January 23: Cause of Wars, Self-Loathing, War on Myself

Merton figures out the cause of war . . . 

The night before being New Year’s Eve, we had had a party in the house of Seymour’s mother-in-law, who was a doctor, in Long Beach. It had been a mixed-up, desultory affair, in which we remained in a place that served as the doctor’s waiting-room, sitting on the floor, playing different kinds of drums and drinking I forget what. But whatever it was we drank it put me in a bad temper. 

The only person in the place not more or less fed up with everything was Bramachari, who had taken his turban off and sat in a chair and did not mind the noise. Later on, however, John Slate, who was also in a bad mood, having had a tooth torn out of his head, tried to tie me up in Bramachari’s turban so the monk quietly went home—that is, to Seymour’s house—and slept. 

Later on, I threw a can of pineapple juice at a street light and also went to bed. I was sleeping in the same room with Bramachari, and consequently when it began to get light, he sat up and started chanting his morning prayers and I woke up. Since I could not get back to sleep even when his prayers trailed off into contemplation, I was going to an earlier Mass than I had expected. But it was a good thing. As usual, I found out that the only good thing about such days, or any other days, was Mass. 

What a strange thing that I did not see how much that meant, and come at last to the realization that it was God alone I was supposed to live for, God that was supposed to be the center of my life and of all that I did. 

It was to take me nearly a year to untangle that truth from all my disorganized and futile desires: and sometimes it seems to me that the hangovers I had while I was finding it out had something to do with what was going on in the history of the world. 

For that was to be 1939, the year when the war that everybody had been fearing finally began to teach us with its inexorable logic that the dread of war is not enough. If you don’t want the effect, do something to remove the causes. There is no use loving the cause and fearing the effect and being surprised when the effect inevitably follows the cause. 

By this time, I should have acquired enough sense to realize that the cause of wars is sin. If I had accepted the gift of sanctity that had been put in my hands when I stood by the font in November 1938, what might have happened in the world? People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell. The saints are full of Christ in the plenitude of His Kingly and Divine power: and they are conscious of it, and they give themselves to Him, that He may exercise His power through their smallest and seemingly most insignificant acts, for the salvation of the world. 

But the world did not get very much of that out of me. 

The cause of war is sin.  I could agree with that, depending on how you define sin.  Certainly, war is a direct result of one group of people dehumanizing another group of people.  You can only think of exterminating a large population of individuals if those individuals are seen as less than human.  That's how Adolf Hitler did it.  George W. Bush did it in Iraq.  Donald Trump did it in the United States with illegal immigrants and LGTBQ citizens and any person who disagreed with him.  Democrats.  Scientists.  Journalists.  Anyone who told the truth.

I'm not talking about Donald Trump here, though.  Or Adolf Hitler or George W. Bush.  People declare war on things and people every day, because people sin every day.  I know I do.  Get angry.  Disappoint.  Fail.  That's the nature of being human.  We are all flawed creatures, and we take those flaws out on each other.

Went to work at the library this morning.  Four hours laboring away on a $20,000 government grant.  I made quite a bit of headway.  However, it wasn't enough.  I failed meeting the goal I set for myself.  If this sounds like I'm declaring war on myself, I guess I am.  Self-loathing comes pretty naturally to me.

I played the pipe organ for Mass this evening.  Screwed up one of the songs.  More self-loathing.  Ate too much pizza for dinner.  Thinking about going to the fridge and eating another piece right now.  Self-loathing again.  Didn't grade any student diagnostic writings.  Staying up way too late.  Got angry with God over my sister Rose's health struggles.  Self-loathing all 'round.

Of course, declaring war on yourself all day long is not very healthy.  It leads to exhaustion and, at the same time, insomnia.  That's pretty much where I am right now.  I've tried watching movies.  Reading books I love.  Reading books I hate.  Staring at my Christmas tree.  (Yes, I still have my Christmas tree up.  Don't judge me.)  And sitting in darkness.

