Zen & the Art of Writing

Oh I forget how much I miss being slathered in the sensate print, the binding and glue, instead of the olfactory-challenged Kindle e-reader. Oh do I recall that lack when I go to a bookstore, as I did yesterday, to a bookstore pregnant with the most volumes in Columbus.

The real find, the one that got the blood rushing, was Ray Bradbury's Zen and the Art of Writing. Bradbury's style always keeps me slightly off-balance even though I usually know what he's getting at. He writes about how writing eliminates the poisons that congeal in our system over the course of a day and thus we need to write.

Ever since reading about that monk who burned his baskets I've been more appreciative of writing just to write, of not having the goal of being published. It's very freeing to no longer think of writing as a "waste of time" simply because it's has no utility.

In the introduction he asks what writing teaches us:

"it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege and not a right....while our writing cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all. Second, writing is survival. Any art, any good work, of course, is that. Not to write is for many of us to die. [If you don't write] what would happen is that the world would catch up with you and try to sicken you. If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both. You must stay drunk on writing so reality can't destroy you."

"I have learned," he says, "that if I go a day without writing I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in a tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow. An hour's writing is a tonic. I'm on my feet..."

On the Hunt...

...and Buddy after:

Yesterday's Homiletic

At Mass the next day we had a substitute priest, the pastor from St. Pius, and I experienced a bit of "pastor envy". Gave homily about the rich young man who went away sad. Said that this is a depressing gospel for legalists, who find that doing the law isn't enough. It's also depressing for lovers, since Christ's look of love wasn't enough to convert the man. It's also depressing for rich people, for obvious reasons. It's depressing for those who think they've already "arrived" because Jesus asks of us "one more thing". A real bummer, he says, until the very last line: "what is impossible for man, is possible for God." He said that that's why his favorite prayer at Mass is "Lord, have mercy". Ultimately that's all we have. He said that all we have to worry about is today, and that each day Jesus asks us "just one more thing" and that that will be different for every person and that we have to focus on simply what "one more thing" Jesus is asking of us today.

The thing the rich always ask, he said, is "why me and not them? Why am I so blessed?" And indeed one rich woman went to see Mother Teresa and asked her why she was so "blessed" compared to all the poor, and Mother Teresa said she wasn't "found worthy". Again a timely reminder that the poor and the suffering are the superstars in the Kingdom.

This Just In...

...and the Nobel goes to... a sleeping President Obama!

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Jonah as Satire

We have a friendly, enthusiastic new preacher at the downtown parish. The other day he talked about one of his favorite books in the Bible, the Book of Jonah, and how it could be read two ways: one as the literal truth, in which case the message is that some prophets are reluctant and that all are capable of repentance. But he sees it as a satire, written to poke at the Chosen People for being given so much and yet griping and sinning and being unrepentant. He said this is especially applicable to us as Catholics, having been given so much in terms of the Eucharist and strong and true doctrine and yet we are so often so lukewarm. He said it was likely satirical because of the over-the-top way they repented, with even their animals wearing ashes. Funny, I always liked to think of it as literal if only because it's so hopeful to see a people repent and avoid punishment enmasse. My cyncism shows when I say that that alone is what shows it's satire. But all things are possible with God and the example of the saints shows that.

Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

The petite young blond fitness center worker was curled up next to the hearth of a computer in an office just a couple yards from the running track.

"Do you have a shirt I can borrow?" I ask, since I wanted to run but had somehow forgotten to pack a t-shirt.

"Oh, we had extras but I gave them all out. You could borrow one of mine but I don't think it'd fit."

I said fit didn't matter but that idea didn't seem to have legs.

She said I likely wouldn't want to wear some of the things in the Lost & Found, and I readily agreed, imagining the advanced state of decay they'd likely be in.

So I ran around the oval track in a dress shirt and shorts, feeling slightly self-conscious. But who would know it but I felt full of running as if I'd been in running arrears. I felt lke I could run forever and it felt even better knowing that at that moment I'd given my all at work, satisfied one of my main customers and that at the same time my own 'puter was running too, running a long-running job, fighting the good fight against a mountain of data.

