Growing up in Crazytown

One day this week I read Genesis 38 and... well, I’m just gonna say... crazy, man. I mean, why is this even in the Bible? Some preachers preach through a book of the Bible, some preacher spend several weeks in a row preaching about one certain topic like, say, discipleship... or suffering. Some preachers, however, use the lectionary, which is listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for Christian or Judaic worship on a given day or occasion. It goes through the whole Bible over time, not leaving anything out. A preacher I know uses it because otherwise she would be tempted to leave out kind of dicey passages like this one. 

I mean it just seems wrong on so many levels... Judah leaves his family and  marries a Canaanite woman, with whom he has 3 sons. The first one is so wicked GOD kills him. According to their laws, the second son, Onan, was supposed to produce children with the first son’s wife, but refuses. (Trivia fact: that’s why the birth control method known as withdrawal is also called “onansim.”) So God kills him too! Then Judah promises she can have the third son when he gets old enough, so she goes home. 

Over time it becomes obvious that he has no intention of giving her his last son, so she takes matters into her own hands: pretending to be a prostitute, she sits by the road wearing a veil and when Judah (her FATHER-IN-LAW) comes by, he engages her services, leaving his staff and personal seal with her as collateral that he would pay her a goat. Of course he has no idea who she is, and when sends someone to give her the goat, she’s long gone. Fast forward three months and they’re telling Judah that his DIL is a prostitute and pregnant and he wants her BURNED TO DEATH. 

At this point, she pulls out the staff and seal and says the guy who got her pregnant was the owner of these things. And Judah, well, he’s like, “Oops.”

Again, wrong on alotta levels: God killing guys directly? Maybe it just meant they met their Maker prematurely? That system they called Levirate marriage (brother marries brother’s widow to make kids for dead brother)? Ack! Girl luring father-in-law into a dangerous liaison? Death penalty for prostitution? Prostitute only, of course, the dude gets off scot-free, right? I can only shake my head and say, what the...???

Again I say, why is this even in the Bible? Other than it is part of Israel’s history? What should my take-away be? I don’t know what it SHOULD be, but here’s where my reflections led me:

If you read further into the Bible, you find that Judah’s family went on to produce a bunch of halfway decent, mediocre to evil guys... but also David, Solomon, and... you got it, Jesus. King of Kings. Lord of Lords. Lion of JUDAH. What could it all mean?

Fun? Yes. Functional? Not fully.

Well, obviously in those days, who your family was was really important. I mean, the Bible is full of begat lists. And "Honor your parents" is in the top ten list of rules... But what I see here is that a person can transcend his or her family’s mediocrity or evil, as the case may be. (I guess today we would say “dysfunctionality”)... which is incredibly encouraging. I know there are plenty of fantastic families out there – composed of kind, sane people who love and support each other... But plenty of people grow up in Crazytown. Lord knows what kind of crazy mixed up family stuff MY son will be writing about US in 20 years! And my own family of origin had some good things about it – we had some fun, and I love my siblings beyond measure... but there were certain prevailing attitudes in our home that didn’t do any of us any good. For instance, I received and believed the assumption that fat kids are unworthy of love... and guess who the fat kid was?

Fortunately, I’ve shed that big FAT lie – after all, my husband loves me and single belly roll and dimple on my chubby thighs. Leaving this notion behind has been a great source of sanity for me.

A friend of mine, who had a much more troubled childhood, had a dream once in which she was climbing a ladder and her mother was right behind her trying to pull her down. In the dream, though, my friend’s mother grabbed onto her sweater but she (my friend) kept climbing, leaving her mother behind, still holding the sweater. My friend interpreted her dream to mean that her family and background would always be dogging her... But I reminded her that she managed to slip out of it and keep climbing.That’s a blessing, that is. She has grown into a lovely woman, full of grace, a beautiful picture of God’s power to heal.

A couple of episodes in the life of Jesus kind of reinforce this for me: First, when Jesus is 12 and goes to the Jerusalem with his parents. When the family sets out for home and realize Jesus is missing, they rush back to find him discussing Scripture with the teachers in the Synagogue. His reaction to his frazzled parents: “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” ie. “You’re not my REAL parents”!

