--Czeslaw Milosz
In college I wrote a play. The play was autobiographical. It was about sin in my life. People who are living in sin love to point out the hypocrisy of others, so the play was also about my family and what I perceived to be their hypocrisy. It was staged in a black box theater with several other student productions. Many of the student productions were obscene. Mine was too. I did not want my family to know about this program.
Yet, for some unknown reason, perhaps because I was tired of living in secrecy, perhaps because I was proud of myself for having my play staged, I told my mom about it. There was likely a part of me that thought exposing myself would lead to some form of dialogue with my mother, and in turn, mutual understanding. I pictured her coming to one of the performances, perhaps feeling a little shocked, but then letting the floodgates open between us over coffee afterwards.
On the night of the performance, my mom had not arrived when the bell rang for everyone to take their seats in the theater. I felt relief for a moment, thinking she had decided to stay home. The lights dimmed, then the theater doors cracked open and in walked my mom, tiptoeing to find a seat, followed by my father and several members of my family, who were the models for characters in my play. She had apparently thought that my desire to shield my play from the family was some form of humility, and that I would be happy with this show of support.
I sat in my corner of the small theater, listening with an internal censor to the first couple of plays. F-words sputtered into the atmosphere like machine gun fire. When my play began, I could only watch my family, sitting in their row with tight lips and straight backs, looking like someone had taken a ruler and smacked them each in the face with it, one after the other. When my ten-minute spot was up, they all got up and walked out.
I vowed then and there that my family would never read another word that I wrote. But time sort of lessens the sting of most wounds, and a writer can only write in a hovel for so long, and now here I am with a blog, writing somewhat autobiographically. It’s an impulse, a way of making sense of the world and of relationships. When someone is born with this impulse, not writing, to some extent means not growing. And publishing is a natural end to this process.
There will always be a struggle then to write honestly and still protect the people and experiences that inform the writing process. In a writing course I took a couple years ago, I asked the professor what to do about this problem. He answered, “YOU WISH it were a problem. If this is ever a problem for you, it means you’re getting published. And in that case, you write what you need to write, and then you go to the people involved and tell them that this is going to be published, and if they have a problem you deal with it then. But you MAY NOT write in fear or you will most certainly never see publication.”
Blogging makes these issues more immediate. While some bloggers have no problem publishing their most private thoughts, for most of us, a reader would find that a very different account of actual events resides on the private pages of a diary. Still we occasionally make mistakes in discretion because we lack objective editors to temper our words.
David Matthews, author of “Ace of Spades,”says, “When it comes to writing about family or friends, you can be liked, or you can tell the truth. If you want both, you should become an accountant.”
For Christians, this reality becomes a moral problem as well as an ethical one: How to advance on the path of perfect charity while honoring the God-given impulse to write and make sense out of our lives.
I wonder sometimes if an element of fundamentalism hasn’t crept into our modern Catholic consciousness that prevents us from considering our writing, and our writing about ourselves, in particular, an art. We want to honor the Truth, and so order our fictional universes in ways that are not truthful.
It’s a complicated thing for any writer, and I’m not sure what the Christian answer should be. For me, as I've said before, I try to find the Gospel in the events of life. Where the events of life are concerned on this blog, however, don't take any of it as gospel.
Related posts:
A Bone to Pick with Modern Catholic Writers
The Truth is in the Lies we Tell
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Having a Ball
***
La robe rose
***
Les gants blancs
***
Le Cigarette
***
l'étranger noir
***
Commence-le-party
La robe rose
***
Les gants blancs
***
Le Cigarette
***
l'étranger noir
***
Commence-le-party
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
"It is heavenly when I have mastered my earthly desires; but even when I have not succeeded, I have also had right good pleasure."
(--Oblonsky, Anna Karenina)
Pentimento’s post on the Blogger’s Ball has me thinking about ball gowns, their significance, the doors they can open, and the eras, signified by the gown, that are now closed. There is one such gown hanging in my closet right now, an emblem in pink silk shantung of a time in my life when I had . . . a lot of fun.
I was living in England, doing a couple of terms at Oxford U. on Renaissance Art, Shakespeare, Dante, and Wisdom Lit of the Old Testament. I had left a fiancé in the States, a law student, but I hadn’t been in Oxford long before I realized the marriage would never take place. We’d been together three years, but I broke up with him over the phone, because I knew that if I put it off and tried to do it in person, I wouldn’t have had the guts.
On the tail of my break-up, I went up to St Andrews, Scotland, where my cousin was doing a Masters degree, and had also just broken up with an unsuitable boyfriend. We spent an ungodly amount of money that weekend, apparently nursing our fragile hearts. We dined out on a plate of mussels and bottomless glasses of Chardonnay, then went shopping. It was one of the most dangerous things I’ve done in my life. In a small second-hand boutique, I spotted my dress. It was the fairytale dress of my little girl dreams, and when I tried it on, my cousin said, “Buy it! Now! You won’t be sorry.”
