Today, a new chapter in "Hurricane River," "Devil's Choice" after "Derek."  To be found in the website under "Hurricane River."  FK
 

Continuing to read the biography on Giordano Bruno, I came across the chapter on the Holy Ass, or as it was also called, the picaro.  The latter term was not new to me - I had heard of it often in Venezuela, and was often its victim.  To me, one who had some stuff and money, it was not a holy thing at all: it meant rather theft and trouble.  On the streets of Caracas, one sees people selling things literally spread on the street, the "shop" being nothing more than a grungy blanket on which to display the wares, as often as not such small and uninteresting items as toothpaste and deodorant, at cut-rate prices.  It did not take me long to figure out where these cheap items came from, for often I would be unable to find my toothpaste or deodorant after spending a few days in a hotel.  At first, I thought I had merely displaced them; but the items on the blankets finally led to the correct conclusion: the maids were stealing small items from the clients to sell at small prices to these street vendor "fences." Although the value was small, multiply what I lost by several score a day and then add that to the salary of these maids.  It was a classic case of "spreading the wealth," and in many ways, the Venezuelans understood this as such; why, we who could afford a hotel could certainly afford a tube of toothpaste now and then!  And so the "picaro" was often seen as a Robbin Hood, delivering justice from behind the scenes, although on a foolish - even asinine - scale.  

It was not always so benign.  When my future wife and I were robbed at knife  point, I did not laugh.  That I was refused phone service by the cheap hotel I was staying at to call the police was another slap - better, said the owner, to lose your watch and passport than have the police come.  That meant only trouble, bigger trouble than thieves carrying knives.  That was the flip-side to picardia, that everything was corrupted from top to bottom. And so it remains in Venezuela and is its biggest plague.  

But the comic image of the picaro remains, and we find that in Renaissance Italy, it extended to the realm of the holy.  Bruno himself was well taken with the image, and wrote a satirical, yet serious piece, on the Holy Ass.  One city, he notes, claimed to have the petrified tail of the donkey that  Jesus rode on as he entered Jerusalem, celebrated by Christians as Palm Sunday. On this date, it was paraded through the village, with the ecclesiastical admonition that the relic should not be merely touched, but kissed - that is, that one should kiss the ass of an ass.  A soft ball to comedians if I ever saw one.  

But it has its serious side.  There is a song popular in the Spanish Caribbean that goes, "La Vida es una Tum-tum-tumbalo," or "Life is a roulette wheel" its ups and downs not subject to our efforts, but rather to the movement of the heavens and ultimately, God.  The Holy Ass, then, is not only a thief at times and jester at others, but a subject of the will of God, no more in control of his life than an ass.  Whatever efforts he makes to improve himself financially are always foiled by divine fate.  It was held, by extension, that we are all Asses in our way - that he best laid plans of men are still only those of mice. We are all fools, fools because we believe we can beat Life's casino, when the odds are always and forever against us.  Life, instead, will ultimately and always win. 

It is this that Thomas Merton and scores of holy men and saints before him alluded to when speaking of the "self", or in modern parlance, the "ego."  Behaviorist psychologists would do well to study them.  It is the notion that we are not free as long as we are trapped in our small cocoon of self - that instead, we are controlled by our emotions and desires and social norms rather than a will we believe to be free, just as the animals are led in their own behavior. Free will, then, is a chimera to the typical self, who only is a play thing for the cosmic roulette wheel.  Rather, real free will is the effort to move beyond the small self, to become, as it is often put, a true human; that is, to share, as humans are able, in the mind of God.  When our will is thus willed to be the instrument of God, it is then and only then that we cease to be the fool, for we then know from where our destiny arises. 


