Religion on the way to extinction? HARDLY!

           If only the press and the public knew more about religion as understood in the academic world.  What is declining of course is popular support for and identification with traditional, conventional, institutionally organized and often legally recognized religion. As a cognitive and emotional species, every human alive is a homo religiosus.  It's just that in our secular (i.e., not dominated by traditional and institutional religious communities) world, people are ignorant of and insensitive towards their own and society's religious nature.  The problem is, that religion like other phenomena (the poltical order, cosmology (physics, etc.) is still understood in terms of the world-views of the past and is not conceived or understood in genuinely contemporary terms, indeed, it is invisible to most contemporary people.  In fact, what is thriving today is religion in its most primitive shape:  the idolatry of self-interest. un-reflective and largely unaware (ignorant) self-interest.) Our Lord and the Prophets, Apostles and Evangelists understood this very well--perfectly in ONE CASE.    Alas, the continuing battle between faith and infidelity continues to rage along the border or perimeter that runs roughly across the terrain of our own hearts and minds.

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 3:07 PM, Ken Koonce <kkoonce@roadrunner.com> wrote:

Study Finds Religion May Be Heading for Extinction in Parts of World

reflèches

                      The Force and Origin of all being—GOD—created all that is through the gracious pleasure and intention of His Eternal Mind, the LOGOS eternally present with Him before all creation—even of such powers as may be, and most probably are—lying in their ordered place between us, free-willed and intelligent, feeling creatures, intended to return love and adoration, and to that end inspired by the kindred Spirit proceeding from Father and Son, Who brooded over all creation at its outset, its very beginning.   The reason into which we have grown according to His Providence has come to knowledge beyond the animal instincts in which we were created through the process of evolution, including the relatively recent theory by which we have organized our knowledge of that creation—eohistory, as it were.  We perceive in ourselves the remaining traces and forces, genetically implanted instincts, inherited from our more animal ancestors, perhaps chief among them the life force that expresses itself in human sexuality.  In my sleeplessness, I am more subject to the pressure of that force upon my instincts, desires and imaginations. It is perhaps a culpable degree of regression by which I have this morning indulged myself in my sexuality, which is homosexual and sado-masochistic, the two expressions probably conjoined in a significant percentage of human individuals as part of the intended process of human self-assertion that civilized reason now perceives, and I perceive through Grace, to be at this point in human development,  excessive,  essentially primitive and, as it were, outmoded, and thus mistaken, but surely to some extent necessary in my and others’ cases, and to some extent allowable, and always, through the Grace of the Self-Incarnating Father, forgiveable.

Evolution and Moral Theology

          I imagine that moral theology has tended to operate or be considered in terms of moral finality, or final cause:  toward what end  or towards what result was an action intended?  But I wonder to what extent since Darwin published, that question has been asked with regard to early, primitive, or emergent humanity.  I haven’t really considered why or toward what purpose sado-masochistic urges or instincts came to exist in our race.  They would seem to serve only evil purposes, something contrary to or destructive of human civilization.  Yet human or even any intelligent life seems to do anything with some purpose or intention, and thus almost by definition towards some gratification—even if that gratification be only of a mental or imaginatively realized kind.  Why should there be pleasure in another’s pain, either physical torment or mental, torture or humiliation?  How can or could one or some of us impose that upon others or another?  Cleary by denying, blocking, or frustrating their will: overcoming it, overpowering it, enforcing necessity rather than choice, submission rather than freedom. That implies the acquisition of superior power on the part of one side or agent as opposed to another.  That in turn implies a resultant gratification in an agent’s becoming able to acquire that power.  There is pleasure in dominance, especially as acquired, whether by personal effort or by gift from another.  Did the advancement of our species require effort?   Assuredly.  A genetic impulse towards power, towards supriority over others, is therefore—or at least was—advantageous for our species. Hierarchy was at least at one time evolutionarily advantageous—progressive.

             All life has some ability or propensity, however limited, towards action.  Clearly some life forms are more gifted with this ability than others, and that has to be due to genetic variance, however random in its origin and development.   If that is true within our species, as it seems assuredly to be, the survival of a social, intercommunicative, linguistic species would seem to necessitate cooperation, interaction, and therefore decision, and thus some acceptance or acknowledgment of priority with respect to making decisions, and thus an inequality of power at some point.  If progress implies decision, and the survival, the life of a species, a genetically implanted aptitude for survival, is it not likely that some inclination in members of the species either towards assertion or submission would be genetically implanted?  Is it altogether  surprising, then, if at least in some human individuals a genetically implanted tendency either towards leadership or submission be present, and thus inherent, and further, evident in individuals, given opportunity for growth and experience?  And is it not likely that at least in some cases, an inherent tendency to gratification either in dominance or submission be operative and eventually evident?  Hence sado-masochism as a real if not universal trait in some individuals.

