We’ll Always Have Paris...

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.” 

                                                              —Alice Walker, The Color Purple

So I finally started watching the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel .” In The opening episode Midge’s mother runs away to Paris unhappy with her life in New York. Her husband goes to retrieve her and is convinced to stay. Before long we see their rekindled romance as they experience the novelty of bohemian Parisian life.

Saturday was an awesome day. I went to my mom’s apartment to set up meds. Afterwards I stopped into the little cafe on the corner for a late breakfast. I sat there enjoying the milieu and thinking about that episode of Mrs. Meisel.

Why do we think we need a Paris to escape to? Why do we romanticize these far away places we may never see? Imagine spending your life with your spouse, but constantly sighing over some unattainable Hollywood heartthrob...that would be sad and exceedingly unhealthy. So why do we do that to the places in which we live?

Why can’t we see our own spaces through Parisian lenses?  I love where I am living. There are moments that feel like I’m in some South American city. Berwyn is very Hispanic and it is an older, more urban suburb. I’m certain that the secret is within. It is about accepting our lives where they are. It is about living today in the now and not floating through one’s day and place waiting for some imagined future other place that may never unfold.

As you begin your post holiday week, I challenge you to take time in your day to stop and look. Don’t piss off God by ignoring the color purple as you pass. Stop and smell the lilacs! Breathe deep. This is your Life...right now...it’s not a dress rehearsal for something else. 

Magic In The Woods

I absolutely love this time of year...it speaks to my soul.  Over the years I have been accused in jest of being a witch.  This is the bewitching season.

Today the woods are ripe with dripping magic.  There is a yellow green glow as the leaves continue to ooze away their summer life blood.  Those that have broken free from their summer branches are adrift on the breeze or coating the deck, the stairs, the roof, the ground.

This is rutting season afterall.  It is a powerful time of year.  Animals are driven to mate so their pregnant mates can quietly gestate through the dark winter months.

Despite the shorter days and the creeping darkness.  The chill at midnight.  This is a time of life in transition.  The mystery of death looms but it is not a permanent death.  Even the Christian tradition is interwoven with this deep pagan sense of time.

Sex itself has been called the little death so it follows this time of the rut leads to the deep death sleep of winter...itself a time of gestation.  At the peak of darkness on the winter solstice, we lift up our voices to implore the return of light.  And into the darkness a baby is born.  The symbol of the coming Light.

This IS a magical time.  I listen to appropriate music, cast my spells and pray for the continuation of the endless timeless cycle.

Peace.

My Latest Obsession

I just got off the phone with a friend after having a lovely conversation about motivation for creating art, the art itself, the need for an audience vs. creating for one's own sake and need.  It has my mind reeling.

The individual at left is the French writer George Sand, her pen name.  George often dressed as a man and wrote both novels and memoirs.  My introduction to her was via her portrayal by Judy Davis in the movie Impromptu which tells a version of how George Sand met and wooed Frederick Chopin.  It is a wonderful film with a great cast that includes Emma Thompson, Mandy Patinkin, Julian Sands, Hugh Grant, and Bernadette Peters.

A former lover of George Sand, in the movie, is critical of her writing and declares that she enters into relationships for the sole purpose of being able to regurgitate them onto paper in the form of her novels etc.  Sure enough, one of her novels, Lucrezia Floriani is a thinly veiled account of her relationship with Chopin.  It was considered scandalous by our standards and so was only translated and published in English about 35 years ago.  Trust me, by today's standards there is nothing remotely scandalous in the story.

I was also able to find a nice Folio Society edition of her primary memoir on AbeBooks.com.

It is an interesting consideration - is fiction valid if it is strongly based on one's personal relationships?  Guessing to what extent various works of fiction reflected autobiographical bits is nothing new.  My friend has been encouraging me to write.  As a result of his inspiration, I have drafted the first few paragraphs of a possible short story as well as a "treatment' for a three act play.  I looked back on a story idea I had toyed with about a year ago.  In most of these cases I believe I would draw heavily on my personal experience in creating these "fictions."

