On Finding One's Muse

Nobody depends on the Muse like a poet.  And, therefore, there exist quite a few good poems dedicated to the poets' Muses.  Here are two:


Muse (by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin)

In my youth's years, she loved me, I am sure.
The flute of seven pipes she gave in my tenure
And harked to me with smile -- without speed,
Along the ringing holes of the reed,
I got to play with my non-artful fingers
The peaceful songs of Phrygian village singers,
And the important hymns, that gods to mortals bade.
From morn till night in oaks' silent shade
I diligently harked to the mysterious virgin;
Rewarding me, by chance, for any good decision,
And taking locks aside of the enchanting face,
She sometimes took from me the flute, such commonplace.
The reed became alive in consecrated breathing
And filled the heart with holiness unceasing.


When I Met My Muse (by William Stafford)

I glanced at her and took my glasses
off--they were still singing. They buzzed
like a locust on the coffee table and then
ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the
sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and
knew that nails up there took a new grip
on whatever they touched. "I am your own
way of looking at things," she said. "When
you allow me to live with you, every
glance at the world around you will be
a sort of salvation." And I took her hand.

Of Race Car Drivers and Nuns

I think I had something of an epiphany this morning during my cardio session.  When I say "cardio", I usually mean walking rapidly uphill for 30 or 45 minutes on a treadmill.  The treadmills at my new gym have little TVs built into them.  Usually during a morning cardio session I can only find infomercials, but this morning was different.

This morning, one station was playing the magnificent film Le Mans (1971), starring Steve McQueen.  This kind of film always makes you work harder at the cardio, and it sure seems to make the time go by faster.

Everyone these days is talking about their "bucket lists".  You know, a list of things they want to do before they "kick the bucket".  As I watched this car go around the circuit, I realized that "Drive Porsche 917 at Someplace Like Road America" needs to be on my bucket list.  And almost as soon as I thought it, I had another thought:  Given my driving skills, it would be prudent to make sure everything else on the list is already crossed off before I attempt this!  Anyhow, the intensity of this film made my cardio session much more enjoyable.

But if the film improved my cardio, the endorphin-laden cardio trance also enhanced the film for me.  Because I noticed a scene, just a few seconds long, in a way I had never noticed it before.  It is about 3/4 of the way through the film, and McQueen has just wrecked his beautiful #20 Gulf Porsche 917.  He is taken to the track hospital in a funky little red medical van, with a shape vaguely resembling a VW microbus.  When he gets to the hospital, he hobbles out of the ambulance and into the arms of a waiting nun.  She is a nurse at the hospital, and greets him with two simple words:


This way.

Now, to my way of thinking, race car drivers have about the sexiest job on the planet.  And, while I know others disagree, the vocation of being a nun is kind of at the opposite end of the excitement spectrum.  This is, no doubt, due to my lamentable worldliness.  Probably through God's eyes it is quite the other way round.

And then, the epiphany hit me!

For I saw that here in this two-second scene, Steve McQueen is the world, and the nun is the church.  Bam!  And what is the first thing the church does for the world?


It proclaims:  This way!  And then it begins to lead the world upwards, just as the nun in Le Mans leads McQueen up a set of stairs to the hospital.


I know I'm the Hot Rod Anglican and everything, but maybe I'm too much "hot rod" and not enough "Anglican" ... for, as I watched this clip, I was the injured, limping McQueen, out in the world and getting in trouble, getting banged up.  Maybe, just maybe, I ought to take a little more time to meditate on myself in that other role, leading the world upward to healing, to God, and proclaiming the great "this way" of the Gospel.


For those interested in seeing the scene in its entirety, it occurs around the 2 minute mark of this clip:

A Visit to Grace Church, Mt. Washington

I usually travel to a few bodybuilding contests each year, which generally have me in some unfamiliar town from early afternoon on a Friday until late Saturday evening.  It is usually too long a drive to get back home for church on Sunday morning, and so I have to seek out an Anglican parish at which to worship in whatever city I'm in.

