Bitter, hold the sweet.

Keep the room clean.
Move to a new place for a little reprieve. Fresh sheets, fresh floor, fresh deskspace.  It's all been polished and dusted and vacuumed and disinfected and now it's yours. 
It's fleeting, though.  For a while it smells clean and it's neat and it's tidy.
And then you arrive.  Success for a little bit, but it's rather effortless if we're being perfectly honest.  It's easy to keep things in order when they start that way.
But the slip will come.  So slowly that you'll allow it.  First a shirt you plan to wear again on the chair by your bed.  Then a couple papers on the desk.  You'll get to them soon, so it's ok.  You're in a hurry his morning, so a cursory flattening of the sheets will do; not military precision bed-making, but it will do for today.  
Laundry's out of the dryer but you're so tired that you might as well do it in the morning because you're kind of tired.
Then one day you get home in the afternoon and realize there's what you would call a Miniature Mess.  But you can handle this.  It's only miniature, so no worries.  Now is not the time for real concern.
Then it happens.  A really bad night.  A good one for you, but not for the room.  You get home from hours at the one pub and then the other pub.  Tear in the doorway, of course, because there's no other way to do it.  But once you're in, your lost for a sec.  The room spins a bit, but you correct.  Then it spins again. 
Survival Mode.  Water.  Bed.  Rush to the sink and fill the glass.  gulpgulpgulp.  Another!  gulpgulpgulp.  
Alright, now you're good.  You brush your teeth but who really remembers to rinse out the sink in Survival Mode?  
You stumble toward the bed, each step a little lighter as an article of clothing soars to a different part of the room.  Coat to the chair; shoes at the closet; shirt to your left, pants to your right.  And you sink into the cotton and the bedsprings like a cherub on a cloud.  
Wake.  Oh no.  This has now graduated to a bonafide Mess.  But you're in a hurry, of course, and the headache is the real crisis.  Is that mud you tracked in?  Ignore it.  You shovel the clothes to a pile in the corner.  You'll permit a small pile there, because you can't see it from the doorway. 
By tomorrow, another pile gains real estate behind the bed under the same pretense.  This is getting out of hand, don't you think? 
"I'll get to it soon," you say, and that's nice enough for now.  Meanwhile that mirror is getting disgusting. 
Right about then is when the smell sets in.  No problem, you open a window.  "I need to really get to this." But not now.  Now, of course, it is time for a nap.  Have you really not washed the sheets since you moved in?  Your nose can tell.  
In the morning you step on a pen and the pain wakes you up.  
It's time.  You shovel all the clothes into the hamper.  Don't matter if it's clean or dirty; cut down the weeds with the wheat and sort em later.   Put the sheets in there too.  This aught to be two loads.  
Grab a paper towel and scrub the mirror.  These books can go back on the shelf.  These papers can be thrown away.  Now, I wonder where they keep the bathroom in this place.  Finishing touch: shoes all in line in the closet.  
But once a mess is made, it knows how to be remade.  It makes short work.  You just cleaned, right?  So why be overthetop stickler about putting away that shirt that you want to wear tomorrow?  
In a week, your lack of diligence brings you right back to the Mess.  

Yah, this is all about sin.  The whole thing.  Allegory, every bit of it.  
A guess a good Christian should favor the term "parable".  
Once, my little sister and I had pow-wow in her room.  We decided that the cleanliness of our room is an excellent barometer for our spiritual lives.  When you assent to disarray, you've probably already done so Inside.  
Well, today is a room clean day.  

Wit and the Spiritual Life; An Essay

 

This entire post exists thanks to the fact that I couldn't just lay on the bow of a yacht without bragging about it to my friends. 

Today I was in the midst of a rather sardonic exchange with a good friend when the wit struck a little too close to home and touched a tender nerve.  The result was a backpedaling of both parties, one in embarrassment for an overreaction in a friendly conversation and the other in embarrassment for the truth exposed in the biting sarcasm.  Ultimately, the dialog concluded with the question of whether or not sarcasm is healthy for the spiritual life.  

The question itself alerted me to the fact that I did not have a complete mastery of the terms at hand, as I felt entirely comfortable using wit and sarcasm interchangeably.  Therefore, my first mental excursion was into the pages of Merriam Webster for clarity.  Under the entry for wit, there was a section devoted to the confusion of the different terms of the subject, proving immensely helpful, if merely by suggesting the direction of the present essay. 