Comment to Defense of Bill Maher

As in most respects, particular circumstances exist within a larger context.  We still are, and certainly have been, the majority and dominant subculture here.  Thus every cultural strain of frustration, resentment, rebellion or anger focuses itself upon  and directs itself against, the central symbols of our identity.  Our superior position to this time at least still  allows us enough self-confidence to "take" and to tolerate it, and  we are able both to exhibit and to admire that magnanimity displayed in our doing so.  Our culture (religion: functionally one is the center, core, or point of origin of the other) has developed over centuries of its history, plural forms, diversity, which are characteristic of and  moral models of its highest ideals.   Consider the Act of Toleration of 1689, as the  "Whig" tradition emerged victorious, something I pretend to regret and in certain Romanticist moods, slightly do.  But I don't really believe any more in imprisoning Baptists or Quakers, or denying RC's suffrage.   The history of Islam has been to the present, quite the reverse, and it has remained intolerant and authoritarian, though in its flourishing periods in Damascus and then Baghdad, it was at least open to, then enthusiastic about, and finally imitative of and then superior to Byzantine, i.e., Christian/Greek/Western culture--at least with regard to the sciences, medicine and philosophy. Whence do you think St. Thomas got his methodology other than from Avicenna (ibn Sina) and Averroes (ibn Rushd), howevermuch they got theirs from Aristotle?  But, given the Crusades, the Saracen and then Turkish and almost Mongol conquests of the Middle East, and finally the economic-political-and cultural triumph of the Christian>secular/pluralistic, Modern>post-modern cultures, the Arabs reacted.  The authoritarian side of Islamic culture triumphed, and it has remained in many respects subservient, resentful, and intellectually narrow ever since, although now possibly redeemable because it has entered Western culture to some extent, particularly here in the USA.  Do we want to speak with ONE voice?  God help us, NO!!! although our authoritarian subculture, certainly growing stronger as we become increasingly insecure and resentful, e.g., Fundamentalists, the lower-middle-class South, Mormons (i.e., "Rednecks) consider that an ideal for which they strive.   I hardly think that Gay subculture has anything  to imitate in their example.

In defense of Bill Maher

He is very far from being an "idiot." ("Idiot," incidentally, was the self-descriptive title that both my closest sets of high school friends applied to ourselves:  the "Senior" and "Junior Idiot Cliques.")   He he does differ from both of us on questions of value, and, in your case, of facts, and he is far from charitable in temper and has a deplorable attitude towards religion and Christianity, but one that is I think entirely understandable in terms of the way or ways in which both they can be presented and experienced, especially in this country and culture. I wrote what is probably a less than admirable, certainly hostile, letter to my seminary within the past two weeks, because it or they sent (twice) to me an invitation to an alumni "reunion" at the Newport Beach Presbyterian Church.  I told them in no indecisive terms just what I think of that congregation, its community, and the church (congregation) that I was unfortunately exposed to as a child, and why I would like to see "Evangelicalism" purged from the Church.  It is authoritarian, repressive, and anti-intellectual in the extreme, although it could certainly be rightly described as "intellectualist," and as "rationalist," although anything but rational.  It is that in the predominant American religious tradition that the Founding Fathers would have hated, and in fact, did, in prominent cases: Washington, Paine, both Adamses, Jefferson, Franklin (whose birthday is today), and to perhaps a lesser extent, Madison.  Of course they all believed in God, in some cases, strongly, but "fervently" would not be an appropriate adverb, and they nearly all believed in religion in the way that children of the Enlightenment did.  The two great religious movements that brought American independence and identity about were similar in a few respects and antithetical in others.  Both ways of thinking and feeling were I believe mistaken to some degree, but this is far more true of the Evangelicalism/Pietism behind the "Great Awakening" than of "The Enlightenment rationalism to which most of the Founding Fathers embraced.  Both Franklin and Jefferson constructed their own personal statements of faith that are very close to the Unitarian tradition but not to The Catholic Faith.  Washington, though an Episcopalian, was careful never to receive The Blessed Sacrament.  I wonder if he ever attended a Eucharist.  What they did not like about Christianity as they experienced it--especially in the Evangelical "New Lights" was in part its excessive and often unseemly emotionalism, and still more its authoritarianism:  the religion of the "shut up and don't ask questions" variety, which that tradition, that version of Christianity shares of course with Papalist Roman Catholicism.  It is that to which many Americans have been exposed, often painfully, and it is that which makes them as blatantly, and of course, ignorantly, hostile to true Christianity, identifying the one with the other.  The American of that period whom I most admire was of course Blessed Samuel Seabury (f.d., Nov. 14), the first bishop of the American Church and earlier in his life, Chaplain to His Majesty's American forces.  Had he not escaped Manhattan in a hired rowboat, he would undoubtedly have been hanged along with the other captured male Tories when the Fleet sailed away with their wives and children aboard, sadly not before they were compelled to see their husbands and fathers kicking on the gallows, intentionally erected  so that they had to, since lack of favorable winds had prevented their sailing for some days.

