December 31: Poor Men Who Labor, New Year's Eve, Burning Dumpster Heap

The end of Merton . . . 

That is the only reason why I desire solitude—to be lost to all created things, to die to them and to the knowledge of them, for they remind me of my distance from You. They tell me something about You: that You are far from them, even though You are in them. You have made them and Your presence sustains their being, and they hide You from me. And I would live alone, and out of them. O beata solitudo! 

For I knew that it was only by leaving them that I could come to You: and that is why I have been so unhappy when You seemed to be condemning me to remain in them. Now my sorrow is over, and my joy is about to begin: the joy that rejoices in the deepest sorrows. For I am beginning to understand. You have taught me, and have consoled me, and I have begun again to hope and learn. 

I hear You saying to me: 

“I will give you what you desire. I will lead you into solitude. I will lead you by the way that you cannot possibly understand, because I want it to be the quickest way. 

“Therefore all the things around you will be armed against you, to deny you, to hurt you, to give you pain, and therefore to reduce you to solitude. 

“Because of their enmity, you will soon be left alone. They will cast you out and forsake you and reject you and you will be alone. 

“Everything that touches you shall burn you, and you will draw your hand away in pain, until you have withdrawn yourself from all things. Then you will be all alone. 

“Everything that can be desired will sear you, and brand you with a cautery, and you will fly from it in pain, to be alone. Every created joy will only come to you as pain, and you will die to all joy and be left alone. All the good things that other people love and desire and seek will come to you, but only as murderers to cut you off from the world and its occupations. 

“You will be praised, and it will be like burning at the stake. You will be loved, and it will murder your heart and drive you into the desert. 

“You will have gifts, and they will break you with their burden. You will have pleasures of prayer, and they will sicken you and you will fly from them.

“And when you have been praised a little and loved a little I will take away all your gifts and all your love and all your praise and you will be utterly forgotten and abandoned and you will be nothing, a dead thing, a rejection. And in that day you shall begin to possess the solitude you have so long desired. And your solitude will bear immense fruit in the souls of men you will never see on earth. 

“Do not ask when it will be or where it will be or how it will be: On a mountain or in a prison, in a desert or in a concentration camp or in a hospital or at Gethsemani. It does not matter. So do not ask me, because I am not going to tell you. You will not know until you are in it. 

“But you shall taste the true solitude of my anguish and my poverty and I shall lead you into the high places of my joy and you shall die in Me and find all things in My mercy which has created you for this end and brought you from Prades to Bermuda to St. Antonin to Oakham to London to Cambridge to Rome to New York to Columbia to Corpus Christi to St. Bonaventure to the Cistercian Abbey of the poor men who labor in Gethsemani: 

“That you may become the brother of God and learn to know the Christ of the burnt men.”

SIT FINIS LIBRI, NON FINIS QUAERENDI

So Merton ends his book with the Latin phrase:  "SIT FINIS LIBRI, NON FINIS QUAERENDI."  Translation--"This may be the end of the book, but not the end of the quest."  The conclusion is not a conclusion, but a new beginning.  Merton takes his final vows.  Becomes a Trappist monk.  Renounces all the things of the material world that distract him from God.  

It is New Year's Eve.  Almost 2 a.m. as I type this.  I may not finish this post before I need to go to sleep.  At the end of 2021, I wish to put an end to this burning dumpster heap of a year.  I want this night to be the last page, and I'm not sure I want to continue the book of 2021.  Yes, some wonderful things have happened to me--new job, NEA grants, an award for Arts Advocate of the Year.  But, on the flipside, the first chapter of 2021 started with COVID quarantine, and the last chapter comes full circle.  COVID quarantine again.  My mother died.  This morning, I woke up sick.  I'm pretty sure it's COVID.  Went to get tested, but the Health Department testing center is closed for the holiday.  And, to top it all off, Betty White died today.

Like I said, pour some gasoline on 2021 and light a match.

To try to salvage this last day of 2021 for my son, I ordered from Pizza Hut for lunch.  Then I took him to a huge Christmas lights display tonight.  Let him run around with our puppy.  Took pictures.  When we got home, we played some board games, watched a couple movies. Counted down the last seconds to midnight.  Blew some horns.  Raised a glass and let my son give a toast.  