“I don’t have any place to wear it,” I said.
“Then you will find a place to wear it,” she answered. And so it was.
Back in Oxford, I got tickets to the St. Hilda’s Ball. I went with a Nigel who lived in Oxford purely for the social life, and earned his keep selling off his prescription Ritalin. He was a loon, but my flatmates were all teatotalers, and I didn’t know anyone else. Before the Ball we went to have drinks with the Whiskey Society in a wood paneled room of Merton College. I was one of maybe five women in the company, so it wasn’t hard to impress, but Nigel told me as we left, “It was agreed that I have the most stunning date.”
Moi? No, it was the dress. Someone at the Whiskey Party spilled their amber potion on the skirt, near the floor-length hem, and the stain is still there today.
At the Ball that year, everyone was wearing short, black and strapless. I ran into a gal who dated one of my flatmates. She stood in a huddle of similarly noir-clad females twittering amongst themselves. I went over to say hello to her, and she said, “Wow, pink ball gown. You have nuts.”
And I didn’t have nuts, but I might have been nuts. I don’t remember a time in my life when I cared so little what people thought of me. I was American. I was free from what felt like an oppressive relationship. I was rootless and dreamy and wanted to be someone else. That night I succeeded.
As the hours passed certain events grew a bit blurry, but I remember a moment in the hallway with a tall, dark, and handsome someone. He put an arm behind my back and whispered in my ear, “Every woman in this room tonight wants to be you.” Then he lifted my chin and kissed me. It was a 1940s Hollywood kiss, the kind that makes the symphony crescendo, and the camera zoom in while two black and white figures freeze in time with lips chastely touching, but not moving. It matched my dress, so I allowed it, then said thank you to the stranger and went back to find my date.
Our party, now consisting of a group of wealthy Londoners from Queens College, was outside doing somersaults in their tuxedos on the grass. I turned a couple of cartwheels, and the dress, with its stiff crinolines, opened up like a fan, but did not fall over my face, thank heavens.
Wealthy Londoner, A, offered me a ride home in his convertible Austin Healy, since Nigel had lost his head somewhere in the course of the night. When he pulled the car up to the gate for me, drunk hooligans jumped on the hood and over the doors into the front seat. Not wanting to be left behind, I jumped into the back.
“Get out!” yelled the owner of the car to the hooligans.
“But we’re wearing tuxedos!” They yelled back.
“PINK DRESS!” he replied, turning around to point to me and my bubble of a dress ballooning out of the back seat. When the hooligans failed to comply, he drove us all to the police station and threatened to leave them there. The hooligans jumped out, while the car was still in motion, and I was free to climb over the seat, into the front for the rest of the ride home.
Londoner, A, became one of my best friends for the remainder of my time in Oxford. He was the kind of eccentric, who collects fellow eccentrics on purely frivolous bases, like how they dress. I would never have made the cut were it not for the pink dress. We spent hours punting on the Thames River clad in white linen, dancing at the Salsa Club upstairs at Ronnie Scotts in suits and scoop-neck dresses, taking convertible drives through Hampstead Heath in sunglasses and scarves.
It was one of the most memorable, and possibly also the most meaningless, times of my life. Nights like my night in the pink ball gown can ruin a woman for a lifetime, like the high school athlete who thinks he’s hot stuff long after the arthritis has set in and the pot belly obscures his toes. I might not look like much these days, but I was once the bitch of St. Hilda’s Ball.
AND DON’T YOU EVER FORGET IT!
Pentimento’s post on the Blogger’s Ball has me thinking about ball gowns, their significance, the doors they can open, and the eras, signified by the gown, that are now closed. There is one such gown hanging in my closet right now, an emblem in pink silk shantung of a time in my life when I had . . . a lot of fun.
I was living in England, doing a couple of terms at Oxford U. on Renaissance Art, Shakespeare, Dante, and Wisdom Lit of the Old Testament. I had left a fiancé in the States, a law student, but I hadn’t been in Oxford long before I realized the marriage would never take place. We’d been together three years, but I broke up with him over the phone, because I knew that if I put it off and tried to do it in person, I wouldn’t have had the guts.
On the tail of my break-up, I went up to St Andrews, Scotland, where my cousin was doing a Masters degree, and had also just broken up with an unsuitable boyfriend. We spent an ungodly amount of money that weekend, apparently nursing our fragile hearts. We dined out on a plate of mussels and bottomless glasses of Chardonnay, then went shopping. It was one of the most dangerous things I’ve done in my life. In a small second-hand boutique, I spotted my dress. It was the fairytale dress of my little girl dreams, and when I tried it on, my cousin said, “Buy it! Now! You won’t be sorry.”
“I don’t have any place to wear it,” I said.
“Then you will find a place to wear it,” she answered. And so it was.
