September 30, 2011

Been really frustrated lately about my painfully slow spiritual growth. I figured if I just had humility I would not sin. So I had this dream: me playing baseball. I'm in left field, and I mess up every play, embarrass myself and my team to the point that the manager has to come out and make a switch. I get sent to first base, where the results are even worse. After the game, I give him my uniform. In my life, the above scenario would play itself out by my losing my job, family, that small thing I call a career, and basically end up being a street person. I could see that that was/is humility: the cross; the real time death one, or as close as we can come to it.

And so it will be, for all Christians. Even the saints get pulled as close as possible, as much as they can take. The trouble is, for me, I also pray for success with my work, the work of my hands; besides, I wouldn't want to leave my kids with that.

So I guess God knows what He's doing. I get as much humility as I can take, given the life I'm in. So instead of praying for all humility, I'll pray for the amount he knows I can take.

I hope the MacArthur foundation is listening.

September 12, 2011

Just picked up Les Murray's new book, glanced at it quickly--the demands of classes and writing! He's marvelous as ever, but after reading Merton in Contemp. Christian Poetry I can't help but wish that other Catholic (and Protestant) poets were more keen in lifting up the name of Jesus.

I got an e-mail from a fine fiction writer not too long ago, and I asked her for titles for the Fiction version of the above class this spring. She said she doesn't write Catholic fiction anymore. That kind of thing always amazes me. How could one stop? The saints knew and know how to look at the world. Oprah Winfrey does not, nor do her minions. What are people thinking? (And how do we want to live?) Who wants to go to the next world saying they chose not to write about that uncomfortable (and unprofitable) Christian stuff--Jesus?

We must be suffused with joy--and the true pathos of suffering; not confine ourselves to the chorus of gargle-ers.

This life is about Jesus.