Every time I close my eyes, I start thinking of my sister, Rose, in the hospital.  Or all the things I have to do tomorrow.  Anticipating how I will fail yet again.  This is my state of mind these days.  There are some other personal struggles that contribute to this, as well.  Things that weigh on me.

Of course, this war is of my own making, as most wars are.  This sleeplessness is due to my own obsessions.  I need to declare an armistice.  Sign a Treaty of Acceptance.  To forgive my shortcomings.  Be kinder to myself.  Know that I love and am loved.  Place my sister, Rose, in God's hands.

That is how I will sleep tonight.  Repeating those statements.  A mantra.  Lullaby.  Prayer.

Saint Marty is far from perfect. You all know that.  It's in imperfection that grace enters in.

June 30: Wild Affair, Jim Jones and David Koresh and Donald Trump, Extremism

Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.

By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned mast-heads proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would be made.

Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at considerable distance, and with no small facility.

The Pequod's signal was at last responded to by the stranger's setting her own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was being rigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod's company. For, though himself and the boat's crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the Pequod.

But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not without still another interruption of a very different sort.

Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.

So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed- "That's he! that's he!- the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho's company told us of!" Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the Jeroboam. 
His story was this:

He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a trapdoor, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common sense exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he declared these things;- the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they were afraid of him. As such a man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, especially as he refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous captain would fain have been rid of him; but apprised that that individual's intention was to land him in the first convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his seals and vials- devoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition, in case this intention was carried out. So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the captain and told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But it is time to return to the Pequod.

"I fear not thy epidemic, man," said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; "come on board."

But now Gabriel started to his feet.

"Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible plague!"

"Gabriel! Gabriel!" cried Captain Mayhew; "thou must either-" But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings drowned all speech.

"Hast thou seen the White Whale?" demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted back.

"Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible tail!"

"I tell thee again, Gabriel, that-" But again the boat tore ahead as if dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by which by one of those occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale's head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature seemed to warrant.

When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him.

It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the White Whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardor to encounter him; and the captain himself being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all the archangel's denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat. With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat's bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman's head; but the mate for ever sank.

It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, on which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is discernible the man being stark dead.

The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek- "The vial! the vial!" Gabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added influence; because his credulous disciples believed that he had specifically fore-announced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror to the ship.

Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which Ahab answered- "Aye." Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger- "Think, think of the blasphemer- dead, and down there!- beware of the blasphemer's end!"

Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, "Captain, I have just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag."

Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus, most letters never reach their mark; and many are only received after attaining an age of two or three years or more.

Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy.

"Can'st not read it?" cried Ahab. "Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it's but a dim scrawl;- what's this?" As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to the ship.

Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, "Mr. Har- yes, Mr. Harry- (a woman's pinny hand,- the man's wife, I'll wager)- Aye- Mr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam; why it's Macey, and he's dead!"

"Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife," sighed Mayhew; "but let me have it."

"Nay, keep it thyself," cried Gabriel to Ahab; "thou art soon going that way."

"Curses throttle thee!" yelled Ahab. "Captain Mayhew, stand by now to receive it"; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck's hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; the boat drifted a little towards the ship's stern; so that, as if by magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand. He clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab's feet. Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.

As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild affair.

Religious fanaticism on the high seas.  Gabriel comes across as precursor to Jim Jones or David Koresh.  It's a terrifying little chapter that highlights the destructive power of someone perverting the essential messages of any religion, whether its Shaker or Catholicism or Islam or Judaism.  A pastor friend once said to me that more people have been killed in the name of God than all the wars in the world combined.  Plus, a few of those wars and crusades were fought in God's name.

Here's the thing:  if religion is being used to justify harming people, it's not about the religion.  It's about people like Gabriel or Koresh, who were obsessed with power and control.  This stuff isn't new.  I would guess that cult leaders have existed for thousands of years.  And it's easy to condemn organized religions because of cults like this.  However, that would be like saying every President of the United States was a sexist egotistical lying hypocritical bigot because of Donald Trump.  You just can't make that kind of sweeping generalizations.  That's one of the first things I teach my composition students.