But  wait!  And here is the beauty of the metaphor, and a glimpse into the Medieval scholastic mind: who is the biggest fool?  For society, it is the holy man, who lives in poverty and self-abnegation.  The picaro is a fool as well, trying to rise above his station, only to be brought down through the cosmic wheel.  The aristocrat, however, is above this fray, for his station is always high.  But is it?  As we are all on the wheel, those who are stationed highest in life are the greatest fools, for they think they are above the fray - only to fall into judgment like everyone else. The picaro knows at least that he is on the fringe, and is not surprised when fate brings him down again.  He is aware of the wheel.  And the holy man?  He knows the wheel and is able to rise above it - not he cycle of life and death, but the cycle of accumulation, of ego satisfaction which will always end in failure on judgement day.


So it is that Jesus rode an ass, and that he chose unlettered "asses" as his disciples.  The holy ass is indeed more capable of the holy - of rising to meet the wheel - than the great men.  To be simple like a child is to be a fool - but also to be open to the will of heaven. 


And so Bruno laughed at the monks and lay faithful kissing the ass of the ass, but praised them as well.  It is a delicious twist for those of a certain kind of mind - and it holds some truth.  The picaro, the holy ass, wheels closer to the holy man than the great powers that be.  They are fools, but closer to enlightenment than those who disdain them.  Still, I would like that watch and passport back.  Call me a fool.  FK                                

I hope yesterday's blog answered Rooson's terse comment on writing to be heard, at least in part.  Does this writer fear being raked over "the proverbial coals?"  Yes, I suppose, as much as I would hate any negative aggression towards me.  But we take the risk - it is not exactly the rack we are facing.  Does this writer wish to be seen as witty or sage?  Well - I suppose I wouldn't mind, but as I am an inquirer and student more than a teacher or guru, that is not likely to occur.  Clearly, it is clear that I do not know the answers to life's great questions - only the questions themselves and the direction others give who are definitely wise - the great writers and prophets of the ages.  Do I cast pearls before swine?  Got me on all fronts.  Are these pearls?  Are you the readers swine?  I have doubts on both but haven't a clue.

Rather I continue to write because that is what I feel compelled to do, for reasons both clear and obscure.  Bikers gotta bike, tigers gotta hunt, some of us gotta babble.  

Not so with the subject of a biography I am now reading by Ingrid Rowland titled "Giordano Bruno."  A Dominican priest of mid and late 16th century Italy, he is most noted as the guy who got burned at the stake at the hands of the Inquisition in 1600.  For those going to Rome, a statue stands of him facing the Vatican as something of a reproach - remember me, most Holy See, and what your benevolence did for me?  Even now, anti-Catholic and free-thinking groups gather around the statue every Feb 17 to commemorate the immolation.  And although I am only 60 pages into the book, the author has made it clear that Bruno thought, like the scripture he often quoted, that he was sent to "bring fire to the world."  He wrote because he thought he was brilliant and necessary, even as the Vatican brought fire to him.  He would not recant; and if for nothing else, he should be noted for his bravery. He stood by what he wrote - talk about the "proverbial coals"!

Why he was burned will be made clearer in following pages, but so far, the reader is to understand that he questioned the physical divinity of Jesus.  Of greater interest to me is the other offense mentioned at this point in the book: he conceived of a limitless, infinite universe.  In the cloistered world of Christendom, that thought was enough to spread panic.

Imagine that: that a written idea could have such power as to cause one's death - and we today question the notion that writing could have much importance at all; this, just these simple thoughts, without accompanying pitchforks and revolution, for Bruno was at heart a Christian pacifist.  

We still see this today, of course, and such intolerance is the mark of totalitarian states everywhere.  But while one can see how the truth held in ideas can make corrupt regimes like those in North Korea or Cambodia quake, how could this happen in a theocracy that had so long had such power?  The answer is helped by the revolution of the Protestant Reformation, but the Catholic Church had had other purges well before the Reformation.  Could they have felt that vulnerable?  Why so, if their message came directly from God as they believed?

