Ironic Advent Meditation 2020 #2: Ironic (Saint) Andrew

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #2:     Ironic (Saint) Andrew Gets a Cross of His Own

Dear reader. It's just the second day of Advent, and I realize that some of you wonder why I am now talking about Saint Andrew instead of Advent.  The short answer is that the liturgical year pays attention both to the proper of the seasons (we are very early in the season of Advent obviously) AND the proper of the saints. The what? Well, Saint's Days. We don't worship them, but we "pay attention" to them. 

Saint's days are scattered throughout the year, but some of the really great ones come during Advent and Christmas. And some I have added, like the Feast of Charles, my father (coming soon). A good liturgist, or for that matter, a good ironist, does his or her best to weave the meditation upon the life and teaching of the saint into the proper season. There will be reader evaluation forms to fill out by Epiphany for you to critique how well or how badly Ben Camino has done so. He won't read them, however. 

Anyway(s), here goes. 

I guess it's kind of cheeky (or ironic) to feel sorry for a saint and martyr, brother of the first Pope, companion of the Lord, loaves and fish miracle assistant (I like to think of him as a sort of apostolic miracle whip, ), and, most famously, patron saint of a pretty sweet golf course in Scotland. But I do. 

If he would have had a better PR guy or even just Saint Luke churning out the Acts of Andrew (a sequel),  I’m sure he would have his own gospel or at least an epistle or two. And a LOT more statues. Of course, we shall see, moving forward (or backwards perhaps), if statues are as stationary a memorial as people have thought since . . . well before Ozymandias. 

Wait, that's probably a bad example. By the way, if Ozymandias does not ring an ancient Egyptian bell, I would rather you look it up than just clicking on a link I provide. OK? That's more the Ben Camino way. Feel free to add your annoyed comments in the evaluation after Epiphany.  

Anyway(s), I think it's obvious that if Andrew would have just doubted the resurrection (like Thomas) or argued with Jesus about getting his feet perfumed (like Judas) or jumped into the water with little faith (like his brother) he would have been more impactful, as every university administrator I have ever known would say. Doubting Andrew. Or perhaps, Ironic Andrew. Has a certain ring to it. Nobody would ever forget Ironic Andrew. Would they? Really, would they? 

But . . . no. Andrew pretty much disappears from the story, overwhelmed by James, John, and, obviously, his more visible, irascible (some faithful friends will know that I threw that word in just to hear it shimmer) and oh-so-loud brother, Peter. And, apropos of nothing, how about the names of these two boys? A lot of interpretive ink has been spilled explaining why Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter, from something like the reed to the Rock. But obviously he felt sorry for him since his brother Andrew’s name meant . . . the Man. 

Of course, I am more than willing to admit that people probably didn't go around saying, "well my name means "manly," what does your name mean?" But if your brother got named "Rock," you might remind him of what mom and dad said about you from the beginning. 

Where were we? Advent. Well, maybe this doesn't exactly feel like an advent meditation, but then, I’m never sure what Advent EXACTLY is anyway. I mean, I know it's the preparation time for the coming of the Savior. The first coming, the second coming, all the comings. It's the second day, and I'm confused. 

And here is what we know about Andrew -- the fisherman, the fisher of men, the Man. The Eastern Church has another special name for him too. The first called. I like that. Inordinately. And, for that, we can give thanks and raise a glass of fish extract in honor of this former follower of one amazing and possibly mad Baptist preacher named John. And thank the Coming One that Andrew did not miss his cue when the script had a sudden change, and the Coming One done came.

For the Gospel of John (thanks for the love, John, even though you sort of hogged the New Testament) tells us that Andrew was hanging out with this Baptist character one day when Jesus walked by. The Baptist said, “Look over yonder" or some other cool old-school hillybilly expression—these guys not being particularly Oxfordian if you take my meaning. "Boys, I'm pretty dang sure the Lamb of God just walked past.” 

And Andrew followed. 

Not only did he follow, but he "quickly went and found his brother" before his brother was the rock.  And the rest is history, mystery, and the story of a conspiracy to leave Andrew out of all the really good stuff that James, John, and Peter got to do.

But seriously, I jest, but I jest seriously (got it?). When the moment of Advent comes, which the liturgical clock says is . . . NOW, and if anything in this confusing concept means anything, it means that Advent points to the moment, the sudden event which means everything and is not be missed. 

Of course, it is also a long, long time of waiting and preparation and doubting and wondering and then more waiting. But sometimes, maybe, he/she/it arrives or, more relationally, comes to (us).  Advenit!  And some people see and "get" he/she/it. And some of those some go grab somebody else and say, “This is HE/SHE/IT brother, or I’m a rotten hunk of tilapia" (a popular fish in Galilee, I've heard). 

That, apparently, was language the Reed soon to be the Rock could understand. And that's why Andrew is not only the Man but is called the first called. And maybe the first to “lead someone else to Christ” as the Baptist (Melvin, not John) likes to say.

 

And, since this is an ironic Andrean meditation, I remind you that a year or two later surrounded by thousands of very hungry hearers of the gospel it was Andrew the fisherman, the fisher of men, the Man, who said to Jesus, “Well, there’s not much here Rabbi, but there is a kid. Aaaand, well, the kid has five biscuits and two catfish.” Seize the moment, oh ye rarely mentioned apostle. Heck, seize the kid’s fish. Fortunately, Peter didn’t loudly intervene, as was his wont, and tell everyone to go home first.  Andrew always knew a good thing when he smelled one.

