August 13: "Silence," Complete Silence, Poetry Reading

I generally don't do well with silence.  In the car, I usually have a podcast or audiobook playing.  In my office, I play music or read things aloud or have lengthy conversations with coworkers, musicians, writers, and presenters.  At home, the sound of the TV is a constant presence, like the smell of ham on Christmas morning.  At night, I listen to my son swearing at his gaming friends in his attic room as I drift into slumber.

I know what you're thinking:  don't you need silence when you try to write a poem or essay or story?  The simple answer to that question is "yes."  The more complete answer to that question is that there's no such thing as complete silence in my life.  If I'm typing a blog post, there's the tap-tap-tap of my fingers on the keyboard.  If I'm working on a poem, there's the scratch of the pen nib on paper and (sometimes) me quietly reading lines to an invisible audience, testing the poetic waters, if you will.

Every once in a while, I do need to remove myself from the loudness of life.  This past summer, I had no classes to teach at the university, and I had PTO I needed to use or lose at the library.  So, I've had a lot of time to enjoy a less noisy existence.  

Billy Collins meditates on . . . 

Silence

by: Billy Collins

There is the sudden silence of the crowd

above a motionless player on the field,

and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase

before it strikes the floor,

the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,

the silence of the moon

and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,

the silence of the window above us,

and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning

which I have broken with my pen,

a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house--

the silence before I wrote a word

and the poorer silence now.

Poets need silence in order to create the noise of poetry.  That's right, I said noise.  Poetry is an oral art form.  In order to fully engage in a poem, you must read it aloud.  Feel it on your tongue, in your ears.  Until you do that, you haven't truly experienced poetry.

Tonight, I traveled to a nearby town to participate in a reading at a local bookstore.  From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., I listened to poetry and music by some of my closest friends.  The place was crowded, but not with literary fans.  Everyone was stopping by the store to pick up some hand-dipped ice cream, and they lingered to listen to a few songs and poems while they were eating.  I sold a couple books and read a few poems.

I just got back home a little while ago.  I'm beat.  Tomorrow, I perform again at another venue.  

In the meantime, Saint Marty is going to enjoy a little silence right now.  Or he might watch a movie.

April 16: "4'33" by John Cage," Silence, "Pin Drop"

Billy Collins indulges in some quiet jazz . . .

4'33" by John Cage

by:  Billy Collins

As I listened,

the scales

fell from my eyes.

If you're not familiar with 4'33" by John Cage, this poem simply won't work for you.  Watch a video, and you will see someone sitting at a piano for four minutes and thirty-three seconds playing . . . absolutely nothing.  There's music sitting in front of the performer, and, every once in a while, the pianist may turn the page or lift a hand to the keyboard, but no sound is made.  Not a note.

If you've ever sat in forced silence, you know it isn't easy.  There's a human impulse to fill moments of prolonged nothing.  Almost five minutes of noiselessness is tantamount to waterboarding for some individuals.

Quiet doesn't bother me, but I'm a poet.  I need absence (of sound and people and distraction) to get words down on paper.

So, John Cage is right up Saint Marty's alley.

Pin Drop

by:  Martin Achatz

If you can

hear a pin drop,

pick up the bastard

before I step on it.

November 23: Seven and a Half Million Years, 365 Days, Silence

"All I wanted to say," bellowed the computer, "is that my circuits are now irrevocably committed to calculating the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything."  He paused and satisfied himself that he now had everyone's attention, before continuing more quietly.  "But the program will take ma little while to run."

Fook glanced impatiently at his watch.

"How long?" he said.

"Seven and a half million years," said Deep Thought.

Yes, Deep Thought, the greatest supercomputer ever made, has the power to answer the Ultimate Question, but he's going to do it in his own time, not anyone else's.  That time is seven and a half million years.  And then, Deep Thought goes silent for a very long time.

Humans have a hard time with supercomputers and Supreme Beings going silent.

