For whom the Bell Tolls
John Donne

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From "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" (1623), XVII: Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris - "Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all.
When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member.
And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.
There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest.
If we understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is.
The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that this occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God.
Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours.
Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.
No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.
If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he travels.
Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it.
Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

John Donne (rhymes with gun) wrote this when he was Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He was a mystic Christian poet, or sometimes maybe just a mystic poet; but I think this is one of the most poetic things ever written by a seventeenth century Anglican cleric who preached to the King.

Think about what it means. Forget about Hemingway for now. Why does he say no man is an island? What island is he talking about? Think about it. I guess everybody knows that in former times, simpler times, the church bells tolled--they rang slowly, evenly, mournfully--whenever somebody had just died. People would stop their labors and remove their hats, and bow their heads, all the time wondering who had just died. Maybe somebody they sort of knew.

But really, whom does the bell toll for?

Robert A. Heinlein

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, pitch manure, solve equations, analyze a new problem, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

(Notebooks of Lazarus Long)

Brigham Young

Shall I sit down and read the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Covenants all the time?” says one. Yes, if you please, and when you have done, you may be nothing but a sectarian after all. It is your duty to study to know everything upon the face of the earth, in addition to reading those books. We should not only study good, and its effects upon our race, but also evil, and its consequences….

And inasmuch as the Lord Almighty has designed us to know all that is in the earth, both the good and the evil, and to learn not only what is in heaven, but what is in hell, you need not expect ever to get through learning. Though I mean to learn all that is in heaven, earth, and hell, do I need to commit iniquity to do it? No. If I were to go into the bowels of hell to find out what is there, that does not make it necessary that I should commit one evil, or blaspheme in any way the name of my Maker.

6 February 1853

Journal of Discourses, 2:93-94

✠

Insects. People who will not go out fishing for ideas. People who are content with what they grew up with, and don’t want to find out about anything else. People who sit on recliner chairs with greasy armrests, whose greatest technical achievement is mastery of the TV remote control and the game box thingies. Who listen to the nightly news for 24 minutes—unless you count the commercials as news, then it’s 30—and that’s all they want to know about the world. “Tiger kills man…chewed off arm last year.” That’s all they need to know about the world. And they believe the global warming hoax, and think Algore deserved the Nobel. (Good lord, these people run the risk of getting up one day and going down to the precinct to vote! Nahh. Not to worry. They never registered.)

Insects. People who are geniuses at math or some quantitative area, techies, gonna be rich someday off of computer programs or new materials invented in a lab, but have not a clue who Charles Dickens is, or Baudelaire, or Goethe, or Pushkin. People who are great at sales or playing the stock market, sons of daytraders, who are going to be rich but ignorant. And so many already are. Rich. And ignorant. Who go see a movie that is meant to propagandize them into a new socialist world, where these poor ignoramuses will be the drones—until the system collapses, as all socialist systems collapse.

Insects.

Christmas

I’ve heard that Charles Dickens pretty much made Christmas into a big deal with his A Christmas Carol. I’ve read history that Christmas was observed, but not with such fête and frolic and festivity and in fact religiosity until his story got published and read all over the place. He shortened his story so he could give public readings, and it’s here: http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/carol.htm

For what is life? This life? My life?

It is even a vapour,

That appeareth for a little time,

And then vanisheth away

Away dark night, away

I wend my way through windy days

And grope through fearsome night

Eyes shut against the dusty dark

Praying for the light

Groping in the umbral sand

Searching for some light

Dust thou wert and dust thou art

Feeble in the wind

All flesh is as the grass

The flower of the grass

The flower blooms, and fades, and dies

And doesn’t know its end –

Will I? Or will I leave this mortal vale

Taken instantly, not knowing where or when?

And brightly wake in paradise?

What win I if I gain the thing I seek?

A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.

Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week?

Or sells eternity to get a toy?

For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?

Shakespeare

The Rape of Lucrece

211ff

What is the greatest expression of love? What is the most powerful and meaningful way a boy and a girl can show their love?

