On St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

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On St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

In honour of

St. Alphonsus Rodriguez

Laybrother of the Society of Jesus

Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say;
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth hears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.

Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.

We crave glory in action, to be seen as victors, crowned with the laurel or the oak and hailed in the streets (or on the Internet).  If we die for a cause, we hope to be immortalized in song and story.  It’s human nature, to want to do brave deeds and to be rewarded for our doing, and we are diligent to reward our heroes.

Gerard Manley Hopkins recognizes this in the first five lines of his sonnet in honor of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez: it’s the warrior’s exploits that we say give off the fire of glory; his “scarred flesh” and “scored shield” should record his deeds as worthy and keep them in memory.  However, he seems to be not completely confident, the phrase “so we say” suggesting that perhaps the assertion is at least open to question:  we say that glory “flames off exploit,” but is this always the case?  Yes, he asserts with confidence, the scars of Christ do indeed bring Him glory, but the scars of the martyrs only “may” do so; it is not a certainty.  

Why his hesitancy to assign this glory to the martyrs? Because there is a kind of battle men engage in that no one sees.  Some martyrs die very public deaths for Christ, their “gashed flesh” a testament to their faith, but “the war within” is unseen and unsung, however intense it may be.  This warrior of the heart carries no tangible sword, wears no steel armor, makes no resounding battle-cry, even  in the “fiercest fray.”  Certainly the world neither sees his scars nor rewards his victories.

But God sees.  The God who created the earth itself with its most immense features – mountains, continents; the God who created the most delicate details of nature – the incremental growth of a tree, the veins of a violet . . . this God sees the inner conflict.  And He cares: He “crowds career with conquest”; He gives victory in these battles, even when they last a lifetime, “years and years” while little else goes on in the world and the warrior merely watches a door which is never challenged.

It was said, Hopkins told his friend Robert Bridges, that Alphonsus Rodriguez was often "bedeviled by evil spirits," but also "much favored by God" with visions of heavenly light.   By all accounts, Alphonsus (1533-1617) had a difficult life.  Recalled from school to take over the family’s thriving textile business in his early 20s, he lost his mother, wife, and daughter in the space of three years, had to sell the business and move into his sister’s home, and then lost his son.  He desired to join the Jesuits but was rejected because of his poor education; at last he was taken in as a lay brother (a lay brother cannot study for the priesthood).  For some 45 years he “watched the door” at the Jesuit college in Majorca, his duties simple and seemingly mundane:  open the door to visitors, take messages, run errands, and distribute alms.

Throughout this time, he was continually beset with inner temptations – the nature of which I have not found described – which drove him to continual prayer.  Perhaps these were temptations to despair and discouragement (look at the losses he endured and his lowly status), perhaps a critical spirit, perhaps far worse.  But they were temptations known only to himself and the few priests in whom he would have confided, as his spiritual director and confessors.

Yet he became a beloved inspiration to the students of the college, who often sought him out for advice and consolation, and who spoke of him with loving admiration throughout their lives; and he became the patron saint of Majorca, where he was known for his love for all – rich, poor, black, white, slave, free.  And those to whom he confessed his temptations chose him to preach sermons to the priests at their meals on feast days because of his good works, done in the faith and prayer that led to his holiness.

He pursued holiness in the midst of temptations by, as he described it, “taking the sweet for the bitter and the bitter for the sweet.”  He would imagine himself before the crucified Lord and consider how much he was loved, how much Christ suffered for him, and that his love for the Lord should lead him to accept his own suffering as a sharing in Christ’s – thus leading the bitterness of suffering to become sweet for Christ’s sake.  At the same time, the world’s sweets – its esteem and pleasures – became bitter in the light of Christ’s love.  This meditation, he wrote, would help his “whole heart [to be] centered solely on God.”  And when the bell rang at the door, he would envision God awaiting entrance and call out, “I’m coming, Lord!” 

Alphonsus’ struggles only became widely known among the Jesuits after his death.  And so Hopkins celebrates, gives honor to, the one whose battle was not seen and honored by the world or even by most of those close to him, and does so in a way to encourage all of us who endure such private struggles.  God, he says, “could crowd career with conquest” – give victories enough to “crowd” one’s entire life – no matter who else sees, gives victories as great as any in literal battles to those who suffer in heart and soul.  Nothing happened while Alphonsus watched the door – no wars, no plagues, no suppressions – just endless errands run and messages delivered . . . but the battle raged and God gave victory throughout the years.

