June 11: "Praying," Quietest Days, Blessed Abundantly

Mary Oliver gives a lesson in prayer . . . 

Praying

by:  Mary Oliver

It doesn't have to be

the blue iris, it could be

weeds in a vacant lot, or a few

small stones; just

pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try

to make them elaborate, this isn't

a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which

another voice may speak.

There's lots of ways to pray.  For Oliver, it's all about being present to the present--the blue iris or weeds or stones in front of your face.  There's no formula for right or wrong, just a doorway or passage to a space of gratitude, filled with silence and anticipation.  Because, praying is not just about speaking what's in your heart.  That's only half of the process.  The other half is listening for the answer.

For Oliver, prayer is all about thankfulness.  The main message of the majority of her poems is to pay attention to all the wonders of creation and be grateful.  Of course, not all prayers end with the words "thank you."  Nope.  There are sad prayers.  Angry prayers.  Prayers of longing and prayers of ecstasy.  If you don't believe me, check out the the Book of Psalms.  David runs the whole gamut of emotions, from gratitude to confusion to despair.  

I get pissed at God.  When my sister was diagnosed with lymphoma of the brain, I had quite a few heated arguments with the Big Guy, most of them ending with variations of "Fuck You, amen."  Some people might think that's blasphemous.  I don't.  I think that any healthy relationship has it's ups and downs, whether it's with another human being or the Almighty.  

Today has been one of the quietest days I've experienced in a long, long time.  I played one church service this morning, went grocery shopping, and folded laundry.  That was the extent of my obligations.  Aside from that, I took a nap and had dinner with my wife and kids.  After I'm done typing this post, I may read or watch a movie or do . . . absolutely nothing.

I don't have much to complain about.  Sure, I live paycheck to paycheck, but I have food in my fridge, a car that starts, and a few jobs that almost pay all my bills.  For that, I send up a prayer of thanks.  Yes, I have health struggles with my diabetes, but I have decent medical insurance.  For that, I send up another prayer of thanks.  My wife has bipolar, but she takes her meds and has been stable for quite some time.  Thanks, God.  I have a daughter who wants to be a doctor and is currently studying for the MCAT.  Thanks, God.  

When I truly stop and assess my life, I realize that I'm blessed abundantly.  That's what Oliver means when she says to look at the weeds in a vacant lot and pay attention.  Most of the fear and despair and anger in life comes from looking backward or forward.  I can brood about past slights and hurts.  I can stress about potential catastrophes.  Here's the thing:  I can't change the past, and the future hasn't happened.  So, the energy I invest in anything but the present moment is a waste of time.

I'm not angry tonight.  The sadness that has been my constant companion over the last year or so isn't overwhelming me tonight.  I had a wonderful visit with my kids this evening, and they are both happy and healthy.  I just took my puppy for a walk, and she's recovering well from her surgery.  It's cool tonight, but I have a warm house and clothing and blankets.  A meteor isn't hurtling through space on a collision course with Earth.  And Donald Trump isn't President of the United States.  

That is my present moment--the blue iris in front of my face, the few small stones in my palm.  The sunlight in the pine trees.  

Saint Marty is paying attention, patching these words together, and walking through the doorway into thanks tonight.

September 6: Past, Present, and Future

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed.  "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.  Old Jacob Marley!  Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this!  I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!"

Yes, I have returned to one of the passages that inspired my year-long adventure in blogging about A Christmas Carol.  Scrooge is embracing change in his life.  He has seen his future, and it wasn't very pleasant.  He needs to do something, or else he's going to end up on the wrong side of a gravestone very shortly.

I'm not a person who embraces change easily.  (For disciples who have been following this blog for a while, this should come as no surprise.  I mentioned this morning to a coworker that I wasn't a big fan of change.  Her response:  "You're kidding.  I never would have realized that."  Imagine huge eyes and a sarcastic smile accompanying that statement.)  No, change and I do not often break bread together.  Generally, I have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the table when Change is the dinner guest.

My wife starts her new job today.  She has to be there around 11:30 a.m.  I'm really happy for her.  I can embrace this change.  It will be great for my wife's self-esteem, and it will be great for our finances.  Unfortunately, this job may mean that she won't be able to go on our family vacation to the Wisconsin Dells in October.  We talked about this possibility last night.  Of course, it's going to be very disappointing if she can't accompany us.  We have to go in October; it's for a dance convention for my daughter.  There's no changing the dates.

This would be an example of Change being both good and bad.  I have a niece who is currently studying abroad in Costa Rica.  She's been preparing for this semester for quite a while.  Well, she got there a few days ago, and an earthquake rocked the country a day ago.  She's fine, wasn't even near the epicenter.  However, she is a victim of the good and bad of change.  She's loving the country and the parrot who curses in Spanish in her house; she's not that fond of a glass building shaking and shivering while she's in a classroom on its second floor.  Good and bad.

So, the upshot of this post is:  wife's new job, good; wife not going on vacation, bad.

