More Gems of Joy

The last two weeks have held sweet moments of offered love, from the blessings of sunshine and moonlight after weeks of dreary weather to the kindness of friends and family. Phoebe's brilliant white glow has reminded me of beauty again and, a friendly muse this week, even seems to have wakened the ability to put a few words on paper.

Former students have sent notes of thanks and encouragement -- these make it possible to keep going when weariness threatens to overwhelm one's sense of duty. It is always such a delight to hear their stories and know that, however little real influence one might have had, there has been the privilege to watch them grow in their love for the Lord and their pursuit of Him in their journey.

A trip to Knoxville cemented an already lovely friendship as Marcy and I shared our love for books and for family and for the God who has made that friendship strong and true.

My birthday was during fall break, and my sweet husband took me to Chattanooga for lunch at Red Lobster and some window shopping at the mall. We looked at diamond pendants and Vera Bradley totes and came home empty-handed -- we needed to process the diamond information and the bag I wanted was too expensive.

This past week dear Monika came to see me, a box in hand, saying that when she saw the object it contained she knew it was for me. And I lifted out a ceramic unicorn, which she had painted herself in rainbow colors that will lighten my spirit each time I look up to see him.

And a birthday check came from my mother, so we went back to Chattanooga today. I found the tote I wanted, and we found the best deal of any we'd seen the week before for a sparkling diamond pendant (my birthday present for the rest of my life, I'm assured -- and that's fine with me!) which complements my earrings, an anniversary gift several years ago.

Gems of joy, reminders that love and beauty and kindness are all around me even in the midst of the brokenness of this world we've tried so hard to destroy. There is still "freshness deep down" and God keeps bringing it to the surface to delight our hearts, if we will be still long enough to see.

On The End of Suffering

"How I will cherish you then, you grief-torn nights!

Had I only received you, inconsolable sisters,

on more abject knees, only buried myself with more abandon

in your loosened hair. How we waste our afflictions!

We study them, stare out beyond them into bleak continuance,

hoping to glimpse some end. Whereas they’re really

our wintering foliage, our dark greens of meaning, one

of the seasons of the clandestine year—; not only

season —: they’re site, settlement, shelter, soil, abode."

This is a passage from a new translation of Rilke’s poetry, which Mike Potemra posted this morning at The Corner at NRO. It reminded me of the last line of Scott Cairns’ meditation The End of Suffering: “May our afflictions be few, but may we learn not to squander them.”

Scott graciously sent me The End of Suffering when he read a post in which I’d quoted one of his poems. I’ve been taking my time reading through it and savoring both the style (a poet writing reflective prose: only the poetry itself can be better) and the thought. For the most part, it didn’t hold a great many new-to-me thoughts about suffering – I’ve filled the margins with names of other writers and thinkers his words bring to mind – but his unique approach and stories challenged me to think deeply again, to revisit the subject thoughtfully, to re-see it and be encouraged to press on in my own trials. The Eastern Orthodox vocabulary and perspective deepened my thinking, and the final chapter offers a discussion of wholeness that fascinates me – that was new.

The title is of course a play on words. Someday our sufferings will end – “every tear shall be dried” – but until then we need to understand the end – the purpose – of suffering. Suffering is inevitable, and Cairns reminds us that one of its immediate purposes is to “drag us – more or less kicking – into a fresh and vivid awareness that we are not in control of our circumstances, that we are not quite whole [. . .] .” This in turn leads (or can lead) to the stripping away of self so that we can have fellowship with God – our purpose as created beings.

Cairns writes of the need to rid ourselves of pride, of that modern curse of “self-esteem,” and how suffering, if we respond wisely to it, helps us to do this by bringing us face-to-face with our own weakness and sin: writing of people he has known for whom this was true when they were diagnosed with a terminal disease, he says, ‘It was as if their imminent deaths freed them from petty, distracted lives and freed them into greater, genuine living [. . .] .”

Suffering, Cairns says, “may also provide to us a glimpse of what actual virtue might require.” He writes of how we are united to the body of Christ, and the sacrifices and blessings of understanding what that unity means as we learn to love one another as He loves us. Drawing on his pilgrimages to Mount Athos, he describes how the monks who live there love each other and God, how they take on each other’s sufferings and pray sacrificially for all of us who are struggling together to play our part in this spiritual body – and this is what we are called to in our various places in life.

