a short story
Oh, yeah. I posted the first part of a short story at Proximity. It's called "Ash Wednesday". So if you want to read something fun and a trifle thoughtful. Well, then... you know where to go. The Proximity link on my side bar.
Friday, February 27, 2004
Get On the Bus I I I
When I say "travel to Farmer's Market," I note a few things. It really would be a trip for me. The whole journey could easily last at least two hours. By car it might be about a half hour tops. And I would also feel like it was taking too long, and I was being hassled, and I would also feel hurried. I know as many people from all stations in life who drive as those who do not, and we who do not see the world in a very different way.
It would literally take me as long to do back and forth from the Farmer's Market as it would take me to travel to Chicago on the South Shore. The only difference is that there is nothing I need to get in Chicago. So the world has a different size to me than it does for many people. It is like that map of the United States Monaghan wads up. My writing career, such as it is, depends on me being able to live in those cracks and unfold the map and see what's inside, all the little buried streets and stories.
Today, at the bus depot, I saw a woman using a plastic bag in place of Samsonite. I thought, Thank God that with all the things I have had to face, I can say I have never had to carry all my possessions in a trash bag. But if for some reason I ever do, God give me this woman's grace.
When I say "travel to Farmer's Market," I note a few things. It really would be a trip for me. The whole journey could easily last at least two hours. By car it might be about a half hour tops. And I would also feel like it was taking too long, and I was being hassled, and I would also feel hurried. I know as many people from all stations in life who drive as those who do not, and we who do not see the world in a very different way.
It would literally take me as long to do back and forth from the Farmer's Market as it would take me to travel to Chicago on the South Shore. The only difference is that there is nothing I need to get in Chicago. So the world has a different size to me than it does for many people. It is like that map of the United States Monaghan wads up. My writing career, such as it is, depends on me being able to live in those cracks and unfold the map and see what's inside, all the little buried streets and stories.
Today, at the bus depot, I saw a woman using a plastic bag in place of Samsonite. I thought, Thank God that with all the things I have had to face, I can say I have never had to carry all my possessions in a trash bag. But if for some reason I ever do, God give me this woman's grace.
Get On the Bus II
I have never actually considered the phrase "junkyard dog." Today on the bus I heard a man (a city bus is pretty much a public forum) talking about his job. He raised junkyard dogs. I didn't even know South Bend had junkyards. Apparently when people want to get rid of their dogs they bring them to the junkyard. The people there take them on and raise them. When they are ready they are trained to be junkyard dogs, which I assume means they defend the property from people who would sneak away with... well, junk. The dogs who are no more than pets, who will never be good junkyard dogs, the people at the junkyard notify friends about and send out to good homes.
No Mass today due to the funeral of Father Bizarro. I thought of going, but I never met him. Instead I went to shop for beads. No luck. I wanted a chain for prayer beads and I saw just the right one at Farmer's Market. It was only a $1.50. At Target I saw roughly the same thing for about $6.00. I shook my head over that. I better just screw myself up to travel to Farmer's Market.
I have never actually considered the phrase "junkyard dog." Today on the bus I heard a man (a city bus is pretty much a public forum) talking about his job. He raised junkyard dogs. I didn't even know South Bend had junkyards. Apparently when people want to get rid of their dogs they bring them to the junkyard. The people there take them on and raise them. When they are ready they are trained to be junkyard dogs, which I assume means they defend the property from people who would sneak away with... well, junk. The dogs who are no more than pets, who will never be good junkyard dogs, the people at the junkyard notify friends about and send out to good homes.
No Mass today due to the funeral of Father Bizarro. I thought of going, but I never met him. Instead I went to shop for beads. No luck. I wanted a chain for prayer beads and I saw just the right one at Farmer's Market. It was only a $1.50. At Target I saw roughly the same thing for about $6.00. I shook my head over that. I better just screw myself up to travel to Farmer's Market.
Get on the Bus I
The other day I get into a discussion with Shannon, one of the librarians, about checking out more books than we know are even possible to read in the twenty-one day time we have. I'm getting better, though. I actually nearly finish most of the books I take out now. One I'm reading is Patricia Monaghan's The Red- Headed Girl From the Bog. There is a place where she describes Ireland by taking a map of the united states and wadding it up. "It's like America, only smaller." Since most people in Ireland don't see the need for driving, and roads are complex, traveling one hundred miles there is like most people traveling a thousand in the States. In Ireland people rely on buses for the most part, like most people I know, self included. Monaghan's thoughts resonated with me because I've noted that I don't have the same perception of distance as my friends who drive. I usually walk, I spent an hour in though and travel going to a place a car would take me in five minutes. Aside from the fact that I'm not willing to put down the money for an automobile, I like this better. Most of the time. I see a lot more. It makes my life longer, very little whizzes by you when your traveling life is composed of walking or waiting for a public bus. Most of my adventures and revelations occur on public transit.
The other day I get into a discussion with Shannon, one of the librarians, about checking out more books than we know are even possible to read in the twenty-one day time we have. I'm getting better, though. I actually nearly finish most of the books I take out now. One I'm reading is Patricia Monaghan's The Red- Headed Girl From the Bog. There is a place where she describes Ireland by taking a map of the united states and wadding it up. "It's like America, only smaller." Since most people in Ireland don't see the need for driving, and roads are complex, traveling one hundred miles there is like most people traveling a thousand in the States. In Ireland people rely on buses for the most part, like most people I know, self included. Monaghan's thoughts resonated with me because I've noted that I don't have the same perception of distance as my friends who drive. I usually walk, I spent an hour in though and travel going to a place a car would take me in five minutes. Aside from the fact that I'm not willing to put down the money for an automobile, I like this better. Most of the time. I see a lot more. It makes my life longer, very little whizzes by you when your traveling life is composed of walking or waiting for a public bus. Most of my adventures and revelations occur on public transit.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
For London, for Helen, for Doc, for Jenny, for Andrew, for everyone whose been to this little blog and all the people who are in my life, who provide grounding when I would, God knows, float away. An evening prayer as Lent begins.
from the cowardice that dare not face new truth
from the laziness that is contented with half truth
from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth
Good Lord, deliver me.
-- Kenyan prayer
from the cowardice that dare not face new truth
from the laziness that is contented with half truth
from the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth
Good Lord, deliver me.
-- Kenyan prayer
Ash Wednesday: the End
caught the bus just in the nick of time.... thought Mass would never end but was still sad when it did, felt struck by lightning, in a good way, when I entered Saint James.
Heard from the publishers, it appears that I will at last be a published author with a book under his belt-- two, actually, they said it's two long and they would publish it as two books. Ah, imagine that.
I am so overcome with emotion and sleepiness I want to pass out. My body is an ocean. Love, joy, sorrow, bits of anger, peace, fires of desire pulse through my skin. It's good to be real.
Today, in the library, someone doing research kept looking at me and finally I turned and gave him a big smile. He smiled back and it was like the day I met Dean, or the day I met my best friend. People who don't know tell you friendship is gradual. Love comes over time, but I never loved someone later that I didn't love the moment I met them. The sky is the perfect shade of midnight blue suffused with gold. This week I finally saw the last Buffy and today I saw the first Buffy. Angel was there for the start and the finish !
Only a little more to add, and the little more deserves it's own post.
caught the bus just in the nick of time.... thought Mass would never end but was still sad when it did, felt struck by lightning, in a good way, when I entered Saint James.
Heard from the publishers, it appears that I will at last be a published author with a book under his belt-- two, actually, they said it's two long and they would publish it as two books. Ah, imagine that.
I am so overcome with emotion and sleepiness I want to pass out. My body is an ocean. Love, joy, sorrow, bits of anger, peace, fires of desire pulse through my skin. It's good to be real.
Today, in the library, someone doing research kept looking at me and finally I turned and gave him a big smile. He smiled back and it was like the day I met Dean, or the day I met my best friend. People who don't know tell you friendship is gradual. Love comes over time, but I never loved someone later that I didn't love the moment I met them. The sky is the perfect shade of midnight blue suffused with gold. This week I finally saw the last Buffy and today I saw the first Buffy. Angel was there for the start and the finish !
Only a little more to add, and the little more deserves it's own post.
The Weasel is Right
This began as a reply to Doc the Weasel's comment, but it just got so long I decided it should be a blog post. So, Doc, this post's for you.
