That jackass Luther

 That jackass Luther 

I was supposed to meet Axel Sundstrøm for lunch today. He was bringing a friend, a Seminary classmate - Fjeldheim or Pettersen or something - he wanted me to meet. We would raise a glass to the 500th of the 95. But it is one of those days I cannot leave the house, a carry-over from the weekend when Roz’s cousin Jamie came up from Atlanta with her new husband, a drearier misanthrope than I am.

that jackass Luther by that jackass Cranach

Actually, I am not a misanthrope. I don’t hate my fellow human beings. “I am only weary of them,” I started to write; but that’s not true either. 
     This is from Naguib Mahfouz’s Sugar Street; he is describing how Aisha feels about her daughter Na’ima, all that is left of her family, her husband and sons having died of typhoid. Aisha has become so “afraid for her daughter," she is afraid of her, she finds.

Jamie’s husband, who is “Todd,” like the insufferably priggish neighbor in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, finds everyone anyone can mention as insufferable as he must find himself. “That jackass,” he says of every one. So, I find myself sticking up for them: we can’t know what impels them, what imps push them this way and that.

     “You mean ‘demons,’” Todd says. “No,” I say. “If I had meant demons I would have said so.”

We all have the answers to nearly everything if we’ll only admit it. Only some of us are willing to revise on the basis of further evidence. It’s a painful process, however, confronting the evidence, sifting through it. It requires great energy; even with that, it is tiring. Some days it is better to stay inside and read through the index cards you have already written: there is too much new information beyond the front door - even among present-day Lutherans.

10.31.17