And yet, there may be a message here for all of us.  Although in the US and other democratic states, imprisonment and death do not follow from unorthodox ideas, ideas can still get one into a lot of trouble.  For us now, these critical ideas are seldom about God anymore, as if we no longer care enough about God to have such ideas matter.  Rather, they generally concern politics.  Look to see what can get a writer into trouble now and one will see where an insecure orthodoxy is in place, whether that concerns race, gender, immigration, or any other touchy and taboo subject.  Just as the Vatican was jealous of its hold on God, and the Victorians were jealous of their hold on sex, we now are jealous of our hold on social and political views.  Every week we see another politician or commentator fall to some words that fail the test of orthodoxy.  Why?  Why, if the righteous are so right, should they be so touchy?  Perhaps one has to look to Bruno to find out, for the Church has long lost its political power, and now is losing much of its moral authority.  But how could they have known that their version of truth was so fragile?  And how do we know that today of our own tabooed ideas, that they are so vulnerable behind the curtain of orthodoxy?  

Ideas and writing matter, at least some.  Bruno felt called, either out of egotism or duty or both, to express what he did, and in more ways than one he at least brought fire to the world. Whether or not he was a fool, or tossed pearls before swine, is debatable, but that his was a lasting voice is not.  The statue still stands, accusing the Vatican of hypocrisy, for better or worse.  FK                            

When I was an undergraduate in Philadelphia and experimenting with all manner of different things, I came to the heady conclusion that all the written wisdom of the world was as nothing -  that it did not advance anyone anywhere.  For me, to say that I was young and foolish was a decided redundancy, for I had lots to learn about everything, but this I did understand: the last steps to knowledge is a lonely journey, one that must be taken apart from all things "man."

This was well understood by the ancients as well as the primitives, and much is made of it in otherwise incomprehensible mythology: the dragon to be slain was not a corporeal thing, but the false reality of life itself, the Real veiled behind every fear and fantasy imaginable.  

And so we find Fr. Thomas Aquinas in his last months of life in the last pages of the novel, "The Quiet Light" by Louis de Wohl. Failing not in health, but in a certain quality of vitality, his caretakers become worried and try to do everything they can to keep him on this earthly plane.  But Brother Dominic, the sacristan of the Dominican convent in Naples, will have none of it, convinced that Aquinas should be treated like everyone else, according to the rule.  It was with this attitude that he caught Aquinas in rapture, standing before the altar alone, captured in an odd light, his face contorted in pain and longing.  He watched him for some time until he saw Aquinas, with all his massive bulk, rise fully three feet from the floor, and then heard a voice: "Thomas, what is it that you wish most from me?" And Thomas's reply, "Only you, my Lord."  Brother Dominic, needless to say, mended his ways.  

But it was what happened next that caught my attention, for the levitation is hard for us to believe nowadays, although they claimed it happened fairly regularly in the Medieval period (blinded, perhaps, by their own myth?)  Says his caretaker after Thomas has returned to a fair normalcy, "You will get well and finish the Summa [Theologica] and then..."  to which Thomas replied, "I shall never write again, Reginald.  Everything I have written is like straw...in comparison to...what I have seen."

And so, I believe,it is, for what any of us write.  To experience God, as Mosses was warned, is to be consumed by fire - it cannot be done without a death one way or the other.  But for those of us with feet of clay, we are sometimes allowed the smallest of glimpses, or hints, really, of the nature of the fire, and it was from those glimpses that I learned decades ago that all our ordinary efforts are like straw.  That, as the mystics say, time and space and everything in it are as nothing, and to convey this reality, this glimpse of timeless reality, is hopeless.  It can only be done through the dragon, or the martyred saint, or in the myriad ways in which religions and myths are laid out for us, as Thomas came to know.  

But we, the confused, must (I think) continue to read and write of such things, as small tufts of straw that all of it may be, for the writing of other things is so strong, so conclusive, so convincing. Who would believe in the power of the spirit dragon after one has seen an atomic explosion?  Might we believe, then, that our factual knowledge is the locus of power and all else the straw?  