             Hamilton, of course, was as "High Church" an Episcopalian as he could have been without having compromised his rationalism.
Burr was of course Jonathan Edwards' grandson.  Edwards was of course as brilliant a thinker as this country has produced, and the third President of Princeton.  But have you read or heard read (I took my advisees to his grave on his birthday and delivered much of it to them there) "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"?  Brilliant thought and superb rhetoric:  hardly Gospel, in my opinion, at least.

            I think that Maher was brought up in a less-than-educationally-sophisticated R.C. family, and experienced popular authoritarian American culture first-hand.  That experience has left him understandably angry as hell, and thus sadly in danger of it in popular estimation.  I am as sympathetic with his mindset as I can be, given that I wholeheartedly disagree with and deplore it.  I don't need to see the clip; I watched and enjoyed the program.  The Bible, understood as literally and ignorantly as many do, certainly more a center of belief, if not faith, than the Gospel, certainly can be viewed or felt about as "bullshit." That of course is blasphemy insofar as Scripture

containing and centered in the Holy Gospel is concerned, but it is not all that far off insofar as it is understood and believed in by Fundamentalists and similar contemporary Pharisees.  I rather think that Luther would not have bristled at using the German Renaissance equivalent of the term, as Fleisch, and not Geist.

The Reconstructed “LACEIAD”

The mock-heroick poet sat depressed
And to his Muse his emptiiiness confessed:
His tribute valediction lay undone;
HIs pages showed he scarcely had begun.
For sorrow and bereavenent damped the fire
Of fantasy, which verses should inspire.
At last, when failing often as he tried,
He knelt, and to his distant goddess cried,
“Satiric Spirit of Augustan times,
Who guidest priests and pedants in their rhymes, -10
An entrance for Imagination find
Into the silent chambers of my mind:
With copious couplets let its spaces ring:
Sweet Muse, instruct my sorrowing soul to sing!
His prayers prevailed the Poet-Sprite to sway:
She hastened from Parnassus to L.A.
She flew until she saw with crystal ey'n
The room at Zelzah 10339
Wherein the priest-professor-poet sad
Sat scribbling on his coffee-stained desk-pad. -20
Disdaining to set foot amid the mess,
She hovered o’er, and ‘gan him thus address:
“High time, sweet sir, you called on me again,
For it’s been ages since you wielded pen!
Or do you think, your dissertation done,
Your place amid th’immortals has been won?
What lacks, or wits or courage, that you pine,
And giving forth no ink, keep taking wine?”
Astonishèd, the bard makes no reply.
He stares through Muse and ceiling to the sky, -30
His pride and anger rise to fever pitch,
And inwardly he thinks his Muse a bitch.
At last, when failing often as he tried,
He knelt, and to his distant goddess cried,
“I blush to ask, or summon thee for aid
So long I’ve dreamt and drudgery delayed,
But now I labor, or for good or ill,
And such a sacred duty to fulfill
Confounds imagination, drains my strength,
And draws this damnéd dialogue to length -40
Unlook’d for, and I curse my fate,
That Lacey’s leaving I must celebrate.
How can I sing, in sweet and solemn* tones *gentle
The loss o’er which all California groans,
While Nature languishes and Culture bleeds?
So sad a disquisition* far exceeds *composition
My pen’s poor powers, rightly to display
The sage Savant of Santa Barbara,
THe Paragon of Portland, known as well
As Boast of Buffalo, Crown of Cornell.” -50
The wise old witch wote well he wouldn’t write
For fear of his revealing loathéd spite,
And thus advised, “Your lines will have to burn
And sting a bit, if satire you would learn.
So post a warning, as o’er Hades’ fence,
And let this motto publish your intents:

