November 28, 2024: "Cheerios," Thanksgiving, "Amazing Grace"

It has been a good Thanksgiving.

As I said in last night's post, I don't focus on the false narrative I was taught in elementary school about a happy feast between immigrant Puritans and Indigenous Americans.  Instead, I choose to embrace gratitude for all the blessings of my life.  This year and time, in particular, I think it's radically important to hold onto grace at work in the face of darkness and hopelessness,  The great writer Flannery O'Connor once wrote, "All human nature resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful."  

I think our lives are charged with grace, sometimes joyful and oftentimes painful, no matter how young or old you are.  Even if you're as old as Cheerios.

Billy Collins has breakfast . . . 

Cheerios

by: Billy Collins

One bright morning in a restaurant in Chicago
as I waited for my eggs and toast,
I opened the Tribune only to discover
that I was the same age as Cheerios.

Indeed, I was a few months older than Cheerio
for today, the newspaper announced,
was the seventieth birthday of Cheerios
whereas mine had occurred earlier in the year.

Already I could hear them whispering
behind my stooped and threadbare back,
Why that dude’s older than Cheerios
the way they used to say

Why that’s as old as the hills,
only the hills are much older than Cheerios
or any American breakfast cereal,
and more noble and enduring are the hills,

I surmised as a bar of sunlight illuminated my orange juice.

As per my family tradition, we did a 5K Turkey Trot this morning.  This year, my little clan consisted of my wife, son, and puppy.  And it was a good time, even if my 16-year-old son refused to walk with us out of some sense of teenaged embarrassment.  Grace.

Then we had a mimosa brunch with my wife's side of the family at her cousin's home,  Lot of good food.  Lots of good drink.  Most importantly, an abundance of laughter and love.  When we posed for the family picture, it was a scene straight out of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, including a surly teen (my son again), two dogs, and a semi-drunk uncle (that would be me).  Grace.

And, in the evening, we hosted my side of the family for the turkey feast.  That means I spent most of the afternoon preparing and cooking food.  My wife dragged out the wedding china, silverware, and crystal, and I cracked open two bottles of good wine, of which I had a few glasses.  After dinner, we played games and watched a Christmas movie.  All grace again.

Billy Collins feels his age in today's poem, and I certainly felt mine today, too.  In particular, I was thinking of all the people who weren't there to celebrate with us.  My wife's wonderful mother, uncle, grandmother, and grandfather.  My mom, dad, sisters Sally and Rose, and brother Kevin.  My good friend, Helen, who would have sent me a text message full of joy and thankfulness.  Graces all.

As O'Connor said, grace is painful sometimes.  If you love deeply, you will grieve deeply.  There's no way around it.  That's the way it works.  I'm profoundly grateful I had those missing people in my life, however short or long the time was.  They may be resting high on that mountain now, but they filled my days with joy and happiness when they were here.  Profound grace.  

I give thanks for everyone who reads my little blog posts, too.  My messages may be silly, maudlin, angry at times, but you all stick with me,  And that's grace, too.

Here's a poem Saint Marty wrote for a Thanksgiving worship service this year . . . 

Amazing Grace

by: Martin Achatz

On that first Thanksgiving after
my dad wasn’t stealing scraps
of turkey skin from the kitchen,
burning his fingers and tongue,
or settling at the head
of the table, I sat for the meal
with my hat still on, because he wasn’t
there to give me his John Wayne
stare, point, rumble Hat!
since he was taught on the farm
men removed headgear
at dinner time.

No, as frost laced the windows,
he wasn’t king of this feast,
surrounded by his favorite
foods, us kids waiting in silence
while he intoned grace
as if administering last rites
on the bird before us. We all
sat in our places, not quite sure
how to begin without him
until my mother looked around,
said Where’s your father?—
her memory in a different
time and place.

I recalled the story of Christ
bowing his head, seasoning the five
barley loaves and two snappers
with prayer, then performing divine
math, feeding the famished legion
an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet
with leftovers for breakfast and lunch
the next day.

I cleared my throat, made the sign
of the cross, began saying the words
my dad said every year. Suddenly,
I could see him scooping mashed
potatoes, ladling gravy, forking
yam and white meat onto our plates,
multiplying his love over and over and over
and over until all our hungry hearts
were full.

January 15: Found Fish, Magical Thinking, Amazing Grace

Santiago finds fish . . . 

Now the old man looked up and saw that the bird was circling again.

"He's found fish," he said aloud. No flying fish broke the surface and there was no scattering of bait fish. But as the old man watched, a small tuna rose in the air, turned and dropped head first into the water. The tuna shone silver in the sun and after he had dropped back into the water another and another rose and they were jumping in all directions, churning the water and leaping in long jumps after the bait. They were circling it and driving it.

If they don't travel too fast I will get into them, the old man thought, and he watched the school working the water white and the bird now dropping and dipping into the bait fish that were forced to the surface in their panic.

Santiago's luck is about to change.  He has never lost faith in the idea that, eventually, he will catch a big fish again.  That's the old man's religion.

Recently, I've been revisiting Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.  It's a book that details Didion's life following the sudden death of her husband.  I read the book when it first came out in 2005, at a time in my life when I was facing some very difficult personal struggles.  Didion spends a year shuttling between external reality and inner reality.  For example, she keeps her husband's shoes and clothing because she believes the he will need them when he returns home.  As long as his things are in the closet, Didion allows herself to believe that he is still alive.

Some people might call what Santiago and Didion experience superstition.  The big fish is out there.  Didion's husband is picking up Chinese for dinner.  I think that everyone engages in magical thinking at some time in their lives.  We buy lottery tickets.  Believe we'll win the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Light votive candles for sick loved ones.

