Just read a post on Why I Am Catholic (see sidebar), where Thomas Merton and his autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain are mentioned. This got me to think why I don't talk about or recommend Merton and his famous book more than I have. Does it have something to do that Merton was first recommended to me by a college professor, who incidentally was a non-practicing Catholic (I am a fairly narrow-minded person)? Not that at the time I cared a hoot either about Catholicism, or a fallen away ex-believer. I remember the writing in question included nature, a secluded cabin, more nature, and an awful lot to do with rain, and harsh indictment of evil consumerism.
About a year after I officially became Catholic, I came across the famous book at a parish spaghetti supper where a table-full of used books were for sale as part of the fundraiser. I grabbed it, took it home and immediately started reading. I read it, wept, and read it, wept, virtually non-stop, except when reaching for Kleenex to wipe the mess off my face. It was a thick book, and Merton's style tended a bit toward the meandering (and so do some other writers I love). I don't think I paid much attention to the formal things, e.g., style, phrases, imagery, witticism, etc. I read it for the "story," and cried my heart out.
I own another a little dairy book by Merton the Monk, of his Trappist days, interspersed with exquisite little drawings by him. They make you think of Zen (indeed he wrote about Zen in the journal), which ordinarily would trigger the suspicion in me (another topic. No, I don't resent any one's fascination with Zen, the problem is entirely my own. Remember, I grew up in China, where Zen - called Chan in stead, is invented; not by the Japanese, mind you. I was smitten in my teen years with the poetry of the Zen Literati ). But these little drawings are clearly exercises of contemplation and sincerity, albeit perhaps a little too charming. I respect them by not thinking too deeply about them.
I can't sincerely say Merton is one of my favorites, even though he made me cry, he did not do it like Augustine in the Confessions. Take that for what it's worth. I may meditate on the topic some more, later.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
A Word of Rememberance
I should have written and posted this two weeks ago.
A popular singer in China committed suicide on October 31, the eve of All Saint's day, followed by All Soul's Day, when the Church commemorates all the Faithful Departed. I learned the news from a Chinese blogger, who pointed out that the date, the birthday of her first husband, was key to understanding her final decision. She was deeply, deeply in love with him, who left her for another woman in showbiz. The bloggersphere was abuzz with speculations about the lingering hurt of the divorce, from which she apparently never recovered. She remarried in July of this year, to a fellow band member, who lent a shoulder during her depressed years. The marriage showed signs of strain just prior to her death. She was 39.
I knew virtually nothing about her. She became famous since I left China to live in the U.S. What makes the news different, even significant, is that she and I shared the same name. Our common family name puts us "in the same clan 500 years ago," as the customary, friendly jest goes in my birth country; our given name, are identical not only in sound, but in written form (or character) as well, a noteworthy occurrence, especially when one of us was famous. Some five years ago I flew back to China to visit my family. Upon entry at the Customs checkpoint in Beijing International Airport, the officer took notice of my name on my then Chinese passport, took an extra look at me, with a guessing smile asked slyly "Are you that famous singer?" Caught by surprise, I stuttered "Oh, oh, no, no, I'm not she." This sort of friendly, almost jolly, exchange at a Customs booth in China, almost never happens. In hindsight, I imagined that the officer, dutiful as he was, might have been a fan and let slip a youthful fancy.
The star singer was said to be "different," "strong-willed," "stood-apart,"and "original" in both personal style and her music. She suffered heartbreaks and depression from her divorce and the subsequent low points and hiatus in her career. She recently remarried, formed a new band, was seen performing with renewed gusto at a hip venue in the Capital city shortly before the fatal jump she took from a close friend's highrise apartment near the Olympic Parks.
My heart was dampened, even bruised by the reading of the news. The emotion surprised myself, as more and more I could hardly feel any sympathy over this kind of celebrity news. I shrugged them off as cheesy, cheap, and sensational. I find it harder and harder to work up empathy faced with all the stupidity and cruelty relentlessly dished up and piled upon our psyche in the daily news cycles, even when they are genuine events deserving our concern and outrage. Like Andy Warhol's electric chairs, repeated and recycled, absent of humanity, the shock of cruelty is replaced by numbness.
