April 3, 2026: “The Willows,” Triduum, “Good Friday”

I only get to write this once a year—happy Good Friday!

Yes, Lent is over., and were are in the middle of the Triduum of the Christian calendar.  Yesterday was Maundy Thursday.  (Pretty much all services—aside from the Catholic ones—were canceled yesterday due to a snow and ice storm.)  I did not go to church yesterday.  Today, however, I played two Good Friday commemorations, one Catholic and one Lutheran.

I have to be honest.  Lenten and Easter music just don’t excite me.  I’ve been a church musician for close to 40 years now (started playing pipe organ when I was 17 years old), and I still dread Ash Wednesday with all its minor keys and dirges.  I know Lent is supposed to be a time of preparation and sacrifice, headed toward the loudness and light of Easter morning, but I won’t cry if I never have to play “O Sacred Head Surrounded” or “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” again.  (Let me stress:  I’m against the crappy hymns and music of Lent and Easter, NOT the seasons themselves.)  You would think that, after 21 centuries, churches might have come up with a few good pieces of liturgical Eastertide music.

Now, before I start getting comments from angry churchgoers listing favorite Lent and Easter tunes, I will say that, given the choice between the funereal ditties of Lent and the overwrought anthems of Easter, I will choose the overwrought.  I can get into a rousing chorus of “Up From the Grave He Arose” as much as the next Christian, but it’s just so . . . ostentatious is the word I’m looking for, I guess.  I prefer subtlety.  What can I say?  I’m a poet.

Marie Howe gives us a subtle poem today . . . 

The Willows

by: Marie Howe

As we are made by what moves us,

willows pull the water up into their farthest reach

which curves again down

divining where their life begins.

So, under travels up, and down and up again,

and the wind makes music of what water was.

A beautiful little poem that packs a lot of joy.  It’s a celebration of “what moves us.”  Water—the one thing we (trees, plants, birds, insects, human beings) all depend upon.  We can go for days without food.  Water, on the other hand, is necessary for survival.  

Howe’s words more to me about Lent and Easter than “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” ever has.  Because it’s about the force that sustains and uplifts us.  Even the wind sings a water hymn in the last line.  That’s what this season is about—walking across a desert and finding a cool, fresh running river at the end.  Whether you’re a Christian or not, we can all understand the relief of a glass of icy water on a hot summer day.  

You see what I’m getting at, I hope.  For me, Lent and Easter aren’t about the ashes and bells and incense and chants.  This season is about being offered a hose to slurp from after sweating in the fields all day long (metaphorically speaking).  

There’s another ice storm blowing in tonight.  I’m sure the grocery stores in the area were jammed with people trying to get their last-minute Easter shopping done prior to the freezing rain.  Think Black Friday, but everyone is fighting over hams and baskets and Cadbury Creme Eggs.  My wife and I did our final shopping last weekend.  We’re not planning on going out a whole lot tomorrow.  (I may hit the laundromat, but that’s about it.)

Saint Marty wrote a poem during one of his Good Friday services today . . . 

Good Friday

by: Martin Achatz

I sit,

listen

to this

familiar

story of betrayal, love, forgiveness, redemption,

think how my mom, with knees calcified by

arthritis,

knelt in

church every

Good Friday,

knobbed 

knuckles

folded, 

accepted 

her pain

like a kiss 

from her 

dead mother.

December 15, 2024: "France," Good Catholic Boy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Sometimes, the pure ridiculousness of life is astonishing.  This morning, at the Lutheran church where I play keyboard, I experienced that sort of astonishment.

Billy Collins gets fed up . . . 

France

by: Billy Collins

You and your frozen banana,

you and your crème brûlée.

Can't we just skip dessert

and go back to the Hotel d'Orsay?

You and your apple tart

and your plates of profiteroles.

Can't we just ask for the check?

Can't you hear Time's mortal call?

