Heather King's Blog, page 57

PAIN AND BEAUTY

“We must never make the problem of pain worse than it is by vague talk about the ‘unimaginable sum of human misery.’ We can not simply add up the pain of one individual and another to get a higher level of pain…Search all time and space and you will not find that composite pain in anyone’s consciousness. There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it.”

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Somewhere else, possibly in the same book, Lewis says something to the effect that also for every person, whatever pain he or she has at any given moment is the greatest pain possible. It’s like every person stands in his or her own room that fills with the gas of suffering–you can’t compare one room full of the gas of that person’s suffering to another. Both rooms are filled with gas. Or something like that (I looked for the passage but can’t find it).

Anyway, I wonder if there isn’t a kind of inverse parallel with respect to beauty. If a person’s entire being is filled to the brim with the joy of beauty, the objective “level” or “quality” of the beauty, if there even is such a thing, is irrelevant.

The other day, for example, I was walking near my place in Pasadena up toward Washington Boulevard. It’s not an especially “nice” block. A busted TV sprawled on the median, a stained sofa listed toward the curb, and a couple of Rottweilers snarled from behind a fence. But it was also getting on toward dusk, and the light was aching, and I came upon a scrawny cactus, on the edge of a yard, that had thrown out one brave orange-gold bloom.

I stopped to look, and felt a vespers hush. I hadn’t had a great day and as it turned out, I wouldn’t have a great night, either.

But in that moment I thought, “Someone could be looking out the window at Versailles right and he or she could not possibly feel more gratitude, joy and wonder than I do right now.”

there is something deep there about God’s “economy”–a system of multiplication that neither supersedes nor sidelines mathematics but rather brings it to glorious fullness.

I’ve often thought along the same lines as I lie in bed, perhaps preparatory to an afternoon nap, and gaze out the six-inch sliver of glass (or screen as the case my be) that gives onto the citrus tree outside my window.

The room (which doubles as my “office”) can be noisy. Our house is on a major north-south residential street and though my apartment’s in back, the house next door, also divided into apartments, often seems borderline squat and/or peopled by transients. Given my druthers I would at all times have all shades up and windows thrown open to the world. But partly as a (lame) noise screen and partly for privacy, I have a bamboo blind on this window and the blind is usually mostly down.

Lying in bed, however, through that bottom six inches I’m afforded the most delightful view of citrus when in season (oranges, extremely bitter unfortunately), and in all seasons, a lattice of shiny lemon-green leaves that dance in the breeze and through which the afternoon light filters in a way that brings to mind Beethoven’s Late String Quartets, and every guy I’ve ever loved, and my mother.

“Lord, I have loved the beauty of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth.”

Every so often, it’s nice to add something to the unimaginable sum of human joy.

BRIAN DOYLE: ONE LONG RIVER OF SONG

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins:

Brian Doyle (1956 -2017) wrote essays, short stories, memoirs, novels and prose-poem hybrids he called “proems.” His work appeared in “Harper’s,” “Orion,” “The Sun” magazine and, repeatedly, in the “Best American Essays” series.

He won three Pushcart Prizes, was widely anthologized and, after being nominated nine times for the Oregon Book Award, won in 2016 for his novel “Martin Marten.”

He edited “Portland,” the magazine of the University of Portland, for over 25 years, attracting such top-tier writers as Annie Dillard, Pico Iyer, Scott Russell Sanders, and Kathleen Norris. Under his leadership, the publication was consistently ranked among the best university magazines in the country. He’s been called “superhumanly prolific.”

He was also a husband, father of three, and apparently mentor to hundreds.

In November of 2016 he was diagnosed with cancer and underwent surgery for what he referred to as “a big honkin’ brain tumor.” He died in May the next year.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

VANITY FAIR: HOLLYWOOD CALLING

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture piece begins:

Remember the carefree days when we could leave our homes, gather in public places maskless, and take in a museum exhibit of a Sunday afternoon?

I did that, way back on February 23. It was right after the Annenberg Space for Photography mounted a presentation, now “up” through July 26, called “VANITY FAIR: HOLLYWOOD CALLING: The Stars, the Parties, and the Powerbrokers.”

Who knows, things may be open by July 26th. If not, you can see many of the photographs and take a very well put-together audio tour through the Museum’s website.

I like to think I’m above such superficiality but the fact is I’m as wowed at a celebrity sighting as the next person.

Not that there have been many of them over the years. When I first moved to town in the early 90’s, I saw Brooke Shields across the room at the Broadway Deli in Santa Monica. I once spotted the actor William Macy at the Larchmont Village Farmers Market. The problem is I don’t watch that many contemporary movies or TV shows.