There’s obviously more to be said about Andrew's bones being supposedly buried in Constantinople and supposedly being reburied, mostly, in Italy, not to mention his death, supposedly, by x-cross, a saltire cross (think the flag of Scotland). 

And, of course, the invention of golf. All interesting information, some of it possibly true, about the apostle who usually got left out of the story. 

But without whom, dear readers . . . maybe nothing. 

I’m not sure when, how, or even if he/she/it is coming into our lives anytime soon. But I’ve heard rumors. The moral seems to be this: it’s fine and dandy to hang out with Baptists, but don’t let that stand in the way of your brother being the Pope.

 

NO, no, no. Wait a minute--that’s not the moral! The moral is this: when the sudden event which means everything and is not to be missed arrives, we should hope and pray that someone we know and trust, a brother for example, will be there to grab us and make sure we don’t miss all the excitement. That happened to me once. Maybe more than once. I've told that story before and I'm sure I will tell it again. 

But for now, just this: Advent, if it means anything at all, is not only ironic but, when the moment comes, it's exciting enough to forget about the apostolic power rankings and just hang on for the ride of your life. We celebrate Andrew because he followed, he hung on, all the way to his own unique cross. 

And if you were one of the folks in the hungry crowd that day, or you were the reed who became the rock because your brother came and got you (I cry when I know that some people never even have a brother), or you were a son of Thunder who had visions and revelations but no cross, you probably did not forget, like some of the rest of us have, good Saint Andrew. A fisherman, a fisher of men, the Man, the follower. 

And Jesus said to them, "Come and See."

**Friends, Ben Camino has written so many of these, that he can't share them all with you every year. But there is a special one, dated yesterday, Nov 29, about a former student who died on that day. He was, like Andrew, a person with gifts that were not, perhaps, as obvious and as valued by the popular crowd, as some others might have been. But, you might want to read about him. I encourage you to do so. His name was Tripp and he was a trip. It is the most read of all Ben Camino meditations (2K or so),  and that makes me very happy. Here's the link: Ben Camino: IRONIC ADVENT 2015 MEDITATION #1: TRIPPY ADVENT 

Ironic Advent Meditation 2020 #1: In the Beginning

 Ben Camino's Ironic Advent Meditation 2020 #1: 

In the Beginning Was the Irony

So. 

Yes, that's how the 2020 Ironic Advent meditations begin. So. I know, I know. That is sooooooooo 2020. That's all I'm saying. 

A fragment. All time is a fragment of a larger fragment we call time. T. S. Eliot should have said that in The Four Quartets. I'm sorry he didn't. My point is . . . 2020. And the simple fact that Ben Camino's inveterate use of fragments somehow fits more than ever. 

As does his perfect diction. Inveterate is so good, both in sound and meaning. And also, as every administrator says at every university in North America, inveterate is also the perfect word here because it is so impactful. In truth, if you know Ben, like I know Ben, you'll know that he thinks impactful is perhaps the ugliest word in the English language, except to dentists, to whom it is lovely. 

Where was I? Oh yes, inveterate. Ben Camino has some inveterate habits as a writer/thinker folks. And if you are new to this universe, you might appreciate an introduction. Expect fragments. Lots. Italicized words, for emphasis and for highlighting them as words. Like inveterate. Direct address to his dear readers. Pet phrases/inside jokes like a reference in every piece to the fact that some of the people he loves most in the world are named Jennifer and they say anyways instead of anyway as they should (hmmm, that last bit could mean two opposite, things, couldn't it? I like that). And finally (haha, there is never a finally with Ben Camino) -- inordinate love of words and sounds,  sometimes equal to sometimes greater (sorry) than his love of sense. Words like inordinate. But when sound and sense collide, like Flannery O'Connor and a peacock, God's in his heaven, and all's right with the (Ben Camino) world. 

But enough about what someone once called "style." What about content. What about "ironic Advent"? We'll all assume we know what meditation means (imaginatively chewing on the intellectual cud, just in case you didn't). What in the world are "Ironic Advent Meditations" and why in the world do we need them, especially inside inverted commas? Ben Camino's Ironic Advent Meditations invite us all to chew together on the cud of meaning. Oh wait. I can't think of an uglier image, can you dear reader? Perhaps you should flee for your life before this gets started. If you haven't already done so, however, consider this. . . . 

Several years ago, the First Sunday of Advent in the Year of Our Lord 2012 to be exact, a certain Episcopal priest, call him Father Rich, in a certain small-town Episcopal church, call it Christ the King, walked slowly to the pulpit. He wasn't being dramatic; he had a lot of joint pain as I remember. And Father Rich gave the most surprising, non-inspirational, First Sunday of Advent homily one has ever heard. I use the indefinite pronoun one because I have momentarily forgotten if Ben Camino is speaking or "I" the editor. 

Anyway(s), he said precisely this. I know what he said because a friend of mine, Jennifer Woodruff Tait (now an Episcopal priest as well) was sitting in the congregation too. And we knew that sometimes Father Rich was . . . different. But this Sunday, he was Karl Barth in midwestern American skin. We made eye contact right after we saw and heard where he was going on this cold Advent morning, and, as I either remember or imagine, our eyes widened, our hearts palpitated, and we wondered if we'd be allowed to live until lunch time. 

So, if you are keeping track, despite the fact that Ben Camino has churned out approximately 666 Ironic Advent Meditations (prosaically known as blogposts; no wonder I came up with such a cool title), two other people are really responsible for the whole crazy thing, although they didn't yet know what to call them. 

So (there it is again). 

Father Rich preached the first Ironic Advent Meditation though he just called it "the homily." I know now what it was. Because when you write a series every year called “Ironic Advent,” you start seeing things through that grid, right? Sort of like why people in Boulder, Colorado just figure everyone else must be getting high.

Well, Father Rich got rolling and pretty soon he was off into the high country. I was taking notes. And Jennifer was too. In between the heart palpitations and big smiles. And the occasional look at each other like . . . “did he just say that?” Sometime later that day, she posted a Facebook post. And I did too, later, after stealing as many ideas of hers as I could. 

I have tried to pay her back (not sure it’s working) by posting her original every year. Here's the link. Wait, wait. Go find the link yourself. That will get you reading the other helpful wisdom literature strewn about the Ben Camino Ironosphere. Don't worry, I'm including Jennifer's entire post in this piece. What with my introduction, Jennifer's original post, and my original not-very-original post the same day, this meditation, on the First Sunday of Advent 2020, includes the entire genesis story. And it was good.  

I know that may seem like a lot to read. But, dear reader, Ironic Advent Meditations are almost never pithy. Oh, it’s not that I can’t be pithy. And I’m darn sure that Jennifer can be pithy. In fact, she once said “Shut up, Joe!” which was her being both pithy and the other word that's a pun with a lisp. But sometimes you’ve just got to realize that pith can only go so far. OK, I’m sorry. Over it. I apologize. How is that? Pithy enough for you?

So, before I get back to Father Rich and Jennifer and the sermon that started it all, please know that I'd like you to share these if you want to. I don’t say you like them. But you’re allowed. That’s all I’m saying. If you do, though, please don’t say something like: “this is really long, but it has a good sentence in the 14th paragraph.” Just let people discover for their dang selves that it’s really long. I write these for people who will read long things. If you don't read things, you should. Especially when they are this thoughtful. I can do haiku if I wanted to. Sometimes I want to. Just not at Advent. Usually on Ash Wednesday. 

Actually, I am  trying to make this difficult. Because it is. Look, in fact, people try to kill themselves or at least want to die this time of year, what Macy’s calls “the holiday season.” That’s not simple. That’s not uncomplicated. And we have people insisting on going to church although it might not be safe, given the current pandemic. Complicated. Fragment. We need more than simple inspiration. Everything we say has to be resisted as well as said. You can tell your friends about that line because I admire it myself.

So Father Rich preached. And, as I remember, it was a really short sermon. Pithy. Well done, Father Rich. Totally messing with my blissful verbosity. Anyway, or anyways as Jennifer Lynne Ricke says, it was, as I say, summed up admirably by Jennifer Woodruff Tait in her poem and, shortly thereafter, “liked” by my friend Jennifer Strange (confused?). This was the beginning. And believe you me (I love that syntax, it should be required in places other than Kentucky), this is the place you want to be getting your Advent nourishment throughout "the holiday season." It will be all roots and spring water, with maybe some salty tears and raw intestines thrown in for good measure.

 So, here we go. Jennifer Woodruff Tait's original Ironic Advent Meditation from Liturgical New Year's Day 2013, which of course was the First Sunday of Advent in 2012. Got it? It's complicated. 

 

Anything Useful:

*Joe Martyn Ricke and M Richard Miller, this poem is all your fault.

If you came to church for anything useful today, 

forget it. [editorial note: this line I think freaked us out]

Anything practical:

three points to help you in the Monday workplace,

two tips for witnessing to your coworkers,

five guides to a good marriage.

 

If you came to church for the hats,

coffee,

cookies,

friends,

family,

cheese,

pew cushions,

happy songs,

warm feelings,

or even a blessing,

forget it.

This is the first Sunday of Advent.                         

Lo, He comes with clouds descending, once for ransomed sinners slain.

The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. [As I remember, Jennifer and I wanted to get up and go fight the devil at this point]

And here is what I wrote a little later (thus, the “official” original Ironic Advent Meditation), as a Facebook post (Ben Camino blog came later). I did though call it by its proper name. 

Ironic Advent Meditation (2012)

 Verily, verily I sayeth unto thee(uth), the sky shall turn to blood, things will fall out of the sky (leaves, for example), and all kinds of other stuff will happen before the end will come, and then it will be . . . the end. And then . . . whatever comes after that. 

Oh no, we just put "greens" all over the church but that's kind of ironic because the world is going gray, gray, and . . . oh yeah, COMING TO AN END.

We want those plastic (or whatever horrible substance they are made of) greens, sweet baby Jesus (keep the dang kid swaddled, please), cute superwhite angels, "a feel good story for the ages," and, oops almost forgot, peace on earth. 

And he saith unto thee and thine: behold(eth), I'm pulling back the curtain, and, sorry, but it's kind of a raging great ball of fire back there. Like, dearly beloved, you probably can't figure this out on your own. Like, forget about the Victoria Secret Christmas Special because this is some heavy stuff and it won't have a Bruno Mars soundtrack. 

All things will change. You will die. The world you know is not for long. It's out of control (at least yours).

All signs are negative (well, all but one). A child shall be named Grace. And she will understand why. And she will be an artist and cry tears that make the angels fall off their comfy cloudy perches. 

But if this doesn't blow your mind and squeeze your lungs, you can light every candle you got and it won't be enough. You want some sweet words to get you through? Sorry, it's the first week of Advent, forget about it. This is going to get way stranger than that. Clearly, the Lord desireth to shocketh His people. I cometh to thee wild, weird, and riding on a donkey (well inside a person riding on a donkey). I mean, if any of this means anything, it's got to be bigger than . . . the Kardashians. 

Your redemption draweth nigh. That is actually scary if you think about it, which you probably don't want to do. You'd probably rather go back to Ordinary Time.

 Thanks Grace Ballantine Gorman for the picture (the original had a picture of a great ball of fire, a sunset)

Thanks M Richard Miller for the Advent sermon (that's Father Rich)

Thanks Jennifer Woodruff Tait for the original.  

Thanks squirrels, birds, and pilgrims.*

*Some of you may wonder about Ben Camino. Haha, I mean you may wonder about the name. In August 2012, just a few months earlier, I had walked the Camino Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route in France and (mostly) Spain. The greeting among pilgrims and pretty much everyone else is Buen Camino, Good pilgrimage, or even perhaps, Blessed walk. I changed Buen to Ben and the rest is mystery. 

Meet me here tomorrow for the Feast of good Saint Andrew. You can subscribe by email or check back at the site. There are, as I say, quite a few other meditations just as wild and ragged and real as this one. 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben Camino's Ironic Isolation Meditation #8: Floating in Free Space (Savannah)

Ben Camino's Ironic Isolation Meditation #8: 

Floating in Free Space (in Savannah)

Yes, yes, of course, I'm using the "Georgia" font for this my most recent masterpiece. Although I do like Georgia, I don't particularly like the "Georgia" font, but rituals are very important though often neglected, as the inerrant fox says to the imminently-teachable Little Prince. And in writing about Georgia, one feels obligated to use Georgia. And to say "one feels" in honor of the old world charm (or perhaps it's the tourist hype) of Savannah, my subject, my scope, my scab. 

I know, I know, all the Slytherins (Jennifers) and perhaps even Griffs (Edwin) will say I'm just alliterating for the sheer sheerness of it, for the sound and the swell and the sizzle (ok, sizzle is a little much), and you might be partly right. But only partly. I alliterate, too, to find out what is on the other side. A chicken or a peacock? This will make sense eventually. I hope. In some universe. 

A year ago, completely exhausted from any number of things that should very well have exhausted me, I took a trip, the first of two such (although the second was not nearly as such as the first) to Savannah, Georgia, home of romantic old buildings, many brick streets, the finest private collection of C. S. Lewis first editions in this or any other world, the Savannah School of Design, old world squares with romantic names like Lafayette Square which really makes it difficult to get from point A to B very quickly in an automobile (Lafayette was not consulted), and a sort of ferry on the Savannah River that goes nowhere in particular but doesn't cost anything either. And the ocean. But more on that later. 

And, more important than all these things, an incredible French-style gothic cathedral, Saint John the Baptist -- built, burned down, rebuilt, redecorated, and eventually electrically charged by my visit there a year ago today. Or so it felt anyway. Not sure the fox in The Little Prince said anything about such things, but he should have. Instead he just went on and on about friendship, the ties that bind, rituals, and what is essential. You might have to read that book if you haven't yet or if you didn't see the play that my friend, Tracy Manning, recently produced just for me. Or so it seemed. Or so I dreamed. 

I loved Savannah for all the right reasons, including C. S. Lewis, Lafayette Square, friendship, the ocean, dark old stairways leading from one level of town to another to yet more brick streets down near the Savannah River where one can catch the Ferry going nowhere important (but costing nothing either), and the talented busker down near the river who  let me sing "When a Man Loves a Woman" with him (although he didn't share any of the tips). OK, really, I forgot what we sang. But it was pretty damn good. 

But mostly St. John the Baptist. It was beautiful, numinous, luminous, and sublime. I suppose I should mention too that it was almost a perfect example of what I think of as the perpendicular theme in architecture. If it were any more conspicuous about its attempt to point us towards the heavens, it would have to include real-life angels poised on the tops of the two sheer spires crying "step right up and be baptized into the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church." 

I sat in a pew there and took in the beauty, sacred and profane, heavenly and human. I loved it all. It felt absolutely right. I knew that I had come to Savannah not only to negotiate a donation of the finest private collection of C. S. Lewis first editions in this or any other world, but to be precisely there. To pray and to experience the kind of numinous awe that, you guessed it, C. S. Lewis writes about in his novel Out of the Silent Planet, the same novel in which he repeatedly evokes the perpendicular theme. 

I'm sure the fox said something about this. Or the Little Prince himself, who came to earth because he had heard "it was interesting." Of course, Savannah was more than interesting. It was a Wordworthian spot in time, a chance to say thanks and thanks and thanks to the greater than I, whether it be ocean or that incredible singing busker or the One to whom the spires and everything else, at least in that moment, seemed to be pointing.  To know that, as Wordsworth says to Dorothy at Tintern Abbey, these moments, these experiences (too weak a word) were food for the future, were consolation in sorrow, comfort in loneliness, light in the darkness. 

Late that night, on Tybee Island, in near complete darkness save for the pale stars (and a little afraid I was breaking some local law), I walked out on a boardwalk I couldn't see, towards an ocean I could only hear, to dip my hands and baptize myself (more facewashing than sprinkling) in all that beauty. A few months later, I returned to Savannah (and St. John the Baptist, but not the ocean) to collect and drive home with that amazing C. S. Lewis collection. I will leave the story of the great celebration when I returned, the bonus, the raise, the bouquets, the . . . thank you note? for another time. Really, that part is a very short sad story. As the fox says, what is essential is invisible to the eyes. 

But the best stories, even true ones involving C. S. Lewis and St. John the Baptist and Lafayette Square  and singing whatever it was we sang in the perfect echo chamber of buildings down by the Savannah River, keep growing and mean more the more they burrow into your soul. Or the more you read, which for me are perhaps the same thing. 

Anyway(s), I'm on a Flannery O'Connor kick (again) these days. Her strange genius and fresh, ironic disparagement of the world we have made and the creatures we have become (in the light of the glory we have been given) strikes like lightning in my soul if I have one. And I knew something about Savannah, but I guess somehow I forgot or was hypnotized into forgetfulness by the ocean and the ferry going nowhere and the C. S. Lewis collection and, no doubt, my visions of the welcome party upon my return. And even the very spires and perpendicular beauty,  inspired by God but very human as well, of St. John the Baptist, kept me too focused then to remember  what I won't now forget. 

So now, of course, I remember. My dear, precious Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah. And, from good Irish-Catholic stock, was baptized in St. John the Baptist Cathedral. And lived in Lafayette Square, right next to the Cathedral. And attended St. Vincent's Grammar School for girls in a building attached to the Cathedral. And her little precocious brain, besides training her chickens to walk backwards, and making special outfits for her ducks, was already devoted to the making of stories that would teach, delight, and, like her master, confound the Pharisees. 

If you know Ben Camino, dear reader, you know that his best friends are all dead. Most of them for several hundred years. But Flannery and I inhabited the same planet for at least a bit. And now I realize we shared a space. Not at the same time, of course, but I will always see St. John the Baptist (even if I never return) with an image of the child Mary Flannery O'Connor being baptized there, taking her first communion there, and, no doubt, sneaking a duck into mass once or twice. Like the fox who will never see a wheat field again without thinking of the Little Prince's hair, the ties that bind may be physical but they burrow into our imagination. As, of course, does the breaking of those ties (see The Little Prince and his Rose). 

Savannah, as I hope you can tell, is now a part of me. But like a ferry going nowhere, what you bring to it is as important as what is there. Before the know-nothings cancel Flannery, because it seems they will, I'm glad that we shared a luminous, numinous moment, somewhere perhaps on another planet, sometime between 1925 (her birth) and 2019 (my visit). I'm sure I asked her to pray for me. And she answered, "sure as hell." 

Ben Camino's Ironic Buddhist Meditation #000

 Ben Camino's Ironic Buddhist Meditation #000

Let's build a bridge shall we? 

It's hard enough to know what the Buddha said

let alone what he meant

I trust though that he meant

for me today to read his words -- 

in plainspoken Midwestern American English -- 

sans sanskrit thank you very much

with lots of underlining for adequate inspirational emphasis

on the square iconic eraser board 

in the chiropractor's sterile waiting room 

decorated with bright autumn leaves

and acorns in the four corners of the sacred sign

symbolizing no doubt the Four Noble Truths 

the truth of suffering

the truth of the cause of suffering

the truth of the end of suffering

the truth of the pathway that leads to the end of suffering

about suffering I know only this

I am here to get a massage

I can count on one hand how many massages I have had in my life

(and I have lived long)

unless you count the ones my kids gave me --

mostly by walking or standing on my back

while watching Sesame Street or whatever

Disney video we were consuming in some earlier stage of suffering

so this moment being rare and therefore

rather religious

I was ready I guess for an Indiana-framed 

Buddhist cliché to go along with 

all of the Christian clichés I heave heard, hear now, will hear again

spouted by all these Christian Buddhas -- 

spouting, spitting at me for half a century

one bad cliche deserves another. 

I walked in, said hello to Sadie behind the window

saw the Buddha's message for my moment

and still standing amazed heard the opening screams and congas 

of the Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil

vibrating from the speakers of this healing oasis

Each Morning We

are Born Again. [yah!] What

we do Today is what [congas getting louder]

Matters Most    

                                                ------ Buddha

Please allow me to introduce myself, 

I'm a man of wealth and taste . . . . 

Dazed for a split second of infinity

I realized that I didn't have my phone with me

to record the sutra floating on Sadie's bulletin board 

when Trina the masseuse came in and said 

"come on back, we're all ready for ya!"

Pleased to meet you, 

hope you guess my name . . . .

Trina likes Enya and stuff like that

or at least pretends to given her line of work

anyway(s) I'm pretty sure Buddha liked Enya too and would like Trina for that matter

taking his mind off other graver matters

like dukkha the condition of all existing

dis-ease, primal suffering, the works. 

That music drives me crazy though

and I was about to jump out of my skin --

which was pretty much all I had on given the nature of nature 

and the logistics of soothing the muscles and joints 

of a would-be monk longing to travel the sky in lotus position 

or touch and stroke the sun and moon with tender hands --

when Trina came back in

my gigantic frame safely tucked under some Enya-esque variety of scented blanket

I said thanks a lot for leaving me alone with that alien music

doesn't that creep you out? 

"I could change it" she said

what would you like . . . classic rock? 

Unlike the Buddha quotation

which is obviously a Facebook meme 

everything I have written is true 

except for these final lines

which are true but not in this universe. 

Trina lit the candle and switched the music

and realized she was in a Ben Camino ironic meditation which ends thus as it must -- 

dum dum duh duh dum duh dum dum

dum dum duh duh dum duh dum dum

I Can't get No Satisfaction

                           ------ Buddha, Jagger, Richards

                                                    

Ben Camino's Ironic Isolation Meditation #7: A Reading List

 Ben Camino's Unfortunate Fall: 

A Reading List in the Wan Light of Isolation, 2020

Ben Camino is reading a lot these days. He walks, of course. Sometimes even runs. Although an injury and some pleurisy are making that more difficult in the cold, wet air of late-Autumn. So his long meditative walkruns (thus his name, Blessed Road or Good Walk) are a bit shorter, rather like these mid-November days. 

He watches sports, too.  Well, he watches the highlights after the games are over. He especially likes watching the highlights of the good old days when the Houston Astros were champions, and cheating was something that the Yankees and Dodgers did, only less successfully than the Houston boys. Sorry non-baseball fans. 

And, yes, he writes. But lately too much of his time has been spent writing to lawyers and doctors and the people his father warned him about and not enough time writing about the important things. Important things like why "spirituality" is not necessarily a good thing, and why contemporary Christian concepts of "community" are mostly pagan and probably a kind of viral infection to avoid rather than a an ideal to strive after, and, most important, why there are so many of the people his father warned him about. And why bridge building, too, can be over-rated (given the obvious fact that bridges hide trolls and Orwellian pigs). 

But hey, you breathe in so you can breathe out, right? Well,  OK, I'm not really a student of the respiratory system, so just go along with me on that one. I mean, you rest so you can be active, right? And you eat so you can . . . . Well you know what happens eventually after you eat.  And you read, to some degree at least, so you can write. Unless you are one of those people who write without thinking. Journalists and such who write for this "newsfeed" I get on my computer every time I log in. By thinking, I mean reading. So I say, eat some books and see how you do. Even if all you do is writing about what you are reading. Which brings me to this epistle from deep in the . . . books. 

This will be probably not be an exhaustive list of what I'm reading, but I'm sure, nonetheless, it will be exhausting  for you dear reader. I have a friend who hates it when any writer, especially me, directly addresses his or her "dear reader," dear reader, so I try to do it as often as I can as a way of saying to her, get your own damn blog, person my father warned me about. Also, what exactly do you hate about the nineteenth century? I love the nineteenth century. All I ever wanted to be when I grew up was Wilkie Collins.  

My books can be divided up into three categories. No not poetry, biography, and graphic novels.  Different categories, dear reader. These, to be precise: 

1.) Books I'm reading for the first time (and deciding along the way if they are worth reading at all). 

2.) Books I'm reading again (and deciding along the way if they are really what I thought they were the previous time or times). 

3.) Books I know well but can't stay away from. With these, I more dive in than read through. Perhaps I dive straight to the underlined or marked passages, perhaps just wherever the book opens, perhaps I start on the page number of what day of the year it is . That would be page 323 for today. "Seek for the sword that was broken: / In Imladris it dwells" (FOTR, 323).    Don't get me started on Boromir; I might get weepy. But, in truth, if it's Tolkien, I read straight through (and slowly savor the underlined passages, except the passages of Yodaspeak, which I underline for reasons other than admiration). 

My reading list is an eclectic group of books. I know, I know. That's just a fancy way of saying jumbled. And jumbled is just a fancy way of saying mixed up. Of course, another reason I read so many different things is to enrich my vocabulary. What a language we have. Cluster, exacerbate (it's embarrassing the way my sister pronounces that one), crush, wan, eclectic, texture. What a language. Did I mention italicized? I use that a lot if you haven't noticed. The practice, not the word. 

Well, here are some of the books I'm reading now, although I'm sure I will run out of space and steam before I mention all of them. I probably won't mention Bonhoeffer, who is always near by. Or the fact that I've always got Wordsworth's The Prelude on the floor next to my bed so I can just dive in and be lulled to sleep by blank verse from a person I like who isn't really telling a story I need to follow. A former friend suggested I should just listen to it on audiobooks. Not until I can find someone who reads it better than I do, dear reader. 

Here we go. Group #s refer to my list above. Grades are purely subjective, but should be taken as gospel truth unless you want to fall into a ditch someday, as I'm praying happens to the rest of the people my father warned me about.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954. Group 3 -- A+ 

    I have no idea how many times I have read this. My most personal paperback copy is old, dog-eared, and full of notes and markings. Partly because I love it so. Partly because I teach it sometimes and/or write about it. That doesn't mean I think it's all equally brilliant. Sometimes Tolkien lapses into Yodaspeak. Sometimes, as in the brilliant Council of Elrond section, I think some of the members of the council must have been reduced to facepalming all through the "this is the doom that we must deem" talk (or is it the deem that we must doom?). Still, it's an amazing book. I'm almost done with it, sadly. Galadriel is saying goodbye to everyone and sounding all ominous (what a language!), although not nearly as weird as the Galadriel dreamed up by Peter Jackson and Cate Blanchett. As far as I'm concerned, they may as well have been George Lucas and Jar Jar Binks. And yes, I think it is far and away the best of the three (or best two of the six, if you must), so I have read it many more times than the rest of LOTR. 

Virgil, The Aeneid, 19 B.C. (incomplete). Group 3 -- A+ 

    I used to teach this wonderful epic but World Literature got too crowded to do both this and the Odyssey and Antigone, so with great pain, I gouged this out of my syllabus. Of course, I don't teach anything anymore, at least not officially, not at present. But I would happily lead a reading/discussion group of this baby, as long as everyone else would just shut up and let me say smart things. Augustine hated the Aeneid after his conversion. Which is to say, Augustine loved this before his conversion. I think he was a dullard (lovely word) to think so and say so. It was precisely the passionate response he had once upon a time to the heartbreaking Dido story in the Aeneid that he desired his readers to have to the heartbreaking Augustine story in the Confessions. THIS IS WHERE HE LEARNED HOW TO BREAK OUR HEARTS! I'm reading Robert Fitzgerald's translation. I've also read Fagles, Mandelbaum, and maybe another one back in the dark ages. Let me give you a tip, though. Fitzgerald has a sort of introduction to the Aeneid which he, peevishly (mmmmmm, that's the sound of me savoring language) puts at the end in what he calls a "Postscript" (403-417 in the Vintage Classics Edition). Read that. Read any translation that you want (or at least one of the three I mentioned), but. read. this. postscript. Just to know what it was like in the late 20th century before there were TED talks to read the thought of a fine scholar who was also a fine poet who wrote the finest "lecture" that you will ever read. Unless you insist, like the people my father warned me about, that TED talks all need to be about YOU and your obviously wrong ideas about what you need. If, on the other hand, your concern is near literary perfection, then you might like, wait, wait -- no, you might cherish Fitzgerald's postcript/preface. He concludes, fully confident I think, that his own intellect and imagination has captured the shimmer of deeply felt and deeply educated human consciousness: "At the core of it [The Aeneid] is respect for the human effort to build, to sustain a generous polity -- against heavy odds. Mordantly and sadly it suggests what the effort may cost, how the effort may fail. But as a poem it is carried onward victoriously by its own music" (417)." Mmmmmm.

  

Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoot & Leaves, 2003. Group 1 -- A.

    I said this list was eclectic, alright? If you are an editor, if you are a writer, if you are a reader, heck if you are literate, how can you not resort to rhetorical questions like "how can you not love this book?"? [My two question marks are a Trussian problem to be savored, I hope]. It is wicked funny and oh-so-knowing about what it knows well. And, best of all, it's about punctuation. It's been sitting around on my shelf for a long time, and, for some dumb reason I never read it. Probably because I thought it was just a joke book. The title is the punch line of a great joke, after all. Lynne Truss (I hope that's her real name) is a great example of a popular writer who is brainy, witty, and sometimes dazzlingly funny. And the quotations she has collected supposedly to make her points but, frankly, just to riff on are worth the time alone I spent drinking coffee on the sunlit porch one Saturday afternoon. A secret: I am obliged to love anyone who loves punctuation. And I will fight to the death her right to say things like this: "The comma has so many jobs as a "separator" that it tears about on the hillside of language, endlessly organising words into sensible groups and making them stay put: sorting and dividing; circling and herding; and of course darting off with a peremptory 'woof' to round up any wayward subordinate clause that makes a futile bolt for semantic freedom. Commas, if you don't whistle at them to calm down, are unstoppably enthusiastic at this job" (American edition, 79). As is Lynne Truss. I love this book inordinately. Almost as much as I love the word inordinately.

 

Timothy Radcliffe OP, What is the Point of Being a Christian, 2006. Group 1 -- C. 

    This book wearied me. Perhaps in 2006, when it came out, this book didn't sound as such an obvious attempt to resist the dogmatic turn in Catholic life and thought taken with the ascendency of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict, to the throne of Peter. I was probably tempted to read this book (or try to do so) by the fact that Radcliffe has some pretty high recommendations and, yes, he was an Oxford Dominican, from Blackfriars. But oh my. He is all over the place, and shifty as hell. I can't tell for sure what he believes about a great number of things which one assumes might be important to a Christian moral thinker. Unless all we care about is "the journey." Of course, the process of the thinking is important, but, again, Radcliffe continually points us to the narrative, to the encounter, to conversation, to . . . . something other than "the point" (see . . . his title). So much so, that I began pretty early to wonder if he thought there was any point to point to other than the process. But, I've read enough people for whom moral thinking is all journey and no dogma to know that they eventually can get pretty damn dogmatic about that. He travels the world, talking to all kinds of people, who believe all kinds of things, and . . . . Well, I'm not sure what comes next, exactly. We need to "resist" the powers that keep us from honest conversation. Good. But, at the same time, disagreement with someone else (which I assume is necessary and oftentimes a moral good, even a moral necessity) always seems to be characterized as some kind of hardening of the spiritual arteries. Oh, friends, let's not argue, let's just build bridges, shall we? And then boom: we are back to another quote from William Blake or Emily Dickinson (both of whom I love by the way, just not when I'm still waiting to find out what "the point of being a Christian" is). I suppose the problem I have can be seen most clearly in the third paragraph of his conclusion in which Radcliffe satirizes his younger, naïve self as incessantly asking his Dominican superiors about the truths of the faith, and they wanted, instead to talk about football. This bothered him then. But that was his mistake, apparently. Now, he realizes what wise Buddhas (not his word) they were since "our statements about God are only understandable in the context of lives that are pointed to God." Fine, I say. Have we pointed yet? Have we got the point? When are we going to point? Are we ready for those statements about God? If not, when will be "pointed to God" enough to make them? Sorry to belabor the point. I find this doubletalk wearying. I guess I already said that. In truth, though, by the very next paragraph he appears to have figured things out and is ready to speak about some of those hitherto unspeakable propositions: "the challenge for the Church is to become the sort of community that speaks convincingly about God, which is to say a place of mercy and mutual delight, of joy and freedom." Hmmmmm (not to be confused with the Mmmmmm of savoring). Add justice, and holiness, and discipline, and good, hard, clear thinking about what mercy, mutual delight, joy, and freedom really mean, and I'll take you seriously. Otherwise, sounds like Woodstock. 

 

Martin Buber, I and Thou, 1923 (English trans. 1937). Group 3 -- A+ 

    I know I sound like a hypocrite because if Radcliffe is vague, Buber is sometimes incomprehensible. The difference is that Buber is a philosopher and a non-Christian. He is, in fact, a Jewish existentialist philosopher who popularized the work of the Eastern European Hasidim in the West. And he makes a contribution to a long philosophical discussion about the individual consciousness or ego and its relation to . . . everything else. His work is often more of an poem than discourse. It is often baffling and, to me, frustrating. Until it isn't. Or even when it is, you realize that you are reading something that shook up the way we understood personhood. And it can, at least it did with me, shake up the way I saw my own personhood. In short, Descartes was half right which means he was half wrong. And when you are half wrong about ultimate things, you might be completely wrong. I am "I" in the fullest sense not so much when I think and objectify and categorize a tree, another human, even a numinous experience as an "It," but when I come into relation with a field of wheat, a child, or a divine presence as "Thou." It's way better than I have described. And more baffling (mmmmmm). I can understand why some people can't read this book. On the other hand, it could be the source of so many potential tattoos if you'd give it a chance and if your tattoo artist could figure out how to illustrate things like: "All real living is meeting" and "In the beginning is relation."

 

The Kennedy Wit, edited by Bill Adler, 1964. Group 1 -- B. 

I had seen this book sitting on a shelf somewhere in my house for a couple of decades or so (haha) and finally realized sometime in October, that I might need it to survive. I devoured it. Laughed occasionally, smiled often, and tried to remember the last time a president or even a presidential candidate or even a vice-presidential candidate actually said something witty, which I define as something smart with wings. The closest I could come was Lloyd Bentsen's retort to Dan Quayle (in another century) -- "Senator, I knew John Kennedy and you are no John Kennedy." Not really very good, but relevant to this book. Let me just say this about that -- I don't require a witty president; we have other, more pressing, issues to face. BUT, I do require witty humans. So, in that way, I miss "the Kennedy wit." By the way, "Let me just say this about that" is the go to phrase in my awesome impression of John Kennedy. The secret is adding an uhhh before the just, turning the s into an sh, and stretching that into two syllables. So: Let me uhhh jusht shay thish about thay-ut. Go ahead, try it. It has a kind of Gerard Manley Hopkins lilt to it if you get it right. 

At a White House dinner, honoring Nobel Prize Winners:         "I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House--with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Speaking on the 1960 campaign trail in Pennsylvania, the year the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series: "I'm glad to be here, because I feel a sense of kinship with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Like my candidacy, they were not given much chance in the spring." 

**As predicted, Ben has exhausted himself, despite what undoubtedly to his readers must seem his inexhaustible desire to use words self-referentially, italicizing them by no rule known to editorial offices anywhere on the planet.  Here is a list of other books I am in the middle of, just finished, just finishing, or just starting. With brief comments. I may come back and deal with these in more depth. Or I may stay exhausted. That's why you want to read my stuff, because you never knew when it will be the last of my mad ravings against the even madder world. 

Karl Rahner, The Mystical Way in Everyday Life (original German publication, 1966; trans. 2010). Group 1. Way better than I expected from this heavyweight of Catholic liberal theology.  Key phrase, "everyday life." Pastoral tone. 

Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel, 2002. Group 1. Botton is an acquired taste, and I haven't yet. He's incredibly well-read, incredibly artsy, and, to me, rather hollow at the core. I also don't love his idiosyncrasies the way I love those of other writers I love. I haven't given up though. I still have to read the chapter "On the Sublime," the one I am most looking forward to reading. 

Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race, 2017. Group 1. This book I'm reading slowly. One thing I really like about it is the distance. It's about race of course, but primarily documenting racism in the UK, which is both the same and different than what has been and is racism in other places (most notably, the USA). The historical documentation is rather weak, and that's usually a problem for me in a book which intends to provide a historical argument. On the other hand, as she says, the records are flimsy and more difficult to come by for the things she is trying to document. Another problem, of course, is that some of her discussion points (white feminism, anti-racism) flow directly from her argument yet have been used out of context in ways that may not be just. This is an area I'm thinking about, and to anyone who wants to tell me I'm racist for wanting to think about it further instead of blindly adopting not only the arguments of Eddo - Lodge but also the applications made of her arguments by other less nuanced social critics, welcome to the group of people my father warned me about. Let's build a bridge, shall we? 

Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology, 1994. Group 1. A keeper, one that will become a Group 3 book for me. It sort of already has, because I'm dipping in and out of it re-reading favorite parts. I disagree with the author quite often. And he assumes that many of his readers will do so. Yet, I love that he takes animals, humans, and theology very seriously (at least in this book). I'm already predisposed to agree with him about (not) eating animals, about (not practicing) animal experimentation, and about a number of other important issues, but I'm not as ready as he is to see a biblical mandate for many of these same positions. On the other hand, I admire the nuanced theological basis for his positions, even when I disagree. His argument that humans are "the servant species" of creation, the imitators of the suffering God who empties Himself, is compelling and beautiful. I'm much closer to agreeing with his theological vision than I was when I started the book. 

Georg Holzherr, OSB (editor and commentator), The Rule of Benedict: An Invitation to the Christian Life, 2005, 2016. Group 3. The authoritative edition of The Rule, with notes and extensive scholarly and spiritual commentary by Holzherr. Most recently published in Latin/German in 2005, translated into English by Mark Thamert, OSB. Required reading. 

Alzina Stone Dale, The Outline of Sanity: A Life of G. K. Chesterton, 1982. Group 1. For some reason, this is my first reading of Dale's biography of GKC, and it will almost certainly move to Group 3 after I'm done. I love the close attention throughout to Chesterton's political opinions and engagements. Also love her attention to his lifelong friendships with his ideological opponents like George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. Plus somebody else, Frances White Ewbank, has already marked it up for me. That means something to me and at least one of the Jennifers. Perhaps I will get around to writing about Frances or inviting one of the Jennifers to do so sometime soon. She, too, was an avid, curious, thoughtful reader -- as her underlinings and marginal comments show. Below is a pic of my bedraggled but beloved copy of FOTR.