A Tiny (Infinitesimal) Lenten Thorn Hard Enough to Bear

Last Saturday, I went to Alhambra, to the Sacred Heart Retreat House, for a Day of Prayer and Meditation, led by a wonderful speaker/homilist, Fr. Jack Brennan, who teaches Systematic Theology at St. John's Seminary. If you have read my prior entry, the time away couldn't have come too soon.

I thought, when I retired, most foolishly, that not having a regular job would be the panacea for my tendency toward crises, cyclical thinking, unreasonable (sometimes) fears, and lamentation, most often expressed in the privacy of my living room where I regrettably let fall a panoply of 
expletives. As happens in this life, things have been set onto my path from which I would like to flee, but I keep missing the point of my Catholic life, the Catholic belief  I purport to hold.

So this retreat was, shall we say, a "treat".  A spiritual reinforcement. An emotional re-energization and re-organization.

During a break on that beautiful, cool-ish, breezy day, I walked about and ran into the large Stations of the Cross. The one here pictured really attracted my attention. I have many times seen the "Jesus is Nailed to the Cross" picture, which is usually Our Lord laying flat and having a nail driven into one of his hands. And not much of his Face in view. But this one was startling. The nail was being driven into His feet while He was held and his expression is a pleading pain and terror and submission, all at once. God did not have to do this, to become Man and experience any, let only this sort of suffering at the hands of His creatures.

The Gift of Life borne out of the ignominy of death--that is the transformation of the Cross.

There is no fleeing. There would be none whether I were a believer or not. But as a claimant to belief, the whole point is to recognize that suffering and death were transformed by the Crucifixion and Easter events. "Death shall have no more dominion!". Isn't that what some poet said?  When will I get it?

Mother Teresa said something like, "God doesn't ask you to be successful; He asks you to be faithful."

In dealing with a small Lenten thorn, never mind a nail, this last few months that ended, sort of, today, I am certain I was not successful, and I don't know about being faithful either in accepting but a little "suffering". But the experience gave me a pretty acute insight into what Our Lord must have felt when He was accused and faced the ultimate and violent penalty having done nothing wrong. And unlike Our Lord, I was rather unforgiving (still am) and resentful. The most I can say is that I am relieved.

I had three car accidents in 2017. Not one of them, demonstrably, was my fault. Even my insurance company agreed. In the latter two, my SUV was rear-ended. In the first, a lady in a Jeep turned into me as I was driving along, and spun me from the Westbound direction to the Eastbound. In none was anyone, including me, hurt. Under the law any accident where damage to either vehicle is more than $1,000.00, the drivers must report to the DMV. Cars being structured out of plastic, damage of more than $1,000 happens easily. The least damage for my car was about $1,400; the most about $9,000. Two of the accidents happened within a month of each other. I dutifully made my reports and went about my business. I had my car blessed by a priest after the third one (so far so good). A couple of weeks before Christmas I received a Notice of Re-Examination Appointment set for today.

I know, driving, just like practicing law, is a privilege. But, even when lawyers get a complaint against them, the State Bar's Intake Department makes a cursory review before asking a lawyer to respond, and certainly doesn't bring him or her in, unless the answer provided isn't sufficient. But this is an "automatic" action by the DMV, that is, three accidents in a calendar year, kicks out a Notice of Re-Examination. You don't show, your license is automatically suspended. The Notice said I had to go "in person". Even if, as an accused lawyer would do for the State Bar, I were to provide documentation--in this case a letter from my insurance company saying I was not at fault--I still had to appear said the several clerks to which I expressed my unequivocal distress. I was not at my best in these conversations, or rather in my monologues of objection.

I was feeling a little like Henry Fonda in "The Wrong Man" or Kafka's sad hero in "The Trial". I hadn't done anything wrong but my driving privileges were on the line. I didn't want to be a foolish client and represent myself, so I called a friend, and got a referral to a firm that does this sort of thing. This is no pro forma activity, appearing for an interview.  How do I demonstrate that I am fit to drive when I didn't cause the accidents?