Back in Oxford, I got tickets to the St. Hilda’s Ball. I went with a Nigel who lived in Oxford purely for the social life, and earned his keep selling off his prescription Ritalin. He was a loon, but my flatmates were all teatotalers, and I didn’t know anyone else. Before the Ball we went to have drinks with the Whiskey Society in a wood paneled room of Merton College. I was one of maybe five women in the company, so it wasn’t hard to impress, but Nigel told me as we left, “It was agreed that I have the most stunning date.”
Moi? No, it was the dress. Someone at the Whiskey Party spilled their amber potion on the skirt, near the floor-length hem, and the stain is still there today.
At the Ball that year, everyone was wearing short, black and strapless. I ran into a gal who dated one of my flatmates. She stood in a huddle of similarly noir-clad females twittering amongst themselves. I went over to say hello to her, and she said, “Wow, pink ball gown. You have nuts.”
And I didn’t have nuts, but I might have been nuts. I don’t remember a time in my life when I cared so little what people thought of me. I was American. I was free from what felt like an oppressive relationship. I was rootless and dreamy and wanted to be someone else. That night I succeeded.
As the hours passed certain events grew a bit blurry, but I remember a moment in the hallway with a tall, dark, and handsome someone. He put an arm behind my back and whispered in my ear, “Every woman in this room tonight wants to be you.” Then he lifted my chin and kissed me. It was a 1940s Hollywood kiss, the kind that makes the symphony crescendo, and the camera zoom in while two black and white figures freeze in time with lips chastely touching, but not moving. It matched my dress, so I allowed it, then said thank you to the stranger and went back to find my date.
Our party, now consisting of a group of wealthy Londoners from Queens College, was outside doing somersaults in their tuxedos on the grass. I turned a couple of cartwheels, and the dress, with its stiff crinolines, opened up like a fan, but did not fall over my face, thank heavens.
Wealthy Londoner, A, offered me a ride home in his convertible Austin Healy, since Nigel had lost his head somewhere in the course of the night. When he pulled the car up to the gate for me, drunk hooligans jumped on the hood and over the doors into the front seat. Not wanting to be left behind, I jumped into the back.
“Get out!” yelled the owner of the car to the hooligans.
“But we’re wearing tuxedos!” They yelled back.
“PINK DRESS!” he replied, turning around to point to me and my bubble of a dress ballooning out of the back seat. When the hooligans failed to comply, he drove us all to the police station and threatened to leave them there. The hooligans jumped out, while the car was still in motion, and I was free to climb over the seat, into the front for the rest of the ride home.
Londoner, A, became one of my best friends for the remainder of my time in Oxford. He was the kind of eccentric, who collects fellow eccentrics on purely frivolous bases, like how they dress. I would never have made the cut were it not for the pink dress. We spent hours punting on the Thames River clad in white linen, dancing at the Salsa Club upstairs at Ronnie Scotts in suits and scoop-neck dresses, taking convertible drives through Hampstead Heath in sunglasses and scarves.
It was one of the most memorable, and possibly also the most meaningless, times of my life. Nights like my night in the pink ball gown can ruin a woman for a lifetime, like the high school athlete who thinks he’s hot stuff long after the arthritis has set in and the pot belly obscures his toes. I might not look like much these days, but I was once the bitch of St. Hilda’s Ball.
AND DON’T YOU EVER FORGET IT!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Redeeming Friday Night
Friday night, at the dinner table, my kids performed a gastro-sit-in over their unwanted succotash. My husband and I stood guard making sure no one deposited their veg in the trash, or dropped it on the floor for the dog. We were getting bored.
My husband got into the fridge for the caramel apple I had purchased, and was saving for a calorie window in my diet. He began licking the caramel off because it was too cold to bite. Each drag of his tongue over the surface of my apple seemed to mark it with germs, like a dog urinating on its territory. In seconds the apple would be all his—although this should have been a forgone conclusion when he took the apple out of the fridge. In any case, my “Calgon, take me away” vehicle was about to be consumed.
A tightness formed in my chest. I tried a new refuge: I closed my eyes and pictured myself riding a wild horse, bareback, splashing through shallow rivers, climbing snow-capped fjords, leaning over a blonde mane with the brisk wind in my own hair. It didn’t do much for me.
“Well, I guess I’d better run to the store and get some milk for breakfast,” I said. Last ditch refuge: the grocery store, the catharsis of driving in the dark, turning up some music, and maybe even buying a pack of cigarettes. It was Friday, after all. I thought that filtering my breath through a double drag on a Virginia Super Slim might dissipate the tightness in my chest. So away I went, leaving my husband to put an end to the kids’ stonewalling.
I set out for the grocery. I drive that route all the time, every day, several times a day because it is also the route to the post office, my kids’ school, and Church. It was seven p.m. by the light of the dash, and a faded memory began to take shape in my head. Something was going to happen on Friday night at seven…what was it?
