The Monticello Blues

"Always be thankful for your job." My dad said this earlier today as I was riding with him and my sister to an apple orchard near Monticello. . .you know. . .that building on the nickel. I'm on vacation, visiting my family in Virginia, and though dad was talking to my sister, his words hit me hard. It brought to mind all my ingratitude towards God - the good, true God of the Christians Who is the only lover of mankind. It brought to mind, and chastised me, for the way I have gradually lost control of my tongue since my baptism. Unlike the holy prophet Job, I am quick to complain and accuse God (and His servants). . .I'm afraid I would have likely agreed with Job's wife and died on the dunghill.

Dad had no idea he was speaking to me this morning. Which is good for both of us. If he had said it directly to me, it would have provoked self-justification and a stupid argument, mainly because I find it hard to admit I'm not perfect to my dad. (Uh. . .that could be the subject of a few posts all by itself.) But God even arranged that. Dad was talking to my sister, and being in the back seat I could lament my hard-heartedness in privacy and silence. I just hope dad doesn't read my blog. . .

From This Day. . .

My wife sometimes sends me pithy little quotes from Orthodox writers during the day. It's the "wired" equivalent of putting love notes in my lunch because it always warms my heart to know she's thinking of me and looking for ways to encourage me. It's one of the many things I love and appreciate about Macrina. She sent one a few minutes ago that I read while eating a sandwich she prepared for me this morning. . .she blesses me body and soul.

I'm going to post what she sent, from St. John Chrysostom, because it touches on a theme I've brought up more than once in my blog: "Does God approve of the way I'm spending my life?"

If artists who make statues and paint portraits of kings are held in high esteem, will not God bless ten thousand times more those who reveal and beautify His royal image (for man is the image of God)? When we teach our children to be good, to be gentle, to be forgiving (all these are attributes of God), to be generous, to love their fellow men, to regard this present age as nothing, we install virtue in their souls, and reveal the image of God within them. This, then, is our task: to educate both ourselves and our children in godliness; otherwise what answer will we have before Christ's judgment-seat?....Let us be greatly concerned for our wives and our children, and for ourselves as well...The good God Himself will bring this work to perfection, so that all of us may be counted worthy of the blessings He has promised..

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 21

I guess part of the reason I'm bringing this up today is because of the whiffs of death I've gotten recently. There will be a day when we are asked to give an account of the capital we've received from God. I'm not encouraging any of us to look back over our lives and choke on despair because we've invested so much in such trivial things like my career, my security, my pleasure, my dreams, etc. and so little in the lives of our "neighbors". . .in the "Good Samaritan" sense of that word. No. . .that's just more me activity. Rather, another quote comes to mind. . .

From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us love God above all.

St. Herman of Alaska

One Way or Another

Our priest, Fr. Nicholas Letten, just returned from a visit with his son-in-law Isaac, who lives in San Francisco and who is dying of liver cancer. He's fading rapidly and most likely has very little time left on earth. Three of his close friends are traveling to St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina in the next few days to dig his grave. At breakfast this morning, after Matins, Fr. Nicholas was telling us about his visit, and he read to us from Councils From the Holy Mountain about suffering. This book is a collection of letters and homilies of Elder Ephraim who is at the Monastery of St. Anthony in Florence, AZ. I believe Fr. Nicholas chose this particular book, out of many Orthodox books on this subject, because Isaac has visited St. Anthony's Monastery a few times since his illness manifested. Elder Ephraim has heard his life confession and prayed for him along with many of the monks there. It has been a great consolation. When we asked Fr. Nicholas how Isaac was doing, because we all know him and love him a lot, he summarized it by saying, "He is preparing for his departure."

