May 29: Turned Into Grace, Primary Motivation, "A Question About Bigfoot"

Merton experiences major self-doubt . . . 

The blow fell suddenly. 

I was within a few weeks of entering the novitiate. Already I was receiving those last minute letters from the novice-master, with the printed lists of things I was expected to bring with me to the monastery. They were few enough. The only perplexing item on the list was “one umbrella.” 

The list made me happy. I read it over and over. I began to feel the same pleased excitement that used to glow in the pit of my stomach when I was about to start out for camp in the summer, or to go to a new school.... 

Then God asked me a question. He asked me a question about my vocation. 

Rather, God did not have to ask me any questions. He knew all that He needed to know about my vocation. He allowed the devil, as I think, to ask me some questions, not in order that the devil should get any information, but in order that I might learn a thing or two. 

There is a certain kind of humility in hell which is one of the worst things in hell, and which is infinitely far from the humility of the saints, which is peace. The false humility of hell is an unending, burning shame at the inescapable stigma of our sins. The sins of the damned are felt by them as vesture of intolerable insults from which they cannot escape, Nessus shirts that burn them up for ever and which they can never throw off. 

The anguish of this self-knowledge is inescapable even on earth, as long as there is any self-love left in us: because it is pride that feels the burning of that shame. Only when all pride, all self-love has been consumed in our souls by the love of God, are we delivered from the thing which is the subject of those torments. It is only when we have lost all love of our selves for our own sakes that our past sins cease to give us any cause for suffering or for the anguish of shame. 

For the saints, when they remember their sins, do not remember the sins but the mercy of God, and therefore even past evil is turned by them into a present cause of joy and serves to glorify God. 

It is the proud that have to be burned and devoured by the horrible humility of hell.... But as long as we are in this life, even that burning anguish can be turned into a grace, and should be a cause of joy.

Anguish that is transformed into a grace.  A cause of joy.  That's a very Flannery O'Connoresque statement.  It's sort of like the Misfit shooting the grandmother in the head at the end of "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and then saying, "She would have been a good woman . . . if it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life."  

Basically, what Merton (and O'Connor) are saying is that most of us go through life pretty self-deluded.  Our primary motivation is not the betterment of our neighbor or neighborhood or city or state or country or planet or universe.  Nope.  Most of us don't want to be bothered with true selflessness.  That would involve sacrifice.  Handing the reins over to something bigger than ourselves.  That's a pretty terrifying notion.

Think about it.  How much of what anyone does in a day could be categorized as selfless?  Yes, there are some vocations that lean in that direction.  Teaching.  Nursing.  Doctoring.  Ministering.  Pastoring.  But my therapist recently pointed something out.  We were talking about a particular life situation that causes me a great deal of heartache, and she said to me, "What do you get out of it?"

"What do you mean?" I said, a little indignant but sensing where the conversation was headed.

"There has to be a reason why you keep doing what you're doing," she replied, "otherwise, you wouldn't continue to do it.  There has to be some kind of payoff."

There it is.  The primary motivation for most people:  reward.  Money.  Prestige.  Power.  Fame.  Self image.  Benefits.  Vacation time.  I've worked jobs I've hated for the paycheck.  I've stayed in positions for the medical insurance.  And I've remained in painful relationships because, somehow, they reinforced certain roles in which I cast myself--victim, supportive friend and partner, selfless caregiver.

What Merton says in the passage above is that, until "all self love has been consumed in our souls by the love of God, are we delivered from the thing which is the subject of those torments."  When does a person become a saint?  When the love of God and nothing else becomes that person's primary motivation.  That's a pretty tall order.  And very few people reach that point in their lives.

Most of us are in the process of becoming something better.  I would say that describes 99.9999% of the inhabitants of this little blue marble we live on.  You can be a vegan animal rights activist and still struggle with drug addiction.  Think River Phoenix.  A devoted disciple and friend and still deny God not once, not twice, but three times.  Think Saint Peter.  A  brilliant comedian and actor and still give into despair.  Think Robin Williams.  A nun who devotes her life to ministering to the poor and still not sense the presence of God.  Think Mother Teresa.