Why linger here at the table

stuffing ourselves with sweets

when all the true pleasures await us

in room trois cent quarante-huit?

Collins really doesn't want to eat any dessert.  Doesn't want a fancy sweet that he can't pronounce all that well.  What he's trying to do is convince his dinner companion to return to their hotel room for some post-meal delight, and he does so with his usual wit and charm.

I don't have anything quite so sexy to write about.  

I played four church services this weekend--two last night, two this morning.  All but one were Catholic.  The outlier was a Lutheran church.  The opening hymn for the Lutherans was listed as 626 in the hymnal, a song titled "By Gracious Powers," with words by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, music by Robert Buckley Farlee.  I'd never heard it before.  

As I started playing it on the pipe organ, I chose a quieter setting, counting on the song being an old standard for the gathered congregation.  I went through the introduction then launched into the first verse.  

Nobody sang, except the pastor, and even he seemed to be struggling.

Realizing that something was amiss, either with my playing or the congregation itself, I got to the end of the refrain and immediately launched into verse two, louder, the right hand an octave higher on the keyboard.

Still, nobody was singing, and I began to panic.

About verse three, I realized that I was on my own.  Everyone else had given up.  It was five verses long, but it felt like an entire symphony.  There I sat on the organ bench, a good Catholic boy, powering through a Lutheran hymn that even a retired Lutheran pastor of 30 years didn't recognize.

With each consecutive verse, I played louder and louder, until the stained glass windows seemed to be rattling and fracturing.  When the song finished, I lifted my hands from the keyboard and looked out at the congregation.  They sat there, dumbfounded and confused.  I sat there, drenched in sweat.

At the end of the entire service, one gentleman from the music selection committee made an announcement, apologizing for "By Gracious Powers."  "I don't know what happened," he said.  "I was not familiar with that song at all."

The pastor chimed in, "In the 30-plus years I worked as a pastor, I think I've sung that song twice."

The whole situation was pretty fucking hilarious.  A Catholic leading a bunch of Lutherans in a song that nobody knew.  Ridiculous.  Astonishing.  Even tonight, as I was recounting this story to two musician friends, I couldn't stop laughing.

Saint Marty died a slow, musical death this morning.

May 31: "Nurse," Cellularly Tired, ""Pipe Organ"

Billy Collins talks with a nurse . . .

Nurse

by: Billy Collins

The one who spoke by a window

in a stairwell,

resting her head on her arm,

said she was so many stumbles

beyond tired,

she caught herself 

envying the dead

for looking like sleepers in their beds.

I worked in a medical office and hospital at the start of the pandemic, so I understand the exhaustion the nurse describes here.  Seen it in doctors, nurses, orderlies, cafeteria workers.  Not just bone tired.  Cellularly tired.  

Despite the shortened week, I find myself desperately tired tonight.  Perhaps it's because I tried to cram five days of work into four days in the office.

Friday nights after dinner, I usually go to church to practice for the Saturday and Sunday services I play.  If the music is familiar, it goes very quickly.  If I don't recognize the music, I've been known to sit at the keyboard for several hours.

Tonight, I knew most of the hymns, so I was home and in my pajamas by 8 p.m.  Now, I'm on my couch, fighting to stay awake and losing the battle.

Saint Marty needs to do some jumping jacks or just surrender to the pillow.

Pipe Organ

by: Martin Achatz

The gold pipes climb

upward like the ribs

of a giant ground sloth,

just waiting for me

to flip a switch, fill

its lungs with air

for the first time

in two million years.

January 15: Found Fish, Magical Thinking, Amazing Grace

Santiago finds fish . . . 

Now the old man looked up and saw that the bird was circling again.

"He's found fish," he said aloud. No flying fish broke the surface and there was no scattering of bait fish. But as the old man watched, a small tuna rose in the air, turned and dropped head first into the water. The tuna shone silver in the sun and after he had dropped back into the water another and another rose and they were jumping in all directions, churning the water and leaping in long jumps after the bait. They were circling it and driving it.

