PTown
Some Years Back

Labor day my son Scott and I bicycled to Plymouth to catch the ferry to Provincetown. I had bought him a new bike this summer and we had not had a vacation or done anything for a while so I thought we could go try the bike trails in the National Seashore and climb the P-town tower. I checked the weather before we left and there was a block of thunderstorms south of the Cape moving north but they seemed to be going to pass out to sea beyond us. The captain of the ferry warned us it might be a rough ride. It was foggy and windy and starting to rain when the boat pulled out of Plymouth harbor. But once underway the fog lifted and the rain stopped. We sat up on the top deck in the open with most of the other passengers. There are always foreign tourists in Plymouth, in particular Japanese tourists. The Pilgrims seem to have meaning for the Japanese. On the ferry. there was a group of Dutch or German tourists I couldn't tell which and their English was good enough that they spoke it almost as well as their own language. The boat is fairly noisy but my first thought was Dutch, I don't know why. One young woman sat in front of me she had a graceful neck and blonde hair tied in a pony tail, the curve of her hips was in my view on the edge of her seat, I could picture myself coupled with her, my face buried in her long smooth neck.
It is quite a sight to see land , thin, sandy land, lighthouses, churches appear out of the sea, the last solid earth before Gibraltor. The sand spins around the tip of the Cape. The boat followed it into the harbor. The captain said this was one of the finest harbors anywhere, deep water and complete protection from the northeast winds. But this one is only attached by a long spindle to the mainland, there is no room for a city of any size here, just the main street and rows of beach houses and inns. He pointed out the big grey building on pilings we were to tie up at and return to at 4 pm. Scotty and I carried our bikes off the boat and decided to head first for the Provincetown tower, or Pilgrim Memorial tower which dwarfs everything else in town even the hill it stands on. I had been here twice before, once as a child on a summer vacation drive through the cape and once when I was fifteen and staying with two friends in Chatham at a motel owned by my friend Kevin's brother in law. Then we had not bothered to pay for admission but had hopped the fence. Then too we had bicycled from Watertown to Chatham in two days. This time the short ride from Duxbury to Plymouth had taxed my strength. And this time we paid admission. The clerk was very obviously affected, that is, with flowery shirt and florid face, flaming, care free and happy, in short gay and proud of it. The tower is about 250 feet tall, an elongated granite rectangle one stone thick with gargoyles and the semblance of a bell tower, but no bell at the top. It is copied from a tower in Italy. The observation deck is enclosed all around with wire and clear plastic; it is too perfect a place for suicide. There were tourists here too and several languages, little kids, and some from Revere or Everett I would guess the way they talked and the way they recognized the towns of Massachusetts engraved in the granite blocks. Scotty and I scoped out how we would get to the National Seashore. But first it was time for lunch.
We were not familiar with the restaurants, I commented to Scott that if we went into the wrong one I might have a sudden attack of homophobia. It was easiest to go to MoJos on the pier by the big grey building. It was one of those places where you order at the window and eat at an outside bench. Everywhere there are openly gay people, mannish women, womenish men, the world turned upside down, men holding hands, girls striking marlboro man poses. Inside the window there were two teenage girls taking orders and a middle aged man with a long grey mustache giving orders and I guess cooking. I went to place our order. The girl had a cute but ordinary face with brown hair and a low cut tee shirt her breasts were big like ripe white melons I wanted to look into her shirt as she leaned close to take my order; I looked at her face and then off at the ice cream machine. I had a fried fish sandwich with guacamole Scotty had a swordfish sandwich. Once I was young and such temptations were not irreconcilable with the facts of my age, but once also I knew of no heaven more real than a beautiful girls body, that has changed, I know there is a larger heaven, a better heaven but I still remain fascinated by girls.
After lunch we headed out down Ptown's pedestrian-crowded main street. I wanted to find a map so we could find the bike trails at the national seashore. Main street is all kinky little gift shops, for practical purchases we had to go back into trafficland and find a combination gas station convenience store. The girl at this counter was blonde, young and pretty and she did not speak English very well. I got a map and Scott and I headed off to find the other wild side of the cape. The once barren desert described by Thoreau now museumized with trails, parking lots, bath houses, ranger stations, and visitors centers. Genesis 1:28 says:
God blessed them and said to them, "be fruitfull and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue
it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves
on the ground."
This is the fate of the man-dominated earth. I would, wrestling with God, leave some of the earth unsubdued, dangerous, for the sake of adventure and romance, but I cannot deny that this mandate is inexorably fulfilled everywhere even in my short lifetime. And to think this is preparation for a fiery end to all of creation and all the works of man.
It did not take long to bicycle from the town shore to the seashore. We rode a short way to find the beginning of the bike trails and followed them up through the sand hills, there were pines in the hollows and sand higher up, many footprints ran into the dunes from the bike path, and I saw some of the strangest mushrooms and fungi growing among the pines. At the crest of one dune, we could see the ocean. We stopped at the visitors center and climbed the stairs to the observation platform. Scott bought a b'osun's whistle at the gift shop, I thought about buying a book on seashore botany, I should have. We looked out to the sea and I was beginning to wonder if I was going to make it all the way. In my twenties I used to ride 70 miles a day, I never got tired, I flew over the highest hills, but now I struggle. It doesn't seem so long ago or part of another life yet twenty five years have gone by since then. My body is only now slowing down and my dreams are virtually the same and still largely unfulfilled, to be a writer, to have a good marriage. But I have changed on the inside, gone from death to life, from darkness to light, from despair to hope, and that in Christ.
We get to the beach and sit on the warm sand, the sea is deep and churning, a young couple man and woman play and laugh in the surf, another couple, a man and a man dressed identically, hold each other looking at the sea. Later the young woman comes over and asks if I have seen her daughter, we all look for her hoping that the worst has not happened, but then she appears in the grass on the hillside a little child in a vast landscape quietly playing in the grass and thankfully not swallowed by the sea.
We need to return to town by four to catch the ferry home so we head back down the same bike trail until we are again walking our bikes down the crowded main street, there is an incongruous mix of children on scooters, and bicycles and gay people. I enjoy the pedestrian dominated street; autos annoy me to no end, but I like people and I am interested in the human condition and here it is all laid out but perhaps still wanting interpretation. There is a huge white wooden church, one of the most notable landmarks seen from the incoming ferry. It has been converted into a museum. In this city of sin the church is no longer central or foundational to society, if it exists, it is without public prominence. What a city ripe for evangelization; so many lost souls filled with anger toward God and toward those who dare question the validity of their sexual persuasion. There was, on the sidewalk in front of the church, a mime dressed as a mechanical doll. She, it appeared to be a she, moved mechanically to a whirring sound coming from a basket in front of her. She looked just like a doll, her body was sexless, her face pretty like a young girl, her hair a mop of bright yellow curls, her eyes as blank as a machine but written across her face was the brightest, friendliest smile. I took a picture of her and of the church, then we walked on. We came next to a store that sold salt water taffy we went in to buy some, I remembering how I used to watch it made in the storefront at Hampton Beach when I was a child. When we stepped outside the same mime was walking by. She moved close to me, I was not conscious of her approach until, from the corner of my eye, I caught her broad smile. I instinctively looked up and said, "Hello", and looked into her eye as I have done many times when I was fortunate enough to receive a smile from a pretty woman. Catching a woman's eye and reading her approval is something I sometimes think I live for. But these eyes did not respond, no trace of bashfulness, or flirting or anger. There was nothing in those eyes. I instantly knew this was not a woman. She or he walked on swaying and smiling down the street. And I, puzzled, watched her go. Her gait was strong, light, agile and manlike in the sense of a male ballet dancer. The smile on the outside, the lifelessness inside; this was a tragic figure, definitely male, definitely making a personal statement to the crowd. I sensed an invulnerability that can only come when one embraces death.
We got back to the big grey building on the wharf early to wait for the boat to leave. There was a young woman with a bicycle and a backpack with flags from all over Europe on it. She was traveling alone. Twenty five years ago she might have been the perfect one for me. I don't remember meeting any woman traveling or walking or running alone on my many excursions, young, free and lonely. The captain warned us the seas might be rough so I went downstairs for dramamine for me and Scott. It was a little rough but we didn't have any problem with sea sickness. The boat pitched and rolled and the spray reached us on the top deck. The weather was pretty clear now and we could see both P-town and the mainland. With the sun low in the western sky, the mainland was dark, we were headed toward the Manomet Hills, with the power plant on the canal visible to the south and the headlands of Marshfield or Cohasset to the north. But P-town, catching the direct sunlight shone golden on the water like a mythical city in the middle of the sea; the tower so out of proportion to the rest of the town and the sand so golden and the water glinting around it. When Thoreau described it one hundred fifty years ago there was no tower but he describes the same sight of being halfway across the bay. In his day the mackerel fishing boats encircled it with their white sails the last thing to be seen as the boat moved away.
When the boat tied up in Plymouth, Scott and I and the young woman with the bike were the last down the gang plank with our bicycles. We headed home riding up route 3A. We were tired now and just labored along, it started raining a little again, we got back to Duxbury about 7pm. I think this would be a good trip to do again now that we know where we are going and if the weather was a little better for the beach. We could head directly to the National Seashore and swim and lie in the sun. The surf was high and the water warm but the air was cold and windy and by the time we got to the beach, with diversions to the tower and to eat and find our way, it was almost time to turn around. This would also be a good trip to bring company on who come to visit our area. Its a trip we'll always remember.

Natural selection is self limiting. As non-random selection occurs from generation to generation the inherent variation from which the selections are made decreases naturally limiting how far things can go. Random mutation is the hypothetical mechanism of creation of new variation that biology teachers invoke to cover this gaping hole in the theory of evolution. They spend little time analysing the science that supports the viability of such a mechanism.

It rained all day. I went to Watertown this morning for my Uncle Ed's burial service at Ridgelawn cemetary, where my mother is also buried. Funny, I had trouble finding it.
Later there was a gathering at the Verona restaurant.