Then there was the time Jesus was teaching in a house and his family shows up. Someone tells him they’re outside looking for him. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Another time he’s out in a field teaching and a fangirl yells out “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” to which he says “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

So basically, when you’re part of God’s family, you love your old family (the "honor your parents" rule still holds), and cherish what was good... but you can also look forward. His people are your NEW family. And while God’s family is as bruised and broken as any other, it is to be hoped that they’re leaning on the Source of all that is good, all that is love, and all that is right, to heal and transform them from dysfunctional to functional. 

The Best That You Can Do...

Chris Thile

I promise: BMSA isn’t going to turn into an arts and entertainment blog, but I’m going to tell you about yet another show... My husband and I celebrated his birthday at a one-man show by Chris Thile, virtuoso mandolin player, member of the Punch Brothers and former member of progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. (This is one blog entry where it will really be worth it to click on some links, you guys.)

At age 30, Chris has been playing mandolin almost as long as he’s been alive – a prodigy, then a virtuoso, he teases out of his tiny mandolin original songs, traditional bluegrass and folk numbers and compositions by J.S. Bach, Flat and Scruggs and... Radiohead. His fingers move like lightning and his voice is strong and plaintive.

Our seats at the Carolina Theatre show were in the pit - that is, right up under his nose. Tall and lean, clad in a nice-looking suit, Thile picked and chatted his way through an interesting and varied set, making self-deprecating jokes, giving vital song information in the relaxed way that comes from being a natural leader – and a performer for 25 years. 

Chris had been playing a while already
when this record came out.

One of many highlights: His “fiddle-tune request time,” during which he invited members of the audience to yell out fiddle tunes they’d like to hear him play. Of course, his requirements for eligibility were pretty strict, so many of the suggestions were answered with, “Disqualified!” And in the end he settled on 3 tunes – one of them being, not a fiddle tune, but the famous banjo tune Foggy Mountain Breakdown. He then plowed through them, but artfully, one after the other – lightning fast fingers striving to recreate their complex structures. And ... when he’d finished to thunderous applause, he took his bow, but still gave Foggy Mountain Breakdown a few more tries... still trying to work it out. Because, you see, he had improvised the whole thing.... figured out on the spot how to make those tunes written for other instruments sound good on a mandolin.

It made me wonder, what would it be like to be so good at something? I mean, in many ways, I am adequate – even slightly good at some things... but in no area do I possess a noticeable talent that stands out above others... like, say, Mozart... or Leonardo Da Vinci...  or Einstein... unless you count very special talents like "shopping at Target" or "eating french fries"... On top of that, I’m lazy! I did play piano when I was young, but I lacked the necessary drive and ambition to really work hard at it. Sometimes I wonder – had I been born with a measure of natural affinity for music, would my drive been more intense? That is to say, would I have worked harder if I had not needed to work so hard?

I know exactly why Arthur drank.

I guess music and art are just a very showy area of giftedness – but one that is valued by our culture. And, honestly, music and art are an awesome aspect of our humanity... but not everyone comes equipped with the ability to create devastatingly beautiful paintings or music that makes people weep. There is a great part from the movie Arthur (Dudley Moore version) where he says, “Everyone who drinks is not a poet. Maybe some of us drink because we’re not poets.” It always resonated with me because I WISH I were an artist of some kind. Sometimes I think I was gifted with a vaguely artistic temperament, but no talent to go along with it... How depressing, right? I mean, if you’re going to be a jerk, you should have the genius that normally accompanies it – am I right? Not that all artists are temperamental... or that being an artist gives you the right to be temperamental... But really, we do let them get away with a lot, don’t we?

I guess I shouldn’t be sad that I am not a gifted artist... After all: “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” (Romans 9) I mean, there ARE other, less flashy gifts, right? God gives us gifts to use to serve each other – natural talents like leadership, hospitality, mercy, teaching... Maybe I have some kind of gift like one of these? “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.” (I Corinthians 12) So artist, musician, genius – or not, we are all gifted by God.

And it is interesting, also, to me that after his discourse about gifts in I Corinthians, Paul writes about LOVE... you know, that famous passage they read at weddings... Where he gives a beautiful description of love, then says that every flashy gift in the world means squat if you don’t have LOVE. So... I guess that means being gifted doesn’t give a person license to be a jerk... It's cool that you don't have to have any particular gifts in order to do the most important thing. Anyone can do it!

