Deadlift

Crushed my soul today

With three-fifteen times forty.

Useless without love.

The Greatest Compliment Ever Given

Yesterday our Bible study covered the readings for September 23, 2014. The gospel was Luke 8:19-21, a very short but very dense gospel.

The mother of Jesus and his brothers came to him
but were unable to join him because of the crowd.
He was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside
and they wish to see you.”
He said to them in reply, “My mother and my brothers
are those who hear the word of God and act on it.”

Of course, the first question to address was whether Jesus really meant to dis His mother like that. Leaving aside the question of Jesus' "brothers," which is a predictable and necessary issue to address for Catholics, the statement still seems like a terrible thing to say. After His mother walked who knows how many miles to see her Son, who hadn't been in town for a long time and wasn't going to be around for a long time in all likelihood. After all that trouble, He doesn't even take the time to see her or say anything to her. He just keeps on doing what He is doing. The question in Matthew 12:48 is even harsher: "Who is my mother? And who are my brothers?"

But what if you "invert the question" as my brother would say? (He talks theology like it's a slightly more complicated math problem.) Instead of Jesus saying, "Mom? What Mom?" He is inverting the question. "My mother? Do you want to be like her? Listen to the word of God and do it. You are my mother, my brothers, my sister, my family, if you hear the Word of my Father. I am the Word that was in the beginning. Listen to what I say and do as I do, and you are my own. My family."

He is not bringing His mother down, He is raising us up.

But there is more to it. In a way He is also paying Her the greatest compliment that it is possible for

God to pay a human. Take a look at it from her point of view for a second. After not seeing her son for weeks or months, walking for hours, and likely not to see Him again for months more, she is turned away at the door, so to speak. How did she take it? The same way she responded to every other action of God in her life: "Be it done unto me, according to thy will."

Imagine you have a friend or family member, who is so close with you, loves you so much, that you can go over to his house any time you want, day or night. If he isn't home you can open it up with the spare key under the loose brick, help yourself to his food and drink his beer and read his books. When he gets home he is completely thrilled to see you (unless you drink his last beer, my brother points out.)

Or say that I go running with my brother, who is much faster than I am. He isn't going to leave me behind, but he isn't going to take it easy on me either. He is going to run as fast as I can follow, and he is going to expect me to suck up the pain and suffer through it. He expects suffering, he expects courage, he expects me to push myself. 

Or say I ask my wife to keep me on track regarding a habit of sarcasm. She will take me seriously, and she will expect me to take her reminders humbly and with good grace. She will expect me to grow.

Now go back to Jesus and Mary. She wanted to see her Son. Her desire was denied, because He had a mission. Dozens, or even hundreds of people needed Him at that moment, and He desired to give Himself to them. With all the Love in the Eternity of the Godhead, He desired to share Himself with each one of those people. His mother loved Him, so much that she desired for Him what He most desired for Himself. She loved all of those people because He loved them, and willingly sacrificed her desire to see Him. 

This would continue until she stood at the foot of the cross, suffering with her Son, offering Him to the world, to you and I, as the best she has to offer. This was the compliment He offered her, the greatest compliment possible for a good person. I hold, and always will hold, that the greatest compliment you can offer to a good person is to invite them to become better, to become the best they can be.

God offered Mary the opportunity to take part in His work, to accept along with Him the sufferings and self-donation. He offered her the hard road of the cross, as the greatest gift, the greatest compliment it was in His power to give, expecting Her to accept the loss of Him, because He knew that she was given the grace to accept it, and He trusted in her love and faith. Seen like this, this short gospel passage becomes even more beautiful and amazing. 

More amazing still, she invites us to join her in suffering with her Son. 

Mary, Mother of Our Savior, Pray for Us.

Best Christmas Vigil Ever!

Last night (Filipino time) I attended the Christmas Vigil at the Carmelite Monastery in Davao City, Philippines. I had been attending the Simbang Gabi Masses for the previous nine days, minus a few, both there and in other locations around the country, but I was happy to be at this church for the Christmas Eve and Christmas morning Masses. Without a doubt, it was one of the coolest Christmas Vigils I have ever attended.

I arrived about 5 minutes after 8:00, (the Mass started at 8:30). The body of the church was pretty well full, but there were still stacks of chairs that had not been set out yet, so I grabbed one and set myself up at the back, in the portico on the right hand side, where I wouldn't be too much in the way for everyone coming in, but I could still see the altar by leaning a little to my right around the doorway.