In the afternoon I went to work on the house. I put in two windows and worked stripping paint from the columns on the porch. I stopped by my friend Rick's house just before going home. He is almost done with his book.

Now I am at Angela's house. Her daughter's friend is sleeping over. I am playing on the computer.

Rainy Sunday

I have just finished listening to the story of the Mutiny on the Bounty written by Caroline Alexander. It is a book worth reading or listening to on tape as I did. The film starring Marlon Brando was the first movie I ever saw, my dad took me to see it in the sixties at the theater on the Cambridge-Watertown line. I still remember the scenes of keel-hauling, whippings, and the tyrannically cruel Captain Bligh. In this book Bligh, while not a hero, is not altogether bad, not nearly as old as in the movie, he just seeme to be a little poor at interpersonal relations and had not been given sufficient support to his authority. In the end, they burn the ship as they did in the movie. The book tells a fascinating story, revealing the complexities of the case and its mysteries. It follows in particular the story of Peter Hayward, who was sixteen at the time of the mutiny, who did not go to Pitcairn but lived on Tahiti with a tahitian wife until discovered and arrested by the royal navy. He was returned to England in chains, tried and convicted to death, but then pardoned by the King and went on to a long career in the navy, as did Bligh. Several others tried with him were hanged. The mutineers who went to Pitcairn left many descendants but all but one disappeared, or were killed by the tahitians that they took with them.

4/16/01
We leave Logan airport at 9 AM, the plane heads out over Boston Harbor. We can see all the harbor islands below, the sky is clear, Duxbury bay and the thin edge of Provincetown are visible in the distance, most of the experiences of my life are encompassed by the view from this airplane window as it turns to the north and we pass over Lynn and Nahant beaches where my mother used to take us when we were kids, then we pass up the coast along Plum Island and right over Rowley where my mother spent here last days in the nursing home. We turn back to the west and Hampton beach is visible to the north where our family vacationed every year. We fly to Cleveland and then on to Phoenix. I try to read my Chinese Bible. We arrive in San Luis in the evening.

I seem to have recovered my blog from sparclinux, although I've lost my picture of the madhatter.

I had a strange dream Friday night . I woke up from the sound of a large fly buzzing around my head. Still more asleep than awake, I turned on the light to try to kill it. The clock read 2:45 am. I could not see the fly although I looked and listened. Giving up I went back to sleep with the sound still over my head. The next morning P called with the news that S had woken at 2:40 that night screaming and throwing up, then C woke up covered in hives and P herself began to experience the symptoms of a urinary tract infection. She was up all night. I thought of the story of Job, and of Beelzebub, the lord of the flies.

We framed the Roof on the job we're doing, again very hot to work.
P and the kids are down at the beach waiting for me.

For a journey and such a long journey

Random Thoughts

In an entirely different way, some philosophers have always found something fishy in the Darwinian theory of evolution. An obvious sticking point is the concept of fitness itself. If by the fitter organisms, biologists mean merely those that survive, then the doctrine that natural selection winnows out those organisms that are not fit expresses a triviality. This is a logical point and not a matter of experiment or research. The biologist who wishes to know why a species that represents nothing more than a persistent snore througout the long night of evolution should suddenly or slowly develop a novel characteristic will learn from the neo-Darwinian theory only that those characteristic that survive survive in virtue of their relative fitness. Those characteristics that are relatively fit, on the other hand, are relatively fit in virtue of the fact that they have survived. This is not an intellectual circle calculated to inspire confidence.... The doctrine that survival favors the survivors is what logicians call a *tautology*, a statement that is all form and no content. For obvious reasons, the evolutionary biologists are uncomfortable with the idea that the chief claim of their theory is roughly on the intellectual order of the declaration that whatever will be, will be" (Berlinski, D., "The Evidence for Evolution," in "Black Mischief: Language, Life, Logic, Luck,")

Little Wonder

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd__
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go".

from the Rubaiyat of Omar Kayyam

I really screwed up today; I called P Liz when I talked to her on the phone. I desperately do not want to self-sabotage another relationship, but I do want this relationship to be God’s will or not be at all, so I will have to let this gaffe ride out and hope it didn’t too much damage. And I will have to put more distance between myself and Liz, first because I might inadvertently give her the false impression I am still hers, and because, as has already happened once, I might drive away someone who I could actually be happy with.

P and I walked on the beach last night with a thunderstorm flashing to the north and east. The tide was out enough that the walking was fairly easy on the sand flats. Little birds wheeled around us in the dark and the wind blew strong and constant from the direction of the storm.

B called yesterday. I am not sure what exactly he wanted but basically he called me a scumbag which, from his perspective I probably am, God help me.

The paper work is starting to pile up around my ears in my room. It is good to have a night to catch up a little on it.

Memories and Great Expectations

Where, like a pillow on a bed.
A pregnant bank swelled up to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.

from The Ecstasy by John Donne

Scotty graduated from High School today and we had a party. P made all the food. Fred Byrne helped set up at the Beans and ran the grill. The guests were: My dad, my sister Cynthia, her daughter Caty and son Jeff, my sister Judy and her son Rick, my friend Rick Tulipano, his wife Lane and his son Gabriel, Scott’s friend Nathan and Nathan’s girlfriend Sue, Fred Byrne, Joyce Bean, Scott’s friend Annie, and Paul Yoon, Liz, Bob Friend, Cynthia’s boyfriend Dave and his two daughters, the neighbor Joe and his kids Emily and Ben. It was a good party thanks especially to P and Fred.

Tomorrow Scott and I have to go to the U of H for orientation. Liz wants to come, but I am hoping she is too tired to get up. June 15 Scott and Liz leave for England, June 11 John leaves for the track for ten days, June 18 and 19 my sister Nancy is visiting from Washington, Cynthia will be having a cookout the 19th. Rick and Lane want to meet P, I think especially Lane.

After the party and after cleaning up everything and taking a shower, I went to the beach. There was a long jagged line of purple clouds in the north off the setting sun, the tide was out, it was a beautiful time to walk, rain is on the way. I need to get to bed early but I am still hoping to hear from Pam even tonight when I don’t expect to. We sat together in the kitchen last night talking by candlelight. I still sometimes feel really awkward with her; she is so beautiful.

Jesus is My Homeboy

Fold of Valour, sleep a little, Glory of the Western world;
I am wondering at thy beauty, marvelling how thy locks are curled

It was a very emotional service this Sunday. Ray’s whole family was there. His funeral was only Friday. Our new Pastor preached well again, making some changes in the order of the service. Brenda and Jack C were there today. I think they will start coming again. I have really missed them. And Russ H came in the evening.

I bicycled to the evening service. 10 kids were baptised, most of whom I know well. It was quite a thrill to see so many profess their faith: Justin, Alex, Mark, Collette, Kelly, James, Bobby, Corey, Vincent, and David. Their parents were also thrilled; it means everything to us as parents, more than college or good health, or anything in this world to know that the ones we love the most are walking in the Lord’s will.

I did not get to Watertown this weekend as I had planned. S went to the Prom last night with a girl named Annie. They rode in N’s dad’s purple cadillac. S was in last night but long after I was asleep.

My dad is thinking seriously of selling his house. It is really run down and I think the best thing may be to tear it down and re-build, but the lot is so small it would be difficult to do. The buyer would also have the option to renovate it entirely but all systems are at the point of failure. It may be an opportunity for me but I will have to move fast or lose it. I don’t know where to look for financing, I don’t know the zoning by-laws, or any local contractors, I don’t know the appraised value or the rental rates. There is a lot of work to do but someone will buy it and make it into a usable home. It may as well be me.

Black Marigolds

Even now
My thought is all of this gold-tinted king's daughter
With garlands tissue and golden buds,
Smoke tangles of her hair, and sleeping or waking
Feet trembling in love, full of pale languor;
My thought is clinging as to a lost learning
Slipped down out of the minds of men,
Labouring to bring her back into my soul.

I am too tired to put anything into this tonight. L is on the warpath again. Everything she says about me and now about P as well is really exactly what she herself has been and is. Sometimes I still feel bad about divorcing her especially when everything is going so badly for her now, but when she calls up and swears at me I know I did the right thing. She is so venomous and hateful and self-deceived. The bible says rightly that Christ has no fellowship with Belial. As for P, I am still baffled why such a young, beautiful woman would be interested in me. I hope I can do the right thing by her in every way.

Prayer List

Because of that great nobleness of hers;
The fire that stirs about her, when she stirs
Burns but more clearly.

W.B. Yeats

That all the subs get to the Williams next week and that Mike and I finish the carpentry.
That I get organized to make the most of the summer.
That P and I grow closer, if it is the Lord’s will, especially spiritually and emotionally.
That she and her husband arrive quickly at a fair settlement, again, if it is the Lord’s will.
I pray that God will give her and me the wisdom to know what his will is and that if he will not bless this relationship we would not go too far before finding that out.
And that I not add to P’s already excessive burdens. Even more, that I might be able to make this week easier for her.

Lights Out

Pensaran vuestras mercedes que es poco trabajo hinchar un perro?

Cervantes, from the preface to the 2nd ed of
Don Quixote

Amanda has been here for several hours with S. It was good to hear them talking and laughing in the kitchen; they have been friends since they were kids. Now they have gone out for a walk. L is still missing, I haven't been able to find out where she is. She does not answer her cell phone. I am looking forward to getting a full night's sleep tonight although I would not trade the last few weeks for anything.

Monday Routine, Not!

I’ll not forget the warm blue night when my bold girl,
Whose kissing lips smell sweet of honey and of rose water,

Came softly to my room, and my room glowed
As if the moon at her bright full had entered to me.

Wow!!!

Notes from a Fallen World

Last night my kisses drowned in the softness of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the softness of black hair.
Last night my hands were thrust into the mystery of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the sweetness of pomegranates
And among the scents of the harvest above my queen’s neck,
the harvest of black hair;
And my teeth played with the golden skin of her two ears.
Last night my kisses drowned in the softness of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the softness of black hair.


