October 10: Communist Sympathizers, Hero's Quest, Luke Skywalker

Merton gets politically involved at Columbia . . .

There was a sort of a legend in New York, fostered by the Hearst papers, that Columbia was a hotbed of Communists. All the professors and students were supposed to be Reds, except perhaps the president of the university, Nicholas Murray Butler, living in solitary misery in his big brick house on Morningside Drive. I have no doubt that the poor old man’s misery was real, and that his isolation from most of the university was very real. But the statement that everybody in the university was a Communist was far from true. 

I know that, as far as the faculty was concerned, Columbia University was built up in concentric rings, about a solid core of well-meaning, unenlightened stuffiness, the veterans, the beloved of the trustees and the alumni, and Butler’s intellectual guard of honor. Then there was an inner circle of sociologists and economists and lawyers, whose world was a mystery to me, and who exercised a powerful influence in Washington under the New Deal. About all of them and their satellites I never knew anything, except that they were certainly not Communists. Then there was the little galaxy of pragmatists in the school of philosophy, and all the thousands of their pale spiritual offspring in the jungles of Teachers College and New College. They were not Communists either. They cast a mighty influence over the whole American Middle West, and were to a great extent conditioned by the very people whom they were trying to condition, so that Teachers College always stood for colorlessness and mediocrity and plain, hapless behaviorism. These three groups were then the real Columbia. I suppose they all prided themselves on their liberalism, but that is precisely what they were: “liberals,” not Communists, and they brought down upon their heads all the scorn the Communists could pour upon them for their position of habitual compromise. 

I do not understand much about politics. Besides, it would be outside the scope of my present vocation if I tried to make any political analysis of anything. But I can say that there were, at that time, quite a few Communists or Communist sympathizers among the undergraduates, and especially in Columbia College where most of the smartest students were Reds. 

The Communists had control of the college paper and were strong on some of the other publications and on the Student Board. But this campus Communism was more a matter of noise than anything else, at least as far as the rank and file were concerned. 

The Spectator was always starting some kind of a fight and calling for mass-meetings and strikes and demonstrations. Then the fraternity boys, who elected to play “Fascist” in this children’s game, would get up in the classroom buildings and turn the firehoses on the people who were standing around the Communist speaker. Then the whole thing would come out in the New York Journal that evening and all the alumni would choke on their mock turtle soup down at the Columbia Club. 

By the time I arrived at Columbia, the Communists had taken to holding their meetings at the sundial on 116th Street, in the middle of the wide-open space between the old domed library and South Field. This was well out of the range of the firehoses in the Journalism building and Hamilton Hall. The first meeting I went to, there, was very tame. It was against Italian Fascism. There were one or two speeches—by students practicing the art. Those who stood around were mostly members of the National Students’ League, who were there out of a sense of duty or partisanship. A few curious passers-by stopped a while on their way to the subway. There was not much excitement. A girl with a mop of black hair stood by, wearing a placard pronouncing some kind of a judgement on Fascism. Someone sold me a pamphlet. 

Presently I picked out the quiet, earnest, stocky little man in the grey overcoat, a hatless, black-haired Communist from downtown, who was running the affair. He was not a student. He was the real article. This was his assignment: forming and training the material that offered itself to him at Columbia. He had an assistant, a younger man, and the two of them were kept pretty busy. I went up to him and started to talk. When he actually listened to me, and paid attention to my ideas, and seemed to approve of my interest, I was very flattered. He got my name and address and told me to come to the meetings of the N.S.L. 

Soon I was walking up and down in front of the Casa Italiana wearing two placards, front and back, accusing Italy of injustice in the invasion of Ethiopia that had either just begun or was just about to begin. Since the accusation was manifestly true, I felt a certain satisfaction in thus silently proclaiming it as a picket. There were two or three of us. For an hour and a half or two hours we walked up and down the pavement of Amsterdam Avenue, in the grey afternoon, bearing our dire accusations, while the warm sense of justification in our hearts burned high, even in spite of the external boredom. 

For during that whole time no one even came near the Casa Italiana, and I even began to wonder if there were anyone at all inside of it. The only person who approached us was a young Italian who looked as if he might be a Freshman football player, and tried to get into an argument. But he was too dumb. He went away mumbling that the Hearst papers were very excellent because of the great prizes which they offered, in open competition, to their many readers.