What remarkable encouragement, to be reminded that the world’s honor is not what we need to seek, or our own honor at all.  We should seek the honor of the Lord we serve; after all, the honor we give to Christ and His martyrs is for His sake, not theirs.  But if there are no outward deeds of heroism to be done that may earn outward honor for Him, there are heroic deeds aplenty to accomplish in the depths of our own hearts as we pursue holiness.  And if only our very closest counselors ever know of the struggle, yet God knows and He is pleased with us when we turn to Him in our need and in our gratefulness, so that He may give the victory.

Hope should spring from this realization.  Few of us, in the end, will do great deeds to be memorialized in song; few of us will become well-known martyrs for the faith.  But all of us will battle inner demons: sinful thoughts and desires, discouragement and despair.  While Satan himself may well torment us, even without his harassment there will be plenty to battle.  I find myself so easily leaping to anger, unjustified criticism, guilt true or false, loss of hope.  It is all too easy to give in to these enemies, to dwell on them.

But this is not who I am.  It is who I was, and the patterns reassert themselves when I lose sight of my real identity: a daughter of the King, a servant of the Lord God.  In Him, I am the one who can repent of my sin and seek reconciliation with God and man; I am the one who can offer patient love to one who irritates me; I am the one who sees beauty everywhere, who finds joy in the darkest hours.  I am the one who wakes in the middle of the night with the words “I love you, Father” inexplicably echoing in my mind and heart, and who understands that Christ in me speaks those words – and because I am hidden in Him, cloaked in His love, they are my honest words as well.  

And although too often I am fearfully ensconced in my worldly comfort, I desire to pray with Alphonsus, “Through Your most holy passion and death, I beg of You, Lord, to grant me a most holy life, and a most complete death to all my vices and passions and self-love, and to grant me sight of Your holy faith, hope, and charity."

Certainly, until He returns or I am removed to His presence through death, I will struggle with the sinful and dispiriting patterns of the old man.  But I will struggle:  I will fight the battle and know that victory is already mine – I am made new in Christ who lives in me, and however fiercely the battle rages at times, He is my Champion, and even in this life I may at least begin to see the fruit of refusing to lay down my arms in despair.  No matter what others see or know, I can know that He sees it all, and upholds and strengthens me, and will give me whatever due reward He Himself has earned for me. 

All Flame

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, "Abba, as far as I can, I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace, and, as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?" Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, "If you will, you can become all flame."

Sayings of the Desert Fathers

Fall Break

Fall break is right around the corner, and everyone is feeling the need.  It’s been a hard week for most of us, though sunshine after weeks of grey has helped to raise some spirits.  For me, the old darkness seems merely to have deepened, the fog grown denser, as the skies have brightened; and the sun’s promise just makes the mood worse. 

The promise is real, of course, and it keeps me alive and functioning; some days I do this well and others not so much.  The ones closest to me pay the most in having to endure, and I am grateful more than they will ever know for their love and laughter and the simple comfort of knowing they will now and always refuse to be driven away.  Their reward shall be great.

I’ve written before that the sun can seem too bright, too harsh, despite its gift of life.  “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” Emily Dickinson wrote; “Too bright for our infirm delight / The Truth’s superb surprise [. . .].”  I am indeed infirm, and the moon eases me more, offers me light in doses I can survive.  And this morning there she shone as I left, in the early still-black sky a lovely crescent in direct line with Venus and Jupiter to bid me good day and remind me of all I am – mere reflected light, and if today is closer to the new moon than the full, I am still His, to do with as He will, to shine if and as He pleases.

Strength for all of us, Father, in facing the various demons that plague us.  Strength to do the next thing, to smile when it hurts, to love and accept love when feelings scream against it, to let ourselves remember and be what we are.  In Gerard Manley Hopkins’ words:

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Christ in us – all that matters.

C. S. Lewis on Literature

Several of us read and discussed quotations from C. S. Lewis in chapel this week; here's what I wrote:

We often forget that C.S. Lewis made his living as a literary critic and teacher of literature. Teachers of literature today do not only use his literary works, such as Screwtape Letters or Till We Have Faces, in our classes, but also his works of criticism, such as The Discarded Image on medieval and Renaissance literature or Spenser’s Images of Life on the Fairie Queene. And his writings on the philosophy of literature, found in books such as On Stories and numerous essays in various collections, provide a framework for an approach to writing and reading that is invaluable to the serious Christian.

In his essay “Christianity and Literature” (which can be found in the collection Christian Reflections), Lewis writes about the contrast between modern criticism, which aggrandizes the self as the source of “creativity, originality, and spontaneity,” and the Scriptural understanding that we are to be “as little as possible ourselves,” and instead become “clean mirrors filled with the image of a face that is not ours.”

