November 11: Get a Grip, Questions, Control Freak, Passive Aggressive Vexer

Calm down, get a grip now . . . oh! this is an interesting sensation, what is it?  It's a sort of . . . yawning, tingling sensation in my . . . my . . . well, I suppose I'd better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call an argument I shall call the world, so let's call it my stomach.

These are some of the last thoughts of a sperm whale plummeting through the atmosphere of the planet Magrathea to its death.  In the space of a page-and-a-half, the whale goes through an entire lifetime of existential and philosophical questioning, from "who am I?" to "I wonder if it will be friends with me?"  The whale doesn't really have the time to find any definitive answers.  Its life is all about questions.

I sort of get this whale.  A lot.  I seem to bounce through my days with all kinds of questions in my head, and I don't ever seem to find any answers.  For instance, there's a particular person who's vexing me at the moment.  This person is quite passive aggressive and has a penchant for attacking others behind their backs.  It seems I have become the target of his/her ill will.

Now, here is the question:  how do I respond to such a toxic person?  Do I go on the offense and attack back?  Do I take the high road, and ignore this person's high school antics?  Or do I let this person simply boil in his/her own poison until s/he dies alone and unloved?  (I can't lie--thinking about that last option gives me quite a lot of pleasure.  Am I a terrible person?)

So, you see, questions beget more questions.  When I go to bed most nights, I find myself taking inventory of these questions, leading to many sleepless hours.  I've always been an obsessive worrier.  Questioning is a part of that.  If I'm not worrying about myself, I'm worrying about other people.  Yes, that's right.  I take on other people's worries, too.  I'm a worry collector.

I truly want what's best for everyone.  I don't know what's best, but I want everyone to have it.  Everyone deserves to be happy.  Well, almost everyone.  Not Donald Trump.  Or my passive-aggressive vexer.  Other than those two, everyone deserves happiness.

So, to sum things up, I have established that I am 1) a questioner, 2) a worrier, and now 3) a judger.

Which brings me to my last point:  I am a control freak.  Being a control freak involves questioning, worrying, and judging.  For example, I have spent most of this evening questioning, worrying about, and judging the weather forecasts for tonight.  Some of my weather sources say that my home town is only going to get a dusting of snow.  Other sources say up to 14 inches.  After several hours of deliberation, I have decided that there is not going to be a snow storm this evening.

Yes, that's right, disciples.  You heard it here first.  I can now control the weather.

That's all me.  Marty.  Patron saint of questioners, worriers, judges, and meteorologists.

October 24: Mysterious Planet, Questions, Mary Oliver, "The Man Who Has Many Answers," Confessions of Saint Marty

Not one to read books on spiritual subjects, on out-of-body experiences, reincarnation, spiritualism, or mysticism, witchcraft or voodoo, Ives was left confounded by the strangeness of his vision.  He sighed, wishing that he had seen the Virgin Mother floating over Forty-first Street and Madison Avenue instead.  Somehow, in his mind, it all related to his ideas of afterlife.  He would think of all the depictions of Christ on the Cross, his tortured eyes looking upward, heaven just beyond, and wonder, to his horror, just what Christ might have been seeing.  What if he had looked up and seen the whirling center of a chaotic universe swallowing him up?  He felt disappointed that he had neither the education nor intelligence to fathom what had happened to him.  On some of those nights, he had concluded that death would not be a joyous ramble with ethereal and eternally pleasant angelic beings, but a chaotic, mysterious, and dark experience, as if a soul, in leaving the body, would alight upon the surface of Jupiter or Mars or some other mysterious planet, such as he had read about in Astonishing Stories magazine, on in the science-fiction books whose covers he had upon occasion illustrated.

Ives spends the rest of his life with questions.  About the meaning of his mystical vision, the four colored winds swirling above the streets of New York.  About the meaning of his son's death.  About Heaven and Hell and the goodness of God.  About the birth of Christ and the crucifixion.  Basically, Ives has a lot of questions and, by the end of the book, very few answers.  Ives lives with mystery his whole life and, finally, embraces it.

I wish that I could simply accept the questions of the universe without feeling confused or angry or unfulfilled.  Of course, it takes Ives quite a few decades to reach that point in his life.  For almost three hundred pages, Ives' day-to-day existence is gilded with doubt and sorrow.  That's pretty much where I am now.