This morning, as I sit in a crowded McDonald's typing this post, I am staring out the window at a spine of high land studded with leafless trees and scrappy evergreens.  Feeling a little melancholy at the moment, thinking of all the changes that have occurred in my life this year.  Most of those changes not of my own choosing.

Recently, I have said that I can't wait for this year to end.  These 365 days have been filled with upheaval.  Me, having to redefine myself and my life.  I'm not sure things will be much better in 2020.  In fact, I'm pretty sure there's a whole lot more change coming my way.  Jobs.  Family.  Loves.  That fills me with quite a bit of anxiety.

Of course, I know that there are no guarantees for the future.  Believe me, I know that.  What I am doing right now is thinking months and years ahead, using current trajectories to predict where my life is headed.  That's a pretty dangerous thing to do.  It doesn't allow for grace or God to step in and lend a hand.  For a while now, I haven't felt a whole lot of God's presence in my life.

Of course, I'm not alone in this.  Saint John of the Cross wrote, "Silence is God's first language."  Mother Teresa, for most of her life, lived in God's silence.  She said, "In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss--of God not wanting me--of God not being God--of God not really existing."  And Saint Therese of Lisieux commented, "God hides, is wrapped in darkness."  I guess I'm in pretty good company.  To hope for some kind of immunity from these periods of darkness would be unnatural, I suppose.  Would be me asking not to be human.

The trick is to avoid despair when God answers with silence.  That's the difference between saints and people like me (and maybe you).  Saints embrace that silence and remember that God is still right there, holding them up when they stumble and fall and get up and fall again.  I try to remind myself of this fact.  Daily.  Sometimes hourly.  It may seem kind of cliche, but, like all cliches, there's truth in it.  That's why cliches get repeated and used so much.  They cut to the heart of human experience.

So, here I sit, a living cliche.  Living through a dark night of the soul.  Struggling to find God in a hill laced with winter trees.  Feeling the sun on my face.  Maybe God is talking to me right now, and I'm just not listening in the right way.  That happens, too.  A lot.  I'm looking for one answer, and God is sending me another.  An answer I really don't like.  So, my head/heart/soul chooses to ignore it.

I'm not sure which is better.  Living in that ignorance or in God's silence.  Neither option is easy or comforting.  I'm fighting God with one.  God and I aren't speaking with the other.  I'm God's teenager, not getting my way, rolling my eyes, pouting, texting my friends about how unfair God is being.

If you want to find Saint Marty today, I'll be in my bedroom, lying on my bed, lights off, listening to Simon and Garfunkel songs.  Knock before entering.

November 22: Montana Wildhack, Thanksgiving Eve, Meltdown

Another clerk came up to Billy and asked him if he was going to buy the book or not, and Billy said that he wanted to buy it, please.  He had his back to a rack of paperback books about oral-genital contacts from ancient Egypt to the present and so on, and the clerk supposed Billy was reading one of these.  So he was startled when he saw what Billy's book was.  He said, "Jesus Christ, where did you find this thing?" and so on, and he had to tell the other clerks about the pervert who wanted to buy the window dressing.  The other clerks already knew about Billy.  They had been watching him, too.

The cash register where Billy waited for his change was near a bin of old girly magazines.  Billy looked at one out of the corner of his eye, and he saw this question on its cover.  What really became of Montana Wildhack?

Billy's strange life has brought him to this point, standing in a dirty bookstore in New York City, trying to buy a Kilgore Trout novel about Jesus Christ, reading about the porn star he's mated with on Tralfamadore on the cover of a girly magazine.  Again, Billy's life seems to be a series of circles that keep intersecting, or Russian nesting dolls, one experience swallowed and mirrored by the next.