He writes, “pride does not only go before a fall but is a fall – a fall of the creature’s attention from what is better, God, to what is worse, itself.” Because of this, he asserts that “the basis of all critical theory [should be] the maxim that an author should never conceive himself as bringing into existence beauty or wisdom which did not exist before, but simply and solely as trying to embody, in terms of his own art, some reflection of eternal Beauty and Wisdom.” He further claims that “all the greatest poems have been made by men who valued something else much more than poetry”: in other words, art created merely for its own sake can only be shallow, frivolous, and self-important; art for the sake of the other – God and neighbor – has the potential to attain sublimity.

In other words, Christians are meant to be only reflected light – just as the moon has no light of its own but can only reflect the light of the sun, we have no light of our own but can only reflect the light of the Son of God. We cannot create ex nihilo: all that we make is drawn from what has already been given; it is discovery of that which already exists.

As both a writer and a teacher of literature, these claims guide my philosophy.

As a writer, this leads me to seek first to serve my readers rather than to focus on my uniqueness as a writer; the work I produce must not be intended to draw attention primarily to me and my ability to be “different,” but rather it must be intended to serve those who read it by reflecting the beauty and wisdom that God has revealed. I must be in the business of seeking truth before all else, desiring to make that truth accessible to others for their benefit. If I do this, I can be confident that the unique personality God has given me will be carried in the works – but only to the extent that it is helpful in serving to point others to its Source. “He must increase; I must decrease” must be the Christian writer’s motto as it is that of all believers.

As a teacher of literature, I desire for students to find the wonder and beauty of the works they read, and to glorify God for such gifts – that fallen men can show us the beauty of God’s creation and the hope of redemption in a broken world. We can and should love such writers, but we honor them most when we recognize that they point us to a greater One, to the One who is the Source of all beauty and wisdom. Even secular literature often does this, of course, because every writer is made in the image of God and able to reflect some truth about the world he observes and records and reflects upon; whether he knows it or not, his compass is set to true North whenever he writes with honesty. And even what he may miss reminds us of the world’s brokenness and the need for God’s message of redemption to inform it.

In these ways, Lewis’s professional and Scriptural understanding of the place of literature in the life of the Christian informs all that I do and – even more importantly – challenges me to always remember my own purpose in the world: to “become a clean mirror filled with the image” of the Lord who lives in and through me.

Hopes for the New Year

Seeking something thoughtful for the beginning of a new year, I turned to Mary Oliver and found these excerpts to be excellent reminders of who and what I wish to become. (Apologies for the lack of indentions from the original; I can't seem to get them to work in this venue.)

from "Six Recognitions of the Lord"

(section 5)

Oh, feed me this day, Holy Spirit, with

the fragrance of the fields and the

freshness of the oceans which you have

made, and help me to hear and to hold

in all dearness those exacting and wonderful

words of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying:

Follow me.

from "On Thy Wondrous Works I will Meditate"

(section 6)

I would be good -- oh, I would be upright and good.

To what purpose? To be shining not

sinful, not wringing out of the hours

petulance, heaviness, ashes. To what purpose?

Hope of heaven? Not that. But to enter

the other kingdom: grace, and imagination,

and the multiple sympathies: to be as a leaf, a rose

a dolphin, a wave rising

slowly then briskly out of the darkness to touch

the limpid air, to be God's mind's

servant, loving with the body's sweet mouth -- its kisses, its

words --

everything.

from "Messenger"

My work is loving the world.

[. . .]

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me

keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be

astonished.

[. . .]

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes,

a mouth with which to give shouts of joy

to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,

telling them all, over and over, how it is

that we live forever.

Choosing His Light

I’ve been dragging myself about all the summer thus far, weary and wearier, longing for sleep (except even good sleep doesn’t help), just wanting to feel half-way normal and genuinely rested. I spend a lot of time tired even at my best; I have never had much energy, even when I was young. But this has been extraordinarily severe.

So I took stock the other day and decided I should be grateful that I’m on my feet at all. (My partial stock-taking list is below if you’re really interested. I’m selfish enough to post it, but you needn’t be so masochistic as to pay it any heed.)

I know that everyone is busy, and to many I’m sure my list would look small enough and I seem quite sluggish to find it too much. But combine it all with chronic pain and difficulty sleeping (and exhausted, burning eyes), and for me and the level of energy I am endowed with . . . . well, it is too much and I begin to feel hopelessly overwhelmed.