On the way home I cranked up the country song "Between Jennings and Jones", the clever lyrics made me want to write.

Somewhere Between Jennings & Jones

I left Montgomery on North 65
I was restless and ready to give Nashville a try
I rolled into town with a sound of my own
Somewhere between Jennings and Jones

Well, the day job I landed felt just like a jail
I couldn't seem to break out with that hammer and nails
And I spent all my nights in some old honky-tonk
Somewhere between Jennings and Jones

Hanging out in the bars with the drunks and the stars
I found a few good ole boys just like me
Started burning our candles both ends and the middle
a bunch of roaring outlaws at high speed
And they said that the end of that road I was on
was somewhere between Jennings and Jones

Well, some record executives found me on night
I was singing half-lit, they said it sounded just right (right)
They put my name on an album but shelved all my songs
Said I was somewhere between Jennings and Jones

Hanging out in the bars with the drunks and the stars
And a few good ole boys just like me
Started burning our candles both ends and the middle
a bunch of roaring outlaws at high speed
And they said that the end of that road I was on
somewhere between Jennings and Jones

Now to find me in a record store won't take you long
I'm right there between Jennings and Jones

____

Thru the magic of wi-fi, set up my writing office in my car with the sunroof open to the clouds and fine mist of rain and the outlaw country station playing Merle Haggard's "Workin' Man's Blues". Tell me about it Merle. Earlier that day had tussled with computer programs, corralled errant details, fought thru the occasional film of ennui, had a hot chocolate chip cookie for lunch's dessert for medicinal purposes only. "It was sooooo good." (say like Kevin of "The Office"). The cookie reminded me that our priest asked us to fast for him this week as he goes on a retreat in Nowhere, MN, where the monks wake at 4am to start the day, after going to bed at 9. (Did I mention the pièce de résistance? They wake up at midnight for prayers then too. Wow.)

I drank pseudo-beer (O'Doul's) and took a real walk, gazing at the pulchritude of our house amid foliage made shiny by rain. The two gigantic maples frame it and in between the landscaping is of a maturity that both displays and obscures, making for a very pleasing presentation especially with all the lights on. I flitted from the front porch to the back porch and back, tasted a bit of wine, enjoyed the solitude and quiet, read Dickens in the bookroom, and found a used copy of Michael Chabon's adventure novel on the 'net...

_______

The thing about magical evenings is that they rarely lead to greater devotion to God; indeed happiness does not make us better people & vice-versa. The next morn was a long slog on the minutiae train. Then Lucy from long ago, from Retirement Land, comes out of nowhere and tweaks my ear and I'm momentarily annoyed, both by her excessive familiarity and by the fact that I'm not excessively familiar with her, which is to say: why does everybody have work friends but me? Since Hambone left it's not been the same. For someone to come back to work after they're retired is not something I'd have thought to do.

Felt a need to say the ancient prayers in the Lit o' the Hours. It's uncanny how often a line or two will resonate with so much hope. The Psalms are like distilled 100-proof hope. Often a single word is so suffused with hope that you can scarcely believe it were it not in the Word of God.. And that makes a certain sense because the Psalms are about Christ and Christ is Hope personified.

Yesterday's moment of zen occurred in the Communion line when I suddenly noticed the Baby Jesus looking right at me, held in the arms by St. Joseph. "You've never looked at me before!" and indeed I hadn't, I'd always looked at and prayed to St. Joseph when coming to the Communion line, as if St. Joseph was more interesting figure due to him being closer to my age. Funny how the wise men knew what they were doing when they bowed before the infant. All of this seemed St. Joseph's way of saying, "here is where I get my power and influence".

A blog friend sent me a note obviously not meant for me since it was about me, asking basically what my problem was in arguing with him on his post. I never seem capable of leaving sleeping posts (and dogs) lie. I've never been able to disagree in a thread without seeming disagreeable. My point, presumably poorly proposed (that last 'p' was strictly for alliterative purposes), was less about whether animals go to Heaven then the principle of it, which is that we are allowed to believe speculative things. This is very important in my daily life, because I'm often believing speculative things (like the fact that it's not a coincidence when something happens such that I think God is behind it - in other words, that God speaks to us in the little daily coincidences for which there is no direct proof of His action).