Back in March, I found a very good parish in Columbus, Ohio, after attending the Arnold Classic.

This past weekend took me and my family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the NPC Teen, Collegiate, and Masters National Championships.  And, although it was a spectacular bodybuilding contest, the parish we visited on Sunday morning was far more spectacular.

I hardly know where to begin.  Like the famous passage in Chesterton, where he imagines being asked why he prefers civilisation to savagery.  We just liked everything about Grace Church, Mt. Washington, so it is very hard to know where to begin.

The lady out in on the porch in the next photo was the first to greet us, followed by Fr. Ira Houck, who gave us a short tour of the church building.  We met a few other parishioners, too.  I would have to say that nearly every parishioner we came across not only greeted us, but really engaged us in meaningful conversation.  The funny thing is that my wife and I usually don't like that.  It usually seems like going to a big shopping mall during a very dead hour of the afternoon, when all the bored salespeople pace back and forth in the portals of their shops, waiting to pounce on you.  But, somehow, it was not at all like this at Grace.  I cannot explain it.

I wish I had been paying better attention, but somehow it came to light that my 16-year-old son Eliot is an acolyte, and would be glad to lend a hand, in case they were short.  I honestly would never have expected them to take us up on this offer, but they did.  It was a remarkable gesture of trust, and Eliot did not disappoint.  He got to be crucifer and acolyte, and even rang the sanctus bells (though I did not realize it at the time).

The next thing to mention might be the organist.  He was quite good, and while there was no choir (probably due to it being summer) the congregational singing was robust and harmonious.

But perhaps what impacted me even before all of this, and this will sound trivial, was the smell of the church.  To an "olfactory learner" like myself, there is just a certain way a church should smell, and it should smell exactly like Grace Church, Mt. Washington of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh of the Anglican Church in North America!  Doubtless the beautiful aroma comes from dark wood absorbing large doses of incense over a period of several decades, but I somehow think that the prayers of the saints who have worshipped there over the same decades, ascending along with the incense, also play a part.

When visiting any unknown Anglican parish, I always set my expectations low for the sermon or homily.  In this case, that was totally unnecessary.  Fr. Ira Houck preached a fine sermon, which touched very nicely on the subjects of friendship and ultimately friendship with God in prayer.  But, more than that, it touched me personally.  Or, rather, God touched me through it.

Fr. Ira got to a certain part of his sermon where he described what it is like to be with friends after a long absence, and how one feels once again centered and grounded.  One remembers who one is, and what one's mission is, what it is that makes him himself.  And I got the shivers.  Goosebumps all up and down my arms, because this had just happened to me, doubly.  Once, at the two-day bodybuilding competition, where I met old friends (and formerly unmet internet friends), and remembered (at long last!) that I am called to be a bodybuilder.  And a second time, right at that instant, by virtue of feeling so incredibly at home among formerly unmet Anglican brothers and sisters.  It was like waking up from a long slumber, after which everything is clear, and one knows exactly what to do next.

Cindy loved the fact that one of the hymns we sung used the hymn tune Aberystwyth, one of her absolute favourites (and mine).

We got tripped up just one or two times, where Rite I differs slightly from the 1928 BCP, which we know from memory.  But the entire service felt like being instantly at home in a "strange" city, and being instant friends with those who we would have expected to treat us like strangers.

To anyone visiting the city of Pittsburgh, I give this parish my highest recommendation, and I myself plan to visit it again next July!

My Son's Drag Racing Debut.

Something happened last night that my son and I had looked forward to, together, for more than ten years.  His first trip down the drag strip.  He is only 16, but already he is (in my mind) a phenomenal drag racer.  And why not?  He's been rehearsing his entire life.  He told me that in one online virtual racing community alone, he has made over 3400 simulated quarter mile passes!

So, to celebrate his successful drag racing debut last night, I threw together a quick poem in his honour.  Here it is.

Helmetted in purple cover
In the staging lanes you hover.