If Merton's involvement in the Communist Party seems tepid, it was.  I believe he was more in love with the idea of belonging to something bigger than himself than to actually subscribing to any of the teachings of Marx and his followers.  Merton, young and parentless and rootless and mightily unschooled in any kind of moral or spiritual belief system, is looking for a place to call home.  So, any opportunity for involvement fills Merton's emptiness, his need for human connection.

I believe that most people are on a quest for human connection in their lives.  In a way, it's the hero quest we are all on--going through all kinds of struggles and battles, overcoming overwhelming obstacles, in order to find a place and people to call home.  It's a transformational process, involving all kinds of steps--call to action, meeting a mentor, crossing the threshold, death and rebirth, reward, the road back, and resurrection.  Odysseus.  Hercules.  Jesus Christ.  They all go through it for the sake of love.

This evening, I indulged in a quest for human connection myself.  My daughter and I have been steadily working our way through the entire Star Wars universe of films, watching them in order of release.  (As any real Star Wars fan will attest, this is the ONLY way to make your way through the trilogy of trilogies.)  After a long break, we returned to this quest tonight, watching The Force Awakens, the first of J.J. Abrams' reboot of the franchise.

Now, I'm well aware that many people reading this post will not share my affinity to Luke Skywalker and company, so I won't wax philosophic on the moral and spiritual teachings of the Star Wars franchise, although George Lucas depended heavily on Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces in its creation.  In fact, Campbell and Lucas became close friends at the end of Campbell's life, and Campbell himself recognized the religious and mythical echoes in the Star Wars films.

Tonight, my daughter and I made the jump to hyperspace.  We sat on the couch together, under a warm blanket.  And there were our old friends, Han and Leia and, eventually, Luke.  I was reminded of the hot July day I saw A New Hope for the first time.  I was nine years old, and I think, somehow, the Catholic boy in me recognized the unfolding gospel of Luke Skywalker.  Joseph Campbell famously said, "A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself."  That's Jesus.  That's Obi-Wan.  And Han.  And Luke.  (It's even Darth, when you think about it.)

That Star Wars lesson stuck with me into adulthood.  I've tried to let it guide most of my adult decisions.  I'm not perfect.  I've made some pretty selfish choices in my life.  I still do.  (My daughter gave me some Lake Champlain chocolate Five Star Bars for my birthday.  I'm not sharing them with anybody.)  However, as a teacher, son, brother, husband, and father, I find sacrifice an important part of the equation.  Especially with my wife and kids.  

I work about three or four jobs on a consistent basis.  To pay bills and maintain health insurance and help finance my daughter's college education.  Yes, I am frequently exhausted at the end of my days.  Barely able to stay awake to correct papers or quizzes or exams.  Yet, I can't imagine doing anything else.  It's who I am.  I'm not sure if that makes me a hero.  But I know my kids are happy and safe.  They know they are loved.  That's what matters most.  I don't need Yoda to tell me that.

In my kids, I am home.  I learned that a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.  

And for that lesson of what surrounds and penetrates me, and binds my galaxy together, I give thanks.

Only one last thing for Saint Marty to say:  May the Force be with you.

March 30: Lungless and Cold Blooded, Good Friday, Sacrifice

First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, "I hereby separate the whales from the fish." But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnaeus's express edict, were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the Leviathan.

The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the whales from the waters, he states as follows: "On account of their warm bilocular heart, their lungs, their moveable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem intrantem feminam mammis lactantem," and finally, "ex lege naturae jure meritoque." I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug.

Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given you those items. But in brief they are these: lungs and warm blood; whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded.

Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as conspicuously to label him for all time to come. To be short, then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail. There you have him. However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal position.

By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on the other hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as alien.* Hence, all the smaller, spouting and horizontal tailed fish must be included in this ground-plan of cetology. Now, then, come the grand divisions of the entire whale host.

This little passage proves that the world knew little about whales.  Melville/Ishmael proclaims the leviathan to be a fish, despite the fact that it is warm-blooded and breathes air through lungs.  If it looks like a fish--fins and tail and such--it is a fish.

It is Good Friday.  The last day I will have to eat fish for Lent.  (See how I did that--the segue from whales to fish to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Pretty slick, huh?)  I'm not much of a fish-eater.  During Lent, my staples are cheese, peanut butter, and did I mention cheese?  Of course, there was also fasting between meals, as well.