I think I might have a photographic memory, because images flickered through my mind until I saw the little message board in front of our church. An old lady in the Parish puts pun-y religious slogans on the board like, “How will you spend eternity -- Smoking or Non-smoking?" And drivers by are supposed to think, “Those clever Catholics. I think I’ll join them for Sunday worship.”
Sometimes real announcements appear on the board as well like, “Benediction, Friday, 7 p.m.” I have a habit of forgetting events if they don’t happen on the same day every week. Benediction happens once a month in our Parish, usually on the first Thursday, so I almost always forget about it. But it seemed, Friday night, that the gods had arranged for a quirk in the Benediction schedule to coincide exactly with my frantic escape from my stubborn children and candy-apple-snatching husband.
I was glad to comply with the arrangement. I went to the Benediction and sang my heart out on “O Salutaris Hostia.” I was the obnoxious woman in the back row who holds the note just a bit longer than anyone else so that I could hear my voice dominating the others with uncalled for vibrato. It felt wonderful. My chest began to release.
I prayed, “Lord you are my refuge,” and seized on the word “refuge” as I had been doing all night long. “You, Lord, are my refuge.” My refuge is not the grocery store, or a wild-stallion daydream, or a cigarette, or sweet food, or the internet, or my book, or my writing. Here, with the incense, the golden sunburst around the Eucharist, the red and white satin vestments, the candle smoke, the elderly parishioners—my fellow children, here, is safety, peace, a refuge for my troubles.
“Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Consoler.” Our missal uses the word “Consoler” rather than “Paraclete,” and the word resonated that night in a way that “Paraclete” might not have. The “Consolation prize” has a bad reputation, but considering the failure of my substitute refuges to console, I consider the consolation of the Holy Spirit a true prize. It is the one absolute uplifting consolation where substitute consolations fail to yield anything but temporary refuge and heartache.
“Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste Spouse.” This benediction always makes me happy. When I was living with the consas of Regnum Christi, our Benediction was in Spanish: "Bendito sea San José, su castísimo esposo." It rolls off the tongue so well, it thrilled me then too. I am now married to a Joseph, and I like to think that outside the realm of time and space, he has found his glory. I believe that the two of us will die, having been sanctified, even if that hope is just a dangling carrot to keep us on the path of salvation. This life will purify us, so that one day, I can share my candy apple with him without sin. (Ha. Clever, clever Catholics.)
My husband got into the fridge for the caramel apple I had purchased, and was saving for a calorie window in my diet. He began licking the caramel off because it was too cold to bite. Each drag of his tongue over the surface of my apple seemed to mark it with germs, like a dog urinating on its territory. In seconds the apple would be all his—although this should have been a forgone conclusion when he took the apple out of the fridge. In any case, my “Calgon, take me away” vehicle was about to be consumed.
A tightness formed in my chest. I tried a new refuge: I closed my eyes and pictured myself riding a wild horse, bareback, splashing through shallow rivers, climbing snow-capped fjords, leaning over a blonde mane with the brisk wind in my own hair. It didn’t do much for me.
“Well, I guess I’d better run to the store and get some milk for breakfast,” I said. Last ditch refuge: the grocery store, the catharsis of driving in the dark, turning up some music, and maybe even buying a pack of cigarettes. It was Friday, after all. I thought that filtering my breath through a double drag on a Virginia Super Slim might dissipate the tightness in my chest. So away I went, leaving my husband to put an end to the kids’ stonewalling.
I set out for the grocery. I drive that route all the time, every day, several times a day because it is also the route to the post office, my kids’ school, and Church. It was seven p.m. by the light of the dash, and a faded memory began to take shape in my head. Something was going to happen on Friday night at seven…what was it?
I think I might have a photographic memory, because images flickered through my mind until I saw the little message board in front of our church. An old lady in the Parish puts pun-y religious slogans on the board like, “How will you spend eternity -- Smoking or Non-smoking?" And drivers by are supposed to think, “Those clever Catholics. I think I’ll join them for Sunday worship.”
Sometimes real announcements appear on the board as well like, “Benediction, Friday, 7 p.m.” I have a habit of forgetting events if they don’t happen on the same day every week. Benediction happens once a month in our Parish, usually on the first Thursday, so I almost always forget about it. But it seemed, Friday night, that the gods had arranged for a quirk in the Benediction schedule to coincide exactly with my frantic escape from my stubborn children and candy-apple-snatching husband.
I was glad to comply with the arrangement. I went to the Benediction and sang my heart out on “O Salutaris Hostia.” I was the obnoxious woman in the back row who holds the note just a bit longer than anyone else so that I could hear my voice dominating the others with uncalled for vibrato. It felt wonderful. My chest began to release.
