February 14, 2026: “Persephone,” Valentine’s Day, “Why?”

Yes, I find myself still struggling with my writing.  It’s not that I’m not doing it.  I’m doing it every day.  It’s just that everything I write is crap.  Or, at least, it’s crap to me.  I’ve lost my ability to judge whether what I compose is good or bad.  My inner editor is broken or on an extended vacation or in some ICE detention facility somewhere in Texas.  I’m not sure.

It is Valentine’s Day, and my wife and I did go out to lunch to celebrate this afternoon.  I had a French dip sandwich, and the love of my life had a messy plate of nachos that she loved.  We have been through quite a bit in the 35+ years we have been a couple.  Breakups.  A wedding.  Two kids.  Separation.  Marriage counseling.  And here we are—still in love with each other.  Still best friends.  

I often wonder, if Orpheus and Eurydice or Romeo and Juliet had had chances to grow old together, would they have endured similar challenges?

Marie Howe writes about another ancient love story . . . 

Persephone

by: Marie Howe

People forget he was a king, a god,

and that down there deep

everything gleamed.

So tight did he hold me I was swaddled hard

so bound I couldn’t move,

and inside that grip he moved          and moved

                                     and it was a monstrosity

an ecstasy     I forgot myself.        I became

an animal again          I screamed.     It didn’t matter how long.

No one put a hand over my mouth.

                      And when it was over

I lay across his knees, on my back, entirely open,

nobody, no one

an animal on the altar of a king—a god.

Okay, so perhaps the myth of Persephone is NOT the most heartwarming or romantic.  I mean, it does begin with a kidnapping and grieving mother (who happens to be a goddess and almost destroys the world in her sorrow).  And Howe doesn’t really portray Persephone as a moony-eyed lover.  She’s more like an animal sacrifice meant to appease the king/god of the Underworld.  That beginning doesn’t bode well for a “happily ever after.”  But, maybe it’s a more realistic picture of the trials and tribulations of romantic love.  

I have loved my wife since the first day I laid eyes on her.  We had a lot of things stacked against us from the start.  There was an age difference that made both of our families a little suspicious.  At the time, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be in a serious relationship; I was a few years into my college education and thinking about graduate school.  She was raised Methodist, and I was a cradle Catholic.  (This may not sound like that big of a deal, but it certainly was for my father, in particular.)  Like I said, a lot of obstacles.

Yet, where love exists, anything is possible.  

As I said earlier, my wife and I have had our share of challenges.  Loss.  Mental illness.  Addiction.  But, to paraphrase Sir Elton John, we’re still standing.  For that, I credit stubbornness, luck, prayer, and quite a lot of grace.

My wife’s family has become my family.  When my sister died of lymphoma of the brain, they were there for me, holding me up, providing love and support (and food for the funeral lunch).  They did the same for the deaths of my brother, parents, and another sister.  I never had to ask or beg for help.  They just stepped in and lightened my burdens.

When I fell in love with my wife, I gained not just a partner, but an entire village of brothers, sisters, aunts, and uncles.  I have been truly blessed with love in my life.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for today about his sister, whom he loved deeply.  She was taken way too soon , , , 

Why?

by: Martin Achatz

I am older now than my sister

will ever be.  She will never fire

up the Keurig to make morning 

coffee again, never sit under

a lonely star and wonder why

her legs won’t help her rise

from her chair, never wrap

a birthday or Christmas present

again.  I wonder, in her last 

breaths, if she still felt longing,

the ache to be held like an infant

in our mother’s arms one more time.

When that comet appeared in the Milky

Way of her brain, and when

that comet became a shower

of August Perseids, did she know

she would be leaving us so

soon?  Were her bags packed,

plenty of socks and underwear

for the long journey?  I can still

see her standing on the deck

of Charon’s boat that last morning, 

waving to me as if she’s just going 

to Walmart to pick up a few things—

toilet paper, toothpaste, a dozen eggs.

May 19, 2025: "Cambridge Elegy," Sal, "Opposites Attract"

Tonight, I screened the film Gladiator II at the library.  The entire time I watched it, I was thinking about my sister, Sally, who loved Gladiator, mainly because of Russell Crowe.  I'm not sure Sal would have enjoyed the sequel all that much, because of the serious lack of Russell Crowe in the movie.  But her spirit was certainly sitting right next to me the whole time, watching.

Sharon Olds writes an elegy for a lost young love . . . 

Cambridge Elegy

by: Sharon Olds

(for Henry Averell Gerry, 1941-60)

I scarcely know how to speak to you now,
you are so young now, closer to my daughter's age
than mine -- but I have been there and seen it, and must
tell you, as the seeing and hearing
spell the world into the deaf-mute's hand.
The dormer windows like the ears of a fox, like the
long row of teats on a pig, still
perk up over the Square, though they're digging up the
street now, as if digging a grave,
the shovels shrieking on stone like your car
sliding along on its roof after the crash.
How I wanted everyone to die I if you had to die,
how sealed into my own world I was,
deaf and blind. What can I tell you now,
now that I know so much and you are a
freshman, still, drinking a quart of orange juice and
playing three sets of tennis to cure a hangover, such an
ardent student of the grown-ups! I can tell you
we were right, our bodies were right, life was

really going to be that good, that
pleasurable in every cell.
Suddenly I remember the exact look of your body, but
better than the bright corners of your eyes, or the
light of your face, the rich Long Island

puppy-fat of your thighs, or the shined
chino of your pants bright in the corners of my eyes, I
remember your extraordinary act of courage in
loving me, something no one but the
blind and halt had done before. You were
fearless, you could drive after a sleepless night
just like a grown-up, and not be afraid, you could
fall asleep at the wheel easily and
never know it, each blond hair of your head--and they were
thickly laid--put out like a filament of light,
twenty years ago. The Charles still
slides by with that ease that made me bitter when I
wanted all things broken and rigid as the
bricks in the sidewalk or your love for me
stopped cell by cell in your young body.
Ave--I went ahead and had the children,
the life of ease and faithfulness, the
palm and the breast, every millimeter of delight in the body,
I took the road we stood on at the start together, I
took it all without you as if
in taking it after all I could most
honor you.