In summary: 1. Watching Chris Thile on stage was an amazing experience. 2. God made Chris Thile the way he is – amazing. 3. God made you and me the way we are – amazing, and 4. LOVE is what really matters, after all... So go out and spread some love, people! 

More Confessions of Ignorance

North Carolina is not
all Mayberry...

Depictions of North Carolina on film tend show us as kind of rube-ish... like in Junebug or Main Street... Or you might think of the homey goodness of the Andy Griffith Show. but, really, there’s a lot going on. We are pretty classy in our own way. I mean, we have a happ’nin’ local music scene, we have film festivals, and our capital city boasts a pretty great museum.

And just now, that museum has got some mighty fine works of art on display in an exhibit called Rembrandt in America.

First, I love the new museum space... Well, it’s not so new now, but it is truly a lovely space. Not much to look at from the outside... Sort of like a bright white warehouse... But I am guessing that white exterior lets in a great amount of bright white light. It’s a great way to showcase the museum’s collections of art from different parts of the world and periods of time. 

Our gorgeous museum

But what I’m here to talk about is the traveling Rembrandt exhibit they have going on from now til January 22 in the older building. Actually calling it a Rembrandt show is a bit of a stretch. I mean, there were not that many actual proven Rembrandts to see. Turns out to get in this show, a painting just had to be thought of at any time to be a painting by Rembrandt.

There were paintings by students of Rembrandt, friends of Rembrandt, admirers of Rembrandt.... People who had nothing to do with Rembrandt. Shadowy portraits of doughy-faced people who looked like they stepped off a cigar box... 

Now I am not in any way qualified to give an educated review of an art exhibit... Not by a long shot.  I never took art or art appreciation  or art history or anything vaguely related to that in school. I did, however, spend hours as a child with my mom’s art books open on my lap. To my shame, I confess that it was mostly to look at the naked people, though. 

And due to my utter ignorance, I often could not tell the difference between an authenticated Rembrandt and a fake, even though the people who wrote the descriptions on the little cards to the left acted like it was obvious... I mean, look how “unpainterly” the fake is, right? I know they have certain ways of distinguishing the real from the fake - brush technique, expressiveness of face and body - but it wasn’t obvious to me.

I don't know much, but I know this
isn't a Rembrandt!

Other other hand, there were a couple of paintings that had me wondering why anyone, let alone a museum curator, would attribute it to the great Dutch master. I guess it has always be considered a Rembrandt so people didn’t question it. 

Which brings us to another thing about the exhibit ... The descriptions tended to go into a lot of detail about how the painting got to America, and who the collectors were. Now I know that that the show is called Rembrandt in America, but I just didn’t find this information particularly interesting. I really wanted to know more about the actual paintings - the technique, the subjects, Rembrandt’s life at the time... 

Didn't those collars
itch like the dickens?

But all this aside, to comment on the actual paintings, I moved through the creeping line of museum patrons... nearly unable to take my eyes off the art. The people around me, my husband behind me, and my son who was hanging off me.... they sort of melted into the background as I took in the fascinating, dusky faces of the people who paid Rembrandt - and/or his workshop or students to capture their likenesses on canvas. I was fascinated by the stories and histories behind it all... what it must have been like to lived in the Dutch Golden Age.... and didn’t those stiff ruffly collars itch like the dickens?

One of Rembrandt's
self portraits

I loved that he made so many self portraits... because, well, I don’t think he was painting himself because he thought he was awesome and people would want to have portraits of him... Rather I think that he was using a face that was utterly familiar to him to learn more about art itself... the play of light and shadow, how use technique to capture natural and expressive facial expressions, how to convey the character of the person, and ultimately, the beauty of humanity.... In all these things, Rembrandt succeeded brilliantly. Although, it was interesting to note that at a certain point his fortunes declined and he had to declare bankruptcy... It’s a given that success does not really equal $ucce$$, right?

I guess I love his self portraits because it’s a little like how and why I write. I use a subject that I am way too familiar with – myself – to learn more about writing, to express some truth about life itself and the beauty of humanity. I don’t know how successful I am at that, but I know I haven’t made a dime! Hey! Look how much I have in common with Rembrandt!

A Wizard and a True Star

So, a drawback to blogging is that when I am in the middle of an experience, I might be thinking, “What am I going to say about this?” Last night’s Todd Rundgren show at The Carolina Theatre was no exception... and the phrase I kept thinking was, “walking the line between transcendent and annoying.” 