Of course that only lasted until all the other seats were taken, all the rest of the space in the portico was filled, and there was a lady standing beside me without a seat. Of course I could not just sit there all comfy and let her stand. I feel certain my Mama would have sensed the disturbance in the force and contrived to find a way to give me The Look! from ten-thousand miles away. I have no idea how she would have done so, and I didn't wait to find out.

So of course I stood up and offered her my seat, and I stepped a few steps back behind the rows of plastic chairs. Unfortunately this also meant that I stepped out from under the arch of the portico ceiling. Wouldn't you know it, it was raining out there! I was able to take some refuge under the umbrella of the gentlemen whose view I blocked when I stood up (I can't help that I am roughly twice the average Filipino's size.) He was kind enough to hold his umbrella over my head the entire rest of the Mass. However, since there were two of us under there, my chest and shoulders somewhat encroached beyond the protective circle, and accordingly got rained on for the entire Mass. There also seemed to be a hole in the umbrella, somewhere in the vicinity of directly over the back of my head. 

The choir, however, was awesome, and the crowds of Filipinos standing in the rain to worship the newborn King was such an incredible experience, I not only did not care, I felt like spontaneously enacting a remix of Gene Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain" routine, combined Piano Guys' style with "Angels We Have Heard on High."

Sometimes when I am sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, working at school, or a blog, or some other VERY IMPORTANT PROJECT!!!!! my fiancee' will come up behind me and kiss the top of my head, and I know that she wants me to pause what I am doing and look up into her face and see her for a second. Good things happen then.

The rain on my head is something like that. God wants me to pause and look up and see Him for a second, so that good things can happen.

Perhaps that is why He is taking all the hair off the top of my head, so that I can feel His touch more readily.

Blessed Be He!
Merry Christmas All!

Deep Roots

"As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you." 1 Peter 1:10-12a

"Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Matthew 11:11

"Ryan, you do realize that you can't impress God, right?" Fr. Matthew Pawlikowski, LTC(Ch) U. S. Army 

Ever since I was a kid I dreamed of doing great things. My head was filled with stories of knights in armor, kings, saints, explorers, sages, writers. I have always dreamed of leaving my mark on the world, hopefully for the better. I did not want to be average. I wanted my name to be known and to influence the lives of hundreds of people, or thousands. These dreams have taken a multitude of shapes and have led me to do extraordinary things. They led me to sacrifice a decade of my life to the military with ruthless single-mindedness. The caused me to spend my life trying to build myself up into a warrior and a scholar, in the hopes that when the opportunity came, I would be ready to step up to the plate. 

These dreams all have one thing in common. None of them have come true. I find myself in the odd position of having spent my life thus far chasing the means, and being (it seems) no closer to the ends than I ever was. The means fail to satisfy, as they inevitably must, and I, like everyone from time to time, am left with a feeling that I am wasting my life and my gifts. 

At times like this, you need someone who loves you, because she (assuming that it is in fact a she, although a he could do it in a pinch, though not in the same way) will see you more clearly than you can see yourself. If she is close to God, she will be able to give you just a tiny glimpse of how God sees you also, which is the only point of view that really matters in the end.

She will point out that no life is wasted that is lived with love; that ultimately it is up to God to put a value on your life, not you; and that simply because you cannot see the fruit of your actions, that does not mean that they are not or will not bear fruit. 

She will remind you of the great cathedrals, like Notre Dame, which took ninety years to build from 1160-1250, and even when the main construction was finished in 1250, remodeling and other building processes on smaller elements continued for almost another hundred years. The men who broke their backs and spent the the strength of their youth laying the foundations of this magnificent act of worship, never saw its completion. They were long since dead, having left behind a solid base to build upon and strong sons to build upon it. They left millions of tons of rock in the ground, and the Rock of faith in the hearts of the next generation. Even that generation would not live long to enjoy the completed cathedral. Ninety years is a long time. Three generations of men could put in thirty good years of labor on that one building before any of them would see it completed. Did the old gaffer who spent his entire life putting tons of anonymous gravel into an oddly shaped pit by hand, waste that life?

I took a trip to about a year ago to give a talk at John Paul the Great Academy in Lafeyette, LA. The school is housed in an old monastery that the school purchased in a miracle $10,000,000.00 fund raising campaign last summer. The grounds and building are beautiful, old, immaculately kept by volunteers without pay, the perfect venue for a classical Catholic education. The school was established by local Catholic families who simply wanted an alternative to the larger and more expensive parochial schools, or the public schools. They put a lot of time and effort into making this school a thriving organization. It is not an exaggeration to say that they offered up their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor," to providing a worthy education for their children.