He writes of how each of us, by virtue of our own sinful nature and actions, is complicit in all the suffering of the world, including the suffering of the innocents. Because no man is an island, as Donne puts it, each individual’s connection to the rest is “absolute.” If an innocent child suffers, it is because “[e]very choice in our lives that separates us from communion with God, and every decision that clouds our awareness of His presence or erodes our relationships with one another has a profound and expanding effect – as the proverbial ripples in a pool.” The striving for autonomy is great evil, and leads to great evil not only for ourselves but for others. Realizing this – taking responsibility for the evil that happens throughout the world – should humble us into a desire to live righteously, to leave sin behind.

But to begin “fixing” this state, it is not enough to merely decide not to sin. “It is not our finally turning away from sin that frees us from sin’s recurrence,” Cairns writes; “rather it is our turning toward Christ – and the mystery of our continuing to turn into Him – that puts sin behind us.” I kept being reminded of Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell, the message of which is essentially that every choice we makes sets us on either the road to heaven or the road to hell – and enough choices in one direction will eventually make the end of that road our inevitable end. “We acquire our salvation through partaking of that body [of Christ]” – we must be a part of the body, the church, making choices to live as a member of the body. I especially love the story Cairns tells of the monk who answered the question “Is Jesus Christ your personal savior?” with a smile and no hesitation: “No, I like to share him.”

Cairns quotes a Russian priest: “’And when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it’ is said of the Church. If we do not feel this, we are not within the Church.” The life of the body of Christ is essential for us to learn to live well, to understand suffering, to share the suffering of others, to know God’s love in fellowship with Him, to reach out to a suffering world. It is only here that we can understand suffering as purposeful – that it is “remedial”; it is “grace.”

And so in one sense we are being saved continually. Cairns writes, “I want to be saved from what passes for myself. This is because what passes for myself does not always feel quite like the self that is framed in the image of God and is thus united with those around me and is, allegedly, growing with them into His likeness.” Amen to that.

The book’s final chapter is one I need to mull over a great deal. It is about becoming whole, the reuniting of nous and kardia – what most of our translations render as mind and heart, but Cairns explains is so much more. I’m not going to pretend to “get” this yet; the phrase he quotes from another writer – “the intellective aptitude of the heart” – intrigues me, but I shall leave it for now simply saying that we must watch and pray, we must suffer in the garden with our suffering Lord, in the journey to wholeness. Perhaps I’ll be able to revisit the concept of wholeness as Cairns develops it here after I’ve had time to begin integrating it into my own thinking.

For my literary friends -- Cairns discusses art earlier in the book and its potentially redemptive purpose for its maker and its receiver, a discussion you will find encouraging and profitable.

Scott sent me this book because I had revealed some of the suffering I happened to be seeing and living. The book has certainly been a strong encouragement to keep going, to remain vulnerable, to embrace the purpose of suffering, for which I am grateful. The act of giving, accompanied with his prayers offered up for this complete stranger, has in itself been a reminder of the purpose of the body to be united in loving each other. He wrote on the title page, “for my sister along the way.” May we all remember that we are brothers and sisters along the way and exercise grace and love, lifting each other up in prayer and practical helps as we seek to learn the lessons of suffering.

Visual Migraines

This morning I showed up in the wrong classroom, planning to teach my 12:00 class at 10:00. Melissa and Rob finally straightened me out and I got to the right place only seven minutes late. And what a great class -- they were discussing their homework while waiting patiently for me to arrive.

Excuses for absurdity are always nice -- so here's mine.

I had been putting together the handouts for the 12:00 class (the 10:00 was already planned). A student came in to talk about an essay; when she left, about 9:20, I turned to my computer and saw strange lights on the screen -- the kind you see if you've been staring at a bright light and then look away. But I hadn't been staring at a bright light. I blinked and closed my eyes for several seconds, but the odd light remained. I got up, walked out into the department suite, and the light came with me: that was when I knew what it was.

The first visual migraine I had was terrifyingly amazing. It looked almost exactly like the top simulation at this site, except that the lines were all jagged instead of blocky, and the colors seemed a little brighter. It happened in the summer, sometime after we had moved here ten years ago. When it faded away, within 30 seconds it began again. Overall, it lasted nearly an hour. When it finally stopped, I got up, stumbled outside where K. was working, and wailed to him, "I'm going blind!!!"

Since then, I've had three or four, none so spectacular, thank the Lord. They've lasted about half an hour, and look more like the "Scintillating Socoma" at the same site I linked above, or the "Optical Migraine," except with color. The simulation half-way down this page captures the shimmering nature of the phenomonon quite accurately. This clock figure shows how they typically grow and begin to fade.