Todd and my friend, David Lesage...
sometime in the 70s.

Then, I thought, what if I say that and people who think Todd is god read it? What if my friend David Lesage, who actually used to work with Todd reads it? It’s not like I’m confessing to murder, but ... it’s definitely confessing to being uncool. But then again, I’ve already told you I’m a huge nerd, right? 

See if you can follow my logic: 1. The reason I found it less than 100% satisfying is that instead of playing his beautiful melodic songs and displaying his rich, honey-smooth Daryl-Hall-on-steroids voice, he pushed out some total in-your-face prog rock: synthesized noodling, blistering guitar solos, unfollowable melody lines... 2. This is a lot like jazz. 3. The idea of hipness springs from the culture of jazz. 

Now, I like Dixieland jazz... Louis Armstrong and all, but the cool, weird, improvisational noodlings of that other kind of jazz... well, i’m just not hip to it. So.... once again, I have proven to you that I am hopelessly uncool. Surprise!

Psychedelia, anyone?

But I was talking about Todd Rundgren... who I love... First of all – his outfit. Transcendent. A psychedelic suit made of sort of stretchy material... and the jacket had these weird golden tube loops hanging off the back. They were made of cloth sewn around stuffing... and he also had on these huge gold chaps with huge circles of color sewn onto them. He removed these eventually. I can only guess how hard they were to move around in.

Anyway, in the picture here, is the suit without the weird gold chaps, although you can kind of see the crazy tubes if you look under his arm on the right. (He’s the colorful guy in the middle.) It’s all the more wild to realise that he’s 63 years old. But I tell you, he looks fantastic. I want to get old just like him. So, he and the guys in the picture come out and play this outrageous prog-rock noodling, with stage jumps and all... Keep in mind that the last time I saw him was in 1983. He came on stage by himself and sat down at the piano and played gorgeous shimmers like Cliche, Love of the Common Man, or Just One Victory. So I really wasn’t prepared for this.

Todd then... a wizard.

I guess I sound like I didn’t enjoy it at all... but truthfully, I did. Because annoying prog rock or not, the man is a genius, and plays his heart out. He’s a great showman with a sense of the absurd, assuring us that with prog rock we were getting the most notes for our dollar. 

The best parts of the evening for me: whenever he opened his mouth to sing. The man’s got a fantastic voice. The unexpected covers were also a great thrill: Something’s Coming from West Side Story (When was the last time you heard a Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim number at a rock show?), and ELO’s Do Ya. I had never given this song much thought, but when he belted out, “Do ya, do ya want my love,” my friend Grace and I both heard it as God asking us, and yelled out “YES!”

As for disappointment that it was not more of a singer-songwriter show, it appeared that I was in the minority. The audience was full of fanboys... because if there is such a thing as a nerdy rock star, Todd Rundgren fills the bill. A theramin player and one of the early adopters of video and computer technology, Todd is the comic-book/sci-fi geek’s rock star. I mean he did ads for Mac, right?

Todd now... a true star.

And yes, I am a geek – guess who was at NC Comic Con last weekend? Although, I do tend to love fantasy more than sci fi... I guess I just don’t get the lack of organization that is progressive rock. That said, Todd Rundgren is a genius, pure and simple, and I was so happy to see him. Doing anything. He could have drunk a Coke and burped out The Wheels on the Bus for all I cared.

It’s like when you go to see Bob Dylan – he may sing one or two of the songs you know from way back, but you may or may not recognize them... because he has a tendency to change the tunes just for his own amusement. I am thinking that if you're a flat-out genius... if you've written a song like Blowin’ in the Wind or Can We Still Be Friends?... if you have a huge far-reaching body of work like those guys, you can do whatever the hell amuses you and people would come to see you – and pay for the privilege... Well, I did, didn’t I?

Look Homeward, Angel

I referred a while back to a time in my younger days, when I lived in Asheville... Well, it was a beautiful time in a beautiful place. Nothing less than marrying my own true love could have torn me away from such a life.

