December 30: "The Summer Day," Smallest of Things, Bigfoot Poems

Mary Oliver learns something from a grasshopper . . . 

The Summer Day

by:  Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean--

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Yes, life really is all about paying attention, even to the smallest of things--like a grasshopper eating sugar from your palm.  A prayer is simply recognizing the universe's gifts.  Taking heed.  And, above all, celebrating the one wild and precious life you are given.

This post is the second-to-last in the Year of Mary Oliver.  I've really enjoyed my time with Mary.  She has taught me so much about poetry and grace.  Leaving her behind will be difficult.  (In case you're wondering, I have picked out a new author and book for 2024, but you will have to wait until Monday to find out.

However, I will carry the lessons of Mary with me for the rest of my life.  Particularly those lessons regarding joy and happiness.  And I have something to celebrate on this second-to-last night of the year.

This morning, I received an email from an editor informing me that he's accepting seven of my poems for publication, including three Bigfoot poems.  It's the first time I've ever sent my Bigfoot out into the world, and the world seems to like him.

No matter how many times I get published, each time I get a letter or (more often these days) an email, my wild and precious life seems filled with butterflies sipping sugar from my hand.  Sweet and blessed.  My whole day has been sun and celebration, right down to the long walks I took with my puppy and the turkey pot pie my sister made for dinner.  

For Saint Marty, 2023 is going out with a bang instead of a whimper.

November 23: "Going to Walden," Thanksgiving, Giving Thanks

Mary Oliver contemplates . . .

Going to Walden

by:  Mary Oliver

It isn't very far as highways lie.

I might be back by nightfall, having seen

The rough pines, and the stones,, and the clear water.

Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.

They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:

How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool

To miss a day away in the cool country.

Maybe.  But in a book I read and cherish,

Going to Walden is not so easy a thing

As a green visit.  It is the slow and difficult 

Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

Mary Oliver chooses not to make the pilgrimage to Walden, even though she lives close by.  She refuses the temptation of the rough pines, stones, and clear water.  Of skipping stones across the pond with the ghost of Thoreau.  For Oliver, it seems, Walden is more than a historic place; it's a mindset, a way of living that is slow and difficult to achieve.

It is Thanksgiving Day in the United States.  If you read my post from last night, you already know the problematic history of the holiday, especially for the Indigenous population of this land.  For me, I don't so much celebrate the myth of pilgrims and Native Americans sitting down to a feast in Plymouth Colony.  Instead, I celebrate the act of giving thanks for the blessings in my life--my family and friends and good health and good food.  Although I should do this every day of my life, it is this particular day that occurs once a year that reminds me how truly lucky I am.

This morning, my wife, son, puppy, and I participated in a local 5K Turkey Trot.  It was a cold walk, in the mid-twenties for temperatures with a punishing wind.  It wasn't easy.  Yet, I recognized the grace of the moment.  I was with two of the people I love most in my life, and everyone around us was smiling, laughing, and calling out, "Happy Thanksgiving!"

The rest of the day was much of the same:  gatherings with loved ones to eat and drink and laugh and share.  I missed seeing my daughter, who is with her significant other in Wisconsin celebrating the holiday.  But, I know that she is loved and safe and healthy where she is.  I received texts from close friends wishing me glad tidings (that sounds old-fashioned, but that's what the messages were), and now I'm home, in my pajamas, fighting a tryptophan coma as I type these words.

I did end up having Thanksgiving dinner with my sisters after all, and they both worked hard all day to prepare the feast, using a family recipe for the stuffing, tons of cream and butter in the mashed potatoes.  By the time I ate my last bite of pecan pie, I felt like a beached beluga.  And I could feel the spirits of absent family members gathered at the table with us--my dad, who loved stuffing; my mother, who loved pecan pie; my sister, Sally, and brother, Kevin, who both loved pumpkin pie; and my sister, Rose, who loved everything about Thanksgiving.

It has truly been a day to give thanks, filled with light, laughter, and love.

Saint Marty doesn't need a guardian angel named Clarence to convince him that he has a wonderful life.

A Thanksgiving poem for this night . . . 

Pecan Pie

by:  Martin Achatz

Mix eggs, sugar and Karo,
melted butter, vanilla from Mexico
in a bowl until it all runs
yellow as corn silk. Add pecans,
one-and-a-quarter cups. Fold
them into the gold syrup,
the way a farmer folds
manure into a field of hay
or my son folds a Tootsie Roll
under his tongue, plants it there,
lets it feed the furrows
of his young body. Pour this filling
into a shell, edges fluted
by my wife's hands, crimped
between thumb and forefinger
to peaks and troughs of dough.
Bake at 350 degrees.
Forty-five minutes to an hour.
You'll know when it's done.
The house will smell
brown and warm and sweet.
Dip a butter knife blade
into the center of the pie.
If it comes out hot and clean,
take the pie out of the oven. Put it
on the front porch to cool.
You can leave it there overnight.
It'll be waiting in the morning.
Cover it with a hand towel. Carry
it to your parents' house,
where your mother asks you
"Is it cold outside?"
over and over as you cut
the pie. "Yes," you tell her.
And "yes" when she asks again.
It is cold this Thanksgiving.
And, yes, pecan pie is her favorite.
Give her a large slice,
with extra Cool Whip
and a hot cup of coffee.

