The Professor's Bayonet

The Book of Sirach, which is also known as Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus, is not found in the Protestant Bible.  It is one of seven books that shares this dubious distinction.  Written sometime between 196 and 177 BCE by Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira, a Hellenistic Jewish scribe, the Book of Sirach is a compilation of wise sayings, much like the Book of Proverbs, and can be found in the Roman Catholic Bible, the Eastern Orthodox Bible, the Oriental Orthodox Bible, and Assyrian Church of the East Bible.  Most denominations consider it a part of the Apocrypha.  Despite all this, a reading of The Book of Sirach can yield a wealth of insight.  Its single author had a plethora of astute observations on society and his fellow man.  Simply put, he offers good advice.  It is his final words, dear listeners, that I would like to focus on.  In Chapter 51, verse 30, he concludes the book by sharing the following: "Work at your tasks in due season, and in his own time God will give you your reward."  Put another way, do what you need to do today, and when God is ready, he will give you what you deserve.  As I studied this verse in the wee morning hours before the sun had come up, it occurred to me that this is the frame of mind many of us likely need to ward off anxiety and maybe even depression.  It does not take a sage to see that the world is an anxious place with individuals flitting from place to place, doing their very best to remain distracted.  Not to be distracted would mean having to lock eyes with impossible questions: What is the meaning of my life?  Why am I here?  What happens when I am not?  What is time but a thief?  What is the value of those cherished seasons in my life next to eternity?  Where is my life going?  What do I do with all the love that I have?  What do I do with all the love I was given?  Oftentimes, even coming up with the words for the question is a challenge, but that in and of itself points to the sheer enormity of the existential crises we all face.  It begins with a heavy feeling in the gut.  Sometimes, it remains a heavy feeling in the gut, and the words remain scarce or nonexistent.  We simply feel the heaviness of it all.  At fifty-one years old, I am feeling the weight.  My memories compete with my visions of what the future might hold, leaving me to wrestle with the disbelief that I have accumulated so many  years and that it is likely that those years, unless I live into my hundreds, constitute the bulk of my life.  I no longer live in theory.  Time and age are real.  Is this the mark of middle age?  Indeed, is this the beginning of wisdom?  Time is for none of us to control.  Celebrities of all types try to tell us otherwise with the surgeries they undergo and the lifestyles they lead or, at least, pretend to lead.  The lie is all around us.  You can beat time.  You can circumnavigate its effects.  But this is simply false.  We are all caught up in its momentum.  That is why time marches.  Time marches because soldiers march, and good soldiers are singular in mind and aim.  But Chapter 51, verse 30 gives us perspective.  In each season, we have a job.  We merely have to do it.  Go to school.  Start a family.  Raise children.  See them off.  Work at a career.  Love your spouse.  Be a good neighbor.  The clock will tick, and there is nothing we can do about it.  But God stands outside of time, which makes the phrase "in his own time" all the more mysterious.  The human mind cannot explain it.  The human heart cannot fathom it.  We, the poor banished children of Eve, can only experience it with serenity, we hope, accepting the fact that we do not have access to all the answers we seek.  The questions will come.  Pray, let us only be distracted by the work set before us now. 

We might blame the steam engine.  Invented by Thomas Newcomen in 1712 and improved by James Watt a half century later, the steam engine is widely regarded as the machine that both sparked and powered the Industrial Revolution.  What began as an innovation to pump water out of mines, the steam engine and its many iterations soon powered paper mills, flour mills, breweries, distilleries, and iron mills just to name a few beneficiaries.  The prospects were good.  Industry boomed, and as a result, many individuals who had eked out a living on country farms moved to urban centers for work.  The results, however, were mixed.  While industry continued to grow and evolve, the laborers whose blood, sweat, and tears kept the momentum going grew alienated and lost.  Uprooted from their small towns and families, and epidemic of loneliness and despair swept over the land.  Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and William Blake explored these feelings in their poetry and came to the conclusion that a return to nature was in order because that is where the Divine resided.  This, of course, was the recommendation of poets, and while those recommendations were eventually enfolded into the culture, the harsh effects of the Industrial Revolution remained.  The masses were beginning to feel like animals bereft of purpose, meaning, value, and God.  Meanwhile, the titans of industry – Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Morgan, and Ford – grew rich beyond measure.  Their storehouses were fabulously large.  There did not seem to be any limit to their wealth.  And, dear listeners, the masses noticed.  Wealth and power were too much in the hands of the very few – the industrial titans, to be sure, but also the royalty or anybody whose riches and power were legacy, not earned.  The people rose up in Russia and killed the Romanovs.  The people also rose up in China, disrupting a global region in ways that are still felt today.  And the revolutions were bloody.  Very bloody.  The beast that had been yoked for so long turned on its oppressor and chewed it to pieces.  I share this bit of history to suggest that the events that led to such wanton killing in Europe and Asia and violent social upheavals in the U.S. might prefigure what is happening in the current year.  Specifically, the rise of artificial intelligence is making a very few very wealthy while putting the rest of us – the masses – in predicaments where we have to wonder about the security of our jobs.  Once again, the few are getting wealthier while the vast majority is left to wring their hands and suffer.  Add to this situation the intentional dumbing down of our society by base entertainment, the overreliance, dare I say addiction, to technology – cellphones, ChatGPT, etc. -- and an education system that is increasingly reluctant to challenge students in meaningful ways and we get a world on the brink of exploding.  History is about to repeat itself, but in this case, call it Revolution 2.0.  As the gap between those who benefit from AI and those who do not benefit from AI grows, so, too, will the frustration had by the masses that their best efforts will never be enough.  Indeed, their best efforts are being replaced.  Soon enough, the common man will be as obsolete as a typewriter.  This is not me being an alarmist.  If current trends in wealth disparity exacerbated by slipping intellectual standards continue, the writing is on the wall.  Only this time, it will not be pitchforks the masses are wielding but weapons of a more sophisticated and lethal sort -- killing machines so unlike the steam engine as to be grotesque and nightmarish wielded by the illiterate, the unread, the angry beyond words. 

A boy named Augustine asked Bishop Robert Barron how God was able to exist before time.  The question is common enough.  Individuals young and old ponder over it.  But his answer was simple.  Time is a creature, he said.  It is a created thing.  God is not bound by the laws of His own creation.  He exists outside of time, outside of those laws.  For the rest of us who very much do exist in time and are bound by its rules, the notion that the God of the universe exists outside of time remains a headscratcher.  We might be able to understand the concept intellectually but only in that way.  There is a lot of heart bound up in time – specifically the passing of it – so we must relegate that truth of God to the bin meant for questions that cannot be answered on this side of paradise.  It will remain a mystery as we lean more heavily into our faith.  But even so, does the recognition that time is a creature afford us any new perspective on life, any modicum of peace?  Time is our most precious commodity, yet it is time that corrupts.  Rust.  Dilapidation.  Wrinkles.  Aches and pains.  Growing old.  Time's relentless momentum.  Time as the pressure cooker to get us to do this or that.  Act now.  Seize chances.  Time wasted.  Times that cannot be recovered.  Nostalgia.  Looking back.  Cherished memories so precious they hurt.  What does it mean to worship a God who is above all of this?  What does it mean to pray for His will to be done in your life?  More to the point, if God is love, and love exists outside of time, does this mean that the love we have for others does not fade never mind death, the event that removes people from the laws of time?  Seeing time as a creature, for me at least, removes its fangs.  It is, like everything else, under God's dominion, and, therefore, we should not fear its manifestations.  Our lives are made up of seasons, and many of those seasons are beloved, yet we should be confident in the truth that the love we shared in those seasons does not end with change or separation or death because love itself is eternal.  God is eternal.  The Gospel of Matthew puts it best: "What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven."  In the time we have, we bind.  When we join God in heaven, those bounds will be secure.  The Book of Sirach puts it like this: What are mortals? What are they worth? What is good in them, and what is evil? The number of their days seems great if it reaches a hundred years.a Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain of sand, so are these few years among the days of eternity. That is why the Lord is patient with them and pours out his mercy on them. He sees and understands that their death is wretched, and so he forgives them all the more. Their compassion is for their neighbor, but the Lord’s compassion reaches all flesh, Reproving, admonishing, teaching, and turning them back, as a shepherd his flock.b Time is, indeed, a creature, but thank God we have a shepherd who guides each of His children through the years they are allotted toward incorruptible fields and a love only sampled in the land of clocks and deadlines. 

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew: "After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  and he was transfigured before them: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.  And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.  Then Peter said to Jesus in reply, 'Lord, it is good that we are here.  If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.'  While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.'  When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid.  But Jesus came and touched them, saying 'Rise, and do not be afraid.' This is the scripture that came to me while I was walking my dog, Arrow, at Simpsonwood Park, doing my best to reconcile the joy I have for my daughter who just started a new adventure at Georgia Southern University with the broken heart I have because of her absence and the weight of the reality that a season of my life is coming to a close.  The struggle, as they say, is real.  For nineteen years, we have been building up to her launch, but when it finally occurred, it was very, very hard to accept.  I am excited for her but sad.  I know it is the best, but I still cry.  Suddenly.  Walking up the stairs.  Glancing at the door to her empty bedroom. I have been praying about it.  Perhaps I can use this experience to better understand our Heavenly Father's heart.  What did sin do but separate Him from his children?  And how did He respond but launch a massively scaled rescue mission, sending a savior, a Messiah, His Son, to defeat sin and death on the cross so that the distance between Father and all of His children is closed?  I miss her.  God missed us all.  Perhaps this small taste will draw me closer to His heart. But then I thought of Peter and his statement that "it is good that we are here."  And then it hit me.  I am just like Peter.  In being so reluctant to turn a page, go from one season to another, I am essentially saying the same thing: "it is good that we are here."  And I also have the impulse to build tents.  One for this daughter.  One for that daughter.  One for yet another daughter.  I am trying to stay in this season, trying to keep my daughters little, in princess dresses, reliant on me and their mother for everything. But what does scripture tell us?  While Peter was still speaking, still drafting plans to stay in that moment, that season, something profound happened.  They heard the voice of God.  What was good turned into something even better, something unimaginable.  To be sure, they got a glimpse of their own future glory, and their reaction was typical enough.  Fear. They were terrified.  But what does Jesus do?  The same thing He has been doing all along...saying to them, "Do not be afraid." Our lives are made up of a series of seasons.  I thought about the many seasons in my life on that walk in the park.  Some seasons are good while others are more challenging, but a common response to going from one season to another is fear.  Becoming an empty nester makes me afraid. Not having all of my daughters living under one room with me and my wife makes me afraid.  Yet this scripture tells me that my impulse to want to stay in a season – declare that the season is "good" and begin to build tents – is not in God's economy.  Though I cannot see it, God's plans are better, way better than mine.  Here was good for a time, and I cherish every single memory of that season when the girls were little, when they held my hand to cross the street.  But here is not where we were meant to remain.  Peter wanted to build tents.  God wants to build His kingdom.  May all of our children have a hand in that glorious effort as we continue to love them fiercely from a distance. 

Today, we put down our beloved cat, Flash.  He was fourteen years old.  At first, the signs of his decline were small.  His fur lost its shine.  There was a scratch in his meow.  But then he stopped eating, grew skinny, wouldn’t even nibble on his treats or the deli turkey he loved so much.  I bought the fancy stuff.  Nothing.  I finally took him to the vet where they ran blood tests.  The results were mixed and inconclusive.  It could be this.  It might be that.  We would have to run even more tests.  We did what families do: talked about it, weighed our options, looked at Flash intently as if doing so would give us the answers.  Perhaps he was just getting old.  Let’s wait and see.  But then he disappeared, and we feared that he had wandered off to die on his own.  We canvased the neighborhood, asked the neighbors to be on the lookout.  But then he turned up, lying by the fountain water dish.  When I came downstairs, my three daughters were huddled around him, petting him, stroking his paws.  Flash hardly moved.  I knew I had to make a phone call. We put him in a box with a towel and drove to the vet.  He didn’t meow.  He didn’t fuss.  After an examination and the presentation of more options, I made the call.  It was time.  No more prodding or poking. First the sedative.  Then the poison that would stop his heart and lungs.  Flash went easily.  A life.  A cat.  But not only a cat. My youngest daughter was only two when we got Flash, which means that this little grey and white tuxedo cat witnessed my daughters grow up.  They learned how to feed him and give him water.  They took him to the Blessing of the Pets ceremony at their Catholic school a number of times, and he regularly slept on my youngest daughter’s bed at night.  It was all a part of a routine.  She went to bed, and I found Flash.  I carried him upstairs and lightly knocked on her bedroom door.  “Package,” I said, and she would open the door and accept Flash into her arms.  We all performed our duties very matter-of-fact, even Flash.  He came to expect the nightly performance. Of course, we had our way of talking with him as pet owners do: words, phrases, silly ways to communicate.  And that is part of the experience.  If you, dear listeners have a pet, you know exactly what I am talking about.  But what I have been reflecting on all day – after we returned from the vet’s office, after I dug the hole, placed him in it, and said a prayer – is what Flash, in particular, and pets, in general, mean.  They are not providers.  They are not protectors.  They are companions.  Companions.  And that means something.  Just being there is important.  And Flash was there.  While the family was abuzz with activities – carpooling to school, soccer, volleyball, family vacations, playdates, and work, endless work – Flash sat with us through it all.  In our coming and going, he would offer a friendly meow; at the end of a long day, he would quietly jump onto the couch and sit with us, letting us pet him to help us unwind. We loved Flash, and he loved us, and I suppose he taught us that love does not always have to be about doing something.  Love can look like just being present.  Just being a companion  Not giving advice.  Not making demands.  Just sitting beside us all those years as we marveled at how quickly the girls grew and how the gray hairs just kept coming. That was his gift to us.  Until it was time to go.  A mere week away from dropping our oldest daughter off at college – an event for which I have been steeling myself for months, maybe years – Flash concluded that his journey with us was done.  Other companions would come our way.  The girls were young women now, and everything would be alright. 

To paraphrase 20th century American author and professor of literature, Joseph Campbell, “life’s greatest tragedy is not failure but climbing the ladder of success only to realize that you had leaned your ladder against the wrong wall.”  Elsewhere, this quote is attributed to what mid-life is all about.  One falls into a career path, works hard, burns the candle at both ends, and reaches middle age only to realize with some horror that they back the wrong pony, discerned incorrectly, made a wrong turn and just kept on going. What a person can do in this predicament is anyone’s guess.  I suppose this is the precursor to a midlife crisis.  Once the supposed err is realized, an attempt to reshuffle circumstances takes place.  Down comes the ladder; up it goes somewhere else.  But anyone with eyes to see knows that this rarely ends well.  Broken marriages, broken relationships, peculiar purchases and moves.  This is the blond secretary, the red hot rod.  Witnesses laugh at first then become sad because the event is sad.  Time flows in only one direction after all. Rarely is there a life without regrets.  We muddle through, doing our best to make good decisions and kicking ourselves when we don’t, but when it all adds up, we simply have to live with the burden of roads not taken.  We did not always heed the advice of Robert Frost.  Most times, we took the predictable route. Apart from being an astute insight on the sometimes experience of being middle age, Campbell’s thoughts on what he considers to be one of life’s greatest tragedies leaves readers wanting.  A person might ingest his words and say, Well, my ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall this whole time.  I am ten or fifteen years from retirement.  Now what?  Do I just muscle through until I can retire, buy my boat, and sail off into the distance? Perhaps little Emma Knight, a grade school student, has the best advice for those mulling over the efforts of their lives and the next steps after middle age.  She writes, “When I turn 100 years old I will be tired of everything and everyone, so I will tell everyone that I am going to Canada but actually go to the Bahamas.  I’ll live in a tiny hut with my tiny dog.  I will order fish tacos when I’m hungry and live my best life with no crap.” The point, dear listeners?  Living involves great effort, and not all decisions will be sound.  At some point, we will all get tired and begin to take careful stock of our circumstances.  If we are fortunate, the wall our ladders have been leaning against has been the correct one or, at least, something close to it.  Our internal compass had been right.  We had listened to the correct voice.  If the wall had been the wrong one all along then we might reframe our lives to look at the intent and not the gains.  We meant well.  We really did.  Perhaps there is time enough for grace and a redirection – another wall to receive our ladder.  The very lucky are granted this wish. At fifty-one, I am examining my own wall.  Perhaps this is the real takeaway from Campbell.  His thoughts are less an indictment of making the wrong decision and more a call to study where one happens to be: how they got there, was it worth it.  I, for one, am doing my best to understand the initiatives I have taken and those I chose to dismiss.  My question, really, is in a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. A Cucumber at Fifty-One  Optimistically, I bought many packets – cucumber seeds –  and prepared a nice bed. They sprouted after a time and grew, tendrils reaching upward, climbing the wire lattice. And when the yellow flowers began to burst, I thought of the cucumbers gramma would sprinkle with salt, but as the days grew hot and the insects droned, the flowers simply wilted, refused to transform: a great tangle of cucumber vines – so much potential unrealized.  It yielded just one. The present sum of my endeavors, I thought. 