I could go on, but you get the idea.  The human condition is a mysterious thing.  Full of contradiction and impossibility.  One person born into poverty will end up in prison.  Another person born into poverty will become a saint.  And still another person born into poverty will end up in prison and then become a saint.

Tonight, Saint Marty embraces the mystery of being human.

And a poem about mystery . . . 

A Question About Bigfoot

by:  Martin Achatz

Do I believe in Bigfoot?
That’s not easy to answer.
It’s like trying to figure out
love after 25 years of marriage.
Does my wife still love me?
Do I still love her?
Will she meet someone
in the dairy section at Walmart
as they both reach for the same
half gallon of 1% milk and,
in that instant, lose that ineffable
thing that has held us together
this last quarter century? What’s
bound us to each other
like a filament from a spider’s
spinneret? What sets love
in motion then lights it on fire
until it burns down the way
a fuse on a bottle rocket does?
I guess what I’m talking about
here is mystery. I want to
believe in Bigfoot, that love
won’t fuse out, shoot into
heaven, be gone faster
than a startled rabbit. Because
really, what’s life without
mysteries? Just a half gallon
of 1% milk, curdled in the back
of the fridge, three months old.

August 9: Dead Poet Friends, Walt Whitman, "O Me! O Life!"

Before I knew I was a poet, I loved Dead Poets Society.  I wanted to be Ethan Hawke in that movie.  I wanted a teacher like Robin Williams' Mr. Keating.  And I wanted a group of Dead Poet friends, sitting together in a cave, smoking, looking at dirty pictures, and reading poetry to each other.  (On a side note, a cousin who went to see the movie with me thought that I was more like Robert Sean Leonard than Ethan Hawke.  The suicidal actor instead of the poet.  I was a little dark as a teenager.)

Anyway, I think there was a part of me, even back then, that knew I was a poet.

That is my contribution to the powerful play of the world.

Saint Marty has been contributing his verse ever since.

O Me!  O Life!

by:  Walt Whitman

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

June 16: Friendless and Despised, Charles Dickens, Imperfections

With  regard to the whereabouts of Kilgore Trout:  he actually lived in Ilium, Billy's hometown, friendless and despised.  Billy would meet him by and by.

Kilgore Trout lives in Billy's home town.  He's not quite a celebrity, despite that fact that he has written a lot of books.  A lot.  And Vonnegut promises that Trout will show up later in Billy's story.

There have been a lot of people I would like to meet in my life.  Stephen King and John Irving, for instance.  Billy Collins.  I've met a few of my idols, as well.  I was twice in the same room as Maya Angelou.  I actually shook Kurt Vonnegut's hand once.  I've talked about poetry with Sharon Olds.  I had a picture taken with Alec Baldwin.

There are also people that I would have liked to meet, but never had the opportunity.  Katherine Hepburn.  Robin Williams.  As a teenager, I always thought that I was going to be friends eventually with River Phoenix.  He was going to read something that I wrote, and he would just call me up or show up at my front door.

There is something about certain public figures that just draw me in.  I have read a thousand-page biography of Charles Dickens not once, not twice, not three times.  I've read it five or six times.  Most of the time, the people who I find the most fascinating--the ones with whom I want to be friends--are really flawed.  People who have a lot of light and dark in them.  I feel a kinship with individuals like this.

I like the idea that people, despite their incredible limitations, can do really great things.  Robin Williams had mental health and addiction issues.  Charles Dickens was most certainly bipolar.  River Phoenix was a heroin addict and alcoholic.  Yet, look at the great things these artists did in their respective fields.

All this gives me hope.  I am not perfect.  I gravitate toward darkness.  Some of my acquaintances may be surprised by this admission.  For the most part, I'm fairly gregarious in public.  I like making people smile and laugh.  Just today, a coworker told me, "You're the most positive person I know."  I appreciate that observation.