February 25: My Will and My Intelligence, Still Recovering, Leap Tall Buildings

Santiago wishes he was the fish . . . 

The old man had seen many great fish. He had seen many that weighed more than a thousand pounds and he had caught two of that size in his life, but never alone. Now alone, and out of sight of land, he was fast to the biggest fish that he had ever seen and bigger than he had ever heard of, and his left hand was still as tight as the gripped claws of an eagle.

It will uncramp though, he thought. Surely it will uncramp to help my right hand. There are three things that are brothers: the fish and my two hands. It must uncramp. It is unworthy of it to be cramped. The fish had slowed again and was going at his usual pace.

I wonder why he jumped, the old man thought. He jumped almost as though to show me how big he was. I know now, anyway, he thought. I wish I could show him what sort of man I am. But then he would see the cramped hand. Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I wish I was the fish, he thought, with everything he has against only my will and my intelligence.

Santiago has a lot of wishes in the world.  Before this moment, he has wished several times the boy was with him in the boat.  Now, he wishes that he was the fish, with all of its strength and size.  The old man, with his cramping hands, is feeling small and a little unworthy.

My body is still recovering from the three-day snowstorm we had earlier this week.  And from the bout of COVID I had at the beginning of January.  My arms are sore, and I tire easily.  At night, I can barely make it past 9 p.m.  I used to be a night owl, staying up 'til one or two o'clock in the morning  and then rising at 5:30 a.m. to go to work.  Now, I can't get up off the sofa without making a noise.

So, I understand why Santiago admires the fish.  Because the fish is powerful and beautiful, even in its old age.  (A fish doesn't get that big without surviving for many years.)

I accept the fact that my body simply can't do some of the things it used to be able to do when I was younger.  It can't function on three hours of sleep.  Or shovel snow all day without needing three gallons of Bengay and a full-body massage.  That's what happens when you get older.

I've also learned that the pleasures in life become much simpler as you advance in age.  For example, tonight, my puppy couldn't get enough of me.  She flopped on the couch beside me, nudged my hand with her snout, and let me rub and pet her for about an hour.  The whole time I did this, she made those canine sounds of contentment.  That cross between a moan and snore.  

Saint Marty might not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound any more, but he can make dogs smile in their sleep.

April 10: Mother of God, Second Dose, My Puppy

Merton travels around Cuba . . . 

Often I left one church and went to hear another Mass in another church, especially if the day happened to be Sunday, and I would listen to the harmonious sermons of the Spanish priests, the very grammar of which was full of dignity and mysticism and courtesy. After Latin, it seems to me there is no language so fitted for prayer and for talk about God as Spanish: for it is a language at once strong and supple, it has its sharpness, it has the quality of steel in it, which gives it the accuracy that true mysticism needs, and yet it is soft, too, and gentle and pliant, which devotion needs, and it is courteous and suppliant and courtly, and it lends itself surprisingly little to sentimentality. It has some of the intellectuality of French but not the coldness that intellectuality gets in French: and it never overflows into the feminine melodies of Italian. Spanish is never a weak language, never sloppy, even on the lips of a woman. 

The fact that while all this was going on in the pulpit, there would be Cubans ringing bells and yelling lottery numbers outside in the street seemed to make no difference. For a people that is supposed to be excitable, the Cubans have a phenomenal amount of patience with all the things that get on American nerves and drive people crazy, like persistent and strident noise. But for my own part, I did not mind any of that any more than the natives did. 

When I was sated with prayers, I could go back into the streets, walking among the lights and shadows, stopping to drink huge glasses of iced fruit juices in the little bars, until I came home again and read Maritain or St. Teresa until it was time for lunch. 

And so I made my way to Matanzas and Camagüey and Santiago—riding in a wild bus through the olive-grey Cuban countryside, full of sugar-cane fields. All the way I said rosaries and looked out into the great solitary ceiba trees, half expecting that the Mother of God would appear to me in one of them. There seemed to be no reason why she should not, for all things in heaven were just a little out of reach. So I kept looking, looking, and half expecting. But I did not see Our Lady appear, beautiful, in any of the ceiba trees.

No, I have not been travelling around Cuba like Merton.  That is not the reason for my long absence from blogging.  I haven't been seeing visions of Out Lady floating above Lake Superior.  Although that would be really cool.  And I haven't "taken a break" from social media, as people do every once in a while for various reasons.  Nope.

