Walking the Labyrinth—July 31, 2009—Today the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the feast of St Ignatius Loyola, while the Eastern Christian calendar venerates St Eudocimus of Cappadocia. Both were soldiers; Ignatius was a 16th century Spanish knight and Eudocimus rose through the ranks to become the military governor of Cappadocia (eastern Turkey). St Eudocimus became renowned for his acts of private charity, many of which were discovered only after his death. St Ignatius founded the once-feared Society of Jesus—the Jesuits. In their heyday, they cornered the popular market on mysterious codes and secret handshakes much as the Templars do nowadays with people whose knowledge of history comes from the backs of cereal boxes. (The Jesuits haven’t completely disappeared from the fringes of imagination—there are at least two websites online as I write that claim Shakespeare was a Jesuit [shakespeareunmasked.com], or, at the very least, a secret Papist. As proof, the authors offer the anti-Catholic, anti-Jesuit dialogues in the Bard’s plays. Only a Jesuit, they reason, would be duplicitous enough to deflect questions about his crypto-Catholicism by attacking Catholicism!) Surely this is a record: today in 768, a monk named Philip was dragged from his monastery by one of the political factions in the city of Rome and forced to undergo the ceremonies which made him Pope. But Philip didn’t want to be Pope. After the excitement of the day quieted and the crowds went home, he laid aside the papal vestments, wrote out his resignation, and returned to his hermitage. Nothing more is known about him; we have a record of only that one day in his life. The author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, the English satirist and pamphleteer Daniel Defoe, was pilloried today in 1703. Defoe wrote an anti-Tory, populist pamphlet, The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters, for which he was sentenced for three days in the stocks at London’s Charing Cross (now Trafalgar Square). So popular was Defoe with the crowds however, that instead of throwing the customary tomatoes and rotten vegetables at him, the platform was surrounded by friends who pelted him with flowers and drank to his health. On July 31, 1875, the seventeenth President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, died of a stroke. He was the first President to succeed an assassinated predecessor (Abraham Lincoln) and the first President to be impeached. Those two facts are what most people know about him, but in his lifetime, Johnson was well-known for something else: his fondness for a stiff drink. On the morning he was to be sworn in as Vice President, Johnson stopped outside the Senate Chamber where the ceremony was to take place. He called for a “tumbler” of whiskey, which he promptly downed. He said he had a hangover from the night before and called for another. After drinking a third tumbler, he entered the chamber, where he was met by President Lincoln and the erstwhile Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin. While Hamlin gave his final address to the assembly, Johnson showed more and more signs of agitation. He stumbled through the words of his oath of office and proceeded to deliver a long, rambling, sometimes incoherent speech about his humble origins. Americans can take heart from this. The incoherent speeches and resolutions we hear coming out of Congress today have a precedent that goes back more than one hundred and fifty years! On this day in 1921, in the small town (pop. 300) of Sterling, Connecticut, at about one o’clock in the afternoon, it began to rain. Along with raindrops, though, the skies dropped frogs. By two thirty, the town was smothered with millions of small frogs measuring from half an inch to an inch and a half in length. The streets and fields were covered with hopping, squirming, belching frogs. The people of Sterling were beside themselves; nobody worried so much at the time why it had rained frogs as they did what they were going to do with all of them. But if Nature provided a conundrum, she also provided a solution. While the townspeople tossed the frogs out from their yards by the shovel-full, ducks from Moosup Lake (which borders the town) and the Mossup River descended on the town and roamed the streets, feasting on the new arrivals. After two days of duck-gluttony, not a ribbet was heard. Twenty-eight years after the Rain of Frogs in Sterling, Mother Nature again reminded us who was in charge. At a State League baseball game in Lakeland, Florida, on the afternoon of July 31, 1949, the second baseman, shortstop, and third baseman of the visiting team were all killed by a single lightning bolt, which struck the backstop, then shot around the infield “as though completing a double play,” the local newspaper somewhat insensitively observed. The game was delayed two weeks, but the home team still won. In the annals of the Royal Navy, today is known as “Black Tot Day.” By order of the Admiralty, the final “rum ration” was issued on this day in 1970. Since 1655, the call “Up Spirits” drew British seamen on deck to receive their daily ration of a shot (or “tot”) of rum. In 1740, the ration was a half-pint of rum, to which was added sugar and lime, to combat scurvy. The officer in charge of mixing and dispensing the rum was called the purser. Over time this led to calling the officer “pusser” and the rum “pussers.” The name stuck and “Pusser’s” has long been one of the most popular brands of English rum. Today is the 212th day of the year, 153 remain. On the ancient Roman calendar, today is the pridie Kal. Aug. The old Celtic calendar celebrates today as Lughnasadh, one of the four principal holidays of the year. Lughnasadh marked the beginning of the harvest season, the ripening of first fruits, and was traditionally a time of community gatherings, market festivals, horse races and reunions with family and friends. Among the Celts it was the favored time for “handfastings”—trial marriages that would generally last a year and a day. St Patrick put a stop to that.
LAST WEEK, I WROTE about Agatho’s Stone and the “learning” of silence. This week, I’ve had some discussions about silence with a few friends who read about Agatho that offer thoughts worth sharing. My good friend Jean, in Virginia Beach, said “I’m not a talker; living alone, I have plenty of silence. Still, I try to listen for that ‘small voice,’ for God and His plans…” and Alan, my atheistic pal from Santa Barbara (how can you be an atheist and live in the hills over Santa Barbara?) wrote: “I wish more Christians would be quiet. What they have to say is often poorly thought-out. Mostly it’s just stupid or insulting. Can’t you get all of them to use those rocks?” Paul, a young man I prepared for Confirmation long ago who’s now not quite so young and is considerably more thoughtful, has written me a couple of notes this week. He says, “We aren’t monks who’ve made vows to keep silence. How can we be silent and be part of society? I could understand how this could help in a Trappist monastery but I find it hard to see the usefulness of silence to me.” Jean spends a lot of time in silence just because of her living situation; Alan wants people to keep their half-baked religious notions to themselves; and Paul sees the potential value of silence but finds it difficult, if not impossible, to see a place for it in our daily lives. Our situations are all different, but the need each of us has for silence is the same. Remember why Agatho put the stone in his mouth. It was to “learn” silence. Agatho lived in the desert. He didn’t have much of a chance to talk to anybody in the first place. His point was not “I don’t want to talk” or “Here in the desert there’s nobody to talk to anyway.” It wasn’t even that Agatho thought he didn’t have anything to say worth hearing. He was cultivating silence, cherishing it, growing it.
Paul is right. Most of us don’t live in Trappist monasteries. We can’t refuse to answer questions our boss asks because we’re cultivating silence. But we can learn the profound lessons Agatho himself learned by forming an intention of silence. We can choose to be silent at certain times. We can go for walks or retire to the woods by ourselves or sit on the beach. We can retreat for a few days to a quiet place—a monastery or vacation spot. We need silence. Today everyone is supposed to “be themselves” and “express their feelings,” but Alan the atheist is right: most of the ideas that pass for religion or spirituality that come out of the mouths of those “being themselves” are insipid and trite. A mantra I’ve heard times innumerable in southern California is “I’m not religious, but I’m a very spiritual person.” The sentences which follow this statement invariably show the speaker knows nothing of either religion or spirituality. True religion and genuine spirituality have several components but one most necessary to both is silence. We don’t learn silence by just shutting up. We have to search it out. We learn silence by being silent. We don’t have to do it with the desert fierceness of Agatho, that calling comes to few of us. But whether it’s putting up a fence on a south Texas ranch or turning off the computer and going for a walk every other day, the person who seeks to walk the Labyrinth knows there are some steps that have to be made in complete silence. We must learn to be alone, we must cultivate silence, to have things of value to say. In that pregnant silence, we will hear the Voice that’s been waiting to speak.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, I pulled an old book I’ve been meaning to re-read for years. It’s been there for more than a year, its position in the stack moved up and down in relation to others for reasons sometimes unexamined. Now, having read it again, I know what those reasons are. The book is The Conscience of a Conservative, written by the late Senator Barry Goldwater, with help from his friend L Brent Bozell, Jr., William F Buckley’s best friend and brother-in-law. The book is neither subtle in its message nor complex in its argument and is only about 125 pages. So why did it sit, unread, in my stack of books for the last 14 months? Simple and straightforward, the book is distressing. You can read the whole of it in an evening, but if you pick it up, it’s unlikely you will. You’ll be stopping too often to think about what Goldwater said 45 years ago, and how insightful his words are today. The longest chapter in the book “The Soviet Menace,” might seem irrelevant now, but its insights remain valid: “What about the Russian people? We are repeatedly told that the Russian man-on-the-street is woefully ignorant of the American way…is it relevant? As long as the Russian people do not control their government, it makes little difference if they think well of us or ill. It is high time that our leaders stopped treating the Russian people and the Soviet government as one and the same thing.” What would happen if those principles were applied in 2009 to Iran? At its heart the book reminds us that the basic principles on which our country was founded were radical then and they remain so today. They call us to practice freedom. Goldwater warns that the tendency of human beings over the centuries has been to surrender freedom for something else. He pointedly quotes the famous words of Franklin and gives them a startling conclusion: “ ‘What have you given us?’ a woman asked Ben Franklin towards the close of the Constitutional Convention. ‘A Republic’ he said, 'if you can keep it…’ We have not kept it,” Goldwater concludes. In ten chapters the short book reviews some of the areas that most concerned its author, detailing simply but effectively the practical consequences of government programs on the country. But most important, The Conscience of a Conservative reminds us that, regardless of the promises of politicians to justify their reelections by promising us more and more, we lose far more than we receive. In the end, that’s what makes this book important: it recalls its readers to a genuine and ancient hope. The state and, let me add, most of our society, sees men and women in economic and political terms. Those things are useful, but not the end-all of existence. “Conservatism,” Goldwater says at the beginning of his book, “looks upon the enhancement of man’s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy.” As I read I couldn’t help but reflect that we have not only failed to advance that principle in the years since it was first written, but have receded far from it. Freedom isn’t something we’re given by the state or society. We have it from our Creator. But we must each of us make it our own. With unsubtle books like this, we can regain that vision it’s so easy to lose.
QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:
“We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.”—St Ignatius Loyola
"Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mold them accordingly."—St Ignatius Loyola
“Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found, upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation.”—Daniel Defoe
“Nature has left this tincture in the blood: all men would be tyrants if they could.”—Daniel Defoe
“Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.”—President Andrew Johnson
“It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.”—President Andrew Johnson
AND FINALLY, remembering Black Tot Day, one more from Daniel Defoe:
“Any Englishman will fairly drink as much as will maintain two whole families of the Dutch.”
Friday, July 31, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Agatho's Stone
Walking the Labyrinth—July 24, 2009—The calendar of saints lists seventy-six saints today, but the story surrounding St Hermogius of Tuy bears recounting. St Hermogius was a nobleman of pious inclinations living in tenth century Spain. Uninterested in his family’s chivalric background and their long history of fighting the Moors in his homeland, Hermogius founded a monastery, which he unwisely situated in the middle of the war zone. To no one’s surprise, (except, evidently, Abbot Hermogius) the Moors, led by the Emir Abd al Rahman, raided the monastery and took the confused abbot prisoner. When he learned his captive was a nobleman the emir demanded a ransom from the abbot’s family. Hermogius’ uncle bartered with the emir and, in exchange for the abbot’s release, sent his one of his own sons, Pelayo, to take the abbot’s place until the ransom could be raised. Hermogius was freed and retired to a place far from the lines of battle. He was later made a bishop and died peacefully, twenty years after all the excitement, in 942. But what about Pelayo? For three years his father tried to raise the ransom money but was unable to do so. Finally, the emir called Pelayo before him and gave him two choices: convert to Islam or die (one source claims Pelayo was given another option. He was, evidently, a handsome young man and the emir had an eye for handsome young men, so he offered him a third choice…). Pelayo refused to convert. The emir, in what has to be one of the more unusual forms of martyrdom ever inflicted, had the young man loaded onto a catapult and flung over the city walls. Found still breathing, Pelayo was dispatched with swords. None of the chroniclers say, but family gatherings afterwards must have been tense when both St Hermogius and his brother showed up. The Rock of Gibraltar was seized by the British on this day in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Historians count it as the eleventh (and last successful) Siege of the Rock. The author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas, was born on July 24, 1805, in a village northeast of Paris. As the novelist's fame grew, so did personal attacks on him, particularly attacks on his mixed racial background. To one member of the Fourth Estate, who referred to Dumas as a mulatto in every public mention he made of him, Dumas finally responded in a brief note: “My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends." America’s most famous aviatrix, Amelia Earhart, was born this day in 1898. On her sixth birthday, Amelia convinced her uncle to build a ramp off the top of the family toolshed. She found a wooden box and, climbing in, propelled herself down the ramp and off the roof. Amelia's first flight was short but she never forgot it. She emerged from the broken shards of her first airborne vehicle with a bleeding lip, a torn dress and “a sense of exhilaration.” She shouted to her open-mouthed sister, “Pidge, I was flying!” A year after Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927, Amelia duplicated his achievement and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Ten years later, in an attempt to fly around the globe, she disappeared over the Pacific. Amelia didn’t break the “glass ceilings” of her day. She flew her airplane right through and far above them. July 24 was doubly important to Richard Milhous Nixon. In 1959, he held a running, five-hour debate with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in front of a display of a modern American kitchen in Moscow. They debated dishwashers and nuclear weapons. At times the words got heated. After disputing Nixon’s claim that most Americans could afford the appliances on display in the kitchen, the premier remarked: “I do not think that this exhibit and what you say is strictly accurate. I hope I have not insulted you.” Laughing, the Vice-President replied: “I have been insulted by experts.” Seventy-two million Americans watched the tape of the “Kitchen Debate” the next day on television. Time Magazine declared it an overwhelming victory for Nixon and his popularity skyrocketed. Fifteen years later, to the day, his popularity at an all-time low, President Nixon received word that the Supreme Court ordered the White House Watergate Tapes to be released. Ten days after that, he resigned the presidency. Today is the 205th day of the year, 160 days remain in 2009. According to the old Roman calendar, it is the ninth day before the kalends of August (a. d. IX ante Kal. Aug.) and the second day of the Neptunalia, a feast celebrating the Roman god of waters, kept in the hottest part of the Italian summer. In 1965, Herman’s Hermits topped the music charts today with “I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am,” which was not a musical tribute to the man who separated the Church in England from Roman Catholicism. While we may not celebrate Neptunalia, we as a people do have our American celebrations. Today is national Drive-Thru Day.
