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An emissary of the kingdom approached me, offer in hand:

Full citizenship in the democracy of They

With full, unstinted knowledge of what They say

And continuous initiation in the windy way

Of conformity, (which is their word for Mordor.)

To wit, I would be known throughout the land

As One of Us: a standard bearer in that noble order,

With all the rights and privileges pertaining

Thereunto, with not a shade remaining

Of loneliness, (which is their name for solitude.)

I thanked them kindly, and inquired of them the price

To which they laughingly said there was no hurry.

All payments are delayed, and not to worry.

They said, “Our payment is easy and our cost is light.”

So I in their whimsical fellowship was one,

And deep inside the inner circle came,

For a time, and entered into exclusive fun.

Payment was delayed, but all the same

The bill at length arrived. It was very easy.

An automatic payment option for the lazy,

That would take the payment even in my sleep

And the payment (they said) was nothing I would want to keep.

They only asked to take from me my crazy.

Really, you know, they were doing me a service

And the paperwork was already almost complete

Stack, collated and stapled nice and neat,

Needing only a signature. Don’t be nervous,

The signature is only a formality

To set up automatic withdrawal, and return you to normality.

But I noticed that in all that stack of copious paperwork,

There was no “decline” box for me to check.

Not that I meant to decline, but what the heck?

Did they really think that no one ever would?

Or could?

And gradually that lack began to irk

My mind.

And then it hit me out of a clear blue sky,

I couldn’t do it. The price was far too high.

When they said “Crazy,” what they really meant was “Why?”

Pieces fell in place, and the horizon grew apace

Before the dusky incomprehension of their face

Slack-jawed in bland complacency, like my own.

There were options, dawning like the sun

In blinding profusion.

Before their growing confusion,

Mingled with disgust and nascent hate.

I asked, “Why take their paperwork, when I have an empty slate?

Why crawl when I could even dare to die.”

So I politely told them what I didn’t give,

For their tribute; And went my way and began to live.

Threshhold Life

Do not call me a dead man;
Say, rather, unborn.
Call me not an evil man;
Say only, “Unformed.”
Unformed, embryonic, a teeming mass
Of cells, undifferentiated,
Potential unmapped
Unabated because untapped.
No not evil.
I have committed no crimes.
I am not a devil.
But I am a product of my times.
I have spent my score of years and seven
Waffling about between heaven
And the space inside a zero.
I have built a fortress out of sheer possibility
And I guard its ramparts like the true hero
Of false humility;
Firmly entrenched in the zero space
The liminal space
The nowhere space
Between a thousand “Yeses.”
Not lost;
I know precisely where I stand
Trammeled about by guesses
More educated than most.
 
An acorn is free to roll,
But not free to grow.
No.
For that there is a toll,
And the toll is rootedness
Fixedness
Differentiation in anticipation.
And before that there must be a split
A tearing
A rupture of the skin as from within
Tender green and white things like earthy wings
Must thrust through the crust into the dust
And dirt, in search of fertile ground. It hurts.
And before even that there must be the time
Of lying
And crying,
And dying silently on the forest floor
Half buried under dead leaves.
Pelted by rain and hearing
The snortings of pigs and scurryings of squirrels and fearing
And feeling lost and cold, as the frost takes hold.
All too often only thus is softened
An acorn’s shell.
And it cannot tell
That only thus is it free
To be
Rooted.

A Time for Questions

I haven't posted here in a bit. I was sent out for a while to do training, but the training was rather poorly planned, so there was an abundance of downtime. I finished four books and read a great deal of T. S. Eliot's and Francis Thomson's poetry.

I wasn't too far from a major city, and I might have enjoyed seeing something of the city, but it wouldn't have worked out. I would have had to go into town with the other guys and what they want to do and what I want to do are generally incompatible. I didn't even want to listen to the stories of their evenings out. I didn't want to listen to the jokes, or be a part of the general atmosphere. There was a certain irony in the fact that, because I was the last one to show up, my cot was right in the middle of the big open bay we were all living in. All around the bay were grown men, running around naked or flashing each other, telling stories about the strippers they hit on the night before, sharing home-made porn clips and x-rated music videos, and acting out some truly sick fantasies with a naked blow-up doll someone bought to put in the Captain's sleeping bag as a joke. Right in the very center of the whole mess, there I was, lying on my cot, reading the Divine Office and saying my rosary. And that was my comment on the whole affair.