No, you're right about what you said in your comment. Refer to Doc's comment in Ash Wednesday II ) But maybe even more than that what's true is I have no business looking into them at all. When I get vexed I begin to look into myself, and before I can forgive I have to acknowledge I'm angry. Before I can forgive truly I have to be ready for the fact that I'm vulnerable and I'm going to get angry again. People are like oceans and tides of feelings rush in and out of us. It's not good to resist them. Thank you, Doc, for what you said. I remember when I used to pretend to forgive-- not for anyone else's sake, but for my own sake, for my dignity's sake. Then I didn't have to admit that I had been hurt. Today, after the evening prayer I thought about everything that had gone through me this morning, how the home that had been mine once was no longer mine, my community a new one, and thinking about the past, everyone I was no longer connected to, it made me sad, not angry, just terribly sad. That sadness is a powerful feeling. In Mass this afternoon I felt grace, tremendous and almost awful grace and I don't know how else to describe it. There was no room for hurt feelings, clinging to insults from the past.
This began as a reply to Doc the Weasel's comment, but it just got so long I decided it should be a blog post. So, Doc, this post's for you.
No, you're right about what you said in your comment. Refer to Doc's comment in Ash Wednesday II ) But maybe even more than that what's true is I have no business looking into them at all. When I get vexed I begin to look into myself, and before I can forgive I have to acknowledge I'm angry. Before I can forgive truly I have to be ready for the fact that I'm vulnerable and I'm going to get angry again. People are like oceans and tides of feelings rush in and out of us. It's not good to resist them. Thank you, Doc, for what you said. I remember when I used to pretend to forgive-- not for anyone else's sake, but for my own sake, for my dignity's sake. Then I didn't have to admit that I had been hurt. Today, after the evening prayer I thought about everything that had gone through me this morning, how the home that had been mine once was no longer mine, my community a new one, and thinking about the past, everyone I was no longer connected to, it made me sad, not angry, just terribly sad. That sadness is a powerful feeling. In Mass this afternoon I felt grace, tremendous and almost awful grace and I don't know how else to describe it. There was no room for hurt feelings, clinging to insults from the past.
Ash Wednesday I I
I let go and let myself become upset and angry with everything I have refused to look at, decided not to admit. I find myself angry and disgusted with Dean. I don’t even know Dean, but I know this about myself and about spitfire liberals. We’re all so ready to bulldoze conservative people and make them see the light of the bleeding heart. We’re quick to judge, and here I am thinking, “Well, hell, Dean’s part of the problem. Wasn’t he one of the cold blooded bastards at my church. Saw him day after day, Sunday after Sunday exchanging pleasantries with all the snobs, just like a snob himself. Everybody lying to everybody. And here he is now, and if they all knew what he really was do you think all those cute people with their good hair and buffed nails would say two words to him?
Ah, I don’t have a right to judge, but I do have an enormous talent for it.
Great things have happened to me, any path that was painful brought me where I am now, brought me to a fair place and taught me the lessons I needed to know. The truth was that in those days of gracious acceptance and meekly accepting the crown of thorns others were so eager to place on my head I was throbbing with anger. Now the anger flies out and after a few moments meditation I look at that anger. I’m not stupid enough to think that it won’t return, and won’t have to be dealt with again. But for now I can look at what angered me and start to have a little pity and a little compassion. There were a lot of people who did a lot of nasty things, and if they’d done them only to me it might not be such a big deal, but they ruined the faith I grew up in for a lot of people and helped to turn many people away. For a few moments, for this moment at least there is enough pity in me to understand the fear behind what they did, to understand that in a way many of them couldn’t help themselves.
And to understand that I REALLY don’t understand them at all.
And leave it at that.
I let go and let myself become upset and angry with everything I have refused to look at, decided not to admit. I find myself angry and disgusted with Dean. I don’t even know Dean, but I know this about myself and about spitfire liberals. We’re all so ready to bulldoze conservative people and make them see the light of the bleeding heart. We’re quick to judge, and here I am thinking, “Well, hell, Dean’s part of the problem. Wasn’t he one of the cold blooded bastards at my church. Saw him day after day, Sunday after Sunday exchanging pleasantries with all the snobs, just like a snob himself. Everybody lying to everybody. And here he is now, and if they all knew what he really was do you think all those cute people with their good hair and buffed nails would say two words to him?
Ah, I don’t have a right to judge, but I do have an enormous talent for it.
Great things have happened to me, any path that was painful brought me where I am now, brought me to a fair place and taught me the lessons I needed to know. The truth was that in those days of gracious acceptance and meekly accepting the crown of thorns others were so eager to place on my head I was throbbing with anger. Now the anger flies out and after a few moments meditation I look at that anger. I’m not stupid enough to think that it won’t return, and won’t have to be dealt with again. But for now I can look at what angered me and start to have a little pity and a little compassion. There were a lot of people who did a lot of nasty things, and if they’d done them only to me it might not be such a big deal, but they ruined the faith I grew up in for a lot of people and helped to turn many people away. For a few moments, for this moment at least there is enough pity in me to understand the fear behind what they did, to understand that in a way many of them couldn’t help themselves.
And to understand that I REALLY don’t understand them at all.
And leave it at that.
Ash Wednesday I
Today is Ash Wednesday. I will go to Mass, get my ashes, same as last year. But this year it will be an Episcopalian church. Whenever I do something I used to do, have been used to doing for years, only in a new way, it makes me think of the old. I cannot think about being and Anglican without remembering being a Catholic, that my immediate famity is Catholic, all of my friends (though most set foot in church only when it suits them) are Catholic, that on Sundays I attend a Catholic church because it is the one I can reach. I know what many people don’t know when they change, when they convert, how there is no ceasing to be what you once were and becoming something else. There is only growing out of one thing and into the other and wherever you go you carry the roots of what you came from. So Rome will always be part of me. I don’t write that with any joy. I write that with a furrowed brow because I don’t much care for Rome. But there it is, and the bitterness of denial would be worse than the upset that comes from the conflict of starting out as one thing and becoming another.
To open the Book of Common Prayer is a joy. To walk into Saint James and get ready for Mass is a sort of dream come true, but to remember that I am an Anglican is to remember that I am not really a Roman, don’t believe in it anymore, is to remember why I left.
And that is not easy.
This is a day of penitence, right? Yet every ideological reason that I left the church I was baptized into has attached to it a face, a real set of stories that would set your ears to burning in your mouths to cursing. Religion is not a logical matter. It is full of story. Every religion is a story and this story of my religion was a pretty sad one. When I look back it is not a set of doctrines that turned me away (though I don’t believe in much of what I was taught). No, it was the things I did believe in that were always being violated. Being lied to, getting stabbed in the back, the treachery, the ignorance, people who carried out quarrels and sent hate letters to my house and then showed up to church singing in the choir and receiving communion. Me, struggling with my feelings, trying to make things right with people who refused to make things right but trotted out their Bibles or their Catechisms ( A Catholic catechism, by the way, is a large, large book with rules on EVERY facet of your life) to tell me how wrong I was. Ah, it was really enough to make someone stop believing. It took a while to see if wasn’t Jesus I had stopped believing in. Or even Christians. It was how I had grown up. And when I left I was not sad to leave.
It’s Ash Wednesday. If I were in the habit of lying I would say I have come to the point where I understand all the things that happened to me, or where I don’t matter, that I have reached a place of grace. But it’s really the opposite. The truth is after years of being graceful and penitent I’m actually a little pissed off.
And maybe that’s alright.
Today is Ash Wednesday. I will go to Mass, get my ashes, same as last year. But this year it will be an Episcopalian church. Whenever I do something I used to do, have been used to doing for years, only in a new way, it makes me think of the old. I cannot think about being and Anglican without remembering being a Catholic, that my immediate famity is Catholic, all of my friends (though most set foot in church only when it suits them) are Catholic, that on Sundays I attend a Catholic church because it is the one I can reach. I know what many people don’t know when they change, when they convert, how there is no ceasing to be what you once were and becoming something else. There is only growing out of one thing and into the other and wherever you go you carry the roots of what you came from. So Rome will always be part of me. I don’t write that with any joy. I write that with a furrowed brow because I don’t much care for Rome. But there it is, and the bitterness of denial would be worse than the upset that comes from the conflict of starting out as one thing and becoming another.
To open the Book of Common Prayer is a joy. To walk into Saint James and get ready for Mass is a sort of dream come true, but to remember that I am an Anglican is to remember that I am not really a Roman, don’t believe in it anymore, is to remember why I left.