If they don't travel too fast I will get into them, the old man thought, and he watched the school working the water white and the bird now dropping and dipping into the bait fish that were forced to the surface in their panic.

Santiago's luck is about to change.  He has never lost faith in the idea that, eventually, he will catch a big fish again.  That's the old man's religion.

Recently, I've been revisiting Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.  It's a book that details Didion's life following the sudden death of her husband.  I read the book when it first came out in 2005, at a time in my life when I was facing some very difficult personal struggles.  Didion spends a year shuttling between external reality and inner reality.  For example, she keeps her husband's shoes and clothing because she believes the he will need them when he returns home.  As long as his things are in the closet, Didion allows herself to believe that he is still alive.

Some people might call what Santiago and Didion experience superstition.  The big fish is out there.  Didion's husband is picking up Chinese for dinner.  I think that everyone engages in magical thinking at some time in their lives.  We buy lottery tickets.  Believe we'll win the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Light votive candles for sick loved ones.

I played the pipe organ at church this afternoon.  It was a Mass dedicated to my mother, but I didn't know that until it was announced from the pulpit.  For some reason, I took it as some kind of message from God.  I know, I know.  That kind of stuff only happens in the Bible.  Maybe in a Hallmark movie.  Didion would say it's magical thinking.  Santiago, a sign from the ocean--flying fish or a school of dolphin.  

As a Christian, I call it faith.  The belief that God is looking over us every second of our lives.  Giving us strength,  Hope.  Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

I realize my last couple posts may have been a little bleak and depressing.  My sister Rose's situation has kind of thrown me into a tailspin.  Coming three months after the death of my mother, right at the beginning of a new year, following 2020 and its sequel, I am struggling to find a whole lot of light.

Don't worry.  This post is not going to be another black hole of existential angst.  Even I, the reincarnation of Sartre, get a little tired of darkness and nihilism.  I received a message from a good friend this morning.  She reached out to me, shared some words of wisdom and encouragement.  Reminded me that, as the old saying goes, the price of love is grief.

I don't know what's going to happen with my sister Rose.  I visited her again this evening in the ICU.  She's still breathing hard.  They had to increase her oxygen to 65%.  And she currently has a high fever.  Rose may get better.  Or she may not.  She's been through quite a lot, health-wise, these last couple years.  I'm not sure how much more her little body can take.

My faith tells me that God is looking over her.   Perhaps He will give her back to us for a little while longer.  Or perhaps God will give her the wings He's been saving for her.  And my mother and sister, Sally, will take her hands and lead her to a place where she can dance and sing and do latch hook rugs all the time.  Call that superstition or magical thinking, if you want.

But Saint Marty knows that loving someone sometimes means letting go when the time comes.    

            

February 18: Gorgeous Instrument, Public Speaking, Fabulous Boots

Billy Pilgrim went on skating, doing tricks in sweatsocks, tricks that most people would consider impossible--making turns, stopping on a dime and so on.  The cheering went on, but its tone was altered as the hallucinations gave way to time-travel.

Billy stopped skating, found himself at a lectern in a Chinese restaurant in Ilium, New York, on an early afternoon in the autumn of 1957.  He was receiving a standing ovation from the Lions Club.  He had just been elected President, and it was necessary that he speak.  He was scared stiff, thought a ghastly mistake had been made.  All those prosperous, solid men out there would discover now that they had elected a ludicrous waif.  They would hear his reedy voice, the one he'd had in the war.  He swallowed, knew that all he had for a voice box was a little whistle cut from a willow switch.  Worse--he had nothing to say.  The crowd quieted down.  Everybody was pink and beaming.

Billy opened his mouth, and out came a deep, resonant tone.  His voice was a gorgeous instrument.  It told jokes which brought down the house.  It grew serious, told jokes again, and ended on a note of humility.  The explanation of the miracle was this:  Billy had taken a course in public speaking.