Full of racing glory dreams we
Dreamt this future history, and
Waited all our lives together
For this night, this track, this weather.

In my dreams, you drove with finesse;
In your dreams, I worried less.
Down the virtual track you've jetted.
You've rehearsed, while I have fretted,
Burdened with every fear and doubt.
What if anti-freeze leaks out?

A forerunner, like John the B,
I drove this track when you were three,
But always pointed back to you
With checkered flag in hand, and knew
That one day I would stand aside,
That you'd no longer need a guide.

You wind the tachometer's stem
To eighteen hundred RPM.
And now the starting lights descend;
Heaven and drag strip touch and blend.

Your left foot you lift, your right foot press.
You become greater, I become less.

And, here is the really exciting part of the post: Two videos from the track last night. In the first, he nearly beats a yellow GTO. In the second, he is in the near lane, and handily beats another Marauder.

Another Year Gone By

I forgot to post this earlier in the week.

Another year gone by, and this still hits me hard:


Forgotten Detroit -- Remembered Sister in Christ

They Condemn in God What They Praise in Men!

I like the phrase, You can't fix stupid!

Sometimes, it applies to me.  For example, my inability to keep out of internet debates with atheists.  When surfing the various forums I belong to, I really do try not to click on any thread  with any remotely theological or political sounding title.

But like the moth, drawn to the proverbial flame, I cannot always keep away.  Sometimes I am drawn in by the amusing haughtiness of twenty-something atheists, so smug and certain, with such a great faith in science and in their own intellects.

But no matter how I get ensnared in the debate, it never ends well.  Most often, I let the atheist(s) have the last word:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

But, of course, that makes him think that his argument is unanswerable:

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

In the lastest case, my opponent was railing against God for one of the usual reasons:  How could an all-loving God create a hell and send people there for eternity?  If that God does exist, he is a sicko!!

Being a predestinarian, most of the usual Christian answers are off-limits to me.  I won't go through them here, but please consult your nearest Chick tract to learn about them.

This exchange took place on a bodybuilding forum, where strength, violence, the use of force, and domination over others are praised as ultimate virtues.  There is a large sub-forum for the various modern gladiatorial fighting "games" in which the goal is to physically destroy ones opponent in a  brutal fashion.  On some such boards there are "Pit" sub-forums, where the goal is to verbally eviscerate all other forum participants.

It suddenly struck me that the exact same things that are always praised in this forum as virtues for men to hold sacred, suddenly became vices when God took hold of them.

This was my eventual reply to him:

The more I think about this, given the current love of whatever is strong, forceful, and violent, modern people should view this as a feature, not a bug.

I would think that this "badass God", taking names and kicking asses into the Lake of Fire, would have a certain appeal to modern men. I would predict this picture of God would be more attractive to many than the fading "Jesus meek and mild" paradigm.

So, while you wouldn't wish hell upon anyone, God would. Why? Because He is much more of a badass than you.  

Every Anglican, His Own Species?

I had been an Anglican for only about two years, when I moved to Detroit, Michigan and became a parishioner at Mariners' Church of Detroit.  And I had not been at Mariners' for even two weeks when Bishop (then Father) Richard W. Ingalls drew me aside and told me in a confidential tone:  We have a lot of "odd birds" here at Mariners' ...

It turns out to have been a definite understatement.  The collection of "odd birds" we met there, and at subsequent Anglican parishes, ranged from the mildly odd to the truly eccentric.  In nearly all cases, the eccentricities were charming and endearing.  Sometimes, they were quite comical.  And they made me feel, too, that in Anglicanism, someone as odd as myself might even fit in.

This effect is probably natural for the Via Media church ... as Anglicans, we are "neither fish nor fowl".  Were it not for the freight with which modernity has loaded the word, I would be tempted to say that we are "queer".

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, opined that each angel constitutes his own unique species.

And this brings me to my hypothesis, which is purely speculative, and which I offer without proof:

Every Anglican constitutes his own species.

As I said, I offer no proof.  But you must admit, it explains a lot!