THE STORY IS TOLD THAT AGATHO, an Egyptian monk who lived in the desert 1600 years ago, carried a stone in his mouth for three years, “until he learned silence.” This immediately calls to mind Demosthenes, the Greek orator who stuffed his mouth with stones, but for the opposite reason: he was trying to perfect his enunciation. The stone taught Agatho silence; it trained Demosthenes how to speak. While it’s hard to imagine anyone today putting a rock in their mouth (remember Audrey Hepburn as Eliza in My Fair Lady; when Professor Higgins, following Demosthenes, plopped some pebbles in Eliza’s mouth, she swallowed them!), we can at least understand Demosthenes’ motivation: he wanted to be a better public speaker. But what did Agatho have in mind? He wanted to be silent—and not just now and then—but, as the ancient monastic text says of him, he wanted to “learn” silence. He was cultivating it. For Agatho, silence had some special meaning and importance. Mark Twain joked about one aspect of silence: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” So saying, he was expressing an idea that stretched back to the ancient world, even before Agatho. Cato the Elder, that stern as nails old Roman, said: “The first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.” From Cato to Dale Carnegie, it’s been good for business to know “the customer is always right” and keep quiet when necessary. Agatho’s rock, though, points to a different lesson. His rock didn’t just keep him from talking, it taught him silence.
Years and years ago, I knew a woman who couldn’t endure silence. If there were people in the room and no one was talking, she would fidget and squirm and start sputtering “ums” and “wells” until some inane sentence would form and she would release it. Silence scared her. Agatho understood that silence had value. When I’m not speaking, I can listen. I can listen to others (that may be scary), I can listen to myself (that may be scarier) and, if I practice, I can even listen to God (that is the scariest of all). But all three of these “listenings” take practice and require that we “learn silence.”
Walking your labyrinth is meant to be a sort of Agatho’s stone. One of the basic lessons of the labyrinth is that you walk it yourself. Companions on the Way are gifts, and Scripture speaks true when it records “It is not good for man to be alone.” But at the most basic level, we are. All “Oprah-like” wisdom to the contrary, we are finite. God made us with limits and boundaries we cannot cross. Part of growing—growing up, growing old, growing in grace—is coming to terms with our limits, and learning to be thankful for and rejoice in them. Yes, we need to “never give up, never!” as Churchill insisted. Knowing our limits doesn’t mean we don’t try to push them, to continue to grow. Wisdom, though, is realizing we can’t be everything. God set your feet on the labyrinth of your life and told you to find your way home. To do that, you have to pay attention. We must learn to listen, to develop “ears that can hear.” When we’ve learned the silence that enables us to listen to others, we’ll find out we’re beginning to learn the silence that allows us to listen to ourselves. The third silence enables us to begin to hear the rare and purposeful whisperings of the “still, small voice” meant for us and for our salvation. It’s a Voice that leads us Home; a Voice that’s been beckoning us, we will someday come to understand, all along. We haven’t been able to hear it much because we’ve been doing all the talking. When Agatho realized it, he put a rock in his mouth. Maybe you can find a small pebble and see what happens.
OF YOUR CHARITY, please remember Robert Williams, my great and good friend, who died Thursday, July 23rd. Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine et lux perpetua luceat ei.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, thanks to Melissa Berry (through whom I’m reliving some of my old days in academe), I have rediscovered a book I would almost certainly not have picked up again. While studying at the University lo, those decades ago, I started to read John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice. Started, but never finished; never came close. When Melissa asked me about it recently (they’re reading it in her post-graduate class), I went and found me a copy. Mine, published by Little, Brown & Company in 1981, is beautifully illustrated with photographs, some by Ruskin, and many sketches and watercolors, all by Ruskin. But it is the text you fall into. Here and there, like the waters of Venice, his technical notes go over the head of an aficionado of architecture ancient and modern. But Ruskin’s descriptions and more especially his commentaries, based on architectural biases as immutable as the laws of the Medes and the Persians, are bold and thoughtful. He may not be right in all his judgments on Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance art and architecture, but he knows what he likes, what he thinks is good and uplifting, and he knows what is crass and debased. He gathered his materials for the book during a three-year stay in Venice from 1849-1852, and published it in England in 1853. During those three years, Ruskin documented Venice as he found it, using a camera, sketch book and watercolors. He climbed ladders up the sides of sometimes unstable walls, measured columns and windows while hanging from balconies, climbed into attics and under old bridges to record the architectures he found—and separate the wheat from the chaff. Ruskin decided Gothic architecture was the architecture of Heaven, and Renaissance work was—not. A feature of the book which delights the reader willing to float with Ruskin down the canals of Venice (not speed-read through for a thesis) is the author’s digressions on the Meaning of It All. Venice, the brightest of cities, celebrated it glory with the brightest of architecture and art—the Byzantine and Gothic—recognizing (as quoth Browning, dear Melissa) that God is in His Heaven. When double-dealing and impiety came to rule Venice in the counting-houses on the Rialto and the Palace of the Doge, it found the old pieties—civil and religious—too constraining and abandoned them for the re-born pagan paintings and buildings of the Renaissance. The art and architecture a people produce, Ruskin provocatively insists, reveals its soul. The Venice of the Renaissance, he dogmatically states, misplaced its soul and it shows. I had great fun reading this and yesterday decided I’m going to read it again this week, just for fun and see what more I can glean. I wonder, were Ruskin to come to Los Angeles and putter through our buildings and artstuffs, what he would deduce about our souls?
QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:
“I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest.”—Alexandre Dumas
“It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.”—Alexandre Dumas (I just quote ‘em, I don’t write ‘em!—GW)
“There are two kinds of stones, one of which rolls.”—Amelia Earhart
“I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.”—President Richard M Nixon
“Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.”—President Richard M Nixon
“When you are skinning your people, you should leave some skin on to heal, so that you can skin them again.”—Premier Nikita Khrushchev
THE STORY IS TOLD THAT AGATHO, an Egyptian monk who lived in the desert 1600 years ago, carried a stone in his mouth for three years, “until he learned silence.” This immediately calls to mind Demosthenes, the Greek orator who stuffed his mouth with stones, but for the opposite reason: he was trying to perfect his enunciation. The stone taught Agatho silence; it trained Demosthenes how to speak. While it’s hard to imagine anyone today putting a rock in their mouth (remember Audrey Hepburn as Eliza in My Fair Lady; when Professor Higgins, following Demosthenes, plopped some pebbles in Eliza’s mouth, she swallowed them!), we can at least understand Demosthenes’ motivation: he wanted to be a better public speaker. But what did Agatho have in mind? He wanted to be silent—and not just now and then—but, as the ancient monastic text says of him, he wanted to “learn” silence. He was cultivating it. For Agatho, silence had some special meaning and importance. Mark Twain joked about one aspect of silence: “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” So saying, he was expressing an idea that stretched back to the ancient world, even before Agatho. Cato the Elder, that stern as nails old Roman, said: “The first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.” From Cato to Dale Carnegie, it’s been good for business to know “the customer is always right” and keep quiet when necessary. Agatho’s rock, though, points to a different lesson. His rock didn’t just keep him from talking, it taught him silence.
Years and years ago, I knew a woman who couldn’t endure silence. If there were people in the room and no one was talking, she would fidget and squirm and start sputtering “ums” and “wells” until some inane sentence would form and she would release it. Silence scared her. Agatho understood that silence had value. When I’m not speaking, I can listen. I can listen to others (that may be scary), I can listen to myself (that may be scarier) and, if I practice, I can even listen to God (that is the scariest of all). But all three of these “listenings” take practice and require that we “learn silence.”
Walking your labyrinth is meant to be a sort of Agatho’s stone. One of the basic lessons of the labyrinth is that you walk it yourself. Companions on the Way are gifts, and Scripture speaks true when it records “It is not good for man to be alone.” But at the most basic level, we are. All “Oprah-like” wisdom to the contrary, we are finite. God made us with limits and boundaries we cannot cross. Part of growing—growing up, growing old, growing in grace—is coming to terms with our limits, and learning to be thankful for and rejoice in them. Yes, we need to “never give up, never!” as Churchill insisted. Knowing our limits doesn’t mean we don’t try to push them, to continue to grow. Wisdom, though, is realizing we can’t be everything. God set your feet on the labyrinth of your life and told you to find your way home. To do that, you have to pay attention. We must learn to listen, to develop “ears that can hear.” When we’ve learned the silence that enables us to listen to others, we’ll find out we’re beginning to learn the silence that allows us to listen to ourselves. The third silence enables us to begin to hear the rare and purposeful whisperings of the “still, small voice” meant for us and for our salvation. It’s a Voice that leads us Home; a Voice that’s been beckoning us, we will someday come to understand, all along. We haven’t been able to hear it much because we’ve been doing all the talking. When Agatho realized it, he put a rock in his mouth. Maybe you can find a small pebble and see what happens.
OF YOUR CHARITY, please remember Robert Williams, my great and good friend, who died Thursday, July 23rd. Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine et lux perpetua luceat ei.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, thanks to Melissa Berry (through whom I’m reliving some of my old days in academe), I have rediscovered a book I would almost certainly not have picked up again. While studying at the University lo, those decades ago, I started to read John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice. Started, but never finished; never came close. When Melissa asked me about it recently (they’re reading it in her post-graduate class), I went and found me a copy. Mine, published by Little, Brown & Company in 1981, is beautifully illustrated with photographs, some by Ruskin, and many sketches and watercolors, all by Ruskin. But it is the text you fall into. Here and there, like the waters of Venice, his technical notes go over the head of an aficionado of architecture ancient and modern. But Ruskin’s descriptions and more especially his commentaries, based on architectural biases as immutable as the laws of the Medes and the Persians, are bold and thoughtful. He may not be right in all his judgments on Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance art and architecture, but he knows what he likes, what he thinks is good and uplifting, and he knows what is crass and debased. He gathered his materials for the book during a three-year stay in Venice from 1849-1852, and published it in England in 1853. During those three years, Ruskin documented Venice as he found it, using a camera, sketch book and watercolors. He climbed ladders up the sides of sometimes unstable walls, measured columns and windows while hanging from balconies, climbed into attics and under old bridges to record the architectures he found—and separate the wheat from the chaff. Ruskin decided Gothic architecture was the architecture of Heaven, and Renaissance work was—not. A feature of the book which delights the reader willing to float with Ruskin down the canals of Venice (not speed-read through for a thesis) is the author’s digressions on the Meaning of It All. Venice, the brightest of cities, celebrated it glory with the brightest of architecture and art—the Byzantine and Gothic—recognizing (as quoth Browning, dear Melissa) that God is in His Heaven. When double-dealing and impiety came to rule Venice in the counting-houses on the Rialto and the Palace of the Doge, it found the old pieties—civil and religious—too constraining and abandoned them for the re-born pagan paintings and buildings of the Renaissance. The art and architecture a people produce, Ruskin provocatively insists, reveals its soul. The Venice of the Renaissance, he dogmatically states, misplaced its soul and it shows. I had great fun reading this and yesterday decided I’m going to read it again this week, just for fun and see what more I can glean. I wonder, were Ruskin to come to Los Angeles and putter through our buildings and artstuffs, what he would deduce about our souls?