It all would have made more sense to me if everyone out there were driving like little saints. But every day I am battling angry tailgaters (the last yesterday; I pulled over to let her and her tank pass), no signals, sudden cuts in front of me, red light scoffers. I know, it doesn't matter what other people are doing. Heaven knows, I told many an attorney in Ethics School that. But I hadn't done anything. How do you prove a negative? In two accidents I was waiting for the traffic ahead of me. In the other I had two witnesses who saw the whole thing and had yelled at the other party so much so I had to calm them down.

For the two months till today, I have been even more careful, though I don't know how I can be more careful than waiting at a light. I have pulled over for angry drivers several times. I scan avidly. I always have been good about signalling. And I have been in terror that no matter what I said, no matter what the truth in this smallish thing of being allowed the privilege of driving, I would be punished, effectively, by having my license taken away though I am in this jungle of drivers of Los Angeles, a pretty skilled one.

At the interview stage, the driver is not allowed to have a lawyer speak, or object. I just wanted someone there, just in case, and because I felt it was serious. It was a serious hit to my budget, that I can tell you, and the firm gave me a break.

But what a terror I felt. I was alone, even with people around me. Such a little thorn in the side, not a crown of many thorns.

I felt wronged. And helpless. I know my life is not under my control. But in this small event, I realized how palpable that reality is. And I am in awe of God who took on the fullness of human existence and its vagaries. I can barely take a hang nail, and in the context of what Our Lord bore, misunderstood, dismissed, punished for sin He neither committed, nor could commit, my little trial was truly nothing. Less than nothing. 

The attorney's office was able to obtain permission for me to appear by telephone rather than in person. I appreciate the Hearing Officer allowing it. My attorney, however, went to the interview location and we did a conference call. I took the oath and I answered. I understand, now, in retrospect; I am already what is termed "a mature" driver. If I had answered in an addled manner, that would be cause to take things a step further. But happily, the Hearing Officer listened thoughtfully and determined that there would be no action taken on my license, and indicated no conditions. 

As it happens though my driver's license expires on my upcoming birthday. Today I also got a notice from the DMV that I have to make an appointment at their offices, take the vision test and the written test. I only have had to do that in renewing one other time in the nearly 26 years of driving in California.  That's what I meant by saying things were resolved, "sort of". 

But I am not complaining. My vision is great and I should be well able to pass the test. I thanked God several times today. I will again before I retire to bed. And I will use this Lent to pray for more than mere endurance of the trials of life, for the Transformation offered by the Cross. 

Dreams and Inertia

For quite a while, of late, I have been encased in inertia. After a life full of ascendant activity, meaning, growing into consciousness, becoming educated, learning a trade, having an active career in which I developed some credibility and, within the field of my endeavor, respect, there was a kind of involuntary halt. Though I was not, am not, alone in the experience, I was ejected-- it was not personal  though it felt, and when I think about it, still feels incredibly personal--from a familiar realm of achievement into the complexity of re-invention. While there were, and are, a million avenues for activity--reading, writing, performance among them-and reason enough to do them in pure enjoyment, and though I have delved into several over the last years, something lately has left me as if standing in front of an impenetrable wall.

Depression? Perhaps. But I have experienced that on and off in my life-- mine likely a drop in the bucket of suffering though of course to me such things are always massive and catastrophic--and still been engaged in a paradoxical way. Acedia? That sinful state would be not to care about anything, and if anything, I think I care too much about everything, even things that probably don't warrant the care.

In the throes of this existential state this very day in which I got up terribly late and schlumped around, I picked up my mother's fragmented writings of which I wrote before in these pages. Here is something I could be doing, to put the rest of her writings, much fewer in number than my late father's, on this blog. What for, then I thought? What dream of hers, or mine is achieved thereby?  And must something be achieved?

My mother dreamed. And something in her became inert, unto death itself at too young an age, at least upon this earth. Or maybe it didn't.

I am not sure there is going to be a point to this entry except to put a prose piece of hers, here and somehow be a kick start of some kind for me, still treading on this earth.

