On Being Here Now (or, Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi Craves Not These Things)

One of the guys at Ace Hardware back in the day was on cashier duty, and business must have been slow. He tied a small metal nut to a piece of string two or three feet long, tied the other end to a hook on the impulse-buy candy rack by the exit door, and attached a magnet to the same rack, two or three feet higher. Then he adjusted the length of the string such that the nut couldn't quite reach the magnet, but was so close that it literally hung in midair, levitating, maybe a quarter of an inch beneath its goal. Four years I worked at that store, and our little magnet display never stopped being cool. Thing is, though: if anybody jostled the candy rack, even a little bit, the nut instantly fell. Hard not to be reminded of the spiritual life.

I've got problems. At the end of a good day, I can look back and only check off half a dozen of the Seven Deadlies. But I wonder sometimes if my greatest failing mightn't be my tendency to coast through the work day, waiting for it to be over, instead of engaging it, living it. Rarely is my mind on where I am, what I'm doing—and if it is, I resent the necessity of focus, the intrusion on my private thoughts. My favorite tasks are ones like pulling weeds or stacking chairs, that draw no cerebration. And sometimes that's okay! As long as the work gets done, it's not awful if you happen to be composing goofy couplets in your head at the same time. But.

"Whether you eat or you drink or whatsoever you do, do it all to the Glory of God" (Corinthians 10:31). Any task, every task, becomes holy if one simply remembers to consecrate it. At the beginning of the day (on a good day) I say a prayer that goes like this: "O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in union with Your Most Precious Blood poured out on the Cross and offered in every Mass, I offer you today my prayers, works, joys, sorrows, and sufferings, for the praise of Your Holy Name and all the desires of Your Sacred Heart, for the conversion of sinners, the union of all Christians, our Holy Father the Pope, and our final union with You in Heaven." It's a beautiful prayer, and it starts the day in a beautiful way. Except then something horrible happens. I have to get out of bed. And when I'm petty or petulant during the day, I fear that it's worse than it would be if I hadn't dedicated my actions to the Lord. Aspiring to the height always means a longer fall.

A Christian should look forward to death. It's a bad thing in itself, but it's been transmuted into a doorway to all Good. And I do look forward to it. But I don't want to find myself in a nursing home (like the place where I spend every working day) looking back on a life spent looking forward to the grave. When He finished writing the world, God looked on all that He had made and found it good. It's not a place we should be coasting through.

The Quotidian Mythic

I am a maintenance worker at an upscale retirement home. It's a good job and I'm very blessed to have it. Before this I was a maintenance worker at a Catholic church and K-8 school; before that I was a maintenance worker at a grocery store, and before that I was sort of an all-around "go do something useful" employee at a hardware store. Easy enough to see how I've ended up in my current job, but there's a funny twist.

Over the years, I've known some extremely intelligent people who suffer from dyslexia. I'm grateful that I don't have that particular affliction; but I don't need to use my imagination to empathize. To read the same passage over and over, have someone explain it, read it again, and still just not get it: I know what it's like, because that's how tools and machines are to me.

I can read the instructions, listen to the explanation, watch my coworker do it. Plug it in. Hit the on button. Bam, it turns on. He leaves the room. I plug it in, I hit the on button. Nothing happens. I do it fifty times, harder and harder, till I gash my hand on the corner. Then I call for help, he comes back in and pushes the button, and it turns on.

Then I do whatever I'm doing for as long as I can. Pray I can finish before I have to go to lunch or help someone move a shelf or recalibrate the capacitor or whatever. But eventually I have to turn it off, and I'm not quite done, so then I have to turn it back on. Please, just this once, let it work. Please, God, please, just this one time. Plug it in. Hit the button. Nothing. I try very hard not to blaspheme, but these are the moments when I fail.

So how have I wound up working with tools and machines for the last twelve years? Dunno. I'm really hoping it's some kind of installment program to help me get through a big chunk of Purgatory while I'm still on Earth.