I’ve just finished Paul Mariani’s biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poor man was responsible for grading thousands of exams every year in classical languages for university entrance, on top of his teaching. He was always exhausted; of course, he may have been ill with Crohn’s disease, unknown in his day – that, combined with typhoid, probably caused his death at 44. But what struck me in the biography (so much of which makes remarkable use of Hopkins’ own words) was this sense of never-ending exhaustion. A holiday – a genuine holiday of no work at his schoolmaster’s tasks – would revive him remarkably, but within a week or two of return to exams and classes he would be worn down again.

And this weariness and overwhelming work kept him from the writing he loved; he seems to have had far more unfinished projects and ideas for projects in his 44 years than the hundreds that languish in my own drawers and the corners of my mind with over a decade more to concoct them. Of course, he was a genius, and his genius seemed to be slowly wasted away in grading schoolboys’ Latin translations.

He complained of this at times to dear friends. But they and all others who knew him spoke of him invariably as a man who loved life, who laughed, who gave generously and kindly of his time and his mind, who lifted the spirits of those around him. His poetry, of course, explains why: even in the very darkest of the Terrible Sonnets, he cannot waver in his knowledge of God’s love for him; he cannot waver from his obedience no matter how onerous and purposeless it might seem. And he keeps coming back, in his yearly meditations and in his sermons and in his poetry, to this: it is not I who name myself and choose my work, it is God.

Some say of Hopkins – certainly his friend Bridges did, and I’ve read contemporary critics who agree – that he was indeed wasted by the Jesuits, his genius destroyed in make-work, his life itself cut short by their not understanding who and what he was. How much more he could have given us, they say, had he lived in honored ease and into old age. Perhaps. But the poems that mean the most to us were wrought of great weariness of body and soul, out of despair that arose directly from his circumstances. Would some larger body of work created in an easier life carry as much value for us today, would he speak to us as he does if he had never known despair and weariness and yet clung to his Lord in faith and hope?

Well, he is my hero, all the more so now that I know yet more of his life. I pray to struggle on with the burning eyes and the weariness and the chronic pain and, yes, the all-too-often despair, to struggle on, as Mother Teresa prayed, with “a hearty Yes to God and a big smile for all.” If life seems hard to me, how much harder for such as these and for so many, many others – and surely I can find the strength in His strength for the simple yes and the heartfelt smile in the midst of my own such lesser trials. I fall so short: I am part of a broken humanity in a broken world and I demand to name myself. Yet His name for me, the story He has written for me, is enough, if I find the faith to live that truth and not merely know it. "Come be My light," Mother Teresa heard Jesus call to her; I long to desire that call, to desire to be His reflected light in the darkness of this world, no matter what of light or dark may be mine.

_____________________

(for those who might care: what taking stock reminded me of)

* I haven’t had a break from work since last August: Fall Break and Christmas break I spent developing the online course of the second semester of freshman composition; Spring Break I spent developing the online course of Intro to Lit.

* I taught the online comp course in the spring, as an overload above my four regular courses – the first time I’d ever taught online. The learning curve and the time investment in discussions and feedback was far more time- and energy-intensive than just a normal overload, even though the class number was small. And I was involved in intense committee work and department changes which took both time and emotional energy. (Same committee work in the fall; I don’t remember much else from that semester except that it was harried, very harried.)

* Spring semester I became very ill from an infected tooth; lost two weeks of teaching that had to be made up for and didn’t feel physically recovered for a month or more.

* My daddy went into hospice care in March. I reworked all my classes to complete them before finals week so we could leave as early as possible to visit with him.

* We drove to Texas and back, gone for only a little over a week – exhausting physically and emotionally. I worked every day during that time on finishing up the development of the Intro to Lit, and got home the day before the course actually began. I’ve been working on it hours a day every day since, with two more weeks to go.

* I’m also reading new texts for preparation of one completely new course, one nearly completely new course, and one old course with almost completely new books, all of which spin in the mind constantly. I’ve created the tentative schedule for one of these (the two sections of our new freshman comp I’ll be teaching in my 5-course load). I’ve exchanged innumerable emails over departmental business because of the changes made last spring.

* I ought to be hemming our curtains and doing some legal research and editing a colleague’s dissertation. Because I’m not, these weigh on the mind and create the weariness of guilt. And I’m obligated to revise the online comp course for the fall semester and I wonder if I will get so much as one full week of not working before the new round – 5 classes! – begins again in August. After all, July is almost here.

Being with My Daddy

It’s been both hard and very gratifying to be here with my parents. Daddy has known me since I’ve arrived; there’s been no hesitation at all about that. Sometimes he has been so asleep that we can’t wake him enough to talk at all. When he is awake, he has trouble speaking clearly (we assume he is continuing to have small undiagnosed strokes), and it can be extremely frustrating for all of us to try to communicate. However, some of our times together he has been remarkably lucid and articulate (considering, of course, his overall condition with dementia and stroke). This afternoon was one of those times.