I understand that religion can and has been used to harm individuals.  I have friends who've abandoned church because of the actions of one or two persons, usually pastors or priests or lay leaders.  It's always human beings that cause these kinds of rifts.  Fallible, flawed human beings.  And I've had friends that have literally left the United States because of the results of the 2016 presidential election.  They now sit in other countries, criticizing Donald Trump's actions (justifiably), doing nothing to try to change the situation.

I've had my share of disagreements with people in the churches I attend--pastors and congregation members.  I've been in leadership roles in churches since I was a teenager.  Conflicts arise.  I've lived through the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush--politicians whom I firmly believe did terrible harm to the country in which I live.  I still wake up every Saturday and Sunday for church services.  I still vote in every election--local, state, and national.  I speak up against practices and policies and actions that I believe are unjust, unfair, illegal, or immoral.  Because I believe that if I'm NOT part of the solution, I'm a part of the problem.

Extremism is never a good thing.  My friends (and some family members) are Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, religious and atheist.  I don't care.  As long as you are good, kind, and moral, I think you are following God's path (even if you don't believe in God).

Saint Marty is thankful today for all the good people in his life.

March 11: When You're a Kid, Natasha Trethewey, "Flounder"

It isn't easy trying to figure out who you are when you're a kid.  My eight-year-old son has tried tee-ball and hated it.  My 16-year-old daughter used to love wearing pink as a little girl.  Now, it's jeggings and vintage tees.  I have a whole cabinet full of Barbie and Dora movies.  Last year, my son was totally into Nerf guns.  He doesn't really touch his arsenal any more.

I don't envy kids these days.  The world is very complicated.  Changing all the time.  Trying to figure out your place in it, that's not an easy thing.  I wouldn't be a teenager again for a billion dollars.  Well, maybe a billion, but it would have to be tax-free.

Saint Marty wouldn't mind reliving his thirties, but without all the problems with mental illness and addictions and George W. Bush.

Flounder

by:  Natasha Trethewey

Here, she said, put this on your head.

She handed me a hat.

You ’bout as white as your dad,

and you gone stay like that.

Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down

around each bony ankle,

and I rolled down my white knee socks

letting my thin legs dangle,

circling them just above water

and silver backs of minnows

flitting here then there between

the sun spots and the shadows.

This is how you hold the pole

to cast the line out straight.

Now put that worm on your hook,

throw it out and wait.

She sat spitting tobacco juice

into a coffee cup.

Hunkered down when she felt the bite,

jerked the pole straight up

reeling and tugging hard at the fish

that wriggled and tried to fight back.

A flounder, she said, and you can tell

’cause one of its sides is black.

The other side is white, she said.

It landed with a thump.

I stood there watching that fish flip-flop,

switch sides with every jump.

January 16: Ilya Kaminsky, "Marina Tsvetaeva," Confessions of Saint Marty

That the insects have adapted is obvious.  Their failures to adapt, however, are dazzling.  It is hard to believe that nature is partial to such dim-wittedness.  Howard Ensign Evans tells of dragonflies trying to lay eggs on the shining hoods of cars.  Other dragonflies seem to test a surface, to learn if it's really water, by dipping the tips of their abdomens in it.  At the Los Angeles La Brea tar pits, they dip their abdomens into the reeking tar and get stuck.  If by tremendous effort a dragonfly frees itself, Evans reports, it is apt to repeat the maneuver.  Sometimes the tar pits glitter with the dry bodies of dead dragonflies.

Last night, I focused on gifts.  How, in the natural world and life, there are certain creatures/people who are imbued with certain abilities that cross the boundaries of understanding.  Today's passage is about exactly the opposite:  dim-wittedness.  The foolish dragonfly laying its eggs on the hoods of cars, getting stuck on a shining black surface of hot tar.  Over and over.

Humans are not too far off from dragonflies.  We make mistakes, suffer for them, and then, in a little while, make the same mistakes again.  The United States didn't learn enough from Vietnam, so we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Holocaust.  The Rwandan genocide.  George W. Bush.  Donald Trump.  Over and over.