Gloria Swanson, Glenn Ford, Richard Widmark, Bette Davis—now if one of those stars walked down the street, I’d be falling all over myself trying to get a better look.

As it is, I was once at Joan’s on Third in West Hollywood with a friend when he hissed, “Don’t look now, but three-o’clock, the guy in a leather jacket with the babe. It’s Matthew McConaughey.” I said, “Matthew who?”

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT

“But I through the greatness of your love
have access to your house.
I bow down before your holy temple,
filled with awe.” Psalm 5:7.

“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” John 14: 23.

Last Friday I celebrated 33 years of sobriety.

Saturday I hosted the first of a new eight-week Writing Workshop.

Sunday was Mother’s Day.

I “went” to 10 a.m. Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Santa Barbara. This is the beauty of live-streaming: you can jump about and go to Mass, such as it is, where you like.

I’ve only been to this place twice (online; I know I’ve attended at least one Mass there in real life) but I like everything about it: The priests; the mission-style Church with its tin candle sconces, bultos, and stucco walls painted with angels; the cantor, a “normal” guy in a polo shirt who isn’t auditioning for “American Idol” but has feeling and a voice that’s from love. I especially loved at the end when he said, “Happy Mother’s Day to my own mother who I’m sure I drive crazy, and to all our mothers, who we probably all drive crazy.” Amen.

After that I walked the mile or so up to St. Elizabeth of Hungary, which has a Mary grotto in back and a nice shaded area beside it with trees and a fountain and the Stations of the Cross. I sat by the fountain and prayed a Rosary, and then the Stations.

In the midst of life are the seeds of death and in death are the seeds of life. It’s full on spring here in LA, with roses and everything else in glorious bloom, trees wildly leafing out, and the weather, yesterday at least, perfect. Truly, heaven must be like this: 74 degrees, with a balmy breeze, the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle, mountains shimmering in the distance.

And in another five weeks, we’ll have the summer solstice and already, the days will begin to get shorter–just like they started getting longer just before Christmas, in the dead of winter.

The writing workshop had filled me with an also wild joy: That I can help mother forth people’s stories, many of them held in, till now because of fear or other duties or shame. That I’ve been sufficiently (not totally by any means, but sufficiently) healed from my own massive wounds to be able to host such a gathering. That at long last I can bring not just my capacity to “teach writing,” but my whole self, that’s been formed and annealed by those two great disciplinarians: suffering and love.

Last night from my bed I texted my downstairs neighbor who, unusually, I hadn’t seen all day, to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day.

She’s a wonderful human being, an artist, a wife, an incredibly nurturing mother of a two-year-old daughter. She texted back and said, “Happy Mother’s Day to you, too. I often think of you as the mother of the compound and feel at peace knowing you are around.”

You know how every once in a great while you think, “If I died right this second, it would be okay. I would die happy”?

That was one such moment.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you.

SPREADING THE GOSPEL FROM MY DESK!

A few weeks back, several of us blog readers participated in a couple of zoom gatherings. For me, the experience was deep. This week’s arts and culture column is by way of a reflection and a thank-you note.

Here’s how it begins:

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.”
–Mark 15:15

Until a month ago I had never so much as engaged in a Face Time call, much less entered the realm of Skype or Zoom. Eccch, was my thought. I don’t want to see people when I’m talking to them on the phone. I don’t want to communicate sitting in front of my laptop by way of a grainy video.

But like much of the rest of the world, I discovered very quickly after the quarantine was imposed that Zoom meetings of various kinds were a godsend.

Next came the phenomenon of the livestream Mass, the very thought of which, again, a month ago would have made my skin crawl.

Then every church in the Archdiocese closed up tight. A few days later, I came to see the livestream Mass as a beautiful gift, a welcome and essential balm.

Meanwhile, I learned how to participate in a Zoom meeting and I learned the rudiments of hosting one. I also continued to post on the blog I’ve maintained for ten years.

One morning in prayer the thought came: I wonder if my blog readers would be interested in a little Lenten reflection Zoom gathering?

Many other thoughts, believe me, instantly arose. No-one will show up. Crazy people will show up. People will ramble on for too long. People won’t like me once they see how I really am. We’ll all feel too awkward to say anything. I’ll be tired and crabby that day, the wifi reception will be bad, the whole effort will be a debacle.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

DISCUSSING MY BOOK RAVISHED

Michael John Cusick, self-described wounded healer and an all-around standup human being, operates a ministry out of Colorado and has a wonderful podcast called Restoring the Soul.

Recently he had me on to discuss my newest book, RAVISHED: Notes on Womanhood.

You can listen to the podcast HERE.