And that is not easy.
This is a day of penitence, right? Yet every ideological reason that I left the church I was baptized into has attached to it a face, a real set of stories that would set your ears to burning in your mouths to cursing. Religion is not a logical matter. It is full of story. Every religion is a story and this story of my religion was a pretty sad one. When I look back it is not a set of doctrines that turned me away (though I don’t believe in much of what I was taught). No, it was the things I did believe in that were always being violated. Being lied to, getting stabbed in the back, the treachery, the ignorance, people who carried out quarrels and sent hate letters to my house and then showed up to church singing in the choir and receiving communion. Me, struggling with my feelings, trying to make things right with people who refused to make things right but trotted out their Bibles or their Catechisms ( A Catholic catechism, by the way, is a large, large book with rules on EVERY facet of your life) to tell me how wrong I was. Ah, it was really enough to make someone stop believing. It took a while to see if wasn’t Jesus I had stopped believing in. Or even Christians. It was how I had grown up. And when I left I was not sad to leave.
It’s Ash Wednesday. If I were in the habit of lying I would say I have come to the point where I understand all the things that happened to me, or where I don’t matter, that I have reached a place of grace. But it’s really the opposite. The truth is after years of being graceful and penitent I’m actually a little pissed off.
And maybe that’s alright.
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Sunday, February 22, 2004
Saturday, February 21, 2004
Saturday
There's a patch of beard under my lower lip that I could really afford to get rid of. Right now I just stick my tongue out and lick the curls which is all fun and games until I swallow one and then it's just... irritating.
Saturday, i make up for the things I didn't do during the week of retreat. When I was on retreat, not working on this novel I wondered if I would be able to return to it or not. I often do when I'm away from a story for a few days, the fear that it will grow tiresome, that if it were really a good story then how could I possibly stay away from it for days. How could I possibly have a life?
I've set to making an outline (or plotline) for this next book. Everytime I tell a new story I enter strange waters. Some strange waters demand no map at all, a free flowing mind. Others need outlines, strategies, visions and revisions before one can even begin. For some time I've been putting off doing an outline. Then today I know it will be the day. I tell myself-- since I haven't outlined in a very long time, this will be simple, short work. A paragraph at the most. Two pages through my journal i'm still making a rough sketch of the first chapter....
There's a patch of beard under my lower lip that I could really afford to get rid of. Right now I just stick my tongue out and lick the curls which is all fun and games until I swallow one and then it's just... irritating.
Saturday, i make up for the things I didn't do during the week of retreat. When I was on retreat, not working on this novel I wondered if I would be able to return to it or not. I often do when I'm away from a story for a few days, the fear that it will grow tiresome, that if it were really a good story then how could I possibly stay away from it for days. How could I possibly have a life?
I've set to making an outline (or plotline) for this next book. Everytime I tell a new story I enter strange waters. Some strange waters demand no map at all, a free flowing mind. Others need outlines, strategies, visions and revisions before one can even begin. For some time I've been putting off doing an outline. Then today I know it will be the day. I tell myself-- since I haven't outlined in a very long time, this will be simple, short work. A paragraph at the most. Two pages through my journal i'm still making a rough sketch of the first chapter....
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Just turned the TV on. Commercial says that everytime I smoke a cigarette it takes seven to ten minutes from my life, that for an average smoke this could be ten years. I wish that shit worked in retrospect. Is there a way I could smoke off the period of my life from graduation to about eight months ago?
Since everyone left the house this week, I planned things so that the only reason to leave my house this week would be to go to Mass. If I could hold it at home, then I probably wouldn't leave at all. On retreat this week, reflecting and returning to me, to being true to why I am here, if I am faithful to my gifts.
Wake up when I am ready, get things done eventually, let out the dogs, pour them kibble, set down fresh water. Things are very simple today.
Since everyone left the house this week, I planned things so that the only reason to leave my house this week would be to go to Mass. If I could hold it at home, then I probably wouldn't leave at all. On retreat this week, reflecting and returning to me, to being true to why I am here, if I am faithful to my gifts.
Wake up when I am ready, get things done eventually, let out the dogs, pour them kibble, set down fresh water. Things are very simple today.
in a night you've shown us more than most
have bothered to show in years
more than you ever showed in that whole
year,
year and a half
halfway glad
all the way glad
now that time is over
when i was halfway dead
and everything I said
everything i did led nowhere
good god, why couldn't i have met you then?
looking at me, waving at me, always starting to talk to me
american men don't always make good friends to each other
wish you'd said something to me
at that time i was losing my brother
other,
bother,
brother
bastard
and all along there you were
and now you've showed me everything
with open hands
and
i know there is so much more to your world
and i am willing to see it--
receive it
be there for you
you see
i was thinking of me
when i think of you i am so impressed
makes me a little depressed to think of all my poverty
i don't know what you could possibly want from me
all i can offer is my loyalty
all i can see is your dignity
all i can do is respect your privacy
and tap on the door
when you are ready for a listening ear
i guess if you ever need me to go to bat
for you i can... if you do, you know?
Do you? could you use that?
have bothered to show in years
more than you ever showed in that whole
year,
year and a half
halfway glad
all the way glad
now that time is over
when i was halfway dead
and everything I said
everything i did led nowhere
good god, why couldn't i have met you then?
looking at me, waving at me, always starting to talk to me
american men don't always make good friends to each other
wish you'd said something to me
at that time i was losing my brother
other,
bother,
brother
bastard
and all along there you were
and now you've showed me everything
with open hands
and
i know there is so much more to your world
and i am willing to see it--
receive it
be there for you
you see
i was thinking of me
when i think of you i am so impressed
makes me a little depressed to think of all my poverty
i don't know what you could possibly want from me
all i can offer is my loyalty
all i can see is your dignity
all i can do is respect your privacy
and tap on the door
when you are ready for a listening ear
i guess if you ever need me to go to bat
for you i can... if you do, you know?
Do you? could you use that?
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
Night Prayers
Years before the monastery, or even before being able to legally drink, it was during one Christmas season I heard of monks and nuns who rose at midnight to pray while the world slept. Now it has been years since I've left the Catholic monastery and a little while since I've left the Catholic church. I am twenty-six years old. Who could guess so much would happen in so short a time? With the Book of Common Prayer in one hand I still light the candles, burn the incense, and pray at midnight.
With words I pray the Book of Psalms, the Our Father, sing the first hymn of the day, read the passage from the Gospels. In a place beyong words my heart yearns reflecting on the people I left behind... the old psalm, I was for peace, but they only for fighting... And some of the people I am coming to know now. I meet so many new people every day. Many of them bitter old Catholics in new clothing. Bitterness is never the way. They are still for fighting. So many people clinging to their little pictures of how things are, hands raised against each other. They are in my heart as well. And you who are reading, and my friends. One is looking for work. One is new to me and different every time I see him. Both are learning the difficult work of being who they are. They are in the prayers, in the incense. As are the things I have done and the things I have left undone and the things I cannot seem to finish, the hands I cannot force, my needs, my wants, my worries. Julian of Norwich's words are as well, All shall be well. All manner of things shall be well....
Years before the monastery, or even before being able to legally drink, it was during one Christmas season I heard of monks and nuns who rose at midnight to pray while the world slept. Now it has been years since I've left the Catholic monastery and a little while since I've left the Catholic church. I am twenty-six years old. Who could guess so much would happen in so short a time? With the Book of Common Prayer in one hand I still light the candles, burn the incense, and pray at midnight.
With words I pray the Book of Psalms, the Our Father, sing the first hymn of the day, read the passage from the Gospels. In a place beyong words my heart yearns reflecting on the people I left behind... the old psalm, I was for peace, but they only for fighting... And some of the people I am coming to know now. I meet so many new people every day. Many of them bitter old Catholics in new clothing. Bitterness is never the way. They are still for fighting. So many people clinging to their little pictures of how things are, hands raised against each other. They are in my heart as well. And you who are reading, and my friends. One is looking for work. One is new to me and different every time I see him. Both are learning the difficult work of being who they are. They are in the prayers, in the incense. As are the things I have done and the things I have left undone and the things I cannot seem to finish, the hands I cannot force, my needs, my wants, my worries. Julian of Norwich's words are as well, All shall be well. All manner of things shall be well....
Sunday, February 15, 2004
One white gold star is burning high in the black sky above my window.