The sadness I felt for the singer went beyond narcissism due to our shared names. I've been reading The Divine Comedy, in which Dante places a suicide, Cato of Utica, in Purgatorio (Yes he DID put them in droves in Hell too, only to generate some of the most poignant dialogues between the Dead and the Living), bestowing him the high honor and dignity of a Guardian of the "antechamber" of Paradise. From the early stages of my acquaintance with Dante, I'm no stranger to, and share his susceptibility to pity, as I'm no stranger to the pit, the emptiness, and the despair of that place. As I grow in Christianity, the pity deepens by the increasingly stark contrasts with the Faith, the Hope, and the Charity on this side of things.
I indulged in fantasies that I could have helped: that I could go back in time, across the vast physical and psychological spaces, to the side of the girl; I imagined that I had just the perfect timing, the right tone, and the necessary eloquence and tenderness, to persuade her, to assure her, that life is worth living and enduring, that there are things bigger and sturdier than her love, her art, and her circumstances.
Would I have succeeded?
I said a rosary for her. Trusting that the Author of Life takes into consideration ignorance and grief overtaking reason, I prayed her peace and salvation, and bid farewell to my mourning.
A popular singer in China committed suicide on October 31, the eve of All Saint's day, followed by All Soul's Day, when the Church commemorates all the Faithful Departed. I learned the news from a Chinese blogger, who pointed out that the date, the birthday of her first husband, was key to understanding her final decision. She was deeply, deeply in love with him, who left her for another woman in showbiz. The bloggersphere was abuzz with speculations about the lingering hurt of the divorce, from which she apparently never recovered. She remarried in July of this year, to a fellow band member, who lent a shoulder during her depressed years. The marriage showed signs of strain just prior to her death. She was 39.
I knew virtually nothing about her. She became famous since I left China to live in the U.S. What makes the news different, even significant, is that she and I shared the same name. Our common family name puts us "in the same clan 500 years ago," as the customary, friendly jest goes in my birth country; our given name, are identical not only in sound, but in written form (or character) as well, a noteworthy occurrence, especially when one of us was famous. Some five years ago I flew back to China to visit my family. Upon entry at the Customs checkpoint in Beijing International Airport, the officer took notice of my name on my then Chinese passport, took an extra look at me, with a guessing smile asked slyly "Are you that famous singer?" Caught by surprise, I stuttered "Oh, oh, no, no, I'm not she." This sort of friendly, almost jolly, exchange at a Customs booth in China, almost never happens. In hindsight, I imagined that the officer, dutiful as he was, might have been a fan and let slip a youthful fancy.
The star singer was said to be "different," "strong-willed," "stood-apart,"and "original" in both personal style and her music. She suffered heartbreaks and depression from her divorce and the subsequent low points and hiatus in her career. She recently remarried, formed a new band, was seen performing with renewed gusto at a hip venue in the Capital city shortly before the fatal jump she took from a close friend's highrise apartment near the Olympic Parks.
My heart was dampened, even bruised by the reading of the news. The emotion surprised myself, as more and more I could hardly feel any sympathy over this kind of celebrity news. I shrugged them off as cheesy, cheap, and sensational. I find it harder and harder to work up empathy faced with all the stupidity and cruelty relentlessly dished up and piled upon our psyche in the daily news cycles, even when they are genuine events deserving our concern and outrage. Like Andy Warhol's electric chairs, repeated and recycled, absent of humanity, the shock of cruelty is replaced by numbness.
The sadness I felt for the singer went beyond narcissism due to our shared names. I've been reading The Divine Comedy, in which Dante places a suicide, Cato of Utica, in Purgatorio (Yes he DID put them in droves in Hell too, only to generate some of the most poignant dialogues between the Dead and the Living), bestowing him the high honor and dignity of a Guardian of the "antechamber" of Paradise. From the early stages of my acquaintance with Dante, I'm no stranger to, and share his susceptibility to pity, as I'm no stranger to the pit, the emptiness, and the despair of that place. As I grow in Christianity, the pity deepens by the increasingly stark contrasts with the Faith, the Hope, and the Charity on this side of things.
