November 13: Bewildered Expression, Paris, D. H. Melhem, "41," Off the Top of My Head

And then Ives blinked and found himself standing on the sidewalk beside his wife, across the street from the Church of the Ascension.  On the pavement, just by his feet, was a large piece of canvas, and under it a body, stretched out.  Then the officer lifted off the canvas and shined a flashlight onto the face to reveal the shocked and bewildered expression of his son.

This is the moment when Ives' entire life shifts.  The police officer lifts that piece of canvas, and Ives stares down at his new life.  A life defined by tragedy and loss.  He's no longer going to be the father of a future priest.  Forever more, Ives will be a grieving parent, victim of violence, symbol of tragedy.

This evening. I spend almost two hours watching the news reports about the terrorist attacks in Paris.  So much confusion and fear.  Over 140 people killed in six separate attacks.  The entire country of France shut down as the police and military try to restore peace.

As I sat watching the same images over and over, listening to the news anchors saying the same things over and over, I couldn't help but remember September 11.  How I spent the day glued to the television, watching the World Trade Center towers fall again and again.  And the panic.  Cars lined up at the gas stations because of a rumor about skyrocketing prices.  All airplanes grounded.  Everyone was waiting for the next tragedy to happen.

I'm sure, in the coming days, the networks are going to be full of stories about the victims and survivors.  There will be wild speculation over who is responsible.  Tomorrow, I'm sure, names will start coming out.  A long ticker tape of the innocent.

In light of these events, I find myself struggling to find something about which to be thankful tonight.  I am thankful that my wife and kids are safe.  I'm thankful that I live in a place that's remote, protected.  Not that I think that I'm immune to tragedy in the Upper Peninsula.  I'm not.  But I don't have to worry about soldiers patrolling the streets of my hometown, toting automatic weapons.  My kids don't have to walk through metal detectors at school.  Most of my neighbors don't even lock their front doors at night.

Tomorrow, I will go to McDonald's for breakfast with my family.  In the afternoon, I will put up my Christmas tree with my daughter.  I will attend church in the afternoon and get pizza for dinner afterward.  Tomorrow night, I may watch It's a Wonderful Life.  My life is not a fairy tale, but I am, for the most part, happy.  Safe.

Saint Marty is living happily ever after.

41. (from Country:  an Organic Poem)

by:  D. H. Melhem

Education is out there,
                                        in the street, man--

I told you of the Beast, and Beauty, and that the Beast was how he saw himself, and was treated, although the handsome Prince within his skin was the virtue of his soul, and how Beauty approached with a single candle flickering away the dark to disclose the perfection of his blackness, and the drops of white tallow that burned him awake to his death by the stream where Beauty followed, and her tears upon him as she cried, "Ma Bete!"  And beneath those tears the loving Prince of his desire rose to embrace her as they were received by the stream that grew everywhere into its pervasive tributaries, nourishing the dessicated land.  And I wept, that the joyful Prince could not speak in you, that you feared and raged along the banks of your spirit, that you could feel upon your skin, as yet, only the tallow . . .

Off the Top of My Head

August 19: Bewildered Expression, 6:27 a.m., Maggie Nelson, Unbearably Vivid Colors

And then Ives blinked and found himself standing on the sidewalk beside his wife, across the street from the Church of the Ascension.  On the pavement, just by his feet, was a large piece of canvas, and under it a body, stretched out.   Then the officer lifted off the canvas and shined a flashlight onto the face to reveal the shocked and bewildered expression of his son.

My sister died this morning at 6:27 a.m.

When I saw her last night, she was breathing hard, each intake hitting her chest like a hammer.  I leaned over, said her name and then, "It's me.  Marty."  Her eyelid lifted, and she focused on me.  I told her about my long day of work.  I told her about classes starting next week.  Just before I left, I leaned over and whispered, "You don't have to be afraid, Sal.  You don't."

When I got to my parents' house at around 5 a.m., my sister was surrounded by the people who loved her.  My mother and father, siblings, nieces, nephews, and best friends.  We all stood around her, touched her hands and feet, told her how much we loved her.

Her breaths got slower, the spaces in between longer, and then she was simply gone.

I thought I was prepared for it.  I thought I was going to hold myself together.  I thought a lot of things.  But, in those moments following my sister's death, I felt an incredible emptiness enter me, as if I had been scooped out like a pumpkin at Halloween.  I wasn't prepared.