I will first define the terms.  Wit is the perception of analogies between dissimilar things and expressing them in quick, sharp, spontaneous observations.  Humor is the perception of comical, ridiculous, or ludicrous elements of a situation and expressing them in a way that makes others see your perception as well.  Irony is the implicit humor in the contradiction between what is meant and what is expressed.  Finally, sarcasm is a non-subtle expression of irony that is used harshly or bitterly for the purpose of wounding or ridiculing someone. 

Having a better understanding of the terms, I decided that I would answer a more interesting question: Between sarcasm, irony, humor, and wit, which of these practices (if any) are unhealthy to the spiritual life?

I begin with sarcasm.  This, I believe, is the easiest practice to expose for its objective evil.  The purpose of sarcasm is ridicule.  It is meant to be harsh or to inflict pain.  It seems, therefore, that the motivation for sarcasm is necessarily uncharitable.  No matter its secondary purpose (such as the attempt to illuminate someone’s error for them), the primary method by which sarcasm is employed is the infliction of harm on a person.  In other words, while its motive might not be rancor, its means necessarily are, by definition.  It is sideways speak, where the less-than-subtle undercurrent of “you fool” accompanies each word.  This seems to directly parallel the warning given by Christ in Matthew: “whoever says ‘you fool’ [to his brother] shall be liable to the hell of fire.” 

But unlike sarcasm, the other three practices are not meant to cause harm to a person.  They have other purposes.  Irony is meant to point out humor in a discrepancy.  For example, examine one of irony’s common manifestations: satire.  Satire is defined as the use of irony to ridicule an institution or political philosophy.  Satire points out a contradiction in an institution, and, even though it often seeks to ridicule that contradiction, it is not meant to harm a person but rather an institution.  Pointing out irony in an institution protects human beings from the institution’s shortcomings.   Irony has a real potential for good, and since it’s means is not (necessarily) the direct derision of a human being, I cannot claim that it is objectively bad. 

Humor seems even better than irony.  According to its definition, humor is intended to encourage two virtues: humility and empathy.  First, it involves the recognition of ridiculous aspects of situations or events, which is often only accomplished through an exercise of humility.  Then, it seeks to cause individuals to empathize with one another.  Both of these seem like laudable goals, and I am left not only denying its objective evil, but I believe it to be a necessary and healthy part of life.  Indeed, the Great Gilbert Keith Chesterton considered humor an essential part of a healthy spiritual life.  When talking about angels (who, by the way, are not just holy, but experiencing the perfection of beatitude), he said: “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” 

Wit, the final practice under the scrutiny of this essay, was the hardest for me to handle.  When faced with the difficult rediscovery of a term, I have a favorite practice: going to brainyquote.com, typing in the word, and seeing what the Great Writers of the past have to say on the subject.  When it comes to wit, the Greats are decidedly undecided.  However, upon closer examination (and discarding certain voices that I simply do not trust [can you believe that they dared put Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, and John McCain on the same page, right next to one another?!]), it seems that many of those who distrust wit (particularly the ancient Greeks, or at least their translators) seemed to suffer the same confusion of terms that I did when I began this academic journey.  Wit, as understood by Merriam Webster, seems much closer to the trusted words of the Great Mark Twain: “Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any union.” 

As Merriam Webster and Mark Twain define it, wit is merely a synthesis of ideas.  It brings two unlikely subjects together and expresses the analogy with brevity.  It does not (necessarily) involve an uncharitable motive or means.  It is an exercise of the intellect.  A witty exchange is one that requires a high level of mental aptitude, and usually reveals aspects of a subject that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.  Wit, therefore, can be both helpful and laudable.

I will now address a clear difficulty to embracing irony, humor, and wit as helpful and potentially healthy for the spiritual life, before now unmentioned except for brief allusions in parenthetical remarks (you thought I missed it, huh?).  These three practices, while helpful and potentially healthy, also have the potential to cause harm.  It is extremely easy for each one of these practices to slide into sarcasm.  And to make matters worse, this potential varies with each individual.  For instance, the line between humor and sarcasm is very thin when the object of the humor is a particularly ill-humored individual.  An example would be the conversation with my dear friend that prompted this essay: humor quickly became sarcasm, and harm was had by myself.  A person with thicker skin and better humor would have not been so easily offended, and the remark would have remained within the boundaries of humor.  But, since it was I who was receiving the joke, the words became poisonous and caused difficulty in communication.  The line between wit-and-sarcasm, humor-and-sarcasm, or irony-and-sarcasm is a dangerously fluid boundary, which fluctuates according to the participants involved and situations discussed. 

