October 26: "Horoscopes for the Dead," Libra, Closed Doors

I am a Libra.  I've always thought that reflected my need for balance and harmony in my life (although my life has rarely felt balanced or harmonious).  However, my zodiac sign does reflect one important character trait I have:  I examine problems or disagreements from all sides, trying to understand why people think the way they think.

Billy Collins is an Aries . . .

Horoscopes for the Dead

by: Billy Collins

Every morning since you disappeared for good,
I read about you in the daily paper
along with the box scores, the weather and all the bad news.

Some days I am reminded that today
will not be a wildly romantic time for you,
nor will you be challenged by educational goals,
nor will you need to be circumspect at the workplace.

Another day, I learn that you should not miss
an opportunity to travel and make new friends
though you never cared much about either.

I can’t imagine you ever facing a new problem
with a positive attitude, but you will definitely not
be doing that, or anything like that, on this weekday in March.
And the same goes for the fun
you might have gotten from group activities,
a likelihood attributed to everyone under your sign.

A dramatic rise in income may be a reason
to treat yourself, but that would apply
more to all the Pisces who are still alive,
still swimming up and down the stream of life
or suspended in a pool in the shade of an overhanging tree.

But you will be relieved to learn
that you no longer need to reflect carefully before acting,
nor do you have to think more of others,
and never again will creative work take a back seat
to the business responsibilities that you never really had.

And don’t worry today or any day
about problems caused by your unwillingness
to interact rationally with your many associates.
No more goals for you, no more romance,
no more money or children, jobs or important tasks,
but then again, you were never thus encumbered.

So leave it up to me now
to plan carefully for success and the wealth it may bring,
to value the dear ones close to my heart,
and to welcome any intellectual stimulation that comes my way
though that sounds like a lot to get done on a Tuesday.

I am better off closing the newspaper,
putting on the clothes I wore yesterday
(when I read that your financial prospects were looking up)
then pushing off on my copper-colored bicycle
and pedaling along the shore road by the bay.

And you stay just as you are,
lying there in your beautiful blue suit,
your hands crossed on your chest
like the wings of a bird who has flown
in its strange migration not north or south
but straight up from earth
and pierced the enormous circle of the zodiac.

My horoscope for today, according to Cleveland.com,  went something like this:  "Secrets get revealed. Rest and consider what’s ahead. Get productive behind closed doors. Organize and coordinate plans. Put things away. Prepare and plot."

Now, for the most part, I have stayed behind closed doors, except when I went to church this evening to play the pipe organ for Mass.  Other than that, I was at home, reading, resting, trying to convince my wife to take it easy, and watching bad reality TV.  Oh, and I cleaned the bathroom and went for a couple long walks with my puppy.

I'm not sure how productive I was.  In fact, I can think of nothing noteworthy I accomplished, aside from a short nap this afternoon.  I didn't organize and coordinate, put anything away, or prepare and plot.  (The last part of that horoscope sounds like coded instructions for Donald Trump supporters.)

So, I guess I was a really bad Libra today.  Or just an exhausted one.  Last night, I had dinner with my kids, and they carved some pumpkins.  I simply sat on the couch and observed, my mind finally relaxing after two days of adrenaline-fueled worry.  Yesterday, my Cleveland.com horoscope was:  "Group communications could get twisted. Things may not go as planned. It could get awkward. Keep an open mind and heart. Work it out."  

I was not in control of anything these last couple days.  Yet, it all worked out.  My wife is recovering.  My pumpkins are now jack-o'-lanterns.  My bathroom is lemon-scented Pine-Sol fresh.  And, pretty soon, this blog post will be published.  

Mercury may not be in retrograde, but Saint Marty is zodiacally pooped.

October 15-17: Noisy and Shallow and Violent People, Change, Closed Doors

 Merton on chaotic political ideals . . . 

As far as I can remember, it seems that what most of us thought we were doing, when we took that pledge, was simply making a public-statement, and doing so in sufficient numbers, as we hoped, to influence politicians.  There was no intention of binding ourselves under any obligation. The notion never even occurred to us. Most of us probably secretly thought we were gods anyway, and therefore the only law we had to obey was our own ineffable little wills. It was sufficient to say that we did not intend to go to war for anybody: and that was enough. And if, afterwards, we changed our minds—well, were we not our own gods? 

It’s a nice, complex universe, the Communist universe: it gravitates towards stability and harmony and peace and order on the poles of an opportunism that is completely irresponsible and erratic. Its only law is, it will do whatever seems to be profitable to itself at the moment. However, that seems to have become the rule of all modern political parties. I have nothing to say about it. I do not profess to be either amazed or brokenhearted that such a thing should be possible. Let the dead bury their dead: they have certainly got enough to bury. It is the fruit of their philosophy that they should: and that is all that they need to be reminded of. But you cannot make them believe it. 

I had formed a kind of an ideal picture of Communism in my mind, and now I found that the reality was a disappointment. I suppose my daydreams were theirs also. But neither dream is true. 

I had thought that Communists were calm, strong, definite people, with very clear ideas as to what was wrong with everything. Men who knew the solution, and were ready to pay any price to apply the remedy. And their remedy was simple and just and clean, and it would definitely solve all the problems of society, and make men happy, and bring the world peace. 