One of the things that most struck me about the school grounds, one of its most amazing features, are the trees. (Just so you know, I love trees!) The grounds of JPG Academy are full of gorgeous old oak trees, all well over a hundred years old.

This one was my favorite!

 
The trees are a great metaphor for the school itself, especially the trees that line the front drive. They were originally planted back at the turn of the century, and then ten or twelve years later dug up and moved again to make the lane wider to accommodate automobiles. Now, over a hundred years later, they shade the drive up from the road to the school building. The contrast is unreal. You turn off of a fairly busy country highway, which was baking in the August Louisiana sunshine when I was there, and find yourself in a long, quiet, cool, peaceful tunnel. The tunnel leads you gently away from the noise of traffic and the heat of the exposed highway into the school grounds, and the great old stone building, and the shade of ancient trees, and the sounds of children's laughter. 

Some man saw all of that, or perhaps only part of it (he probably did not foresee it being a school) and he designed and commissioned the driveway. He chose trees of good stock and set their roots in good soil. His successors tended those trees, as just one of their many responsibilities, keeping the Spanish moth and diseases in check, weeding around them, keeping the lawns, maintaining the pavement, cutting back the ivy when it showed up. They did not see the drive as I saw it.

And I did not see it as God sees it. But God does, and that is all that matters.

Greatness is worth striving for, as is renown and influence and changing the world. All of these are good to aspire to, mostly so that you will learn faster that they are illusions, and the only greatness that matters is the greatness of doing God's will, doing the work that He gives you to do, and doing it well, forgetting about yourself and your own glory and simply looking at Him.

He is all that matters.

Smouldering Wick

I love you, my friend, cracks and all, but still

I cannot love the sin that saps your soul.

I hate it with a perfect hate. My will

Engages in the hate, the selfsame goal

That drives my love, drives that hate. The whole

Of my being loves you, for Love must fill

My entire being. We cannot mete and dole

His essence out in coffee spoons. We kill

Love’s fierce vitality, enslaved by shame’s control.

Blind fool that I am, ignoring the bruised reeds,

If I drive my righteous rota-tiller across your soul,

How will I not exterminate what I most love?

Even angelic wisdom cannot take the weeds

Without destroying the wheat, ‘til the final roll

Is called, and all is sorted out above.

Transparent Mask

I see my friends when I love them. Love is not blind,

It hides nothing. I see them warts and all.

Even at my most besotted my wakeful mind

Sees and notes with eyes undimmed. My call

Is not to help you hide or build your wall

But to see and love what you most fear I’ll find.

I will not pretend. I will see unafraid. The fall

Denies perfection. May as well be resigned

To scraggly teeth and extra pounds, why try

To be a false ideal? You mock your own face

And silly quirks, far worse than I could ever do.

All my friends have cracks, and so do I,

And yet we muddle on by Love’s own grace.

Hide your cracks? I love them! They are you.

Into the Desert

I posted this a few months ago, but the first reading from today for the feast of St. Cecilia brought it back to my mind, so I am reposting it.

Into the Desert

At last we go into the desert, my bride.

The moment is here, this moment, no time to waste.

Long you’ve run, and longer still I’ve chased

And now at last you’ve nowhere left to hide.

What do you have to lose? Unsatisfied

By strange, enticing lovers in whom you’ve placed

The trust you promised to me. Your heart, unchaste,

Is finally vomiting the poisons that you’ve tried.

So come and water the wilderness with your tears.

Leave your Assyrian lovers and drugs of choice

And over the noise let vast, dry silence fall.

In silence, without the Iphone, face your fears

This desert is not your home. I AM. My voice

Created you in a garden, after all.

Thoughts for the Men

"It’s been more than ten years since I first noticed something odd about the generally pleasant—and generally Catholic—students at the college where I teach. The boys and girls don’t hold hands.

 

Let that serve as shorthand for the absence of all those rites of attraction and conversation, flirting and courting, that used to be passed along from one youthful generation to the next, just as childhood games were once passed along, but are so no longer. The boys and girls don’t hold hands.

 

I am aware of the many attempts by responsible Catholic priests and laymen to win the souls of young people, to keep them in the Church, and indeed to make some of them into attractive ambassadors for the Church. I approve of them heartily. Yes, we need those frank discussions about contraception. We need theological lectures to counter the regnant nihilism of the schools and the mass media. But we need something else too, something more human and more fundamental. We need desperately to reintroduce young men and young women to the delightfulness of the opposite sex. Just as boys after fifteen years of being hustled from institutional pillar to institutional post no longer know how to make up their own games outdoors, just as girls after fifteen years of the same no longer know how to organize a dance or a social, so now our young people not only refrain from dating and courting—they do not know how to do it. It isn’t happening. Look at the hands."