Therefore, in this essay I conclude that sarcasm is unhealthy for the spiritual life.  It reinforces a flight from charity and necessarily harms its recipient.  The exchange of wit, the use of humor, and the application of irony are practices that are potentially spiritually healthy, provided that they are used with careful attention to the persons involved and the situations being discussed.  Like almost all things in the human life, this answer was both unexpected and requires a heightened responsibility in one’s daily interactions. 

That’s how I know this was a fruitful activity. 

it's just spheres and orbits, right?

Sunset on the Pacific.  That's me in on the right side. 

     Every once in a while, you feel guilty for experiencing things that are just so beautiful.  Like a couple nights ago, when I got to see the sunset on the beach.  
     I wasn't really gonna write about it, but we prayed Vespers and the Responsory was "Tell all the nations how glorious God is.  Make known his wonders to every people."  
     Fine.  I'll write about it.  

     First, the fear.  A lot of fears accompanied me before arriving.  What if it's cloudy?  What if we don't make it in time?  What if it's not actually that beautiful?  
     Well, the fear about time was pretty well founded.  We were racing up the coast, trying to find a beach.  We could see the sunset, but we wanted to get out and go to the water and Highway 101 just wouldn't give us any good turnoffs.  We were chasing the sunset. 
     But then we saw it.  Emerged from a tunnel and saw Beachpoint Lane, a tiny road that ran perpendicular to the coast just south of Cannon Beach.  We took the turn with screeching tires and parked by the road.  A couple of beers in the backpack, and off we go.  30 min to sunset, and we walk over the hill.  
     One of my fondest professors from college talked about an argument he had as a boy.  He watched the sun set over the ocean and wanted to call the colors "seraphic".  His friend took offense at the term.
     I certainly don't.  I would definitely favor seraphic.  Mainly because the colors sang in the way I'd imagine angels sing.  Beautiful in a terrifying sort of way, and one simply cannot remove one's gaze.  A couple times, with tears in my eyes, I asked the vista if it would be ok if I turned away.  
     (The answer, by the way, was a resounding no.)

     All fears proving irrational, I was overwhelmed by Peace.  It was spectacular.  I simply stared at the sun's expiration and everything else ceased.  I heard no thoughts, only the crashing of the waves.  
     (By the way, have you ever taken a bit of time to really listen to the waves?  There are several levels of sound.  There's this base level of roar that is more felt in the pit of the chest than is actually heard.  This low murmur suggests that the the sand is taking a beating much more fearsome than you first thought.  Then there's this middle level of waves crashing 40 feet off the coast, the water negotiating with itself about who gets to assault the shore first.  Finally, there's the light whisper of the tide as the flattened sheets of foam calmly tiptoe up the bare sand towards your feet.  I'm amazed at this mostly because the sound made by 200 people talking at once [like an audience waiting for a play or speech to start] is almost identical to the waves.) 
     Then, to my right I heard fireworks.  It was the 3rd of July, and 2 miles north the Cannon Beach Sandcastle Competition was celebrating its completion.  Thousands of dollars of fireworks exploded to my right, each burst looking to be about the size of a golf ball held at arm's length. 
     But I didn't care.  The show of gunpowder and explosives was absolutely pitiful when compared to the horizon that was burning up in every seraphic shade between purple, red, orange, and yellow.  I laughed at how puny and insignificant the explosions were when placed next to this masterpiece. 
     It made me feel a little like prayer was futile.  Pitiful offerings made to the Fullness of Wonder.  I laughed at this thought, and decided I would make my own offering.  I pulled the pack of Marlboro's from my pocket and burned a cigarette.  An offering of incense to this Majesty I so unfairly stumbled upon.  
     Tears came to my eyes.  This must be what heaven is like.  
     And still, the colors wouldn't let me go.

     Now that I've seen the sun rise over the Atlantic and set over the Pacific, I can in good conscience say that I've seen all of America.  I've made it from one bookend of the country to the other.  Sure, there are many books on the shelf that I have yet to pull out--many pages left to read.  But I've traced my finger from one binding to another, moving all the way from left to right, and in an odd way this feels like the first victory towards conquering the bookshelf.  