-2-

“All ye who shun abhorr'd ambivalence,
Read not these pages; quickly get thee hence!”
Thus spake the Muse, and since she sorely feared
For brevity, she swiftly disappeared. -60
The poet, filled with literary light,
In elegaic mood commenced to write:

“In bright midsummer see the skies turn gray;
The sun from California steals away;
From Point Conception e’en to Malibu
The skies reveal nor shred nor patch of blue.
The palm trees wither, and the beaches soil,
Beswept by newer, fouler slicks of oil;
Swift brushfires turn the hillsides black and gray;
Succeeding mudslides sweep the slopes away; -70
The earth itself with sobs of sorrow shakes
Because Steve Lacey his departure takes:
He leaves the West for Washington, D.C.,
And Santa Bar’bra sinks beneath the sea.”

What sort of man is this, for whose dear sake -75
Sweet Nature would her own quietus make?
A teacher, scholar, learnéd Ph. D.--
The Aristotle of U.C.S.B.,
Whose loss, though blinded colleagues misappraise,
Is measured by his students’ love and praise. -80

Will Shakespeare’s precious metal he alloyed
With Barber, Turner, Dorothy and Freud
In chains of lectures, magically wrought
To bind our prejudice and free our thought,
To teach the love of Lit'rature, his goal:
That each might search with insight his own soul.
He spared not sentiment whene'er he spoke:
He held the glass to Nature, and it broke.
He loved religion, lauded ritual,
And oft the gods to witness he would call -90
That never had he breathed a doubting word
Against these palliatives for the absurd;
With patient condescension would he list
To Anglican, Agnostic, Atheist.
His fame for eloquence not only stands
Upon his well-wrought words, but on his hands,
Whose every gesture waved the holder giv'n
By Dorothy Van Ghent as she was shriv'n;
This gilded sceptre governed every class,
Approved the genius, and reproved the ass. -100
He taught with expectation each would find *confidence that each would find
Just so much learning* as befit his mind. *knowledge
The smarter student subtly seeks to shine
And sucks salacious substance from each line;
The toiling grind a “B” would barely earn
By lab’ling Shakespeare’s characters in turn
According to neurosis, hardly hacked
From notes on Freud, footnoting scene and act.
The student saved for "C" would take his grade
As blandly as the stuff from which he’s made; -110
The dullard who instruction hath withstood
Retains the thought that “mobléd queen is good;"
Nor was his mind by reading much bedimmed
As, blond and blissful, o’er the surf he skimmed.
And if his scholarship* Steve could not praise, *intellect
He could not fault his blue eyes’ wond’ring glaze.
(And oft he quipped to boys not too obtuse,
With eyebrow raised, "The proof is in the mousse"--
How often did Steve* wish he had a boy
Instead of copious notes on JEAN SANTEUIL. -120
When lectures weren't prepared, he would confess
His private sins, or otherwise digress:
He'd rave of Marrakech, and thought it chic
To make veil'd reference to "Dark Afrique."
When ob'ter dicta would not bear the strain,
To colleagues over cocktails he'd complain,
"I taught this to my students, to my woe:
I asked them what it meant--they didn't know"!
But far more eloquent than Shakespeare's tomes, *educational
Or Proust's or Dante's, were his famed “at homes.” -130
His parties were the wonder of his age:
One heard the silent shout, the Reverend rage;
The music deafened, and the clumsy danced,
The lonely loved; the strong and silent pranced*. *;
When glasses emptied, naked hands were there
To clutch the wine and fling it through the air.
How of "the Fuzz" came flying at the call
Phoned in by foes across the China wall:
Within, the guests are swift to cover ass
With garment, whilst they haste to flush the grass. -140
Police are pacified, the mad rebuked,
Stood up the prone, sponged off the o'er-bepuked,
The blind is somehow led to find his car,
The poor, persuaded to stock up the bar,
By Steve, who calm as Christ on Galilee
From jaws of ruin rescues revelry.
One sees him, in remembrance of the mind,
As grand as a Guermantes, and as refined,
As through the throng of guests he makes his way,
His body, orotund; his spirit, gay. -160