As such, we are often thrown little bits of spiritual straw ourselves, that we might add to the voices of those who sometimes understand, however slightly.  It was thought that the gods of Olympus evaporated from neglect, and so it might be that Reality, too, could disappear from our sight due to neglect.  

Although I doubt it - what fool does not realize from time to time that he is a fool, and that a real drama is passing before him even as he jests?  But still, writing has its purpose, just as a sign has a purpose; it is not the territory itself, but a warning or a heads-up for those going on the same road.  FK  


               

  
           

A short one today, as last year festivities and games and resolutions call.

Just finishing an historical fiction , "The Quiet Light" by Louis de Wohl about the life and times of 13th century Italian Dominican, scholar, and later Saint, Thomas Aquinas.  It is more about the fiery times than of Aquinas, which I regretted, but there were many gems within. One: As a Dominican novitiate in Paris under Master Alburtus Magnus, he was thought stupid and slow by his fellow friars.  His placid mannerisms, his great bulk, and his lack of ego led them to believe that he (the greatest Catholic scholar in history) was a dumb ox.  And so they devised this cruel joke: shouting beneath his window, they cried, "Thomas!  Look quick! There  is an ox who has grown wings and has taken to the sky!" When he came to the window to look, they all laughed.  "Idiot! He actually thought an ox could fly!"  Upon which Thomas replied, "better to believe that an ox could fly than that a Dominican could lie."  Touche.  Oh, to be that quick on the feet!

In another, Master Albertus approached him in his cell just as he had finished an appointed treatise on he names of saints.  "Read the last  page for me, Thomas," he asked, and Thomas complied:

"Again there is another very lofty manner of knowing God, by negation: we know God by unknowing, by a manner of uniting with God that exceeds the compass of our minds, when the mind recedes from all things and then leaves even itself and is united with the superresplendent rays of the Divinity."  

There it is: the territory unknown by our own science and our daily thought.  Beyond brain, beyond even our minds, but ourselves, our eternal selves.  The greatest mystery in the world, and the pearl of great price.

Happy New Year, FK          

The weather here has been fairly warm, but unusually cloudy, such that acquaintances who hardly say more than "hi" have been complaining.  I started complaining about this weather two weeks ago, feeling somewhat lethargic and uninspired, but finally, by this weekend, came to a truce with it, and with that, things mellowed to a dull monotony rather than a surly depression.  About this, I felt for the first time superior.  Hey, I'm over it!  Move along!

And so it was this Christmas weekend, gray as usual when on Saturday morning I bit into some Amish fruitcake.  I am one of the few who love real fruitcake, and while this had no rum, being Amish, it had just the right touch of vanilla and lots - lots - of pecans.  Delicious.  

The trouble with fruitcake, though, is its density, and as I stood chewing hard, I noticed some sharp bit of grit in the cake.  Ah, I thought, they must have missed a shell.  Searching in the bit of mush that contained it, I did find a chip - except that it was white; except that it was a fairly large bit of tooth.  Oh no!  Oh, yes - my bottom molar had broken, leaving a knife-sharp edge that I quickly found cut my tongue each time I spoke or swallowed. Certainly a penance for talking too much, for sure, and for eating too much.  

Still, being who I am, I did not take it in saintly manner.  Instead I suffered and moaned and complained - damn, it had to be on a holiday weekend!  And so it was, and so it took until this morning, first thing AM, that I was able to go to the dentist.  

But an unusual thing had happened - the weather had gotten unusually cold, and with that came the brightest of bright suns. As sat in the dentist chair getting X-Rays, sure to soon have the discomfort of Novocain (thank god for Novocain!), the grinding away of the old molar and the fitting for a cap, I found that I didn't care.  Not only didn't I care, but I felt something akin to the gentle brush of angel wings.  I sat facing a window that let in the sun and the bright blue, and all was well with the world. Grind away, my good dentist, life is great!  Life, in fact, it better than great - it is an elixir to the soul, a wonder of magnificent creation.  Bring it on, whatever, I am content with the world.

