It’s a good in and of itself to commit, for however few minutes a day, to learning something new.
THE TRAGICOMEDY OF THE CROSS
STANDING STILL
“So, could you not watch with me for one hour?” asked Christ of Peter in the Garden at Gethsemane. It’s one of the most poignant lines in the Gospels.
OUT EAST, BACK WEST
So I tracked the guy down outside, hobbling on my injured leg, and literally brayed, “Do you have a COFFEE MAKER!!??” And when he said No, I brayed even louder, “Well then, do you have a CONE????” LIterally like a crazed banshee. Like I even wanted or needed coffee right that minute, or obviously, ever.
THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
What with the general desert landscape and color palette in Tucson, many many objects lying on or by the street could be dead animals–or they could be rocks, twigs, branches, palm tree refuse, or clods of dirt, mud or dust.
THE MYSTICAL BODY
The other day I went to noon Mass, Confession before. Around the responsorial Psalm, a woman arrived late, sat in the pew behind me, and immediately started rummaging through her purse, crackling, unzipping, dumping, rearranging. My God, I thought in my usually humble and contrite way, Shut UP already!
OUR DAILY TSETSE FLIES
But the shot that really got to me was of a little baby nursing. There he or she was, guzzling happily away, and the kid’s face was simply swarming: grotesque clusters of flies had settled in its nose, its ears, its mouth. Its little hand ineffectively tried swatting them away but already you could see the kid was resigned to the lifelong, no doubt constant presence of these unbearably annoying, ruinous, pests.
WHY DO YOU STAND HERE IDLE ALL DAY?
Am I that frightened of standing “naked,” without possessions, gifts, virtues, before God? I was taught to be able to give a good account of myself at the end of the day, but giving a good account before God and before the world, it is ever more borne in, are two very different things.
STAYING THE COURSE
“My yoke is easy, my burden light”–but take it up, though you’ll often look like an ass carrying it.
ALL SPIRITUAL ADVENTURES ARE CALVARIES
“I picture the silence of certain souls as being like vast places of refuge. Finding themselves at the end of their rope, wretched sinners enter there gropingly, with their last drop of strength. They can sleep in peace and then leave refreshed and consoled, with no memory of the great invisible temple in which, for a short while, they have laid down their burdens.”
A DAY IN THE LIFE
One thing I really liked about being married was having a guy around the house with a toolbelt. There’s always some niggling thing or two around the house that needs fixing, and around which I can become weirdly paralyzed. I’ve become obsessed in my new rented home, for example, with replacing four Venetian blinds with […]
PRESSURE RELIEF
Does that ever happen in your world–that you’re stuck or struggling or have just come to some major epiphany, and on the instant practically you come upon a passage that seems specifically, directly, written to/for you?
CLOISTERED
“A particularly severe form of asceticism within Christianity is that of anchorites, who typically allowed themselves to be immured, and subsisting on minimal food. For example, in the 4th century AD, one nun named Alexandra immured herself in a tomb for ten years with a tiny aperture enabling her to receive meager provisions. Saint Jerome (c. 340–420) spoke of one follower who spent his entire life in a cistern, consuming no more than five figs a day.”
EVERY CONSEQUENCE OF LIVING AND DYING
LA to Tucson culture shock: Is it me, or is that totally weird? A CVS! No carts, no baskets. I mean, what, do people just come in for a single bottle of Robo?