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 14, 2025: "When," Rose, "Black Coffee and Burned Toast"

Tomorrow would have been my sister Rose's sixtieth birthday.  She's been gone for three years now.  Hard to believe.  I think of her quite a bit, not always with sadness--she had a bright, bright spirit.  When she's on my mind, it's hard not to smile.

Poetry allows you to transform difficult emotions and experiences into something beautiful.  You could be writing about the September 11 attacks and create something that takes your breath away.  Billy Collins did that with "The Names."  Or you could be writing about your dying father and create a gorgeous exhortation for him to live--Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night."    

Sharon Olds writes a beautifully scary poem about nuclear holocaust . . .

When

by: Sharon Olds

I wonder now, only when it will happen,
when the young mother will hear the
noise like somebody's pressure cooker
down the block, going off. She'll go out in the yard,
holding her small daughter in her arms,
and there, above the end of the street, in the
air above the line of the trees,
she will see it rising, lifting up
over our horizon, the upper rim of the
gold ball, large as a giant
planet starting to lift up over ours.
She will stand there in the yard holding her daughter,
looking at it rise and glow and blossom and rise,
and the child will open her arms to it,
it will look so beautiful.

I find the end of this poem incredibly moving--that image of the mother holding the daughter as a mushroom cloud blooms on the horizon.  It's right out of one of those disaster flicks from the 1980s.  (You know the ones I'm talking about--a meteor wipes out the planet, a luxury cruise ship capsizes, California breaks off and slips into the ocean after an earthquake.)  The tenderness of the moment in Olds' poem is heartbreaking.

I'm not going to get all maudlin about my sister in this post.  She's simply been on my mind a lot recently.  Yes, I'm still grieving for her, despite the time that's elapsed since her passing.  I'm not sure it's possible to get over losing a loved one.  For me, all it takes is drinking a can of Diet Coke, and my sister Rose is right there with me.

Tomorrow, I know the ghost of my sister will be following me all day.  She loved celebrating her birthday.  In fact, as soon as Christmas was over, Rose would start reminding us that her birthday was approaching.  (She didn't have a really great concept of time.)  Maybe I'll write something about ghosts--something to remind myself of Rose's smile or laugh.  Something beautiful

Saint Marty wrote a not-so-scary poem about his father tonight, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem about your father or a father figure in your life.  In the poem, mention the type of shoes he wore, what he ate for breakfast, and reference at least three fathers from television shows.  Write to find out where these three images will lead you and what story your poem wants to tell.

Black Coffee and Burned Toast

by: Martin Achatz

He had black coffee and burned toast

every morning like Communion

while he listened to Marty Robbins on WJPD,

his leather work boots laced on his feet,

breast pocket stuffed with pens.

Each time he swallowed a slug

of black liquid, his Adam's apple 

bobbed like a buoy in rough waters.

He wasn't Pa Ingalls wading

through chest-deep snowdrifts

to rescue me from a blizzard

or John Robinson in his metallic

jumpsuit aiming Jupiter II toward

Alpha Centauri to save me from aliens

with heads like inflated chimpanzees

or even Herman Munster driving me

in a hearse to get vanilla ice cream

on a hot July afternoon.  No,

my old man wasn't anything 

special in his jeans and khaki

shirts, just a guy you'd see

in line at McDonald's or pushing

a lawnmower on a Saturday

morning.  He couldn't recite

Shakespearean soliloquies or perform

Calculus problems in his head.

One time, he sat in the front row

at a poetry reading, fell asleep

while I recited my poems.  Later,

he told me he was just concentrating

on what I was saying, chewing

my words like Easter bread, Jesus'

face scorched into each bite and dripping

with tongues of melted butter.

November 25: "No Voyage," Disaster and Pain, Charmed with Happiness

Mary Oliver makes peace with her life . . . 

No Voyage

by:  Mary Oliver

I wake earlier, now that the birds have come

And sing in the unfailing trees.

On a cot by an open window

I lie like land used up, while spring unfolds.

Now of all voyagers I remember, who among them

Did not board ship with grief among their maps?--

Till it seemed men never go somewhere, they only leave

Wherever they are, when the dying begins.

For myself, I find my wanting life

Implores no novelty and no disguise of distance;

Where, in what country, might I put down these thoughts,

Who still am citizen of this fallen city?

On a cot by an open window, I lie and remember

While the birds in the trees sing of the circle of time.

Let the dying go on, and let me, if I can,

Inherit from disaster before I move.

O, I go to see the great ships ride from harbor,

And my wounds leap with impatience; yet I turn back

To sort the weeping ruins of my house:

Here or nowhere I will make peace with the fact.