I played the pipe organ at church this afternoon.  It was a Mass dedicated to my mother, but I didn't know that until it was announced from the pulpit.  For some reason, I took it as some kind of message from God.  I know, I know.  That kind of stuff only happens in the Bible.  Maybe in a Hallmark movie.  Didion would say it's magical thinking.  Santiago, a sign from the ocean--flying fish or a school of dolphin.  

As a Christian, I call it faith.  The belief that God is looking over us every second of our lives.  Giving us strength,  Hope.  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

I realize my last couple posts may have been a little bleak and depressing.  My sister Rose's situation has kind of thrown me into a tailspin.  Coming three months after the death of my mother, right at the beginning of a new year, following 2020 and its sequel, I am struggling to find a whole lot of light.

Don't worry.  This post is not going to be another black hole of existential angst.  Even I, the reincarnation of Sartre, get a little tired of darkness and nihilism.  I received a message from a good friend this morning.  She reached out to me, shared some words of wisdom and encouragement.  Reminded me that, as the old saying goes, the price of love is grief.

I don't know what's going to happen with my sister Rose.  I visited her again this evening in the ICU.  She's still breathing hard.  They had to increase her oxygen to 65%.  And she currently has a high fever.  Rose may get better.  Or she may not.  She's been through quite a lot, health-wise, these last couple years.  I'm not sure how much more her little body can take.

My faith tells me that God is looking over her.   Perhaps He will give her back to us for a little while longer.  Or perhaps God will give her the wings He's been saving for her.  And my mother and sister, Sally, will take her hands and lead her to a place where she can dance and sing and do latch hook rugs all the time.  Call that superstition or magical thinking, if you want.

But Saint Marty knows that loving someone sometimes means letting go when the time comes.    

            

January 17: Little Black Organ, Church Music, Belief in Service

And so on.  Billy says that he first came unstuck in time in 1944, long before his trip to Tralfamdore.  The Tralfamdorians didn't have anything to do with his coming unstuck.  They were simply able to give him insights into what was really going on.

Billy first came unstuck while World War Two was in progress.  Billy was a chaplain's assistant in the war.  A chaplain's assistant is customarily a figure of fun in the American Army.  Billy was no exception.  He was powerless to harm the enemy or to help his friends.  In fact, he had no friends.  He was a valet to a preacher, expected no promotions or medals, bore no arms, and had a meek faith in a loving Jesus which most soldiers found putrid.  

While on maneuvers in South Carolina, Billy played hymns he knew from childhood, played them on a little black organ which was waterproof.  It had thirty-nine keys and two stops--vox humana and vox celeste.  Billy also had charge of a portable altar, an olive-drab attache case with telescoping legs.  It was lined with crimson plush, and nestled in that passionate plush were an anodized aluminum cross and Bible.

The altar and the organ were made by a vacuum-cleaner company in Camden, New Jersey--and said so.

Rereading Slaughterhouse after all these years is a strange experience.  I have forgotten major details from the book, even though I wrote a huge research paper on it as a graduate student.  I remember the little green men, time traveling, firebombing of Dresden.  I didn't remember that Billy was an optometrist and that his mate in the Tralfamadorian zoo was named Montana Wildhack.  And, today, I didn't remember that he was a chaplain's assistant in the army, or that he played Christian hymns on a toy organ.

When I first became a church organist, I would probably describe my faith in a loving Jesus as meek.  The reason I agreed to play was twofold:  (1) I needed the money, and (2) I had a parish priest who just wouldn't take "no" as an answer.  So, one Saturday night, I found myself sitting on the bench in front of a huge pipe organ, not really sure how to even turn on the instrument.  I didn't know my vox celeste from a hole in the ground.

I have been a church musician now for over thirty years.  I've been playing the same pipe organ for that entire time.  I wouldn't call my faith "meek" any more.  In fact, I would say that being in the choir loft has brought me closer to God, literally and figuratively.  Music has a way of cleaving open my heart, even if I don't feel particularly filled with the Holy Spirit.  The only other experience that comes close for me is reading poetry.

So, my parish priest did me a favor all those years ago.  I was on the fast track to becoming a lapsed Catholic, and music brought me back.  Because of music, I started praying again.  Because I started praying again, I rekindled in my heart a belief in service, helping the world become a better place.  And that belief has stayed with me through all these years.

It may sound corny, but I am a better person because I am a church organist.  It has nothing to do with feeling holier or morally superior.  It has everything to do with craving the experience of being in touch with something bigger than myself.

Tonight, Saint Marty is grateful for "Amazing Grace" in his life.

The view from the choir loft

September 18: Another Weekend Shot in the Ass, New Cartoon

The weekend is almost over.  As usual, I didn't get half as much accomplished as I wanted to get accomplished.  However, I always shoot for the moon, and I usually end up hitting the garage.  Oh, well.

I don't have a lot of time tonight to post.  I have to be at a local assisted living facility to sing for a prayer service.  I was asked to do it this morning by one of the members of the praise band in which I play keyboard.  I would have to be, like, the worst, humpbacked bastard of a person to say "no" to the request.  Therefore, I will be singing "Amazing Grace" in about 40 minutes.

The rest of the evening, I'm planning to watch as much of the Emmy Awards as I can.  It depends on my kids and how tired I am.  I love Jane Lynch, however, so this should be a pretty good show.

Saint Marty has a new cartoon for you.  Think of it as his tribute to Charles Schulz.

The Confessions of Saint Marty