May 16, 1994

As I reflect on this day, I am struck by the contrast between the morning filled with warm Spring sunshine and the evening dark and rainy.
It was one of those intoxicating Spring mornings. Scott and I and even Liz woke early. We had cleaned the house on Saturday so everything was in good order for a day that we could just enjoy. Scotty and I went to church. The music of the bell choir playing matched the iridescent beauty of the morning, the Pastor spoke about encouragement and about the power of words to lift up or to tear down.
When we returned from the church, Liz was still up. Scott and I headed to Watertown to go to the Spring-fest along the Charles river with Caty and Jeff and Cynthia. Liz had other plans.
There were so many beautiful women there and I tried to remember the words from the book of James that the wisdom from above is first of all pure, I desired that wisdom and I desired those women. After the Spring-fest we visited my parents and then my sister Judy. And, last of all, we went down to the Tulipano’s house, by then, it had turned cold and was raining pretty hard. Scott and I went to Friendly’s and then headed home in the dark with the windshield wipers on at high speed.
At home the doors were locked and Liz was gone. We cozied in to our beds and went to sleep.

One Day at a Time

Sweet friend, I will part the curtain of black hair and let you
Into the white garden of my breast.
But I fear you will despise me and not look back when you go away.
I am so beautiful and so white that the lamp-light faints to see my face,
And God has given me for adornment my heavy black hair,
---Last night my kisses drowned in the softness of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the softness of black hair.

The last few days seem to have dragged out for ages. Less than a week ago the thought of kissing P was an idle fantasy; now it is an easy reality. I have somehow got from Boston to London but I can’t remember what flight I took. I enjoy being in London though and could stay here quite a while.

Lazy, Lazy Sunday

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I woke this morning with a headache and had it all day, too sleepy to be much good. ‘Spent the day with P. It was one of the best days of my life.

Meanwhile, in Faluja, 880 people killed. What are we doing there? I am afraid America will have to pay a great price for this. Our president wants to change the world; he should read his job description: to uphold and defend the Constitution.

Exasperated

Western wind, when will thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.

Exasperated is how I felt when I found out today S had not filled out the financial aid application I had been reminding him about all week and had not followed up on information that his application for financial aid to his two top picks for schools was held up for some reason and he did not even tell me about it or try to fix the problem.

He had karate tonight and I had Youth Group. The kids had a lot of fun tonight. I am always amazed at how many adults start to do Youth Group and drop out half way through the year. N and her husband have been great, they have taken up the slack from others who were supposed to be in charge this year. But they are moving to Virginia next month.

I walked down to the cove in the dark and the fog. The river is filled with water, the surf is loud and the spring peepers have come back to life.

April Rain

---Como dice usted que se llama el pueblo que se ve alla abajo?
---Comala, senor.
---Esta seguro que ya es Comala?
---Seguro, senor.
---Y porque se ve esto tan triste?
---Son los tiempos, senor.

Dull, dreary day. I got a lot of office work done. DB did not show up to do the concrete floors, H did not do front hallway as planned, but the painters are working wonders, the electrician to be there tomorrow.

PM concert at the high school. The Wind Ensemble was a little weak. The Jazz band was really good, dynamic. They had a vocalist, a girl, sing on one number. She sang Aint Misbehavin with a lot of soul, breaking into scat. S looks good in a tuxedo, he has good stage presence.

'Looking forward to the weekend.

Good Friday

I have of sorwe so grete woun
That joy gete I never noon
Now that I see my lady bright
Which I have loved with al my myght
Is fro me deed and is a-goon.

Allas, Deeth, what ayleth thee
That thou noldest have taken me
When thou toke my lady sweete
That was so fayr, so fresh, so fre,
So good, that men may wel se
Of all goodnesse she had no meete.

P came down Friday night and we went together to the Good Friday service. After the service, J and A invited us to go get something to eat with them. I said okay without even bothering to look at P to see what her reaction was; I am going to have to learn not to be so careless.

We went to the restaurant, one of Duxbury’s 3 watering holes for the rich and obscure and had some light food and light conversation. Having known J and A for years, having traveled with J under sometimes difficult conditions, having taught all 4 of their kids in Sunday School, I have come to highly admire their God-centered marriage and family life. Their children are miles ahead of other kids in self respect, godliness and wisdom. The purpose of life is to glorify God and the S family does just that.

P was gracious and friendly in conversation, as always, but as I watched her I could see that something was bothering her. Everything about her is fascinating, her body, which I am still only allowing myself to observe around the edges but now in greater detail, her mind, her drive, her spirit seeking after God and her intense but intensely controlled emotions.

After we left the restaurant, P changed into her walking shoes and we drove down to the bridge to walk the beach. How delightful it is to be out under the stars, to be moving under my own power and to have the company of a woman who herself puts the stars to shame.

We walked all the way to High Pines and saw no one else on the beach. I think she would have kept going to the Gurnet if I had not turned back. The rush of new things to talk about has started to abate, so we will need to be more deliberate and creative and even content to walk in silence.

I think I offended her by prodding for more answers about her marriage when she has already made it clear where it stands and that she has made a difficult but unequivocal decision. Because she is still married and her husband has only recently left the house, I know I am on dangerous ground, not only morally but also socially and personally. And the only way I can rationalize it is to say that I will let the relationship develop naturally and slowly, giving God control of the outcome. She is either an answer to prayer beyond my wildest expectations or she is the subtlest, most powerful temptation I have ever faced. Taking it day by day as Pansy advised, any given day with her is a gift from God, who knows my heart.

After the walk we talked in the kitchen until late at night.

Not Unconsarned

“Why, the sun’s in the suds and the moon in the high Horicks; there’s a clipstick comin; an’, an’; there you’re both as unconsarned as if it was about to rain mether. Go out and cross youselves three times in the name o; the four Mandromarvins, for as prophecy says: -fill the pot, Eddy, supernaculum- a blazing star’s a rare spectaculum. Go out both of you and look at the sun, I say, an’ ye’ll see the condition he’s in -off!

Simply said, there’s too much work and no conceivable way to leverage it. I had a business plan once, two in fact that served me well for many years. Then I changed my plan when I thought I could actually get a job as a teacher, a real job with security and stuff like that, and still be able to dabble in business in the summers. The painters working with me now are all retired teachers with pensions. But now I think it is not feasible to get a job as a teacher or to survive financially on a starting salary, especially with the onerous payments I must make to my dear ex-wife. I need to make decisions about what kind of jobs I will do and what kind of help I will have to have to do them. I also need to decide how to work with M; I need his help but remain reluctant to make a partnership. He lost his shirt on the last job he did himself, that is what it takes to learn. perhaps he will try again, but then I will have to hire someone, (something like adopting a child). S will work for me this summer and perhaps his friend G.
Some options for a plan are: spec building, which is very high risk, competitive and requires capital investment, another is custom home building which is what I am doing now. This job has been good to do so far, financially and has been enjoyable; if all continues to go well, I may be recommended to do more. Building is a different game from the remodeling which I usually do. My weakest point is slowness in returning with estimates followed by a lack of a consistent, skilled crew. Yes it would be wonderful to be able to put my son through college, buy a small home, travel a little each year and stay out of the poor house in old age.

S has not been home this evening, it is not like him not to let me know where he is going.

Tir-na-n-og

Even now
If my girl with lotus eyes came to me again
Weary with the dear weight of young love,
Again I would give her to these starved twins of arms
And from her mouth drink down the heavy wine,
As a reeling pirate bee in fluttered ease
Steals up the honey from the nenuphar.

I am wondering what plans to make for my life. I am at a turning point; my divorce is finally done, S is making plans to leave home to start his own life. I know the things I want in life. I know who and what I live for.

For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:3

What I do not know is what tomorrow holds; but that scarcely matters to me anymore because I know I am to live each day in complete dependence on and faith in God. (Although I must confess I am in a good mood when there is money in the bank and I am in a bad mood when there is not.) There is no security in earthly things, none whatsover.
But there is a responsibility for us to at least set a course. For although the wind of this earthly life will not blow forever, while it does, we ought not to drift aimlessly.

Broadly speaking, I want the same things most men want: a good marriage, my own home, good health, a satisfying career.. Specifically how to arrive at those is the more difficult question.

Unagrocracy

“Look where you cut me, you villain,”says she, and she held out her arm to him-and, my dear, he thought the sight id lave his eyes.

The news has just been released that 7 American soldiers have been killed trying to restore order in Baghdad. Al-Sadr’s call for violent uprising is the most troublesome development to date for the occupation authorities. The Bush administration is trying to say that his is a small radical faction, but in fact he has significant popular support especially in the Shiite ghetto of Baghdad. If we lose the Shiite cooperation there will be no containing the country.

There is an inclination that is as old as human history for conquering armies, upon meeting resistance, to raze the cities and lay waste to the land, killing every human soul. We Americans have that inclination as much as the Romans did but it is held in check by the self-delusional charade we play that we are the good guys. If we are going to be conquerors, bring it out in the open. If not, bring our troops home. Unless we want to bleed our country to death there are no other options.

Baghdad Burning

WHITE

I thought that it was snowing
Flowers, but no, it was this young lady
Coming towards me.

From the Japanese of Yori-Kito
(19th Century)


This morning S and I drove to Burlington for an informational session for Hofstra University. I, sneezing and dizzy, hid in a corner of the room while S took the initiative to ask questions of the representatives, both students and Deans. Their presentation was not as elaborate or as polished as the one we went to last time for the University of Hartford. But this seems to be S’s new first choice. They told him he could continue his music without actually being a music major, and he likes the fact that it is just outside Manhattan. I am hoping that he will have a positive and memorable college experience, that he will get a well rounded education, that he will broaden his horizons, and that he will find a group of sincere, Christian young people who will encourage him to grow in faith. My prayer has always been that he will glorify God with his life and his life’s work; that Christ might live in him, that he might be compassionate, gracious and filled with the hope of the knowledge of God both in adversity and in abundance.