QUOTES OF THE PRINCIPALS:
“I prefer rogues to imbeciles, because they sometimes take a rest.”—Alexandre Dumas
“It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.”—Alexandre Dumas (I just quote ‘em, I don’t write ‘em!—GW)
“There are two kinds of stones, one of which rolls.”—Amelia Earhart
“I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.”—President Richard M Nixon
“Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people.”—President Richard M Nixon
“When you are skinning your people, you should leave some skin on to heal, so that you can skin them again.”—Premier Nikita Khrushchev
Friday, July 17, 2009
Companions on the Journey
Walking the Labyrinth, July 17, 2009—Today, both Orthodox Churches of the East and the Latin Church of the West unite to celebrate the feast of St Alexis, the “Man of God.” He was the son of a noble Roman family who lived a life of prayer and fasting in the deserts of Syria. In 1918, in the hours after midnight, the family of Tsar Nicholas II was killed by the local militia of the Ekaterinburg Soviet. Since the forced abdication of the Tsar the previous March, he and his family had become pieces in a chess game (one hesitates to say pawns, but…) between the Bolsheviks and White Russians during the Russian Civil War. They were moved from place to place to keep them from the hands of Tsarist forces. On July 16, the town of Ekaterinburg echoed with the sounds of battle; forces of the White and Red armies clashed just outside the town. Fearing the Romanovs might be freed, the decision was made to kill them. The accounts of their death make gruesome but uninteresting reading. More intriguing is what happened afterward. The royal corpses were disposed of down abandoned wells and mineshafts, and various chemical attempts were made to destroy any trace of them, but these proved unsuccessful. Lenin, in Moscow, made loud and public declarations that he was shocked and had nothing to do with the deaths. When the White Russians captured Ekaterinburg the local Soviet officials claimed they weren’t responsible. Later a White Russian leader caustically remarked, “The Tsar was evidently killed by accident, no one knows by whom.” A scrutiny of secret Soviet State documents in 1990, however, uncovered a telegraph from Lenin to the Ekaterinburg Soviet ordering them to “kill them all.” On this day in 1861, the United States Congress authorized the first federal paper money (“greenbacks”—in $5, $10, and $20 notes); a month later, the same Congress imposed the first federal income tax on Americans. Things have been going in the same direction ever since. In 1836, Bishop William White, who had been consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1787, died. He was the first homeowner in Philadelphia to install an indoor “necessary room.” At a Brooklyn, New York printing shop, in 1901, Dr Willis Carrier installed the world’s first air conditioning system, allowing printers to control the temperature, humidity, ventilation and air quality of their shop. For the first two decades of the 20th Century, Carrier’s invention was used to cool machines, not people. Then, in 1925, it occurred to the owner of the Rivoli Theater on Broadway that the “Apparatus for Treating Air” (the air conditioner's first official name) might be equally used to cool off people, too. He hung a sign out saying, “It’s Cool Inside.” Skyrocketing ticket sales at the Rivoli forced his competitors to seek out Mr Carrier. In 1505 Martin Luther, the German from Eisleben, joined the monastic order of Augustinians. Twelve years later, he would want out in the worst way, and made quite a ruckus doing so. Disneyland, “the Happiest Place on Earth,” opened its gates for the first time in 1955. Walt Disney, Art Linkletter, Bob Cummings and Ronald Reagan (who received the “low billing” that day) hosted a television gala of the event. It was not a Happy Day at the earth’s Happiest Place. Disney had ordered 6,000 special invitations to be printed for the first day, but by noon over 28,000 people attempted to enter, most with counterfeit tickets. A strike by the plumbers’ union meant there was no water, including the “necessary rooms!” A heat wave pushed the thermometer in Anaheim that day to 110 degrees. The heat wave continued and Walt met with financiers to discuss the possibility of failure. Fortunately for children and bankers the world over, people did continue to come. In ancient Egypt, today was celebrated as the birthday of Isis (“She of the Throne”), goddess of motherhood and fertility, responsible for the seasonal rise of the Nile. The old Roman calendar counts today as the thirteenth day before the kalends of August (or as they would have written it: ad XIII Kal. Aug.) It is the 198th day of the year; 167 remain. The United States Congress (the same ones who brought you the Income Tax) have decreed July as National Horseradish Month and also National Blueberry Month, so choose. So important is the hot dog that the same body has recognized July as National Hot Dog Month and July 18 as National Hot Dog Day. Others, far wiser than I, have noted we get the government we deserve.
A CLOSE FRIEND of mine is dying. I am going to see him tomorrow, not for the last time, I hope, but to bid him Godspeed. Bob has been a rare companion on my walk through the labyrinth. A true friend, in my book of definitions, is one who loves you enough to tell you the truth, but privately. That Bob has done and I hope, so too, have I. My journey along the labyrinth has been a particularly rich one. I have known souls of great depth and incredible shallowness, men of wealth and homeless vagabonds, liars and poets, saints and scoundrels. All of them, one way or another, have enriched my journey (admittedly, my appreciation for some of them has grown only as my association with them has faded). But as I pause to jot down my weekly thoughts on the labyrinth, I can’t help but to remember those I’ve known and loved—or at least—known. One of the greatest gifts God gives us is those with whom we share our lives. Like ‘em or not, they are walking a labyrinth no less difficult, if obviously different, than our own. Sometimes, it takes a death to remind us how great are the gifts of life. Each of us must walk our path by ourselves, but God knows it’s not good for us to be alone.
This week—today, in fact—the Episcopal Church in the United States concludes its General Convention, which meets every three years. Given the choices Episcopalians have made at these get-togethers over the past few decades, it’s probably just as well they don’t meet more often. This time, they made a couple of decisions that surprised nobody who is in the least familiar with that religious body—they decided to remove any bars to the ordination of practicing homosexuals (that phrase always strikes me as funny—are they homosexuals who will keep trying till they get it right? if so, shouldn’t we at least occasionally use the phrase “accomplished homosexuals?”) and to authorize the insertion of rites for homosexual marriages into the next edition of the Book of Common Prayer. No surprises there. Much more interesting was the opening sermon of the Convention, preached by Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopals. She declared it was heretical to believe in “individual” salvation. The bishopess called this “the great Western heresy: that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God." Christians of every denomination from the Catholic Church to television evangelists have decried her remarks. Every error, though, is palatable because it contains a kernel of truth, regardless of what the kernel may be buried in. The truth is, we find salvation, to a very great degree, because of the others with us on our pilgrimage. Whatever our faith, or lack of it, we learned its essentials because of those around us. Our families and friends and teachers and pastors have helped each of us become what we are. So Ms Schori is right to this degree: none of us can be saved without the help of those around us. But she is wrong in this equally profound degree: God has made us as individuals, each bearing His image. How I walk along the labyrinth either mars or polishes the greatest gift God has given me: His image of Himself in me. And to the degree I deface the image, nobody around me has to wonder about the reality of hell: I carry hell wherever I go. And most happily, the opposite is also true. To the degree I burnish that image and make it shine, I make it possible for those around me to know, without an intellectual discourse, that Heaven, too is a reality. My friend Bob walked his labyrinth nobly and gracefully, and is now taking his last steps. To the eye which sees but does not understand, he can barely walk. But I know he is sprinting to the center of his labyrinth, knowing Who waits for him there.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, I confess to picking up a book out of sheer indulgence. I first read this book, Journey into Fear, back in 1970. I don’t know how many times—ten at least—I’ve read it since. The copy I now own is my third. Eric Ambler, the author, worked writing copy for a London advertising agency before World War II, writing short stories and a few novels on the side. Journey into Fear was the last, and best, he wrote before the war (many, me included, would simply say this was his best). It is pure escapism, a spy novel whose main character is not a spy, and is wonderfully peopled with Turkish spies and Italian sailors, a elderly German archaeologist and a pair of seedy flamenco dancers. Howard Graham, the protagonist, is an English engineer sent to Istanbul as a temporary consultant. The night before he is to return home, he enters his still-dark hotel room and is shot. He doesn’t know why and neither do we readers for some time. His dangerous escape from would-be assassins puts him aboard slow-moving tramp steamers and fast moving French trains each replete with hidden dangers. Ambler’s writing is tight and fast-paced, but the characters are well-drawn and fascinating, and it is the characters, wittingly and unwittingly, who drive the plot. I’ve read—and own—all eighteen of Ambler’s novels and a collection of his short stories called Waiting for Orders, and occasionally find myself drawn back to the bookshelf where they stand, lined at attention and ready for use. But this is the one I pick up most often when I go there. If you see it somewhere, pick it up, but I offer the invitation with this caveat—don’t plan to read anything else for the next day or two, because you will be otherwise occupied.
QUOTES OF THIS WEEK’S PRINCIPALS:
“I feel much better now that I am certain the pope is the Antichrist.”—Martin Luther
“All dressed up, with nowhere to go.”—Bishop William White
“I am not yet ready to be Tsar. I know nothing of the business of ruling.”—Tsar Nicholas II, on the day of his coronation.
“It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.”—Vladimir I Lenin, who ordered the Romanov’s slaughter
“We will not do less research and development work, and I will not discharge any of the people we have hired; I will work for nothing if I have to."—Dr Willis Carrier, when told by his bankers at the coming of the Depression he needed to fire workers tp keep up profits
“I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing – all this was started by a mouse.”—Walt Disney as he opened Disneyland
A CLOSE FRIEND of mine is dying. I am going to see him tomorrow, not for the last time, I hope, but to bid him Godspeed. Bob has been a rare companion on my walk through the labyrinth. A true friend, in my book of definitions, is one who loves you enough to tell you the truth, but privately. That Bob has done and I hope, so too, have I. My journey along the labyrinth has been a particularly rich one. I have known souls of great depth and incredible shallowness, men of wealth and homeless vagabonds, liars and poets, saints and scoundrels. All of them, one way or another, have enriched my journey (admittedly, my appreciation for some of them has grown only as my association with them has faded). But as I pause to jot down my weekly thoughts on the labyrinth, I can’t help but to remember those I’ve known and loved—or at least—known. One of the greatest gifts God gives us is those with whom we share our lives. Like ‘em or not, they are walking a labyrinth no less difficult, if obviously different, than our own. Sometimes, it takes a death to remind us how great are the gifts of life. Each of us must walk our path by ourselves, but God knows it’s not good for us to be alone.
This week—today, in fact—the Episcopal Church in the United States concludes its General Convention, which meets every three years. Given the choices Episcopalians have made at these get-togethers over the past few decades, it’s probably just as well they don’t meet more often. This time, they made a couple of decisions that surprised nobody who is in the least familiar with that religious body—they decided to remove any bars to the ordination of practicing homosexuals (that phrase always strikes me as funny—are they homosexuals who will keep trying till they get it right? if so, shouldn’t we at least occasionally use the phrase “accomplished homosexuals?”) and to authorize the insertion of rites for homosexual marriages into the next edition of the Book of Common Prayer. No surprises there. Much more interesting was the opening sermon of the Convention, preached by Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopals. She declared it was heretical to believe in “individual” salvation. The bishopess called this “the great Western heresy: that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God." Christians of every denomination from the Catholic Church to television evangelists have decried her remarks. Every error, though, is palatable because it contains a kernel of truth, regardless of what the kernel may be buried in. The truth is, we find salvation, to a very great degree, because of the others with us on our pilgrimage. Whatever our faith, or lack of it, we learned its essentials because of those around us. Our families and friends and teachers and pastors have helped each of us become what we are. So Ms Schori is right to this degree: none of us can be saved without the help of those around us. But she is wrong in this equally profound degree: God has made us as individuals, each bearing His image. How I walk along the labyrinth either mars or polishes the greatest gift God has given me: His image of Himself in me. And to the degree I deface the image, nobody around me has to wonder about the reality of hell: I carry hell wherever I go. And most happily, the opposite is also true. To the degree I burnish that image and make it shine, I make it possible for those around me to know, without an intellectual discourse, that Heaven, too is a reality. My friend Bob walked his labyrinth nobly and gracefully, and is now taking his last steps. To the eye which sees but does not understand, he can barely walk. But I know he is sprinting to the center of his labyrinth, knowing Who waits for him there.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, I confess to picking up a book out of sheer indulgence. I first read this book, Journey into Fear, back in 1970. I don’t know how many times—ten at least—I’ve read it since. The copy I now own is my third. Eric Ambler, the author, worked writing copy for a London advertising agency before World War II, writing short stories and a few novels on the side. Journey into Fear was the last, and best, he wrote before the war (many, me included, would simply say this was his best). It is pure escapism, a spy novel whose main character is not a spy, and is wonderfully peopled with Turkish spies and Italian sailors, a elderly German archaeologist and a pair of seedy flamenco dancers. Howard Graham, the protagonist, is an English engineer sent to Istanbul as a temporary consultant. The night before he is to return home, he enters his still-dark hotel room and is shot. He doesn’t know why and neither do we readers for some time. His dangerous escape from would-be assassins puts him aboard slow-moving tramp steamers and fast moving French trains each replete with hidden dangers. Ambler’s writing is tight and fast-paced, but the characters are well-drawn and fascinating, and it is the characters, wittingly and unwittingly, who drive the plot. I’ve read—and own—all eighteen of Ambler’s novels and a collection of his short stories called Waiting for Orders, and occasionally find myself drawn back to the bookshelf where they stand, lined at attention and ready for use. But this is the one I pick up most often when I go there. If you see it somewhere, pick it up, but I offer the invitation with this caveat—don’t plan to read anything else for the next day or two, because you will be otherwise occupied.