I indulged in fantasies that I could have helped: that I could go back in time, across the vast physical and psychological spaces, to the side of the girl; I imagined that I had just the perfect timing, the right tone, and the necessary eloquence and tenderness, to persuade her, to assure her, that life is worth living and enduring, that there are things bigger and sturdier than her love, her art, and her circumstances.
Would I have succeeded?
I said a rosary for her. Trusting that the Author of Life takes into consideration ignorance and grief overtaking reason, I prayed her peace and salvation, and bid farewell to my mourning.
I love Nell Blaine
Since the last pages in my hands before I turned the lamp off last night, were from the book on Nell Blaine (1922-1996) I'd begin with what passed my mind with them.
I have tremendous respect for Blaine, whose name I first learned from an insert of a phone/address book themed Women Artists, which I picked up at a TJ Maxx store some six or seven years ago. The cover is a still life of daffodils by Blaine: lush, sensuous, but strangely and subtly restraint. That's right, mind you, not excessive, like some formulaic colorists', Matisse-wannabes' stuff you see in posters and calendars. That juicy, lopsided, near-deformed, artless, deep purple fruit in the foreground took possession of my psyche, and began my quest for, and cyber friendship with this gusty artist.
And since I acquired this monograph, I've been satisfied with learning her life's story as well: a remarkably strong, independent, woman who followed her art instinct into a path of adversity and devotion. She was considerate, grateful, never whiny or ugly. I find myself turning to her pictures over and again for guidance, for lessons as general as clarification of the vision, as concrete as the positive use of paint across the canvas.
She's a good and faithful teacher every time I turn to her. I love Nell Blaine.
She's best remembered for her table-top still lifes and sun-dappled interiors and landscapes. At first glance, what you see are near violent brushstrokes, storms of colors, which simultaneously convey cheer and chaos. Yet, a calmer heartbeat on the viewer's part, aided by a bit of distance of time and space, reveals that they are everything but chaotic. As the eye surveys the work's entirety, the underlying structure emerges, almost miraculously, out of the high-keyed colors and intertwine patterns.
I like the little drawings in India ink and watercolor alongside the paintings included in this book. They tell me of an inquisitive, yet disciplined mind that's Nell Blaine. I can feel her command of the difficult media, her earnest eyes seeking out patterns and spaces, decisive, intelligent, but always spontaneous, though her paintings speak a different sort of sensibility: delight and joy in the act of seeing.
You never get a feeling that she's academic; she works outside of the mode of the shopworn and the schooled. One must know and remember that she lived in the age of Abstract Expressionism, closely followed by the onslaught of Pop. Indeed she began as an abstract painter, the career of which taught her color interaction and harmony without the distraction of recognizable objects.
I like the little drawings in India ink and watercolor alongside the paintings included in this book. They tell me of an inquisitive, yet disciplined mind that's Nell Blaine. I can feel her command of the difficult media, her earnest eyes seeking out patterns and spaces, decisive, intelligent, but always spontaneous, though her paintings speak a different sort of sensibility: delight and joy in the act of seeing.
You never get a feeling that she's academic; she works outside of the mode of the shopworn and the schooled. One must know and remember that she lived in the age of Abstract Expressionism, closely followed by the onslaught of Pop. Indeed she began as an abstract painter, the career of which taught her color interaction and harmony without the distraction of recognizable objects.
I have tremendous respect for Blaine, whose name I first learned from an insert of a phone/address book themed Women Artists, which I picked up at a TJ Maxx store some six or seven years ago. The cover is a still life of daffodils by Blaine: lush, sensuous, but strangely and subtly restraint. That's right, mind you, not excessive, like some formulaic colorists', Matisse-wannabes' stuff you see in posters and calendars. That juicy, lopsided, near-deformed, artless, deep purple fruit in the foreground took possession of my psyche, and began my quest for, and cyber friendship with this gusty artist.