When I was young, I wanted so badly to live a life of adventure. I wanted to jump away from explosions, swing over pits on well-placed ropes, rescue attractive and interesting people from villains who were deeply committed to nunchuck-based villainy. So I went looking for those things, and because a lot of good-hearted people were looking out for me, including my insanely badass Guardian Angel, I never happened to get knifed or imprisoned or raped. But I did, very slowly, get huge red nails of knowledge and understanding pushed through the sockets of my eyes.

All of this—the labor, the lostness—this is my adventure. I don't get to punch ninjas or vault over velociraptors, because you don't get what you expect or what you think you want. You get what will get make you into a saint. I see now that being a super action hero would have made me arrogant and insufferable, stone-deaf to the weakness of men and to the still small voice of God. My hero's journey is no less arduous than (say) Frodo's to Mount Doom—and neither is yours, friend reader—but we may not get the fireworks on this side of the Vale of Tears. It's okay. They're waiting for us, just across the way.

This small, humble, day-by-day adventure story of the common life is what I'm trying to accept as my own legendary quest, my own long quiet crucifixion. I call it The Quotidian Mythic, because I find it validating to make up pompous names for things. And if you, good friend, should ever feel that Christian life is boring—just remember that the excruciating dullness is all part of the trial, and therefore part of the quest. Schlepping across mile after dreary, dusty mile of Mordor was not exciting for the schleppers. Being a hero, being a saint, is not about you and me having a cool, exciting time. It's about saving the fucking day.

On Qi (or, If It's True, It's Christian)

Sonya has begun to coo. She's coming up on three months outside the womb now, and apparently cooing is a normal part of vocal development; but to me it feels like God saying, "Here's a gift for all the hard times behind you and before you. Remember how very worth it she is." Upon reflection, I think I can say definitively that it's the sweetest sound I've ever heard. It's so beautiful that it's almost physically painful. I keep finding myself hugging my own stomach as if to keep it from bursting. It brings to mind my old friend Anthony Giacoma, with whom I've sadly lost touch, who used to say that Beauty wounds the heart. I don't think I understood what that meant before. I mean, I grasped it intellectually, by way of analogy with (go ahead and laugh, Jes) Goldschlager Cinnamon Schnapps, which contains flakes of gold that allegedly make tiny nicks in your stomach lining and thereby let the alcohol into your bloodstream faster. Likewise, the little flakes of Beauty we encounter in the world cut our hearts and let in graces from the world beyond. But not till my daughter's first few trusting coos did I truly, viscerally understand.

I am a martial artist. For many years, my self-definition was, "Catholic, writer, martial artist." When I married Ellie, it became "Catholic, husband, writer, martial artist," and now it's "husband-and-father." But the new does not diminish the old; rather, by the action of Providence, my capacity has been enlarged. If you have a cup of gold and a cup of silver, and someone gives you a cup of diamonds, then the silver constitutes a smaller percentage of your treasure but remains as precious as ever. And, as with all good gifts, each of these things enriches the others. I am absolutely better at writing because of my fighting—and that brings us to the main topic.

It's about time, young man!

Qi is variously translated as blood, breath, energy, spirit, and other English words that hint at a concept we don't exactly have. I'm partial to "life-force," myself. It's pronounced chee by the Chinese and kee by the Japanese; I spell it with a Q to allow either pronunciation, and also because it looks cool. It is undisputedly a pagan belief. But in the words of Justin Martyr, "If it's true, it's Christian." Our task is to recapture neglected truths that have fallen into heathen hands. As Chesterton said of two of our greatest saints, "St. Francis of Assisi used Nature much as St. Thomas Aquinas used Aristotle; and to some they seemed to be using a Pagan goddess and a Pagan sage." But pre-Christian thinkers and worshippers were not wholly forsaken; they had Reason and Conscience, and God must have treasured their strivings to find Him, even though it wasn't yet the fullness of time. It is even conceivable that they held onto fragments of grace or wisdom that the West lost sight of after we were given the whole picture of which they fought so hard to catch glimpses.

