December 31: Poor Men Who Labor, New Year's Eve, Burning Dumpster Heap

The end of Merton . . . 

That is the only reason why I desire solitude—to be lost to all created things, to die to them and to the knowledge of them, for they remind me of my distance from You. They tell me something about You: that You are far from them, even though You are in them. You have made them and Your presence sustains their being, and they hide You from me. And I would live alone, and out of them. O beata solitudo! 

For I knew that it was only by leaving them that I could come to You: and that is why I have been so unhappy when You seemed to be condemning me to remain in them. Now my sorrow is over, and my joy is about to begin: the joy that rejoices in the deepest sorrows. For I am beginning to understand. You have taught me, and have consoled me, and I have begun again to hope and learn. 

I hear You saying to me: 

“I will give you what you desire. I will lead you into solitude. I will lead you by the way that you cannot possibly understand, because I want it to be the quickest way. 

“Therefore all the things around you will be armed against you, to deny you, to hurt you, to give you pain, and therefore to reduce you to solitude. 

“Because of their enmity, you will soon be left alone. They will cast you out and forsake you and reject you and you will be alone. 

“Everything that touches you shall burn you, and you will draw your hand away in pain, until you have withdrawn yourself from all things. Then you will be all alone. 

“Everything that can be desired will sear you, and brand you with a cautery, and you will fly from it in pain, to be alone. Every created joy will only come to you as pain, and you will die to all joy and be left alone. All the good things that other people love and desire and seek will come to you, but only as murderers to cut you off from the world and its occupations. 

“You will be praised, and it will be like burning at the stake. You will be loved, and it will murder your heart and drive you into the desert. 

“You will have gifts, and they will break you with their burden. You will have pleasures of prayer, and they will sicken you and you will fly from them.

“And when you have been praised a little and loved a little I will take away all your gifts and all your love and all your praise and you will be utterly forgotten and abandoned and you will be nothing, a dead thing, a rejection. And in that day you shall begin to possess the solitude you have so long desired. And your solitude will bear immense fruit in the souls of men you will never see on earth. 

“Do not ask when it will be or where it will be or how it will be: On a mountain or in a prison, in a desert or in a concentration camp or in a hospital or at Gethsemani. It does not matter. So do not ask me, because I am not going to tell you. You will not know until you are in it. 

“But you shall taste the true solitude of my anguish and my poverty and I shall lead you into the high places of my joy and you shall die in Me and find all things in My mercy which has created you for this end and brought you from Prades to Bermuda to St. Antonin to Oakham to London to Cambridge to Rome to New York to Columbia to Corpus Christi to St. Bonaventure to the Cistercian Abbey of the poor men who labor in Gethsemani: 

“That you may become the brother of God and learn to know the Christ of the burnt men.”

SIT FINIS LIBRI, NON FINIS QUAERENDI

So Merton ends his book with the Latin phrase:  "SIT FINIS LIBRI, NON FINIS QUAERENDI."  Translation--"This may be the end of the book, but not the end of the quest."  The conclusion is not a conclusion, but a new beginning.  Merton takes his final vows.  Becomes a Trappist monk.  Renounces all the things of the material world that distract him from God.  

It is New Year's Eve.  Almost 2 a.m. as I type this.  I may not finish this post before I need to go to sleep.  At the end of 2021, I wish to put an end to this burning dumpster heap of a year.  I want this night to be the last page, and I'm not sure I want to continue the book of 2021.  Yes, some wonderful things have happened to me--new job, NEA grants, an award for Arts Advocate of the Year.  But, on the flipside, the first chapter of 2021 started with COVID quarantine, and the last chapter comes full circle.  COVID quarantine again.  My mother died.  This morning, I woke up sick.  I'm pretty sure it's COVID.  Went to get tested, but the Health Department testing center is closed for the holiday.  And, to top it all off, Betty White died today.

Like I said, pour some gasoline on 2021 and light a match.

To try to salvage this last day of 2021 for my son, I ordered from Pizza Hut for lunch.  Then I took him to a huge Christmas lights display tonight.  Let him run around with our puppy.  Took pictures.  When we got home, we played some board games, watched a couple movies. Counted down the last seconds to midnight.  Blew some horns.  Raised a glass and let my son give a toast.  

He talked about his grandma, grandpa, Aunt Sally, and Uncle Kevin in heaven.  About getting and staying healthy.  Loving his parents and sister and puppy.  In short, my son gets it.  He knows what's important.

At midnight, I sent text messages to everyone I love.  My daughter, who's staying at her boyfriend's parents' house to avoid infection.  My sisters.  My sisters-in-law . A couple of my closest friends.  Because that is what's important.  The people in my life.  Pretty much everything I do in my life is for them.  Period.

So, as I say goodbye to Thomas Merton after this two-year journey, I am ready for this quest to end and a new one to begin.

Tomorrow, I start a new book.  Something simpler.  But beautiful.  The big reveal to happen in my first post of 2022.  As Merton says, ". . . and I have begun again to hope and learn."

Saint Marty is ready for a little hoping and learning, starting tomorrow.

December 30: The Heat of Harlem, New Variant, COVID Positive

Merton encounters the realities of racism in Harlem . . . 

It was a hot day, a rainy day, in the middle of August when I came out of the subway into the heat of Harlem. There were not many people on the streets that afternoon. I walked along the street until I came to the middle of the block, and saw one or two stores marked “Friendship House” and “Bl. Martin de Porres Center” or some such title in big blue letters. There did not seem to be anyone around. 

The biggest of the stores was the library, and there I found half a dozen young Negroes, boys and girls, high school students, sitting at a table. Some of them wore glasses, and it seemed they were having some kind of an organized intellectual discussion, because when I came in they got a little embarrassed about it. I asked them if the Baroness was there, and they said no, she had gone downtown because it was her birthday, and I asked who I should see, so they told me Maryjerdo. She was around somewhere. If I waited she would probably show up in a few minutes. 

So I stood there, and took down off the shelf Father Bruno’s Life of St. John of the Cross and looked at the pictures. 

The young Negroes tried to pick up their discussion where they had left off: but they did not succeed. The stranger made them nervous. One of the girls opened her mouth and pronounced three or four abstract words, and then broke off into a giggle. Then another one opened her mouth and said: “Yes, but don’t you think...?” And this solemn question also collapsed in embarrassed tittering. One of the young men got off a whole paragraph or so, full of big words, and everybody roared with laughter. So I turned around and started to laugh too, and immediately the whole thing became a game. 

They began saying big words just because it was funny. They uttered the most profoundly dull and ponderous statements, and laughed at them, and at the fact that such strange things had come out of their mouths. But soon they calmed down, and then Maryjerdo came along, and showed me the different departments of Friendship House, and explained what they were. 

The embarrassment of those young Negroes was something that gave me a picture of Harlem: the details of the picture were to be filled in later, but the essentials were already there. 

Here in this huge, dark, steaming slum, hundreds of thousands of Negroes are herded together like cattle, most of them with nothing to eat and nothing to do. All the senses and imagination and sensibilities and emotions and sorrows and desires and hopes and ideas of a race with vivid feelings and deep emotional reactions are forced in upon themselves, bound inward by an iron ring of frustration: the prejudice that hems them in with its four insurmountable walls. In this huge cauldron, inestimable natural gifts, wisdom, love, music, science, poetry are stamped down and left to boil with the dregs of an elementally corrupted nature, and thousands upon thousands of souls are destroyed by vice and misery and degradation, obliterated, wiped out, washed from the register of the living, dehumanized. 

Things haven't changed all that much since Merton's visit to Harlem in this section.  African Americans are still struggling against institutional racism.  Sadly, the years of Trump really highlighted how much the United States still suffers from this blight.  Of course, Trump supporters didn't discriminate against discrimination.  They embraced it all--racism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny.  Once the pandemic hit, they even embraced the hatred of pure science.  The result?  Hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.  People refusing life-saving vaccines and opting for horse medication instead.

And now, a new variant is raging across the country.  In my little corner of the Upper Peninsula, hospitals are overrun, understaffed, and woefully ill-prepared.  I've heard horror stories of people contracting the virus while waiting for treatment in emergency rooms.  Relatively young people dying because of the politicization of medicine.

If I sound a little angry, I am.  My family has been very careful throughout this pandemic.  Yet, last December, COVID struck our household.  And, today, COVID struck again.  My wife thought she had a bad cold.  She woke up with a runny nose and scratchy throat.  She wasn't going to get tested.  However, because of our plans to get together with my sisters for New Years, I talked her into getting a rapid test, to be on the safe side.  You see, my sister, Rose, who has Downs syndrome, is severely immunocompromised.  Asthma.  Alzheimer's.  

My wife's test came back positive.

So, my son and I got rapid tests, as well.  Both of our tests came back negative.  So, we end 2021 the same way we began it--in quarantine.  As I sit on the couch typing this post, my wife is coughing in our bedroom.  I'm watching Rudolph's Shiny New Year and contemplating how shitty the last 365 days have really been.  Facemasks.  Social distancing.  Viral surges.  The death of my mother.  

Like everybody else, I am COVID weary.  Ready for things to return to "normal."  However, I think the normal we used to know is a thing of the past.  Facemasks are the new normal.  Variants and isolation.  We all need to accept that this is how we will define "normal" from now on.

So, tomorrow night, I will not be celebrating New Year's Eve with my family.  It will be my son, my wife, and myself.  My daughter is at her boyfriend's house, isolating from us to avoid possible infection.  I will make crescent weenies.  A parmesan artichoke bomb.  We have a fruit tray.  A huge meat-and-cheese tray.  Two pounds of M&Ms.  The three of us will ring in 2022 with games and movies and lots of junk food.

And I will be monitoring myself for signs of illness.  We've all been vaccinated.  My wife and I have had our boosters.  We've done it all.  Followed the science.  That's why we're still alive.  That's why my wife is still sleeping in our bed instead of in an ICU on a ventilator.  We are lucky.  This year could have been so much worse.

Yet, Saint Marty will be glad when 2021 is in his rearview mirror.

December 29-31: Sing With Peace, New Year's Eve, In the Midst of Death

 Merton has an epiphany . . . 

I had my thesis to type out, and a lot of books to read, and I was thinking of preparing an article on Crashaw which perhaps I would send to T. S. Eliot for his Criterion. I did not know that Criterion had printed its last issue, and that Eliot’s reaction to the situation that so depressed me was to fold up his magazine. 

The days went on and the radios returned to their separate and individual murmuring, not to be regimented back into their appalling shout for yet another year. September, as I think, must have been more than half gone. 

I borrowed Father Leahy’s life of Hopkins from the library. It was a rainy day. I had been working in the library in the morning. I had gone to buy a thirty-five-cent lunch at one of those little pious kitchens on Broadway— the one where Professor Gerig, of the graduate school of French, sat daily in silence with his ancient, ailing mother, over a very small table, eating his Brussels sprouts. Later in the afternoon, perhaps about four, I would have to go down to Central Park West and give a Latin lesson to a youth who was sick in bed, and who ordinarily came to the tutoring school run by my landlord, on the ground floor of the house where I lived. 

I walked back to my room. The rain was falling gently on the empty tennis courts across the street, and the huge old domed library stood entrenched in its own dreary greyness, arching a cyclops eyebrow at South Field. 

I took up the book about Gerard Manley Hopkins. The chapter told of Hopkins at Balliol, at Oxford. He was thinking of becoming a Catholic. He was writing letters to Cardinal Newman (not yet a cardinal) about becoming a Catholic. 

All of a sudden, something began to stir within me, something began to push me, to prompt me. It was a movement that spoke like a voice. 

"What are you waiting for?” it said. “Why are you sitting here? Why do you still hesitate? You know what you ought to do? Why don’t you do it?” 

I stirred in the chair, I lit a cigarette, looked out the window at the rain, tried to shut the voice up. “Don’t act on impulses,” I thought. “This is crazy. This is not rational. Read your book.” 

Hopkins was writing to Newman, at Birmingham, about his indecision. 

“What are you waiting for?” said the voice within me again. “Why are you sitting there? It is useless to hesitate any longer. Why don’t you get up and go?” 

I got up and walked restlessly around the room. “It’s absurd,” I thought. “Anyway, Father Ford would not be there at this time of day. I would only be wasting time.” 

Hopkins had written to Newman, and Newman had replied to him, telling him to come and see him at Birmingham. 

Suddenly, I could bear it no longer. I put down the book, and got into my raincoat, and started down the stairs. I went out into the street. I crossed over, and walked along by the grey wooden fence, towards Broadway, in the light rain. 

And then everything inside me began to sing—to sing with peace, to sing with strength, and to sing with conviction. 

I had nine blocks to walk. Then I turned the corner of 121st Street, and the brick church and presbytery were before me. I stood in the doorway and rang the bell and waited. 

When the maid opened the door, I said: 

“May I see Father Ford, please?” 

“But Father Ford is out.” 

I thought: well, it is not a waste of time, anyway. And I asked when she expected him back. I would come back later, I thought. 

The maid closed the door. I stepped back into the street. And then I saw Father Ford coming around the corner from Broadway. He approached, with his head down, in a rapid, thoughtful walk. I went to meet him and said: 

“Father, may I speak to you about something?” 

“Yes,” he said, looking up, surprised. “Yes, sure, come into the house.” 

We sat in the little parlor by the door. And I said: “Father, I want to become a Catholic.” 

It's a profound moment of revelation for Merton.  Everyone experiences times like this in their lives--where the fog lifts and the road forward becomes clear. While Merton has been toying with the notion of conversion for quite a while, he has never given voice to it--confessed it--before.  He does so now to a Catholic priest.  Even if he backslides, he can never unspeak these words.  He will never be the same again.

It is New Years Eve.  An evening that invites reflection and resolution.  People take stock of the previous 365 days.  Think about failures and successes, losses and joys.  This year has been rife with struggles for everyone across the globe.  Unless you are a resident of Antarctica, you have been somehow affected by COVID-19, directly or indirectly.  Nobody on the planet will ever be the same again.

For the first seven months of this year, I worked in healthcare.  I sat at hospital entrances, taking names and temperatures.  Screening patients for symptoms.  Answering phone calls from frightened family members.  Worrying on a daily basis about carrying coronavirus home to my family.  

Since March, my social circle has pretty much been limited to about three or four people--my wife, daughter, son, and daughter's boyfriend.  That's it.  My interaction with family members outside my household has been pretty much limited to six-foot distant conversations from doorways.  An outside barbecue or two.  One small birthday gathering.

Meanwhile, the citizens of my country were dealing with a leader who was becoming increasingly unhinged.  Who claimed the pandemic was nothing worse than a normal flu season, and that the virus would simply vanish in warm weather.  He criticized scientists and medical doctors, and encouraged people to defy the most basic of safety measures--facemasks and social distancing.  The result?  344,000 deaths in the United States.

In addition, racial tensions spilled into the streets, and politics edged toward fascism and dictatorship.  

And, for the last month of the year, I have been in quarantine with my family, with both of my kids contracting COVID-19.  Tonight, on this night of looking forward and back, I give thanks that my daughter and son have recovered, and my wife and I tested negative.

During this month of isolation, I have been blessed so many times by the kindness of friends.  Some dropped off groceries.  Others brought dog treats.  Dinners.  Snacks.  Cards in the mail.  Text messages.  It has been a lesson, for me, in the inherent goodness of people.  

So, I sit here at the brink of 2021, counting some of the blessings of 2020:

• I started a new job that pays me to organize poetry readings and concerts and theatricals and fundraisers.  This isn't work for me.  It's earning money for dreaming.
• I got a beautiful new puppy that fills my house with love and laughter every day.
• My beautiful wife got a new job, as well.
• My beautiful daughter was promoted to a supervisor.
• My beautiful mother fell out of bed and broke her hip  She had hip replacement and is currently a resident at a nursing home.  She contracted COVID, but her symptoms remained mild, and she never lost her appetite or smile.
• My beautiful sister, Rose, who has Down Syndrome, ended up in the ICU with heart issues.  She's on medication now, doing physical therapy.  Home.
• I published some poems and started a podcast.
• I reconnected with a beautiful friend who lives downstate, and we have become writing buddies.  Just last night, we Zoomed and drank and wrote.  And drank some more.

I could go on.  And on.  There's a saying from the Book of Common Prayer:  "In the midst of life, we are in death."  For 2020, I think that the saying is a little different:  "In the midst of death, we are in life."  In the face of so much suffering and division, there have been miracles, as well.  Things to celebrate.  Yes, we lost Sean Connery this year.  But Betty White is still alive and kickin'.  Yes, my 12-year-old son ended up in the ER this fall because he was having ideas of self-harm.  But tonight he's playing Family Feud and Taboo with us, laughing and joking.

As the clock counts down to the first hour of 2021, I celebrate all of the miracles of 2020.  There have been many.  Yes, a year from now, ten years from now, 25 years, the newspapers and history books will be filled stories of overrun hospitals, body counts, racial protests turning violent.  Pictures of empty churches.  Masked families.  Angry, MAGA-hat wearing domestic terrorists.

Here is what Saint Marty will remember about this year:  tonight, with his family.  Everyone laughing.  Healthy.  Hopeful.  Together.

December 31: Poo-tee-weet, New Year's Eve, "Before 4:30 Mass"

Billy and the rest wandered out onto the shady street.  The trees were leafing out.  There was nothing going on out there, no traffic of any kind.  There was only one vehicle, an abandoned wagon drawn by two horses.  The wagon was green and coffin-shaped.

Birds were talking.  

One bird said to Billy Pilgrim:  "Poo-tee-weet?" 

The last three paragraphs of Slaughterhouse Five on this last day of the year.  Tonight, we bid farewell to Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim, Montana Wildhack, and Tralfamadore.  Old friends by this time.  It's fitting that the novel ends with a nonsensical question.  After all, the entire book is about things that don't make a whole lot of sense.

This year hasn't made a whole lot of sense, what with the ascendancy of Donald Trump and the descendancy of everything else.  I wish I could say that the world is a better place this December 31st than it was last December 31st.  Unfortunately, I can't make that assertion.  America, which WAS great, is not so great anymore.

However, as I said in yesterday's post, my life has been full of wonderful things--new friends and poems, recognitions that I'm not sure I really deserved, and good health for my wife and children.  Of course, I have had some personal challenges, too.  My father, who turned 90 this year, had to be moved into a nursing home.  My brother's heart attack in May, and all the complications that followed.  Brake jobs.  Frozen water pipes.

No year is ever all positive, unless you're delusional (ahem--Donald Trump).  However, I have been, for the most part, greatly blessed this year, and I want to thank all of my friends and family who have filled the last 365 days with so much joy.

Saint Marty wishes all of you a safe--and warm!--New Year's Eve, and grace and light in the coming year.

Before 4:30 Mass

by:  Martin Achatz

I look down from the choir loft
At the silence gathered below.
Mrs. MacDonald wears her wool coat
In the same pew she sat in
With her parents, seventy years ago.
She looks behind her, as if she expects
Her father to march up the aisle,
Sit next to her, his boots
Still red with dust from the mines.
Father George flits from person-to-person,
Like a hummingbird in an apple tree,
Pausing long enough to taste
The blossom of each sinner's grief
Before moving on.  My daughter, white
Acolyte, lights candles on the altar,
Checks chalice and paten, makes sure
Gospel and cloth are in place
For the coming show.  So much quiet
Desperation fills the sanctuary,
Everyone craving a piece of holiness
To bring home, bake with eggs and oatmeal,
Spaghetti and meatloaf for the week.
I reach down, press the red button.
The pipe organ takes a long breath,
Groans to life, resurrected again.
It waits for my fingers, holds
Music in its gold pipes that reach
Up and up to the vaulted ceiling,
To the bell in the steeple.  It waits
For that low D of the first hymn,
Voices rising like seagulls
Above the waves of Galilee.

December 31: Trumpets of Praise, Peace in the Middle East, Acceptance and Love

What book should I use next year on the blog?  Take the poll:

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Emerson saw it.  "I dreamed that I floated at will in the great Ether, and I saw this world floating also not far off, but diminished to the size of an apple.  Then an angel took it in his hand and brought it to me and said, 'This must thou eat.'  And I ate the world."  All of it.  All of it intricate, specked, gnawed, fringed, and free.  Israel's priests offered the wave breast and the heave shoulder together, freely, in full knowledge, for thanksgiving.  They waved, they heaved, and neither gesture was whole without the other, and both meant a wide-eyed and knee-eyed thanks.  Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, said the bell.  A sixteenth-century alchemist wrote of the philosopher's stone:  "One finds it in the open country, in the village and in the town.  It is in everything which God created.  Maids throw it on the street.  Children play with it."  The giant water bug ate the world.  And like Billy Bray I go my way, and my left foot says "Glory," and my right foot says "Amen":  in and out of Shadow Creek, upstream and down, exultant, in a daze, dancing, to the twin silver trumpets of praise.

I thought it was fitting to end the year of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek with its final paragraph, which is a beautiful call to praise and thanksgiving, to embracing all of the world's great, intricate, messy blessings.  And it's a fitting paragraph for New Year's Eve, when we all, hopefully, can offer up prayers of praise and thanksgiving for the closing year.