This isn't an easy Mary Oliver poem.  It's a poem about grief and wounds.  Voyages undertaken to escape the inescapable.  The truth is pretty simple:  a person can learn just as much (maybe more) from a life of disaster and pain as from a life charmed with happiness.  And let's face it:  no life is without its share of weeping.  It's unavoidable.  It just comes with the territory of being a human being in a broken world.  Either you let that weeping eat you up, or you make peace with it.

I want to write about two things today.  One falls under the disaster/pain category.  The other, under the happiness category.

First, on Thanksgiving, we had dinner with my sisters.  It was a lovely meal.  After we'd gorged, I found out that one of my sisters had been sneezing, sniffling, and coughing for several days, and one of her managers at her job was COVID-positive.  I immediately made my sister take a COVID test, and it came back positive.  

Cut to:  last night and this morning, my son has been sneezing, sniffling, and coughing, but he isn't fatigued or lacking his normal piss and vinegar. My wife and I have tested negative for COVID for two days straight so far.  My son, unfortunately, tested positive this afternoon.  He's doing well, still screaming at his gaming friends in his isolation ward upstairs.  However, my wife and I are now waiting for the other COVID shoe to drop, so to speak.  Not quite a disaster, but certainly a pain in the ass.

Second, today is my puppy's fourth birthday.  Four years ago, when I came up with the notion of getting a dog for Christmas, I had no idea how much it would change our lives.  Since she first came into our home, our little bundle of fur has brought us so much joy.  She loves unconditionally and seems to have a sixth sense for when I've had a particularly bad day:  she will jump up on the couch beside me and simply lay her head on my knee, lifting her blue eyes to look up into my face.  And that bad day somehow doesn't seem quite so bad anymore.

There it is:  disaster and joy in the weeping ruins of my house.  My son upstairs, swearing and coughing.  My puppy downstairs, mangling her birthday present--a chew toy in the shape of a fried egg. 

And Saint Marty in his office, blogging about making peace with it all.

October 21: "Sleeping in the Forest," Blinders, Hatred and Cruetly

Mary Oliver spends a night in the woods . . .

Sleeping in the Forest

by:  Mary Oliver

I thought the earth

remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds.  I slept

as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated

light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees.  All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness.  All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling

with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

Oliver is surrounded by the small kingdoms of the wild--insect and bird--breathing their dark work.  She says she rises and falls all night, as if floating in a midnight pond or lake, facing a luminous doom, disappearing over and over into the goodness of the universe.

It's not an easy thing to lose yourself, to give up the insectile or elephantine struggles of every day.  Humans have a habit of wearing blinders, to blot out all else but what is in front of their eyes, and, of course, what is in front of their eyes is only what they choose to see.

In the last couple weeks, the Middle East has been torn apart by conflict and violence.  I've been aware, in a superficial way, of the ongoing hostilities, just like I'm aware in a superficial way of the ongoing violence in the Ukraine.  (Notice, I'm not using the word "war," but perhaps that's just me wearing my blinders.)  I guess I'm just like every other person--unless I'm directly affected by the violence taking place in the world, I don't pay as close attention as I do, say, to prices at the gas pump.

I'm not willfully ignoring the situation in Israel.  Simply put, I haven't had the opportunity to sit down and try to understand what's going on.  Thus, I haven't been actively worrying about the possibility of an all-out nuclear holocaust.  I truly don't get hatred, no matter what motivates it.  (This coming from a white male who has benefitted from white male privilege his whole life.)  

I have witnessed cruelty up close and personal.  I grew up with a sister who had Down syndrome and was the target of bullying most of her school career.  Ignorance and intolerance were classmates of my sister, never missing an opportunity to take advantage of her defenselessness.  

My sister loved singing, and she was in the high school chorus.  She didn't sing well, but she sang with more heart and passion than all the rest of the students in the chorus combined.  When she sang, she moved her shoulders, danced.  She couldn't help it.  Well, just before one performances, another member of the chorus told my sister to just mouth the words and not use her voice.  "You're making us sound bad," the girl said.  My sister stood on the stage that night, not moving or singing, looking like her puppy had just been killed by a car.

That's what I'm talking about--how human beings can be so cruel and hateful to each other.  I just don't get it.  

When countries go to war, innocent people die.  That's fact.  I'm not sure any cause or disagreement is worth that price.  And when someone is deliberately cruel and intolerant, innocent people suffer.  Nothing warrants that kind of heartbreak, either.

Don't wear blinders.  Look far.  Notice.  Open your mouth and speak up for the innocent and weak.  Be a vessel of peace instead of a conduit of hatred.

Saint Marty wants to make the world golden instead of filling it with darkness.

June 7: "When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention," My Friend, Petals and Thorns

Mary Oliver takes time to listen to and smell the roses . . . 

When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention

by:  Mary Oliver

"As long as we are able to

be extravagant we will be

hugely and damply

extravagant.  Then we will drop

foil by foil to the ground.  This

is our unalterable task, and we do it

joyfully."