As it turned out, the news got better: the broken tooth was already a cap, and all the dentist had to do was file down the sharp edge.  5 minutes later, I was out of there, still happy as a lark, pain free, and ready to eat bagels or crusty bread or even - I still gasp at the thought - dense Amish fruitcake loaded with nuts.

As usual, I could not leave this good feeling and great fortune to itself.  Rather, it made me think - sitting in a dentist chair, waiting for pain, my cut tongue aching, not having eaten anything but soft bread and oatmeal for three days while everyone else finished off the turkey - with all of this, I was more than happy, even elated. All because of a freak accident of nature here in winter Wisconsin - a broad shining of the sun.  So instead of angel wings, it seems my good humor was spiked rather by a shot of melanin or whatever body chemical makes for good moods.  I was, instead of a gratefully inspired soul, just another animal responding to an external stimulus.  

Of course, the question has been asked again and again, and for most biochemists, the answer has been found - elation, even the feeling of God, is nothing more than a chemical response.  Why, take some mushrooms or LSD and one can be cast into, as Aldous Huxley put it, Heaven or Hell.  

But we here on these pages do not really believe this, but rather try to put things into the context of the great spiritual masters. For the Buddha, all is a type of illusion, whether it be pain or pleasure, sun or clouds; and while these may be reflections of the great creation, they are only pale reflections.  What, then, would be true ecstasy?  Where would this come from?  For Christians, we might look to the Gospels - weren't the sick and poor of spirit those most blessed?  But how can that be?  Would grumpy pessimism be more pleasing to the cosmos than the jubilant optimism of a sunny day? 

The answer, it seems to me, is to be found in the biochemist's lab book, for as long as we rely upon the stimuli of the things of the world, we are only sophisticate lab rats; we are only our brains and our guts and our biochemistry.  It is rather those who have gone beyond this, who can rejoice in the dark with an abscessed tooth, who have found something real, more real than the being with a nervous system alone.  Thus are the suffering blessed when they are forced outside of stimulus-response to find ecstasy; thus are the contemplatives blessed when they reach beyond the thin veil of flesh and cold and sun.  

And so we are only a brain as long as we stay there, just as the biochemists say; but there is another seat of consciousness, or so the masters say, that remains well above this.  In this resides the soul, and in this, the true self - or so they say.  For right now, I'll take my sunny skies and good tooth, but these, too, will end, as will my brain and everything to do with it.  But somewhere, they say, there is something much more.  Perhaps I will return to seek it on a cloudy day, or when misery strikes again.  Such, they say, is the way of the pilgrim.  FK   

            

Last weekend before Christmas our son was home from college, and after we came in from doing something, I saw that if we really rushed, we could make 5:00 mass.  Knowing that he has issues with his future, I seriously suggested that we go - hey, God answers all questions worthy of answers, no?  His reply: "Sure - I really want to hear the same bad voices sing the same lame songs for the same boring service."  Yes, I thought, that is at least partially true.  We did not go.

However, Christmas mass, if one is in town, is always mandatory. My father always used to joke about holiday Catholics, and he was right, of course - people who never ordinarily show up do show up on Christmas and Easter, much to the light derision of the faithful.  With that, the masses, particularly the more convenient one that we went to this year, are always crowded to the hilt. Folding chairs are set up in the vestibule (narfex? I forget the term) and the last of the travelers are forced to park their cars out on the street.  Inside, the church is awash in colored lights and trees and glittery things, and if you are older, the chorus of children who always are brought out to sing brings a soothing nostalgia to the soul.  