One of my sisters is stuck on failure.  Last night, I listened to her rail against all of the doctors who cared for my sister, Sally, who died last summer of lymphoma of the brain.  To a person, my sister called each of those physicians "murderers."  Listed all of the mistakes they made in caring for Sally.  At the end of this tirade, my sister said, "Sal would still be alive if it weren't for those killers."

I will be the first to admit that mistakes were made in the care my sister received in the last year of her life.  But, until very close to the end, nobody knew what we were dealing with.  Had the doctors diagnosed her earlier in her illness, Sally might have lived a little longer.  In the end, though, the outcome would have been the same.

My sister is stuck in a forest of blame and anger, and she can't seem to find her way out of it.  Now, it's affecting her health and life.  Panic attacks.  Insomnia.  Depression.  She sees Sally's ghost at night sometimes.  All my sister focuses on is failure--the dragonflies caught in the tar.

I wish I could make my sister understand that Sally's death is not about failure and blame.  That life is sometimes simply not fair.  It doesn't turn out the way we want it to turn out.  And we can spend all our time focused on the injustice of that statement--make ourselves sick over it--or we can accept it and try to carve out some happiness from this broken universe in which we live.

Failure is a part of the world.  Every day of our lives, we fail.  I'm failing right now at expressing my ideas clearly and accurately in this post.  Life is a series of failures, interrupted with moments of joy and blessing.

Saint Marty chooses to focus on the joy and blessing instead of the failure.

Marina Tsvetaeva

by:  Ilya Kaminsky

     During the first year of my deafness, I saw her with a man.  She wore a purple scarf knotted around her head.  Half-dancing, she took his head between her hands and laid it on her breast.  And she began to sing.  I observed her with devouring attention.  I imagined her voice smelling of oranges; I fell in love with her voice.

     She was a woman who lived like a conspirator sending contradictory signals.  "Do not eat the apple seeds," she threatened me, "Not the apple seeds.  The branches will grow from your belly!"  She touched my ear, fingering it.

     I know nothing of her husband except for his fatal heart attack in a moving bus.  There was no strain on her face, but looking at her, I understood the dignity of grief.  Returning from his funeral, she took off her shoes and walked barefoot in the snow.

Confessions of Saint Marty

December 21: Surrounded by Jerks, Working on a Poem, New Cartoon

I was surrounded by jerks.  I'm not kidding...

OK, Holden is a little harsh on the crowd at Ernie's, a New York piano bar.  But he's a little harsh on just about everyone in Catcher.  Holden doesn't find a whole lot of redeeming qualities in the human race.  Well, not the whole human race.  Only members of the human race above the age of eight or nine.

I understand Holden's feelings.  There's nothing false in young kids.  When they try to lie, they aren't very good at it.  My son, who's five, can't lie well.  Don't get me wrong.  He tries to lie to get himself out of trouble all the time, but he's about as believable as George W. Bush talking about weapons of mass destruction.

Adults, on the other hand, have had plenty of practice at being jerks.  Tomorrow, I have to go to church for the first time after finding out on Friday that they've ostensibly fired me.  I'm supposed to smile.  I'm supposed to sing and play the keyboard.  I'm supposed to be all Christian toward everyone.  That's going to be tough.

I'm not going to go as far as Holden.  Not all the people at church are jerks.  However, there's a severe trust factor that's lacking in my heart at the moment.  I'm not sure who's my friend.  My wife said this afternoon, "It feels like the whole church has turned its back on us."  That about sums it up.

I've been working on my Christmas poem all day long.  There's not a lot of yuletide spirit in me at the moment.  I've got about three or four really bad starts.  I'm going to try to write a little more tonight, and then I'll work on it all day tomorrow.  It will get done.  I know it will.  Perhaps I'll write during the worship service.  That might bring me a little peace of mind.

I'm praying.  A lot.  For forgiveness and acceptance.  For love.

Saint Marty can't quite get there.  Maybe he will some day.  It won't be tomorrow. 

Confessions of Saint Marty