He caters to each gluttonous request:
The host's incorporated by each guest.
With pain he acquiesces to each shock,
And prostitutes his speakers to hard rock.
“I tossed aside* that awful stuff by Bach; *"Let's toss away this
I messed it up, but Steve won’t hear the scratch, *
One guest asides to partner, with a cough
"Let's get a drink, then see what's to rip off."
They shortly leave, so small the pickings are,
Except the liquid larceny at the bar. -170
His "Ripple" drunk, the boy with bulgiing crotch
Is poured six ounces of the priest's best scotch.
“But Stephen,” cries the cleric,”He’s on wine!”
“We’re out!” says Steve, “and this will do just fine"
The strung-out surfer sips the gen'rous grant,
Chokes on one swallow, pours it on a plant.
“May God condemn the little swine to Hell!”
The priest exclaims; the host,* “Nonsense! He’s swell!” *but Steve:
Guests wander through the gardens, who’ve no pow’rs
Of self-control: the bathroom has for hours* -180 *for an hour
To ev’ry plea for pity shut its doors:
The prudish think it’s occupied by whores.
*A grease-spot lands a girl upon her ass, *a puddle
Who breaks, in fallling, one Bohemian glass.
Nor are material things drink's only prey:
Where quarrels break out, friendships fall away,
Except where bare acquaintance springs to life
Among the two or three who thrive on strife.
"Sir, you insult the Queen!" the cleric cries,
And throws his wine into Mac Davis' eyes, -190
Who calmly, quietly, and with a grin,
The priest baptizes with his glass of gin.
Guests drink, guests dance*, guests quarrel and guests neck; *Guests dance, guests drink,
At last departing, leave the place a wreck.
Thus Steve for self-indulgence makes amends
In self-destructive sacrifice for friends,
His heroes, who, when wildest oats are sown
Leave paired with one another, Steve's alone--* *Who leave with one another after one:They leave him two-by-two,
Unless a couple’s staying, or at least,
Censor’ious celibate, his friend, the priest, -200
Who, long ago, besotted, bedded down:
So Steve, to find a bed-mate,* drives to town. *leaves for
Pub-crawling keeps partying half* the night: *drinking all
The Reverend Father wakes him at first light.

Just as fair Venus, when Jove life her gave,
Rose to her half-shell from the briny wave,
Steve from the heaving surface lifts his head,
And with a slosh, leaps from his water-bed.
He stumbles forth, the coffee-pot to fill,
And with red eyes gropes for the Dexamil. -210
He lights, beneath the morn's increasing ray,
The first of sixty cigarettes a day.
He ambles to the porch, admires the view,
Decides to have a cigarette or two.
Once seated on the ledge, he has now pow'r
To rise, or think of workng, for an hour.
The Father joins him 'neath the clearing skies,
And while the clouds of Burleigh's incense rise,
He reads his office: since it's not a fast,
Between each Psalm he hints at a repast. -220
"Dear'st Howard, give me time at least to think
And have a cigarette." "Let's have a drink,"
The temp'rate priest, if not his host, suggests,
"And get some breakfast, 'ere you have some guests."
Steve struggles from the porch, and walks within,
And stands, transfixed with horror, at the scene
Of littered tables, o'erturned chairs, and more
Appalling remnants of the night before.

He* walks around his carpet* and laments *Steve *2 carpets
Its stains, its burns, it puddles, and its rents. *Its holes, its burns -230
His guests repaid Steve's fond attempts to please
With broken goblets, vomit spots, and fleas.
Now Mem’ry’s fingers play on Conscience’ harp:
The Father beats his breast and starts to carp,
Once more his id’s his superego’s thrawl,
And moral condemnation covers all.
Can Steve survive the penitential prayer?
He does! A footfall sounds upon the stair!
As swift as Mercury, Steve gains the floor
And greets with joy a face seen twice before. -240 *They eat for breakfast stuff made long before;
Just then a knocking sounds upon the door:
Two guests walk in, and "Stop" turns into "More!"