Most interesting, though, are the people.  While I try to focus on the mass normally, on Christmas, the packed- in crowds of the unknown call ceaselessly for attention, and in that I have to comply; and in watching, dozens of stories come from them, whether they know it or not.  In front of us was a young couple with a rambunctious boy of about three who was alive with curiosity and questions.  He also had on very thick glasses and a contraption strapped to his head that looked like Jordy Laforge's (or some name similar) from Star Trek: the Next Generation.  It even pulsed with electronic lights, a technological innovation obviously meant to overcome a congenital deafness.  He was irresistible in his happy curiosity, but his parents seemed warn-out, less than happy, and one has to wonder: did the kid's maladies break the bank?  Are they disappointed with having an imperfect kid?  Is their marriage strained?  Did they come to church with an eye towards some magical intervention that would save their young marriage?  

Who knows - but it quickly became apparent that this couple's troubles were, or should have been seen as, nothing; there were the old, obviously on last legs, with air tubes and crutches and large bumps under their clothing necessary for God knows what; and those with children in wheelchairs, some needing breathing devices of their own; and there were those others with perpetual children, those born mentally defective with tortured skulls and walking gates like zombies.  So many of those parents looked worn, too, and no wonder.  Oh boy, you have to say to yourself, count your blessings.

And then there was the elderly man, in his 70's but in good physical condition.  Passing him after communion, he alone of everyone was deeply, passionately in prayer as if no one but he and God were present.  He continued as such, and at the end of mass, he went to the candle area on the side of the church, this one dedicated to Mary, where it is believed that if one lights a candle and prays for something, that prayer will be continued for the duration of the flame, a plea to Mary to intercede with God and help whatever troubles one has.  There again he got on his knees in full view and prayed passionately, regardless of others, alone with his suffering and his need.  What was it?  A dying wife?  A grandchild in the hospital?  A child in prison or addicted to drugs?  

What stories, what stories.  The first inclination is to bless our lucky stars that those with huge troubles are not us - for now.  It is no wonder on seeing our maladies even now in this age of medical miracles, that a god that offered mercy instead of pure might, like the gods of Olympus, would become so popular.  The second is, I think, to begin to grasp the strength of people, how any situation can be suffered, and how pivotal faith can be.  If god is ultimate mercy, if the suffering shall be relieved now or in the hereafter, if it all makes sense in the grand scheme, then our suffering becomes not only endurance, but a light, a path to spirituality and another world greater than our own.  

I, too, can be a skeptic; I know something of the history of religions, and how easy it is to see that they come and go with the times and circumstances.  For Jews, their religion was made whole by suffering, through the Egyptian captivity and the Babylonian exile; and for Christians, by a single act of supreme suffering by God Himself. We see in these stories a kin to our own lives, but that does not make them any truer; for some, these stories are just that, security blankets for bad times.  But even skeptics - honest skeptics - know that we do not understand the reason for our being, and have to admit that we cannot deny that there might be a reason for being.  And to the faithful - of any god of mercy and meaning - suffering may indeed create a portal for them to a higher reality, for in suffering they are forced to try to understand greater meaning.  They are forced to realize that it is an intricate web, this life, that goes far beyond our understanding, but never-the-less enfolds us all.  Suffering can truly be the beginning of wisdom, the opening to whatever greater reality is hiding behind the bad voices of the choir and boring service.

Not that I want suffering - no!  But we can see how suffering can serve just as plainly from afar.  Like death, its presence can bring a magical quality to life, as if the two tug us, however reluctantly, into a more grown-up version of reality - where, if one has faith, mercy reigns and all suffering ends in the incomprehensible being of God.  FK           

Today, a new chapter, "Dereck", under "Hurricane River" in the website, after the chapters "Henry" and "Devil's Choice"   FK

Today, a reprint of the essay, "The Night My Father Shot Santa," under "Essays" in the website.

A brief one today, as we are all abuzz like most everyone else with Christmas.  This I could not pass up: while having breakfast, we listened to the music of our local avant-guard radio station, and this morning they had a Blue Grass Christmas.  We first head the sincere strains of simple country people (or so they represent themselves) singing about Bethlehem and the baby Jesus and such, all very good.  But then the selection veered to the "trailer park" red necks, with songs about houses dead cold from dead cold marriages, and one that I think is a bit famous, about a dysfunctional hick family's Christmas, where we repeatedly hear about more runs to the Quicky Mart for booze mixers, cigarettes and tampons.  "Noel, noel" our singer croones in sloppy, maybe even drunk Southern.  Ah, yes, a Christmas without enchantment, as dead as a holiday hangover.  

