Roc Scssrs' Blog

The Short Explanation

2011-04-12T11:07:00.002-04:00

Finally remembered my password. Glad to be back.

My German Teacher

2010-06-10T16:49:00.003-04:00

T Jones' comments on Pandorina morum reminded me of a piece I wrote several years ago about one of my high school teachers. Here it is:

My German Teacher

"Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly." (Ecclesiastes 9:10)

We worked hard in my high school German class. Our instructor was Father Richard Cleary, an Oblate of St. Francis de Sales and an unusually effective teacher. I still marvel at how he got forty 15-year-olds to sit through it all: conversational drills, reading exercises, and homework every night. Fr. Cleary's little discourses on German life and culture we counted as small respite. Yet he was able to get even the most rambunctious students to cooperate. In the three years I had him as a teacher, I saw him give detention exactly once, and it broke his heart to do so. He gave us his best, and we felt we could do nothing less in return. His encouraging smile even got us very cool adolescent boys to sing "O Tannenbaum" and "Stille Nacht" every Christmas.

Not long ago I met up with Fr. Cleary again, more than twenty years later. [Note: Fr. Cleary has since died, in 2009.] He's working in an inner-city parish, gracious as ever. I brought him a bottle of Eiswein, the special wine of the Rhine region made from grapes frozen on the vine. We talked about his teaching days. I asked him if he had kept his knowledge of German sharp. Had he a flair for languages? Had he lived or traveled in Europe, perhaps? "Oh, that," he smiled. "When I reported to the high school, they said they needed a German teacher. I had had some German in college, so I got the textbook out and started studying. I managed to stay a couple of chapters ahead of you guys." He had, in fact, spent most of his priestly career as a spiritual director.

Did I feel cheated that my beloved teacher was not a German scholar? Far from it! He had impressed many things on my young mind: the necessity of order, of patient effort, of respect for others. To work hard and joyfully at what needs to be done-- I can't think of a better expression of the message of Christ. And I wish I had more of Fr. Cleary's spirit of service, without which the word of God would wither and die among men. I learned all that, and-- oh, yes, a lot of German, too.

"All Writing is Curious"

2010-06-08T15:54:00.000-04:00

Well, I recently "monetized" the blog. Money-making, advertising, etc. seems perfectly natural to me. There's no angst about "selling out." It does make me think about who I'm writing for, and, indeed, who it is that's writing. This blog started out as little more than a diary, but I didn't want it to be my mental meanderings only. I had to include something of the outer world, something that, yes, an audience, can relate to. I hope what I fling out there lands somewhere between introspection and pontification.

Anyway, today I ran across a pellucid essay by the poet Dudley Fitts. It's extensively quoted by David R. Slavitt in Re Verse: Essays on Poetry and Poets. Fitts says he writes for an imaginary audience that is "concerned, sympathetic, cultivated in [its] tastes, demanding but forgiving, witty, well read and above all a fan." This imagined audience is, in fact, his imaginary friend from childhood! I've never thought that way before, but I think he's perfectly correct. It's odd, I think, but true. But, as Fitts say, "all writing is curious."

Pandorina morum

2010-05-21T14:57:00.011-04:00

Were we not talking about microorganisms? I ran across this this morning and had to put it up, if only to accompany the painting in the last post. This is a microorganism, not abstract art, as drawn by Sister Catherine Francis Regli in her master's thesis from 1941. Drawn right into her typed thesis, in pen and ink. No place for timidity or sweaty palms. And there are 53 such illustrations, drawn with the same delicacy and precision.

Makes me think of illuminated manuscripts. Makes me think of...a lot of things. I was talking to a biology professor recently and he stated how incredibly hard it is to get students today to look into a microscope and draw--even crudely--what they are seeing. Aside from lacking all patience to do such a thing, they just don't "see," he said.

I was rather a science geek in school. Catholic kids back then saw science as a grand adventure, a peek into the mind of God. I think science requires an inherent belief in reason, order, benevolence, and a Creator. A background, if you will, for seeing. "Let there be light."

Some years ago, when I was drifting away from the Buddhist fold, after years of seeing everything as appearance, as untrustworthy, where one idea is as bootless as the next-- I took a course in Aquinas. The professor tossed out one day, almost offhandedly, "Oh, yes, the principle of identity: a thing is what it is." I felt like I had been plunged into a refreshing bath of cold water. A thing is what it is! Of course! If, that is, you believe in things, and your ability to comprehend them. If you believe the world is reasonable. If you believe...

Sister Catherine Francis, if she got her master's in 1941, was probably teaching when I was attending school. Men and women like her led me to the same fountains of faith from which she had imbibed.

More on the Trinity

2010-04-24T14:03:00.010-04:00

Many artists are inarticulate, really. Emotionally raw. They can't explain very well what they do. They just do it, albeit sometimes magnificently.

We have a little revolving art gallery here, so I read a fair number of artists' statements. Most tend to be vague, vapid, or sententious. Some have only the most tenuous of connections to the objects on the wall, making the reader/viewer feel stupid for "not getting it." Some are so bizarre one fears for the poor fellow's sanity.

The artist's statement here at the current exhibit is perfectly balanced, I think, between specificity and abstraction, intellect and emotion. It actually helped me in looking at the paintings!

I'll let the artist, Vincent McLoughlin, tell you what he does in his own words: "The panels...deal with three. Red. Yellow. Blue. Applied opaquely, translucently, and transparently in layers of three." Then he starts to tickle me. The three colors make him think of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Plato's three-fold division of human psychology: the appetitive, the spirited, the rational. Darwin (variation, heredity, struggle for existence), Lincoln (government of, by, and for the people). A structured analysis, yet opening out to endless possibilities.

I found the paintings to look like kaleidoscope images. Crystals. No wait, they look like growing microorganisms. And look, there's an evolving eye! No, wait-- a city, a parliament, a cluster of berries! Love, growth, communion! And I liked thinking of the Trinity as the origin of it all.

