October 12: Dat Mossel, Mistakes, Laugh Every Day

Merton encounters someone trying to atone for mistakes he's made . . . 

The secular priest with the white hair was more of a mystery. He was a big, bluff fellow, with some kind of an accent which led me to place him as a Belgian. He was not entering the community, but it seemed he had been there in the guest house for some time. In the afternoons he put on a pair of overalls, and went about painting benches and other furniture, and he laughed and talked with the others. 

As he talked, his talk seemed strange to me. In a place like this, you would expect someone to say something, at least indirectly, about religion. And yet that was a subject on which he seemed to be inarticulate. The only thing he seemed to know anything about was strength, strength and work. At the dinner table, he rolled up his sleeve and said: 

“Huh! Look at dat mossel!” 

And he flexed a huge biceps for the edification of the retreatants. 

I found out afterwards that he was under ecclesiastical censure, and was in the monastery doing penance. The poor man, for some reason or another, had not lived as a good priest. In the end, his mistakes had caught up with him. He had come into contact with some schismatics, in a sect known as “the Old Catholics” and these people persuaded him to leave the Church and come over to them. And when he did so, they made him an archbishop. 

I suppose he enjoyed the dignity and the novelty of it for a while: but the whole thing was obviously silly. So he gave it up and came back. And now here he was in the monastery, serving Mass every morning for a young Trappist priest who scarcely had the oils of his ordination dry on his hands. 

We all have done things that we regret, just like the secular priest with the white hair.  And then we have to atone in some way.  Make up for the mistakes we've made..

It has been a long time since I've written a blog post.  Much has happened.  My son turned from a 12-year-old into a teenager.  I celebrated another Saint Marty's Day, about a week ago.  No tapioca, yet.  I did receive some wonderful presents from my family.  Work has been busy.  Insane.  Lots of readings and concerts and teaching and programs.  My wife got a job and lost a job.  Life has been . . . complicated.

I have made mistakes/make mistakes every day.  I get angry.  Despondent.  I stay up too late at night.  Eat too much junk food.  (I just ate a soggy bowl of Lucky Charms.)  I watch horror films right before I go to bed and have terrible dreams.  I let my son watch those movies with me.

But I also got things right/get things right.  I helped my daughter get her car fixed.  I take my son to poetry workshops, tell him he's amazing.  I try to uplift a friend who is facing some major health struggles.  And I try to laugh every day.

That's what I have tonight.  I'm trying to be okay, and I'm trying to get back on track, especially with my writing.

Saint Marty is back.  For tonight.

July 2: Sacrifice Bound, Dedication, Young and Headstrong

I am a sacrifice bound with cords to the horns of the world's rock altar, waiting for worms.  I take a deep breath, I open my eyes.  Looking, I see there are worms in the horns of the altar like live maggots in amber, there are shells of worms in the rock and moths flapping at my eyes.  A wind from noplace rises.  A sense of the real exults me; the cords loose; I walk on my way.

I think Dillard is talking about dedication in this passage.  We all go through life with blinders on.  Most of us don't think about how our actions may affect our neighbors, town, county, state, country, world, universe.  When I throw away a rotten nectarine, I don't think about the people living in landfills in Mexico, struggling to find food.  If we did think like this, maybe we would dedicate our lives more toward the work of God.  Make every day a sacrifice on an altar.

The problem is that we all make bad choices.  Every day.  I have someone very close to me who has made a bad choice right now.  It's a choice that I think, in the long run, will hurt her quite a bit.  But I can't really explain this to her.  She's young and headstrong.  She doesn't really think much about the future.  It's all about the present.  I'm more of a long-distance thinker.  (That way of thinking has its own pitfalls, as well.  It can tend to paralyze me at times, making it hard to make decisions.)

Bad choices are learning opportunities, I know.  All of the apostles made bad choices at one time or another.  Peter turned his back on Christ.  John ran away when the soldiers arrested Him.  Judas . . . well, you know.  Life isn't so much about the mistakes; it's about what we do with those mistakes, how we move forward.

As I said in an earlier post this week, I try to remember that I am the Christ in people's lives.  That's my job as a Christian.  That should be my goal, my dedication.  To sacrifice my life for the sake of others.  That's what Jesus did.  Ideally, it's what we all should do.  The world would be a much better place if everyone thought and acted like this.  We don't, however.  I don't, for sure, because I'm human.  And selfish.  And flawed.   Just like the young person in my life.

We all make mistakes.  That's the story of humanity.  Yet, we can all change.  Change our minds.   Our lives.  The world.  Make sacrifices.  Walk on our ways.

