April 3: Being a Humanist, Addiction, Judgement and Finger-Pointing

So, I forgot my copy of Slaughterhouse at home.  It has not been a good day.  Anyhow, I decided to focus on one of my favorite Vonnegut quotes, about being a Humanist.  I think there's a lot of merit to what he says.

Most of today, I've been trying to process a cruel act that I witnessed yesterday.  Again, I'm not going to get into details.  I've gone over and over it myself, trying to understand.  I can't.  It didn't accomplish anything.  It simply created stress, hard feelings, and anger.  In my mind, there is simply no justification for what happened.

Now, I know this is probably driving all my readers crazy.  I wish that I could spell out the details, but I can't.  It wouldn't be kind or decent of me, and that's what I always try to be.  I don't always accomplish this goal, but I try.

I will say that addiction is a terrible thing that very few people (outside of addicts) understand.  It's selfish and crafty and shameful.  Nothing can change an addict's mind when s/he is in the throes of addiction.  The choice to break the addiction can't come from any outside source.  It has to come from the addict.

That probably confused this post even more.  So, I am just going to end this little reflection by encouraging everybody who reads this to simply be kind.  Behave decently.  Treat people the way you want to be treated.  It's all about compassion and empathy, not judgement and finger-pointing.

Tonight, Saint Marty is thankful not for the perfect people in his life, but for the decent people.  They make better friends and family.

April 2: People Who Hurt, Brood of Vipers, Classic Saint Marty

Several years ago, during Lent, I made a commitment to pray for people who had hurt me in some way.  It was really difficult.  It made me physically ill for the first few weeks that I did it.  It brought up all kinds of bad feelings, old angers. By the end of that Lent, I had forgiven a lot of people, but I was still harboring a lot of grudges.  Forgiveness is hard.

Today, a person did something insanely mean to somebody I love.  I'm still in a state of disbelief.  I can't go into much detail.  But I do have to say that I can't stand self-righteousness.  Someone who sits in judgement.  I certainly know that Jesus Christ didn't like self-righteous people either.  I believe he called them "a brood of vipers."

So, Saint Marty is angry tonight.  Not feeling very thankful at all.  Sorry.

Seven years ago, this episode of Classic Saint Marty appeared.  It was all about forgiveness.  Go figure.

April 2, 2010:  Saint John Payne

First off, my apologies to any reader who tried to access my blog during the last couple of days. I discovered there was a problem yesterday morning and had the good people at blog.com working on it all day. In fact, even as I'm writing this post in my journal, I'm not sure I'll even have a forum on which to share it. My fear is that my entire blog has somehow been deleted, which I would attribute to a satanic cult or the Tea Party (I can't tell the difference between the two). But I am going to finish writing this entry in good faith that blog.com will quickly exorcise whatever demon (Sarah Palin-inspired or not) has taken control of my computer.

Second, I am going to move backward in time because I want to finish discussing Easter weekend. I feel like I somehow dropped the ball by not writing about Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday yet. That's sort of like playing for the Yankees and missing the first three games of the World Series. (You have now heard the extent of my sports analogy skills, so you better bookmark this page.) Hence, hop into the Wayne's World time machine with me, start waving your fingers in front of your face, and repeat after me: Do-do-do-doooo, do-do-do-dooo, do-do-do-dooo.

I took the day off work on Good Friday. I had two church services to attend, grocery and candy shopping to do, and banking to complete. One church service fell smack dab in the middle of the day--noon (that was the Catholic one). The second service took place at 7 p.m. (that was ecumenical, involving four or five different churches). As I said in my post about Palm Sunday, I find the services of Holy Week emotionally draining, especially the ones on Good Friday.

I don't know why I always find myself so invested in the passion narratives every Easter. This year, with my 40-day crash course in forgiveness, I was overwhelmed when I listened to Christ's words on the cross, begging forgiveness for his killers. That made little, petty me feel like a puppy that had just taken a dump on Jesus' carpet. He was rubbing my nose in it. Basically, the entire week, I couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting some reminder of the necessity of forgiveness. It got so bad that I felt like throwing up my hands and yelling, "Enough already. I get it. Grudges bad. Forgiveness good."

I wished I could claim to be different because of my 40 days of prayer. I wished I could be like Saint John Payne, the English priest who was martyred in 1582. A convert, John was eventually arrested and thrown in the Tower of London. He was tortured for nine months before being hanged and drawn and quartered. If you don't know what that means: he was dragged to his place of execution by a horse--drawn; strung up for a short while by his neck--hanged; and then beheaded and sliced into four pieces--quartered. John Payne suffered horribly for his beliefs, but he never abandoned them. He held onto his faith in love and forgiveness. He understood what Good Friday was all about.

