November 27: Beautiful and Familiar Glory, Christmas Essay, Elizabeth Alexander, "Butter," Off the Top of My Head

Ives was sitting beside Annie in his old neighborhood church on another Christmas Day looking up at the altar.  There were vases with dozens of orchids on either side of the chalice and pots of blossoms set out on the marble floors and against the columns, garlands of ivy strung along the gallery above.  In the choir stall they had installed the creche with its figures of the shepherds and kings and angels on high and the Holy Family inside the stable, the baby Jesus, the light of this world, at its center.  And they had covered the roof of the stable with evergreen boughs and someone had burned fragrant incense.  That morning as Ives first walked into the sanctuary again, hat in hand and with his wife by his side, he remembered that beautiful and familiar glory.

Ives seems to measure his life by Christmas memories.  The Christmas he first met his wife, Annie.  The Christmas Annie was pregnant with their first child.  The Christmas Ives experiences a mystical vision of God's goodness.  The Christmas their son, Robert, was killed on the steps of a church.  Christmas is a touchstone of family joy and sorrow for Ives.  Beautiful and familiar glory.

Christmas memories have been with me all day.  I've been working on my annual Christmas essay.  I made good progress.  By the time I go to bed tonight, I hope to have it pretty much completed.  I started at around 7:30 this morning, while my family was still sleeping off their Thanksgiving turkey.  The house was filled with Christmas lights and silence, except for the occasional snore or fart from a sleeping form.  I was able to really focus for an extended period of time.

This afternoon, I practiced with my band for our Christmas concert next weekend.  It's been over a year since we recorded the songs on our Christmas CD, so we had to reacquaint ourselves with the music.  Come up with some different arrangements.  Make a few adjustments.  It was a productive rehearsal.

Tonight, while my daughter and her friend (who's a boy) are watching Netflix, I will be working on my Christmas essay again.  Hopefully, putting the finishing touches on it.  My goal is to have it pretty much done by the time my wife gets home from work.

I am really thankful that I've had so much writing time today.  That it feels like I'm so close to completion.  I've been struggling with this essay for quite some time; I was almost at the point of abandoning the idea of having a new Christmas essay this year.

No fairy tale this evening.  Saint Marty's saving up his creativity reserves for tonight.

Butter

by:  Elizabeth Alexander

My mother loves butter more than I do,

more than anyone. She pulls chunks off

the stick and eats it plain, explaining

cream spun around into butter! Growing up

we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon

and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,

butter melting in small pools in the hearts

of Yorkshire puddings, butter better

than gravy staining white rice yellow,

butter glazing corn in slipping squares,

butter the lava in white volcanoes

of hominy grits, butter softening

in a white bowl to be creamed with white

sugar, butter disappearing into

whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,

butter melted and curdy to pour

over pancakes, butter licked off the plate

with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture

the good old days I am grinning greasy

with my brother, having watched the tiger

chase his tail and turn to butter. We are

Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite   

historical revision, despite

our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside

out, one hundred megawatts of butter.

Off the Top of My Head

March 14: Beautiful and Familiar Glory, God's Love Number Twenty-Five, Darrell Bourque, "Scratch," New Cartoon

Ives was sitting beside Annie in his old neighborhood church on another Christmas Day looking up at the altar.  There were vases with dozens of orchids on either side of the chalice and pots of blossoms set out on the marble floors and against the columns, garlands of ivy strung along the gallery above.  In the choir stall they had installed the creche with its figures of the shepherds and kings and angels on high and the Holy Family inside the stable, the baby Jesus, the light of this world, at its center.  And they had covered the roof of the stable with evergreen boughs and someone had burned fragrant incense.  That morning as Ives first walked into the sanctuary again, hat in his hand and with his wife by his side, he remembered that beautiful and familiar glory.

Ives has forgiven his son's killer.  He has rekindled his passion for his wife.  At seventy-five, he has found God's love in his life again.  He can go into church, sit in a pew, and not be tormented by anger and sorrow.  In the church where his son's funeral was held, Ives only senses God's beautiful and familiar glory.  Life is finally good for him again. 

It's not easy to trust in God all the time.  It should be, but it isn't.  Human beings want to control their lives, and, when something terrible happens (something unplanned), we struggle, as Ives does, with sorrow and confusion and, sometimes, anger.  I have lived in that state before.  In fact, I think I still sublet a condo there.  It's a dark place, with a terrible view of the outside world.

Today,  I am in a good place, for the most part.  It's Saturday.  Tonight, I will go to Mass, play the pipe organ, and say the familiar prayers.  I have two days without the stress and worry of work.  That is a blessing.  For the next 48 hours, I can be with my wife and kids, read, write, and trust in God.  (Come Monday, all bets are off.)  But, that is God's love number twenty-five for me:  two days of rest, love, and faith.  I'll take it.

Saint Marty has one more Darrell Bourque poem for you.  It's about guilt and confession (or not confessing).  Perfect for Lent.

Scratch

by:  Darrell Bourque

Since that afternoon years ago
when my mother put us on our knees
and told us she was leaving,
I have placed myself in the world,
measured myself against the horizon,
let the sky cover me like some angel bird
hovering. I have seen wide ribbons
of pine making a trot-line at the earth’s edge.
I have studied things up close: stunted trees
growing out of rock. I have gone beyond
tree lines where grasses open seedpods
like prayers. I have stood at the water’s
edge and wobbled, and still no one
knows who knifed the unreadable lettering
on my mother’s new cedar chifferobe
that day. She and my father drove to town
to buy garfish for our usual Friday supper
at my aunt’s house. We were questioned again
on her return but no one confessed—through
the fish cleaning, the seasoning, the frying.
I can’t remember when exactly we laughed
and ran through the yard with our cousins.
It was night when we went home. We were happy.
Just last week, some fifty years later,
one of us brings it up in mother’s
presence. She has not walked for years
and it is no big matter to her now,
but none of us are fessing up today either.
We all know who didn’t do it,
and one of us knows who did.

Confessions of Saint Marty