Tonight I confessed to him that I have been writing primarily to please him.  I am not certain that I feel up to writing for a public, an audience.  George Sand was notorious for writing fictions based on episodes from her life and her work was eagerly sought after by the public in the way that we grab the National Enquirer today to read about celebrities.

I'm not sure I want that kind of scrutiny.

Peace.

Hello, In There...

Well, now that I have the bugs worked out of Blogger, apparently I had to clear my cookies and cash...just like life...oh, my bad, cache...  So the post I started is lost to oblivion and I must try to begin again from memory. (sigh)

So I'm at it again...due to the inspiration of a particular friend. Thanks, darlin.

I usually start with a rough idea and a title and then seek an image and voila!  Today I wanted to start with Hello, In There and while Blogger was acting all wonky, I went in search of an appropriate image for that phrase.  Google Image search can be inspirational.  However, imagine my surprise when a significant number of images turned up folks smiling at very pregnant bellies!?!  I readily admit that there is a certain appropriate je ne sais quoi about a large girth and the image of being pregnant with brilliant ideas about to spring forth.  I still thought better of it.

I came across the other image which seemed much more appropriate - a perfect combination of canine humor and self-deprecation...essentially the fear that there is really nothing brilliant inside.

As some of you may recall, I walked away from my congregation in Marquette.

Hold on...wait a minute...Blogger is still acting strange and not saving my entry.  Grrrrr.  I am having to manually copy and paste just in case.

Perhaps the world is trying to prevent me from unleashing my terrible wit on the world once again.  As you may recall, I had left my congregation in Marquette and then subsequently blogged my opinion on church issues rather publicly here.  As a result I angered a number of people.  I do not regret anything I published and do not wish to delete those previous posts.  However, I also do not want anything from the past to stir the pot all over again, hence the invite only format.  Should you know someone who would like to peak in simply share there name and email and I will add them to the list.

Enough for now as I am not sure this will even publish.  Peace.

Penile Satisfaction? Excuse me?

Now that I have your attention...

Yesterday was the Feast of St. Andrew.  No, neither of the young men in the drawing is named Andrew or Andy...though one of them is probably Randy.  Sorry.  Couldn't help myself.

The chaplain at work is an Episcopal priest and he and some of my regular congregation often get together and celebrate at the hospital in the chapel.  A friend, of course, invited me to join them yesterday at the end of the day.

Fortunately, I was able to zip downstairs in time for the service.  Leon, a friend, her husband, and myself made up the gathering.

Leon presided, and as is his custom, he was prepared to preach extemporaneously.  However, there was a decided pause into which I jumped.  I have been reading (among many other things) Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross.  I had some questions about atonement theology and asked the group if a local priest's objection to "Atonement Theology" was unique or more universal in today's Episcopal Church.

And so we were off on a lively discussion of atonement theology and related topics.  Three of us in the room were raised Roman Catholic and one was raised a Methodist.

What I am learning is that in response to the narrow focus of many churches today on one form of atonement theology - namely Penal Substitution - more liberal or progressive members of the church have thrown the baby out with the "bloody" bath water.  Too many contemporary Christians have taken Anselm's theology to the extreme belief of an angry, wrathful God who demanded a blood sacrifice of his Son to remove the Sin of mankind.

Many of our contemporary denominations either continue to emphasize or a tradition that emphasized the sinful, worthlessness of humanity.  In the Episcopal tradition this is evident when one compares Rite I liturgy with Rite II liturgy.  In addition to the more formal thee/thou language is a decided emphasis on groveling and pleading for forgiveness in Rite I.

This belief in the inherent "badness" of mankind fits hand in glove with the Penal Substitution theology - God demanding the blood sacrifice to cure us of our sinfulness in order to make God right with us.

More often now, you will hear this referred to as Penal Satisfaction theology - the punishment that Christ takes on to satisfy an angry God.  This is because there are other forms of atonement theory that our substitutionary in nature - think Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  Aslan (the Christ figure) substitutes himself for Edmund in order to satisfy the White Witch (the Satan figure) and allows himself to be sacrificed.  Aslan has no issue with Edmund (man) but rather with the Witch.