     Eventually, the sun set far enough that the colors faded to black, and I was released from the beach.  We drove the rest of the way to the house where we were staying.  A little cabin one block from the beach.  We arrived in the cabin and I realized something.  The whole back of the cabin was windows.  It was pitch black, but I knew that something in the blackness was worth seeing.  Why else would you build a whole wall of windows?  So I chose to sleep on the couch right in front of the windows.
     And boy was I right.  
     I awoke at 5:30.   A handsome beam of light tickled my eyelids and coaxed me from sleep.  I opened my eyes very slowly.  My eyelids barely had time to move out of the way of the surge of tears.  
     It was beautiful.  Behind the cabin was a large lake, and a thick fog hugged the motionless water.  The fog moved slowly across the surface at the same speed that cars move when you see them through an airplane window.  The opposite bank was colored with tall, old trees.  Through the mist, I could see the trees mirrored perfectly in the water.  
     At a certain point, the trees parted, and here is where the sun chose to rise.  It was almost like terrestrial subjects making way for their celestial king.  The light beams shot through the openings in the branches and landed on the lake's surface.  The mist, doing its part, accented the crepuscular rays and gave them such fullness that one could almost grab hold of them.  
     And I hadn't even moved from my bed yet.  
     I snapped a quick picture and then went outside to say Lauds.  And to me the Prophet whispered, "For thus says the Lord, the creator of the heavens, who is God, the designer and maker of the earth, who established it, not creating it to be a waste, but designing it to be lived in: I am the Lord, and there is no other."
     No kidding.  

The view when I woke up.  Literally, I took the picture while laying in bed.

showers and wineskins

"Take warning, fellow associate of the fraternity of this shower: only the fool believes that the tangible dirt and grime of the external world is the sole thing carried away by the drain.  The wise man sees more than is before his eyes; he is spectator to a world at work within this temple of tile and glass.  And what does he see here?  A curious theater of mystical exploit, where actor and audience are ominously fused.  As he retells the histories of old and weaves glorious dramas yet to come, the water permeates the pores of his soul and washes away the ethereal impurities unknown to simpleton gaze.  Keep in mind this solemn task, good sir, as you step into this vault of enlightenment."

     I wrote these words on the shower door in my brother's apartment.  He had a glass shower, and he wrote things on it in dry-erase marker.  So one day I grabbed a marker and scribbled this (backwards, so it could be read from inside the shower) on the door.  It filled the whole door.  6 months later, I returned to his apartment and it was still there, which is one of the greatest compliments I've ever been given. 

     If for some reason Jesus had come to the earth at the present time, would he have used modern day analogies instead of the old ones?  Like, instead of, "don't put new wine in old wine skins" he might have said something like, "don't eat a steak dinner at McDonald's" or "don't put freshly laundered clothes on before taking a shower."  (As much as I cringe that McDonald's might have ended up in scripture, it would have been kinda neat.)
     Don't put on clean clothes before you take a shower.  It's good advice. Clean clothes are, for some reason, aesthetically perfect.  The fresh smell and crisp clean feel. How dare I desecrate the holiness of clean clothes with an unclean body? I just can't.  It would simply be wrong.  And if Jesus had been around, it would have been biblically immoral. 

     Showers are pretty special as well.  For me, a shower is not just a place that one cleans one's body.  It's a vault of wonder in which the secret thoughts of my life can be uttered at a low volume and examined out in the open.  New ideas are turned over, scrubbed from error, and clean prose is left behind.  Any troubling things can be discarded and washed down the drain.  Sometimes I remember things that happened, replaying the entire situation in the comfort of my private rainy fortress.  It's like confession or spiritual direction, but it happens every day. 
     I love walking into a bathroom shortly after someone took a shower.  You know what it feels like.  It smells nice, like Pert and Garnier and Old Spice, and the air is thick with humidity.  But it's not just hot perfumed water that hangs in the air; the thoughts and stories of the shower-goer are there too. They are all floating in the air, and they smell nice, and the experience is almost too intimate for it to be comfortable. 
     Walking into the bathroom shortly after someone showered there is what I imagine it must feel like to enter someone else's mind.  When I was a kid, I sometimes imagined walking out of my head and into someone else's.  Entering their brain was like walking into a thick cloud of swirling colors and sounds.  And it felt and smelt like it does when you walk into a bathroom after someone's showered.  Thick and humid and lovely in an odd sort of way.