Too often, a boy, or sometimes a girl, will say that the way to show love is physical. They will say that the supreme way to prove your love is physical—by having sexual relations. That is a lie. That lie comes from the devil. He puts it into people’s minds and their bodies agree. That act, the act by which spirits enter physical bodies and are born into this world, is a sacred act. True, it is a supreme expression of love between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully married; but to try to talk someone into doing that sacred act before marriage or outside of marriage is wicked. It is the opposite of love. It is the supreme act of selfishness. It is using another person to satisfy your own lusts. And it is done with another person’s body, not their heart or spirit. If it were right, it would not be followed immediately by feelings of guilt and shame.

The greatest expression of love was said by Jesus: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) The greatest way we can show love is to be willing to put another person’s well-being above our own. Their comfort above our own. Their happiness should be our purpose, and “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10).

If we love someone we will not use them to satisfy and gratify our carnal instincts. We will protect them. That’s love. Getting someone to break God’s commandments is not love. It’s being a user. People who use other people don’t love other people: they only love themselves. Yes, they will talk all kinds of “sweet-talk” and give a false sense of caring more for you than for themselves. That’s the user mentality. It’s the con game. It’s not love.

The greatest expression of love, the most meaningful and powerful way a boy and a girl can show their love is to protect one another from harm—physical harm, psychological harm, spiritual harm.

Son visage disait tragédie mais bien cachée, et sinon lointaine au moins profonde, de sorte que son sourire n’atteignait jamais grand succès ; et de larmes elle n’en avait plus, les ayant toutes déjà et, il y a de ça longtemps, épuisées, dépensées sur une histoire que personne, semblait-il, ne saurait découvrir, puisqu’en l’épuisant le rideau du théâtre avant-garde de son être, de son existence psychique, se déchirerait et les mécanismes du drame—les cordes pour faire descendre les rideaux de la mémoire, les roues pour faire élever les panneaux du souvenir—seraient exposés, et peut-être même les acteurs et les actrices en train de faire croire au public que la fiction devient dans la lumière fausse des phares de scène la réalité seraient accablés, et elle crèverait devant tout le monde, vidée de toute atmosphère intérieure de femme spirituelle.

Salva me, ars…

I have noticed something lately. Things have been stressful—I think that’s a fair use of the word—and I have drawn great solace from the pages of the Book of Mormon. (I have been reading it in French.) But also, and in no way comparably, I have noticed that I have drawn great comfort and pleasure from art. My experience with art is limited to listening to CDs of music and turning the pages of art books. But that’s enough. I have been inspired by my new Vivaldi CD that Steve got for me, listening to the scordatura of the cellos, and by Patrick Casaday’s Famine: Remembrance, and other beautiful things. But in a very parallel way I have loved turning the pages of my art books, picture after picture of great paintings. And I have loved reading my new Paul Johnson book, Art: a New History. It’s a reflection as much as a history, and I like how he sees it. I recently purchased Painters of the Wasatch Mountains, collected and edited by three people, but mainly Robert Olpin, who was on late nights on the Utah Education Channel that nobody watches. He was a prof at the UofU, and Utah born, probably a back-slid Mormon, but knew Utah arts and artists from Dan to Beersheba, or Snowville to St George. It has some pretty good paintings, some really great paintings, and some paintings that are incredible. And many of the paintings are of mountains I recognize… which means I’ve seen that mountain, and the artist did it up well enough that I recognize it. Like one called “Lazy Afternoon,” or something, but I could drive you up to the Midway turnoff right before Heber and stop by the river, by Kohler’s dairy farm, and you would see that exact view of Timp. And then to go through a cheap art book called Masters of Modern Painting, or something like that, that I got at the fashion shop that by accident has some odd-lot books, mostly stupid cooking or cocktails or salads books, but then the occasional art book. I have been perusing the greats, and talking about them: Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Fragonard, Gainsborough, then on to the Luminists, the Romantics, the Impressionists, etc. That Modern Painting book has many artists and pictures that I have not seen before, some from famous artists—Caneletto, Caravaggio—but canvases I have not seen before. There has been something soothing and uplifting about searching one corner of a painting to the other, taking it all in for minutes, not seconds, before turning the page, and then going back to it a day later and savoring it again. It has not just been entertaining (“Entertainment is the happiness of those who cannot think”—Alexander Pope), it has been exhilarating, uplifting, and even spiritual. Now that word is so misused today that it begs defining in context, so I mean spiritual in the sense of the New-Age ommmmmm-groaner, but more so spiritual in the sense of uplifting the spirit, giving joy to the soul. As Elder Maxwell said, “After all, brothers and sisters, when we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time.” Ars longa, vita brevis, said Goethe, after he read it in Montaigne, who got it from Cicero. There is a rock foundation in art that endures. It may not endure beyond the time of the telestial phase of the world, especially those paintings that are actually untoward, and even those that are perfectly moral, but nevertheless portray the nude, or scenes of a telestial world. But for as long as this level of our existence endures, art will provide exhilaration and elevation. Proust said friendships, love, even family, may fade—only art endures. I’m not of that opinion, or don’t see that what he saw is necessarily so, but in fact many human relations can turn, where art is always there, always what it is.