I've been blessed that these visual migraines are not followed by full-blown migraine headaches; for some people they are a headache aura. But still they wear me out, making my brain feel tired and leaving my body a little shaky.

So when the migraine started this morning, and the last thing I'd been doing before was preparing for a class -- that's the class I went to. The migraine itself finally faded out as I entered the wrong classroom. And when I finally got to the right class, I felt like I was slogging through deep sand to pull a thought up and put it into words.

And that, boys and girls, explains why I was more weird than usual this morning. Thanks for your patience and for laughing with me. And may you never experience migraines of any sort!

On Being Right vs. Loving

Our pastor this morning preached on I Corinthians 13. As he talked about the pre-eminence of love in the Christian life, I was reminded of a conversation I was privy to many years ago.

Two of the tutors in the writing center I directed at the time were both Christians of the same denomination. One -- I'll call him Larry -- planned to become a pastor, and was looking forward to seminary the following year. He dressed neatly, wore his dark hair in a respectable mature cut, always arrived on time and remembered to do the paperwork. He was a good tutor.

The other -- I'll call him Steve -- was also a good tutor. He tended at times to forget things, like what time he was supposed to arrive for his consultations or to fill out the paperwork at the end of a session. His blond hair was shaggy, his clothes poor-student-eclectic. I don't think he yet knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. But the students he worked with always asked for him on repeat visits.

Larry and Steve often argued theology when there were no clients, until I'd set them about other tasks. One Friday evening, waiting for the day to officially end and knowing full well no one would walk in at that hour for help, I let them go at it for their last half hour. I don't recall the subject of the argument -- some important, though I think not essential, point of theology.

Larry was indisputably right. From both Scripture and his church tradition, his argument was accurate and well-reasoned. Steve's rebuttals were so wrong-headed they made me cringe a little. But I walked home that evening knowing that if I were in trouble, I'd far prefer to have Steve, along with his error-filled theology, by my side, than Larry with his indisputable truth.

The reason is simple: Steve loved people. His resistance came from a misunderstanding of the Scripture that made him think Larry's interpretation was harsh and cold and uncaring. And Larry couldn't convince him otherwise -- because Larry couldn't understand Steve's care for people and therefore couldn't address it, couldn't explain his argument so that Steve could see that it didn't mean what he thought. Larry cared only, in the end, about being right -- and so could not frame an argument that showed the mercy and love of the doctrine about which they argued, because he himself had no understanding of mercy and love.

I've often wondered what became of Larry. I hope that he learned love, and that the lesson wasn't too crushing. I hope that he didn't finish seminary and take a parish to be a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal, a man who has all knowledge but no love. I worry less about Steve, despite his lack of purpose. I hope he came to understand how the Lord's infinite love is demonstrated in that and other doctrines he struggled with; I hope he found out what he wanted to be and became it. But I'm as sure as one can be that at least he's given hope to others along his way.

9/11: Never Forget

This morning I showed this video of the World Trade Center attack and collapse in my class.

The language is not English, but this is the best footage I found.

I try not to be political here at Inscapes, and I know that we can legitimately disagree about our precise response to this horrific evil. But we mustn’t forget that it happened, that it was evil, that 3000+ of our fellow citizens (most of them civilians) died at the hands of extremists who hate us and whose dearest wish is to destroy or subjugate us, and that they have not stopped and will not stop trying to achieve that goal. We cannot do nothing.

Pray for our troops and all those who have kept us safe from another major attack on our soil these past eight years. To all these -- and especially to my son -- thank you for putting yourselves in harm's way to protect us.

9/11: Never forget.

Happy Days: New Books!

The day an Amazon box appears is always delightful! In this shipment:

Poetry and Creative Nonfiction

• The Stream and The Sapphire by Denise Levertov
• Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard
• Love's Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life by Scott Cairns

On Christianity

• The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller
• Jesus of Nazareth by Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI)

Fiction

• The Changling Sea by Patricia McKillip
• The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell (a Kurt Wallandar mystery)
• Dead Irish by John Lescroart (a Dismas Hardy mystery)
• Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
• The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos
• In the Beginnng: First Novels in a Mystery Series by Mary Jean Demarr

Education

• The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey into How the World's Poorest People are Educating Themselves by James Tooley
• The Paideia Proposal by Mortimer Adler
• Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford
• How to Think about the Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler

Yes, I've read the essays in Teaching a Stone to Talk -- I just didn't have the collection itself. A friend lent me The Changling Sea, and I had to have my own copy; McKillip's fantasy writing is some of the most beautiful I've ever read. (I hear it's uneven, but so far -- after three -- I'm a fan.)

