June 10: The Gospel from Outer Space, Terrible Things, Making the World a Better Place

She asked him if there was anything she could bring him from the outside, and he said, "No, I have just about everything I want."

"What about books?" said Valencia.

"I'm right next to one of the biggest private libraries in the world," said Billy, meaning Eliot Rosewater's collection of science fiction.

Rosewater was on the next bed, reading, and Billy drew him into the conversation, asked him what he was reading this time.

So Rosewater told him.  It was The Gospel from Outer Space, by Kilgore Trout.  It was about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian, by the way.  The visitor from outer space made a serious study of Christianity, to learn, if he could, why Christians found it so easy to be cruel.  He concluded that at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament.  He supposed that the intent of the Gospels was to teach people, among other things, to be merciful, even to the lower of the low.

But the Gospels actually taught this:

Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected.  So it goes.

That's a fairly superficial interpretation of the Gospels, but it does serve Vonnegut's purpose for the novel.  Vonnegut is trying to explain the firebombing of Dresden, which he witnessed firsthand.  An entire city leveled.  Innocent people incinerated.  All of that done in the name of justice and morality, as if killing is ever just and moral, no matter who is responsible.

I've said this before, and I will say it again:  terrible things have been done in the name of God throughout all of history.  Every religion has had followers that use faith as an excuse for inhumanity.  That is a verifiable fact.  The Bible was used as justification for the enslavement of millions of African Americans in the United States.  The Koran is used as justification for bombings and beheadings and stabbings.

That doesn't mean that the Bible or Koran actually support these kinds of crimes against humanity.  They don't.  That's all humanity's doing.  God has given us the wisdom and tools.  It's up to us what we do with those tools.  Unfortunately, we don't have a great track record of doing the right thing.

Today, I have a whole lot of sitting and waiting ahead of me.  It's dance recital day.  Rehearsal and rehearsal and then pizza and then recital.  I will be thinking about the above passage from Slaughterhouse most of the day as I sit in a dark auditorium.  I know that nothing that I do will change the minds of terrorists, both home-grown and abroad.  We have a whole lot of people in power in the United States right now who are using their "religious" values as justification for hatred and discrimination.  That makes me very sad.

Today is an antidote to that for me, watching young people, full of hope and joy, doing something they love.  I wish politicians would realize that their jobs are to make the world a better place for our children.  All of them.  Gay, straight, black, white, Christian, Muslim.  That is what the true message of the Bible is.

Saint Marty is thankful for dance today.

May 10: Thrashings of the Spirit, First Communion, Tracy K. Smith, "The Universe as Primal Scream"

In his famous Camping and Woodcraft, Horace Kephart sounds a single ominous note.  He writes in parentheses:  "Some cannot sleep well in a white tent under a full moon."  Every time I think of it, I laugh.  I like the way that handy woodsy tip threatens us with the thrashings of the spirit.

Dillard is talking about the power of moonlight and starlight.  Thrashings of the spirit.  Starlight and moonlight raining through the cosmic dust of the universe, falling in glimmers and shinings on the Earth, into our weak eyes, causing us to go a little crazy.  Think about it.  Lunar.  Lunatic.  Loony.  It all boils down to the heavens.  Celestial insanity.

My son is making his First Communion this weekend.  For those of my disciples who are not Catholic, let me explain:  it's a really big deal.  My son's been preparing all year for this.  There's going to be a Mass with singing and incense.  A photographer snapping pictures.  Cake.  Gifts.  My best friend, who's my son's godfather, is driving six hours to attend the ceremony.  Like I said.  A big deal.

Tonight, we attended a rehearsal for this Sunday.  Now, my son has ADHD.  He takes his medication in the morning.  By 6 p.m., that medication is completely gone from his system.  He can't control himself.  Standing is one place is an impossibility for him.  Keeping his hands to himself, not happening, either.  He talks, shouts, laughs.  Does not pay attention.

That's what we were dealing with tonight.  While the other kids were lined up, quietly listening to instructions, my son was doing the exact opposite.  I felt really bad for him.  He couldn't help himself.  Literally.  He simply can't control his racing mind and body.  As I sat in the pew, I heard a mother behind me hiss at my son, "Stop blowing at her!"