He talked about his grandma, grandpa, Aunt Sally, and Uncle Kevin in heaven.  About getting and staying healthy.  Loving his parents and sister and puppy.  In short, my son gets it.  He knows what's important.

At midnight, I sent text messages to everyone I love.  My daughter, who's staying at her boyfriend's parents' house to avoid infection.  My sisters.  My sisters-in-law . A couple of my closest friends.  Because that is what's important.  The people in my life.  Pretty much everything I do in my life is for them.  Period.

So, as I say goodbye to Thomas Merton after this two-year journey, I am ready for this quest to end and a new one to begin.

Tomorrow, I start a new book.  Something simpler.  But beautiful.  The big reveal to happen in my first post of 2022.  As Merton says, ". . . and I have begun again to hope and learn."

Saint Marty is ready for a little hoping and learning, starting tomorrow.

June 5: Eternal Repose, Endings and Beginnings, Basket Fairy Tale, Joshua Mehigan, "The Crossroads"

And once a year, in the winter, usually a day or two after Christmas, he [Ives] and Annie would visit their son's grave.  Standing in the cemetery before his son's marker out in Long Island, as the years went by, Ives did not for a moment envision a seventeen-year-old in eternal repose, but a man the age his son would have been...

I am particularly moved by this passage.  Ives imagining his son growing older, living out the promise of his young life.  Ives sees Robert as a seminarian, then as a parish priest.  Ives' memory of his child is not stunted, cut short by his senseless murder.  It somehow continues.  When Ives reaches old age, he imagines Robert as a middle-aged pastor, placing the Eucharist in his open mouth.

At the beginning of every summer, some person erects a little shrine on the side of the highway by our local Pizza Hut.  Plastic flowers in the shape of a cross.  It's obviously in memory of a person who died in a traffic accident near that spot.  It saddens me every time I drive by it, which is almost on a daily basis.  I imagine it to be the work of someone like Ives, who's lost a child, maybe right before high school graduation.  The little flower cross is a reminder, for me, of the fragility of life.  How it can change in a matter of seconds.  Happiness and promise transformed into grief and longing.

As you may notice, I'm in a little bit of a funk this evening.  I don't know why.  I think it's just this time of the year.  Last days of school.  Graduations.  Dance recitals.  There's something very final about the end of May and the first days of June.  Change is in the air like the scent of lilac bushes.

Right now, I'm sitting outside my daughter and son's dance studio, waiting for a rehearsal to end.  The evening is cool, moving slowly toward dusk.  It has been a long week, what with my health issues and leaky roof on my mind.  This morning, I found out my wife's great uncle passed away.  A lovely, kind gentleman who served during World War II and was married to the same beautiful woman for 70 years.  His wife died just before Christmas of this past year, and now he has gone to join her.  They both loved dancing, and that's what I think they are doing right now.  Swinging around the floor as Benny Goodman leads the heavenly band.

My kids are done with school today.  Next year, my daughter will be a high school freshman.  I saw her eight-grade yearbook this evening.  She was voted "Inspirational Artist" along with a boy I don't know.  That makes me very happy.  She is artistically gifted and well-liked by her classmates.

Endings and beginnings.

Once upon a time, a basket weaver named Eugene lived in a tiny village named Yon.  All day long, he sat on his front steps, weaving beautiful and intricate baskets that people traveled hundreds of miles to purchase.  But the humble weaver never charged much for his wares.

One day, the roof of Eugene's cottage collapsed because of heavy rains.  Eugene  needed to raise the funds to pay the local roofer many hundreds of dollars to re-thatch his roof.  So, he raised the prices of his baskets, asking three times as much.

When word got out that Eugene was charging more for his weavings, the citizens of Yon and beyond stopped buying his baskets.  Eugene never got his roof fixed and one night caught pneumonia and died a horrible death, coughing and coughing.

After Eugene's death, his baskets suddenly became very valuable.  Collectors all over the kingdom started paying hundreds of thousands of gold pieces for a single basket.  Eugene's cottage was refurbished and turned into a museum.

Moral of the story:  roofs cost way too much friggin' money.