“While rashness is a crime, boldness is not incompatible with caution. Nay, it is often the quintessence of prudence.”

—Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, CSA, General Order No. 26, 1863

Am I bold? I sometimes accuse myself of velleity, and certainly others may have thought my ways to fall into a category of timidity. Do I strike while the iron’s hot? Usually not. And if I do, I regret that action. Shoulda waited. So here we are in Christmastime, and I am again the other half of the Grand Dichotomy—the Xcrooge half. I will pay my devotions to heaven, and curse mammon all the while. Curse you, Mammon, in your department stores and big box stores and catalogues and commercials. Curse you all wrapped up in pretty ugly wrapping paper. Come, January, bring me relief. I sink in my own cursings.

How quickly yes it turns from this to this,

and brightest day in sunny glory is a memory, while a chill and bleak snowy scene has its own radiance, numinous apparitions of white on white, what once may have been green or brown, or even scarlet, now white as snow, actually snow, no longer a fence but snow in the shape of a fence, snow in the shape of a tree, snow as pasture, and in the still and chill a calm of dying down and being still, chilled and stilled by winter’s grip, yet pleased with all the equanimity of noncolor that makes us believe again in change, change from our peccant ways to find some level of peace, inner peace with an outward expression.

Both pictures taken within minutes of each other. Just like life, looking up and seeing one thing, looking down and seeing quite another. What do you want to see? How about seeing both, accepting both? I think about what has been, and then I think about what could be, might be, shall be; but then I think about what is. Which one counts the most? Shall I wear a red shirt? Blue? Or White? I grow old, I grow old… shall I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled? Eliot borrowed from Laforgue and made it quite acceptable. And Baudelaire, and Dante, and Wagner, mein irisch Kind; and it’s OK to do that now. He did it.

And flights of angels sing thee to thy …

What’s your sign? If somebody looks at my profile to the right here, they will see that my sign is a scorpio. That is mentioned not by me, but by the computer that read my birthdate info required, and automatically assigned me a sign. If I could choose my own sign, it might be the St Andrew’s Cross, or the chi-ro, or a thistle. I detest the very idea that anybody would think of me in terms of an astrological sign. That does not make me. I am not a product of the season I was born in. What makes me would be my choices. I was born into an environment—a time, an era, a place, a milieu—but what I chose to take from all that is what I am.

So let us all then choose wisely. We choose every day what we will be in the obituary, in the minds of those who think about us long after we are gone over into that next place. We choose on the basis of our morality. We must choose, though, between two moralities, and we cannot make up our own, regardless of Rousseau, who said, “All the morality of our actions is the judgment we pass on them ourselves.” Wrong. There are two moralities: morality and immorality. We can choose life and freedom, or captivity and death. And the choices are evidenced in the clothes we put on in the morning, the music we choose to listen to, the stuff we search for on the Internet, the words we use to, with, for, about, against others.

