Salty Words

Walking the Labyrinth—August 7, 2009—Mary Magdalene is believed by some to be the wife of Jesus. The foremost proponents of this article of faith, though, are ones who know—and almost certainly believe—little else about Mary Magdalene or her purported Husband. Members of the Russian Orthodox Church—and other Christians who continue to use the old Julian calendar—celebrate the feast of St Mary Magdalene today—and venerate her as “The Holy Myrrh-Bearer and Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary of Magdala.” So, laying the gobbledygook of the Da Vinci Code in the same trash heap as claims that the pyramids have an extraterrestrial origin because the Egyptians were too stupid to have built them or that Kentucky Fried Chicken is clandestinely controlled owned by the Ku Klux Klan which is using the profits to develop a new “secret recipe” to make black Americans incapable of reproduction (there are websites devoted to both these theories), what’s the real juicy story about Mary Magdalene? That the first Easter morning, Jesus chose to reveal Himself to her first of all. Women in the ancient world weren’t allowed to serve as witnesses. Their testimony wasn’t accepted as having any legal or societal value. The risen Jesus chose her as His first witness and sent her as a witness to His disciples, who were all still in hiding, afraid for their lives. The Gospel story is far more compelling than the anemic fiction that she was Jesus’ girlfriend. Russian icons of St Mary Magdalene graphically display her role on the first Easter Day. She is always depicted holding a red Easter egg on which is inscribed in Cyrillic letters the words “Christ is risen.” The Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Nerva Traianus, commonly known as Trajan, died today of a stroke, in AD 117. During his nineteen year rule, the empire reached its widest geographical limits, and enjoyed peace and prosperity. The historian Edward Gibbon called Trajan one of the Five Good Emperors—not bad considering there were 170 of them! After his death, the Senate instituted a prayer for every succeeding emperor: felicior Augusto, melior Traiano, meaning “May he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan.” The next time you go through a revolving door, thank Theophilus Van Kannel. On this day, in 1877, he patented the “Van Kannel Revolving Storm Door.” Although the world’s first revolving door was installed at Rector’s, a restaurant on Times Square in Manhattan, Van Kannel originally tried to market his doors to homeowners. He also invented and owned the Witching Waves attraction at Coney Island and for some years it was the Witching Waves rather than the revolving door that made Van Kannel a wealthy man. In 1620, Katharina Kepler, admittedly a feisty old woman, was arrested for witchcraft. Her son, Johannes, yes, the famous astronomer, directed her defense. Though it took more than two years, he finally won her case. The first potatoes were planted in Hawaii on August 7, 1820, by a newly-arrived group of Congregationalist missionaries. They introduced New England cuisine—potatoes, apples, salted cod, corned beef, butter, and cheese—to the Hawaiians, believing this, and the replacement of hula skirts with hoop skirts, would lead the natives to eternity. They’re still eating poi. Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born today in 1876. Forty one years later, at the height of World War I, she was convicted of spying for the Germans and executed by a French firing squad. Earlier in her life, while living in Indonesia, she studied dancing, Hindu mysticism and the arts of the Oriental courtesan. She changed her name to Mata Hari (“the eye of the Sun”), moved to Paris and hired an agent. She achieved overnight success in the theater and became mistress to some of Europe’s most powerful businessmen, military officers and politicians. Wilhelm, the Crown Prince of Germany, was enamored of her and paid for her lavish lifestyle from his own pocket. During the early days of the First World War, she was questioned by British intelligence officers and told them she was a French spy. The French denied it—and they were probably telling the truth. Most of her biographers think she claimed to be a spy because it sounded exotic and would add to her mystique. If that was her intention, she succeeded. French intelligence officials began watching her and built a case—now regarded as flimsy—claiming she was a German double agent. She was executed in a deserted army camp outside Paris at dawn, on October 15, 1917. The popular press of the day reported that, just as the soldiers were about to fire, she flung open her full-length coat to reveal her naked body and cried, “Harlot, yes, traitor, never!” Eyewitnesses dispute the account, but all agree her last act was to blow a kiss to her executioners. In 1957, Oliver Hardy (he was the fat one) died of cancer at his home in North Hollywood. Together with his good friend, Stan Laurel, Hardy (born Norvell) made twenty-three full length films over twenty years. His Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is at 1500 Vine Street, just at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Napoleon Bonaparte famously said with enough ribbon, he could conquer Europe. General George Washington was more sparing. During the American Revolution the General created the Badge of Military Merit, a military order for soldiers who exhibited, “not only instances of unusual gallantry in battle, but also extraordinary fidelity…” Unlike European military medals, however, which were only awarded to high-ranking officers, Washington wanted to create an award for common soldiers. The Badge was designed by Washington himself. It was, he wrote, to be a “figure of a Heart in Purple Cloth or Silk, edged with narrow lace or binding.” During the entire course of the Revolution, he awarded only three of them. The recipients were Sergeant William Brown of the 5th Connecticut Regiment, Sergeant Elijah Churchill of the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons and Sergeant Daniel Bissell of the 2nd Connecticut Regiment. After the War, the General discontinued the order. It was re-introduced on George Washington’s birthday in 1932 by the War Department with a new name: the Order of the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in combat. In Oxford, on August 7, 1970, Tarawood Antigone, a brown Burmese cat, gave birth to 19 kittens. It was, and still is, the largest number of cats born to a single litter. The father was a half-Siamese whose whereabouts remain unknown. The old Roman calendar reckons today as ante diem VII Idus Augusti. This is the 219th day of the year; 146 days remain. Today is the last day of both Intimate Apparel Week (surely a popular day in the hallowed halls of Congress) and the United Nations’ Worldwide Breastfeeding Week. More disturbingly, tomorrow ends National Clown Week (no DC asides from me here—I wouldn’t know how to stop).