Charles Dickens loved throwing lavish parties for his friends, but his temperament was quicksilver.  After he was done writing at night, he would sometimes go for a 20-mile walk.  River Phoenix would sneak up on his friends from behind and engulf them in bear hugs, but he would go on drug-binges for weeks at a time.

Nobody is perfect.  I think that my greatest creative achievements come from my greatest faults.  And, in a way, that's a gift.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for his imperfections.

November 22: Ravioli, Robin Williams, Classic Saint Marty, Confessions of Saint Marty

Dinner at my parents' house tonight.  Ravioli.  I can feel the heat from the water on the stove.  Dead Poets Society is on the television--one of my favorite movies.  Pretty soon, we will be eating.

I don't have much more to say about today.  I spent most of the afternoon putting up Christmas decorations at church.  Up and down ladders and stairs.  Stringing garland and lights.  Hanging ornaments.  As usual, most church members left before the work began, so the bulk of the decking of the halls fell upon the usual suspects, die-hard parishioners with a sense of duty.

Tonight, I will watch a holiday baking competition on the Food Network.  My wife and daughter will join me, and we will yell at the TV and make fun of the contestants.  It's my household's version of watching Sunday Night Football, except with buttercream frosting and fondant.

Tonight, I am thankful for Christmas decorations.  Die-hard parishioners.  Ravioli.  Robin Williams.

And I'm thankful for an episode of Classic Saint Marty that aired exactly one year ago. 

November 22, 2014:  The Big Christmas Tree, Decorating Weekend, Fairy Tale

While I was walking, I passed these two guys that were unloading this big Christmas tree off a truck.  One guy kept saying to the other guy, "Hold the sonuvabitch up!  Hold it up, for Chrissake!"  It certainly was a gorgeous way to talk about a Christmas tree...

Most people forget that Catcher is a Christmas book.  It's the end of the semester at Pencey Prep.  Christmas break is starting.  Holden's sister, Phoebe, is in a Christmas play called A Christmas Pageant for Americans.  And Holden borrows Phoebe's Christmas money at the end of the novel.  Not to mention the little Christmas tree scene above.


It's going to be a weekend of Christmas decorating for me.  Tomorrow, I'm in charge of decorating at my wife's church.  Tomorrow night, I'm putting up our Christmas tree at home.  On Monday morning, I'm finishing my decorating at work.  Then I will be D-O-N-E with decking the halls.

I prefer to have all that busy Christmas work finished before Thanksgiving.  There's less pressure the rest of the holiday season then.  I can actually sit back with a cup of eggnog and relax some evenings.  Of course, there's shopping to do, presents to wrap, cookies to bake.  All that yuletide crap.  But the big part, for me, has already been completed.

Which reminds me, I went to the radio station this afternoon and recorded my Christmas essay.  That's another big cookie off my Christmas plate.  Now, I can concentrate on one of the things I love doing the most this time of year:  writing my Christmas poem.  I started it a while ago (back in August).  It's a matter of going back and reworking, revising, possibly throwing stuff out or starting over.  Whatever it takes.  I love the writing process, no matter how crazy it makes me.

Which reminds me of a little story...

Once upon a time, an elf named Holden lived at the North Pole with his parents.  Ever since he was a small elf...Well, all elves are small, but young elves are so small they sometimes get mistaken for animal crackers by Santa's reindeer.

Anyway, ever since Holden was young, his parents groomed him to be a part of Santa's toy team, which is the most important job in all of North Poledom, next to driving the sleigh and delivering the presents.  But Holden had no interest in making toys.  In fact, he wasn't very good with his hands.  He couldn't even pound in a nail without bending it sideways.

What Holden wanted to do, more than anything else, was be a Christmas poet, but his parents wouldn't even let him talk to Santa about such a job.

"If you mention this poet thing to Mr. Claus," his father fumed, "I will be kicked out of the elf union and lose my seniority and pension."

"Not to mention what all the other elf mothers would say to me if my son turned into a poet," his mother said.  "Why couldn't you have been gay?"