Saint Marty will try to remember this today.  And tomorrow.  And the next day. 

It's all about love . . .

May 23: Mad Beams, Existential, Mistakes

All right then.  Pull yourself together.  Is this where I'm spending my life, in the "reptile brain," this lamp at the top of the spine like a lighthouse flipping mad beams indiscriminately into the darkness, into the furred thoraxes of moths, onto the backs of leaping fishes and the wrecks of schooners?  Come up a level; surface.

Dillard is giving herself a little pep talk, trying to talk herself back from her "reptile brain."  There's something crazed, wild in her current state.  She's dwelling with insect and fish, diving into the wreck, as Adrienne Rich would say.  She wants to pull away, kick her way to air, to sky.  To the stars.

I've been feeling a little existential these last couple days.  Questioning the meaning of my life.  Like Dillard, it's not a state in which I want to remain very long.  I would prefer to surface right now, but I can't.  Instead, I'm dwelling on the choices I've made.  Over and over.

I wake up in the morning and think, "What the hell am I doing?"  I didn't dream of being a clinic office clerk when I was a kid.  When I'm sitting at my desk for eight hours, registering patients and answering phones, I sometimes want to get up, walk away, find a quiet corner, and read a book or write a poem.  And when I'm in a classroom teaching, I feel like I'm . . . home (sorry if that sounds corny, but that's the only way I can say it).

Of course, I know I've made mistakes.  Every day, I make mistakes.  Tomorrow morning, I'm going to be working for a little while at my new job, registering patients for about an hour.  I have no clue what I'm doing.  I'm going to need help.  A lot of help.  And I'm going to make mistakes.  A lot of them.  (I'm not entirely sure that this new job is the right choice for me.  It may be another mistake.)

Being human means being flawed.  I'm a jigsaw puzzle of failures.  So is everybody else.  One of the hardest things as a parent is seeing your kids make bad choices and not being able to do a thing to stop them.  Yet, I've learned more from my mistakes than my successes.  That's the irony.  My mistakes have made me a better person.

So, here I sit on my couch at home, in the dark, feeling existential while watching Antiques Roadshow.  I don't know what the meaning of my life is.  I am a husband.  A father.  Teacher, writer, blogger.  And I have failed (sometimes miserably) in each of those roles at one point or another.

Marty is probably failing at being a saint, as well.  He hasn't performed any miracles in a really long time.

December 19: Sobbing, Church Musicians, Stress

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call.  He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.

Scrooge is still a mess on Christmas morning, after his night with the Spirits of Christmas.  He doesn’t know what to do, where to begin.  He’s laughing, crying, dancing, sobbing.  He knows he’s still a broken person, but he has the chance to redeem himself now.  He will make mistakes on this road to redemption, but he will always have a Christmas carol in his heart.

This time of year for church musicians is stressful.  I have been an organist/accompanist for nearly 27 years now.  That’s 27 Christmases, with an average of two to three worship services each year; two children’s programs a season; and at least two or three extra rehearsals per week, from November through December 25.  That’s a lot of hours.  By the time I sit down with my ham sandwich on Christmas morning, after I have played my last carol and sung my last chorus of “Joy to the World,” I’m sometimes drained of cheer.  I get through the rest of the day on eggnog and the TNT marathon of A Christmas Story.

My biggest worry this week is the upcoming Christmas Eve/Christmas Day church services.  There’s this whole pressure for music to be extra good, extra special on those days.  I have a children’s program at 8 p.m. on December 24, plus two solos that were just handed to me in the last week.  No matter how much I practice the music, I never feel quite good enough for the occasion.  After close to 30 years of being a part of this yuletide insanity, I still suffer from low self-esteem when it comes to my musical abilities (or is that low elf-esteem at Christmas?).

On the flipside, I know that, come noon on Christmas, nobody is going to remember a single bloody mistake I make at the organ or piano.  Unless I become catatonic at the keyboard or decide to do a bad Jerry Lee Lewis impersonation, I should be fine.

I think we put way too much pressure on ourselves at Christmas.  We strive for perfection.  Perfect music.  Perfect gift.  Perfect card.  Perfect mashed potatoes.  It’s an impossible goal.  I willscrew up on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  I will probably duplicate a gift with someone.  I will burn the sugar cookies.  I will forget to send a card to Uncle Ned in Arizona because I thought he was dead.