I will be ringing in 2017 as I do every year, with my family--eating pizza, playing board games, arguing, kibitzing, loving, and then eating some more.  Since January 1st falls on a Sunday this year, I will also be playing the organ for Mass this evening.  Another opportunity for praise and thanksgiving.

Tomorrow morning will dawn, cold and white.  Newness in the midst of oldness.  Of course, I hope for great things in the coming year.  Health and happiness.  Peace in the Middle East.  Impeachment of Donald Trump.  You know, the things that all good people hope for.  Sure, I want to lose weight.  Exercise more.  Publish more.  Be named the next Poet Laureate of the U. P.  All that would be good, as well.

But, above all, I think the prayer I will send up at the stroke of midnight this evening is for acceptance and love, which I think has been in short supply in the world--and especially in the United States--in 2016.

So, may all your lives be filled with unconditional love--Jew or Muslim or Christian or atheist or refugee or Democrat or Republican or gay or straight.  Peace and amen.

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December 30: Time Unfurls, Funerals, Good Things

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And then occasionally the mountains part.  The tree with the lights in it appears, the mockingbird falls, and time unfurls across space like an oriflamme.  Now, we rejoice . . .

It's all about light and rejoicing.  Moments when the sky opens up, and time comes to a standstill.  The world frozen in happiness, however brief.  

This evening, we celebrated the life of my wife's grandmother.  Funerals are strange things.  They are full of both laughter and tears.  Sort of like life.  We joined together.  Prayed.  Sang.  Shared stories.  Looked at old pictures.  And ate.  It sort sounds like a family Christmas get-together, in a way.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve.  A time of looking backward and forward.  There have been some really good things that have happened this year.  A promotion at the university.  My daughter turning sixteen.  Good job for my wife that she loves.  My son--funny, full of compassion and love (our parish priest told me a little while ago that my son was "full of light").  Good things.

But there have been challenges, as well.  My dad falling down the stairs and breaking his shoulder.  My mother's failing memory.  Constant money struggles.  Most recently, the passing of my wife's grandmother this past week.  Bad things.

That's what this evening was all about.  Acknowledging the good and bad.  Crying and laughing.  We have a fridge full of cheese and ham and rolls.  Some noodle salad.  Over the next week, we will eat those leftovers.  Remember.  Because memory is a gift for the brokenhearted. 

I hope all my disciples have more good than bad to remember this New Year's Eve.  And ham rolls.  Lots of ham rolls.

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December 29: Thanks His Host, Book Club Christmas Party, Crescent Weenies

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I think that they drying pray at the last not "please," but "thank you," as a guest thanks his host at the door . . .

I chose this quote because it sort of reflects my entire day, which has been consumed by two things:  funeral plans and book club plans.

This evening, I hosted my book club's Christmas party.  Agatha Christie.  Chili.  A cheese fountain with warm, soft pretzels.  Lemon bars and fruit tarts, among other goodies.  Plus, we had a Secret Santa exchange.  I got a book of poems by Tracy K. Smith (Life on Mars) and an Adele CD (21).  It was a good night, full of good will.

Tomorrow will be all about the funeral service for my wife's grandmother.  I will be playing the music on the pipe organ.  Nothing difficult--"How Great Thou Art" and "In the Garden."  Two of her grandma's favorite hymns.  Just finished cooking some crescent weenies for the lunch after the service. 

It's been a busy day.  I'm pretty beat, and there's not a while lot of relaxation in store for me this weekend.  Three church services, including the funeral.  New Year's Eve.  New Year's day.  Right now, I keep falling asleep with my fingers on the keyboard.  I just typed "bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbblllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll."

Translation:  it's time for Saint Marty to go to bed.

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December 31: Digression Business, New Year's Eve, End of Year Prayer

"Oh, I don't know.  That digression business got on my nerves.  I don't know.  The trouble with me is, I like it when somebody digresses.  It's more interesting and all."

Holden admits to Mr. Antolini that he likes digressions.  Holden is more interested in small, inconsequential details.  Or perhaps he recognizes that the small, inconsequential details really contain the important things in life.  The only real way to know a person is to find out what he ate for breakfast, what grade he got in high school chemistry, or what Santa gave him for Christmas when he was eight years old.  Life is one big digression.

