I am always going to church.

 I am always going to church. 

I’m always going to church, it must seem like. At least, I am often writing about it – maybe these days because it’s about all I do that’s of any interest. It’s one of the three times a week I may get out of the house.

I used to go to the big Presbyterian church downtown, and Roz went with me. It’s walking distance from the house, and we went almost every Sunday. I’d go to Sunday school, and she’d meet me at eleven o’clock worship. There was nothing wrong with it. The Sunday school class did Bible study with a pretty open mind. The music was good. And the preaching was okay, even if it was very Presbyterian. I’m not entirely sure why we stopped going there: it was probably a combination of the Sunday school class – more and more they were asking me to teach, and I was never comfortable either doing it or saying “no.” And the preaching got what I’ve heard called “musty.” It didn’t forget to say that we are sinners but Jesus loves us; but it focused more and more on what we had to do, needed to do, must do, because Jesus loved us. We weren’t very lovable either, so there was a lot we had to do. It got mustier and mustier.

In Paradise, the weeks I was up there, I went with Uncle Albert to his Methodist church, and then we’d spend part of the afternoon going over everything. I didn’t have answers to any of his sixteen weekly questions; but he didn’t care, he only wanted to say them out loud: what the woman preacher might be wearing under her alb? was there a significance to the way she tied the knot in her rope? did she know any science at all? The questions were mostly about the preacher – but not all. Every time we sang “In the garden,” he wanted to know how it was that the hymn writer’s joy being with Jesus’ was not like anyone else’s. Every time we sang “My hope is built on nothing less,” he wanted to know why (period).

When he came down here, we started going mostly to the Episcopal church, where we heard Clara Bow preach, or the young woman that looked like her; and Uncle Albert liked the regular priest fine, too, another woman, and one that knew something about science. She also had a sister that lived in France. And we go to the early service, where there’s no singing to worry about.

We also went to hear my Lutheran friend Axel Sundstrøm preach a few times, Uncle Albert and I. Roz has pretty much stopped going to church. Sometimes, when she hears that “the thin man” is preaching somewhere, she’ll say, “Let’s go.” She likes “the thin man” for some reason; I’m not entirely sure what that reason is, but I think it’s his voice. He sounds like a radio announcer that doesn’t sound like a radio announcer. And he likes to tell stories about Jesus, and he tries really hard not to explain them to death, just let the stories stand on their own.

Axel's Wunderkind - Lee Davidson

A couple of weeks ago, Sundstrøm, who had a Sunday off because he was just back from vacation – Sundstrøm and I went to a little Methodist church back in the country somewhere south of here. Axel drove; and I couldn’t find the church again, if I had to.  It must be on Google Maps – of course! - but it’s one of those places you can imagine isn’t or is somehow in the wrong place on the map, even on Google Earth in the wrong place.

     We went to hear this Wunderkind preach – that was Sundstrøm’s term – “not that he’s going to be the next big thing,” he added. “He’s definitely not. He’s never going to find his way into the prosperity gospel. But he’s young and completely uneducated, except that he taught himself Hebrew and Greek, and people claim he’s memorized the whole Bible.”

     “Have you heard him before?”

     “Not in person. But I’ve heard tapes. They’re pretty amazing.”

     I prepared myself to be pretty amazed.

And I guess I was. Here’s what happened:

     He read from 1 John 4, the “God is love” and “Perfect love casts out fear” passage. He said, “I know you’re expectin’ a sermon on love, but that’s not what you’re gettin’. Sorry. This is more about fear.” And he talked a minute or two about fear, fear of heights, fear of snakes, fear of growing up and going away; but he wasn’t interested in any of this – at least, I didn’t sense he was. He also talked about how some people had overcome their fears, but he wasn’t interested in that either.

     Then he started in on the fear that people can’t seem to overcome themselves, fear of their neighbor. It didn’t matter that Jesus said, “Love your neighbor.” And it didn’t matter that:

     “‘Perfect love casts out fear,’ as John says.” It didn’t matter, “because we got nothin’ like perfect love here. And I don’t mean here” – and he threw his arms out as if to embrace everything. “I don’t mean here in these not so United States or in the world beyond it that’s got almost half as many wars as it has tribes. I mean here” – and he put his hands out to the side about the level of his hips. He wasn’t standing behind the pulpit. He had stepped to his right side of it, and he’d stepped forward, and his toes were hanging over the edge of the chancel. “Here,” he said again, jiggling his hands. “Here. Where we got brothers like Cain and Abel or Esau and Jacob, we got sisters like Esaundra and Jacobina, Cainie Ann and Abelise. We got scheming mothers like Rebekah, and we got sometimes partial and mostly disengaged fathers like Isaac. This is our story: we can’t wait for each other to screw up; and I’d use the stronger word – not just ‘screw’ – if I weren’t here in church.

