November 10: "Beaver Moon--The Suicide of a Friend," Becoming Unbearable, Christmas Fanatic

Mary Oliver loses a friend . . . 

Beaver Moon--The Suicide of a Friend

by:  Mary Oliver

When somewhere life

breaks like a pane of glass,

and from every direction casual

voices are bringing you the news,

you say:  I should have known.  

You say:  I should have been aware. 

That last Friday he looked

so ill, like an old mountain-climber

lost on the white trails, listening

to the ice breaking upward, under

his worn-out shoes.  You say:

what could I have done? and you go

with the rest, to bury him.

That night, you turn in your bed

to watch the moon rise, and once more

see what a small coin it is

against the darkness, and how everything else

is a mystery, and you know

nothing at all except 

the moonlight is beautiful--

white rivers running together

along the bare boughs of the trees--

and somewhere, for someone, life

is becoming moment by moment

unbearable.

Yes, it is that time of year.  The days are getting shorter and shorter.  I drive to work in the dark, return home in the dark.  The boughs of the trees are bare, and, as Oliver says, somewhere, for someone, life is becoming unbearable.

If you haven't noticed, I have been sporadic in posting blogs recently.  I've fallen out of the habit of daily writing.  There are a few reasons why.  Library busyness.  Exhaustion at night.  Schoolwork.  Library work.  Family work.  I've tried to blog, but I struggle.  A lot.  My thoughts seem to slip through my fingers like a salamander.

Plus, in the past couple years, I tend to experience some pretty dark moments as the holidays approach.  Which is a strange thing for me.  My whole life, I've been a Christmas fanatic.  The day after Halloween would usually find me dragging out my Christmas decorations and decking the halls.  Not so much these days.

I still love Christmas.  The lights.  Movies.  TV shows.  Music.  Peace on Earth.  All that jazz.  However, I've become much more aware of the surrounding darkness.  There's a scene in many of the film adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol where Marley makes Scrooge look out a window.  Scrooge sees countless specters filling the air with cries of lamentation and sorrow.  That's sort where my holiday headspace has been these past few years.

This month, the Beaver Moon happens on November 27.  I feel myself sliding toward that day like Oliver's friend who looks like "an old mountain-climber / lost on the white trails . . ."  Don't worry.  I'm not thinking of self harm.  However, there's a sort of melancholic black snow falling on my head right now.  Last year, this snow held on and on, finally melting away when June rolled in.  I'm hoping spring comes a little faster this time 'round.

I know I'm not the only person who has these struggles.  I also know most people's lives are a lot more difficult than mine.  As Oliver points out in her poem, the moon is a small coin of light against the coal of the heavens.  This time of year, I am acutely aware of this fact.

So, I try to be kind--to myself and to most people I meet.  Because you never know when that kindness is exactly the live preserver a person drowning in darkness needs.

Saint Marty wishes all of his faithful disciples sunrises in the coming weeks.  

December 26: A Mysterious Attraction, Keep Christmas Alive, Togetherness

Merton rereads James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist and finds something new . . . 

My reading became more and more Catholic.  I became absorbed in the poetry of Hopkins and in his notebooks—that poetry which had only impressed me a little six years before. Now, too, I was deeply interested in Hopkins’ life as a Jesuit. What was that life? What did the Jesuits do? What did a priest do? How did he live? I scarcely knew where to begin to find out about all such things: but they had started to exercise a mysterious attraction over me. 

And here is a strange thing. I had by now read James Joyce’s Ulysses twice or three times. Six years before—on one of those winter vacations in Strasbourg—I had tried to read Portrait of the Artist and had bogged down in the part about his spiritual crisis. Something about it had discouraged, bored, and depressed me. I did not want to read about such a thing: and I finally dropped it in the middle of the “Mission.” Strange to say, sometime during this summer—I think it was before the first time I went to Corpus Christi—I reread Portrait of the Artist and was fascinated precisely by that part of the book, by the “Mission,” by the priest’s sermon on hell. What impressed me was not the fear of hell, but the expertness of the sermon. Now, instead of being repelled by the thought of such preaching—which was perhaps the author’s intention—I was stimulated and edified by it. The style in which the priest in the book talked, pleased me by its efficiency and solidity and drive: and once again there was something eminently satisfying in the thought that these Catholics knew what they believed, and knew what to teach, and all taught the same thing, and taught it with coordination and purpose and great effect. It was this that struck me first of all, rather than the actual subject matter of their doctrine—until, that is, I heard the sermon at Corpus Christi. 

