December 2, 2014
Roz
Roz has her own thoughts about smokers. She tends to excuse cigarette smokers as only the meanest of addicts. Pipe smokers are, however, pretentious. And cigar smokers are like small boys, imitating dogs peeing on hydrants and trees: “They want to leave their smell on everything, so other dogs will know they’ve been there.”
For a short time, I was an addict – of filterless Chesterfields, or Gauloises when I could find them. But I never fell to either pretension or pissing on others’ shoes. Speaking of which . . . .
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| Bonfire-of-Vanities Cigars |
Here is why – I think – humor doesn’t work with politicians, professors, or presbyterians. It is not that they have no senses of humor; but they have no curiosity. Arrogance, or sanctimony – these are the opposites of curiosity. Consider the meanings of the words. curious : inquisitive, eager to discover. arrogant : making or implying claims to . . . authority or knowledge. (The latter definition comes from the OED.)
The curious man seeks to know. The arrogant man claims he does; and he is not to be shaken.
Politicians, as an example, may call their opponents’ positions “curious”; but that does not mean they are curious about them. They are not. And it is not only that the positions are held by opponents; politicians aren’t curious, they don’t wonder, about things at all; instead, they fit them into preconceived categories. (This is what they have in common with professors and presbyterians, indeed with all fundamentalists.)
(“Questions” in committee hearings, for example, are not posed to elicit facts but to state claims. They don’t seek answers; they clarify positions.)
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| The Savonarola |
I woke up this morning on fire, which got me thinking about Savonarola, wondering in my pretended delirium if he was as cruel, as ugly, as arrogant in heart and soul as I imagined him to be. I decided I didn’t care. He is, as I see him, a suitable symbol of arrogance, one of the self-righteous in power.
Power, in almost any amount, turns righteousness into self-righteousness, as if at the flip of a switch. This may be – it is, I would like to believe – why Jesus steadfastly, carefully (yet blithely, merrily) avoided power. The Apostle, unfortunately, could not. So, Jesus atoned; and Paul sold Jesus’s atonement, on which, he (Paul) claimed, he had a monopoly. “Whatever anyone else may tell you, even an angel, if it is different from what I have told you already, do not listen to but curse him” (Galatians 6).
I am being unfair (if, still, that's the way I see it). Let’s return to Savonarola (as I see him), his certainty that of all the things the infinite God could say and of all the ears the omnipotent God could speak into, the Creator of all that is has only this to say and it is for his ears only.
And what the Creator-and-Redeemer has to say is judgment.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Here is my confession: I find it difficult, if not impossible, not to be filled with hate for those I perceive to be filled with hate. What is needed, if I am to come out into forgiveness:
- sunshine, and that may be several days away, if the weather gurus are correct;
- so, in the meantime, music: for the ears, but also the eyes, nose, mouth, and fingertips – something soft, lovely, laughing, and carefree:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
O God – some splinter of, the right sliver of, the Infinite: Give me the good sense to forget the arrogant and delight in the smudge on the imperfect beauty’s cheek, the way she smells of both sweat and perfume, how she tastes of salt and jam, how she sings off-key and back on, her skin like the finest-grained sandpaper. Amen.
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