I wanted to write poetry, but my thoughts are too diffuse for it. Last night was Disting, when I put all old things away and prayed and meditated to enter into this last phase of winter, when all things on earth and in the heart melt and become capable of fostering growth again.
This morning in church, no sign of Dean in his usual place. Then, before Mass starts I turn and there he is, not in his dress clothes handing out brochures and then ducking pack into the sacristy, but in jeans and old sneakers and he plops down beside me and I say his name joyfully. He says, "How are you?" I say, "Fine," and we both laugh.
A few seconds into church he has to get up and do something, I think run into the sacristy. He turns and says, "I'll be right back." No one in church has ever told me they would be right back. Dean is steadily turning into one of the weirdest people I've ever met in my life, an always surprise with a low key Bob Newhart sort of sense of humor. Almost anything I could say about him I could contradict in the next breath. In two short weeks I've seen that many sides of him.
Dean is a church sacristan, very religious, very Catholic. But he hangs out at gay night clubs with his boyfriend until three in the morning. He is kind and gentle to everyone, but maybe not to himself. To beat a dead horse, he is gay, but I have to keep reminding myself of this. He is one of most straightforward grown-up guys I've met in a long time. I doubt he'd ever be coddled or pampered, but I've seen him sitting on his boyfriend's lap, having his hair stroked.
I am always wanting to protect people. That's my trouble. I keep thinking Dean needs a little watching over, but only a little. He's a grown up. He is more than able to take care of himself and I am aware of that. But looking at him I am also aware that he needs support. He is funny, but a little sad. When Maura calls and asks me about today and I tell her about Dean I laugh, but I also think of some of the expressions on his face that I cannot laugh at. I guess you could say he's one of those people I am beginning to take seriously.
I wanted to write poetry, but my thoughts are too diffuse for it. Last night was Disting, when I put all old things away and prayed and meditated to enter into this last phase of winter, when all things on earth and in the heart melt and become capable of fostering growth again.
This morning in church, no sign of Dean in his usual place. Then, before Mass starts I turn and there he is, not in his dress clothes handing out brochures and then ducking pack into the sacristy, but in jeans and old sneakers and he plops down beside me and I say his name joyfully. He says, "How are you?" I say, "Fine," and we both laugh.
A few seconds into church he has to get up and do something, I think run into the sacristy. He turns and says, "I'll be right back." No one in church has ever told me they would be right back. Dean is steadily turning into one of the weirdest people I've ever met in my life, an always surprise with a low key Bob Newhart sort of sense of humor. Almost anything I could say about him I could contradict in the next breath. In two short weeks I've seen that many sides of him.
Dean is a church sacristan, very religious, very Catholic. But he hangs out at gay night clubs with his boyfriend until three in the morning. He is kind and gentle to everyone, but maybe not to himself. To beat a dead horse, he is gay, but I have to keep reminding myself of this. He is one of most straightforward grown-up guys I've met in a long time. I doubt he'd ever be coddled or pampered, but I've seen him sitting on his boyfriend's lap, having his hair stroked.
I am always wanting to protect people. That's my trouble. I keep thinking Dean needs a little watching over, but only a little. He's a grown up. He is more than able to take care of himself and I am aware of that. But looking at him I am also aware that he needs support. He is funny, but a little sad. When Maura calls and asks me about today and I tell her about Dean I laugh, but I also think of some of the expressions on his face that I cannot laugh at. I guess you could say he's one of those people I am beginning to take seriously.
Saturday, February 14, 2004
Disting/ Valentine’s Day
A few days ago, on the eve of Candlemas, after snow had fallen for days thick and white on the ice bound land, I went out with my old pots to do the snowgathering. Heaps of snow on the altar that were blessed at Evening Prayer and melted through the night. The next day they were gathered in small bottles on Imbolc for the rituals and blessings of the full moon. It was so cold and black at Imbolc when the first candle was lit, and Kore began her month and a half long pilgrimage from the heart of the world of the dead to return to the world and bring spring.
Last night the sun didn’t set until well after six o’clock. After the office of Compline, when I rang the last bell, gold limned the February sky and the air was a cobalt blue. Later the sky was clear for the first time in a long time and I saw stars again. Wished that it was warm enough to stay out a very long time. The days are growing longer, the approach of Kore is closer. Springtime is at hand. Blood runs high.
People sleeping alone wistfully wonder what it would be like to wake up with someone. Now and again those attached wonder what it would be like to be attached to someone else. Half the Cleansing Tide is past and now comes the time when the heart turns to love and dedication. This was the day the community I am part of was established. Much has been gained and a lot lost, but love kept us together.
I wonder about strange things. Dean and his boyfriend, so in love. What do they do on this day? I will see him tomorrow looking like he always does: a boy, alone, nothing but a church sacristan who hands out programs. And I will be thinking about the young man I saw, sitting on the lap of, holding the hand of, making house with the one he had come to care for.
Love is love, and it rises where it will. Who can tell Venus where she is allowed to flourish? How could anyone condemn love where love arises?
A few days ago, on the eve of Candlemas, after snow had fallen for days thick and white on the ice bound land, I went out with my old pots to do the snowgathering. Heaps of snow on the altar that were blessed at Evening Prayer and melted through the night. The next day they were gathered in small bottles on Imbolc for the rituals and blessings of the full moon. It was so cold and black at Imbolc when the first candle was lit, and Kore began her month and a half long pilgrimage from the heart of the world of the dead to return to the world and bring spring.
Last night the sun didn’t set until well after six o’clock. After the office of Compline, when I rang the last bell, gold limned the February sky and the air was a cobalt blue. Later the sky was clear for the first time in a long time and I saw stars again. Wished that it was warm enough to stay out a very long time. The days are growing longer, the approach of Kore is closer. Springtime is at hand. Blood runs high.
People sleeping alone wistfully wonder what it would be like to wake up with someone. Now and again those attached wonder what it would be like to be attached to someone else. Half the Cleansing Tide is past and now comes the time when the heart turns to love and dedication. This was the day the community I am part of was established. Much has been gained and a lot lost, but love kept us together.
I wonder about strange things. Dean and his boyfriend, so in love. What do they do on this day? I will see him tomorrow looking like he always does: a boy, alone, nothing but a church sacristan who hands out programs. And I will be thinking about the young man I saw, sitting on the lap of, holding the hand of, making house with the one he had come to care for.
Love is love, and it rises where it will. Who can tell Venus where she is allowed to flourish? How could anyone condemn love where love arises?
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Advice
Maybe his mother was too dominant
Maybe she just wasn’t around too much
Maybe she was just too round
Maybe with no father you’re bound to turn
Out that way
Maybe the day that dad hit him turned him
Maybe he just wasn’t hit enough
Maybe he got hit by a football
Maybe he should have played football
Maybe he should have had more Tonka trucks
Maybe he shouldn’t have helped with that cake
Maybe for God’s sake,
Maybe it’s too late to wonder about maybes
Maybe it’s okay, maybe it’s not such a big deal
Maybe you’re letting paranoia steal your reason
Maybe you’d better accept him, maybe this isn’t treason,
Maybe it’s not the unpardonable sin
Maybe if you don’t get over it, friend,
you’ll lose him
Started a new blog tonight. It’s more about the writing process and the bardic life. If anyone was fascinated by passages on festivals and old rites such as the one on Imbolc, or if anyone wants to go to a place where they can read about and discuss the writing process, hop on over toProximity.
Andrew, you’ve been paraphrased over there. Of course I’ve given you credit! It’s a baby site. Just put it up the other day.
Good evening, friends.
Maybe his mother was too dominant
Maybe she just wasn’t around too much
Maybe she was just too round
Maybe with no father you’re bound to turn
Out that way
Maybe the day that dad hit him turned him
Maybe he just wasn’t hit enough
Maybe he got hit by a football
Maybe he should have played football
Maybe he should have had more Tonka trucks
Maybe he shouldn’t have helped with that cake
Maybe for God’s sake,
Maybe it’s too late to wonder about maybes
Maybe it’s okay, maybe it’s not such a big deal
Maybe you’re letting paranoia steal your reason
Maybe you’d better accept him, maybe this isn’t treason,
Maybe it’s not the unpardonable sin
Maybe if you don’t get over it, friend,
you’ll lose him
Started a new blog tonight. It’s more about the writing process and the bardic life. If anyone was fascinated by passages on festivals and old rites such as the one on Imbolc, or if anyone wants to go to a place where they can read about and discuss the writing process, hop on over to
Andrew, you’ve been paraphrased over there. Of course I’ve given you credit! It’s a baby site. Just put it up the other day.