Swift the days like fleeting clouds that race across the sky go on from here and find their way into the long halls of memory and future times like mirrors on opposing walls that catch the sense of eternity and let you see from here to there to there forever into a distant future past where we were and soon will be and cannot always find our way but with each other’s calls halloo and here and come and follow and now we catch a glimpse and think we see each other far ahead or there behind and yet we were so recently together but now not so closely by and yet not so distanced either.

Frisch weht der Wind der Heimat zu; mein liebsten Bruder wo weilest du?

I believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in their anthropomorphicity and their munificence and their closeness and their corporeal reality.

I believe the world of spirits is here, all around us, composed of such fine matter that it is imperceptible to our keenest instruments; but nonetheless there, real, true.

Japanese: WA

Usually translated, or rather, usually used as a tattoo or a wall decoration as “peace”, so a lot of people equate it with like the peace sign. But the “peace” it means, in Japanese is “in harmony with all surroundings, and with others, and with yourself.” Not just one word.

Japan: a sense of wa … … … …

… think of a zen garden, sand and stone and water, calm,

America: a sense of awe … … … …

… think Grand Canyon, life lived large, John Wayne

Blocks the breeze at night, but keeps out them dang pesky mortars.

Matt’s bed in FOB Ramadi.

Wylie Newt**** was a ruddy-faced, beefy-handed, roly-poly, smiley nice guy, one whom you would like instantly, who livened up a room by walking into it, exuding optimism and cheerfulness. Seriously, always smiling. He was pudgy, but watch out—it was a kind of like bubblewrap around a concrete pillar. Musta been forties, but seriously, seriously now, he looked late twenties, until you got up close to his eyes, twinkling, bright eyes surrounded by little lines of age. Or maybe all that smiling added to age wrinkles. After he left, one of the other guys says to me, “He’s a legend in the 5^th SF Group.”

—Yeah, I says back??in a way that asks for more, not that smart-alecky way that seems to mock or deny.

—Yeah, he says. He and his spotter would go out for five or six days, dropped off by chopper out in the boonies, and picked up by chopper, and he would have to—they would have to give their report. He’s probably killed more enemy troops than any other guy in the Group. He was a sniper over there, and the best. But he’ll never say anything about it.

It took a while to find out why he would never say anything about it. What’s going through your mind right now? He’s messed up in the head? Hates to think about it? Can’t deal with the memories of killing? After observing, listening, after a while, I found out. He would never talk about it because he was so good, and that would mean that to say anything about it would be boasting. And Wylie, if anything, was humble, and deferential, and would always give credit to others, even when they barely deserved it, whilst deflecting any praise away from him. Just a humble guy.

He came into the little teeny town with only two churches: The First Baptist Church for the old establishment stodgies and snooties, and the Memorial Baptist Church for the modernists, the liberals, the new people. (Oh yeah, the Methodist church was just on the outskirts of town, only an old house converted to a church.) So Wylie, not a particularly churchy guy, walks into the pastor’s office and says, “D’you need anybody to work with Scouts?” The Memorial B-Church, of course. “Well, actually, we just lost our Scoutmaster, he moved.”

—I’m your man”, says Wylie. And volunteered. Do you think he told killing stories around the campfire? The Scout boys never knew. But he sure could teach them woodsy skills.

What? It’s past midnight? I can’t believe it. I’ve still got so much to do! And writing on this blogpage is not helping me get done what really needs to get done. So much to do. So little time. I am running out of time. Soon the clock will tick its last tock and my time will be up. I will no longer be caught in the time bubble. But not being in the time bubble, you can’t get anything done, because out there, all is past, all is present, and all is future, and therefore you can’t work in just one, since all three are there all at once. So this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God. And not to procrastinate. Especially not to procrastinate the day of your repentance until it is everlastingly too late. Do what you can, right now. Which means go do something else right now. OK. I quit.