J. D. Salinger’s 1951 novel, The Catcher in the Rye, retains its relevance in the present year as the very existence of artificial intelligence prompts everybody to wonder about the phoniness of a thing.  This is, after all, protagonist Holden Caulfield’s favorite epithet.  Everyone – his teachers, his friends, the individuals who populate his universe – is a phony, a fake, a walking and talking lie.  It is precisely this worldview that aggravates his sense of alienation: a feeling that he does not belong – that he is perpetually out of alignment with the world and all he can do is suffer through it.  Holden Caulfield the character became emblematic of an entire generation – the Baby Boomers – who were birthed into a world of Allied victory over the Axis powers only to question American exceptionalism, lose themselves in hyper-materialism, and eventually take to the streets to violently protest a police action taking place in Southeast Asia.  The narratives that had once kept the peace were beginning to be questioned for their true agendas, and the conclusions many reached was that these narratives perpetuated falsehoods that, in many cases, funneled money to the already rich and powerful. So phony it was.  Holden Caulfield and a generation of the likeminded called out the lies and lost themselves as a consequence.  How do you build a world from scratch?  You can’t.  One can only rearrange the pieces and hope for a better outcome. It has been my observation, dear listeners, that human beings can rarely if ever outwit their own proclivities.  We are fallen by nature, which means that being phony is, regrettably, our common default.  If we are apathetic, we wallow in this default.  If we strive to be better, we acknowledge and confess our sins.  Salinger seems to be making a similar observation when he writes, “It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.”  Here, he is making a point about human behavior.  Ignorance and fealty go hand in hand.  Human history is propelled by dedicated individuals doing things they do not fully understand.  Phonies.  We are all phony.  Faking it until we make it, though the final aim is never really achieved. It is understandable, then, that Holden Caulfield feels alienated – that an entire generation feels alienated.  How can one operate in a world they know to be false?  Surely, this recharacterizes bizarre behavior into desperate acts.  I will not list them here, dear listeners, because I am sure you can generate a list just as quickly on your own. Artificial intelligence, therefore, only exacerbates the problem.  If we did not truly know what was true before AI, we really do not know what is true with AI.  This, of course, refers to the things of the world and it even might explain, in part, why so many are migrating to Christian orthodoxy: Roman rite, Latin rite and Eastern.  When small t truth is in chaos, a seeker can only cleave to capital T truth. Salinger ends The Catcher in the Rye with a nod toward saving children from despair and alienation – in effect, saving them from a phony world – and while that effort remains noble even today, it seems that a more effective solution to the AI problem is one that very much includes a recalibration of what we should be pursuing, a rethinking of the problem long at hand. If we cannot do this, the vicious cycle will only continue, and the spiritual malaise and all the self-destructive behavior that goes with it will only deepen.  Perhaps artificial intelligence will ignite a revolution in the way that The Great Awakenings sparked religious revivals.  Perhaps it is the threat we need to change our ways and embrace authenticity.  We simply must decide how long we are willing to put up with the phony and not be resigned to being yet another generation that, as Holden Caulfield puts it, “never notice anything.” 

Nicholas Carr tells us what we likely already know intuitively: the internet, our iPhones, and AI are rewiring our brains.  His book, The Shallows, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, lays out the argument that, while we have a great abundance of information, we are eroding our ability to process it – to think critically about it – by off-loading various tasks to applications sold to us to make our lives easier.  We no longer engage in deep processing because we are quite happy with accepting the answer of a prompt we put into AI.  Our imagination is compromised, our curiosity diminished.  The more we outsource the things that make us human, the less human we become.  And all the while, we remain distracted by the pinging, the alerts, the bells that grab our attention and give us the quick dopamine rush. What should alarm us all is that the way we are now finding ourselves was intentional.  There is nothing accidental about this rewiring.  To be sure, if we look at the results even for a minute, we can easily see that an illiterate and unthinking population is the end goal. But for whom?  Perhaps the answer is where the money tends to spill. But even so, the ramifications of this series of nefarious events are far and wide – beyond merely rendering ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren powerless in the face of those with authentic ideas – ideas meant to horde wealth and power.  Carr writes that “[t]he price we pay to assume technology’s power is alienation.  The toll can be particularly high with our intellectual technologies.  the tools of the mind amplify and in turn numb the most intimate, the most human, of our natural capacities – those for reason, perception, memory, emotion.”  The price we pay for the convenience of technology answering even the slightest of difficult questions is that we willingly surrender some critical part of what it means to be human. Why we do this at all is a head scratcher.  Where does this impulse to self-destroy come from?  I can only hazard a guess, dear listeners.  Perhaps being human and the struggle inherent in this condition is too difficult.  Living is hard.  So we take a stroll on easy street never mind the harm it causes us – the harm that, at the time, does not seem like harm at all.  And the result?  Our minds atrophy.  The output of our creative endeavors become infantile.  Conformity is codified into our society.  We become easy to manipulate.  And our culture degrades.  As Carr writes, “culture is more than the aggregate of what Google describes as the world’s information.  It’s more than what can be reduced to binary code and uploaded onto the New.  To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation.  Outsource memory, and culture withers.” I can only hope that the human spirit will somehow bridle against this evil effort.  I am not sure there would be a Luddite-styled revolution – a violent smashing of the machines – but it is not unreasonable to hold out for a decisive reckoning of a technological trend that is clearly wrecking the minds of young and old alike.  Who among us has silently judged the group whose members are all engrossed in their screens?  Who else has decried the acceptance of being in front of a device the majority of one’s waking hours?  What will become of us when we do not even notice that?  When living digitized lives is the norm? We have put all of our eggs into one technological basket.  Will we eventually be so uncritical that we will forget the outcome, the lesson, the consequence of being so tragically myopic in our thinking? Nicholas Carr has sounded his alarm.  Let’s hope the day won’t come when we will no longer be able to hear it. https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750

Cultural critic, poet, and Kentucky farmer, Wendell Berry, is to the publishing monolith what the late Robert Duvall was to Hollywood: a talented force who does not care a bit about changing trends and what is and what is not being liked on some silly social media platform.  In effect, Berry is true to himself and his art, making his words a breath of fresh air in a world where the aims are rarely noble.  He tells it like it is, and in doing so, remains a rarity, which is why his insights are that important, especially when they apply to universal experiences the vain and the self-absorbed can hardly speak to. I am fifty-one years old, and while I know that this is not ancient, it is an age, I am learning, where certain thoughts are unavoidable.  The cast of characters – family members and even friends – who populated my youth continues to dwindle.  Aunts and uncles are gone.  Cousins.  Folks in town.  We all had that landscape of humanity, and depending on where you are in your own lives, dear listeners, you can also likely understand what it feels like to experience its change.  It is a surreal feeling.  Were they really there, or was I dreaming?  Did they impact me more than I knew at the time?  What does it mean to cross paths in time and space?  Do our souls possess a greater wisdom that cannot be accessed in the here and now but only then: upon our parting? In my study, rosaries hang from the framed photographs of those who have gone on.  I share some thoughts on the meaning of the rosary in Episode 2 of The Professor’s Bayonet, and I invite you to revisit it.  The rosaries are reminders that death is but a transition – that death, as John Donne characterizes it, is nothing more than a comma – a pause – on the way to something greater.  In this life we can have intimacy with God; in the next, union.  For the latter is more robust than the former.  It is the preferred way.  It is, as the Baltimore catechism teaches us, “to be happy with Him forever” in the next life. As I write this, Wendell Berry is ninety-one years old.  If certain thoughts for this fifty-one-year-old man are unavoidable, I can only imagine that those thoughts and others are, for Berry, very front and very center.  For this reason, I am grateful for his wisdom: hard-won and given freely in a poem he wrote entitled “The Loved Ones.”  I share it here with you, dear listeners.  I hope it lands well. The Loved Ones The loved ones we call the dead depart from us and for a while are absent.  And then as if called back by our love, they come near us again.  They enter our dreams. We feel they have been near us when we have not thought of them. They are simply here, simply waiting while we are distracted among our obligations.  At last it comes to us: They live now in the permanent world. We are the absent ones. 

www.48bconsulting.comIf memory serves me correctly, Jeff Haight of Jeff News fame was elected class clown for the graduating class of 1992.  We were classmates at Youngsville High School, which is now closed.  The closing was a result of the mass exodus of youth from the “biggest little town” on the map in northwestern Pennsylvania, but not all packed up their stuff and left.  Jeff, it seems, hung around.  While others fled to the four corners, the class funny man remained. Everybody loved Jeff in school.  He was the very personification of affable, and unlike others from surrounding high schools who were awarded the same moniker, Jeff’s humor was dry and subtle.  He was no loudmouth.  The jokes were clean, and they always landed well, causing many to experience the priceless bellylaugh. Our tiny class did what classes big and small do – disperse into the world, each member doing or trying to do what was meant for them to do – but recently, I came across something on social media that gave some perspective to how one might respond to the ever-increasing pace of our world. We are living at a time when print media is all but dead.  Newspapers across the land are putting their content behind pay walls, and most of us learn about current events either through the massive news agencies that are, themselves, in some existential trouble or social media feeds.  Both, I would argue, alienate the population, exacerbating the gulf between self-proclaimed “important” news and the humdrum events of individuals who are just trying to make ends meet, make sense of the world they inhabit, and get a good laugh from time to time.  It seems like a simple order, but we do not have to look very far to see how that is not being fulfilled. Enter Jeff News.  I happened upon this one-man organization on social media, and after perusing a few reports, it occurred to me that this might be an answer to the fragmentation we are all experiencing.  You see, dear listeners, Jeff Haight, my old high school classmate, was not done tickling everyone’s funny bone.  Indeed, he took his efforts on the road, so to speak, never leaving our common stomping grounds, Warren County – the very same place so many abandoned for so-called greener pastures. Jeff News returns the very local to the spotlight.  Warren County eateries.  Warren County issues.  Trout season.  Potholes.  The people.  The culture.  I guffawed when I saw Jeff News spoof Punxsatawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog who predicts the coming of spring.  Jeff News showcased another groundhog: Conewango Chuck.  Jeff stands outside on a snow-covered day next to an animal crate, sitting on a small table.  He tells us that some city councilmen are there to witness the festivities and members of PETA to make sure Conewango Chuck is well-treated.  The build-up is genius.  The icing on the cake is when Jeff reaches into the crate to remove Phil’s fellow prognosticator.  Suffice it to say, dear listeners, that the accolades and applause in the comments section were many. Beyond being able to laugh at more of Jeff’s antics all these years later, I am impressed by how his efforts as a local newsman have clearly filled a need, and I wonder if this is what our nation is currently leaning toward.  The pendulum has swung far, far to one direction – unwieldy news agencies that pound us with “breaking news,” faceless institutions that claim they know best for the populace, distant and powerful entities that pull levers at the expense of ordinary folks.  Small communities across America need Jeff News or, more to the point, their own version of Jeff News.  He gives Warren County what it wants.  Let others, class clowns or not, discover what their communities want.  It may not be Conewango Chuck but, for them, I bet it is something better, a perspective that hits the spot. 

www.48bconsulting.comhttps://www.amazon.com/Animal-Liberation-Definitive-Classic-Movement/dp/0061711306First published in 1975, Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation is, according to the Chicago Tribune, “a most important book that will change the way many of us look at animals – and, ultimately, at ourselves.”  Riding the waves of other liberation movements – notably, the Civil Right movement and Women’s lib – Animal Liberation changes the question from, Can animals reason, to, Can animals suffer?  In effect, Singer’s thesis dislodges the way we assign value to sentient beings from the framework of reason and rationality and, instead, recognizes the universal truth experienced by all species that being in this world with this life inevitably involves suffering.  My cat may not be able to decipher complex language.  My dog, Arrow, may not be equipped to pen masterpieces of literature.  But they suffer like I do.  And in that common footing, so argues Singer, a new conversation must be had. Once upon a time, animals were seen as mere automatons: creatures of a mechanical nature who, when injured, emitted sounds akin to mechanical malfunction, not cries of pain, despair, horror, or sadness.  As such, the barbaric practice of vivisection was sanctioned.  Students keen on understanding the inner-workings of some animal would gather round in a large lecture hall, peering down at the learned professor who, scalpel in hand, would slice, say, a bound dog or cat up the middle and peel away its skin to reveal the inner anatomy.  The animal would screech in pain, but no matter, so was the assumption.  It was a malfunction, the cry of unimaginable pain akin to the sound a broken carriage, a squeaky wheel, a rusty pulley might make. Other experiments – too many to list here – have also been performed on animals in the spirit of scientific inquiry, though the nature and purpose of that inquiry is certainly dubious: Chimpanzee mothers, upon giving birth, were denied physical contact with their offspring in order to observe and record psychological trauma, fevers were artificially induced in kittens, pigs were intentionally shot with rifles so that would-be medics could practice treating gun wounds, the feet of a hundred or so mice were electroshocked to measure who knows what, and so on and so forth – the cruel kids with magnifying glasses burning ants on the sidewalk grown up and given even more power to cause pain, not, as Singer notes, for therapeutic needs but for “commercial returns.”  You heard that correctly, dear listeners.  Much of the experiments done on animals is not meant to ameliorate the suffering of human beings.  It is, rather, to siphon more money into the bank accounts of Big Pharma and the like. What I am proposing, however, is that the scope of empathy and kindness can and should be widened and that there are even Biblical reasons to justify this necessary shift.  Consider all the animals who were enlisted in the larger Biblical narrative: the animals in Eden, those invited to board the Ark, Balaam’s donkey who saw the angel, and Mary’s and Jesus’  The animal world is not accidental.  It has purpose, true and real. What Singer seems to neglect in his calculus, though, is humankind’s fallen nature.  We do not do what we should.  We willfully do the opposite.  This is what it means to sin.  As such, while Christian teaching tells us we “should” respect animals, the reality is that we have not much of the time.  Our abuse of animals is more a reflection on our nature than it is on any dictate from on high with regards to an animal’s placement in the great hierarchy.  We and the animals that surround us may be outside of Eden, but this does not mean that the efforts we take to right cosmic wrongs cannot or should not include the furry, the four-legged, the companions who look past the cruel sins of man and wag their tails nevertheless. 

https://48bconsulting.com/It was difficult to hear the news.  Out of two classes, nobody, not a soul, had ever heard of Laurel and Hardy, the comedy duo who earned international fame in the early 20th century.  The lesson for the day had to do with the evolution of humor.  Students had the choice of writing down their thoughts on the matter and then bringing that small essay to class.  Writing.  Critical thinking.  The boxes were checked for a typical composition class.  But Laurel and Hardy were not to enjoy any commentary.  They were strangers to my students – relics from the past so old that seeing them in black and white pretty much summed up the situation.  Laurel, the slim Englishman who was prone to, in his words, “dumb” behavior and crying while kneading the hair on the crown of his head was in cahoots with Hardy, the portly, hotheaded leader of the two with the toothbrush moustache also made popular by Charlie Chaplin and Hitler.  Together, they entertained millions with situational routines that involved a lot of slapstick and even Three Stooges-styled physical violence. In one bit, Hardy mistakenly believes that Laurel had a leg amputated.  Feeling bad, he pledges his undying devotion to caring for his friend before getting slapped by someone who is trying to reclaim the wheelchair Laurel is using and then physically carrying his two-legged friend to his car.  Hardy stumbles and struggles, drops his bowler hat, gets doused with a water hose, and eventually falls over. The routine is amusing and indicative of what counted as funny in the 1930s. While Laurel and Hardy proved to be an archetype for a certain kind of comedy duo – think Abbott and Costello, Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza, Chris Farley and David Spade, John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd, Steve Martin and John Candy, and even Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy – what stood out was that, while the two were making people laugh with strong physicality and sometimes violence, the world in the 1930s was experiencing something quite telling. Nazi Germany.  Fascist Italy.  Imperial Japan.  We do not, dear listeners, need to walk through a history lesson, but suffice it to say that while Laurel and Hardy were entertaining audiences far and wide, the world was steadily marching toward world war.  Violence beget violence; the first alarmed, the second was to cope.  Put another way, the violence on screen mirrored the violence in the world.  What is interesting, though, is that we laughed at Laurel and Hardy.  What does that say about how we collectively dealt with the rise of naked aggression? The Laurel and Hardy bit mentioned in this episode takes place in a convalescence home for veterans.  Laurel is a patient; Hardy – again with the toothbrush moustache -- is the visitor.  The joke is centered on Hardy’s belief that Laurel is an amputee.  He believes he only has one leg.  Viewers, though, know the truth that Laurel is very capable of walking by himself, yet the physical comedy pokes them in the ribs.  The comedy, in one sense, might be called dark.  Dark humor for a dark time. Only when Hardy sees Laurel walking away does he realize his folly – the last to know – making the end of the bit all the more hilarious.  Or that was, at least, the intention.  Even so, we might conclude that the best way to face our fears is to laugh at them.  This is Laurel and Hardy’s lesson to us.  What is more, we might see how other funny men and women throughout the decades make us laugh and then imagine what they might be reacting to.  We project our fears onto the stage or screen and allow those steeped in the craft of comedy to translate those fears into laughter.  What were we afraid of when Seinfeld was popular?  Or the Blues Brothers?  Or Bridesmaids?  There have been many iterations of Laurel and Hardy.  What else were they iterating beyond being skinny and fat?  