It's so difficult losing a person at a younger age.  It sounds as if Olds had made life plans with Henry Averell Gerry.  Those plans included marriage and children.  Olds saw those plans become reality, without Gerry's presence.  She writes the elegy to let him know she's done it--gone down "the road we stood on at the start together"--honoring his youth and potential.

My sister Sal was taken way too early by lymphoma of the brain.  I know she had plans.  She had retirement accounts, a nice camper, nieces and nephews she spoiled.  Always generous, Sal celebrated each Christmas and birthday as if it was going to be the last.  She gave of herself freely, without ever asking for repayment.  That's who she was.

But, of course, you can't have life without death.  Joy without grief.  Love without loss.  That's the way it works.  Everything is defined by its opposite.  You can't know if something tastes salty unless you taste sweet.  Summer can't really be enjoyed unless you know the ice of winter.  Abbott would have been nothing without Costello.  

I would never give up the time I had with Sal simply to avoid the pain of her loss.  Unfortunately, those two things go hand-in-hand.  There was always going to be grief, whether she died first or me.  The depth of love I felt for my sister is defined by sorrow I feel at her absence.  As I said, you can't have one without the other.

So, Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about attraction and opposition, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem about a pair of something (of a pair of people) in couplet form (a couplet is a two-line stanza).  Make sure each line in the couplet compliments the other in sound and image; for example, if your first line is about a bride maybe include an image of a groom in the second line or perhaps a veil and bouquet.  Make a list of pairs--Bert and Ernie, apples and oranges, his and hers--then write in couplets inspired by the couple you choose.

Opposites Attract

by: Martin Achatz

Mary Oliver knew this, paired joy

with grief in the same poem,

the way my dad paired 7-Up

with Seven Crown every night

and the moon sometimes sits

in the sky with morning sun,

because it's a matter of negative

calling to positive, magnetically,

Romeo betraying his family name

by falling for Juliet at first sight,

or Robert Redford jumping off

that cliff with Paul Newman.

Salt defines sugar.  Satan defines

God.  You can't have one without

the other.  Just ask the fish swimming

with birds in the reflected clouds.

July 10: "Eastern Standard Time," Concert, Poetry and Art and Music

Billy Collins meditates on time . . . 

Eastern Standard Time

by: Billy Collins

Poetry speaks to all people, it is said,

but here I would like to address

only those in my own time zone,

this proper slice of longitude

that runs from pole to snowy pole

down the globe through Montreal to Bogota.

Oh, fellow inhabitants of this singular band,

sitting up in your many beds this morning--

the sun falling through the windows

and casting a shadow on the sundial--

consider those in other zones who cannot hear these words.

They are not slipping into a bathrobe as were are,

or following the smell of coffee in a timely fashion.

Rather, they are at work already,

leaning on copy machines,

hammering nails into a house frame.

They are not swallowing a vitamin like us,

rather they are smoking a cigarette under a half moon,

even jumping around on a dance floor,

or just now sliding under the covers,

pulling down the little chains on their bed lamps.

But we are not like these others,

for at this very moment on the face of the earth,

we are standing under a hot shower,

or we are eating our breakfast, 

considered by people of all zones

to be the most important meal of the day.

Later, when the time is right,

we might sit down with the boss,

wash the car, or linger at a candle-lit table,

but now is the hour for pouring the juice

and flipping the eggs with one eye on the toaster.

So let us slice a banana and uncap the jam, 

lift our brimming spoons of milk,

and leave it to the others to lower a flag

or spin absurdly in a barber's chair--

those antipodal oddballs, always early or late.

Let us praise Sir Stanford Fleming,

the Canadian genius who first scored

with these lines the length of the spinning earth.

Let us move together through the rest of this day

passing in unison from light to shadow,

coasting over the crest of noon,

into the valley of evening

and then, holding hands, slip into the deeper valley of night.

Time is precious.  That could be the title of this post.  

Here is a quick list of how I spent my time today:

1. Got an oil change for my car.
2. Wrote with a poet friend in her garden.
3. Worked on programs and publicity at the library.
4. Visited with a poet friend from Ohio.
5. Recorded a podcast episode.
6. Revised some poems.
7. Hosted a concert.

Three items from the above list filled up my soul tank (which has been running on empty for the last couple weeks).

Writing with my poet friend always restores me.  Writing with her in her flower garden, even more so.  As I sat on her swing, scribbling in my journal, white petals from her mock orange tree kept snowing down on me.  I could hear ducks quacking, dogs barking, and cars passing.  A blessing.

Visiting with my poet friend from Ohio was an unexpected treat.  I didn't realize she was in town, and we had a wonderful conversation, catching up on each others' lives.  We both have a weakness for the British TV shows Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year, and we spent quite a bit of time discussing our love of art and painting.  A surprise blessing.

Music also restores my faith in the world, and the concert I hosted at the library tonight was by three of the most gifted, wonderful musicians/artists I know.  Brian, one of the band members, sang a song he wrote for his grandmother who recently passed.  Most of you know that I had a sister who died of lymphoma of the brain almost nine years ago now (hard to believe it's been that long--slippery time); in exactly one week, my sister would have turned 63 years old.  So, Brian's song really hit home this evening.  Another blessing.

Poetry and art and music.  Couldn't ask for better medicine.

Saint Marty is a very lucky person.

January 21: "The Vulture's Wings," Day Two, Icicles

Mary Oliver contemplates death and sunlight . . . 

The Vulture's Wings

by:  Mary Oliver

The vulture's

wings are

black death

color but

the underwings

as sunlight

flushes into

the feathers

are bright

are swamped

with light.

Just something

explainable by

the sun's

angle yet

I keep

looking I

keep wondering

standing so

far below

these high

floating birds

could this

as most

things do

be offering

something for

us to 

think about

seriously?

Something about being sick--it gives you a lot of time to think seriously about subjects that generally don't take up a lot of your headspace when you are well.