I have begun the Kurt Wallandar mystery and am in love. I recall seeing one of Mankell's stories on Mystery and enjoying it -- but one never can judge the book by a television adaptation. They seem, however, to have captured his character quite well. The stories are set in Sweden (the author is Swedish and the books are translated), and I am enjoying the new (to me) setting and Wallandar's meditations on Swiss life and the changes he's seen over the years.

The rest sit beside my LazyBoy in the study awaiting their turn. First, however, I shall finish Scott Cairns' The End of Suffering and post a review of it. It's a lovely book, challenging and encouraging.

I plan to make another order soon -- recommendations are always welcome!

FYI

Just in case anyone here is interested, I've created a new weblog, Reflected Light, at wordpress.com. It's mainly my course website, with the syllabi, schedules, assignments, and so on for each of the courses I'm teaching. I've also posted some of the presentations I've done for the college chapels and various forums.

Omens of Beauty

Late rising (wondrous summer!) and staying indoors most of the time to avoid exacerbating my many allergies have conspired to keep me from Phoebe's sight for quite a long time now. Last night, as we drove home from the college's opening convocation, there she was, halfway between quarter and new, shining boldly amidst stormy clouds that seemed to quail at her brilliance. Her loveliness so filled the sky that I half-expected to see her still there as we left the house this morning.

If I believed in omens, I would believe that she showed herself at just this time to warn me to delight in the beauty of the new year beginning, at last, today. If I believed in omens, I would praise the Son for giving me just this image of the loveliness of His reflected light at just this time.

A monk once replied to a young man who asked if a rainbow had been a sign to him, "Do you really believe that God determines the weather just for you?" At the time, I laughed with him in a gentle mockery of his questioner. Now, I would urge that young man to say, "Why not?"

For the beauty of Phoebe last night and the beauty she presages: Praise Him.

Unintended Consequences

The catering service at my college decided last year to eliminate the use of trays. You can still get them if you are arthritic, say (or even just cantankerous), and if you know where the small stash is set aside or are willing to ask for one. But they are no longer available in the regular line and only a few of us use them.

The decision was based on research that shows much less food waste when customers don't have trays on which to stack multiple plates or multiple rolls, brownies, and so on. I applaud this; food is a valuable resource and I am glad our caterers desire to steward it well -- not to mention that it helps keep the cost down for the students. It's also a good thing, I believe, for students to see stewardship in action and learn to be more moderate in what they take.

Some negative consequences were, I'm sure, considered, such as the need to make multiple trips to get silverware and a drink. For some of us, this is a genuine difficulty because of health problems (or even time constraints between classes at times); but the trays are available if one is really needed. And for everyone else, it's one of those minor annoyances that it's not that difficult to become used to. New students may never even notice it.

But there has been a negative consequence that I'm sure was unintended. I won't claim that it outweighs the savings on food and food costs, but I do think it's worth noting: the lack of trays has made it more difficult for us to serve each other during a meal.

For example, a colleague returning to the line to get a cup of coffee and a dessert can no longer offer to get something for two or three or four others, because he can't carry the cups or plates. This was always a boon to conversation and often an important service to someone with a health problem. It's harder to let someone serve you if he has to make multiple trips to do so, after all, and so you do it yourself or say you don't want anything, even if you do.

And this is even more noticeable when people are finishing up a meal. With trays, one or two people who didn't have classes coming up, or one or two of the men when it was a mixed group, would gather all the plates and cups and glasses and silverware and return them to the kitchen for the rest of us. Over and over I was benefited by this service and was glad when I could offer it to someone else, and I was often surprised at who offered it -- not infrequently a student from the next table over would swoop in on us and take our dishes.

Of course, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with getting one's own after-dinner coffee or taking care of one's own dishes after finishing a meal. But the giving and receiving of service teaches us humility and reminds us of the bond we share with each other in this community; it helps to develop fellowship and Christian charity. I miss its easy availability.

Again, I am not opposed to our caterer's decision; I think it is a good one. But I think it is also a good example of how choices have consequences that are not always directly related to the reasons for making them. No one, after all, would deny that serving each other is a good thing; no one wanted to end or make more difficult our service to each other. Yet it has happened, and it has reminded me once again of the fact that in a fallen world, we cannot "solve" problems; we can only make trade-offs. Every choice we make that ameliorates some difficulty will have some unintended consequences that create or exacerbate other difficulties. If we see it in such a simple thing as whether or not to use trays in a cafeteria, how much more so in the political and social decisions that affect entire communities and nations?