A lot of people don't understand the idea of abstaining from meat and fasting, including other Christian denominations.  A friend of mine recently said to me, "You know, that fish thing is a man-made rule."

"Yes," I responded, "I understand that."  I watched my friend's face take on a glow of self-satisfaction.  Then, I said, "However, I do believe that it's a good practice,  A reminder of how important sacrifice is during the Lenten season."  My friend's smile faltered a little bit.  "You do believe in sacrifice, don't you?"

I know, I know.  It was a pretty passive aggressive move on my part.  Don't worry, my friend and I are still talking.  But I get a little perturbed by Christians who seem hell-bent (pardon the term) on criticizing the practices of other follower of Christ.  Because, the last time I checked, Jesus really wasn't about judging.  He was pretty much all about forgiveness.

I just got done playing the organ and singing at the Good Friday service at my church.  When I was younger, this service used to last three hours.  Noon to 3 p.m.  It involved a rosary and Stations and the Cross and chanting and incense.  It has been scaled back a little now.

But one of my favorite elements of the service is still intact:  the reading of Christ's passion.  It moves me in a way that only the gospels read on Christmas night and day move me.  One moment in particular always moves me to tears.  It is when the lector reads this line (or a variation of it):  "And bowing His head, He surrendered His spirit."  And then everyone in the church kneels in silence for over a full minute.

I am easing into Easter weekend.  Tomorrow night is the Easter Vigil service, starting at 9 p.m. and ending somewhere around midnight.  Starting with the church in darkness.  Then the lighting of candles.  Lots of chanting.  Ten readings.  Baptisms.  First Communions.  Confirmations.  It will be beautiful and stressful.  I'm not really comfortable with Gregorian chant, and I have to do a whole lot of it.

So, tonight, I will rest, write, and prepare myself for tomorrow and Sunday.

Saint Marty is thankful today for sacrifice.

August 28: Go On Without Me, Sacrifice, Eat Chocolate All Day

Billy, knowing the plane was going to crash pretty soon, closed his eyes, traveled in time back to 1944.  He was back in the forest of Luxembourg again--with the Three Musketeers.  Roland Weary was shaking him, bonking his head against a tree.  "You guys go on without me," said Billy Pilgrim.

Billy is trying to make a sacrifice.  He knows that he will slow his companions down as they try to elude German soldiers.  Possibly cause them to be captured.  So he tells them to leave him behind.  Perhaps he's not worried because he's already jumped in time.  He knows that he will survive.

I apologize for my absence yesterday.  I spent the day cleaning out a portion of my attic and then hosting my book club.  I had to sacrifice something.  That something happened to be writing a blog post.  Granted, my sacrifice didn't save anybody's life or change the world in any way.  It simply preserved my sanity.

I think that most people's days are filled with sacrifices.  Every morning when my alarm goes off, I force myself to get out of bed and go to work.  I'm never excited about it.  I just do it for my family.  It helps me provide for my wife and children.  This week, the fall semester begins at the university.  On Wednesday, I'll be teaching composition to a group of freshmen from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.  Not excited about that, either.  But I do it for my family.

I want to eat chocolate all day long.  I don't.  Sacrifice to my health.  When I got home from work this afternoon, I just wanted to take a nap for about ten hours.  I didn't.  I drove my daughter to school for band camp.  Sacrifice.  Tonight, I'm going to do a load of laundry.  Possibly do some prep for teaching.  Work on a poem for a couple I know who's getting married this weekend.  Sacrifice.  Sacrifice.  Sacrifice.

Sacrifice sometimes is difficult.  Ask Jesus.  And sometimes sacrifice is easy.  Ask any mother or father.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful for the sacrifices his parents made for him.

July 4: Blue-Green World, Independence Day, Fireworks

I have to look at the landscape of the blue-green world again.  Just think:  in all the clean beautiful reaches of the solar system, our planet alone is a blot; our planet alone has death.  I have to acknowledge that the sea is a cup of death and the land is a stained altar stone.  We the living are survivors huddled on flotsam, living off jetsam.  We are escapees.  We wake in terror, eat in hunger, sleep with a mouthful of blood.

It's not a very uplifting little passage from Dillard, but it's full of truth.  Earth is the only planet in the solar system on which death exists.  In fact, the life of the human race sort of depends on death for its very survival.  We kill and eat animals.  We raise and harvest grains and vegetables.  Our cars are filled with gas, which comes from oil which comes from animals that roamed this blue-green world millions of years ago.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  Death gives us life, and vice versa.