Welcome to Thanksgiving Eve.  I am currently sitting at home, alone.  Earlier this evening, I underwent a little meltdown of sorts.  It had to do with my family and Thanksgiving and my crazy, bifurcated life.  Like Billy, I am sort of bombarded at times with different versions of myself--husband, son, sibling, father, teacher, poet, friend.  Each one of these selves compete for my attention at times.  Tonight, it became a little too much.  I simply packed up my book bag and computer, said to my wife, "I need to be alone," and came home to my empty house.

For a while, I just sat on the floor in the dark kitchen, trying to calm my racing mind.  Too many things to think about at once.  My 90-year-old father is in the hospital with pneumonia.  The social worker is attempting to find a bed for him at a local nursing home.  He won't be coming home again.  He's too fragile, and his Alzheimer's has progressed fairly quickly.

So there's that.

My brother has been down in a hospital in Grand Rapids for evaluation of his heart this week.  The news wasn't great.  His heart is working at about 25% capacity.  The doctors wanted to implant an assistive device, but my brother refused.  Instead, he now has an external defibrillator.  He and my sister are coming home on Friday.

So there's that.

And I have papers to grade, a Christmas essay to write, some poetry readings to plan, and Christmas music to learn.  In about a week, I have five or six days of insanity--my daughter's birthday parties, a benefit reading for a local Canathon, a poetry workshop, and teaching.

So there's that.

All of these different parts of my life sort of battling for attention, like little kids.  I felt my brain shutting down earlier, and I had to get away.

Saint Marty is thankful tonight.  He's not sure what he's thankful for, but he's thankful.  Maybe for an empty house.  A warm blanket.  Peanut butter and a banana.  And silence.

March 20: Quiet Meditations, Madison, God's Love Numbers Thirty and Thirty-One, Fairy Tale Trip

There [Ives] sat, and as was his habit of old he began his quiet meditations.  Above the altar in that church, was a statue of Christ, set back in a kind of nook, and on either side of Him, representations of the Holy Mother and Saint John the Baptist, with their expressions of divine knowledge.  Looking at the altar he remembered another of his childhood thoughts:  in the same way that the baby Jesus, the promise of the world, lay resting in His crib, adored by the magi and the shepherds and basking in the warmth of angelic and familial love, so did the man Jesus, down from the Cross and awaiting His final resurrection, lay resting inside the altar, beneath the chrismoned cloth.  He laughed, remembering how the slightest breeze from the church's opened doors, rustling the altar's cloth, had made Ives' little heart jump:  at any moment, Jesus would be coming out of His resting place and the world would be filled with miracles.  He would be dressed in great flowing white robes, a beautiful light filling the church.

Ives feels at home in church.  At the end of his life, he sits in a pew and remembers his childhood, how he would imagine Jesus descending from the altar and walking down the church's center aisle, like a daVinci painting come to life.  And the world would be full of miracles.

Greetings from Madison, Wisconsin.  I have traveled here with my family for a dance competition in which my daughter is participating.  Last year, at this same competition, my daughter placed in the top ten of her category.  She doesn't dance until Sunday evening this time, so we have almost two full days to relax, shop, swim, and eat.  Maybe even go to a movie.

It feels good to be out of the Upper Peninsula for a little while.  While I feel most at home there, I also needed a break.  Both school and work have been quite stressful recently.  Lots of upheaval and change.  I don't really deal well with upheaval and change.  I like constancy.  I think that's why Ives feels so at home in church.  His son is murdered.  His life falls apart.  Yet, stepping into church, Ives knows what to expect.  Knows what prayers are going to be said.  Knows when he needs to stand and kneel.  It's the one constant in his life.

There are very few constants in my life at the moment.  I sort of cling to a few things.  This blog.  It has been a part of my daily existence for five years now.  Almost 2,400 posts.  That has kept me sane through a lot of challenging times.  That's God's love number thirty.