And since I acquired this monograph, I've been satisfied with learning her life's story as well: a remarkably strong, independent, woman who followed her art instinct into a path of adversity and devotion. She was considerate, grateful, never whiny or ugly. I find myself turning to her pictures over and again for guidance, for lessons as general as clarification of the vision, as concrete as the positive use of paint across the canvas.She's a good and faithful teacher every time I turn to her. I love Nell Blaine.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Leave Mother Teresa Alone
Over at First Things, under the First Thoughts blog, Joseph Bottum posted about the latest attack on Mother Teresa by the oh-so-tired Christopher Hitchens, whom I never really read (o that should discredit me right there for saying anything about him, right?), but am sick of hearing his mad rant against my God and my belief. I don't hate him, I'm just annoyed at the pattern of juvenile behavior, the frothing at the mouth. Let's just say that he doesn't believe what Mother Teresa believed, why not leave her alone? After all, she's dead. Even when she was alive, all she did, from a non-believer's point of view, was to work and live with the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Yes she gave speeches against abortion and artificial contraception, even while receiving the Nobel Peace Prize; yes she built more than 200 convents around the world, but she didn't make either her personal crusade. She didn't spent her life protesting in front of the abortion clinics, attacking the UN or the Planned Parenthood, she wasn't a social worker or a CEO of the Convent Inc.. Her critics use the standard templates they learned from their college sociology classes (Can you say "cheese"?), the hackneyed utilitarian narratives. Mother was much simpler. While they see the poor as "masses," she saw each an individual. She didn't see herself any different from the followers of Christ since the times of the Apostles. She heeded the call to love the poor, the same love she gave the rich. She was called to holiness, the crown of which is Charity. She wasn't called to eliminating poverty, certainly not to reducing population. When the poor were abandoned and dying in the streets, she took them in, helped restore their self-awareness of being human, to be with them at their last breath. She wasn't a social worker. How deaf can we be not to hear that? Of her own holiness, she said that she wouldn't have lasted a day had it not been the Holy Hour she made daily in front of the Eucharist.
Shouldn't there be better threats and dangers that Mr. Hitchens should concern himself with, than attacking a God he doesn't believe in, and a dead, old, woman in white and blue sari? I've seen others like the Hitch (as he's known among those who feel affectionate toward him even they don't agree with him, as if he's some kind of a Prodigal Son in the making), who are angry, although I'm not sure at what: God, or the non-existence of God; the annoyance that others believe that there is a God, or just at his plain self-loathing.
My real question is: What is it about Mother Teresa that's SO UNDER HIS SKIN that he can't leave her alone? Why is she a THREAT?
Note: So many seem to think, some with glee, that the recent revelation of Mother's years of Darkness has undone her holiness. I, for one, am grateful that the author of that book gave us the truth of a saint struggling with her spiritual aridity. The deeper the darkness, the poorer the soul. When the pain is too deep to bear, nothing short of Truth would do. Honestly, I'm a little annoyed at those stories which paint the saints' life, especially childhood, in Easter bunny type of pious colors. I find myself dying to ask: is this for REAL? I loved it when Mother Angelica told her biographer, Raymond Arroyo, that if he sugar-coated her story, she'd pray him 40 more years in Purgatory!
Note note: on second thought, Mother Teresa is a threat, so is every Saint, so is God.
Shouldn't there be better threats and dangers that Mr. Hitchens should concern himself with, than attacking a God he doesn't believe in, and a dead, old, woman in white and blue sari? I've seen others like the Hitch (as he's known among those who feel affectionate toward him even they don't agree with him, as if he's some kind of a Prodigal Son in the making), who are angry, although I'm not sure at what: God, or the non-existence of God; the annoyance that others believe that there is a God, or just at his plain self-loathing.
My real question is: What is it about Mother Teresa that's SO UNDER HIS SKIN that he can't leave her alone? Why is she a THREAT?
Note: So many seem to think, some with glee, that the recent revelation of Mother's years of Darkness has undone her holiness. I, for one, am grateful that the author of that book gave us the truth of a saint struggling with her spiritual aridity. The deeper the darkness, the poorer the soul. When the pain is too deep to bear, nothing short of Truth would do. Honestly, I'm a little annoyed at those stories which paint the saints' life, especially childhood, in Easter bunny type of pious colors. I find myself dying to ask: is this for REAL? I loved it when Mother Angelica told her biographer, Raymond Arroyo, that if he sugar-coated her story, she'd pray him 40 more years in Purgatory!
Note note: on second thought, Mother Teresa is a threat, so is every Saint, so is God.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
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