“I love you” are words he always says with crystal clarity; today he said them many times. When I told him that I think of him all the time, he said “I think of you all the time, too”; then, “I think of you in more ways than you can imagine.” As we continued to talk about our love for each other, he said, “I know you love me, and I love you, and Jesus loves us all, too.” And we talked about family – the love within a family – and he said, “good families are good people and raise good kids.”

I told him that he and Mother had certainly always loved us (my brother, Mike, and me) well, then teased a bit, saying I couldn’t say the same about Mike; big brothers and baby sisters don’t always get along. He said, “You’ll always be that.” “Mike’s baby sister?” I asked; “You’ll always be,” he said; “you can’t catch up with him.” (His “baby sister” is 81 and that’s what he still calls her, too.)

When I leaned down and hugged him, he said, “I appreciate that.” A little later, I leaned down again to put my head against his chest, and he lifted his hand and put it on my head, patting my hair with his fingertips; he didn’t want me to sit up and held my hand tightly for a long time after I did. Today (and a couple of days ago as well), he stared at me for a long time, silently, Mother saying he seemed to be memorizing my face; then he told me, “You’re pretty” – words no girl is ever too old to hear from her daddy.

A conversation about pictures came about because K had our camera with him and Daddy noticed it. Daddy talked about taking pictures (he and Mother took a lot over the years) and said something in question form about “where and why”; when I said, “why did you take so many pictures? So we can remember it all,” he grinned that same old grin that’s always characterized his happy, a bit mischievous mood.

When we left, he told us, “I’ll be here when you get back.”

Lenten Reading

I have decided to read Richard John Neuhaus's Death on a Friday Afternoon again for Lent. So far I've got blue ink underlining and marginalia from a couple of years of readings and green highlighting from last year; I'm highlighting with pink this year. Pretty soon it will be easier to read what's not marked than what is . . . . I'll be posting quotes and occasionally thoughts during my reading. Most likely there will be plenty of repetition from my other postings on the book, but wisdom always bears repeating and rethinking and reliving.

The book is a series of meditations on the "seven last words" of the Savior on the Cross, an invitation to "stay awhile" with Good Friday before "rushing on" to Easter Sunday -- for without the death there is no resurrection. The first "word" is "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and so is a meditation on the nature of forgiveness. Neuhaus gives an excellent rendition of the story of the prodigal son which points up the father's longing for the son's return and the son's return to his senses in the far country.

But what's caught my attention more this time, so far, is what Neuhaus says about identity. The entire book focuses a great deal on the question of who we are and who gets to answer that question. Here in the first chapter he writes of the crucifixion, "Every human life, conceived from eternity and destined for eternity, here finds its story truly told. In this killing that some call senseless we are brought to our senses. Here we find out who we most truly are, because here is the One who is what we are called to be." We recoil from following Him to the Cross, Neuhaus notes, but "we will not know what to do with Easter's light if we shun the friendship of the darkness that is wisdom's way to light." Later he adds, "We know ourselves most truly in knowing Christ, for in Him is our truest self."

We dare not name ourselves. The only way to sanity, to peace, to Love, is to accept His name for us, to know ourselves in Him and not in our own self-centered desires -- to die to self and live in Him. I hope for that to become still more of a reality this Lenten season.

"Witnesses"

In Chapter 5 of Death on a Friday Afternoon, Neuhaus addresses the fifth word of Jesus from the Cross: "I thirst." He emphasizes the traditional missionary nature of the words -- Christ's thirsting for lost souls, the Fountain of life who quenches their thirst for Him: "I thirst; I quench," as written above the doors of the Sisters of Charity missions of Mother Theresa.

But throughout the chapter runs a thread which especially draws me: the gospel is a story, Neuhaus reminds us, a story we both live and tell. "It is the true story about the world and everybody in the world," Neuhaus writes, "the story of the amazing grace by which [the world] is redeemed." It is also the story of "our lives in the world," of how we are to live: we are the salt and light of the world, Jesus tells us -- not our message merely, but we ourselves, the lives we live not just on faraway mission fields but in the daily round of the ordinary wherever we find ourselves.

It is the story of everyone in the world, Neuhaus says, "whether they know it or not. [. . .] The Church is the mission of Christ, who continues to seek and to save the lost who do not know their story. Their story is Christ, the way, the truth, and the life of all." Through us, "Christ, the lover, proposes" to the lost.