My son is driving my daughter crazy.  He's loud and over-tired.  Tomorrow morning, he will probably get up too early and annoy her even more.  My daughter refuses to go to sleep because "it's the only night I can stay up as late as I want."  She has been very hormonal and cranky this evening.  My wife is getting annoyed with me and my typing because it's late, and she wants to go to sleep.  I'm getting annoyed with everybody because I want silence, but my daughter is sighing and my wife has decided to eat M&Ms.  So it's a symphony:  sigh-crunch-crunch-sigh-rattle-rattle-crunch-crunch-crunch.

God's love number thirty-one:  my son has finally gone to sleep.  There is a tenuous silence.  My daughter has settled down with the iPad, and my wife has finished her midnight snack.  The noise level has decreased by several decibels.  Finally, the room has settled into a state of calm.  Sort of.

Once upon a time, there was a man who took his family on a trip.  The man's son got on the man's daughter's nerves.  The son kept asking, "Can we go swimming now?"  The daughter kept saying, "Shut up."  The man's wife got on his nerves.  She chewed M&Ms all night long.  By the time they settled down for the night, they all wanted to kill each other.

But they didn't.  Because they were all too tired.  So the daughter promised to drown her brother in the pool the next day.  The brother promised to kick his sister in the throat if she tried to drown him.  The man promised to smother his wife with a pillow if she didn't stop stop eating, and his wife promised to strangle him with a a shoelace.

And they all went to bed.

Moral of the story:  pack alcohol when you go on a family trip.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Where did I pack the gin?

October 16: A Lamb, Bullying, Stephen King's "Carrie"

"You smell just the way you are," remarked a lamb who had just walked in.  "I can smell you from here.  You're the smelliest creature in the place."

Creatures of the sheep persuasion are not very nice in Charlotte's Web.  In fact, they tend to be bullies.  It's the sheep that tells Wilbur about the Christmas conspiracy of turning him into smoked bacon and ham.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree with the lamb, either.  For some reason, because they provide Zuckerman with wool, all the sheep tend to be a little...elitist, for lack of a better word.  They think they're above all the other animals in the barn.

I've been thinking a lot about bullying recently.  Earlier this week, I saw a PBS documentary on the subject.  I just browsed the news on Google, and there was a story of a twelve-year-old girl who committed suicide because classmates posted comments like this online:  "Why don't you drink bleach and die."  And, of course, there's the whole issue of my six-year-old son punching kids on the school playground during recess.

It doesn't help that I'm also rereading Stephen King's Carrie at the moment.  It's the ultimate bully revenge tale.  Carrie White going on a telekinetic killing spree after being pushed over the edge by a group of "popular" girls.  There's something very satisfying about Carrie's actions.  I'm not saying I agree with the mass extermination of all school bullies, but, in the context of King's novel, I root for Carrie, even as she is transformed into a blood-covered nightmare.

I don't want my son to be a bully.  Every time he gets in trouble at school for punching or scratching a classmate on the playground, I tell him, "You know, one of these days, you're going to punch the wrong person, and that person is going to punch back.  Hard."  I'd like to add, "And you better hope that person can't lift and throw Volkswagens with his mind."  But I haven't played that card yet.

I've known a few Carries in my lifetime.  People who skulk around the fringe of life, hoping not to draw attention to themselves.  They're quiet.  Sometimes bookish.  Always, they look as though they're ready to flinch or duck.  That's the result of getting hit by too many dodgeballs in gym class.  Carries simply want to blend in.

Stephen King published Carrie in the early 1970s.  It is now 2014.  Forty-four years later, the book is still relevant because there are still Carries and bullies.  Our world is a broken place.  A place where terrible things happen sometimes.  School shootings.  Suicide bombings.  Cruelty is as common as brown eyes.

I've made mistakes in my life.  Participated in bullying through silence.  It's easy to do.  Just turn your back and pretend that Carrie isn't covered in pig's blood, and that love and compassion are stronger than dodgeballs. Basically, lie to yourself.  Dodgeballs hurt.  Always.