Like most people in our death-denying-culture, I rarely encounter the "d-word" except through TV and movies. We don't like death. We want it to be "quick and painless". The last thing on earth we want is a long, drawn out fading away that is full of suffering. Like in everything else, we prefer to call the shots even of our own death. However, the Orthodox perspective (which is the culture I am somewhat desperately, and with varying degrees of success trying to adopt) looks at long drawn-out suffering very differently. From this perspective, a quick and painless death is dangerous because it doesn't give one the time to prepare for the horrible ripping away of the body from the soul which then must give an account, at some point, of itself to God, our Creator and Judge. Isaac's path, full of waiting, wondering, nausea, weakness, pain, tears, and suffering is the preferred way because it gives one time to prepare and repent. I'm not making this up. . .if you talk to Isaac, this is exactly what he will tell you.

We don't know which way we will die. If it comes suddenly, and we are in a state of needless busyness, distraction, intemperance, fantasy, etc. . .then our poor soul will undergo untold disorientation and terror. I pray for soberness for myself, and for all of you as well. It is something we are all going to face, one way or another.

Present Tense Repentance

I love maps. So, when I discovered Microsoft's Terra Server a few years ago I had a neck and wrist ache before I was able to pull myself away from my PC. I hadn't visited the site for a long time, but for some reason I decided to go check it out a couple of nights ago. The photos are better now in urban areas, and I was able to make out a little backyard shed I had built in my previous house. How cool is that? Then the trouble started. I decided to make a trip down memory lane with the help of this technology. "I wonder if I can find where we lived in St. Louis?" led to an intense hour-long session of re-living a bittersweet period of my life.

Two observations:

1) Physicality is important, and not synonymous with materialism. I knew this really well as a child. . .lost sight of it as my ability for abstract thought took over as a young adult. . .lived in denial of it until about 5 years ago. . .and was greatly relieved to find that my intuitive childhood relationship with "things" was alive and well in the Orthodox Church. As I retraced my steps in St. Louis with the aid of TerraServer, I was transported there in an emotionally charged way. The "things" I was looking at through the satellite lens is what did it. Just "remembering" my life in St. Louis isn't as powerful. I've most likely put certain filters in place. Seeing the asphalt path in the park across from the Seminary, that I walked on day after day learning Greek vocabulary, is like stepping into a time machine. I can feel everything associated with that blacktop path covered with goose droppings in the humid St. Louis Spring, and re-live the pressure I felt to somehow remember all those words for Monday morning's vocab quiz.

2) Looking back is dangerous. Becoming emotionally connected to the past should be considered an X sport. I don't recommend it. It gives the false impression that fatalism has the upper hand and if you're not careful, it is easy to get into "but if only. . ." mode. The past is what it is. I cannot interact with it, I can only learn from it and repent in the present. Looking ahead, to my death, is actually more profitable and in reality less morbid.

Masquerade

With many tears and a very heavy heart, I'm re-posting a song my friend Duane Tate wrote, called 'Masquerade' in The Strawmen's Vault. Duane wrote this for his wife, Linda Marie Steele Tate, shortly after meeting her. They married on June 22 of this year. Tragically, she died in an accident this past Wednesday, October 6.

I originally put 'Masquerade' in the Vault shortly after he wrote it, in January of this year. At the time, I didn't realize who he was writing about. . .I just knew it was a wonderful song, very sweet, and from his heart. As I was talking with him yesterday about his wife's untimely death, he told me he had written it for her. It makes sense. It's the kind of song that only love can pull out of a despairing heart. Before he met Lin, he had gone through a bitter divorce and Lin's presence was bringing a little color back into Duane's life.

They loved each other very much. I'm so sorry for them. Please keep them in your prayers.

Go to The Strawmen Website and look for the spinning record player towards the bottom of the page. To the right of the record player you'll see "Vault" in white letters. Click on that and you'll be taken to The Vault where you can download and listen to "Masquerade".

Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?

OK. . .after re-reading my last post, The Biggest Sin of Pop Culture?, I recognized the all-too-familiar cynical twist I can put on things. So, I'm going to try again, keeping in mind Fr. Paisius' counsel which I wrote about in Flies and Bees.