QUOTES OF THIS WEEK’S PRINCIPALS:
“I feel much better now that I am certain the pope is the Antichrist.”—Martin Luther
“All dressed up, with nowhere to go.”—Bishop William White
“I am not yet ready to be Tsar. I know nothing of the business of ruling.”—Tsar Nicholas II, on the day of his coronation.
“It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed.”—Vladimir I Lenin, who ordered the Romanov’s slaughter
“We will not do less research and development work, and I will not discharge any of the people we have hired; I will work for nothing if I have to."—Dr Willis Carrier, when told by his bankers at the coming of the Depression he needed to fire workers tp keep up profits
“I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing – all this was started by a mouse.”—Walt Disney as he opened Disneyland
Friday, July 10, 2009
Mapping the Path
Walking the Labyrinth—July 10, 2009. In Moscow today (and every July 10th), at Dormition Cathedral, an ancient relic (how ancient? ah, that’s the rub) is put on display for veneration. The cathedral, the mother church of Tsarist Russia, was completed in 1479 and stands in the center of Cathedral Square at the Kremlin. In 1625, representatives from the Persian Shah arrived in Moscow with a gift for the Tsar, Michael Feodorovich, and the Patriarch of Moscow, Philaret. The Shah’s emissaries claimed their gift was the same robe the Roman soldiers stripped from Jesus at the Crucifixion. If the Shah’s story is to be believed, this relic is the seamless robe of Christ, woven of a single piece of cloth. In ancient Christian writing, Christ’s seamless robe was taken as a powerful symbol of the unity of the Church. As such, if this was indeed that garment, its value would be inestimable. Oddly enough, though, the Cathedral of the Dormition isn’t the only church in Russia with Christ’s one garment. Or at least, part of it. Pieces of it are enshrined at the cathedral in St Petersburg, the church attached to the Tsar’s Winter Palace, at Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, at the monastery in Ipatiev, and several other prominent Russian churches. If you happen to be at Dormition Cathedral on July 10 on any given year, you won’t see the seamless robe displayed, but only a venerable piece of it. Whatever the original garment was the Shah sent to the Tsar, it was promptly cut to pieces and parceled out! On the night of July 10, 1212, the newly-completed London Bridge fell down. The south part of the bridge caught fire and a bunch of people who ran onto it to put out the fire got trapped as the flames spread quickly around them(the bridge was lined with shops and residences). Happily most were rescued when the city’s boatmen clustered underneath the bridge and helped people into their boats and barges. Medieval Londoners turned near-tragedy on its head though; they rebuilt the bridge and made a children’s rhyme out of the night’s events. In 1509, the humorless John Calvin was born. Trained as a lawyer, he first published his massive work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, in 1536. It irrefutably proves that 25 year olds should not write theology books. In 1692, some of Calvin’s disciples, having come to the New World to escape religious persecution, hung Brigit Bishop from an oak tree outside Salem, Massachusetts, for being a witch. She was the first of 19 to die from July till September of that year in the famous Witch Trials. Her main offense seems to have been that she liked to wear bright-colored clothes and flirt with men. Today she’d have a television show or be a Senator’s “other woman”—and then have a television show. On July 10, 1884, the man who many regard as the world’s greatest chess player, Paul Morphy, died in his bathtub. Morphy came from a distinguished New Orleans family and as a young child he learned how to play chess by watching his elders play the game on Sunday evenings. One of those evenings, when he was four years old, he told his uncle he should have won the game he just lost. He proceeded to demonstrate this by resetting the board and going over the game move by move, then showing the opportunities his uncle had missed. By the time he was nine years old, he was regarded as the best chess player in New Orleans. He toured the world when he was 20, winning international acclaim. Morphy, weighed down with laurels from the Queen of England and proclaimed “Chess Champion of the World" by the President of the United States, returned to New Orleans in 1859 to open a law practice. It never prospered, he told friends, because almost everyone who came to his office wanted to talk about chess, not the law. After a long afternoon walk in the New Orleans heat, Morphy insisted on getting into a bathtub filled with cold water. His body went into shock and he died while still in the tub. His home, at 417 Royale Street in the French Quarter, is today the site of Brennan’s Restaurant, where “Bananas Foster” was created and continues to be served. In 1923, the city of Rostov in Russia was pounded by a hailstorm. The average weigh of the hailstones that pummeled the town was 2 pounds. According to the city archives, “23 people were killed and a very great number of cattle.” Two years later, the Scopes “Monkey Trial” (one of several “Trials of the Century” held in the 20th century) began in Dayton, Tennessee. John Scopes was convicted, but he later told reporters he couldn’t remember whether he’d taught evolution in his class or not. The whole thing, he said, had been staged to win publicity for both sides. The first full moon in July is called the Buck Moon or the Honey Moon; today is the 191st day of the year; 174 days remain in 2009.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON once wrote, “Every boy loves maps.” It’s certainly true in my case, but Stevenson would undoubtedly be accused of sexism if he penned those words today. Perhaps justly. A lot of us, male and female, love maps and the hidden promises they enfold. There was an old map shop I used to frequent in New Orleans, closed by the hurricane, which was one big open room laden with maps: maps on counters, maps in big, wide drawers, maps on the wall, maps in cases, no inch of the place—except the floor—but was covered with a map. There were gigantic maps on the ceiling and I got more than one crick in my neck looking up when in that store. My great prize from there was a reproduction of a map of the plantations of Louisiana along the Mississippi, originally done about 1855. It’s 7 feet tall and 32 inches wide, and gives the names and owners of each plantation from Belle Chasse to La Barre. There are maps like this I cherish, but I’ll confess something here. I can’t bring myself to throw maps away. Outdated road maps, tattered maps, AAA maps I’ve got three duplicates of, I always stop and think “What if somebody needs this someday?” I know what Stevenson was talking about. I doubt he could bring himself to toss out a map either.
Labyrinths are ancient, much older than Christianity. The first labyrinth to be dated was built 1,000 years before Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. They’ve always been seen as sacred pathways, but with the coming of Christianity, they disappeared from the Mediterranean world. No doubt, they were seen as holdovers from the Old Ways. Then, about 1200 or so, give or take a century, labyrinths began to re-appear. On the floors of large parish churches and the pavements of the new Gothic cathedrals, these ancient patterns found a new meaning. They were seen and used as paths of pilgrimage. After the Muslims closed off Christian holy places to pilgrims and the wars we now call the Crusades were being waged, people began walking (often on their knees) these labyrinths as a way of making a pilgrimage. Often the central core, the heart of the labyrinth, was inscribed “Jerusalem” or had a picture of the holy city painted there. The labyrinth, with all its twists and turns, is both a journey and a map.
About half-a-dozen of those medieval labyrinths still survive in European cathedrals. Some new ones have been built. But even those of us who can’t walk the labyrinths 0f Chartres or Amiens can still benefit from them. Their very existence can teach us about our own lives and pilgrimages. Most obviously, they teach us we need maps. We need a guide to help us get to where we want to go. How much gasoline, do you think, have GPS systems saved? How many arguments have been averted when men, on whose stubborn ears the phrase “why don’t you stop and ask someone where we are?” once fell as on barren ground, now simply punch the family’s destination into the car’s GPS device? In the labyrinth of our lives each of us needs guidance, help along the way. We each have to walk the path God has set us on, but we can walk well or poorly, we can succeed or fail. Even though the path you're walking is yours alone, others have been walking paths like yours for countless years, stumbling where you've stumbled, dancing where you've danced, crying tears like yours, delighting in the same silvered moons you've wondered at. You've got to walk your labyrinth yourself, but you don't have to walk it alone. There are great men and women who've gone before you. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest their stories of spiritual struggle and failure and growth. Find a friend to talk to about the deep things of your life, the things that make you who you are. The early Christians in Ireland and Wales called someone like this a "soul friend." Not necessarily a spiritual director, but a companion along the way. Your spiritual life isn't merely your "church life" or the stuff you do people might call "religious." It's who you are when you're measured at your deepest point; the part of yourself you meet the most rarely, the you you know the least.It's the you God put in the labyrinth and said "Get on with it. Start walking." So what map will you use as you travel? That depends on where you decide you want to walk. From one pilgrim to another I simply say: choose that map wisely.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, a pleasant surprise, Journey Back to Eden, by Mark Gruber, OSB. Fr Gruber is a Benedictine monk who spent a year in Egypt living among the Copts. He went to do a sociological study of them to complete his field work for his doctorate in anthropology. My good friend, Col. P J Hickey (ret), sent it to me as an Easter gift. I just read it this week, which shows you behind I am in my reading. But I’m glad I kept it on the bookstack. Fr Gruber went to Egypt "to study this ancient and indigenous people." The book tells the story of how he came to analyze their culture and ended up embracing their ways. Fr Gruber didn’t abandon his American Catholicism and become a pseudo-Egyptian; he did something much more profound. He eventually came to see himself, and his faith, through their eyes. Through the rich experiences he recounts in the book, he discovered the common, core faith he shared with his hosts. He lived in the desert monasteries of Egypt for a year and came to understand the fiery discipline of the ancient monks was not a throwback to times past, but a true way forward for people of faith. He contrasts the life of Christians in Egypt, where the Copts are a persecuted minority, to the life of Christians here in America, where even the monastic life is rich and fat by comparison. Here, we have evangelists who preach the good news that God wants us to be wealthy; there, the Coptic monks tell the people their persecuted status is God’s plan for the redemption of Egypt, Coptic and Muslim. This is the moving story of a man who went to Egypt to study anthropology and discovered his life as a Christian. I wasn’t expecting much from this book but in reading it made some happy discoveries of my own. Journey Back to Eden was published by Orbis Books in 2002.
Quotes from today’s principals:
“I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.”—John Calvin (this is as funny as Calvin gets)
“Scare. Terrify. Petrify your opponent."—Paul Morphy
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."--Clarence Darrow, Attorney for John Scopes
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON once wrote, “Every boy loves maps.” It’s certainly true in my case, but Stevenson would undoubtedly be accused of sexism if he penned those words today. Perhaps justly. A lot of us, male and female, love maps and the hidden promises they enfold. There was an old map shop I used to frequent in New Orleans, closed by the hurricane, which was one big open room laden with maps: maps on counters, maps in big, wide drawers, maps on the wall, maps in cases, no inch of the place—except the floor—but was covered with a map. There were gigantic maps on the ceiling and I got more than one crick in my neck looking up when in that store. My great prize from there was a reproduction of a map of the plantations of Louisiana along the Mississippi, originally done about 1855. It’s 7 feet tall and 32 inches wide, and gives the names and owners of each plantation from Belle Chasse to La Barre. There are maps like this I cherish, but I’ll confess something here. I can’t bring myself to throw maps away. Outdated road maps, tattered maps, AAA maps I’ve got three duplicates of, I always stop and think “What if somebody needs this someday?” I know what Stevenson was talking about. I doubt he could bring himself to toss out a map either.
Labyrinths are ancient, much older than Christianity. The first labyrinth to be dated was built 1,000 years before Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt. They’ve always been seen as sacred pathways, but with the coming of Christianity, they disappeared from the Mediterranean world. No doubt, they were seen as holdovers from the Old Ways. Then, about 1200 or so, give or take a century, labyrinths began to re-appear. On the floors of large parish churches and the pavements of the new Gothic cathedrals, these ancient patterns found a new meaning. They were seen and used as paths of pilgrimage. After the Muslims closed off Christian holy places to pilgrims and the wars we now call the Crusades were being waged, people began walking (often on their knees) these labyrinths as a way of making a pilgrimage. Often the central core, the heart of the labyrinth, was inscribed “Jerusalem” or had a picture of the holy city painted there. The labyrinth, with all its twists and turns, is both a journey and a map.