The Crossroads

by:  Joshua Mehigan

This is the place it happened.  It was here.
You might not know it was unless you knew.
All day the cars blow past and disappear.
This is the place it happened.  It was here.
Look at the sparkling dust, the oily smear.
Look at the highway marker, still askew.
This is the place it happened.  It was here.
You might not know it was unless you knew.

Yup, I'm a little down tonight

May 25: Quiet Sunday, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

It is a very quiet Sunday.  I'm not anxious or worried about tomorrow.  I have one more day of relaxation left.  No work.  Just a small parade and cemetery service to attend.  That's what we do with our kids every year.  I don't want my children growing up to think that Memorial Day is simply an excuse for a three-day weekend.

I will say nothing profound today.  I'll leave that to my episode of Classic Saint Marty, which is from a Memorial Day three years ago.

May 30, 2011:  Memorial Day, New Poem, Dance Party

I just dropped my daughter off at the local Pizza Hut for a party with her dance instructor and fellow students.  I have about an hour until I have to pick her up, plenty of time to get this post done.

It's been a fairly lazy morning and afternoon.  My family and I went to a Memorial Day parade, which lasted all of five minutes.  From what I understand, Memorial Day parades used to be as big a deal as Fourth of July parades around here.  However, over the years, people have forgotten the true meaning of Memorial Day and simply think of it as the three-day weekend that kicks off summer.  I want my daughter and son to realize the true significance of Memorial Day.  Therefore, I make them go to the parade, and then I take them to the local cemetery for the service conducted by the VFW.

My daughter is used to this little tradition.  She has learned to pay attention and be respectful.  My son, who is only two-years-old, is another story.  He doesn't get it.  So I spent most of my time at the cemetery walking with him among the headstones, catching bits and pieces of the ceremony over the loudspeakers.  However, he will eventually understand in years to come.

My heart and my thanks go out to all people serving in the military this day, and to their families, as well.  I can sit here, blogging away on my computer without fear of censorship, because of the sacrifices made by soldiers who protect my freedoms.  And to all who have lost loved ones in current and past wars, my deepest gratitude and prayers.

My poem is about this ultimate sacrifice.

Today, Saint Marty humbly salutes people who really understand the meaning of bravery.

Thank you.  Amen.

In Memoriam

I take my two-year-old son
To the cemetery this Memorial Day,
Walk him around gravestones
As local war veterans conduct
A service solemn as evening rain,
As a high school band plays
Stars and Stripes Forever,
As the local Methodist pastor
Talks of ultimate sacrifice.
I remain a respectful distance away
So my son's screams won't
Disrupt the placing of wreaths,
The recognition of the Gold Star mother,
A woman whose son bled
To death in a jungle over 40 years ago.
On this day, in this place,
Her grief is fresh, delicate
As the white rose pinned
To the lapel of her jacket.
I lift my son into my arms
When I see the honor guards
Shoulder their rifles and aim.
I whisper in my son's ear,
Warn him of the noise to follow.
He still flinches, jumps
When the guns crack.
Seven of them.  Three times.
I hold my son close, as if I need
To protect him from some unseen
Enemy.  The trumpet begins
To play for the dead.  My son squirms,
Wants down, wants to run,
Collect fistfuls of dandelions.
I struggle to keep him still
Until the music ends,
Until the horn's last notes fade
In the gray morning.  My son
Kicks, pushes, yells until even
The Gold Star mother turns, looks
At us.  I surrender, put my son down.
I watch him race away from me,
Laughing among the stones,
The rows of waving flags.
Happy.  Free.

Confessions of Saint Marty

January 16: Old Phoebe, Roller-Skate Skinny, Spelling Bee Worry

...But you ought to see old Phoebe.  She has this sort of red hair, a little bit like Allie's was, that's very short in the summertime.  In the summertime, she sticks it behind her ears.  She has nice, pretty little ears.  In the wintertime, it's pretty long, though.  Sometimes my mother braids it and sometimes she doesn't.  It's really nice, though.  She's only ten.  She's quite skinny, like me, but nice skinny.  Roller-skate skinny.  I watched her once from the window when she was crossing over Fifth Avenue to go up to the park, and that's what she is, roller-skate skinny...

Holden really loves his little sister, Phoebe.  She's practically the only person in the book whom Holden doesn't call a phony.  Like Allie, Holden's dead brother, Phoebe is an innocent.  Life has not had a chance to get hold of her yet.  She's still this roller-skate skinny girl, heading off to the park to play.  Nothing is purer in Holden's mind.