In spite of the old adage to view from the distance, I found the paintings were even more intriguing close-up, once I understood the artist's technique.

Sometimes the artist is his own best critic. Certainly he should be his own best advocate.

Artifacts

2010-04-16T15:13:00.005-04:00

This a stool in steady use here at the college. Sturdy and serviceable. I turned it over today and saw this:

I don't know if you can read that, but it says "1966." Forty-four years, an impressive record of service. You can look at the old college catalogs around here and see that the tables and chairs in the photos are still in use today.

Some people like that, admiring human-made articles that last and last. Richard Wilbur wrote a poem to that effect, and decried the gimcrackery of so much modern manufacture. (I just ran across it the other day; sorry, I can't remember where. But once I heard him read it!-- that was a fine afternoon.) I'm more an Ozymandias man myself. Not much of our stuff lasts.

I have an indelible image in my mind, from a newscast during the Yugoslav wars. It is of a Soviet-era tank blasting holes in the facade of a 50's or 60's style apartment building. A modern building, with clean, low lines and spare ornament. Above all, a modern building! For me, such architecture encapsulated all sorts of romantic notions about the twentieth-century world. Universal peace, world cultural exchange, scientific advancement, sophisticated art-- all just over the horizon. Jet planes, dams, reactors, rockets, the monorail--and those apartment buildings--all artifacts of a grand new civilization. And now they were being blown up!

"The end of history," they said. No, actually the beginning, or the re-beginning. "What rough beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?"

None of our stuff will last.

Hail to the Guru

2010-04-12T16:13:00.002-04:00

What with Easter and all, I forgot to mark the anniversary of the passing of Trungpa Rinpoche. April 4 was the day. I rested under the white umbrella of his buddha-activity for many years. Chokyi Gyatso, the Eleventh Trungpa-- hail to the guru! Hail to the root guru!

He once said, "This is the great odyssey I have never feared." He was speaking of bringing Buddhism to the West, but the line was used at his funeral, appropriately. It was never really true for me, till now, with Dad's passing. The last two months have been bracing, yet comforting in a larger sense. Welcome, Brother Death, St. Francis said. Each of us must make his peace with death. As one gets older one is privileged to see, and quite often too, ordinary people exhibiting wisdom and heroism, grace and peace at their end.

Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and The Abyss of Light

2010-04-03T07:08:00.006-04:00

I will lamely conflate Hans Urs von Balthasar: on Good Friday, Jesus the Son of Man suffered his Passion. Since He is divine as well, his suffering was infinite. His isolation from the Father was absolute. Into that dark abyss comes the Holy Spirit, who fills it with light. Balthasar goes on: "When what is required seems too burdensome...and our fate simply meaningless, then we have become very close to the man nailed on the Cross; all we can do is wait and endure, quite still, like the Crucified, not seeing anything, facing the dark abyss of death. Beyond this abyss there waits for us-- an abyss of light."

(Good Friday sermon from You Crown the Year with Your Goodness, Ignatius Press, 1989.)

To the Resurrection!

2010-03-31T16:08:00.006-04:00

Well, for Easter, something soothing at the top of the page. L. and I made our annual Lenten pilgrimage to Wernersville; I took this picture there. (I am rather enjoying my $25 cell phone. It's a phone-- but it takes pictures!) Out of my primal deference to the written word, and my unwillingness to fuss too much with technology, pictures will always be ancillary here. But they can be evocative.

So, here we have St. Francis. Not cloying or sentimental. Has an Craft Movement, look, no? Which would make sense, the place was built in 1929. It might be that old. If it is, it's in good shape, for being an outdoor shrine.

Two stories: Sister Rose Cecilia died last month. Once she was leading a group of us on a tour of an exhibition of prints by Bernard de Caussade, who painted a (very sentimental) series on the life of St. Francis. Sister was a Franciscan. When we came to the depiction of St. Francis' death, she asked that we forgive her, she couldn't continue and would have to cut the tour a little short. I looked up and saw she was weeping, anew, at St. Francis' end, 700 years after the fact! It was moving and utterly charming.

And, I hate to steal a preacher's story, but-- a teetotaling Baptist I know turned High Anglican priest told this story in his Easter Sunday sermon. One of his first experiences with the Anglican church was an Easter brunch. The pastor raised a glass of champagne and toasted: "To the Resurrection! And if you can't drink to the Resurrection-- to hell with you!"

Happy Easter!

For my Father

2010-02-28T12:04:00.002-05:00

"...like a champion he runs his course" (Ps. 19) and "Let him sit enthroned before God forever, bid love and faithfulness watch over him" (Ps. 61)

Healing Snow

2010-02-16T15:47:00.012-05:00

I buried my father yesterday. All day Saturday through that giant storm L. and I shoveled, enough to get the car out to make it to the hospital on Sunday to stand watch. He died on Tuesday, while I was back at work. Wednesday it snowed hard again. And shoveling snow became my therapy. There was something deeply good about the physical work, the cold so sharp and strangely consoling.

Out in the cemetery, the sun came out, first time in days. Snow, pine and a softer cold, refreshing after the viewing and service. Then the clean, plain work of hauling the casket up an icy hillside.

I stayed home another day and went out hiking in the hills around town. And it snowed-- a peaceful, ordinary snow on a peaceful, ordinary Tuesday. My father's death, long feared by me, has left me believing more firmly in divine providence. "I lift up my eyes to the hills/From where is my help to come?/My help comes from the Lord/The maker of heaven and earth." (Ps. 121).

Watching

2009-12-17T13:26:00.001-05:00

I used to wonder why old people were happy to sit and stare; now I find myself doing it more and more. Ever since I read Pius Parsch's remark, that the Christmas season isn't really about Jesus' birth so much as the Second Coming, I've found Advent more intriguing. And if Christmas is about home and hearth, it means our real home and true end. Even the Second Coming, with its overtones of judgment, means putting the world aright again. The Psalmist yearns for judgment--that we might saved.