First of all, I had a great roommate - my best friend in the world, secondly, it has romantic significance for me because it was where Tom and I courted, and third... well, it was Asheville! Asheville has a rich history, and abundant natural beauty. In a previous post, I characterized Savannah as a woman... If Asheville were a woman, she would have curves that don’t stop, wear expensive vintage clothing and sing a sweet, nostalgic song. Or psalm. Because it is hard for me to be there and not be reminded how great God is.

Ahhhh.... Asheville...

I never got used to seeing the mountains everywhere I went. Native son Thomas Wolfe wanted to write stories in which the mountains themselves were a main character. I totally understand that. I mean, I would be at WalMart, for instance, and look up – and gasp... Every day I drove through Beaucatcher Tunnel and when the town appeared before me, my heart just sang. One day everything was all shimmery with a sparkly golden mist... and when I mentioned it to a co-worker, she said, “Oh that’s just the sun shining on the smog trapped between the mountains.” And every afternoon as I left my downtown office and walk west toward our parking lot, gazing longingly over the mountains and how the sun and clouds hovered over... More often that not, the hymn, How Great Thou Art would pop into my head, “O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder / Consider all the world Thy Hand hath made, I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy pow’r throughout the universe displayed... If you like a traditional sound, here’s Elvis’s version... but if you like to groove, try this one.

Thomas Wolfe writing
in his Oteen cabin

Even though my roommate and I lived in a nondescript apartment complex – a place people usually lived in on the way to somewhere else – our location could not have pleased me more. If you came in on Highway 70, you’d drive through Oteen, where Thomas Wolfe once holed up in a cabin to write. Oteen is nothing to look at, but just knowing that made me happy. If you’d drive a little way past our home, you’d get to a sweet little area called Happy Valley... It’s really not an especially remarkable neighborhood, but even the ordinary seemed extra quaint to me. Maybe it was the way the houses – sometimes made of stone – were kind of tucked in to the rolling landscape... maybe it was the fact that some people kept horses in their back yards... maybe it was the occasional bear-rummaging-through-a-trash-can-rumor you’d hear... Asheville is full of ordinary neighborhoods that looked extraordinary to me. Like the little The Manor Inn apartments – a group of charming residences that are part of an old mountain resort dating back to the late 1800s. Of course, there are also neighborhoods that were populated by gorgeous mansions – like those on Merrimon Avenue, or the  historic Montford district in all its Victorian splendor. 

The Grove Park Inn

Also splendid – two major landmarks: the Biltmore Estate, and the Grove Park Inn. I love them both, but for some reason, I love most the earthy hobbit-hole-ishness of the Grove Park Inn. Made of stone, with walls of 6 feet thick and a fireplace so large you can stand in it... its view is spectacular, and I couldn’t even imagine having the dough to stay there.

Art Deco detail on the
S&W building

This stuff is all very expected when one speaks of Asheville. But there are so many things I love about it – the downtown architecture, for instance. If I understand correctly, the Great Depression hit especially hard in Asheville, so hard that very few new buildings were built in the downtown until maybe the 1970s... so the fantastic buildings – some built by craftsmen who had come to work on the Biltmore house – are still standing. Ornate, gargoyle-adorned structures, spectacular Art Deco masterpieces... they’re all still there. Again with the Thomas Wolfe - but I found it fascinating to read his first-hand description of the real estate bubble that preceded the bust of the depression.

"If you need me, I'll be
at the Basilica."

Anyway, what follows is a list of additional things I love to look at and do when I go back to “the land of the sky” for a visit. I may not be telling you anything new, and I may be missing some best kept secrets, but I do love to make a list...!

1. The Basilica of St. Lawrence: a gorgeous Catholic Church that was built by a Biltmore craftsman... full of great art and meditative silence. I certainly spent my share of time meditating in that silence. In fact, we took Bill to see it on our recent visit and even he – a slightly hyper seven-year-old boy, wanted to just sit and reflect a bit. 

2. The Grove Arcade: an early version of a “shopping mall” that stood dormant for years, but was renovated, given a good polish and reopened for business for Asheville’s many tourists.

The Grove Arcade

3. Malaprop’s Bookstore: The selection is not astonishing, but I am a sucker for an independent book seller... Also, Downtown Book & News on Lexington Avenue: A huge selection of used books and offbeat ‘zines. Really, Lexington Avenue is full of funky shops, and funny smellin’ kids that are fascinating to watch. Reminds me of the 80s when the occasional tourist would snap my photo outside Ruthless Records in Chapel Hill.