It has been about twelve hours since that moment.  I am still not prepared for a world without my sister.  For 17 years, I worked with her.  Eight- and nine- and ten-hour days.  I spent more time with her than any of my other siblings, and we knew each other deeply.  Trusted each other deeply.  Loved each other deeply, without having to say it.

There will be no cartoon tonight.  No laughter.

My sister once said to me, "You know, I wish I was as strong as you."

Saint Marty isn't strong tonight.  He's heartbroken.

98 from Bluets

by:  Maggie Nelson

Vincent van Gogh, whose depression, some say, was likely related to temporal epilepsy, famously saw and painted the world in almost unbearably vivid colors.  After his nearly unsuccessful attempt to take his life by shooting himself in the gut, when asked why he should not be saved, he famously replied, "The sadness will last forever."  I imagine he was right.

I miss your smile

June 18: Bewildered Expression, South Carolina Shooting, Sally Wen Mao, "Hurling a Durian"

And then Ives blinked and found himself standing on the sidewalk beside his wife, across the street from the Church of the Ascension.  On the pavement, just by his feet, was a large piece of canvas, and under it a body, stretched out.  Then the officer lifted off the canvas and shined a flashlight onto the face to reveal the shocked and bewildered expression of his son.

Ives' son is the victim of a violent crime.  He's shot on the steps of his church by a teenage boy named Danny Gomez.  Gomez, raised in poverty by a single mother, is the victim of a society bent on keeping the lower classes as low as possible.  Robert Ives and Danny Gomez both lose their lives because of the world's inequalities.

Last night, in Charleston, South Carolina, a 21-year-old man entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and sat down.  He prayed with those gathered for a Bible study.  After about an hour, the man stood up, took out a gun, and began shooting.  He killed nine people and then fled.

The police now have a suspect in custody.  His name is Dylann Roof, and Roof's uncle told reporters that his nephew received a .45-caliber handgun for his last birthday.  But, the uncle added, nobody in the Roof family saw "anything like this coming."

Once again, the President of the United States had to have a press conference, consoling victims and condemning an unspeakable act of violence.  A church.  People praying and reading the Gospels.  Once again, the alleged shooter is a young man scarred by a culture of racism and violence.

Very little leaves me at a loss for words.  Tonight, this tragedy does.  I'm not going to turn this post into a diatribe on gun violence in this country.  I'm not going to talk about a culture that simply can't shake off the chains of racism.  There's too much finger pointing going on right now.

Tonight, I'm going to pray for the victims in Charleston.  I'm going to pray for the victims' families.  I'm going to ask God to bring comfort to members of the Emanuel A.M.E Church, who lost their beloved pastor.  I'm going to pray for my country, that the ugly wounds of poverty and racism may be healed somehow.  And I'm going to pray for Dylann Roof, who obviously needs help.  And forgiveness.

Sally Wen Mao has a little poem about the difficulty of forgiveness.  I'd like to share it with all of you this evening.

Saint Marty needs to believe that forgiveness is possible.  That's what being a Christian is all about.

Hurling a Durian

by:  Sally Wen Mao

This is the fantasy fruit:  it can awaken
desires lodged deep inside a person

                but stuck, like an almond clogging
                the windpipe.  The smell of a durian

may erase a child's immediate memories.
So I am addicted, of course.  Not to eating

               but to sniffing it like glue, my fingers probing
               its dry, spiked surface until they bleed

and I eat.  But the feast disappoints
me because its taste replaces the corpse

               scent with something sweet and eggy,
               a benign tang I flush down with wasabi.

For there is nothing a kid like me
can do except awaken to loss and wish

               for a seven-piece suit of armor.  The deisre
               always returns:  durian as a weapon of truth.

Even if I don't know how to pull a trigger
or whet a knife, it's tempting to imagine

               throwing a dangerous fruit at the head
               of the person who failed you, who hurt you,

who, for all these years, has tried to break
you.  But this desire is lodged deep

               for a reason:  the pull of forgiveness
               like a hopeless gravity, and always I try

to resist.  So I do by taking a spoonful
to my lips, savoring the smear, the din

               of my cleaver hacking the husk, the juice,
               the sweat ripping open the rind.

Hold your nose and eat