These thoughts console, though they come amidst winter and ending. Ending is so sad, December so dark. I sit amidst all my broken life and unfinished work, watching and waiting.

After Wyeth

2009-12-07T16:12:00.003-05:00

Roaming the Brandywine River Valley, December 6, 2009.

A Poetry Reading

2009-10-22T14:04:00.001-04:00

Went to a poetry reading yesterday. Very disturbing, in a good way.

In prose, in an essay, when the right word comes, it's a perfect fit. It feels precise and satisfying. In poetry, the "right" word comes, but it doesn't feel right; it sticks, like an arrow in the flesh. It has to be eased in, not pulled out. The meanings shift; the poem begins to resonate.

Anyway, the reading is still resonating with me. Brought up a lot of memories, mostly after the reading. I'm still a bit raw and incoherent now, but I'll note a few things. (This is more of a memory-jogging entry for me. Andrew Zawacki and Joshua Harmon were the poets. Not exactly my kind of poetry, but I admired their verve. And their love of landscapes, which we briefly discussed beforehand. (We were actually discussing where the highest point in the county was). Landscape, geography more precisely, inspires a lot of their poetry. Harmon wrote one about looking out his window at a rainy Poughkeepsie street. He talked about hanging on to each bit of nature, like the lone tree in his backyard. It reminded me a lot of living in the Port. Zawacki had the more precise and cutting lines; Harmon has a sense of humor in his poems which I hope he develops further. BJ told Zawacki there was a stream-of-consciousness feel to one of his poems. I thought of Ginsberg around that campfire in Colorado. And I was heartened by what they said about teaching: Zawacki that poems aren't a puzzle to be solved; Harmon, that neither are they just expressing feelings. BJ said it all was better than going to a play; I say certainly better than a movie.

My Imaginary Friend

2009-10-13T16:18:00.000-04:00

My last post was June?? "Gone are the months of summer, gone beyond pursuit." That's Vassar Miller, but I can't find a link to the poem. Perhaps I have the line wrong. Well, anyway, they are gone. It's dark now in the morning, and my fingers are cold. There is playoff baseball; each season has its emoluments, I suppose. But what can compare to a summer's day?

I'm blogging at work, on a weekday. I'm in too good a mood to do actual work--this morning my cardiologist said I was the healthiest person he was likely to see today. And L. is working at the Gardens on a project she is loving, and she has tomorrow there too. So God is in his heaven, and all's well.

I just flashed back to a childhood memory. One October 23rd, I distinctly remember jotting my homework assignments down in my little notebook, with a great deal of satisfaction at how smoothly the whole day had gone. I remember I had been anxious about returning to school, and now by Oct. 23rd I had become inured to the whole process, so much so that the routine of schoolwork had become painless, even comforting. I celebrated such transitions for a number of October 23rds afterwards.

The years are gone, but that little tyke lives on in my head. Not a bad little fellow.

Lisa Sotomayor and the Decline of Catholic Education

2009-06-13T10:27:00.001-04:00

So, Lisa Sotomayor has never thought about the rights, if any, of an unborn baby. I believe her, even though she went to Cardinal Spellman High School. Such a change has occurred in Catholic education, in just a generation! When I was in high school, at a regular old diocesan school in a working class neighborhood, we studied concepts like natural law, proofs of God's existence, evolution, the soul and human nature, abortion and sexual ethics-- moral questions of all kinds. We did it in religion class, training our minds to work within the framework of Aquinas, which is really Aristotleianism. (Nowadays, Aristotle is that benighted old fool in the front of your glossy science textbook.) We actually thought about things, or at least learned how to think, and we did it in high school, and those who went on to college did it on an even more nuanced level. Or at least they did up till the sixties and seventies--I caught some wisps of the old-style education, enough to give me a taste of what I had missed. In The Closing of the American Mind, Allen Bloom praised Catholic universities for keeping the classic, Aristotleian methods alive. Of course, when he wrote, in 1987, the tradition had largely passed. I've always said I think I learned more in high school than I did in college (Thank you, Oblates of St. Francis de Sales!). At least, the foundations had been properly laid.

Further reading: James Burtchaell's The Dying of the Light, the individual histories of the devolution of Christian education at a number of famous and not-so-famous institutions.

My Time at the Institute for Advanced Study

2009-03-30T15:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of years ago L. and I were driving through Princeton, N.J. on our way north. We were on Route 206, I think . It was around Memorial Day or the Fourth of July or something, and we had to detour because of some holiday festivities. We lost our way and wound up on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study. It was a normal-looking place, not very impressive and quite deserted. We spied a brainy-looking fellow making his way between buildings, so we asked him how to get back on 206. He didn't know....

The Story of 821

2008-09-20T15:22:00.001-04:00

Did you ever just feel like having a big old sloppy bar cheeseburger for dinner? With a beer or two, just to take the edge off some Shostakovich. One Friday night L. and I were going to a concert, so we thought we'd stop at a slightly (and I do mean slightly) upscale watering hole we knew of, and have a couple of the aforementioned burgers, plus fries. Well, it had been a long time since we'd been downtown, and we discovered to our dismay that our watering hole had closed. What to do? Nothing seemed to be open but "821," a very upscale eatery. Well, we didn't have a whole lot of time, but I figured we could get something quick in the bar. We found a table, but the menu was the same as the sitdown. I looked at the prices-- I didn't feel like paying $24.95 an entree, the cheapest thing (plus it was a la carte), especially not when I had a cheeseburger in mind. So we wound up ordering wine and appetizers. That, I was hoping, should hold us. I have to keep my wife happy, you know. L. is a girl of strong appetite, vital and attractive. Frankly, I was feeling like the Three Stooges-- you know, when they walk into some ritzy joint by mistake and try to keep up appearances, hoping they don't wind up washing dishes.