I prayed, “Lord you are my refuge,” and seized on the word “refuge” as I had been doing all night long. “You, Lord, are my refuge.” My refuge is not the grocery store, or a wild-stallion daydream, or a cigarette, or sweet food, or the internet, or my book, or my writing. Here, with the incense, the golden sunburst around the Eucharist, the red and white satin vestments, the candle smoke, the elderly parishioners—my fellow children, here, is safety, peace, a refuge for my troubles.
“Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Consoler.” Our missal uses the word “Consoler” rather than “Paraclete,” and the word resonated that night in a way that “Paraclete” might not have. The “Consolation prize” has a bad reputation, but considering the failure of my substitute refuges to console, I consider the consolation of the Holy Spirit a true prize. It is the one absolute uplifting consolation where substitute consolations fail to yield anything but temporary refuge and heartache.
“Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste Spouse.” This benediction always makes me happy. When I was living with the consas of Regnum Christi, our Benediction was in Spanish: "Bendito sea San José, su castísimo esposo." It rolls off the tongue so well, it thrilled me then too. I am now married to a Joseph, and I like to think that outside the realm of time and space, he has found his glory. I believe that the two of us will die, having been sanctified, even if that hope is just a dangling carrot to keep us on the path of salvation. This life will purify us, so that one day, I can share my candy apple with him without sin. (Ha. Clever, clever Catholics.)
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Only Solution
Tonight I was driving all of my children around town in order to make drop-offs at swimming lessons and play practices, etc. The kids were nuts, screaming in the back of my van and jumping all over the place. I could feel myself dissolving into the driver’s seat. I was at the point where I typically snap and start yelling bloody murder, but the car was suddenly filled with the sound of pipe organ. I’d turned on an unmarked CD which happened to have on it the “Veni Creator Spiritus” as it was played at my husband and mine’s wedding, in an arrangement by Friedrich Froeschle.
The Church where we married has a long aisle with blood red carpet, and we processed to the altar to this piece, chosen to invoke the Holy Spirit upon our marriage. When I hear this music, I cry. Every. Single. Time. There’s something so humbling and comforting in knowing that whatever proceeds from that moment on the altar is God’s will because the Holy Spirit was there, and is there in our marriage. I count on it.
I was driving and crying, and the children were silenced by the pipes, at least I think they were because I’d turned the volume up so loud that I wouldn’t have heard them. And I had the sort of moment I always hope for, when confusion becomes clarity, where anger becomes charity.
I’ve spent the better part of this week thinking I have no answers for any of the troubles in the world. I teach a catechism class for adults at my Parish, and I’d been dreading it all week. What incredible over-confidence, to think I have something to teach these people. All week I have felt helpless about the poverty in the third world. I don’t know how to make the government operate how I want it to operate. I don’t know how to make my kids behave how I want them to behave. I don’t know how to be happy with all that I have. I have no answers, nothing to teach, no easy solutions.
Except for the Holy Spirit.
This happens sometimes, that I just feel ineffective in my positions. I’m no kind of mother, no teacher, no writer. Even striving to be Holy feels like an act of self-indulgence—because who can sit around examining their conscience when there are such abominable things happening in the world?
Last week discussing the Beatitudes with Pedge and Irene, I felt incredibly sad with its message. Blessed are the peacemakers, the poor, those who hunger for righteousness. I was none of the above. I was just about to comment on my ineptitude at living the Gospel when Pedge said, “I really am all of these things at one time or another. Sometimes I’m a peacemaker. Sometimes, I’m poor of spirit. Sometimes I hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
This keeps happening to us, that we can both read the same Gospel passage and glean from it the exact opposite. Today we read about the widow putting her last two coins in the basket, and I felt sad thinking that I haven’t given enough. And Pedge felt glad, because she interpreted the two coins as love for God and love for neighbor, and she felt that God had positioned her life so that she could give just those two things.
Driving in my car tonight the Veni Creator Spiritus reminds me that there is room for all of these different interpretations. There is room to find the cup half empty, or half full, because the Holy Spirit is going to speak to each one of us as individuals. The Holy Spirit is going to inspire Pedge to remark, “What gives God more Glory, to beat ourselves up because we have been given so much, or to be glad and spread what joy we have because it has been given to us by God?”
Teaching my class, I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me, and feeling as lacking as I do, maybe opens more room for the Holy Spirit to fill me. It’s the only solution I have to the problem of teaching that class. The DRE is counting on me. People show up. I can’t hide. I must prepare. And then when I’ve combined my resources and drawn up my plan, I ask the Holy Spirit to make the right words come from my mouth. It’s the only solution I have, because I have nothing else to offer.
The Church where we married has a long aisle with blood red carpet, and we processed to the altar to this piece, chosen to invoke the Holy Spirit upon our marriage. When I hear this music, I cry. Every. Single. Time. There’s something so humbling and comforting in knowing that whatever proceeds from that moment on the altar is God’s will because the Holy Spirit was there, and is there in our marriage. I count on it.