This passage reminds me of my daughter.  She, too, has sort of red hair, like Phoebe.  My daughter's auburn tresses are long now.  A couple of summers ago, she had it cut short one day.  It was curly and flashed in the July sun.  Because she's a dancer, however, she let it grow back out.  It almost reaches the middle of her back.  She's also let her bangs get long, as well, because she got tired of being the only girl in ballet who couldn't pull all her hair back into a bun.

My daughter hasn't been feeling well.  Upset stomach.  Headache.  Diarrhea.   (She would die if she knew I was writing about her diarrhea.)  She went to school on Monday.  She stayed home on Tuesday, although she did manage to make it to her dance open house.  Barely.  She spent most of the two hours on the floor with her eyes closed.  She was determined to go to school today for her spelling bee.  Her English teacher is taking her out to lunch at Pizza Hut before the competition.  My daughter's been studying her spelling list for two weeks.

That's my worry for this Worry Wednesday.  I want my daughter to be healthy.  I want her to enjoy her pizza.  I want her to do well in the spelling bee.  I can see her now, roller-skate skinny, standing in front of the judges, pushing her bangs behind her ears, saying, "Can you use that word in a sentence?"

Saint Marty hopes his Phoebe stomps her opponents.  He wants a trip to Nationals.  That's N-A-T-I-O-N-A-L-S.

The word is "diarrhea"

May 30: Memorial Day, New Poem, Dance Party

I just dropped my daughter off at the local Pizza Hut for a party with her dance instructor and fellow students.  I have about an hour until I have to pick her up, plenty of time to get this post done.

It's been a fairly lazy morning and afternoon.  My family and I went to a Memorial Day parade, which lasted all of five minutes.  From what I understand, Memorial Day parades used to be as big a deal as Fourth of July parades around here.  However, over the years, people have forgotten the true meaning of Memorial Day and simply think of it as the three-day weekend that kicks off summer.  I want my daughter and son to realize the true significance of Memorial Day.  Therefore, I make them go to the parade, and then I take them to the local cemetery for the service conducted by the VFW.

My daughter is used to this little tradition.  She has learned to pay attention and be respectful.  My son, who is only two-years-old, is another story.  He doesn't get it.  So I spent most of my time at the cemetery walking with him among the headstones, catching bits and pieces of the ceremony over the loudspeakers.  However, he will eventually understand in years to come.

My heart and my thanks go out to all people serving in the military this day, and to their families, as well.  I can sit here, blogging away on my computer without fear of censorship, because of the sacrifices made by soldiers who protect my freedoms.  And to all who have lost loved ones in current and past wars, my deepest gratitude and prayers.

My poem is about this ultimate sacrifice.

Today, Saint Marty humbly salutes people who really understand the meaning of bravery.

Thank you.  Amen.

In Memoriam

I take my two-year-old son
To the cemetery this Memorial Day,
Walk him around gravestones
As local war veterans conduct
A service solemn as evening rain,
As a high school band plays
Stars and Stripes Forever,
As the local Methodist pastor
Talks of ultimate sacrifice.
I remain a respectful distance away
So my son's screams won't
Disrupt the placing of wreaths,
The recognition of the Gold Star mother,
A woman whose son bled
To death in a jungle over 40 years ago.
On this day, in this place,
Her grief is fresh, delicate
As the white rose pinned
To the lapel of her jacket.
I lift my son into my arms
When I see the honor guards
Shoulder their rifles and aim.
I whisper in my son's ear,
Warn him of the noise to follow.
He still flinches, jumps
When the guns crack.
Seven of them.  Three times.
I hold my son close, as if I need
To protect him from some unseen
Enemy.  The trumpet begins
To play for the dead.  My son squirms,
Wants down, wants to run,
Collect fistfuls of dandelions.
I struggle to keep him still
Until the music ends,
Until the horn's last notes fade
In the gray morning.  My son
Kicks, pushes, yells until even
The Gold Star mother turns, looks
At us.  I surrender, put my son down.
I watch him race away from me,
Laughing among the stones,
The rows of waving flags.
Happy.  Free.