Well, they weren't adequate. I can't even remember what they were, but there wasn't enough. In all fairness, the bartender warned us they were just "conversation starters." He knew what we were about (we shabby interlopers). He was sympathetic but maintained his profesional distance. Genteel poverty can be so disconcerting.

We poured the last of the wine and desperately scanned the menu--and L. found it. It was a cortini, Barkeep informed us, a side dish: sweet potato, quick fried in nice long strips in honey and ginger. It was delicious, and there was a lot of it. For $4.95! And I think we only ordered one dish! Anyway, we left sated and happy, ready for Socialist Realism.

And that's the story of 821--one of those little survival tales that couples treasure.

Fine Lines

2008-09-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

"The human predicament is here presented neither as divine comedy nor fully blown tragedy, but is seen from a viewpoint located somewhere between Olympus and Gethsemane...(Seamus Heaney in the foreword to The Canon : the Original One Hundred and Fifty-four Poems by C.P. Cavafy).

Another haiku:

The portulaccas,
Now a heap of tangled vines;
Still-- tongues of color!

And this is good: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

Labor Day Haiku

2008-09-05T11:06:00.000-04:00

Drunken, heedless men
And mindless insect chorus
Praise September's moon.

Summer haiku

2008-07-26T13:59:00.003-04:00

Bagpipes on the beach!
Of all the things! At sunset--
Aye, those pipes did wail!

That's it-- one summer haiku. My haiku-writing period extended from late summer into fall, in a long-ago year. So most of them are autumnal. But I really did see a guy playing bagpipes on the beach.

I always stuck to the five-seven-five syllable rule. Dover Thrift Editions about 20 years ago put out a dollar edition of Japanese haiku. It was a very nice job with good explanatory notes written by I've forgotten who. Multiple translations of the same haiku were often included. Also the Japanese transliteration. I later found out from a co-knowledge-worker, though, that Japanese transliterations do include silent syllables. So, unless you know which are silent, you can't read them to get a sense of the sound.

Another good book is A Net of Fireflies by Harold Stewart. He renders traditional Japanese haiku into rhyming couplets, believing they are a more natural poetic expression for English speakers. Harold Stewart was a very interesting fellow, about whom more later.

Where Read

2008-05-31T11:11:00.000-04:00

OK, so let's start afresh. Thought of the Day doesn't work. Continued work on Why I am no Longer a Buddhist doesn't seem particularly fruitful. I will blog only when I have enough time and will try to be somewhat literary.

I really do write for the printed page. I don't think it's possible to read something really reflective on the computer. I feel like my neck is frozen into place, or something. You can't look up, put your finger in the book, and think. You have no sense of reading something in a place. D. Keith Mano once related how he not only could recall especially moving or eloquent passages, but the exact physical circumstances in which he first read them. I love reading outdoors, on the deck, or in the garden. Here's some stuff from my old Upsouth days:

Last weekend I noted the energetic music of the purple finches. Before that, the swifts had made their reappearance high above, tirelessly scouring the dome of sunlit sky free of insects. The catbird, always heard before he's seen, shyly sounds his sweet and dreamy song from amidst the wild bushy places. The clematis and the climbing rose are in abundant blossom, and now that the nights as well as days are warm enough, we've hauled the heavy lawn chairs out for sitting. My summer study's furnished and ready, how about yours?

Haven't had much luck reading on the beach, however. The multitudinous sensory experiences are too compelling, at least at first. Anne Morrow Lindbergh in Gift from the Sea says the same thing. A magazine or two, maybe, but War and Peace will always be for fireside.

A year!

2008-02-13T16:13:00.001-05:00

I'm going to Wernersville again, so I've been blogging here a year. Sobering thought. I thought I'd take along Ronald Knox's Captive Flames, some of his sermons on Christian saints recently put out by Ignatius Press. Anything more systematic would be too daunting. I want something with that odd sparkle that illuminates everything else.

I think that's a worthwhile way to approach intellectual study. Quirky interests can be good--they show a certain love for the world. And they should lead to reflection on greater things.
Often today, students go backwards. We fill them full of Grand Theory before they've had a chance to be captivated by the facts of the world. See E. D. Hirsch, The Knowledge Deficit.

Thought of the Day Tangentially Involving Super Tuesday in a Non-partisan Way

2008-02-05T16:32:00.000-05:00

Remember when executives and administrators used to "spearhead projects" and "lay foundations" with "heavy lifting" and even "establish beachheads"? Now we have "servant-leaders" who listen and "nurture growth." That's fine if you have ultra-committed team members who are itching to do their own thing anyway. Most of us just want to make a living and contribute to the smooth operation of something worthwhile [with our households being the most worthwhile thing of all]. Maybe we're not 100% invested: our work, while important, is not the sum total of our lives. Just tell us what you want done and we'll do it--but tell us! I think real leadership is neglected. Instead of leaders we have listeners. And more time is spent probing the psychological states of workers than on actually directing people's efforts. We need leaders who take us outside ourselves, in short.

Thought of the Day #2

2008-02-04T13:22:00.001-05:00

How about that Superbowl? Or, as L. calls it, "The Guacamole Bowlie." Which we did consume, along with two bags of fancy chips. We enjoyed the game immensely, staying awake for the whole thing. I sometimes think the only way I've affected L.'s life is that now she watches football.

Thought of the Day

2008-02-01T16:20:00.001-05:00

Since I stopped working on Thursday nights, I don't get much time to blog anymore. So, with some trepidation, I hereby launch "The Thought of the Day."

I think--as I was shelving some Norman Mailer--that we tend to make too much of artists. Of their biographies, I mean. We idolize them, and the more whacked out they are, the better. Plato warned us about the poets! When I was in college, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats--all those guys we admired for their lifestyle as much, if not more, than for their poetry. In recent times we've seen Mozart, who was probably a fairly conventional sort, transformed into a wild genius and eccentric by "Amadeus." Before, people who listened to Mozart were considered stuffy--now they are thought to be "with it" and sort of rebellious. For every weird artist, however, there are sober and thoughtful ones who also produce great art.

