Beyond Barstow

Walking the Labyrinth-January 15, 2010—Every now and then, the story of one of the saints delights the funny bone as much as the soul. St Ceolwulf is one such, even if at times he didn’t find his situation humorous. On the calendar of saints, he is listed as both a King and a monk, which was not how Ceolwulf planned to be remembered. According to the 1200 year old Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, recounting the history of early England, “Ceolwulf was the son of Cutha, Cutha of Cuthwin, Cuthwin of Leoldwald, Leoldwald of Egwald, Egwald of…” (you get the point; these lists go back almost to Adam). Ceolwulf succeeded to the throne of Northumbria (that part of England just below the Scottish border; York was its capital) about 729. As a young man he’d been educated by monks and was more a scholar than a warrior—and the times called for a warrior. Northumbria had been at war with neighboring princedoms for five generations before he was crowned and the wars would continue 100 years after Ceolwulf’s death. The new King announced to his noblemen he intended to “busy himself in learning the arts of warfare,” but after two years he was still absorbed in his books and had yet to pick up a sword. One night he was abducted by a group of noble conspirators and taken to a monastery, where the waiting abbot tonsured him a monk on the spot. He was locked in a cell and for months refused to talk to anyone. Coelwulf blamed the monks, the nobles and, no doubt, God Himself for his plight. When he was allowed to join in the common life of the monastery, he complained of the strict diet and uncomfortable accommodations. The noblemen of Northumbria, free of the king, fell to squabbling and then to fighting with each other. Eventually they decided life under the bookish king was better than civil war, so they fetched him back to York. Though Coelwulf initially relished the prospect of being a king, as he faced the day-to-day problems of ruling, Coelwulf began to miss his books and long for the solitude of the monastery. St Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of England, tells us that after a reign of about five years, Coelwulf, “wearied of the splendid cares of royalty,” called together his nobles and announced his retirement to the monastery of Lindisfarne (famous for its library). Before retiring, however, Coelwulf used his royal influence to change some of the rules. The monks’ diet was improved to allow them, among other things, to drink beer and wine at meals (before this they drank only water). Cells were to be warmed with stoves. Perhaps most importantly, monks were allowed to take books to their rooms. The king-turned monk lived a life of contentment and peace for almost 30 years before he died in his warm cell on January 15, 765. He was known for his piety, love of learning and good nature. Roman history knows few years as tumultuous as AD 69, called The Year of the Four Emperors. They call it that because four Emperors reigned during the one year. Servius Sulpicus Galba was first of the four. After Nero committed suicide in June of AD 68 (he had been declared an outlaw and was sentenced to be beaten to death when found), the Senate called on Galba (commander of the Roman legions in Germany) to replace the dead emperor. It’s a mistake to put someone In Charge when you don’t know them, a lesson the Senate was not to learn that year. Galba made his way to Rome, extorting money from cities along the way. By the time he got to the Eternal City, news of his money-grasping ways had preceded him. He quickly ran afoul of the Senate and people by threatening to raise taxes and revoke their long-standing privileges. He sealed his fate, however, when he told the Praetorian Guard (the soldiers in charge of the Emperor’s palace) he wasn’t sharing any of his newly-acquired wealth with them. By the New Year, gamblers were openly taking bets as to how long the Emperor had to live. On January 15, Galba realized he was in trouble. He went out into the streets to gather supporters to demonstrate on his behalf, but couldn’t find any. Instead, a group of disgruntled soldiers stabbed him to death and left his body in the street. It was an bad beginning to what would be one of the worst years in Roman history. On January 15, 1622, the French playwright Jean Baptiste Pouqelin, who is known to us by his nom de plume, Moliere, was born. His father held a position at Court: “Valet in Ordinary of the King's Chamber and Keeper of the Royal Carpets and Upholstery.” In addition to a generous salary, the position allowed his father to grow rich with contracts and connections. Jean Baptiste was being groomed to take his father’s place when, at 21, he announced his desire to become an actor instead (a career which, at the time carried a distinct social onus). He formed a troupe with Madeleine Bejar, one of the most beautiful actresses of the day (Bejar brought her legendary beauty to the deal while the young Jean Baptiste contributed the start-up money—it’s an old story); for 12 years they toured. During this time Jean Baptiste changed his name to Moliere, probably to save his father the embarrassment of having an actor in the family. He began writing satires and comedies for his actors, and his barbed wit began to attract a following. In 1655, the Duke of Orleans (brother to the “Sun King,” Louis XIV) became his patron and within a few years Moliere’s troupe performed for the King himself at the royal theater in the Louvre. Over the following decade, Moliere’s successes followed one on another. His two greatest comedies, Tartuffe, ou L'Imposteur (Tartuffe, or, The Hypocrite) and Le Misanthrope were preformed for the King at Versailles. While both were condemned by the clergy at court (a bishop