I read Mary Oliver's poem for today early this morning because I was up a good portion of the night, gliding in between the black death and sunlight of the vulture's wings.  Contemplating how every experience is a mixture of struggle and blessing.

Day two of round two of COVID passed slowly with me riding riding the couch in the living room, alternating between napping, watching episodes of Holiday Baking Championship on Hulu, coughing my lungs up, and reading Call Me Athena by Colby Cedar Smith.  I did go for a walk with my wife this evening.  A little over 20 minutes that left me exhausted.

Usually, my Saturdays are fairly hectic as I move between churches, rehearsing music and laying out my weekend plans.  Most of the time, I don't get a chance to sit down until about 5 p.m., after I'm done playing the pipe organ for the 4 p.m. Mass at my home parish.

Today, however, I was blessed with time.  Long stretches in which minutes felt like hours.  It's only when l'm forced by illness or circumstance to slow down or stop that I truly recognize the chaos that defines my day-to-day life.  Very little of my time is ever "free."  Instead, I shuttle between places and obligations, even on weekends.

Mind you, I'm not complaining.  I like feeling useful.  Yet, that usefulness comes at a price.  It takes a lot of time away from my family and writing and wellbeing.  I will go for weeks and weeks on four or five hours of sleep a night, only shutting my eyes when they simply won't stay open any longer.  And then my body will shut down, and I have no choice but to hibernate for a day or so.  Sleep until my batteries are recharged.

My sister, Sally, was very much like this, as well.  She worked.  All the time.  She loved her job as a surgical nurse.  It was all she ever wanted to do, from the time she was a little girl.  Yet, I think this drive is what eventually killed her.  Near the end of her life, she was working incredibly long hours for a healthcare system that simply didn't value its employees.  Near the end of her career, she was terrified of being demoted or fired.  Eventually she was fired, through a registered letter that was delivered to her hospital room while she was dying of lymphoma of the brain.

That is the reality of a world that values money over humanity.  My sister was replaced, and the healthcare system sent a nice arrangement of flowers to her funeral.  

If my sister were alive today, she would have been 63 years old.  And I know she wouldn't tell me that she wishes she had worked more in her life.  Instead, she would say that she should have spent more time camping and going to Walt Disney World.  Spoiling her nieces and nephews.  Watching reruns of the original Star Trek series.  Reading.  

I don't think I have ever put these thoughts about my sister into words before.  However, as I sit propped up on my couch tonight, coughing, wheezing, blowing my nose, and trying to stay hydrated, I can't help but look at my life and world a little differently.  Like Mary Oliver gazing up at the black death of that vulture's wings and seeing the underwings swamped with light.

I actually stood at my kitchen sink for several minutes this afternoon, staring at fangs of icicles cleaving the view of the outside world from the window.  How the afternoon light flashed in the frozen water, and the snow and trees seemed trapped in their spears.  And I wondered if my sister ever took the time to admire icicles.

Saint Marty gives thanks for his blessings of this day of sickness.

June 8-10: Impetration, Albert Einstein, Rare Steak

Merton makes the right choice by accident . . . 

It was no longer possible to consider myself, abstractly, as being in a certain “state of life” which had special technical relations to other “states of life.” All that occupied me now was the immediate practical problem of getting up my hill with this terrific burden I had on my shoulders, step by step, begging God to drag me along and get me away from my enemies and from those who were trying to destroy me. 

I did not even reflect how the Breviary, the Canonical Office, was the most powerful and effective prayer I could possibly have chosen, since it is the prayer of the whole Church, and concentrates in itself all the power of the Church’s impetration, centered around the infinitely mighty Sacrifice of the Mass—the jewel of which the rest of the Liturgy is the setting: the soul which is the life of the whole Liturgy and of all the Sacramentals. All this was beyond me, although I grasped it at least obscurely. All I knew was that I needed to say the Breviary, and say it every day. 

Buying those books at Benziger’s that day was one of the best things I ever did in my life. The inspiration to do it was a very great grace. There are few things I can remember that give me more joy.

Had to look up the definition of "impetration."  I've been a lifelong Catholic, and, for some reason, I have never heard that term.  To "impetrate" means to beseech or entreat.  According to catholicculture.org, "impetration" is "[o]ne of the fruits of prayer and good works, especially one of the four ends of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Impetration with right disposition and the fulfillment of prescribed conditions invariably obtains from God what is asked of him, provided it is to our spiritual advantage. It is ensured petition. (Etym. Latin impetratio, the action of procuring or obtaining by request or entreaty.)"

Basically, impetration is answered prayer.  Of course, answered prayer comes with conditions.  It requires the right "disposition," which means that you can't be praying that someone catches COVID or that Donald Trump goes to prison (although, I think there would be something pretty divine about that).  No, in order to have the right disposition, what you are asking for has to be pure, unselfish, and for the greater good of the universe.  (Again, Donald Trump going to prison seems to fit the bill, but I'm not God.)  

So, praying that a loved one who is seriously ill undergoes healing seems to fall in this spiritual spreadsheet.  However, there is the caveat:  ". . . provided it is to our spiritual advantage."  That means that the impetration mustn't harm us spiritually in any way.  Perhaps there is a reason for a loved one to suffer or be taken away.  Don't ask me to explain that part of the deal.

When my sister was diagnosed with lymphoma of the brain, I asked God to heal her.  Impetrated.  I did that a lot.  My sister never jumped out of her bed to do a "I am healed" dance.  Instead, she got sicker and sicker until she passed away.  Even now, almost six years later, I'm still trying to understand the divine plan in her death.  My family sort of fell apart after she was gone, and we're still picking up the pieces.  All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put this Humpty together again.

Of course, I'm trying to understand the mind of God here.  (Does God have a mind?  That's the subject of another blog.)  There is no way really to do that.  To understand the mind of God means you can see the past, present, and future all at once.  The "big picture," so to speak.  Even saints lack that ability.  Saints are human, and human beings have a limited capacity for understanding.  Some humans have much greater understanding than others, but even Albert Einstein didn't see the potential of nuclear war when he wrote to FDR in 1939, urging the president to develop an atomic bomb before Adolf Hitler did.  Huge mind.  Human understanding.

