Ironic Advent Meditation #1: The Full Cry of Advent (Waiting for Noel)

Ironic Advent Meditation #1:

The Full Cry of Advent 

(Waiting for Noel)

Advent is waiting, but it means coming or appearance.

Advent is the time of waiting for the appearance or the coming.

Waiting is not static. I know this now, though I theorized it before.

Noel taught me to wait.

The Church season of Advent is a closed system,

helpful as a sign,

but not equal to the actual experience of waiting for the coming or the appearance.

I know this now, though I thought differently before.

Real Advent is open to reality.

Hopeful, hazardous, ironic, surprising, disappointing, sometimes agnostic, a risk.

How long? How long? How long? How long? How long? How long? How g* f* long?

The cry of Advent (and real Advent means much crying),

the moan of those who wait—longing, expecting, doubting, anxious, focused, desperate.

Uttered while gathered, holding hands if possible, around the dying body.

Of a brother who was once a lovely laughing child,

of a people who once knew the presence and the call,

of a church once barefoot, humble, poor, and glorious.

But what kind of utterance?

A moan, a cry, a wail, of course. But also, and always, an address.

How long, O Lord? How long, O LORD?

A desperate gasp? Certainly. An accusation? Probably?

But the full cry of Advent,

open to all who came by way of the womb and ever named their need for milk,

the ground of the wild wager, the paradoxical final stage, perhaps, of ascending from the slime.

How long, O Lord? The full cry of Advent.

Not the “why” of the suffering individual seeking justice and justification,

who knows, before even stating the case, that the only acceptable verdict is “it’s not your fault.”

But the absurd hope, figured from our bed of suffering, our season of darkness, our absolute loneliness and desolation,

That love, and goodness, and kindness, and care—

the words we’ve used for years to make our meanings and find our ways through wilderness,
may point to something more than poetry.

Brother Henry, a chaplain, wanders ICU looking for someone who might still want such unfashionable help. 

Missy goes out and grabs him and says he’s welcome with us.
  

He reads Psalm 23 so that you wanted to believe it.

He prays for Noel, and then for us. 

We try to wake Noel up so Henry can actually get to meet him. 
We call, “Noel, Noel. Noel, Noel."
 

Henry stands in the entrance to the “room,” and says, “let me try it this way.”

He sings, beautifully--“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord.” 

I don’t know the song. 
I’m not sure of the message either.  

Noel doesn’t wake. We say goodbye to Henry. 

Again, we begin to stroke and kiss and whisper to our dying brother.

And wait.

MEMORIES OF THE FALL

Memories of the Fall 

               It was just after 7.50 on the morning of September 11th, and I was ducking 

out of my office to teach an 8.00 A. M. World Literature class. My office door 

at Taylor University opened directly to the desk of our secretary, Rhonda, without 

whom nothing. Rhonda usually had her radio on and usually kept us informed. 

I was rushing to class, so it took me a minute really to tune in to what she was trying 

to tell me.  

               “One of the World Trade Centers has just exploded in New York City.” Rhonda 

 knew that I used to live in New York, that I love New York, and that, like most [former] 

New Yorkers, I am often talking about New York. Stunned and foggy, I didn’t mention 

the news at all in that early morning class. I didn’t want to freak out and then find out 

later that World War III had turned out really to be an electrical fire.   

               Like a lot of people around the world, my colleagues and I spent much of the 

rest of that day around the radio for further news. I remember the absolute despair and 

disgust (a literal “sinking feeling”) that came, first, when we heard that the second 

tower had been hit and, later, when we heard the incredible news that a tower had 

collapsed.  I thought, selfishly, of one of my favorite spots on earth.  Just off the shore of

lower Manhattan, riding back at night towards the city on the Staten Island ferry, with 

the proud WTC Towers dominating the skyline. The bright vision and beautiful 

world of my early 20s.              

               But the day wasn’t over. I had to teach again. As a professor in a “Christian college,” 

I thought that I should try to relate the events of the day to some larger picture, some 

ultimate story within which it could be framed if not understood. It was as beyond my 

understanding but so is just about everything else. 

               I wanted to help my students connect our experience with the lives and concerns 

of other people who have faced and still are facing similar horrors. Some people experience 

9/11 every day. To them it’s just called life.