The herd mentality of this adulation first hit me when I read Dan Wakefield's New York in the Fifties. He describes people standing five and six deep at a Greenwich Village bar-- watching Dylan Thomas drink. It struck me as very silly.

Murray Bodo

2007-10-27T12:34:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, writing seems awfully silly. Reading, too, for that matter. I have been much preoccupied with all the mundane details of material life, from basement refinishing, to buying and selling automobiles, to financial planning, etc., etc. But I did get to see Murray Bodo last weekend. And he reminded me (us) of the power of poetry. He was quite vigorous, even with a cold. I had seen a picture of him on the 'net which made me think that perhaps he was getting on in years, and his visit here would be mainly honorific. But he is an exceptional teacher. He gave two longish talk/readings on Saturday, had two sessions with students Monday, followed by a dinner and readings Monday night.

And he is an excellent reader, at least of his own poetry. He read his pretty much as I would have read them. Which makes me worry less about how my poems would sound. Perhaps I fret too much over punctuation and graphics. Maybe we're all used to a modernist free-verse style, so mine would come out all right. Anyway, he encouraged us to write--not to have a literary career necessarily--but to write.

Update

2007-09-15T15:17:00.001-04:00

Back to work. It's September, albeit an exceptionally beautiful one. Sept. 11 was a trifle warm, but the next day-- cool, bright, and clear-- couldn't help but make one think of 9/11/01.

Well, change rears its Ugly Head. I will no longer work Thursday nights, my usual blogging night. I may have to confine blogging to the Saturdays I work. Even today my time was limited. I had a necessary, but stimulating, research job. As someone in the business has said, "Librarians like to search. Everyone else likes to find."

Just ran across another good line from Mark Steyn: "The invention of the faux-childlike faux-folk song was one of the greatest forces in the infantilization of American culture." And the infantilization of American Catholic worship, I will add. L. has re-joined the parish choir; she would love to have me join her, but I just can't. I can't sing that stuff on a regular basis. And--I'm not singing in the community chorus either. No more Christmas carols right after Labor Day!

Another good line: "Salt, with its lips of blue fire...Like true love and gasoline." Is that great, or what. It's from a poem by Leroy Quintana, of whom I know very little. Google him yourself. (I did take out a line in the middle, but I don't think I'm doing violence to the poem's meaning. Or its aura, anyway.)

Ciao.

Following Francis

2007-08-18T13:12:00.000-04:00

I had the pleasant experience today of looking for--and finding--an old poem. I couldn't remember how it went, even how it started, which is unusual. I looked for it a few weeks ago on some old disks, but it turns out to have been written on the back of a magazine. I found it in my desk at work. I remember writing it, in the main, on my lunch hour on a bench behind Old Main. Even more surprising, I still like the poem, so here it is. (It helps if you have some knowledge of St. Francis' life. )

FOLLOWING FRANCIS
(in late middle age)

I'm an old soldier, too,
And a failed one;
But lepers I don't hug,
Nor would I beard a pope or sultan.

Not for me the grand gesture:
Naked in the public square?
A whole life lived in thrall to one command?
I like to keep my options open...

But somehow my blind alleys ended here,
And for each good thing I get,
Truly I am grateful;
This feels like winter, but
strangely blessed--

So while I weakly ponder mysteries
Have patience, Saint,
And send me down that angel
With the holy violin;
Though I have started late
on noble pathways
Please remember, Francis--
You died young.

Enjoyable Day

2007-07-21T13:21:00.000-04:00

It's been an acceptable summer so far. The biggest disappointment has been that I've not yet been to the beach. But I am living with it.

Thursday R. and I were on a workday junket. We arrange them now whenever we can. We have proved to be a couple of companionable old coots, and I have less of a conscience over missing a day's drudge work. Truly, it has been both enlightening and enjoyable to get out among my formerly unseen professional colleagues. It was a glorious Philadelphia summer's day, humid and hazy; moonroof and no A/C for us two as we tooled around. We managed to get lost in Montgomery County and I quoted Larkin--"lost lanes of Queen Anne's lace"--and R., a former English teacher, was pleased. All those years of teaching literature and now, at last, a poem-spouting prole! We were visiting art installations in local libraries. Best find was a Henry O. Tanner not 10 miles from here, "Jesus and Nicodemus," but not quite the same as the one here. This one was definitely a night shot. Very blue.

After our tour we went to R.'s and hauled his broken washing machine up the cellar steps. Quite an operation for two old f...ellows. I was thinking this morning if we had been unsuccessful, the day would have seemed a futile waste. As it was, everything turned out lovely. I cut some of R.'s flowers for L., and took them and him home for dinner. We spent the evening conversing on the deck. Most enjoyable.

Hedonista

2007-07-12T18:38:00.000-04:00

The shaded porch, the jewel-cut lawn,
The sidewalk baking in the sun;
The yellow squash, blue dragonflies,
The clouds where silver liners run.

The red, red rose, black bumblebee,
The fuzzy spikes of corn;
The daisy head across your lap,
With counted petals torn.

The fireflies, the glass of wine,
Your voice softly in the dark;
The orange moon ascends the sky,
The end of day to mark.

Eternal question, love or not?
Your languid form allows no clue;
But your eyes, my love, your merry eyes,
Betray your secret longing too.

Belated Memorial Day Thoughts

2007-06-07T18:34:00.000-04:00

So, walked over to the Methodist cemetery next door to the college last week. It was very beautiful up there where I stopped--a perfect site for the dozen benches placed there. They're set up pew-like facing a cross, so I imagine one could hold a prayer service right there in the cemetery. There was a strong, warm breeze whipping up all the flags placed for Memorial Day. "The famous dead, hard honors won, see they their pennants fly?" I would rate a flag, if there's anyone around then still doing those things. I want Psalm 138 on my tombstone, "Forsake not the work of Thy hands."

