Silent Night

The drugs are taking her into sleep and preparing her body to eject two precious pathogens into our hands for a brief eternity and into our hearts for a long and fitful sleep.
I sit beside her trying to pray. It is easier now with sleep so close at hand than it will be in the months to come when so much that is now uncertain will resolve itself into a comfortable muddle. I will find that prayer is difficult in a comfortable muddle. This moment will fade into a comfortable muddle, but for now everything is clear and hard.

All is calm and dark.

Just nine months before, in the same setting, everything was hectic and bright, full of activity and joy and terror. Just under an hour of pushing and pain sent out a bloody mess of wonder who will make us forget the calm and dark in the weeks and months ahead. Her face nine months before turned inside out with pain. Now it is calm. The afternoon sun greeted our little joy then, but now it is dark.

We wait for our sons in the calm dark.

She is muttering some narcotic inanity that I should write down to tell her later. Laughter comes as a great surprise now, as do any number of the simple joys that will fill the weeks and months ahead. Who imagines eating and drinking after touching the sleep of death? Who can foresee the bright happinesses that will pop into the calm dark weeks and months like firecrackers.

These calm dark moments will recede into memory. They will nestle themselves into odd places, coming and going once or twice a day, God willing, forever. Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also…and so it will, though not usually with thrusts and parries, but rather with little pinpricks.

Tender and mild reminders that our sons have come and gone.

This calm dark night delivers them to us abruptly. She wakes briefly to hold them round about her before they are forever wrapped together in a swaddling shroud. She fades back into a comfortable muddle and I hold them, trying hard to pray. It is easier now with the sleep in hand. There is no resolution yet, just long and fitful sleep. This is alone certain. All else is soft and uncertain and liquid. Like the skin that covers their unripe bodies. Like the tears from the weeks and months to come.

Tender and mild reminders of the sleep that is to come. The sleep that pierces into our memories in odd places. The memory of two boys buried not far away, swaddled in earth and green. An odd place for my sons to be while I walk the green earth, with their memory buried in a brief eternity.

Asleep in heavenly peace.

My sons, my sons, would to God I might die for thee.

Mother's Day Feast

Check out the spread. That's gazpacho in the bowls.
Starting clockwise from the water bottle is baba ghanooj, tomatoes, mint lemonade, labneh, fattouche, gorgonzola grits, and Tripp country ham. The menu was syro-mississippian. That's Mrs. V in the pink outfit.

Samson the Wonder Collie

is soon due for his yearly humiliation.

Walker Percy Moment

"For until this moment he had lived in a state of pure possibility, not knowing what sort of man he was or what he must do, and supposing therefore that he must be all men and do everything. But after this morning's incident his life took a turn in a particular direction. Thereafter he came to see that he was not destined to do everything but only one or two things. Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him."

(from The Last Gentleman)

The Feast of St. John the Evangelist

The Feast of St. John was celebrated yesterday in our Church.

I took this picture one especially beautiful afternoon in our Parish with the sun hitting the above Icon just right. Somewhat interestingly, St. John, the patron saint of our congregation, is depicted with a halo in this Icon.

Typically, at least in my limited understanding, the Apostles are only depicted with halos in Icons that occur chronologically after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This is true of Icons in our Parish that depict the life of Christ. So, in the Icon depicting the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John are shown without the halo. This is the same in the Icons of Palm Sunday and Christ's Ascension, the only other two Icons in the Church with the Apostles present (other than Pentecost, where all 12 have halos).

I suppose I should note in passing that in Orthodox Christian Iconography, the halo represents the special presence of God within and without the person. For this reason, the Mother of the Lord, who is depicted on the left here, is always shown with a halo. For not only did she carry God within her for 9 months, her entire life manifested the presence of God in such a way that it was as if He never came out.

So why the halo for St. John here? I can't say for certain without asking the Iconographer. It may be because he is the patron saint of our church, or it may be simply a stylistic decision. Nevertheless, I've become content with my own explanation.

Quite simply, he was there.

At this point all of the other Apostles are in hiding. Peter is in active denial and Judas has killed himself, but St. John is there. Of all the 12, only this one was there to witness the agony and death of our Lord upon the Cross. You can never underestimate the value of presence, most especially presence born of love.

So, we would all do well to follow after his example. When those we love are at their lowest, though our mouths are stopped and unable to express even a token of condolence, nevertheless, our presence speaks the perfect word.

This one who was there, of all the writers in the Bible, was never short for the perfect word. Indeed, his words tell us of the Perfect Word made present among us, as he beheld with his own eyes. Still, though possessed of great eloquence, the Apostle John wrote simply near the end of his life, "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

This one teaches that words are truest not when they are spoken, but when they are lived; not when they are heard, but when they take flesh.