     But anyway, imagine that wonderful post-shower feeling of clean.  So fresh and wonderful, both internally and externally.  How inappropriate it would be if you dried off and put on your dirty clothes.  Just wrong (and if Jesus had been around during our time, biblically immoral).  
     No, it must be ordered.  Clean bodies must be put it clean clothes, just like new wine must be put in new wine skins.  Jesus said so. 

let the little ones come to me

     I guess I would have gone with, "My nose is numb" or something like that.  She totally schooled me.  "It hurts right here," she managed to get out between her sobs.  "It feels bad like if you have a really huge sneeze or if you just woke up from a dream."  
     Yes.  That is EXACTLY how it feels, Caroline.  Like you just woke up from a dream.  A really intense dream that for some reason was robbed of its power over you and suddenly you lift your head from the pillow in a daze and your face is arrested with a feeling akin to being hit in the face with a big rubber ball.  
     Caroline is a unique type of human that you can find in any parish: a child.  A 10-year-old child sitting in the nurse's office trying to explain to me how the soccer ball to the face is affecting her afternoon. 
     She was exhibiting a special talent that young people have: honesty so honest that they don't even know how honest it is.  She's hurt, and she wants to communicate how it feels.  So she uses her memories, and doesn't dress a single word with any anticipation of "what they're looking for."  
     She just scoops up the world around her, and pours it all back out at you.  Like children do.

     Kids are impressionable.  Scary impressionable.  I led music at Vacation Bible School.  I found myself in front of 60 kids singing songs I haven't heard since I attended vacation bible school myself.  15 minutes with the kids, teaching them the signs to "Shine, Jesus Shine" and "Awesome God" and "Father Abraham had many sons". 
     Andrew has two kids in VBS.  This afternoon, I visited Andrew's house.  I kinda had to, on account of I broke his clavicle a couple weeks ago.
     Yes, I broke his collarbone
     No, I didn't do it on purpose.
     Yes, I feel bad.
     No, his wife IS NOT pleased with me.
     So he has three kids and the whole family is moving tomorrow.  He got bunk beds from IKEA for the girls and (due to the busted clavicle) he couldn't set it up on his own.  So I went over to help.
     I got there, and the girls were singing songs from VBS earlier.
"Our God is an awesome God."
     Pause 3 seconds...
"Our God is an awesome God."
     Repeat.  Over and over again.  Every three seconds.  For 2 hours.  "It could be worse," I told Andrew.  And my mind went back a week to Debi's van.  She was taking us out to dinner.  I got in the van, closed the door, and buckled up. 
     "Josh?" says the 4-year-old voice in the back seat.  
     "Yes Sammy?"
     "Do you wanna hear the song I made up?" 
     Creativity.  Must encourage.  Early and often.  "OF COURSE I'd love to hear it!"
     (to the second line of the tune 'Father Abraham Had Many Sons') "And many sons had Faaaather Taco."  Pause 3 seconds.  "And many sons had Faaaather Taco."  Repeat.
     "That's very nice Sam!"  I said, trying to end his performance.  But it didn't work.  He kept repeating it.  Then his mother turned around and looked at me.  The look was accusative.  She's blaming me.  Clearly, he'd been singing this over and over for hours.  

     Kids are tender and impressionable, especially when you're an adult who listens to them and treats them like another adult.  Those are the one's I've remembered.  Like Cousin Kristie, who sat with me for hours listening to me talk about 5-year-old stuff.  She was 25 at the time.  She told me we could get married, which I agreed to of course.  Marriage meant that she was special, and that our friendship was unique and no one else could understand us.  
     (I remember when she actually married Tim.  I felt betrayed.  My parents wouldn't let me go to the wedding because they were seriously worried I was going to shout "I object!" [I was a wonderful child])  
     But Kristie treated me like an adult.  She listened to me and laughed at my stories, and she asked me questions that other adults only asked each other.  And whatever she said was law,  and some of those laws stayed with me until today.  