Back when we started training, Sensei kept telling us, "empty your teacup." People (mostly men, actually) tend to come to the martial arts thinking that we already know everything, because of all the movies we watched and all the backyard scuffling with our older brothers or whatever. But the master can't fill your cup if it's already full. First you empty yourself. If you're the Bible-thumping sort, that phrase might call to mind St. Paul's remark about Christ emptying Himself and taking the form of a slave (Phillippians 2:7). In a similar way, when life is ended, if we've managed to accomplish the work of a lifetime and scrape out all the selfishness within ourselves, then God will fill us up with light. And here's how this all ties in.

A certain kind of powerful joy glows in the pit of your stomach—exactly where the qi resides. I think when we get to Heaven, that joy will be so strong that it will fill us with the Qi of God. "We know that we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2). And our sleeping bodies will shake off the grave-dirt and rise like rocket-ships with Qi for everlasting fuel.

MAMA CHIMES IN: Losing Freedom, Finding Home

by Ellen RM Toner

Like probably every new mother out there, and I'm willing to bet every new father, too, anticipating and accepting the monumental changes that accompany parenthood has not been easy. We're just about eleven weeks in now, and I'm definitely struggling with a lot of the sacrifices I was afraid of. But, as Jamey is writing in The Chamber tonight, and I'm revising this piece and keeping an eye on our tranquil Sonya Rose, not quite fast asleep next to me, it's comforting to remember that not everything has to change entirely. So, for all you new parents out there who are missing what once was, I hope you can find both some commiseration and some comfort in my thoughts on the matter.

Tuesday, January 09, 2018

33 weeks and 1 day

Dear Sonya,

Your Dad and I are buying our first house this week, provided no last-minute nasty surprises get in the way of signing papers on Friday. And then we’ll move on Saturday! We have really loved living in this sweet little yellow house, but we knew when we moved in here last January that it was only temporary. And how glad I am for you that you will be born in the same house that you will, almost certainly, live in for your whole childhood! My own parents, your Grams and Pops, have moved so many times over their marriage. I just had a dream last night that was set in the house that I grew up in in Lancaster (’96-’05). It’s funny how much a place sticks with you, and colors your thoughts, conscious and subconscious, for years and years. I always dream about that house when I have dreams with my siblings and parents in them. What I hope for you, little girl, is that this house will be your home for decades to come, and when you are far away and grown up and building your own life, you will still dream about it and remember it as a place where you were calm and happy, at peace, safe and protected.

To tell the truth, Baby, I’m not doing so well these days. I’m feeling awfully scared and worried about how to be a parent, how to be a working mom, how to take care of you and your Dad, stay on top of my job, and be available to my siblings and especially my parents as they get older. I had so much more energy even five years ago than I do now. And I could do so many things---writing and studying, singing, calligraphy, heck, even socializing---that I just don’t even know how to do any more. Your dad is writing a lot these days, and even being asked to write articles, and getting paid to do so, which is so great for him. That’s all he’s ever wanted to do, and it’s finally and literally paying off for him. It’s been such a good year for his writing, between finishing his set of Hyperions, getting published in The Wanderer and solicited by Public Discourse, writing his blog about you, and even being asked for novel manuscripts (still no publishing deal on that, but just give it time). I really am happy for him, but I confess I’m also a little jealous, not just of the proliferation and mental energy he has (when is the last time I wrote something that I really loved?), but also because he comes home from work and hunkers down and writes and I miss him, and resent how it takes him away from me. And, the thing is, it’s not like he is an inattentive or unaware guy, not in the least little bit; the care he has given me in the past two years is something for the books. He’s been phenomenal. I’m just… I just miss him, and am frustrated and peeved that he’s able to just write and write and write and I’ve produced nothing really good since last March.