And they went on.  "Listen,

the heart-shackles are not, as you think,

death, illness, pain,

unrequited hope, not loneliness but

lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety,

selfishness."

Their fragrance all the while rising

from their blind bodies, making me

spin with joy.

The job of roses:  to be damply, joyfully extravagant in the short time they bloom.  For Oliver, roses are also a reminder of everything that would be considered anti-roses:  lassitude (a state of mental or physical weariness), rue (bitter regret), vainglory (excessive vanity), fear, anxiety and selfishness.  I know I just repeated almost half of the poem in my last couple sentences, but Oliver's message bears repeating.

You send roses to people you love.  You send roses in memory of people who've died.  Roses are put in bridal bouquets and prom corsages.  Bette Midler starred in and sang the theme song to The Rose.  Rose was JFK's mother, and Rose let Jack drown in the movie Titanic.  Then there's Rose who used to tell stories about St. Olaf, and the Rose Bowl Parade every January 1st.  Ethel Merman sang "Everything's Coming Up Roses," and Melania Trump gutted the White House Rose Garden created by Jackie Kennedy.  My sister who died last year was named Rose, and she was the sweetest, most loving person I've known.

Roses have lots of cultural meanings and uses--from the religious (rose is the color for Gaudete and Laetare Sundays) to the medicinal (ingesting rose hip is used to treat osteoarthritis).  And, of course, there are poetic roses (to quote Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions):

Roses are red 

 And ready for plucking, 

You're sixteen, 

And ready for high school. 

In Oliver's poem, there's a huge difference between what the roses say versus what emotion their scent evokes.  Rose words are filled with darkness, pride, and envy.  Rose scents are occasions for joy.  The dichotomy is sort of striking, but also in keeping with the actual flower, which has supple, red petals and biting thorns.  

I had a long conversation with a close friend today.  This friend has been struggling a great deal in the last month or so.  It's not my place to tell my friend's story, and I won't.  But I will say it involves someone my friend loves very much who is currently suffering from severe mental illness.  My friend is in rough shape, shuttling between despair and anger and frustration and devotion.  

Faithful disciples of this blog know that I have a lot of experience dealing with mental illness in people I love.  I understand what my friend is going through, have experienced many of the same feelings over the years.  I wanted to give my friend some hope or solace today, but I know too much of the reality of mental health.  

I told my friend, "The most important thing to do right now is to remember to take care of yourself."  

I know that sounds like pretty selfish advice, but the wrecking ball that is mental illness can destroy everything in its path.  My friend needs to practice selfcare, or else my friend will end up in pieces.  I've been there.  I know.

Roses can make your day spin with joy, or they can leave you bleeding and in pain.  Love can do the same, and my friend is learning this lesson right now.  I'm not saying everyone should shut off their hearts to avoid sorrow and pain.  I'm saying that if you love, you have to be prepared for petals and thorns.

Saint Marty has the scars to prove it.

February 1: "The First Time Percy Came Back," One Year Since, My Sister

Mary Oliver has a vision . . .

The First Time Percy Came Back

by Mary Oliver

The first time Percy came back

he was not sailing on a cloud.

He was loping along the sand as though

he had come a great way.

"Percy," I cried out, and reached to him--

     those white curls--

but he was unreachable.  As music

is present yet you can't touch it.

"Yes, it's all different," he said.

"You're going to be very surprised."

But I wasn't thinking of that.  I only 

wanted to hold him.  "Listen," he said,

"I miss that too.

And now you'll be telling stories

     of my coming back

and they won't be false, and they won't be true,

but they'll be real."

And then, as he used to, he said, "Let's go!"

And we walked down the beach together.

I have been struggling these last days.  Distracted.  Sad.  Too exhausted every night to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.  That's why I've been doing these catchup blog posts well past the dates they should have been written and shared.

Just a few days ago, I realized that it has been one year since my sister, Rose, died.  Somehow, my body and brain knew it, I think, without it being consciously at the forefront of my thoughts.  That is why I've been having such a hard time stringing together words into sentences these last ten or so days.

So, I'm going to tell you a story.

A long time ago (okay, about a year ago), in a galaxy far, far away (okay, it was actually at my house) . . .

My sister, Rose, had died a few days before.  I was in the hospital room when she breathed her last breaths.  Without question, I knew that she was gone.

I am a person who frequently suffers from insomnia.  When I should be in bed, I am usually awake--writing poetry or blog posts, binging The X-Files, or searching my shelves for a specific volume that I absolutely need to have immediately.  You get the idea.

On this particular night, I was lying on the couch, watching something on TV.  Probably a movie that I'd seen many, many times before.  I may have dozed off.  I'm not sure.  The next thing I know, my sister, Rose, was standing by my Christmas tree.  (Yes, I leave my Christmas tree up a long time.  If you have a problem with that, please submit a written complaint in triplicate to the Department of Eat My Ass.)