ALL THE FOCUS ON SILENCE with Agatho’s Stone elicited an curious letter from a friend this week on the “other side” of silence. Liz, who maintains a website of those suffering chronic pain, sent me an excerpt from a letter she had from a woman who believes she ought to speak only when her words meet Scriptural requirements—i.e., her words must always benefit someone. My initial response is why there aren’t more people like this living in California, but I know it’s a selfish thought. Liz’ correspondent quoted a verse from the New Testament, which the King James translators rendered: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” As I pondered this odd preoccupation with a single Bible verse, I couldn’t help but connect it to Agatho’s silence. Agatho’s stone was to help him “learn” silence, but the books of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers attribute quite a few words to Agatho, wise and sometimes bold. His silence didn’t shut him up. His stone taught him there were times for silence and times for speech. His speech was powerful because he didn’t open his mouth to give utterance to his every passing thought. His silence taught him how to speak—and what to say.

Aristotle defines man as the animal who speaks. We speak, other animals don’t (regardless of how much it may sound like your dog is trying to). Since we all talk, even Liz’ friend, it’s what we have to say that matters. “Speech is the mirror of the soul,” said Publius Syrus 2100 years ago in Rome. “As a man speaks, so he is.” The consummate politician, Monsieur Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, a cynic if ever one lived, takes a contrary view: “Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.” Subtle, very French. With Bartlett’s Quotations in hand, we could amass an army of quotations about the use (and misuse) of speech, but I think this unlikely joining of Publius and Talleyrand is just what we need to consider how we speak as we walk the labyrinth, and what to suggest about Liz’ sincere and very serious friend.

Publius, Talleyrand, certainly Aristotle and Agatho all would agree speech has power. How we speak, what we say, can reflect our hard-to-see souls or hide them. In the Book of Genesis, at the very beginning of the Bible, we see something else very basic about words. God speaks and His words create. “Dixitque Deus ‘Fiat lux’ et facta est lux.” “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light." (When God speaks, all my instincts tell me He speaks in Latin.) Words are creative and when you and I speak, we create something. We can’t say “Fiat currus” and have an automobile appear, but without words, there would be no such things as automobiles. How did you feel the last time someone you love told you they loved you? How did you feel when someone you respected called you stupid? This is the power of speech. Words create and destroy, they wound and heal.