I saw this link in my blogroll today at Seraphic Singles. I must say I find it fascinating, and a bit incriminating. While I cannot agree that being single is necessarily bad, as long as it is purposeful and not simply due to laziness or fear, there is no denying that this article does point out a real problem. Young Catholics are not getting married young, they are waiting until they get older and desperate. (Not to put it too unkindly for those of my readers who may find themselves in the older-than-they-hoped-they-would-be-and-still-unmarried crowd.)

As a member of the generation that the article speaks about I can say that the causes are many and varied. On one end of the spectrum there are the homeschoolers who were forbidden to date ever!!!! until they were ready to get married, in the hope that this would forestall the problems their parents ran into in regards to dating and the threats to chastity. "Dating was nothing but temptation for me and everyone is doing it wrong, so we'll just cut it all out entirely and that will solve the problem." Done out of love and a sincere desire to protect the youth, but often misguided in the application. On the other end of the spectrum are the Catholic young people who have gotten so sucked into the dating game that they either cannot conceive of a permanent relationship, or got so well and truly burned that they cannot trust anyone. And these are just the three options that come to mind off the top of my head, to say nothing of the effects of social media, pornography, entertainment addiction, perpertual boy/men and a whole host of other possible factors.

Whatever the causes may be, (and well worthy of pondering), the immediate fact is clear, that there is a problem and it needs to be fixed. I would go further and say that the initial impetus for solving that problem must come from the men, the side that it is least likely to come from. Pointing fingers is all very well, you know, but why point out a problem if you don't have a solution? Or aren't at least willing to work towards finding one? So my point in this post is purely practical. I am interested in answering one question and one question only: what am I (me, Ryan Kraeger) going to do about it?

I don't speak about my love-life (as it is called) on this blog. It isn't really a concern to my readers, except the few who know me in real life, and it's a bit personal. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of my history has been the result of deliberate and intentional choices. Whether those choices were wise or foolish is another question entirely, one I ask myself every day, but I have (thus far) done what I thought was right. On the other hand reading this article reinforces a feeling that I might well be part of the problem, or at least not a part of the solution.

So it is a quandrary, something I must think about, and sooner or later do something about as well. This is the first thing I am doing.

I am well aware that most of my readers (at least the commenting ones) are women, and this blog is really not addressed to you. I don't much care if you read it, but it is really for the men. You see, when I read the article above my biggest reaction was a feeling of responsibility. There is a problem, and we men are the ones who need to start the process of fixing it. I ask that you single men think about it and pray about it. I plan on sharing it with the men in my Bible Study group and discussing it with any of them who want to talk about it.

I don't think a movement is called for. I certainly don't think that what we need is a bunch of Catholic guys making a pact to go out and find steady, marriage-able girlfriends by this time next week. We don't need a club, we don't need a pledge or any nonsense like that. I think what each man needs to do is think about it and examine himself. If I am single I should be thinking about why I am single. Is it because I have a purpose best served by singleness? Is that purpose worthy of the sacrifice? Is it a sacrifice at all? Or is that purpose merely an excuse? Am I simply afraid? And if afraid, afraid of what? Or whom? Or am I simply lazy, just drifting along, not willing to put in the work, not willing to fight for a relationship?

Think and pray. But thinking and praying are not enough. If we think long enough and honestly enough, and if our prayer is listening and not merely talking incessantly, I think most of will find a call to action.


Oh, and I just thought of something to say to any women who might still be reading this:
It takes two to tango.

Through the Gate

“Truly, Truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way, that man is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.” John 10:1-3

This passage has been on my mind since Saturday afternoon. I read it after confession on Saturday, again at Mass on Sunday, and again at Bible study last night. I didn’t really start forming any opinions about it until last night. I was trying simply to listen to it (the actual passage I had read was much longer, going all the way to verse 18.) After listening to all the points of view at Bible study last night I am full of amazement at this passage. It is so deep, so rich, so multi-layered. On the most obvious level there is the message that Jesus was conveying directly to the Pharisees and elders of a synagogue (see chapter 9). He was calling upon the rich religious and covenantal significance of the word “shepherd” and the image of the people of Israel as God’s chosen flock. He was tying together three themes from the Old Testament:

1)    God as the Shepherd of His people, (example Genesis 49:24, Psalm 23:1, Psalm 80:1, Ezekiel 34:11-15)

2)    The priests and prophets as the shepherds of Israel, (example Jeremiah 23)

3)    The ruler (especially David) as the shepherd of Israel, (example 2 Sam 5:2, 7:7, Psalm 78:71)

Jesus draws all of these themes together and unites them in Himself, casting his pharisaic listeners as the false shepherds of Israel declaimed by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and Himself as the Good Shepherd foretold by Ezekiel and Micah (Micah 5:2-4).