There Rose was, but not the way she was at the end of her life.  In the last few years before she died, Rose had lost a lot of things--her memory, speech, ability to walk by herself.  It's a well-worn metaphor, but it's an apt one here:  Rose was a shell of her former self.

The Rose that was standing in my living room that night was young and strong.  My sister was always tiny, less than five feet.  Yet, she could arm wrestle with the best in her prime.  Kids who teased her in school or on the playground for being a "retard" often found themselves flat on their backs, gasping for air.  That was the Rose I saw that night.  The Rose who could take care of herself.

As I said a couple paragraphs ago, I may have fallen asleep, but Rose was like the music Oliver describes in the poem--present, and yet I couldn't touch her.  I waited to see if she was going to say anything.  She didn't.  What I got instead was a steady gaze and a smile, as if she had shone up to tell me a joke or ask me for a Diet Coke (her favorite).

It lasted only a few seconds.  Or a lifetime.  I closed my eyes and shook my head.  When I opened my eyes again, she was gone.

Again, I'm not sure if I was awake or asleep.  I know that I'd been working on the poem I was going to read for Rose's funeral right before this happened.  For those of my disciples who don't believe in angels or ghosts or an afterlife, chalk Rose's appearance up to an exhausted, grief-stricken brother's mind.  And for those of my disciples who are open to mystery without the need for explanation, chalk it up to my sister's loving spirit that wanted me to know that she was alright.  Happy.  Whole.

Is this a false story?  Is it true?  Yes and yes, I suppose, depending on your belief system.  Is it real?

As sure as Saint Marty loves tapioca pudding.

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.

January 16: Sacrifice Your Pleasures, Open Doors, My Sister

 Merton learns something about sacrifice . . . 

But the conversion of the intellect is not enough. And as long as the will, the domina voluntas, did not belong completely to God, even the intellectual conversion was bound to remain precarious and indefinite. For although the will cannot force the intellect to see an object other than it is, it can turn it away from the object altogether, and prevent it from considering that thing at all. 

Where was my will? “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” and I had not laid up any treasures for myself in heaven. They were all on earth. I wanted to be a writer, a poet, a critic, a professor. I wanted to enjoy all kinds of pleasures of the intellect and of the senses and in order to have these pleasures I did not hesitate to place myself in situations which I knew would end in spiritual disaster—although generally I was so blinded by my own appetites that I never even clearly considered this fact until it was too late, and the damage was done. 

Of course, as far as my ambitions went, their objects were all right in themselves. There is nothing wrong in being a writer or a poet—at least I hope there is not: but the harm lies in wanting to be one for the gratification of one’s own ambitions, and merely in order to bring oneself up to the level demanded by his own internal self-idolatry. Because I was writing for myself and for the world, the things I wrote were rank with the passions and selfishness and sin from which they sprang. An evil tree brings forth evil fruits, when it brings forth fruit at all. 

I went to Mass, of course, not merely every Sunday, but sometimes during the week as well. I was never long from the Sacraments—usually I went to confession and Communion if not every week, every fortnight. I did a fair amount of reading that might be called “spiritual,” although I did not read spiritually. I devoured books making notes here and there and remembering whatever I thought would be useful in an argument—that is, for my own aggrandizement, in order that I myself might take these things and shine by their light, as if their truth belonged to me. And I occasionally made a visit to a church in the afternoons, to pray or do the Stations of the Cross. 

All this would have been enough for an ordinary Catholic, with a lifetime of faithful practice of his religion behind him: but for me it could not possibly be enough. A man who has just come out of the hospital, having nearly died there, and having been cut to pieces on an operating table, cannot immediately begin to lead the life of an ordinary working man. And after the spiritual mangle I have gone through, it will never be possible for me to do without the sacraments daily, and without much prayer and penance and meditation and mortification. 

It took me time to find it out: but I write down what I have found out at last, so that anyone who is now in the position that I was in then may read it and know what to do to save himself from great peril and unhappiness. And to such a one I would say: Whoever you are, the land to which God has brought you is not like the land of Egypt from which you came out. You can no longer live here as you lived there. Your old life and your former ways are crucified now, and you must not seek to live any more for your own gratification, but give up your own judgement into the hands of a wise director, and sacrifice your pleasures and comforts for the love of God and give the money you no longer spend on those things, to the poor. 

What Merton is talking about here is this:  once a door opens, it's next to impossible to close it again.  Merton has walked through the doors of the Catholic Church, and now either he has to change his ways, or live for the rest of his life with the knowledge that he has rejected the love of God.  Not a comfortable position to find oneself.

This afternoon, I got a phone call.  One of those phone calls that open a door that you can't close.  It was my older sister, telling me that my sister, Rose, who has Down syndrome, suffered a grand mal seizure at home and was rushed by ambulance to the hospital.  When she got to the hospital, she had another grand mal seizure.