The explanation for why I haven't written a blog post in nearly a week is simpler (and lamer) than that:  I've been tired.  From long days of working and teaching and grading.  Trying to be a good father and husband and friend.  Plus, I find Holy Week emotionally taxing, too.  There's something about all the ritual and reading of the gospel crucifixion narratives in the liturgy that sort of wipes me out.  And then, two days ago, I got my second dose of COVID vaccine.  That pretty much did me in for yesterday and most of today.

Those are my excuses.  Even saints need time to recharge.  And Jesus.  After he did things like heal a bunch of lepers or feed a crowd of five thousand people, he would always sneak away for some alone time.  I assume to recharge his God batteries.

I'm sitting on the couch in my living room right now, listening to birds sing outside.,  It's approaching dusk, and there's a whole lot of feathery conversation going on in my yard.  Spring has arrived in my little corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The other evening, as I was walking my puppy, I heard an orchestra of peepers.  The sound sort of cracked me open like a tulip bulb.  

As I said, these last seven days have not been filled with heavenly visions, despite the Easter season.  But I did receive one particular message that I believe was heaven sent.  You see, I struggle with dark moods all the time.  My life situation has been challenging these last couple years.  I do my best to battle these moods, but, sometimes, they get the better of me.  

The other morning, I woke to rain and thunder.  A early spring downpour.  Since Easter Sunday, off and on, I'd been battling darkness.  The sound of those bullets of water striking the windows was almost painful.  I didn't think I was going to be able to pull myself together enough to go to work or school.  I said a little prayer as I brushed my teeth:  "God, help help help help please help."  (I say versions of this prayer often.)

After getting dressed, I went to my puppy's kennel and unlatched the gate.  She came roaring out of the kennel, dervished on the floor a few times, and then threw herself on her back and looked up at me.  I laughed out loud.  For the first time in days.

It was a heavenly vision.  Just as much as Jesus appearing to the apostles in the upper room.  Or the Virgin Mary popping up at Fatima or Lourdes.  I got the message.

Usually, when I pray, I'm very specific.  I think I know exactly how God should answer my prayer.  I know this is the height of hubris.  Pretty much I'm tapping God on the shoulder and telling him how to do his job.  It doesn't hurt anything to pray for a banana split if you want a banana split.  However, God might just send you Cobb salad instead, because that's what you need.

My puppy, lying on her back in front of me, was the vision of surrender.  She was showing me her belly, looking up at me with complete trust.  She knew that I was going to give her exactly what she needed.  A treat.  A full body rub.  Or a spin around the house so she could empty her bladder.

That's what my prayer was that morning.  Me, flopping on my back and staring up at God.  My puppy gave me that theological insight.  And I found myself lighter.  Almost happy.  Because I knew God was going to give me exactly what I needed to make it through the day.

The darkness I've been feeling this last week hasn't completely abated.  But, I have found some inner peace.  That peace is simple, too.  It's a recognition of grace.  Waking in the morning and knowing that God is going to be there to open the door.  Let in light.  Take me for a walk.  Give me a treat.

Marty--patron saint of good dogs.

August 30: Misery and Corruption, Prayer Thing, Puppy's Belly

Merton is possibly visited by the ghost of his father . . .

Where else did I like to go? St. Pudenziana, St. Praxed’s, above all St. Mary Major and the Lateran, although as soon as the atmosphere got heavy with baroque melodrama I would get frightened, and the peace and the obscure, tenuous sense of devotion I had acquired would leave me. 

So far, however, there had been no deep movement of my will, nothing that amounted to a conversion, nothing to shake the iron tyranny of moral corruption that held my whole nature in fetters. But that also was to come. It came in a strange way, suddenly, a way that I will not attempt to explain. 

I was in my room. It was night. The light was on. Suddenly it seemed to me that Father, who had now been dead more than a year, was there with me. The sense of his presence was as vivid and as real and as startling as if he had touched my arm or spoken to me. The whole thing passed in a flash, but in that flash, instantly, I was overwhelmed with a sudden and profound insight into the misery and corruption of my own soul, and I was pierced deeply with a light that made me realize something of the condition I was in, and I was filled with horror at what I saw, and my whole being rose up in revolt against what was within me, and my soul desired escape and liberation and freedom from all this with an intensity and an urgency unlike anything I had ever known before. And now I think for the first time in my whole life I really began to pray—praying not with my lips and with my intellect and my imagination, but praying out of the very roots of my life and of my being, and praying to the God I had never known, to reach down towards me out of His darkness and to help me to get free of the thousand terrible things that held my will in their slavery. 

There were a lot of tears connected with this, and they did me good, and all the while, although I had lost that first vivid, agonizing-sense of the presence of my father in the room, I had him in my mind, and I was talking to him as well as to God, as though he were a sort of intermediary. I do not mean this in any way that might be interpreted that I thought he was among the saints. I did not really know what that might mean then, and now that I do know I would hesitate to say that I thought he was in Heaven. Judging by my memory of the experience I should say it was “as if” he had been sent to me out of Purgatory. For after all, there is no reason why the souls in Purgatory should not help those on earth by their prayers and influence, just like those in Heaven: although usually they need our help more than we need theirs. But in this case, assuming my guess has some truth in it, things were the other way ’round. 