It is Independence Day in the United States.  We celebrate with parades and races and barbecues and kids running through sprinklers.  And we celebrate with fireworks.  In less than an hour, I will be packing my family up in my car, and we will be heading off to a community picnic that ends with rockets and explosions and showers of lights.  I will buy kettle popcorn.  My daughter will probably get cotton candy.  My son wants a snowcone.  Yes, the town in which I live is a little like a Norman Rockwell painting (if you can ignore the occasional crystal meth house).

We can celebrate freedom on this day because of brave men and women who have sacrificed their lives for our way of life, from the Revolutionary War to the Gulf War and beyond.  Yes, in a very large way, death is a very significant part of today's celebrations.  Dillard has it right:  death is always around.

I'm not going to get all maudlin and dark here.  I simply want to acknowledge the fact that I live in a country with immeasurable freedom, and that freedom came at a price.  Maybe there will be a time when freedom won't be so costly.  It will simply be as abundant as sand on the shores of Lake Superior or grasshoppers in a summer field.   We won't have to argue about it or fight over it.  No blood will have to be spilled.  Nobody will have to be buried. 

Freedom and peace and independence for the whole world.  Not a bad dream.

Until then, Saint Marty will spread out his blankets on the grass, eat his kettle corn, and wait for dusk to fall.

May 30: Shreds of Creation, Memorial Day, Experiment in Freedom

What I aim to do is not so much learn the names of the shreds of creation that flourish in this valley, but to keep myself open to their meanings, which is to try to impress myself at all times with the fullest possible force of their very reality.  I want to have things as multiply and intricately as possible present and visible in my mind.  Then I might be able to sit on the hill by the burnt books where the starlings fly over, and see not only the starlings, but grass field, the quarried rock, the viney woods, Hollins Pond, and the mountains beyond, but also, and simultaneously, feathers' barbs, springtails in the soil, crystal in rock, chloroplasts streaming, rotifers pulsing, and the shape of the air in the pines.  And, if I try to keep my eye on quantum physics, if I try to keep up with astronomy and cosmology, and really believe it all, I might ultimately be able to make out the landscape of the universe.  Why not?

Dillard is constantly looking behind names, trying to understand the intricacies of meaning.  It's not enough to be able to say, "This is a sugar maple leaf."  Dillard wants to know its cellular makeup:  cuticle, mesophyll, epidermis, chlorophyll, stoma.  She wants to understand its greenness.  Where it fits in the story of the universe.

It is Memorial Day.  This morning, I went to see a parade and then attended a VFW service at a local cemetery.  I listened to the bands play, bagpiper pipe.  And the speakers talk of sacrifice and freedom.  A pastor got up and spoke about the honor of giving up your life for the sake of another.  I always find these proceedings really moving.  They reinforce the real meaning of this American holiday.  It's not about a three-day weekend and grilling hotdogs and bratwurst.  It's about what's behind all that:  men and women who have given up their freedom for my freedom.  That's Memorial Day's cellular makeup.

I tend to shy away from people who are rabidly patriotic.  Everything done in the name of patriotism is not always a good thing.  Crackpots and fanatics are able to twist the ideas of freedom and democracy to serve any cause, from xenophobia to homophobia.  However, there are just causes, reasons to be patriotic.  The defeat of Adolf Hitler--a just cause, a reason to be gratefully patriotic.  The emancipation of slaves and preservation of the union--another just cause and reason to be patriotic.

I am not here today to argue over the morality and ethics of war.  I am here to talk about the meaning behind Memorial Day:  there were/are people who put themselves in harm's way so that I can sit here with my laptop and express my ideas freely.  So that I can attend the church I want.  Read the books I want.  Believe whatever I want.  That's what Memorial Day is all about.  Sacrifice for the ideal of freedom, no matter how messy and flawed that freedom may be.

And Saint Marty is deeply grateful to the people who have given their lives to make this experiment in freedom called the United States possible.

On behalf of a grateful nation, thank you

March 10: Christ to Come Back, God's Love Number Twenty-One, Time

"I don't know what happens when you die, but, I can tell you, whatever goes on is painful, because her face was all twisted and contorted:  it was as if she had to pay dearly to come to me, even for a few moments, as if it were a tremendous burden; as if she was violating something or breaking a law."  And then his voice changed and frightened Ives:  "Can you imagine what it was for Christ to come back for so long a period of time when He rose from the dead and went to visit His apostles?"

