The Water Is Wide

Funnyman

True story:

A lawyer hosts a holiday party at his home. Standing in the kitchen (where people often gravitate) with two other couples (the lawyer's wife was entertaining guests elsewhere in the home) the lawyer is telling a story of having a conversation with other lawyers, one of whom was an ardent feminist. In the course of that conversation, the lawyer had expressed the wish that a certain government official he had dealt with had "possessed a little more testosterone" (meaning, in this case, personal courage) and the feminist had jumped all over him for implying that only men had courage. The lawyer had apologized to the female colleague by observing that she was certainly correct and that she obviously possessed far more testosterone than any male he knew.

All the listeners laughed but one female, the wife of a friend, and herself an ardent feminist. She lashed out.

"You think everything's a joke, don't you?" she said angrily. "Nothing is serious, everything's amusing."

The lawyer stopped laughing and fixed her with a dead-fish stare. "No, I take humorless, self-important assholes very seriously," he said flatly.

The feminist turned beet red, turned on her heel, and stormed off. Her husband glanced at the lawyer, raised his eyebrows, shrugged, and followed his wife. The remaining male in the kitchen was grinning and shaking his head in a manner that indicated that the lawyer was, once again, simply being himself. The friend's wife, the remaining female in the room, looked at him with a wry smile and said "Well played, funny man."

Sometimes, the funny man is halfway decent. Sometimes he's just a prick.

Locked inside your head
Do you realize the things you said
Never made sense?

What It Means To Be Human

Strange and wonderful are the "coincidences" of life. My last post reflects upon the idea that we are not made for this earth, and a reader responds to that proposition with a slice of Rilke. Today on First Things appears a post from one of the thinkers I love to read, archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver. The archbishop not only sounds the same theme as I did with much more erudition and insight than I could ever hope to muster, he enhances it with another poem of Rilke's.

Slowly now the evening changes his garments
held for him by a rim of ancient trees;
you gaze: and the landscape divides and leaves you
one sinking and one rising toward the stars.

And you are left, to none belonging wholly, 
not so dark as a silent house, nor quite
so surely pledged unto eternity
as that which grows to star and climbs the night.

To you is left (unspeakably confused)
your life, gigantic, ripening, full of fears,
so that it, now hemmed in, now grasping all,
is changed in you by turns to stone and stars.

Philosophers and psychologists have offered a lot of different theories about the nature of the human person. But few have captured the human condition better than Rilke does in those twelve lines. We are creatures made for heaven; but we are born of this earth. We love the beauty of this world; but we sense there is something more behind that beauty. Our longing for that “something” pulls us outside of ourselves.

The whole piece is worth a read. When you're finished you'll understand another truth in which I firmly believe: we need first to look to ourselves before we worry about the "reformation" of others.

Nostalgia For The Unknown Home

While walking late one afternoon this past week, the sun was low in the sky and obscured by a thin layer of clouds. I looked up at it and saw it's orange-yellow glow burning behind the white-gray cloud cover and felt something I'd not felt since I was a teenager, walking on crisp fall nights along the streets of my small town. Then, I couldn't explain to myself, much less to anyone else, why I so loved to leave my home after dark and roam the empty streets alone. I'd see the lights through the windows of the houses I'd pass and take comfort in my isolation, my separateness, the darkness that hid me from the light. I was outside, I was looking in, I was separate, I was alone.  And the damnedest yearning would grow within me, a longing not to be within the homes I passed, but for something that I could not define yet was intensely important to me.

I would return home filled with a paradoxical mix of melancholy, satisfaction, and contentment. I had absolutely no idea why I was feeling what I felt or what it meant.

In my walk of a few days ago I felt it again. This time, I would describe the yearning as a nostalgia for a place and time I had never consciously experienced, and, moreover, could not describe. It hit me in a moment of absolute stillness, when there was no sound of children playing, automobiles passing, dogs barking, or even wind blowing. A rare moment of prefect stillness. The feeling startled me, overwhelmed me, then passed out of me like the tide moving back out to sea.