https://48bconsulting.com/https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/in-praise-of-detours-rachel-landrum-crumble/Rachel Landrum Crumble’s collection of poetry, In Praise of Detours, might be deemed a study of the individual’s plans versus the plans of the Divine. We have all heard the joke: Want to make God laugh?  Make a plan. The title poem certainly speaks to this conundrum of the human experience.  Crumble writes, “At the starting line of my white / suburban guilt, I first foresaw a tweedy / liberal blue-blood in my future, / a family friend.”  The reader soon learns, however, that the speaker’s “one,” so to speak – the true intended spouse – was nothing like what the speaker had imagined.  A detour occurred, and the speaker ends up falling for a man who was on his way to “winning / a black trophy wife to please your father, / who always disappointed you. / You were this quirky drummer / with a blowout ‘fro, a laugh and a stutter.”  Thirty-five years and three children later, the speaker pronounces him her true “home,” at least in the earthly sense, and the poem concludes with a bright, sentimental note.  And that would be fine but for the possibility that the raw material of this particular poem – race, time, expectations, and reality – seem to orbit something much greater: The very Source of a trajectory that leaves at least one mortal, the speaker, pleasantly surprised. I certainly do not want to see what is not there, as it were; however, the tone of the very first line suggests naivete borne out of inexperience. Crumble had expectations in the beginning.  We all have expectations at some point.  But Providence always gets the best of us.  Providence, dear listeners, is also a character in this poem.  He is, if you will, the road worker who puts up the detour sign at all, making Crumble’s poem relatable to those who have experienced similar changes of plan. Ultimately, it is a lesson in letting go – a lesson, I hasten to say, that is not easy in the least.  It almost seems counterintuitive, but the fact of the matter remains that it is essential for freedom to be experienced. Take, for example, another poem in Crumble’s collection entitled, “Threads for a New Robe.”  The word “threads” itself implies something used, something old, yet it is out of the threads that something new emerges.  The poem is about a mother’s need to let her child grow up. What began with youth and love became a precious child that the speaker is somehow expected to “swallow my heart / and let my youngest son be delivered / into the rough hands of circumstance, forced / to walk on his own two feet / in a dangerous / world.”  The speaker’s motherly anguish is evident, and, in my estimation, no parent can come away from this poem without echoing back that anguish.  The lesson is painful, but it is necessary, for this is part of the rhythm of raising children since time immemorial.  They “grow under our heart” until it is time for them to take off on their own or, as Crumble tells it, “run in the rain.” Crumble’s “Lessons of Loss in January” reinforces the relationship between parenthood and Providence by returning that relationship to where, in the Biblical sense, it all began: the Garden.  In a series of observations of trees in the dead of winter, Crumble elucidates that part of being human that has us experiencing loss and pain but finding a way to move on, not so much by our own volition but, to bring our study of Crumble’s work full circle, by the sheer insistence of life: through loss, through coming together, through letting go, through trusting what we cannot see, what we cannot hear life will come our way.  Life wins.  Providence is victorious.  "Leave me my heartwood,” Crumble writes.  “I am evergreen.”  This is the constant.  The unshakeable.  The true.  Far from ending on a nebulous note, Crumble seems to deliver her readers to the doorstep of something good, something accessible to all if only their own “heartwood” is right. 

https://48bconsulting.com/https://www.amazon.com/Like-Water-Leaves-Taro-Himalayan/dp/1964271282Tulasi Acharya’s memoir Like Water on Leaves of Taro begins with a young family’s wish to celebrate the first birthday of their only child with their extended family in Nepal. There is much to be thankful for, and by all measures, the prospects are bright; however, soon after arriving in Nepal, Acharya’s mother-in-law – his sasuma – dies of a heart attack, leaving the family bereft.  The meditation on her loss is profound enough, but soon thereafter, his father-in-law becomes ill.  Most of Acharya’s memoir is about, not only how he struggles with what his sasuraba’s cancer diagnosis really means – imminent death – but also what death means, in general: his in-laws, his own, that common fate for everybody. Between appointments at various doctor’s offices in Nepal, many staffed by abrasive, seemingly uncaring personnel, Acharya wrestles with the “Big” question, sometimes even bouncing ideas off of his wife, Kripa, who is still dealing with the loss of one parent while contemplating the loss of the second.  In a chapter entitled “Declaration of God’s Death,” Acharya quotes his wife as saying, “I always thought there was a God, that God existed, but for me God is dead today.  My God is dead.” Here and there, Acharya seems to share this sentiment.  Instances of intentional and even spiteful carelessness crop up such as when he lights up a cigarette, knowing full well that smoking tobacco is a well-known carcinogen.  But what sets him apart is that, as the memoirist, he indulges in philosophical digressions where he quotes popular poets and writers as if trying to seek wisdom from long-dead mentors.  At some point, Acharya confesses that “life ... is both beautiful and fragile,” a conclusion that seems to begin to afford an emotional framework in which to work out his frustrations and fears.  It is a truth that grants him freedom, in other words, to recognize the paradoxes that make up a life – that make up all of our lives.  To be sure, Acharya’s fatherhood greatly informs his working comprehension of two overlapping seasons – birth and death, a beginning and an ending.  He quotes Robert Frost that though “the woods are lovely, dark, and deep,” which is to suggest a nebulous but peaceful end, he has “miles to go before I sleep,” Death is present but not for him.  He has work to do.  His mother-in-law and soon his father-in-law have clocked out.  Their race, to quote scripture, is done.  But not his. This revelation seems to be his way to make sense of the passage of time and what that means: gaining some while losing others, but in his case, as with many other men, being a father throughout.  This is his toehold.  This is the beginning of an answer that makes any sense. It is his sasuraba or father-in-law's parting gift that eventually gives Acharya any peace.  The advice is rooted in family and the precious time we have with them, and for Acharya to end on that note underscores the real possibility that he knew the answer all along, even deep down: the memoir begins with family, and it ends with family, and time, like the intruder it is, makes its demands along the way.  Tulasi Acharya’s Like Water on Leaves of Taro, therefore, is a story for everyone of us.  Its themes are universal, and the struggles of the memoirist are relatable.  Grief is more than just what it is on the surface.  It is also fear and confusion, anger and desperation.  In this memoir, readers bear witness to a young man with a young family openly and honestly bearing his heart to the world with the implicit wish that the reader do the same or at least recognize the common experience of losing loved ones and having to get up the next day to go to work, earn a living, and, infinitely more importantly, love their families every hour, every minute, every blessed second.  So pick up a copy.  Your lives will be enriched if you do. 

https://48bconsulting.com/https://www.amazon.com/Half-Truths-Carol-Baldwin/dp/1957656859Kate Dinsmore is like many characters in coming-of-age stories who early on discover the power of words to reveal and defend the truth.  The seed was planted early, perhaps with the death of her brother, Jake, but readers soon learn that even her small southern town cannot keep her cooped up.  She must spread her wings, which is why she goes to Charlotte, North Carolina to immerse herself in the formal study of words.  Kate Dinsmore wants to become a journalist, wants to use her words to champion justice and stand against men like her Papaw who assert between drags from their cigarettes or spitting tobacco juice that “we’ve got to keep them coloreds from taking over.” Carol Baldwin’s debut novel, Half-Truths, is a powerhouse of a story.  Readers will quickly see why this book has already won many reputable awards.  A quick and lively pace combines expertly with insights on Jim Crow bigotry and the justice that must come out on top to create a narrative that is engrossing and a list of characters as complex as they are nuanced.  Baldwin does not work with caricatures; indeed, she understands that the culture of the Jim Crow South was multi-dimensional, even paradoxical.  There were no clear good guys or bad guys, just flawed ideas and modes of thinking that tragically tampered with everyone’s moral compass. In Charlotte, Baldwin’s ingenue protagonist, Kate, find friendship in Lillian, an older, more sophisticated city girl.  To be sure, she is the country mouse to Lillian’s city mouse, and the contrast is unnerving – there is even some conflict -- but soon enough, she finds a way forward, discovering to her great surprise that she and Lillian, who is Black, happen to share a great-grandfather.  With Kate poised to become a society girl, having a Black relative anywhere on the family tree would be a disaster for both Kate and her well-to-do grandparents under whose charge she is as a new resident of Charlotte.  The Ku Klux Klan otherwise known as the invisible empire is very much visible to Kate and her kinfolk.  Stepping out of line could be dangerous.  Yet Kate still has her words.  And her truth.  The battle lines are drawn, and young Kate, like David, is about to take on her own Goliath. Baldwin gifts her readers with a story that refuses to gloss over or otherwise forget the past.  For this reason, this book is invaluable to readers of all ages who are not timid about wrestling with old norms and old practices, asking themselves questions about their origin and how they were able to be sustained at all over the years.  Half-Truths lends itself to a discussion on history, yes, but beyond that, readers can also explore human psychology.  Readers might ask themselves: How did we let ourselves get so hateful?  What did these Jim Crow laws really say about us?  It is more than about racial segregation, more than about one race systematically scuttling another race.  Perhaps there was something spiritual going on: an unseen malice that kept everybody on edge and pointing fingers. Ultimately, Baldwin’s Half-Truths ranks up there with other books including Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, which was published in 1961.  Though nonfiction, Griffin’s book also tells the story of a journalist who immerses himself in the world of the Jim Crow South in order to uncover truths that could both undermine the status quo and bring people together across racial lines.  Baldwin accomplishes the same.  Brave Kate refuses to be cowed by what older, gruffer, and arguably more threatening men promote.  Though it takes time and a battery of tests that make her stronger, Kate comes out on top.  Truths are revealed, and healing begins. Baldwin’s Half-Truths is a small triumph, and those eager to secure a story that both entertains and edifies should not wait to get a copy. 

It is likely that author Marissa McFarland was thinking of the stereotype Italians enjoy when it comes to parting ways.  Her novel, When Goodbyes Begin, tells the story of Anna, the daughter of Italian immigrants who spends the first thirty years of her life doing her best to please her oftentimes overbearing parents, Maria and Tony.  After taking more control over the reins of her life by quitting her nursing job at a hospital and following her dream of becoming a party planner, Anna’s life seems to look up.  She even finds a romantic interest – a man who happens to be half Italian, a huge plus for her parents.  The upward momentum is halted, however, when her father, Tony, begins to become forgetful.  He misplaces things.  He has trouble maintaining the books at the family construction business.  In short order, Tony is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, which is when Anna – indeed, the entire close-knit family – experiences the unraveling of all that had once afforded order and certainty. Anybody unfortunate enough to watch a loved one experience Alzheimer’s understands that the farewell process is cruelly prolonged.  Italian families are known for long goodbyes.  There is rarely a quick hug, a wave, and an escort to the door.  They are loud and loving, and anybody engaged in them knows that it is a process.  How fitting, then, that McFarland would couch the story of the family patriarch gradually losing his cognitive abilities in this affair.  Tony is saying goodbye.  The family is learning how to do the same.  And while it may not be loud – to be sure, quite the opposite – it is nevertheless loving. McFarland pursues other threads in her book – other romantic tangles, the rearing up of things past – but it is Tony’s diagnosis that holds together the plot.  One might even argue, dear listeners, that When Goodbyes Begin is also about how many struggle with balancing the Old World with its culture and social expectations with the New World and the values it upholds.  In effect, this is an immigrant story where Anna, despite her efforts to secede from her strong-willed parents, actually embraces the very values that prompted her to try to break away to begin with.  Anna is her own person, but she is also very much the daughter of Tony and Maria.  They came to America to start a new life, presumably splitting with their parents and kin, and Anna is doing the very same thing.  We might call this ironic.  Or we might call this typical.  The apple really does not fall far from the tree. How might we further interpret Tony’s Alzheimer’s disease?  Is his forgetting also the erasure of a family history of rebellion – striking it out on your own?  How does this reframe Anna’s own rebellion?  Does it even become predictable? When Goodbyes Begin is a study in cultural baggage – yes – but it is also a study in human psychology.  What had seemed to be a break with tradition was actually a perpetuation of it.  Readers might even be inspired to reflect on they themselves lashed out, tried something different, attempted to go their own way only to learn that this had always been the masterplan.  As one gets older, this truth becomes clearer.  Perhaps had the disease not afflicted Tony, this same truth would have emerged from the depths of a lifetime of observation and been gifted to Anna as a token of peace.  This could very well be the biggest tragedy in the book.  With time comes great understanding, but when that time is truncated – when it is shortened – then the understanding we seek may not be found.  We simply pass the ball to our children and hope that they get farther along than we did. 

https://48bconsulting.com/https://www.amazon.com/Keep-Close-Post-Apocalyptic-Survival-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0DSY5DD15If you are familiar with Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, you are familiar with the genre Kristen Wade also explores in her 2024 novel, Keep Close.  In Wade’s work, a massive meteor shower described as “cat’s whiskers across the sky” ushers in an apocalyptic world where individuals unlucky enough to be standing more than six feet away from anybody else are preyed upon by banshees described later in the novel as “two-legged, headless, translucent wolves.”  They are also winged, which means that they can pounce upon their quarry in a matter of seconds.  The banshees cannot be readily seen, only being perceived as shimmers in the air, but when they strike, they do so with such sudden and swift brutality that witnesses are psychologically impacted in the worse way.  Fear is their greatest weapon; the quick death is merely a tag-on. Ren, one of the protagonists, is motivated by this fear throughout the book as she labors to return to her mother after surviving the sinking of a sailboat in the Pacific Ocean.  Her mother is in Washington state, and the miles between them, not to mention the banshees and the human bandits who would not hesitate to take cruel advantage of a seventeen-year-old girl and her younger siblings, are many. Keep Close can undoubtedly be read as yet another post-apocalyptic novel.  Like any other novel in that genre, readers bear witness to what happens when the tenuous agreements we have amongst each other – Rousseau would call it a social contract – are jettisoned, allowing for the less-flattering proclivities to emerge.  What interests me, dear listeners, is Wade’s particular approach to this genre.  A psychoanalysis of the book might reveal Wade’s motherly instincts at play. Most of the characters are kids or very young adults.  Those much older are, in most cases, ancillary to the plot.  They matter, but they are not central to the narrative.  They orbit around the characters whose emotional development drives the story forward.  Ren must find her mother.  Lee must save his sister.  Hank must get to Australia.  What motivates them all is fear, which makes Keep Close a truly universal story.  Fear motivates us all.  Sadness, anger, jealousy – all of these emotions can be linked to fear.  We might even argue that every parent’s complete and utter dedication to the care of their children is a reaction to fear.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of what cannot be stopped.  Fear of what the world and nature can do. Keep Close begins, after all, with a meteor shower.  The novel begins, in other words, with a classic man versus nature set up.  The banshees are merely a manifestation of this.  And what is more, Wade reveals her motherly hand when she writes that individuals can only be spared from the wrath of these creatures by staying close to each other – by being tethered to one another with a six-foot rope. A metaphorical umbilical cord.  The book is about keeping our children close in the face of what the world and universe throws at us.  That the banshees seem to prefer young children only underscores this reading.  Just as Ren, the older sister, insists that Lizzie, the younger sister, stays close, so, too is she trying throughout the book to get close to her mother.  When, in the end, she sets aside her fear and acts in a way that could easily lead to self-sacrifice we finally see Wade’s viewpoint on what it means for man to be pitted against nature – this classic theme. We are to give all of ourselves.  That is the only way.  That is THE way.  Otherwise, our spirits will remain tamped down by what is out of our control, and that was never the intended story we were meant to live.  Ren discovers this.  Wade knew it all along.  We all have our banshees.  We also have the ability to live despite them. 

https://48bconsulting.com/https://midnightmurmurs.blog/Kevin Enners is like any writer doing his best to promote his work while continuing to generate thoughtful and engaging content.  He is a member of the Atlanta Writers Club and writes for The Kyle Pease Foundation whose stated mission is to “improve the lives of people with disabilities through sports and beyond.”  Enners is prolific.  He has even written a novella, The Crave, and hosts a blog entitled Midnight Murmurs that houses a substantial collection of scary short stories. One of the stories, “Three Knocks at the Cabin Door,” is reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.”  In it, a man, alone in a cabin but for his dog, is tormented by the incessant sound of three sharp knocks.  Mostly, he does not know where they are coming from.  But sometimes, the knocks seem to come from specific places.  The heavy bedroom door.  The closet.  The floor beneath him.  The knocks do not let up.  Duke, the dog, grows uneasy.  The man believes he is losing his mind.  Until he peers down at his hands.  The mud.  The soil packed beneath his fingernails.  The disturbed earth near the porch.  I invite you, dear listeners, to find the February 2026 short story yourself to learn the ending.  You will see how the gothic is, if you will indulge me, alive and well today. The short story is impressive enough.  The fact that Enners penned it by using eye-gazing technology should arouse the interest of anybody used to the battle that is writing.  Kevin Enners, you see, has cerebral palsy. What is particularly noteworthy about Enners is how he champions writers with disabilities, observing that platforms dedicated to supporting the creative endeavors of folks with disabilities are either rare or obscure.  Spotlights shine on the creative works of many so-called marginalized groups, but for individuals like Enners, no such spotlight exists.  At least in the way Enners prefers it to exist.  Allow me to explain. There are many preconceptions about those with disabilities.  They do not need to be articulated here, but suffice it to know that there seems to be one centered on the ability produce creative work.  For whatever reason, there is a disconnection between the immediate impression many get when encountering someone with a disability and that person’s actual ability to do the thing we are all hardwired to do: create.  In Enner’s own words, “The general public doesn't realize that people with disabilities don't have a platform where they can express themselves creatively. I am lucky to have support for my writing. I have had a lot of support from my family and friends to maintain a voice in the creative realm and write stories that I don't think any other author can or is willing to write. There is a misunderstanding between what the public thinks we can do and what we actually can do.”  His writing efforts, thus, are meant to disrupt those assumptions – to correct a way of thinking that has shoved aside the voices of those who happen to have a disability.  To read Enners is not to read an author with cerebral palsy.  It is simply to read an author – and a good one at that. Elsewhere on The Professor’s Bayonet, I have written about how being made in the image of God, the Supreme Creator, means that we were made to create.  It is more an action, a vocation than an image.  In fact, it is far from the latter.  We only need to look at the superficial differences between us to acknowledge what is truly important about us all.  Some of us have darker skin.  Some of us are female.  Some were born with conditions like cerebral palsy.  All of us, though, were gifted in some form or another to create.  We draw.  We paint.  We nurture relationships.  We build families.  We create businesses.  And we write.  Kevin Enners writes.  And more of us should check out his blog.  It’s called Midnight Murmurs.  Just be sure to keep a light on.  You never know who might come knocking. 

