I've just completed the transfer of all of my CDs to the iPod. I swore the day would never come, but here I am, 2105 songs digitally loaded and ready to go. My head should have found its way to a pillow some number of hours ago, but there was plenty still to be done: bags to pack, an apartment to clean, and a head-clearing walk to take.
The two weeks away will be good for me. Not that Kansas City has been bad. It's actually been quite good to me these last few months. I feel like I have a trajectory now. My hope for my time on the coast, then, is that I am able to build up a little momentum. To gain a little bit more perspective that I otherwise wouldn't be able to gain in the busy workaday world. I'm vacationing--vacating--but only spatially. The last thing I want to do is leave my heart and my head unattended for two weeks only to come back and forget what it is that I'm supposed to be doing, or who it is that I'm supposed to be.
As an aide in being deliberate about my time, I'll be keeping a few old friends (mostly dead) in tow...Madeleine L'Engle, writing about her marriage...Gerard Manley Hopkins and George Herbert, two men who stand out quietly amongst the greatest poets of Christendom (and Hopkins as one of poetry's best minor poets) writing about God, man, death, life, and everything in between...Flannery O'Connor with her twisted tales of unexpected grace...and G.K. Chesterton, with his ruminations on romance and redemption, Orthodoxy. It is from that work that I've drawn some inspiration lately. I will leave you with a (somewhat lengthy...apologies...) quote and a few thoughts:
What is the matter with the pessimist? I think it can be stated by saying that he is the cosmic anti-patriot. And what is the matter with the anti-patriot? I think it can be stated, without undue bitterness, by saying that he is the candid friend. And what is the matter with the candid friend? There we strike the rock of real life and immutable human nature.
I venture to say that what is bad in the candid friend is simply that he is not candid. He is keeping something back -- his own gloomy pleasure in saying unpleasant things. He has a secret desire to hurt, not merely to help. This is certainly, I think, what makes a certain sort of anti-patriot irritating to healthy citizens. I do not speak (of course) of the anti-patriotism which only irritates feverish stockbrokers and gushing actresses; that is only patriotism speaking plainly. A man who says that no patriot should attack the Boer War until it is over is not worth answering intelligently; he is saying that no good son should warn his mother off a cliff until she has fallen over it. But there is an anti-patriot who honestly angers honest men, and the explanation of him is, I think, what I have suggested: he is the uncandid candid friend; the man who says, "I am sorry to say we are ruined," and is not sorry at all. And he may be said, without rhetoric, to be a traitor; for he is using that ugly knowledge which was allowed him to strengthen the army, to discourage people from joining it. Because he is allowed to be pessimistic as a military adviser he is being pessimistic as a recruiting sergeant. Just in the same way the pessimist (who is the cosmic anti-patriot) uses the freedom that life allows to her counsellors to lure away the people from her flag. Granted that he states only facts, it is still essential to know what are his emotions, what is his motive. It may be that twelve hundred men in Tottenham are down with smallpox; but we want to know whether this is stated by some great philosopher who wants to curse the gods, or only by some common clergyman who wants to help the men.
Long-winded though he may be, Mr. Chesterton makes a valid point. We walk through this world and life with the choice to love it (as a man might love his wife) and defend it and fight for its betterment. When we stand and face the horrors of the world--and face them we will--we must make a decision. We must take those cold hard facts and either declare with a perverse pleasure that we are doomed, or set our faces like flint toward redemption and get to work. The data won't decide for us: we must make the choice.
With that, I'm off to bed. Hopefully future posts will gravitate toward the...lighter?
All the best,
Lloyd
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