I was driving and crying, and the children were silenced by the pipes, at least I think they were because I’d turned the volume up so loud that I wouldn’t have heard them. And I had the sort of moment I always hope for, when confusion becomes clarity, where anger becomes charity.
I’ve spent the better part of this week thinking I have no answers for any of the troubles in the world. I teach a catechism class for adults at my Parish, and I’d been dreading it all week. What incredible over-confidence, to think I have something to teach these people. All week I have felt helpless about the poverty in the third world. I don’t know how to make the government operate how I want it to operate. I don’t know how to make my kids behave how I want them to behave. I don’t know how to be happy with all that I have. I have no answers, nothing to teach, no easy solutions.
Except for the Holy Spirit.
This happens sometimes, that I just feel ineffective in my positions. I’m no kind of mother, no teacher, no writer. Even striving to be Holy feels like an act of self-indulgence—because who can sit around examining their conscience when there are such abominable things happening in the world?
Last week discussing the Beatitudes with Pedge and Irene, I felt incredibly sad with its message. Blessed are the peacemakers, the poor, those who hunger for righteousness. I was none of the above. I was just about to comment on my ineptitude at living the Gospel when Pedge said, “I really am all of these things at one time or another. Sometimes I’m a peacemaker. Sometimes, I’m poor of spirit. Sometimes I hunger and thirst for righteousness.”
This keeps happening to us, that we can both read the same Gospel passage and glean from it the exact opposite. Today we read about the widow putting her last two coins in the basket, and I felt sad thinking that I haven’t given enough. And Pedge felt glad, because she interpreted the two coins as love for God and love for neighbor, and she felt that God had positioned her life so that she could give just those two things.
Driving in my car tonight the Veni Creator Spiritus reminds me that there is room for all of these different interpretations. There is room to find the cup half empty, or half full, because the Holy Spirit is going to speak to each one of us as individuals. The Holy Spirit is going to inspire Pedge to remark, “What gives God more Glory, to beat ourselves up because we have been given so much, or to be glad and spread what joy we have because it has been given to us by God?”
Teaching my class, I ask the Holy Spirit to guide me, and feeling as lacking as I do, maybe opens more room for the Holy Spirit to fill me. It’s the only solution I have to the problem of teaching that class. The DRE is counting on me. People show up. I can’t hide. I must prepare. And then when I’ve combined my resources and drawn up my plan, I ask the Holy Spirit to make the right words come from my mouth. It’s the only solution I have, because I have nothing else to offer.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
I Don't Read Books Just to Get to the Last Page
From the archives, this time, last year:
No, if all I cared about when reading is what happens on the last page, or even in the last chapter, what would be the point of muddling through the first 300 pages? What I loved about "A Thousand Acres" is that each character was real, meaning, they were good people, who encountered evil and succombed to it. They made mistakes, as every human being does. During those 300 pages some of those characters were redeemed, and a couple of them were damned. So they all died in the end? Well isn't the death of the body the natural culmination of life on earth? Some of my favorite reads of all time are tragedies (the Kristin Lavransdatter series comes to mind, Anna Karenina...).
But in every tragedy there are at least a few survivors who carry on the story. They are there on those last pages to tsk tsk at the unnecessary suffering that occurred in those pages, at how it all could have been different if our beloved characters had made better choices or had not been seduced by evil that appeared good, or had they just been born into different circumstances. And the story is told so that others may glean from it what they can and try their darndest not to succomb to the same evils.
What I'm getting at is that the end of a tragedy is rarely the end of the story. Sometimes it's the beginning of a new story of change and renewed hope. Sometimes it is the beginning of a new and entirely different tragedy. Unfortunately, the history of man has been a testimony of many different tragedies, each a new reincarnation built on a hubris that says, "We will be different. We will not succomb like those people did." Each tragedy is unique.
Interspersed in these tragedies are also moments of great joy and accomplishment. I agree with Pedge that last night America saw an amazing triumph in the election of an African American to the highest office of our country. I am happy that many Americans who have been persecuted in the past and who have felt marginalized by the political scene in America feel that their voices have been heard. But all too often triumph rides on the shoulders of tragedy. I wish I could have, in good conscience, ridden the crest of that wave and rejoiced with so many other Americans. But my heart is still with that small voice that got trampled last night: those millions of Americans who have never had the opportunity to elect anyone, who have never seen an election, because in their weakness they were denied the right to life. Someone read the first page of their lives, was not interested, and closed the book.
My HOPE for CHANGE in this upcoming presidency is that the tragedy of the years since Roe Vs Wade will be redeemed, that President Elect Barack Obama really will listen to those with whom he disagrees and unite the people he represents. I know in my heart, however, that this is too much to ask of any one man, except my Father in Heaven, and so I am striving to be a person of faith, not of fear. Congratulations Barack Obama. It will be an INTERESTING story.