https://www.jannaherron.com/serviceshttps://48bconsulting.com/Janna Herron’s brief memoir of her struggles with mental health is timely to say the very least.  Entitled Brokenness Restored: The Path to Recovery is a Healing Journey, Herron’s open rumination on what it took to come back from the brink of mental collapse is as raw as it is insightful.  She joins the chorus of so many young folks who, sadly, do battle against mental and spiritual snares alone, shining a light on the despair that goes unnoticed.  If anything, hers is a needed voice in today’s society – a voice with which to empathize, a voice to identify as a friend, someone who knows. Herron’s ideas on loneliness, for example, are sure to land well with those in her generation who are becoming or have already become disaffected with the narrative that social media unites.  One does not have to look very far to see how isolation has become an epidemic in and of itself – how lonely people really are despite having access to the world, as it were, at their fingertips.  Herron writes that “isolation merely increases the symptoms of depression and anxiety.”  She is correct.  Indeed, she adroitly points out that so many instances of depression are cyclical: depression leads to isolation, and isolation leads to a deeper depression. Interestingly, Herron shares that her father was once a correctional officer in a prison and that this experience served as the impetus for growing feelings of distrust.  She admits to not knowing how his experiences as an authority figure behind bars affected him internally, and she certainly extends an impressive level of grace when she recognizes how his time as a correctional officer negatively impacted his relationships at home; however, she does not excuse him from inadvertently setting a tone that would eventually engulf her, resulting in her own scuffle with weighty and unpleasant thoughts. I would submit with Herron’s book, however, that an analysis couched in her relationship with her father – something she mentions from the very beginning – might be deeply relevant.  It is no small detail, in other words – a bit of information that could provide helpful context for how her struggle played out.  She admits, after all, that she does not “overlook the pain and hurt that he has caused.”  Could this have been the catalyst for something bigger?Herron writes that soon after arriving at Texas Woman’s University, the conviction of being unsafe persisted.  The change in location did little to ameliorate her anxiety.  To be sure, she soon found out that those feelings were justified, which led to a downward spiral that left her considering the unthinkable.  She overdosed on some medication.  Herron writes that she wanted to go home – not where she was from but heaven, her celestial home.  What many tuck away in the recesses of their psyche, Herron puts on full display for her readers to consider.  In doing so, I would argue that she names it for what it is (attempting to take one’s own life) thereby neutralizing the ideation.  What is hidden is more dangerous – she makes that clear throughout the book – so exposing it defangs it considerably, making her story more approachable and, as a result, the path toward healing clearer to those facing similar challenges. Herron’s road to recover is circuitous.  It is not a direct shot.  Like ivy that winds itself up a tree trunk, her indirect route only made her stronger and more resilient.  God wants resilient people, and just like He did with Herron, He assures us that we were, in effect, built for the trials in which we find ourselves. Toward the end, Herron reminds us that suppressing our emotions is no good for anybody and that what God desires is for the truth to come to light.  It will oftentimes take great effort for that truth to emerge, but, Herron writes, the endeavor is worth it.  Because you are worth it, the child of God that you are. 

www.48bconsulting.comIn the hustle and bustle of the current day, it is easy to forget that many in the not-too-distant past resorted to solitude and silence to work through their struggles.  It was a monastic approach to facing one’s troubles, and to those living today who cannot imagine a time without cellphones and instant access, that approach is unimaginable.  We are in the midst of a social crisis where gazing absentmindedly into glowing rectangles is the norm, but rest assured that this terrible habit will come back to haunt us if it has not already done so.  The solution?  I submit, dear listeners, that we need to harken back to a time when stillness was not to intimidating – when it was welcomed, even sought out.  As it is, we have traded healthy tranquility for convenience, and as a result, the neurosis only grows bigger.  I look out at my students before class.  All of them, everyone, is glued to their phones, and the battle only continues when I start class.  The temptation to look down is just too great. I have mentioned before in other episodes that both sets of my grandparents suffered the loss of their oldest child.  I watched how my dad’s parents grieved his passing, and I did the same with my mom’s parents.  It was difficult not to compare and contrast – not to carefully and respectfully observe differences in coping mechanisms.  All of it was sad.  Each of my grandparents handled it uniquely. Granny, my dad’s mom, threw herself into work as a realtor.  Her husband, my grandfather, told and retold the stories.  My gramma, my mom’s mother, sealed herself off in a little room and painted.  My grampa, her husband, retired to the woodshed.  I remember him being in that woodshed until past dark.  Summer.  Fall.  Winter.  It may have been an escape.  The grandkids were oftentimes rambunctious.  It may have been something else – something wholly unplugged, to put it in modern day parlance.  It may have even been something sacred.  He would run the fixed circular saw to make kindling for the fire.  What else he did I do not know. Here in Georgia we have a monastery - The Monastery of the Holy Spirit – located in Conyers, about a half hour or so east of Atlanta.  The brothers take their silence reverently.  Many retreats are silent retreats, and those who participate are expected to keep mum.  It is difficult for me to drive out to the monastery, so I make do with a walk to Simpsonwood Park with my dog, Arrow.  As a general rule, I extinguish all devices upon entering the trail.  Out come the earbuds, and I take my walk through the woods with nothing but the sounds of birds should they choose to utter a peep.  It is in the silence that I am better able to hear God.  Nothing is forced.  Nothing coerced.  I simply allow the conversation to unfold as it will, discovering, at times, that the thing I wanted to pray about was not the thing that took center stage. In short, I get it.  I get the need for silence.  I get the desire for disconnection.  I can never know what he was thinking or feeling, but I wonder if his nightly retreat to the woodshed amounted to a form of prayer. What did grampa do but go to a familiar place back behind the house on the hill and do what he had been doing for years: cut kindling, stack wood, all to heat a house now occupied by two, the voices of his six daughters calling out for daddy from years past. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Requiem An old man sits in a dark shed on a winter’s eve, and he is surrounded by cord wood packed tight, knots out and up against the aged frame. He is doused in the pale yellow light of a naked bulb, and he is thinking, not about the fixed circular saw before him or the kindling he is making with each screaming pass, but of something else: his alone.  The dog is warm inside the house.  The sky is black and deep.  The old man fills his wheelbarrow, rises, hoists, and pushes, his only utterance, the soft crunch of icy snow. 

My grandfather – my dad’s dad – had many titles.  He was a physician in a small Kentucky town, so everywhere we went, he was greeted with a hearty “Hello, there, Dr. Dew!”  He liked to joke that he had delivered about half of them.  He was also a Catholic deacon, so if it wasn’t Dr. Dew, it was Deacon Dew.  The heartiness would be the same.  He was also an Army officer and a pilot, an elected official and a Kentucky Colonel, but, of course, he was simply Grandfather to me.  My younger cousins called him Fafa, but that monicker never really appealed to me.  I preferred the original, more dignified title. To be with Grandfather was to be under his tutelage.  He was always teaching – always finding an occasion to impart some bit of knowledge, some morsel of wisdom.  He had a lot of it, and the truth of the matter was that it was hard-earned.  He spent his boyhood in and out of orphanages until he eventually lied about his age and joined the service.  Little Orphan Annie had nothing on Grandfather, for his was truly a hard knocks life.  Eventually, he made his way to the University of Louisville, undergrad then medical school, and settled in the town of Vine Grove where he was known to make house calls with his little black bag and accept as payment baked goods and a chicken or two.  He practiced medicine during its golden age when insurance companies and Big Pharma did not have their noses in the exam room, and to a young man who acted as his sidekick, it was hard not to be impressed by how this little, portly man was regarded by the townsfolk. So I listened.  I asked questions.  I was teachable.  Beyond the facts and the minute details, I sought to understand how it all fit together.  Grandfather’s medical mind laid out the framework but his Deacon mind – the one who understood deep down that everything we know, everything we see and experience has just one Author – but that framework in its proper context.  His lectures were both informative and catechismal.  They massaged the brain and awakened the heart.  The intensity was appropriate because he knew and I came to know what was at stake.  We only have a few short years to get it together as best we can, so it is good and proper to get busy and get serious.  He had buried a son.  Grandfather knew firsthand what we were all up against, but he also knew there was only one way forward.  Jesus Christ.  The Way.  The Truth.  The Life. What I did not know then was that I was being conditioned to enter into my own spiritual battles.  If we are lucky, and I am first to admit that I was with my Grandfather, we are given a mentor to show us how to walk in the faith despite the evil that surrounds us.  He was my role model.  He showed me what a warrior can look like, and let me hasten to say, dear listeners, it is nothing like what Hollywood would have us believe.  Grandfather was the real deal.  Authentic.  Unwavering in his faith.  Steadfast in his love. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Casing the Joint The Class Six at Fort Knox was a  favorite destination for me and Grandfather; we’d case the joint, he, slowly pushing a cart up and down each aisle as he pontificated about booze: the generic brand of bourbon being just as good as Beam, the wine, the beer, where it was from, how it was made. Inevitably, a couple of bottles would find themselves in the cart, and Grandfather would always pay – this little man in flannel and Old Spice who pontificated about pretty much anything – then we’d make our way back to the house, me at the wheel, he in the seat next to mine, carrying on with the lesson I had heard a thousand times before and wish now I could hear as many more, his casing long done, his last bottle bought, and me, walking this long aisle without a lookout. 

I did not believe it when I learned that Chuck, the man who would become my stepdad, had never served in the military.  All the men in my life since then had served -- grampa, uncles, my own father, now deceased – and the notion that a man could grow to maturity without ever having been in uniform confounded me, to say the least.  I did not know it was possible.  I had no idea that it was even an option.  Since I could remember, I was raised on a mythology of masculinity that was inexorably framed by service to the country.  It was simply what one did as a male.  To meet a guy who somehow circumnavigated what I thought to be a fate as sure as the rising sun prompted me, in the very least, to wonder how a man could become a man without going through the gauntlet of boot camp and drill sergeants, orders and the ever-present possibility that one could be deployed in an instant.  But here I was, perplexed, before a man it took a good while for my mother to invite for dinner.  There were five of us kids, after all.  And who knows how Chuck might react. He enjoyed the pot roast, and we kids behaved, and soon enough, we found ourselves in a period of transition from living at home with a single widowed mother to living with mom and a man who was willing to pick up the slack and do the things men do for their families: provide, protect, and teach.  I marvel at his boldness still.  If there was baggage, mom had it in spades, yet Chuck would not be dissuaded. I will not pretend that his primary motivation was to become a stepfather.  He loved my mother; she was and remains the primary impetus for moving forward in the relationship.  That he did so knowing full well that it was, as they say, a package deal points to a different level of commitment altogether: one that is difficult not to be impressed with. The death of a loved one can certainly inspire such negative thinking, but a year or so after the death of my own father, a man came along – Chuck – and gave my family, his new family, tracks to go on – a new hope, a new way forward, a stable and prosperous future.  Simply by saying yes, he picked up the shards of a broken family and rebuilt it – a nuclear family.  With challenges.  With hiccoughs.  With trials and tests.  Just like every other family with a mom and dad and kids to clothe and feed.  One man’s noble decision gave structure to the emotionally rattled.  What would our world look like if more men stepped into the broken parts of our society, rolled up their sleeves, and set to rebuilding it?  I, for one, have a guess – an informed one, to be sure. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Stepdad I think Chuck had already asked mom to marry him, which is why they arranged a time for me and him to get to know each other better.  It was just the two of us: the newest, last man, the oldest boy. First I was to help him finish carpeting the inside of his brown Bronco, and then we were going to lift weights. I had never done either. In that order, I suppose, neither had Chuck.  But that’s what we did on the first day of this leg together, him stapling tan carpet around the Frisbee-sized speakers, later, me, bending my weakling arms to my weakling chest with K-mart weights and getting awkward pointers along the way from a man with tinted glasses and a moustache, a man who loved Steely Dan, Eric Clapton, my mother, and, not long down the road, me, who continues to puzzle over carpeting consoles – those goofy things dads do. 

The technical term is “cultural artifact.”  A cultural artifact is some item that helps to tell the story about the person who owned it, used it, relied on it, even.  It might be a tool or a garment – a keepsake or a piece of jewelry.  In point of fact, it could be anything so long as it gives context to the particular place and time a person or people group existed.  We are surrounded by cultural artifacts, which means that we are surrounded by story.  It only takes a keen observer to note the importance of said artifact and, from there, have the ability to tell its story and the stories of those it impacted. Archeologists have made a profession out of rummaging through people’s junk and piecing together their stories.  Of course, the junk heaps through which they typically sift with careful and meticulous brush strokes are hundreds if not thousands of years old.  I submit to you, dear listeners, that one does not have to be bona fide in this particular science to partake in its rituals of discovery.  For me, it was being given the liberty to wander around the houses of both sets of grandparents, the Kentucky ones and the Pennsylvania ones.  It was not snooping, mind you.  There was no sneaking around.  There was just observation.  Perusing books.  Looking at old photographs.  Paying attention to details.  Doing my best to discern the story.  Understand the story.  It was, after all, also my story, in part. The garage, in particular, held a treasure trove of tales.  There was much to learn about my grandfathers in those crowded spaces.  The cars could barely fit for all the odds and ends.  Little did I know then that it was the odds and ends that carried me farther than any old gas-guzzler could.  At least in the imagination.  At least in the discovery of something more, something previously unspoken about the men who, in my mind, could do little to no harm but who, instead, had spent a lifetime laboring to make the lives of others – me – better.  In those garages, north and south, I bore small witness to the cultural artifacts that helped to make that happen.  Perhaps you, dear listeners, have stood in similar places.  Perhaps you, too, have had a peak, have entertained a thought, have come to know something personal about the men whose photos are all that is left. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well.  My Grandparents’ Garage  Part I / Kentucky Of course, there were the usual items – the garden tools, the random boxes, a little red wagon my younger cousins grew out of –  but in the corner on a small bench sat the seasonal ornaments for my father’s grave: a wreath, plastic vases for plastic flowers, small, faded American flags. I sit in my own garage and watch my little children play, their balls, blocks, and markers mingled with my own garden tools and boxes and wonder about that unspeakable spot in my grandparents’ garage –  how it came about sadly bit by agonizing bit, my father moving back home with his stricken mommy and daddy a lifetime after he had moved out.  Part II / Pennsylvania  I built my own in the stone-walled basement in the house downtown out of a couple of uneven lengths of two-by-four and a  discarded piece of warped plywood: a workbench, just around the corner where we piled the winter wood. I had a light by necessity, but it wasn’t a workshop light I had seen in my grandparents’ garage up on the hill. Mine was a bulb, well-suited, I suppose, for a novice. While my bench held a hammer and a couple of nails, grampa’s was coated in sawdust, rusty Hills Bros. cans, screwdrivers and saws, blocks of wood and, of course, hammers, their handles bruised and taped, their claws nicked. My bench has grown since then; I  even have a toolbox, but the cologne that is oil and sawdust, metal and used machinery still belongs to him who had me hold the boards he measured, cut, pounded into place. 