However, this is not a thing on which I would place any great stress. And I do not offer any definite explanation of it. How do I know it was not merely my own imagination, or something that could be traced to a purely natural, psychological cause—I mean the part about my father? It is impossible to say. I do not offer any explanation. And I have always had a great antipathy for everything that smells of necromancy—table-turning and communications with the dead—and I would never deliberately try to enter in to any such thing. But whether it was imagination or nerves or whatever else it may have been, I can say truly that I did feel, most vividly, as if my father were present there, and the consequences that I have described followed from this, as though he had communicated to me without words an interior light from God, about the condition of my own soul—although I wasn’t even sure I had a soul. 

The one thing that seems to me morally certain is that this was really a grace, and a great grace. If I had only followed it through, my life might have been very different and much less miserable for the years that were to come.

Merton doesn't believe in ghosts--or, as he says it, "everything that smells of necromancy."  However, he feels his father's presence in his hotel room, strongly, as if Owen Merton has reached out and touched his arm.  This presence causes Merton to do something he's never really done.  Pray.  Really pray.  Not just a rote recitation of memorized words.  No.  He begs to be released of all his chains, metaphoric and physical.  Merton is in spiritual pain, and he is asking for release. 

I've had similar moments in my life.  Not the ghost thing.  The prayer thing.  Times when I've gotten down on my knees in the middle of the night and begged for release.  Usually, these moments come after I've exhausted myself with fruitless effort.  Bargaining--If you do this for me, God, I'll dedicate the rest of my life to you.  Anger--Fuck you, God, if you don't help me out.  Begging--Please, God, I'm at the end of my rope here.  Help me out.  Exhaustion--I surrender, God.  I can't do this anymore.  You take care of it.  And surrender--I give up.  You win, God.  I'll do whatever you want.

Usually, when I surrender, that's when God steps in.

This afternoon, after I got back from a shopping with my wife and son, I didn't want to do anything.  I just wanted to take a shower, lie down on the couch, and stay there for about two months.  I haven't been sleeping all that well recently.  Late nights.  Early mornings.  Worrying about things over which I have no control.  Yet, I try to control them.  Because that's what humans do.  Play God.

Instead of surrendering to the sofa, however, I felt a nudge to take my puppy for a walk.  I don't know why.  I had tons of computer work to do for school.  I needed to prepare for my upcoming work week.   Laundry to fold.  Lunches to pack.  But I grabbed the leash, and out the door I went. 

My puppy was pulling me along, barking at cars going by, sniffing everything.  Distracted, I was mentally going over my to-do list for when I got home after the walk.  I wasn't paying attention to anything around me, until my puppy pulled me toward an elderly gentleman who was standing in his driveway, watching us walk by.

I slowed down and allowed my puppy to approach the man.  He bent down and started petting her, scratching her back. cupping her ears, saying, "Oh, you're a pretty girl.  Yes, you are."  My puppy rolled over on her back, exposing her belly, and the man laughed and started rubbing her belly.  "Oh, my, yes.  You are a good girl," he said.

The old man looked up at me, smiled, "She sure is friendly."

I nodded, said, "She loves everybody."

He nodded, smiled again, and said, "I just lost my girl."  I saw tears well up in his eyes.  "Had to put her down last week," he said.  He scratched my puppy's belly.  "She was in a lot of pain, you know," he said.

All of my struggles sort of melted out of my head, and I knew then why God had sent me on this walk.

"I'm so sorry," I said.

The man nodded, sniffed a little.  "She was a good girl, just like this one," he said.  My puppy jumped on his legs and licked his face.  "Oh, thank you," he said to her.  "I love you, too."

I stood there, let the man pet her as long as he liked.

Finally, he stood up and looked at me.  "Thank you," he said.

I nodded.  "Any time," I said.  "I'm really sorry for your loss."

He nodded, looked over at his house, and then back down at my puppy.  "She sure is a pretty girl," he said, nodding at her.

I pressed my lips together and tugged my puppy's chain.  She started bounding up the street.

I allowed God to lead me this afternoon.  Surrendered.  And He taught me a pretty good lesson.  One that humbled me greatly.  He allowed my puppy to bring comfort to a grieving man.  It was a miraculous thing.

And Saint Marty is thankful he was a witness to it.

July 11: Human Connection, Mask-Wearing, Poem from "Kyrie"

Each night, I take my puppy for a walk.  It's one of those habits I started in March, when the full effects of the pandemic were just being felt.  Now, almost four months into Covid-19, I am still walking.

This evening, as I was striding down a street, I noticed a small, white dog on a leash start running across the street toward us.  I could tell she was not going to stop when she reached the curb, even though there was an SUV coming down the street.  The dog's owner was yelling at her to stop.  She didn't stop.

She charged across the blacktop toward my puppy and me.  I stopped walking, waited for the little white dog to approach us.  The SUV slowed to a crawl, waited.  The little white dog approached my puppy, and they began doing the butt-sniffing dance of canine greeting.  I put my foot on the little white dog's red leash, so that she could not run away as her owner approached.

I wasn't wearing a mask.  Usually on my walks, I am very good at avoiding people.  The owner of the dog, however, I could not escape.  She needed to retrieve her pet.  As she came nearer, she slowed and kept saying, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."  She stopped six feet from me, and we both stood staring at each other, wondering how we were going to handle the situation.

I smiled at her.  "It's okay," I said.  I reached down and picked up her dog's leash.  "Your puppy's just excited."  I held the end of the leash out to her.  She leaned forward, took the leash, and then stepped back.  She smiled.

"Thank you," she said.

I nodded.  Then, I began walking again.

It is probably the first time I have spoken to a complete stranger since March.  It was almost as if I didn't remember the rules of polite interaction, and I could tell that she was dealing with similar feelings.  There was awkwardness, tinged with a little fear.  Yet, the human connection--even for just a few seconds--was wonderful.  A miracle.

Michigan's governor, Gretchen Whitmer, just made mask-wearing the law.  If you don't mask up, you get fined.  A coworker of mine, who walks around all day with her mask hanging around her chin like a feedbag, said something on Friday like, "Governor Witless has done it again.  I'm so sick of her."  I didn't respond to my coworker's comment.  I can't engage in political debate in the work setting, even though mask-wearing shouldn't be a political issue, especially with a healthcare worker who should know better.

And I should have been wearing a mask tonight.  I wasn't.  The owner of the white dog should have been wearing a mask.  She wasn't.  Our interaction lasted all of ten seconds.  It was a human moment, without any political overtones.  She was relieved her puppy hadn't gotten hit by the SUV.  I was happy to have played a tiny part in making sure that her puppy didn't get injured.

Tomorrow, when I take my puppy for a walk, I will be wearing a mask.  It's the law, and I don't mind enduring this slight inconvenience to insure that everyone stays healthy and safe.

Tonight, Saint Marty gives thanks for a brief moment of normal human connection in the midst of a pandemic.

Poem from Kyrie

by:  Ellen Bryant Voigt

No longer just a stream, not yet a pond,
the water slowed and deepened, banks eroded,
redwing blackbird roosting on a stalk,
sometimes that rippled vee plowing the surface.
Each clear day, she walked to the willow oak,
raked the anemic grass, tidied the mounds,
walked back down to the house by way of the creek.
If the beaver had put in a stick, she took it out.
If a storm had dropped a branch, she hauled it off.
When milder weather came, she tucked her skirts
at the waist and waded in, dislodging trash
the beaver would recover.  Months of this.
Twice she sent for the neighbors to trap it or shoot it.,
but each time Fan said Emmett don't you dare.

May 12: Complicate and Sadden, My Plan, God's Plan

Young Thomas Merton's life complicates and saddens . . .

In the autumn of 1929 I went to Oakham.  There was something very pleasant and peaceful about the atmosphere of this little market town, with its school and its old fourteenth-century church with the grey spire, rising in the middle of a wide Midland vale.

Obscure it certainly was.  Oakham's only claim to fame was the fact that it was the county town, and in fact the only real town in the smallest county in England.  And there were not even any main roads or main railway lines running through Rutland, except for the Great North Road which skirted the Lincolnshire border.

In this quiet back-water, under the trees full of rooks, I was to spend three and a half years getting ready for a career.  Three and a half years were a short time:  but when they were over, I was a very different person from the embarrassed and clumsy and more or less well-meaning, but interiorly unhappy fourteen-year-old who came there with a suitcase and a brown felt hat and a trunk and a plain wooden tuck-box.

Meanwhile, before I entered Oakham, and took up my abode in the ratty, gaslit corner of Hodge Wing that was called the "Nursery," things had happened to complicate and sadden my life still further.  

In the Easter vacation of 1929 I had been with Father at Canterbury, where he was working, painting pictures mostly in the big, quiet Cathedral close.  I had spent most of my days walking in the country around Canterbury, and the time went quietly except for the momentous occasion of a big Charlie Chaplin movie which came, late indeed, to Canterbury.  It was The Gold Rush.

When the holidays were over and I went back to Ripley Court, Father crossed over to France.  The last I heard about him was that he was at Rouen.  Then, one day, towards the end of the summer term, when the school cricket eleven went in to Ealing to play Durston House, I was surprised to find myself appointed to go along as scorer.  There was, of course, no likelihood of my ever going as a member of the team, since I was a hopeless cricketer from the start.  On the way into town, on the bus or somewhere, I learned that my father was in Ealing, at Aunt Maud's, and that he was ill.  This was why they had sent me along, I suppose:  during the tea-interval I would have a chance to run in to the house which overlooked the cricket field and see Father.

The bus unloaded us in the lane that led to the field.  In the tiny pavilion, the other scorer and I opened our large, green-ruled books, and wrote down the names of one another's team in the boxes down the side of the big rectangular page.  Then, with our pencils all sharpened we waited, as the first pair went in to bat, striding heavily in their big white pads.

The dim June sun shone down on the field.  Over yonder, where the poplars swayed slightly in the haze, was Aunt Maud's house, and I could see the window in the brick gable where Father probably was.

So the match began.

I could not believe that Father was very ill.  If he were, I supposed that they would have made more fuss about it.  During the tea-interval, I went over, and passed through the green wooden door in the wall to Aunt Maud's garden and entered the house and went upstairs.  Father was in bed.  You could not tell from his appearance how ill he was:  but I managed to gather it from the way he talked and from his actions.  He seemed to move with difficulty and pain, and he did not have much to say.  When I asked him what was the matter, he said nobody seemed to know.

Merton doesn't ever seem to have an easy time as a child.  First, he loses his mother at a very young age.  Then, his itinerant artist father drags him back-and-forth across the Atlantic a few times, crisscrosses Europe.  Merton has had anything but a normal childhood.  Now, his father is gravely ill.  (SPOILER ALERT:  His father is dying.)  Things don't ever seem to go right for Tom.

I can sympathize with Merton.  Situations in my life never turn out the way that I expect.  Certainly, Merton imagined growing up with his parents in France, living a bohemian life, and becoming a famous writer.  That's the life he envisioned for himself as a young person.  Didn't quite turn out that way.  He became a Trappist monk, a bestselling author, and is now being considered for sainthood.  Merton's version of his life pales in comparison to what God had in mind.

And therein lies the rub.  I pretty much think I know what would make me happy and give my life meaning.  Bestselling writer and college professor sound pretty good.  U. S. Poet Laureate sounds even better.  I wouldn't turn down Nobel Laureate, either.  That's the vision I have for my life.  God's vision:  contingent professor and medical office worker at the moment; struggler with bills and family; blogger; church musician; and Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula.  That's what God has put on my plate at this moment.

From day-to-day, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing.  This morning and afternoon, I have been on my computer and phone, talking with someone from my state senator's office, trying to find an answer to a difficult question.  It's one of those things that keeps me awake at night.  And now, I've put it in God's hands.  I can't do anything else with it.

I run into problems when I try to run the show instead of taking my cue from God.  If only He would see things my way, my life would be so much better.  Of course, the issue is that God has a much different view of the universe than I do.  Wider.  More encompassing.  Me?  I panic when the phone rings.

I think I need to be more like my puppy.  She doesn't worry about whether she's going to have food in her dish.  She scratches at the door and knows someone will open it for her.  She goes for walks and is transported into joy by the smells and sounds and sights.  And, when she naps, she sprawls in the middle of the floor, completely unafraid of being stepped on.  She just trusts the universe.

Saint Marty needs to be a mini Australian shepherd.

March 26, 27, 28: Abundance of the Heart, My Puppy, Saint Juno

Merton writing about how he learned about religion as a child . . .

There was also a Catholic chapel in the Lycee, but it was falling into ruins and the glass was out of most of the windows.  Nobody ever saw the inside of it, because it was locked up tight.  I suppose back in the days when the Lycee was built the Catholics had managed, at the cost of several years of patient effort, to get this concession out of the government people who were erecting the school:  but in the long run it did not do them much good.

The only really valuable religious and moral training I ever got as a child came to me from my father, not systematically, but here and there and more or less spontaneously, in the course of ordinary conversations.  Father never applied himself, of set purpose, to teach me religion.  But if something spiritual was on his mind, it came out more or less naturally.  And this is the kind of religious teaching, or any other kind of teaching, that has the most effect.  "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth good fruit, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth that which is evil.  For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."

And it is precisely this speech "out of the abundance of the heart" that makes an impression and produces an effect in other people.  We give ear and pay at least a partially respectful attention to anyone who is really sincerely convinced of what he is saying, no matter what it is, even if it is opposed to our own ideas.

I have not the slightest idea what the little pasteur told us about the Pharisee and the Publican, but I shall never forget a casual remark Father happened to make, in which he told me of St. Peter's betrayal of Christ, and how, hearing the cock crow, Peter went out and wept bitterly.  I forget how it came up, and what the context was that suggested it:  we were just talking casually, standing in the hall of the flat we had taken on the Place de la Condamine.

I have never lost the vivid picture I got, at that moment, of Peter going out and weeping bitterly.  I wonder how I ever managed to forget, for so many years, the understanding I acquired at that moment of how St. Peter felt, and of what his betrayal meant to him.

