June 20: "Reclining on Clouds," Longest Day, "Summer Solstice Night"

Billy Collins won't pray . . . 

Reclining on Clouds

by: Billy Collins

I would pray for you

but the gods would know

I was talking

to myself

and would turn

their curly

golden heads

the other way.

I pray.  A lot.  Most of the time, my prayers are short, almost desperate:  help! or Jesus Christ! or fuck me!  (Yes, I tend to be a little profane in my conversations with my Higher Power.  It's just who I am.  If God can't handle it, she better look for another job.)  However, there are times when my prayers express awe:  wow! or holy shit! or fuck me!  (Yes, "fuck me!" works in many situations, its meaning dependent on context.)

Prayer is a habit I picked up as a kid.  I grew up in a family where, after dinner, my dad and mom forced us kids to get on our knees and recite a rosary.  In the mornings, my parents sat at the dining room table, their prayer books next to their coffee cups, saying their morning devotions.  Prayer was habit for them, and, by osmosis, it became a habit for me.

There's something very comforting for me in saying a prayer.  The very act makes me feel less alone, as if I always have someone willing to listen to my complaints or worries or needs or joys.  I spent most of today getting many small tasks done at the library--things that I've been meaning to accomplish all week long.  At around 11 a.m., I sat back from my keyboard for a second and said out loud, "Fuck me!"  It was an expression of frustration (how much more shit do I have left to do?!) and satisfaction (how awesome am I for getting shit done!) and relief (how shitty was that? glad it's done!).  

This evening, I led a virtual open mic.  Only two other people showed up (my wife and a new poet friend), but it was an amazing hour or so of sharing and conversation.  (Another fuck me! holy moment.)  I went into the event a little tired, and now, sitting at my desk, typing this post, I'm totally energized with gratitude for the gift of friends and words in my life.  

It is the summer solstice.  An almost full moon tonight.  (Strawberry moon tomorrow.)  The longest day of the year in the Western Hemisphere.  It's about 9:28 p.m. right now, and the sky is just getting a little dusky as I type these words.  It is fairly overcast, so the chances of me seeing that almost full moon tonight are slim to not a chance in hell.  I may take a stroll in my backyard in a little while to see if the stars are having a little solstice party,

If Saint Marty sees the moon, he may say a little prayer of thanks that goes something like this:  fuck me!

Summer Solstice Night

by: Martin Achatz

won't begin until around

10 p.m. when the moon shows

up with her girlfriends--

Cygnus, Lyra, Aquila--puts

Purple Rain on the record player,

starts to grind and twerk

against the dark hips of heaven.

April 22: Injustice, Big Heart, Little Girl

 "I see no difference," replied Fern, still hanging on to the ax.  "This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of."

At the beginning of Charlotte's Web, Fern fights against her father's decision to kill Wilbur, the runt of a little of pigs.  She's fighting injustice, and she wins.  This doesn't always occur.  Sometimes, injustice wins.  Innocent people suffer.  Bad people prosper.  I know I should never question God's plan.  But God's plan doesn't always make sense to me.

Tonight, I am asking you to pray for a little girl with too big of a heart.  My daughter's friend has a little sister.  That little sister is three-years-old, and she has a serious health problem.  It seems her heart is too large for her tiny body.  Her parents have known this since her birth, but she was too young for surgery.

Now, that little girl is going to have that surgery.  The doctors are going shave her heart down.  That's the best way I can describe it.  If she doesn't have the surgery, she will certainly die.  If she does have the surgery, there's a good chance she will die.  The chances of her survival are slim.

I'm asking you to pray for this three-year-old redhead.  She's a beautiful child, and she needs a miracle.

Saint Marty has little more to say.  Pray.  Please.

Fold your hands for a wounded heart

April 6: Funny Girl, Elizabeth Gilbert, "Eat, Pray, Love," New Cartoon

She was a funny girl, old Jane.  I wouldn't exactly describe her as strictly beautiful.  She knocked me out, though.  She was sort of muckle-mouthed.  I mean when she was talking and she got excited about something, her mouth sort of went in about fifty different directions, her lips and all.  That killed me.  And she never really closed it all the way, her mouth.  It was always just a little bit open, especially when she got in her golf stance, or when she was reading a book.  She was always reading, and she read very good books.  She read a lot of poetry and all.  She was the only one, outside my family, that I ever showed Allie's baseball mitt to, with all the poems written on it.  She'd never met Allie or anything, because that was her first summer in Maine--before that, she went to Cape Cod--but I told her quite a lot about him.  She was interested in that kind of stuff.