The CTS Bible

This sounds like a magnificent Bible translation - the best of the Jerusalem Bible (i.e. everything but the Psalms) with the Grail Psalms.

Timothy at Catholic Bibles writes, "Most of you in the United States who pray the Liturgy of the Hours will be familiar with them." And indeed I love the Pslams in the LoH.

For a long time I've had my eye on the Ignatius Bible but now am leaning toward the CTS.

Dickens & Bone

The older I get the more I think: "why read modern novelists when you can read Dickens?" The following delightful passage from Charles Dickens' Pictures of Italy reminds me of Ham of Bone's reaction to our first gathering at Tara Hall on St. Patrick's Day: wonderment that the ages mixed so innocently and that despite the alcohol flowing freely the congenial wholesomeness of the scene. Here Dickens writes of the final day of Carnival:

As the bright hangings and dresses are all fading into one dull, heavy, uniform colour in the decline of the day, lights begin flashing, here and there: in the windows, on the housetops, in the balconies, in the carriages, in the hands of the foot-passengers: little by little: gradually, gradually: more and more: until the whole long street is one great glare and blaze of fire. Then, everybody present has but one engrossing object; that is, to extinguish other people’s candles, and to keep his own alight; and everybody: man, woman, or child, gentleman or lady, prince or peasant, native or foreigner: yells and screams, and roars incessantly, as a taunt to the subdued, ‘Senza Moccolo, Senza Moccolo!’ (Without a light! Without a light!) until nothing is heard but a gigantic chorus of those two words, mingled with peals of laughter.

The spectacle, at this time, is one of the most extraordinary that can be imagined... Senza Moccolo! Senza Moccolo! Beautiful women, standing up in coaches, pointing in derision at extinguished lights, and clapping their hands, as they pass on, crying, ‘Senza Moccolo! Senza Moccolo!’; low balconies full of lovely faces and gay dresses, struggling with assailants in the streets; some repressing them as they climb up, some bending down, some leaning over, some shrinking back - delicate arms and bosoms - graceful figures - glowing lights, fluttering dresses, Senza Moccolo, Senza Moccoli, Senza Moc-co-lo-o-o-o! - when in the wildest enthusiasm of the cry, and fullest ecstasy of the sport, the Ave Maria rings from the church steeples, and the Carnival is over in an instant - put out like a taper, with a breath!

...

The game of the Moccoletti (the word, in the singular, Moccoletto, is the diminutive of Moccolo, and means a little lamp or candlesnuff) is supposed by some to be a ceremony of burlesque mourning for the death of the Carnival: candles being indispensable to Catholic grief. But whether it be so, or be a remnant of the ancient Saturnalia, or an incorporation of both, or have its origin in anything else, I shall always remember it, and the frolic, as a brilliant and most captivating sight: no less remarkable for the unbroken good-humour of all concerned, down to the very lowest (and among those who scaled the carriages, were many of the commonest men and boys), than for its innocent vivacity. For, odd as it may seem to say so, of a sport so full of thoughtlessness and personal display, it is as free from any taint of immodesty as any general mingling of the two sexes can possibly be; and there seems to prevail, during its progress, a feeling of general, almost childish, simplicity and confidence, which one thinks of with a pang, when the Ave Maria has rung it away, for a whole year.

We Interrupt This Blog...

...to bring a picture of girls drinking beer:



Gosh, the things I do for ratings. Believe me, I didn't want to have to post that. My dreams of professional bloggerdom have been stretched cruelly for going on seven years now and surely the lack of success is the lack of pictures of girls drinking beer...

While posting things seasonal, it's time for ye olde SchnitzelBank song and reportage concerning Oktoberfest.