About half-a-dozen of those medieval labyrinths still survive in European cathedrals. Some new ones have been built. But even those of us who can’t walk the labyrinths 0f Chartres or Amiens can still benefit from them. Their very existence can teach us about our own lives and pilgrimages. Most obviously, they teach us we need maps. We need a guide to help us get to where we want to go. How much gasoline, do you think, have GPS systems saved? How many arguments have been averted when men, on whose stubborn ears the phrase “why don’t you stop and ask someone where we are?” once fell as on barren ground, now simply punch the family’s destination into the car’s GPS device? In the labyrinth of our lives each of us needs guidance, help along the way. We each have to walk the path God has set us on, but we can walk well or poorly, we can succeed or fail. Even though the path you're walking is yours alone, others have been walking paths like yours for countless years, stumbling where you've stumbled, dancing where you've danced, crying tears like yours, delighting in the same silvered moons you've wondered at. You've got to walk your labyrinth yourself, but you don't have to walk it alone. There are great men and women who've gone before you. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest their stories of spiritual struggle and failure and growth. Find a friend to talk to about the deep things of your life, the things that make you who you are. The early Christians in Ireland and Wales called someone like this a "soul friend." Not necessarily a spiritual director, but a companion along the way. Your spiritual life isn't merely your "church life" or the stuff you do people might call "religious." It's who you are when you're measured at your deepest point; the part of yourself you meet the most rarely, the you you know the least.It's the you God put in the labyrinth and said "Get on with it. Start walking." So what map will you use as you travel? That depends on where you decide you want to walk. From one pilgrim to another I simply say: choose that map wisely.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, a pleasant surprise, Journey Back to Eden, by Mark Gruber, OSB. Fr Gruber is a Benedictine monk who spent a year in Egypt living among the Copts. He went to do a sociological study of them to complete his field work for his doctorate in anthropology. My good friend, Col. P J Hickey (ret), sent it to me as an Easter gift. I just read it this week, which shows you behind I am in my reading. But I’m glad I kept it on the bookstack. Fr Gruber went to Egypt "to study this ancient and indigenous people." The book tells the story of how he came to analyze their culture and ended up embracing their ways. Fr Gruber didn’t abandon his American Catholicism and become a pseudo-Egyptian; he did something much more profound. He eventually came to see himself, and his faith, through their eyes. Through the rich experiences he recounts in the book, he discovered the common, core faith he shared with his hosts. He lived in the desert monasteries of Egypt for a year and came to understand the fiery discipline of the ancient monks was not a throwback to times past, but a true way forward for people of faith. He contrasts the life of Christians in Egypt, where the Copts are a persecuted minority, to the life of Christians here in America, where even the monastic life is rich and fat by comparison. Here, we have evangelists who preach the good news that God wants us to be wealthy; there, the Coptic monks tell the people their persecuted status is God’s plan for the redemption of Egypt, Coptic and Muslim. This is the moving story of a man who went to Egypt to study anthropology and discovered his life as a Christian. I wasn’t expecting much from this book but in reading it made some happy discoveries of my own. Journey Back to Eden was published by Orbis Books in 2002.
Quotes from today’s principals:
“I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.”—John Calvin (this is as funny as Calvin gets)
“Scare. Terrify. Petrify your opponent."—Paul Morphy
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."--Clarence Darrow, Attorney for John Scopes
Friday, July 03, 2009
Schizophrenia--Spiritual and Otherwise
Walking the Labyrinth, July 3, 2009—Today, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Nobleborn Prince Gleb of Vladimir, one of the many sons of the Nobleborn Prince Andrei Bogoliubsky. The young prince Gleb, was from an early age devoted to reading books and attending church services, and was “much loved of the clergy of the city.” He died at nineteen in 1174. His church biography tells us no more, but modern historians say his death was under “mysterious circumstances.” Perhaps it had to do with that phrase “one of many sons.” In 1423, Louis XI, who ruled France from 1461 until 1483, was born. He was called “Louis the Prudent” by his court and “Louis the Spider” by everyone else. He loved plots and conspiracies but during his reign, France steered clear of wars and the monarchy consolidated the power which would one day blossom into the much-admired reigns of Louis’ successors. Basil Rathbone gave a delightful performance as The Spider King in the movie “If I Were King,” a fantasized account of the life of the medieval French poet-thief, Francois Villon. Louis also makes a “cameo” appearance in Victor Hugo’s novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Louis had an interest in science and once pardoned a man from the gallows if he would allow himself to be operated on for the removal of his gallstones, a problem which also plagued Louis. The man escaped the noose, but died under the surgeon’s knife. At two o’clock in the afternoon, on July 3, 1863, General George Pickett ordered more than 13,000 Confederate soldiers to attack the Union forces entrenched on Cemetery Ridge outside Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. More than half of them were shot down in the attempt. The survivors dragged themselves and their wounded comrades back across the bloody mile they’d just come, under the jeers and bullets of the Federal Army . The disaster of Pickett’s Charge brought to an end three days fighting at Gettysburg. Lee’s army limped back to Virginia, and though the War Between the States continued for almost two years more, the Confederate loss at Gettysburg and the surrender of the Confederate army at far-off Vicksburg the next day, marked the turning point of the war. Years later, when asked why his attack failed, Pickett is said to have quipped “I always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.” Although his family loudly insisted he was “born on the Fourth of July,” George M Cohan’s birth certificate lists July 3, 1878, as his birthday. His musicals dominated Broadway for twenty-five years, and during that time he wrote over 1500 best-selling songs (“Give My Regards to Broadway,” “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” “Over There,” “Mary Is a Grand Old Name”). He died of cancer in 1942, a few weeks after the just completed biography of his life, “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” starring James Cagney, was privately screened for him. Today is the 184th day of 2009; we have 181 more to go.
UNLESS YOU LIVE in a cave in Egypt (not an entirely unattractive thought), you know Michael Jackson died this past week. Several major stores in Los Angeles greeted shoppers over the past few days with large signs: “No Michael Jackson Items Left.” He has been eulogized by our new President and is undergoing a secular canonization in the press. His music doesn’t appeal to me, so I am not a fit judge of his talents, but if the number of his enthusiasts is a good indication, he was a man of much talent. I do know, regardless of the truths or untruths surrounding his personal life, he was plagued by many demons, inside and out, physical and mental and most certainly demons spiritual. Like so many who play leading roles in our society, he had both a public persona and a private character, and the divorce of the two led to a type of schizophrenia, a torn and damaged personality. A look at the news coverage over the past week shows the fascination our society has with both sides of Michael Jackson. But he is far from exceptional. A respected “family-values” governor crumbles right in front of television cameras as he reveals his love-sickness. A few months ago Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a speech he made to a group of bankers in Dubai, but one of them told reporters afterwards, “All we wanted to do was meet the man who soiled Monica Lewinsky’s dress.” We can’t seem to get enough of it. Is it too much of a leap from there to say that with these sort of leaders, our society is increasingly schizophrenic? The bulwarks of our society—political, educational, religious, financial, medical—are failing to hold up under pressure. There is much talent, much flash, much glamor, but little inner strength. More and more, we are becoming less and less.
Tomorrow, we celebrate the Fourth of July. What are we celebrating? Surely it’s more than a national remembering that the Declaration was signed in Philadelphia 233 years ago. We must be saying those events mean something today. Not just because our taxes are lower today than they were under King George, not because our liberties are now greater, the restrictions on us less, the government not as intrusive…well…um…on paper we have a right to the government we want, so look the situation at Los Angeles City Hall, the State House in Sacramento and the columned halls of Washington DC and ponder the “more perfect Union” we’ve formed. But before we vent our righteous indignation at those damned politicians, bear in mind the men and women in public office rarely do anything on their own. They are more followers than leaders, looking to polls rather than principles before making up their minds. That shouldn’t be surprising. The Founders of our country knew they would, and designed a government accordingly. Ours is not a direct democracy, where every vote ultimately matters. We have a representative democracy, a republic, where we choose people to do the governing for us. The Founders left us a government that would, by and large, reflect what we believe and do what we want. This is all by way of saying, the government we have embodies the society we’ve built. As society changes, so too does government. Every elected government official says what his constituents want to hear. Can you imagine Theodore Roosevelt, 100 years ago, or John F Kennedy, 50 years ago, supporting the infanticide, the broad sweep of abortions throughout America today? Democrats and Republicans alike support this horror, because they believe their constituents do. Euthanasia doesn’t have much support in Congress, because there’s little support or demand for killing off gramps right now. Wait another 25 years, when we’ve got an increasing number of octogenarians draining government revenues and see what the polls say then. We don’t have a government of principle but policy. Our public policies are schizophrenic because our society is schizophrenic.
But don’t write us off yet. Two thousand years ago, Cicero cried, “O tempora! O mores!” “Oh, the times! Oh, the manners!” feeling things couldn’t get much worse. Policies can change and so can societies. For them to change, we, the people, have to change. Our world can only grow in grace and wisdom, if we grow in grace and wisdom. Groaning and griping about bad politicians and pathetic leaders and stupid policies doesn’t take anybody off the road to ruin. It just makes the journey the more unpleasant for everybody. To walk a labyrinth is to walk a road of grace. We walk with the assurance that the journey will end happily, no matter our difficulties and failures along the way. One thing though, a word to the wise walker: don’t gripe and grumble down the path, bemoaning the state of things with grumbly—eloquent, but grumbly—Cicero. The time will come, when you will be called on to fight the good fight. When it comes, do your best. Fight to the finish. But don’t let the “iron enter into your soul,” as the Psalmist said. Don’t be twisted by the times or discouraged by the battle. When you and I come to the Center of our labyrinths, our walk will end. We’ll then be Otherwise Occupied. If I was to guess (and I’m a pretty good guesser), I would guess the true peace and genuine freedom we have waiting for us Elsewhere, will be in proportion to the peace and freedom we have found—and made, for ourselves and others—walking through the life we are living right now.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, a couple of fun things I wanted to share. First, not a book at all, but a printed menu! Fr Robert Sanchez, my old Romish friend, made a gift to me last Sunday of an antique menu from the Hollywood Brown Derby. It's not dated, but has “Thursday” printed at the bottom right corner. So, naturally, the first thing I did was to look at the dishes and how much they cost. Under “Brown Derby De Luxe Dinners” the Whole Broiled Live Lobster, with Drawn Butter, the Soup du Jour (Chicken Broth with Egg Noodles) and Derby Salad with French Dressing, Assorted Vegetables and Choice of Potatoes cost the Thursday diner $3.00. The front of the menu is decorated with caricatures of well-known Hollywood patrons of the establishment. I mentioned the menu to Dolores Davis, a friend who keeps tabs on me for our Writing Group, and a chef of renown. She loaned me an aging book titled The Brown Derby Cookbook, my most fun book this week. It was written by Leonard Lewis Levinson in 1949. While most of a cookbook is wasted on the likes of me, I did write down about six or seven recipes I want to remember, including Avocado Neptune Derby, Mexican Barbecued Lamb and one listing titled simply Brown Gravy (underneath the title, Dolores long ago penciled in “Very Good!”). Aside from the recipes, though, the book has a wonderful essay, “The Story of the Brown Derbies” giving an account, historical, mythological and culinary, of the eateries. The book also includes a “Glossary and Table” to help understand the Derby’s unique recipes, and a concluding section titled “How to Read a Menu.” The last of the Derbies (Los Feliz) closed when I was pastor of St Mary’s, right down the street. I used to treat ecclesiastical visitors to a meal there while it was still open. I wish I’d known about this book back in those halcyon days.
Quotes from the Principals:
“He who does not know how to lie, does not know how to reign.” King Louis XI
“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened… Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand and his sword in the other waits, looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet…”— William Faulkner on Pickett’s Charge, Intruder in the Dust
“Many a bum show has been saved by the flag.”—George M Cohan
Okay—one recipe:
Fresh Shrimp Saute Brown Derby Serves 3
4 oz butter; 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled, split and cleaned; 1/2 lb mushrooms,sliced; 1 bead garlic, chopped fine; 2 tbs finely chopped green onion; 1/2 tsp basil;
1/2 cup white wine; 1/2 cup Brown Gravy or chicken broth; 1 tsp celery salt; 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce; 2 cups steamed rice
Heat butter in heavy skillet. Add shrimp and sauté on medium heat for 8 minutes. Add mushrooms, garlic, green onion and basil. Saute 2 minutes more. Add wine and reduce by two-thirds. Add brown gravy, celery salt and Worcestershire Sauce. Serve over steamed rice.
Gracias, Dolores!