Saint Marty wonders if Scrooge ever regretted raising Bob Cratchit's salary.

Bad change

August 2: Strangest Quality, Very Wonder, Past

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality.  For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness:  being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body:  of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away.  And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

That's a pretty frightening description of the Ghost of Christmas Past.  It's not at all like the incarnations portrayed in the various movie adaptations.  Usually, the Ghosts of Christmas Past in the movies are matronly old women or very old men.  No film has ever captured the particular horror of the above paragraph.  If I didn't know that passage was written by Charles Dickens, I could be convinced it was written by H. P. Lovecraft.  It's that strange.

But the past is that strange.  In some ways, it is a ghost with many heads and arms and legs.  At the end of his time with the Ghost of Christmas Past, Scrooge has this impression:  He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.  There's Scrooge, wrestling with his past.

I don't really have a point this morning.  As the summer winds down, I get sort of reflective.  August makes me think of the coming autumn.  Going back to school.  Birthdays.  Halloween.  Christmas.  New Year's.  Time seems to pass so quickly.  With my daughter away at camp, I've been thinking about her as an infant and toddler.  I miss her younger self (not that I don't love the young lady she is now).  I don't miss my younger self.  Too much crap happened in my life when my daughter was younger.  I don't want to go through all that again.  But I loved when my daughter was tiny and dependent on me, when I would pick her up easily, and carry her to bed.

If I were to choose a time to return to, I would choose when my wife was pregnant with our daughter.  That was before bipolar, before sexual addiction.  That was all anticipation and happiness.  For me, that's one of the golden times of my life, all gauzy and wonderful.

Saint Marty would wrestle a ghost with a thousand heads to return to that time for a little while.

Care to wrestle with this mutha?

May 11: Shadows, Past, Dreaming Big

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost.  "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

Scrooge, at this point in the novel, gets angry with the Ghost of Christmas Past.  The Ghost has shown him some pretty painful scenes, and he doesn't want to see any more.  The past is overwhelming Scrooge.  His regrets are piling up, and he simply can't stand the thought of all his lost opportunities.  The Ghost is forcing Scrooge to accept responsibility for his choices.

Of course, accepting responsibility for your choices is something everyone has to do.  We all have regrets.  That's part of being human.  Scrooge is being tortured by the "what ifs" of his life.  The shadows of his past.  What if he had pursued Belle, gotten married, had children?  What if his life had followed that trajectory?  I could make a list of "what ifs" that could be its own blog.  I don't necessarily think reflecting on "what ifs" is a bad thing.  As the old saying goes, if you don't learn from your mistakes, you're doomed to repeat them.  Or something like that.

There are a few ages in my life I wouldn't mind doing over.  If I had a choice, I would go back and finish my computer science degree.  I would also go back and finish my PhD.  I would have a couple more kids if I were younger.  I would also hunt down Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard and invest in Facebook, and I would try to befriend Steve Jobs.  Pixar.  I'd buy stock in Pixar.  It's all 20/20 hindsight.

I could drive myself crazy with all the should-haves and do-overs.  For the most part, though, I'm happy where I am.  (Not ecstatic, just happy.  Satisfied.  There's always room for improvement.)  For this summer, I have big plans for what I want to accomplish.  I want to finish a good portion of my memoir I started during Lent.  I have an idea for a new collection of poems (even though I haven't found a publisher for my last collection yet).  I know I'm setting myself up for feeling like a failure come August.  I do it every year, but I believe in dreaming big.

I just have to teach myself to lighten up when I don't make those dreams come true.  If I don't, I'm going to end up just like Scrooge, only without money.  Instead of cash, what I'll have piled up is a whole bunch of regrets.

Saint Marty is still going to dream big.  He'll take dreams over disappointments any day.

Dream big and wear SPF!

March 2: Fragments, Past, Wrestling

He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

This little wrestling match occurs at the end of Scrooge's time with the Ghost of Christmas Past.  The last scenes this Spirit shows him are quite painful, and Scrooge has had enough.  The pain and loss of his past overwhelms him, and Scrooge turns on the ghost and physically battles him.  Scrooge forces the specter to leave.

I think we all have moments in our past we wouldn't want to re-experience.  I can think of quite a few myself.  I can't imagine a ghost that has fragments of all of the people from my past who've hurt me.  It's a truly terrifying prospect.  I wouldn't be afraid of the ghost as much as the psychological pain.  Obviously, Scrooge has not made peace with his past at this point in the story.  I don't think I've reconciled myself to a lot of my experiences , as well.  I'd be doing some ghost wrestling myself if I were Scrooge.

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!  Uh, yeah, I am...

This morning, I'm trying to get a lot of work done.  I have a great big pile of tasks to complete.  None of them, however, has to do with the ghosts of my past.  Thank God.  I'll leave the ghosts for tonight, when I'm used to those kinds of darker moments of reflection.  Sometimes the ghosts of the past can be more terrifying than the ghosts of future.  And there ain't no Ghostbuster you can call.

Take Saint Marty's word for it.