Christ's story is the story of "fidelity to the Father to the very end, to the death." To effect our salvation, to redeem this lost world, Christ had to "[lay[ down His life [in] perfect obedience, abandonment, loss of control, committing all to the Father." He "trusts that the Father will not finally abandon Him," Neuhaus concedes, but reminds us too that His "trust is vindicated only after the cup is emptied," after His complete abandonment to the Father's will" -- "not My will but Thine be done."

And the invitation to us is, yes, a proposal to be the Bride in all her loveliness when He comes into His kingdom -- but also, and more immediately, to "share in His suffering." Christ "did not suffer and die in order that we need not suffer and die, but in order that our suffering and death might be joined to His in redemptive victory." We are offered the astonishing privilege of "participation in the suffering of Christ" as part of what it means to live Christ's life in a suffering world. As He emptied Himself for our sake, abandoned Himself entirely to the Father's will, so we too are invited to empty ourselves to His will, so we too live to His glory.

To live to His glory, Neuhaus reminds us, is not a "driven, frenetic, sweated, interminable quest for saving souls. It is doing for His glory what God has given us to do." We are not all called to deepest Africa or the darkness of the inner city. But wherever we are called, we are to live to please God: "Souls are saved," Neuhaus writes, "by saved souls who live out their salvation by thinking and living differently, with a martyr's resolve, in a world marked by falsehood, baseness, injustice, impurity, ugliness and mediocrity." We do this freely, confident in His love, "with a kind of reckless abandon that is holy insouciance," knowing that our only Judge is the loving Father of the Son He gave to redeem us.

Our story is His story -- a story of abandonment to the Creator-Father who desires our redemption, a story of participation in the suffering of His Son to redeem the suffering of a lost world, a story for all people for all time. Christ thirsts for lost souls, for our souls. He "thirsts for those who throw away their lives in the everydayness of duties discerned and duties done" -- those who will live His story, day in and day out, trusting that He will glorify Himself in our obedience and self-abandonment.

Where is my heart?

I found this quotation at The Catholic Thing tonight and thought it especially appropriate for Lent (and especially appropriate for me for every day . . .):

"Where is my heart?" What is the prevailing disposition that determines its attitude, the real mainspring that keeps the rest of its movement going? It may, perhaps, be some long-existing tendency: some attachment or bitterness or aversion. It may be just a momentary impression: but so deep and strong that it has affected the heart long afterwards. In the "habitual" examination of conscience, we ask ourselves, "Where is my heart?" And thus, often during the day, we uncover the disposition and inclination of our heart at the moment and so penetrate to its central core, from which our various works and deeds and activities issue. We discover the chief wellsprings of good and evil within ourselves. ---Benedict Baur

More Neuhaus

Some quotations from Chapter 1 of Death on a Friday Afternoon, which will have to stand on their own. They are making me think, but not necessarily coherently enough to articulate anything worth adding to them.

On our tending to ignore Good Friday (and indeed all suffering) and "hurry on" to Easter (and any good news that sets aside pain): "But we will not know what to do with Easter's light if we shun the friendship of the darkness that is wisdom's way to light."

On our sin: "This is the awful truth: that we made necessary the baby crying in the cradle to become the derelict crying from the cross" (emphasis added).

On forgiveness: "Love does not say to the beloved that it [the beloved's sin] does not matter, for the beloved matters."

On sin and our identity: "Our lives are measured by who we are created and called to be, and the measuring is done by the One who creates and calls. [. . .] The judgment that matters is the judgment of God, who alone judges justly. In the cross we see the rendering of the verdict on the gravity of our sin. [. . .] None of our sins are small or of little account. To belittle our sins is to belittle ourselves, to belittle who it is that God creates and calls us to be." This called to mind Pauline in Descent into Hell: her terrible fear of her doppleganger, whom she believes to be some harbinger of evil, yet is in reality that astoundingly glorious being that God had intended her to be -- and only in learning to see and acknowledge her sins, and then to lean, to trust, and to sacrificially love others, is she at last able to see that glory and embrace it as her own created identity.

A bit further, Neuhaus writes of being our brother's keeper: "[W]e know we are [our brother's keeper]. We don't know what to do about it, but we know that if we lose our hold on that impossible truth, we have lost everything." As, indeed, Wentworth does in his demand to be enough in and for himself: to hell with the rest of the world, he says -- and yet he is the one descending into that terrible place of judgment.

And finally for today, on the cross: "The perfect self-surrender of the cross is, from eternity and to eternity, at the heart of what it means to say that God is love." All praise to Him.