Now, some of you may remember that this particular door opened a few weeks ago.  The same thing happened.  Rose had a seizure and ended up in an ambulance, then the hospital.  Since we are in the middle of a pandemic, I wasn't able to see Rose or visit her in the hospital.  So, all the information I got was filtered through my sister, who is Rose's durable power of attorney.  From what I know, Rose came home last time on new medications with the need to follow up with her primary care provider.  I'm not sure if Rose ever saw her PCP.  

Back to today . . . Rose was released from the hospital this afternoon after about two hours.  When she got home, as she was being helped out of the car, she suffered another grand mal seizure.  An ambulance was called again.  She was transported to a different hospital, and now, about three hours later, I'm still waiting for any news on her condition.

Some doors you open yourself and walk through.  I did that this past October with my new job at the library.  Other doors open by themselves, and you're forced through them.  Addiction doors.  Marital strife doors.  Cancer doors.  Dead car battery doors.  Pandemic doors.  Mental illness doors.  Sick sister doors.  

I am hoping for good news some time tonight.  A miracle even.  My sister's little body can't take much more.  And, I fear that a door may be opening for her.  I'm not ready for her to walk through that door.  So, I'm praying for that door to close again.  It's a selfish prayer, I know.  I don't care.

Saint Marty is tired of unfamiliar rooms.

May 26: Gina Myers, "Memorial," Life and Death Lessons

Memorial

by:  Gina Myers

          for J

In my life so much happens

that I would like to write about,

but then something else happens

& things are always happening.

You, my friend, are underground

& will always be there. I did not

help you, but you always helped me.

When I was an atheist, I believed

in people. Now as a nihilist, my grief

has no hope. And I could say

there is no reason to keep going,

but then I think of, I think of you.

____________________

It has been a heck of a year so far, with my father passing in February.  My mother still asks about him, talks about him as if he's out on a plumbing job.  Some days, she doesn't remember what her last name is.  She wants to sign her maiden name instead.  Since my dad's been gone, time has sort of taken a few steps back for her.

I know that death is a part of life, just as much as births and baptisms and weddings and graduations.  Believe me, I know this.  I have been lucky to have family members who taught me what living a good life is all about.  My sister, who's been gone almost three years now, taught me about selfless love and generosity.  My father taught me about devotion and hard work and family sacrifice. 

My mother, I think, is teaching me how to live out the end of life gracefully, with love and humor.

Saint Marty is thankful for these lessons.

April 21: "To the Dead," Frank Bidart, People Who Aren't Here Anymore

To the Dead

by:  Frank Bidart

What I hope (when I hope) is that we'll
see each other again,--

. . . and again reach the VEIN

in which we loved each other . .
It existed. It existed.

There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--

. . . for, like the detectives (the Ritz Brothers)
in The Gorilla,

once we'd been battered by the gorilla

we searched the walls, the intricately carved
impenetrable paneling

for a button, lever, latch

that unlocks a secret door that
reveals at last the secret chambers,

CORRIDORS within WALLS,

(the disenthralling, necessary, dreamed structure
beneath the structure we see,)

that is the HOUSE within the HOUSE . . .

There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--

. . . there were (for example) months when I seemed only
to displease, frustrate,

disappoint you--; then, something triggered

a drunk lasting for days, and as you
slowly and shakily sobered up,

sick, throbbing with remorse and self-loathing,

insight like ashes: clung
to; useless; hated . . .

This was the viewing of the power of the waters

while the waters were asleep:--
secrets, histories of loves, betrayals, double-binds

not fit (you thought) for the light of day . . .

There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT,--

. . . for, there at times at night, still we
inhabit the secret place together . . .

Is this wisdom, or self-pity?--

The love I've known is the love of
two people staring

not at each other, but in the same direction.                         

_________________________

On this big weekend for my daughter, I've been thinking a lot about people who aren't here anymore who would have really loved seeing her in her prom finery.  My sister.  My wife's mother and grandmother.  My dad.  They all would have melted seeing her looking all grown up and beautiful.

I'm not going to get all maudlin here.  I just wish these people could see her today.  I think Bidart has it right in this poem.  Love is not about gazing into each other's eyes with adoration all the time.  It's about people looking at the same thing and loving it together. 

Maybe Saint Marty is being a little bit melancholy.

February 24: Memories, Billy Collins, "Carry"

You know, memories have a way of creeping up on you.

The days after my sister died three years ago, I saw and heard her everywhere.  Walking across the parking lot at work.  In the evening, sitting on the couch, I would hear her voice.  On the anniversary of her death, I came across the holy card with her picture on it.

The same thing has been happening to me with my father.  I see my dad disappearing around the corner at Walmart.  I hear his gravelly whisper at night.  Just yesterday, I swear I saw him at Menards when I shopping for a bathroom vanity and sink.