Crossing The Bar

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

How appropriate, now, Stevie has crossed the bar, gone on to the next life. There is one little thing, though, not quite right with old Lord Al here, and that is, "and after that the dark!" He didn't know. How could he know? After that, the light, that paradise where the righteous are received into a state of happiness, in paradise until the time of their resurrection. All light. Well, of course, unless you didn't qualify for paradise, and end up going to spirit prison, and heaven forbid, outer darkness. But for Stevie, he has assured his place, and now he's there, over there, right over there, at peace, and free from the burden of his mortal coil, and what a burden that was.

Wanna see something cool? Click on one of those pictures up there! But then don't click on the x to close that window, cuz you close the whole dang site. back arrow I guess.

A letter to my son going to war:

There will be bitter fighting in pitched battles wherever you go. If you end up in the Middle East and bullets and bombs are destroying flesh, it may be hell. But no matter where you are deployed, the battle between good and evil will be intense. It may be an even fiercer battle between the Cause of Christians and the forces of evil than fighting on the battlefield. How many casualties will there be that you, 99 Bravo, will never see, can’t treat? Those who fall to the sword of evil will be hurt worse than those who are wounded by bullets or shrapnel. Those who lose their virtue in the battle of each individual against wickedness will hurt worse than those who lose their sight or limbs in explosions.

James E. Faust, who served in the Marines in WWII, said, “Many countries now face the dangers of terrorism. War exposes people to bodily harm, but there is also exposure to moral harm. Those of us who have served in the military in wartime have experienced the disruption in life that comes from being uprooted from home and family, wholesome associations, and the influence of the organized Church. I warn those who are now serving in the military, or who may do so, against the pitfalls of these disruptions. They can take us into the very jaws of the Devil's Throat.

“Many of the activities you will be engaged in are group situations where you cannot always choose your own company. But you can choose your standards. In the military you belong to an outfit where part of its strength comes from the unity of its members. You need to be loyal to the members of your unit because the fellow who is next to you may save your life tomorrow! But that doesn't mean you have to lower your moral standards. In any association there needs to be one or more who stand up and say, ‘What we are doing is not right.’ It takes moral courage to do this!” (2003)

I have fought the good fight... that's the Apostle Paul. He saw life as a battle between good and evil. There are evil forces today in our world who are in uniform; there are evil forces who hide in civilian clothing amongst civilians, but who are enemy combatants; there are evil forces, also who are civilians, who are doing the work of the evil one. Yeah, the evil one. You know. That evil one. They're the people who love the lusts of the flesh more than God; who love money more than any person; who love themselves more than any other person.

So are we soldiers, or not?

No posting for Thanksgiving Day—in respect for the day, I could have said; but in reality, I couldn’t get to the ordinateur. But if there is something I am, it is grateful. I am thankful. I thank people for what they have done for me. I thank God for what He has done for me, which includes sending people my way to do things for Him that have helped me.

But now, Thanksgiving is over. Here comes Christmas. Oh how I execrate the holiday season, and everything to do with Christmas except the strictly religious aspect. Is the Christmas spirit a friendlier attitude as you go through the throngs? Or is it the mind-numbing background music over every sound system of every store, inside and out?

Oramus

O God, our help in ages past,

Our hope for times to come,

Protect us by thy righteous hand,

Defend us by Thy might.

Lead us in the ways of Truth

Guide us in the Right.

Guard us in our Promised Land,

Keep us in Thy holy sight.

Let our thoughts now turn to Thee,

Protect us in our Liberty.

What has become of us? Remember when there were bumperstickers on every other car that said UNITED WE STAND? So how united are we? What are we now? Oh, if only every single soul in these United States of America were intelligent, righteous, committed, dedicated, selfless, and humble. And pretty. Or handsome.