L., for some reason, thinks that's awful. She had a tough time around her father's death. Perhaps she thinks my interest in funereal details macabre. Or dilettantish-- her father was a real veteran. Patton's Third Army. One shudders to think what he saw. He never mentioned his service, but he would take L. as a child to war movies. Maybe he was trying to convey something of his experiences to her. He would have nightmares, she says.

When I see young men acting in their heedless or arrogant ways, I try to feel tolerance for them. They may be using that energy and rude elan someday to fight for me. As they are, now, in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I am grateful.

Funk

2007-05-31T18:34:00.002-04:00

Last night was the last official academic event of the semester. Today is summer. The few students taking summer courses--I bitterly resent their very presence on campus. L. and I had planned to go to Clamtown this weekend to visit my sister, but the trip fell through. I wanted to do summery things--now I feel thwarted. I guess I'll survive, though. (I'm so pathetic.)

Well, I like summer. L., not so much. We have a Labor Day party every year--a sad passing for me, a celebration for her. I thought L. liked warm weather, hiking, and the outdoors. What she really likes is not sweating, flower gardens, and romantic strolls. CR told me it was the false advertising endemic to courtship. She has a boyfriend whom she met six years ago at a dance. They haven't been dancing since.

Well, I love L., so I don't hike as often as I used to. It's ok. My sister and I like the beach. Her husband, who has lived all his life in Jersey and the last twenty years at the shore, has, in my recollection, been on the beach exactly once. And he considered it something of a humiliation. (He sails.)

Well, we all love each other. It's not those quirky little choices that define us, but the big ones. It's whom you choose to love and how faithfully, not whether your partner shares every one your idiosyncrasies. That would be marrying your self.

I'm glad I wrote this. You see, it is because of L. we're staying home this weekend. But, I feel better about it now. Now the question is, How did this blog get so high-minded?

Thomas Blackburn (1916-1977)

2007-05-24T17:24:00.000-04:00

I wanted to mention Thomas Blackburn, the English poet. I have often sought "the honey of peace in old poems," and, about ten years ago, when I was working for Encore Books in center city, I visited South Street Book Trader, and bought a copy of 45 to 60: an Anthology of English Poetry, 1945-60. Found a few nice poems in there, and one that struck me was "The Lucky Marriage," by Thomas Blackburn. I wasn't married at the time, but it struck me. A year or two later, I met L., and when I proposed, I read her that poem and gave her the book to keep.

I mention all this because L. and I celebrated the Anniversary of our Engagement last Saturday. Yes, we do that. (I once mentioned to my mother that L. wasn't sentimental. "Roc," she said, "all women are sentimental." She was right.) Anyway, we read the poem again and I was reminded how good it is. Technically, quoting Contemporary Authors New Revision Series quoting a Times Literary Supplement reviewer, Blackburn's work had a "restless and nervous but, at its best, peculiarly and awkwardly alive verse surface." Peculiarly and awkwardly alive I certainly was that day, so it fit the mood. But even more we both appreciated the sentiment of the poem, praising the "cunning eye of the rejected," the goose-girl and the kitchen servant, who choose their partners adroitly and wind up with the perfect marriage, which "lasts forever, it is often said."

Another line from the poem: "They learned to see because they had no light." Blackburn had a difficult life, marked by a traumatic childhood, alcoholism, and depression. Yet he was also an educator, and a poet who gave me a voice when I really needed it. So thank you, Thomas Blackburn. R.I.P.

La Forza del Destino

2007-05-03T17:15:00.001-04:00

We got the good news yesterday that Murray Bodo will be visiting the college this fall. Bodo is a Franciscan monk and a very good writer. He will be leading a retreat on poetry and prayer. By "good writer," I mean more than clear or concise or even colorful. I mean he is a literary man. The writing stands on its own. It is done for its own sake. It isn't in service to an agenda. The words in a sense don't accomplish anything; but they do lead somewhere.

Cultivating a receptivity to literature used to be an important part of education. I think I was on the cusp of the change. Formerly, education was literary-historical-theological; now it is sociological- psychological-legalistic. A certain outlook has been lost, a certain emphasis on the person, on their individuality, on the particularity of things and events. I sometimes think to myself, in a sort of mental shorthand, "I don't believe in fairness--I believe in destiny." I'm not exactly sure what I mean by that, but I think people of a certain age and background will understand.

[Try "A Feeling for Hierarchy" by Mary Douglas in Believing Scholars: Ten Catholic Intellectuals edited by James L. Heft.]

John 21

2007-04-19T17:30:00.000-04:00

Even after the irruption of his divinity
He still had his body.
The wounds, sticky and healing
Beneath the clean, rough cotton;
The muscles stiff, but strong again.

He felt so good in the clear morning air,
Away from men contending in the synagogue,
That he dug his toes deep into the formless sand,
And decided to make them breakfast.

They came, dulled by fear and fatigue,
Except for Peter. Who could not love Peter?--
In up to his chest,
Made all the more alive by his shame.

So in love, he knew that
Eventually he would say it:
Yes, by all means, go

Teach all nations.

Complications

2007-04-14T15:08:00.000-04:00

Revved up. I would take my blood pressure if only I could find my machine. No sooner had the need for basement waterproofing been triumphantly validated, than L. has a car accident. She's OK, physically. Had a bad dream or two, but had to get over it quickly and back to work. She mentioned she misses her Volvo, and it's not like her to complain. I guess it's displacement. She is tired and freaked out about how close she got to being really hurt.

A bit of running around there, doing auto body things, and Monday Mom will be having a hysterectomy. A lot of running around there, I'm thinking, though my wonderful sibs will be doing a lot. L. is upset. Sounds like a pretty safe procedure, but Mom's 87! And the Mother of All Anti-patients. That she agreed to the operation makes me realize how much she has suffered over the past year or so.

I feel beleaguered. Mustn't panic. Must talk to myself in the optimistic way I talk to the womenfolk. Well, the soul is feminine, isn't it?