Perhaps the inertia is about wanting to be remembered and realizing that, since most of us are never vaguely famous, we won't be. Perhaps the solution is about living without concern for others' memories of us--leading good, active lives because simply we were given life. Being an individual does not require another's acknowledgement of us. Perhaps the most accomplished individual, if accomplishment is even a part of it, is he or she who merely grows, the purpose being growth of itself. Somehow this seems to be something that will work for a person who believes in God, or does not. And that growth is not limited by time or even age. It's contours shift. So, for example, I talk to a man in a nursing home who once was smack in the middle of making of what now are old movies, like "It's a Wonderful Life" or "Notorious". His memory is short about many things, but not of those events long ago. He sends that experience to me by the telling of it. In it, we both grow, in terms of both becoming more substantial.

In a way, as I write what my mother put down on paper probably 60 or more years ago, and absorb it, and though she is dead for 44 of those years, her words, which only of late have I begun to pay any attention to, give me growth, and permission still to dream, and can be a spark to ignite me out of the inertia of not knowing what I ought to be doing along a non-linear path of what some psychologists called the "generative" period of life.

I don't know. Probably none of this is making any sense. That's all right. I offer now my mother's words, written in pencil, an interesting choice that raises questions about how she saw life and impermanence, words that she never chose to speak to me in life, with emotions that I never saw her exhibit in our short relationship. If she wrote these things, and did not merely copy them down, but even if she did only copy them down, I wish I had met this woman when I was a child. But at least I get to meet her now. Perhaps therein lies one cure for inertia.

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Among the great multitude of human beings in the world, there are a few who stand out clearly as individuals.  They are like the distinguished white birches amid the thick growth of trees with brown bark, or like the blue-jays among the plain gray sparrows.  What is it that raises some people onto a dais while the others remain below? What makes the world remember their names among hundreds of other millions?  Perhaps it is an ability to vivify words, to give them strength and beauty, to take people out of their surroundings and create new, exciting, strange, vivid, lovely worlds for them--all by means of an animated pen.  Perhaps they can ring enchanting sounds from a birdlike throat, or from black and white keys--sounds that sway; sounds that make spirits flit through clouds; sounds that make toes tingle; sounds that tell of the weird beauty of the Orient, and the primitive beat of tom-toms.  Perhaps these men and women have the power to shape the destiny of nations, to lead people and fight for causes.  Perhaps they are able to make trees grow on paper, to make people live on canvas, or to make and sow the rich throbbing blood of the earth flow.  Somethings he stopped to run his fingers through it and feel its life.  He planted his seeds and watched as they first timidly peeped upon the world and then boldly shot up into tall golden stalks of wheat.  He visualized the loaves of bread made from his wheat; he saw the young, chubby hands reaching for glasses of creamy milk that came from his cows.  In the evening he sat on the porch and smoked his corn-cob pipe while his plump red faced wife told him what a naughty boy Bobbie had been all day and how hot the weather was getting and what things she needed in town. 

I thought of my shoemaker, whose teeth were always beaming when his mouth was not full of nails. Sometimes he used to throw his head back and let his lusty, uncultured voice rush forth with vibrant Italian melodies while his hammer swung to their rhythm on the sole of a shoe.  I always liked to think that some of the zeal of his impulsive singing went into the soles he put on my shoes and warmed my feet.  His shoes received all the attentions according to ailing patients.  Each pair had its own personality for him and none was so far gone that he could not make it shine again with glowing juvenescence.

I thought of one of my teachers in school who did not always stick to the topic or even say that your question was not in the curriculum; who realized that sometimes you might not feel like doing homework, who knew about spring fever and day dreams, who had soft smiles and mischievous glint in her eyes and sometimes whistled.  She had a way of making you feel poetry. She answered the silliest questions as if they were the most important.  We never became her pupils; we were her friends from the beginning.

I thought of my mother, who still likes to have me lay my head in her lap, who quietly hums a tune as she sews the seam of a blouse, or scrapes the carrots.  The sounds of her voice always makes me feel as though I were looking at a calm river, her eyes seem to glow softly with the warm peacefulness of candlelight.  The security of her presence pervades the very walls, and the cushions of the chairs.  She knows so well how to make the dragging heaviness of disappointments melt away; how to hide little surprises and laugh merrily when they turn up in our hands, and how to arrange flowers so that the room is filled with spring.

Emerson brought the blurred masses into focus as individuals when he wrote, "The pleasure of life is according to the man who lives it, and not according to the work or place."