Jesus is never simple, though. If it were simply a message meant strictly for his immediate hearers it would never have been recorded since, presumably, the Pharisees never read the New Testament. It was recorded for our sake and so Jesus spoke with me and my friends specifically in mind. It is also a parable about the Church. We are the sheep, He is the good Shepherd who calls each of us by name. The sheepfold is the Church, but it is also the kingdom of Heaven. Any attempt to force our way into Heaven on our own merits is doomed to failure. Worse, we are thieves and liars if we try it. We are no different from Adam and Eve, reaching out to grasp and take what has not been freely offered. We must go in and out through the gate.

The idea of the gate, though, has been turning over and over in my head since last night. Some people might consider a gate a symbol of enclosing and limiting, but it isn’t. It is an image of freedom, specifically the only true path to freedom. It is a symbol of consent. When Jesus speaks those words about entering by the door and calling His own by name, the most powerful association in my mind is with the Song of Songs.

“You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates
with choice fruits,
with henna and nard,
nard and saffron,
calamus and cinnamon,
with every kind of incense tree,
with myrrh and aloes
and all the finest spices.
You are a garden fountain,
a well of flowing water
streaming down from Lebanon. Song of Songs 4:12-15

These are the words of the bridegroom, who is variously either a human lover of a human woman, or Jesus, the lover of souls. Throughout the Song both interpretations are ever present, and in fact, inextricably united. One does not exist without the other. But for now let this be the voice of Jesus, calling His own by name.

She responds:

Awake, north wind,
and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
that its fragrance may spread everywhere.
Let my beloved come into his garden
and taste its choice fruits. Song of Songs 4:16

And again He speaks:

I come to my garden, My sister, My bride,
I gather my myrrh with my spice,
I eat my honeycomb with my honey,
I drink my wine with my milk. Song of Songs 5:1

No matter how many times I read through the Song of Songs it never ceases to amaze me. Amaze is the wrong word. It never ceases to captivate me.

This is the most amazing thing about our God. The image of the sealed and locked fountain (whether the soul that Jesus longs to enter or the heart of the woman the man in the poem loves) is an image of something that is unattainable; something that, no matter how hard you try, can never simply be achieved. I can achieve many things by my own efforts. I can learn a language, or a martial art, or a recipe. If I wanted to I could earn a million dollars, or save up to own a Ferrari, or a cabin in the woods, or a mansion by the sea. What I can never do, however, is achieve love. I can never compel someone to love me. I can only ask permission. It will be either given or not. If it is not free it is not love. If it is truly love that I want then that freedom is the only possible condition for it to exist.

This should not be surprising for me, a mere human, but for God? God is the creator of the universe, of All That Is! How is there anything that He cannot achieve simply by willing it? And yet, there is. In His love He has created something that is forever beyond the reach of even His power: the human heart. He cannot force entry into it. He cannot climb the fence, for that would destroy the very thing that He longs for, which is love. Love, by its very nature exists only when it is given freely. Unfree love is simply a no-thing, a thing which is not. So He does not force entry, or climb the walls, or dig under the fence. He stands outside and calls. And we answer. Or not.

“I slept, but my heart was waking.
Hark! My Beloved is knocking.
‘Open to me, my sister, my love,
My dove, my perfect one.” Song of Songs 5:2.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Revelations 3:20

There is so much more here, but this blog is already too long.

What I mean by Knighthood

There are some who complain about the emphasis on "chivalry" in the Church, seeing at as a mechanism for women to abuse men, and a smokescreen for men to use women. Some would even say that many men espouse knighthood as nothing more than a cover for objectification. I disagree. I would say that finding a man who espouses true old-fashioned knighthood is very rare indeed, if only for the general lack of martial ability. Martial prowess, or at least the lifelong pursuit of martial prowess, was an essential element of that knighthood (as opposed to modern knighthood which has nothing martial about it.) So a modern day knight, in order to follow the old code, ought at least to train in a martial art and be proficient with a gun. This is one of the problems with the modern shadowy "knighthood" that everyone talks about incessently, is that it is incomplete. They emphasize only the soft, gentle, velvet side of the fully masculine character of the knight. So we have men who endlessly preach the "warrior poet" ideal, who couldn't throw a decent punch to save their lives (or anyone else's life for that matter.) And even that basic ability is a far cry from the simple definition of a warrior, which is one who studies the arts of war and uses them.