So then I continued to read Joyce, more and more fascinated by the pictures of priests and Catholic life that came up here and there in his books. That, I am sure, will strike many people as a strange thing indeed. I think Joyce himself was only interested in rebuilding the Dublin he had known as objectively and vitally as he could. He was certainly very alive to all the faults in Irish Catholic society, and he had practically no sympathy left for the Church he had abandoned: but in his intense loyalty to the vocation of artist for which he had abandoned it (and the two vocations are not per se irreconcilable: they only became so because of peculiar subjective circumstances in Joyce’s own case) he meant to be as accurate as he could in rebuilding his world as it truly was. 

Therefore, reading Joyce, I was moving in his Dublin, and breathing the air of its physical and spiritual slums: and it was not the most Catholic side of Dublin that he always painted. But in the background was the Church, and its priests, and its devotions, and the Catholic life in all its gradations, from the Jesuits down to those who barely clung to the hem of the Church’s garments. And it was this background that fascinated me now, along with the temper of Thomism that had once been in Joyce himself If he had abandoned St. Thomas, he had not stepped much further down than Aristotle. 

I frequently turn back to books that I have read, sometimes reread, many times, much like Thomas Merton in the above passage.  And, like Merton, I find new things each time I return.  Last night, after the presents were opened, turkey dinner eaten, and Zoom family meetings ended, I sat down on my couch and read.  Poems from Joseph Brodsky.  Parts of A Christmas Carol.  Old friends, made new in light of the waning days of this pandemic year.

Now, December 26th.  Non-Christmas lovers will have their trees down and decorations put away by nightfall.  People will turn away from the lights of yesterday and begin to anticipate the last days of a pretty wretched year.  As if, at the stroke of midnight on December 31st, the shadows of COVID and Donald Trump and racism and unemployment and recession/depression will vanish like the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

I'm a Christmas person.  Usually, the day after, I sit in my living room, staring at the lights on my tree, piles of presents beneath it, and fall into a funk.  A blueness that hangs over me well into the new year.  Today, however, I don't feel that particular absence.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I am still in quarantine.  Will be until the fifth day of January.  

I am able to keep Christmas alive because of this.  Won't have to drive down streets and see Christmas trees lying on people's lawns, branches webbed with leftover tinsel, waiting to be gathered and burned in the fires of January.  I can sit in my living room, keep visiting Brodsky and Dickens and Oscar Hijuelos (Mr. Ives' Christmas--still my favorite Christmas novel of all time).  Watch my favorite holiday movies.  George Bailey and Jo March.  Members of the Stone family.  Ebenezer Scrooge and Scott Calvin.  All without the reminders of undecorating and unlighting and un-Christmasing.

Here's the thing:  I really do subscribe to the notion of keeping Christmas alive all the year 'round.  My old friend, Scrooge, said it best:  "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.  I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.  The spirits of all Three shall strive within me."  That is me.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I will not be taking down my Christmas tree any time soon.  I will thrive in its light, like a Christmas cactus, well into 2021.

You see, it's not about retail sales or economics.  Those things are small bits of cosmic dust in the Christmas universe.  Brief flashes through the atmosphere.  Don't get me wrong:  I love getting presents.  However, it's really not about the gift, but the person who gives me the gift.  It's about thriving in the fact that someone loves and appreciates me.  That's what I try to keep alive all year.  Just like Scrooge.  George Bailey, too.  

These old friends from favorite books and movies have taught me an additional lesson this year, as well.  With the virus stripping away so many of the normal yuletide traditions, all that is left is this:  human connection.  It's what everyone is craving these days.  It's what I get rereading A Christmas Carol and Brodsky's Nativity Poems.  I know these characters.  These writers.  These words.  They come to me, gather around me in the kitchen.  The way everyone does at a holiday party.  Because that's where the food is.  The alcohol.  Jokes and laughter.  Where everyone feels most comfortable.  Together.

It's why, yesterday, we crowded around laptops to see each other's faces.  Because we are starved for family and friends.  For embrace.  Fellowship.  Each other.  In this year, more than any other, that is the greatest gift that no virus can dispel.  Our indomitable will for connection.  We found ways to fill that hunger.  Safe and loving ways.  We went the extra mile, because it was important to us.  Necessary.