The first of the month was practically a holiday.  In addition to government help, my mom would receive checks from the Navy and the Coast Guard to help provide for her children. Dad had served in both branches, and both branches honored their commitment to care for the children of the fallen.  The exact amount was never on my radar.  All I knew and all my siblings knew was that we could go to the store and filled up the cart and maybe, if we were good, go out to eat at McDonald’s.  That was our one day of living high on the hog. If Steve, the mailman, had not delivered the mail by 3:30, we kids were sent on a mission to find him, ask for our mail, and sprint back home where mom would be waiting to take the checks downtown and cash them before the banks closed at 4.  Timing was of the essence.  If we were late, if the banks closed, then we would have to go up on the hill where my grandparents lived to eat.  At gramma and grampa’s house, there was always enough, even when there wasn’t. Despite the growing number of years between those moments and now, I cannot pretend that the anxiety of potentially not having enough has left me.  I carry it with me still as I regard the wife and three children God has blessed me with – the family I am charged with providing for.  It is serious.  They absolutely depend on me.  I stand between them and going without, and it is a duty that consumes me daily.  I cannot forget.  How could I? I recall a short time after my father’s illness prompted him to return to his own parents an experience that underscored my family’s struggle in ways that affect me today.  I was told by my teacher that there was to be a party.  Each child had to bring something from home – something to pass around, share.  Like most kids who had yet to hit double digits, I informed my poor mother on the day of the party.  We were standing in the kitchen.  Her face turned pale.  I remember how she opened one cupboard after another, each one empty.  Empty.  There was nothing to grab, nothing to eat.  Until she opened one cupboard and found some pears my grandmother had canned.  “Take this,” she said, giving me the only thing she could find. I took the canned peaches to school and presented it to my teacher who told me that I had been mistaken.  The party today was for the other fourth-grade class, not mine.  Ours was the following week.  And there, in front of my entire class, holding the one item my mother could find, I burst into tears.  I bawled my eyes out.  Not because there would be no party that day.  But because I had an epiphany.  A sad realization.  I suddenly knew that we were poor.  It had all added up in a single, heart-wrenching moment. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Groceries Our small kitchen would be crowded with bulging brown paper bags –   on countertops, on cushion-less chairs, left by the open backdoor because they were too heavy and our arms too little –  these groceries, bagged promises of full tummies, purchased on the first of the month after we intercepted the mailman because the banks would close soon, and we had ketchup and an egg – mom rushing, signing, finally ordering the five of us to the running car. What jubilation, what joy, we, the sometimes desperate  ***  My youngest, Marianna, sits buckled in her car seat and looks at the groceries in front of her. “You went to the sto-ah?” she asks sweetly. I take no small moment before I say, “Yes”, then shift into first and take us where we need to go. 

https://48bconsulting.com/https://www.colorfulcrowpublishing.com/barbara-tuckerBarbara G. Tucker is proof that exquisite storytelling can and does happen far from the massive New York City publishing houses with their army of gatekeepers and yes-men and women whose focus is less on craft and more on fickle trends in the market.  Her brilliantly-written novel, Lying In, which was published by Colorful Crow Publishing in 2024, explores the hardscrabble life of Cotella, called “Telly” by most, who once aspired to be a nurse but was forced to change course due to a rare condition that caused tumors to sprout all over her body.  Even before this began to happen, Telly is described as an ugly woman, but with these “knots” all over the place, her appearance suffers even more, causing those who do not know her to recoil in disgust. Lying In takes place against the terrible backdrop of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 – a devastating event that even penetrated the countless hollers of Virginia Appalachia, Telly’s stomping ground.  While much of this page-turner follows Telly as she goes about caring for the families of women who just gave birth – women who are lying in – the plot is anchored by a particular family, the Goinses.  Telly arrives at their small ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere to find four unwashed and hungry kids and a sick woman in the bedroom, trying to give birth.  The situation is desperate from the beginning.  The husband is absent, and Telly quickly surmises that the woman has been infected with the illness.  In a delirium, the woman spews words that, at the time, do not make sense to Telly, but shortly afterwards, she expires, making Telly the sole caretaker of the children.  From this point, Lying In becomes a tale of remarkable grittiness in the face of impossible odds.  Telly perseveres.  Telly gets up in the morning and does the same the day after that and the day after that.  She keeps moving because she has to: for herself, for the kids, mostly.  Barbara G. Tucker gifts us with a story about the depths of the human heart and the power of the human spirit, and she does this, I hasten to add, in well-crafted prose absent any gratuitous scene that less tactful authors might jump to include. Ultimately, readers might be reminded of the lepers from the Bible.  They were outcasts before Jesus cleansed them of their ailment.  Telly’s condition only worsens throughout the book, but this is arguably a clever inversion of something else that is happening – something akin to being healed.  Telly finally finds her place in the world.  She finally secures a home.  To be sure, the ending underscores that victory even more, leaving readers much to ponder about the nature of their own life journey over and around “hollers” of a different sort. This, of course, is the power of a good story.  Novels like Tucker’s act as mirrors, which makes Telly’s condition all the more meaningful.  We could even take a reading of Tucker’s novel to a new level.  Telly’s “sin,” if you will, is worn on the outside.  What would we all look like if our sins were on full display for all to see, for all to be repulsed by?  Would we remain steady in our noble pursuits, defiant in the face of all that wants to bring us down like Tucker’s protagonist?  Telly faced many disappointments and had to live with the knowledge that every time she encountered a stranger, that stranger would react a certain way.  This could easily lead to loneliness and despair.  But she kept her work gloves on, so to speak, and in doing so, made a way for herself.  What she lacked in physical attraction, she made up for in usefulness and still found love: not romantic but one only a mother could possess.  I will leave it to you, dear listeners, to decide which is the more preferred. 

God is referenced as a “he” and “him” in the Bible, so goes the argument, because men, in specific, need a male ideal to look up to.  This in no way is meant to put men above women; on the contrary, this underscores men’s unique weakness.  Without a male ideal – without that distinctly male celestial guide – men, left to themselves, would be indescribably brutal, unfathomably destructive.  Notably, women do not need God to be a she.  They are built differently, and any argument that says that men and women are interchangeable is, to put it mildly, for the birds. I begin with this framework of the masculine to indicate that a particular aggression resides within each man and that, if channeled well, is beneficial.  Channeled aggression protects.  Channeled aggression provides.  Channeled aggression strives toward the noble, the good, and the worthy.  Unchanneled aggression leads to the opposite. Brokenness. Destruction. Selfishness. Laziness.  We do not have to look very far in our society today to see men who have squandered this gift.  To be sure, parts of our culture even celebrate such wasteful behavior, calling it “liberating” and “free.” It is no such thing. Men have been called to a higher mission, yet so many falter, choosing instead the numbing effects of TV, smartphones, drugs, and booze. I humbly submit to you, dear listeners, that we are in need of a renaissance of true masculinity – a rebirth of who we have been all along. And it might start with considering how the vulnerable in our society are treated. Recently, I had each of my students stand before the class and tell us something interesting about themselves. The task was not meant to be an intense intellectual exercise. It was simply meant to acclimate the students to public speaking: controlling a narrative in an engaging and fun way.  In essence, the exercise was meant to build confidence in each student. Many students talked about some hobby.  Others talked about their family.  A young man – eighteen years old, likely – spoke about where he was from and, in particular, his father.  He did not last long.  A split second after the word father escaped his lips, he bursts into tears.  The feelings were that intense.  My impression was that there had been a deficit.  A lack.  An absence in his young life.  All leading to a breakdown in front of a roomful of strangers. The pain of abandonment is real, and let me hasten to say that the hurt and the vulnerable are many.  What would our world look like if more men stood up for these folks?  Were more intentional about including them, guiding them, letting them know that they belonged.  I have come to learn that fatherhood is not restricted to the relationship I have with my three daughters.  Oh no.  Fatherhood extends to those who need fathers.  I am not talking about crossing boundaries or giving unsolicited advice.  I am not talking about imposing on others.  I am merely talking about filling a need when it arises in an appropriate and respectful way.  Something small but something potentially meaningful.  Channeled aggression for the good of another.  We belong to one another, after all.  The wolf one shepherd misses might be the wolf another shepherd catches. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Creep  They played where our property veed awkwardly toward the row of pines, his row, Dean’s who suddenly stormed out of his house with his demand: “Not with my kids!  He can’t play with my kids!” Mom joined him in seconds. “What’s this?  What’s wrong?” “Your boy.” “Why?” “‘Cause I said so.” Dean was a short, wiry Italian who had fought in Vietnam. He kept a warning finger in the air. Mom was miffed. “Then your kids can stay in their own yard,” she shot back, then, while the other children stayed away, she moved as mothers do toward her little boy, this inexplicable threat with his inflamed cheeks and tear-soaked eyes, this five-year-old monster with his thumb in his mouth

https://48bconsulting.com/INVITING: Creators ... writers, poets, painters, builders, etc.SEEKING: Clients looking for a unique way to improve human [email protected]“Beads on a String” by Harriet Bowers recounts the raising of children and the relentless passing of time – how a house full of the happy noise of children can so abruptly become quiet, still, and lonely.  Bowers lacked a formal education, yet she and her husband of more than fifty years raised six daughters in a little house on top of York Hill in northwestern Pennsylvania, and when the kids were grown and gone, she spent her time gardening, writing, and painting in her makeshift studio.  She was an artist, a poet, yet you, dear listeners, have never heard of her because she cared little if anything about the powerful gatekeepers in places like New York and Los Angeles who, for reasons largely related to money and influence, decide unilaterally what is and what is not “art.”  Harriet Bowers, you see, was my grandmother who explored her creativity without having to answer to any of the elites who pull the levers of marketing and celebrity. There are many like my grandmother – those who refuse to bow or otherwise compromise their art to appease the latest trend – indeed, to satisfy the infamous “wish list” of some obscure and self-important agent or publisher, and beginning May 5 of 2026, I am going to begin to showcase a few. As a professor of English with over twenty-six years of experience in the classroom, I sometimes marvel at how limited we are in the selections we teach.  We might use one writer whose niche is that they are marginalized and oppressed, forgetting the fact that we are reading their work at a major institution of higher learning.  How is that being marginalized, exactly?  While I will be the first to admit that my humble podcast does not have thousands of followers, I will say that the numbers are slowly creeping up.  Perhaps there is a taste for the truly marginalized after all: those who have legitimate voices with legitimate things to say yet do not have what we now call a “platform.”  I chuckle to think of what my grandmother would think of that concept.  Regardless, consider this to be an invitation to you or anybody you know who creates – writes, paints, sculpts, draws, builds, etc.  I review what people create, and I can certainly feature that review on The Professor’s Bayonet. I also continue to plug away at promoting my consultancy, 48B.  Story is powerful, and if someone does not know their story or the story of the organization of which they are a part, then their potential will never be reached.  Story and human performance go hand-in-hand.  Our mission is to take what happens in the college classroom out into the corporate world – businesses, youth organization, professional clubs, etc. -- in order to help learners leverage the power of story to accomplish their goals. So the bar is high, but the potential yield is worthwhile.  I cherish my grandmother’s poems, and two of her paintings hang in my study to this day.  Let’s champion the underdog artist, the underdog writer.  Let’s work together to bring to light everyone’s story, especially those not endorsed by the gatekeepers, for everyone deserves for the power of story – their story – to be unlocked. As always, please like and share.  This podcast only grows with the help of loyal listeners.  Thank you! 

Napolean Bonaparte is famous for saying that a soldier would do anything for him if awarded a pretty piece of ribbon to decorate his uniform.  He was referring, of course, to medals and accommodations for valor, but I have found this to be true in other, less dangerous contexts.  One of the many rungs I clung to on my way toward manhood was made of cloth, and I can still remember the pride I took in tying it around my waist.  It was a nail apron – free from the place we bought lumber for a big project at my grandparents’ place up on York Hill.  The apron somehow signified importance.  The other kids did not get one.  Only me and my cousin, Eric.  We were somewhere in the throes of adolescence, and for whatever reason, the men we looked up to thought it fit and proper to bestow upon us an article befitting our new rank.  We were no longer told to get out of the way, go play, you’re going to get hurt.  We were now outfitted with the stuff of men or, at least, approaching manhood, and we took on our role with a seriousness that was only a dress rehearsal for the real seriousness to come.  We didn’t know it then, but we were invited to work and learn in a dangerous place where the floor was still just a piece of plywood, where electrical cords and men carrying cumbersome burdens crisscrossed in tight and dangerous spaces.  And the men we aspired to be like hollered and beckoned: affirmed the right measurements, sounded their pleasure when a piece fit, summoned anybody within earshot to bring them this tool or that.  It was good sweat, honest sweat.  And I was invited to join the efforts, not as a child but as someone who just might be trusted if given the chance. I submit to you, dear listeners, that we might adopt as a solution to so many of our current ills the following: call forth the best in people and hold them to account.  Not out of meanness or capricious spite but out of the belief that they can.  They are able to measure up.  They are capable of accomplishing lofty goals.  Thanks be to God that I had men in my life who thought this about me.  I wear my apron every day.  And when the opportunity arises, I hand one over to some young person who could use it – really use it – even when the world continues its bleating warning that it’s unsafe, it’s unbecoming.  No.  The fearfully and wonderfully made know better.  It is a message that was never to remain sheathed. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Apron I got one for free down at Carter’s Lumber –  a nail apron I fastened around my teenage waist and filled importantly with prickly handfuls of eight pennies. My cousin, Eric, had one too, and together we framed the room above the garage while our fathers, uncles, and grampa measured, cut, pounded nails themselves, hollered in the way men do when the sun is shining and there is good work to be done. And I was among them, my apron, the uniform of competent men, common visionaries with circular saws and levels, chalk lines and squares, toiling for a single purpose with humble might until gramma called us all to boilt dinner or ham, and I would hook my hammer into the apron’s cloth ties, creak down the wooden ladder, and take my place in line –  a budding man among the weathered, the weary, the worn whose calloused palms had already caressed a woman and cradled an infant’s head, whose aprons were leather, tried, and true. 

I have come to learn that each of us is given raw material to make of it what we will.  Typically, that raw material aligns with our vocation, our job.  I am a university professor, which means that my raw material is paper.  I use it to collect my thoughts, brainstorm, teach, and communicate, and my students, in turn, give me paper with their work on it for me to evaluate and assign a grade.  I am surrounded by paper: books, essays, periodicals, notes.  For others, that raw material may be wood or plastic or electrical wire or pipes or engine parts.  It may be cleaning supplies or diesel trucks.  It may be fabric or patients.  It may be digital.  It may be purely intellectual.  Raw material is the stuff we use to create, and, moreover, it is the stuff we use to provide.  My stepfather was a welder.  His raw material was metal. What we do with that raw material says much about us.  Chuck, my stepfather, stepped into what he call his instant family.  My mother was left with five children.  Without hesitation, it seems, Chuck began coming around, eating dinner, doing odd jobs around the house.  Of course, as the oldest child, I was skeptical.  I had my loyalties and could not figure why someone would be so willing to attempt to fill in some big shoes.  As a boy, of course, I could not grasp the grander scope of things.  Chuck, like most of the men in my small northwestern Pennsylvanian community, was cut out of a singular cloth.  The steel, manufacturing, and oil industries kept the town afloat.  Chuck knew intimately well what it was like to work hard, punch a timeclock, wait for the whistle: time to start, time to eat lunch, time to quit.  Soon after my mother and Chuck met, I became a paperboy, and it was critical to the working men on my route that I got the paper in before they left for the job.  They needed to see the day’s news because that would be what they would talk about during any downtime.  Theirs was a tight community, and Chuck was a part of it. I would never suggest that there was never any love between my mother and Chuck.  Of course there was.  That goes without saying.  But what I am speaking about here is the way he took on the job, so to speak, of raising five kids.  He fell into a rhythm at home as much as he fell into a rhythm at work.  It was the same elbow grease, the same ethic.  Day in and day out he turned the raw material of his vocation into a paycheck that would support a family of seven.  I saw the value of that then.  As a man in his fifties, I see the sheer nobility of it now. As the saying goes, any fool can be a father; not everybody can be a dad.  Chuck certainly became the latter, doing what he could to do what dads do: teach, provide, discipline, love.  And make skateboards. Skateboard  Chuck worked at Penn Metal then, welded arches and angles for gas and oil tanks, was good at what he did, liked it, I think. He drank Miller Lite from the bottle just about every night after work, sitting in his grease-stained clothes at the kitchen table, the Warren Times Observer folded neatly in front of him. At some time (who can remember) I mentioned a skateboard – that I wanted one. “I’ll make it,” my stepfather said. “I can do that easy.” And so he did. Days later he brought home two boards – stainless steel with a two inch plate welded at an angle on the end so I could skillfully kick it up into my hand like Marty McFly. “Steel?” I said.  “Skateboards are made out of wood. I watched him drain the last of the suds into his upturned mouth. “It took me a week’s worth of lunch hours,” he finally said before getting out his pipe and pinching into the bowl a wad of cherry tobacco. So I held up a board, examined the wheels that had been bolted irreversibly to the bottom of the deck, and said a proper thank you. Then I continued to add up the hours until, well into my thirties and with three girls of my own,  I found myself making princess dresses out of paper. 

Being a parent oftentimes means having only two hands for a four-hand problem.  That is just the nature of the job.  A parent opens their eyes and is met with a barrage of chores and responsibilities, mostly centered on preserving a stable home environment for their children.  Because this series focuses on fathers, however, allow me to be culturally “trad” (or traditional as the more hip call it) and hone in on what fathers, in my humble estimation, are better designed to do. Much of the talk these days makes little room for the natural parenting proclivities of men and women, respectively.  Of course, I would not want to generalize, but suffice it to know, dear listeners, that my daughters come to me for some reasons while they go to their mother for other reasons.  From their mother they might want relationship advice.  From me, they might want school or college advice.  From their mother they might want to be playful.  From me they might want to have a more serious conversation about making good choices.  From their mother, they might want to be fed.  From me, they might want to have something repaired. Let me be clear.  Different individuals, male and female, possess different attributes that may not conform to gender expectations.  My sister, for example, is handy with tools, and I have known plenty of guys who are excellent listeners and conversationalists.  You get my point.  But where a married couple with children is successful is when they harmonize those qualities to the benefit of their offspring.  What they cannot get from mommy, they can get from daddy and vice versa.    What we have borne witness to in our society are households where one person, usually the mother, is expected to bear both burdens.  How many times have you actually heard a single mother proclaim that she is both mom and dad.  Practically speaking, this may be so, but it was never the design.  It was not the intended outcome. Many throw up their hands and proclaim that the mom and dad in one scenario is the norm, and against this, we should all chaff.  Men, in particular, need to reclaim their position as fathers if not husbands and strive toward creating that symbiotic relationship with the mother of their children because the truth of the matter is that they have something of great value to offer.  Indeed, as the popular saying goes (a saying also found in the film Courageous by the Kendrick brothers), if fathers only did what they needed to do then we would not have half the problems in our society that we have.  Dads need to step up and be responsible even if it means feeling overwhelmed and outnumbered.  The prize is worth it.  The children desperately need it.  The noble burden was never meant to be shouldered by one. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Right-handed Mitt God love her, my mother did her best, even with the baseball mitt she bought with the money we never had. It felt stiff on my right hand, a leather lobster claw of my own. “How can I throw?” I remember asking. “I’m not a lefty.” “How do I know?  How do I know?” She met the indignation of a child with the tired exasperation of a new widow. So I practiced and went to games. I was in the stovepipe league –  the Blacks, the kids who were not destined for varsity stardom, and I used my mitt in the exile of left field, dashing for the lucky pop flies, throwing the ball to the frantic short stop, one hand doing all the work. 

