A Song of Ascents
19 August, 2010Started smoking. Marlboro Reds. Just like Granny used to (or still does). He once told me: "Sometimes you just want to do something that makes you feel bad about yourself." Took me three years to finally figure out what he meant. And he was right. No matter what they say, Granny was usually right.
Letter to J.G., August 1998
The desire to do penance, to make reparation, to mend what we have broken, is perhaps the humanest and highest feeling we may have. It is a holy drive. But the worst things we may do are the brightest and best things darkened, twisted, gone astray.
So in a year long past, as winter turned to spring, desperate and unsatisfied, when everyone, especially the one I wanted most, seemed so very, very far away, I crushed a burning cigarette on the back of my hand, in my car somewhere along Satellite Boulevard. Perversely still unsatisfied, I re-lit, and tried again. It took, this second time, or seemed to. There was no magic in it, as I might have hoped, to win her over, but it was done, and for the moment my heart was still.
The mark has faded now, mostly: a tiny scale like some pale reptilian vestige that evolution could not perfect, and so passed over. I see it sometimes, unbidden, from the corner of my eye, but many winters have turned into as many springs since then, and its crying out for pain has quieted. With sincerer penitence have I confessed, and faltered, and confessed again. And will again.
And one day when I stand in high places, transfigured and forever new, this present defect, too, will disappear. Or maybe it will change, this tiny white star, and grow vast and radiant and clean, perhaps some pilgrim see it in the darkest watch, and wonder at this herald of the dawn.
Who shall ascend to the mountain of the Lord:
or who shall stand in his holy place?
Psalm 24:3
How Does it Happen to Me?
15 August, 2010Feast of the Assumption, 2010
God's temple in heaven was opened,
and the ark of his covenant could be seen in the temple.
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun,
with the moon under her feet,
and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
—Revelation 11:19a, 12:1
It is no accident that St. John's vision of the Ark of the Covenant is so closely linked to his vision of Our Lady, bearing the Christ-child, for Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, bearing salvation to all peoples. Our Blessed Mother leads us, as the Ark led the children of Israel, to the Promised Land.
So in the scene of the Visitation, Elizabeth says to Mary her cousin, "And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy" (Lk 1:43-44). Elizabeth is humbled in the presence of the Lord, just as King David "feared the Lord and said 'How can the ark of the Lord come to me?'" (2 Sam. 6:9), and St. John the Baptist, still in his mother's womb, leaps for joy before the new Ark of salvation, just as David, leading the recovered Ark back to Jerusalem, "danced before the Lord with all his might" (2 Sam. 6:14).
If this Feast Day reminds us that life and salvation comes to us through Mary, so it reminds us that our place, our destiny, is with Jesus, the first-fruits from the dead (1 Cor. 15:20), and Mary his mother in heaven, bathed in the radiance of God.
House of Gold,
Ark of the Covenant,
Gate of Heaven,
Morning Star,
Pray for us!
Desperate and Unbelievable
10 August, 2010Perhaps it is the golden, cut-hay smell that washed over me as I left work today, or perhaps I am heat-addled and delusional, or some other way deceived, but it seemed to me today's afternoon sun was not the lusty, war-crying tidal wave that swept all from its path, summer-wise, but the magnificent valour of a defeated general rousing his company's last charge to desperate and unbelievable victory. Formidable Summer, I salute you.