Everything was especially piquant this year since it was in a new place: the Ohio Expo Center. Huge black draught horses paraded around us carrying a waving Miss Oktoberfest. Flugelhorns were being assembled on a table near me. A fake barrel of beer was being tapped and people rushed out to get a free 16-oz with glass mug (Ron said they would be plastic due to the inadvisability of giving drinkers glass mugs, but he would be proven wrong - score one against the lawyers). A 4-mile running race took off from nearby and the runners ran around our venue. Ron introduced me to a dear friend of his that he'd met this very night while standing in the beer line. Connie, a thin waif of a woman in her 60s who looked very Irish and who told us she was trying to gain weight, goes to all the festivals in town. Ron gave props to anyone wearing Steeler gear while I said that they'd lose to the Bengals the following Sunday (which proved to be true).

And now, Schnitzelbank!


That magic board where we all drunkenly hollar, 'Ja! Ja!' and mumble in between except for "Tannebaum" which everybody knows.


Funny hats R us!


"It makes learning German fun!"

Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts

The most holy and important practice is...to take great pleasure that God is with you. - Brother Lawrence via "Word Among Us"

What I think I like most about Kathleen Norris is her comfort in accepting all the ebbing and flowing of the spiritual life, which any serious spiritual writer understands. We fall, we step back, we step forward, we feel embraced, we feel abandoned, we feel energized, we feel slammed on the ground. We feel paralyzed and puzzled. We feel – accidie. It’s okay. Just – and here is the lesson of monastic life – keep praying. Keep letting yourself be shaped by the Psalms.Keep serving and working. Pay attention. Believe, as Andre Dubus wrote in “A Father’s Story,” that God believes in you. ... One thing I found…missing in Norris’ book was an explicit consideration of eternal life. This wasn’t the purpose of the book, granted, but as she looks for hope, consolation and reasons to go on, this doesn’t seem to factor. Perhaps it is assumed. Probably. - Amy Welborn

I cannot imagine going through without God and without the Psalms (which is the intimate room of all Scripture) what [Joan] Didion went through with those two proximate deaths [her husband and daughter]. ... For so long I’ve affirmed a curious thing Pius XII said to a group of artists in 1952: “The function of all art lies in fact in breaking through the narrow and tortuous enclosure of the finite, in which man is immersed while living here below, and in providing a window to the infinite for his hungry soul.” - Commenter Bill Bannon on Amy Welborn's blog

Dear [Victoria's Secret], let me enumerate for you the reasons why I won't be purchasing anything from your skankalog. Believe it or not, it has nothing to do with any modesty concerns. I don't expect the 1933 Sears catalog from a company selling undergarments in 2009...you wanna be THE manufacturer of choice for the American woman? Then help us deal with the aftermath of wearing your stuff. Why don't you make nursing bras? - Mrs. Darwin's "cri de mamelon"

Thousands who have never learned to think at all are urged to think whatever may take their fancy about Jesus Christ. But they are, in fact, forbidden to think in any way but one about Abraham Lincoln. That is why it is worth remarking that it is a Catholic who has thought for himself. - GK Chesterton via Dylan at Dark October

Joseph Pearce noted that while mature Christians are not childish, they should still be child-like. He suggested that when God turned His back on Adam and Eve, he may have been laughing--as a parent might laugh after punishing a child. For God knew what was to come, and the glory that awaits us. "Ultimately the key to happiness is learning to love as God loves, and learn to laugh as God laughs." - Lee Strong of Chesterton and Friends on last month's Chesterton Conference, via Sancta Sanctis

Our dog is dying now of cancer and for the first three days of knowing it, it was harder than when my father died expectantly and then suddenly. And part of that was because Aquinas said that animals would not be in the resurrected world. Knowing Aquinas stem-to-stern but knowing that he really did not deal with Romans 8 which actually he contradicted, I began to read others and thankfully saw them as corrective….pets will be there with our families and of course they will not have the beatific vision but Aquinas saw no plants nor animals but only stones and stars in the resurrected world because he erroneously thought the stars were eternal naturally. - Commenter Bill Bannon on Amy Welborn's blog