Here are a few snapshots from quarantine today:

• My beautiful friends Helen and Gala sent me texts this morning about the stuffed Bigfoot I got for Christmas.  Togetherness.
• My beautiful puppy sat by my side on the couch all day as I wrote and read and watched movies.  Togetherness.
• My beautiful kids have been enjoying their Christmas presents all day--computer games, electric toothbrushes, computer chairs.  Togetherness.
• My beautiful daughter enjoyed eating the sugar cookies I baked on Christmas Eve.  A lot.  Togetherness.
• Tonight, I will be planning out my book club that's meeting tomorrow evening.  Discussion questions.  Facebook posts.  Zoom invites.  The author of the book is a wonderful friend of mine, and he's going to be joining us.  Togetherness.
• Later, I will work on a chapbook manuscript that I hope to submit to a contest this January.  A poet friend gave me revision suggestions.  Hoping to create something beautiful.  Togetherness.

It's getting dark outside now.  People are switching on the lights of their Christmas trees.  Soon, I'll heat up some leftover turkey and mashed potatoes.  Maybe I'll eat a sugar cookie.  Ebenezer will be with me.  George Bailey and Joseph Brodsky.  Truman Capote and O. Henry.  Family, each and every one.

Saint Marty gives thanks tonight for the miracle of togetherness--with books, authors, friends, and family.

December 21: Winter Stolstice, Bethlehem Star, "A Christmas Carol"

 Greetings, stargazers!

On this winter solstice, for the first time in 800 years, Jupiter and Saturn joined together in the night sky to create what people are calling the Bethlehem star.  A bright eye in the heavens.  To put that into perspective, the last time these two planets were this close to each other, the restoration of the Cathedral of Chartres was completed after it was destroyed by fire in 1194.  Francis of Assisi handed over the governance of the Franciscan Order to Brother Peter Catani.  The world was 100 years away from the Black Plague, which killed one third of the population of Europe.  The Spanish Inquisition began in 1230, and Marco Polo traveled to China in 1270.  The foundation stone of Salisbury Cathedral was laid.  And Christmas Day, 1220, fell on a Wednesday.

I had planned to witness this celestial event.  However, being a resident of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the skies do not always cooperate.  Heavy snow clouds tonight.  No stars or moon visible.  The Star of Bethlehem remains hidden from this particular magi.  

Yet, it was a magical evening.  The sun disappeared around 5 p.m.  At 7 p.m., a group of my actor friends got together for a dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, an adaptation by James Hutchison.  It was a fundraiser that I organized for local homeless shelters.  And it was glorious.  

Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors, and my mother first read me A Christmas Carol when I was about six or seven years old.  So, as I sat at my laptop and listened to the performance, it was almost like sitting next to my mother as she read, "Marley was dead to begin with with  . . ."

I spent most of the day in preparation for this program, sending out emails to the actors and presenters.  Updating promotional information.  Writing introductions.  By the time Jupiter and Saturn were dancing, the reading had begun.  

For most of my adult life, I worked in the healthcare industry.  It was work that I enjoyed, and it provided my family with insurance and a steady income.  However, it was not work that fed my creative soul.  Now, working for the library, I'm able to produce staged readings of plays, organize poetry and musical events.  Last Monday, I spent a few hours composing a poem for a Christmas video.  And I'm getting PAID to do all of it.  Paid to create art.

That is an amazing privilege.  

Here are a few snapshots of my day:

• Today was my beautiful daughter's last day of quarantine.  She is now considered "recovered" from COVID, even though she still can smell or taste nothing.
• My beautiful actor friends gave a tremendous performance of A Christmas Carol, and it was viewed by people as far away as Australia.
• I sent a recording of my annual Christmas essay to the local Public Radio station.  I hope there is some beauty in it. 
• After the performance was over, I was exhausted.  I changed into my pajamas, popped the beautiful movie Love Actually into the Blu-ray player, sat on my couch, and promptly fell asleep.  I woke up at 2 a.m. and finished this blog post.

There is grace at work in my life.  A pastor friend defines grace as evidence of God's ridiculously extravagant love for us.  We don't earn grace.  It's simply given to us.

On this shortest day and longest night of the year, with Saturn and Jupiter embracing in the heavens, Saint Marty was the recipient of God's extravagant love.  For that miracle, he gives thanks.

December 20: Annual Christmas Essay, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, "Bigfoot Noel"

Sorry that I didn't post anything yesterday.  I spent more than 11 hours working on my annual Christmas essay.  A long day of trying to create something.  It was the normal thing--I try to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into my essay, and hope that it all comes together in the end.

