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.