And then he was back back in the bed of the frozen creek again.  Roland Weary was about to beat the living shit out of him.

I understand Billy's fear of public speaking.  Even though I have been a professor for over twenty years (teaching since about 1992 or '93), I still get bouts of anxiety before I have to get up in front of a class.  Billy, obviously, has taken steps to help him with his stage fright.  Voice lessons.  Me?  I just keep getting up and talking.  Sometimes I hit a home run.  Other times, I barely make it to first base. 

Tonight, I have to watch myself on television.  Our local Public TV station is airing the announcement of the next Poet Laureate of the U. P.  Like Billy, I don't really care for the sound of my voice.  Never have.  I don't think it sounds like a little whistle cut from a willow switch.  More like a banjo with some strings missing. 

As I said last night, I've always had useful terror when it comes to performing (and teaching is, in a way, a performance).  I've been in musicals and plays.  I've sung solos in church, play in a band.  Every Saturday, I sit down at a pipe organ or piano and play for an hour straight.  Useful terror always comes into play. 

As I watch myself tonight, I will be hyper-critical.  Notice all the stumblings and physical tics.  I once sat through an entire television interview with my pant leg tucked into my sock.  It nearly killed me when the interview aired.  I wanted to punch the TV screen.  I kept yelling at my image, "Fix your goddam pants!!"  Thank God I was sitting at a table for tonight's show, although nobody will be able to see the absolutely fabulous boots I was wearing.

No worries, though.  It only lasts a half hour, and there are three other people on the panel.  My camera time will be severely limited.

Saint Marty is thankful today for everybody who voted for him for Poet Laureate.

January 17: Little Black Organ, Church Music, Belief in Service

And so on.  Billy says that he first came unstuck in time in 1944, long before his trip to Tralfamdore.  The Tralfamdorians didn't have anything to do with his coming unstuck.  They were simply able to give him insights into what was really going on.

Billy first came unstuck while World War Two was in progress.  Billy was a chaplain's assistant in the war.  A chaplain's assistant is customarily a figure of fun in the American Army.  Billy was no exception.  He was powerless to harm the enemy or to help his friends.  In fact, he had no friends.  He was a valet to a preacher, expected no promotions or medals, bore no arms, and had a meek faith in a loving Jesus which most soldiers found putrid.  

While on maneuvers in South Carolina, Billy played hymns he knew from childhood, played them on a little black organ which was waterproof.  It had thirty-nine keys and two stops--vox humana and vox celeste.  Billy also had charge of a portable altar, an olive-drab attache case with telescoping legs.  It was lined with crimson plush, and nestled in that passionate plush were an anodized aluminum cross and Bible.

The altar and the organ were made by a vacuum-cleaner company in Camden, New Jersey--and said so.

Rereading Slaughterhouse after all these years is a strange experience.  I have forgotten major details from the book, even though I wrote a huge research paper on it as a graduate student.  I remember the little green men, time traveling, firebombing of Dresden.  I didn't remember that Billy was an optometrist and that his mate in the Tralfamadorian zoo was named Montana Wildhack.  And, today, I didn't remember that he was a chaplain's assistant in the army, or that he played Christian hymns on a toy organ.

When I first became a church organist, I would probably describe my faith in a loving Jesus as meek.  The reason I agreed to play was twofold:  (1) I needed the money, and (2) I had a parish priest who just wouldn't take "no" as an answer.  So, one Saturday night, I found myself sitting on the bench in front of a huge pipe organ, not really sure how to even turn on the instrument.  I didn't know my vox celeste from a hole in the ground.

I have been a church musician now for over thirty years.  I've been playing the same pipe organ for that entire time.  I wouldn't call my faith "meek" any more.  In fact, I would say that being in the choir loft has brought me closer to God, literally and figuratively.  Music has a way of cleaving open my heart, even if I don't feel particularly filled with the Holy Spirit.  The only other experience that comes close for me is reading poetry.