God help us to take seriously the fact of unintended consequences, to consider carefully what they might be, and make our choices with wisdom and understanding, realizing the fallenness of this world.

Ninety Years

Monday was my daddy's 90th birthday. I've been supremely blessed to have known him for nearly 57 of those years (my brother for 61); he and our mother have been married for 66.

He served in WWII in the Air Force; he managed a pecan orchard; he worked as the landscape architect and the building and grounds supervisor at a major university. He hunted quail and pheasant and deer (a prize-winning deer head is now in the Rockefeller mansion); he fished for trout and redfish and whatever other fish he could catch. He served faithfully in his church at every level, and participated in work trips to a sister church in Mexico, teaching them horticultural techniques and helping with building projects.

But most of all, he has loved his family. I never for one moment in my life doubted his love. At nearly 57, I am still the same daddy's girl that I was at 7, and if I could I would curl up in his lap again and laugh with him over the happenings of our days.

His body and mind are rebelling now. He lives in an assisted living home (and thank God for lovely people who love and honor the elderly), a difficult thing for both him and Mother, but necessary for the health and safety of them both. When I left after a week there last May, Mother went to see him and he said, "Maribeth was here?" But when I had arrived, he had known me immediately, and never wavered in knowing me during the entire week. His mind might trick him about when he saw me last, but it doesn't forget who I am when I'm there. And if it does in the future, if he looks at me and thinks I'm my mother or his sister or whoever -- I am confident that some part of him will still know me and love me, because nothing is stronger than that love.

Last year when I was able to visit for several weeks, he talked to me once or twice, when we were alone together, about his sense of failure -- he was of course upset over not being able to do the many things he has always done and being dependent on Mother and the rest of us, and was feeling useless because of it, but when I assured him that his lack of activity didn't change his value to us or his ability to love us, he teared up and said he "hadn't been as good as [he] should be." It startled me, but opened the way for us to talk about the love of Jesus in a way we rarely had before. He knew it, but the newly clear view of mortality was forcing him to think of it in more urgent ways.

Daddy has never been demonstrative about his faith, but I've never doubted its reality -- not because of his work in the church so much as because of that unwavering love for us. One of his few regular shows of faith was the mealtime prayer that he always spoke. It was a memorized prayer, which he would occasionally change a bit or add to in honor of special occasions, like a birthday or our visits after we'd grown and gone. At one time, in the hubris of a young belief, I scorned this -- but I have learned since then, thank God, that repetition needn't be mindlessness, that it can hold great value in so many ways. And last summer, as I first saw for myself the way his mind had begun to trick him, I prayed that he would never lose that prayer.

Mother called me last night (my late-sent birthday card had still not arrived; I'm a lousy daughter) and told me about the birthday dinner. My brother brought venison for the main meal, my aunt (Daddy's "baby" sister; she's only 81) brought cake; Mother brought flowers for the table. The staff set them up in a private spot. The meals of course are communal as a rule, and there is always someone who says grace -- so Daddy has had very few occasions to pray before a meal for over a year now. So when Mother said, "Let's say grace," she assumed she would need to do so -- but as she reached for his hand, she saw that he had already bowed his head, and he spoke his prayer, perfectly, without so much as a second's hesitation.

And she tells me that the last couple of weeks he's been doing something new: he sings "Jesus love me, this I know / for the Bible tells me so" -- and then says, in complete confidence, "And I know that's true."

Ninety years. I want him here for the rest of mine, and I fear the loss that will come sooner rather than later, but I will always think of him singing "Jesus loves me" as the inevitable approaches, and be thankful in seeing that, indeed, love can't be taken away.

Seeking Peace . . .

This world is certainly broken. Sometimes this is evidenced in minor irritations and annoyances, or what one reads in the papers that doesn't touch one directly. Those days it's easy to shrug and coast a little, maybe rest a little.

But then the brokenness overwhelms. I know four people who have lost a parent in the last two weeks. Illness -- a student with a spinal tumor; the recurrence of bleeding in my daughter's angioma, causing seizures; my own chronic pain suddenly increasing by a hundred-fold or so . . . People I love losing homes, jobs, families . . .