My most recent scientific discovery: We really have been hoodwinked by those evo kinds. Dogs have always been dogs. Adam and Eve walked out of the Garden of Eden, and by nightfall, a nice little dog was following them, and when they woke up the next morning, the dog was there, wagging its tail. Then from then on, there were dogs around. They didn’t evolve from wolves. Wolves have always been wolves. Dogs have always been dogs. What about prehistoric? Well, duh, if Adam and Eve were the first of the human race, and they began writing their history right away (that part is fact, not part of the question), then what’s pre-history??? Not. Doesn’t exist.

If death should come and find me here,

How could I protest?

I’ve often said I have no fear.

So if it puts me to the test

I may choke and roll my eyes

And clutch at one last breath;

But when it’s done I’ll realize:

I have no fear of death.

What awaits us on that far shore? Actually, that’s a beautiful metaphor, serving both Christian and pagan ideas of Death. The Christians waiting for the golden shore where the Civitas Dei comes down to the water’s edge; the pagans riding over on Charon’s boat. The one shore is on the other side of Jordan, the other on the other side of Styx.

But really, Death is not a river, not a far shore. Death is a curtain. A heavy, velvet curtain, thick and red, lined, with deep vermillion tassels, and we simply pass through it, and then we are on the other side. Then we are in that next life, where Hamlet was afraid he would wake up if he went to sleep in that sleep brought on by the bare bodkin. I wonder if you even care when you get there about everybody you left behind. Apparently not, because those who go through the curtain never think to part if from the other side and whisper to us what it’s like through that slit. Like your brother promising to write or call as soon as he gets to Paris, but when he gets there he’s so engrossed, having such an overwhelming experience, he forgets to call or write. Or does somebody go through the curtain, Mors, and then when they make a gesture to turn around and part the veil to whisper something to us, somebody touches his shoulder and shakes his head, “no.” And that person, somewhat embarrassed, moves along, and soon is so engrossed and overwhelmed with the beauty of the next estate that he really gives us no other thought. But really, what’s it like over there? Soon I’ll turn around, part the veil, and whisper to you. Warte, nur balde ruhe ich auch.

So Thanksgiving is coming up in two days, so Thanks. I mean it.

Ne pas crisper

Ne pas crisper les paupières

Ne pas se révéler

Faire semblant de ne pas vouloir

La voir passer dans le couloir

L’avoir assez dans la mémoire

Ne pas vouloir vouloir

Somebody bought a T-shirt that I liked, but would never wear, because I would never wear a T-shirt. It said,

"NI SAINTE NI TOUCHE"

Clever, very clever. I have lit a hundred candles in dark corners of cathedrals to Sainte Nitouche, my patron Saint. I see her everywhere. I hear her voice in the voice of mothers in stores with little children. But in the end we must bow to her. She is and always is right. Who would best have painted her image? Rubens? Boucher? Ingres? Sargent?

Amabam amare--St Augustine.

水 蛙 古

の 飛 池

音 び

込

む

Gotta love haiku.
Old pond, frog jumps in, sound of water.

It helps to speak and read Japanese to really appreciate it. Poetry is not just the words, it the sounds the words make. People forgot that after Ezra Pound dumped his crap on the literary world, and effete dupes that they were, they loved him for it. Rolled around in it.

We need Poe and Baudelaire and Byron and Wordsworth. Use Whitman for bumwad. George Garrett, and people who have the wits to mean while they sound. Who can make a sonnet anymore?

Even Robert Service, who carried a rhyming dictionary with him everywhere, sounds good and tells a great story, and it sticks with you because he means and he sounds. I wonder how he carried the dictionary around after the War since his arm was blown off by German artillery as he was driving wounded French soldiers away from the front as an American volunteer? (don't think I was serious in asking that question... pour qui me prends tu? )

Have you read Rilke in translation? No. You read the translator's efforts. You can only read Rilke in German. Have you read Pushkin in translation? No. You can't translate poetry.

PS
How do you get things to go where they're supposed to go on this page? Like getting the pictures or ideographs (kanjis) to line up proper?