Well, I started writing at 7 a.m., and by 6 p.m., I had something that passed muster.  At least, I think it does.  Today has reminded me of something, though:  writing is hard work.  Writer Carlos Ruiz Zafon says this on the subject:

It's hard work, writing, you know.  Honestly, a fight every day against your own limitations.  You have to squeeze books out of your brain, you're constantly trying to solve challenges.  I think most writers enjoy the feeling of having written something, rather than the process of writing it.

I would agree with that sentiment.  I like what I've gotten down on paper, but the process of creation has been painful today, moving in fits and starts.  That's the way it has been for the past month with me.  Blog posts take me hours, and a six-page, single-spaced essay--at least two or three very long days.

But, my essay is done, and I can move onto my next writing project:  my annual Christmas poem.  I don't want to even think about how long that is going to take me.  I love writing--even when it is difficult.  When I know that I'm going to be scribbling away in my journal, or stabbing at my keyboard, I am always filled with a wonderful kind of anticipation.

Here is a snapshot of my day:

• Got up at 7 a.m. and started writing.  Not sure if what I wrote was beautiful, but it felt good.
• Led a rehearsal for a reader's theater Zoom production of A Christmas Carol, and got to watch ten beautiful, talented actors perform.
• My beautiful little sister (-in-law) Cori picked up our grocery order for us this evening.
•  Watched the beautiful Christmas move Love Actually tonight.

Quarantine continues to bring all kinds of blessings into my life, even if those blessings come with struggle.

Marty really is a lucky, lucky saint.

. . . and a poem from a few years ago:

Bigfoot Noel

by:  Martin Achatz

He slouches through this night,
an eclipse of hair and muscle and foot,
guided by some wild nova
in the chambers of his Neanderthal
chest. It’s an ancient story,
Precambrian even, about ice,
juniper berry in the deadest of winter.
Digging through dermal frost
to root and worm. Mushroom
caps in frozen moss, strips
of pine gnawed into sweet paste.
And moon held in knuckles of sumac.

Yes, it’s about need and hunger,
a bottomless lake carved by glacier.
It’s wilderness, the blind
sound of nebulae exploding seventy
million miles a day. Ice Age. Meteor
rain. Seraphim screaming hosannas
over panicked rams. Starlight and manure.
The coming of Something
ferocious, untamable.

He knows all this somehow,
the way he knows where salmon leap, spawn.
He stands at the edge of a clearing,
stares up, into the hills, toward
an empty cave. He tilts back
his head, opens his throat, sings a song
for the evolution of love.

image by satanfudge.com

October 18-21: Doing Good, New Job, Abiding Love

 Thomas Merton becomes disenchanted with Communism . . .

My active part in the world revolution was not very momentous. It lasted, in all, about three months. I picketed the Casa Italiana, I went to the Peace Strike, and I think I made some kind of a speech in the big classroom on the second floor of the Business School, where the N.S.L. had their meetings. Maybe it was a speech on Communism in England—a topic about which I knew absolutely nothing; in that case, I was loyally living up to the tradition of Red oratory. I sold some pamphlets and magazines. I don’t know what was in them, but I could gather their contents from the big black cartoons of capitalists drinking the blood of workers. 

Finally, the Reds had a party. And, of all places, in a Park Avenue apartment. This irony was the only amusing thing about it. And after all it was not so ironical. It was the home of some Barnard girl who belonged to the Young Communist League and her parents had gone away for the weekend. I could get a fair picture of them from the way the furniture looked, and from the volumes of Nietszche and Schopenhauer and Oscar Wilde and Ibsen that filled the bookcases. And there was a big grand piano on which someone played Beethoven while the Reds sat around on the floor. Later we had a sort of Boy Scout campfire group in the living room, singing heavy Communist songs, including that delicate anti-religious classic, “There’ll be pie in the sky when you die.”

One little fellow with buck teeth and horn-rimmed glasses pointed to two windows in a corner of one of the rooms. They commanded a whole sweep of Park Avenue in one direction and the cross-town street in another. “What a place for a machine-gun nest,” he observed. The statement came from a middle-class adolescent. It was made in a Park Avenue apartment. He had evidently never even seen a machine-gun, except in the movies. If there had been a revolution going on at the time, he would have probably been among the first to get his head knocked off by the revolutionists. And in any case he, like all the rest of us, had just finished making the famous Oxford Pledge that he would not fight in any war whatever... 

One reason why I found the party so dull was that nobody was very enthusiastic about getting something to drink except me. Finally one of the girls encouraged me, in a businesslike sort of a way, to go out and buy bottles of rye at a liquor store around the corner on Third Avenue, and when I had drunk some of the contents she invited me into a room and signed me up as a member of the Young Communist League. I took the party name of Frank Swift. When I looked up from the paper the girl had vanished like a not too inspiring dream, and I went home on the Long Island Railroad with the secret of a name which I have been too ashamed to reveal to anyone until this moment when I am beyond humiliation. 