It's a spooky conversation.  Ramirez's wife, Carmen, has recently died, and Ramirez is filled with grief and remorse.  He's mourning all his betrayals of their marriage, tiny and big.  And then Ramirez confesses to Ives, his best friend, that Carmen's ghost has visited him.  For me, it's one of the most moving and frightening passages of the novel.  It touches upon ultimate love (Carmen for Ramirez, Christ for the world) and ultimate sacrifice.

Love and sacrifice.  That pretty much describes what Lent is all about for Christians.  It's a time to reflect upon God's love and sacrifice for us, the children of His world.  That's why people give up things like chocolate for these 47 days.  It's a way to feel, in a very small way, what sacrifice is all about.


Take tonight, for example.  I was going to make a sacrifice for my daughter.  I was supposed to be at her spring band concert right now.  My wife and I had canceled an appointment, rearranged our schedules, and gotten a babysitter.  It was all set.  Then we got the note from our daughter's band instructor about the concert.  On March 17.  I had misread the original e-mail I had received, gotten my dates mixed up.  So, now I'm sitting in my office, typing blog posts, creating lesson plans, and waiting for my daughter to get done at the dance studio.  In short, it's a normal Tuesday night for me.

Of course, I appreciate that time I have to try to catch up on a lot of work.  After I'm done with my posts, I'm going to grade some papers and put together a writing assignment for my poetry class.  That's God's love number twenty-one:  time.  Time to write, grade, plan.  Time I wouldn't have had if my daughter's band concert had been tonight.

Now, if only Saint Marty's neighbor would make a sacrifice and use his snowplow to clear the slush and snow and ice from Saint Marty's driveway.

I gave that up for Lent, too...I mean the creamed spinach...

August 20: Enlarged His Perspective, Relativity, What's Important

To counter his anxiety, [E. B. White] looked for rhythms and unity everywhere.  Now and then he peered into the cosmic paradoxes of Einstein's theories.  He enjoyed the dizzying revelations of astronomy and found that they cleared his mind and enlarged his perspective on everyday life in a visceral rather than an abstract way...

It seems odd to imagine the young future author of Charlotte's Web walking the streets of New York City, contemplating Einstein's theories.  Yet, it also seems entirely appropriate, for Charlotte's Web really is an exercise in perspective.  Wilbur's dilemma seems huge throughout the entire book.  How is Charlotte going to save her friend's life?  Yet, at the end, when Wilbur's safety has been secured, Charlotte reveals that she is about to die.  Suddenly, the book changes.  It's no longer a book about animals fooling human beings.  It becomes a book about deep, abiding friendship and sacrifice.

Yes, enlarging your perspective is important.  A few nights ago, I was discussing my penchant for petty jealousy.  I have a friend who is an incredibly successful writer.  "Tina" has published books and has a full-time tenured job at a university.  She's won writing awards.  She's been reviewed in The New York Times Book Review.  Everyone knows she's amazing.  I love Tina.  And I hate her.

After several minutes of listening to me complain, my wife said, "Let me ask you something.  Would you trade our kids for what Tina has?"  Her point was pretty clear.  Tina has made sacrifices in her life.  Having children being one of them.  She has a wonderful spouse and has tried to start a family, but, sadly, her pregnancies have ended in miscarriages.

Perhaps Tina thinks about me at night sometimes,  Maybe she would trade all of her professional success for what I have:  two smart, beautiful kids.

You see, most human beings are never satisfied with what they have.  They do not see the bigger picture.  I think having a successful writing career and a university job would make me happy.  Tina would trade all of her books for the chance to be a parent.  It's all a matter of perspective.

My wife ended our conversation with this question:  "Did it ever occur to you that you are exactly where God wants you to be, doing what you are supposed to do?"

Saint Marty has to think about that one.

It's all a matter of pear-spective

January 2: Fern Loved Wilbur, Kids, Sacrifice

Fern loved Wilbur more than anything.  She loved to stroke him, to feed him, to put him to bed.  Every morning, as soon as she got up, she warmed his milk, tied his bib on, and held the bottle for him.  Every afternoon, when the school bus stopped in front of her house, she jumped out and ran to the kitchen to fix another bottle for him.  She fed him again at suppertime, and again just before going to bed...

