The Only Thing I Have Learned This Year Is That I Know Nothing At All

My Lord God,

My hope is in you. 

I hope with a hope that is beyond hope

And beyond desperation.

For I have sought you with all my heart;

I have traveled to the cities where I heard you dwelt

And searched for you in the alleys where rumor brought me

But I found myself alone among the discarded wrapping

I lost my caravan along the way

Three days I spent wandering the streets

Displaced from my friends, I walked

Peering in windows, resting in doorways

The more earnestly I sought you,

The more swiftly you hid your face

The discord in the streets followed me into my chamber;

The chamber of my heart you passed by

"Here he is," they said, and "There he lies,"

I ran into the street

But the cacophony of voices was babel to me

They carried me away like a tide out to sea

Drifting, the light of your face receded 

I became weary, I missed your smell

I thought I knew how to be holy

But I assumed too much 

Scoffers shared my bed

Laid up to me, they hoisted their words

"Hope has passed us by," they offered

"It's time we moved on from the Lord"

But how can I forget you,

Walk out on the one who gave me my life?

I am shrouded in a cloud of unknowing

Knowledge has failed me, and doubt has settled in like a fog

My Lord God, in this I know nothing

I know not holiness, and sin has become my neighbor

I erect a fence, he smiles at me 

through the planks he beckons for company

I will wait for you to return

I search for you from the window of my home

My poverty has caught up to me

I have nothing with which to pay my debtors

They come to reclaim my house

My household pines for you, my Deliverer

They condemn my patience

I have become foolish, with no recourse left

"Thou has rejected knowledge

And all the people perish"

When you levy the hearts of those who love you

Who will sing your praises in the streets?

I will give you my hand, my Lord

When you return for me and take my hand

To lead me through the fog

To the place I dread to go

I will lay those things I have acquired this year

At your feet, to be taken out to trash

For everything I have is dross

Everything I have is yours to burn

The Poppy

The Poppy

'To Monica'

Francis Thompson

Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare,

And left the flushed print in a poppy there:

Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,

And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame.

With burnt mouth, red like a lion's, it drank

The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank,

And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine

When the Eastern conduits ran with wine.

Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss,

And hot as a swinked gipsy is,

And drowsed in sleepy savageries,

With mouth wide a-pout for a sultry kiss.

A child and man paced side by side,

Treading the skirts of eventide;

But between the clasp of his hand and hers

Lay, felt not, twenty withered years.

She turned, with the rout of her dusk South hair,

And saw the sleeping gipsy there:

And snatched and snapped it in swift child's whim,

With— "Keep it, long as you live!" — to him.

And his smile, as nymphs from their laving meres,

Trembled up from a bath of tears;

And joy, like a mew sea-rocked apart,

Tossed on the wave of his troubled heart.

For he saw what she did not see,

That — as kindled by its own fervency —

The verge shrivelled inward smoulderingly:

And suddenly 'twixt his hand and hers

He knew the twenty withered years —

No flower, but twenty shrivelled years.

"Was never such thing until this hour,"

Low to his heart he said; "the flower

Of sleep brings wakening to me,

And of oblivion, memory."

"Was never this thing to me," he said,

"Though with bruisèd poppies my feet are red!"

And again to his own heart very low:

"O child! I love, for I love and know;

"But you, who love nor know at all

The diverse chambers in Love's guest-hall,

Where some rise early, few sit long:

In how differing accents hear the throng

His great Pentecostal tongue;

"Who know not love from amity,

Nor my reported self from me;

A fair fit gift is this, meseems,

You give — this withering flower of dreams.

"O frankly fickle, and fickly true,

Do you know what the days will do to you?

To your love and you what the days will do,

O frankly fickle, and fickly true?

"You have loved me, Fair, three lives — or days:

'Twill pass with the passing of my face.

But where I go, your face goes too,

To watch lest I play false to you.

"I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,

Knowing well when certain years are over

You vanish from me to another;

Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.

"So, frankly fickle, and fickly true!

For my brief life while I take from you

This token, fair and fit, meseems,

For me — this withering flower of dreams."

