Yes, we have reached the end of the Lenten season and the beginning of the Easter season. It has been a very busy few days. Four church services, one lasting almost three hours with five baptisms, three confirmations, and three first communions. I got to bed at 1 a.m. and got up at 5 a.m. today. I am beat. I'm not usually a napper. Too much to do. Quizzes to correct. Lesson plans to create. Blog posts to write. But this afternoon, I took a two hour nap.
That's God's love number forty seven: a nap on Easter afternoon. A true Sabbath break. I'm a little anxious about the time I lost for work. However, I needed the rest. I feel refreshed and focused.
I have a new poem for you today. It's the poem I wrote last week and recited during the church services this morning. And today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired three years ago, during my year with Charles Dickens.
April 5, 2012: Rolling Year, Wise Men, Keeping Focused
"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said, "I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow beings with eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!"
The spectre in question is Jacob Marley, and, in this passage, he is lamenting his eternal fate of wandering through the world, witnessing its needs and sufferings. Marley is a victim of his own trivial concerns and selfishness. Just like Scrooge. Just like most of us.
I know, when I woke up this morning, my first thought wasn't about poverty or famine. My first thought was more like, "I am so freakin' tired. I wish I could just go back to bed and skip work." Very rarely do I contemplate how lucky/blessed I really am to have jobs to go to, breakfast to eat, hot water to shower with. No, I pretty much go through my life with blinders on, thinking about the things I don't have. In some ways, it's a lot easier to be unsatisfied with life. Think about it. It's much easier to be envious of a person (of his job, her car, his home, her family, his this, her that) than to be happy with your job or home or car. Gratitude is difficult to cultivate.
Modern society and culture foster an attitude of want. I just got an iPad 2 for Christmas. Apple just released the next generation iPad last month, and it's selling like crazy. It's the newest "something better" every person wants. I want a full-time teaching job at the university. I want a bigger house. I want to write a bestselling book. (I wanted to win the lottery last Friday.) We all suffer the same affliction as Marley--walking through life with our eyes down, focused only on our path. Our journey.
I don't often think of the bigger picture. For instance, I don't think of my neighbors across the street very much. They're an elderly couple. The husband is very ill. I haven't seen him out much at all this winter. The last time I said anything to his wife was last fall. I had a box of blueberry doughnuts left over from a church function. I gave them to the wife, mainly because I didn't want the temptation in my house. The wife was thrilled with the pastry. She kept saying, "Are you sure you don't want these? Are you sure?" It was a tiny gesture, made more out of selfishness (wanting to watch my weight) than anything else. Yet, it made a difference in that couple's lives.
For a couple minutes, my eyes weren't focused down. They were focused upward, toward that Star.
For a couple of minutes, Saint Marty was a wise man.
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| Just as good as gold, frankincense, or myrrh |
Emmaus
My sister lies in her bed
while her neighbors scream
in the hallway outside her door.
My sock, something’s wrong
with my sock, moans one voice.
And, Give it back, give it back now,
begs another, so full of longing
that I want to find its owner,
reach into my pants pocket,
empty its contents into
the speaker’s hands, hope
that, among the five quarters,
scrap of paper with a phone number,
burned-out Christmas bulb,
Tootsie Roll wrapper, maybe,
just maybe, he may find
what he’s lost. My sister
has grown deaf to these voices.
She grips her bedrails,
grimaces, pulls herself closer
to me, the effor t making her
shake as if some fist
is pounding on the door of her
body. Do you want a drink?
I ask. No, she says.
Are you warm enough? I ask.
She nods, closes her eyes.
Should I change the channel?
I ask. No, she says again.
Then silence as she drifts
like a vagrant kite on a windy
day. I wonder if she dreams
her body whole, climbs through
the window of her room, begins
walking down the road, between
the snowbanks, under the moon.
Maybe she meets other people
who tell her about the things
they can’t find. Socks. Cocker spaniels.
Birthday cards. Wives. Poems.
Husbands. Photographs. Friends.
The road is crowded with loss.
But they all keep moving, like pilgrims
on some cold Easter morning, hoping
to meet the one who will have
directions, will know how to get home.
Confessions of Saint Marty
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