     Aware of this, I'm always hyper-conscious around children.  I'm always assessing the situation for ways that I can share with them a piece of advice about building blocks or legos that is shrouded in a deeper profundity that they'd only understand if they remembered the phrase when they're older.  
     Yes, I'm trying to manufacture deep moments 15 or 20 years down the road.  
     It's kind of fun, really.  At any moment, they might soak in what I just said.  The thought goes in their ears and plants itself somewhere in the folds of their brain, where it comes out from time to time.  And in 20 years when the thought pops out again, they might realize I wasn't just talking about tying shoelaces.  I was trying to communicate to them some deep secrets of life.  
     (Then there are times when I abuse this power.  Like yesterday, when the drama teacher had the kids saying practice Masses and I paced around the room telling each little boy that he looked really cool as a priest.  Shameful, I know.)
     God does this too, you know.  Seemingly insignificant things like sunsets or tadpoles growing legs turn out to hold an immense wealth of truth, and you didn't even know it.  

     Children.  I wish that teaching them how to write didn't coincide with the cultural connivance to destroy their innocence.  What beautiful stories they could write!  Truths of the world so plainly recorded that the sentences would be uncomfortable to read.  If only they could write stories before they're shaped by their parents' offhand comments or the TV commercials or the shrewd encouragements of a seminarian.  
     I'd read that book.  
     Twice, probably. 

to write, to read, and to listen

     Brilliant things pop into my head.  I could be anywhere when it happens, like a chance encounter with a flowerbed on the way to class.  Sometimes it happens while I lay in bed waiting for sleep to come.  It never comes slowly; it always blindsides me.  
     Most often, these brilliant things come while I'm in the shower or brushing my teeth.  It must be a comical sight for the Walls to see me pace my room for 15 minutes with my toothbrush in my mouth, my eyes and face moving in conversation with myself while the bristles continually move back and forth across my molars. 
     These brilliant things come without warning.  A clever phrase or a beautiful comparison or a vivid image.  They pop into my head and linger for just a moment.  
     And then they're gone.  
     This is a terrifying prospect for a Writer.  Me? I'm alright with it.  A little annoyed, but not devastated.  Which is one of the reasons I know I'm not a Writer.

     I hate soccer for many reasons.  The worst part is the ties.  You can tie.  In a global competition.  
     TIE!  
     "Congratulations on the effort everyone, and it's good to find out that effort is all that matters.  I know you thought this was a test of physical and tactical prowess, but in the end we've managed to prove that you are identical to the other team in all the categories that matter." 
     It's no wonder soccer is so popular here in Portland.  They've embraced a type of competition that can easily be undermined.  Why not teach kids that "superiority" is a made-up concept and that the word "better" is a poor metric for comparison?
     But aren't some things actually better than others?  In high school, I had a friend named Greg.  Greg was a genius.  Freshman year we lay on our backs in the Sullivan's backyard while he tried to explain to us in great detail how stars formed.  He had a mind for memory.  He remembered everything.  Better than I could, in fact.  His brain simply worked faster around numbers and physics and all manner of scientific theory.  
     Once, in a Mock Trial meeting at Claire's house, he tried to explain how frustrating school was.  He felt guilty, because he was in the top of the class and he didn't really try.  He claimed he was lazy.  He felt guilty watching his classmates slave over memorizing facts and equations that he remembered the first time he read them in the book. When it came to school, Greg was just better than me.
     There was a trade: Greg wasn't good at people.  He could read Stephen Hawking and understand him the first time, but Greg couldn't read a person at all.  Not quite on the spectrum, but socially unaware nonetheless.  And this was my strong suit.  While he shared his guilt with us during that Mock Trial meeting, I looked around the room and could tell the different things that each person was thinking.  But Greg was clueless.  When it came to people, I was simply better than Greg.  
     The point?  There are differences in the world, and they translate to aptitude.  The Portland attitude of "I'm different and you're different and that's all there is to it" is a good start but falls short.  We can't just call people different and leave it there.  Differences mean that skill-sets vary and therefore so does skill.  Greg was different than me, which meant that he was better than me at certain things. 

     I think that this concept is applicable to Writing.  I'm talking about real Writing.  Not just any shmuck with a blog (winkyface), but the person who understands the world at a deep level and is different enough to possess a skill-set that allows them to bring that depth alive for other people. Their words have a unique capacity to unlock a world of transcendence for the reader.  And some people are better at this than others. 
     At the same time some people stand up in front of a group and read so well that their voice rips you out of your world and into the one they're reading about.  The words or ideas might not be their own, but they are just better than other people at giving life to the words in the ears of another.  
     Yet again, some people hear or see beauty and commune with it on an intensely personal level.  This communion is experienced internally, and they aren't gifted with an extraordinary ability to communicate the beauty to others.  When beauty is experienced, they aren't obligated to capture the moment or enhance the experience; they simply receive it, and they can do so in a way that others simply cannot manage.  