We went to visit your Nana and Pappy down in North Carolina over Christmas. We were listening to The Great Gatsby in the car, and there’s this part in it I remembered from last time I read it, where it talks about how before Gatsby kissed Daisy for the first time, wedding his unutterable visions to this mortal, earthly creature, he romped with the mind of God above the stars, potentially sharing in some kind of divinity, being in a place where all the best and highest and most unattainable things of beauty and richness were possible. But, when “the tuning fork struck against the stars” and he kissed Daisy, all of that vanished; he became mortal, and eventually got shot and killed on an inflatable mattress in a swimming pool. Of course, before everything was just potential; you can go on potentiating forever, Hamleting around about being or not being and never doing anything. At least he kissed the girl and got his feet on the ground. He was human, after all. He wasn’t made to live in the stars. Not yet, anyway.

This is how I feel when I look at the last ten years of my life, and look ahead to what I can tell of the next few decades. Most of my 20s I was pretty free and unencumbered. Not to say that there weren’t plenty of rough times. But the possibilities! And I’m so glad I took them when I had the chance. Applying to grad school, even though I chose not to go, studying midwifery and publishing, joining some intensely wonderful choirs and learning so much about singing from incredible people who became phenomenal friends, hiking the Camino, hiking in Scotland, the Rockies and in Shenandoah, learning calligraphy, establishing a voice as a writer and because of that falling in love with a warrior poet. But I kissed him, and everything else fell away. And it is so much better to be with him than to be without him, and it is so much better that we are starting to learn to be parents than that we never had a chance at it, but I loved romping with the mind of God.

When I look ahead, I see increased worries about how to pay the bills, afford a second car that won’t poop out on us, how to balance being a good employee with a good mother (this is a paradigm that I know is the right one for us, but not one I know, and honestly one I wish we didn’t have to worry about), how to be a good daughter, sister, aunt and friend while still putting the needs of our own little household first, energy pulled in so many different ways, none of which are artistic or creative (at least not in the ways I’m used to), and nothing like the freedom I have known. 

There’s this Robert Frost poem about a woman who is like a tent pole, providing cover and shade and protection, tied down by silken (?) stays that pull in all directions and somehow balance her out and allow her stay upright by tying her down. I guess that’s what marriage, adulthood and parenthood are all about. Like your dad wrote to me long before we started dating, choosing one thing means saying no to everything else that might have been. And, as he often reminds me, it is so much better that we leave one thing still loving it and knowing that we will miss it, rather than shaking off the dust with a good riddance. A good metaphor (and an intentional practice set up for us, no doubt) for what death will hopefully be like when our time comes.

On Heroes (or, New Level, New Devil)

I turned twenty in a graveyard. Literally, because I was alone in a cemetery at midnight; and figuratively, because by that birthday I had already tried college, the military, and the monastery, and failed at all of them. The upside is that, as I came right out of the gate with such colossal disgrace, I've always had some handily ego-crushing memories to keep my pride in check along the journey. (Not that I've always availed myself of that, of course.) Since that bad start, I've been through some things which, at least in my own eyes, have restored my honor; but I haven't forgotten what it is to look in a mirror with deep, deep shame.

St. Paul says there's no remittance of sin without the shedding of blood. File under all-caps YUP. Redemption is a dry, cracked country and a burden of broken glass. But there are easier ways. There's Nietzsche's way, for instance: you just decide you're beyond all that. You're not bound by the bovine morality of the common man, because—uh—because you're so smart! Whew, yes, that's it, because of your mighty intellect, which they fear and envy, and that's why they're upset that you never pitch in for drinks. And therefore, every act of which you were once ashamed becomes a source of pride, a tactical strike in the war against yesterday. And the deeper you go, the more you hate any concept of decency, just as a Nazi despised the Jews more and more as he treated them worse and worse. I toyed with the Ubermensch mentality for a little while in the puddle-deep adolescence that carried well into my twenties, but (thank God) I found martial arts and got my ass kicked a few too many times to escape without at least a smattering of humility.