WERNER HERZOG’S “ECSTATIC TRUTH”

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

The German filmmaker Werner Herzog aims high. “I seek certain utopian things,” he says, “space for human honour and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist.”

I’ve written here of “Land of Silence and Darkness,” the 1971 documentary on the deaf-blind many consider his finest film.

He’s perhaps best known for “Aguirre: The Wrath of God” and “Grizzly Man.” You can stream some of Herzog’s other work on youtube, including “How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck” (1976) (World Livestock Auctioneer Championship), “Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices” (1995) (Renaissance prince and sacred music composer who stabbed his wife and her lover to death), and “Herdsmen of the Sun” (1989) (includes an unforgettable clip of Saharan nomadic Wodaabe tribesmen performing their mating dance to the strains of Gounod’s “Ave Maria”).

Herzog was raised in a remote German village in the Bavarian Mountains. His parents were divorced and his father was physically and emotionally absent.

“I was very much alone in my early childhood,” he has said. “I was quite silent and wouldn’t speak for days…I was very dangerous, my character was peculiar; it’s almost as if I had rabies.”

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

GET UP! PRESS ON!

One of my all-time favorite Gospel passages is the healing of the paralytic by the pool in Bethaisda:

Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep (Gate) a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes.

In these lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and crippled.

One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be well?”

The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me.”

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.
–John 5:2-9

Really? Thirty-eight years and not one person has helped you? Did you ASK? Do you WANT to be healed?

Then pick up your mat and walk.

Lately, many similar directives have appeared in the Scripture readings.

Thursday, April 30th:
“The angel of the Lord spoke to Phillip, ‘Get up and head south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert route.” [Acts 8:26]

Friday, May 1:
“He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ He said, ‘Who are you, sir?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.’ ” [Acts 9:4-6]

“There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight and ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul.” [Acts 9:10-11].

Saturday, May 2:
“As Peter was passing through every region, he went down to the holy ones living in Lydda. There he found a man name Aeneas, who had been confined to bed for eight years, for he was paralyzed. Peter said to him, ‘Aeneas, Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed.’ ”  [Acts 9:32-34]

I especially like that last one. When you’re in rehab for alcoholism or addiction, one of the first things they tell you is to make your bed each morning.

“Why?” is your thought. “I’m just going to lie down on it again at night.” (Or more likely if you were back home, all day, as you schemed how to rustle up more booze money).

But as responsible adults know, making your bed is a way to participate in the world of light, order, goodness, cleanliness, truth, self-love and thus, eventually, it’s to be hoped, love of others.

It’s a way of saying, I want to be well (more or less). I’m not sure what being well will mean, and I’m not sure I’m up to it, and to tell you the truth, I’m scared out of my wits to be dying to this old identity as a sick person, a person who can’t be counted on for anything so don’t even bother asking.

Nowadays I make my bed each morning even though I live alone, and even though I often take an afternoon nap, and even though, sure enough, I get back into that bed each night.

I figure if I’m killed while, for example, on my way to Mass, the people who enter my apartment will be cheered by the fact that my bed was made and my desk was clean and the dishes were done and that probably means a whole lot of other important things were in order.

Also, Christ is my roommate. He made his own bed, even when in the tomb. When the disciples entered, they found the cloth that had covered his head rolled up “in a separate place” [John 20:6-7] How thoughtful is that? If he can do it–and after all he’d just been through!–I can do it.

Besides, as Paul said after his conversion, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected, but I press on.” [Philippians 3:12].

LONELINESS AND COMMUNITY

“[B]eing a member of a community isn’t about…how I feel about any place I have lived, nor about my fear of isolation in a new city. It is about the neighbor I choose to be in the community I wind up calling my home.”
–Arthur C. Brooks, from a 2018 NYT article entitled “How Loneliness is Tearing America Apart”

And that was pre-pandemic!

It’s citrus season here in Southern California. And one beautiful thing about my own neighborhood and environs is that people are leaving out baskets and baskets and bins and bags of fantastic oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, and lemons, free for the taking.

The front-yard gardens and flowers are foaming. The fragrance of roses, pittosporum, jasmine, iris, and sage drift through the streets. The haze on the San Gabriel mountains is from heat, not smog. People say hi and thank you for ceding the sidewalk so as to observe the six-feet rule.

My own garden continues to stun. The neighbors come to wander, sit, sniff, ooh and aah, make their own gardens.

I’ve put away the down comforter and taken out my summer nightgowns. The other day I made a pitcher of iced tea for the first time since September.

Spring.

A TOUR OF MY FRIDGE

Continuing my “open door” policy…Come on in!