July 25: Nagging Little Problems, the Meaning of Life, a Miracle

Some more about Deep Thought's answer to the Big Question . . .

A man standing on a brightly dressed dais before the building which clearly dominated the square was addressing the crowd over a tannoy.

"O people who wait in the shadow of Deep Thought!" he cried out.  "Honored Descendants of Vroomfondel and Majikthise, the Greatest and Most Truly Interesting Pundits the Universe has ever known, the Time of Waiting is over!"

Wild cheers broke out among the crowd.  Flags, streamers and wolf whistles sailed through the air.  The narrower streets looked rather like centipedes rolled over on their backs and frantically waving their legs in the air.

"Seven and a half million years our race has waited for this Great and Hopefully Enlightening Day!" cried the cheerleader.  "The Day of Answer!"

Hurrahs burst from the ecstatic crowd.

"Never again," cried the man, "never again will we wake up in the morning and think Who am I?  What is my purpose in life?  Does it really, cosmically speaking matter if I don't get up and go to work?  For today we will finally learn once and for all the plain and simple answer to all these nagging little problems of Life, the Universe and Everything!"

The Honored Descendants of Vroomfondel and Majikthise are gathered to find out the meaning of the universe from Deep Thought, the stupendous super computer that has been working on the answer for seven and a half million years.  Of course, Douglas Adams is providing satire and parody here.  He's making fun of philosophers and "deep thinkers" everywhere.

The most serious part of this satire is that all of this race of beings is looking to a machine to provide purpose and guidance and happiness in their lives.  Of course, that is not going to happen.  I could pose the question to Google, "What is the meaning of life?"  Here is one of the answers I will get:

Life has different definition in the eyes of different people. ... For many life is all about love. For a few, life is all about religious practices. For philosophers like Aristotle life is about happiness: "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence."

So, that isn't necessarily a definitive answer.  It's simply an overview of several philosophical and religious and cultural responses.  Those responses weren't created by Google.  They were compiled by Google.

Last night, I spoke about the current financial circumstance my wife and I find ourselves in at the moment.  No money to get groceries.  Bills we can't pay.  I was feeling pretty desperate.  I simply was at the end of my rope.  I had no answers.  I had no where to turn.

After I published that post, I said a prayer.  Gave all my worries and problems to God.  I couldn't think of anything else to do.  Then, I went home, heated up a frozen pastie, made an omelet with the last four eggs in my house, and I fed my daughter and her boyfriend.

Then I received a whole lot of grace.  I'm not going into any details, but, by about ten o'clock last night, our cupboards and refrigerator were full.  God sent some angels our way, and I am so humbled by this act of love and generosity for me and my family.

You know, it's really easy to look at the state of the world and be really cynical about the human race.  Then, God steps in and does what He does best--restores your faith.  I want to thank those angels who helped us out so much yesterday.  They made a miracle happen last night.  I went from feeling alone and desperate to loved and hopeful.

We're not out of the woods yet.  The credit union turned down our loan application this afternoon.  Still trying to figure out how to pay a pile of bills.  As I said last night, it has a whole lot to do with the lack of a paycheck from the university over the summer.  And a few other things that I had no control over.  It's a little frightening being this powerless.

However, last night proved to me that God is on my side.  I place these worries and problems in His hands tonight, because that's all I can do.

Saint Marty learned last night that God really does listen to prayer.  And angels are right around the corner.  That is the real meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

May 23: Mad Beams, Existential, Mistakes

All right then.  Pull yourself together.  Is this where I'm spending my life, in the "reptile brain," this lamp at the top of the spine like a lighthouse flipping mad beams indiscriminately into the darkness, into the furred thoraxes of moths, onto the backs of leaping fishes and the wrecks of schooners?  Come up a level; surface.

Dillard is giving herself a little pep talk, trying to talk herself back from her "reptile brain."  There's something crazed, wild in her current state.  She's dwelling with insect and fish, diving into the wreck, as Adrienne Rich would say.  She wants to pull away, kick her way to air, to sky.  To the stars.

I've been feeling a little existential these last couple days.  Questioning the meaning of my life.  Like Dillard, it's not a state in which I want to remain very long.  I would prefer to surface right now, but I can't.  Instead, I'm dwelling on the choices I've made.  Over and over.