So, my parish priest did me a favor all those years ago.  I was on the fast track to becoming a lapsed Catholic, and music brought me back.  Because of music, I started praying again.  Because I started praying again, I rekindled in my heart a belief in service, helping the world become a better place.  And that belief has stayed with me through all these years.

It may sound corny, but I am a better person because I am a church organist.  It has nothing to do with feeling holier or morally superior.  It has everything to do with craving the experience of being in touch with something bigger than myself.

Tonight, Saint Marty is grateful for "Amazing Grace" in his life.

The view from the choir loft

July 30: My Daughter and Church, Camille T. Dungy, "Frequently Asked Questions: #9"

It is Saturday.  Around 4 p.m., I will go into my daughter's room and tell her that it's time to go to church.  We have been doing this every Saturday for her entire life.  I play the pipe organ, so she has been in church since before she could walk.  I remember her sitting in her carrier as an infant, sucking on her pacifier, sleeping as the huge pipes above her bellowed out "How Great Thou Art."  So the announcement that it's time to leave for church should come as no surprise.

Yet, recently, every time I alert her to our impending departure for church, my daughter flops backward on her bed as if I've just told her that Instagram or Snapchat has been outlawed.  She stomps and sulks.  Rarely does she argue, because she knows she stands no chance of winning the dispute.  But she makes her displeasure very evident.

I miss the days when I could make her happy with a pacifier or clean diaper, when she sat in church and looked around like she could see choirs of angels floating above her.  I know my daughter's main problem at the moment is that she's a teenager.  Awkward and difficult years.  The future scary.  I try to keep that in mind when she's rolling her eyes or saying to me, "Okay, okay, okay, OKAY, I know, I know, I KNOW!!!!"

Saint Marty loves his daughter.  He simply wishes that walking into her room wasn't like approaching a sleeping alligator sometimes.

Frequently Asked Questions:  #9

by:  Camille T. Dungy

Don't you think you should have another child?


This girl I have is hardtack and dried lime
and reminds me, every groggy morning,
what a miracle it must have been
when outfitters learned to stock ship holds
with that one long lasting fruit. How the sailors' tongues,
landing on its bitter brilliance, must have cursed
the curse of joy, as I did that morning the burst
of water brought my sweet girl into our lives.

But, already, she hates me sometimes.
Like I have sometimes hated my mother and she
must have sometimes hated her own.

After weeks at sea, the limes would desiccate and the meal
fill with worms. They would have eaten
anyway, the sailors, but taken no pleasure from anything.
Or taken no pleasure from anything but
the fact of their sustained lives. Which is to say it is all
I can do, most days, not to swallow
her up and curse her maker, I swear. Like I have not
sworn since the morning she was born.

September 7: Feeling Prepared, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

For me, Sundays are always about getting prepared.  For teaching.  For work.  For the week.  I just finished my lesson plan for tomorrow.  I entered some grades and recorded last week's attendance.  Then I came up with an agenda for a meeting I'm having tomorrow afternoon.  After I'm done typing this post, I'm going to have dinner, and then I'm going to eventually go practice on the pipe organ at church for my niece's wedding.  When I get home, I'll pick out my work clothes for tomorrow and make my lunch and dinner.  Then I'll be prepared, at about 9 p.m.  Just in time to relax for an hour or so before I go to bed.

But, before my head hits the pillow, I will feel prepared for the upcoming week.  That gives me a sense of security.  It may be a false sense of security, but I don't care.

Today's Classic Saint Marty originally aired around four years ago.  I don't think it ever got the attention it deserved.  So, I'm repeating it.

Saint Marty can do that, because his name is on the blog.