I carry these people around with me everywhere.  Can't get away from them.

Saint Marty is thankful today for these moments when my dead are alive again.

Carry

by:  Billy Collins

I want to carry you
and for you to carry me
the way voices are said to carry over water.

Just this morning on the shore,
I could hear two people talking quietly
in a row boat on the far said of the lake.

They were talking about fishing,
then one changed the subject,
and, I swear, they began talking about you.

October 24: Mongolian Idiot, Rights of the Intellectually Challenged, My Sister

Billy's daughter Barbara came in later that day.  She was all doped up, had the same glassy-eyed look that poor old Edgar Derby wore just before he was shot in Dresden.  Doctors had given her pills so she could continue to function, even though her father was broken and her mother was dead.

So it goes.

She was accompanied by a doctor and a nurse.  Her brother Robert was flying home from a battlefield in Vietnam.  "Daddy--" she said tentatively.  "Daddy--?"

But Billy was ten years away, back in 1958.  He was examining the eyes of a young male Mongolian idiot in order to prescribe corrective lenses.  The idiot's mother was there, acting as an interpreter.

"How many dots do you see?" Billy Pilgrim asked him.

This passage pisses me off.  I know that the term "Mongolian idiot" was once acceptable, even common.  "Down syndrome" didn't come into use until the early 1970s.  Slaughterhouse was first published in March of 1969.  Kurt Vonnegut was a product of his time.  That's why he calls the young Down syndrome boy an "idiot."  I notice that  Vonnegut even depersonalizes the character even more by using the term "male" instead of boy.  Suddenly, instead of a living, breathing human being, Billy is treating a specimen:  the Mongolian idiot male.

As many of my disciples already know, I have a sister with Down syndrome.  So, I have been exposed to all sorts of cruelties.  My mother fought hard for my sister all her life.  Fought to get her in school.  Fought to keep her in school.  Fought for classroom funding.  Took on principals, school superintendents, and instructors who saw my sister as hopelessly unteachable.  When my sister was born, the doctor told my parents to put her in an institution and forget about her.

This all happened right around the time that Vonnegut was writing Slaughterhouse, which explains a lot about the passage.  Doctors, educators, and brilliant writers all saw people with Down syndrome as idiots, oddities, sideshow attractions.  I don't blame Vonnegut for his ignorance.  I understand it, in the social context.  Vonnegut was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, the anti-nuke movement.  Most of his books are thinly veiled social commentary.  Yet, at the time of Slaughterhouse, he wasn't aware of the incredible insensitivity of calling someone a "Mongolian idiot."

We have come a long way since the publication of Slaughterhouse.  It's now legislated that public schools must provide educations for children with mental and physical impairments (for now--the current Education Secretary, Betsy Devos, is trying to change that).  However, just like the battle for Civil Rights continues, so does the battle for the rights of the intellectually challenged.

I'm ashamed to say that I don't think of this cause every day now, despite how personal it is for me.  My sister has been out of the education system for over 30 years.  Her current issues are health and memory.  Like most older people with Down syndrome, she is developing symptoms that could be the beginning of Alzheimer's or dementia.  That is her daily struggle now.

Vonnegut is not a bad person for calling his character a "Mongolian idiot."  He is the product of his culture, as we all are.  And, sometimes, culture needs to change.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight for his sister, who is not an idiot.

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.

May 10: Many Marvelous Moments, Epiphanies, Joyful and Grateful and Sad

Billy couldn't read Tralfamadorian, of course, but he could at least see how the books were laid out--in brief clumps of symbols separated by stars.  Billy commented that the clumps might be telegrams.

"Exactly," said the voice.

"They are telegrams?"

"There are no telegrams on Tralfamadore.  But you're right:  each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message--describing a situation, a scene.  We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other.  There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep.  There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects.  What we love in our books are the depth of many marvelous moments seen all at one time."

This description of Tralfamadorian novels intrigues me.  What Vonnegut has the alien describe sounds very much like poetry to me.  The careful juxtaposition of brief, urgent lines, describing a situation or scene, all with the goal of producing "an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep."  Of course, Vonnegut could also be describing Slaughterhouse, with its brief passages describing different times in Billy's life, looping back-and-forth in time and space.  The result:  not a plotted narrative, but a marvelous moment.  An epiphany.

I love epiphanies--sudden moments of undeniable clarity.  They don't happen very often in my life.  When I proposed marriage to my wife, that was an epiphany.  I realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person in front of me.  When I held my infant daughter for the first time.  I surrendered myself to this little, squirming, screaming creature.  Ditto my son.  Big epiphanies.

Last night, I was saying prayers with my son before he went to sleep.  He was goofing around, laughing, throwing pillows.  Being an eight-year-old boy.  I looked at him and felt myself cracking open like a fault line.  I was overwhelmed with a realization of how much I loved him.  It kind of left me speechless for a few moments.

Now, that may not seem like some deep revelation--a father loving his son.  Nothing surprising about that.  I think what overwhelmed me last night was simply how crushing that love is.  In just a few moments, my mind had a Tralfamadorian experience.  I went from my son's birth to his first birthday, first day of school, first Christmas program, and beyond.  I pushed forward to girlfriends and high school and graduation and college.  I was joyful and grateful and sad, all at once.  That was the epiphany.

It lasted only a minute or so.  Then my son raised his butt and farted at me.  That brought me back to Earth reality.

I'm not sure I could live in that state constantly--always aware of the vicissitudes of time and love.  It was wonderful when it happened, but, for the rest of the night, I was slightly melancholy because I realized that I couldn't protect my son from the disappointment and pain that sometimes comes with growing up.  That bothered me.  I will not be able to protect my kids from heartbreak and illness and death.

My parents have lost two of their children in the last three years.  I can't imagine that kind of grief.  The day my sister died at my parents' house, my mother sat by my sister's hospital bed, held her hand after she had passed.  My mother talked to her, told my sister how much she loved her.  She just kept speaking quietly, sometimes touching my sister's face.

There was grace in that moment, but it's a grace I hope I never have to experience personally.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for the epiphanies of his son and daughter.

March 8: Drove One, International Women's Day, My Sister

"Blood brother," said a message written in pink paint on the side of a shattered grocery store.

There was a tap on Billy's car window.  A black man was out there.  He wanted to talk about something.  The light had changed.  Billy did the simplest thing.  He drove on.

Billy Pilgrim, in the middle of a ghetto days after a race riot, is confronted by a black man at a stoplight.  The man isn't being angry or violent.  He isn't trying to drag Billy from his car to pelt him with bricks.  The man simply taps on Billy's window.

Now, Billy could roll down his window to see what the man wants.  Certainly, there is the possibility that the man could spit on Billy or throw dog shit in his face.  He could scream at Billy, call him a racist or fascist or Republican asshole.  Or the man may just ask Billy for directions to the nearest gas station.  Billy isn't willing to take any chances, though.  As Vonnegut writes, Billy does the "simplest thing."  When the light turns green, Billy puts his foot on the accelerator and drives on.

That's the story of most injustices in the world.  The people who could actually make a difference--those is power--choose to look the other way.  Ignore.  Drive in the opposite direction.  They choose not to roll down their car windows and listen.

Today is International Women's Day.  The theme for 2017 is "Be Bold for Change."  March 8 has been set aside to honor and draw attention to working women (and women, in general) all over the world.  Being a white working male, I lack firsthand knowledge of gender discrimination.  But I do know that, when my sister obtained her Master Plumber's license, she was one of only three women in the state of Michigan to hold that title.  My 16-year-old daughter is frequently confronted at school and called names for speaking up in support of Planned Parenthood and women's rights.

My sister, Sally, was one of the smartest and most accomplished persons I've ever known.  She single-handedly oversaw the planning, construction, licensing, and running of an outpatient surgery center.  She could read manuals for computers and medical equipment just ONCE and have those manuals memorized.  She treated all of her employees with respect and understanding.  My best friend, who worked as a surgical nurse for my sister, tells me all the time, "She was the best boss I will ever have."

I don't think my sister ever thought of herself as anything special.  She just did her job, worked long hours, and loved the people in her life.  But Sally would never look the other way if she saw some injustice in the world. 

Tonight, on International Women's Day, Saint Marty gives thanks for his big sister.

September 1: Extravagant Landscape, New Book Bag, Abundant Grace

This, then, is the extravagant landscape of the world, given, given with pizzazz, given in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

Dillard is talking about God's generosity, given in abundance.  Sort of like asking somebody if she can float you twenty dollars, and instead she gives you two hundred.  That's the way God is.  As the saying goes, our cups always runneth over because God pours the drinks.  And He never really asks for repayment.  If we say a prayer of thanks, that's cool.  If we don't, God will still keep giving.

Tonight, my sister gave me a gift.  It's a new book bag.  A really beautiful new book bag.  Leather with a leather journal and leather pencil case.  Handmade to order by a company in Washington state, I believe.  It's called the daVinci bag.  I know how much it cost, and, to put it simply, it wasn't cheap.  I've been drooling over this bag ever since I saw it on the Internet at the beginning of July.

I'm a little humbled by the gift.  My sister doesn't expect anything in return.  She gave me the bag out of the goodness of her heart.  It feels like I was provided a concrete example of grace this evening.  Abundant grace.  Not that I need an expensive present in order to experience God's love.  No.  In fact, the bag really isn't the point.  It's the spirit in which it was given to me.  Freely.  Without any expectation of reciprocity.  That's abundant grace.

Marty is a very humbled saint this evening.