Holden went to toy school.  He learned how to make toy cars and toy kitchens.  He studied how to create apps for iPhones. But, at night, after his parents went to bed, Holden sat in his bedroom, writing elf sonnets and elf haiku.

Finally, one day, Holden worked up the courage to approach Santa.  "Please, sir," Holden stammered.  "I don't want to be a toy elf.  My dream is to be the first poet laureate of the North Pole."

Santa looked down at Holden, with a twinkle in his blue eyes.  "Ho, ho, ho," Saint Nicholas chuckled, "you've got to be joking.  Get back to work, or I'll have you shoveling reindeer crap for the rest of your life."

Dejected, Holden went back to toy school, graduated near the bottom of his class, and went to work in Santa's toy sweatshop, making knock-off iPads and Kindles.  Holden never wrote another poem.

Moral of the story:  Santa Claus is kind of an asshole.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Confessions of Saint Marty

August 11: Empty and Forlorn, Robin Williams, Mental Illness and Addictions

...The Fair Grounds were soon deserted.  The sheds and buildings were empty and forlorn.  The infield was littered with bottles and trash.  Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all.  No one was with her when she died.

You'll forgive me if I depart from my usual programming tonight.  A few hours ago, I found out that Robin Williams died.  He was found in his California home, alone, the victim of an apparent suicide.  A few other people have said that he was recently suffering from major depression.


Mental illness is horrible, and it's often coupled with addictions, as well.  The addictions don't cause the mental illness.  The addictions are a way of dealing with the mental illness.  Robin Williams was very candid about his struggles with alcohol and cocaine.  Because of his manic energies, many people thought he suffered from bipolar disease.  I never read anything to substantiate that claim, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Whatever his problems, Robin Williams was a truly gifted individual.  Brilliantly comic.  Stunningly serious.  Peter Pan to a Fisher King.  The world is a little heartbroken tonight.  The Fair Grounds are empty and forlorn.

Saint Marty has one thing to say:  "O Captain!  My Captain!"

November 6: Old Thurmer, Observation, Prep

"Even the couple of nice teachers on the faculty, they were phonies, too," I said.  "There was this one old guy, Mr. Spencer.  His wife was always giving you hot chocolate and all that stuff, and there were really pretty nice.  But you should've seen him when the headmaster, old Thurmer, came in the history class and sat down in the back of the room.  He was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half an hour.  He was supposed to be incognito or something.  After a while, he'd be sitting back there and then he'd start interrupting what old Spencer was saying to crack a lot of corny jokes.  Old Spencer'd practically kill himself chuckling and smiling and all, like Old Thurmer was a goddam prince or something."

Yes, Mr. Spencer, Holden's history teacher, has to be observed by Old Thurmer, Pencey Prep's headmaster.  Spencer has to pretend he's not nervous or annoyed.  Thurmer is his boss.  He could stand up in front of the classroom and attempt to fart Handel's Messiah, and Spencer would have to give him a standing ovation.

I'm going to be observed tomorrow in my classroom.  By a professor to whom I've never met or spoken with.  The extent or our communication has been a couple of e-mails.  He told me not to be nervous, that it really wasn't a big deal.  Funny thing is, it feels like a big deal to me.

That's my worry this Wednesday.  Someone is coming into my classroom to assess my teaching.  I've done as much as I can to prep for tomorrow afternoon.  I've got two lesson plans.  I've got backups to those two lesson plans.  I've got backups to the backups.  My whole goal is to not look like an idiot.  That's it.  I don't expect to be Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.  I don't expect to be anything but . . .  mediocre to competent.

Saint Marty can live with mediocre.  He'd be thrilled with competent.

Hopefully, I'll be at my mediocre best tomorrow

August 28: Joining a Monastery, Denominations, Differences

"Listen.  What's the routine on joining a monastery?" I asked him.  I was sort of toying with the idea of joining one.  "Do you have to be a Catholic and all?"

Holden thinks about religion and God a lot.  He's drawn to the idea of salvation and heaven.  He's looking for a place to fit in, to be a part of.  He doesn't really like the people he goes to school with.  He doesn't have many adults he looks up to.  His idea of paradise:  saving kids who are about to fall off the cliff into adulthood.  Holden wants to be the catcher in the rye.