President Obama knows:
Mast General Store = candy

4. Speaking of Ruthless Records, Asheville still has plenty of independent record stores – like Karmasonics: Lots of tunes to thumb through just like in the old days.

5. Mast General Store: Candy.

6. Tupelo Honey Café: A funky take on the Southern plate

7. Early Girl Eatery. Locally grown, creative comfort food.

8. Grace & Peace Presbyterian Church: I attended this church in while living Asheville, and still love to visit. It’s small and quiet, and boy do they love the Lord and take care of each other. They meet at they YMI Cultural Center (usually... right now, there’s a Brian Eno exhibit in their space, so I think they’ve had to move for a while)

9. The Thomas Wolfe Memorial: When I moved to Asheville, my soon-to-be-husband gave me a copy of Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe, which I devoured... After that, I read all his other books. I couldn’t get enough, really. Since they are biographical, I learned a great deal about Asheville’s history... I also learned that Thomas Wolfe and I both attended UNC and have worked at two of the same newspapers – The Durham Morning Herald, and the Asheville Citizen Times. His mother ran a boarding house in Asheville, and you can go visit it!

10. TOPS for shoes: Every kind of shoes, comfy and courageous – functional and funky... and sometimes they have a buy one pair, get another for a penny sale! Don’t mind if I do!

My Old Kentucky Home – Thomas
Wolfe's mother's boarding house

I guess 10 seems like a good round number for a list... I’m pretty sure there is nothing extraordinary about my list of must-sees, but it’s really stuff that I always really love and miss about the place. And now, a word from the psalmist: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth." 

St. Bill of the Dissertation

Bill is seven, but he's still pretty snuggly.

Bill is seven now, an age that sort of wavers between little kid and full blown kid... meaning that, he may be embarrassed when I sing in public, but he is still not ashamed to climb in bed with his mommy if he wakes up and it’s still dark. Tom gets up at 6, and I guess his movements must have woken Bill up one morning this week, because he wiggled in next to me around 6:20. When he was a 6-pound baby, he used to sleep on my chest, which I loved... so I honestly don’t mind anytime he wants to get a snuggly mommy fix. I know that all too soon, he’ll think I’m clueless and shun me whenever possible. 

Anyway, this particular morning, in the pitch black of my room, he threw his arm over me and whispered, “Mommy... I can’t see you, but I know you’re there because I love you.” How sweet was that, right?! Well, when I shared this dram of sweetness with my friend Grace later that day, she said, “That’s a pretty good summary of my dissertation.”

Again with the St.
John of the Cross...

Of course I had to have her explain because I don't have the brain power to sift through this kind of scholarly tome. I actually tried to help her proofread her book-length work on St. John of the Cross and his “dark night of the soul” when she was writing it... Sad to say, though, it took me a whole day to read the first chapter, and I got a whopping headache for my trouble! In her defense, that’s just how dissertations are, for the most part. She actually tried to write something that was a bit more accessible, but her director scorned it as “television writing.” So, because of his scorn, she produced, Thought and Poetic Structure in San Juan de la Cruz’s Symbol of Night, a document that I find as impenetrable as its subject. 

Grace's dissertation –
available on Amazon.com!

Anyway, Grace is the only reason I know anything  at all about Saint John of the Cross, his dark night of the soul, and the adjective “sanjuanist”... I think she would tell you that being in grad school and writing a dissertation summon a particular brand of dark night for the student. Just watching her go through it triggered my resolve to avoid grad school unless absolutely necessary... and so far I have managed to give it a wide berth. 

Anyway, her explanation, IF I understood it correctly, was that Spanish Golden Age poet and deep, deep mystic St. John of the Cross, suffered plenty – under the Spanish Inquisition, and also from his own order... AND from feeling a noticeable absence of God's presence and comfort. Nonetheless, he asserted that in the night / darkness of suffering and spiritual despair, we can know God strictly through our love for Him, or as Grace said, “love as an epistemological mode.” So... I had to look that up too... and, well... Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. It addresses questions like  What is knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? How do we know what we know?

So, again, if I understand correctly, St. John said if you are suffering and can’t feel God with you, you can know Him through LOVE. (I guess it makes sense that St. John was all about the Song of Solomon, the Bible's great metaphorical love poem.) Or, to put it simpler, as Bill did, “I can’t see you, but I know you’re there, because I love you.” How sweet is that?!