Holden and Jane are the only two characters in The Catcher in the Rye who are identified as readers of really good books.  Holden reads books by authors like Isak Dinesen and his brother, D.B.; Jane reads poetry.  Holden has certain ideas about what makes good literature.  As I've said earlier, the mark or a good writer is that, "when you're done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it."

A few years ago, everybody was reading a book by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Oprah did a show on it.  Julia Roberts starred in the film adaptation of it.  It was one of the best-loved and most-hated books of the time.  Even now, when this book is mentioned in conversation by "literary" folks, it's usually in pejorative terms.  For some reason, Elizabeth Gilbert's book has become the stereotype of the self-absorbed memoir.  Gilbert is a spoiled, privileged whiner, according to popular opinion.

Of course, the book is Eat, Pray, Love, and I'm writing this post to reclaim it.  I read it when it was first released, and I loved it.  The writing is vibrant and funny.  Gilbert's story is transformative and wise.  I think the reason the book got such a bad rap is that Gilbert seems to have such good luck.  I mean, she gives up the American dream--husband, home in the country, great career--and spends a year living in Italy, India, and Bali.  She eats a lot of good food, prays and meditates, and falls in love.  Basically, it's a book about blessings.

Putting all that aside, Elizabeth Gilbert is a hell of a writer.  Here is her description of eating the "best pizza in the world" in Naples:

...They have only two varieties of pizza here--regular and extra cheese.  None of this new age southern California olives-and-sun-dried-tomato wannabe pizza twaddle.  The dough, it takes me half my meal to figure out, tastes more like Indian nan than like any pizza dough I ever tried.  It's soft and chewy and yielding, but incredibly thin.  I always thought we only had two choices in our lives when it came to pizza crust--thin and crispy, or thick and doughy.  How was I to have known there could be a crust in this world that was thin and doughy?  Holy of holies!  Thin, doughy, strong, gummy, yummy, chewy, salty pizza paradise...

Gilbert turns everything into a spiritual experience--food, prayer, and love.  If you haven't read Eat, Pray, Love yet, if you've avoided it because of all the negative hype, you need to give it a chance.  If you've read it before and fell into the trap of popular Gilbert hatred, tear the cover off the book and imagine you're reading something by an up-and-coming essayist.  You won't be disappointed.

Elizabeth Gilbert passes the Holden Caulfield author test.  She makes Saint Marty want to abandon his life and travel.  Maybe he'll go to Green Bay next weekend.

Confessions of Saint Marty

October 4: Little Bob, Don't Be Grieved, Hurting Person

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter--he had need of it, poor fellow--came in.  His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to it most.  Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, upon his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father.  Don't be grieved!"

Poor Bob is grieving the death of Tiny Tim in this little passage.  Scrooge watches as this father comes to terms with the loss of his little boy.  It's the saddest moment in the entire novel, one that caused readers a great deal of distress when the book was first released.  Tiny Tim was so beloved that Scrooge had to add a line at the end of the novel to assure his audience that Tim survives:  "...and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die..."  Even so, Bob's sadness at this juncture in the narrative is very difficult to face.

I have a person in my life who is really hurting this morning.  He's struggling with some job issues.  I gave him a phone call just before he left for work to offer some words of encouragement, and he got quite choked up.  My heart broke for him.  If I could have given him a hug over the phone, I would have.  Instead, I just had to offer verbal support.  The whole conversation left me feeling quite helpless and angry.  After I hung up, I said a little prayer for him.

I'm asking anyone who reads this post to say a prayer for this person.  He needs love and positive thoughts.  Like Bob, he needs the uplift of family and children and friends.  When someone close to me is hurting, I feel powerless.  I wish I could reach in and fix the problems that exist.

However, Saint Marty is going to leave that up to Someone Who can make a difference.  Amen.

Say a prayer for my friend