I wonder if anyone else ever feels such moments. My wife claims that she does not.

I also sometimes wonder if this is a symptom of the fact that we are not made for this earth, and what we are feeling is nostalgia for a home we unconsciously know we are presently separated from and to where we unconsciously yearn to return.

Brother Wind, Tim O'Brien and some of the best musicians of Ireland, the UK and America

The Road To Hell

"It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce man and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us? Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the children of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace?"
--Thomas Merton

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

So Little Time

Song of Secret Love
--John Clare

I hid my love when young while I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place
Where ere I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love goodbye

I met her in the greenest dells
Where dew drops pearl the wood bluebells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye
The bee kissed and went singing by
A sunbeam found a passage there
A gold chain round her neck so fair
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long

I hid my love in field and town
Till e'en the breeze would knock me down
The bees seemed singing ballads l'er
The fly's buss turned a Lion's roar
And even silence found a tongue
To haunt me all the summer long
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love

Ron Sexsmith, "Secret Heart"

The Way We Danced Was Not A Dance

Old fogey Jessie Winchester sings a sweet serenade to Doo Wop days gone by and makes the much younger Neko Case cry. Inter-generational connection doesn't get much better than this.

For The Good That I Would I Do Not: But The Evil Which I Would Not, That I Do.

Do not love the world or the things of the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, sensual lust,
enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life,
is not from the Father but is from the world.
Yet the world and its enticement are passing away.
But whoever does the will of God remains forever.
--1 John 2:15-17

I cannot read these words often enough (and a h/t to Father Heines for, once again, prompting a useful reflection). Yet, no matter how often I read them, no matter how much I think I understand their meaning, I still find myself "loving the world," and loving it unconsciously, reflexively. It's not that I don't want to love God more than I love the world, it's simply that it is extremely difficult to overcome so many decades of ingrained bad behavior, of a lack of correct perspective, and of feelings of (false) comfort that arise from having a repeated way of responding to life's everyday occurrences that gives the illusion that I have some type of "control" over what "life" has in store for me. In so many ways, I'm a morally dysfunctional autistic, a man who must do what he knows he ought not do because it feels so right--for an instant.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
--1 Cor 13:4-6.

So why, when I run across one more misguided jacktard Catholic blogger who revels in pouring forth his or her pompous, inflated, rude, and vicious mocking of people with a different political perspective, I don't just move along with the recognition that there, too, but for the grace of God, I would still dwell? Why, instead, do I yield without reflection to the temptation to blister his or her backside with a broadside that points out their utter hypocrisy, which, in turn, marks me as no less pompous, inflated, rude, and vicious (and just as unchristian) as the object of my ire?

Because, obviously, I'm not one whit better than the people I criticize.

For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
--Romans 7:19

Kent Hansen of The CS Lewis Foundation Blog had a nice post not long ago about a conversation with a friend of his about this problem.

“I try so hard,” [his friend] said. “I start the morning with a prayer, ‘Jesus, help me be more like you,’ and that is what I really want.” Within the hour I am defensive and mean and having to apologize for falling short once again.

Hansen told his friend that rather than praying to be more like Jesus, he should be praying that Christ gets him out of the way, because his friend isn't up to the task of doing much of anything in the way of making himself more like Christ, with or without the help of Jesus. Only Christ has the power to overcome sin.

Hansen realizes that this approach is "counter-intuitive" to lawyers like Hansen (and yours falsely).

...I am strong-willed, results-oriented, pride myself on sticking to principle, and I’m hot-tempered to boot. It is a trap to think that I’ve got the strength and smarts to make things happen because the boundary between working on the solution and becoming part of the problem is ephemeral. I get inflamed and swollen with pride and effort and push harder until something breaks. Usually what breaks is relationship. So, I often pray Psalm 61:1-2 when I feel the swelling of pride and anger coming on.

Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer.
From the end of the earth
I call to you,
when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I. . . .