Low Energy Day

Bless’d be the hour she cooled in her linens,
And blythe be the bird that sings on her grave.
Come to my arms my Katie, my Katie,
O come to my arms and kiss me again!

This cold I’ve had for three days pretty much put me out of business today although I did get some work done in the morning and went to see PD who had asked me to do a couple of small jobs. She is English and the widow of an Iraqi surgeon and a she has a different perspective on Iraq than most. She also likes art and has some interesting reproductions of masterpieces on the walls in her condo. She had a new one by Matisse in a gold frame that I liked and commented on. She said most people don’t like that one. Well, that’s par for the course with me. I spent the afternoon doing laundry and trying to rest. PT called and talked for while. Later Scott, Nathan and Liz and I went out to eat as we usually do on Saturday evening. The boys have taken the truck for the night.

Sittin’ Thinkin’

Lo! The winter is past;
The rains are over and gone.
The time of the singing of birds
Has come.

I can sit here and think for ages and never write anything. So, I’ll just recount the last few days. Friday Scott was away. P and I went to dinner at Carmela’s and then went for a long walk on the beach. Needless to say, she is what I am sitting here thinking about more than anything else. Saturday morning I did paper work and picked up Scott’s graduation photos. In the afternoon I went to Watertown and climbed up the old slate roof at the house on Dana Terrace to try to re-mortar the chimney at my Dad’s house. Afterwards, I walked down to the T’s to talk to Rick for a while. Little Gabriel is walking now, he has curly brown hair just like his Uncle Tony had when he was a kid, (that’s remembering way back). Sunday morning I had three kids in Sunday School, Evans, Matt and Suzannah. We sat around a round table in the fellowship hall prayed, talked about a lot of interesting stuff, and read 2Kings 3. P came to church, and afterwards we took a ride in her car and talked. When she left to get her kids, I went down to Pansy’s to bring her some red cyclamen and take her trash to the dump. She was too sick to come to the door.
In the evening Scotty called from Bridgeport and said to call the Hunan crowd because he wanted to go out to dinner. Nathan wasn’t around but Liz joined us later for dinner. Today I worked alone at the Williams starting to do the finish work inside.

P-town 2001

You do not know,
You do not know what life is,
She said,
Slowly twisting the lilac stalk
between her fingers

There was, on the sidewalk in front of the church, a mime dressed as a mechanical doll. She, it appeared to be a she, moved mechanically to a whirring sound coming from a basket in front of her. She looked just like a doll, her body was sexless, her face pretty like a young girl, her hair a mop of bright yellow curls, her eyes as blank as a machine but written across her face was the brightest, friendliest smile. I took a picture of her and of the church, then we walked on. We came next to a store that sold salt water taffy we went in to buy some, I remembering how I used to watch it made in the storefront at Hampton Beach when I was a child. When we stepped outside the same mime was walking by. She moved close to me, I was not conscious of her approach until, from the corner of my eye, I caught her broad smile. I instinctively looked up and said, "Hello", and looked into her eye as I have done many times when I was fortunate enough to receive a smile from a pretty woman. Catching a woman's eye and reading her approval is something I sometimes think I live for. But these eyes did not respond, no trace of bashfulness, or flirting or anger. There was nothing in those eyes. I instantly knew this was not a woman. She or he walked on swaying and smiling down the street. And I, puzzled, watched her go. Her gait was strong, light, agile and manlike in the sense of a male ballet dancer. The smile on the outside, the lifelessness inside; this was a tragic figure, definitely male, definitely making a personal statement to the crowd. I sensed an invulnerability that can only come when one embraces death.

The Entire Poem

The mountains of Bech-Parma are great enough,
But my love is greater.

The glaciers that marble their tops are white,
But your breasts are whiter.

The antelope stricken by my bullet
Weeps a red blood from its wound

Which dyes with large red flowers
The field of the blowing jasmine flowers of snow.

Your arms are whiter than the jasmine flowers of snow
And your kiss is redder than the blood of the antelope.

The mountains of Bech-Parma are great enough
But my love is greater.

II
The wind screaming in the forest when the wind of Russia blows
Is milder than the desire that draws me to thee.

Your body smells richer than the resin
That weeps in the sun from slender pines.

And your mouth has more of odours
Than mint flowers throw on the air.

When you are by my side, I feel in my body,
A warmth more suave than the softest sun-rays.

And when you go away from me, my sadness
Is blacker than the lowering night black with storm.

The wind screaming in the forest when the wind of Russia blows
Is milder than the desire that draws me to thee.

Daghestan

Strange Days

Your arms are whiter than the jasmine flowers of snow
And your kiss is redder than the blood of the antelope

S is in Valley Forge Pennsylvania this evening if all went well. He left last night with his friend Warren from CueTime. They planned to drive from midnight non-stop. He is participating in the 18-and-under billiards tournament at the Billiards Exposition held at the Radisson Hotel.

I talked to P yesterday at the library. She was studying algebra for a test that evening. She had on a lime green sweater and was wearing just a touch of a really nice perfume. She came by Friday night and we talked for a long time in the kitchen and then went for a walk down to the cove. That night she had on an orange sweater and just a touch of orange in her lipstick. I am really enjoying getting to know her.

Pansy is supposed to go in for her second chemotherapy, (oxymoron!), treatment tomorrow. I’m not sure who is taking her; I should have called. It seems wrong for someone who is so healthy to be made so sick by her doctors.

A Quiet Sunday

--Yo te agradezco, Abenamar,
Aquesta tu cortesia.

It has been a quiet Sunday, I rested all afternoon. This morning I taught Sunday school. We read a little from 2 Kings and made Italian ice.

S came with me this morning to church and P came too and sat with us. I talked briefly with HN and when the conversation turned to building houses, he intimated that he could get me money to do a spec house. We did not pursue the subject, I dislike talking business in church, but it gives me something to think about.

The sermon was excellent, about Jesus’ resurrection. I drank it up. I wondered what the reaction was in S’s mind, he appeared restless and disinterested. I also wondered what was in P’s mind as I am not sure where she is spiritually. I hope the Holy Spirit is working on their hearts.

This afternoon I finished the book TheDaVinci Code which was leant to me by the Ws. It is a clever book about a modern day pursuit of the holy grail. It reads like a movie script with a lot of fast action and little character development. The protagonists follow a long, almost tedious, series of riddles, there are many twists of the plot and much suspense. The premise of the book is that Christianity, a false religion, supplanted the ancient goddess worship that preceded it; the goddess worship is the true religion now subordinated by Christianity and preserved in secret by the Priory of Sion. Of course Mary Magdalene is the goddess and was married to Jesus, their children are the royal line whose existence threatens the church to this day. It is so clever only the devil could have thought this up.

Testing new picture

Testing new background color

P and I took a walk in the snow today and agreed we shouldn’t be seeing each other. B was very upset she came to church with me last Sunday. I told her she was incredibly beautiful and truer words were never spoken.

It snowed almost all day today. I did not have work. It is amazing how uneasy I feel when I am not working, as if I had been holding the world on my shoulders and now it is in danger of collapse.

Today is the last day before our divorce becomes final. I hope and pray that she and I will remain friends for life. And though it's sad to put an end to the hopes and dreams we had, I know that this life and everything in it with its cloud of sin is fading away fast. I'm putting my hope in His coming and, God willing, she will be there too.

S registered to vote today at the Duxbury town hall.

But Not in Despair

La gloire, la gloire, c’est de la merde

I was sure for so many years I was going to marry Susan, although most of the time she wouldn't even speak to me. I finally gave up on her, but later found out that if I had hung in a little longer and tried a few more times it might have happened. When Liz came along I wanted her and gave up on Susan. Susan gave up on me when I married Liz. Then I remained married to Liz. through hell on earth until finally I was enticed by Sandra and I set down the road to divorce, meanwhile Sandra disappeared off the face of the earth. Now I wonder if there will ever be anyone suited for me; Liz certainly wasn't, probably not Sandra, although she did not stick around long enough for me to find out, maybe Susan, but she's happily married now. It has been a lifetime of waiting for the right woman and always, always, always without one. I don’t know of anyone else who waits so long before giving up on someone and yet it seems I never wait long enough. God help me! Although I am sure he has a hand in all this.

Sheng Dan Kuai Le

Christ climbed down
From His bare Tree
This year
And softly stole away
Into some anonymous Mary’s womb again

Last night, Christmas Eve Scott and I went to the service at the church. There was a small group there mostly old and good friends celebrating Christ. It was for me the best part of Christmas. When we went home we finished decorating the tree and wrapping the presents for the next day.

Today, after opening the presents under the tree, Scott, John and I went to the Cannata’s for our traditional Christmas breakfast with Becky, Eddie, Emily and Nathan. Emily had a new dance machine that she danced on in coordination with the tv display. After breakfast, Scott and I headed up to Watertown to visit with my Dad. My sister Cynthia came over with her kids Caty and Jeff and my sister Judy came with her son Rick. We visited until about sundown and then headed home. The kids are all grown now they’re all as tall as the adults, Caty is a beautiful young woman. Dad gave me the gift he gives me every year, a bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey that I have to remember is not wine. Then we went down the street to see Rick and Lane Tulipano and their young son Gabriel. Rick’s parents were there, his mother home from the nursing home. And Louis was there, the handicapped man that Rick has befriended for years and always brings to the family holidays. Finally Scott and I went to Liz’z for dinner and to open presents. Liz’s Mom and Stepdad were there and Joe and Rocky and Penny Liz’s dog. We are home now recovering from all the traveling.