Greetings from my Saturday morning.  Usually, pre-pandemic, I would be choosing and practicing the music I would be playing for Mass this evening and worship tomorrow at one of the other churches for which I play.  In a lot of ways, music has been religion for most of my life.  Merton learned from his father, and I learned from sitting on an organ bench as a young adult.  It wasn't until I had to pay attention to liturgy and Gospel readings as a church musician that I really got it, that it sank through the thick bone in my head.

And now, in this piece of history in which I'm living right now, I am learning how to cope from a another source:  my puppy, Juno.  She is a mini Australian shepherd, and every minute of her life is about joy and finding joy.  So, for this post, I am going to let Juno take over the keyboard.  I figure, out of the abundance of her canine heart, she can teach us all a little about how to appreciate what we have.  Here is Juno, in her own words:

I love this blue twisty thing, with its bumps and knots.  It makes my teeth feel so good when I bite it, and the two-leggeds don't mind.  They don't get all barky at me if I sit in the middle of the floor and gnaw and gnaw and gnaw.

What is that?  It's something outside, high-pitched.  One of the two-leggeds just made sounds like "pring" and "irds" or something like that.  I don't understand everything they bark at each other.  But it seems like the irds are the ones making that high-pitched sounds because it is pring outside.  And the two-leggeds don't seem excited about it.  They don't go outside even though it's warm and full of good smells and that bright ball up above is bouncing in the big blue.

I love that bright ball in the blue.  I want to chew it, feel it against my tongue. It hurts to look at it, but I think it must taste wonderful, like my treats, but better.  Warmer, softer.  Like when I sink my teeth into the male two-legged's toe, and he barks at me.  But that soft part of him in my mouth makes me so happy.  As if I've caught something small and alive and wriggling running through the white piles outside.

I go to the thing with the gold knob and scratch it.  The two-leggeds ignore me.  I scratch again.  The two-leggeds ignore me.  I need to go out and see the bright ball and taste the air.  I look at the two-leggeds.  They don't move.  I go to the middle of the room, spread my back legs, and squat.  

The male two-legged jumps up and scoops me off the floor.  He rushes to the thing with the gold knob and pulls it open.  He puts a leash on me, and soon I am standing on the stone ground outside.

I am surrounded by smells and sounds.  I put my snout up and sniff deeply.  There's dirt and rot and water and mud and the bright ball in the blue and the high-pitched irds.  The two-leggeds said this is pring.  I love pring.  I want to roll in pring, drive it into my back and belly.  I want to carry it around with me forever.

I bark.  It sounds so good, I bark again.  The sound fills the air.  I want the irds and the bright ball to know I'm out here.  I bark again and again.  The male two-legged says "pee" and tugs the leash.

How can he not be on the ground, rolling in pring?  How can he just stand there and not raise his face and bark with me?  I bark at him, pull him toward a pool of mud.  He pulls me back.  I bark at him again, grab the leash in my mouth.  He pulls me back.  I pull.  He pulls.  I pull.  He pulls.  What a great pring game!

Finally, the male two-legged scoops me up again.  I lick and nip at his face.  He puts me on top of one of the big white piles.  "Pee," he says.

I can see so much more.  I am closer to the bright ball, the irds.  I can smell something in the air.  Something new.  It's like when the female two-legged makes light with the stick.  She takes the stick and makes light and then puts the light on another stick.  And she lets that stick burn and burn and fill the room with sweet.  That's what this new smell is like.  It's like light burning, but bigger.  More sweet.  And it smells like food, too. It makes my teeth itch.

Mmmmrrrrrrrr-rark-Rrrrrrrrr--rarkkkkk--Rrraarrrkkk!

I'm singing to the bright ball, to the irds.  It is so much glory.  And the male two-legged doesn't see it.  Doesn't smell it.  Doesn't taste it.  I roll on top of the big white pile.  I roll and roll.  I will take pring inside with me.

The male two-legged pulls on my leash and grabs me.  He is huffy and annoyed.  But underneath, I taste something else on him, too.  Something that has nothing to do with pring or pee or irds or the bright ball.  I lick his face.  I've tasted this before.  

I taste it on the little male two-legged when he goes into a dark room.  It tastes sharp and cold.  And I can taste it all over the big male two-legged right now.  He carries me inside.  I squirm and wriggle, try to rub pring and the bright ball and the irds into him.  

Take it, I tell him.  Take it from me.  It's yours.  I want you to have it.  Take the irds.  Take the bright ball.  Take pring.  There's enough for both of us.

He sets me on the floor inside.  He sits down.

I go to the blue twisty thing with bumps and knots, take it in my mouth.  I carry it to the male two-legged.  He sits in his place, stares at me.  I drop the blue twisty thing on his feet.  He reaches over.  Rubs my ears.  Makes sounds that make me feel warm.