“What that prayer does for me is restore the connection to God that is weakening and failing because I have gotten way out there on my own. More importantly, I need my perspective restored to see that God, the rock, towers over me and overshadows me with a love that I’ve too easily forgotten and left behind. I really can’t trust myself in my natural bent to sin and the inconsistencies of my performance. The talents that I’ve been given for organization, strategy, intellectual focus and eloquence are no substitute for the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22).

Yes, this course is hard, as Hansen and his friend admit. It's dying to oneself in the purest sense. Which makes it laughable when nonbelievers sneer that religion's merely a "crutch" for those of us too stupid or too weak to take responsibility for our own lives. Christianity truly lived is the hardest thing that I can conceive, especially for strong-willed, results-oriented, prideful, hot-tempered fools like Hansen and me. Certainly, I'm so far from living it truly that I'd have a tough time seeing the "goal" of life with the aid of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Getting little (and not-so-little) clues like Hansen's do give me hope, however, that one day, I'll finally get out of my own way. If so, it will be solely because of God's grace and nothing else.

Where All Men Are At Home

The House of Christmas by G. K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

To anyone who stumbles across this post, have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I hope that everyone finds their way home for the holidays.

In the Bleak Midwinter, The Gloucester Cathedral Choir

God Will Forgive Me, But I...

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.
---Woody Allen

        Regret
       --Charlotte Bronte

 Long ago I wished to leave
'The house where I was born;'
Long ago I used to grieve,
My home seemed so forlorn.
In other years, its silent rooms
Were filled with haunting fears;
Now, their very memory comes
O'ercharged with tender tears.

Life and marriage I have known.
Things once deemed so bright;
Now, how utterly is flown
Every ray of light!
'Mid the unknown sea, of life
I no blest isle have found;
At last, through all its wild wave's strife,
My bark is homeward bound.

Farewell, dark and rolling deep!
Farewell, foreign shore!
Open, in unclouded sweep,
Thou glorious realm before!
Yet, though I had safely pass'd
That weary, vexed main,
One loved voice, through surge and blast
Could call me back again.

Though the soul's bright morning rose
O'er Paradise for me,
William! even from Heaven's repose
I'd turn, invoked by thee!
Storm nor surge should e'er arrest
My soul, exalting then:
All my heaven was once thy breast,
Would it were mine again!

I regret the simpaticas I've pissed away through sheer pissantedness. One in particular, who was too much like me to survive me. Yet, I can't apologize for having been someone I no longer am. You live, you learn, you love again. And again. And again.

Until, you pray, you finally get it right.

Tripping Over Molehills

G.K. Chesterton, from his essay, "The Advantages of Having One Leg":

I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right to grumble, so long as they grumble about something else. It is a singular fact that if they are sane they almost always do grumble about something else. To talk quite reasonably about your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way to go off your head. But people with great troubles talk about little ones, and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly a very clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified in asking that he shall not make mountains out of molehills. I do not deny that molehills can sometimes be important. Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be more abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before, they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition that he was going to tumble over a hassock. William III. died by falling over a molehill; I do not suppose that with all his varied abilities he could have managed to fall over a mountain. But when all this is allowed for, I repeat that we may ask a happy man (not William III.) to put up with pure inconveniences, and even make them part of his happiness. Of positive pain or positive poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental limitations that are always falling across our path--bad weather, confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn from all these that I sing--I sing with confidence because I have recently been experimenting in the poetic pleasures which arise from having to sit in one chair with a sprained foot, with the only alternative course of standing on one leg like a stork-- a stork is a poetic simile; therefore I eagerly adopted it.

Today was a day of miniature disasters and minor catastrophes, by the end of which I was settling down with my beloved, pounding down a Shiner Bock, and spitting out, with increasing vehemence, my contempt for the idiocy and venality of both my enemies and my allies. About a minute into the storm, my wife eyed me and asked me why I was so angry about what, in the long run, was all dust in the wind.

There's a reason that I begin each day with the silent prayer, "Thank you Lord, for the gift of sleep. Thank you for the gift of Jan."