               So when I came back to my afternoon World Literature class, I came with the words of 

C. S. Lewis from a speech he gave to Oxford students during World War II, called “Learning in 

War Time.” Lewis, who had seen World War I from trench-level and was now trying to teach 

his students during another great war, points out that if human beings had stopped teaching 

and studying every time the level of human suffering reached something like crisis proportions 

(whether a World War or a world-changing terrorist attack), we simply would have shut down 

all our schools a long time ago. Moreover, if we could really see things as they are, we would 

realize, as the scriptures and Christian traditions teach, that the world is always at war, that a 

battle is always pitched, and that we are always living in a crisis time. How dare we stop living 

(learning, marrying, building communities) when an external, physical conflict touches our 

lives, if, as our religion teaches, every single day a dangerous, terrible (and terror full) spiritual 

conflict rages all around (and, more importantly, within) us?

               Then, having asked their permission, I went on to talk about World Literature.   

Specifically, we discussed the amazing fact that, when he finally arrived at the destination 

of his great Odyssey (his homeland of Ithaca), the great Odysseus, conqueror of Troy, 

Cyclops, and pretty much all the known world, was fast asleep.

               Maybe, I thought afterwards, September 11th was a great personal and communal   

“wake-up call.” Not in the jingoistic sense that Americans now remember that they really 

are the center of the universe and everybody else better be careful or we will kick their 

non-American butts (one version often heard on popular radio programs). But to wake up 

to our lives, to our journeys (our Odysseys), to our homes (both here and in our ultimate 

Ithaca). To the great and awful responsibility we have of living in this dangerous, beautiful 

world. To remember that every time we wake up, or every time we walk out of our office 

door on the way to class, some miracles and some tragedies are not just waiting to happen. 

They are happening. People are suffering. Some people are sacrificing everything for a 

greater cause, for the good of someone else.  Some people are finding ultimate meaning 

even on the brink of despair. People are, to put it mildly, reordering their priorities.

               A final note. Just around September 11th, my friend Twyla Lee told me about 

an alternate route to Upland from my home in Huntington.  Instead of driving to I-69 

and fighting the Indy traffic through the relative “sameness” of the Interstate landscape, 

she said I should try taking Country Road 300 W (which later becomes State 5), going past

the Huntington Landfill, Lancaster, Van Buren, Eastbrook High, etc. “It’s all two lane farm roads,

but it’s about five miles shorter,” she told me.

               Dear reader, I fell in love with every inch of that stretch of country road the mornings and 

afternoons after September 11, 2001. I can’t describe how comforting and reassuring it was 

through that horrible time to drive past school buses on their way to Lancaster Elementary and

 Eastbrook High or to get stuck on that winding rural road behind combines and tractors bringing

 in that October's good harvest. "God and the farmers are back on speaking terms," I remember saying 

to my wife after seeing so many good people bringing in their sheaves one day. Thanks to that 

8 A.M. class, I even got to see the early morning sun rising above the old landfill and the Lancaster 

cemetery day after day after day.  The old barns, the little dying farm towns, the corn stubble 

which glistened with dew every morning and shone like gold in the late afternoon sun—

these bright things will forever be connected to the dark memories of that autumn.

               I don’t think I’m making this up; but we all seemed to be waving like my neighbors to 

each other those days, giving the thumbs up instead of the more offensive digital gesture I 

usually get from other drivers. In slight, almost invisible, ways, we were doing significant healing 

work. Even rolling down the windows and talking to strangers about things I knew nothing about--

like harvesting soybeans or the Eastbrook football team—took on a deeper meaning.

               Sometimes people in these parts are labeled as narrow-minded. Perhaps a bit stuck in the 

mud. More than a little old-fashioned. Those things looked a lot different to me during the autumn 

of 2001. Through that hard fall, it felt good to be in the heartland.

FIVE SINFUL HYMNS FOR THE LOVE OF MARY MAGDALENE

Five Sinful Hymns for the Love of Saint Mary Magdalene (and a postscript)


One.

Sweet Mary Mags.
Loved Jesus’s feet more than her lovely hair and her diamonds,
I mean her tears.
And, as everyone but Augustine knows,
She really couldn't help but love her lovely hair.
And it's no great gift to give what's not loved much
to one you love more.
What does it profit a girl,
She said,
To gain the kingdom of heaven
But to lose his sole. 

Two.

Magdalena cut herself
Longing for something deeper
Than the sex of centurions, publicans,
And guilt-ridden rabbis
Who paid extra for her silence.
The dirt she’d eaten as a child
Was all she knew of Love
Until the day, no doubt,
He scratched her name
Into her mother’s skin
(I mean the earth).
And said,
“Close up your wounds
And drink from mine."

Three.