So, impetration is tricky.  It requires purity of heart.  Selflessness.  Surrender.  In the end, it also involves acceptance--we take whatever God dishes out.  It may not be exactly what we ordered--rare steak versus medium.  Or it may be something completely different from what we wanted--egg plant instead of barbecued ribs.  We can't send it back to the kitchen.  So, we make the best of it.  Eat the meal that's set before us.  Give thanks for the broccoli because it is better for us than the banana split.

As I said, my sister will be gone six years this August.  I'm still sitting at the dinner table with this one, trying to appreciate the entrée before me.  God answered my prayer, just not in the way I wanted or understand.  I'm human.  I'm limited.  Still learning the menu.

Saint Marty hopes the next thing he orders comes with onion rings.

February 8-13: For God's Glory, Trust Thing, "A House of Sand"

Merton prays and prays and prays to be a published writer . . .  

When we went back to New York, in the middle of August, the world that I had helped to make was finally preparing to break the shell and put forth its evil head and devour another generation of men. 

At Olean we never read any newspapers, and we kept away from radios on principle, and for my own part the one thing that occupied my mind was the publication of the new novel. Having found an old copy of Fortune lying around Benjie’s premises, I had read an article in it on the publishing business: and on the basis of that article I had made what was perhaps the worst possible choice of a publisher—the kind of people who would readily reprint everything in the Saturday Evening Post in diamond letters on sheets of gold. They were certainly not disposed to be sympathetic to the wild and rambling thing I had composed on the mountain. 

And it was going to take them a good long time to get around to telling me about it. 

For my own part, I was walking around New York in the incomparable agony of a new author waiting to hear the fate of his first book—an agony which is second to nothing except the torments of adolescent love. And because of my anguish I was driven, naturally enough, to fervent though interested prayer. But after all God does not care if our prayers are interested. He wants them to be. Ask and you shall receive. It is a kind of pride to insist that none of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to put ourselves on the same plane as God—acting as if we had no needs, as if we were not creatures, not dependent on Him and dependent, by His will, on material things too. 

So I knelt at the altar rail in the little Mexican church of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Fourteenth Street, where I sometimes went to Communion, and asked with great intensity of desire for the publication of the book, if it should be for God’s glory. 

The fact that I could even calmly assume that there was some possibility of the book giving glory to God shows the profound depths of my ignorance and spiritual blindness: but anyway, that was what I asked. But now I realize that it was a very good thing that I made that prayer. 

It is a matter of common belief among Catholics that when God promises to answer our prayers, He does not promise to give us exactly what we ask for. But we can always be certain that if he does not give us that, it is because He has something much better to give us instead. That is what is meant by Christ’s promise that we will receive all that we ask in His Name. Quodcumque petimus adversus utilitatem salutis, non petimus in nomine Salvatoris. 

I've been taught this lesson since I was a small boy.  God hears all our prayers, and He answers each and every one of them.  He just doesn't always answer them in the way that we want or expect.  And if He doesn't give you exactly what you want, it's because He has something bigger and better in mind for you.  Merton wants his terrible novel published.  God doesn't grant him this petition.  Instead, eventually, Merton writes The Seven Storey Mountain, and here we are--over seven decades after it was published--going on the second year of Saint Marty posts based on his book.  I suppose that is an answer to Merton's prayer, just not in the way or time frame he had in mind.

Of course, Merton could never have realized the impact of his memoir, or even envisioned something like a blog.  He didn't have that kind of long-range vision.  And that's the rub.  When my sister was dying of lymphoma of the brain, I prayed for her recovery.  With every cell in my body, I prayed for that.  It didn't happen.  Now, I don't know what "bigger and better" thing God has planned for a world without my sister's physical presence.  Since my sister's passing, as a matter of fact, my family has sort of disintegrated.  I haven't seen a lot of good coming out of my sister's death.

But maybe that good is going to come 70 years from now, after I've written a poem or memoir or play about my sister.  Through my words, maybe I'll save someone from despair.  Or maybe somebody has already read the poem I wrote for my sister's funeral, and it has provided some kind of comfort or solace.  I may never know what difference my sister's death made in the universe. 

It's that whole trust thing.  I have to trust that God knows what He's doing.  My wanting God to save my sister's life--well, that's me wanting to be God.  I've seen the movie Bruce Almighty enough times to know that playing God doesn't work out all that well.  Human beings are too selfish and myopic.  Perhaps me winning the Nobel Prize in Literature will cause a failed writer to commit genocide.  That sort of thing.  (Think about it.  If The Apprentice had still been a top-rated show on network TV, would Donald Trump have run for President of the United States?  If Adolf Hitler had been a successful artist, would the Holocaust have happened?  Nobody will know the answers to these questions.)

I have trust issues--a lot of them.  And I have faith.  Go to church every weekend.  Usually a couple times.  Yet, I still question why God allows things to happen in the world and in my life.  My agnostic and atheist friends who read this blog regularly are now shaking their heads at my stupid naivete.  And my pastor friends are doing the same thing.

My godless friends are saying to me, "It's all chance and humanity.  People get sick.  People cheat on their spouses.  People blindly follow hate-mongering tyrants."  My pastor friends are saying to me, "God doesn't allow things like that to happen.  We live in an imperfect world, full of imperfect people.  Humans mess it up, and God just picks up the pieces and puts them back together in new and miraculous ways."  Both groups of friends are basically saying the same thing:  human beings are flawed creatures, and they inflict their imperfections on the world.

The difference, however, comes in the belief--the faith and trust--that the universe or Creator or God will somehow right what's wrong.  Out of the darkness will come light.  It may take a long time.  We may never see that light.  But, you cannot have darkness without its opposite.  The two define each other.  Therefore, you also cannot have despair without hope.  Same principle.