No, if all I cared about when reading is what happens on the last page, or even in the last chapter, what would be the point of muddling through the first 300 pages? What I loved about "A Thousand Acres" is that each character was real, meaning, they were good people, who encountered evil and succombed to it. They made mistakes, as every human being does. During those 300 pages some of those characters were redeemed, and a couple of them were damned. So they all died in the end? Well isn't the death of the body the natural culmination of life on earth? Some of my favorite reads of all time are tragedies (the Kristin Lavransdatter series comes to mind, Anna Karenina...).
But in every tragedy there are at least a few survivors who carry on the story. They are there on those last pages to tsk tsk at the unnecessary suffering that occurred in those pages, at how it all could have been different if our beloved characters had made better choices or had not been seduced by evil that appeared good, or had they just been born into different circumstances. And the story is told so that others may glean from it what they can and try their darndest not to succomb to the same evils.
What I'm getting at is that the end of a tragedy is rarely the end of the story. Sometimes it's the beginning of a new story of change and renewed hope. Sometimes it is the beginning of a new and entirely different tragedy. Unfortunately, the history of man has been a testimony of many different tragedies, each a new reincarnation built on a hubris that says, "We will be different. We will not succomb like those people did." Each tragedy is unique.
Interspersed in these tragedies are also moments of great joy and accomplishment. I agree with Pedge that last night America saw an amazing triumph in the election of an African American to the highest office of our country. I am happy that many Americans who have been persecuted in the past and who have felt marginalized by the political scene in America feel that their voices have been heard. But all too often triumph rides on the shoulders of tragedy. I wish I could have, in good conscience, ridden the crest of that wave and rejoiced with so many other Americans. But my heart is still with that small voice that got trampled last night: those millions of Americans who have never had the opportunity to elect anyone, who have never seen an election, because in their weakness they were denied the right to life. Someone read the first page of their lives, was not interested, and closed the book.
My HOPE for CHANGE in this upcoming presidency is that the tragedy of the years since Roe Vs Wade will be redeemed, that President Elect Barack Obama really will listen to those with whom he disagrees and unite the people he represents. I know in my heart, however, that this is too much to ask of any one man, except my Father in Heaven, and so I am striving to be a person of faith, not of fear. Congratulations Barack Obama. It will be an INTERESTING story.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Damned Ladies: In Quick takes
***
In the Spring we took the kids downtown for a parade, and it was so hot and sunny, I sat in the shade behind the bleachers with the baby. Near me stood two women, apparently in the “business” of looking sexy. They both had artificial boobs and impossibly skinny hips. They were “done” with manicures, pedicures, glitter on their skin, tans, fancy sunglasses and sex hair.
They were accompanied by two tan men, in their fifties, with gold bracelets, smoker’s skin and pot bellies. It was all so weird to see professionals at work. They are not civilians. All the wives nearby cast cynical glances in their direction and tattooed men ogled them with neither shame nor tact. One whisky nosed gent circled the area like a hungry lion, unable to avert his attention from the sex for sale. They are women of a different breed, set apart, for a lifetime it seems by this career path they’ve chosen.
I taught for a year at a ritzy private school here in town, where local celebrities like Bob and Tom and Isaiah Thomas sent their children. Faculty were required to sit at lunch tables with the kids, to ensure good manners and behavior, but parents also came to school often to dine with their kids.
One afternoon, I found myself sitting at table with a mum who met her CEO husband when she jumped out of his birthday cake. Here she was, years down the line, no longer in the biz, and the mother of two children. But even still, and maybe more pronounced by her Cinderella ascent into money, she was set apart by her silicone perfection. I can only imagine that marrying her former client made her perhaps doomed to a life of constant sexual performance—that her marriage was somehow a vow to the lifelong continuation of her profession, as much as to the man. At the lunch table, she pulled a small bottle of skin glitter out of her purse and dabbed it on the forearm of a little girl sitting next to her. “Isn’t it pretty?” she said.
***
BBC’s The World, Have Your Say, asked the question yesterday, “Is gender equality an impossible dream?” The question was fueled by this article last month on the Huffington post, suggesting that women are less happy than they were 40 years ago, while men have gained happiness over the same time period.
People calling in said, “No—it is not impossible. We just need better, affordable childcare, more equality in the workplace. We haven’t accomplished gender equality yet, but when we do, we’ll be happy.” Happiness is always just over the horizon, even as our quantifiable happiness trends downward.
I wonder why we are so reluctant to say that the women’s movement has not been as successful as we hoped. Women are less happy than they were forty years ago–perhaps because the women’s movement HAS benefited men more than women. Sex is free for men, but women still become ensnared if there is any fallout (and the polls would suggest that having more access to contraception and abortion doesn’t free us from that fallout). Motherhood has been relegated to another (often less dignified) lifestyle choice among many, when it is, in fact, a latent quality of our womanhood. If we choose to embrace that quality and stay home to raise our own children, we face isolation and disdain. If we leave our children to go to work, we do so at considerable cost to our consciences. There is conflict with any decision we might make.
