks about the shepherd’s voice (Jn 10:3-5). Following is our response to the attractiveness, the singularity of the Good Shepherd. It is an outward act that expresses our desire to share in the life of the Good Shepherd so as to make our own the truths and values that set him apart. The closer we stay to him, following as his flock, the more we become our true selves.

Life is something we learn by following Someone who is fully alive. The following of prayer is an asking for the Good Shepherd to pass on his own vitality and excellence to us. Following means committing our whole self to the exceptional Shepherd, offering to him our personality, our intelligence, our freedom. Following changes us. Following is a way of acknowledging that things in our life need to change.

Cardinal Ratzinger wrote: “‘Following’ is something interior: a new direction for one’s life—surrendered to the will of another, so that being with this other and being at his disposal are now the really important content of a human existence. ‘To follow’ means to entrust oneself to the Word of God, to rate it higher than the laws of money and bread, and to live by it. Only in losing themselves can human beings find themselves. To follow Christ, then, means to enter into the self-surrender that is the real heart of love. To follow Christ means to become one who loves as God has loved. In the last analysis, to follow Christ is simply for people to become human by integration into the humanity of God.”

We can begin to follow by joining in this beautiful prayer of a 14th-century abbot, Venerable Raymond Jourdain:

O good Lord Jesus Christ, my sweet Shepherd, what return shall I make to you for all that you have given me? What shall I give you in exchange for your gift of yourself to me? Even if I could give myself to you a thousand times, it would still be nothing, since I am nothing in comparison with you. Although I cannot love you as much as I should, you accept my weak love. Give me your most ardent love by which, with your grace, I shall love you, please you, serve you, and fulfill your commands. May I never be separated from you, either in time or in eternity, but abide, united to you in love, forever and ever. Amen.

And then I found Bishop Baron’s “reflection” on today’s Gospel. He adds an interesting perspective on following Jesus—the nature of the end of the journey:

Fourth Week of Easter

John 10:22–30

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus explains why his sheep listen to him and follow him. They do so because he is leading them to eternal life.

He says, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.” The life of heaven, where we “shall never perish,” is that place where death and sickness have no power over us, where we see God face-to-face.

Heaven and earth are always connected in the biblical imagination; that’s true. But heaven should never be reduced to earth, as though religion is just about this-worldly ethics, social justice, or psychological well-being. No; the Christian faith is about a journey beyond this world to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Everything in the Christian life—from our ethical behavior, to prayer, to the liturgy, to works of justice—all of it is meant to conduce to that end. So listen to the voice of the shepherd and follow him wherever he goes.

Here is a final perspective on what it means to follow Jesus, the shepherd:

Following Jesus means nothing other than reproducing his virtues in ourselves, in order to do all things well. It is trying to assume his imprint on our bodies and our souls that we might be entirely transformed into him. He passed through this world doing good. He did all things well. He cannot see suffering without being compassionate. Wherever he finds pain, he consoles and brings sweetness to the suffering, as much in his earthly life as in the Holy Eucharist, because the heart of Jesus does not change. The Good Shepherd, he says, knows his sheep and he is pleased that they know him. “I have other sheep,” he says, “but that one grieves me and I want it to return to my fold.” He would welcome sinners and he would be all things to all men.

When one strikes a harp, it responds only with harmony. When petals are removed from a flower, it gives its best perfume. The good soul is both a harp and a flower. When it is wounded by criticism and torn apart by ingratitude, it can only respond with harmony and the perfume of goodness. How beautiful are the souls that seem to pulsate with self-sacrifice and with kindness.

Jesus’ obedience was even to the point of death on the cross in order to save us. His mortification subjected him to the grind of everyday work. His zeal moved him to go from town to town healing the sick, consoling, teaching—becoming all things for all men. That is our model. The one who went about doing good. People would say, “Goodness itself has appeared in our midst.” And we have that Goodness—that crucified Jesus—within our grasp in the Holy Eucharist and in our hearts…. Jesus here poses the spirit of self-renunciation and mortification as the indispensable condition for following him, for imitating him, for going through this world performing good works. He invites us to taste the sweet pain of a life of voluntary sacrifice, in union with him.