"St. Jerome observed: 'we see priests forsaking the gospels and the prophets, reading stage-plays, and singing the love songs of pastoral idylls.' This is not to say that we can not have other studious interests, outside our primary focus, but they must be subordinate." (Mark Davoren OP)...You know the lyrics "He sees you when you're sleeping/ He knows when you're awake/ He knows if you've been bad or good/ So be good for goodness' sake"? They're supposed to warn children about a strangely omniscient Santa Claus--which is just ridiculous. It is hard to imagine the real St. Nicholas of Bari engaging in what can accurately be described as a form of spiritual espionage. On the other hand, I'd totally buy it about St. Jerome. I'd be good all the time, if I thought he were "making a list and checking it twice." - Sancta Sanctis

Excerpts

Happened across some beautiful lyricism recently, first in Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road" which serves it up tinged with humor:

...its bowl filled with a nasty-looking brown mixture, and when Hanukkah parted his cracked lips, the Frank struck a flint to the bowl of the pipe and encouraged Hanukkah to draw the thick, honeyed smoke into his lungs. Hanukkah coughed, and then drew again, and it was not long before he was aware of being filled, in rippling drizzles, by a stream of amber honey poured through his mouth and neck into the bottle of his soul.

Another from Chabon:

...forest and snow that Amram understood to be the habitations of witches and snow djinn and warrior women who rode on the backs of bears and of giant deer. In the wind was a promise only of ice, storm and advancing darkness, and Amram knelt on the northern slope of a strange mountain, far from home, drew his woolen cloak more tightly around his shoulders and knew in his heart that he would end his days in some winter kingdom, among wintry men. Then, as if overhearing and taking pity on the maudlin trend of his thoughts, the wind carried to his nostrils from the fires of the troops camped in the valley the desert tang of a camel-dung fire, and with it the plangent cry of a soldier-muezzin calling his saddle-weary brothers to a belated Jumuah. ... A pair of pickets held the southern approach to the camp, and there were guards posted on the north and west sides of camp, all fine, tall, falcon-faced men, in excellent equipage and reasonable order, but to Amram's eye as he had studied them and their fellows in the last of the daylight they betrayed an indifference to their duty, a hint of discontent, as if they had better things to do and expected no trouble or enemy from any quarter. Something was roiling them. He wondered if perhaps they suffered from the discontent of indolence, patrolling a frontier that had been at peace too long, the last war between the Khazars and the armies of the Caliph having been...

And via Steven Riddle's new blog, there's a taste of William Trevor's prose:

[referring to Ireland] They loved it in different ways: unspoken in the dark, that was another intimation. For Grattan there was history's tale, regrets and sorrows and distress, the voices of unconquered men, the spirit of women as proud as empresses. For Grattan there were the rivers he knew, the mountains he had never climbed, wild fuchsia by a seashore and the swallows that came back, turf smoke on the air of little towns, the quiet in long glens. The sound, the look, the shape of Ireland, and Ireland's rain and Ireland's sunshine, and Ireland's living and Ireland's dead: all that.

Stop Readin' the News....

My brother-in-law says he can't read the news anymore without getting apoplectic, most recently this. He says:

They're gonna partially fund healthcare reform by taxing medical devices over $100! Yet another hidden tax which we can't quatify -- GREAT IDEA! Opponents are concerned the tax might be passed on to consumers. WTF?!?!? Businesses don't pay a dime in taxes -- of course it will be passed onto consumers! It will specifically be disproportionately paid by Medicare, since seniors get more of these devices than anyone else! So they'll have the fed gov't paying the tax for the fed gov't to collect and pay the tax for the fed gov't to collect!

I'm thinking that our gift of a Democratic congress to Obama was just the mother of all mistakes. I don't blame the Democratic congress or Obama for being wild-eyed spenders, i.e. for being themselves. They didn't steal any elections, they won them by getting the most votes. We're getting the government we deserve, and it hoits.
____
Have some delicious if distracting reads lately. The Machine is the story of the 1975 Reds season and is an example where the right writer gets hooked up with the right subject. Hard to put down. A lot on the personality of the Reds, the fueds, the excellences, the whole shebang. George Foster constantly reading the Bible and the manager thinks he's becoming a religious fanatic. It really doesn't get any better than this as the perfect light read.