It is New Year's Eve.  A big, momentous day when we look back and look forward.  We think about the successes and failures of the past year.  We think about the possibilities and impossibilities of the coming year.  I have a lot of big disappointments I could dwell on this evening.  Personal and professional.  The year 2013 has not been kind to me.  I have a lot of empty pages I could dwell on this evening, as well.  The year 2014 holds much uncertainty for me.

However, I'm not going to focus on these big things.  I'm going to say an end of year prayer for digressions.

Dear Lord of Digressions,

I want to thank You for the peanut butter ball I ate this morning.  And the five dollar bill that currently resides in my pocket.  Thank You for Julia Roberts film festivals, all of that sentimentality and weeping.

When I went home this evening, the furnace was just kicking on.  As I sat down to read a late Christmas card from a friend in Washington state, I felt the heat on my feet, and it was good.  Thank You for that.

I am going to be playing games tonight with my family.  Pictionary.  Dictionary Dabble.  Sniglets.  We will laugh and argue and call each other names.  We will eat Wheat Thins and Cheetos and M&Ms.   At midnight, we will put on hats and blow horns, hug and kiss, wish each other "Happy New Year!"  And we will gather around the piano and sing "Auld Lang Syne."  It will be good.  Thank You for that.

Most of all, thank You for all the digressions to come in 2014.  Breakfasts with friends.  Prayers with my kids.  Trips (short and long).  Mornings with pink sunlight.  Evenings with purple clouds.  Long winter nights.  Longer summer days.  Cool autumn afternoons.  Hot chocolate mixed with Bailey's Irish Cream.  Churches lit by candlelight.

Thank You, Lord, for all these small digressions.

For it's in these digressions I find Your love.

Your loving child,

Saint Marty

Small blessings, small changes

December 30: Drawing to a Close, Relief, Magic 8-Ball

Goodbye, 2013!

The year is drawing to a close, and I am so ready for 2013 to be over.

I spent the day getting ready for New Year's Eve.  I went to my parents' house and decorated for our annual New Year's Eve party.  It's something I've been doing since I was about 12 or 13 years old.  I got a little tired of sitting home and watching the crowds in Times Square on TV.  So, I created my own Times Square at home.  Tomorrow night, I will be playing games, eating way too much junk food, and counting down the seconds to midnight.

It's going to be a quiet party.  Just close family.  No friends or in-laws.  Last year, my best friend from New Zealand was in town.  It was a great party.  We played games until two or three o'clock in the morning.  There was joy and expectation and hope.  This year, with the four or five people who will actually still be awake at midnight, I will experience a different emotion:  relief.

Which brings me to my final Magic 8-Ball question for this year of The Catcher in the Rye:

Will 2014 be a better year for me and my family?

And the final answer from Holden Caulfield is:

I went around the room, very quiet and all, looking at stuff for a while.  I felt swell, for a change.  I didn't even feel like I was getting pneumonia or anything any more.  I just felt good, for a change...

Well, that's encouraging.  Things in 2014 are going to be swell, good.  A change is on the way.

Can Saint Marty get an "amen"?

December 30: Book Club, Almost Vacation, First Entry

A book club member.  Image changed to protect identity.

Last night, our book club meeting went really well.  We got together.  We ate.  We talked about our favorite Christmas presents.  We talked about our hopes for the new year.  Oh, yeah, we also talked about the book we read.  With our book club, sometimes the book takes a backseat to other topics.  We usually get around to the book.  Usually.

Today is my last day of work before vacation begins.  I have a lot to accomplish still.  I have to take down the Christmas decorations in another area of the surgery center.  I have to finalize some surgical schedules.  I have to send some charts over to the hospital.  I have to clean the business office.  It's going to be a rough couple of hours.

Then, I have to go grocery shopping for the week, and I have to get supplies for our annual New Year's Eve party.  I have given up cleaning the house this weekend.  I just don't have the energy or time for it.  I will also be stopping by the AT&T store to talk to someone about my iPad.  I can't really figure out how to do a few things.  Plus, I want to discuss getting 3G with it.  I'm not quite sure what that means, but it will allow me to use the Internet at home.

By the way, I finally have an entry in my 500th Post Name My iPad Contest.  My friend Keith has suggested "George" for very obvious reasons if you've read my December posts.  I kinda like it.  If you have other ideas, you still have a few days to get them to me.

Saint Marty needs to get his holy ass in gear now.