I only went to one meeting of the Young Communist League, in the apartment of one of the students. It was a long discussion as to why Comrade So-and-so did not come to any of the meetings. The answer was that his father was too bourgeois to allow it. So after that, I walked out into the empty street, and let the meeting end however it would. 

It was good to be in the fresh air. My footsteps rang out on the dark stones. At the end of the street, the pale amber light of a bar-room beckoned lovingly to me from under the steel girders of the elevated. The place was empty. I got a glass of beer and lit a cigarette and tasted the first sweet moment of silence and relief. 

And that was the end of my days as a great revolutionary. I decided that it would be wiser if I just remained a “fellow-traveller.” The truth is that my inspiration to do something for the good of mankind had been pretty feeble and abstract from the start. I was still interested in doing good for only one person in the world—myself.

Merton is young.  He has some kind of urge to make the world a better place for humankind, but he lacks the skills to do it at the moment.  He's too focused on his own needs and wants to worry about anyone else's.  That's pretty typical for a teenager.  A teenager doesn't see the big picture.  It's too hard to have a broader vision when all you're focused on is your own pain and awkwardness.

I have been preoccupied these last few days myself.  I started my new job two days ago, you see.  I am now the Adult Programming Coordinator for Peter White Public Library in Marquette, Michigan.  That means that I get to sit in an office most days, dreaming up events and readings and concerts and performances.  For instance, today I worked on a program for December that involves a virtual reader's theater of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  I spent over an hour just hunting down a good script to use.  And I got paid to do it.

This is sort of a dream job for me--earning money for creating and promoting art.  While, at the moment, I feel a little overwhelmed, I am slowly but surely finding my footing.  For a half hour this afternoon, I caught up with a friend of mine I haven't spoken with in a long time.  We directed and acted in musicals together way back.  I'm trying to involve her in one of my dream projects.  It was a wonderful half hour or so of catching up.  And tomorrow, I get to work at home, sitting at my kitchen table with my laptop, e-mailing and dreaming some more.

In a year that has been marked only by struggle in so many areas of my life (personal, political, parental, professional), these last few days at the library have been quiet and productive and thrilling.  Yet, there are still struggles present.  My son's constant battle with going to school.  My daughter's recent heartbreak and confusion.  My daughter's boyfriend of four years, and his heartbreak and despair.  I just want the world, and everyone I love in it, to be safe and happy.  

So, tonight, I pray for my son--that he will find his excitement for learning again.  I pray for my daughter--that she will know love and peace once more.  I pray for my daughter's boyfriend of four years--that he will realize that he is still loved and that his happiness is inside of himself. 

All of these miracles are about abiding love in some way, and Saint Marty's greatest faith is in the power of love.

November 28: Day of Thankfulness, Good Friend, "Bigfoot Gives Thanks"

I didn't want this day of thankfulness to pass without sharing some thoughts before I head off to bed.

Sometimes, life doesn't turn out the way you expect.  A snow storm hits, and suddenly you're stranded in an airport instead of eating turkey and mashed potatoes with your family.  You wake up in the morning, and your car won't start.  A second-rate reality television star becomes President of the United States.  

Life simply has a way of throwing curve balls at you all the time.

I have a good friend who's hurting this evening.  A person full of love and smiles, all the time.  My friend's life has been affected significantly by addiction.  The person she loves the most has become a stranger to her.  I understand the pain and grief  that she's going through.  It's like dragging fathoms and fathoms of chains around with you, to borrow an image from A Christmas Carol.  No matter where you are, what your'e doing, who you're with--you just can't escape it.

Today is Thanksgiving.  This morning, my friend texted me and said, "I'm just not feeling it."

I want to remind my friend that she is surrounded by angels.  She can be thankful for that.  I want to remind her that, even in the eye of the hurricane, she can find peace.  She can be thankful for that.  And I want to remind her, especially, that life isn't defined by curve balls.  It's defined by how much she is loved.  She can be thankful for that.

Be well, my friend.  I said a prayer for you this evening.  It was a prayer of thanks.  That you exist, and that you bring light into the world.

You are one of the blessings in Saint Marty's life this Thanksgiving.