I, on the other hand, was struggling. I was still praying for my list of the unforgiven. The list, I'm happy to report, had shrunk to about four or five offenders. Considering that I started with a football stadium full of assholes, dicks, bitches, and bastards, this was a vast improvement. I don't recall when I started releasing my anger, but one day about a week before Good Friday, I found myself praying for the same two people, over and over. I can't really pat myself on the back for this fact, however, because I still harbored enough anger toward these individuals to make up for all the other bad juju I'd already released during Lent. In fact, I would say I didn't let go of anything. I simply transferred it to these two persons who've hurt me so much that the very thought of forgiving them seems akin to petitioning the state of Israel to declare Adolf Eichmann's birthday a national holiday.

By this comparison, you can probably tell that I wasn't going to forgive these remaining people very easily. As Dana Carvey, doing George Bush Sr., would say, "Not gonna happen. Wouldn't be prudent." I could tell myself that I would make that leap of love by Easter, but I would have been lying to myself. It would be sort of like expecting a one-pound, solid Godiva bunny in your basket and getting a two-dollar, hollow Palmer bunny. When you bite the head of the Palmer rabbit, it crumbles to pieces and leaves a shitty taste in your mouth.



I knew I was headed for a Palmer Easter.

April 1: Wonder Twin, Mark Strand, "The Remains"

I have been lucky for almost twenty years.  I have had a job that has allowed me to work with one of my best friends.  For long-time readers of this blog, I have called her Wonder Twin in the past.  She and I are so alike, it feels as if we were separated at birth.

Well, at the end of this coming week, Wonder Twin will be cleaning out her locker at work and saying goodbye.  She has taken another job, and I will no longer be seeing her on a daily basis.  I have been having a very hard time with this reality.  In fact, I don't know exactly how I'm going to deal with it.

It's not like I'm never going to see Wonder Twin again, but our times together will be much more limited.  Possibly just once a month.  That makes me very sad.  It's almost as if I have to empty out a certain part of my past.  Take that shoe box out, sort through its contents, and, piece-by-piece, say "goodbye."

Saint Marty is thankful that Wonder Twin has been in his life, helping him through some really shitty times.

The Remains

by:  Mark Strand

I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.

What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.

My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds. How can I sing?
Time tells me what I am. I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.

April 1: Wild Bob, Lazarus, Appreciating Loss

There were pictures of castles and lakes and pretty girls on the walls.  This was the rolling home of the railroad guards, men whose business it was to be forever guarding freight rolling from here to there.  The four guards went inside and closed the door.

A little while later they came out smoking cigars, talking contentedly in the mellow lower register of the German language.  One of them saw Billy's face at the ventilator.  He wagged a finger at him in affectionate warning, telling him to be a good boy.

The Americans across the way told the guards again about the dead man on their car.  The guards got a stretcher out of their own cozy car, opened the dead man's car and went inside.  The dead man's car wasn't crowded at all.  There were just six live colonels in there--and one dead one.

The Germans carried the corpse out.  The corpse was Wild Bob.  So it goes.

Vonnegut treats death very matter-of-factly in Slaughterhouse.  A lot of people die.  Billy's wife dies.  Wild Bob dies.  Later in the book, Dresden is firebombed.  Lots of people shuffle off this mortal coil in the book.  And Vonnegut's response is simple:  So it goes.  Death happens.

I went to church tonight.  The Gospel reading was the story of Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life.  Of course, this passage contains the shortest sentence in the Bible:  "Jesus wept."  I always find that line really moving.  Jesus, the Son of God, who has the power to bring His friend back to life, reacts in a very human way to the death of Lazarus.  He cries.  Allows Himself to be overcome with grief.

I find great comfort in Jesus' tears.  In becoming flesh and blood, Jesus understands loss.  When my sister died, I read the story of Lazarus quite a few times.  I almost chose it as a reading for her funeral.  Eventually, I decided against it.  I don't know why.  I think it was because it was too personal to me.  Every time I reread the story of Lazarus in the days following my sister's death, I would burst into tears when I came to "Jesus wept."  I didn't want to share that response in public.  Not then.

Now, approaching the two year anniversary of my sister's death, I'm still moved by Jesus weeping at Lazarus' tomb, but it's not quite so . . . present.  I'm able to control my emotions better.  I am not Kurt Vonnegut or Billy Pilgrim.  I can't just say "So it goes" and move on with my narrative.  However, I understand the beauty of a life well-lived.  I can be grateful for loss because it makes me appreciate my friends and family members even more.

Saint Marty is thankful for everyone in his life, even the people who drive him a little crazy.