Les jours de pluie je devais décider entre le petit parc à sculptures ou bien passer des heures à l’Âne Comblé, un petit bistrot non loin du parc, et plus près du Métro. On me reconnaissait là, et j’avais l’habitude de me planquer près de la vitrine, derrière les lettres givrées, avec mon bouquin, et de prendre une tasse après l’autre, enfoncé dans mon imper comme un franciscain, à bouquiner tranquillement sauf pour examiner chacun ou chacune qui entrait pour sortir de la pluie, prendre un verre, discuter, bavarder. J’avais toujours avec moi mon journal pour y inscrire une description vive des gens qui inspiraient des couleurs d’imagination. Ça servirait un jour pour décorer mon roman. Tout ce qu’il me fallait c’était l’intrigue. Et des personnages, mes sei personaggi en cerca d’autore. J’avais déjà mes adjectifs (on se montre puérile par ses adjectifs), mes descriptions, mes exclamations ; il fallait seulement quelque raison.

Salva me, ars…

I have noticed something lately. Things have been stressful—I think that’s a fair use of the word—and I have drawn great solace from the pages of the Book of Mormon. (I have been reading it in French.) But also, and in no way comparably, I have noticed that I have drawn great comfort and pleasure from art. My experience with art is limited to listening to CDs of music and turning the pages of art books. But that’s enough. I have been inspired by my new Vivaldi CD that Steve got for me, listening to the scordatura of the cellos, and by Patrick Casaday’s Famine: Remembrance, and other beautiful things. But in a very parallel way I have loved turning the pages of my art books, picture after picture of great paintings. And I have loved reading my new Paul Johnson book, Art: a New History. It’s a reflection as much as a history, and I like how he sees it. I recently purchased Painters of the Wasatch Mountains, collected and edited by three people, but mainly Robert Olpin, who was on late nights on the Utah Education Channel that nobody watches. He was a prof at the UofU, and Utah born, probably a back-slid Mormon, but knew Utah arts and artists from Dan to Beersheba, or Snowville to St George. It has some pretty good paintings, some really great paintings, and some paintings that are incredible. And many of the paintings are of mountains I recognize… which means I’ve seen that mountain, and the artist did it up well enough that I recognize it. Like one called “Lazy Afternoon,” or something, but I could drive you up to the Midway turnoff right before Heber and stop by the river, by Kohler’s dairy farm, and you would see that exact view of Timp. And then to go through a cheap art book called Masters of Modern Painting, or something like that, that I got at TJMaxx when Marlyn was shopping for clothes, and they pick up these odd lot books and sell them for $6.99. And then, for my Humanities class I have been presenting the greats, and talking about them: Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Fragonard, Gainsborough, then on to the Luminists, the Romantics, the Impressionists, etc. That Modern Painting book has many artists and pictures that I have not seen before, some from famous artists—Caneletto, Caravaggio—but canvases I have not seen before. There has been something soothing and uplifting about searching one corner of a painting to the other, taking it all in for minutes, not seconds, before turning the page, and then going back to it a day later and savoring it again. It has not just been entertaining (“Entertainment is the happiness of those who cannot think”—Alexander Pope), it has been exhilarating, uplifting, and even spiritual. Now that word is so misused today that it begs defining in context, so I mean spiritual in the sense of the New-Age ommm-groaner, but more so spiritual in the sense of uplifting the spirit, giving joy to the soul. As Elder Maxwell said, “After all, brothers and sisters, when we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time.” Ars longa, vita brevis, said Goethe, after he read it in Montaigne, who got it from Cicero. There is a rock foundation in art that endures. It may not endure beyond the time of the telestial phase of the world, especially those paintings that are actually untoward, and even those that are perfectly moral, but nevertheless portray the nude, or scenes of a telestial world. But for as long as this level of our existence endures, art will provide exhilaration and elevation. Proust said friendships, love, even family, may fade—only art endures. I’m not of that opinion, or don’t see that what he saw is necessarily so, but in fact many human relations can turn, where art is always there, always what it is.

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.