Alexander and I

ALEXANDER, STRIFE, LOVE

Life is more difficult and complex than I thought it would be. Follow your bliss. I thought that was all it took. I thought I would go along and get along, that everything would fall into place for me. What was I thinking! I thought the world would love, endorse, and support me, because I’m such an attractive, amazing man. So nice to have around, right? Charismatic, like a homosexual Billy Graham. O Lord, what a naïve little twerp I was.

All I have to do is figure things out to make them work, right? If I can just figure it out, everything will be fine. Alas, my ability to make things work is limited by time, energy, intelligence, talent, and relationships. I can’t do everything I want to do, and I don’t always get to do things the way I’d like to. Sometimes I have to settle for less. Sometimes I have to settle for making other people happy, rather than getting exactly what I want. That's what families do. We don’t breeze through life like kings in chariots. Even Alexander did not breeze through life. He fought his way through to an early death in a foreign land. The key to Alexander was that he was loved. The world feared him too. But, he accomplished what he did because of the love he inspired in the men and women who knew him.

Photograph: Mosaic of Alexander fighting King Darius III. Naples National Archaeological Museum. Retrieved June 17, 2015, from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Alexander_the_Great_mosaic.jpg.

Till the Cows Come Home

WORK, PRAY, REWARD

Follow your bliss. There is some logic to it. There is some truth to it. But, it’s not the key to everything. Is there any one key to everything? Can life be reduced down to the one thing that matters more than anything else? If it can, it’s not easy or obvious. Life can be and tends to be very complex. There’s a lot of different things to think about and do. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with everything that needs to be done and everything that others expect us to do. We go along and do the best we can. We have a tolerance for imperfection and human frailty or we don’t. Better to be tolerant of our own and others faults, or life becomes very unpleasant indeed.

I have tried to do the right thing. I have tried to live rightly. I have tried to be and do good. Our lives are full of narratives, our own and other’s. Some are true and some express our fondest wishes. Some narratives are true for some people, but they won't cut cookies consistently. A narrative that works for one man doesn’t necessarily bear up for all. Your happy ending might be my disappointment.

Poor mortals think in terms of rewards for their actions and efforts. We want and expect to be rewarded for doing the right thing. But, the reality is that you can do the right thing till the cows come home and not be rewarded for it. There are tangible rewards and spiritual rewards. Eternal and temporal. Earthy and heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly (I Corinthians 15: 48). We should be and do good as is the heavenly, not as is the earthy. We get swept away by compelling narratives about people who were rewarded for doing the right thing. Happy endings. Positive outcomes. Earthy rewards. We forget that the best reason for being good is a heavenly reward. Things don’t always end happily. How do we comport ourselves when things end badly? Do we forsake goodness if we don’t get our earthy reward? Ye seek me . . . because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life (John 6: 26-27). The standard of goodness is its own reward, which is hard to accept and prove.

We think that if we do x, y, and z, then a, b, and c will happily follow. Sometimes the formula works. How do we comport ourselves when it fails? Do we stop working when our formulas don’t work the way we want them to?






Photograph: Double Trinity with Saint Augustine and Saint Catherine of Siena. Retrieved June 13, 2015, from http://apostolatestjoseph.com/resources/The%20Heaven%20and%20Earth%20Trinities%20with%20Saints%20Augustine%20and%20Catherine%20of%20Sienna%2018th%20Century,%20Peru.jpg

Gratitude for Good Things

FAMILY, CHRISTIANITY, LOVE, ART

Writing is the thing. It’s always there and I always learn something from it. I always get pleasure and comfort from writing. I’m not always able to do it. Sometimes I’m too sick and tired to do it. But, it’s always there waiting for me to return and pick up where I left off, or dart off in some new direction, an artistic experiment. I’m a silly man. Too bad. Wasted, overlooked talent. Wasted life and love. I have not known the right way to live. I have not known how best to live. Christian Science has been a big help to me. Practical. Powerful. Spiritual. The little I have accomplished has been helped by Christian Science. Thank you. Thank you, God. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Mrs. Eddy. Thank you, Church of Christ, Scientist. Thank you, Mother Church. Thank you, Principia College. Thank you, Mr. Harper. Thank you, class instruction. Thank you, Christian Science Association. Thank you, King James Bible. Thank you, Science and Health. Thank you, Episcopal Church. Thank you, Christian confirmation. Thank you, Book of Common Prayer. Thank you, Church of Scotland. Thank you, baptism. Thank you, prayer. Thank you, loving parents. Thank you, parents who want and try to do well. Thank you, parents who do more than they have to. Thank you strong and loving sister. Thank you, Bonnie. Thank you, all friends past and present. Thank you for kindness. Thank you for affection. Thank you for companionship.

I know that love or romance is a long shot for me. It always has been. I don’t know why. I’m missing something that other people have, or I want something that other people don’t. I love children, but I’m not fond of all the mundane details attached to child-rearing and family life. It has always seemed highly overrated to me. People lose themselves in family and avoid life’s broader implications. I have never been seduced by the traditional family unit. It is functional, practical, cultural, profound, and highly successful for a lot of people. The traditional family unit works for most people. Families work. They even work for outliers like I. Even those of us who reject conventional family life and roles in adulthood, continue to love and participate in the family that raised us. We don’t adopt its model, but we don’t repudiate it either. I don’t yearn to be a father or a husband. I do yearn to be loved by someone. I yearn for a romantic, intimate relationship with another person, but I’m not enamored of the conventional family lifestyle. I don’t want to be confined or defined by social convention. I’ve got things to do, and I don’t want the obligations of family life to interfere with them. I don’t want to pretend to love someone and support a family for the sake of conforming, fitting in, and being accepted by others. I don’t want to be socially acceptable. I want to be happy.

Photo: ©2015 Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries. Retrieved June 5, 2015, from http://www.diakon.org/lib/files/userFiles/DFLS_UpperSus.jpg