It turned out that some of them indeed were calm, and strong, and had a kind of peace of mind that came from definite convictions and from a real devotion to their cause, out of motives of a kind of vague natural charity and sense of justice. But the trouble with their convictions was that they were mostly strange, stubborn prejudices, hammered into their minds by the incantation of statistics, and without any solid intellectual foundation. And having decided that God is an invention of the ruling classes, and having excluded Him, and all moral order with Him, they were trying to establish some kind of a moral system by abolishing all morality in its very source. Indeed, the very word morality was something repugnant to them. They wanted to make everything right, and they denied all the criteria given us for distinguishing between right and wrong.

And so it is an indication of the intellectual instability of Communism, and the weakness of its philosophical foundations, that most Communists are, in actual fact, noisy and shallow and violent people, torn to pieces by petty jealousies and factional hatreds and envies and strife. They shout and show off and generally give the impression that they cordially detest one another even when they are supposed to belong to the same sect. And as for the inter-sectional hatred prevailing between all the different branches of radicalism, it is far bitterer and more virulent than the more or less sweeping and abstract hatred of the big general enemy, capitalism. All this is something of a clue to such things as the wholesale executions of Communists who have moved their chairs to too prominent a position in the ante-chamber of Utopia which the Soviet Union is supposed to be.

Noisy and shallow and violent people, torn to pieces by petty jealousies and factional hatreds and envies and strife.  Thomas Merton might have been writing about Communists, but he is pretty much describing the current state of politics in the United States at the moment.  Constant readers of this blog pretty much know what side of the political spectrum I fall on.  (For occasional readers, or passersby, I will say this:  Donald Trump is to the United States of America what fracking is to the environment.  Blight and ruin.) 

The history of these last three years in my country has been violent and destructive.  I am not a fan of the two-party political system.  However, as the Republican Party of the United States has lost itself in one person's warped ego, I find myself becoming incredibly intolerant of Trump supporters.  Which is ironic, since Donald Trump is pretty much the poster child for intolerance.  I have become what I hate most about the current resident of the Oval Office.

I crave change on the national level.  I don't want to see my country, for which my father served in the armed forces, face another four years of institutionalized hatred and stupidity.  I want to see something shift, move, realign, reset.  If I could, I would press the restart button and reboot the entire world to its pre-2016 settings.

Instead, I find myself wanting change.  Needing change.  Of course, that's pretty much what 2020 has been about.  A global pandemic has a way of reshaping even the simplest of daily tasks.  Going out to the grocery store for a gallon of milk has become a military exercise in preparation.  Do I really need this milk right now?  Do I have my facemask?  Is there enough hand sanitizer in the car?  How crowded is the parking lot?  Can I avoid people wearing masks around their chins like feedbags?  Can I get in and out of the store with a minimum of social interaction?  

This year has also been a time of personal struggle and change for me, as well.  Relationship-wise and career-wise and parenting-wise.  Nothing has been easy these past 290 days, and I have had to face some difficult decisions.  This past Friday, I bid farewell to a healthcare career of over 25 years.  On Monday, I begin a whole new chapter of my professional life--one that I chose and am excited about.

In this same week, I celebrated my silver wedding anniversary, and my 19-year-old daughter fell into a state of unrest and upheaval in her personal life.  (Hers is not my story to tell, so I won't go into detail.)  My son continues to stretch my parenting skills to the breaking point, and Covid-19 cases in my little portion of the Upper Peninsula are sky-rocketing.  An ER nurse friend is working 15- and 16-hour shifts daily.

Not all change is bad.  I know this.  In fact, the badness or goodness of any change is an incredibly subjective thing.  I welcome my career change.  My new job as the adult programming coordinator for a local library will allow me to be creative and artistic in ways that I've always dreamed of.  And I'm getting paid to do it.  On the other hand, I wake every weekday morning with a knot in my stomach, wondering what kind of day my son will hand me.  Will he go to school?  Will he reduce me to sputtering anger?  I miss the son who went to school willingly, loved being with his friends and learning, didn't see the world darkly.

Doors close in life.  Sometimes those doors remain ajar.  Sometime, they are locked and bolted forever.  Either way, you are standing on the opposite side, in a room that may not be very familiar to you at all.  That's where I am right now.  In a house with an unfamiliar floorplan.  

But my foundation hasn't changed.  I still hate Donald Trump.  Love my children and wife.  Enjoy good poems and a glass of wine.  Cherish my friends.  Dream of a kinder, gentler new year.

For the miracle of open and closed doors, Saint Marty gives thanks.

July 25: Closed Doors, Open Windows

I'm sure you've heard the saying, "When God closes a door, He opens a window."

Well, I've been living by that little creed for a while now.  God's closed quite a few doors in my life recently, and I haven't found too many open windows.  In fact, the one window I thought was open came slamming down on my fingers a couple of days ago.

OK, I'm not going to descend into another post full of anxiety and fear.  I'm not going to list all the doors that have recently been slammed in my face (at last count, at least four).  Let's just say, I'm tired of digging splinters out of my nose.

Nope, I'd rather focus on windows.  I think my main problem right now is that I'm not even trying to find a window.  I'm too busy kicking and pounding on the doors.  I'm panicking right now, and, therefore, I'm not looking for glass and sunshine and fresh air.

Tonight, I'm going to make an effort to try to open all the windows in my house, even ones that haven't been opened for quite a few years.  Even if it's only an attic window that's cracked and warped, I will find a window.

Now, whether Saint Marty will be able to squeeze his ass through it is a whole other issue.

Anybody got a ladder?