I think everybody wants to fit in.  Everybody wants to be liked.  In the film Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams' character asks what is the purpose of poetry.  Several answers are offered, chief among them being to communicate.  "No," Williams' character says.  The purpose of poetry is to "woo women."  Everyone is the scene laughs.  But I think there's a lot of truth in what Williams says in that movie.  Poetry is about connecting, reaching out, being a part of something important.

So much of life is about disconnection and disharmony.  I've been a lifelong practicing Catholic.  For the last 20 years, ever since I met my wife, I've also been heavily involved in my wife's church.  She's a Methodist.  For the most part, I've always felt welcomed, accepted.  Sure, I've been the recipient of some good-natured kidding at my wife's church, but I would never characterize any of that kidding as intentionally cruel.

If religion is about exclusion, any religion, I have a problem with it.  Methodists think Catholics have too many statues.  Catholics think Methodists sing too loud.  I'm joking, sort of.  I think Christian denominations spend way too much time focusing on differences instead of similarities.  In my experience, Catholicism and Methodism have a lot more in common than either denomination cares to admit.

Lutheran.  Baptist.  Methodist.  Catholic.  Assembly of God.  It's all about salvation.  It's all about Jesus Christ catching us all at the edge of the rye field.  My worry is that too many people fall off the cliff because they're looking for a Methodist catcher or a Catholic catcher.

Saint Marty doesn't care.  As long as the Catcher is there for him when he gets to the edge of the field.

Catch me, Robin

April 9: Ace Composition Writer, Teaching, Saint John Baptist del la Salle

"What was the trouble?" Mr. Antolini asked me.  "How'd you do in English?  I'll show you the door in short order if you flunked English, you little ace composition writer."

Holden turns to his former English teacher, Mr. Antolini, when he has run out of options at the end of The Catcher in the Rye.  He's pretty much broke and has no place to stay.  Mr. Antolini opens up his home to Holden and tries to offer some life advice, as well.  (There is this whole creepy intimation that Mr. Antolini is interested in giving more than fatherly advice to Holden a little later, but I'd rather focus on the pre-sexual-molester Antolini.)

I think everybody, at one point or another in their lives, has a teacher like Mr. Antolini.  A person who seems to understand everything about you--your hopes and dreams.  I had a few teachers like that, in high school and college.  If it weren't for my senior high English instructor telling me I was a talented writer, I would be programming computers right now instead of blogging.  If it weren't for a fiction-writing professor handing me the application to graduate school, I never would have earned a Master's degree, and I wouldn't be teaching university students.  And if it weren't for a mentor and professor telling me I was a poet, I would never have gotten my MFA in poetry or published a book.  Yes, I've had a fair share of Antolinis in my life.

I'm not sure I've ever served the same role for any of my students, however.  I've had a few young people come to me with personal problems.  The Antolini age of offering a homeless student your couch for the night is a thing of the past, however.  I can't even close my office door if a female student is telling me she's a victim of date rape.  No, I have to sit and watch her sob with the door wide open, maybe hand her a Kleenex or two.  It's all about boundaries these days.

Saint John Baptist de la Salle might not have survived in this modern age of education.  His feast day is April 7, and John is the patron of teachers.  He did a lot of things in his lifetime for the advancement of schools for impoverished children.  He founded the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.  He wrote The Conduct of Christian Schools, which created a modern pedagogical system and is a classic text in education.  Most of all, he encouraged his followers to "have a father's love for their pupils, be ready to devote all their time and energies to them, and be as concerned to save them from wickedness as to dispel their ignorance."  My guess is John thought very little about teacher/student boundaries.

I'm not saying I'd like to make my house into a shelter for students in crisis.  No, I wouldn't go that far.  But, if one of the kids in my class is suffering from crushing depression, I'd like to be able to put my arm around his or her shoulder, say that I care for their safety and happiness.

Basically, Saint Marty wants to be Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.

O Captain, My Captain!