This week, I've been struggling a lot with these ideas, for very personal reasons that I won't get into.  That is what has kept me from blogging regularly.  I've been too tired from arguing with God all day to sit down at night and string together coherent sentences.  And I'm not on the other side of this battle yet.  Still in the trenches.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.  It's one of those holidays that come with all kinds of unrealistic expectations, sort of like Christmas.  I have been married for over 25 years now, and my wife and I have been together for close to 30 years.  That time has not always been easy or filled with romance and love.  It has also been filled depression, separation, mental illness, and addictions.  So when I went shopping for a Valentine's card for my wife today, I couldn't find a single one that exactly expressed my feelings.  Instead, I settled on one card, which I will revise.  That's what poets do.

I have been trying to hold things in my life together for a long time.  Like Merton, I've been praying, telling God exactly how He should fix my problems.  God hasn't really been cooperating.  He seems to have other plans.  So, I've had sleepless nights and tired days.  Because where there is faith, there's also its opposite:  fear.  I suppose you can't have one without the other, either.

Even saints experience this struggle.  Mother Teresa wrote, "In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss--of God not wanting me--of God not being God--of God not really existing . . . That darkness that surrounds me on all sides--"  But, she also said, "If ever I become a saint, I will surely be one of 'darkness.'  I will continually be absent from heaven, to light the light of those in darkness on earth."

Saint Marty believes in the miracle of light after darkness, whatever form that light may take.  Who is he to argue with Mother Teresa.

And a poem written during this week . . .

A House of Sand

by:  Martin Achatz

I live in a house of sand
that shivers, moves with my breath,
becomes grit in wind, shrinks
with every sparrow wing
that slaps by. I haul
bags of beach, pour them
into living room, kitchen, mold
new couch, dining table, shelves
to hold my words, a bed to sink
into at night. I am an oyster
burrowed, hidden in silt,
a grain under my tongue
that I work, worry, polish
until dawn, when I open my lips
to loose a pearl of sun, watch it
rise, rise over vast dunes, ruins
of the previous day's architecture,
just powder now, sifting through
my fingers. I understand why God
rested on the seventh day.
It's exhausting trying to hold
a world together.

April 4: Five to One Against, Last Day, I Did My Best

Zaphod Beeblebrox is anxious about having Arthur and Ford on board the Heart of Gold, the spaceship he has stolen . . .

Zaphod Beeblebrox paced nervously up and down the cabin, brushing his hands over pieces of gleaming equipment and giggling with excitement.

Trillian sat hunched over a clump of instruments, reading off figures.  Her voice was carried round the tannoy system of the whole ship.

"Five to one against and falling . . ."  She turned her microphone off--then turned it back on--with a slight smile and continued:  "Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem.  Please relax.  You will be sent for soon."

Zaphod burst out in annoyance, "Who are they, Trillian?"

Trillian spun her seat round to face him and shrugged.

"Just a couple of guys we seem to have picked up in open space," she said.  "Section ZZ, Plural Z.  Alpha."

"Yeah, well, that's a very sweet thought, Trillian," complained Zaphod, "but do you really think it's wise under the circumstances?  I mean, here we are on the run and everything, we must have the police of half the Galaxy after us by now, and we stop to pick up hitchhikers.  Okay, so ten out of ten for style, but minus sever million for good thinking, yeah?"  

Worked my last day at the medical office of the surgery center.  Probability of me returning to it at this point:  less than one and falling.  I tried to keep myself focused on work--registering patients, putting together patient charts, packing up my personal belongings at the end of my shift.

The busyness of the day was good.  It kept me from getting too nostalgic or sad.  I've been in this situation before.  About five years ago, I was forced to leave my job at the surgery center.  It had to do with the fact that my sister was the supervisor of the facility.  It was either her or me.  So I went to work in a cardiology office for a couple years.  Then my sister was diagnosed with lymphoma of the brain.  She died in August of 2015.  A little less than a year later, my old job became available.  I posted for it and was rehired.

That's how I came to this day--leaving the surgery center again, this time for good.  In a month or so, the place will no longer exist.

After work, I drove to the cemetery with my friend, Missy, and paid a visit to my sister.  As I was standing my her stone, I said, "Well, Sal, I kept it going as long as I could.  I did my best."  Then I started crying.  I pretty much cried all the way home.

I will say that it doesn't seem quite real at the moment.  Like next week, I'll be punching the time clock and opening up the surgery center office, like any other day.  I suppose that reality will set in soon.  One or two days of being at my new job.

Tonight, however, I'm going to lead a poetry workshop.  This will help with the sadness, I think.  And I'll be surrounded by some of my best friends.  

Chances of me crying again tonight:  even.

Saint Marty doesn't take sucker bets.

August 30: Ahab and the Carpenter, a Little Haunted, Game Plan

The Deck - First Night Watch

(Carpenter standing before vice-bench, and by the light of two lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is firmly fixed in the vice. Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all sorts lying about the bench. Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen, where the blacksmith is at work.)

Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft, and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and shin bones. Let's try another. Aye, now, this works better (sneezes). Halloa, this bone dust is (sneezes)- why it's (sneezes)- yes it's (sneezes)- bless my soul, it won't let me speak! This is what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don't get it (sneezes). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have that ferrule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready for them presently. Lucky now (sneezes) there's no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little; but a mere shin-bone- why it's easy as making hop-poles; only I should like to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop windows wouldn't compare at all. They soak water, they do; and of course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with washes and lotions, just like live legs. There; before I saw it off, I must call his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that's the heel; we are in luck; here he comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain.

AHAB (advancing) (During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at times)
Well, manmaker!

Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length. Let me measure, sir.

Measured for a leg! good. Well, it's not the first time. About it! There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here, carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some.

Oh, sir, it will break bones- beware, beware!

No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this slippery world that can hold, man. What's Prometheus about there?- the blacksmith, I mean- what's he about?

He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.

Right. It's a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a fierce red flame there!

Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for his kind of fine work.

Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's made in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable. How the soot flies! This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.

Sir?

Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man after a desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest modelled after the Thames Tunnel then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let me see- shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away.

Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to, I should like know? Shall I keep standing here? (aside.)

'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one. No, no, no; I must have a lantern.