Most obviously, though, words communicate. They allow us to speak and listen to each other (your dog, through her whines and barks and the odd sounds she makes when she wakes you up at 2 AM, is communicating something, but because she can’t speak, you have to guess—and we don’t always guess aright!). Words express love and hate; passion and indifference. With them, we join God as creators. Speech is a gift, a sharing of the divine. There are times when we tread softly and silently along our labyrinthine path; but there are times we cry or laugh, times we speak to encourage, times we reach out because we don’t want to be alone. Sometimes we speak because the beauty that overwhelms us must be shared. Silence opens us to God; words open us to each other. Our walk through the twisting curves of the labyrinth makes plain we are made for both.

St Paul said something more about speech: “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt…” Not bland, maybe a little spicy, and most emphatically alive.


FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, I plucked Kwaidan, loaned by my pal Melissa and recommended as “some of the scariest stuff you’ll ever read.” In Japanese, Kwaidan means “weird tales” and that they are. The book is a collection of strange stories collected from 1000 years of Japanese story-telling by Lafcadio Hearn, an old favorite of mine. Hearn lived in New Orleans after the Civil War and wrote about the jazz of Jellyroll Morton, the birth of Creole restaurants and the demise of the steamboats. Then, unexpectedly, he chucked everything in 1890 and moved to Japan, where he remained for the rest of his life. He published Kwaidan in 1905, his own translations—with some notes to help his English readers—of tales of ghosts, goblins and spirits which intrude into the lives of the Japanese peasant and feudal warlord alike. It’s not the scariest book I ever read—that honor belongs to a book on 20th century American politics—but it is a book that allows its reader to step back into the soul of a vanished world. It’s much more like reading an unexpurgated version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales than it is a Stephen King horror book—but since I’ve never read one of King’s novels, it’s a one-sided comparison. The tales depict a world where people not only believe in tree spirits and flesh-eating goblins, they live in expectation of encountering them. There are beautiful fifteen-year old girls just about to marry whose sudden death reveals a mystery (most of the young women who die in these tales are fifteen—I don’t know what significance that holds); samurai who break their vows and suffer supernatural consequences; a stock character in many of these stories is a wandering Zen priest, who sometimes steps in to make things right, and sometimes, like the Pharisee in the parable, passes trouble by on the far side of the road. There’s an surprising story about a cruel samurai who outwits the ghost of a man he unjustly executed; another about a ghost who summons a blind bard to sing to the dead in a graveyard. In all seventeen stories in just 240 pages—if you pick up the book (you can buy a new copy on Amazon for about $5.00), plan to spend a few evenings venturing back to medieval Japan. Buy some good green tea to go with it.



QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:

“I am a woman who enjoys herself very much; sometimes I lose, sometimes I win.”—Mata Hari

“Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife.”—Johannes Kepler

“You are dunces. Do with me what you want. Even if you were to pull one vein after another out of my body, however, I would have nothing to admit.”—Katharina Kepler, when shown the instruments she could have been (but was not) tortured with

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”—President George Washington

“My door possesses numerous advantages over a hinged-door structure: it is perfectly noiseless, effectually prevents the entrance of wind, snow, rain or dust and it cannot be blown open by the wind . . . there is no possibility of collision, and yet persons can pass both in and out at the same time."— Theophilus Van Kannel (this is the only quote I could find; admittedly it’s hard to be moved by these words but remember, this man also invented a ride in an amusement park)

“Regimes may fall and fail, but I do not."—Talleyand

“Treason is a matter of dates."--Talleyrand

“I don't know much, but I know a little about a lot of things.”— Oliver Hardy