So… Ever Ride with The Searchers?

For a while John Ford’s “The Searchers” was rated THE top flick of all time. Subsequent to my viewing… “Oh he’s watching it, now?”… the shocked critics have of course recanted of the whole cowboy thing, or substituted “Broke Whatever…” as their token nod to the impact of “The West” on Hollywood, and thereby on America and American culture.

“Any you folks seen my keys?”

Me? Well, I never became the cowboy/pilot/astronaut/war hero I thought I would. Never even got on a horse or anything remotely similar. Just got married, went to work, raised a couple of kids and got put out to pasture. “Chewing cud seems to suit ‘em, huh?” So my view of “The West” is something of a nostalgic memory of what might have been… which is also something of what’s in the story.  And for me at least, the “pull” is still strong, and the theme… still touches everyday life as I see it… only I’m not looking for “Debbie” (Natalie Wood), but much more mundane stuff. Yet I never miss a chance to stand in a door-way with my arm clasped in the film’s signature visual quote.  It just seems sort of peaceful like.

Like the other night.

There they were. Sitting ’round the old hearth. I wander in. And there’s this news that the car keys have gone missing… again. Back in the day, we had a solution for this kind of rustlin’. Now of course, it wouldn’t be fashionable… so we don’t. Only we still got go out and git ‘em from time to time. Guess… an’ beggin’ your pardon for puttin’ myself forward and such…it’s what I’m here for:  Findin’ things. It’s kind of what I’m good at.

That’s of course because of my other purpose in life: Losing things… so I can find them… only to return them… to their earlier state. That’s the state of things that are lost… or at least not found. And that’s ’cause no one even knows they’re missing yet. But they are. And that creates a whole sort of an interim state…y’know… in-between. Like a purgatory for things you’re gonna need sometime soon, but you don’t need right now. So you put them away for that other time, but because the whole is a mess from an altogether different time… where the eternal leaks into the zone of the “now”… your brain is caught in-between instead. And you think about here, but your hand stretches out into the other zone, and puts them down there. It’s as if your mind and your hand are in two realities. It’s confusing, but because you’re walking around as if dead to what you’re doing… you’re not even aware you’re confused. But you are.  So this focus on whatever can’t be found now creates the opportunity for whatever won’t be found next. And it grabs the opportunity… even as your hand puts it down.

Anyone seen my aspirin? And what’d I do with that glass of water… that was right over… here? Oh there it is. Thanks.

Okay. I’m better. Now where were we? Right…  So there I am again… wherever we were when we began this thing. Oh yeah. Sitting at the table. And then they wander in: A couple of the toughest hombres West of the Pecos. ‘Course that’d be my Keys, my Wallet, my Glasses… even that book I was reading that was supposed to be under the bed… only it’s not. And all four look like they just came off the dustiest trail any unshaved, unwashed cowpoke ever walked…’cause he couldn’t find his horse. But as they saunter over, unholstering their six shooters an’ chewin’ on their Marlboro’s (’cause they couldn’t find a match between the four of them) ,  the Keys turn to Wallet and says:

“Think we can take him?”

“I don’t know. I hear he’s pretty fast…”

“Maybe if we get ‘im to move outside…”

“Yeah… you distract him… while I creep up real slow like…”

In the end, these things always seem to turn out the same way, don’t they? Over and over…. every search goes on and on and on… and then only when you’re NOT looking for something… or you’re looking for something else… can you actually find the thing you’re looking for. You put yourself in the right place, and in the right mode… and then you distract yourself from the way you think you’re going to find what you think you’re looking for… and it turns up… because you’ve distracted yourself to focus on searching as if  for the next of kin… if you will.  And there it is… the first thing… your heart’s desire. And it turns up not because you found it, but because you finally slowed down, and allowed its presence to be made known… as if it had been in plain sight all along… for it was. And now your “relaxed” view sees what your over-stressed, over-eager mind earlier could not. And so, as with everything else, I can’t help but wonder whether looking for Christ runs this way as well.