I am working on a new house in Duxbury and working with an excavator approaching retirement age who has lived and worked in town all his life. His name is F. He has been telling me stories of Duxbury before it became Yuppyville. He used to plow the field where we are building the house back in the fifties before there were any houses here. His grandfather was George Loring who had an ice business where he used to deliver ice to all the surrounding towns by horse drawn cart until the invention of the refrigerator put him out of business. Loring also used to bring his oxen over the Powder Point bridge and out to Saquish and walk them across to Clark’s Island at low tide where they would spend the summer. F told me he built the house the Hogans have just moved out of at the bottom of Tremont street when he was in his twenties, and he told me a lot of other stories about builders and developers around town. The field where we are now working ended up belonging to Bud Goodrich as compensation for unpaid bills to his feed and grain store, (Goodrich Lumber), Bud gave it to his daughter Nina and Nina sold it to the present owners.

It seems to me that it is better to live working outside, and with your muscles and your brains in a smalltown society rather than to work in an anonymous commuter-computer, bedroom community. Think of the advantages: You work with your body, physically, everyday, you work in the elements and close to nature and you work where you live. I think we have lost so much that was a part of the New England experience for 3 centuries. Now commuters want to re-create a fantasy of rural life but without the essential elements. Frank is moving to Maine when he retires and I think he is moving closer to home than farther away. He has 7 children of his own and his wife has four from a previous marriage. He went through a bad divorce in the seventies and ended up losing all he owned and owing thousands but he has managed to put himself financially on a high road for retirement, mostly because of the land he has owned for thirty years, now worth over a million dollars

The Roots of War

I worked upon a farm in Illinois.
The squad appeared; I marched away.
Somewhere in France, amid the trenches gray
I met grim death with many other boys.
I gave my life for freedom—this I know.
For he who bade me fight had told me so.

Saddam Hussein was captured this morning. He was hiding in a hole, he must have known his days were numbered. He will now either be tried and executed or tried and imprisoned for life. I think, if it was me, I would rather have been killed, and I would rather not have been captured hiding in a hole. It is a political victory for Bush and for supporters of the war. Of whom, I am not one.
If Bush is able to bring peace and democracy to Iraq it will truly be a great accomplishment in spite of the lives lost and the dollars spent. Time will tell if it can be done and if the US government truly is willing to see that come to pass. The danger in success is that it will set a precedent and we will have to re-write our constitution to allow the president free reign to re-engineer the world in our image. As for me, I still believe we were lied to about the real reasons for the war and that the conduct of and the rhetoric of the war is based on hypocrisy, a willingness to use the same means of violence and subjugation we claim we are overthrowing. War fever siezed America and her government and propelled us into yet another war that really did not need to be fought. But now with Saddam as a public prize and a reminder of the evil we defeated, Bush may be able to claim victory and go home to the applause of history.
War is evil on evil. My biggest problem with the war is the almost unanimous backing it has among the evangelical community. To me, it is associating the name of Jesus with evil. I am puzzled and confused. I hope someday to resolve this issue. But now I do not see good coming of this other than the creation of another heroic-American myth. And a crudely created one at that.

Day of Infamy


What could be more beautiful than these heroic happy dead who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter

As I in horror watch this war in Iraq unfold, I wonder if all our wars were not birthed in like fashion. What I see in sequence is a nation, prosperous, and powerful and at relative peace called to war by its leaders for reasons that seem false and unsound. The nation, convinced, responds with fervor, the thrill of battle overtakes us. The people are enticed into war by the lust for glory, power and righteousness, for purpose, for solidarity, for entertainment. We love war, at least we love the idea of a glorious struggle against evil. We love the myths of our warrior heroes. And our leaders steer us, not way from war, but into it.

God Is Love
I wonder, reading about an illegal round used to kill an Iraqi insurgent,
Just what kind of ammo would Jesus use?

I wonder looking at the evangelical Christian Bush responsible for some sixteen thousand Iraqi deaths and some 400 Americans, if Christians are not less concerned about the consequences of death or is it just that Bush is not a Christian except culturally. The Puritans were men who risked their lives for their faith, who dared the unknown, who acted much as my own church does, yet their war against the Pequots was excessively brutal, (though outnumbered they wiped out a whole village). And so many of the Christians I know, whose faith I do not doubt and in many cases consider superior to my own, support this war. And they lend the name of Christ to a war that the world sees as motivated by greed for power and money.

Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented; and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways . It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance but a certainty . Let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things ”praying, working, teaching, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts”not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (any microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.
C.S. Lewis

Lost and Found

Una vez Noe
A la selva fue
Metio los animales
Y empezo a llover

Lord
Have
Mercy
On
Me
A
Sinner

Rain is falling and drops of rain are splattering their selves against the house.
I have spent the evening doing nothing, going nowhere.

Toikey Day

For everthing that God created is good , and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
1 Timothy 4:4-5

The seals have returned to the mouth of the North river. I could see them yesterday leaping out of the water chasing fish in the incoming tide.

Economy

Nothing that is complex is useful,
And everything that is useful is simple.
Kalashnikov


Simplicity is the first element of beauty: economy of force in war, economy of words in writing, economy of parts in machines, economy of ideas in theory. I firmly believe that experience in a craft teaches above all else, that the shortest and simplest route to a desired end is the best. As I became more adept at carpentry over the years, it became clear to me, and remains a rule when I am building something, that if the solution to a mechanical problem starts to become too complex and too difficult, you can be sure that you are on the wrong path. There is always a solution that is beautiful in its simplicity; the inexperienced workman is easily led down the wrong path, piling piece upon piece unable to discern the danger inherent in complexity, and not having in his possession the faith to wait for the certain appearance, with time and thought, of an elegantly simple answer both in its performance and in its result.

In the same vein, when faced with an intractable problem, the skilled man or woman knows instinctively not to fight with it or struggle in frustration, like the martial arts master he looks carefully to discern the weak point, the plane of cleavage where an easy blow will accomplish the desired task. This is a combination of patience and of confidence in his mastery of the material world.

Having learned that in carpentry and believed in it in writing I hope I might also apply the same principle to some of the other intractable problems of my life. I hope I don’t bore you, dear reader if, for my own sake, I list them that I think of: The problem I have with making enough money, or shall I say the fear that I have about it, the problem of being totally unable to find a girlfriend most of my adult life, and the problem I have finding,still, a course for my life now perhaps more than half over.

Celestial Guidance

Two gods guides me, the ane of them is blin,
Yea, and a bairn brocht up in vanitie,
The next a wife ingenrit of the sea
And lichter nor a dauphin with her fin.

I have been having long conversations with two women in their early forties, younger than me, who both seem to share much in common with me. This is remarkable because I have a history of long years of being ignored by women but, now in my declining years, (said only half in jest), here are two attractive and intelligent women who seem to be interested in me, although they are married and, I hope not interested in anything more than friendly talking. And both these women have interests and intellects compatible with mine, when, so often with everyone, man and woman, my perceptions are radically different. But now here suddenly are two who are capable of connecting with me intellectually and they seem to enjoy talking to me. They both said something similar about religion. They both are Episcopalian but do not fully agree with the theology and seem to be searching. It is odd that the Lord has brought these two at the same time into my life.

Baghdad George

With a multitude of counselors, go to war.

Now that we are in Iraq it may be in our national interest to stay there and stabilise the country. This does not mean I support George Bush’s Iraq policies; I firmly believe that this war was not in our interest and that we were lied to and manipulated to support the invasion. But I absolutely want to see the president defeated in the next election; He deserves to go down for leading us into this mess.

Mass Architecture

I walked behind the Middle School last night for the first time since they began to build the new performing arts center., I used to go out there every night to run around the track. At first in the seventies there was only the track, some exercise bars, and a swing set in the grass. Then they built a play ground, now they have torn down the play ground and built a performing arts center that looms over the track filling the grassy area where the swings were. For all the money they must have spent on that building, they should have designed something with some visual interest. Obviously it is a very clever design but its appearance is monstrous. It looks like a misshapen, out of proportion brick wall without symmetry or balance or any sort of visual order, or any 3 dimensional detail, not even windows.

Hemingway Not Yet

Until I labor, I in labor lie.

I am really too darn tired to write anything or even to care about writing anything. I am still on last weeks clock and I worked all day roofing. I need to write. I need to transform my sleepy brain into an instrument that can play words and ideas like music. And to do that I must write every day, tired or not, in a deliberate way. Everything else I do for someone else, to pay the bills to satisfy a customer, to provide for my family, to minster to others. Writing is an indulgence, at least at this point; at my age and in my situation and without much really to say it is merely an indulgence and a vain ambition.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you and I sigh.

WB Yeats

Liz and I went together to Brockton Probate Court for the Pre-Trial hearing on our divorce. I agreed to give her physical custody of Scott and to make her child support payments of $250.00 per week. She was represented by Dympna Moore, an attorney who volunteered through the Catholic Church to work for her. We signed the agreements, we appeared before Judge Steinberger, and all is done.

It was a cold, frosty morning with a bright sky and a warm sun. On the way back we stopped to eat at DaddyO's diner in Kingston. She was wearing a blue sweater, blue jeans, and a blue barrette in her hair. Her eyes still are clear blue. So many memories of our early days together came flooding back. My only consolation is that I know that all things are lost in this life except for love; and I do love her in spite of all the horrible things that happened between us. I hate divorce like death, but I need to remember that Jesus Christ has promised us eternal life in paradise and I do believe that Liz will be there although she herself does not yet know it.

I know I need to give myself permission to love another woman. Although, at the moment I feel like I never will. I cannot take responsibility for Liz, she has, in great measure, brought this upon herself and made it impossible for me to take any other course. God will take care of Liz. If I cannot trust Him to do that in life, how can I trust Him to do that in death?

T'ched in the Head

The woman we are working for is worth describing. Please, dear readers, forgive my fascination with the female form and figure. But her eyes are flashing green, her hair red. And her smile brighter and warmer than the October sun.

School Daze

The inexperienced teacher, fearing his own ignorance, is afraid to admit it. Perhaps that courage only comes when one knows to what extent ingorance is almost universal. Attempts to camouflage it are simply a waste, in the long run, of time.
Ezra Pound

S and I went into Boston today to look at schools he might apply to. We went to BostonUniversity first, and then to the New England Conservatory, then Northeastern and the Massachusetts School of Art and finally we went to Berklee School of Music.
On the way home, we stopped at my dad’s.