So when I say that I pursue the concept of knighthood in a modern world, I mean that I literally practice the art of killing other human beings. I literally meditate on my own death and prepare for it on a daily basis. I actually pursue an elite physical fitness, coupled with martial arts training, and all the other arts of modern combat. I study and meditate on Just War doctrine, and the Theology of the Body, and various forms of pacifism and constantly refine my moral code which determines where, and when, and how I can justly kill. It has cost me a decade of my adult life to pursue this ideal, and it is still the underlying principle of everything I do. This is what I mean by knighthood; not that I have attained it, but that I pursue it every day, and most especially that it is not some vague collection of moral platitudes couples with archaic civil niceties. It requires the pursuit of real skills. When I say that I pursue knighthood, I mean that I can literally snap a man's neck with my bare hands, and I can literally rock a baby to sleep with those same hands. So if being civil and making a steady paycheck are all you've ever heard of "chivalry" then All you've ever heard is a waste of breath. Holding a door for a lady is meaningless if that is the extent of a man's chivalry. Valentine's day is bosh, if you don't have a soul of steel.

I think this is why I never really see eye to eye with many bloggers on the question of chivalry. To me it is a way of life, a virtue encompassing the pursuit of all virtues. It is a balance of extremes; the measured, committed, unswerving development of excellence in both extremes of masculinity. I pursue it for it's own sake, and for the sake of God, who calls me to it, and I don't much care whether any woman alive approves or disapproves. I accept and appreciate the support and encouragement of women who pursue their own femininity with the same dedication, but I don't give the naysayers a second thought. Truth be told, while most women approve the ideal on paper, in my experience, most are at least a little frightened by it in real life. Especially if they are not pursuing their own calling with the same determination, they are sometimes even totally put off. you see knighthood, when pursued in its entirety, makes you totally other. It makes you something that is not in any way more like a woman, but something that is unmistakeably and unflinchingly other. It doesn't take long for most women to get past the initial approval and realize that this ideal might just be more than they bargained for. It might get their man killed someday. It will certainly make him inaccessible on some level. In some ways he will always be beyond her influence. It means while she will always have his devotion and his love, she can never have all of his heart. In a word, he is "Not a Tame Lion." Loving a man like this requires a strength of femininity unlike any other for she will certainly have to die many times over in the course of their life together.

This kind of knighthood is my ideal. I take it very seriously indeed, having devoted my entire life thus far to the pursuit of that ideal. This might explain why sometimes all the angst over the place of "chivalry" in the Christian blogosphere seems like much ado about nothing to me.

The Dutchman's Wife

Margaret awoke while it was still dark. Hans had coughed, and his wheezing breaths had paused, then stopped for too long and it had awakened her. He was breathing again now, and she allowed herself to relax. It wouldn't be long now, she knew. He could not hang on much longer, and it was better so. She reminded herself vehemently that it was better so, and looked over at the clock. Her vision was not what it once had been, but she could just make out by the light of the embers on the hearth that both hands were pointing nearly straight down and just a little to the left of the six. It was about six-thirty. She sighed and slowly eased her old feet onto the floor, finding her old worn slippers. Then she knelt painfully for her morning prayers, letting Hans sleep as she always did these days. There was work to be done and no one to help her with it so she prayed quickly, sure that the Lord would understand. The chickens needed to be let out into the yard and fed, the eggs needed to be gathered, the fire needed to be built up both on the hearth and in the stove, the dog, an ancient German shepherd named Fala, needed to be shooed up from her bed in front of the hearth and sent outdoors. By the time Margaret had breakfast heating on the stove the sun was up and she could see the mills swirling through the frosty air in the distance, on the other side of the canals. If it warmed up enough they would walk along the river for awhile, if he felt strong enough.


Hans was awake, sitting on the edge of the bed, his thinning, tousled hair looking like straw in the shafts of sunlight from the barred window. His eyes were curious today. He didn't know where he was, or who he was. In some ways that was better. On the days that his mind was blank he was easier to deal with, more pliant. Other times, when he fancied he was a little boy again he ran everywhere as fast as his old limbs would take him and she could never keep up. The few and far between times when he knew things were the most painful. Then he would reproach himself and beg her pardon for being such a burden all these years. Today he was a blank slate. Perhaps she would teach him his alphabet, later. For now she had to feed and bathe and dress him.