Good evening, friends.
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Under the Disco Ball Revisited
Maura is gone. I am recovering from the party that is us. Yesterday she said, "I feel like we're writing a sitcom, and when you're at the computer you're doing your part of the script, and when i'm at it I'm doing mine."
I feel like I'm living in a sitcom-- especially when my friend, who is a psycho hooker, comes to visit.
Which beats feeling like i'm living in a Sylvia Plath poem. Been there, done that. Ain't going back again.
For the time being I am doing double church duty. Maybe I always will to some extent. I move when I know it's time to move and part of my trouble has been refusing to stay when staying is exactly what was required of me.
This means I am sure I will see a lot of Dean.
Yesterday Maura says: "the thing about us is that we're so alike-- AND NOT ALIKE AT ALL." For her it is enough to look at a thing, pass it by and be done with. I turn matters over and over again. I could write a novel based on getting up at 3 a.m. and going to the bathroom. And then turn around and give it a sequel.
I am turning the whole weekend over in my mind. I am not going to be able to separate the Dean in the club from the Dean at church, the Dean I assumed went to bed at nine o'clock every night with a cup of milk after watching the Cartoon Network with the Dean who stays out to three o'clock in the morning and dances to house music in a gay night club. Just when you think you don't know someone, just when you are ready to be humble, life has a way of letting you know you don't know much at all and instead of settling for humility just knocking you flat on your ass.
Maura says quite clearly that after the initial shock of the weekend the thrill is gone and she will not think of it again really, or Dean for that matter. Me? I want to learn everything, ask a billion questions, get out books and books, think about it all over and over again. And of course I'll be the one to see him. There has never been a time I've hung around someone from the university and not been thrown for a loop. But this time I actually like the loop. I don't understand much, but for some reason I like Dean more now that I know, now that he let us into his world.
Of course, his name is not Dean. And he does not even look like a Dean. So I'll have to think of something new, if I keep on writing about this boy, and this weekend.
Maura is gone. I am recovering from the party that is us. Yesterday she said, "I feel like we're writing a sitcom, and when you're at the computer you're doing your part of the script, and when i'm at it I'm doing mine."
I feel like I'm living in a sitcom-- especially when my friend, who is a psycho hooker, comes to visit.
Which beats feeling like i'm living in a Sylvia Plath poem. Been there, done that. Ain't going back again.
For the time being I am doing double church duty. Maybe I always will to some extent. I move when I know it's time to move and part of my trouble has been refusing to stay when staying is exactly what was required of me.
This means I am sure I will see a lot of Dean.
Yesterday Maura says: "the thing about us is that we're so alike-- AND NOT ALIKE AT ALL." For her it is enough to look at a thing, pass it by and be done with. I turn matters over and over again. I could write a novel based on getting up at 3 a.m. and going to the bathroom. And then turn around and give it a sequel.
I am turning the whole weekend over in my mind. I am not going to be able to separate the Dean in the club from the Dean at church, the Dean I assumed went to bed at nine o'clock every night with a cup of milk after watching the Cartoon Network with the Dean who stays out to three o'clock in the morning and dances to house music in a gay night club. Just when you think you don't know someone, just when you are ready to be humble, life has a way of letting you know you don't know much at all and instead of settling for humility just knocking you flat on your ass.
Maura says quite clearly that after the initial shock of the weekend the thrill is gone and she will not think of it again really, or Dean for that matter. Me? I want to learn everything, ask a billion questions, get out books and books, think about it all over and over again. And of course I'll be the one to see him. There has never been a time I've hung around someone from the university and not been thrown for a loop. But this time I actually like the loop. I don't understand much, but for some reason I like Dean more now that I know, now that he let us into his world.
Of course, his name is not Dean. And he does not even look like a Dean. So I'll have to think of something new, if I keep on writing about this boy, and this weekend.
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
long as winter,
cold and thin
last of sunlight's rays within
vesper light glides
on the cicle's sides
all the churches, every hymn
sings less than the light within
faith lies not in the book
but in the flower
that seed, and the reed by the brook,
by the water
that holds the power of light, of beauty, of glory
and grace
the sun on grass
God's risen face
cold and thin
last of sunlight's rays within
vesper light glides
on the cicle's sides
all the churches, every hymn
sings less than the light within
faith lies not in the book
but in the flower
that seed, and the reed by the brook,
by the water
that holds the power of light, of beauty, of glory
and grace
the sun on grass
God's risen face
Yesterday, in church, the priest talked about her husband and grandchildren.
I love saying that.
She looks like a cross between Betty White and Estelle Getty.
There is something so real about going to Mass there-- though it takes forever! A two hour Mass, and damnit, Anglicans have a hymn every three minutes for ever blessed occasion and speech after impromptu speech. But there is something so real there. As much fun as we had last night, and at the club: I mean Maura and I because she was at church with me, we both agreed Mass was about five times as fun.
Freaks and sideshows ! Yes, I know.
It seems for years now I have felt that I was being lied to in church. I felt that everything was totally and completely real.
I've gone to the Basilica for how many years, now? And it was last night, at a gay night club, that I actually SPOKE to these people I go to church with. Went to church with. I don't get it, not really. The whole conspiracy of silence thing. I don't want to be silent. And I don't want to be in something I can't really believe in.
I love saying that.
She looks like a cross between Betty White and Estelle Getty.
There is something so real about going to Mass there-- though it takes forever! A two hour Mass, and damnit, Anglicans have a hymn every three minutes for ever blessed occasion and speech after impromptu speech. But there is something so real there. As much fun as we had last night, and at the club: I mean Maura and I because she was at church with me, we both agreed Mass was about five times as fun.
Freaks and sideshows ! Yes, I know.
It seems for years now I have felt that I was being lied to in church. I felt that everything was totally and completely real.
I've gone to the Basilica for how many years, now? And it was last night, at a gay night club, that I actually SPOKE to these people I go to church with. Went to church with. I don't get it, not really. The whole conspiracy of silence thing. I don't want to be silent. And I don't want to be in something I can't really believe in.
Monday, February 09, 2004
When I told Meg about the whole Maura, me, Dean triangle, she said, "Well, when you do meet him, you'd better ask why the %^&* ! he was waving at you like he knew you in the first place?" I'd forgotten all about that. He didn't know that my friend was his old friend. He just spotted me out of the blue one day. I guess that's why I feel some responsibility for understanding him a little.
So, yeah, me and Maura did what only me and Maura could do. Two straight people took over a gay night club and cleared the center stage. We were on fire, no pun intended, while Dean sat the sidelines. I ask her, "Should we check on him, ask if he's alright?" Because I DO feel a little responsible.
Maura keeps on dancing and says, "Well, shit, he brought us here. He can sit down and watch us!"
So, yeah, me and Maura did what only me and Maura could do. Two straight people took over a gay night club and cleared the center stage. We were on fire, no pun intended, while Dean sat the sidelines. I ask her, "Should we check on him, ask if he's alright?" Because I DO feel a little responsible.
Maura keeps on dancing and says, "Well, shit, he brought us here. He can sit down and watch us!"
It can't be easy. What's he thinking as he drives us back to the apartment? He's so zoned out. Is he thinking, "Oh, my God, I've let these people into my life." A friend I haven't seen in seven years and someone I see in church every Sunday. If it's a little surreal for us, it's got to be odd for him.
I think I'm thinking about this too much. But I can't stop. This Sunday we went to Mass at the Anglican church where I've come to know more people in a month than I ever met in twenty years as a Roman Catholic. But next Sunday when I go back to the Basilica I'll see him. We were starting to get along. I don't know what the hell he's going to act like around me. I know, I really shouldn't care. I think about this shit too much.
And, I'm also working my way through a bottle of wine.
And, I'm also working my way through a bottle of wine.
UNDER THE DISCO BALL:
Part Two
On the way back from the club, Maura and I are laughing and she's telling stories about the night club she went to in Massachusetts.
"Two lesbian witches hit on me."
"How did you know they were witches?"
"Well, they had black hair and black lipstick and really pale, pale skin."
"Well, then were they witches or Goths?"
"Are the Goths the ones who wear all the black?"
"Yeah."