Some observations: BU was basically closed for the holiday, there was not even an information office available, but we did look at some of the exhibits in the Mugar Library. The New England Conservatory was also completely closed although a female security guard did try to help. Northeastern had a student admissions guide outside the main building but he was largely clueless about customer service; I could not get his attention. Finally, inside, a woman who appeared to be in charge of the campus tours got us a catalog. We walked to MassArt where they were giving tours. I wanted to see what they had but Scott was not interested so we walked back all the way to Berkelee which was also closed. There was a nice young woman at the desk to the dorm in the performance center who was kind enough to tell us what she thought about the school. She was very informative and changed my mind about the school.

P T called Saturday and talked for a long time, turning to the subject of Christianity, asking me many questions. I kept urging her to get a bible and read the gospel of John. She had trouble with the assertion that we are all sinners and I had trouble explaining it to her because she felt she spent most of her days trying to help other people. Which is true from what I have seen. I tried to tell her that you had to be aware of God before you could realize how far short we have fallen from Him. I know she needs to be aware of her own need for a savior before she will consider Jesus.
Somehow she tacked onto the end of the conversation that she kinda had a crush on me. I didn’t know what to say but I did not want to encourage her because she is currently living with someone and she is not a Christian. If I could talk to her freely, I’d tell her that if she was single, which she is not, I would like to have her for a girl friend.
On a similar note, there is an attractive, married woman who is searching for meaning but is left cold by the church she is going to. She has asked me questions, she is well read and very intelligent, and interesting to talk to. She does not have a crush on me, at least I hope not, I think she is too intelligent for that and her husband is intellectually interesting and a good provider. She left a copy of a recent best-selling Christian book for me to give an opinion on. I hope she will be open to the Holy Spirit who must be at work in her life. It will be interesting to see where this leads and I hope she will remain a friend.

Yesterday we did a mall scavanger hunt with the Junior High. The kids had fun. It was a rainy day, Melinda and Christiana came with us.

Peggoty Beach

S'ils n'aiment fors que pour l'argent,
On ne les aime que pour l'heure.

T and I went to Peggoty Beach in Scituate today at lunch time. It is a sandy little cove off Scituate harbor in the nook of the cliff. I dreamed about it once before I had ever seen it when I was enamored of a girl from Scituate. She was in the dream, and the same beach and the large house to the left of the beach. In the dream it was made of glass and was smashed by a wave. The girl cried out in alarm, but I, being seized with fear for a moment, saw that the house smashed by the waves represented the material world and its inevitable end. This beach was the one in the dream, I am sure.

I met with L and her attorney yesterday and agreed to give L physical custody of S. It is the only way for her to keep her SS and her two bedroom apartment. My payments to her will become child suppport and increase by about 30 percent. But the divorce will go through without a trial. I am still sick over this divorce. I wish I could get out of it.

T told me today that he broke up with his girlfriend. This was the one who he had been so excited about the last time he worked with us. He is in his early twenties but I have to commend him for his wisdom in this matter. The girl, and I am speculating as to the details, had been living with someone in the recent past and had not told T about the relationship. He said he would not have gone out with her if he had known because that was not a behavior he could accept from a life partner. He was clearly broken hearted but he had taken the difficult step of breaking off the relationship. If I had such wisdom, I would not have gotten involved with L. Although I do not regret it in spite of the turmoil of the marriage. I love L and always will, but I could no longer countenance her easy ability to get into bed with other men. Divorce seems wrong to me and I hate it. But perhaps T's testimony was the Lord's way of telling me that I am doing the right thing in spite of how wrong it feels.

LP has lent me the book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. I told her I would read it and tell her what I thought.

Cold evening, after church I rested, and slept, did nothing. Finally walking down to the cove in the moonlight. Half moon, high tide at 8 pm.

Paint Day

Even now
My thought is all of this gold-tinted king's daughter
With garlands tissue and golden buds,

My life is very intense these days and not in any particular crisis, the divorce notwithstanding. That’s my way of saying life is good right now though swiftly passing away.

Tonight the Junior High youth group painted the rooms designated as theirs. The younger youth leaders picked some wild colors, lime green and red.. And the kids painted. There were 18 kids in two small rooms with paint and brushes and sandpaper and spackle. 18 Jr. high kids is a lot of concentrated energy. But I think the evening went well, with only one small incident. B hit one of us youth leaders in the head with a paint roller covered in lime green paint. He understandably became angry at her and she was disciplined. J was hiding out from senior high and I had a long talk with her. She is very nice. She is talented and works hard to achieve. She was telling me she won a beauty contest at the mall, three trophies she said. Some of the other things she told me about her health problems made me think she might be anorexic.

Also at work today L reached out to me as a friend. I really appreciate when someone does that and I hope I respond in kind. But I also hope she means it just as a friend.

I like L. P.

How much of a man does it take to see his whole life go down,
To look up at the world from a whole in the ground. R. Zimmmerman

My life is very busy now with work. There are so many jobs to do and to price. This is good, the Lord, I believe will help me to organize so that I will prosper. I am beginning to wonder though if I will ever have a wife besides Liz, who I can’t live with or sleep with or talk to about much, but who I still love. God always has loved her and knows her heart. I do not know her heart.

Tomorrow the Junior High Kids are going to paint the downstairs of the Lighthouse.

India Ink

I have been one acquainted with the night,
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

Another long busy day at work. I had to make myself walk after being on the phone for 2 hours. There will not be many more trips to the beach now that it is dark so soon after I get home. Instead I walk down Saint George street and Cove street and back on Lover’s lane, stopping by the landing off of Cove Street to look East across the Back river to the Beach. Tonight was a dark moonless night with the Milky Way clearly visible, Mars the brightest object in the sky, the Pleiades rising, a bird sounded a ghostly trilling by the edge of the marsh. I wonder what other, more silent creatures are lurking. One evening on this route I passed close to a large coyote walking in the other direction about twenty feet off the road. I looked right at him, he looked back and calmly walked on.

Entrapment

Last night I watched a movie I got from the Library called Entrapment that stars Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It was an entertaining movie with pretty good action and suspense. The most remarkable thing about this movie is Catherine Zeta-Jones. My thought on watching her was, “God you created the sun and the moon and the heavens, but she is your masterpiece”. She is something to see and see and see. The plot is decent, the character development is non-existent; there is no realistic psychology to either of the main characters Sean Connery or Catherine Zeta-Jones. It is not a great movie but it is good entertainment.

Routine Day of Rest

There was a sliver of a new moon in the western sky last night. Today the tide is one of the highest I’ve ever seen, it is within inches of the road and over the road in places on King Caesar and below the Bluefish River bridge. It was up beyond the access ramp on the main beach. Long fingers of fog drifted over the bay and the marshes. There was a cormorant by the middle of the bridge. I got a close look at it. They are odd birds that fly low, float half submerged and swim better than fish.

City of Angels

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

I had an interesting conversation today with the woman who has hired me to put new windows in her house. She told me how she met her husband. He was 35 she was 22, I estimate from some of the facts she gave; he had been married at 26 for several years, then divorced in a situation much like mine, then he was alone for 6 years. She said she kept dropping hints that she was interested in him but he did not respond. Exasperated, she finally had to ask him out. It is interesting to me to see that an interesting and attractive woman pursued a relationship with an older man. Isn’t that how it was in the beginning, God brought the woman to the man? He didn’t have to go in pursuit of a wife; in fact, the bible says not to seek a wife. He had a bad marriage and then a good marriage. From what I can tell it is a good marriage, they have been married long enough to have 3 daughters, two of them college age, one in high school. She doesn’t work but she has been able to make quite a bit of money by remodeling the homes they owned, his career has required quite a few moves and each time they have profited on the sale of their house. I should say that this woman is quite beautiful. (Like Mrs. H who is also married to an older man and has daughters). The daughters are like their Mom, tall, long-haired and beautiful. We talked for almost an hour when I stopped for coffee. She is intelligent, sensual and married, with an underline on the married part. I think she must be a little lonely.

Unresolved Issues

El tiempo descubridor de todas las cosas.


Hell does not seem fair to me in the sense that a person is punished for eternity for crimes that were finite, no matter how bad. Can one perhaps be saved after death? I know that Hell is in the bible but there is more in the bible than can be reduced to up and down theology. There will be a judgment day and there are people who willfully reject God and those who earnestly seek him.

People believe strange things, some of which result in mass suffering. The social group defines its own reality. I do not believe however, that truth or right and wrong are relative to the social group, I believe that they are absolute.

My world view is distinctly different from anyone else’s. I am anti-materialistic, and anti-war, but not anti-self defense. I have become cynical about big government, big media and big business. I am anti-authoritarian even though the bible says to obey the authorities, “they are God’s ministers to you for good”. The reality that I see is that the government is an ass, that we are drowning in a sea of lies, and that many godly men and women believe those lies.

I believe the bible, although I do not claim to understand or be able to interpret it all, and I believe in Jesus Christ; he is the ultimate and ultimately the only reality.

I believe that God is love and that men are sinners turned away from God.

I believe in eternal life, but it was not why I came to Christ. I came to Christ because I had a revelation that there was perfect love and that only God could be capable of perfect and unconditional love.

I believe that God exists and that he is involved in the intimate details of my life, that he is all good and that he cares for me and has a plan for me. But when things go bad, I am discouraged and have no joy in my faith, but then it is my faith that has failed.

Sunday

A cool wind, hot sun, low tide in the early afternoon. It’s the first day of Autumn and it feels it. I passed by K on the way through the parking lot, she was in a hurry to get to the porta-potty so I didn’t get to talk to her.

Tomorrow is L’s fiftieth birthday but she is celebrating it today by making a roast beef dinner with S and me and her parents invited.

I enjoyed Sunday school today teaching the junior high class.