Also been reading Richard Brookhiser's memoir and he can pack a lot in a little: "The evening of artists is an unhappy time." Speaking about studying George Washington and his time he writes: "Living in the eighteenth century neutralized a conservative poison, cynicism."

He calls WFB (as well as himself) a narcissist, and when undergoing treatment for cancer found his taste in music had conracted to just Bach and Louis Armstrong. Said he could read "only the angry", including Samuel Johnson's review of "an upbeat theodicy, 'A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil' (he didn't like the enquiry, he didn't like evil, and he had his quarrels with nature)."

Having finished Our Lady of Guadalupe am looking for a new spiritual read. Surprising number of choices for Kindle. Ralph Martin's book on the doctors of the Church, a commentary on Mark's gospel, the Brother Lawrence book and Raymond Arroyo's book of Mother Angelica's thoughts on Scripture.

Lame Fiction Attempts

Aborted attempts at Fiction for a Monday with the reason for the stoppage in parenthesis:

Attempt Numero Uno:

It was our summer vacation and we were headed due south on the Ohio-to-SC turnpike, drinking day old Pepsi's that had outlived their usefulness. We drove around the state looking for potential real estate buys when we happened across an old dander of a town... (Here "dander" was a sign this attempt was DOA.)

Attempt II:

Five years ago I was on a Walmart book tour, punishment for having written "Memoir of a Walmart Greeter", which, as the title implies, gave a detailed account of the fictional life and times of Edgar Silverstein....(Great initial promise but then I hit writer's block.)

Attempt III:

Got a job in construction, mainly roads. Worked as a flagger when a two-laner went to one and it was fun checking out the girls as they drove by. Spent the days sniffin' asphalt so strong I'd be smellin' it for days after, like it was lodged in my nostrils or something. When it was hot we brought a pup tent for shade. But it wasn't really all that hot, which must've made Al Gore hot. Sometimes I operated the steam roller machine which spread out the black lava and made it smooth before it cooled. We took our time, did it right and because we were union. I'd stand out there all day till I couldn't stand no mo'. We used to play practical jokes on each other, like the time I rid in the backhoe. (This was my attempt to "write what you don't know".)

Attempt IV:

I'd always hoped, despite experience to the contrary, that the state of South Carolina had avoided modernity, or at least the last nine decades. I was under the impression that Columbia had been burned during the Civil War and that some of the buildings might be still smoldering. I hoped to catch a glimpse of Jefferson Davis walking with his family to his house with the thick maroon carpet and draperies, the latter full of decorative flourish. I longed to see live oaks with white pillared houses where you could hear the shouting of men arguing for secession. I wanted to see the southern belles with their ten-inch waists trying to fit in eight-inch corsets.

But when I drive there on the interstate, it looks like pretty much any other state. (Too non-fictiony.)

of Books & Plants

I like the idea of being able to write in "das Buchraum", that fragrantly faithful bookquariam. In there I glimpse the tan broadcoats of the Minutemen, the Britannica Encyclopedias who promise an answer to anything within a minute (assuming the question is answerable and doesn't relate to any knowledge acquired after 1911). Yes in there tis quiet and breezeless but I find it far too confining even on a intermittedly cool day like today...and so...

Went on a hike with our dog Buddy and the goldenrods were significantly less golden after a week's absence. Still it was nice, and still there was enough color to satisfy even if Uncle Mark semi-ruined the red by mentioning how the honeysuckles weren't native and were aggressively taking over the habitat. You've heared of nativists who dislike Hispanic immigrants from becoming demographically powerful? Same thing in the world of plants with Uncle Mark. His prejudice is catching - I find myself looking with disdain on the undocumented honeysuckles!

Cell phone photos from last week's hike:

Truth in Spamvertising

At last!: