Ben Camino's Fifth Dance of Christmas: The Stomp of Saint Thomas Becket (revised)

 

The Fifth Dance of Christmas: 

L'Estampie de Seinte Thomas a' Becket

(The Stomp of Saint Thomas Becket)

This day is the dancing day of our man, the saint, Tom Becket,

about whom much has been written, a few good bits here and there.
A London boy who made good,

but he did not make himself, my masters.
He was the man to whom things were done,
and the man who returned to have yet more things done to him,
and through him.

Young Henry Rex made him Chancellor, in the New Year of 1155,
the Lord God made him Archbishop in June of 1164
(some bishop had made him a priest the day before), 
made a pawn by Pope Alexander in his precious cockfight with the English crown.

Made a martyr on this day, the 29th of December, in 1170--
not his own doing, one doesn't make oneself a martyr, 
whatever old T. S. Eliot might have to say about the matter.

I said, he was made a martyr by four who might just as easily have 
stepped out of a comedy--

Dick, Hugh, and Bill, and Reginald FitzUrse (no comment).
Those loyal knights thought for sure they'd grab some gold, some soft retirements,
and the eternal thanks of the English people by scratching the
surly King's backside with their bloody swords. 

So be it, my darlings. 
He stood proudly in his cathedral, the unreliable interested sources tell us,
Performed what certainly appeared to be sa dernière danse, a solo estampie,
losing a bit of skull, spilling his brains, and, one can only hope,
praying for his enemies as he fell. 

His monks stripped the body, 

discovered the hair shirt,
cursed the King, 

notified the Pope, 
and worried, unnecessarily it turns out, about the future. 

And so, the end. 

The end which comes to all . . . .
except for martyrs, 
who have a habit--
nasty, I suppose, to kings,
fortunate, I guess, to those who deal in sacred merchandise
(like the silver pilgrim badge on my bookcase)--
of returning and having things done to them
over and over again.

So with our blessed Tom, who skipped away to France,
then capered back for no good earthly reason, 
but just in the nick of time to die. 
Who, then, only three days later, on New Year's Day,
started working miracles, 

if those Canterbury windows can be believed. 

Whose blood and brains soaked into the very stones
where his once and future friend, the king,
soon would kneel, repent, wear his own sweet stylish sackcloth, 
and say "thank you, Tom" for each of eighty lovely Papal lashes.

Who circled back in his stately saintly steps,  
then again and again each time his shrine grew larger and more ornate,
where the hundred thousands sought his bloody blessing, 
then again as the raison d'etre of a very fine long poem 
(which was none too fond of monks I hear)
until Henry the Fat squelched him once and for all in 1538,
strewing his bones and liver and such as far as Friesland, so they say,
proclaiming that no subject of the king would ever again be Head of Holy Church.

A few days later, though, it was whispered that yet another Henry might be wrong.

And the rest is history, as they say, 

or as close to it as the English  (and, some would say, the church).
care to be.

Well, perhaps we need also to mention the rather frumpy Becket art--
Eliot's Murderous choruses ("stain the sky/shock the monkey/I'm so scared of being holy"),
Richard Burton's brooding, dare we say, pouty hunk of a saint,
and, especially, the opera I'm writing at the moment,
hoping to have it out in theaters by Christmas 2071 (the 851st anniversary),
sort of an inspirational cross between Les Miz and Ben Hur,
three hours long and sung entirely in one aria by none other than Russell Crowe. 

Where was I? 

The fact is, and this is the greatest irony,
one pretty much lost on every Henry,
but known by every Thomas. More 
martyrs are made by our need for them
than by anything kings and devils can plot against them.

We, the would-be's, stand (and dance) with those who return to stand (and dance), 
especially when the powers confuse themselves with all that matters.
So, Sir Kings,
stomp this double-edged sworddance--
The only way to stamp out a martyr is to make one. 
And, unfortunately for you, 

vice versa.

Here is an example of <a real Estampie>
  

Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #24: Conjunctions and other Miracles

 

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #24: 

Conjunctions, Chuy's, Road Rage, and the Miracle of the Lost Galaxy A50.

Whoa! sky! 

A friend of mine and I used to use that expression to describe a particular whoa sky whenever one appeared in the Indiana atmosphere, which seems, in my memory, to be quite often. I imagine we just loved that expression so much we might (might, I say) have overused it. 

I do believe I hear a chorus of Jennifers chanting, amen and amen, yes Ben Camino is oh-so-prone to overusing expressions. 

Anyway(s), if you feel lost in the meditation, dear reader, the best way I can help you is by suggesting you go back and read the previous hundred or so Ironic Advent Meditations (and some other pieces not linked directly to Advent and Christmas). Or you may have to wait, possibly a long time, for the publication of Ben Camino for Dummies which will almost certainly explain the reference to the Jennifers, the fixation on anyway(s) and the overuse of parentheses. Plus the chapter attempting to describe the vertigo-like experience of keeping up with Ben's so-called thinking. 

That being said, Whoa! Sky! As in, Missy and I drove up into the Austin hills yesterday evening, hid in the parking lot of St. Michael's Episcopal Church until all those pesky Episcopalians had left (that part isn't true), and watched in amazement as The Conjunction, or what Missy insists on calling "the Christmas star," made its appearance in the southwestern sky. It really was amazing. It really was historic. It really was numinous. 

On the other hand, it wasn't all that great. I mean, it wasn't that gigantic, that shiny, that . . . heavenly unless you supplied a little imagination. And a little historical perspective. We did, though. Missy even broke into the singing of "O Holy Night" several times. 

And we had the best view in Austin. The parking lot looks out from a high spot towards the southwest with a pretty clear view of things. There are trees nearby and a hill with some buildings in the distance. But Supiter (I made that up, thanks) was high enough at the time and the sky was dark enough to light it up pretty well. When I blew my pictures up, you could easily see two bright but non-twinkling entities making up the "miracle star." 

Pretty cool. Pretty dang cool. And did I mention Missy singing "O Holy Night"? And the cold wind whipping through the trees. And my walking out through some brush to get a better look and then remembering the existence of rattle snakes and heading back to the safety of the parking lot. Whoa! Snakes!

Finally we drove away and headed back to Apache Shores. 

At which time the following happened. You can consider this my police report. 

At the corner of General Williamson and Broken Arrow (aren't you loving this, so far? these names, I mean?), I came to a complete stop. Then, it being a four-way stop, I rolled forward a bit more to make sure I was good to go. All of a sudden I was being honked at by a road enraged driver behind me who soon was screaming at me -- using the most delicate adjectives -- that "every *!@#$ idiot knows that you don't stop twice at a stop sign." To speak what those symbols represent took him a lot longer that it did for me to type them. 

I pulled over. He stopped. He opened his door and screamed some more about peace on earth, good will to man, and, against my sister's wishes, I opened up my door, in the middle of the street, and decided I would let him know how displeased I was with his misunderstanding of stop sign etiquette, not to mention his vocabulary. 

I don't know how it happened, but at one point, I believe I asked him if he were from Oklahoma. 

Next there were a variety of suggestions from him, although all the time keeping only one foot out of the car and one foot in, that somebody was about to get a @#@#$@##$!%&* whoopin' and it wasn't going to be him. I took offense at that, but again tried to explain that his behavior seemed out of place given the circumstances. He replied, with remarkable commitment to his stupidity, "who ever heard of stopping twice at a stop sign!" 

I stood there trying to look tall (it doesn't take much), he got back in the car and drove away. My heart, I don't mind saying, was palpitating a bit. We drove back to Missy's and right away I realized I didn't have my phone. Yikes, I realized it must have fallen out into the street when I, for the first time since . . . ever got out of my car in the middle of the road to let an angry driver know that his anger was a deep character flaw for which he needed treatment. 

We jumped back in Missy's car headed for the corner of Broken Bow and Great Eagle Trail (I am not making these names up; I'm sorry that you live on South Main St.). JUST THEN, another car pulled out its driveway between us and the intersection and started driving in the same direction. 

They made it to the intersection and turned right. I imagined my dear phone smashed to smithereens. That Galaxy A50 is not the greatest phone mind you, but  I treasure it for taking really good pictures of trees, hills, water, and conjunctive planets. And for recording song ideas. 

Missy yelled, "Is that it? I think that's it!" She meant my phone. There it was, in the middle of the street, NOT smashed. She called me. It was ringing before I opened my door. I stood in the street, happy to have my phone back, spinning due to my near street brawl experience, and grateful that now I would be able to share my cool pictures of the "Christmas star" in my family chat and perhaps, even with you dear reader.

If you've been keeping track, you probably know that yesterday I published something about my lost and found vest. You should look at it if you haven't. 

And now the lost and found phone. Well, it was only "lost" for a few minutes. The point is that it was exposed and vulnerable and could have very potentially "fallen among thieves." I don't know why my life is so dramatic. Perhaps as Father Grimes used to say in high school, dramatic people have dramatic lives. But, just as I thought back then, I wonder if that statement really says anything. Deep down, I guess, I think it doesn't. 

Were all the men who jumped out of the boats and into the waters of Normandy in June 1944 just "dramatic" dudes? 

This is Christmas Eve. Almost Christmas morning. I'm sad to have missed Midnight Mass. More than sad. Disconsolate. I know, that's dramatic. 

Tonight, I gathered with Ricke folks (alive and dead) on land that has been in the family for 80 yeas or so in the hills of Bastrop, Texas. We ate too much, drank a bit, saw the star (again), caught some fish, greeted the donkey and sheep, sang some carols, exchanged some gifts, and worked on a puzzle -- not necessarily in that order. If you looked at us a previous year, it would seem pretty much the same, except Harry is growing (7th grade!), and my daughters were missing. 

I survived the road rage idiot last night who blasted me with interesting adjectives and surprised me with his stupidity. This being 2020, I shouldn't, perhaps, be surprised at his malicious behavior towards me. 

I made it to be with the family on "the land" -- bringing two guitars, two bottles of Prosecco, a dark-blue zippered fleecy vest which I intend to package and give to my brother tomorrow (please read yesterday's meditation to understand the significance of), and my Galaxy A50 to take some pictures, record some of the carol singing, and to receive any important Christmas Eve phone calls that somebody might think it important to make. They didn't. But it was a good Christmas Eve anyway(s).

But, and this is the big but, the turn, the volta, in this meditation. Christmas isn't just about family, regardless of what the Hallmark Channel might say. In fact and of course, now that we think about it, Christmas is a pilgrimage into the unknown, the unfamiliar, the enemy who hates us for no apparent reason and wants to make sure our life is miserable (and provide a nasty whoopin') for the dumbest of reasons. 

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and donkey (call him Pancho*) were, quite specifically cold, relatively unsheltered, and in less than ideal or even traditional conditions on their famous Christmas eve and morning. Roadrage was all around them, or at least would be soon, especially in the character of King Herod and his minions.  Angels and shepherds show up eventually, and we are glad they did.

But that's a lot of introductions isn't it ("I'm Shepherd One, and you are . . . ? Nice to meet you Joseph."). And that was just the beginning for this family journey of becoming something more or less than your usual family.

 Christmas is celebrated by families, but enacted outside the walls of our homes, churches, and palaces (or wherever those kings/magi came from). Reaching out has become such a massive cliché. Christmas, though, is one great heavenly reaching out or reaching down event. Divine condescension, divine pity. Don't get me started about how beautiful those words and ideas are despite all our misunderstanding of them in world that questions the motives of all caring. 

Before we went to the see the miracle star yesterday, I took Missy to her doctor's appointment. She's had foot surgery recently and this was to check on her healing. She brought along a bag full of really lovely knitted winter wool caps she made to give out to anyone we saw who might need one. Remember it's Christmas time and should be cold. Unfortunately, it was almost 80 yesterday. 

Anyway, or anyways as the Jennifers often say, we did give one to our amazing server at Chuy's -- Austin's original hipster Mexican food joint. She loved it and it looked great on her. And we owed her something since I had guessed she was from Wisconsin or Illinois, obviously hurting the feelings of a native-born Texan. 

Missy didn't come to be with family tonight, due to the foot and being ridiculously tired. BUT, I think she had a pretty great Christmas experience, in imitation of the One who came to give a gift not exchange gifts, when she gave Vic, our server, an unexpected winter cap. She made a bunch of similar things (scarves and things) for the neighbors. They came over tonight, while I was with the family in Bastrop, and they gave her a great gift and told her how much she has meant to them by reaching out to them. 

Families are great. I am highly in favor of sharing the love and the joy of this time and all time with them. But I've been thinking a little bit tonight about Mr. Roadrage himself. I don't feel guilty for what went down in the middle of the road last night. That was his fault all the way. I'm not saying I wished I could give him the Prosecco I gave to Carol tonight, but maybe a knitted hat, or maybe a surprising word of grace, or maybe even checking if he's OK. As in, "it's OK pal, it was just a stop sign. Are you OK?" 

That sounds unlikely. And perhaps unrealistic. Like waiting in a cold, windy parking lot for a magical miracle star to appear. Like the road to Bethlehem. Like the incarnation of the Son of God. Like the long walk to the cross. Like to forgive and love those who "curse you, hate you, and despitefully use you." 

Even with my Galaxy A50, I can't picture all that quite yet. But then, it's not quite Christmas morning either. I'm planning to get up early just in case I see something amazing, something I won't want to miss. 

Something that will make my depressed heart say,    Whoa! Sky! 

Happy Christmas, friends. 

Yours in the ranks of irony, 

Ben Camino

*Pancho is the name of Uncle Bubba's donkey up on the land in Bastrop. 

 

 

Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #20: The Parable of the Lost and Found Vest and the Obscure(d) Miracle Star

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #20: 

The Parable of the Lost and Found Vest and the Obscure(d) Miracle Star

Dear pilgrim. This meditation grew long and dense, just the way I like them. But you should know that it was meant to be published yesterday, December 21. So just change all the time references if you would. When it says "today" it means "yesterday." Sort of like parents and their understanding of contemporary culture. "Today's kids spend all their time on Facebook!" "Ummm, dad. Kids are not on Facebook anymore. Just old people." 

Anyway(s), there's way too much going on in the Ben Camino universe (he meditates on it, he doesn't own it) to fit it all into one Ironic Advent Meditation. Some sages would quail at the task; Ben Camino delights in the feast. Why do I want to eat that last sentence? As we used to say in the sixth grade, here goes. 

Two nights ago, I went out to the see the miracle conjunction or the miracle star or the Christmas star or the Supiter event (I made that one up! ), but it was too late. Someone had said it was visible at nine, but, apparently, she isn't an astronomer. My friend Kristine IS an astronomer, but she lives in Connecticut and I don't have her phone number. 

I was hoping, then, to see it last night but I was driving on a pretty crazy busy fast freeway from San Antonio to Austin and missed it again. Perfectly clear both nights too. Tonight Missy and I made sure we were outside at the appointed or at least recommended hour to encounter the miracle but there was a very heavy cloud cover low on the horizon to the southwest which was pretty much exactly where the star was between dusk and sinking out of view. 

Miracle stars can't do everything, despite the adjective. Maybe that’s as it should be. Nothing would be more 2020 than to have this occur but we not be able to see it. 

In another way, nothing could be more Advent-y. I mean unless you are one of a handful of certain poor shepherds or three magic men lucky enough to see both the wild thing in the sky and the holy thing in the manger. In fact, I've heard that some mothers of Bethlehem didn't exactly appreciate the miraculous birth as much as Macy's and Walmart do. Even if they could see it, they probably didn't want to. 

Be that as it may, the last few days have been full of thoughts of loss for me (and lots of other folks too I'm sure). When everything around you sings be happy for the great gift, you sometimes have to sing back (perhaps even croaking like Russell Crowe), something (or Someone) giveth AND taketh away. 

For those who know Ben Camino as well as I do, you know that this is one of his major themes. Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown again. The myth of Sisyphus. Life.  As my dad used to say, he keeps "harping" on it. Yeah, just like they did under the willows of Babylon, if you get my allusion. 

In fact, as Ben would undoubtedly say, drawing attention to the wonder of language even to express anguish, the allusion is no illusion. The displaced people of God in Babylon resented and lamented their loss. As did the mothers of Bethlehem, who would NOT be comforted.  And none of this gets mystified away in the story. 

The holy thing whom the angels sang, the shepherds found, and the magic men worshipped, was rejected by his people, unjustly accused, rejected and abandoned by people who should have known better, and finally tortured and executed for being . . . God. Just saying. 

The whole lost and found thing (cue "Amazing Grace," Aretha) is some pretty mysterious business. Loss is real. And, yes, when you find your reading glasses after looking for an hour (like I did tonight) that's a big hip hip hooray. But when folks (I mean people, humans, featherless bipeds with a soul) are lost and then found (as we say), there's still . . . stuff.  

Let's think about it. Redeeming means paying for something. One meaning, the one I hear about in sermons, is "buying back," as from slavery or from being pawned. But another or at least related meaning is "a reversal of value." The sinner has been redeemed (bought back -- and folks that's a rather complicated allegory). But, more popularly, we sing "I'm redeemed" like in the old gospel songs, and we mean, I was lost lost but now I'm found. I was a sinner but now you can call me a saint. The value of my life has changed, even been reversed -- in my eyes, in heaven's eyes, perhaps in the eyes of at least some of my fellow folks. Death was a horror and a pit of meaninglessness. Somehow, it was redeemed. Or so the story goes. Somehow, redeemed by a miracle or something like, it now is full of profound meaning. 

So, not only have I been thinking about a lot of personal losses in my life recently, real ones that will not go away with wishful thinking or more faith (only believe and you will be healed), but I've especially been thinking of Noel's death (since it happened on December 20th a few years ago). And other people have died this year that I loved. And, very sadly, others whom I love have died to me and/or I to them. 

Some things I handle by long walks, writing songs, singing psalms, and a really good gin and tonic. Others are stuck so deep in my guts (perhaps my soul) that I know they aren't going anywhere. I mean, really -- Mary had a sword in her heart. If it went away after, say, Pentecost, then I just don't understand human relationships, parenting, or the words sword in the heart. 

I don't think they go away. Wounds perhaps heal. Yet scars are real.  

But can they be redeemed? Fundamentally transvalued? I won't say I'm exactly wagering on it, but I will say that I'm hoping so. 

Which brings me to one of my favorite articles of clothing. 

What? By the way, this whiplash literary effect is also known as the "turn," the volta in a Ben Camino mad rav . . . I mean, ironic meditation. 

Where were we? Favorite article of clothing. No, not my indigo Levi jeans, of which I have perhaps too many pair. Or my Clark's boots, bought in Oxford, which I love almost as much as I love the word inordinately.  

No my favorite piece of clothing is a rather basic dark blue (perhaps indigo again) zippered fleecy vest, nothing particularly expensive or special, except to me. 

I might say, and I'd be saying the truth, that it holds me tight in a time when nothing else does. But I also like the way it goes with almost everything else I wear which is either black or dark blue. And a beloved fleecy vest that you can wear just about any time you want comes in handy in chilly Indiana. 

I lost it. The vest I mean. I was with my brother and sister taking part in a family ritual we enact every time we get together down here in Austin. There are three Goodwill stores in a sort of triangle within about fifteen miles. I am usually not back "home" for more than a day or two before we make this pilgrim journey, to find a piece of junk and Goodwill to men.

I was trying on a snappy cowboy shirt (yes, yes, tall and enough blue in it to go with the fleecy vest), so I had to take off said vest and the shirt I was wearing. I bought the shirt don't worry. And I was socially distanced and masked. Whew. I felt your stress all the way from Texas. 

Bought the shirt, I said. But forgot the vest. That was our first stop, and I didn't realize it was gone until after the last stop. So on the way back, we checked in the first store, but I couldn't find it where I left it and nobody knew anything about it. I was unhappy, but not that unhappy. I thought it was a pretty good donation. I just hoped they washed it when they found it hanging in the snappy shirt section before they put it out for sale. 

So today my brother comes by to take me to the Avis place to return my rental car (that entire experience was traumatic, but not the point now). I was sitting writing something on the computer when he came in. 

"Look what I got!" he says, just like he always does when he gets something at a thrift store. It was a blue fleecy vest. He knew that I had lost one, but this fit him so well, and had already been tagged $6.99, so he figured it must not be the same one. He just figured, as he said, that we had similar taste. 

But it was mine. My vest was lost. But now it was found. It was also redeemed, bought back. I used to think it was worth $40, but now I know it's worth $46.99. 

OK, this is a terrible example of redemption. Maybe. But you've got to admit it's a pretty great ironic redemption story. It's the Gift of the Magi in a world of Goodwill. My dear brother bought it for me without knowing it. Thinking he was buying it for himself. Good thing he listened to reason after I threatened him. 

No, really. It's a real parable, and it happened to me. The letter and the spirit have kissed; my fumbling messy lost and found story is real, and it involves my brother liking something I like enough to buy it for himself and to give it back to me when he realized the truth. That probably means something and I'm sure Ben Camino readers will be interpreting it for . . . minutes. 

But, about that star. It was cloudy again tomorrow (remember my weird time scheme?). I went out to look at the appropriate time and there wasn't much to see. But then the clouds sort of parted for a few moments, although there was still some hazy veil over the sky. And I saw the conjunction. It wasn't that great, because, as I said, I don't think I was getting the full picture. 

I had to kind of use my own imagination, not having a clear night or a Hubble telescope handy. I had to trust that my friends all over the world who were posting pictures and writing in the equivalent of hushed reverent tones on social media were being square with me. I couldn't really see it myself, and when I did, it was underwhelming. 

Maybe their vision helped redeem my experience. And, of course, maybe tomorrow the sky will clear, Lucy will actually hold the football for Charlie Brown, and the baby King will establish eternal peace and justice in the galaxies. And obviously peace on earth, Goodwill to men. 

And as I lick my real wounds, chant the Psalms, and scan the skies, I will be styling in my much-loved dark blue zippered fleecy vest, a sort of gift (or re-gift), part of a strange redemption story of my loss and my brother's find. 

Now let's see if he gives me anything for Christmas or just counts that as my gift. It would be OK if he did.  

Peace folks. It is now 11.05 (CST) tomorrow. How's that for redeeming the time? 

+ 

dark blue zippered fleecy vest found

Ironic Advent Meditation : Beat Thing for Saint Lucy's Day

Ironic Advent Meditation for 12/13 

Beat Thing for St. Lucy's Day

Hosea loved a whore and waited for her holiness to come,

Missy lost her cat and never got another one,
Baby made a cut and prayed that God would let it bleed.
Daddy had to kill a man. Rhyming that would be a sin.

Ginsberg wrote a poem, and the whole world howled along.

Moloch! Moloch! nightmare of Moloch's song.
Ashcans, Talibans, World Banks, and Queerkillers,
God's son for this? Maybe. But then again . . . .

Kerouac lit a candle in words in Mexico in somnia in ekstasis 

speedfreak hymns for the highways and the thousand dirty pilgrim places,

and in a shack out near the dump out near the dive where Jack would score
a brown-skinned boy was born into this lousy world.

Hosea, keep on loving, though you can't know what will come,

And Missy, get yourself a cat, because it sucks to sleep alone,
And darling quit your cutting, go out dancing, moan your need,
And daddy . . . I don't know. Bring a light. Let's go see.

* originally posted as a Facebook post on St. Lucy's Day 2012. Later posted as a blogpost with visuals in 2017. 

Indigenous American Advent Meditation: Seven Sevens and an Envoy for Juan Diego (again)

Ben Camino's Indigenous American Advent Meditation: 

Seven Sevens and an Envoy for Juan Diego (again). 

I know it's rather late in the day, but still today, at least on some continent somewhere, it is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the subject of the great Catholic miracle story involving indigenous Americans, specifically colonized Mexican peasants, early in the sixteenth century. It's a wild story with lots of twists and turns, and a great debate, ongoing, as to how one should "take" the story -- the lady having been appropriated both by colonizing Spaniards and colonized Americans over the years. There's some very interesting work on this by historians, art historians, and, of course, religious writers, but I leave those questions now to the side. 

Growing up on the border of Mexico, my Catholic faith was immersed in traditional practices that might not have been as normative in places like . . . Indiana. Although I'm happy now to say that, as I write in the following poem, there is now a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Warsaw, Indiana, less than an hour from where I used to live. And a sizeable Spanish-speaking congregation, many first and second generation immigrants from Mexico and Central American, with whom, usually, I meet on the vigil of the feast, which is when the really big celebration is. Now I am in Texas, near San Antonio, so I was part of the ultime Our Lady of Guadalupe extravaganza at the Cathedral last night, which lasted from something like 6 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. 

During Advent 2012, when I started writing what I came to call an "ironic advent meditation" every day, I certainly knew even less what I was doing than I do now. I generally wrote something every day, usually pretty late in the day because of work commitments, and posted it on Facebook. No fancy blog stuff. Usually no pictures. I was making things up. The posts were intended to be unlike any inspirational Advent meditations ever written, directed towards those who, like me, did not respond to those. They were like scented candles, when I felt the need to rip hearts out of chests. 

So that same year, I had a friend who the PREVIOUS year (2011) had attended the OLG vigil celebration down in Florida. And that experience had a great deal to do with getting her back to church. I was, at that time, in a period of moving from a sort of non-denominational evangelicalism in which I had never been comfortable, to an evangelical Episcopalianism, to what I felt pretty certain would eventually be some sort of evangelical expression of of the holy, catholic, and apostolic church -- the church of Aquinas, Francis and Clare, Benedict, and (eventually) Chesterton. 

So I went. And I got home early in the morning on December 12 (maybe 2.30?) and hammered out a poem. And posted it on Facebook. And the NEXT year, I published it on my blog (and have posted that version every year since). In 2015, my good friend Oz Hardwick published it and six other of my poems in a book featuring several medievalist poets (as we pretentiously called ourselves).  

Not that I'm vain or anything (do I hear laughter?), but I do love this poem, and both the reality and visionary unreality it captures. My friend Jennifer reads this out loud some years and chokes up doing so, which also always chokes me up. I choke up when I read it out loud too.  

Next year, come visit me on the December 11th and we will go together for the songs, and the flowers, and the bread and wine, and the dancing and the tamales. And maybe there will even be a pageant of the story, as there was last night at the cathedral. And maybe the archbishop will come up to you, as he did to me last night, and say, you look hungry, should I go get you something from the rectory? (I said no). 

Seven sevens means, seven stanzas of seven lines. An envoy is something tagged on at the end of poem, usually directly addressing someone (a real person or maybe someone in the poem) but also serving to comment or interpret on the whole thing. 

One final thing, if you get lost and don't quite understand where you are or what you are supposed to be seeing or feeling, thank you. Here's the poem, the original vision (of 2012, not 1531). 

SEVEN SEVENS AND AN ENVOY FOR JUAN DIEGO*

Just last year Jill said

that nothing was finer or ever would be again

than the celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe

in her local church, in Florida,

with the mariachis and the dancing.

Alright, I’m not sure she said dancing,

but this is not journalism; just shoot me when it is.

 

So I took a trek, I made a pilgrimage,

I mean, I left the Protestant comforts of home,

and drove fifty miles on 30 West to Warsaw, Indiana that is,

where the closest shrine to Nuestra Señora obviously was,

having read about it in the Catholic Directory, if there is such a thing

and met at midnight with what felt like half a million Mexicans,

I mean at least a hundred of us standing and only one of us a very tall gringo.

 

I knew there would be mass, but in my ignorance

I knew so little how (so) much more to expect.

The singing, the children, the costumes, the flowers and families together at the shrine,

the processionals, the professionals, the prayers,

and, inconveniently, my heart ripped out of my chest and blood all over the pew.

My mother, my father, every love I've lost, which pretty much includes them all,

walking through the door, zombies too now, empty and bloody as hell,

 

finding me there, then, together, parading down the aisle,

nuestros corazones heridos all turned to flowers in our hands.

We kneel together, music all around,

a song to the lady, the one Diego wrote,

Las Mañanitas, a birthday song for the precious one you love:

Despierta, mi bien, despierta, mira que ya amaneció

ya los pajarillos cantan, la luna ya se metió.

 

And it's not exactly a miracle that everything smells like roses,

since there are perhaps a New Year's Day parade's worth of them

piled under her feet. And, yes, sometimes the celestial music

is slightly out of tune or the trumpets are just obviously showing off.

But it really doesn't matter about the roses or the guitars or the outfits

because you find yourself mumbling,

I've been bleeding a long time, a long long time.

 

And it goes without saying that this is the lady

with eyes like the western ocean and scars like Barranca del Cobre

who once whispered, "you may touch my feet my pilgrim

but my thighs belong to Padre Nuestro en los cielos,”

who fed you berries by the road by the river your sorrows looking up into the dream of her face

by the mountain by your childhood by the constellations,

who even now weeps for your loneliness.

 

And then, so as not to die here,

you get up from the kneeler and retrace your hungry steps,

go forward for the bread, though they’re stingy with the wine.

After, in the unfinished basement, you share tamales and abuelita chocolate and dancing

with folks you'd swear you've seen before.

It’s clear they knew your father better than you did, though they were born after he died.

For they knew to call him Carlos, which you were not allowed to say.

 

Envoy

Adios, then, Juan Diego, but you know now where you are if not yet who you are.

And, perhaps, at least a little, why you came this way.

To bear witness, to these, los campesinos preciosos,

each with a message from the lady,

for the powers that be, for the white priests in dark robes--

the future is flowers,

hiding in a poor man's cloak.

*revised and re-posted from December 12, 2012; corrected from the later published version in New Crops from Old Fields: Eight Medievalist Poets. Edited by Oz Hardwick. York, UK: Stairwell Books, 2015, 89-91.

Ironic Advent Meditation #12: Desolation on the Way

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent 2020 Meditation #12: 

Desolation on the Way or The View from the Ditch

Wow. My Advent Morning Prayer (Lauds) led me the perilous pathway through Psalm 88 this morning. I have always appreciated this poem for its raw, unblinking depiction of a life (I'd say soul, but that sounds too spiritual) in desolation. 

But recent events have made it sing in my gut in ways that make words like "appreciate" sound rather twee. Come on Advent Baby (can I call you that?), what about joy to the world and harking old harold the angel and heavenly peace? 

I know, I know. Not yet. And if by "know" I mean "feel," maybe never. Or perhaps, as one commentator assured me, Psalm 88 is a reminder that HE suffered through desolation so we would not have to do so. I don't think the God of Hosea OR the God of the Bethlehem manger will mind if I say, "hahahaha," that's what you think Mr. Commentator. 

I looked for an appropriate image to post, something at least slightly as ragged-edged as the imagery of the psalm itself. Nope nothing like. Pretty much shiny, slick poster/memes with a brief quotation. One, at least was just a black background with the phrase "darkness is my closest friend." High five to whoever posted that one. 

Advent things are happening all the time. It's not all scented candles, inspiration, and Frosty the Snowman in the front yard. It's also Herod the King, John the B in the wilderness (and, getting thrown in prison  even before Christmas, liturgically speaking), rough paths to Bethlehem, and, at the last minute, doors shut in your face Mr. and Mrs. Messiah's parents. 

That's all. I got nothing else to say. Here's my translation (ok, paraphrase, I don't know Hebrew) of the Psalm. Even though I've read it a hundred times, I kept waiting for the perspective to pull back from the edge and lighten up. Nope. Ironically, and perfectly to my mind (because I think the liturgy understands what I don't), the whole ugly mess ends with the "Glory be to the Father" as if we had just chanted one of the Alleuluia psalms (148-150) or something. 

Sorry to be this way. See y'all on the other side. 

Psalm 88, a song of desolation

Lord . . . God? I call for help all day long,

I cry all night to You. 

Please let my prayer rise up to You, 

open Your eyes to my cries. 

See, my life is filled with horror;

I'm right on the edge of the grave.

I might as well be dead,

I don't have the strength to go on. 

I am like somebody all alone surrounded by the dead,

like a dead person dead in the grave,

like those people You have forgotten, 

lost, cut off from you and your care. 

You are the one who has put me deep in the grave, 

in a dark place, like I said, in a deep place.

Your anger is crushing me;

You are drowning me under your waves!

You took away my friends

and made them hate me. 

You put me in prison with no escape route;

Look at my eyes, see what You've done to me.  

I am crying out to you all day every day;

stretching out my hands, pleading. 

Are you planning to kill me first then do a miracle? 

Is it your will that my ghost will praise you? 

You think I will sing about Your love after I'm dead?  

Or praise Your faithfulness after you destroy me? 

Or say how wonderful You from down in hell? 

Or how just You are from under the earth? 

It's true, I cry out to you for help, 

every morning I beg you to answer me. 

Why do you reject me?

Why do you hide from me? 

I am a mess. I've been a mess since I was a child; 

I've put up with so much from you; now I'm just numb.

Your anger has crushed me again and again, 

You have terrorized me, destroyed me. 

Your sufferings surround me all day, every day, 

I am constantly under attack. 

Friends, loved ones, community -- you have taken them away;

my only friend is the darkness. 

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit

as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. 

Amen. 

 

Ironic Advent Meditation for December 7: Saint Charles Day

 

Dear Reader, nothing on this earth is more sacred to Ben Camino than the memory of his father, Charles William Ricke. 

Thus, several years ago, against the advice of both Popes not to mention Jerry Falwell Jr. , he instituted the Feast Day of Saint Charles, complete with readings, reflection, and prayer. 

And a couple of really cool pictures which you can treat as saints cards if you like. If you aren't Catholic, you don't don't have any idea what I mean, so don't worry about it. 

A slightly revised version of this appeared online at the Relief Journal site, December 2017. The earliest version of this, without the "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" frame appeared in the original Ben Camino Ironic Advent Meditations on this day in 2012.

I'm sorry about all the weird highlighting. I don't know how to fix it, and my blog assistant is on vacation (there is no blog assistant).  

Ben Camino's Ironic Advent Meditation

for Saint Charles Day

My father died on a cold gloomy Advent day like this; well, this day exactly, senior year.

It was cold and gloomy in New York anyway (or anyways, as Jennifer Lynne Ricke says), and that's where I was that morning.  

He was in Houston. He had a heart attack in his car. I guess it was hot and gloomy. 

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night

I had just worked out a new bluesy arrangement of "O Come O Come Emmanuel." The Advent song to end all Advent songs. A way of tuning one's soul (by which I mean my whole being, including my body, of which I am fond) to the ideas, the meanings, and the specific stance (or bend or bent) of Advent.

I had always loved minor keys. 

I didn't know why then, though. 

I know now. 

And death's dark shadows put to flight

Or maybe I just think I know now. 

Perhaps in some culture somewhere, 

Mars for example, or Iowa,

the minor key is not the hearing aid for sorrow, loss, and lament. 

But in New York, in my senior year of college, reading Auden in the gathering gloom, it made sense.

I used to be in a church with a song leader named Fred. Fred would complain about any song written in a minor key, even if it was chosen by the pastor. Fred "had the victory," he said, so he thought that the minor key was a kind of blasphemy. 

We mourn in lonely exile here.  

         

My last note to Dad contained some “clippings” as he called them of our game the night before--

Ricke had 18 points and 14 rebounds.

I grew up reading and rereading the faded clippings of his forty point games in Houston.

And sitting in his lap reading the sports pages.

That's probably when I began my spiritual practice of remembering useless facts.

Under the influence of Auden, another kind of father, I had just written him a rather formal and pretentious poem called “Father Christmas”--

If you are keeping track, that's two rather formal and pretentious poems I wrote under Auden's influence that December.  

It was going to be my father's Christmas present, but he never read it. It's at home on my fridge.

Somewhere I still have the piece of paper on which my friend had written Joe, call home.

My words scrawled under it, during the phone call, you're too big to die daddy.

And he was. He really was.

He was like a god to me.

Like a god now in my memory. 

A loud god. A messy god. A very present god in time of trouble. 

A god who didn’t ask me to take every little thing on faith. Who hugged and held me like it mattered. And, as I said, shared the sports pages.

Saint Charles brought life and light and a certain wry, slightly inebriated smile to everyone who knew him.

His father had died before Charles was a teenager, so he became a bit of a wild one. He didn't teach me how to gamble, but I'm sure he would have if I asked. He doesn't know it, but I got pretty good at poker and blackjack in college anyway. Once won $20 from the rest of the basketball team on a long Saturday morning.

I flew home to Houston and, a few days later, was giving his funeral sermon. I don't remember much of what I said. I know I said he loved dogs, which was true. And family. Whatever I said, I'm sure my words meant, "you're too big to die." 

 

Charles fought the big one, in both Europe and Asia. He was wounded twice, I mean in the war. I know for a fact he was wounded many more times than that. I'll bet I was responsible for some of those wounds. I know my mom was. 

Not to mention the time Noel hooked him in the shoulder once with one of those nasty three-pronged fishing hooks. That was on the jetty at  Padre Island. Dad laughed. Loudly. Probably as good a way of any as dealing with pain. Noel was ten. And still alive. 

O Come Thou Dayspring, come and cheer

He could laugh about things, that's for sure. That was his standard liturgical response to most things. Who knows what he saw in the Pacific and in Italy during the war? I know he piloted amphibious landing craft in several invasions.

It's not really much of a guess to say that he had seen enough horrors for one lifetime. A fish hook in the shoulder was funny.

Although he spent most of his time in a little town with his family, being as domestic as he could stand to be, he got that look in his blue eyes when he got on the road. Especially somewhere big and open and wild.  

He'd pull over and stop if it was amazing enough. And remind us all to be amazed. Well, I think he just said, look at that.  

Driving in the mountains on our infamous vacation to Colorado, he'd like to drive as close to the edge as possible. We had an old dam outside of town we called "the waterfall." He used to like to drive over it while we screamed in the back seat.   

Speaking of the driving close to the edge, he got married three times. To the same woman. Eudora Juanita Thompson, as extravagant and wild and worth looking at as her name. My mother. You may have heard about her.

He couldn't sing a lick, but that didn't stop him from doing the "Streets of Laredo"or "I've Got Spurs that Jingle Jangle Jingle" ("now ain't you glad yer single," he would emphasize when Mom was in the car). 

Really, though, he didn't sing a lot. Usually only when driving a boat down near Rio Hondo. Or driving fast in his '65 Mustang down Rio Rico Road,  headed towards Mexico. When Mom or Missy weren't around, he might sing his dirty sailor songs from the Navy for a line or two. Then blush and shut up. 

This year, this Advent, every Advent, December 7 shall be his feast day. A day of remembrance. The feast of Saint Charles. Let there be barbecue. And Border Buttermilk (look it up).

This saint taught me the important stuff. This is the saint who taught me how to tie my ties. Or, more truthfully, who tied my ties most of the time. 

I can feel him standing close to me. Hear him breathing heavy. 

I thought that was a strange sound then, but I just wasn't used to large human beings breathing close to my body. Now I miss it. 

I learned to love and care, whatever little I learned, by watching this giant, gentle man, this reluctant warrior, nurture and mother four children for years when Nita was, for all practical purposes, out of commission. 

 

I learned to pray at mass by listening to him, sometimes sitting in his lap or just stuck up against him close enough to smell the after shave and cigarettes.

He would be saying the words, and I would be making sounds I didn't understand. It was Latin anyway, but I figured out that  the way to pray was just to make sounds that sound sort of like words but have a meaning you don't know yet. While snuggling with your dad. 

Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel nascetur pro te, Israel

Now I’m thinking, who the hell really knows? Who really understands? Maybe we don't want to understand. Maybe we want something more. Maybe language isn't enough.  

and close the path to misery

This is one of my clearest early  memories, probably from the same year Noel was born.

I'm maybe four, sitting next to Dad in the pew at Our Lady of Sorrows (that was the name of our church; Second Baptist was already taken). 

I'm warm and happy mumbling my holy sounds and feeling very close to my God and to Saint Charles whom I can hear mumbling beside me. 

and give us victory o'er the grave

A Prayer for the Feast of Saint Charles.

Dear Eternal Being of Power and Love, if so you are, thank you for the life and witness and sacrifice and amazement at this world's wild beauty, not to mention the mysterious mumbling noises, of your creature Charles Ricke, who by his flawed, wounded, and slightly inebriated soul (I mean his whole being, including his body of which he was rather fond), brought life and light to the gloom. And who points us, as we gather together mumbling at your altar, towards the mystery of power and love we celebrate, if so it is, this Christmas season.