Certainly, I ask questions like "Why did my sister get lymphoma of the brain?" and "Why don't I ever have enough money to pay the bills?" and "Why is Donald Trump leading in the polls?" every day of my life.  It's human nature to search for answers when faced with baffling situations.  It's difficult living with question marks floating over your head.  But, even when I get the answer to some plaguing question, there is always a new, and frequently more troubling, question to replace it.

I'm not sure that answers are really what I need.  What I need, I think, is the ability, like Ives, to live with mystery.  Comfortably.  Without tearing out what's left of my hair in the pursuit of explanations.  Living at ease with mystery is a matter of trust.  If I trust that God is good, looking out for me in every situation, then mystery becomes less challenging.   It's simply a goldfinch or nightingale sitting on a branch outside my window, singing, filling the world with music.

I'm not quite there yet, though.  I hear the goldfinch chirping, but, more often than not, my reaction is not to sit back and enjoy the sound.  I run for a book to try to figure out what kind of bird is in my maple tree.  I find comfort in answers, not questions.

Saint Marty has trust issues.  He double checks his order before he leaves the drive-thru at McDonald's, and he still reads the last page of books first, so that he's never surprised.

The Man Who Has Many Answers

by:  Mary Oliver

The man who has many answers
is often found
in the theaters of information
where he offers, graciously,
his deep findings.

While the man who has only questions,
to comfort himself, makes music.

Confessions of Saint Marty

April 26: Understand Everything, Questions, Elaine Equi, "A Story Begins," New Cartoon

"None of us do," said Dr. Dorian, sighing.  "I'm a doctor.  Doctors are supposed to understand everything.  But I don't understand everything, and I don't intend to let it worry me."

Mrs. Arable goes to Dr. Dorian, worried about Fern.  Fern's been telling her mother about the characters in the barn, and her mother is worried.  She doesn't understand Fern's love of pigs and spiders and geese and sheep.  She also resists believing in the miracle of Charlotte's web.  Dr. Dorian tries to set Mrs. Arable straight about the need to have all the answers in life.

Over the past year, I have dealt with a lot of change in my life.  Changes I don't understand.  A church displaced me from my organist job after 15 years of service.  My hours were cut at the medical office where I work, and then I was cut from that job.  Things are changing at the university.  Colleagues are retiring.  The Department Head is leaving at the end of next academic year.  If I were to choose one adjective to describe the last year of my life, that word would be "tumultuous."  Tumult here.  Tumult there.  Tumult, tumult everywhere.

I have a sense that God is sending me some kind of message with all this change.  For the life of me, however, I have no idea what the hell the message is.  Maybe I should stop trying to figure out the message.  Maybe I should be like Dr. Dorian and stop trying to understand everything.  Eventually, answers will come my way.  I'm simply making myself miserable by worrying all the time, and all that worry is not helping me in any way.

So, I will accept my current state of being.  Accept the questions without worrying about the answers.

It is the last weekend of National Poetry Month in the United States, so, of course, I have to include a poem this evening.  This poem comes from The Best American Poetry 2012.  It's by Elaine Equi and was first published in New American Writing.  It's about stories we read and tell.  And it's about how life falls outside of plots and climaxes and denouements, in the bogs and swamps.  The messes.

You know, where Saint Marty has been for the last twelve months.

A Story Begins

by:  Elaine Equi

The same as other stories, but we follow along in case something different might happen.

Just one different thing.  It leads us to a ledge and pushes us over.

Every story has a climax in a way life doesn't.

It puts us back where it found us.  It opens our eyes which weren't closed, but felt that way because what we we saw was happening inside the story.

We are the excess of the story--that which it cannot contain.

Washed ashore.

What was the story about?

I can't remember.  A dwindling, dim-witted tribe.

Every month when the moon was full, they'd sacrifice another virgin, but could never figure out why the crops still wouldn't grow.