Well, by now you will have either forgotten how I got your attention or you are completely baffled by my choice of title and picture.

I received a phone call just as I was sitting down to try and write SOMETHING for the blog as I hadn't posted in almost three weeks.  It was my friend .  She had a confession to make.

Now in hind site I realize that she had remained rather quiet during our discussion that went on for at least twenty minutes or more.  She called and explained that from the moment that I introduced the concept of Penal Substitution - what she heard was Penile Substitution and proceeded to sit there quietly dumbfounded as to what in the heck we men were discussing.

In the midst of my laughter I realized how much more her confusion must have increased at the point that Leon introduced the newer terminology of "Penile Satisfaction!"  We all have had a good laugh about this and I hope you now will have had a good chuckle while thinking about Atonement as we begin yet another church year tomorrow with the First Sunday of Advent.  Peace.

PS - I also advised her to take a page from my book and never be afraid to stop a conversation and say, "Excuse me?  What?  Please explain, I don't understand."  It's good advice.

This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land

Once I finally got out of bed yesterday I had a lovely afternoon.  I tend to sleep a great deal on Saturday, my work week leaves me somewhat drained.  I finally arose, put on my flannel pj's, made a pot of coffee, and chose some music from iTunes.

It was a beautiful gray November afternoon.  The leaves are still there but all on the ground now leaving bare maple trunks for as far as the eye can see.  I selected Harry Chapin.  A few of his songs always crack me open and make me look inside.  Damn if he didn't have me quietly weeping at least once.

I thought about blogging yesterday but decided to wait.  Now having been bombarded by images on  Facebook, I suppose I am choosing to blog about a different set of Veterans.  They may not have put on a uniform, but they have fought for the cause of freedom and justice just as hard as any soldier.  Their war has never ended.

I believe I can say this as I am also a garden variety veteran having served in the Navy when I was but a pup.  It is not my intention to take anything away from the men and women who have served honorably in our military, but, frankly, between Memorial Day, Veteran's Day, Fourth of July, and a any other day we can stretch to include a hearty "Support Our Troops" battle cry, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines get a lot of attention in our War Culture.

As I sat down to blog about the powerful skills of Harry Chapin among others, I began to envision a different kind of "veteran."  The CDs I have include snippets of Harry talking to his audiences and/or conducting interviews.  He was big into fighting world hunger and many of the audio snippets are of him talking about hunger and poverty.

Harry mentions Pete Seeger as one of his heroes - that's him at the top of the blog.  I suppose that got me thinking about other artists who have used their voices to fight for peace and justice. Of course, some would argue that these individuals were down right un-American - claim they lacked true patriotism.

I am an Episcopalian (via Roman Catholicism).  If I were to ask you, What is the Church?  How would you answer?  Would you say, it's the buildings - the parish churches, the Basilicas, the Cathedrals?  Would you say it is the Liturgy - the rituals, the vestments, the incense, the hymns?  Would you argue that the Church is the clergy - the Pope, the Archbishops, the Bishops, the Priests?  I believe the church is the people.  All those other things merely support the Church - the People of God.

In a similar way, I believe that our country is the people.  Our country isn't the buildings and memorials.  Our country isn't the rituals and pledges and jingoistic songs.  Our country isn't the politicians or they offices they hold.  Our Country is US.  Therefore, those individuals who have fought the State, challenged the government, stood up to the Corporations...all in the name of fighting for justice for the people are true patriots.  They are the veterans of our on going war against poverty and injustice.

So on this Veterans Day I choose to remember:  Rosa Parks, Dorothy Day, Caesar Chavez, Upton Sinclair, Howard Zinn, Russ Feingold, Noam Chomsky, Malcolm X, Joan Chittister, Helen Prejean, and many, many others who wore the uniforms of Woman's Suffrage, Labor, the Habit of the Church, the humble garments of the poor.  Please feel free to add your names to this list in the comments.  Peace!

