June 25: Rebellion of the Saints, Company of Poets, Immanence

Merton struggles with William Blake's contradictions . . .

On one hand he [William Blake] spoke of the "priests in black gowns who were going their rounds binding with briars my joys and desires."  And yet on the other hand he detested Voltaire and Rousseau and everybody like them and everything that they stood for, and he abominated all materialistic deism, and all the polite, abstract natural religions of the eighteenth century, the agnosticism of the nineteenth and, in fact, most of the common attitudes of our day.

          The atoms of Democritus
          And Newton's particles of light
          Are sands upon the Red-Sea shore
          Where Israel's tents do shine so bright . . .

I was absolutely incapable for reconciling, in my mind, two things that seemed contrary.  Blake was a revolutionary, and yet he detested the greatest and most typical revolutionaries of his time, and declared himself opposed without compromise to people who, as I thought, seemed to exemplify some of his own most characteristic ideals.

How incapable I was of understanding anything like the ideals of a William Blake!  How could I possibly realize that his rebellion, for all its strange heterodoxies, was fundamentally the rebellion of the saints.  It was the rebellion of the lover of the living God, the rebellion of one whose desire of God was so intense and irresistible that it condemned, with all its might, all the hypocrisy and petty sensuality and skepticism and materialism which cold and trivial minds set up as unpassable barriers between God and the souls of men.

Merton envisions William Blake as a quasi-saint--a person so in love with God that he rejected everything that stood between humans and the Almighty.  All the things that the greatest thinkers of his time embraced.  Sensuality.  Skepticism.  Materialism.  Blake was the poetic equivalent of John the Baptist, calling out in his desert voice, "Prepare ye the way!"

I will say that I have never thought of Blake as a strong a believer in a Supreme Being.  My version of Blake was of a man who was trying to create his own mythology, his own God--Urizen, a bearded old man who is the architect of confinement, holding humanity back with conventional laws and wisdom.  Blake was great artist.  An interesting, possibly unbalanced poet.

Yet, here's Thomas Merton, one of the most influential Christian thinkers and writers of the twentieth century, basically canonizing William Blake.  I sort of love it.  I've always believed that poets are somehow more in tune with the divine.  Aware of the glories of the universe, microscopic to macroscopic.  Merton seems to be a validating this belief for me.

I spent this evening in the company of poets, and it brought some light into my soul.  It was a reading that kicked off a new project--an anthology of poems and writing prompts from the monthly workshops I've been conducting since I was first selected Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula.  Just sitting in that Zoom meeting, listening to the work of all these writers, moved me profoundly.  It was a conversation of diverse poetic voices.  A night of psalms.

These last few days, I've been posting about the darkness with which I've been struggling.  Haven't been sleeping well.  I've been focused a lot on places and people in my life where I seem to be failing miserably.  It has been a long, tough 15-plus days, where I've thought of throwing in the towel a few times.

However, tonight my poet/prophet friends sort of reminded me of the immanence of grace in the universe, from the tiniest seashell to the redwoods of California.  It's everywhere.  Including those dark moments that border on despair.  I am never without it.  All I have to do is open my eyes and look around to find evidence of God in my life.

And for the miracle of this revelation, Saint Marty gives thanks.

February 14: Clam or Cod, Valentine's Ash Wednesday, Fasting

It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at the Try Pots. But the directions hc had given us about keeping a yellow warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first man we met where the place was; these crooked directions of his very much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg insisted that the yellow warehouse- our first point of departure- must be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceful inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking.

Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses' ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel, and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching Tophet?

I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt.

"Get along with ye," said she to the man, "or I'll be combing ye!"

"Come on, Queequeg," said I, "all right. There's Mrs. Hussey."

And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said- "Clam or Cod?"

"What's that about Cods, ma'am?" said I, with much politeness.

"Clam or Cod?" she repeated.

"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?" says I, "but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?"

But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple shirt who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for two," disappeared.

"Queequeg," said I, "do you think that we can make a supper for us both on one clam?"

However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh! sweet friends, hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuits, and salted pork cut up into little flakes! the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word "cod" with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us.

We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? "But look, Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's your harpoon?"

Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account books bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the milk, too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen's boats, I saw Hosea's brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the sand with each foot in a cod's decapitated head, looking very slipshod, I assure ye.

Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to precede me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. "Why not? said I; "every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon- but why not?" "Because it's dangerous," says she. "Ever since young Stiggs coming from that unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with only three barrels of ile, was found dead in my first floor back, with his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg" (for she had learned his name), "I will just take this here iron, and keep it for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for breakfast, men?"

"Both," says I; "and let's have a couple of smoked herring by way of variety."

Melville's description of the clam and cod chowder at the Try Pots inn almost makes me hungry.  I've never been much for seafood chowder of any sort, but Ishmael tempts me to try a bowl of it today.  It is Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday, which seems like some kind of liturgical practical joke.  In the Christian calendar, today marks the first day of Lent, which means a whole lot of fasting and sacrifice.  Contemplation of faults and sins.  A time to abstain, not indulge.  The menu of the Try Pots is perfect for this day.

Yet, it is also Valentine's Day--a time to celebrate love and romance.  Cardboard hearts filled with chocolates.  Romantic dinners, usually involving steak and lobster, not clam chowder.  This day is supposed to celebrate indulgence, in food and dessert and sex and love.  It seems like the polar opposite of Ash Wednesday.

So, how do you reconcile these two celebrations?

I bought my wife a Valentine's Day card.  Before I left for work, I put it on her purse.  Today, I have tried to fast between meals--no cheese popcorn or Hershey nuggets or bagels.  Instead of my normal chicken sandwich, I had crackers and cheese for lunch.  (In the Catholic tradition, you are not allowed to eat meat on Ash Wednesday.)  Now, I am fasting again.  I don't know if or when I will eat dinner.

At lunch time, I did eat some chocolate.  Tonight, I may eat some more chocolate.  I honestly think that fasting from meat or between meals can be a strong reminder of the importance of sacrifice.  Hunger is a huge problem in the world.  However, to feel deprived because I can't eat a Milky Way between breakfast and lunch is kind of stupid.  Likewise, feeling somehow closer to God by eating fish instead of hamburger seems ridiculous.

This Lent, I have a project that I'm going to be working on.  I'm not going to share the details here.  When I do broadcast what my Lenten sacrifice/project is going to be, I set myself up for failure.  This time, I am going to keep it private, and, at the end of these 47 days, hopefully I will have something to show for it.  Something that I can be proud of.  Something for my dad.

I will be going to the Ash Wednesday service at my wife's church this evening.  My forehead will be smudged black with ashes.  I will listen to the pastor's message on sacrifice and preparation, and I will be duly grateful and humbled.  I really don't deserve any of the blessings in my life.

But that's what God's grace is all about.  You don't earn it.  He just gives it to you.

Saint Marty is thankful for new projects.