Zizioulas on the Epicletical Apocalypse

Let me admit at the outset to a bit of mystification with the Apocalypse. This is not just with part of it, but with the whole. I’ve much appreciation for the Orthodox premise that the book is really a model of worship, but like so much, it’s not just an allegory and surely there is a more literal meaning more consistent with the text that is at the same time loving rather than the common distorted condemnation of one’s troubles and unruly demons.  As they say: “Maybe, and maybe not”. But we’re not going there here.

And we’re not going there because my own confusion and caution on this book dates at least as far back as high school when I started an attempt to unpack the vision in a painting that remains judiciously unfinished. I may still have the sketches of the scene around the seated elders folded up with stuff in the attic, but it was good to stop. And stopping, if I’m honest, reflected as much as my limited drawing skills as the confusion of the subject matter for a guy whose exposure at the time was limited to the late-20th century Anglican church. For even in Anglican cathedrals, worship is nevertheless inadequate to illumine an understanding of the liturgy and its accoutrements much less it’s unfolding. In the text, there’s this going on, then this…. no that. And maybe it’s all going on at the same time, but how do you draw this? And where do you find a model to follow if you haven’t even had art history? Ah, that’s where a shortage of humility came in handy to starting out anyway… that heady point where desire overwhelms common sense. Perhaps I was literally saved by the bell….the end of the school year.

So Zizioulas’s thought makes it easier to see the Apocalypse as simply the consecration of the world, and this offers a view that synthesizes both the literal text and the concept of the text as an account of worship by holding it as a eucharistic ending (or offering) of the whole.  Most folks probably are way ahead of me on this, but if you’re like me these days, and studiously putting off re-reading it, maybe this is a good enough point of departure, or at least something useful and worth more pondering – or alternatively worth a “duh” in the comment box:

“The ecclesiological significance of this can be illustrated by the ideas of the book of the Apocalypse, in which the Church lives in an intense epicletic atmosphere containing a syntheseis of two elements: on the one hand, the assurance of Christ’s presence on the eucharistic table and, on the other, the Church’s cry: “Come Lord, come.” When the Church lives epicletically, she cannot but long for what she already is. The synthesis of the historical with the eschatologocial in the epicletical conditioning of history constitutes what we may properly – and not in the distorted sense – call the sacramental nature of the Church.”

Okay… honestly it’s not looking as clear here as I thought it did the other night… but it sure seems like it was suggested somewhere. Then again, maybe that’s my Thickheaded brain misfiring.

Otherwise Engaged

These days, there’s no doubt I am Otherwise Engaged. There’s blogging, and there’s real life. Blogging to me is less about following every thread, documenting every twit, or whatever some prefer to do, and more of an effort to keep track of what’s happening in the ol’ noggin’ and on occasion, making an effort here to sort out the wheat from the chaff in an incoherent way. I’d struggle for a coherent strategy, but that’s above my pay grade, so we go with what we’ve got.  Perhaps you’ve noticed that in my case, the sorting finds a lot of chaff.

So taking these things as if from the top of the do-list:

First there’s “The  Good” – the Top Rung:

The good news is that Sunday, the one-and-only and I passed the 29-year mark. So that’s 4 times the seven-year itch plus one… and still not scratching. Not even itchy. And if you know me… you know that’s saying something. Adding in the “extra” of the pre-quell years in our “five-year (longest ever) relationship” walking around with the dinosaurs, that means it’s been 34 years of dating only one person…the same person… like it’s supposed to be. Call it keepin’ it simple, stayin’ happy, and stayin’ alive…. but without a BeeGee voice anywhere… and that’s a very, very good thing.