At Saint Mary Mags in Oxford,
This prayer above her image:
“Saint Mary Magdalene,
Whose sins were forgiven and whose life was transformed
By the grace of Christ
Pray for us that Christ may forgive our sins
And transform our lives by his grace,
So that we at last may share with you
In the joy of the eternal kingdom. Amen.”
I can’t say Amen to this.
It might as well be about Paul. Saint Paul or even Paul,
The guy two blocks over from my house in Indiana.
I’d light a candle to twenty holy Wesley hymns before this cliché.
In the private chapel of my chest, this:
“Darling dear Saint Mary Mags,
Whose passion, hair, tears, and lips,
Entered paradise,
I mean, touched the body of the Master,
Before the Pharisees, the Scribes,
And all the righteous men who abused you,
And even before the apostles themselves
(except John, who loved to lean his head on Jesus’ breast),
Pray for me, that my passion and love may overflow,
May annoy, may provoke, may outrage,
And may lead me to everlasting life.
Pray for me that I may never spiritualize my love
For the body of Christ.”
 
Four.

Martha cleaned things up for the love of God
And served only kosher coffee to his Son,
For she knew the law and kept the commandments.
To tell the Torah truth, she was damn sure of your duty as well.
Mary, who often skipped her lessons and skinny-dipped instead,
Remembered only this from synagogue:
“How lovely are the feet of those who bring good news.”
. . . . .
She recognized them right away,
Dirty from the long pilgrim road of love,
And knelt in the mud of her own tears and snot,
Convulsing with a passion unknown to angels,
Kissing, for hours, the sweet skin of the virgin’s son--
Her whoring done, her truelove whispering her name.
 
Five.

Saint Mary sinned with all her senses--
She loved the look of her lovely hair reflected in a Roman bath,
Craved the taste of pork on a pagan’s lips,
Sweet music swayed her into dirty lover’s arms,
Whose touch she sometimes much more than endured,
And the human smell of sweat and love, like sage,
Could sometimes make her moan with madness.
The dappled sunlight, the wind on her neck,
An earnest young man brushing against her in the street--
All these and more could set her skin to shivering with delight.
Until the day she was accused and
Knew, for certain, she was going to die.
The crowd, the stones, the law she couldn’t keep--
All cursed her now for what seemed sweet the day before.
When, in the irony of time, it came to pass,
That the old world somehow spun backwards on its base.
A young man scratched strange magic in the earth,
And, behold,
The righteous hung their heads like whores,
And Mary shone like Moses,
Her sinful eyes seeing the face of God,
Where others saw but scandal.

Postscript:

When the gardener met her in the garden
Near the tomb that early morning,
Mary gave him a royal headache demanding
Specific information about the body she had come to see.
Worn down, the risen Lord whispered her name,
As once he’d done so tenderly
when she'd wiped his feet that night with her sinful hair.
She squealed with joy and reached out for his skin.
At this point, scholars and sermons debate about just what
Our rude Lord was up to when he wagged his still-bloody finger at her
And said, “Don’t touch me, girl!”
The answer is obvious.
He knew this lovely human inside out--
Like the time he woke to find her snuggling up and squeezing his feet
Before sunrise in Samaria.
With Mary, you had to always watch out for the
Scratching and the pinching. Even the biting.
The marks she left on John’s back sometimes!
Saint Mary Magdalene,
Pray for us.

The Bloomsday Piece for sure

The Bloomsday Piece for sure

 . . . so of course I'm working in the garden, in the heat and the wetness, the perspiration I'm meaning, and the thorns of life, or thorny desire, or whatever thorns they be, squeezing my heart like Jesus himself in the garden of his agony or St. Francis fighting off one temptation or another to be sure, I mean, obviously, I'm thinking that it's Bloomsday, and I need to write a piece. 

     Well then I wrote a song for the day already but I couldn't seem to get around to recording it in time to send it out the friends of mine who might be that true-hearted that they'd give it a listen and I mean a real listen not just load it down to their i-pill and swallow it later at some leisure that we all know is not coming any time soon. 

     It's a lovely song, if I may say so and I'm saying so presently so I'm just that sure I may. It says "I kissed a girl in Dublin town/upon the mouth upon the ground/upon the dirty cobbled streets/just 'round from Trinity." And it goes on of course. More than a little sad, I'd say. Perhaps a little mad. And probably a bit too salacious for the Jesuits in the audience. But on the other finger, songs are always more than what they say. Or, if I may Aristotle it, songs always say more completely (what with words, and tunes, and instruments, and silent stops, not to mention a living breathing human being) than the words say standing alone, like the two lovers of the song who for a time, maybe just a night, found a love that held off the bitches of time and abandonment and regret. And it was worth a song. Worth the poetry. And worth losing, if anything is. 