Here, St. John stands before the Lord, probably with his life at risk, for love of the one enduring such pain. The light of God shines on him and from him at this moment, as it does for all when we stand with those we love in times of trouble.

To all of you who have stood by for us, whether in presence, word, or prayer, words fail to capture our gratitude. Our hope is that we may someday give flesh to the unspoken eloquence that your actions have planted within us.

May the Word who took flesh, who shines especially in the life and words of the Apostle John, grant you mercy and peace.

VI

IV Takes Flight

A year ago this coming Friday, my grandfather passed into the sleep of the just. His was a life writ large, in spite of an essential humility that would have chosen a smaller script. My grandfather left me a great many things, among them a collection of reflections upon his life that he put to paper in his last few years. I hope to share of few of them. The reflection I shall post below resonated especially during a time of difficult transition. I'll try to reproduce it with his emphases and punctuation intact. The picture above is a PT-17 Stearman.

"My Pilot Training

I was not meant to fly.

I tried to get in a navy officer training school but the quota was already full. Two hundred and fifty dollars a month flying looked a whole lot better than $21 a month walking--so I joined the Army Air Corps. I waited 7 months to be called.

Preflight at Maxwell Field (AL) was easy--then came Primary Flight Training at Camden, SC (PT-17 (Stearmans) were the planes). They had an open cockpit--the first time up I was petrified. Had the instructor turned the plane upside down I would have stayed on top. I tried and I prayed but the ensuing weeks brought no peace to my mind, or expertise in flying. I got in the "washing machine"--the instructors were civilians--when your instructor gave up there was one civilian test flight, then an army officer test flight which was an automatic out.

After my "civilian" test flight, the instructor asked me if I really wanted to fly. I said yes although that was not really true. For I had been taught not to fail, so if learning to fly was the escape from failure, I had to say yes. I also had had an encounter with the Lord the night before (after the test flight) at which time I accepted "washing out," which got "self" and ego out of the way and in almost audible words the answer came "it's going to be alright." And alright it was because I had no more fear nor trouble in learning to fly.

I became a B-17 Pilot, a Group Leader, did a combat tour and was being checked out as an instructor when VE Day came and I got out of the service."

Of Pontiffs, Patriots, Patriarchs, Regents, Redskins, and Rocky

I should make it clear that hanging high romans after your last name isn't all mass mailings and mistaken identity. Going over IV also has its benefits.

You're entering into elite company. Popes, Kings, Superbowls, and Sequels are your peers. It's also highly likely that you'll be able know when a movie was made if you watch the credits (plus, the Gaffer's mother will appreciate your hanging around). Once you cross the IV...
you might get to speak ex cathedra
your advertising revenues will be sky high
you very well might be someone's liege
Tommy Morrison might co-star

So strongly named men, get yourself a junior. To insure your name into posterity, link it to your prosperity (Cochranesque, No?). Whether by will, codicil, or rollover trust get your estate tied into your name.

IV Inserted

Before giving your son the same name as you, your father, and your father's father, your father's father's father, and the father of your father's father's father, consider that the level of Latin instruction in most schools is at an appallingly low level. The two or three extra letters on the end of your son's name will be a source of confusion for the Department of Motor Vehicles, the IRS, banks, and especially junk mailers.

For example, I know a bank wants to buy my mortgage if I get a letter addressed to Vi Surname. I'm actually considering naming a son Vitus out of affection for the dozen or so letters I get a month addressed to this non-existent person. For those who find this sort of thing interesting, Saint Vitus is the patron saint of dancers, young people, and dogs. There is a disease named after him, Saint Vitus's Dance, or Sydenham's Chorea, which is characterized by fits of dancing mania.

At one point, a bank issued me a credit card in my grandfather's name, probably because no one expects a VI. This wasn't a problem for me while I had a driver's license listed in my grandfather's name as well. A Y2K type glitch in the surname section of the DMV computer
would only allow Roman numerals up to IV. After losing the IV driver's license, a creative DMV worker managed to get my new license printed with 6th, which was possible where VI was not.

Here, rudimentary latin began to work against me. Intelligent checkout clerks began to question why Surname 6th was trying to buy things with Surname IV's credit card. This usually happened at book stores, movie rental places, and liquor stores, you know, where all the smart people work. So, as I single 22 year old living with my parents, I bought a lot of music. My CD collection as of December 2002 is impeccably cool.

Marriage fixed the problem, since I no longer bought music, books, or liquor and the lovely EMBC began renting movies for us. Did you see 13 going on 30? So cute!

So there won't likely be a VII. "Vii!?," you might say if you were a german movie character pushed off a cliff by a close friend. Mostly because I don't want him to get his brother Vitus's mail.

Now if you'll excuse me, I feel like a fit of dancing mania is coming.

Tapping it out like wild-eyed Fred Astaire,

VI