"Well, then they were Goths, cause witches don't really look like... anything. Right?"
"Pretty much."
The whole time Dean is driving and looking directly ahead with no expression. His boyfriend is right beside him. Maura tries to get his attention. He doesn't answer.
"Dean!" she says. He finally answers. All night he has been spacing out like this.
Part Two
On the way back from the club, Maura and I are laughing and she's telling stories about the night club she went to in Massachusetts.
"Two lesbian witches hit on me."
"How did you know they were witches?"
"Well, they had black hair and black lipstick and really pale, pale skin."
"Well, then were they witches or Goths?"
"Are the Goths the ones who wear all the black?"
"Yeah."
"Well, then they were Goths, cause witches don't really look like... anything. Right?"
"Pretty much."
The whole time Dean is driving and looking directly ahead with no expression. His boyfriend is right beside him. Maura tries to get his attention. He doesn't answer.
"Dean!" she says. He finally answers. All night he has been spacing out like this.
This is just to say:
By now anyone who comes here should know how a blog is set up, and that the posts go from latest to earliest so that you would actually have to scroll down to the bottom of this day to see the beginning of this entry. There are now a series of random entries on the past weekend, and if you want to get the full effect of them you should start with the FIRST passage over February 8th.
By now anyone who comes here should know how a blog is set up, and that the posts go from latest to earliest so that you would actually have to scroll down to the bottom of this day to see the beginning of this entry. There are now a series of random entries on the past weekend, and if you want to get the full effect of them you should start with the FIRST passage over February 8th.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
These people cannot make my wardrobe better. In fact, only about three men in the bar look any better than me. (Did I mention I was vain?) These people cannot help me be a better dancer. These men do not have a more sensitive side than I. None of these women can fix a car better than Maura. There is nothing extraordinary about anyone here, really. I have to wonder what all the fuss is about.
After a half hour they begin dancing together. At first its nothing more than what me and Maura or half the club is doing. Then they get closer, hold hands more. Now there is no doubt they are lovers. I wonder if Dean had to work himself up to this, telling us—that’s what he had been doing the whole night—that he was gay. There was only one friend I had who ever verbally told me she was gay. We traveled forty miles south to the nearest real city from our college, went to Olive Garden and, in a very round about way attempted to say she was a lesbian. She kept stopping and starting until finally I cut into the conversation and said, “You’re a lesbian. Right? Good. Let’s eat.”
You can hardly blame friends for not just coming out and saying it. So Dean was coming out and being it. Half the night he was the straight laced character I’d see every day sort of struggling with this new identity. Pulling out a few dance steps now and again, holding his boyfriend, the two of them walking off for a few minutes now and again, and then Dean sitting there looking like he was almost ready to leave and this wasn’t his place at all.
Dean, suddenly pulling out with some crazy rhythmic move I couldn’t copy in a million years if I tried and then grinding against his boyfriend. And there is this look on his face like, “I’m going to screw the hell out of you.” Only it’s Dean the bland boy from church. It’s not the fact that he’s a homosexual that’s taking me by surprise. It’s the fact that he’s sexual at all.
We always thought of him as just little guy, sort of silly, possibly bland. In a way I wonder if that’s not what the culture we grew up in does too. He’s a man, with a man’s desires. But the desire is for another man and that’s just not acceptable in our culture. So we cover it up, and it only pops out under a disco ball in a crowded dance club.
You can hardly blame friends for not just coming out and saying it. So Dean was coming out and being it. Half the night he was the straight laced character I’d see every day sort of struggling with this new identity. Pulling out a few dance steps now and again, holding his boyfriend, the two of them walking off for a few minutes now and again, and then Dean sitting there looking like he was almost ready to leave and this wasn’t his place at all.
Dean, suddenly pulling out with some crazy rhythmic move I couldn’t copy in a million years if I tried and then grinding against his boyfriend. And there is this look on his face like, “I’m going to screw the hell out of you.” Only it’s Dean the bland boy from church. It’s not the fact that he’s a homosexual that’s taking me by surprise. It’s the fact that he’s sexual at all.
We always thought of him as just little guy, sort of silly, possibly bland. In a way I wonder if that’s not what the culture we grew up in does too. He’s a man, with a man’s desires. But the desire is for another man and that’s just not acceptable in our culture. So we cover it up, and it only pops out under a disco ball in a crowded dance club.
Eventually I will get down everything I have to say about these last two days that, in a way, culminate the last year. When Dean opened the door to his apartment Toni Braxton was thumping in the background and the place was filled with good smells coming from the kitchen. He introduced us to his friend and room mate and said, “We like to keep the place jumping.”
We hadn’t been there fifteen minutes before Maura said, “I’m the minority here.” Usually, a university gathering is filled with white folk. Not the case here, and then I said, “Well, I’m the minority too,” because it didn’t take long to figure that every man in this apartment was gay.
Which was surprisingly unsurprising.
Dean, the skinny, somewhat sexless boy from my church who basically shows very little expression or character is Dean who at home plays loud R&B music, hangs out with his band of colorful (literally) friends and is probably gay. Then Dean is asking us if we’re going to the gay night club with him and then here we are, heading out there and saying, “We can wander around, but let’s not get too far from Dean, his friends or each other because we don’t want to get hit on.”
(I’d just like to say neither one of us did get hit on, which left me, at least, feeling slightly insulted because… well, I’m vain.)
We hadn’t been there fifteen minutes before Maura said, “I’m the minority here.” Usually, a university gathering is filled with white folk. Not the case here, and then I said, “Well, I’m the minority too,” because it didn’t take long to figure that every man in this apartment was gay.
Which was surprisingly unsurprising.
Dean, the skinny, somewhat sexless boy from my church who basically shows very little expression or character is Dean who at home plays loud R&B music, hangs out with his band of colorful (literally) friends and is probably gay. Then Dean is asking us if we’re going to the gay night club with him and then here we are, heading out there and saying, “We can wander around, but let’s not get too far from Dean, his friends or each other because we don’t want to get hit on.”
(I’d just like to say neither one of us did get hit on, which left me, at least, feeling slightly insulted because… well, I’m vain.)
Names shall be changed to protect the guilty.
Incidentals in general shall be changed.
Dean is a cantor at my church. I saw him for the first time well over a year ago, probably a year and a half. I was coming to Mass one afternoon, through the side door, and he was bright and cheerful, just waving at me like we were old friends. He did this a lot. And then, some time around Lent—when I had so much crap to deal with in my life anyway, that if I wasn’t a writer I wouldn’t have noticed this—Dean got rid of his glasses, popped in the contacts, started walking a little more upright and sort of went cold.
I have no idea what that has to do with anything. I’m just documenting events in their proper sequence and keep in mind that at the think I knew Dean’s name.
Well, to make a year long story short, in one of those fun “small world” situations Dean turns out to have been friends and fairly close friends with one of my best friends and so the other night she comes into town, and in a few precious moments we’re invited to his house for dinner on Saturday night.
Dean is skinny and ordinary looking, a boy who has a little too much fun working in a church, and not in the least someone that either one of us believes will be able to show us a good time. Maura and I are both sure that we will be back at my house by nine, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and feeling slightly disappointed over the night that turned out lame, the night we expected to be lame but… hell, hoped might be a little fun. The night Dean had chicken or hot dogs for dinner along with really awkward conversation. The night that was, while time killing, scarcely out of the ordinary for two Midwestern Catholic twenty-somethings.
Incidentals in general shall be changed.
Dean is a cantor at my church. I saw him for the first time well over a year ago, probably a year and a half. I was coming to Mass one afternoon, through the side door, and he was bright and cheerful, just waving at me like we were old friends. He did this a lot. And then, some time around Lent—when I had so much crap to deal with in my life anyway, that if I wasn’t a writer I wouldn’t have noticed this—Dean got rid of his glasses, popped in the contacts, started walking a little more upright and sort of went cold.
I have no idea what that has to do with anything. I’m just documenting events in their proper sequence and keep in mind that at the think I knew Dean’s name.
Well, to make a year long story short, in one of those fun “small world” situations Dean turns out to have been friends and fairly close friends with one of my best friends and so the other night she comes into town, and in a few precious moments we’re invited to his house for dinner on Saturday night.