As I write this, though it is nine months out, I am bracing myself for when we drop my oldest daughter off at college for her freshman year.  I know I will be sad.  Terribly so.  For eighteen years, I have been on a special mission and I am in a tailspin for how that dynamic will change. Practically daily, I take my dog, Arrow, to Simpsonwood Park, a sprawling forested land that has dirt trails and too many deer to count.  It also butts up against a long stretch of the Chattahoochee River.  Along its bank, there is a marble bench. My custom is to stand between the river and the memorial and pray.  These days my heart has been heavy.  The princess days are gone.  The weight in my chest does not abate.  They do not need me to hold their hand anymore. As a Catholic, I understand that my God is a Trinity – three in One . Who but my heavenly Father can show me the way out of this present darkness? God the Father created the universe then created humankind to inhabit it in Eden, a place where they were called to be inventive and imaginative.Perhaps this is when my daughters were conceived, were born, were held in our arms and nurtured. It was a blissful, happy time. Perhaps that was what might be called a “God the Father” season.  I was once told that my becoming a father would teach me so much about God.  Maybe this was how.  My early fatherhood was modeled in a small but significant way on God’s early fatherhood. But then comes God the Son.  God the Son met His people where they are, became incarnate and grew up to be a great teacher and, most importantly, our Savior.  Along the way, he disciplined His followers when necessary but, beyond anything else, showed them how to be in this world.  Showed them the Way until He gave everything of Himself for them. Perhaps when my daughters entered school – elementary, middle, and high school – this was my “God the Son” season.  I was with them.  We lived under the same roof.  I guided them day after day, sacrificing everything I had for them.  It was a trying time with a host of challenges, but just like Jesus, I got into the thick of things with them, so that I could show them what mattered most. But finally comes God the Holy Spirit.  Jesus Himself said that He had to leave in order for the Holy Spirit to come.  Perhaps a part of the reason was because to be a good father, one must encourage his children to become independent.  This is where they can grow in wisdom and strength.  To keep one’s children under one roof, so to speak, would hamper their development and, worse yet, deny them the opportunity to discover their purpose, God’s plan for their lives. I think that this is where I might be now: “God the Holy Spirit” season.  We cannot see the Holy Spirit in the same way that Jesus’s disciples saw Him, but God the Holy Spirit still gives advice.  It is that still small voice.  It is what moves us to go one way or another.  My daughters may be preparing to launch, but they still need their dad, albeit in the form of counsel.  As a father, I should want each of them to mature into the women God wants them to be, and for that to happen, I have to get into the car.  I have to help my daughter move into her dorm room.  I have to give her a great big hug, and I have to say goodbye.  For now.  You can always talk to me.  I am there when you need me. And pray to Our Father in Heaven, the first Father, whose heart I am able to understand a little better now. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. How We Go We run ahead of our parents as we did when we were little – my siblings, cousins, and me on some trail, familiar logging road, our parents calling from behind, “Not too far!  Stay where I can see you!” But we tested the limits, of course, ran on and on, became distant until we had our own children –  those to whom we now call as our gait slows and we become aware of our imperfect bodies, the calls of our own parents echoes we can barely hear. 

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On those fortunate Fridays, we kids were given a mission by our mother.  We were to locate Steve, the mailman, and retrieve the check.  He usually delivered our mail after 4 pm when the banks would be closed, and we desperately needed groceries for the weekend.  If we could intercept Steve and get the government check, we would eat well.  If not, it might be hotdogs or meatless pasta again or a trip up on the hill, which is how we described where my grandparents lived.  If we were going up on the hill, we were going to visit Gramma and Grampa, and it was their firm position that there was always enough food to go around. Of course, I could not know then what my widowed mother was going through to raise five kids: what anxieties plagued her, what fears kept her from sleeping at night.  But when I became a father at an age my own father never reached, I became acutely aware that there was one person standing between my family and certain hardship: me.  My wife worked and contributed to what was brought in, by I was the main breadwinner.  It was my check that paid the rent.  The car note.  The insurance.  I took on multiple jobs, and for a spell when the girls were very little, worked at the college until 11 pm Monday through Thursday as the so-called Night Dean: an afterhours administrative role that was not really administrative at all.  I did it because it was necessary.  There was never really a choice in the matter.  I even did this on Saturday mornings while classes were in session. I learned that living hand to mouth as a child informed how I would be as a father.  I simply did not want my children to experience what I had experienced.  My mother did her very best, but it was still a one-person show.  I know, dear listeners, that there are many, many mothers like mine, and the chance that one of these mothers is yours is good, so you are quite familiar with the sheer greatness of this love because you have received it.  Only when I became a parent did I begin to understand that greatness – that unfathomable depth.  God gifted me like he gifts every man with aggression, and it was for me to harness that aggression and use it be a good provider. Like any parent, I did my best, but it was still hard not to notice the shortfalls or, at least, be sensitive to what I could not yet provide.  I accept that I was being dwarfed by a standard that was entirely self-imposed, but even so: it pained me when I could not locate my own Steves on time, could not give my children what I wanted to give them.  Up on the hill was never an option for me.  I had to slug it out in the valley. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Dewdrops Of course we never knew the five of us were called dewdrops by the grownups in the neighborhood –  the ones who had jobs, careers even, the ones who weren’t dead or single and on food stamps. It was their little joke, harmless, I suppose. We never knew until Dale Yucha who lived with both of his parents fiendishly put us in our place. “Dewdrops,” he snickered.  “My dad calls you all dewdrops.” How he delighted in delivering our shame, a wound that echoes still as my three daughters walk with their mismatched gloves from our rented, aged home to play with the neighbor kids who live in impossible houses, private bathrooms each, I’m sure. I watch my daughters through the frosty, thin window and look for the neighborhood ginger who would tell them this. 

The parade would begin at the high school and move through town – past the barbershop, the doctor’s office, a couple of banks, and the bars – then pause on the bridge over the Brokenstraw Creek.  A prayer was said, a wreath was dropped over the bridge into the water, and three shots were fired before the parade would resume, making its way up to the cemetery where there would be a speech, another prayer, and three more shots.  This was how my little hometown observed Memorial Day.  It was a solemn affair when even the children knew when to keep quiet.  The old men, wearing their caps identifying them as veterans, saluted.  American flags waved from front porches. What I did not know then was that Memorial Day was practice for what I would experience in middle age.  Allow me to explain.  At fifty-one, I find myself looking back over my life amazed at how quickly it has gone by.  Within a few short years, my wife and I will be empty-nestors, and if I am being honest, the prospect does not sit well with me in the least.  It makes me sad.  I miss the days of pigtails and dress-up, recitals and trips to the park to feed the ducks.  It is Memorial Day for me every day.  My three little girls are now three young ladies, and the feelings of pride and melancholy that swirl around in my heart are oftentimes too burdensome.  I am at a loss for what to do, how to think.  I have only those feelings and long walks in the park with my dog Arrow where I try to process it all.  Where I pray.  Where I search for direction and purpose. What does a man do after all the milestones have been achieved?  College.  Career.  Marriage.  Kids.  All checked.  What does a man do in an empty, quiet house? Memorial Day is a day of reflection, a day meant to think about U.S. military personnel who died while in the service.  It is a day to look back, but as I consider that event and the men, many of them old, who lined the streets, watching the parade go by, I wonder what God calls us to do when life seems so bleak. We are made in our Creator’s image, which means that we were made to create.  The act of creating is of God.  The act of destroying is of the enemy.  What are we meant to do, then, but to create even after war and loss, even after the obvious milestones have been achieved?  The men I knew as a kid lost buddies in their youth, watched them die on foreign battlefields.  But these same men returned home and built families, built lives, created good things for all.  Perhaps you, too, dear listeners, are in a dark place, wondering what’s next and anxious about momentums that cannot – indeed, should not – be slowed or stopped altogether.  Might I suggest that you remember what you were designed to do and Who you were designed by.  Many apexes may have been reached, but this does not negate who you are, who I am, Who the Creator God, the only true apex, was and is and ever shall be. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Memorial Day in Youngsville Bo Dean, the dog that jumped like a deer, mangled a rabbit, left it in the woods – a cacophony of blood, fur, and bones – where we found it after we returned from the parade: Memorial Day, old soldiers with guns, saluting the war dead with three loud bangs – Pow!  Pow!  Pow! We buried the rabbit, threw rocks over the pretty mound of dirt; we were noble, precise, too young to really understand 

I am grateful that I belong to a generation that got to sit and listen to stories about World War II from the mouths of those who lived it.  Grampa, my mother’s father, had already been in the army when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but my great uncles had likely joined up when another uncle, Uncle Sam, issued the call.  I remember sitting at a table with old men who called each other boys.  One was a medic in Europe.  Another saw so much action his hair turned white.  Another man was a POW.  As for Grampa, he remained stateside.  It was his eyesight.  The doctors told him that he would be a casualty the first day.  So they sent him to Louisiana where he worked German prisoners.  When Gramma brought their oldest child to the worksite, my Grampa recounted, they cried.  They all cried.  That little girl would make my grandparents cry, too, one day when the cancer proved to be just too much for her thirty-two-year-old body.  Her loss was always too painful to bring up.  His was a silent grief. But once a soldier, always a soldier.  Grampa seemed to frame his entire existence on his time in the army.  We were never allowed to wear hats at the table, for instance.  Grampa told us of the time a drill instructor snatched a hat from the head of one of the recruits and tossed it out the window.  It was also unheard of to remain seated when the national anthem was played.  One simply had to stand up and salute the flag if it was visible.  He was a part of the Greatest Generation, and I got to hear his stories.  I did not know how good I had it. As a boy, I spent many days with Grampa, cutting, hauling, splitting, and stacking cordwood.  Building and repairing what needed it.  Cutting grass.  Shoveling snow.  He was a man with many friends who knew the value of hard work.  He lived through the Great Depression and the War, as he called it, and somehow, I got to sit at his feet, so to speak, and soak in his character, try to understand his experiences, study what it means to be a man of integrity and honesty.  He was not perfect, of course.  Nobody is.  But for a good many years, we shared the same time.  Our lives overlapped.  And I have come to believe now that I am much older that the time I spent with Grampa was a great gift.  In a world that seems to be increasingly spinning out of control, here was a man who was centered on what matters most: God, family, a good day’s work. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Barracks At eighty-eight he was stationed in another place: “This is better than Indiantown Gap,” he announced to my mother.  “Twelve men above and twelve men below.  I sweep, and I mop.” And Mom smiled, and Grandpa smiled, and the nurses were left unaccounted for like the pajamas that were not standard issue and the wheelchair that was; Samuel G. Bowers with a purpose though his back arched determinedly toward the ash: a summit reached, the winter looks toward spring, an old boy still mustered: “But they got black people in this barracks,” he revealed.  “Can you believe it?” he asked. And Mom smiled, and Grandpa smiled, then Mom nodded alone. 

Home ownership had always been the plan, but it was an experience I had when we were living in a little apartment that really lit the fuse.  Our three girls were little.  The youngest had just come along.  It was the beginning of the Disney princess fad, and those who know what I am talking about know exactly what that meant: dresses and crowns, DVDs and catchy songs the kids would belt out at random.  It was a happy time.  A busy time.  My wife and I were doing are very best to make things happen, but our timetable was not God’s.  Still, we worked overtime and took on second and third jobs.  Our apartment was next to the common exit: a door to the outside used by the occupants of six units, two upstairs, two downstairs, two on an even lower level.  All day long that door would slam open then slam shut.  What is more, it was right by the girls’ bedroom.  One night, when we were trying to get the girls to go to bed, the door slammed open and shut and woke up the kids.  It was then that I realized that there was only about a half of a foot between where my girls slept and the outside world.  The juxtaposition was unnerving.  I thought of their safety.  I thought of their security.  I as a father had to put more distance between my kids and the world.  It was a sobering realization.  To be sure, the event made me feel inadequate.  I wasn’t doing enough.  We needed a place of our own – something that felt more fully ours, not shared. We eventually moved out of the apartment and into a rental house where the girls shared two bedrooms.  It was a step in the right direction, and for five more years, we continued to save.  I found more work.  My wife babysat.  Finally, after so much sacrifice, we managed to purchase our own home. We were there for about seven years until we outgrew it and were able to buy something bigger.  My girls were little in that first house.  The home we live in now is their teenage house.  Just before we moved, I realized this affecting truth and wondered all the same about the shifting role that is fatherhood: the holding on and the letting go. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. 2814 Christopher Court The girls had on their puffy coats when we first brought them to the tan split-level that sat in the cul-de-sac of our dreams. The numbers were right, and so was the school, we had thought, but it was the backyard tree with the limbs the girls could reach that did it for me. This was our house, our home. And now, seven years later, I sit, grayer and surrounded by boxes, and think of Henry le Puss and Pablo Picatso buried under the rose bush and of the new house, a new home, not far but distant, still and wonder about my life and the bittersweet passage of time as my eldest comes in fitted perfectly in her mother’s skirt to ask me if she could spend Halloween with a friend, not us. Yes, I reply then watch the night descend upon the low limb  she had once griped. 

I have my Uncle Barry to thank for introducing my father to my mother.  He was a Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and one day, after making hamburgers for dinner, he decided to toss the grease outside but forgot about the screen door in the process.  The result?  He got splattered with boiling grease and had to go to the infirmary where he was attended to by a Navy corpsman, my dad.  My uncle was newly married, and his wife had a sister, Spring, my mother.  The two met and were soon married – too soon, thought many – and just as quickly, I came along.  It was 1974.  In less than ten years, my dad would be gone.  Passed away.  Deceased.  It had been his heart.  Had the affliction come just a few years later, medical science would have been able to help. Losing my father months shy of my tenth birthday left an indelible mark on me.  The truth be told, the loss shaped me in ways I am still discovering.  The permanence of death is unyielding.  A person can’t get around it.  Can’t escape how it looms over us all.  It was a lot to process for a kid.  Suffering was all around me: my brothers and sisters, my mother, my grandparents, aunt, and uncle. He was my dad, but he was also a husband and brother, friend and son.  I think back on that time now as a husband and father and shudder at how the loss of my dad was also the loss of a husband, the loss of a brother, the loss of a child.  Death is an enemy for a reason.  He who wields the scythe is indiscriminate and cruel. I was blessed to have many loving adults in my life.  In their own way, they walked with me through that dark tunnel.  Some offered words.  Others just listened.  Uncle Barry took me fishing, and in doing so, taught me how to disconnect from one reality and connect to another.  The language of trout streams is melodic, peaceful.  It was both a retreat and a way to plug into something higher.  A gift.  A beautiful respite even when it rained and the water grew muddy. Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. Uncle Barry Uncle Barry understood trout in a way that was silent and sure: “They hittin’ on salted minnows today?” I’d ask as I’d ease into the Brokenstraw to get a sense of the current. “Mm hm,” he’d reply, and that was all; I’d soon hear the squeal of his line as he cast upstream, and I’d watch him guide the blue-green line downstream like a conductor before an unseen orchestra.  In wisps of cigarette smoke, Uncle Barry would make his way downstream, triangulating, strategizing, and thinking about nothing all at once, and between bait I would follow; nudged by the steady flow of water, caught in the silent and sure wonder of river and man and things unseen, tugged by the goodness of a man who showed me how to fish for trout as my own father once began before he left to die -- “Make sure your split shot’s two foot up from your bait, and try the riffles.  It’s time they’re hittin’,”  he’d yell back, and because I too wanted the symphony of a catch, I would. 

In The Professor’s Bayonet, I attempted to cut through what I perceived to be a lot of nonsense in order to offer something thoughtful to chew on.  The episodes were not long on purpose. Having arrived at episode 100, however, I am met with the cold reality that, despite my best efforts, I have been unsuccessful at growing my audience.  I have a very dedicated bunch, and to them, I am very, very grateful, yet the stark fact remains that the party is not getting any bigger.  I can only assume the interest is not there.  I humbly accept this end.  Perhaps the indifference is just that pervasive. For this reason, The Professor’s Bayonet is going to launch into a series on fatherhood.  The episodes may or may not be tethered to a work of literature, but they will certainly hone in on some aspect of being a father that I hope the audience will find edifying.  In one sense, the aim will be the same.  I continue to want to cut through all of the craziness to get to what really matters.  Much of what ails society is caused by a lack of fathers, so if I can offer some thoughts to help correct course, then I will give it a go and hope for the best.  At some point, we might return to what we did for ninety-nine episodes, or we might just hang it up and call it a day.  I am still on the fence.  It all depends on the numbers and my ability to gently blow on a tiny spark to get a flame – a flame that grows more hungry with each puff.  For now, in celebration of hitting the one-hundredth episode mark, I would like to leave you with a poem entitled “Underduck.”  It is one I wrote.  It is mine.  But it is also a poem that speaks to what we as mothers and fathers, educators and caregivers do every day.  We encourage.  We lift up.  We inspire.  We know that our best selves linger long after we are gone, for that is the nature of loving others into being.  My grandparents and parents, teachers and mentors did it for me.  And so, too, are we charged with doing it for others. I use the metaphor of a swing.  I hope you enjoy it. Underduck The bucket swing was suspended by two long ropes from the ancient tree standing sentinel in front of the small, white, red-trimmed house able to hold generations, and we all took our turn –  sisters, brothers, cousins, first and second, and up we would soar after each push, each give to our take, into the crisp blue sky criss-crossed by gentle branches and wisps of clouds, and when the mood would strike them, our elders, the providers, would give us underducks, determinedly  guiding us through the dipping arc before heaving us above their heads whereupon our little feet would float into the great expanse, our unscarred bodies lift ever so slightly out of the black, rubber womb fashioned out of an old tire. To and fro we went as the acorns fell and the squirrels gathered for the coming cold until we, too, were launched into worlds without sassafras, lives  where dogs don’t smile as much – rocketed beyond that simple plot of land by those who are now grayed or gone, those who gave us one last great shove, hopeful that we would be birthed into noble, more beautiful tomorrows with young ones of our own all pleading as we once did for underducks to will them still higher: joy beyond measure, summits only imagined. So it goes as it went – we hold our children to our hearts then thrust them forward until we can reach them no more, left to run tiredly past the upward effort, and if we are lucky, turn to admire the heights. 