My son was puffing out his cheeks and blowing air at the little girl beside him.  I turned around and looked at the woman who had hissed.  She was glaring at my son.  I wanted to get out of my seat and slap her in the face.  I didn't, of course.  I wanted to tell her how my son once said to me, after a particularly difficult day, "I don't know, daddy . . . I'm a bad person . . . I want to kill myself."  He's only seven years old.

It's difficult for people to understand who don't have a child with ADHD.  Certainly, the mother in the pew behind us didn't understand.  Her daughter was quiet, well-behaved.  She saw my son as an anomaly.  A distraction.  A bad kid.  I'm sure almost everybody else there saw the same thing.

When Saint Marty looked around, he saw intolerant asswipes. 

Maybe we all need to go to confession.

And another offering from the Poet of the Week, who would totally get my son's thrashings of the spirit:

The Universe as Primal Scream

by:  Tracy K. Smith

5pm on the nose. They open their mouths

And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.

First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,

They both let loose at once, and I think

Of putting on my shoes to go up and see

Whether it is merely an experiment

Their parents have been conducting

Upon the good crystal, which must surely

Lie shattered to dust on the floor.

Maybe the mother is still proud

Of the four pink lungs she nursed

To such might. Perhaps, if they hit

The magic decibel, the whole building

Will lift-off, and we'll ride to glory

Like Elijah. If this is it—if this is what

Their cries are cocked toward—let the sky

Pass from blue, to red, to molten gold,

To black. Let the heaven we inherit approach.

 Whether it is our dead in Old Testament robes,

Or a door opening onto the roiling infinity of space.

Whether it will bend down to greet us like a father,

Or swallow us like a furnace. I'm ready

To meet what refuses to let us keep anything

For long. What teases us with blessings,

Bends us with grief. Wizard, thief, the great

Wind rushing to knock our mirrors to the floor,

To sweep our short lives clean. How mean

Our racket seems beside it. My stereo on shuffle.

The neighbor chopping onions through a wall.

All of it just a hiccough against what may never

Come for us. And the kids upstairs still at it,

Screaming like the Dawn of Man, as if something

They have no name for has begun to insist

Upon being born.

Sometimes, I need to be dragged . . .

January 31: Surprise Work, End of a Long Day, Fairy Tale Work

It's going to be a busy weekend.  My daughter's ballet recital is tomorrow night.  That means she has a two hour rehearsal this evening and a two hour rehearsal tomorrow afternoon.  Then the show in the evening.  I am basically going to be a shuttle service Friday and Saturday.  And I still have to do some house cleaning to make some money.

On top of all that, I received an e-mail this morning from the English Department.  I have to write a document for my annual evaluation, and it's due by 5 p.m. on Monday.  I'm going to have to get that done this evening.  It's my only free time in the next few days.  Surprise work.  I have a feeling that, by Sunday afternoon, I'm going to be one tired little saint.

When Charlotte gets to the Fair Grounds with Wilbur, she's tired.  The end is very near for her, and she knows it.  Wilbur has no idea his friend is nearing the final days of her life:

"I'm awfully sorry to hear that you're feeling poorly, Charlotte," he said.  "Perhaps if you spin a web and catch a couple of flies you'll feel better."

"Perhaps," she said, wearily.  "But I feel like the end of a long day."  Clinging upside down to the ceiling, she settled down for a nap, leaving Wilbur very much worried.

Charlotte goes with Wilbur to the Fair because she knows her work is not finished.  Even when she feels like the end of a long day, she still has to save her friend's life.  At the end of my life, I know I'm going to be exactly like Charlotte.  There's still going to be some task I need to complete.  One last thing to do.  Work never goes away.  It just goes undone.

Once upon a time, there lived an old farmhand named Lotta.  Lotta rose every day before the sun, labored all day in the barn and fields, and fell into bed long after the sun was on the other side of the world.  Lotta never took vacations, and the milk from her cows was known to be the best in the kingdom.

One day, Lotta died, and nobody was there to take over her chores.  The cows went unmilked.  The corn rotted on the stalks.  And the pigs died of starvation.

Moral of the story:  Farms are a whole Lotta work.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Who does give a damn?