Dean is skinny and ordinary looking, a boy who has a little too much fun working in a church, and not in the least someone that either one of us believes will be able to show us a good time. Maura and I are both sure that we will be back at my house by nine, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and feeling slightly disappointed over the night that turned out lame, the night we expected to be lame but… hell, hoped might be a little fun. The night Dean had chicken or hot dogs for dinner along with really awkward conversation. The night that was, while time killing, scarcely out of the ordinary for two Midwestern Catholic twenty-somethings.
UNDER THE DISCO BALL: PART ONE
I am so tired.
I need to go to bed but I can’t sleep until I write a little. There’s really a lot to write about, but I know so very little about how to say it, how to compose the thoughts and pictures in my head into something approaching order.
Names shall be changed to protect the guilty.
Incidentals in general shall be changed.
If you’ve read a little of this blog you’ll know by now I am an Anglican, that I became one because I no longer felt affinity for Roman Catholicism, and because, as a writer and artists sooner or later I would speak out publicly against my Church and be labeled a dissenter. I couldn’t have that. I needed to belong to a church I could actually belong, that desired what I desired. no matter how liberal I seem my prime motivation is the Gospel and the carpenter who preached it, so belonging to the right church, being the Catholic I needed to be was essential.
Wherever you worship is where you worship. We all need to go wherever we consider home to be. I hold the belief that the home we make must not be a home that excludes others and I’m sorry, but Rome excluded too many. Last year a priest preached a sermon saying that gay people were in the image of God and deserved respect. While there were no easy answers to hard questions, we needed to look at things in a new way. This was all he said, and in a Catholic church it was quite revolutionary.
I laughed into my hand and rolled my eyes. How he spoke! As if gay people were something outside of us, far removed from the church, a sort of them to our us. I looked around that church and thought to myself, “If we got rid of all the gay people who keep silent we’d lose half the choir, half the priests and most of the sacristan’s staff.
Not to mention at least a fourth of the congregation.
It’s not the only thing out church keeps secrets about. But it is a major one. It’s not the only inconsistency, but it is the one that is on my mind namely because of last night.
I am so tired.
I need to go to bed but I can’t sleep until I write a little. There’s really a lot to write about, but I know so very little about how to say it, how to compose the thoughts and pictures in my head into something approaching order.
Names shall be changed to protect the guilty.
Incidentals in general shall be changed.
If you’ve read a little of this blog you’ll know by now I am an Anglican, that I became one because I no longer felt affinity for Roman Catholicism, and because, as a writer and artists sooner or later I would speak out publicly against my Church and be labeled a dissenter. I couldn’t have that. I needed to belong to a church I could actually belong, that desired what I desired. no matter how liberal I seem my prime motivation is the Gospel and the carpenter who preached it, so belonging to the right church, being the Catholic I needed to be was essential.
Wherever you worship is where you worship. We all need to go wherever we consider home to be. I hold the belief that the home we make must not be a home that excludes others and I’m sorry, but Rome excluded too many. Last year a priest preached a sermon saying that gay people were in the image of God and deserved respect. While there were no easy answers to hard questions, we needed to look at things in a new way. This was all he said, and in a Catholic church it was quite revolutionary.
I laughed into my hand and rolled my eyes. How he spoke! As if gay people were something outside of us, far removed from the church, a sort of them to our us. I looked around that church and thought to myself, “If we got rid of all the gay people who keep silent we’d lose half the choir, half the priests and most of the sacristan’s staff.
Not to mention at least a fourth of the congregation.
It’s not the only thing out church keeps secrets about. But it is a major one. It’s not the only inconsistency, but it is the one that is on my mind namely because of last night.
Saturday, February 07, 2004
Thursday, February 05, 2004
I am so glad the week is over. It started out so wonderfully, but now it's time to close it off. I can't imagine a happier time in life, but this is the first week this year that I have been so exhausted by everything. It's foolish to think that I deserve not to be exhausted. So often I complain, but I don't have so much money that I'm shielded from the realities of life, that I don't realize that life could be so much worse. That instead of being inconvenient or tiring life could actually be BAD. And it isn't, and I am truly blessed.
I think that I was actually going to write about all the things that had made me tired and mad, disolutioned and upset, but... now that I write this I don't feel the need to do this.
I'm learning to cast runes. Out of all the forms of divination and self examination I've found this is the most direct. Sort of slaps you in the face once you've learned what the configurations and sigils mean. I take the Galadrial stance on magic (in Lord of the Rings where she tells Samwise she is about to show him something he would call magic, but that she doesn't understand the meaning of that word.) From God, or from the Gods or something strictly synaptic and neurological (I'm not sure we should be so quick to dilineate between the three) I learn certain things when I cast runes. Such as: it is difficult to grow, to let go, to release fear and anger. But if we don't, we die.
I think that I was actually going to write about all the things that had made me tired and mad, disolutioned and upset, but... now that I write this I don't feel the need to do this.
I'm learning to cast runes. Out of all the forms of divination and self examination I've found this is the most direct. Sort of slaps you in the face once you've learned what the configurations and sigils mean. I take the Galadrial stance on magic (in Lord of the Rings where she tells Samwise she is about to show him something he would call magic, but that she doesn't understand the meaning of that word.) From God, or from the Gods or something strictly synaptic and neurological (I'm not sure we should be so quick to dilineate between the three) I learn certain things when I cast runes. Such as: it is difficult to grow, to let go, to release fear and anger. But if we don't, we die.
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
IMBOLC REVISITED
But I can grow
despite what you know
you might not recognize me tomorrow
yes, I can change, inspite of all they say
become something strange
and beautiful
like joy!
like joy !
-- Liz Phair
I think I heard that there’s gonna be rain today. The sky is a deep grey like a thick blanket and the white of the snow is dulled by the absense of light. I don’t mine because for the first time in a long time it is actually warm. The fact that I would call 37 degrees warm points to just how could it has been. Second day in the season of Imbolc and I can feel the breath of Kore as she ascends up from the land of the dead. After a long season living below amongst the shadows the goddess begins her return.
I know the feeling.
Sometimes the mythology of the faiths before resonate more with me than Christian myth. I am not sure what others call “religious faith” or religious truth, but to me it is what you recognize, what resonates with you. In a few weeks Lent will begin again. I’ve only known of a Roman Lent, never experienced it as an Episcopalian. For six weeks the generally offering up of things we didn’t really need in the first place, heavier than usual Catholic guilt trips, drummed of tears and emotion for the death of Jesus on Good Friday, and then a quick and speedy resurrection we don’t know what to do with. Three days in the tomb, and it the three days don’t even last three full days. Easter comes, we eat chocolate, and after this no one really knows how to apply this to real life.
The season of Imbolc is different. Death and resurrection are not once and for all things. They come and they go, and resurrection is not an easy task, it is a long, seven week one. There is repentance, but there is little guilt. Guilt must serve a purpose. Acknowledged, it is time to put it away. Not put away, it only enslaves, or else it makes us callous. We learn to live with it while not choosing to change. The repentance does not come before the death and resurrection. It begins at the moment of resurrection, the moment when the Queen of the Dead in the underworld is given her cosmic green light, and begins her ascent back to the land of light.
Repentance, starting over again, waking up... that’s a slow process. Repentance IS the resurrection.
But I can grow
despite what you know
you might not recognize me tomorrow
yes, I can change, inspite of all they say
become something strange
and beautiful
like joy!
like joy !
-- Liz Phair
I think I heard that there’s gonna be rain today. The sky is a deep grey like a thick blanket and the white of the snow is dulled by the absense of light. I don’t mine because for the first time in a long time it is actually warm. The fact that I would call 37 degrees warm points to just how could it has been. Second day in the season of Imbolc and I can feel the breath of Kore as she ascends up from the land of the dead. After a long season living below amongst the shadows the goddess begins her return.
I know the feeling.
Sometimes the mythology of the faiths before resonate more with me than Christian myth. I am not sure what others call “religious faith” or religious truth, but to me it is what you recognize, what resonates with you. In a few weeks Lent will begin again. I’ve only known of a Roman Lent, never experienced it as an Episcopalian. For six weeks the generally offering up of things we didn’t really need in the first place, heavier than usual Catholic guilt trips, drummed of tears and emotion for the death of Jesus on Good Friday, and then a quick and speedy resurrection we don’t know what to do with. Three days in the tomb, and it the three days don’t even last three full days. Easter comes, we eat chocolate, and after this no one really knows how to apply this to real life.