Not Quite Christmas

I’ve been trying all day to think of a happy Christmas message to write, but I don’t seem to have one this year. It’s been an odd break, not Christmas-like – I’m used to being with my parents this time of year, and I haven’t had the energy or inclination (hooray for end-of-semester exhaustion, plus toothaches, plus medication that adds headaches as a final insult) to be the least bit festive. Not that I’m especially able at creating that mood even at my best.

So it’s been a quiet day at home, nothing very special except for the phone calls to and from family members elsewhere. I’ve mainly spent the break, including today, sleeping and working on prep for next semester’s classes; we ordered books for the YM’s spring classes today and a few for me. And part of me has struggled with feeling sad and lonely and generally in a the-world’s-not-fair mood.

But one of my tasks has been re-reading Charles Williams’ Descent Into Hell, prepping to teach it next semester. And so I am reminded that I am not here to feel good. I am here to love God and my neighbor, to take joy not in circumstances but in Him and in His people, to bear the burdens of others as others have so often borne mine, to recognize His love in all the wild and quiet, wonderful and quotidian ways that it is manifest in this world He created, marred though it has become. Under the Mercy, as Peter Stanhope would say.

So . . . my youngest turns 18 in two days – that’s something to celebrate. We drove around town and enjoyed Christmas lights tonight – what beauty God allows us to create.* My oldest son and his family sacrificed his leave time to make the long drive to visit my parents – how God manifests His love in His children. I have a husband who loves me and does so many lovely sweet things to show it – not every wife is so blessed. I sit here surrounded by books – and how less rich my life would be without those many voices that challenge and comfort and bless me. Tomorrow, then, I shall try to remember His blessings, and not allow the inevitable sorrows of a broken world to negate His beauty that still shines forth in it. Under the Mercy . . .

* (You can see the YM’s excellent photographs from the drive, along with many others, at Vesta Photography. He’s good – really good. And I don’t think I’m overly biased . . .)

Charlie Peacock

This week we’ve had a star on campus – singer, songwriter, pianist, producer, author, and more. Yet you wouldn’t have known it to see him walking the campus in jeans and sneakers, and a sweatshirt to hold off the sudden cold, with a quiet word and a warm smile for anyone who greets him: self-effacing and God-honoring, humble – and yet confident in his identity as a child of the Father called to be a musician for His glory in the created world.

I’ve appreciated Charlie’s wisdom these past three days. I hope to give more specifics when grading subsides (or I give up pretending that I might get caught up), but one thing I especially appreciated is his emphasis on story. The gospel, of course, is a story, from Genesis – “I am making all things” – to Revelation – “I am making all things new.” Can you tell this story, beginning to end, he asked us – with or without reference to Scripture – to anyone? Can you apply the story to the world – all the world? because the Creator is interested in everything He has made, contemporary church life, yes, but all the rest of His world just as much.

Creativity is a spiritual labor, Charlie reminded us: submit your creative work to the Holy Spirit and tell the story to point people to the truth, to leave the world a better place than it was when you arrived. He spoke of this gospel story as the “controlling story” of the world, of our lives, and reminded us to wake each morning with thankfulness for His new mercies, then step into the story and live out our roles, wherever God has called us.

I kept thinking of the Willow Tree angel LuCindy gave me, the one holding a book, called the angel of learning. But LuCindy wrote this for me on the accompanying card: “She’s called the angel of learning, but to me she is a constant reminder [. . .] to turn loose and trust my Abba to write my story, moment by moment, in faith that He will make it more light-filled and wondrous than I ever could.”

So a bonus blessing from Charlie’s time with us – a reminder of my friend’s loving generosity and of her message through his. Blessings abound; if I can remember that the story is His, I will better see them as I walk through each day in His grace.

Blue Skies

I have had several occasions this semester to remind students that we stand before God and not before man. There was the young woman who had to finish several incompletes, the result of illness last semester, and so fell behind and did poorly on her first essay for my lit class. "Did you do the best you could with what you had?" I asked her. When she nodded through her tears, I reminded her, "Then you can stand before God without shame and be unconcerned with your grade. His judgment of your character is far more important than your performance on this essay, or my evaluation of it." And with the incompletes out of the way, she went on to do well in the class; God did not let her fail because of circumstances beyond her control.

He may have done so, however. There was, too, the young woman pouring herself into her classes, valiently fighting freshman homesickness and discouragement, and yet -- despite her intelligence, understanding, and hard work -- somehow not making the grades she could have legitimately expected. "What might God be teaching you about trust?" I asked her when we talked about an assignment she had done poorly on. "Might He be inviting you to trust Him without seeing results, to know His love for you despite a less-than-stellar performance? Perhaps the struggle itself is His gift to you this semester?"