God never abandons us. His mercy and grace are ineffable. My head is full of jingles, jangles, bits and pieces of pop-culture-trivia, and yet somehow God has managed to nourish me with it. Somehow God has taken all those assorted bits and pieces and created for me a mosaic of Himself which was "good enough" to create a longing for Him. Not only that, but He also commandeered the anemic oral tradition contained in pop culture and used it to prepare in me a way to comprehend and love Holy Tradition when I finally came in contact with it. When I think of pop culture in this light. . .it takes on the form of a servant rather than a taskmaster. It smells of God rather than stinks of the devil.

As a concrete example of what I'm talking about, I remember a story my College Humanities Prof. told us one day in class. After a little googling I found the story in a speech given at Harvard in 1986 titled REFLECTIONS ON MORAL LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY. It goes like this:

Some of you might best know the famed scientist Dr. Jacob Bronkowski from his television series, The Ascent of Man. Jacob Bronkowski was considered a value-free scientist. The value-free school of science teaches essentially that it is for the scientist to research, hypothesize, theorize, discover principles, turn everything over to engineers and others to do with as they will. The value-free scientist, in other words, assumes no responsibility for the use to which his work is put.

After the bombing of Nagasaki, Dr. Bronowski was asked by the U. S. Government to assess the damage. He entered the harbor and took a small boat to the fleet landing. On the landing was a group of American sailors singing the nonsense ditty of the day, "Is You Is, or Is You Ain't My Baby". It meant absolutely nothing to Dr. Bronkowski. He left the fleet landing, circled a grove of trees, looked down upon what had been the city of Nagasaki. He was utterly stunned. He could not believe the horror -- the devastation that lay before him. Then the words of the ditty took shape, pounded through his very being -- "Is You Is, or Is You Ain't My Baby", and then he had to ask himself: "Can I, can anyone call himself a value-free scientist, disclaim completely the work of his hands, his mind, his very being as I look at what this horror has wrought, "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?"

That story has stuck with me over the years because when I heard it I marveled at how God uses common stuff, like pop culture, to speak to us. God's humility and condescension towards us floors me.

The Biggest Sin of Pop Culture?

Ever get songs "stuck in your head"? Of course you do. . .we all do I suppose, unless something is broken in our heads. It can be very annoying when the song is trivial, like "Mama, don't let your boys grow up to be cowboys. . ." On the other hand, it is comforting when it is something profound like, "Christ has risen from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." I first noticed the difference when I came into the Orthodox Church and started memorizing a few of the troparians (short hymns) that we typically sing in our parish. I would find them coming up "on their own" during various times of the day, just like old pop songs would. For perhaps the first time, I was grateful for the "broken record" because it served to not only instruct me, but it transported me emotionally back to the warmth of an Orthodox service.

As I thought through all this, I became convinced there was a large and growing element of oral tradition in our culture in the form of pop music and pop culture (i.e. movies, late-night-TV, commercial jingles and/or images, etc.) in general. I lamented that my poor head was so full of the songs and jingles of my early-to-late teenage years that sometimes I felt I couldn't fit anything else in. Of course, I was wrong. . .there is still room. However, being filled with trivia, propaganda, and unsettling images does have its effects. "Something" is being passed down and that "something" has "formed" me substantially, little by little, over the years. Many times, my "responses" in conversations are quotes from songs, movies or comedic skits. (Who hasn't quoted a Monty Python line to "make your point" in a conversation?)

So, I was a little bemused this morning when on the way to work I heard an anthropologist being interviewed on NPR saying:

Human behavior is much more complex, but even something as purely beautiful as music may have helped people survive, says Penn State University anthropologist Pat Shipman. She says early human groups may have used rhyme and music to pass on important information. Mbuti Pygmies living in Congo still use music for such purposes.

"It's been shown quite convincingly that rhymes, repeated rhythm, sometimes repeated melodies do help embed information in your brain," Shipman says.

Perhaps this is the greatest sin (and inherent danger) of pop culture. It has managed to replace Holy Tradition, that wonderful and grace-filled mechanism to remember and pass on Divine revelation from one generation to the next, with trivia, devilish propaganda, and just plain misleading information about God and ourselves.