January 31: Flouts at God, Computer Issues, State of the Week

"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters- four yarns- is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths of the soul Jonah's deep sealine sound! What a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods surging over us, we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But what is this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God- never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed- which he found a hard command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to do- remember that- and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

"With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men, will carry him into countries where God does not reign but only the Captains of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that's bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city than the modern Cadiz. That's the opinion of learned men. And where is Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God? Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, self-condemning in his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,- no friends accompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious way, one whispers to the other- "Jack, he's robbed a widow;" or, "Joe, do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom." Another runs to read the bill that's stuck against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a parricide, and containing a description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frightened Jonah trembles. and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a coward. He will not confess himself suspected; but that itself is strong suspicion. So he makes the best of it; and when the sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin.

"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making out his papers for the Customs- 'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon sail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah, though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. 'We sail with the next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing him. 'No sooner, sir?'- 'Soon enough for any honest man that goes a passenger.' Ha! Jonah, that's another stab. But he swiftly calls away the Captain from that scent. 'I'll sail with ye,'- he says,- 'the passage money how much is that?- I'll pay now.' For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, 'that he paid the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning.

Yes, Jonah flouts at God.  He doesn't want to do what God has told him to do.  So, he schemes, somehow thinks he can trick God by sailing two thousand miles in the opposite direction of Joppa.  Of course, we all know what happens.  A storm.  Superstitious sailors.  Jonah gets thrown overboard.  Swallowed by a whale.  The rest, as they say, is Old Testament.  You can't mess with God's will.

It seems that God's will for me this past week was not writing blog posts.  I have been struggling with computer issues since Monday night.  And now, after two days, a trip to the help desk at the university, two computer scans, and 34 malwares quarantined, plus some help from my 17-year-old daughter, I am back in blogging business.  Sort of.

I am still encountering glitches that I have to work around.  I'm still sitting on my couch, cursing the heavens mightily.  Thumbing my nose at the Divinity who has allowed my entire week to be an exercise in frustration and anger.  Plus, I'm really tired, having also spent the past five days working on my annual evaluation materials for the university.  It's a document that, for the most part, determines whether or not I will be teaching in the next academic year.  No pressure there.

Let's take a little survey of the State of the Week, then:

1. frustration
2. anger
3. malware
4. exhaustion
5. anxiety

Yes, it has been a crappy five or so days.  I'm REALLY looking forward to the weekend, where I don't have anything planned besides a little alcohol consumption.

Saint Marty is thankful for his bed tonight.

August 12: Nightwork, Computer Issues, Beginnings

The tomcat that used to wake me is dead; he was long since grist for an earthworm's casting, and is now the clear sap of a Pittsburgh sycamore, or the honeydew of aphids sucked from that sycamore's high twigs and sprayed in sticky drops on a stranger's car.  A steer across the road stumbles into the creek to drink; he blinks; he laps; a floating leaf in the current catches against his hock and wrenches away.  The giant water bug I saw is dead, long dead, and its moist gut and rigid casing are both, like the empty skin of the frog it sucked, dissolved, spread, still spreading right now, in the steer's capillaries, in the windblown smatter of clouds overhead, in the Sargasso Sea.  The mockingbird that dropped furled from a roof . . . but this is not time to count my dead.  That is nightwork.  The dead are staring, underground, their sleeping heels in the air.

It is springtime at Tinker Creek, and, in this paragraph, Dillard reflects on the process of life, death, rebirth.  Her tomcat, a giant water bug, a fallen mockingbird--all become "grist" for worms, calling to mind the song we all used to sing as children:

The worms crawl in. 
The worms crawl out. 
In and out of the dead man's mouth.

Death's a strange preoccupation for the season of buds and blossoms, and Dillard admits it eventually.  She says that spring is "not time to count my dead."  She turns her attention, instead, to trees and water.  Renewal.

Closing in on the middle of August, I have begun to think seriously about autumn.  Next week, I need to pull together the syllabi for the classes that I'm teaching this fall.  And then, in another week, the semester begins.  So, I am thinking of endings tonight.  And beginnings.  This is, as Dillard points out, nightwork.

My apologies for my absence last night.  My seven-year-old son decided to attempt to download an online game yesterday afternoon.  Instead, he managed to download a virus onto my laptop, making it impossible for me to do any blogging last night.  Instead, I watched Michael Phelps, who is competing in his last Olympics, win another gold medal.

Obviously, my computer issues have been resolved, after having the hard drive wiped clean and re-imaged.  (I have no idea what that means, but my laptop is running at warp speed again.)  It is once again night time.  I find myself weary after a long week of work.  This weekend, I plan to do nothing.  I will read and rest.  After last weekend's marathon of grading, I've earned that, I think.  Think of it as my gold medal.

Like Dillard, I'm trying to avoid thoughts of endings.  That's difficult for me.  I'm a poet.  Darkness is kind of my thing.  Today had the feel of fall.  Misty and cool.  Dusk comes much earlier now.  A month ago, the sun was still in the sky at ten o'clock.  Tonight, it disappeared by nine-thirty.  And one week from today will mark the year anniversary of my sister's death.  Endings.

Life doesn't always turn out the way that you expect, obviously.  For instance, I just watched Michael Phelps swim.  He did not win the gold medal.  Instead, he tied for silver.  A month ago, I thought that I was going to be teaching two film classes this fall.  Instead, I'm teaching a film class and a freshman composition class.  Six months ago, I was working in a cardiology office and thought that I was going to be working there a long time.  Instead, I'm back at my old job and loving it.  Over a year ago, I decided to apply for a promotion a the university.  This September, my title will be Full Contingent Professor instead of Contingent Assistant Professor.  Beginnings.

Saint Marty is battling his poetic instincts tonight, focusing on the light instead of . . . well, you know.

Embracing laughter and light . . .