What is one to do in the face of overwhelming brokenness? Pray, I suppose. But I haven't the least idea how to pray. Who am I to presume to know what to ask God in the midst of all this sorrow and pain? He didn't send His Son to die so we could all be happy and well in the darkness of a broken world. But neither, in the face of His sacrifice, is despair an option.

So I turn to Scott Cairns again:

Hesychia*
Stillness occurs with the shedding of thoughts. - St. John Klimakos

Of course the mind is more often a roar,
within whose din one is hard pressed to hear
so much as a single word clearly. Prayer?

Not likely. Unless you concede the blur
of confused, compelled, competing desires
the mind brings forth in the posture of prayer.

So, I found myself typically torn,
if lately delivered, brow to the floor,
pressing as far as I could into prayer,

pressing beneath or beyond the roar
that had so long served only to wear
away all good intentions, baffling prayer.

Polished hardwood proves its own kind of mirror,
revealing little, but bringing one near
the margin where one hopes to find prayer --

though even one's weeping is mostly obscured
by the very fact and effect of one's tears,
which, for the time being, must serve.


*"hesychia" means "peace"
Update: Scott Cairns, in a comment below, graciously tells me that "'hesychia' is more nearly translated as 'stillness,' indicating a deep quiet, of body, mind, and spirit."

Quotidian Mysteries

(especially for you, Michael R. :) Trying to pull myself out of the grip of depression-driven acedia . . .)

I haven't read Kathleen Norris's book with the title of this post, but it intrigued me yesterday when I was browsing around amazon for a gift. I've been reading and thinking a lot lately about the "quotidian mysteries" -- the tasks of the daily round, the routine of ordinary life -- and their salvific effect in life. (Norris writes a great deal about this in Acedia and Me.) I am not a particularly adventurous type, so the desire for travel, wild events, and so on is not a major temptation for me. Yet with just about everyone, I at times find the daily round "boring" and am tempted to denigrate routine tasks as "menial" -- in the snobbish sense of being beneath my time and energy.

In fact, too often in our Western affluent culture we resent these jobs, doing them under protest and with a sour spirit or hiring them done if we have the resources, and we look down on those who do such work for their living as somehow not as good or as important as those of us who don't work with our hands . . . a horrificly ungodly judgment of God's creation.

Yet the daily routine of life is essential to our well-being. At the merely practical level, daily tasks simply have to be done, by somebody, or we couldn't manage -- most of us want clean clothes and clean dishes, and a reasonably clean and neat environment in both in the home and the community; as well, the daily tasks of any job may not be glamorous but are essential -- teachers have to grade and prep and record, writers have to revise and edit and keep financial records, musicians have to practice scales and chords . . .

But these tasks are essential in an even more important way: they save us from pride, from sloth, from all manner of wrong thinking and being. It is in the daily tasks of life that God meets us most clearly, I believe. I do not deny the loveliness and positive effect of miracles and mountain-top times, but these can only carry us so far; they do not occur every day, and even when we experience them the effects last only so long. I am not changed permanently by one exciting event; I am changed permanently by living for my Lord simply and humbly in the daily round.

Here in the "quotidian mysteries" is where I am tempted by frustrations and irritations of all sorts. Here is where I am tempted to think too highly of myself, that I am above these menial tasks. Here is where I am tempted to desire change and newness for their own sake, glorious deeds for the attention drawn to my wonderfulness.

But here, if I humbly accept the tasks as God's design for my nature, I can find satisfaction and peace and His word working itself out in me. I can hear His voice so much more easily if I listen for it in the daily round instead of solely in the prayer meeting or worship service. He builds patience, contentment, and perseverance, essential qualities in a fallen world, in this daily round.

I quoted a few days ago from Norris's book Acedia and Me about the monk who was shown the vision of daily routine as the way to salvation from sloth and self-centeredness. I know it is true; it has been my salvation from the deadly depths of depression again and again. If I could only hold onto this truth . . .

God Bless America

Thanks to all from the beginning to now who have worked and fought to make our freedom a reality. May we not allow their sacrifices to be in vain.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Kathleen Norris: Acedia and Me

I am reading Kathleen Norris's Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life. It is convicting and comforting, challenging and calming. I will be writing more on it when I have read further and understand better some of the distinctions she draws between acedia (one of the seven deadly sins -- sloth, or ennui: weariness in well-doing) and depression (the clinical condition). It is one of those books in which the non-underlined portions will, I fear, be less than the underlined and commented on; in other words, I'll just have to re-read the entire thing again and again, instead of selected passages. Which may be just as well.