Ho, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn.

What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man? Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.

I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.

Carpenter? why that's- but no;- a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenter;- or would'st thou rather work in clay?

Sir?- Clay? clay, sir? That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.

The fellow's impious! What art thou sneezing about?

Bone is rather dusty, sir.

Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under living people's noses.

Sir?- oh! ah!- I guess so;- yes- dear!

Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?

Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard something curious on that score; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?

It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a hair, do I. Is't a riddle?

I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don't speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah!

Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again; I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.

Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.- How long before the leg is done?

Perhaps an hour, sir.

Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go). Oh, Life. Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small, compendious vertebra. So.

CARPENTER (resuming work).

Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he's queer, says Stubb; he's queer- queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into Mr. Starbuck all the time- queer- sir- queer, queer, very queer. And here's his leg. Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bed-fellow! has a stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he'll stand on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and all three places standing in one hell- how was that? Oh! I don't wonder he looked so scornful at me! I'm a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes, they say; but that's only haphazard-like. Then, a short, little old body like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep water with tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, and there's a great cry for life-boats. And here's the heron's leg! long and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; oh he's a hard driver. Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, you Smut! bear a hand there with those screws, and let's finish it before the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as brewery men go round collecting old beer barrels, to fill 'em up again. What a leg this is! It looks like a real live leg, filed down to nothing but the core; he'll be standing on this to-morrow; he'll be taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the little oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now!

Here I sit at the end of the day, reflecting on another chapter of Moby-Dick.  This one features a new character--the carpenter of the Pequod, who has been tasked by Ahab to carve a new leg for him out of whale bone.  This chapter reads like a scene from a play.  Two roles--Carpenter and Ahab.  One man is comic relief; the other, wrestling with phantoms from the past.  He feels them, like dead nerve endings still sparking in his skin.

I think we all are a little haunted in our lives.  By people.  By experience.  By loss.  By love.  We go through our days, hearing those ghosts in our ears, whispering.  Today, I went to a doctor's appointment, mostly to discuss my continuing problems with being dizzy and lightheaded.  It has been a continuing problem since my bout with vertigo in July.

My medical provider is a kind, compassionate person.  She started asking me questions, and I started talking about all kinds of phantoms--vertigo, depression, and fears.  Before I knew it, I had laid bare myself.  I felt like an open wound.  Totally exposed to a person who was simply there to help me feel better.  A carpenter, if you will, to make a new leg for me.

She smiled and nodded.  After she had listened, asked more questions, we came up with a game plan.  It involves taking blood pressures for a week and then having another appointment.  Right now, it's about finding out what is NOT bothering me.  Ruling out phantoms.  I'm relaxed after this conversation.  Less stressed.

One of the ghosts that has been banging around in my head, rattling chains, is my sister who died of lymphoma of the brain.  Since most of my problems seem to be focused inside my head, I've realized that I've been harboring this fear that I may . . . be . . . Well, I don't think I have to finish that thought.  You get the idea.

Ghosts have a way of showing up in the middle of the night when you're trying to sleep.  They aren't conducive to rest or relaxation.  They shiver their sheets, rattle their voices to remind you that you're mortal.  Poet Marie Howe says, "Poetry holds the knowledge that we are alive and that we're going to die."

Saint Marty is stuck in a poem right now, hovering between those two poles.

August 4: The Castaway, Abandonment, Rescue

It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod's crew; an event most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own.

Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province it is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, these shipkeepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly.

In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar color, driven in one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and New Year's Days. Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king's cabinets. But Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off to ten times the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the clear air of day, suspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences, infernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell. 
But let us to the story.

It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed; and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.

The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness; but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness to the utmost, for he might often find it needful.

Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat. The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly straightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken several turns around his chest and neck.

Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, "Cut?" Meantime Pip's blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passed in a flash. In less than half a minute, this entire thing happened.

"Damn him, cut!" roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was saved.

So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed by yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly permitting these irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, business-like, but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially; and that done, unofficially gave him much wholesome advice. The substance was, Never jump from a boat, Pip, except- but all the rest was indefinite, as the soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, Stick to the boat, is your true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when Leap from the boat, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if he should give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be leaving him too wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command "Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump; mind that. We can't afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and don't jump any more." Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous, blue day! the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern. Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest.

Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea- mark how closely they hug their ship and only coast along her sides.

But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; he did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake, and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very quickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations towards oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested by the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances not unfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to military navies and armies.

But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had leeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.

For the rest blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what like abandonment befell myself.

This chapter contains a tale of greed overcoming humanity.  Cruelty overcoming compassion.  Madness overcoming sanity.  The story of Pip fills me with a great deal of sadness.  A young boy, at sea with a crew of old whalers, falls victim to their hard experience.  As they pursue a harpooned whale, they leave him in the middle of the ocean, bobbing and alone.  A castaway.  No rescue in sight.  It's no wonder that he is greatly affected by the experience.  I would go out of my mind, too.  It's called post traumatic stress.

These last few years have been a little tough for me.  I've lost three members of my family--my brother, sister, and father.  In the middle of all that, I've dealt with the normal calamities that befall any person--home repairs, dying cars, brake jobs, employment shifts, shutoff notices.  It sometimes seems like my life is a series of crises interspersed with periods of calms-before-the-storms.  That may sound cynical, I know.  Self-pitying even.  That's not my intent here.

I'm not a person who goes around dwelling on all the bad things that have happened to me.  Those disciples of this blog who know me personally can vouch for this fact.  I'm a pretty upbeat person.  Don't like to be gloomy or negative.  That's not me.  Sometimes, however, I give into moments of, for lack of a better term, abandonment.  When I feel like I'm bobbing in the ocean, with no rescue in sight.

Of course, being a practicing Christian, I'm not supposed to feel like this.  I'm supposed to feel God's presence in my life, lifting me up in dark times.  Carrying me on His shoulders when I can't walk through the desert.  Keeping me afloat when I'm sinking.  All those old cliches you see on plaques and greeting cards and in magazines like Catholic Digest and Guideposts.