Confessions of Saint Marty

Juney 24: Flat-Tire Question, Old Childs, Magic 8-Ball Monday

Every time I sit down to type my Monday morning posts, I have tons of questions in my head that I want answered.  They're all about the future--my jobs, my writing, my wife, my kids, my finances.  The normal obsessions.  (Well, perhaps not every person in the world worries about poetry or full-time, tenure-track university professorships.)  Then, when I actually start typing my post, those questions seem to evaporate into a cloud of superficiality.  I mean, in the grand scheme of things, my problems are pretty damn trivial, and, somehow, my unconscious mind knows this and robs me of my ability to be self-absorbed.  Which leaves me with nothing to write about.

I still have all my fears and worries.  I just feel a little silly writing about them.  I mean, who really wants to hear about whether I can make my car payment or not?  Or whether I won or lost a chapbook contest I entered?  Compared to tornadoes and car bombings, those things are pretty minor.  A lot of people would look at my life and say, "What the hell are you complaining about?"  And they would be absolutely right.

If I had a stronger faith in God, my days would be much more peaceful.  Every time I leave work, as I'm walking toward my car, I start worrying about having a flat tire.  In 13 years of working at this medical office, I've had exactly two flat tires, both during the summer, both when I've had nowhere special to be in the evening.  Yet, I worry about flat tires.  I can't help myself.  All my worries are really flat-tire worries.

And I'm going to ask a flat-tire question on this Magic 8-Ball Monday.  I do this because I'm human and imperfect and really, really petty.  Here goes:

Am I a good person?

And the answer from Holden Caulfield and J. D. Salinger and the universe is:

...Old Childs was a Quaker and all, and he read the Bible all the time.  He was a very nice kid, and I liked him, but I could never see eye to eye with him on a lot of stuff in the Bible, especially the Disciples...

Hmmm.  A very nice kid.  I can live with that, I guess.

There's worse things Saint Marty could be called.

If only all worries were this easy...

December 22: Other Ministers, Carl Dennis, "Practical Gods," New Cartoon

“Jacob,” he said imploringly.  “Old Jacob Marley, tell me more.  Speak comfort to me, Jacob.”

“I have none to give,” the Ghost replied.  “It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men.  Nor can I tell you what I would.  A very little more, is all permitted to me.  I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.  My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house—mark me!—in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before me!”

Marley’s Ghost hints at the mysteries of Heaven and Hell, of the divine, in this exchange with Scrooge.  There are other ministers who convey comfort and compassion to humankind.  Marley and company lift the veil to the spirit world a little to let us see both the redeemed and damned.  The afterlife, Marley seems to hint, can be blessing or curse, eternal torment or eternal joy.

Last night, for P.O.E.T.S. Day, I gave you, my disciples, a poem from Carl Dennis’s book Practical Gods, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002.  It is a collection of poems that, like Marley’s Ghost, touches upon both the sacred and profane.  Dennis draws from myth and religion, the pagan and the Biblical, to probe the mysteries of life in this universe.

Shortly after Dennis won the Pulitzer, I had the opportunity to hear him read from his book.  He was a soft-spoken man, difficult to hear from where I was sitting, even though he used a microphone.  At points, I remember straining to listen to his words.  Several people around me kept whispering, “What did he say?”

After reading Practical Gods, I realized that his performance was in keeping with his poems.  They are not showy.  Dennis doesn’t use the verbal pyrotechnics so in vogue in modern poetry.  His poems are quiet, sneaking up on the reader like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.  Dennis doesn’t deal with answers.  He deals with questions.

In the poem below, Dennis touches upon the question of selfishness versus selflessness:

To A Pagan

It’s sad to see you offer your prayers to the sun god

And then, when you really need him, discover too late

That though he’s willing to help, other gods more potent

Decide against him.  It’s too late then to regret

You didn’t invest your trust where we’ve invested.

Join us, and if help doesn’t arrive at once,

At least the deputy angel assigned your district

May hear your groans in the wind and track them

Down to your attic apartment in the outskirts

And mark the coordinates on her map.

Then she’s off on the long trek through the voids

To report the crisis.  Imagine the vault of the stars

As a tundra stretching away for a million miles

Without so much as a hut for shelter,

Without a tree or a bush for a windbreak.

Imagine how lonely she is as she builds a fire

Of tundra grass in the mouth of a cave,

A fire that proves too small and smoky

To warm her icy plumage.  Then add her voice

As she quakes a psalm to keep up her spirits.