The sermon was by Dr. Gary Morris and was about Noah and his three sons, about Noah’s lapse of character and one son’s delight in the scandal while the other two tried to cover him up. Dr. Morris is a PhD. who is well versed in the creation-evolution controversy. He is an young earth creationist, in other words he believes that the world is only 6000 years old, taking the book of Genesis literally concerning the flood and its affects on the earth and the history of mankind.
I lean toward the old earth creationist view point. I find the 4 billion year age of the earth to be plausible and perhaps indicated by the evidence. I also find the scientific evidence for a world wide flood to be rather thin or non-existent. But what do we do with all those lost generations and civilizations if man has really been around for one million years? 6000 years is a number that I can conceive of in my own terms, one million years is beyond my perspective and, from that standpoint, it is troubling. Evolution, however, I reject on a scientific and a biblical basis. In the final analysis, the bible, God’s word, and science, the study of God’s creation will be found to agree.

Pleasant dinner with L and family in spite of divorce in process.

Immanuel

Yo no digo esta cancion
Sino a quien conmigo va.

We worked at S’s house today shingling the roof. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day to work outside. We started to clean up early about 3:30 when S invited us in to coffee. She loves to sit down and talk with us, Tim P, Mike B and me. Her husband D was working on the computer in the next room. She brought out her old family pictures which she kept loose in a box and began to show them to us. I have known most of her family since I first met her in 1978, meeting her brothers and sisters each almost independently. There is a strange relationship between her and I which I do not completely understand. She seems affectionate towards me and open about herself in a way she was not in the past.

The beach after work was glorious and breathtaking. The wind was off shore and driving the surf into the broad flat sand beach, it was dead low tide. I could see the tower in Provincetown. The clouds were spectacular whisps of white like abstract strokes of the most gleeful and majestic artist. I saw Cathy C head down the beach in her pink shorts and baseball cap; she runs every evening to Green Harbor and back. Another jogger, came towards me on the beach. She also was glorious and breathtaking; she stopped about where I was standing looking out to sea and turned up towards the parking lot.


Some more of my favorite websites are:

Information Clearing House

Naughty Bits

Riding with the Moon
Men and women towards each other are for the eyes, and for the heart, and not only for the bed. Tuareg proverb
-from Nine Parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks

I went to prayer meeting tonight on my bicycle. My son had taken my truck for the day so I had an excuse to ride my bike wherever I went just like the old days when I disdained automobiles and rode for miles. Coming back in the near dark, the moon was shining on my right as I came up Bay Road to Halls Corner. It is like flying, to ride propelled by muscle power and gravity alone out in the open wind with the moon floating next to you. In the old days when I was young I would ride at night by the light of the sky and the shadows of the trees over my head, I could not see the road itself unless a car came from behind illuminating everything below my wheels so that I could see to pull over out of the way.

Baghdad Burning

Greetings

No one has ever seen God, but God, the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. John 1:18

I hope you will understand that although many things happened today, I have little to say about any of it.

Work, Peace and War

That is the story of how I became a Christian. It is basically in three parts, and, to this day, my faith rest on these three immutable legs: One, that God is perfect love; because human love is mixed with fear, we fail to love our brother and we fail the ones we love. Two, God calls us to follow him by his Holy Spirit; he calls us to live by faith, believing in God and acting as if he is always present without seeing him. Three; Jesus Christ is God incarnate; his death pays for our sin and his resurrection destroys the power of death for those who believe.

I continue to work each day starting early on paper work, and then off to one of many carpentry jobs in progress. Then home where I make dinner and eat with my son. He is the greatest blessing of my life. Then a little time reading on the internet, then phone calls, job journals, estimates, proposals etc. Generally all is well, I have my health, my bills paid, my son at home, a roof over my head. I'd like to have a home of my own and a wife, but I can't complain. I've learned not to expect too much from this life. The future remains entirely a mystery, the past an enigma. I have my hopes, my dreams, my hobbies, I'd like to write a book, perhaps I will, perhaps I will find another wife. I feel that God has called me, at least to know the message of the Gospel, a treasure in an earthen vessel, for the moment on the shelf.

I am beginning to believe that Bush is not competent to be president. He failed to take measures to stop the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. He failed to find Bin Laden. He failed to establish a stable government in Afghanistan. He has run the federal deficit further into the red than it has ever been. He failed to anticipate the consequences of going to war in Iraq. His policies have cost American lives and treasure without any clear objectives.

The beach was beautiful just after sunset, after a cool, cloudy day. There was a steady, warm wind from the southeast and a bright, perfect half moon.

Labor Day

Emprenate del aire y pariras el viento

At the beach about sunset, cloudy, spitting rain, I talked to DC and his Mom. She was out jogging. About a quarter mile off shore there was a flack of small birds milling about. They looked like terns. There have been almost no terns on this beach in three years. Previously it was common to see them fishing in flocks all around the bay and out to the ocean. Their departure was blamed on foxes; but I think it may have been the increase in SUV permits that put a small army of 4 wheelers along the edge of their nesting ground.

I picked up two movies from the library to watch as DJ is away and I can use his video machine. The first one I watched was called The Beach and starred Leonardo DiCaprio.
It has a beautiful girl and a beautiful beach. It is about a community of travelers hidden on a remote Thai beach, but, like all utopian communities, it fails due to the dark side of human nature, and the exigencies of survival. It is pretty but not very intense or very deep or even that entertaining.

The other movie was Une Conte d’Hiver. This is a typical French film that is 99 percent conversation and most of that about love. The protagoniste is a lovely young woman who has an affair one summer on the coast of France with a man she falls in love with but, after the vacation, loses touch with. Later she bears his child but is unable to find him having mistakenly given him the wrong address. Five years later she is involved with two other men whom she tells outright that she still loves and hopes to find the father of her child, but that, since she has not much hope of doing so, is agreeable to taking up with one or the other of them. She actually rejects them both while simultaneously carrying on with them both. This movie deals in a unique way with sex before marriage and living together, not so much by condemning them but by revealing the flaw inherent in such relationships; you are giving yourself, for the sake the immediate, to someone who does not love you and will not ever love you. I am speaking of the men here who put up with her maddening indecision and rejection closely coupled with affection. In the end she is re-united with her lover and cries tears of joy. This movie was somewhat dull, the female character was lovely, sexy and maddening, the men pathetique.

In an attempt to forestall another car bombing -- Friday's was the third in less than a month -- U.S. forces will begin patrolling the grounds of the Imam Ali shrine

"go close that barn door, they've taken the horses."

We went into this war with our eyes wide open and our heads up our ass

Expecting rain there were not many people at the beach. I went at noon and walked a ways in both directions. Seagulls and sandpipers among the stones. High tide, hot sun. Waved to CS in parking lot, back to house,talked to S,. went to look at a small repair job, Scott off to Boston with his Mom. Later, reluctant dinner with the group.

Red Star Rising

No big crowds at the beach after sunset. Just a few scattered groups of people, most of them with an eye on the red planet coming up out of the sea. Today it is its closest to us in almost sixty thousand years. The mosquitos were out too.

Dympna Moore cancelled the hearing tomorrow because of its proximity to the pretrial hearing. So, I’m off the hook for the moment.

Dirty Laundry

"Faites votre deposition, " repeta le Roi en colere; "ou bien je vous fais executer, que vous soyez trouble ou non!"

This weekend I need to prepare to argue against Dympna Moore in regards to my divorce from Liz.
She has filed a motion for :
1) Counsel fees of $2,500.00 as Defendant is without funds.
2) Temporary legal custody of Scott, temporary physical custody of Scott,
3) Temporary child support
4) That I be ordered to pay reasonable, uninsured medical and dental expenses of Liz and Scott
5) That I pay the defendant a reasonable amount of spousal support.

There are several other items that seem to be irrelevant to an argument.

Before I go to court on Thursday, I need to:
1) list, here on this page, all possible arguments against the proposed orders.
2) Outline a story, the story of this marriage so that it becomes a focus for the judge to make his decision.
3) Construct an outline of the most pertinent arguments
4) Write out in full sentences and in orderly, speakable paragraphs each argument in such a way that it could be read aloud in the court as my answer to Ms Moore’s motions.
5) Read it aloud.
6) Pray


I have 5 days to do this.

First thoughts

1)

My wife’s attorney indicated to me that she is taking this case on a pro bono basis and that she would even write the agreement for no fee if I agreed to her demands. If I did not agree, then I she said she would file a motion for attorney’s fees. Because she has indicated she is doing this pro bono my wife will be represented whether or not I pay her attorney’s fees.

If I could have afforded a lawyer I would have been divorced 10 years ago when the court ordered us to proceed directly to a pre-trial hearing. We were scheduled for the hearing but the court dropped the date and never gave us a new date. An attorney would not have let tbat happen.

$2,500. Would be a hardship for me to pay, I would have to put most of it onto credit cards or fall that much further behind on my taxes.

The money could better be spent elsewhere, medical insurance, Liz’s teeth, Scott’s college etc.

2)

Scott has lived with me for ten years, why suddenly change his household now?
Scott participates in the swim team, the wind ensemble, the jazz band, takes and gives trumpet lessons and all his classes are right next door to where we live now.
Scott has given me no indication that he wants to live with his mother although he knows he is free to do so whenever he chooses.

4)

Scott has always had had access to medical care; he has been to the doctor whenever he needed to, he has had regular dental check ups all his life, he has had an orthodontist and an optometrist.
I know I could not have afforded health insurance for myself or Scott over the last ten years. My wife has Mass Health coverage.

My Story

We have not lived together for over ten years.
Scott has lived with me for that entire ten years.
We do not have the best living situation, but he preferred to live with me then and he prefers to live with me now.
I have been supporting my wife faithfully for that entire time although it has been a burden to me and Scott. We have not been able to afford health insurance or a house of our own and some years I was not always able to pay my taxes on time but I always faithfully paid my wife every month and always helped her out whenever I could however I could.