I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't attack the vice more aggressively. I have come a long way from my early days in the Army, when I rather Quixotically took on every single challenge to the faith, my morals, and good manners with reckless abandon. I eventually learned not to be drawn out by every windmill that crossed my path, and consequently got along better with the other guys. I limited my protests to simply walking away from any conversation that turned vile, and answering any questions I was asked. Earning respect as a soldier also helped. I am stronger, smarter and faster than most of my peers, I shoot among the best, and I look like I know what I'm talking about, so they are more likely to tolerate my morals.

But what would I do if I really cared about them? I would be exhausting every effort to warn them of the eternal damage they are doing to their souls. It isn't so much a question of "Am I going to hell for this?" (I get asked this question pretty often.) The fact is, they are busily constructing hell in their own hearts. I know, I've done it. One way or another, every sin shapes my heart a little more into a hell that I carry around with me wherever I go, until God comes in and restores me.

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I have been in a questioning mood for some time now, a month, month and a half, something like that. Everyone goes through periods in their life when they question everything. Right now I am questioning every choice I have made, every habit I have formed, every idea I have shaped, all my writing and thinking. There is much that I find to be good. There is much that I find to be wrong-headed, or lazy, or cowardly.

The biggest question I cannot seem to get a handle on is: what do I want to do with my life? At 27 you would think I should have this more or less figured out by now, but I really don't. I recently read an article in which Peter Kreeft writes about discernment with his characteristic penetrating insight and common sense, and it squares with an idea I am slowly formulating.

It's a bit comical how Catholics (and in fact, it cuts across all Christian denominations) seem to have made such careers out of "discernment." It is odd. The concept of "vocation" and "discernment" do not seem to have occupied much of the thought of generations before us. From ages in which young people more or less simply did whatever they had the heart, wits and wherewithal to do, to our present age in which what seems like most of the young people I know spend five to ten years of their late teens and early twenties dithering about between vocational discernment retreats and incessant soul-searching for "God's will."

I am beginning to wonder if it is not a tactic of the enemy, in the current phase of the war. I would be interested to see where the concept of "discerning a vocation" came from and how it has evolved over the last 50 years. I suspect it grew out of the need for priests and religious that plagued the Church in the 70's, 80's and on through the present day. Certainly the idea of asking God to make His will known and to give us wisdom and courage to follow His will is a worthy goal, but, as Peter Kreeft points out, it can be taken to a ridiculous extreme.

What could be more ironic than hundreds of thousands of Christian young people, so afraid of missing "God's Will" that they spend the strongest and most energetic years of their lives doing nothing worthwhile except stressing out about their "vocation."

That is probably what the devil would like to see happen, but fortunately a lot of young adults are more sensible than that. They go out and do things, working in the missions, or in ministries or go to college, and so accomplish good things, but there is a sense of transition to the whole business. I notice a sense of "in the meantime," or "This will do to be going on with until I find my real vocation." I am pretty sure I reject the "in the meantime" approach. It has always seemed to me that there is never a moment that doesn't have its good that can be accomplished, and accomplishing it is my vocation. I used to think the larger decisions flowed out of the smaller decisions, but now I am not so sure.

It is impossible to say precisely what I mean. I don't have an answer for the riddle I am proposing myself. I rather think that vocation is a cooperation between the individual and God. God gives us the gifts and talents that He has given us and says, "Abide in me and bear fruit that will last." The precise method He leaves up to us, apart from the occasional special, extraordinary call. Mother Teresa, for instance, had a definite calling. Who knows, perhaps she was able to hear it simply because she had opened herself enough to hear it, and everyone would hear their own call just as clearly if we would only make ourselves as available as she did. Or more likely not, I think. It would seem more in keeping with God's "style" to leave most people in a little bit of uncertainty. "Abide in me and bear fruit that will last," seems to be all most people are given. Since we are given everything we need, I am forced to conclude that most people don't need any more than that.

In the end the only thing I am sure of is that I want to be a Saint. I want to be completely turned over to God, completely abandoned to Him. I think that is the goal of everyone's life, whether they know it or not. The exact shape that it takes is less important.