The one thing I remembered about Charlotte's Web before I started rereading it yesterday is that it's about unconditional love.  Fern loves Wilbur.  In the first chapter of the book Fern saves him from being euthanized by her father.  Wilbur, the runt of the litter, won't survive without Fern's ministrations.  He's weak and can't compete with his siblings for food and warmth.  Fern has to nurse Wilbur to health and strength.

E. B. White's book has a great deal to say about the nature of friendship and love.  Above all, love is about sacrifice.  In Charlotte's case, it's about ultimate sacrifice.  Charlotte devotes her entire life to her best friend, Wilbur.  In a lot of ways, it's very Christian in its narrative arc.  Birth.  Life.  Sacrifice.  Death.  Rebirth.

I understand the kind of devotion Fern and Charlotte exhibit.  For most people, having kids is a game changer.  Sacrifice is a daily exercise for mothers and fathers.  I don't get up at 4 a.m. every day and work 12 or 13 hours because I enjoy sleep deprivation and exhaustion.  I do it because I need to support my family.  I do it because it's my duty.  I do it because of love.

This morning, my son climbed into bed with me at around 8 a.m.  I thought he was going to start talking until I threw off the covers and got up.  Instead, he burrowed under the quilt, kissed me on the lips, and promptly fell back asleep.  For two full hours, I held his little hand and listened to his deep breaths.  I swear I could hear the blood rushing in his veins.  It was the best part of my day.

Sometimes, being a father is hard.  Punishments.  Doctor's offices.  School guidance counselors.  Head lice.  Sometimes, being a father is easy.  Holding your child while he sleeps.  Feeling your heart unfolding like some rare tropical flower, petal upon petal.

And that's a piece of Saint Marty's mind and soul.

Head lice, anyone?

December 18: Melancholy Dinner, Sacrifice, Saint John of Kanty

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s book, went home to bed…

Scrooge is not generous with anybody, including himself.  By all indications, he is very wealthy, but he won’t even buy himself a decent dinner.  I don’t know what a “melancholy dinner” consists of, but I’m sure it’s not turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, and pecan pie.  I’m thinking the movie adaptations of A Christmas Carol pretty much get it right:  a bowl of gruel and a crust of bread.  I would be pretty melancholy if I had to eat that meal.

Scrooge doesn’t live this way because he’s pious or holy.  He’s not donating food to the poor or going home to pray and fast.  He’s just a stingy bastard with all humankind.  Of course, his lifestyle changes at the end of the novel.  He’s throwing his money at beggars by the time Christmas morning dawns.  I’ve always had this dream of meeting Scrooge on the street on December 25, him walking up to me, shaking my hand, and slipping a bag of gold coins into my jacket pocket.

That’s one thing all good and saintly people have in common:  a complete lack of materialism.  They give away everything they own, including the cloaks off their backs and sandals on their feet.  That’s pretty much the way I imagine Scrooge living the rest of his life.  Saint John of Kanty, whose feast day is December 23, pretty much fits this mold of holiness, as well.

John was born in Kanty, Poland, in the year 1403.  Of course, as a boy, he exhibited the normal, annoying traits of all saints-in-the-making.  Raised by “virtuous” parents, John became a professor at the University of Krakow, where he taught his students science and tried to “instill into their hearts the sentiments of piety with which he was himself animated.”  Then he was ordained.  OK, so he had a full-time job at the college (probably tenure-track), and he was a priest.  

That wasn’t enough.  He was devoted to sacrifice.  He travelled to Jerusalem to preach “Jesus Crucified” to the Turks.  (I think John had a little bit of a death wish.)  Then he walked to Rome four times.  That’s right.  He walked.  He barely slept or ate, and he abstained from meat for the last 30 years of his life.  Then, after giving away everything in his house to the poor, he died in 1473.

When it comes to sacrifice, John of Kanty pretty much has almost all of us non-saint type people beat.  I live frugally, with many melancholy dinners, like Scrooge, but it’s not a matter of choice.  If I could eat lobster and prime rib every night, I would.  For a little while, anyway.  Then I would switch to risotto and shrimp.  

I like to eat.  And I like things.  Too much.  I am a product of my materialistic society.  I don’t beguile my evenings with my banker’s book.  That would be too depressing.  But I do like to dream of a better life.  A life without past-due bills and debt.  A life without financial dread.  Maybe a life with a trip to Disney World every couple of years.