Yes, one of my greatest fears, this disenchantment, because it would be so easy to fall into it, like a drunk into a culvert.  Right now, it is dark with clouds outside, as it has been for two weeks straight, the temps in the mid-thirties, the ground thawed and the ice running out of the rivers.  Every now and then, the clouds spit out a little rain mixed with sloppy frozen stuff, and if there were a good game on now, it would be nice to simply pop a beer or three and forget about the whole Noel thing, as gray and lifeless as it is.  

For those raised Christian, we can recall what this season means, as historically inaccurate as it is (the timing of it to 25 December).  God on Earth, a reprieve from darkness, a way out of our conundrum of exactly what ails us, disenchantment.  Yet, disenchantment is oddly a product a civilization, for as filled with revenge and blood lust as many primitives were, disenchantment was never a problem. For them, life was full of spirits, even to the point of distraction and worry.  Magic was not only possible but probable and a regular occurrence.  Less so, but still alive in spirit were the peasants of near-present day and the medieval past.  Life by then was often a drudgery, but still, mystery filled the local woods and late nights - again, not always welcome, but alive none the less.  

For me, and for most of us I believe, we have to conjure this spirit of enchantment, for in daily life it is gone, lost to the world of sensibleness, of common sense.  That our common sense is dead wrong in the aggregate cannot penetrate our way of thought -  life is cause and effect, as predictable in most ways as billiard balls on a slate table.  What, then, do we of such sensibilities make of Christmas?  

We look to the children, and to our memories of ourselves as children.  They can believe in anything, even Elves - and even God on Earth.  For the rest of us, who knows?, for we can be of any religion in our current world and never act or feel as if the truths of these religions affect us.  We have, in large part, been made numb.  

Why this is so has been explored many times in this blog ,and will be again, for it essential to understand this if any re-enchantment of the world is to begin.  But for those of us who are Christians, and for those others who are close to the heartbeat of the cultural ethos, we know what Christmas calls for - not  a tear-filled admission of our sins for redemption, but a return to the time when we could feel enchantment.  In that way, Christmas is for everyone, for we all need this, this return, this break in the billiard ball mentality.  

And it should be noted that this naivete, this child-like wonder that we call back to, is more real than our dead world of function.  We know, really, almost nothing, and if we could admit it, we would have to admit that our collective knowledge is that of a small child still.  For still, we are as dependent on the forces around us as ever, and still as strangely protected, like children who have no idea why they have earned such protection.  

But we know why, and that is what Christmas proclaims: rejoice! In this vast turmoil of wind and sun and surf and stars, a spirit reigns to protect you, to guide you.  It lives through the world, in all things at all times.  Life is not dead, but alive, and ultimately, overwhelmingly good.  And if we can't see that always, then we must see it now and then, especially in the star of Bethlehem as the banjo pickers sing.  It is there and has always been there, and now is the time, once again, to begin our re-enchantment.  Merry Christmas, FK     
        

It's Christmas time again, the end of the year, and with that we always get a very interesting letter from one of our neighbors telling us all the things the family has done the past 12 months. The one I just received is little different from the ones before: there are several trips abroad, some to exotic places like the Galapagos; there are grandchildren born and hikes in the Appalachians and canoe trips in the Boundary Waters; there are meetings with friends and parties in odd places, snowshoeing in the Minnesota wilds, a river trip in the Peruvian Amazon, and more - lots more. Me, I could write about plowing the driveway in last year's blizzard, or building a woodshed in the UP, or making a batch of Scottish Ale. Oh, there's other stuff, but nothing more exciting. That's it for us. 