UNLESS YOU LIVE in a cave in Egypt (not an entirely unattractive thought), you know Michael Jackson died this past week. Several major stores in Los Angeles greeted shoppers over the past few days with large signs: “No Michael Jackson Items Left.” He has been eulogized by our new President and is undergoing a secular canonization in the press. His music doesn’t appeal to me, so I am not a fit judge of his talents, but if the number of his enthusiasts is a good indication, he was a man of much talent. I do know, regardless of the truths or untruths surrounding his personal life, he was plagued by many demons, inside and out, physical and mental and most certainly demons spiritual. Like so many who play leading roles in our society, he had both a public persona and a private character, and the divorce of the two led to a type of schizophrenia, a torn and damaged personality. A look at the news coverage over the past week shows the fascination our society has with both sides of Michael Jackson. But he is far from exceptional. A respected “family-values” governor crumbles right in front of television cameras as he reveals his love-sickness. A few months ago Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a speech he made to a group of bankers in Dubai, but one of them told reporters afterwards, “All we wanted to do was meet the man who soiled Monica Lewinsky’s dress.” We can’t seem to get enough of it. Is it too much of a leap from there to say that with these sort of leaders, our society is increasingly schizophrenic? The bulwarks of our society—political, educational, religious, financial, medical—are failing to hold up under pressure. There is much talent, much flash, much glamor, but little inner strength. More and more, we are becoming less and less.
Tomorrow, we celebrate the Fourth of July. What are we celebrating? Surely it’s more than a national remembering that the Declaration was signed in Philadelphia 233 years ago. We must be saying those events mean something today. Not just because our taxes are lower today than they were under King George, not because our liberties are now greater, the restrictions on us less, the government not as intrusive…well…um…on paper we have a right to the government we want, so look the situation at Los Angeles City Hall, the State House in Sacramento and the columned halls of Washington DC and ponder the “more perfect Union” we’ve formed. But before we vent our righteous indignation at those damned politicians, bear in mind the men and women in public office rarely do anything on their own. They are more followers than leaders, looking to polls rather than principles before making up their minds. That shouldn’t be surprising. The Founders of our country knew they would, and designed a government accordingly. Ours is not a direct democracy, where every vote ultimately matters. We have a representative democracy, a republic, where we choose people to do the governing for us. The Founders left us a government that would, by and large, reflect what we believe and do what we want. This is all by way of saying, the government we have embodies the society we’ve built. As society changes, so too does government. Every elected government official says what his constituents want to hear. Can you imagine Theodore Roosevelt, 100 years ago, or John F Kennedy, 50 years ago, supporting the infanticide, the broad sweep of abortions throughout America today? Democrats and Republicans alike support this horror, because they believe their constituents do. Euthanasia doesn’t have much support in Congress, because there’s little support or demand for killing off gramps right now. Wait another 25 years, when we’ve got an increasing number of octogenarians draining government revenues and see what the polls say then. We don’t have a government of principle but policy. Our public policies are schizophrenic because our society is schizophrenic.
But don’t write us off yet. Two thousand years ago, Cicero cried, “O tempora! O mores!” “Oh, the times! Oh, the manners!” feeling things couldn’t get much worse. Policies can change and so can societies. For them to change, we, the people, have to change. Our world can only grow in grace and wisdom, if we grow in grace and wisdom. Groaning and griping about bad politicians and pathetic leaders and stupid policies doesn’t take anybody off the road to ruin. It just makes the journey the more unpleasant for everybody. To walk a labyrinth is to walk a road of grace. We walk with the assurance that the journey will end happily, no matter our difficulties and failures along the way. One thing though, a word to the wise walker: don’t gripe and grumble down the path, bemoaning the state of things with grumbly—eloquent, but grumbly—Cicero. The time will come, when you will be called on to fight the good fight. When it comes, do your best. Fight to the finish. But don’t let the “iron enter into your soul,” as the Psalmist said. Don’t be twisted by the times or discouraged by the battle. When you and I come to the Center of our labyrinths, our walk will end. We’ll then be Otherwise Occupied. If I was to guess (and I’m a pretty good guesser), I would guess the true peace and genuine freedom we have waiting for us Elsewhere, will be in proportion to the peace and freedom we have found—and made, for ourselves and others—walking through the life we are living right now.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, a couple of fun things I wanted to share. First, not a book at all, but a printed menu! Fr Robert Sanchez, my old Romish friend, made a gift to me last Sunday of an antique menu from the Hollywood Brown Derby. It's not dated, but has “Thursday” printed at the bottom right corner. So, naturally, the first thing I did was to look at the dishes and how much they cost. Under “Brown Derby De Luxe Dinners” the Whole Broiled Live Lobster, with Drawn Butter, the Soup du Jour (Chicken Broth with Egg Noodles) and Derby Salad with French Dressing, Assorted Vegetables and Choice of Potatoes cost the Thursday diner $3.00. The front of the menu is decorated with caricatures of well-known Hollywood patrons of the establishment. I mentioned the menu to Dolores Davis, a friend who keeps tabs on me for our Writing Group, and a chef of renown. She loaned me an aging book titled The Brown Derby Cookbook, my most fun book this week. It was written by Leonard Lewis Levinson in 1949. While most of a cookbook is wasted on the likes of me, I did write down about six or seven recipes I want to remember, including Avocado Neptune Derby, Mexican Barbecued Lamb and one listing titled simply Brown Gravy (underneath the title, Dolores long ago penciled in “Very Good!”). Aside from the recipes, though, the book has a wonderful essay, “The Story of the Brown Derbies” giving an account, historical, mythological and culinary, of the eateries. The book also includes a “Glossary and Table” to help understand the Derby’s unique recipes, and a concluding section titled “How to Read a Menu.” The last of the Derbies (Los Feliz) closed when I was pastor of St Mary’s, right down the street. I used to treat ecclesiastical visitors to a meal there while it was still open. I wish I’d known about this book back in those halcyon days.
Quotes from the Principals:
“He who does not know how to lie, does not know how to reign.” King Louis XI
“For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened… Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand and his sword in the other waits, looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet…”— William Faulkner on Pickett’s Charge, Intruder in the Dust
“Many a bum show has been saved by the flag.”—George M Cohan
Okay—one recipe:
Fresh Shrimp Saute Brown Derby Serves 3
4 oz butter; 1 lb raw shrimp, peeled, split and cleaned; 1/2 lb mushrooms,sliced; 1 bead garlic, chopped fine; 2 tbs finely chopped green onion; 1/2 tsp basil;
1/2 cup white wine; 1/2 cup Brown Gravy or chicken broth; 1 tsp celery salt; 1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce; 2 cups steamed rice
Heat butter in heavy skillet. Add shrimp and sauté on medium heat for 8 minutes. Add mushrooms, garlic, green onion and basil. Saute 2 minutes more. Add wine and reduce by two-thirds. Add brown gravy, celery salt and Worcestershire Sauce. Serve over steamed rice.
Gracias, Dolores!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Two Roads
Walking the Labyrinth, June 26, 2009—Today the old Latin calendar celebrates the Feast of St Mary Magdalene Fontaine and her Companions. These four pious nuns were guillotined in 1794, victims of the French Revolution, for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the new government. On the old, old Latin calendar (the one predating the first Christmas), this latter part of June was under the patronage of the goddess Juno, the protectress of marriage (who, if mythology is to be believed, didn’t do such a good job protecting her own). The Romans considered this the most auspicious time of year to be married, hence our lingering notion of “June brides.” It is the 177th day of the year, and 188 days remain in 2009. According to the town rolls of Hamelin, Germany, today in 1284 the Pied Piper led 130 children out of the city, none of them ever to return. It seems the old Grimm Fairy Tale is actually grounded in history. A stained glass window in the town, dating from about 1300, depicts the odd event, and the town roll dated 1294 cryptically says, “It is ten years since our children left.” One hundred and ninety-nine years later, in 1483, Richard III seized the throne of England following the mysterious deaths of the two young princes in the Tower of London (this seems to be a bad day for children). In Lima, Peru, the conquistador Francisco Pizarro was murdered at a dinner party this night in 1541, when 20 armed men burst into the hall and took turns stabbing him. The other guests left; dessert was canceled. Finally, in 1817, the United States Patent Office issued the first American patent for a bicycle. For those who keep up with such things, the United States Congress has declared this “Carpenter Ant Awareness Week” (now you know why we send them to Washington); today is also Take Your Dog to Work Day in some States. Pearl S Buck, the author of The Good Earth, was born this day in 1894 (according to her biography, she wrote more than 80 other books, but I can’t name any of the rest of them), so too, in 1904, was László Löwenstein (we know him better as Peter Lorre). Along with the perhaps-still-hungry Pizarro, the Roman Emperor Julian (called “the Apostate”—that’s what happens when your enemies end up writing history) died on this day in 363 AD, killed in a battle with the Persians. One thousand and six hundred years later, to the day, President John F Kennedy spoke to a crowd in communist-surrounded West Berlin and said “Ich bin ein Berliner"—a phrase which has been variously translated.
IT’S EASY TO BE outraged. In fact, sometimes it’s hard not to be. I did my weekly fulminating when I read the words of a womanpriest in a national Episcopalian magazine assuring her readers that God was pleased whenever a woman exercised her right to abort her child. If my teeth were better, I would have gnashed them. Instead, I wrote a sharp satirical piece proposing liturgical rites for the blessing of abortion clinics and “Prayers for an Easy Termination,” but my little production will remain (pardon me) “unbirthed.” Outrage and anger are easy, and the road they lead down is broad and wide; once we get accustomed to that walk, our steps aren’t easily retraced. You’ve known people who are on it. Complaints are their daily fare; whining is one of the few things they’ll share with others. Whenever anything good is said about someone, they quickly remind us everyone’s motives are mixed. Good news evokes the cynical response “how long do you think that will last?” Anger seethes and bubbles in some of us like witch’s brew in a cauldron, and it’s poison to the human soul. Those Seven Deadly Sins (and Anger is one of the leaders of the list incidentally; poor old Lust is just a straggler) are deadly not because they make God mad at us, but because they shrivel us up. They transform our souls into petrified prunes, and when they’re finished with us, even we don’t like ourselves.
That’s not the path God wants us on. That road is narrow, strewn with obstacles, a labyrinth the end of which is not clearly visible. But God put us on it so we could bring ourselves to walk upright like men and women, not slither like slugs or wander like moles. Aristotle said the proper “end” of man is happiness (he meant “woman” too, but in those days everybody didn’t have to be explicitly told their gender, ethnic group, and ‘faith community’ was included for them to be able to understand that). By happy he didn’t mean “winning the lottery” happy or happy as in “He was happy when he learned his ex-wife was being audited.” The Philosopher understood that genuine happiness isn’t the result of something that happens to us. “The Kingdom of God is within you.” There’s a wonderful old Spanish phrase, from the days of medieval pilgrimage, which is apt for a modern-day pilgrim on today’s labyrinthine path: “If God isn’t with you on the first step of your journey, you won’t find him by walking all the way to Jerusalem.” Happiness comes from doing your job, whatever it is, well; from doing something good for someone else when you know they’ll never find out about it; from looking for beauty—if you seek, you will always find it. The world God has given us is stuft’d full of beauty, and He’s given us the eyes to see it and the ears to hear it. It’s not that it’s not all around us; it’s that we make ourselves blind and deaf to it, with self-centeredness and anger and jealousy and—but you know the rest of the list of Seven.
So don’t rush through the steps of your labyrinth. Enjoy the journey, savor the pace. The scenery along the way is there just for you.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, comes a mirthful little volume titled Misreadings by Umberto Eco, author of the very long novel, The Name of the Rose. Misreadings is a collection of fifteen small pieces of fun. Eco was hired, in 1959, to write a monthly column for Il Verro, an Italian literary magazine. He began submitting parodies of the ponderous contents of the magazine to the magazine itself. It says something of the editors that they published them all. One is a set of internal critiques, supposedly from a publishing company, on why they’re rejecting certain books as unsuitable, including the Bible (“I must say the first few hundred pages of this manuscript really hooked me…sex (lots of it), murders, massacres and so on…but as I kept reading, I realized this is actually an anthology, involving several writers…I’d suggest getting the rights to just the first few chapters, but using a different title. How about Red Sea Desperadoes?”), Homer’s Odyssey (“…remember in his first book, how the Achilles-Patroclus story, with its not-so-latent homosexuality got us into trouble?”), and a dozen or so others, including refusal letters to Cervantes and Dante. Another piece is an account of Columbus discovering America, accompanied by modern-day news media and their attendant host of experts, in this case including Leonardo da Vinci, who gets short-shrift from the reporters when he becomes too technical.