The final chapter is a commonplace book of quotations on her subject, and I was struck by this one as I browsed it this evening:

"When the holy Abba Anthony lived in the desert he was beset by accidie [acedia] and attacked by many sinful thoughts. He said to God, 'Lord, I want to be saved but these thoughts do not leave me alone, what shall I do in my affliction? How can I be saved?' A short while afterwards, when he got up to go out, Anthony saw a man like himself sitting at his work, getting up from his work to pray, then sitting down and plaiting a rope, then getting up again to pray. It was an angel of the Lord sent to correct and reassure him. He heard the angel saying to him, 'Do this and you will be saved.' At these words, Anthony was filled with joy and courage. He did this, and he was saved."

Reminds me of my life's mantra: Do the next thing. Then do the next thing. And at some point you will find that you are living again, not perhaps knowing quite when or how it happened.

Quotables from Wendell Berry

First, a distraction: I was getting ready to write this post when I heard knocking in the living room. Sure enough, the crazy bluebird was attacking himself again in the picture window, which apparently creates an excellent reflection at certain times of day. I pulled the curtains over the window to keep him from giving himself a concussion, remembering the Baltimore Oriole that nearly killed himself on my father's pick-up side mirrors back when I was in high school. Every day when he got home from work he had to cover the mirrors with paper bags . . .

I love Wendell Berry's writing. I do not always agree with his conclusions, but I appreciate his eloquent defense of simplicity and tradition. Last night I was skimming Life is a Miracle, trying to decide if I'm in the mood for it just now. I think not, but I enjoyed the section of brief concluding notes. Sometimes he makes me laugh -- and then forces me into a completely unexpected depth of thinking, like this note did: "The anti-smoking campaign, by its insistent reference to the expensiveness to government and society of death by smoking, has raised a question that it has not answered: What is the best and cheapest disease to die from, and how can the best and cheapest disease be promoted?" The implications are profound . . . and perhaps a bit frightening in today's climate.

There goes the bluebird again -- someone has opened the curtains. I may kill him myself, to put him out of my misery.

Here is another note, this time about art: "Good artists are people who can stick things together so that they stay stuck. They know how to gather things into formal arrangements that are intelligible, memorable, and lasting. Good forms confer health onto the things that they stick together. Farms, families, and communities are forms of art just as are poems, paintings, and symphonies. None of these things would exist if we did not make them. We can make them either well or poorly; this choice is another thing that we make."

And again the bluebird. I give up. I shall have to pull the shade down and live in a cave this morning again . . .

Moonlight and Mockingbirds

Last night I couldn't sleep; here's what I wrote in my journal:

It's 1:00 a.m., and stuffiness from allergies and the last of a summer cold is keeping me awake. Earlier tonight, the Young Man drew my attention to the full moon: hanging precisely between the tops of the dogwood and the horse chestnut, its burnt-orange disk glowed like a living coin. Now it sails high above me, soft white diffused into a misty gleaming, lighting the darkness like a miniature sun. The mockingbird in the dogwood sings to it, a fascinating repertoire of a dozen calls or more. Maybe I should play it some Wagner.

Soldiers and Sailors

Sitting in the Memphis airport on my way home this week, I was privileged to observe the interactions of three World War II veterans and several sailors just out of basic on their way to Florida for the next training phase.

The veterans were an Army infantryman, an Army technician who worked on Air Force planes, and a Marine. The Army men both wore hats or jackets that identified them as veterans. The seven young sailors looked sharp in their dress whites, confident in having made it through basic training and still a bit nervous about the further training to come.

The infantryman had fought in one of the European beach landings, and he was a bit of a cheerful provocateur. One of his first comments on seeing the sailors was made to his WWII colleagues: "Yeah, the Navy dropped us off and turned tail and ran!" The youngsters laughed but were a little unsure how to take him until they realized he simply delighted in the age-old service rivalries banter, subjecting his Marine companion to it also, and wasn't about to let them off it just because of their youth.

They spent the next half-hour listening not just respectfully but with great interest to the oldsters' tales, laughing often but with an underlying gravity that suggested their understanding of the choice they have made to serve. May God bless them all.

Memorial Day

I've been trying to come up with something profoundly appropriate to write about Memorial Day. There's a long tradition of military service in my family, and I lost an uncle I never met in WWII. But words have failed me all day, and just recently I found this at NRO that says it better than I ever could have: "This Memorial Day . . ." by Peter Hegseth. Please read!