We can only ever do the best we can in any circumstances. We don't have any more. We have only the knowledge and the wisdom thus far gained, only the time and energy granted, only the desire to give enough, knowing that what we have may never be enough, not from man's perspective, and not in a broken world. And after that -- the results are His, and our job is to learn to accept them, not rail against them or despair over them when they aren't what we'd like . . .

On a Jorma CD, Stars in My Crown, that a dear friend sent me, my favorite song has become "Heart Temporary":

Blue skies in the morning,
Stars, they fill the night.
Fall wind rustling through the trees
Sings a song of great delight.
On such a day you think you'd say
Exactly what you mean.
But in God's perfection, things ain't always
Just the way they seem.

chorus:
When the best you have to offer
Falls short of the mark,
Self-inflicted holes are piercin'
Deep within your heart.

Blue skies in the afternoon,
Breeze, it starts to still;
Two dogs sleepin' in the sun,
They lie upon that grassy hill.
At such a time you think you'd find
A way to share your heart,
But though you're reaching for her hand,
Still you walk apart.

(chorus)

Sun upon that old barn roof
Celebrates the day.
I hold this moment in my hand,
Follow it along my way.
The future flows; this feeling grows
Outside my window sill.
By letting go, I might escape
The prison of my will.

(chorus)

When the best you have to offer
Is all you have to give,
Enjoy the moment: God has granted
One more day to live.

Blue skies out my window
Said good-bye to early morning rain.

Under the Mercy

So I got two novels by Charles Williams last week -- War In Heaven and Descent into Hell -- and inhaled them both over the weekend. (Really, they are pretty short, I swear.) I've been finding in the past couple of years that I much prefer to just take in a novel wholesale and then, if it has spoken to me, go back and re-read it, perhaps many times, at a slower pace to figure out why I fell in love with it. I shall revisit both these novels, and the other two Williams novels I have , over the summer, not to mention adding to my collection till I have them all . . .

War in Heaven is a grail story, superbly done in Williams' inimitable style, bringing together the most unlikely group to save the holy object. Williams suggests through the story also the most unlikely -- from our human perspective -- possibilities for individual salvation, reminding me of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh, who also make much of our human frailties and God's mercy.

But Descent into Hell is the one that had me barely breathing Sunday evening. Williams takes the understanding that self-absorption is hell and shows the temptations to it, the ways out of it, and the consequences of choosing both rightly and wrongly. It is horrifying in its picture of Lawrence Wentworth's fall, and there is nothing simplistic about Pauline Anstruther's salvation from the same fate. It is a true book . . .

Rambling notes:
There are doppelgangers, suicide, ghosts walking, visions of heaven and of hell, the temptress Lilith (whose story I really must become more familiar with; so many of my favorite writers make use of it), the doctrine of substitution applied in our lives in a more compelling way than I've ever seen it, and again the constant suggestion that the slightest choice that is not evil could serve to put us on the way of salvation . . .

Early on, one of the characters says to poet Peter Stanhope, whose latest play they are going to produce, that "nature is so terribly good."

He agrees, but taking her literally: "it comes from doing so much writing, but when I say 'terribly' I think I mean 'full of terror'. A dreadful goodness."

She replies resentfully, "If things are good they're not terrifying, are they?"

Pauline, who confronts daily her own personal terror, interjects at this point the question, "And if things are terrifying, can they be good?'

Stanhope: "Yes, surely. Are our tremors to measure the Omnipotence?"

At the end, "Under the Mercy," Stanhope tells Pauline. "Go in peace, under the Mercy."

"Because I do not hope"

from T. S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for
there is nothing again.

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice.

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And I pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death,
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

-- T. S. Eliot

"Thanks, Robert Frost"

Thanks to my dear friend Pamela, who yesterday handed me a copy of a poem by David Ray which gives a lovely and needed perspective on hope.

Thanks, Robert Frost

Do you have hope for the future?

someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.

Yes, and even for the past, he replied,

that it will turn out to have been all right

for what it was, something we can accept,

mistakes made by the selves we had to be,

not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,

or what looking back half the time it seems

we could so easily have been, or ought . . .

The future, yes, and even for the past,

that it will become something we can bear.

And I too, and my children, so I hope,

will recall as not too heavy the tug

of those albatrosses I sadly placed 

upon their tender necks.  Hope for the past,

yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage, 

and it brings strange peace that itself passes

into past, easier to bear because

you said it, rather casually, as snow

went on falling in Vermont years ago.