December 26: A Mysterious Attraction, Keep Christmas Alive, Togetherness

Merton rereads James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist and finds something new . . . 

My reading became more and more Catholic.  I became absorbed in the poetry of Hopkins and in his notebooks—that poetry which had only impressed me a little six years before. Now, too, I was deeply interested in Hopkins’ life as a Jesuit. What was that life? What did the Jesuits do? What did a priest do? How did he live? I scarcely knew where to begin to find out about all such things: but they had started to exercise a mysterious attraction over me. 

And here is a strange thing. I had by now read James Joyce’s Ulysses twice or three times. Six years before—on one of those winter vacations in Strasbourg—I had tried to read Portrait of the Artist and had bogged down in the part about his spiritual crisis. Something about it had discouraged, bored, and depressed me. I did not want to read about such a thing: and I finally dropped it in the middle of the “Mission.” Strange to say, sometime during this summer—I think it was before the first time I went to Corpus Christi—I reread Portrait of the Artist and was fascinated precisely by that part of the book, by the “Mission,” by the priest’s sermon on hell. What impressed me was not the fear of hell, but the expertness of the sermon. Now, instead of being repelled by the thought of such preaching—which was perhaps the author’s intention—I was stimulated and edified by it. The style in which the priest in the book talked, pleased me by its efficiency and solidity and drive: and once again there was something eminently satisfying in the thought that these Catholics knew what they believed, and knew what to teach, and all taught the same thing, and taught it with coordination and purpose and great effect. It was this that struck me first of all, rather than the actual subject matter of their doctrine—until, that is, I heard the sermon at Corpus Christi. 

So then I continued to read Joyce, more and more fascinated by the pictures of priests and Catholic life that came up here and there in his books. That, I am sure, will strike many people as a strange thing indeed. I think Joyce himself was only interested in rebuilding the Dublin he had known as objectively and vitally as he could. He was certainly very alive to all the faults in Irish Catholic society, and he had practically no sympathy left for the Church he had abandoned: but in his intense loyalty to the vocation of artist for which he had abandoned it (and the two vocations are not per se irreconcilable: they only became so because of peculiar subjective circumstances in Joyce’s own case) he meant to be as accurate as he could in rebuilding his world as it truly was. 

Therefore, reading Joyce, I was moving in his Dublin, and breathing the air of its physical and spiritual slums: and it was not the most Catholic side of Dublin that he always painted. But in the background was the Church, and its priests, and its devotions, and the Catholic life in all its gradations, from the Jesuits down to those who barely clung to the hem of the Church’s garments. And it was this background that fascinated me now, along with the temper of Thomism that had once been in Joyce himself If he had abandoned St. Thomas, he had not stepped much further down than Aristotle. 

I frequently turn back to books that I have read, sometimes reread, many times, much like Thomas Merton in the above passage.  And, like Merton, I find new things each time I return.  Last night, after the presents were opened, turkey dinner eaten, and Zoom family meetings ended, I sat down on my couch and read.  Poems from Joseph Brodsky.  Parts of A Christmas Carol.  Old friends, made new in light of the waning days of this pandemic year.

Now, December 26th.  Non-Christmas lovers will have their trees down and decorations put away by nightfall.  People will turn away from the lights of yesterday and begin to anticipate the last days of a pretty wretched year.  As if, at the stroke of midnight on December 31st, the shadows of COVID and Donald Trump and racism and unemployment and recession/depression will vanish like the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come.

I'm a Christmas person.  Usually, the day after, I sit in my living room, staring at the lights on my tree, piles of presents beneath it, and fall into a funk.  A blueness that hangs over me well into the new year.  Today, however, I don't feel that particular absence.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I am still in quarantine.  Will be until the fifth day of January.  

I am able to keep Christmas alive because of this.  Won't have to drive down streets and see Christmas trees lying on people's lawns, branches webbed with leftover tinsel, waiting to be gathered and burned in the fires of January.  I can sit in my living room, keep visiting Brodsky and Dickens and Oscar Hijuelos (Mr. Ives' Christmas--still my favorite Christmas novel of all time).  Watch my favorite holiday movies.  George Bailey and Jo March.  Members of the Stone family.  Ebenezer Scrooge and Scott Calvin.  All without the reminders of undecorating and unlighting and un-Christmasing.

Here's the thing:  I really do subscribe to the notion of keeping Christmas alive all the year 'round.  My old friend, Scrooge, said it best:  "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.  I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.  The spirits of all Three shall strive within me."  That is me.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I will not be taking down my Christmas tree any time soon.  I will thrive in its light, like a Christmas cactus, well into 2021.

You see, it's not about retail sales or economics.  Those things are small bits of cosmic dust in the Christmas universe.  Brief flashes through the atmosphere.  Don't get me wrong:  I love getting presents.  However, it's really not about the gift, but the person who gives me the gift.  It's about thriving in the fact that someone loves and appreciates me.  That's what I try to keep alive all year.  Just like Scrooge.  George Bailey, too.  

These old friends from favorite books and movies have taught me an additional lesson this year, as well.  With the virus stripping away so many of the normal yuletide traditions, all that is left is this:  human connection.  It's what everyone is craving these days.  It's what I get rereading A Christmas Carol and Brodsky's Nativity Poems.  I know these characters.  These writers.  These words.  They come to me, gather around me in the kitchen.  The way everyone does at a holiday party.  Because that's where the food is.  The alcohol.  Jokes and laughter.  Where everyone feels most comfortable.  Together.

It's why, yesterday, we crowded around laptops to see each other's faces.  Because we are starved for family and friends.  For embrace.  Fellowship.  Each other.  In this year, more than any other, that is the greatest gift that no virus can dispel.  Our indomitable will for connection.  We found ways to fill that hunger.  Safe and loving ways.  We went the extra mile, because it was important to us.  Necessary.

Here are a few snapshots from quarantine today:

• My beautiful friends Helen and Gala sent me texts this morning about the stuffed Bigfoot I got for Christmas.  Togetherness.
• My beautiful puppy sat by my side on the couch all day as I wrote and read and watched movies.  Togetherness.
• My beautiful kids have been enjoying their Christmas presents all day--computer games, electric toothbrushes, computer chairs.  Togetherness.
• My beautiful daughter enjoyed eating the sugar cookies I baked on Christmas Eve.  A lot.  Togetherness.
• Tonight, I will be planning out my book club that's meeting tomorrow evening.  Discussion questions.  Facebook posts.  Zoom invites.  The author of the book is a wonderful friend of mine, and he's going to be joining us.  Togetherness.
• Later, I will work on a chapbook manuscript that I hope to submit to a contest this January.  A poet friend gave me revision suggestions.  Hoping to create something beautiful.  Togetherness.

It's getting dark outside now.  People are switching on the lights of their Christmas trees.  Soon, I'll heat up some leftover turkey and mashed potatoes.  Maybe I'll eat a sugar cookie.  Ebenezer will be with me.  George Bailey and Joseph Brodsky.  Truman Capote and O. Henry.  Family, each and every one.

Saint Marty gives thanks tonight for the miracle of togetherness--with books, authors, friends, and family.