If you have ever sat in a literature class, you have likely heard of this term: iambic pentameter.  It is used to describe the da-dum, da-dum, da-dum rhythm often found in poetry.  One syllable is unstressed but the syllable immediately after is stressed: Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.  Often likened to a human heartbeat, iambic pentameter appeals to even novice students of literature because the meter is that relatable.  The beat precedes the lyrics.  It is what first catches one’s attention. Consider Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?  Thou art more lovely and more temperate:  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,  And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,  And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;  And every fair from fair sometime declines,  By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;  But thy eternal summer shall not fade,  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;  Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,  When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:     So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee Many poets have dipped their quills and written with unmatched eloquence about love, and the Bard, Shakespeare, is no exception.  However, he is keenly aware of the power of iambic pentameter.  From his own heart, he sets his ideas to the beating of a heart and in so doing, draws in his readers even more closely, knowing full well that the da-dum, da-dum, da-dum rhythm has been imprinted on all of his readers since they were in utero.  That is correct, dear listeners.  Our lesson in literature begins before we ever emerge from the womb.  It is not in words or prosody but rhythm: the beating of our mother’s heart.  That is what we listen to.  That is what forms us.  To be born, then, is to graduate from that first school. But a curious thing happens upon our commencement.  We begin again.  We learn a language.  We build a vocabulary.  And, eventually, we rediscover a familiar rhythm, sitting in English class, looking at a poem we believe is so foreign to us as to be written in a different tongue. Novice educators might miss the opportunity to reintroduce iambic pentameter to their students, choosing instead to explore some esoteric concept.  Some students might be won over while others not so much.  Even the best of us had to run that gauntlet.  Educators in the know, however, will begin on common ground even if it takes some time to explain to the learners that the ground is, indeed, common.  In effect, we need to remind students that they already know the material.  The details may be new but the intended effect is not.  In the womb, we were nurtured, and if everything that came afterwards was an immense challenge, we still have that groundwork.  To return to iambic pentameter is to return to the utmost basic.  And if we can do so with hope and optimism, we can make this return into a new beginning.  Such is the power of poetry.  It is not meant for a special class of individuals who know the terminology and the biggest hitters.  It is meant for all, for all, deep, deep down, understand it.  There is nothing elite about it.  Iambic pentameter is as common as a mother’s love. 

Shel Silverstein’s vastly popular children’s book, The Giving Tree, has been a fixture in most nurseries since its publication in 1964.  Both the story and the illustrations are simple. It begins with a tree who loves a little boy who would gather her leaves, climb up her trunk, and swing from her branches.  The boy was imaginative and joyful, and, Silverstein writes, “when he was tired he would sleep in her shade.”  The boy loved the tree very much, he continues, and the tree was happy.  But the story turns as so many stories of blissful innocence turn: when time begins to drive a wedge between those wistful days of youth and the call to march forward to some unknown and, in many cases, scary future.  The boy begins to grow up and want other things.  At first, it is romance, but then it turns to money – the material – at which point the tree offers her apples for the boy to sell. That would make him some money. That will make him happy. But the boy continues to grow up, and as such, his desires change. He is now too busy to climb the branches of the tree. He wants a wife. He wants a house at which point the tree offers her branches to make that house. And the tree, Silverstein writes, is happy. But the boy continues to grow and soon becomes an old man who wants to flee from the world. He wants a boat so he can sail away. He is sad.  Life got to be too much. So the tree offers her trunk, and the boy cuts it down and makes his boat. But the tree only feigns happiness. The truth is much more stark.  She is sad and lonely. Years later, the boy eventually returns, but the tree tells him that she has nothing more to give – no more apples, no more branches, not even a trunk – but the boy only wants a quiet place to sit and rest. The story is worth summarizing because it is important to see the juxtaposition that runs throughout: the passing of time and self-sacrifice.  Time waits for no man, but if we remain stuck on that reality – become transfixed by our powerlessness in the face of aging, in ourselves and others – then we risk forfeiting the opportunity to serve and love others. he tree could have pleaded with him to stay – to do his best along with her to preserve a precious moment in time when there was seemingly nothing but bliss and joy. But the tree chose a different tack. She emptied herself to serve his needs.  She died unto herself for her beloved friend, tethering her life journey to his. This underscores the poignancy of this children’s story, read to countless infants before bedtime. The boy represents so many of us. He wants what so many of us want: nothing bad but typical. A spouse. A home. A good job. But, in the end, it wearies him to the bones. He comes to the end of the story a broken and fatigued person who wants merely to sit and rest his weary bones. A children’s story, dear listeners. A deep and profound review of a long and difficult life in a children’s story.  It might not be a stretch to consider that Silverstein was writing for both listener and reader. The book certainly makes an impact on both. Even though Silverstein had a Jewish upbringing, I have to wonder why he made the decision to have as the boy’s lifelong friend a tree.  I do not want to be guilty of imposing a worldview on this special book, but his choice is cause for wonder.  Where else do we see self-sacrifice and a tree?  I will leave my interpretation there.  Any way you take it, The Giving Tree serves as a beautiful reminder of what truly matters.  For the little one listening in a parent’s lap, it is a blueprint for how to live; for the parent him or herself, it is the best way to pay it forward.  Those blessed with the responsibility to nuture and guide others should understand in the full that everything is expected of them because that is the measure of true and everlasting love.  We are to hold nothing back.  We are to encourage and uplift.  Until we are stumps.  Places of rest.  Cradles or mangers, they are both the same thing. 

Allen Ginsberg begins his 1956 poem “Howl” with the following words: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, / dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, / angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, / who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz.”  Ginsberg, along with contemporaries Jack Kerouac and William Borroughs, embraced a lifestyle that ran contrary to the stiff materialism of post-war 1950s America – a lifestyle that included sexual liberation, psychedelic drugs, and a rootlessness best characterized by Kerouac’s book, On The Road, which, rumor has it, was typed out on a roll of paper without natural break or pause – stream-of-consciousness to the extreme.  The Great Depression and World War II caused a massive shift in how one approached the task of living, and at least for the Beatniks, that approach meant all out rebellion, even if, according to a popular 1955 film of the same name, starring James Dean, that rebel did not have a cause. What the movement, in general, and “Howl,” in particular, highlights is the insanity that will inevitably crop up when the institutions and monsters borne out of the human mind become so massive that the soul can only whimper in their presence.  Consider the A-bomb, for example.  At no time in human history have our species developed and, I hasten to say, actually deployed a weapons system that can level entire cities in a split second.  Yet we did this in Japan: twice.  And then there were the fire-bombings across Nazi-occupied Europe.  In Dresden alone, so notes Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five, which was first published in 1969, the fires were so intense that citizens rushed to the water towers, climbed in, and were inadvertently boiled alive.  Juxtapose all of this to the pristine American life networks were broadcasting across the nation – Father Knows Best, Leave It To Beaver, and Lassie – and we get a recipe for pure lunacy.  The Beatniks chaffed at this absurd contradiction of messaging. The world was not ideal, they argued. They saw it.  They lived it. Ward Cleaver, the Beav’s father, knew it, too, though you could not see the terrible flashbacks behind the genial smile and pipe.  That was artifice.  That was fake or, as Holden Caufield reminds us in 1951’s The Catcher in the Rye, “phony.” Rest assured, dear listeners, that I am not dropping the titles of books, films, and television programs to sound impressive.  I do so to provide much needed context.  There were many voices saying the same thing, yet American popular culture marched dutifully forward, seemingly ignoring the calls for alarm along the way.  We were American, after all.  Rugged.  Individualistic. And, importantly, nothing like the Ruskies and their failing communist experiment. The madness, however, soon swelled into what became the countercultural revolution of the sixties with the riots and the protests, the draft card burnings and the assassinations. That gave way to the hedonism of the seventies, the materialism of the eighties, and the cynicism of the nineties. Are we howling or have we been rendered silent, pacified by our devices, oblivious of what simmers beneath?  To howl would require the ability or at least the willingness to step into unchartered places in order to consider the wider context.  It would require that we reacquaint ourselves with our wildness – to rediscover what Walt Whitman calls our barbaric yawp.  Is there cause for hope?  After cynicism came the absurd.  After the absurd came living as performance: Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram.  Is Ginsberg to be an echo or a call to action?  Perhaps it all depends on how many lies we can tolerate: those told to us by others, those told to us by ourselves. 

American theologian, Jonathan Edwards, first preached his sermon entitled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1741.  This was the catalyst for the first Great Awakening, that time in American history when hordes of individuals flocked back to the faith, sobered up by what lawless living might lead to – in a word, damnation.  Before this sermon, the faithful were anything but.  Wilderness living, which is to say, doing what one can to hack it out in the forest, raise a family, and survive, had caused many to compromise their principles.  One could afford to live by the Christian code in the comfort of a city – observe the sabbath, tithe regularly, be a brother’s keeper – but on the frontier – and that was most of America – one had a different set of values.  The testing in the wilderness made America what it is – rugged and raw – but, according to Jonathan Edwards, at least, the experience also turned America away from what it was: a city upon a hill, a beacon of hope, an exceptional place, indeed.  The Great Awakening, then, was a massive altar call but one that did not mince words.  Edwards writes, for example, that “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”  A person cannot save him or herself, in other words.  A person’s life is that precarious.  On a whim and without notice, the Creator of the entire universe can send a wicked person to the eternal fire, and nothing can be done about it.  No plea.  No appeal.  Edwards continues, “Some make gods of their pleasures; some choose Mammon for their god; some make gods of their own supposed excellencies, or the outward advantages they have above their neighbors: some choose one thing for their god, and others another. But men can be happy in no other God but the God of Israel: he is the only fountain of happiness.”  An individual, to put it another way, cannot have it both ways.  That person cannot deify or make into an idol some hobby or pastime or earthly success and expect to be granted entry into God’s Holy kingdom.  There is but one way: Christ.  Not many paths to one destination.  This is flawed thinking, flawed living.  And Edwards holds no punches about what the consequences will be.  The Great Awakening as you, dear listeners, might have already gathered was a movement that galvanized America to the extent that it was prepared to fight for its independence.  1741, in other words, was needed for 1776 to take place.  The march toward freedom began as a religious revival. I am prompted to consider the current age when the tyranny is not some monarch across the pond but a series of ideologies that seem to champion falsehood and celebrate the perverse.  These ideologies are pervasive.  We hear them in our music and see them on the TV.  They are taught in schools and shouted from podiums.  To think critically and honestly about them is heresy; to merely raise an eyebrow is to invite ridicule. I will not articulate them here, dear listeners.  Go no further than a mandatory HR training to see what I am talking about.  I simply wonder if history is about to repeat itself.  Interest in religion is ticking back up.  More and more young people are coming back to church and even embracing orthodoxy.  Some even call it a revival.  It is an exciting time.  Is this the event we need to be able to throw off the shackles of a narrative that insists that we do not believe our own ears, not trust our own eyes?  Perhaps.  But the revival will have to have teeth on it.  Hell remains real, after all, and to avoid it, we must call a lie a lie, recognizing delusions for what they are: dangerous fantasies that make the slopes more slippery than they already are. 

Published in 1968, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s short story, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” begins with an infestation of crabs on a property inhabited by Pelayo and Elisenda, a couple of humble means, living on a Columbian shore.  The crabs begin to rot, and believing this rot is making his and Elisenda’s baby sick, Pelayo is tasked with disposing them in the sea; however, upon his return, he sees an old man lying face down in the mud – an old man with large and imposing wings.  The old man speaks in an unintelligible dialect, and, at first, Pelayo and his wife believe him to be a castaway; however, neighbors have a different take altogether: the old man, they insist, is an angel.  Their baby, after all, begins to get well.  Soon enough, the entire town knows, and Pelayo is forced to chain the old man up and keep him in the chicken coop.  Crowds come.  Pelayo begins to charge an entrance fee.  A priest arrives, and begins to speak to the old man in Latin.  The old man does not seem to understand, the priest quickly deduces that this is no angel.  Soon thereafter, another attraction arrives on the scene – a girl who can transform into a spider, and the crowd lessons.  Even so, Pelayo and Elisenda make enough money to build a mansion, and the child grows to school age.  At some point, the old man begins to come into the house, becoming comfortable with his hosts, until, one day, he flies off, much to his relief, and, surprisingly, Elisenda’s relief.  The temporary union was just too much. Garcia Marquez is famously known for being a pioneer in magical realism, a literary genre, as the name suggests, that seamlessly combines the mundane with the fantastical.  In his world, the magical and the real are two halves of one sphere; spotted together, there should be no call for alarm.  A man might be going about the humdrum task of mowing his lawn, only to look up, and see a dragon flitting about in the air.  His reaction would be like that of someone spotting a robin or an airplane.  There is no cause for alarm or surprise; he has seen it all before. Such is the approach taken by Garcia Marquez in a story about the sudden appearance of a winged old man in a muddy piece of property. They want to make money. Garcia Marquez is certainly pointing toward humankind’s less flattering impulses.  In the face of the miraculous, many human beings get dollar signs for eyes.  Perhaps this is why the magical does not appear to use more regularly. Perhaps the Author of the supernatural knows exactly what human beings would do with it.  Perhaps He knows our collective tendency to be crass and self-serving.  Garcia Marquez may be imparting a lesson to his readership here.  The story is less about the old man and more about our treatment of him. When I was nine-years-old, my father died.  His funeral was in Kentucky, many miles from my hometown in Pennsylvania.  We drove the long way down and ended up staying at a cheap hotel where a maid with a German accent worked.  She cleaned our room, and when she found out why me and my sister were there, she left us candy.  It was something to look forward to after the viewings.  On the day we buried him, the German maid actually came to the graveyard and put an arm around me and my sister. Days later, we called the hotel to see about a forgotten garment and to thank the German maid.  In hindsight, she was a great help and great comfort to the kids.  After my mother described her, the proprietor gave the answer you, dear listeners, have likely already guessed.  We have no one of that description who works here, ma’am.  I do not know who you are talking about. Perhaps the outcome of Garcia Marquez’s story would have been different if Pelayo and Elisenda were younger, much younger.  Innocence has a way of opening doors the experienced and worldly cannot.  It is perhaps why we are all called children of God, for it is only with those eyes, youthful eyes, that we can see the magical among us. 

William Shakespeare’s 1623 tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra, is renowned for its depiction of a complex and fully developed female character in the person of one of its title figures.  Cleopatra, recalling the inexperience of her youth, exclaims, “My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood, to say as I said then.”  She had been, in other words, a novice at all things pertaining to life, which might not excuse past behavior, but it certainly explains it.  We have all had our salad days, dear listeners.  Cleopatra merely calls it what it is, and in doing so, reveals a level of self-awareness that is difficult not to admire.  The accumulated years do not escape her.  She knows her finitude.  She makes no effort to avoid it. I first encountered these lines as a graduate student in a class on Shakespeare.  I recall my professor – a man likely in his fifties at the time – pausing for a moment on what it meant to be so acutely aware of the passing of time and the sheer brevity of one’s life – a puff of smoke blown away quickly by successive years.  I may or may not have grasped the gravity of what was being considered at the time, but I certainly am able to grasp it now, being a man about to turn fifty-one.  Salad days.  When the years were green and the horizons wide and intoxicating.  Even the rays of the sun were somehow different then. The Bard, through his characterization of the historic Cleopatra, was undoubtedly prompting his audience to grapple with the meaning of their own lives – the accumulating years, the many, many memories stacked one upon another – what we are supposed to do with it all if anything.  Just experience it.  Feel it.  Reminisce.  This is a surface interpretation, which still passes muster.  However, we might also consider the larger context.  Cleopatra, after all, was a powerful woman known for her beauty.  This is more than just a character nodding toward her younger days.  This is a figure of some stature acknowledging that stature is not enough.  It is never enough.  Even flowers wilt.  Cleopatra is very much aware of this fact, which gives her character a much deeper layer, indeed. Youth, naivete, and idealism all seem to be common enough bedfellows.  I had my own ideals in my salad days, and if I am to be honest, I still cringe at the naivete I so boldly put on display before the world.  My ignorance was a spectacle.  I thank God for the many graces that were extended to me then and now.  Cleopatra’s line in this play, then, should be seen as an example of owning up to the reality of youth.  Being impetuous is a part of the landscape.  More to the point, when one is young, there is just life.  When one has accumulated some years, life naturally divides itself by eras, big and small.  One’s salad days are merely one era.  To see it as such is a sure sign of maturity.  To extend it beyond its proper borders is a sign of immaturity.  Nobody likes a forty-year-old adolescent. On that note, Cleopatra would be an outlier in the current age.  The postmodern condition has Tasmanian-devil-like gone after every tradition and common understanding formerly in place, and age was no exception.  While I submit that age really is only a number, some formerly agreed upon values should not have been shown the curb.  The aged do have something of value to offer.  There really is wisdom beneath the gray hairs.  The older should be heeded.  The young should sit quietly and listen.  This does not mean to refrain from questioning.  It means to give respect where it is due and to recognize one’s own salad days for what they are, for even the queen of Egypt was humble enough to do just that. 