So tonight, Saint Marty hopes everybody who reads this post will speak up for all the Carries out there.  Be part of the solution, people.

Don't be part of the problem

April 27: Bad Mood, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

For various reasons, I'm in a really bad mood this afternoon.  Little things that usually don't bother me are like fingernails on a chalkboard today.  I'm talking little things.  The way people chew food.  Commercials on TV.  The sound of my wife drinking water.

It doesn't help that I'm incredibly tired and have tons of grading to finish.  I'm cranky, so I'm trying to keep my mouth shut.  If I say anything, I will hurt somebody's feelings.  Silence is a better choice.  Silence and work.

Today's Classic Saint Marty comes from the year of A Christmas Carol.  It first aired in 2012.

April 24, 2012:  Poor Excuse, Carrying the World, Free Goose
 
"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge.

"If quite convenient, Sir."

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair.  If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"

The clerk smiled faintly.

"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."

The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning his great-coat to the chin.  "But, I suppose you must have the whole day.  Be here all the earlier next morning!"

This passage is one of the most famous in A Christmas Carol.  It encapsulates Scrooge's incredible ego and greed.  Scrooge literally takes Christmas as a personal affront to himself and his bank account.  If you really want to boil Scrooge's issues down to their core, they all hinge on the fact that he is an incredibly self-centered man.  Christmas takes away money from Scrooge.  Therefore, Christmas is some kind of left-wing conspiracy to bleed him dry.

As a worship leader at church and as a college professor, I deal with a lot of people like Scrooge.  People who seem to think their problems and their lives are of utmost importance to everyone.  They carry the world on their shoulders.  Over the last day or so, I've been navigating a Scrooge situation.  Like Bob Cratchit, I have learned to keep my mouth shut and let the Scrooge in my life vent his particular brand of venom.  It's easier that way.  I have learned that you can't win an argument with a Scrooge.  Scrooges know best.  Always.

That doesn't mean that I agree with my Scrooge.  That means that I'm not going to battle my Scrooge.  I will do things the way I think they should done, no matter what.  I just choose to ignore my Scrooge's rant, the way Bob does in the above passage.  Bob gets to take Christmas day off, and Scrooge gets to browbeat his clerk.  Everybody's happy.

Don't get me wrong.  I can be a Scrooge, wrapping myself up in my own little counting house.  Most human beings have their Scrooge moments.  It's what you do after the Scrooge moment that counts.  I choose to look beyond the narrow limits of my money-changing hole.  I choose to walk along the crowded paths of life, embracing all human sympathy.

Be kind to the Scrooge in your life.  Listen to him.  Let him crab.  Let him bitch.  Let him browbeat you a little.  Be Bob Cratchit.  Show your Scrooge kindness and understanding.  In the end, you may end up with a free goose dinner.

That's what Saint Marty's hoping for.

It's free!

 Confessions of Saint Marty
 

March 11: Silence, Psalm 3, and Tsunami

I do not have a lot of time for introductions to my poem tonight.  It's been a really busy day, afternoon, and evening.  I'm currently working on my sister's laptop, typing this blog.  I'm going to get right to it.  But please, take some time this evening to think about and pray for the people of Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami.  Without further ado, here is my poem.

Psalm 3:  In Praise of Silence

Praise the Lord for the silence of dusk
As it shifts the air from winter sun
To winter moon, the melt of snow
To something hard as onyx or bone.
Praise the ring of eardrum in quiet.
It vibrates, hums with the memory
Of the day, news of tsunami in Japan,
The lives of thousands swept away
Like crumbs from Friday dinner
Of lentils, crackers, apple juice,
The tablecloth taken outside, shaken,
The way my grandmother taught me,
For lost souls who roam the night,
Tap on black window glass, hungry
For light, warmth, or prayer.
Praise the tide of heart in my chest,
Calm waves of blood, in, out, in, out,
Reminding me this night that I am safe.  Alive.