The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,

Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:

The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper

The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.

I hang 'mid men my needless head,

And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:

The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper

Time shall reap, but after the reaper

The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper.

Love, love! your flower of withered dream

In leavèd rhyme lies safe, I deem,

Sheltered and shut in a nook of rhyme,

From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

Love! I fall into the claws of Time:

But lasts within a leavèd rhyme

All that the world of me esteems —

My withered dreams, my withered dreams.

"Was never this thing to me," he said,

"Though with bruisèd poppies my feet are red!"

And again to his own heart very low:

"O child! I love, for I love and know;

"But you, who love nor know at all

The diverse chambers in Love's guest-hall,

Where some rise early, few sit long:

In how differing accents hear the throng

His great Pentecostal tongue;

"Who know not love from amity,

Nor my reported self from me;

A fair fit gift is this, meseems,

You give — this withering flower of dreams.

"O frankly fickle, and fickly true,

Do you know what the days will do to you?

To your love and you what the days will do,

O frankly fickle, and fickly true?

"You have loved me, Fair, three lives — or days:

'Twill pass with the passing of my face.

But where I go, your face goes too,

To watch lest I play false to you.

 "I am but, my sweet, your foster-lover,

Knowing well when certain years are over

You vanish from me to another;

Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.

"So, frankly fickle, and fickly true!

For my brief life while I take from you

This token, fair and fit, meseems,

For me — this withering flower of dreams."

The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,

Heavy with dreams, as that with bread:

The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper

The reaper reaps, and Time the reaper.

I hang 'mid men my needless head,

And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:

The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper

Time shall reap, but after the reaper

The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper.

Love, love! your flower of withered dream

In leavèd rhyme lies safe, I deem,

Sheltered and shut in a nook of rhyme,

From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

Love! I fall into the claws of Time:

But lasts within a leavèd rhyme

All that the world of me esteems —

My withered dreams, my withered dreams.

"Big Cooked Wieners": Why Tone Matters in Evangelization

I have a number of favorite poems that I have memorized, that have stayed with me over the years. One is William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow":

so much depends 

upon 

a red wheel 

barrow 

glazed with rain 

water 

beside the white 

chickens 

Another is from the 18th century haiku master Buson:

Pressing Sushi 

After a while 

A lonely feeling

But my all time favorite poem is one which is probably the most obscure, devoid of syntax, and written by a woman with a developmental disability who was living in a group home at the time it was composed.

Everybody 

by Shirley Nielson 

I was wearing a blue 

coat. it was cabbage and wieners. 

They were big cooked wieners, 

the smell was cabbage 

ah delicious smell of cabbage out not summer noise 

was running water in the kitchen somewhere.

Here's why I love it, why it is my most treasured poem of all time.

First, you are grabbed by the lapel and taken into the WTFness of the poem straight away. The author, the tour de force, is unapologetically wearing a blue coat. It is blue. Just so there is no doubt about what color it is. But wait, it is not just blue but CABBAGE AND WIENERS. A coat! Made from cabbage and wieners! What kind of world is this. I want to know.

So the coat is cabbage and wieners. And mind you, not just any wieners, but Big Cooked Wieners. You know the kind.  We've entered into the insanity, but it's a kind of safe house with nice smells. "The smell was cabbage." Cabbage isn't like lemon torts or cinnamon cloves, but notwithstanding it is the best thing going in this homey asylum

ah. delicious. smell.

Do you have any reason to doubt it? Shirley was wearing a blue coat, and she let you know it from the start. She establishes her credence in the Once Upon A Time setting of her wardrobe, moving into not just wieners and cabbage, but go-big-or-go-home wieners, and "the smell" was cabbage, as if there was no other smell in the world. Ah delicious smell. What is it about the smell of cabbage that transports her back, with you in the back seat of the Model T, to cabbage in the summer, in the quiet kitchen, the curtains waving and folding in the breeze. And all that can be heard is out not summer noise was running water in the kitchen somewhere.  