Saint Marty isn’t a very good saint when it comes to sacrifice.

Me having dinner last night

March 28: Palm Sunday, Saint Proterius

I always find Holy Week draining. This could be due to the fact that I'm an organist and musician at a Catholic church and a Methodist church; head of the Worship Team at the Methodist church; Sunday school teacher; choir director; choir member; and, this year, because of an insane compulsion to volunteer, director of a children's Easter Sunrise Service musical, which is scheduled for 7 a.m. Sunday morning. Between Palm Sunday and Easter, I have a total of eight services, masses, practices, and rehearsals to be at. To add to the fun, this morning my sister-in-law e-mailed to let me know that she's having a birthday barbecue on Holy Saturday afternoon for her stepson. I can tell you that when I read that message, the little vein that's been pulsing prominently in my temple the past few weeks nearly sprang a leak.

However, my level of involvement is not the main reason I can barely peel a purple egg on Easter. I find the liturgies and services themselves emotionally taxing, starting with Saturday night's vigil mass for Palm Sunday. At a Catholic celebration for Palm Sunday, the entire passion narrative is read dramatically, involving several actors and the priest, who always gets the part of Jesus despite having the tone and inflection of Roseanne Barr at a baseball game. It ain't Broadway. It ain't even off-off-off-off-off-off Broadway, which is, I believe, somewhere near Pittsburgh.

There are always moments of unintended humor during this reading. My favorite is when the congregation, playing the part of the angry mob before Pilate, drones "crucify him" with the energy and enthusiasm of heavily medicated insomniacs. It takes a good 15 or 20 minutes for the entire story, from Jesus on the donkey to Jesus in the tomb. If I were directing the production (watch me turn into C. B. Demille), I'd hold open auditions and find parishioners who had some acting chops. I'm not looking for Streep or Deniro, but when you're portraying a person who's bleeding to deathon a cross, I expect to hear a little discomfort, maybe even some pain. However, the idea of me saying to my parish priest "Can you try that again, with more feeling?" makes me a little uncomfortable, the way going to confession or eating tuna does. Besides, I know how volunteering at churches goes. If I said I'd like to direct the reading of the passion, I'd be king of Palm Sunday, minus the jackass, from now until death. So, I keep my mouth shut and suffer, which I count as part of my Easter penance.

It's not all bad acting, though. There is always a point during a Palm Sunday passion that gives me pause, every time it happens. Near the end of the reading, the narrator says, "Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.'" Then the narrator, depending on the translation of the gospel being used, says something like, "Jesus took his last breath and died."

At that moment, everyone in the church falls silent and kneels. The pause usually lasts around 30 seconds. Those 30 seconds, for me, are worth the price of admission. It's always solemn. It's always reverent. And it always fills me with a deep melancholy and gratitude.

Now, I'm not going to get all Billy Graham on you, but, to me, that moment where we concentrate on such sacrifice is loaded with meaning. During those moments, I think of sacrifices people have made for me: my father working from sun-up to sun-down to feed and clothe and house nine kids; my older sister buying me a new car when I graduated from college and moved downstate; my pastor friend holding my sobbing self for two hours the night my wife told me she was leaving; my daughter letting me crawl into bed with her night after night when my wife moved out, somehow sensing in her five-year-old head that I needed her nearness to anchor me. I think of my son's one-year-old fingers curled around my thumb in the darkness of his crib, trusting me to warm his home; fill his belly; protect his tiny, peach life from bruises and wounds. So much of what we do, or should do, every day of our lives is about sacrifice.

The saint for Palm Sunday knew about sacrifice. Proterius, a 5th century bishop, became Patriarch of Alexandria in 451 during a time of great religious upheaval. He stuck to his guns, of course, in the face of rioting mobs who wanted him to renounce his beliefs and doctrines. Eventually, he fled to a church for safety in 454. Proterius was stabbed to death inside that church. Sacrifice.

I know I am who I am today because of the sacrifices people have made for me. It's humbling to think that the sacrifices I make, or don't make, for my daughter and son will mold them into the woman and man they will eventually become. That's why Holy Week drains my energy so much. It's not the music or choir practices or worship services or masses. It's not the candles and incense and holy water. It's not the baptisms and first communions and confirmations. It's about sacrifices that shape our lives, make us who we are.

It's about 30 seconds of silence.