Still, I'm not sure what we could do about it now, were Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem to come out and say, "Sorry, we were wrong."
***
From a letter I wrote to a friend and Catholic dissenter:
I don’t understand why feminists desire to be the workhorses of the economy, the family, and the bedroom. And I don’t understand why they would have such an aversion to the essential qualities that make them who they are—their fertility, their femininity, ability to be mothers, which is in a deeper sense, their ability to shape humanity. Women are endowed with such power, such influence, such dignity in the Catholic faith—and they prefer a sham. I assume you are referring to the fact that they cannot be priests when you say that the church doesn’t accept women. And this, to me, is another reflection of a secular outlook which places all things masculine at the pinnacle of achievement. The priesthood is endowed with the characteristics of fatherhood and maleness—and why a woman, who is offered such a richness of feminine vocations in the church, would prefer the male ones—speaks to a loathing for what is inherently feminine that is the product of pop culture and modern feminism—not the church.
In the Spring we took the kids downtown for a parade, and it was so hot and sunny, I sat in the shade behind the bleachers with the baby. Near me stood two women, apparently in the “business” of looking sexy. They both had artificial boobs and impossibly skinny hips. They were “done” with manicures, pedicures, glitter on their skin, tans, fancy sunglasses and sex hair.
They were accompanied by two tan men, in their fifties, with gold bracelets, smoker’s skin and pot bellies. It was all so weird to see professionals at work. They are not civilians. All the wives nearby cast cynical glances in their direction and tattooed men ogled them with neither shame nor tact. One whisky nosed gent circled the area like a hungry lion, unable to avert his attention from the sex for sale. They are women of a different breed, set apart, for a lifetime it seems by this career path they’ve chosen.
I taught for a year at a ritzy private school here in town, where local celebrities like Bob and Tom and Isaiah Thomas sent their children. Faculty were required to sit at lunch tables with the kids, to ensure good manners and behavior, but parents also came to school often to dine with their kids.
One afternoon, I found myself sitting at table with a mum who met her CEO husband when she jumped out of his birthday cake. Here she was, years down the line, no longer in the biz, and the mother of two children. But even still, and maybe more pronounced by her Cinderella ascent into money, she was set apart by her silicone perfection. I can only imagine that marrying her former client made her perhaps doomed to a life of constant sexual performance—that her marriage was somehow a vow to the lifelong continuation of her profession, as much as to the man. At the lunch table, she pulled a small bottle of skin glitter out of her purse and dabbed it on the forearm of a little girl sitting next to her. “Isn’t it pretty?” she said.
***
BBC’s The World, Have Your Say, asked the question yesterday, “Is gender equality an impossible dream?” The question was fueled by this article last month on the Huffington post, suggesting that women are less happy than they were 40 years ago, while men have gained happiness over the same time period.
People calling in said, “No—it is not impossible. We just need better, affordable childcare, more equality in the workplace. We haven’t accomplished gender equality yet, but when we do, we’ll be happy.” Happiness is always just over the horizon, even as our quantifiable happiness trends downward.
I wonder why we are so reluctant to say that the women’s movement has not been as successful as we hoped. Women are less happy than they were forty years ago–perhaps because the women’s movement HAS benefited men more than women. Sex is free for men, but women still become ensnared if there is any fallout (and the polls would suggest that having more access to contraception and abortion doesn’t free us from that fallout). Motherhood has been relegated to another (often less dignified) lifestyle choice among many, when it is, in fact, a latent quality of our womanhood. If we choose to embrace that quality and stay home to raise our own children, we face isolation and disdain. If we leave our children to go to work, we do so at considerable cost to our consciences. There is conflict with any decision we might make.
Still, I'm not sure what we could do about it now, were Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem to come out and say, "Sorry, we were wrong."
***
From a letter I wrote to a friend and Catholic dissenter:
I don’t understand why feminists desire to be the workhorses of the economy, the family, and the bedroom. And I don’t understand why they would have such an aversion to the essential qualities that make them who they are—their fertility, their femininity, ability to be mothers, which is in a deeper sense, their ability to shape humanity. Women are endowed with such power, such influence, such dignity in the Catholic faith—and they prefer a sham. I assume you are referring to the fact that they cannot be priests when you say that the church doesn’t accept women. And this, to me, is another reflection of a secular outlook which places all things masculine at the pinnacle of achievement. The priesthood is endowed with the characteristics of fatherhood and maleness—and why a woman, who is offered such a richness of feminine vocations in the church, would prefer the male ones—speaks to a loathing for what is inherently feminine that is the product of pop culture and modern feminism—not the church.
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