September 23: God is Listening, Purgatory, Human Failings

"Did that really happen?" said Maggie White.  She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies.  Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away.  She hadn't had even one baby yet.  She used birth control.

"Of course it happened," Trout told her.  "If I wrote something that hadn't really happened, and I tried to sell it, I could go to jail.  That's fraud."

Maggie believed him.  "I'd never thought about that before."

"Think about it now."

"It's like advertising.  You have to tell the truth in advertising, or you get in trouble."

"Exactly.  The same body of law applies."

"Do you think you might put us in a book sometime?"

"I put everything that happens to me in books."

"I guess I better be careful what I say."

"That's right.  And I'm not the only one who's listening.  God is listening, too.  And on Judgment Day he's going to tell you all the things you said and did.  If it turns out they're bad things instead of good things, that's too bad for you, because you'll burn forever and ever.  The burning never stops hurting."

Poor Maggie turned gray.  She believed that, too, and was petrified.

Kilgore Trout laughed uproariously.  A salmon egg flew out of his mouth and landed in Maggie's cleavage.

I don't think Kilgore Trout believes in Judgment Day or God or eternal fire.  He's simply messing with innocent Maggie.  Telling her things to elicit responses that amuse him.  Or maybe he does hold that concept of God, the Almighty Judge and Jury.  No matter.  His laughter is genuine and more than a little cruel, regardless of his personal theology.

I was sort of raised with this depiction of God.  I remember, when I was a kid, reading a really thick book about Purgatory.  It had a black cover, with white lettering.  Hundreds and hundreds of pages about punishment and purification and souls.  It was more terrifying than Stephen King or William Peter Blatty or Bram Stoker.  It gave me nightmares of lakes of fire.  Molten lead being poured into my mouth for lies that I'd told or repeated.  Hot pokers being shoved into my eyes for looking at pictures in magazines my brothers kept under their mattresses.

When I attend Mass now, I don't hear a whole lot of talk about Purgatory.  It's still a part of the Catholic belief system.  However, it's not a huge selling point for the Church.  Not that the Catholic Church is a commodity to be advertised and marketed.  But, torture does not give people the warm fuzzies.

I know what you're wondering:  Does Saint Marty believe in Purgatory?  My answer to that question is complicated.  I believe in redemption.  I believe that everyone can be saved.  I believe in God's love more than God's anger.  Being a parent, I know that my kids can drive me crazy sometimes, but I still love them.  So I'm sure the God gets a little insane about the stuff His kids do, as well.  That doesn't mean He sends hurricanes and tsunamis to punish us.  I don't think God is like that.

God wants me to be the best me I can be, because I'm a reflection of His love.  That's the thing that people tend to forget.  God wants each and every one of us to make the world a better place.  If we don't do that, God isn't angry.  He's sad.  Disappointed.  But He understands that we are human, with human failings.  And He understands and loves those failings, as well

Saint Marty is thankful today for love.

June 18: Charles Dickens, Adonis, "New Testament"

Emily Dickinson only published a few poems during her lifetime.  In fact, I've published more poetry in my life right now than Dickinson ever did while she was alive.  Walt Whitman just kept on revising the same book over and over and over.  It worked for him. 

I'm always fascinated by the lives of writers.  One of my favorite things to do is read biographies of famous authors.  Peter Ackroyd wrote a 1200-page biography of Charles Dickens.  I've read that book six or seven times.  I've read about Flannery O'Connor, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, James Joyce, and e. e. cummings.

It's kind of a sickness, I think.  I like learning about the struggles these artists faced.   Alcoholism and mental illness and drug addiction.  Flannery O'Connor's battle with lupus.  Robert Frost's lifelong bouts of depression.  Hemingway and bipolar.  All of these great writers faced incredible life challenges, and, through those challenges, they created amazing things.

I suppose it has to do with facing human failings.  Every great writer that I've read about has dealt with some incredible hurdle.  I find that a little comforting.  These great poets and novelists and short story writers are incredibly flawed human beings, and they transform these flaws into works that shed a little light into the dark places of the universe.  Each of these people created their own testaments for the world to read.

That gives Saint Marty a great deal of hope.

New Testament

by:  Adonis

He doesn’t speak this language.
He doesn’t know the voices of the wastes—
a soothsayer in stony sleep,
he is burdened with distant languages.

Here he comes from under the ruins
in the climate of new words,

offering his poems to grieving winds
unpolished but bewitching like brass.

He is a language glistening between the masts,
the knight of strange words.

Everybody's a critic . . .