And then there's the middle way. The tepid way. The way of the other Adolf. The trains to the camps ran smoothly and efficiently, always on time and always cattle-packed with undesirables. Herr Eichmann saw to that, and then he clocked out in the afternoon and went home to his loving family. He gave us a new paradigm for evil, one with a tie and clipboard instead of claws and fangs. How did he balance the Satanic horror with the suburban humdrum? Dunno, but apparently it's not that hard. Click here and you'll see an article by my father (the other James) about a priest he knew in his youth, a childhood hero of such goodness that his example nearly inspired Dad to join the clergy himself—a priest who, after his death, was revealed as a member of a ring of priests who regularly, for years, took trusting young men to a camp in the woods and defiled them. You could pile up examples of depraved double lives, of course; but for me, this one comes home because my own family once touched the very hem of the ghoulish obscenity that continues to scourge the Body of Christ.

The world's crammed to the rafters with rapists and adulterers. How is it that even completely non-religious people instinctively know it's worse when it comes from a priest? Well, whom did Jesus not treat with compassion while He was reaching out in mercy to prostitutes and tax collectors? Whom did He call vipers and sepulchers? Obviously, the paragons of the Faith, whose hypocrisy could lead astray the ordinary people who looked to them for guidance. Blasphemy is the reversal of the sacred, so it's inevitable that there is more carousing in Hell over the ruin of one hero than over the continuing debauch of a hundred already-corrupted hearts. I can't imagine Moloch gets too excited about a bored Planned Parenthood worker vacuuming out his hundred and fifteenth skull this week; but think of the revels when a terrified young woman who came to them for help in planning for parenthood finally gives in to their pressuring and agrees to her first abortion.

By the nature of things, an approach to holiness means increasing proximity to the world of the Spirits, bad as well as good; and the more one grows in the grace and knowledge of God, the harder the Enemy works to twist one's soul. When Jesus was in the wilderness, Satan came in person to offer Him the kingdoms of the earth. When St. Anthony was in the desert, Perdition sent demonic courtesans to curdle his purity. Now by contrast, back in '06 I spent all of Lent sleeping in a drainage ditch in Santa Fe, and nobody offered me any kingdoms or courtesans. My greatest temptation was to trip balls on cough medicine just for a few hours' escape from the crappiness of it all. Clearly, the Devil had bigger fish to fry. There are upsides to being little, as St. Therese of Lisieux well knew.

But not because you're afraid, and certainly not because you're lazy. St. Teresa of Calcutta said (sing along, you know the words) we must do little things with great love; and that demands as much heroism as doing great things, if not more, and therefore comes with temptations as dire as the corruption of great wisdom or power could ever be. There's a reason St. Teresa asked for the Rites of Exorcism near the end of her life, and St. Therese said on her deathbed, "I did not know it was possible to suffer this much." But that is our road, the only one there is. And as Christ told St. Paul: "My grace is sufficient unto you" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

I have come to believe that it is not well for a man never to have stumbled. One who has not failed or fallen (or doesn't acknowledge that he has) can't, I think, be a true hero. Not even Our Lord Himself could carry the Cross without help. That doesn't mean that it's ever right to do wrong. We don't follow the rules because they're rules, we follow them because we love Jesus and we know it adds whip-cuts to His back when we break them. But we also know that all things work to the good for those who love Him (Romans 8:28), and that if we repent of our sins, He can bring fruit out of the fertilizer of our filth. I am not glad of my sins, of my cowardice and selfishness. But I am glad, now that they are past, that God was able to use them to teach me lessons which (perhaps) I would not have learned otherwise, especially the lesson of mercy toward others when they sin towards me and mine. I would like to be a knight, and a saint. I'd like to be a hero to my little girl. And because I've tasted shame, I hope I will remember it when those who look up to me do shameful things of their own, and I hope that I will let God reach out to them in mercy through my hands.