publicly burned the text of Tartuffe outside the palace), Moliere enjoyed the King’s protection and patronage. Though he wrote many of the plays his troupe performed, Moliere loved to act. While playing the role of a hypochondriac in his newly-written play Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), Moliere began coughing and bleeding—many thought it an extraordinary performance—until they realized the blood was real. Moliere not only insisted the play should continue, but that he continue in his role. After the play he collapsed and was taken to his apartment, where the hemorrhaging became more severe. A doctor told the actors gathered around him to send for a priest, but two refused to come when they learned who was waiting for the Last Rites. When a third priest did arrive, it was only in time to bless Moliere’s corpse. Because he was an actor, France’s greatest playwright was refused burial in consecrated ground. Daniel Raap was a well-to-do porcelain merchant in Amsterdam. In his late forties, the Dutchman developed political aspirations and became active in one of Amsterdam’s political clubs. On January 10, 1754, while talking to friends on the street in front of his shop, he was killed by a runaway carriage. A sad tale, but not especially remarkable. Daniel’s funeral was held at the Oudekerk, the oldest church in the city (now in the heart of Amsterdam’s red-light district), on January 15. While his body was being carried to the churchyard for burial, a few of his political rivals made light of his fate. They were overheard by some of Daniel’s friends, who not only took umbrage, but attacked and beat the jokers. Someone drew a sword (a good reason not to allow people with weapons in church) and stabbed one of the pallbearers. The clergy ran back into the cathedral as the graveyard erupted into what would become a six-hour riot. Over 300 people were injured, several mortally. Daniel Raap was buried in secret, during the middle of the night, by a clergyman and four gravediggers, who performed one of the speediest burials in Dutch history. The famous American cartoonist, Thomas Nast, published a cartoon in the January 15, 1870 edition of Harpers’ Weekly Magazine. It was titled “A Live Jackass Kicks a Dead Lion,” and, for the first time, a jackass was used to symbolize the Democratic Party. Four years later, in another cartoon for the same magazine, Nast labeled an elephant “The Republican Vote.” Nast’s ideas seem appropriate, though today we might choose other animals—or plants—to symbolize our political leaders and their parties. Babe Ruth was near the height of his fame when, on January 15, 1928, he signed a fresh contract with the New York Yankees. It was for $155,000.00 (that used to be a lot of money—now it buys a garage in Los Angeles). As he left his lawyer’s office, a newspaperman asked the Babe if it seemed right to him that he made more money that year than the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover (whose salary was $75,000.00). Ruth quipped, “Well, I had a better year than he did.” That’s a reply worth remembering. On January 15, 1971, with great fanfare after years of false starts and problems, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt officially opened the Aswan High Dam. It produces 15% of Egypt’s electricity and was the most spectacular accomplishment of Nasser’s administration. But the story of the High Dam is a story of Unintended Consequences. Designed by Russian architects unfamiliar with the Egyptian countryside and the cycles of the Nile, the dam turned huge amounts of land around it into a lake—which, unsurprisingly, was named Lake Nasser (the lake is called something else by the Sudanese, who were not consulted about the project but whose lands were nevertheless flooded). The lake was much larger than expected and displaced more than 60,000 Nubians whose ancestors had lived along the banks of the Nile for over 6,000 years. They were relocated, partially at government expense, to the shores of the new lake. However, since the Nubians are neither Arab nor Muslim, their plight was largely ignored by the Egyptian government. That leads to the second great Unintended Consequence, a bit delicious in its irony. The Nile floods every year. For thousands of years the annual flood has renewed Egypt. The rich soils of the African interior are deposited on the banks of the river during the flood, from Upper Nubia (northern Sudan) to the shores of the Mediterranean. The dam allows the government to control the flooding of the river in northern Egypt, but the planners forgot about the nutrient-rich soil deposits. Those can’t pass through the dam, so they end up around the shores of Lake Nasser, where the despised Nubians now live—and farm. A crisis has been brewing in Egypt ever since, because the Egyptian farmers north of the High Dam are now deprived of the nutrients of the Nile. The Nubians haven’t had it so good since the days of their ancient Kings and the fabled “gold of Nubia.” Nubian gold, nowadays, comes in the form of mineral deposits courtesy of Russian engineers who saw the annual flood of the Nile only as a nuisance to be overcome. This is the 15th day of the year; there are 350 days remaining in 2010 and only 344 shopping days left till Christmas. On the ancient Roman calendar, today is ante diem xviii kalendas Februarias, and the second day of the Carmentalia, a feast celebrating Carmenta, the goddess of childbirth (and a sort of Roman “Mothers’ Day”—so why not send your mom a Carmentalia card). On January 15, 1951, Patti Page topped America’s music charts with her recording of “The Tennessee Waltz.” It’s the 81st birthday of Ida Lewis Guillory, the accordion playin’ “Queen of Zydeco”—and her fingers are still playin’ them plastic keys.


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Joan tells me in an email she visited a Coptic monastery out in the California desert, beyond Barstow. I know the place well. Beyond Barstow is right. When you get off the I-15, drawn by the small sign that reads “St Anthony the Great Coptic Monastery,” you travel a dozen miles or so on a road it’s generous to call “unpaved.” It’s jarring both to body and (if not soul, at least) mind, and I had a headache long before I reached the place the first time I went. My later jaunts along that “road” were uncomfortable, but as I knew what waited at the other end, vale la pena, as the Spanish goes. As some of you know, I traveled to Las Vegas from Los Angeles once every three or four weeks for more than ten years to minister to St Edward the Confessor Church in Henderson, Nevada. The people were a joy, but the next time I go to Vegas it will be in the devil’s pocket, after I’ve died, having been declared unfit for purgatorial rehabilitation: Vegas will be my first stop on the way to hell. For years, as I made the drive from Los Angeles, I saw the monastery’s little sign hanging on a fence along the Interstate. I always ignored it, convinced it was some aberrant group too bizarre even for Los Angeles. When I did visit, at Tanya’s urging (who was making the trip with me), it was unwillingly, more to prove the point that there was nothing good to be found at the road’s end. As we bounced along mile after mile, I repeated some variant of “There are better ways to spend time than this.” When we arrived, I was shocked. Hundreds of cars sat together inside a large compound on the heat-cracked floor of the Mojave Desert. A bunch of ugly buildings clustered on one part of the acreage, but the scene was alive with people—teen-agers for the most part—olive-skinned, black-headed, smiling and waving a welcome. Not what I expected.

A young monk made his way through the crowd to where I’d parked and bowed. He kissed me on both cheeks, welcomed us in imperfect English, and asked us to follow him to meet the abbot. It was as if we were expected. The abbot was surrounded with a cluster of monks, nuns and many young people when we were brought into the hall where he was talking. He stopped, came up to me, kissed my cheeks and my hand (I was in clericals and it’s the custom of Eastern Christians to kiss the hands of priests) and welcomed me. I protested I didn’t want to interrupt, that we only came to…but I never finished. He said to me “You have come as a blessing to us, sent by Christ our God.” How does a cynical, know-it-all priest like me respond to that? He sent the children away and insisted we eat. They fed us delightful Egyptian food (I now know why the children of Israel grumbled at Moses that he’d taken them away from the “fleshpots of Egypt”) and asked about my work. I spoke briefly about my duties as rector of St Mary’s in Hollywood, my role as Dean of California and Nevada, and my seemingly endless “supply” work at St Edward’s in Henderson. He smiled, took my hand and said “It is wonderful to be used up by the Lord, isn’t it? You are empty of yourself and so full of God’s blessing for others.” Again, I couldn’t respond to such certain and uncomplaining faith. He spoke of himself, not me.

After we ate, he sent Tanya off with the nuns and asked me to come with him to the chapel. It was—by my refined liturgical standards—quite primitive. As we entered, though, he stopped and had me remove my shoes, as he did. “Father,” he whispered, “we are entering a Holy Place, and must take off our shoes as Moses did before the Bush that burned with God.” I followed him to a back corner and we sat on the floor (the Copts have no pews in their churches); then for the next hour and a half, we talked about prayer. He wanted me to teach him! Happily, I turned the tables there (knowing that if I presumed to teach this saintly man about the topic Satan himself would have torn open the desert floor and dragged me straight to perdition, no ifs, ands or buts. Instead, I questioned him, and he spoke with elegant simplicity about a topic of which he was a master. His words were a joy for an old cynic to hear, like cool waters poured on the heat-cracked floor of the desert.

Some things he told me I can’t share, some things I treasure simply as Scripture tells us Mary kept some things in her immaculate heart. After we talked, we sat silently for a while, praying the Jesus Prayer. When we left the chapel, the abbot, Father Karas, had the monks call all the young people to the monastery patio. I asked him if they were here for a retreat; he said no, this was normal—Coptic families from southern California, Nevada and northern Arizona came to the monastery every weekend. I could understand why, bumpy road and all. He then spoke to them. “Father Wilcox is a priest from St Mary’s Parish in Los Angeles. He and his people love the Mother of God like we do, and the Lord has sent him to us today to bless us.” A monk appeared with a large bucket full of holy water and handed me a big stalk of hyssop. I splashed it on them liberally, amid much laughing and smiling, and hundreds of young people kissed my hands. As we went to the car, Father Karas pressed an icon of the Blessed Virgin in my hands (it now hangs in the altar guild sacristy of St Mary’s); we kissed each other on the cheeks and Tanya and I headed back down the bumpy road—I don’t think either of us thought to complain.

Father Karas and I corresponded frequently over the following years. I visited him at St Anthony’s and we spoke on the floor of the chapel again. In technical terms, he was not my spiritual director, but much of my growth in grace during those years was through his words and, I know, because of his prayers. In 1993, Fr Karas was made a bishop of the Coptic Church by the Patriarch of Alexandria (Egypt, not Virginia), Pope Shenouda III, but he always signed his letters to me, “Your brother, Karas, the monk.”

I didn’t visit him before I left California, intending to do so when I returned later this year—I’d already scheduled a retreat. Now I’ve learned he died. That day in the desert years ago, Father Karas, the man who lived with Christ, was less than 30 years old. His faith and words, though, embodied the timeless wisdom and piety of his Coptic past. It lived in him, emptied him, and enabled him to fill others with New Life. I won’t say “May he rest in peace,” but instead, “Karas, monk of God, pray for me.”

Beyond Bartow indeed, Joan.

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QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:

St Bede of Jarrow—“He alone loves the Creator perfectly who manifests a pure love for his neighbor.”

Moliere—“It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I'm right.”

“It's true Heaven forbids some pleasures, but a compromise can usually be found.”

Louis XIV (the “Sun King”)—“I very nearly had to wait!”

Babe Ruth—“You just can’t beat the person that never gives up.”

Gamal Abdel Nasser—“The genius of Americans is that they never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make the rest of us wonder at the possibility that we might be missing something.”