The season of Imbolc is different. Death and resurrection are not once and for all things. They come and they go, and resurrection is not an easy task, it is a long, seven week one. There is repentance, but there is little guilt. Guilt must serve a purpose. Acknowledged, it is time to put it away. Not put away, it only enslaves, or else it makes us callous. We learn to live with it while not choosing to change. The repentance does not come before the death and resurrection. It begins at the moment of resurrection, the moment when the Queen of the Dead in the underworld is given her cosmic green light, and begins her ascent back to the land of light.
Repentance, starting over again, waking up... that’s a slow process. Repentance IS the resurrection.
Monday, February 02, 2004
I am listening to a radio show. It shall go nameless. I mean, what if one day I get famous and intellectual, and then I'm on it or something. And the host comes back to this blog and says, "Mr. Gibson, didn't you say...? " And what will I be able to say, but "Yes, I said it."
Well, at any road, I am listening to this radio show and it is dull as all get out today because a professor from a major university has pontificated that "Literature makes us feel and connects us to each other." This is a lot like having a musicologist from Harvard come on a show and state, "Brittany Spears is scantily clad and highly overrated." You hardly need a doctorate to say some things...
So this professor is talking about all the wonderful books that effect people and will stand the test of time. London, Bree, all you English majors of all stripes, you know the books he's talking about, everything we were FORCED to read and would never read unless we had to. So after talking about the indecipherable James Joyce he says of the increasingly cryptic Toni Morrison that her Beloved will stand a century from now when we think of great writing.
I don't know what it is about America now, but we tend to think that the more difficult to understand it is, the better it is. When will we quit fooling around and admit half of this stuff makes no sense now and a century from now will probably make even less.
Less just admit that one hundred years from now everyone will be reading J.K. Rowling and Elmore Leonard. Why? Because you know what the hell they're talking about. They meet you where you are, and they entertain. I don't care what people try to tell you, that's pretty much the total worth of good writing.
Well, at any road, I am listening to this radio show and it is dull as all get out today because a professor from a major university has pontificated that "Literature makes us feel and connects us to each other." This is a lot like having a musicologist from Harvard come on a show and state, "Brittany Spears is scantily clad and highly overrated." You hardly need a doctorate to say some things...
So this professor is talking about all the wonderful books that effect people and will stand the test of time. London, Bree, all you English majors of all stripes, you know the books he's talking about, everything we were FORCED to read and would never read unless we had to. So after talking about the indecipherable James Joyce he says of the increasingly cryptic Toni Morrison that her Beloved will stand a century from now when we think of great writing.
I don't know what it is about America now, but we tend to think that the more difficult to understand it is, the better it is. When will we quit fooling around and admit half of this stuff makes no sense now and a century from now will probably make even less.
Less just admit that one hundred years from now everyone will be reading J.K. Rowling and Elmore Leonard. Why? Because you know what the hell they're talking about. They meet you where you are, and they entertain. I don't care what people try to tell you, that's pretty much the total worth of good writing.
Sunday, February 01, 2004
IMBOLC
To realize the truth of being by myself
I grow colder as the days go forth
Oh how I wish for a fiery love to warm my frozen heart
I wish to feel safe in the kiss of a lover
To look into eyes that speak of love for me
--London Kennedy
and I swear sometimes
when I put my head to his chest
I can hear the virus humming
like a refrigerator.
Which is what makes me think
you can take your positive attitude
and go straight to hell.
We don't have a future,
we have a dog. Who is he?
-- Chad the Minx
Imbolc’s here again. Those who keep the ancient ways know what this day is and what it means. I will never call it Groundhog Day. The cheapens the whole affair. In this part of the world even the name Candlemas has lost its power. The feast of Brigid, the lady of flame, healing, poetry and all craft, the day of purification and dedication, reflection and meditation. This is the day when after a bleak midwinter, and frozen hearts, thwarted dreams and perished desires we march toward growth again. We march toward… March.
In Christian churches that remember the old ways the season of Christmas comes to an official end. Candles are blessed, dedication made. The same with the pracitioners of the Craft in all British traditions. In Greek traditions we remember this is the day that Persephone was redeemed, and began her long march from the land of death, back to the world of growth and light. It is no easy to task to live again when you have been in the shadows so long.
To my surprise, when I look out my window I see that despite all the snow, the sun rises earlier and the days last longer. For the first time in weeks the weather is above ten degrees and my fingers don’t hurt with the cold after having walked only a block.
Last year my mother said, “I’m not ready for spring…” she was so worried about the return of it. I knew exactly what she meant. As cold as it gets it can be scary to be unfrozen, to have to live again, to have to feel again, to have to move.
Brigid, assist us!
Winter
freezes the hands
the sap, the earth,
the ink
the only thing not frozen is the speed of thoughts
they race beneath the ice
my imagination races hotter than mustangs caught
in the desert sun
sweating to death till they lose their lather
this mind races swifter than late March spring water
To realize the truth of being by myself
I grow colder as the days go forth
Oh how I wish for a fiery love to warm my frozen heart
I wish to feel safe in the kiss of a lover
To look into eyes that speak of love for me
--London Kennedy
and I swear sometimes
when I put my head to his chest
I can hear the virus humming
like a refrigerator.
Which is what makes me think
you can take your positive attitude
and go straight to hell.
We don't have a future,
we have a dog. Who is he?
-- Chad the Minx
Imbolc’s here again. Those who keep the ancient ways know what this day is and what it means. I will never call it Groundhog Day. The cheapens the whole affair. In this part of the world even the name Candlemas has lost its power. The feast of Brigid, the lady of flame, healing, poetry and all craft, the day of purification and dedication, reflection and meditation. This is the day when after a bleak midwinter, and frozen hearts, thwarted dreams and perished desires we march toward growth again. We march toward… March.
In Christian churches that remember the old ways the season of Christmas comes to an official end. Candles are blessed, dedication made. The same with the pracitioners of the Craft in all British traditions. In Greek traditions we remember this is the day that Persephone was redeemed, and began her long march from the land of death, back to the world of growth and light. It is no easy to task to live again when you have been in the shadows so long.
To my surprise, when I look out my window I see that despite all the snow, the sun rises earlier and the days last longer. For the first time in weeks the weather is above ten degrees and my fingers don’t hurt with the cold after having walked only a block.
Last year my mother said, “I’m not ready for spring…” she was so worried about the return of it. I knew exactly what she meant. As cold as it gets it can be scary to be unfrozen, to have to live again, to have to feel again, to have to move.
Brigid, assist us!
Winter
freezes the hands
the sap, the earth,
the ink
the only thing not frozen is the speed of thoughts
they race beneath the ice
my imagination races hotter than mustangs caught
in the desert sun
sweating to death till they lose their lather
this mind races swifter than late March spring water
The Our Father Project
This is in response to Mike McCroghan's interpretation of the our Our Father and his thoughts on personalizing it and seriously looking at a very old and often very unthought of prayer to bring it into the current age.
There is a link here to his blog ! Go to it!
Our Father in heaven,
And our Mother below
Breath that sustains us,
Hope of our souls,
May you be honored by every name you bear
In every land,
And may we honor all who name you,
And hallow your Spirit where no names suffice
Hasten this day, place your heart in our hands
and may no obstacle
Stand in our way, inflame us that we might work in this world for the peace that holds all worlds together
Grant to us every good thing
Day by day
Day by day pardon our offences
Wash us, bind us, help us to stand
That we might start afresh always
For we shall grant this same grace one to another
And shepherd us through all temptation,
Safeguard us through every evil
There is neither power, nor glory save yours
Given in full measure to we your children, to give to each other
And now we give it to you today and all days
Amen
This is in response to Mike McCroghan's interpretation of the our Our Father and his thoughts on personalizing it and seriously looking at a very old and often very unthought of prayer to bring it into the current age.
There is a link here to his blog ! Go to it!
Our Father in heaven,
And our Mother below
Breath that sustains us,
Hope of our souls,
May you be honored by every name you bear
In every land,
And may we honor all who name you,
And hallow your Spirit where no names suffice
Hasten this day, place your heart in our hands
and may no obstacle
Stand in our way, inflame us that we might work in this world for the peace that holds all worlds together
Grant to us every good thing
Day by day
Day by day pardon our offences
Wash us, bind us, help us to stand
That we might start afresh always
For we shall grant this same grace one to another
And shepherd us through all temptation,
Safeguard us through every evil
There is neither power, nor glory save yours
Given in full measure to we your children, to give to each other
And now we give it to you today and all days
Amen
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