Okay… next there’s The Middle Rung:

Lately I’ve been reading John D. Zizioulas’s “Being as Communion”. It’s tough slogging for the first couple of zillion uses of “ontology” in surprising places and then those “Ousia” folks keep showing up over and over… like they think we leave the homemade chocolate chip cookies out all the time or something… and it’s freebies… but then Zizioulas finds the wind on the starboard quarter, the zephyrs kick in, we lift up on to the stern wave, and start surfing. Things start to make sense, he even kicks in with some handy summaries… and the first thing you know… you’re “gittin’ it”. So now I’m real comfortable dropping ontology in most of my phrases… like, “Can you please pass the bread… it’s like ontologically on your left?” and stuff like that. Makes you real edified and all. You even get to look at squinched up looks on folks faces… like you’re some kind of obscure professor or something and they’re thinking: “What the hey? Do I have to know this… or is this just some b-twinky stuff  I’ll never see on the test?”

Actually, I’d say that Zizioulas’s summaries offer excellent theological notes helpful in dealing with many of the underlying complexities of the Church in a unifying way. And he seems to manage this with ample lucidity. I’m not done with my first-time through… and in truth, this book probably is worth a second or third pondering, but you do get more than you’d expect the first time through, and so I do want to say that for all those who recommended this book: Thank you! Few are the authors who not only know their subject well enough to present it clearly, but know their subject well enough to direct further research through comparative contrast to show the limitations of our current understanding. The work here is pretty doggone irenic, and seems at the same time very Orthodox… which of course comes from a guy most would say is “not very …. meaning me… so take that… with a chocolate chip cookie.

Oh… you heard that? Yeah, the guy actually points out some… er… deficiencies in our… er.. theology…. some places where we could kind of get busy and do some clean up. Hmmm. I knew there was something…. besides the scary icons, vestments, candles, fancy digs, chants, and all that bit…. keeping the potential converts at bay. So here we are… a virtual wish list for the brilliant thinkers out there. Send me the memo when you’ve got it figured out.

Finally – The Tough Stuff:

I’ll be visiting my godfather in a brief layover on a busy trip through the South the end of this week. He’s not doing well.  But I won’t be back in the ‘hood again in October, so for now though it’s a quick check-in, it’ll have to do.  A brief visit to cheer up a three-months-and-counting resident doing time as a patient rather than the chief of surgery he’s so used to being. The family gathered a while back, but as vacation time got used up, had to re-disperse. For now he’s survived a tough blow… an infection from what was supposed to be a simple injection of pain killers, but now seems the blow is just being alone. We’ll all be here soon enough, so this is a no-brainer…. and even for those of us with no training for this kind of thing.  I mean… I’m sure the training offers much, but… this ain’t about efficiency. Still.. when it comes to these things, you always wished you’d worked with hospice, hospital visiting, pastoral care or something of that sort rather than finding one’s experience limited to just the family thing…. ’cause then somehow you’d know what to do.

But maybe that’s not the point. Knowing what to do might be simply a matter of taking it too much in stride and tossing it off rather than dealing with it as the drama it is. Balance is always tough to maintain, and tone hard to set – even when everyone’s just sitting around a table feeling good, feeling happy, and wondering what to do next. Doing these things in the hospital just seems to up the ante… like “you’re on” so you’ve got to make it right. Hard to say what’s right and what’s wrong, as I’ve seen what clearly looked like each one time or another, only to find it perceived differently by the important folks in the story.

So I guess what little experience I have simply says that we have what we have, and what we’re able to manage… is still accepted no matter what it is.. EVEN when we think it probably wasn’t or shouldn’t. Anyway, we’ll just have to let the blundering begin, trust somehow it’ll go better than not going at all, and manage to offer a little company, share a few moments, empathize, and perhaps even pray. It’s the least one can do. I don’t know whether he’ll be awake, whether he’ll be open to my visit, or what, but I will be there and give it a shot. And I’m guessing the power of silence, presence, and companionship covers a lot of shortcomings on my part in this errand of mercy business.

Besides… somewhere nearby there’s a grilled cheeseburger Saturday evening.