I have no idea how I came to be a fuddy-duddy, but that's what's looking back in the mirror.  Having just read the letter, I kind of resent it, too.  Heck, you only live once!

It is not that I am exactly green with envy, although maybe a little pale yellow, but such tales of adventure bring a sense of longing - of a need to fulfill life.  The problem is certainly not a new one, and there are many old tales from fuddy-duddys like me that speak of the wisdom of place.  The book I recently read, Cathar's "Shadows on a Rock," depicts the way of life of 17th century French Canadians, where most resisted any change in life whatsoever.  What they had was "them" and all was right with the world just as it was.  A book by Thomas Merton on the desert fathers - those early Christians who lived severe lives in the deserts of Arabia and Egypt- contains a quote from a wise man saying that no one should go more than a few leagues, or some odd measurement, from his abode - ever.  Dorthy of the Wizard of OZ learns, as we all know, that there is no place like home. Closer to my own home, when I was a child and used to beg my father to take me or us on camping trips or hikes or any kind of adventure whatsoever, he would reply, "I have worked hard to have the place and bed I want.  Why would I give it up for another place or a sleeping bag?"  I can see me gritting my teeth even now.  

But of what interest are people of place?  Robert Luis Stevenson would have died a pauper had he written about a young Scottish lad who was born into a poor house, stayed in that poor house, and then died.  No - he wrote that the young fellow fell in with pirates, escaped, and came to have all their treasure, to return to his poor home a rich man.  It was then, I suppose, that he settled down, but nowadays, he probably wouldn't.  He would continue to jet-set to the Seychelles Islands or whatever place was hip for the well-heeled and continue to have adventures until his mysterious and portentous death.  He would be, as the commercial goes, "The most interesting man in the world." 

We read that the already wise eschew travel; they are content with place, for to them, one place is no less or more interesting or fulfilling than another.  And so we read of tales where the pilgrim goes round the world to find a dragon, only to discover after returning tired and disappointed that his house was built on an ancient mound depiction of a dragon - he had had his heart's desire there at home all along.  And so, I suppose, it is with us. On my greatest adventure, my fieldwork with the Amazon Indians, I had been looking for a dragon of sorts, a way of life that could tell me life's secrets.  What I found was not worthless, for in another way of life we can see an aspect of the whole that we did not know before, but I did not find the whole.  I know now that I would not find it in India either, or in the Australian Outback, or wherever.  I might find beautiful or inspiring scenery, interesting people or dangerous outings on mountain ridges or wild rivers, but I would be no closer to the whole.  The wise men, as always, are correct - the whole is right there with you and around you, the dragon in your very heart.  

But most of us aren't wise. If we have given up looking for Truth in the outside, then we continue to go out for diversion. We sleep in beds that are not our own and jiggle uncomfortably in old buses for adventure, for something to tell us that we are alive and not wasting our limited time.  My experience has shown me that if there is no discomfort, then it is not an adventure; and that if there is discomfort, I cannot enjoy the experience until I have returned safely to home, to tell my friends and myself about it. There is something perverse in that, this need, but there it is, this yellow envy and sense of in-completion, of losing the limited time that I have left.

In truth, the most notable experiences have come from the interior - the realization, that is, that we are set in a vast and intelligent universe, in a far stranger and more wonderful land than we could ever find on this earth or even this galaxy.  But the desire, the need continues, as do all other needs, basic or otherwise. A trip or two might be as simple as a need to recharge after long hours at a tough job, but the need could also come from the urge to discover the dragon.  For me, that is what it is.  I know where the dragon is, but I would rather the fantasy of Treasure Island over the reality of hard interior work; the fantasy of the returning hero rather than the reality of a weak self that ages, fears and dies.  Wealth and the leisure travel it can bring would then be the curse that the wise often say it is.  Ah, but still - if not the galaxy, why not the Seychelles?  Who knows what wonders work there that do not here?  As if a dragon were so easy to find, but still, the wander lust calls.  FK