Christmas is not really about perfection.  Christmas is messy.  Mary was an unwed, pregnant teen.  Jesus was born in a barn, with dirty animals and manure.  The shepherds probably drank out in the fields; they certainly didn’t shower.  Herod sent out soldiers to kill babies in Bethlehem.  The nativity narrative is full of unpleasant smells, unpleasant sights, unpleasant people, and unpleasant events.

The true miracle of the holiday is that, out of this whole broken mess, came the Son of God.  So I’m not worried too much.

Saint Marty will take care of the mistakes this Christmas.  God will take care of the perfection.

Time to get dirty

September 21: Compulsion, Profit, Poetry

"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where you will.  I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now.  To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it."

This version of Scrooge is quite humbled.  He's addressing the Ghost of Christmas Present and is obviously a very chastened man.  He has had the opportunity to view the mistakes he made in the past, and now he is ready to learn a few lessons from the next Christmas spirit.  Scrooge is no dummy.  He is trying to save himself from Marley's fate, and he knows the key to his salvation are these yuletide phantoms.

We all have made mistakes in our past, just like Scrooge.  I have made so many mistakes that I could start a separate blog completely devoted to them.  But my screw-ups are not the main issue.  The main issue is what I do in response to my screw-ups.  In response to his past, Scrooge became angry and bitter and mean.  While I can be all of those things, I prefer to learn from the mistakes I've made.  That's how you grow as a person.

Last night, I made a mistake.  I was tired and hungry when I got home.  My eleven-year-old daughter, who is in a state of constant adolescent hormonal imbalance, sat down on the couch to watch TV and do homework.  My daughter started struggling with her math problems.  I suggested she turn off the TV so she could concentrate better.  That was all it took to send my daughter into a fit of angry tears.

Now, you may have read the above paragraph and thought, "Saint Marty, you didn't do anything wrong."  I would agree with you, if the story ended as above.  However, after my daughter launched into her tantrum of weeping, I lost my temper and started saying things like, "You don't need to cry.  If you want the TV on, I don't care.  I was just trying to help you out.  You can sit up until midnight watching TV for all I care."  It escalated from there, until my daughter ended the episode by asking, "Why are you being so mean to me?"

I was a bad father last night.  I should have recognized my daughter's frustration.  I didn't.  I gave into my baser instincts--anger, sarcasm, and dismissal.  That unholy trinity has gotten in so much trouble in the past, I should have known better.  I need to learn from my mistakes, especially when it comes to my daughter.  Last night, she needed love, understanding, and compassion from me.  I think I was just afraid she was going to ask for my help with her math homework.

Saint Marty has learned his lesson.  Math and America's Funniest Home Videos don't mix.

If only it were this simple

March 24: Shadows of the Things, Dispelled, New Cartoon

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings and all.  They are here:  I am here:  the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled.  I know they will!"

Scrooge has just been returned to his bed by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, and he is full of remorse and hope.  He's vowing to change, to give up the mistakes and sins of his past and present life.  Having seen a glimpse of his bleak future, Scrooge promises, on his knees no less, to change his destructive ways.

We've all been at this point some time in our lives.  We all have habits, weaknesses that have brought us to our knees (metaphorically or actually).  For Scrooge, it's his greed and stinginess and dislike of humankind.  Those are big character flaws to overcome.  For others, it's alcohol or drugs.  Food.  Sex or pornography.  I've been there with Scrooge, on my knees, vowing, "I'll never do that again.  Never."  It's an easy promise to make in the moment, when you feel like shit about yourself.  But when that meat lover's pizza is sitting in front of you, or that blowjob.com website is glowing on the computer screen, it's much more difficult to follow through.

I often wonder if Scrooge had moments of weakness after the end of A Christmas Carol.  It couldn't have been easy to turn his back on 60 or 70 years of hatred and greed.  I imagine, once or twice, when some poor slob came to his office, begging for a few more days to repay his debt, Scrooge experienced twinges of his old self, thought, "Pay up, you worthless cocksucker" (or something along those lines, perhaps with the word "wanker" instead).

Being weak and flawed is part of being human.  Scrooge is human.  I'm human,  You're human.  We all have moments when our human side wins out, when we're stingy with our money, when we eat a pound of peanut butter M&Ms in one sitting, when we spend an hour surfing porn sites, when  we drink a fifth of Jack Daniels.

I have to believe that Scrooge made mistakes, just like everyone else.  It's what he did after the mistakes that counts.  It's about how he picked himself up, dusted himself off, and recommitted himself to be a better person.  Good intentions followed by good actions.  That's the key to dispelling the shadows of the things that could have been.

Saint Marty and Scrooge, becoming better people, one mistake at a time.

Confessions of Saint Marty