Bigfoot Gives Thanks

by:  Martin Achatz

after Gerard Manley Hopkins

He doesn’t chase down a turkey, wring

its pink neck like a wet dish rag,

gut it with his thumb, cook it

in sun and fly and maggot for days,

serve it with sides of chewed yam,

moose marrow, fermented pumpkin

guts, green with time, smelling

strong as a bear den at winter’s end.

He doesn’t smooth his hair with mud,

brush his teeth with fresh milkweed,

cram himself into a church pew

beside blue-haired widows who look

at his gorilla arms and long

to feel their dead husbands’ dark

embraces in bed at night again.

Doesn’t stand when the organ

starts breathing music, raise the siren

of his voice to “Now Thank We

All Our God” until the stained glass

rattles and fractures, letting seams

of pure white stitch all gathered

with the shook foil of the world.

No.  His way is simpler, a morning

glory leaning toward day, unfolding,

shaking off the teary dew of darkness.

Stand outside at dawn or dusk.  The bent

world is charged with his hairy

gratitude, in the long-legged shadows

of first and last light as they stretch

and stretch and stretch down the street,

across railroad trestle, through hayfields,

cornfields, into pines and poplar--

further and further and further--mountain,

swamp and lake, canyon and cave,

ocean, glacier, savanna, desert,

until, at last, they have touched it

all.  All the grandeur of deep down things.

November 27: Breach Your Last, Scratchy Pair of Pajamas, Ebenezer Scrooge

"Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby-Dick!" cried Ahab, "thy hour and harpoon are at hand!  --Down!  Down all of ye, but one man to the fore.  The boats! --stand by!" 

Sometimes, I think I understand Ahab's obsessive focus.  Morning, Moby Dick.  Afternoon, Moby Dick.  Evening, Moby Dick.  Night, Moby Dick.  For years, that has been his life, with his ivory leg to remind him if his mind wanders to contemplate things like breakfast or prayer or his young wife.  It's all he can think about.

That pretty much describes my life these last few weeks.  I've been worried about two things:  work and teaching.  It's kind of impossible for me not to be preoccupied.  It's a matter of being able to pay my bills, feed my family, and buy the medicines my family needs.  Or not.  I wake up in the middle of the night, lie in bed, and stew about it for a couple hours.  When I'm at the medical office, I look around and wonder how much longer I'll be working there.  When I'm in the classroom, my students ask me what I'm teaching next semester.  I'm like Ahab at sea--I can't escape my white whales.

Today, one of my worries was settled.  I found out the classes I will be teaching next semester.  I won't be teaching film or literature.  The life of a contingent is pretty simple:  you accept the scraps left over after all the full-timers and teaching assistants get their teaching assignments.  The pickings were pretty slim this time.  However, I have two classes.  I should be grateful.  One of my worries is gone.

My other white whale is still out there somewhere.  That means another fairly sleepless night for me.  I know that I should have a little more faith.  At least, that's what I'm taught every Sunday.  Putting my trust in my Higher Power.  That's a little difficult for me.  I'm much more comfortable with worry.  I put it on every morning like a shirt.  Change into it every night like a scratchy pair of pajamas.

My life would be so much better if I could practice what I hear preached in church.  I'm not really good with unknowns.  Or change.  I'm sitting in my living room at the moment, watching the George C. Scott version of A Christmas Carol.  I'm struck that Scrooge lives most of his life in fear.  He hoards money and possessions because he fears the possibility of failure and poverty.  His stinginess is a symptom of his lack of faith and compassion.

My life would be very different if I could leave my Ahab-self and Scrooge-self behind.  I certainly would be sleeping better.  I haven't had my Scrooge moment yet.  That's when Ebenezer abandons his fear and doubt.  When he embraces hope and joy and faith.

Saint Marty needs to be visited by three spirits tonight:  the Ghosts of Special Hot Chocolate Past, Present, and Future.

God bless us!  Everyone!  At least until the spirits wear off.

June 12: Another Story, Waiting for Rain, Publication

"Tell me another story!" begged Wilbur.

Wilbur is expressing a very human urge.  We all love to hear good stories.  That's why books like Charlotte's Web and The Catcher in the Rye and A Christmas Carol still exist.  They are wonderful tales.

I have not been reading much this week.  Nothing new resides in my book bag.  I've read a few good poems, but most of my reading has been back issues of Entertainment Weekly in my bathroom.  Yes, I deserve to be shamed.  I apologize.  In my defense, I have been working like mad on my Father's Day poem, which I will unveil to my disciples this Sunday.  Hopefully.