Sunday

Pensaran vuestras mercedes ahora que es poco trabajo hinchar un perro?
Cervantes

I went up to see my Dad and reinforce his back deck which was about to collapse. He had a book with pictures of old Watertown. One of them was of Lewandos dye workers around 1900. His German born grandfather was probably in that picture. There was also a picture of The Saint Patrick's High School class of 1922. His brother Tom was in that picture. There were many old buildings that I do not remember that he remembers such as the Grant building in Saltonstall park and the old town hall at the corner of Church and Main street. He also remembers some of the oldest Civil War Veterans marching in the Memorial Day parades, probably around 1930.

A Donde Vamos?

Last night my kisses drowned in the softness of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the softness of black hair.
Last night my hands were thrust into the mystery of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the sweetness of pomegranates
And among the scents of the harvest above my queen’s neck,
the harvest of black hair;
And my teeth played with the golden skin of her two ears.
Last night my kisses drowned in the softness of black hair,
And my kisses like bees went plundering the softness of black hair.
--From the Afghan of Muhamadji, 19th century

I took the above excerpt from a beautiful little book I found at the library called Love Songs of Asia, published by Knopf in 1946.


I believe that life has a purpose, but at times it seems that life has no purpose.

Next week I will have to appear before a judge where my long estranged wife and her lawyer will try to extract from me a laundry list of financial commitments and also to take away custody from me of my son. I believe I have offered her a fair settlement but she will not settle for anything less than all she can get.

Wanted: Woman to walk the beach with me, must be in good physical condition, age not important. Intellectual, physical, sexual vitality desired; nothing but walking and talking required.

Puppies

The young woman at the checkout counter at Grand Union was not wearing a bra. What a wonderful, thrilling thing to see the outline of her breasts and nipples through her thin cotton pullover.

Heaven and Earth

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges thatJesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
( 1John 4, 1-3).

I have finished reading Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven. Krakauer tells good stories and he uses the stories to probe some interesting philisophical questions about society and human nature. This book tells simultaneously the history of the Mormon church and several sub-stories that are actually spinoffs from the main story.

I had little knowledge of the Mormon history other than that they settled Utah so it was fascinating to find out the details of their founding by Joseph Smith, their emigration to Missouri and then to Illinois where they built the town of Nauvoo, and then to Utah while it was still a part of Mexico and to find out of the persecution, hardships they endured and the violent practices and bizarre beliefs that they have. We learn of Joseph Smith, his avenging angel Porter Rockwell, Brigham Young, the massacre of the Fancher wagon train by Mormons, and the murder of two of Powell’s men possibley by Mormons. And we are brought into the modern stories of polygamous families, the kidnapping of Pamela Smart, and, central to the book, the horrific murder of Brenda Lafferty and her baby by her two brother’s in law who believed that God had commanded them to kill her.

I believe that there is a spiritual dynamic at work and that there is behind Mormonism a spiritual, anti-christian intelligence, the spirit of the Anti-Christ. These religions arise in response to the spread of vital christianity into a region; they are characterized by a stringent moral code, a firm belief in salvation by works, a propensity to justify violence to defend the faith, and a propensity for their men in leadership to justify the taking of teenage brides. In other words, full opportunity is given for the flesh for the rulers while strict control is exercised over the faithful. I believe Islam is like this, having arisen in response to the early spread of christianity. Another example is the Heaven and Earth Society which arose in the 1850s in China, it also had the outward trappings of christianity, a strict moral code and a propensity for violence which resulted in one of the worst wars in human history, the Hong Xiuquan rebellion.

The book takes a hard look at fundamentalism, the nature of faith and the function and nature of religion in society. The author makes no conclusions of his own but the implication of the book is that religion in general demands conformity and can lead to tragedy. At the end of the book he makes a remark that indicates that he has not found the answers to the big questions of life and he suspects he will not know them in this life, but he does acknowledge yearning to know that he is loved by his creator. I pray that he will come to know that he is.

Dog Days

Era ese tiempo de la canicula, cuando el aire de agosto sopla caliente, envenenado por el olor podrido de las saponarias. (Juan Rolfo)

My son and Mike worked with me today. S cut his hand on a piece of copper. It is still hot, even this evening I sit typing, not so uncomfortable but noticeably uncool.

We went to dinner with my sister Janice, her husband Jim, their daughter Kerry and Kerry’s friend Jessie. My sister comes down to the trailor park in Brant Rock every year and we usually go out to dinner at the Compass Rose, which we did last night. It was Kerry’s eleventh birthday. Jim is very sick, his liver is failing and he probably will not be approved for a transplant which is his only hope to live. A few months ago he almost died in the hospital, he did die in the sense that only the machines kept him alive that night. He told me flat out he did not have much time to live, I didn’t know what to say to him; he asked me to pray for him, that’s not like him. I felt that anything I could say would be pathetically insignificant. He wants to live to see his daughter grow up. My first thought was to pray that he would have peace, because I did not see much hope that he can find a liver. But on second thought I know that, if it was me, I would want people to pray that I would live.

Kerry and her friend Jessie were playing gymnastics on the grass by the trailer, we went back there after dinner and watched the moon and Mars rise over the ocean; I always have more fun when there are kids around. Scotty has always got on well with Jim and usually goes to stay with them in the summer.

La Gloria y El Misterio

Y por mi, a fin de que al abrir mi boca me sea dada palabra para dar a conocer con denuedo el misterio del evangelio, por el cual soy embajador en cadenas; que con denuedo hable de el, como debo hablar. Efesios 5:19-20

I was caught in another drenching downpour on the way home today. When the rain broke, I took my bike out to the beach. It was low tide and I walked along the sand flats in the icy water. The sun set about 7:30; Fall is not upon us yet but I know it will be soon. I walked the bike back across the bridge, it was too nice to hurry home.

AC Daycee

“Voila enfin ma tete libre,” dit Alice.

It was a hot and humid day, certainly not the worst I’ve ever worked in but uncomfortable nevertheless.

After work I again biked to the beach and walked. The breeze at dusk this time of year is a little touch of heaven. There are so many young women jogging to and from and at the beach. I remember when I was in my twenties and used to walk the beach or run or bike and I distinctly remember there were no women doing the same. I would have died to have a woman who did the things I liked to do. Now things have completely changed. Women are running and biking and kayaking in groups and alone everywhere I go and they far outnumber the men doing the same thing. I can only speculate on why: in part it may be fear of being fat but I suspect it is the great increase in girls doing sports, almost all the teenage girls I know are involved in some type of sport. But where are the men?

On The Seventh Day

"Comment savez vous que je suis folle?" dit Alice.
"Vous devez l'etre", dit le Chat, "sans cela vous ne seriez pas venue ici."

It is a beautiful summer morning, the wind is showing the silver side of the poplar leaves; rain coming. I don't feel like going to church this morning. I am reading of the Lafferty brothers "lead by the Lord" to murder their sister in law and her baby. "test the spirits to see whether they be of God", dicelo El Sabidor. Wouldn't it be wonderful to know what God's will is, his good pleasing and perfect will, but our sinful nature blurs our understanding. Is there any hope then to find his righteousness?

Imagine That

Now, it is easy to show that Darwinism, one of the pillars of modern biology, is nothing but a kind of cult, a cult religion. I am not exaggerating. It has no scientific validity whatsoever. Darwin's so-called theory of evolution is based on absurdly irrational propositions, which did not come from scientific observations, but were artificially introduced from the outside, for political-ideological reasons (Tennenbaum).

I went to the beach as usual after work and stood on the wooden footpath that crosses over the dunes and looked down the green ribbon of grass and rose bushes, the blades and flowers catching the light from the setting sun. It was like a little swatch of rolling prairie one hundred feet wide and four miles long and it is hardly ever looked at. On the beach, the little waves left lines on the sand like threads each thread the limit of the waves life, the threads overlap and form patterns, again hardly ever looked at. Nature is not a work of chance forces acting on blind matter, nature is a work of imagination; it is the work of a creative mind, a creator God. Even the form of a single tree, never noticed in the forest or by the roadside, is a work of art and imagination.

“Le fait est que vous ne savez pas grand’chose,” dit la Duchesse.

Another Day

I had a conversation with Mike today. He is going to Wentworth nights to get his Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. He has a professor who expounds to the class on the death of Christianity, claiming that science, in particular the science of evolution, has made Christianity obsolete. It is amazing how little the educated understand.

I went to the beach after work and walked with the sandpipers.

I have begun to read Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven, about Mormon fundamentalism. I really enjoyed his book Into the Wild, and I am interested in the sociology of religion. I am a Christian, in other words I believe in Jesus Christ as personal Lord, Savior, Friend, Creator, God; the man from in Nazareth of Galilee, born 2000 years ago, crucified, raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God the Father. Sometimes, within my own church, I cannot discern the work of the Spirit of God from the work of the spirit of the world. God willing I will write a book about this, perhaps looking at the schism in the Baptist church over slavery.

I keep asking God for a girlfriend, but perhaps it’s not Him but me. Perhaps I need to give myself permission to let Liz go and have what so many other men have, a woman I can be intimate with.

Another Saturday Night

The bare, brown midriff of the house cleaner and the warm sunshine awoke in me a long absent sensuality. I was in the screened-in area off the living room; she was inside. She must have been in her mid thirties, but she had the body of a twenty year old. She wore a loose shirt cut short to show her belly and tight dungaree shorts. Her legs and stomach were tanned brown. We spoke briefly before she left. I stayed working in the shade by the pool.

Last night I was alone as S went to his mother’s. I watched a video, Le Genou de Claire. It is about a man who toys with the idea of having an affair with a teenage girl who he knows is attracted to him. He later becomes fascinated with the girl’s step sister Claire; especially with a particular part of her anatomy, her knee. The knee, I guess, is just sensuous enough to express the type of attraction he has for her, and just removed enough from being sexual so he is not portrayed as a sexual predator. He does end up taking the opportunity to warmly caress her knee when he is caught alone with her in a gazebo in the pouring rain, but after that there is nothing more. The movie is interesting because of its unique characters, especially the women; the plot however is thin.