July 14: Filled with Peace, Reality Check, At Sea

Merton finds real peace of mind and heart . . . 

It was a late, cold afternoon. The frozen piles of snow lay along the swept sidewalks, in the gutters, in front of the small, one-story buildings on State Street. Presently Bob O’Brien, the plumber at the Olean house, who lived in Alleghany, and who used to fix the pipes when they went wrong up at the cottage, came by in his car. He stopped to give me a ride.

He was a big, jovial, family man, with white hair and several sons who served as altar boys at St. Bonaventure’s Church in Alleghany, and as we passed out of town on the wide road, he was talking about peaceful and ordinary things. 

The country opened out before us. The setting sun shone as bright as blood, along the tops of the hills, but the snow in the valleys and hollows was blue and even purple with shadows. On the left of the road, the antennae of the radio station stood up into the clean sky, and far ahead of us lay the red-brick buildings of the College, grouped in an imitation Italy in the midst of the alluvial valley. Beyond that, on the side of the hill were the redder buildings of St. Elizabeth’s convent, past the high bridge over the railroad tracks. 

My eyes opened and took all this in. And for the first time in my life I realized that I no longer cared whether I preserved my place in all this or lost it: whether I stayed here or went to the army. All that no longer mattered. It was in the hands of One Who loved me far better than I could ever love myself: and my heart was filled with peace. 

It was a peace that did not depend on houses, or jobs, or places, or times, or external conditions. It was a peace that time and material-created situations could never give. It was peace that the world could not give.

There are some times in your life when you experience what Merton is writing about in this passage.  A peace that has nothing to do with wealth or health, possessions or people.  A peace that doesn't come from anything the exists on this little rock of a planet.  

I apologize for my extended absence this last week.  My last few posts were certainly not about peace of mind or heart, that's for sure.  I allowed myself to become overwhelmed by certain aspects of my life.  Choices I didn't want to make, but also couldn't avoid.

Then, God stepped in.  Gave me a reality check.

My wife found a lump in her breast last Monday.  She had a doctor's appointment and a biopsy on Tuesday.  Wednesday, she spent the day in bed, nauseated with chills and a low-grade fever.  Thursday, she had a COVID test, even though she is fully vaccinated.  Friday morning at 2 a.m., she woke me up to take her to the local ER.  Her incision site was red and hot and hard.  The doctor diagnosed her with an infection and prescribed an antibiotic.  Friday, she was supposed to get the results of both the COVID test and the biopsy.  She got neither.  Saturday, she wasn't feeling better, and the infection looked as if it was spreading.  Back to the ER.

Finally, at about 5 p.m. on Saturday, we find out that she didn't have COVID and that her breast biopsy came back negative.  And she had a MRSA infection throughout her body.  She was admitted to the hospital Saturday evening and spent three days there on IV Vancomycin.  She was discharged yesterday and is recuperating at home, taking oral Bactrim and changing her dressings twice a day.

So, here I sit on my couch at almost midnight.  Everyone else in my house is asleep.  I'm tired after a full week of medical chaos.  I'd like to say that I've found the peace that Merton is talking about.  Peace that the world cannot give.  I haven't.  I'm still at sea about a lot of things.

However, there have been some blessings these last six or seven days, as well.  I spent a lot of time with my twelve-year-old son.  He wrote some poems.  Went to an Open Mic poetry night with me.  My daughter and I bonded over hating the ending of a movie called The Florida Project.  We had a family game night of Jeopardy.  And one particularly bad situation was completely avoided because of my wife's illness.

As I said, God put things into perspective.  Showed me who's really in charge.

And it ain't Saint Marty.  Perhaps there's some peace of mind in that.

May 23: Inner Workings of God, Brooding and Cheetos, Gregory Pardlo, "Pool Table," New Cartoon

Whatever had happened, it reinforced his feelings that a God existed . . . and yet?  Weighing the possible meaning of what he had experienced that Christmas season [he had his mystical vision], he believed that he had been privy to the inner workings of God.  He was not crazy and had not come easily to that conclusion, his route having been circuitous and riddled with doubts and terrifying thoughts . . . 

Ives struggles with his mystical vision of colored winds above Madison Avenue and the sun spinning in the heavens.  Sometimes he doubts he even experienced it.  He questions his sanity, searches for answers in books and religious tracts and spiritual presentations.  In the end, he comes to the belief that whatever he saw was a glimpse of the divine machinery of the universe.  A God's-eye-view of humanity.

As you can tell by last night's posts, I struggle a lot with doubts and fears and worries.  When I should feel confident and calm as a believer, I don't.  I take the other route.  I question, get angry, and doubt.  It's a matter of control.  I want to be in control of my life, to avoid dangers and catastrophes.  And God has this irritating habit of throwing deer in the path of my car (sometimes literally), just to remind me Who's in charge.

Somehow, I have survived every crisis in my life so far, not because of anything I've done.  I contemplated suicide one night, and I saw the morning.  I was at the brink of a divorce, and love reasserted itself.  My wife suffered a pulmonary embolism after our son's birth, and she survived.  I was forced out of a job I'd held for close to 15 years, and I found another job.

Yet, I still panic in the face of great adversity.  Instead of turning to prayer and meditation, I turn to brooding and Cheetos.  I have had over twelve hours to recover from yesterday evening's little surprise in the mail.  I have gained perspective.  Taken some deep breaths.

I still have a whopping bill to pay, but now it doesn't seem like an insurmountable obstacle.  It's a pretty steep climb, but, eventually, I will reach the summit.  I just needed to remind myself of the inner workings of God.

Saint Marty knows God's check is in the mail.  Metaphorically, of course.  Although he wouldn't turn down a little monetary miracle.

Pool Table

by:  Gregory Pardlo

It belongs to the guy who used to cut
our lawn and has become by now my math tutor,
my sitter, my ersatz uncle--I call him Chief.
A sometime grad student and sometime sub
at Levitt Junior High.  He seems to be polishing it, flaring
the angles of his stroke.  He webs the table with his
mind's dotted lines.  Beneath the Old Milwaukee
Tiffany Lamp it smells of Thai stick and talcum.
Its felt as green as fresco hills spins English clean off the cue.
He strings together combinations hinged and whimsical
like flinty syllables playing with emphasis and breath
as he lectures me on the errorless vectors, velocity.
The spheres vanish like field mice as he runs the table
then lances one of the smoke rings shimmying like jellyfish
toward the dropped ceiling's popcorn panels
in his father's basement.  He hikes himself up on
the rail, and sparks the dimming ember of his spliff
while I corral a spectrum in the field
of my embrace, arrange a bouquet of solids, stripes, each
numbered iris for Chief again to scatter the fragments
before my eyes like asteroids in an arcade game.
He claps a cloud of powder while he calls the four cross-
side, and then he calls me Grasshopper, tells me soon
I'm going to grasp all this like a pebble from his hand.

Confessions of Saint Marty