Any of the selections can be read in ten or fifteen minutes. The satire is rich, at times thick, written to mock scholarship which labors on the ephemeral and a society which concerns itself with the trivial. But I read it with such pleasure partly because the satire and mockery isn’t bitter or angry or malicious. Eco’s Misreadings holds up a mirror and lets us see ourselves; he helps us see how silly we can sometimes be when we make more of things than they are. I’m going to put this book on the bookshelf in my bedroom, so I can pick it up frequently for a refreshing sip.
Quotes from the Principals:
Julian the Apostate—“So long as you are a slave to the opinions of the many you have not yet approached freedom.”
Pearl S Buck—“The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.” And one more from her, because it seems so wonderfully apt. Remember, her parents were missionaries to China. “We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won't let them into our country.”
John F Kennedy, in Berlin—“All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ ”
Peter Lorre—“Don’t you think we should drive a stake through his heart, just in case?” (to Vincent Price at Bela Lugosi's funeral)
IT’S EASY TO BE outraged. In fact, sometimes it’s hard not to be. I did my weekly fulminating when I read the words of a womanpriest in a national Episcopalian magazine assuring her readers that God was pleased whenever a woman exercised her right to abort her child. If my teeth were better, I would have gnashed them. Instead, I wrote a sharp satirical piece proposing liturgical rites for the blessing of abortion clinics and “Prayers for an Easy Termination,” but my little production will remain (pardon me) “unbirthed.” Outrage and anger are easy, and the road they lead down is broad and wide; once we get accustomed to that walk, our steps aren’t easily retraced. You’ve known people who are on it. Complaints are their daily fare; whining is one of the few things they’ll share with others. Whenever anything good is said about someone, they quickly remind us everyone’s motives are mixed. Good news evokes the cynical response “how long do you think that will last?” Anger seethes and bubbles in some of us like witch’s brew in a cauldron, and it’s poison to the human soul. Those Seven Deadly Sins (and Anger is one of the leaders of the list incidentally; poor old Lust is just a straggler) are deadly not because they make God mad at us, but because they shrivel us up. They transform our souls into petrified prunes, and when they’re finished with us, even we don’t like ourselves.
That’s not the path God wants us on. That road is narrow, strewn with obstacles, a labyrinth the end of which is not clearly visible. But God put us on it so we could bring ourselves to walk upright like men and women, not slither like slugs or wander like moles. Aristotle said the proper “end” of man is happiness (he meant “woman” too, but in those days everybody didn’t have to be explicitly told their gender, ethnic group, and ‘faith community’ was included for them to be able to understand that). By happy he didn’t mean “winning the lottery” happy or happy as in “He was happy when he learned his ex-wife was being audited.” The Philosopher understood that genuine happiness isn’t the result of something that happens to us. “The Kingdom of God is within you.” There’s a wonderful old Spanish phrase, from the days of medieval pilgrimage, which is apt for a modern-day pilgrim on today’s labyrinthine path: “If God isn’t with you on the first step of your journey, you won’t find him by walking all the way to Jerusalem.” Happiness comes from doing your job, whatever it is, well; from doing something good for someone else when you know they’ll never find out about it; from looking for beauty—if you seek, you will always find it. The world God has given us is stuft’d full of beauty, and He’s given us the eyes to see it and the ears to hear it. It’s not that it’s not all around us; it’s that we make ourselves blind and deaf to it, with self-centeredness and anger and jealousy and—but you know the rest of the list of Seven.
So don’t rush through the steps of your labyrinth. Enjoy the journey, savor the pace. The scenery along the way is there just for you.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, comes a mirthful little volume titled Misreadings by Umberto Eco, author of the very long novel, The Name of the Rose. Misreadings is a collection of fifteen small pieces of fun. Eco was hired, in 1959, to write a monthly column for Il Verro, an Italian literary magazine. He began submitting parodies of the ponderous contents of the magazine to the magazine itself. It says something of the editors that they published them all. One is a set of internal critiques, supposedly from a publishing company, on why they’re rejecting certain books as unsuitable, including the Bible (“I must say the first few hundred pages of this manuscript really hooked me…sex (lots of it), murders, massacres and so on…but as I kept reading, I realized this is actually an anthology, involving several writers…I’d suggest getting the rights to just the first few chapters, but using a different title. How about Red Sea Desperadoes?”), Homer’s Odyssey (“…remember in his first book, how the Achilles-Patroclus story, with its not-so-latent homosexuality got us into trouble?”), and a dozen or so others, including refusal letters to Cervantes and Dante. Another piece is an account of Columbus discovering America, accompanied by modern-day news media and their attendant host of experts, in this case including Leonardo da Vinci, who gets short-shrift from the reporters when he becomes too technical.
Any of the selections can be read in ten or fifteen minutes. The satire is rich, at times thick, written to mock scholarship which labors on the ephemeral and a society which concerns itself with the trivial. But I read it with such pleasure partly because the satire and mockery isn’t bitter or angry or malicious. Eco’s Misreadings holds up a mirror and lets us see ourselves; he helps us see how silly we can sometimes be when we make more of things than they are. I’m going to put this book on the bookshelf in my bedroom, so I can pick it up frequently for a refreshing sip.
Quotes from the Principals:
Julian the Apostate—“So long as you are a slave to the opinions of the many you have not yet approached freedom.”
Pearl S Buck—“The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.” And one more from her, because it seems so wonderfully apt. Remember, her parents were missionaries to China. “We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won't let them into our country.”
John F Kennedy, in Berlin—“All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ ”
Peter Lorre—“Don’t you think we should drive a stake through his heart, just in case?” (to Vincent Price at Bela Lugosi's funeral)
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Walking the Labyrinth, June 19, 2009—Today, on the Greek Orthodox Calendar of Saints, is the Feast of All the Saints of Mount Athos (the “Holy Mountain”); the old Latin calendar celebrated St Juliana Falconieri, a fourteenth century nun who founded an order devoted to the care of the sick. It is the 170th day of the year, and 195 days remain in 2009. Today is “Juneteenth,” freedom day for the slaves of the old South. James Charles Stuart, called James the First (of England), who was also James the Fourth (of Scotland), the son of Mary, the Queen of Scots, was born today in 1566. He ascended the Scottish throne when he was thirteen months old. Much later, he wrote a book, in three parts, titled Daemonologie, wherein he encouraged his subjects to hunt down and exterminate witches. You probably know he also wrote “A Counterblaste to Tobacco,” in 1604, condemning the use of the product. Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, was also born on this day in 1947. He still has a price on his head (or fatwa on his pate). In 1786, General Nathaniel Greene, whom George Washington considered his most gifted subordinate, died of a sunstroke at his new home outside Savannah. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953 at Sing Sing for passing American atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. They insisted on their innocence, but the publication of Nikita Khrushchev’s dairies conclusively proved otherwise. Perhaps most interesting of all, on June 19, 1917, in the midst of a World War (“I” in this case), King George V decreed that the British royal family would dispense with its German-sounding surname, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; from that time till this, the family bears the name Windsor.
SOMETIMES EVEN WATCHING television can be fun. I don’t recommend it in regular doses, but a fortuitous blend of the right (or maybe, the wrong) people can unexpectedly produce odd and funny moments. One such I recall was a “debate” between Christopher Hitchins, a disheveled but erudite proponent for atheism, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, most well-known for blustering wherever a television camera is turned on. Sharpton posed the not-fully-thought out proposition that without religion there is no basis for morality. For the next nine minutes the reverend was deftly eviscerated by Hitchins, but fortunately, Al didn’t seem to realize it. On Chris Matthews’ program (miscalled “Hardball”) the other night came another fun wundermoment: Matthews fatuously observed to Pat Buchanan, “…you Pat Buchanan, although you are a libertarian in many ways, you do not--no, you're a nationalist actually--you are not what you like to call, derisively, a democratist.” Buchanan responded, “No, I don't believe there's a great salvation in a political process at all. I believe in different--in far different things. I put democracy far down the line in the--I think a devoutly Christian, conservative traditionalist country, even if it's a monarchy, is fine…” The fun part though, was less the words than the picture. When Buchanan espoused this political heresy, both Matthews and the other guest sat open-mouthed. After a couple of seconds of crackling, empty airtime, Matthews croaked “Your Franco is talking, Pat. Franco is speaking even now.”
Fun as it was to watch, at the heart of this exchange is something worth pondering. One of the sacred cornerstones in the world we’re now a-building we call “democracy,” and it’s seen as an end in itself. Buchanan was saying the cornerstone isn’t sacred; there are things more important than how the world is governed. That is undoubted heresy to American politicians, who see—and want us to see—their careers as Very Important to the Public. Buchanan was not saying our form of government is unimportant or irrelevant, but that some things in life are more important. Faith and family, art and joy, a close friend and a field of bluebonnets, these things are sacred; they make life worth the living. Government is a device, a tool: in some hands good, in some bad. Hitler was democratically elected. So, too, was Hamas. In a speech made to the House of Commons in 1947, Churchill famously said “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." His hidden caveat is worth remembering. Churchill wasn’t slyly winking at us and cleverly saying “democracy really is best, you know.” He was telling us that it’s flawed. The core of his words is theological. It was an acknowledgment that, try as we might, we cannot build the New Jerusalem out of social programs and government grants. We have a problem, and, as Pogo said, it “is us.”
Some of our Founders (not all of them), understood that America is an experiment, one which could fail. Towards the end of his life, Jefferson lamented “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” About the same time, his friend, John Adams, wrote to a correspondent, “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Shortly after the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1789, Benjamin Franklin said in a letter to a French well-wisher: “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” We all know the last part of this quote, but its value is to warn us that few things, governments among them, last. Monarchies, republics, theocracies, dictatorships, democracies, none endure. Artists, thinkers, writers, musicians, poets and priests have lived and worked in places of freedom and times of oppression. Buchanan was reminding us that the basic things that make life worth living are not the gifts of government but the gifts of God. Some people, it seems, just don’t know the difference.
We are all of us walking God's labyrinth, even if many of us insist it's of our own building.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, I read Tennessee Williams’ last major play, “A House Not Meant to Stand.” Williams called it “a Gothic Comedy,” and it is, in parts, hilariously funny. It’s a play and to really appreciate it as the author intended, it’s best seen and heard, not read. Still, Williams’ ability to draw fascinating and eccentric characters, while at the same time keeping them accessible (by calling to mind bits of people we have known) comes across even on the page. Though in two acts, the movement is continuous and act two picks up just where act one drops off. The action takes place during a single night, set in the leaky, old Pascagoula home of Cornelius McCorkle and his wife Bella. For the duration of the play, a particularly long and noisy thunderstorm rages outside. The old couple returns home after a trip to Memphis for their eldest son’s funeral. Cornelius is a big-mouthed bully and a failed politician and Bella is a fat old woman who fades in and out of what we used to call ‘senility.’ Doesn’t sound like the ingredients for comedy, but Williams does it, though not without some preachiness (the most dated part of the play) along the way. The naked girl at the top of the stairs helps you pay attention, too. My copy, published in 2008 by New Directions, has an excellent introduction, titled “A Mississippi Funhouse,” by Thomas Keith.
Quotes from Today’s Principals:
“We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again."—Nathaniel Greene
“…this filthy novelty…is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the Pit that is Bottomless.”—King James (yes, of Bible fame), “A Counterblaste to Tobacco”
“Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.”—Salman Rushdie
“Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance.” King George V
SOMETIMES EVEN WATCHING television can be fun. I don’t recommend it in regular doses, but a fortuitous blend of the right (or maybe, the wrong) people can unexpectedly produce odd and funny moments. One such I recall was a “debate” between Christopher Hitchins, a disheveled but erudite proponent for atheism, and the Reverend Al Sharpton, most well-known for blustering wherever a television camera is turned on. Sharpton posed the not-fully-thought out proposition that without religion there is no basis for morality. For the next nine minutes the reverend was deftly eviscerated by Hitchins, but fortunately, Al didn’t seem to realize it. On Chris Matthews’ program (miscalled “Hardball”) the other night came another fun wundermoment: Matthews fatuously observed to Pat Buchanan, “…you Pat Buchanan, although you are a libertarian in many ways, you do not--no, you're a nationalist actually--you are not what you like to call, derisively, a democratist.” Buchanan responded, “No, I don't believe there's a great salvation in a political process at all. I believe in different--in far different things. I put democracy far down the line in the--I think a devoutly Christian, conservative traditionalist country, even if it's a monarchy, is fine…” The fun part though, was less the words than the picture. When Buchanan espoused this political heresy, both Matthews and the other guest sat open-mouthed. After a couple of seconds of crackling, empty airtime, Matthews croaked “Your Franco is talking, Pat. Franco is speaking even now.”
