Me, Myself and I

Walking the Labyrinth—January 29, 2010— Far down the list of saints on the Church Calendar today (after the archbishops and bishops, like St Caesarius or St Sabinian and martyrs like Sts Papias and Maurinus) is St Blath. Not an archbishop or bishop, not even a priest, St Blath (pronounced “Blah”) was—still is, for that matter—a woman. She was not a queen or princess but for many years a scullery maid, then a cook for St Brigit’s convent on the plains of Cill-Dara (Kildare). And what a cook! Her stews and pastries became the stuff of legend, but her renown came from her hospitality. There are stories of her miraculously feeding hundreds of hungry people from a single stew-pot, but these tell us more about her character than her cookware. No person, says her medieval biography, “left except his belly was filled with good food and his heart warmed by kind words.” All of us can be kind and generous now and then. For St Blath it was a way of life, feeding both body and soul of those in need. Not much more is known of her, but those things tell us enough to assure us she’s rightly enrolled with the Saints. Her symbols, quite properly, are a spoon, a kettle—and a small Irish flower called the Common Shepherd’s Purse. Few have lived such a roller-coaster life as Thomas “these are the times that try men’s souls” Paine, the pamphleteer of the American Revolution. Born on January 29, 1737 in Thetford, England, he was the son of a corset-maker. He apprenticed to his father's trade while a boy, but ran away to sea, looking for adventure. Finding a sailor’s life and the salt-sea air less than salubrious, he returned before long to his apprenticeship. In 1759, he married and set up his own corset shop. Within a year, his business was bankrupt and his new wife dead. Paine then turned to government work, finding a position as a tax-assessor, but after a few years was dismissed for “neglect of duty.” He returned to corset-making but also applied for ordination as a priest in the Church of England (the fact that he was uncertain as to whether he believed in God proved a hindrance, although he wouldn’t have been the first—or last—clergyman to compromise his agnosticism for ecclesiastical promotion—remember the famous Vicar of Bray). When his application was rejected, Paine moved to London and became a schoolteacher, shortly thereafter marrying his landlord’s daughter. With money from his father-in-law, he set up a tobacco shop. The old man also helped Paine get back his old job with the tax-assessor’s office. Before too long, however, he’d been fired again (for the same reason); his tobacco shop likewise failed. To avoid debtor’s prison, Paine boarded a ship to Boston, armed with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin (he never saw or communicated with his wife again). Paine stepped off the ship on November 30, 1774, to find America in turmoil. The colonies were buzzing with talk of revolution. With the help of his letter from Franklin, Paine soon secured the editorship of a Philadelphia newspaper. From the start he advocated breaking America’s ties with England, and his writing proved popular. The newspaper flourished; Tom Paine had found a niche at last. He published his immensely popular Common Sense early in 1776—it sold 100,000 copies, an almost unheard of number at that time—one in twenty Americans bought it, many more read it (or had it read to them). His stream of pamphlets bolstered the war effort through the darkest days of the Revolution. He made a fortune writing against the policies of Great Britain, but Paine surprised everyone by returning to England after the Revolution. There, he embroiled himself in controversies political and religious. He supported the unpopular French Revolution (with his pamphlet The Rights of Man) and traveled to France to see it firsthand. Though he spoke no French, his fame in America preceded him: he was given citizenship in the new Republic and elected to the National Assembly. But Paine was out of his depth: in the volatile world of revolutionary France, making friends with some unknowingly made him enemies with others. Before he knew it, he was imprisoned by orders of Robespierre himself and scheduled for a visit to “Madame Guillotine.” By an odd series of flukes, Paine's cell was overlooked when they filled the tumbrel the day of his appointment; before his execution could be re-scheduled, Robespierre himself fell victim to the French “national razor.” Paine was released. At that point, France would have lost its charm for most of us but not Tom Paine. He stayed on through the first years of Napoleon, quite taken with the future Emperor. When he actually got to known the Corsican, disillusionment did set in, and Paine wrote “he is the completest charlatan that ever existed." Shortly thereafter—very shortly thereafter when his remarks were published, he decided it was time to leave France for good. Returning to America, Paine immediately began a one-sided feud with George Washington, who, he believed, hadn’t done enough to rescue him from French prison. In that prison, Paine had written the longest of his books, The Age of Reason, an attack on religion in general and Christianity in particular. Like his earlier books, it was a