At the moment, I'm sitting in my office, blogging, waiting for the rain to start while my daughter is at dance rehearsal.  It looks like the heavens are really going to unleash something.  Dark, low clouds.  Plenty of wind.  Dusk falling.

I have decided that I am going to put forth a concerted effort to publish this summer.  I have a completed poetry manuscript that I need to place somewhere.  Somewhere good.  If I am ever going to get a full-time teaching position at a university anywhere, I need to publish.  Unfortunately, the old chestnut is true:  publish or perish.  I've been perishing for way too long.

Well, it's time to pick up my daughter.  No rain.

Saint Marty isn't going to get wet.  Yet.

This says it all

November 18: Favorite Things, Scrooge Obsessions, New Cartoon

It is Sunday and time to talk about one of my favorite things.

The favorite thing I'm going to talk about today is not going to come as a big surprise to any of my faithful disciples.  If you have been reading Saint Marty over the past 365 days, you know I made an oath last Christmas to focus on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol for a full year.  Well, as we draw nigh to the yuletide season once more, I have a confession:  I collect editions of A Christmas Carol.  I have illustrated editions.  I have paperback editions.  I have it on cassette tape.  I have it on CD.  I have just about every film adaptation that's ever been made.  I have been obsessed with A Christmas Carol since I was a kid.

The edition I carry around with me for my blog is in a collection titled Charles Dickens' Christmas Ghost Stories.  In this anthology, all of Dickens' creepy Christmas tales are brought together.  There's A Christmas Carol, but there's also Ghosts at Christmas and The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton and The Rapping Spirits, among others.  As I've explained before, Dickens started the tradition of telling ghost stories during the Christmas holidays.  With A Christmas Carol, Dickens basically invented Christmas as we know it.  That's why I love editions of Scrooge's story.  In them, you can find the genesis of modern Christmas traditions.

One of my dreams is owning a first edition of A Christmas Carol.  When I have a spare hundred thousand dollars or so, I may investigate the possibility.  Right now, I will have to satisfy my Carol jones with George C. Scott or Kermit the Frog or Patrick Stewart.  

Saint Marty will be doing that tonight, when he decorates his Christmas tree with his family.
Confessions of Saint Marty

January 11: Another BON Post, Begging, Ignorance and Want

Yes, this post is going to be about one of my favorite subjects:  the Blog of Note (BON).  The reason I'm writing about this subject yet again is that I just checked out yesterday's BON.  It's some guy talking about customer service and running a marathon or something.  I didn't really give it much of a perusal because I couldn't get past the fact that the author has only posted once in 2012 so far, and he only wrote like 24 or 26 posts total in 2011!

Now, either his content is so spectacular that he deserves to be the first person to win the Nobel Prize in Literature for writing a blog (which won't happen since that honor will be mine), or the good people at Blogger were really hard up yesterday.  I'm leaning toward the latter.  Either that, or the author of the blog has some incriminating pictures of an employee at Blogger that he was threatening to post.  (Yes, I've thought of every angle when it comes to being named a BON.)

My disciples know I'm not above begging and whining.  That's how I got my iPad 2, George, after many long years on my hands and knees.  I'm also not above animal sacrifice or prayerful extortion to get what I want.  So this plea/threat is my first of 2012 to the good people of Blogger:  name Saint Marty a BON or I will write an X-rated sonnet featuring several Blogger staff members and a herd of sheep.

I'm glad I got that out of my system.

I turned on my Christmas radio station this morning and found out that it's no longer a Christmas radio station.  It was playing "Burning Down the House" or some other song equally un-Yuletidish.  Therefore, my job of keeping the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future alive all year long has become decidedly more difficult.  I'm on my own.

I'm reminded of that little scene at the end of Stave Three of A Christmas Carol where the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals the boy and girl living under his cloak:

Don't look away

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them.  "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.  This boy is Ignorance.  This girl is Want.  Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.  Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city.  "Slander those who tell it ye!  Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse!  And bide the end!"

It's a grim little scene.  Dickens paints a portrait of the future of England, where poverty and ignorance prevail, where children are left to grow up, uneducated and hungry, by the wealthier members of society.  Hmmmmm.  Sounds a little familiar to me.  Christmas disappears, and we all go back to our insular lives, worrying about apps for our iPads and iPhones, wondering how we can win meaningless awards like BON or the Pulitzer Prize.  Yes, I include myself in this indictment.  Here I am, a few weeks away from Christmas, and I'm back to my old gripes, grinding the same axes.