Fun as it was to watch, at the heart of this exchange is something worth pondering. One of the sacred cornerstones in the world we’re now a-building we call “democracy,” and it’s seen as an end in itself. Buchanan was saying the cornerstone isn’t sacred; there are things more important than how the world is governed. That is undoubted heresy to American politicians, who see—and want us to see—their careers as Very Important to the Public. Buchanan was not saying our form of government is unimportant or irrelevant, but that some things in life are more important. Faith and family, art and joy, a close friend and a field of bluebonnets, these things are sacred; they make life worth the living. Government is a device, a tool: in some hands good, in some bad. Hitler was democratically elected. So, too, was Hamas. In a speech made to the House of Commons in 1947, Churchill famously said “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." His hidden caveat is worth remembering. Churchill wasn’t slyly winking at us and cleverly saying “democracy really is best, you know.” He was telling us that it’s flawed. The core of his words is theological. It was an acknowledgment that, try as we might, we cannot build the New Jerusalem out of social programs and government grants. We have a problem, and, as Pogo said, it “is us.”
Some of our Founders (not all of them), understood that America is an experiment, one which could fail. Towards the end of his life, Jefferson lamented “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” About the same time, his friend, John Adams, wrote to a correspondent, “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” Shortly after the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1789, Benjamin Franklin said in a letter to a French well-wisher: “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” We all know the last part of this quote, but its value is to warn us that few things, governments among them, last. Monarchies, republics, theocracies, dictatorships, democracies, none endure. Artists, thinkers, writers, musicians, poets and priests have lived and worked in places of freedom and times of oppression. Buchanan was reminding us that the basic things that make life worth living are not the gifts of government but the gifts of God. Some people, it seems, just don’t know the difference.
We are all of us walking God's labyrinth, even if many of us insist it's of our own building.
FROM MY BOOKSTACK this week, I read Tennessee Williams’ last major play, “A House Not Meant to Stand.” Williams called it “a Gothic Comedy,” and it is, in parts, hilariously funny. It’s a play and to really appreciate it as the author intended, it’s best seen and heard, not read. Still, Williams’ ability to draw fascinating and eccentric characters, while at the same time keeping them accessible (by calling to mind bits of people we have known) comes across even on the page. Though in two acts, the movement is continuous and act two picks up just where act one drops off. The action takes place during a single night, set in the leaky, old Pascagoula home of Cornelius McCorkle and his wife Bella. For the duration of the play, a particularly long and noisy thunderstorm rages outside. The old couple returns home after a trip to Memphis for their eldest son’s funeral. Cornelius is a big-mouthed bully and a failed politician and Bella is a fat old woman who fades in and out of what we used to call ‘senility.’ Doesn’t sound like the ingredients for comedy, but Williams does it, though not without some preachiness (the most dated part of the play) along the way. The naked girl at the top of the stairs helps you pay attention, too. My copy, published in 2008 by New Directions, has an excellent introduction, titled “A Mississippi Funhouse,” by Thomas Keith.
Quotes from Today’s Principals:
“We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again."—Nathaniel Greene
“…this filthy novelty…is a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the Pit that is Bottomless.”—King James (yes, of Bible fame), “A Counterblaste to Tobacco”
“Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.”—Salman Rushdie
“Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance.” King George V
Walking the Labyrinth, June 12, 2009—This is the Feast of St Leo III, the Pope who crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor (as every schoolchild used to know) on Christmas Day, 800. It is the 163rd day of the year, and 202 days remain in 2009. In one of the few worthwhile “modern” holidays (because today is also National Peanut Butter Cookie Day, in case you didn’t know), June 12 is Diary Day. I’ve long kept a diary and find it helpful in countless ways. On June 12, 1929, Anne Franck was born, perhaps the 20th century’s best known diarist, and on her 13th birthday she was given her diary as a birthday present. In 1987, on this day, Ronald Reagan called out “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” To the amazement of the world, on November 9, 1989, the people of Germany did just that. Each of us has our own Days We Will Always Remember. For me, that was one. In 2003, Gregory Peck died. Despite all the roles of his long career, in my mind he will always be Atticus Finch.
WALKING, JOURNEYING, MAKING a pilgrimage, these and similar words have for a long time given us one of the best analogies of what life is. I, obviously, can think of few better descriptions of one’s pathway through life than walking a labyrinth. A journey, and certainly a pilgrimage, is supposed to take the traveler somewhere. This week past has been more a case of stumbling backwards than pressing on, for me personally. I received some shocking medical news (my ankle bone has completely deteriorated), took a bit of a financial hit (it cost more than $1000 for a car repair), and almost three thousand words of my novel disappeared overnight because of a computer problem (that taught me to back it up every night). At week’s end I consider it all in the context of the labyrinth. Not every step moves us forward, and it’s best to know it. We stumble and fall, sometimes we get tripped, sometimes we collapse under the weight of things we insist on carrying. Even on the ground, though, we’re in the labyrinth. God won’t let us out of it. He’s not playing with us, at least not maliciously (another time-worn analogy of life sees it as a game). “We see through a glass, darkly.” I’ve come to the realization that God is not too interested in whether or not we understand what goes on in our lives, or why things happen to us, as He is in growing us up. “To whom much is given, of him much is required.” St James reminds us we won’t be tempted (“tested” is just as good in Greek) above our abilities to deal with the test.
So what to do? How do we deal with the fact that sometimes we’re not even taking baby steps forward but giant steps back? While the answers are myriad, a few seem best: and the best of the best is gratitude. We are surrounded by wonder, from the far-flung stars to the sea shore’s sand; the shades of green in a tree, the sun’s warmth, an arpeggio by Bach or a friend’s familiar voice. I recall somewhere reading that the great tragedy of the atheist is not damnation, but that there is no One to thank when he needs to be thankful. In spite of the frequently-predicted doom about to be immanently wrought by global warming or nuclear terrorists, our cultures have produced amazing and wonderful things. Go to a library and look at the rows and rows of books. Watch an airplane take off. Watch even a bad movie and think about what it took to produce this piece of trash—better, watch a masterpiece. We live in a world that God has created and we have made. Not perfect (remember we’re looking at this from the labyrinth floor), but still grand and good, and—for some reason—it has pleased God to put us here in the midst of it. We may never know why; if I ever get out of Purgatory, I may not even remember to ask why about the past given What Is About To Follow. Maybe it’s enough to bear in mind, as we slowly pick ourselves up from the ant’s-eye view of the labyrinth, that we are not here for ourselves alone, but for the others walking the labyrinth with us.
A GREAT BOOK I found this week: The Majesty of the French Quarter by Kerri McCaffety, published by Pelican Publishing in 2000. It’s pages are resplendent with the colors of the Vieux Carre, and leafing through its big pages is like an evening walk through the old city. One of the most fun things about the Quarter (if you’re not one of the hoi polloi of Bourbon Street) is the amazing contrast between the sometimes demur view an old house presents to the street, and the lush, water-spangled courtyards hiding behind the old walls. This book shows you the house from the street, then invites you inside for a tour of the rooms, and finally into the old Creole patios, the heart of each home. A book to look through over and over and over again!
“We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”—Aristotle
WALKING, JOURNEYING, MAKING a pilgrimage, these and similar words have for a long time given us one of the best analogies of what life is. I, obviously, can think of few better descriptions of one’s pathway through life than walking a labyrinth. A journey, and certainly a pilgrimage, is supposed to take the traveler somewhere. This week past has been more a case of stumbling backwards than pressing on, for me personally. I received some shocking medical news (my ankle bone has completely deteriorated), took a bit of a financial hit (it cost more than $1000 for a car repair), and almost three thousand words of my novel disappeared overnight because of a computer problem (that taught me to back it up every night). At week’s end I consider it all in the context of the labyrinth. Not every step moves us forward, and it’s best to know it. We stumble and fall, sometimes we get tripped, sometimes we collapse under the weight of things we insist on carrying. Even on the ground, though, we’re in the labyrinth. God won’t let us out of it. He’s not playing with us, at least not maliciously (another time-worn analogy of life sees it as a game). “We see through a glass, darkly.” I’ve come to the realization that God is not too interested in whether or not we understand what goes on in our lives, or why things happen to us, as He is in growing us up. “To whom much is given, of him much is required.” St James reminds us we won’t be tempted (“tested” is just as good in Greek) above our abilities to deal with the test.
So what to do? How do we deal with the fact that sometimes we’re not even taking baby steps forward but giant steps back? While the answers are myriad, a few seem best: and the best of the best is gratitude. We are surrounded by wonder, from the far-flung stars to the sea shore’s sand; the shades of green in a tree, the sun’s warmth, an arpeggio by Bach or a friend’s familiar voice. I recall somewhere reading that the great tragedy of the atheist is not damnation, but that there is no One to thank when he needs to be thankful. In spite of the frequently-predicted doom about to be immanently wrought by global warming or nuclear terrorists, our cultures have produced amazing and wonderful things. Go to a library and look at the rows and rows of books. Watch an airplane take off. Watch even a bad movie and think about what it took to produce this piece of trash—better, watch a masterpiece. We live in a world that God has created and we have made. Not perfect (remember we’re looking at this from the labyrinth floor), but still grand and good, and—for some reason—it has pleased God to put us here in the midst of it. We may never know why; if I ever get out of Purgatory, I may not even remember to ask why about the past given What Is About To Follow. Maybe it’s enough to bear in mind, as we slowly pick ourselves up from the ant’s-eye view of the labyrinth, that we are not here for ourselves alone, but for the others walking the labyrinth with us.
A GREAT BOOK I found this week: The Majesty of the French Quarter by Kerri McCaffety, published by Pelican Publishing in 2000. It’s pages are resplendent with the colors of the Vieux Carre, and leafing through its big pages is like an evening walk through the old city. One of the most fun things about the Quarter (if you’re not one of the hoi polloi of Bourbon Street) is the amazing contrast between the sometimes demur view an old house presents to the street, and the lush, water-spangled courtyards hiding behind the old walls. This book shows you the house from the street, then invites you inside for a tour of the rooms, and finally into the old Creole patios, the heart of each home. A book to look through over and over and over again!
“We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”—Aristotle
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Habits—Spiritual and Otherwise
Walking the Labyrinth, June 4, 2009—Today is the feast day of St Charles Lwanga and Companions, martyred in Uganda in 1886; the birthday of Jefferson Davis, first (last, and only) President of the Confederate States of America, born in 1808; in 1989, two events of note: the Communist Chinese government began its termination of the student protests around Tienanmen Square, and Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, died. Pope John XXIII died on the same date, 26 years earlier.
Our spiritual lives, like all the other aspects of our lives, are influenced by what happens to us. We are impacted by things great and small, many of them beyond our control. But the principal influence on our spiritual lives comes from inside us, from our habits and chosen dispositions. Habits, at some level, are choices. When we think of habits we might think of the man who “habitually” shakes a leg when he’s nervous, or the girl who repeatedly plays with strands of hair while she talks on the phone. But habits—good and bad—run deep in us, and can have profound influences on how we live and whether or not we are happy. Prayer can become a habit. How we deal with life’s frustrations is grounded in the disposition of our souls, and that disposition can be formed by habit. Habits of soul can give us stability in a world of uncertainty. The Church’s worship, her liturgy, is habitual. Traditions of worship, Protestant or Catholic, Jewish or Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist, provide stability to religious beliefs and outlooks. This past Sunday, some friends took me to an Eastern Rite Russian church for Pentecost. I haven’t been to a Russian liturgy for years, but you may know that I spent a year living in a Russian Orthodox monastery in New York while attending an affiliated seminary. Over that year I learned some of the basics of Russian and Old Church Slavonic (an early form of Russian which over the centuries has become the liturgical language of the Russian Church) and learned some of the basic chants of the Russian tradition. When we went into St Andrew’s Church on Sunday, I was taken back. The church is not beautiful to the eye: it has 19th century style iconography (bad imitations of Italianate Renaissance figures) throughout the church, old 1960’s style wood paneling, and it’s cluttered with stuff. But when the choir began their chants (they were surprisingly good) and I heard the clack of the censer as the deacon made his very thorough rounds of the church, swinging the censer at each and every icon and person in the building, the years and miles evaporated. I was surprised how much of the old chants I remembered; though Fr Sanchez, one of our group, put a liturgy-book in my hands, I didn’t need it and never opened it. I sang at times, at times I listened silently, and most often my eyes were drwn back, over and over, to an old Russian All Saints Day icon, three joined panels depicting the Blessed Virgin surrounded by row after row of saints, all of their hands upturned in worship. The joy or worship—the freedom to step completely out of yourself and focus on He Who Is—came to me afresh. It came from habit, a habit of a lifetime of worship, most of the time imperfect, but perhaps perfect worship here on earth can only be experienced vicariously, looking at an All Saints icon, knowing that the Day is Yet to Come when we will be “regular and frequent” (to borrow an old Prayer Book phrase) in perfect worship. Our personal habits build our spiritual lives. That’s what a daily walking of the Labyrinth means.
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