Steaming Hot Wild Boar with a Side of Spiced Onions

I am feeling a little self-imposed pressure to write a blog post, but absolutely nothing is popping into my mind just now. And I would half to say that there are some extended periods where I just sort of grind through life doing one thing after another – both chores and fun diversions – without giving much thought to the deeper meanings of things... the Divine stuff swirling all around us... 

Bold knights a-jousting

This past weekend the following things happened: Halloween Carnival at Bill’s school (at which 3 people thought I was in costume when I was just wearing my regular clothes), our heat stopped working, we went to the Renaissance Festival, spent the night with my mother-in-law in Greensboro, came home, carved a pumpkin, ran errands, had the heating looked at... 

I thought about writing about the Renaissance Festival, but there isn’t much to tell. I had a good time, but really, it was just like a county fair with a theme – and alcohol. I wanted to buy a full set of clothes, but couldn't justify it – $155 for the corset alone! I would have to say that the biggest hit with our family was the jousting show. Bill has always been fascinated with knights and jousting, etc., and finally he got to see actual dudes with poles running towards each other on horseback. Needless to say, he loved it. There was no authenticity about the whole thing, though, except maybe the authentic “privy” smell of the port-a-johns. Also, I thought it was pretty cool that the rides did not have motors or electricity... it was all propelled by manpower and momentum. 

Large hunks of meat -
something you won't
catch Bill eating...

And fortunately for Bill, ye olde medieval serving wenches served up pizza and sprite – just like in olden times, right? Bill is a picky eater in the extreme, so I couldn’t imagine that he would at any time being tucking into a plate of steaming hot wild boar meat... with a side of spiced onions. Anyway, I have no pithy or insightful things to say about our trip. I will say, however, that my mother-in-law is fabulous. She is always so kind to us, so generous, so thoughtful... I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that we have produced a grandchild for her?!

No, like I said before, sometimes I am just bouncing from one thing to the next – chores, homework-helping, nose-wiping, work, various entertainments... and my brain can get totally stuck on a superficial level... (Although we did say a LOT of prayers that the cost of fixing our furnace would be reasonable...!)

There’s what they call the dark night of the soul – when you reach out for God in agony, but can’t detect His Presence... but this isn’t like that. It’s more like... the dull day of the brain... or something. It’s not like I’m rejecting God, or have forgotten Him, but I’ve allowed my brain to drift into and hover over some drab area of everyday-ness... Instead of seeing God in the beauty of every little thing, yearning for His perfection in every imperfect thing, experiencing His grace in every fallen thing... I’m just going along as if this is all there is. 

The dark night of the soul is no picnic.

I am not sure which is worse. I have been through some pretty dark nights, and let me tell you, they are no picnic... on the other hand, it is during these times that you are reaching out to God with all you have... so you’ve got that going for you... which is nice. But if you’re in the dull days, it's like you're the people in Mark 4 – they hear the word of God, "but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful." And if you're here, you’re stuck, but you’re not in agony – you may even be having a fairly good time... how will you know that something is missing?

I’ve actually heard people say things like, “God caused me to break my leg because I wasn’t paying attention to Him”... (really, I have!) But if that were the case, then LOTS of people would be on crutches! I know I would! I am not sure God causes misfortunes to get our attention. I believe that He uses our misfortunes to get our attention... But frankly, I’d rather not need a misfortune to point me in the right direction.... no thanks! I guess it's a good thing that I do know that something needs to happen. But what? How do I get out of this bland place? Like in this song by Soul Asylum, I need sombody to shove me... but figuratively, right? (That's right, I'm speaking metaphorically about the need to think more metaphorically.)

I'm not sure how, but Soul Asylum
always says it just right.

I think maybe slowing down could help... not that I know how to do that... The cliché answer, I guess, is this: read the Bible and pray more, ie. turn toward God. An since I don’t know what the non-cliche answer is, I guess I’ll have to go with the cliché... 

In the meantime, here is another awesome song by Soul Asylum that reminds me of the dark night of the soul. It says, “In a New York blackout, it’s so hard to see / All the angels that are looking after me” and, “And I may never escape this darkened city / But still I’m trying to find you in this blackout."