"That which does not kill me, makes me stronger." Nietzsche. Well, don't believe it. I think that that which does not kill outright, kills slowly, ineluctably.

We must remain clay in the Potter's hands. He, the conqueror of death. Thomas Merton says, I think in New Seeds, that without Christ, human suffering is just misery. Stress usually makes me feel resentful or hurls me back on my own devices. Either way I'm mindless, Godless. I should practice prayer, faith and acceptance now, before even worse times.

Liturgies

2007-04-03T17:20:00.000-04:00

My Easters are often like my Christmases--I'm utterly uninterested till they actually happen. So I am anticipating Holy Week, now that it's here. I remember some affecting Holy Thursdays: living in the Port, in the city, with the old immigrant churches cheek-by-jowl, all gorgeously decorated. A fair number of people keep up the custom of visiting churches through the night. Once, in St. Adalbert's, at 10 o'clock in a nearly empty church, four strangers walked in, lined up in the back, sounded a pitch pipe, and proceeded to perform a Renaissance motet. The effect was mysterious and magnificent. Then they walked out.

Some good Good Fridays there as well. I remember Fr. Moriarity, the jolly, garrulous Irish priest at Nativity, silent for once and prostrate in the center aisle of the cavernous stone church. One year I went downtown to St. Mark's Episcopal. That was a liturgical workout. Very long service, with the Passion chanted in a peculiar, rhythmic style. Sort of a Church English, like Old Slavonic, maybe. I don't much like Good Friday at my current parish. Too many kids, for one thing, I don't much like the whole post-Vatican II service. Not much goes on and there's a lot of standing in line. Maybe that's why I often feel thoroughly exhausted and righteously holy at the end.

What I do like at St. Thomas is the Easter Vigil. Our reserved, intellectual Fr. Williams stands in the sanctuary and sings the Exultet to us. Could there be anything more thoroughly pastoral? The Resurrection announced by our own shepherd, the gift of faith transmitted personally. Better than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in full throat.

The music of belief. I'd rather hear "Were You There?" sung by a group of believers than the St. Matthew Passion with a cast of arteestes. One Good Friday at St. John the Evangelist in center city, I marveled at the throng of movers and shakers at worship and had an epiphany similar to the one Annie Dillard describes, commenting on a Presbyterian communion service in An American Childhood: People really believe this stuff.

Their faith moves me forward.

Small Victories

2007-03-29T17:20:00.000-04:00

So we had the basement waterproofed. That was ten days ago. After they cut away the drywall, they found a leak in a water supply line. At first, I admit, I thought they must have busted it with those jackhammers they were using. But it was way up, just under the kitchen floor. When they finished installing the system, they rigged a trash bag to direct the drips into the drain. The system works great--I think it's quite spiffy, actually. But that leak--it was coming down behind the wall, only three feet from where I thought water was seeping in. Could I have mistaken it for a rising water table? Did I just spend four thousand dollars to fix a drippy pipe joint? Only time would tell, once the pipe was repaired.

Which was done on Tuesday. Wednesday night my wife came home from work and remarked how dry the outlet gutter was. (She was trying to compliment me for taking care of the leak.) I awoke at four a.m., worried about money. Why is it so damn hard to make one's economic way? Why am I so stupid as to buy an whole, completely unnecessary waterproofing system? But I went out once it was light, and there it was--a beautiful puddle of water, shimmering in the sun.

Should I invest so much emotion in such trivialities? I can't seem to help it. But it doesn't bother me as much to be bothered. Bothers can be small builders of wisdom. As I've gotten older, and especially since I've gotten married, I've sort of given myself up to them. Imagine if I had children, all the "trivial" problems I would have to solve. So...they're probably not that trivial. The daily and domestic really do form us. Didn't the Church Fathers say we encapsulate all of salvation history within us? We all must deal with our personal Egypts. James V. Schall says our lives are "theologically dramatic." I smile at my feelings of triumph at this small victory, but I am also reminded, once again, to trust, to learn, and not to feel so desperate when things seem dark.

With My Wife on Retreat

2007-03-22T09:31:00.000-04:00

Where There Are No Rooms for Married Couples

Please bless us, Lord, your simple pair,
Who seek our spirits' resting here,
Two flesh in one apart tonight,
Protect us both from harm or fright.

Protect this house, this gentle school,
Help us to keep its holy rule;
It teaches love by keeping us apart,
A wholesome tearing, heart from heart.

Though you are some way down the hall,
It's really not that far at all,
And all around these sacred places
God's love descends and fills with graces.

Someday sick or dead or dying,
We will in separate beds be lying;
But know, my dear, in that dark hell,
God's love and grace are there as well.

Off on Retreat

2007-03-08T17:24:00.001-05:00

Going to Wernersville, the Jesuit retreat house, for three days next week. I was looking forward to it last week, now I'm feeling a bit of unease. Very normal emotion--each retreat is a journey, after all. ("Journey" with all its material, spiritual, and psychobabbly overtones.) I'm not a great traveler to begin with, and anything can happen on a retreat. The physical journeying itself so often jolts the soul's inertia. One can imagine what a medieval pilgrim felt the night before shipping out to Jerusalem.

But I like Wernersville. I felt such a sense of relief when I drove through those gates last year. It's an old novitiate house, a huge one, with plenty of room for retreatants to rattle around in. And plenty of outdoor space, too, for walking. Good art and a good library. A dedicated, engaging staff. And a giant stone of a chapel that resists modernizing.

"Resists modernizing"--Catholic antennae going up! OK, in the interests of full disclosure, my sensibilities are pretty conservative. But Wernersville's is not, so...if you're liberal Catholic, you can go jauntily, and if you're conservative Catholic: don't cheat yourself, it's very welcoming and not at all over the top. I'll just say I've very rarely gone there when somebody at some point hasn't whipped out a rosary. Non-Catholics are welcome, too, and, if they are also wondering what Catholics are fussing about, try A People Adrift by Peter Steinfels, which I thought was pretty even-handed, accurate, and, frankly, quite dispiriting.