It holds a lot of grace

May 27: Daughter's Essay, Claudia Emerson, "Daybook"

My daughter had an assignment for her English class.  She had to write a memoir essay about an important moment in her life.  She chose to write about the death of my sister last summer.  I was surprised.  She's never really opened up to me about it before.

Last night, she asked me to read what she had written.  She'd been working on it for a couple of hours.  "Exactly what do you want me to read it for?" I asked.  "Content?  Grammar?  Spelling?"  She shrugged and said, "Just tell me what you think," and flounced off to bed.

I sat reading her essay.  For a half hour.  By the time I was done, I was crying and ready for bed.  The essay was rough but full of the kind of honesty I try to get my freshman composition students to embrace.  It takes my students an entire semester to get there (if they get there at all).  My daughter had it, and I couldn't have been prouder.

I have a Claudia Emerson poem for tonight that's sort of like an essay on loss and grief.  Warning:  it's not very happy.

Saint Marty never promised you a rose garden.

Daybook

by:  Claudia Emerson

This is the season of her dying, and you
have kept it, I find, underneath the stairs
in a box filled with photographs--her daybook
of that last year, the calendar a narrative
she did not intend to write.  In the grid
of days, I see her habit had been to record
in pencil what might be erased, moved, saving
the indelible black for what could not change:

your birthday, hers, your anniversary.  And in
that same decisive hand, the disease began
to eclipse this order, but she erased nothing.
Now from beneath the days the hospital claimed,
her first, latent words emerge, faint but certain
as images of ribs cradling milky lungs, the flesh forgotten
as water you can see through to the bottom.

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.

March 27: Hallelujah, Easter Sunday, Resurrection, Classic Saint Marty

Hallelujah!  Jesus is alive!

Yes, it is Easter Sunday, and,  for Christians all over the world, today is all about light and salvation.  For my non-Christian disciples, I wish you all warmth, sunlight, and peace.  After all, that's what it's all about, isn't it?

On Easter Sunday last year, I was visiting my sister in a nursing home.  This was before she was diagnosed with lymphoma, when we all thought she would be walking out of that place on her own two legs.  I remember sitting with her, watching TV.  My family and I brought her some Dove chocolate eggs.  She didn't eat them.  She'd been throwing up all day.

I was talking to my wife this morning on the way to church.  I told her that it still seems a little unreal to me--my sister being gone.  I spent so much of my life with her over the last 17 years.  She was my boss.  She was my sister. I worked with her for eight to ten hours a day, five days a week.  On weekends, I went out to eat with her.  Birthday parties.  Baptisms.  First Communions.  Christmases.  Easters.  We were with each other a lot.

My wife, sitting in the car beside me, nodded.  "I know what you mean," she said.

I still look for her car when I go to work.  Every once in a while, I think that I hear her voice singing in church when I'm playing the organ.  Today, I think of her smile when we entered her room in the nursing home last year.  I can still see her looking at my son (who was six at the time) and saying, "Happy Easter, little man!"

Yes, as a Christian, I believe in resurrection and salvation.  I honestly believe that my sister is dancing with Jesus today.  Celebrating with the angels.

That doesn't make me miss her any less.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired around three years ago, on another Easter Sunday.

March 31, 2013:  Easter

Christ is risen!  Christ is risen indeed!

That was the greeting in church this morning.  I was picking my way across an icy parking lot on my way to the Easter Sunrise service, and a gentleman I know called out to me, "Christ is risen!"  Without missing a beat, I called back, "Christ is risen indeed!"

It's something I learned from the Methodist church.  I don't recall ever hearing anyone using that particular exchange in the Catholic churches I attended as a child.  I think it might sound a little too Pentecostal.  Anything that even hints at arm raising and speaking in tongues is a little suspicious in Catholic circles.  We're more of the candle-lighting, falling-asleep-in-the-pew brand of Christians.

One of my favorite things about Easter is the variety of worship services that take place during the week leading up to today.  There's the dark and solemn (Good Friday).  There's the procession from darkness to light (Easter Vigil).  And then there's raucous and loud (Easter Sunday).  There are many opportunities to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit during Holy Week.

The only problem is that I'm usually pretty tired come Easter Sunday afternoon.  It's all the music and worship, late nights and early mornings.  For instance, I got home from the Easter Vigil at around 11 p.m. last night.  I got to bed around 12:30 a.m., and my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning.  I was at church by 7:15 a.m. to get ready for the Easter Sunrise service at eight o'clock.  This service, which I thought was going to be just left of disaster for various complicated reasons, turned out to be the most beautiful and meaningful.  The readings, music, and message all rocked.

I've had a great Lenten/Easter season.  Lots of surprising God moments.  It's sort of been like today's weather.  Cold and windy sometimes.  Blue sky and sun right now.  That's what it's all about.  Periods of desert and periods of communion.

Christ is risen, Saint Marty.  He's risen indeed.