I don't discount those beliefs.  Most of the time, I embrace them wholeheartedly.  However, I am human, and with that humanity comes a healthy dose of doubts and fears.  For example, when I had my bout of vertigo a couple weeks ago, traveling to the hospital in the back of an ambulance, I thought about my sister, Sally, who died of lymphoma of the brain.  All the ambulance rides she had.  The days she spent throwing up, not knowing the reason why she was so sick.  I thought of my daughter, 17-years-old and a senior in high school.  My son, headed into his last year of grade school.  And my wife, who's had so many struggles herself over the years with mental health issues.  Yes, it was a moment of my life flashing before my eyes.

For those of you who think I'm being overly dramatic, I will defend myself by saying that I was feeling VERY sick, and, just a year or so ago, my brother had a massive heart attack that destroyed all but 20% of his heart.  So, my family has a history of stroke (which killed another of my brothers), lymphoma, and heart disease.  An unholy trinity.  I had good cause to feel slightly . . . abandoned.

Once I was feeling better and life took over, I left those castaway feelings behind.  I was too busy for self pity and introspection.  That's what keeps me going.  I don't want to be at the end of my life, look back, and think, "I have made no difference in this world whatsoever."

I've been pretty blessed with good health (for the most part), a wonderful wife, great kids, and loving siblings (for the most part).  I have great friends who truly care about me.  I do things almost every day that feed my soul--poetry, charitable work, teaching.  All these things remind me that I'm not floating in the middle of the sea with no rescue in sight.  I'm pretty damn lucky.

Saint Marty is thankful this morning for being rescued, over and over, every day of his life.

July 23: Les Murray, "Vertigo", Feeling Really Old

Vertigo

by:  Les Murray

Last time I fell in a shower room

I bled like a tumbril dandy

and the hotel longed to be rid of me.

Taken to the town clinic, I

described how I tripped on a steel rim

and found my head in the wardrobe.

Scalp-sewn and knotted and flagged

I thanked the Frau Doktor and fled,

wishing the grab-bar of age might

be bolted to all civilization

and thinking of Rome’s eighth hill

heaped up out of broken amphorae.

When, anytime after sixty,

or anytime before, you stumble

over two stairs and club your forehead

on rake or hoe, bricks or fuel-drums,

that’s the time to call the purveyor

of steel pipe and indoor railings,

and soon you’ll be grasping up landings

having left your balance in the car

from which please God you’ll never

see the launchway of tires off a brink.

Later comes the sunny day when

street detail whitens blindly to mauve

and people hurry you, or wait, quiet.

________________________

Okay, ended up in the hospital yesterday with a case of vertigo. 

Yes, I felt really old when I was in that ambulance on the way to the hospital.  Thought I was dying.  I've gone from "ow, that hurts" when I get a headache to "this is how it all ends."  It doesn't help that my sister died of lymphoma of the brain.  So now, I've diagnosed myself with a brain tumor.

Saint Marty needs a nap.

February 2: Alone in the Place, Cosmic Justice, Father in the Nursing Home

"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, they all-outward to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their questions. 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him.

"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries- and then- 'I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts,- when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.

"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea is as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah."

While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.

There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself.

But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these words:

"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along 'into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet- 'out of the belly of hell'- when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten- his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean- Jonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!

"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!

He drooped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm,- "But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,- top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breath- O Father!- chiefly known to me by Thy rod- mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"

He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, and he was left alone in the place.

Sorry for the long passage.  I am trying to make up for the days I lost this week due to technical issues.  It's strange, but, this week, I have sort of felt like the Jonah described by Father Mapple in this passage.  No, I haven't committed some monstrous sin for which I need to be punished.  I'm not attempting to flee from God to the far corners of the planet.  It's a little more complicated than that.

I often have this sense that, when bad things occur in my life, I'm to blame.  That I've brought it on by some action or inaction.  I'm not talking about robbing a convenience store or not reporting a murder.  Nothing that obvious.  No, I'm talking about tiny things.  Intentionally forgetting to call your sister on her birthday.  Not forgiving a person who did something to hurt you.  Looking at porn on the Internet.  All those daily failings that plague a normal person.

I always wonder if there's some kind of cosmic justice at work when kitchen ceilings collapse or car engines seize up or sisters are diagnosed with lymphoma of the brain.  All that I know about God tells me that the answer to that question is "no."  God doesn't punish people like that.  He forgives and loves.  He doesn't rain fire down on cities that are filled with sin.  If that were true, Las Vegas would have been gone a long time ago.

Yet, there's always a part of me that feels responsible when people I love are hurting.  Like I've somehow caused the pain.  It's completely irrational.  Makes no sense.  I know that,  However, here I am, thinking I can somehow save the people in my life from harm if I pray harder, go to confession, or forgive past transgressions.

Right now, my father isn't doing well in the nursing home.  He's 90 years old, and he's dropped close to 25 pounds in the last four or so weeks.  He's down to about 125.  When my sisters saw him yesterday, he was looking very pale.  I believe the word they used to describe him was "gray."  He sleeps a lot.  Has some good days, but more bad days.  Today, the doctor went to see him, and he put my father on comfort care.  They are going to keep him comfortable.

Now, I know that I'm not the reason that my father's health is declining.  It's old age.  Last night, after my sister told me about his loss of appetite, weight loss, and complexion, I think I said something like, "Well, if there's a serious medical reason underlying this, I don't think that aggressive treatment is an option."  My sister agreed.  Neither of us said the word "cancer."

When my sister was dying of lymphoma at the University of Michigan, I was the one who had to convince my family members that hospice care was the right thing to do.  It was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do.  To this day, I sometimes experience tremendous guilt over that decision.  As a Christian, I'm supposed to believe in miracles.  Maybe my sister was in line for some kind of healing, and I messed it up by my doubt.  Again, I know this line of thought is irrational and pointless.

But tonight, I'm feeling the same things I felt in Ann Arbor with my sister.  I'm letting my father be treated for pain, but little else.  And I'm feeling guilty.  Can't help it.  I'm in the belly of the whale with Jonah right now, waiting to get to the shores of Nineveh.