Why do I love this obscurely published poem written by a developmentally disabled women who lived in a group home so much? It does what great writing does: it takes me somewhere. It doesn't matter that the boat we're sailing on to get there is cabbage and wieners--what matters is they are big cooked wieners and there is confidence in a blue coat. The righteous formality of syntax has been left like a tailpipe and bumper at the station. I hear the water running. It is somewhere, not here. I am in the kitchen, and I have no idea why. But I'm there. 

The little children will inherit the earth. Syntax is the language of the Church, and it has it's place. But it's 'church speak.' If you don't know what a narthex is, or an alb, or a consecration--but you DO know coats and cabbages and the sound of water, somewhere, THAT is what you use to describe the transcendental reality of "Everybody." Not everyone speaks the language of academics; but then again, not everyone sees with the eyes of a child. You may not know what a vestment is, but you know you are wearing a blue coat. You may smell incense and be taken away to a heavenly realm, but you might also smell cabbage cooking and hear water running in the kitchen somewhere and remember your mother who passed away when you were twelve. Ah delicious smell. 

When we share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others, we would do well to offer them a ride rather than a tract. As a writer, this is what I try to do. I'm a story teller at heart. I love truth--not my truth, but capital T truth. Whether someone gets there by the lofty angelic proposals of Aquinas or the symbolism of Tolkien or the wit of Chesterton or the characters of O'Connor, all roads lead to Rome, to Christ, eventually. 

But that doesn't mean there aren't absurdities along the way. That's why I am utterly convinced that we need to laugh the laugh of blue coats and big cooked wieners from time to time, because the realm of the angelic is ordered by reason, but we here on earth can enjoy a little of the absurd grace we have experienced in how God has worked in our lives. That is a story in itself, and we all have them--whether you are mentally disabled and remembering your mother and throwing syntax out the window to bring her back, or you are an engineer who rationally reasoned his way into the Church by way of proofs and counter-points. Like our motto in our family when we have people over for dinner--we share what we have, and what we have, we give. 

I don't criticize tone too often in the work of evangelization, since everyone has their styles, but I do cringe slightly from time to time. Then again, I try to remember that St. Augustine was initially put off by the crudeness of the language of the written Bible that he was turned off by it....yet it won him over in the end, in all its coarseness. "We are not meant to be successful, but faithful" as Mother Teresa said. Successfully or not, swallowing red horsepills whole can get stuck in the throat if we're not careful--a little castor oil makes it go down a bit smoother.  

I can't help being sensitive to tone because I am a writer, have always been a writer, and will probably die a lousy writer, unable to shake the compulsion to communicate with words until my death which will release me from my final assignment. It takes years to hone tone. Though I appreciate gruffness, I get turned off by the Westboro Baptist Churches of the world, the Franklin Grahams, the utilitarian crassness and unrelenting dourness of certain strains of Catholicism. Not that I'm any affodicio, and maybe its a matter of preference--that what turns one off may turn another on to something greater, or wake them up when nuance might be shrugged off or disregarded. People are watching you. People are listening to you, and watching your tongue and who you are cutting down and who you are talking about. They watch from the shadows, taking in your actions through a straw. Speak the truth, but don't forget the charity.

Personally, I like stories. I like images. I like being moved by simple things like red wheel barrows and blue coats, or glazed rainwater and running faucets somewhere, or the moonlight loneliness of preparing to eat alone, and of what's real in this world as a way of pointing to the next: wine and bread, weddings, lamps, tears, funerals, friends, the smell of nard, the heartache of betrayal, the hope of restoration, miracles, paradox, and everything getting turned on its head. Blue coats. Cooked Wieners. The smell of cabbage. And out not summer noise running water in the kitchen somewhere

"Wherever The Catholic Sun Doth Shine, There's Always Laughter And Good Red Wine"

I know there are a lot of great poets out there, both dead and alive, who have written great sonnets and painted works of art with their words. But personally, my favorite poem of all time is one which was written by a developmentally disabled woman named Shirley Nelson. It appeared in a collection of poetry titled Shout, Applaud. The women featured, who all lived together in residence, never learned English syntax and so there is a stripped-down freshness to painting this particular scene that for me is haunting, vivid, and beautiful at the same time:

Everybody

by Shirley Nelson

I was wearing a blue

coat. It was cabbage and wieners.

They were big cooked wieners,

the smell was cabbage

ah delicious smell

of cabbage out not summer noise was

running water in the kitchen somewhere

Poetry is concentrated language. It compresses a maximum of thought into a minimum of words. William Carlos Williams wrote, "No ideas, but in things." What I like about this poem is that it doesn't play with pretension, writing oh-so-loftily about the Big Things (Love, Truth, Beauty) as concepts from a textbook in a stiff and haughty and unlived way. "Everybody" is terse and hungry. There is no doubt in the universe that Shirley likes cabbage and wieners, big cooked wieners, so much so that she wears them as a blue coat, probably her favorite coat. I am outside the window, leaning on the dusty sill and leaning in. The smell was cabbage (ah delicious smell!), the season was summer, the house is Everybody's, and in the kitchen, somewhere, water was running.

You may not like the poem, you may love it, you may be indifferent, you may not get it. You may be a syntax guy, a sonnet gal. All fine! It's personal for me, for it may not be for you. When I worked as a caseworker with people with Downs syndrome and developmental disabilities, it was a real joy (the people, not the bureaucratic system). They see life through different eyes, unpretentious eyes. They are a true gift to the world, and my four years working with them, being their friend, taking them to Mass with me when I was able, was a privilege. 

While cabbage and weiners and coats and sinks may be the stuff of this world that have feet firmly planted in it, there is another kind of poetry that I love that reaches to the heavens while here on earth, and that is the Hebrew poetry of the Psalms. 

There is a rhythm to the Psalms that one enters into when they are prayed in plainsong every day; they are meant to be sung. I got to experience this at a Benedictine monastery where I spent the summer chanting and singing the Psalms. Though the translation is different, to this day, I chant my favorite verses from memory because they got in my bones through song:

When I call, answer me O God of justice!

From anguish you release me, have mercy and hear me.

How long, o men will your hearts be closed,

will you love what is futile and seek what is false?

The Lord works wonders for me

the Lord hears me whenever I call him

Fear Him, do not sin. Ponder on your bed and be still.

Make justice your sacrifice and trust in the Lord.

When will we see better days many say?

Lift up the light of your face on us o Lord!

You have put into my heart a greater joy

then they have from abundance of corn and new wine

I will lie down and peace comes at once

for you alone Lord make me dwell in safety. 

(Ps 4)

I am not an expert by any means on ancient Hebrew poetry, but the parallelism (both synonymous and antithetical) employed by the Psalmist moves the words down so that they settle into your bones. Even if you don't know the poetic method by name, you know it by sound. The form is important to the message and imagery.

But the Psalms are not stiff and formal dead words on a page, but very much alive, because they cover the range of human emotions and experiences in totality. The poetic form may constrain the words, but there is a limitlessness and timelessness to the experience of the words that is transcendent. It is human, through and through, and stretches to Heaven with urgency with feet firmly planted in the miry pit, the raging battle, the banks of the stream.

Good poetry is human. It doesn't waste words, but concentrates language. It slaps you awake, takes you abroad without having to leave your chair, borrows your nose and steals your eyes. Good poetry makes a nest in your consciousness. It rents out life and takes notes on the back of diner napkins. It will use syntax and form if it serves its purpose, or it will give you a pass for the show anyway if you can't pay the cost of admission.

Poetry of this sort isn't purely etherial and angelic, but has flesh and bones, a heart and blood. It comes into the world but is not of the world. It picks grain and heals on Sundays, eats the showbread when hungry, dances naked before the ark, drinks barrels of wine in good company, eschews lukwarmness, flips over tables in righteous anger, sees to the heart.

For goodness' sake, THIS IS OUR FAITH! This is not stodgy puritanical Christianity or pharisaical legalism, but fully human Catholicism! It lives in poetry, it lives in song, it lives in LIFE itself! And life is meant to be sung, to be celebrated, and like good poetry...it is meant to be fully lived.