He liked the food today, sometimes he didn't. The eggs and biscuits were warm and done perfectly, she still cooked as well as she ever had. He didn't want to bathe at first, until she convinced him, mostly by signs and gestures and the reassuring tone of her voice, that the water was warm and nice and wouldn't hurt him. Then she dressed him like a large baby in his old, old shirt and overalls, and the wooden shoes that no one ever wore anymore. She dressed him just like the children that they had never had, and in many ways he was very much her child. The innocence and trust of an infant looked out from his china blue eyes, or sometimes the petulance and weepiness of a two-year old, or the playfulness of a schoolboy.

"Aunty Lars," he said, suddenly.

She started. He was a child again, and in this particular fantasy he thought she was his long dead aunt. "Yes, Hans," she answered.

"Aunty, Captain Decker comes by today."

"Of course he does my love," she said. His eyes were the eyes of a little child, out of place in his gray stubbly face. There were only a few days in the month in which she could shave him without danger of him moving suddenly and cutting himself. He rocked back and forth and bounced a little, a potbelly he had never had as a boy jiggling as he did so.

"Can we go see him, Aunt? I want to wave him by."

"It is cold out today Hans," she said.

He laughed. "Silly Aunt, it is summer. See the tulips," he waved towards the window with a withered hand, blue splotches showing through the transparent skin.

"No dearest, that is snow."

"Yes Aunty, but the tulips are under the snow, of course."

"Asleep?" she asked.

"No Aunty. Tulips only sleep during the night. Don't you remember when you took me out into the garden at night and we watched the tulips go to sleep. But in the winter time they are awake beneath the snow."

"Maybe they are my love, maybe they are. But it is still cold out."

"I'll wear my muffler Aunt, and I will stay warm. Please let me go out and watch the boats."

She sighed. It was still cold out and would be until the afternoon, but he would not be kept indoors until then. She nodded and got his cap and coat off the pegs on the wall. He tried to put them on, as she wrapped up some cold biscuits and cheese for their lunch, but he couldn't remember what to do with the buttons. She buttoned them for him and let him carry the lunch because he begged her to. And they stepped out, a bent old man trying to run ahead of a gray haired old woman, she holding him by the hand and telling him to stay close. They walked across the fields, still covered with snow in some places, despite the warm April rain of the days before. The canals lay on the other side, and beyond them the Zuider Zee, and at the end of that, the dikes and the harbor, the ocean with all the ships that he used to build. A flat bottomed river boat drifted by, and Hans called out to them and waved. "Captain Decker, Captain Decker, it's me, Hans." The man in the striped shirt stared and then tried to pretend he couldn't hear. Hans continued to call, disappointment in his voice. He broke his hand out of Margaret's and tried to run after the boat for a few feet until he came up short of breath and had to stop, bent over and gasping. He cried and Margaret held him and told him it was all right, but he soon forgot all about it. A patch of tulip buds, breaking out through the snow caught his eye.

"Look, Sis, tulips. I'll pick some for you, pretty Betty." She was his older sister now and he scampered off to pull the tulips up by the roots and bring them back to her. He insisted on putting them in her hair and teased her about beaux that she never knew. They meandered down the banks of the canals into the village. Margaret pulled the tulip stalks out of her hair before they went in, but he didn't notice. He liked the town, it was so alive. He ran between the stalls in the busy market, calling merry greetings to long dead friends he fancied he saw. Most of the people were regulars, and they knew him and greeted him back. Hans begged Margaret to buy some ginger that she might make some ginger snaps, and she did, knowing that Alice, the pretty young girl who watched the stall, would let her give the ginger back as soon as Hans forgot about it, which he did in less than a minute.

He moved down by the shipyards, and she followed. She tried to turn him back, but for once he would not let her change his mind, though the day's outing was becoming longer and longer and very soon it would be too late for them to get back before dark. He would not listen, he wanted to go down to the shipyards. She remembered long ago, when he was a young man. She had first met him on her way home as she walked past the docks. Some sailors on shore leave had jeered and catcalled as she went by, and she had blushed bright red at their words, too frightened and embarrassed to do anything but put her head down and walk past, trembling and not daring to look right or left. And then, suddenly, a young man with broad shoulders and thick, calloused hands had stepped out from an alley and was walking beside her. He did not say a word to the group of jeering men, he just looked at them with his blue, blue eyes as cold as ice, and his hands clenched into fists. He had been a very tall man then, well over six feet and immensely strong from his work in the shipyards. The sailors shut their mouths and looked away. After that she had never walked home alone. He was always waiting for her at the end of the street, and he always walked with her, at least part of the way home. And she loved him for it.