To Dream The Impossible Dream

I am continuing to try and get back into a blogging groove here.  So I apologize for the facile nature of some of these posts. I must just write...

I am a hoarder of books.  A significant portion of my mom's posts on Facebook are of homes stuffed with books and her comment that her son's house is like this...I'm flattered...I think.

I can own a book for many, many years and then pull it off the shelf at the right moment.  For example, earlier this year I read a book by Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination.

Actually, the story behind this book begins with a recommendation made my June Butler at her blog Wounded Bird.  I ordered the book and it sat on one of my many piled tables for a number of months.

Manuel Padilla our missioner made one of his frequent visits to our congregation and told us about a Walter Brueggemann DVD series they were doing at the church in Crystal Falls.  It was rather clear that this six part series must be based on that book I had waiting to be read at home.  I asked Manuel if I might borrow the DVD when they were finished.  Once I had the DVD at hand I also proceeded to read the book.

In an early chapter of the book, Walter references some titles that catch my eye.  In particular, Imagining Argentina by Lawrence Thornton.  He says, "Cavanaugh reflects on the force of liturgic imagination by an appeal to the novel of Lawrence Thornton, Imagining Argentina.  In the novel, the key character, Carlos Rueda, is visited with 'a peculiar miraculous gift,' the capacity to create futures by acts of anticipatory imagination."

Essentially, Carlos dreams alternative realities to the horrors of the dirty war and these dreams come true.  He dreams that those who the government have disappeared are alive and so they are.  More on this in a bit.

So, although I haven't read Imagining Argentina yet, I did pick it up a few weeks back and read the first chapter, scanned the back cover and then looked at other titles by this author.  One title in particular stood out, Under the Gypsy Moon.  As I have said, I have a bit of a book obsession.  Many years ago on one of my splurges, I had purchased a number of hard cover fiction titles from the book store where I was working that had caught my eye.

One of those books has sat unread on my shelves.  Some of the authors I have selected over the years turned out to be "one hit wonders" - well, not even a "hit" necessarily.  This one title in particular I had looked at and almost gave away on a few occasions.  Yes, it was Under the Gypsy Moon, First Edition.  I love when things like that happen.

This past weekend I took down another unread book from my shelves, Susan Wise Bauer's The Well-Educated Mind:  A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had. I began to read the first few chapters and decided that the time was right to follow her program.  Of course, the fact that she mentions Anita Brookner and that I had just had a Brookner book in hand the night before (yes, unread)...gave me the little wink of harmonious "coincidence" that I needed.

And so I have begun a more structured reading of Don Quixote which includes journaling and taking notes.  She also recommends finding a reading partner.  Jim Livingstone is a retired English professor from Northern Michigan University and a member of my very tiny church congregation.  I called him up to see if he was interested only to discover that just this past weekend he was thinking it was time for him to reread, you guessed it, Don Quixote. You may say these are all just bits of coincidence.  I, however, choose to see them as little signals of being on the right path.

So I purchased some pens and journals and sat down to read Don Quixote.  In 2003, Edith Grossman published a newly translated version that was well received.  On a number of occasions I had considered buying the paperback of this edition.  My attempts at curbing my addiction, however, had convinced me to postpone that purchase.  Of course, I was simply delighted when I came across a pristine First Edition at my local bookstore for $9.00!

I am only a few chapters in and already I am wondering about the role of imagination in changing the world...think back to Imagining Argentina.  In my notes I jotted down something said by Carlos Fuentes and quoted on the dust jacket, "Don Quixote is the first modern novel, perhaps the most eternal novel ever written and certainly the fountainhead of European and American fiction:  here we have Gogol and Dostoevsky, Dickens and Nabokov, Borges and Bellow, Stern and Diderot in their genetic nakedness, once more taking to the road with the gentleman and the squire, believing that the world is what we read and discovering that the world reads us."

This idea...that we can alter the world with our imaginings--that we CAN change things on the eve of the 2012 Presidential Election--gives me hope.  Hope to dream the impossible dream.

Peace.