September 15, 2010:  Our Lady of Sorrows

Having a person you love be diagnosed with a mental illness sucks.  Having that same person suffer from addiction (alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, whatever) doubly sucks.  I can vouch for that.  It all becomes a vicious cycle:  my loved one is out of control; my loved one is sucking down bottles of tequila (substitute your addiction of choice); my loved one is in the hospital; my loved one is getting help; my loved one is starting to do better; my loved one is great; my loved one is having problems; my loved one is out of control ... You get the idea.

One of the hardest parts is not knowing which came first--the illness or the addiction.  Is the addiction a symptom of the illness?  Or is it a matter of the two coexisting like Palestine and Israel, constantly at war, both claiming ownership of the same piece of real estate.  I don't know if my wife's struggle with sexual addiction is a result of mania or if it's an independent entity, a scoop of chocolate on top of the scoop of vanilla that is my wife's bipolar.

The thing that I find most exhausting about my wife's illness/addiction is pretending.  In the morning, when I leave the house for work, I have to put on a mask:  the happy worker.  I deal with patients and coworkers, listen to complaints and concerns, and struggle to silence the voice in my head that's screaming, "You think YOU got it bad?1?  Let me tell you something!!"  Then I have to go teach my writing classes at the university, and I put on another mask:  the concerned teacher.  I listen to mostly teenagers moan about the B's they've received on their papers, since they've always gotten A's in all of their English classes before this.  I fight the urge to let my eyes roll toward my forehead as I listen to their worries, and I entertain the idea of simply saying, "I'm sorry.  You must be mistaking me for someone who gives a shit."  Then I go back to my happy worker mask for a little while longer.  And then, at 5 p.m., I go home and put on another mask:  the daddy.  This mask is more comfortable to wear as I feed, bathe, dress, pack lunches, and march my son and daughter off to bed.  Only after my children are snoring in their respective sleep spaces do I take off my last mask and let myself just be me.  Frazzled.  Sad.  Worried.  Angry.  Hungry.  Bone tired.  Me.

It's tiring being so many people during the day.  It's especially tiring when all you really want to do when the alarm clock goes off is roll over and hang a huge "Do Not Disturb" sign across your ass.  I understand why Greta Garbo said, "I vant to be alone."  If I'm alone, I don't have to act like a phony, to quote Holden Caufield.  I can be my authentic, true self.

And that authentic, true self sometimes feels a little lost.

Today is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.  It's a day that commemorates the seven events of great sorrow and loss in the life of the Virgin Mary:
1)  Prophecy of Simeon
2)  Flight into Egypt
3)  Three Days' Loss of Jesus

4)  Meeting Jesus on the Way to Calvary

5)  Mary at the Foot of the Cross

6)  Jesus Taken Down from the Cross

7)  Burial of Jesus

 Mary had a lot to grieve over.  However, in that list of seven items, right between numbers 3 and 4, sits about 30 years in which she had Jesus to herself.  They sat down like any Jewish family in Nazareth and had lamb omelets for breakfast.  Jesus built chairs and entertainment centers (or whatever carpenters made) in His dad's workshop.  And He was devoted to Mary, probably told her He loved her every day.  Probably several times a day.  And they were happy.

That's what I cling to in my life:  those small, happy moments at breakfast or supper when I love and feel loved.  I'm sure Mary did that.  It's what brings you through the sorrow.  It's what helps you see through mental illness and addiction to something true.  Something full of hope.  Something normal, like apple cider or a hot bowl of oatmeal.

Confessions of Saint Marty

August 30: Dripping Wet, Julianna Baggott, "Jesus in the Mail," New Cartoon

The next day was foggy.  Everything on the farm was dripping wet.  The grass looked like a magic carpet.  The asparagus patch looked like a silver forest.

I love that description of a foggy morning from E. B. White.  It has a simple, fairy tale quality, especially the silver forest of asparagus.  It almost makes me want to eat asparagus.  Almost.

I woke to fog and rain this morning in my little corner of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The fog eventually lifted, but it has been pretty much misting/drizzling/pouring rain all day long.  It was a good day to stay inside and read a book.  Which is exactly what I didn't do.