Dwelling on her, your heart will fill with compassion

And you’ll want to cry out, “Great friend, I’m thankful

For all you suffer for my sake, but I’m past help.

Help someone more likely to benefit,” the prayer

Of a real convert, which is swiftly answered.

Yes, Carl Dennis asks questions with his poems in Practical Gods, but he doesn’t provide many answers.  He provides conclusions that are rife with more questions.  There are no easy solutions in life, he seems to be saying.  As the pagan learns in the above poem, it is through our struggle and need that we learn where real salvation lies:  in human connection, in the impulse to reach out a Samaritan hand and heal a wounded traveler.

Saint Marty hopes he can live up to that challenge.

Confessions of Saint Marty

June 25: Have You Ever Noticed...

Have you ever noticed that I rarely ask questions in my posts?

Am I the only blogger who avoids questions?  Am I the only person who read a criticism in a print magazine (Time?  Newsweek?  The New Yorker?) of how bloggers tend to ask tons of questions in their blogs?  Why is that a bad thing?  Does it make the writing weak?  Trite?  Precious?  Is it some kind of pathetic ploy to get readers to respond to posts?  Are all bloggers that desperate for attention?  Are we all kids who got picked last for teams in gym class?  Did we all go through high school yearning to be the popular basketball player or class president or star of the school's production of Our Town?

Can we ever overcome adolescent need for acceptance and validation?  Am I still just a pathetic teenager inside, still too insecure to ask the girl in chemistry class to go to prom?  Isn't that the question all writers want answered:  "Will you go to the dance with me?"  Don't we write our poems or stories or blog posts or novels to get the thrill of having the pretty cheerleader or handsome cross country runner talk to us, laugh with us, make us feel cool?  (Is there any way to make that last sentence parallel in grammatical structure?  Does anyone care if it's in parallel grammatical structure?)

Am I just a blogger in search of recognition?  Will I just keep asking questions until somebody, anybody actually responds to my pathetic pleas for human connection?  Am I being too open?  Too honest?  Should I conceal this nervous, monkey-side of my personality?  Or should I continue to eat my bananas, scratch my balls, fling my shit into the cyberspace zoo for all to see?  Am I just Bobo, the well-hung chimpanzee blogger, wagging my hairy goods in the faces of all my readers?

Will Saint Marty ever be able to answer any of these questions?  Is anybody out there?

Is this cartoon funny or what?

November 28: Not Having All the Answers, Saint James of the March

My wife just called to tell me that my daughter phoned her from school to tell her that her ear is hurting her.  That means my daughter posibbly has an ear infection, which she gets frequently.  My wife wanted to know if she should make a doctor's appointment for my daughter.

I've had students e-mailing me all day with questions.  My cousin is calling me with questions about a paper she's working on for a class.  I've got a friend who's putting together a Christmas benefit concert for this weekend, and she's calling with questions.  My pastor is e-mailing me questions about the Sunday School Christmas program.

Questions.  Questions.  Questions.

I'm a little tired of questions right now.  I'm not tired of people.  I'm just tired of questions.  It's a little early in the Christmas season to feel this overwhelmed.  Usually, I don't get to this point until about December 11th or 12th.  I'm trying to maintain my good humor, but I'm struggling.

Today's patron saint, James of the March, knew a little about overwhelming responsibility.  Born in 1391 in Italy, James became a Franciscan friar.  During his life, he dealt with a lot of people's questions.  One story tells of how, with one sermon, he converted 50,000 heretics and "countless sinners."  He also "traveled all over Europe as the ambassador of Popes and rulers, sleeping little and praying much."

My book doesn't say anything about James of the March's sense of humor, but I have to believe it was pretty good to deal with all that crap.  About the only thing I have in common with him is the "sleeping little" part.

If my faith was as strong as James' faith, I would have told my wife to take my daughter to the doctor's office.  I would have e-mailed all of my students back.  I would have gone through my cousins's paper line-by-line, pointing out each comma splice, fragment, and run-on.  I would volunteer to put together the program for my friend's Christmas benefit.  And I would work on the Sunday School Christmas program bulletin for my pastor tonight.

But I'm not Saint James of the March.

I'm Saint Marty of the curl up in a fetal position and cry.

Where's Clarence when you need him?