Now he stared out into the dry docks, where men were building ships unfamiliar to him, new ships without sails that burned coal and put out a dreadful smoke. He didn't speak, but looked very hard as if he was trying to remember, but whatever thoughts and distant dreams that were dancing in his head, they faded and eluded him. She could almost see them like wisps of smoke curling away from his groping mind.

But perhaps they were not gone entirely. He took her hand in his and squeezed it with all his feeble strength and said. "Come on, little Meg, I'll walk you home. No one shall harm you while I'm around."

"I know they won't, Hans. I feel safe with you." She had always used to say that, as she leaned her head against his shoulder, and it had always made him beam with pride and happiness. It still did.

"You are safe with me, Meg. Pray God I am always around to keep you so." He walked with shuffling steps the length of the dock, going still further from the way home, following the streets that they had traveled so many times in their youth. He forgot his fancy before they made it to her father's old house, and they were now walking through narrow, deserted streets. He seemed no longer able to feel her hand in his and he began to tremble with fear. He hated to be alone. It was the worst when he got lost in his own mind, no longer able to see, hear or feel her. He called out to her, "Margaret, Margaret." He didn't hear her answer and kept calling, "Where are you Margaret?" There was nothing she could do but put her arms around him and hold him until the fit passed. Sure enough, he suddenly forgot about it as if it had never been, the evil of loneliness swallowed up in the childlike purity of his withered mind, like a drop of poison dripped into the ocean. Gone, erased from his memory.

Time went on, as they continued to walk, and afternoon found them on the dikes overlooking the sea. The sunsets they had watched from there, the starry skies, the moonrises. She dared not stay long enough to watch another one, and at last he was getting tired, and allowed her to turn him homewards. It was a long walk, but she was not worried. It would do him good, he would sleep well tonight with no pesky dreams to disturb his slumber, and the memories that flooded over her were very strong, very beautiful. It would not hurt to take some time to turn them over in her mind, to thank God for them. She had long ago learned to live without bitterness, not like the first few years of loneliness after the terrible war had taken its toll on his mind and body. She had often thought it would have been easier to be a widow, rather than losing him while he was still alive. It had been especially hard when she was younger, for his mind had gone long before her beauty had faded into its present comfortable grayness. She had learned since then, painfully over long years, but she had learned. Now she lived to care for her husband and her love for him was so strong that he seemed to be more a part of her than a separate person. When it was time for him to go, she would feel the loss terribly, as if she had lost her right arm and right leg, but it was not time to think about that yet. The day had warmed up beautifully, and he took off his jacket and made a show of flexing his arms, fancying they still had the muscle of his younger days. She wasn't sure where his mind was then, but it didn't last long and then he was quiet again as they walked home together through the fields, following along the wagon trails. They still had a mile to go as the sun set blazing behind the windmills, washing the sky in red and orange, purple streaked with pink and bordered by the deepest of deep blues, rapidly fading to a satin black. There was one bright star with the temerity to shine out while the sun was still over the horizon as if impatient to start the night's festivities. It was alone at first, but as the sun sank and surrendered more and more of the sky the one star was joined first by a few, then a dozen of its stronger brothers and sisters, and then by hundreds more, and finally, all at once, a million of the smallest and youngest in the family appeared, twinkling diamond bright in the black. Sometimes he used to say the stars had voices and they sang, like a choir of very high, sharp chimes, voices that no human could ever understand, but with a beauty that would kill anyone who once heard it, or break their heart and drive them mad. She looked into his eyes, small dark circles with an entire galaxy mirrored in them, and she believed him.

When they reached their door, the wind was just picking up with a little hint of frost, reminding her that it was not yet May. He was in a quiet, melancholy mood, and she left him to sit quietly as she hastily did the chores and warmed up the leftover breakfast. She made him some tea, with a drop of whiskey and they ate quietly, and he sat still and listened to her as she said her evening prayers.

As she said "Amen" she heard his voice whisper, "Margaret?"

Her heart beat fast, and she met his eyes, realizing that he was having one of his rare moments of clarity. "Hans?"

"Thank-you, Margaret," he said, his voice trembling with age, but his eyes clear and steady. "I love you.”

"I love you," she said, but the moment was gone. His eyes were vacant again.

She began to hum through her tears as she dressed him for bed and rolled the covers back. It was an old song, one that had been popular when she was a little girl, but he recognized it as she tucked him in, and he hummed it with her, until his eyelids drooped, and he fell asleep. Margaret brushed two gray hairs away from his forehead, and then with a sigh, she leaned over and softly blew the candle out.



Written by Ryan Kraeger, June 2007: inspired by the 1968 song “The Dutchman” by Michael Peter Smith.