I spent some time at church, practicing on the pipe organ for a church service at which I have to play tomorrow morning.  Then I also practiced wedding music for my niece's upcoming nuptials in September.  Two-and-a-half hours' worth of organ time.  (Please keep your minds out of the gutter.)

I cleaned a house for some money after that, and then I attended the 4:30 p.m. mass at the local Catholic church.  Dinner.  Bath for my son.  A load of laundry.  And now I'm on my couch, ready to pass out.  I read about one paragraph of my current book.  Have I mentioned that I'm a little sick right now?  My head is pounding, eyes are watering, nose is running.  I'm a mess.

My last offering from Julianna Baggott is one of my favorites.  She has a way of cutting through the bullshit and getting to a clean, beating heart in her lines.  She takes the simplest, everyday moments and transforms them into resurrection.

At the moment, I can hear rain tapping on the window behind me.  The clothes dryer is humming in the kitchen.  Lawrence Welk is on the TV.  It's quiet, relaxed.  Soon, I'll retire to my bedroom with my book and a glass of water.  Maybe some potato chips or raisins.

It's not exciting, but it's Saint Marty's life.

Jesus in the Mail

by:  Julianna Baggott

Someone at the Shrine of Divine Mercy
knows I'm a lapsed Catholic;
a card comes in the mail, a chapelful of nuns
(I'd prefer a nun full of chapels)

is offering the perpetual novena, celebrated daily.
There's a checklist of spiritual ailments.
I pause over lukewarm souls and those
who separated themselves from His body.

I didn't know the soul was temperate,
made of water; and his body, I'd never thought
of myself as attached.  And yet now
both seem right, and I imagine

the soul poured into the unknotted ribs,
that we are bodies of water, and I hope
that death, when it comes, will feel like
what it was to be a girl back-floating on a lake,

pulling down armfuls, then gliding,
arms outstretched and rowing
like Christ coming out of his own body,
flying from the heavy cross.

Confessions of Saint Marty

April 10: Stretched Out, a Funeral, a Nap

Lurvy appeared, carrying an Indian blanket that he had won.

"That's just what we need," said Avery.  "A blanket."

"Of course it is," replied Lurvy.  And he spread the blanket across the sideboards of the truck so that it was like a little tent.  The children sat in the shade, under the blanket, and felt better.

After lunch, they stretched out and fell asleep.

This evening, I am tired.  I'm sitting in my office at the university, grading quizzes, and getting more and more tired.  I am so thankful this day (and this work week) is almost done.  It's been a really exhausting five days.

This afternoon, I played the pipe organ for the funeral of a friend's wife.  They were married over 50 years.  He looked so sad and lost in the front pew.  I played his favorite songs, and my wife sang his wife's favorite hymn.  In a lot of ways, it really was a celebration, but I left the church very depressed.

Then, I came to school and finished showing Brokeback Mountain to my film class.  By the time it was over, I was emotionally exhausted.  That's the way it's been all week for me, and I don't know why.  Working at the medical office depressed me.  Teaching depressed me.  Now, typing this post is depressing me.  I may have to drag out my DVD of It's a Wonderful Life this weekend.

I think my mood has a lot to do with my impending job change.  After working in the same office for 17 years, I think I'm allowed to mourn a little bit.  I'm not saying my current job is perfect.  It isn't.  However, I love the people with whom I work, and I'm really good at what I do.  In some ways, it almost feels like my coworkers are treating me like I'm already gone.  They keep asking me, "When's your last day?"

So I'm thankful for this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of respite.

I know I'm supposed to write about what's in my book bag on Thursdays, and I apologize.  I haven't had the time or energy to read anything this week.

Saint Marty just wants to crawl under Lurvy's Indian blanket tent and fall asleep.

This cartoon has nothing to do with my post, but it's funny as hell.