I need to keep Ignorance and Want in my head.  They really are my kids.  They're your kids, too.  For Ignorance and Want, Christmas is a hot bowl of oatmeal in the morning.  A classroom with a dedicated teacher.  A home with heat.  A warm winter jacket.  Christmas should be all year 'round.

In the Spirit of Christmas, should Saint Marty be awarded Blog of Note, he promises to donate all proceeds to his local food pantry.

January 2: Snow Storm, "The Wilder Life," Christmas All Year

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed.  "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.  Oh Jacob Marley!  Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this.  I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!"

The above quote from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol sort of inspires me.  Around January 2, the Christmas trees start disappearing, and everyone starts returning to their routines.  Gone are the feelings of peace and good will.  All that's left is a little egg nog in the fridge, maybe some frosted Christmas cookies, and a sense of loss.  That's where I am right now.  I don't want the holidays to be over. 

I think Charles Dickens had it right.  We should live every day like it's Christmas day.  One of my biggest pleasures at the moment is a local radio station that's still playing Christmas music, 24-7.  I love the fact that, the day after Christmas, the station didn't switch back to heavy metal or country.  I feel like Scrooge.  I want the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future to strive within me, all year long.  I'm hoping the radio station keeps playing Christmas carols from now on.  I'll never switch stations.

The forecasted snow storm has been  dumping snow on the Upper Peninsula all day long.  It started shortly after I wrote my post this morning.  It's still blowing and snowing, and it doesn't look like it's slowing down.  I saw a little blue sky a little while ago, but it was quickly replaced by near white-out conditions.  I think my daughter is hoping for another day of Christmas vacation tomorrow.  I'm not convinced she's going to get it, though. 

I'm currently reading January's book club selection.  It's by Wendy McClure, and it's called The Wilder Life.  It's about McClure's obsession with everything Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I'm loving it.  Of course, I love stories about obsession and literature, so it's right up my alley.  And it's a great book to read on a winter day.  I feel like I'm wrapped in a patchwork quilt while I'm lost in its pages.  I can hardly wait to get home and get back into it.  Currently, I'm sitting in McDonald's, freezing my butt off.  I'm hungry and a little tired.  I want to go chase Laura with McClure some more.

I'm going to try to remain in the Christmas spirit as long as I can.  Reading McClure's book is helping me with this.  I really believe that  Dickens was right.  Christmas isn't just a once-a-year moment to be packed up and stored away in the attic come January 1.  It's something we should all carry around with us always.  Try it out for a few days with me.  See how it works.

Saint Marty says, "God bless us.  Everyone."

February 19: Blessed Elizabeth of Mantua

Well, today is the day.  I'm going to take the Christmas decorations down on my front porch.  I know what you're probably thinking:  are you lazy, stupid, or just getting a jump-start on next Christmas?  The answer is maybe, no, and that's not a bad idea.  But even my ten-year-old daughter has been saying, "When are we going to take the Christmas stuff down?"  So, today the porch gets undecorated.

One of the most popular Christmas stories is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  Basically, the message of the novel is that you have to keep Christmas in your heart all year long.  After his redemption, Scrooge pretty much says that's what he's going to do.  I guess it's OK to treat every day like Christmas, do things like be kind to people, be generous, be jolly.  I suppose if you said "Merry Christmas" to people all year, you may be thought a little off-balance.  But if you leave Christmas decorations up until past Valentine's Day, suddenly your neighbors start worrying about their property values.

The Day of Undecoration, as it will henceforth be known, always makes me a little sad.  My front porch is the final vestige of a time of year when people have daily visual reminders to be kind to each other.  Saints don't need that kind of reminder.  If I were an actual saint, I'd probably glow like a Christmas tree, ooze peace like a Nativity scene or Christmas carol.  I, myself, would be the reminder.  Elizabeth, today's saint, was born in Mantua in 1428, and she had the Christmas-every-day thing down cold.  She was pretty much raised to be a saint.  Her father taught her Latin.  Her mother taught her how to meditate.  When Elizabeth became a nun, she was known for her "supernatural gifts."  That usually means she could do cool saint stuff like heal people and levitate.  She even predicted her own death a year before it happened, according to legend.  Elizabeth was a Christmas carol.  She reminded everyone around her about kindness, generosity, and joy.

Saint Marty says, "Merry Christmas!"



I'm going to listen to a Christmas CD while I'm working this afternoon.  I might even put on my Santa Claus hat.  For a half hour or so, I'm going to hold on to the holiday just a little longer.  If you see me today, I may wish you a "Merry Christmas."

Saint Marty isn't losing it.  He's just reminding himself to be a better person.