Lawns and War

2007-03-01T17:23:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to cancel the lawn service and cut my own lawn. For several years now, I have felt alienated from my lawn. Sad to say, but true. Now, the vegetable garden--that is mine, for I dug it myself. Many pleasant hours have I spent there, reading or soaking up the sun. Part of the reason for my alienation, I think, is that L. was here already when I moved in, so the lawn was just the ground around the house, serviced by men who evidently traveled hundreds of miles--from Mexico!--to do just that. But as we've worked on little projects and planted memories, those mysterious bonds to house and land have been growing. And now I feel ready to embrace the property in its entirety, to experience it more fully. I'm speaking lightly, of course, but I know I will be loving it more--whatever it means to "love" the land.

Once when I was making a month-long retreat at a dharma center--now this is nine or ten hours a day sitting on a cushion meditating--three of us went out during work period and put up fence posts. It's hard to convey everything I felt when we were done, looking at those posts spaced out across the expanse of meadow. The beauty of the setting, feelings of work well done, and even more, the sense of territory, the sense of marking out or claiming--conquering, even--made for a heady mix of emotions.

"Earth is good / but land is better / And best of all / a land still fought for / Even in retreat." Donald Davidson, one of the Southern Agrarians. Land is better than earth, because it carries the notions of human activity, law, and culture. Not a way of looking at nature we normally encounter today, with our romanticized ideas of Earth as Peaceful and Benevolent Mother.

I once read about a British officer of World War I. He had fought with the infantry, and then had been transferred to the new tank outfits. The movement and speed of the tanks opened up a new world of tactical maneuver to him, so used to the static misery of the trenches. And it was gratifying, so much so that he said he suddenly understood how warfare could so absorb men's energies.

Well, "War is the natural activity of man--war, that is, and gardening." I am led to believe Churchill said it. And he knew a thing or two about both.

Ash Wednesday? Spring Training!

2007-02-22T17:41:00.001-05:00

The day started out like Ash Wednesday, gray and raw, but the sun came out later, the temp went up to 50 degrees, and I suddenly recalled that spring training had started. My thoughts, I'm afraid, turned quite abruptly from repentance. Grant me this slippage. The last few weeks have been hard, with L. in the flower shop all day and night, the cold, the taxes, and the soggy basement. Somewhere--it's warm, there's the "life of muscles, rocking soft" (Frost again), the smell of new leather, and hope.

Nearly killed a guy

2007-02-11T13:26:00.000-05:00

Friday evening, along Route 1. I was on my way to the Y after work, heading straight into some awful sun glare. There is a marked right turn lane into the Y, really just the shoulder of the road, and I cut over just where the lane begins. I saw the guy, an 18 or 19-year-old, out of my right window as I passed by him. If I had cut over six feet earlier, I would have hit him at 35 mph without a touch on the brakes. Clearly my fault. If I had been driving a little faster and gotten there two seconds earlier, he would probably have still been walking up the turning lane. If I had killed him there--not so clearly my fault. Frail consolation, but not my fault. But he also might have edged along the roadside weeds, then stepped onto the shoulder past the marked lane, where he felt he was safe.

Painted lines. And the social agreement to follow them.

Every once in a while, the local police set up a roadblock at the main intersection in town and ticket people who get in the turning lane too early. Only when the township needs some quick cash, we say cynically. A couple of years ago I got caught. I was pretty steamed, but I paid my $92. But funny thing, ever since, in a low-level Pavlovian way, I am loath to cross any painted lines. In the light of Friday's experience, I consider it $92 well spent.

Never be too old to learn. Never be too proud to accept instruction. As my guru used to say, "Humbleness is the dwelling place of the forefathers." Zen mind is beginner's mind. The Psalmist too praises the old who are young. "If a good man reproves me, it is a kindness" (Ps. 141) and "Since my youth, o God, you have taught me" (Ps. 71).

Literary hiking?

2007-02-08T16:34:00.000-05:00

Roc here. Had a fine day yesterday. I called in sick because my stomach hurt and I hadn't gotten much sleep. But I felt better about ten, and went hiking instead of worrying about the 12,001 things that need to be done around the house. "When you feel like you can't get away, that's when you need to get away." One of my rules for living that I've not followed very well the last few years. And you all remember my essay in Galen Smith's Upsouth, the one that began, "For the office-bound I heartily recommend the mid-week hike." (I'll have to post some of that old stuff.) Anyway, the temp was 15-20 with a stiff wind, but I have some good gear and I was ready. I wasn't really hiking hiking, I just had in mind a two hours' walk up a trail in the local state park, a route that I call "The Active Senior" (an hour in and you pass right by the picnic area bathrooms). The Alberta Clipper had come through during the night, so a clear blue sky and a half-inch of powder provided a fine backdrop for the stately gray trees. It's a very nice trail, lots of up and down, crosses a number of small streams, and ends in a stand of tall firs. Good tall trees all the way, too, and--there's those bathrooms.

But what I was getting at: When I stopped and listened to the streams, I heard I'm going out to clean the pasture spring and Watch the water clear, I may. Whole, apropos phrases from the aforementioned essay sprang unbidden to mind. I recalled a poem I wrote thirteen years ago, when I was very unemployed, and writing and reading a whole lot. I've been very nostalgic the last few weeks and I'm sure that's part of it. But it made this old Buddhist realize--thoughts and associations don't necessarily "cover over" experience. Maybe they intensify it. At least literature does. Maybe that's why John Updike wrote, "Reading is the best part of life" (Bech: a Book).

Even better, when I got home I felt like reading poetry. And I discovered a poem that was new to me. The poem was Galway Kinnell's tribute to Robert Frost, which I had never read before, in a book I've had for twenty years. Kinnell gratuitously uses phrases by Frost throughout the poem to illustrate how deeply Frost has entered into and deepened our American consciousness. It was an eerily perfect ending to the day.