     This is the most atomic division I have identified between people.  These categories are not set in stone, but they offer general trends that lead me to better understand them.
     Like when I watched the stars on the coast with my friend Renee.  In her head, words were buzzing around and she was putting together the most perfect way to give this experience to others.  A Writer. In my head, I heard a voice that narrated the scene.  I couldn't quite remember what the voice said when I tried to write it down, but two weeks later I read a poem about the stars to a friend and found that the experience added a layer of truth to my voice, allowing me to bring the poem alive for them.  A Reader.  

     A Writer is not simply better than a Reader.  A Writer is a better writer, and a Reader is a better reader.  Though the two have greater proficiency in particular areas, neither is more fully human than the other.  They are different, and these differences translate into aptitudes that serve humanity in different ways. 
     I am entirely comfortable being a Reader instead of a Writer or a Listener.  I know I'm not a Writer.  The voice I hear in the moment of transcendence is never my own, but always that of another Writer.  
     Furthermore, the things I write must be read in my own voice for them to have any meaning.  The Writer captures too much truth for this limitation.  Their words can be read in many different voices and still invoke transcendence.  

     To me these categories seem inescapable.  They are gifts distributed to humanity.  They are not just categories; they are vocations.  If a gift is given, a telos usually comes with it.  The Writer must write, and the Reader must read, and the Listener must listen. 

     I call myself a Curséd Poet.  I sometimes see the world with privileged eyes.  I know this.  
     Last night our host plucked a young magnolia blossom from his tree and passed it around the table.   Each person sniffed it once, then passed it on.  But it came to me and there it stayed.  I clutched the flower, stealing the scent into my nostrils every few seconds.  I took the flower home with me.  It's sitting on the desk right next me.  I couldn't let go, because every sniff sent me spinning out of the dining room and into a sun-kissed, overgrown meadow.  The smell laid me down under the shade of a magnificent tree there, in a place I'd never seen before.  I lay amongst the tall grass and the lazy summer flowers with a smile of peace on my lips and beneath my closed eyelids. 
     The Poet within me is very much alive, but he cannot speak.  He is cursed.  He hears the beautiful music without having a way of telling you about it in his own words.  I share the consternation of Prufrock.  I see my muses all the time; I hear them singing to me.  But they do not sing to me; they simply sing.  They don't give me my own words, but someone else's.  
     But I'm ok with that.  

God and Mammon

     Seriously though, you can't serve both. 

     I know what I should be doing ("should" is a declaration of moral necessity, btw).  I need to be reading.  I need to be writing.  I need to be going for walks and bike rides and laying in the grass and letting the 97 degree sun have a little time with my face.  Not only do I want to be doing these things, I need to be doing them. 
     But last week we started watching House of Cards in the rectory (pastor not present; too busy serving the people of God).  I've already seen it, but it was great to watch it again.  In 5 days we watched all 26 episodes.  It was great. And for 5 days I sat on the couch and watched Kevin Spacey and didn't read a single sentence from anything other than the paper.  
     Then when that was over I found this great game for the iPad where you have a tank and you fight other tanks and it's totally awesome and fun and has a historical background and for 2 days I stared at my iPad and didn't read anything, not even the newspaper.  
     I literally can't serve both.  I can't do all those things I need to be doing while I'm sucked into the Netflix vortex or chained to my progress in an app.  I can only do one or the other.  And one promotes spiritual and intellectual growth while the other really just wastes my time.  The choice is obvious, but deviously hard to actually make.  
     I mean hard.  And it's not like I have this great moment of temptation where the clear choice between book and TV is presented and I can struggle to a decision.  No, it's hard because Mammon tends to own you.  It possesses you.  And you don't even know you've chosen Mammon until you sit back and realize your book has spent a week collecting dust on your nightstand.  It's hard because you don't realize you've made the choice.  
     But once the choice is made, the bond grows stronger.  "Just one more episode," or "just one more battle," you say, and 3 hours later it's 2am and you have 4 hours to sleep before morning prayer.  Sloth is one of the most terrifying sins because you don't even realize you're fighting it.  It's like carbon dioxide: it starts killing you and you don't even know it's happening.  

     An entire week lost.  Shameful, really.  But this morning I deleted the app and started over.  Yet another start.  
     This could get exhausting if grace weren't so magnificently full of wonder.