Saint Marty is thankful for the gin and tonic he's going to drink in a little while. 

August 19: Bombed and Burned, Two Years Ago, My Sister

Every other big city in Germany had been bombed and burned ferociously.  Dresden had not suffered so much as a cracked windowpane.  Sirens went off every day, screamed like hell, and people went down into cellars and listened to radios there.  The planes were always bound for someplace else--Leipzig, Chemnitz, Plauen, places like that.  So it goes.

Steam radiators still whistled cheerily in Dresden.  Streetcars clanged.  Telephones rang and were answered.  Lights went on and off when switches were clicked.  There were theaters and restaurants.  There was a zoo.  The principal enterprises of the city were medicine and food-processing and the making of cigarettes.

People were going home from work now in the late afternoon.  They were tired.

Dresden is a normal city in the middle of a war.  People go to work.  Streetcars carry people to shop and eat.  Theatrical productions at night.  Phone calls from neighbors and relatives.  If people get sick, there are doctors to treat them.  The citizens of Dresden go about their lives, unfazed and safe.  They have no worries, aside from whether they're going to have schnitzel or sauerbraten for dinner.

I think that's pretty much what everybody does, every day of their lives.  We get up in the morning, make coffee, eat oatmeal, go to work, come home, watch TV.  Sure, we have bills to pay, meetings to attend, birthdays and anniversaries to celebrate.  That's normal life.  We walk around, mostly oblivious to the bombs going off around the world, because those bombs aren't falling in our neighborhoods.

Those bombs can take many forms.  Car bomb.  Terrorist.  Nazi.  White supremacist.  Job loss.  Home foreclosure.  Bill collector.  Car accident.  Alzheimer's.  Appendicitis.  Bombs go off in people's lives all the time.  Shatter windows.  Destroy homes.  Wreck lives.  No one is prepared for the bomb.

Today is the anniversary of my sister's death.  Two years ago, she quietly stopped breathing at home, surrounded by family and friends.  Lymphoma of the brain.  My sister never saw that bomb coming.  Just a few months before, when a doctor in the hospital asked her what her expectations were for her illness, she said that she wanted to get better and go home.

My family and my sister's friends are still dealing with that bomb.  Sweeping up the glass and rubble.  Our lives have returned to a new normal.  Job and church and home.  However, for me, I'm always looking into the clouds for a B-52 carrying the next bomb.

Today, I will go to the cemetery.  Talk to my sister.  Tell her how much I miss her.  Leave some flowers.  That's what we do.  We build memorials at the sites of disasters.  To remember, honor, love.

Saint Marty is thankful today for the time he had with his sister.

April 14: Sunlit Detail, Grand Rapids, Nostalgia

All these things I saw.  Scenes grew in depth and sunlit detail before my eyes, and were replaced by ever more scenes, as I remembered the life of my time with increasing feeling.

Dillard is talking about memory.  Remembering the sunlit times of her life.  In paragraphs before and after the above passage, she writes of oceans and space and France.  Things from her past.  She's flooded with nostalgia, thinking about a former place or time in her life.  With nostalgia comes a certain degree of sadness, as well.  Dillard is walking a tightrope.  Above, moon and stars.  Below, canyon and darkness.

First, I apologize for my absence these last two days.  It was my mid-week blogging pause to lesson plan and grade and teach.  By the time I get home after class on Wednesday night, I am usually brain dead.  It takes much energy to engage a classroom full of 25 undergraduates between the ages of 18 and 23.  Last night, I had enough gumption to order a pizza, eat it with my wife and daughter, and then stumble off to bed.

This weekend, I will be traveling to Grand Rapids with my family.  My daughter has a dance competition.  We will be leaving tomorrow morning.  It's about a six- or seven-hour drive, depending on the number of stops we make.  The members of our Grand Rapids landing party include myself, my wife and son and daughter, my sister, and my daughter's boyfriend.  By tomorrow night at this time, I will probably be throwing my son into a swimming pool or eating McDonald's food in a room at the Ramada Inn.

On my way home from work this evening, I stopped to visit my sister's grave.  I drive by the cemetery almost every day, and sometimes I just experience this urge to turn into the entrance gates.  Tonight, I stayed there about ten or fifteen minutes, talking, telling my sister about the trip, work, school.  I told her about her godson (my son), and how he is now sporting a Mohawk haircut.  And I told her about my daughter and her boyfriend.  My sister would have liked him.

Yes, like Dillard, I indulged myself in a little nostalgia.  Happiness and sadness.  I know that grieving is a process.  Healing takes a lot of time.  It has been almost eight months since my sister's death.  It was sunny and warm in the cemetery this afternoon.  All the snow had melted around my sister's headstone.  The metal nameplate on it was warm to the touch. 

I sometimes experience tremendous guilt for convincing my family to discontinue my sister's medical treatment, for bringing her home under hospice care.  It's an irrational feeling.  I know this.  My sister's brain lymphoma was very advanced, the tumor in her head caused a debilitating stroke.  She wasn't opening her eyes, barely responded to questions.  She had suffered a lot and was going to die.

My family had been praying for a miracle.  Our parish priest brought the stole of Bishop Baraga to bless my sister.  Frederick Baraga was declared venerable by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.  That means that he's two steps away from being declared a saint.   Father Larry placed the stole around my sister's head, anointed her with chrism.  We recited the rosary.

Now, perhaps the miracle my sister received was an end to her pain.  I remember the morning she died.  One of her best friends was standing at the foot of her bed, and, as we prayed, she lifted her arms up, as if she were giving my sister up to God.  It was a gesture that profoundly moved me.  It was shortly after that moment that my sister breathed her last breath.

Yes, grieving is about letting go.  Releasing all the pain and anger and sadness.  Until I give all that up, I'm never going to be able to appreciate what I had with my sister.  The jokes we shared.  The long hours we worked together.  The closeness and trust.

That is what Saint Marty is missing tonight.  Those sunlit details.