     But that's not what I'm here to say from the hot garden of today. And by the way, of course I know that someone or more of you out there will be just so witty to point out that today is no such Bloomsday for Bloomsday has passed like the rose of the beauty and youth we used to know when still in our swaddling clouts. I will say to such a man, for I have the grace to think that no lady among you would every stoop to say such a thing, that of course my good man I'm no idiot. No blogger or Protestant either for that matter. And I'll foight the man who says that I am any or all of the three. It may not be your Bloomsday any more, and I'll be more than pleased to let you think so. But Oi was dreaming through most of yesterday. And, saying the same thing another way, writing the poetry. And any man who thinks that Bloomsday is something else besides dreaming and poetry is a feckin' Jesuit or lawyer, or what's worse than either, a professional writer paid by the inch as if writing weren't in blood. And payment weren't in well drawn stout and maybe a sip of the Jamesons on occasion. 

     What I am here to say, if you'll just be so good to let me finish: I will be as happy as an immigrant who's found a job on Talbot St to send you the song when I'm done recarding it, but you'll have to pretty please because I'm just that tired of  sending things out to payple who then simply forget it as if it were their last confession and go on about their business like they haven't been given a gift. Because that's exactly what it is, isn't it? I don't say how good the quality. But then I wouldn't send it if I thought it was beneath the golden level of friendship; that's something you can take to the bank (or even to the church, if you can find one where folks still gather). So what I'm saying, and I think it bears saying on occasion both for myself and for my fellows in the ministry of the mystery (of course I'm meaning the Daedalian company of which I'm proud to say I'm a member)--you don't always have to pay up; but for god's sake, speak up friends and lovers.

     Sure it's work enough to bring Aphrodite herself or that lovely deer you saw in the field or even the poor thing of little dead cardinal bird being devoured by worms even as I discovered it, I say hard enough to conjure these right here among us in stone or metalwork or with crushed color on canvas. But how much harder with nothing but syllables, and stops, and moans (no doubt the source of every vowel the world has ever known) and memories of birdsongs and, of course, the whole damned history of making, and breaking, and love, and grief, and overwhelming beauty, to bring, that is, something like lightning or ecstasy or hope or even blessed discontent into the world from something so light and tenuous and, yes of course I won't argue about it, maybe ridiculous. 

     So, it's Bloomsday. And if you think it isn't, we'll just step out back and I'm thinking you'll soon be seeing it my way. And I'll be sure to mention it at confession and to visit you at the public hospital. And what I'm saying, if it's not yet clear as crystal, if you'd like to hear my song about Dublin and, I dare say, if you'd like to have your sweet heart broken (if, of course, you're not a sour-hearted Jesuit or a member of the New York Knickerbockers), then you'll kindly be asking for it. I don't say begging. But please and thank you will always get you somewhere. Maybe a long walk on the pier at Dan Laoghaire. 

     And good company you'd be with.

Solomon's Spring (April 26): Ten tercets and a postscript.

Solomon's Spring (April 26): Ten Tercets and a Postscript*

(i)
come to my garden
and sing for love
all the pretty birds are

(ii)
sit on the grass and do nothing
by nothing, I mean listen to the birds
hurry before the rain

(iii)
tattoo this morning on your soul
a hundred simple wrens, that theatrical cardinal
to the pure of heart, THIS is the news

(iv)
there's nothing left to say
the only reason for songs and such
and crisscrossing the pale blue sky  

(v)
there are two great commandments
feed your daughter, hug her, and say "drive safely"
the second is like unto it--praise the downy woodpecker 

(vi)
Frost saw much but birds see this much more
good fences are like poems
places to perch and talk to neighbors

(vii)
the bravest of the little foxes
belly up in the sun
breathing thank you thank you thank you I'm beautiful**

(viii)
so then you get dog tired, really
cuddle up with Rorie
and dream of squirrels falling from trees 

(ix)
all day long the birds chirping about sex
mocking all our metaphysics
soaring above our thoughts of heaven 

(x)
night comes to the stubborn sun-blessed garden
but the birds sing sanctus through the dark
for today's first lilac flowers and the rain so soon to 
fall
 
(postscript)
so. all things will be changed forever
may my tired skin sail up on downy feathers
to sing and preen and finally nest with Love

*in praise of birds, who once ruled the world, and, as far as they know, still do


**thank you Michele Pinkham for your fox