     “Now, I’m not about to go meddlin’,” he said, “stop preachin’ and go meddlin’, as they say. For two reasons: I don’t have to – you know exactly what I’m talkin’ about, you know who I’m talkin’ about. That’s one. And two: You’re not about to do . . . ,” he hesitated: “You’re not about to do . . . a darn thing about it.”

     He stopped, walked back behind the pulpit, looked down at the big Bible there, walked back to the edge of the chancel, hung his toes over it. “A damned thing,” he said. “You're not about to do a damned thing about it, because you not only can’t wait, you’re desperate, for each other to screw up; you want each other to fuck up royally.”

     And he hopped down from the chancel, he walked around to in front of the communion table, he looked all around, “because you can’t wait to see what will happen next.” He looked all around, but he hadn’t really stopped walking; he kept walking, not fast or slow, right down the aisle and out of the front door of the church.

     No one moved until we heard the engine of his truck start up. Still no one moved much, but Axel turned to me and said half-aloud. “Well, I didn’t see that coming.”

     I shook my head. “Jesus,” Axel said, standing up so I stood up, too. We were sitting in the last pew. He put his hand on my shoulder, gave it a nudge, and we went out, the first of the congregation to go.

Yesterday Uncle Albert and I went to the Episcopal church again, where the rector is doing a series on “joy.”

 05.08.17

"clucks and jick heads"

Boffo Press imprint

 The rule of three 

1. Dr. Feight points out to me that :  Roads to Anxious was published by Buffo Press, which has both its business office and printer in Parodia, Rutilans.
2. Also that :  self-diagnosis should only be undertaken by “clucks and jick-heads” (his terms, but also to be found in the book).
3. Finally that :  

05.06.17

Call for submissions

to listen, click here

 Call for submissions 

I have been struggling lately with what has been called “cuncatory anxiety” (Feight and Muze. Look aside.). Symptoms apparently include “overactive somnolence,” “inveterate procrastination,” and “whelming guilt.” 
     Some weeks ago I invited a number of friends: philosophers, psychologists and psychiatrists, sociologists, theologians, and those that have the answers to all things great and small – politicians, pundits, and radio talk show hosts – to write a brief, helpful, healthful – actually, restorative – essay on c.a., if not to relieve my condition, at least to help me (and others) understand it better. (Those invited included, incidentally, Dr. Feight himself, Tom Nashe, Axel Sundstrøm, my uncle Albert, Rick Dietrich, Gaspar Stephens, the ghost of Aristippos, and Barter Theater.)

     Several promised to get to it and back to me soon.

This morning I received in the mail, lonely in a rather battered envelope with no return address, the following unsigned piece of advice, oddly entitled “Ethics.”

                         For those who lie awake while others sleep,

                         whose minds are racing anxiously ahead – 
                         while we lie deep

                         in easy bed,

                         our dreams unreeling slowly frame by frame –

                         for those whose shame

                         or guilt or pain keep them awake,

                         up in the dark, alone –

                         ADVISE: philosophers take Trazadone.

05.05.17

Monday, Monday

 Monday, Monday 

Good advice to start your week:*

1. Make your bed. It’s one of the habits of highly effective people.
2. Move your bowels. Make this a daily habit, too – it’s another one of highly effective people.
3. Cleanliness is an important social skill. Your interactions with others will be more satisfactory if you bathe daily. (Also, don’t forget to wipe after number 2. See above.)
4. Exercise your mind in the shower. Highly effective people are always exercising their minds. Here’s a rhyme to complete:
             “There was a young woman from Lisbon,”**
5. Don’t plan more things for your morning than you can count on the fingers of one hand with the thumb of the other. 

 _______________

     * Story board by Ted Riich, illustrated by mel ball.

   ** Exercise and compete: A duck will drop from the ceiling and a gift certificate from amazin’.com will be delivered to a deserving child in Angola the next time Joel and Victoria Osteen visit the fictional town there named for her.

05.01.17

The feast of St. Mark

 The feast of St. Mark 

M. M.

Today is the Feast of St. Mark, and one of the readings of the day (an alternate reading admittedly) is Mark 16:15-20. But, the reading from the TRV (Ted Riich Version) must begin with verse 9, since that’s where this part of the story actually starts, with Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene.

Listen here.*

Here endeth the reading.

And here begins this day. Drivers in Atlanta are crashing into each other’s cars. Politicians in D.C. are giving their aides instructions in rewriting the facts, reinventing the truth. Young women in Prague are making porn films. Old men in Tampa are firing up their laptops.

     And today’s disciples of Jesus are wondering momentarily what to think of it all. “What would Jesus do?” some ask. But, of course, he would do just what they would do themselves.

04.25.17

_______________

 *The story may be read here.

gnomes with drums

 gnomes with drums 

Today’s bit of wisdom - because wisdom always comes in bits - is from Palladas of Alexandria, a teacher of classics (ancient, pagan literature) in the age of the rise of Christianity, that is, sometime during the late fourth or early fifth century. Scholars differ about his dates, but he was almost certainly affected by the campaign of destruction and plundering of pagan temples under Bishop Theophilos (“friend of God”).