Miguel de Cervantes published the first part of his famous work, Don Quixote, in 1605 and then the second part in 1615.  Officially titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of LaManchaland, this Spanish classic would influence literature in countless ways.  It follows the story of Alonso Quijano who so voraciously consumes tales of knightly chivalry that, soon enough, he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant himself, dubbing himself Don Quixote de la Mancha before recruiting Sancho Panza to be his squire.  Cervantes writes, “Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”  Sleep deprivation, yes, but also too much reading caused him to slip into another world, another persona and dash about Spain, “tilting at windmills” or, to put it another way, fighting imaginary enemies in imaginary battles.  He supplies the illusion; Panza, the Spanish word for gut, supplies the down-to-earth wit.  The pair encapsulate the fantastical and the real, perhaps representative of most if not all human beings.  This might explain the appeal.Much, of course, has already been said and written about Quijano’s slip into harmless insanity.  The real world is too much.  The world of knights, ladies, and noble missions is much more attractive.  It is this world he yearns to inhabit.  What small yearning do we all have, dear listeners? My interest is not so much to explore this facet we all likely possess but to openly wonder why, especially among the young and impressionable, it seems to be growing at an astronomical rate.  This group, especially, seems to want to throw off the shackles of banal and humdrum and assume identities that are much more interesting and much more controllable. One catalyst for this behavior is certainly the state of our world.  Much of it does not look pretty.  The questions loom large and foreboding.  What does a spirit become if all it has to look forward to is hard work and strife?  Why not cosplay some?  Another catalyst, I would argue, is the usual suspect: the smartphone.  Our lives are lived virtually so much that we are tempted to believe (and some really do) that we can create avatars in our own waking lives as much as we can create them online.  Why not step into a different gender or race or species?  It harms no one.  It pleases me.  Who are you or anybody else to say I can’t? Perhaps it would be useful to call to mind how Don Quixote was treated in the book.  He was mocked.  He certainly received a good many stares.  But on occasion, insights would poke through that revealed something about what was really going on.  Cervantes writes, “I do not deny that what happened to us is a thing worth laughing at. But it is not worth telling, for not everyone is sufficiently intelligent to be able to see things from the right point of view.”  The message?  Not everyone has the presence of mind and intellectual maturity to parse out the delusional from the real.  A thing is a thing, this group might argue, because of a feeling, a hunch.  It amounts to a world built on whims and passing fancies. The great irony, here, is that, while Don Quixote read too much and went crazy, some in our current society are not reading at all and still reaching the same end point.  Ray Bradbury, well-known author of Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, quipped that “You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture, just get people to stop reading them".  It seems, dear listeners, that we have arrived at that point.  Even in college, so has been my experience, books are seen as passé, certainly not anything with which to be troubled.  Therefore it appears that illusions emerge out of two opposing states of affairs: reading too much or not reading at all.  Sancho Panza tempered Don Quixote’s world with his matter-of-fact words.  Are we so stuck in our smartphones that we can’t find the same force now? 

The Bible is filled with them: characters who enter the action and then just as suddenly depart, leaving readers to contemplate their significance in light of the greater story being told – that of God’s everlasting love and His plan to save our souls.  The average student might be tempted to gloss over these characters in their pursuit of the wider interpretation, but Catherine Lawton is no average student.  Nor is she an average writer.  Her 2004 book entitled Face to Face dials into the life of the woman in Luke’s gospel who was afflicted with a condition that made it impossible for her to stand up straight.  Luke writes: “On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.” Scripture quickly pivots to the synagogue leader’s indignance that Jesus healed on the sabbath, rendering the healing of the woman a happy footnote in the battle between Jewish leaders and the Messiah; however, Lawton sees fit to unpack her story because, like everybody who steps into the greatest of stories that is Holy scripture, she is a somebody.  She has a background – a past – and because of the healing ministry of Christ, a future as well.  She is, in a phrase, one of us, which endears her to us, but we also get caught up in the grand thought that miracles are not out of the question for us as well.  In the woman, we see our pain.  In her as well, we see what possibilities await. Lawton takes the craft of storytelling to a new level in this powerful fictionalized account of one woman's eighteen year affliction by a pneuma, a spirit that keeps her bowed and dejected: a pariah to everybody but a few. Once healthy, strong, and with nothing but good prospects on the horizon, a tragic event leaves Joakima, the woman, physically deformed and her life forever changed. As the years go by, Joakima's sense of alienation and hopelessness only deepens until one fateful encounter turns it all around. Lawton permits the woman’s humanity to poke through, even though we know the ending of the story from the start.  Upon hearing that Jesus is near, Lawton writes that the woman “listened to all of the excitement with mixed emotions” only to later try to summon the courage to ask Him to touch her.  The woman, in other words, did not think of herself as worthy.  In effect, her distorted posture, gaze set firmly on the ground in front of her, acts as a metaphor for the posture so many of us assume.  We are consumed by the here and now, heads bowed, our view severely limited.  And we say to ourselves, this is my lot.  There is nothing that can be done.  No change.  No release.  The affliction and I are one. But in Lawton’s dramatization of the life of the bent woman, we get a different message altogether: one of hope and connection.  To be sure, the parallels between Lawton’s story and reality as we see it in the present age are striking.  Many of us are not afflicted with an evil pneuma, but we as a society are certainly bent over, looking at our phones.  You heard me correctly, dear listeners.  I believe there is a valid comparison between one woman’s physical affliction and an entire society’s mental affliction to the extent that both cause pain and isolation.  Consider how some are positively addicted to their devices, unable even to hold a normal face-to-face conversation, sit through an interview, or engage in small talk.  Perhaps we will understand that what claims to free us actually keeps us in chains, for it is certainly not angels who keep our eyes averted. https://www.amazon.com/Face-Novel-Catherine-Lawton/dp/0967038685

Boubacar Boris Diop’s riveting account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide should give pause to anyone tempted to place too much stock in humankind’s ability to keep the peace.  Tensions between two ethnic groups, the Tutsis and the Hutu, reached a tipping point, and for a span of around one-hundred days, members of the Tutsi tribe butchered the Hutu by the thousands.  It was, note some, as if the devil were on a rampage in the broad daylight.  The slaughter was extensive and vicious.  The machete was the weapon of choice. Diop’s book recounts the story of Cornelius Uvimana, a history teacher, who returns to Rwanda after working abroad to wrestle with the loss of his entire family to Hutu militia.  In many ways, the book is a meditation on the darkest impulses of humankind.  The Hutus regarded the Tutsis as cockroaches deserving to be wiped off the face of the earth.  They surely tried.  Bloodied bodies lay strewn about every corner of the country.  What Uvimana eventually comes to believe is that only our humanity can save us and that it his mission to bear witness to the massive atrocity that was the Tutsi genocide.  He will not let the world forget.  He would be the voice of the voiceless dead. Years ago, I assigned Murambi, The Book of Bones to an honors class and was struck by how the exchange of ideas evolved.  Yes, there were those who grieved over the events that took place between April and July of 1994 in a country located in central Africa; however, there was one student who shared with the class a startling idea.  If it is simply a matter of truth that we as a species are capable of such sudden brutality, then we should be resigned to that fact. That is who we are: ugly, nasty, cruel but undeniably human. What is more, according to this rubric, such acts of brutality can even be justified, rape included. If the objective is total annihilation, then, yes, the sexual violation of others is justified.  The Hutus were effective.  Why should they be blamed for their success? The student was clearly taking a pragmatic approach, sacrificing morality along the way. Diop’s appeal to humanity was naive. Did he not know what happened in the camps in Nazi-occupied Europe, the gulags in Soviet Russia, the killing fields in Cambodia?  Violence is a part of our collective DNA.  Why deny it?  To be sure, leaning into it could reveal more about who we are a species actually are. Aren’t we after the truth?  Isn’t that what it means to be educated? Cain killed Abel, after all. The current era is one where the very notion of there being an objective truth is coming under fire. This person has this truth; this other person has that truth. We have come to believe that we can imagine whatever we want and then speak it into existence in an instant, making unique realities along the way.  Issues arise, however, when these so-called realities clash, and they always will. Relativism is the secret sauce when it comes to conflict; indeed, it is the very thing that prevents justice from being served because everybody has their own measuring stick. What is wrong for him is right for her and on and on down the line. My honors student had his measuring stick for what was right and wrong.  The Hutus had theirs.  And both resulted in the justification of heinous behavior. The best way forward?  Clearly, justice is predicated on the rock-solid existence of objective truth.  This is the common measuring stick. This is the way to peace.  Perhaps this is how we recover our common humanity.  We do not build our society on opinion and whim, trend and passing fancy.  Our building blocks must be immutable – lofty, not base.  You see, dear listeners, my student was only partially correct.  Yes, the base instincts exist but so, too, do the noble proclivities – the righteous, the virtuous, the honorable.  We have only to calibrate our lives in such a way that we aim for one end or the other: a low opinion of humankind or a great dream of who we could become. 

I would like to begin with a basic question: Can you give me the name of your great-great-grandfather?  How about your great-great-grandmother?  The likely answer is a simple no. The names of those on whose shoulders we stand are lost to time.  And this is to say nothing about their very lives: what they did to bring in money, what dreams they had, the quirks they possessed, the countless intricacies and experiences of what makes a life a life.  Consider your own, dear listeners.  As you listen to this episode, you are endeavoring to accomplish something; you hold feelings for others; you have your fears and anxieties.  I could go on and on.  My point is that just as you are alive now, so, too, were they alive then, and while the details may be different, the very experience of life is not.  Individuals hundreds of years ago admired the dawn, fell in love, wondered what the first gray hairs meant.  You get my drift. In a recent podcast, popular Catholic priest, Father Mike Schmitz, reminded his listeners that one day, they will die.  This will be the first death.  The second death happens when the last person to utter your name dies.  After that, you will be no more.  Your great-great-grandkids will have no idea what your name was, what you did to earn money, your dreams, your quirks, and so on and so forth.  We might conclude that this is merely the way things go and be done with it.  However, I propose that a keen understanding of this reality is needed to better calibrate how we interact with others. Allow me to explain.  One person may put a lot of stock in personal reputation.  Position and titles are important.  Being highly regarded by others is paramount.  These individuals are buoyed by what others think.  It is easy to see the connection, here, to social media.  These applications thrive on outside (and even anonymous) approval.  But scripture reminds us that our lives are like a vapor or mist.  We are here, and then just like that, we are not.  The wise see the pursuit of personal reputation for what it is: vain. Another person might recognize this, and instead of pursuing approval from others, that person might more fully invest in being known by his or her Creator God, the One that person strives to spend eternity with.  People forget, in other words, but God does not.  He knows your name and mine and will not forget it.   Fair enough.  But what is the takeaway?  What do our lives look like if we do our best to be known by God?  What is more, how does that change how we interact with others?  Other vapors?  Other mists? When I was a teenager, I worked for a time for a man named Keith Meade.  He was a widower who lived in town, and he hired me to do odd jobs: mow the lawn, do some weeding, accompany him to Agway to pick up some supplies.  Another job was to clean up around the gravestones of his departed family members.  We were at the cemetery in Youngsville, my hometown.  The sky was a dark blue.  The air was crisp and clean.  Mr. Meade stood on the side of a hill and etched on the gravestones before and just beyond him was his last name.  I stood and watched him take it in.  He knew his time was coming.  I was too young to realize then that the same applied to me.  What is fifty or so years in the grand scheme of time?  Our lives overlapped.  That was significant enough. What legacy should we leave to those who will not know our names?  Perhaps Saint Joeseph gives us the answer.  We must do what we were put here to do.  We must love those around us.  And we must never forget that this life that comes with reputations and titles and positions, etc. is brief and that the life of the world to come is the permanence of heart and true familiarity with others we seek.  We may not know their names now.  We surely will know their names then. 

Clinton, Arkansas is like any small town in America.  The backdrop for Monica Potts’s memoir, The Forgotten Girls: A Memoir of Friendship and Lost Promise in Rural America, this far-flung part of the world is, according to Potts, where dreams go to die.  Resources are few if any, and those who live there suffer under the weight of their own ignorance or, worse, self-inflicted wounds in the form of drug and alcohol abuse, broken and/or strained personal relationships, being in and out of jails, and tragic conservatism.  The denizens of Clinton, Arkansas simply do not know what is good for them.  It is certainly not God or tradition.  Potts holds no punches there.  The author’s overt political stance on how to fix rural America is reminiscent of the “deplorable” epithet hurled at those who held different beliefs from those who are supposedly more enlightened about this, that, and the other.  In effect, what could have been a very revealing memoir about why one person from Clinton managed to do well for herself while most from that same town could never successfully launch amounts to a two-hundred and fifty page scolding of hillbilly conservatives by a vastly more informed writer who insisted on going to college out of state, away from the community that nurtured her. I am not here, dear listeners, to offer a scathing critique of a book dripping with progressive points of view.  Not all of her conclusions are unfounded, and she is right to point out that bad choices have bad consequences that can make anybody’s attempt to move forward virtually impossible.  The meth epidemic in this country is real, and like Potts, I have seen firsthand so much potential come to naught.  I could practically smell the cigarette odor and grease wafting up from the pages.  My interest lies in her posturing.  Specifically, I wonder what motivates a person to write a book that highlights the poor choices and misery of a childhood friend, Darci, while diagnosing her life with a set of progressive talking points.  Why did Darci take the route she did?  The patriarchy.  An oppressive church.  Low expectations for women.  Lack of access to birth control and abortion.  Misguided immigration laws.  It is as if the formula for this book is to first identify how Darci and others like her mess up and then prescribe as a solution something the Democratic party champions. For the record, I would have a similar reaction if it were a different political party.  Potts is simply too scripted; indeed, it seems as if she is othering her former community as a way to create more distance between them and herself. To say that Potts is looking down her nose at those who remained in Clinton might be stating the obvious.  The compare/contrast between Darci and Potts runs throughout with the former landing squarely on the bad side and the latter, squarely on the good.  Potts submits herself as the wiser among them.  She got the college education, after all.  Attended a school that her high school guidance counselors did not even have on their map.  Nobody from Clinton had ever gone to that school.  Surely, nobody ever would.  It was just too far out of reach. Perhaps it is the subtle and even not-so-subtle arrogant tone.  I started the book because I wanted to learn Potts’ perspective on the state of small towns in America.  I finished the book because I was hoping to find some redemptive notes – someplace where she pulled back on the lecturing and recognized that we all have struggles and to point the finger at how screwed up someone else is can be seen as the pot calling the kettle black.  To be sure, Potts does not seem to notice the plank in her own eye, choosing instead to make judgment call after judgment call, only pausing on occasion to openly wonder if the brokenness was somehow linked to something she did.  Even nodding toward this unlikelihood shows who the real hero of this memoir is. 

The night is darkest before dawn.  That is the saying, at least.  Just before the first faint rays of the sun arrive, the world is pitch black.  Of course, countless individuals have teased out of this reality analogies that are intended to offer perspective when things are not going well.  When circumstances are rough – really, really rough – take heart because there is about to be a reversal, perhaps even of the glorious sort.  In a broken world such as ours, I am all about hope.  We need more of it.  So many are in the terrible grips of despair.  What I would add to the analogy, however, is an element that should give us all a better sense of agency – a sense that we can actually participate in the rising of the sun and the spreading of its rays, if you will. It began with an observation I made from my bed.  The world was enveloped in darkness.  The sun had yet to make its entrance.  But from that immeasurable vastness – that great and ineffable stillness – came a chirp.  A bird began to sing. It quickly occurred to me, dear listeners, that the songbird may be the bravest of all creatures.  It is not the lion that roars in the day nor the wolf, the bear, the great whales of the sea that utter their greeting but the little bird.  So small.  Frail even.  Huddled against the cool air on the bough of a tree, singing into the deep night and against it.  Such courage in that tiny heart.  Such beautiful boldness.  An example to us all who are wrapped in the folds of our own night, existing with others who are experiencing the same or worse. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux lived from 1873 to 1897, dying that year from tuberculosis.  She was only twenty-four years old.  Called by Pope Pius X “the greatest saint of modern times,” Saint Thérèse who was also called Little Flower was known for performing small tasks with great love and sanctity.  To borrow from current parlance, she did not have a big platform.  She lived as an obscure nun in France and only, if you will pardon the pun, blossomed into popularity after her death.  The curious might wonder why Pope Pius X gave her such an accolade.  Perhaps he recognized in her a model for how the faithful should respond to oppressive darkness.  Understand that the small things really do matter and that it is our collective charge to do them with great love.  We each have a song to sing. And though it may seem to be dwarfed by such a massive and largely faceless enemy, it will be heard.  It does make a statement.  It is vital.  Years ago, when I was around fourteen years old, my dear stepfather handed me some tools and told me to frame out a room above my grandparents’ garage with my cousin, Eric.  The garage is located on some obscure hill in some obscure part of Pennsylvania.  I had never before framed out a room, and the thought itself was intimidating, but by calling me out to the task, saying, in effect, that I could do it – that I was capable of completing the job – my stepfather instilled in me a confidence that only grew and became stronger.  He wasn’t influencing crowds.  He was not leading a nation.  He was influencing me: one person.  One kid. What would the world look like if more individuals adopted the way of the Little Flower?  We are all tempted to believe the lie that greatness is all about numbers: likes and shares.  But if we were to examine our lives for a moment, we might discover that it had been the little things all along.  A small gesture.  A tiny kindness.  A little bird who regarded the great big world and its great big darkness and opened its mouth and made a sound regardless.