I wake up in the morning and think, "What the hell am I doing?"  I didn't dream of being a clinic office clerk when I was a kid.  When I'm sitting at my desk for eight hours, registering patients and answering phones, I sometimes want to get up, walk away, find a quiet corner, and read a book or write a poem.  And when I'm in a classroom teaching, I feel like I'm . . . home (sorry if that sounds corny, but that's the only way I can say it).

Of course, I know I've made mistakes.  Every day, I make mistakes.  Tomorrow morning, I'm going to be working for a little while at my new job, registering patients for about an hour.  I have no clue what I'm doing.  I'm going to need help.  A lot of help.  And I'm going to make mistakes.  A lot of them.  (I'm not entirely sure that this new job is the right choice for me.  It may be another mistake.)

Being human means being flawed.  I'm a jigsaw puzzle of failures.  So is everybody else.  One of the hardest things as a parent is seeing your kids make bad choices and not being able to do a thing to stop them.  Yet, I've learned more from my mistakes than my successes.  That's the irony.  My mistakes have made me a better person.

So, here I sit on my couch at home, in the dark, feeling existential while watching Antiques Roadshow.  I don't know what the meaning of my life is.  I am a husband.  A father.  Teacher, writer, blogger.  And I have failed (sometimes miserably) in each of those roles at one point or another.

Marty is probably failing at being a saint, as well.  He hasn't performed any miracles in a really long time.

January 8: To Be Alive, Fern, Love

From three to four, he planned to stand perfectly still and think what it was like to be alive, and to wait for Fern.

In the fourth chapter of Charlotte's Web, E. B. White provides a detailed itinerary of Wilbur's day, starting with breakfast.  Near the end of this list comes the passage above, where the little pig plans to just stand still for sixty minutes and contemplate the meaning of life.  Perhaps it's Wilbur's version of prayer.


During my days, I don't usually find much time to meditate like this.  I'm too busy actually living to contemplate the deeper meanings of life.  Perhaps I would be a little saner if I took a cue from Wilbur.  Stand still.  Breathe.  Watch the flies on the walls.  The swallows in the trees.  Sheep in the meadows.  OK, I don't live on a farm, but you get my point.

Of course, Wilbur's prayer time ends with the anticipation of Fern's arrival.  Basically, he's waiting for love to show up.  He knows that, when Fern appears, he will be in the presence of a person who accepts him unconditionally.  It doesn't matter whether he's covered in manure or smells like rancid hamburger.  Wilbur knows that Fern loves him.  Period.

I received a phone call this afternoon from a Fern in my life.  She called to see how I was doing.  She'd read my posts from yesterday and wanted to make sure I was OK.  I felt really lucky when I hung up.  I was Wilbur at 4 p.m., watching Fern bound across the barnyard toward me.  I am really blessed.  I have a lot of Ferns and Charlottes in my life.  People who sincerely care about me.

Usually, I reserve Wednesday posts for writing about worries.  I'm taking a break from that today.  Instead, I'm looking up, into the corner of my life.  There's a beautiful, gray spider there, and she's spun a web for me.  There's one word in it.  Clear and simple.

Love.

Saint Marty will hold on to that tonight.

No worries tonight

December 30: What I Have Learned

I have learned a great deal about Holden Caulfield this year.  Holden is funny and smart.  He's a good writer, and so is his brother.  Holden has good taste in books, but he has lousy taste in friends.  Holden's severely depressed and has been for quite some time.  And Holden loves his little sister, Phoebe.  He smokes too much, eats too little, and thinks anybody over the age of ten or eleven is a phonie.

The most significant thing I will take away from my Catcher year is that it's not a great book to read if you're struggling in any way.  There's very little that's uplifting in Salinger's novel.  The only time Holden is truly happy comes at the end of the narrative, right before we find out that he's in a hospital, recuperating from a mental breakdown.  Holden's sitting in the rain, watching his little sister ride the merry-go-round in Central Park.  And he's really happy.

It's a simple moment.  Nothing really significant has happened.  Holden hasn't figured out the meaning of life.  He's figured out very little, actually.  Yet, he has finally reached a state of bliss.

Happiness isn't something to hunt down and capture.  Happiness doesn't depend on the school you attend, the job you have, or the people you call friends.  Happiness is a choice.  Whether you're sitting on a beach in Hawaii or on a bench in Central Park during a rainstorm, you can be happy.

Saint Marty chooses to be happy this last day of 2013.

It takes a lot of practice