     Palladas lost his teaching job, but he seems to have come to terms with Christianity’s “violent advent,” as one scholar has described it; his marriage may have been preparation, as Palladas describes it. He (Palladas, not the scholar) continued to find buyers for his books even after he left academia; he seems even to have found work, though it’s unclear what the work was.

     What he didn’t find was relief in marriage or belief in the Christian God. (Which was a worse trial, “the unknown God” or “the unnamed wife,” is another matter of scholarly disagreement.) Palladas did seem to have found some sustenance, however, in a poetry that has been described as Swiftian, “imbued with [the] deep-rooted, bitter pessimism,” that has comforted many an unhappily married, and many an ungodly,  man.

Tony Harrison’s marvelous translation: Fate didn't hustle Gessius to his death.
                                                                           He ran there well before it, out of breath.

I have known some philosophers, some of whom I have also enjoyed knowing; but for the most part, as soon as they start trying to figure out how things work – instead of how this thing works and that thing works and the third doesn’t – they leave me behind. I still don’t see why tomorrow should be anything like today, which as far as I can tell doesn’t resemble yesterday even if/when wears the same shirt and pants. I don’t see how Australian butterflies are connected with Danish bees, except that we are convinced they must be. I’m not sure we wouldn’t all be happier if the law of gravity were repealed.

     So, I have to absorb the little wisdom that I can from people – like Palladas – that don’t know shit about metaphysics so have to talk about one thing at a time.

You can find that kind of one-off, antick wisdom almost every day on my Facebook page or my Twitter feed. Tech services says you can get to either by clicking somewhere over in that ➠➠ direction. Or, you can some days.

04.18.17

easter monday morning

 easter monday morning 

I got a call this morning from my old friend, Gaspar Stephens: “I was thinking of you yesterday. Mel Ball called me to tell me you’d been ‘under the weather’ – or the weather had become too steep for you: you were trying to roll a bale of cotton up clouds too sheer.” 

     “Yeah,” I said.

     “I told him I’d been reading the blog, but I thought it was fiction.” 

     “Every word that follows makes the previous fiction, didn't you tell me that? I mean, once you write down the second word, it's a lie isn’t it?” 

     “Well, yeah. A ‘story’ anyway . . . .  But: you’re okay?” He sounded genuinely concerned, though it’s hard to tell on the phone. Or across a room, or from the other side of the bed.

     “Not exactly,” I said. I thought a minute. “But the clouds are getting, how shall I say? ‘shallower’?”

Gaspar didn’t say anything for a minute. Then:

     “Ball also said, ‘Happy Easter.’”

     “Yeah?”

     “ . . . And I told him, shit, I didn’t realize it was Easter.”

     “We went to church, Uncle Albert and I, but to the early one, so we didn’t have to listen to the strings. Bart went with us. Roz's son.”

     “Yeah, I get that. I mean that you went to the early, non-folderol service. Did I ever tell you my dad refused to use the word, which he said was ‘pagan’? - as if Easter were a goddess with great breasts and a greater laugh. To say her name would set her cavorting naked through the graveyard behind the ‘kirk.’”

     “I always liked your dad,” he said after a brief pause. Then there was another pause: “Until he cut out on your mom. Though that may have been good, right? He also cut out before he could get his sticky fingers too far into your head and up your gut.”

Gaspar's dad and God -
not sure which is which.

Gasper wrote once about his dad, whom he likened to God, because even when he was absent – a lot of the time since he was a missionary of some sort, one that didn't take his family with him – even when he was absent, he was as constantly interfering as God, always meddling though with what Gaspar called – I just found his letter, dated April 22, 1995, the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. God, he said, kept wanting to pretend he wasn’t really there; he operated with “deniable intrusion.”

I’m not talking about the God that shines the sun and sends the rain, or the God that preachers and politicians petition, but the God that meddles in our affairs, the doings and non-doings of little people like you and me, of children. I’m talking about the God that pinches our brains between his thumb and forefinger and pokes at our hearts with darning needles, that sticks his fat middle finger up our anuses or down our throats and plays with our guts – constipates and diarrheas and gags and nauseates us – that uses the rough whorls of that same finger to sandpaper our nerves.

     That was my dad, relying on his ability to make heads hurt, our hearts go out of rhythm, to rattle our entire digestive apparatus, so it was shaking in every twist, turn or sack of it, to scrape his nails across our skin till it was as raw as one huge picked-at-scab.

     The omnipresence of that part God isn’t in the world, as I see it - omnipresence isn’t omnipotence; it's not in the world - it’s in us, it’s on us, it’s sticking like permanent peppermint candy to our every finger - it’s not the power to move mountains, it’s the shriek in the night that shivers our nerves.
 

So, that was my Easter Monday morning.

04.17.17