best-seller; unlike his other works, it won for him an almost universal loathing in both America and England. Vilified by most of its readers, the book soured Paine’s reputation as quickly as his Common Sense had earlier won him acclaim. He was referred to as a “lily-livered cynical rogue", a "loathsome reptile", and a host of epithets even today’s newspapers wouldn’t print. He died quietly, alone, and widely disliked, seven years later; only six people attended his funeral. His obituary, in the New York Citizen, read: “He lived long, did some good and much harm." His bones were disinterred by a later admirer—and have disappeared. On January 29, 1845, Edgar Allen Poe published “The Raven” in the New York Evening Mirror. He wrote it under the pen-name “Quarels”and for it was paid $9.00. The editor of the Mirror later declared the poem was “unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification, and consistent imaginative lift... It will stick to the memory of everybody who reads it.” Not everyone agreed. After reading the poem Ralph Waldo Emerson said “I see nothing in it” (over the years his dislike of Poe’s writing only increased; Emerson’s nickname for him was “The Jingle Man”). Last year was the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth. Not only was he celebrated by a U S postage stamp (well, okay, so was Donald Duck), but “The Raven” is the most anthologized poem in books of American poetry. The Mystery Writer’s Guild of America dubbed its highest award “The Edgar,” and every year on the anniversary of Poe’s death (October 7) for more than half a century, hundreds of devotees stage a night-time gathering at the grave of “The Master” to watch an unknown figure leave three red roses and a half-finished or (depending on your point of view) half-unfinished bottle of cognac on his tombstone. Quite "Poe-etic." He would have loved the gesture. On January 29, 1880, the only actor to ever do justice to Charles Dickens’ immortal character, Wilkins Micawber, was born. William Claude Dukenfield (known to us as W C Fields) began his stage career as a juggler on vaudeville while in his late teens. By then he’d already worked as an oyster-shucker and clothing salesman. Flo Ziegfeld hired him for his famous “Follies” and from there he went to Hollywood in 1925. Fields, who loved Dickens, often said playing Micawber in David Copperfield was the highlight of his career. MGM wanted him to play the Wizard in their 1939 production of The Wizard of Oz and offered him $75,000 for the role. He turned it down, demanding “$100,000 or nothing.” It never occurred to MGM to ask him to do it for nothing, so the role went to Frank Morgan. Fields, an atheist, used to call Christmas Day “the worst day of the year.” Los Angeles newspapers didn’t miss the irony when he died on December 25, 1946. Edward Lear, the author of The Owl and the Pussycat, lover of limericks and writer of preposterous prose, died on January 29, 1888 at his Italian villa. He never married, although he had a life-long love for a family friend, Gussie Bethel (over the years, he proposed to her 46 times! but she never accepted). Late in life, due to poor-health, he settled in Italy. During his final illness, he was visited by English friends who discretely inquired after his health. Playful to the end, Lear confided in fake cockney “T’is the cook ‘ere what done me in.” He said the man had a reputation as the worst cook for miles around. “Why then, sir, do you employ him?” asked one of his guests. “No one else will give him work!” Lear replied. All his other accomplishments, literary and artistic, aside, Lear deserves a place among the pantheon of English poets for seven words from The Owl and the Pussycat I will always remember: “which they ate with a runcible spoon.” In Baltimore, on January 29, 1956, H L Mencken, "the Sage of Baltimore," died. He was an American journalist, American critic and lover of our language. His classic work, The American Language, is as fresh, readable—and enjoyable—today as when it was written. It’s one of those rare books that you can open anywhere and read with sheer pleasure. After the book’s publication, Mencken received a stream of letters from Americans sharing bits and pieces of regional linguistic peculiarities, many of which he researched and included in later Supplements to his book. One of these letters came from a woman who earned her living as a “stripper.” She told Mencken she wished there was some “more dignified word” for her profession, and asked if he knew of one. He responded that up till the time of her letter, no other word existed, but now one did. “Madam, from this day on you are now an ‘ecdysiast,’ that is to say ‘one who sheds.’ ” Henry Louis Mencken is buried in Baltimore's Loudon Park Cemetery. His epitaph reads: “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wink your eye at some homely girl." Oprah Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Michigan on this day in 1954. She is the host of a television program. This is the 29th day of the year; 336 days remain in 2010. On the Roman calendar today is ante diem iii kalendas Februarias; it is generally believed the Greek dramatist Sophocles died on this day in 405 BC, at ninety-one. He choked on some grapes.

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In her lifetime, Greta Garbo was often quoted as saying “I want to be alone” (or, with an accent) “I vant to be alone.” At one point she corrected a reporter, “I never said ‘I want to be alone.’ I said 'I want to be let alone.' All the difference in the world lies between the two.” While she lived as a recluse, Garbo had close and intimate friends. She didn’t want to be alone alone.

In the Garden of Eden, God placed Adam in the midst of a spectacular creation, but He knew the hibiscus and pomegranates and chimpanzees wouldn’t satisfy Adam’s longing for companionship. Though God made Adam intending to be friends with him, the Lord knew he needed someone like himself, a human being, to be close to. “It is not good for man to be alone” the Lord said, and he made a woman to be with him. There’s an interesting inquiry to be made about why God didn’t just make a duplicate of Adam—another man—to be with him. Sexual implications and all, it hints at a host of fascinating topics. But that’s for another time. Today it’s the nature of solitude—“aloneness”—I want to explore with you. We are created with a need—even a craving—for companionship: it’s built into our genes. When we don’t get it, strange things happen to our psyches. All that being said and acknowledged, there is another side to the coin. We also need to be alone.

John Donne, the priest and poet, wrote truly “No man is an island…we are part of the main…” Our common humanity binds us. But it is also true, as the Burial Office of the Book of Common Prayer says, “We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out…” We come into the world alone; surrounded by family and friends, we grow. As we begin to grow and discover the world into which we’ve come, we soon discover that, while we are “part of the main,” a human being in a sea of humanity, we are alone. We’re distinct from others. My thoughts and experiences, my feelings and fears and hopes, my joys and sorrows—these are a part of me (many people mistakenly think they are me, as if I’m simply the sum of all that’s happened to me). This “self” I can share with others. I can tell them my thoughts and feelings and fears and they can do the same with me (careful, though; when we do this we discover we’re not as unique as we thought!). But, regardless of popular psychology and what passes for “spirituality” nowadays, we are not the sum total of our experiences. In fact, these things are not a “part” of us at all. The experiences of our lives are the things which happen to us. Without doubt, they have an impact on us. But they are not us. You and I are not merely “data receptors” or “experience processors.” Men and women, souls and bodies, we are made in the image of God.

We are “part of the main,” Donne reminds us. None of us is, despite another modern heresy, self-sufficient. I cannot know everything. Even things I think I know, I discover with uncomfortable frequency, I forget! “It is certain we can carry nothing out” is disconcertingly true!

If we’re not our experiences and thoughts and feelings, what are we? What does it mean that we have souls?

There is that which is you. Not how you feel or what you think, not your memories of Christmases past or hopes for winning lotteries in the future—but you. It is here that you and I are created equal. My soul and yours and everybody’s is that of us which IS us. We can damage it—that’s what sin is—or we can nurture it—that’s what Grace does—but make no mistake—your soul is you. And while we are “part of the main,” here, we are also alone. That’s the scary part of solitude—it’s the “aloneness” we fear. We don’t know who we are, and for the most part, as fascinating as each of us believes ourselves to be, we don’t want to know.

Many people get the creeps when they think about monks and nuns living in silence (like the Trappists) or in solitude (like the hermits). A frequent observation is “that’s not natural.” It’s a true observation, if by natural we mean “what most of us do.” I’ll be frank. I’ve lived in monasteries where some observed silence and others lived as hermits. Sometimes they did so because they had psychological problems. Some of us (not all in convents) simply retreat inside and never come back out. Some of us are silent and solitary because God calls us to that life. All of us are called to silence and solitude sometimes, and even if we choose to ignore the call, we need it. We need a time to be alone, to let our transitory concerns fade, to find a better, longer, deeper perspective. You have a soul—it is your greatest, most precious possession—more important than your savings account, better even than a library of the greatest books (uh-I’m pretty sure that’s true). We need time to tend our souls. It won’t just happen by itself, because you "want" it to, or because you "wish" you had time for that kind of thing. Among the many heresies of our day, one of the most widespread is the notion that God is like an indulgent grandfather—a jolly, pushover of a guy—Who knows we’re really busy, worrying about paying bills and making sure the kids get to basketball practice and taking the dog to the vet. If we do have souls, if anything about them really matters, God will take care of them. He’s just that kind of a guy. He worries about our bank balance just as much as we do. Television preachers tell us so.

You know, God just might take up the slack. But we will have missed the reason we were called to live. He might not toss us into a lake of unquenchable fire. We might simply come to the end of our lives wondering why we had to spend so much time in the car.

I remember a song, sung by (I think) Peggy Lee, sometime in my past. I didn’t like it then, I don’t now—but it does seem cogent. A plaintive, uninspiring and insipid song, the refrain asks “Is that all there is?” It may be the song piped into the hallway leading to hell. Hell may not be pitchforks and devils in red leotards but might very well turn out to be dull, uninteresting sameness; gray, colorless shadows forever and ever and ever. If our eyes aren’t opened here on earth to Beauty and Goodness and Grace, seeing it Unveiled might be too much for our puny, unexercised souls to bear. Hell, eternal separation from Unspeakable Beauty, might turn out to be a mercy to such souls.

Unless we cultivate our souls, unless we can make time to be alone, we’ll find, too late, we’ve squandered the greatest gift God gave us—ourselves! In time I’ll forget—or misremember—my experiences, my fears will fade, my goals will lose their potency—only I will remain. But if you and I have walked the Labyrinth with open eyes and attuned ears, looking for (and knowing we’ll find) Beauty and Goodness and Grace at almost every step, solitude holds no terrors for us. It is one of the needful steps to Joy.

Garbo was right. None of us wants to be alone—but unless we can learn to embrace solitude, alone is what we very well just may be.

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FROM MY BOOKSTACK:

Don’t be shocked, but this week I read a book about Texas. Texas politics. It’s non-fiction, so it strains credibility much more than a novel would. More, it’s about Texas politics were I grew up—in Duval County.

The Fall of the Duke of Duval tells the multi-generational story of the Parr family. For a hundred years, the Parrs controlled the governmental machinery of several counties in south Texas, but their base was in the towns of Duval County. They unashamedly and quite openly rigged elections, dispensed favors and punished the uncooperative. The county tax office was their treasury; the Sheriff’s office their own hired enforcers. County maintenance employees worked the Parr estates first and in their spare time kept county roads in repair. If anybody from “outside,” like a reporter from Houston, started asking too many questions, they’d be shot dead on the street (by four policemen, acquitted in a county court trial when they claimed they’d fired in “self-defense”).

The Parr story is the story of a political machine and how it worked. When I was a boy, both my grandmother and great-grandmother taught in the Duval County School District. I heard their accounts time and again when I was young. Come election time, a Parr appointee would meet with all the employees of the school district and tell them who and how to vote. There was no secret ballot—in some cases, the ballots were even pre-marked. I remember asking my grandmother—not a woman easily intimidated—if she did what they told her to. She said “Yes, of course I did.” I was disappointed. It wasn’t until years later I realized she did it to make sure I had food to eat and clothes to wear. Duval County came briefly to national prominence during the election of 1948. Lyndon Johnson was running for the US Senate and the race was “tight as a Texas tick.” Johnson called George Parr, the second Duke of Duval, and asked for help. When the votes were in, Lyndon lost by only a few votes statewide—until some of Duke George’s ole boys found Box 13—somebody “overlooked it,” they claimed—and all 200 votes were for Lyndon. For a generation of Texans, Lyndon Johnson was nicknamed “Landslide Lyndon.”

The book was written by one of the lawyers that eventually brought down the third Duke and saw to the partial dismantling of his fiefdom. He details the Parr story with a lawyer’s precision—and sometimes too much detail. Not surprisingly, the Parrs weren’t brought down for the murders they sponsored, the frauds they committed, the voters they intimidated over the years or the graft they dispensed. Like Al Capone, it was the tax man who got them in the end. There, the story bogs down. But the first half of the book, where the author is telling a story of the Rise and Fall of the Dukes, it makes fascinating reading. Fiction could never be so fantastical.

The Fall of the Duke of Duval was written by John E Clark, published by the Eakin Press in 1995. Hardcover copies are selling on Amazon right now for about $4.00.

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QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:

Thomas Paine-“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

Edgar Allen Poe-“I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.”

Edward Lear-“ They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon.”

W C Fields-“ I'm free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.”

“Drown in a vat of whiskey? O Death, where is thy sting?”

“Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against.”

H L Mencken-“ A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he’s married.”

“Every government is against liberty.”

Oprah Winfrey-“Is that camera on me?” [attributed]

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