The sharp and cold moves away.  There is no dark right now.  In this moment.  In this place.  Between me and him.  I jump into his lap, flop on my back.  He scratches my belly.  He keeps making those warm sounds.

I fall asleep with the sound of the irds in my ears. 

Have a wonderful night, from Saint Marty and Saint Juno.

January 20, 21, 22: Nobody at Home, Unconditional Love, Fool for Love

Merton on his little brother, John Paul:

When I think now of that part of my childhood, the picture I get of my brother John Paul is this:  standing in a field, about a hundred yards away from the clump of sumachs where we have built our hut, is this little perplexed five-year-old kid in short pants and a kind of a leather jacket, standing quite still, with his arms hanging down at his sides, and gazing in our direction, afraid to come any nearer on account of the stones, as insulted as he is saddened, and his eyes full of indignation and sorrow.  And yet he does not go away.  We shout at him to get out of there, to beat it, and go home, and wing a couple of more rocks in that direction, and he does not go away.  We tell him to play in some other place.  He does not move.

And there he stands, not sobbing, not crying, but angry and unhappy and offended and tremendously sad.  And yet he is fascinated by what we are doing, nailing shingles all over our new hut.  And his tremendous desire to be with us and to do what we are doing will not permit him to go away.  The law written in his nature says that he must be with his elder brother, and do what he is doing, and he cannot understand why this law of love is being so wildly and unjustly violated in his case.

Many times it was like that.  And in a sense, this terrible situation is the pattern and prototype of all sin:  the deliberate and formal will to reject disinterested love for us for the purely arbitrary reason that we simply do not want it.  We will to separate ourselves from that love.  We reject it entirely and absolutely, and will not acknowledge it, simply because it does not please us to be loved.  Perhaps the inner motive is that the fact of being loved disinterestedly reminds us that we all need love from others, and depend upon the charity of others to carry on our own lives.  And we refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind of humiliation.

There was a time when I and my magnificent friends, in our great hut, having formed a "gang," thought we were sufficiently powerful to antagonize the extremely tough Polish kids who had formed a real gang in Little Neck, a mile away.  We used to go over in their neighborhood, and stand, facing in the general direction of the billboards, behind which they had their headquarters, and, from a very safe distance, we would shout defiance and challenge them to come out and fight.

Nobody came out.  Perhaps there was nobody at home.

Merton recognizes that the treatment his little brother receives verges on sin.  It is a rejection of love--John Paul wishes to be with Merton and his friends in their clubhouse, and, instead of welcoming him, they throw stones to drive him away.  Which seems very Old Testament to me.  Stoning.  Of course, John Paul has done nothing wrong, other than love his older brother.

It is late as I sit typing this post.  And, in the past few days, I have learned what unconditional love really means.  You see, I currently have a puppy curled up asleep at my feet.  She is tiny and perfect, and she seems to really love me for some reason.  I don't know what I have done to deserve her devotion, other than take her outside to go to the bathroom and let her sleep in bed with my wife and me at night.  Early this morning, I woke up to find the puppy sleeping on my chest.

Unconditional love is a rarity.  It only happens occasionally.  Most love comes with strings attached.  We all want to be loved on our own terms.

*****

I started this post three days ago.  I typed the passage from Merton the first night.  Last night, with my new puppy sitting at the feet, I started reflecting on the meaning of love and unconditional love.  Before the hour grew too late last night, I typed the sentence "We all want to be loved on our own terms," and then I went to bed.  Because I didn't like the idea that I put conditions on the love I send out into the world.  (I think that's what Merton is struggling with in the passage above--how he treated his little brother who was simply seeking Merton's approval and love.)

However, because we are human, we aren't wired to love without expectation.  If I love someone or something, I expect to be loved in return.  Period.  However, that's not the way love always works.  Merton's brother learns that sometimes love is repaid with stones being thrown at you.  I've learned, because of my wife's mental illness and its accompanying problems, that you have to work hard at love. 

Love is seasonal, sometimes easy--marriages, births, deaths.  These are times when love overpowers all other emotions.  It's love distilled to its essence.  Then there are times when love goes fallow, stays hidden, heads south for the winter.  That's when love becomes a job.  You have to endure seasons like that, wait for the green to return.  After all, spring does follow every winter.  The world always renews itself, mysteriously, somehow.  I think love does the same thing.

You may think I'm being naive.  Stupid.  Unrealistic.  Foolish.  I don't care.  I'll be naive for love.  Unrealistic for love.  I will be a fool for love.  Love is what gives life meaning for me.  It's what gets me out of bed in the morning.  It's what keeps me moving all day long.  And it's what pulls me back home at night.  Love is what every person needs and deserves.

Some people have love given to them freely, and they throw it away.  Addicts do this all the time.  And some people have love sleeping right at their feet and never reach down to pet it, thank it, say to it "good girl" or "good boy."  Give it its favorite toy, a drink of water, a treat.

Just call Marty the Patron Saint of Fools.