Blessed Concepción Cabrera de Armida

Blessed Concepción († 1937), also known as “Conchita,” was a wife, mother, widow, and mystical writer. She was the first Mexican laywoman to be beatified.

Coda: it occurred to me early this morning that if following Christ involves prayer, then it would be fitting to end with one. Thus, here is a prayer by Saint Thomas Aquinas:

Grant me,

O Lord my God,

A mind to know you,

A heart to seek you,

Wisdom to find you,

Conduct pleasing to you,

Faithful perseverance in waiting for you,

And a hope of finally embracing you.

Amen.

THE EMPTY SCHOOLYARD - LES

Both of the verses below are based on memories of real experiences. In “Absence” it was Saturday afternoon, and my parents were off to the country for some reason which I have forgotten, and I w as off with them. Reluctantly, of course. I was probably 10 or 11, having finished the fifth grade. I had arranged to meet my young lady friend, Mary Kay, at our grade school playground at four o’clock. I kept reminding my parents of the importance of that rendezvous and they kept reassuring me that we would be home in time.

It turned out that we were 15 minutes late getting home. Alas! In great eagerness, nevertheless, I ran the two blocks from our house to the Miami school playground, only to encounter absolute emptiness. I was devastated, of course. The emptiness was overwhelming. She wasn’t there, she hadn’t waited, I assumed. Thus I slowly returned home, probably angry at my parents for frustrating my desire, angry at her for not waiting. The experience of the empty playground, however, and my frustrated will, became for me a major image of Hell, that absolute emptiness, no person there but me, and my will, an image I then used and developed in a public lecture on Dante’s Hell for a sophomore course at Berea College.

The final irony in the experience though was that I found out on the following Monday that she hadn’t remembered we were to meet there and thus had not gone at all. She and I were also at another time to go together to a movie one Saturday or Sunday afternoon. That didn’t work out well for me either. I walked the mile to her house, but she couldn’t leave then to go with me because her parents and she had company, guests. We agreed, therefore, to meet at the theater, the Ritz theater, the only theater in Tiffin, since I was told to go on. We were to meet on the left side of the theater. Of that I am absolutely certain. There were two rows, three sections. I sat on the outside seat next to the row in the middle section, on the left side of the theater, so as not to miss her; she of course, it turned out, went to the right side. I never found her then, and walked sorrowfully home alone after the movie which was probably a western. More desolation. Girls!

Absence

My parents made me go with them

To a country destination.

They made me late for a fifth grade date;

O, vanity and desolation!

We were to meet at the schoolyard,

Perhaps at half past four;

When I arrived she wasn’t there;

I was alone just like before.

The schoolyard was so empty;

No one on the swings.

It seemed as though this was the worst

That life could ever bring.

In later years I saw the place,

As an image of broad Hell:

All alone in a schoolyard

And nary a soul to tell.

The next one is about a neighbor’s child who with several of her friends went trick or treating one chilly Halloween evening. She lived two doors down the street from us. Her parents are good people, still there. We are still here, two doors up the street. Later in life she contracted some hideous cancer and died at age eighteen, on a blustery March day, 2005. She was a beautiful child and becoming a beautiful adult. She died; no one knows why. Neither do I. The cancer was unbeatable. What we desire in life, however, are answers, final causes. Meaning that makes sense. Purpose.

Sara

When she knocked that Halloween,

I jumped back with a start!

I gave her all our candy,

But I would have given my heart.

She was a child enjoying life,

Innocent of adult-made strife.

The monster thing that stole her life,

A looming shadow in the night.

That shadow follows each of us,

From dusk to dawn, dawn to dusk.

It caught her in her early days;

Death devours, so many ways.

Yet, always life is ours to praise.

Amen and Alleluia.