We will also be watching the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS, in just under an hour from now (8:00 Eastern). I believe it is showing again at other times. Emceed by Gary Sinese and Joe Mantegna, the Concert is in its 20th year of honoring our fallen soldiers and sailors, as well as our veterans and those serving today.

Ghost Stories by Russell Kirk

Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales by Russell Kirk

The final piece in this anthology is an essay by Kirk, “A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale.” He writes that his tales are “experiments in the moral imagination,” which will include “elements of parable and fable.” “The good ghost story,” he says, “must have for its kernel some clear premise about the character of human existence – some theological premise, if you will.” He reminds us that “all important literature has some ethical end; and the tale of the preternatural [. . .] can be an instrument for the recovery of moral order.”

One reason this is so is because the best of such stories “are underlain by a healthy concept of the character of evil” – but also by the knowledge that evil powers “do not rule the universe; by bell, book, and candle, symbolically at least, we can push them down under.” He is clear that he believes in the supernatural, that he refuses merely material, scientific explanations (or hallucination) for the glimpses of it that people sometimes have, and he also tells us that these glimpses must be fleshed out, by the imagination, to create a good tale.

The ghostly tale can be “a means for expressing truth enchantingly,” he writes, but not at the expense of exercising “didactic moralism” nor by losing real fear of real evil – the “shapes and voices half-glimpsed and half-heard are [not] symbols merely.” He takes note of the materialistic nature of his culture (born in 1918, he lived through most of the 20th century), and remarks on his hope that “as the rising generation regains the awareness that ‘nature’ is something more than more fleshly sensation, and that something may lie above human nature, and something below it – why, the divine and the diabolical [may] rise up again in serious literature.”

The tales are fascinating and well-told. Occasionally a character from one story reappears in another, and – while each story is complete in itself – it is helpful to know the earlier tale, so I recommend reading them in order. It’s hard to reveal much about them, as the element of mystery and suspense is necessary for full enjoyment. There are tales of retribution and of beneficent help from beyond the grave, of possession and attempted possession, of heroics in the face of monstrous supernatural evil, of pride and humility, set around the world in city and country, musty old mansions and ancient cathedrals.

Kirk’s tales remind me often of Charles Williams’ novels (and Kirk was familiar with these). I don’t find the stories didactic; they are simply fascinating tales, well-told. Of course, I share Kirk’s Christian worldview, which allows for the actual existence of clearly distinct good and evil – and for good to have ultimate power over evil. His narrative style is easy to read, self-effacing – his skillful craftsmanship ensures that the reader’s attention is given to the story itself. Each story shows evil as evil, and unashamedly shows us good ascendant over it. Characters have choices, and, much as in Williams’ work, the choices lead them toward heaven or hell. Choices are sometimes offered in that murky world between living and dying, past and present, too; the shadowland where time is no longer in play.

“I present [these tales] to you unabashed,” Kirk writes. “They may impart some arcane truths about good and evil: as Chesterton put it, all life is an allegory, and we can understand it only in parable.” Certainly he has succeeded in his goal, perhaps beyond his expectations, and I shall read these stories many times, gladly obeying his final injunction: “Pray for us scribbling sinners now and at the hour of our death.” God rest us all in His eternal goodness.

Russell Kirk is an icon of the conservative movement, right up there with William F. Buckley, and has written on politics, culture, and economics (he even wrote an economics text for high school which my son greatly benefited from).

Books, Books, Books

I made an order from Amazon a week or so ago, hoping that some of the books would come in about the time the term ended. Much to my dismay, they shipped them immediately and they have already arrived. So I now have ten new books sitting beside my Lazyboy and approximately 53,982 pages of student writing to plow through before I can justify doing more than stare at them longingly.

Books on culture and faith:
The Death of Christian Culture and The Restoration of Christian Culture, both by John Senior
Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts by Benedict XVI
Culture Making by Andy Crouch

One on politics:
Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin

Creative nonfiction:
Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire

Fiction:
We the Underpeople by Cordwainer Smith
Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
The Best of Gene Wolfe (short stories)
Ancestral Shadows (ghost stories) by Russell Kirk

John Senior was a classics professor, well-loved, at my alma mater; I've been seeing a number of articles about him lately and, since I never took any of his classes, I thought it would be good to get to know him this way. The fiction writers are all new to me, recommended by commenters at the Touchstone weblog Mere Comments. I've read some of Kirk's nonfiction, but none of his fiction. I confess to reading the first story in the Wolfe collection and falling in love already. One more week . . .