A boy on high-heeled wedgies* wobbles in, *high-wedged sandals
With drug-befuddled brain, bepimpled skin.
Steve's spirit soars--a lark in morning song--
Then falls: his darling's pulled a pal along.
This pair from San Francisco "thought they'd try * “While we’re in town we thought we’d just drop in,”
While they were both in town to just drop by," And Stephen's home again becomes an inn."
Explains in lisps the former of the twain,
Who share a bed, few clothes, and half a brain.
They want Steve to meet friends, and soon the group
From a quartet expands into a troop. -250
Steve serves a drink to all the rav'nous bunch,
And, hoping that they'll leave, postpones his lunch
In vain he watches for their ranks to thin:
The hordes have heard the word: The Doctor's in."
They come in tears for counsel and advice,
And patiently take Daniels without ice.
They spill out ev'ry detail of their nights:
Their latest loves, their bed-play, and their fights,
All unaware of warning once unfurled
Above Guild Hall: "Tell Lacey, tell the world." -260
At last they leave, convinced at Steve's behest
To seek abortion or a new blood test,
(Except for two or three who shelter seek:
Steve bids them stay the night; they stay the week.)
And Steve heats up the scraps of last night's feast
As luncheon for a surly, starving priest.
In vain that gentleman snhot scowls of hate
At those whose staying made his lunch so late;
Steve's visitors he views as as a bad dream:
The veriest scum, he thinks would rise like cream -270
Above these social dregs: how could one hope
To catalogue Steve's circle? For its scope,
Its numbers and variety would reach
From plushest mansion to the barest beach.
That question, once it's formed, becomes a hunch,
A challenge, and the Father after lunch,
Sits gazing on the sea, as from a throne,
And tries to list acquaintances he's known.
Thus, even as his vodka gimlet's poured,
Convenient categories are explored: -280
He finds their number threefold, joy of joys!
Steve's colleagues, and his students, and his boys.

***His Colleagues***
Among Steve's colleagues, he must list all those
With whom in former student days he froze
Through stormy winters, warmed with danger's spice,
When Steve, then stouter, lived in dread of ice.
Cornell and Buffalo: from these Steve's gone
For many years: he'll list these later on.
He turns from listing friends from days of yore
To Steve's companions on the Western shore. -290
One first thinks of Fred Turner and Mei Lin,
Who left the place where Lacey next moved in:
Remembers late Thanksgiving afternoons,
With Lacey's guests, inflated as balloons,
When Fred and Mac, less satiate than tight,
Would haggle over Hegel half the night.
Mac always loved an intellectual fight:
He'd talk through banquest, scarcely touch a bite.
'Twas not that Mac aggressive was, or mean,
Although he'd always vilify the Queen -300
If Tory Anglican sat at the board.
(If he was not, another's ox was gored)--
'Twas that his philosophic cast of mind
Was always finding some new ax to grind:
He never was out-argued, nor bereft
Of zeal for politics of the New Left:
Conventon's claims he'd loudly disavow--
He loved to play, "More radical than thou."
He mocked tradition, and at faith he hoots,
Scorns Catholic rearing and Chicago roots, -310
And yet the consicence of this lean-flanked wraith
Betrays in its despair the marks of faith.
Despite his "je ne peu croire pas,"
His pastimes were impeccably bourgeois:
Where other folk were Esalened or Rolfed,
Our Marxist Mac played basketball and golfed.
How oft to Steve's would Mac and Zandy go
With Steve's godchild and namesake both in tow;
They came for cocktails, parties, and din-din,
And he on them quite frequently dropped in. -320
****

Then handsome Ramsey, smiling, suave, and sport,
Who drowned Steve's dinner with the taste of port.
This lecturing Lothario led each lass
To unrequited love who took his class;
HIs line of lady-loves one's loth to list:
He loved them, then replaced them, never missed
Their presence, till at last upon the scene,
There ope'd the Georgia blossom-child, Charlene.
No less than Ramsey's presence at each bash,
Steve counted on his comfort and his cash. -330

***

When colleagues missed his parties Steve would sigh
Especially if he lacked his friend, Ken Bai.
His tender heart was also more than riven
If at a soirée he saw not Kit Given.
But Mel and Penny added to his joys,
And sent Steve searching for their children's toys.

****His students****

Spring dawns upon us--April first, then May,
And Tom, then Bill, salutes his natal day:
The poet, egocentric as he is,
Suggests they celebrate them, close to his, -340
Bids them to dinner, and, you guessed as much,
Suggests his fav'rite rest'rant, says, "It's Dutch!"
One selfish action proves another's sequel:
To Bills' and Tom's largesse he's quite unequal.
Tom wastes his film, and Bill his haute cuisine
Upon a poet, stingy, pinching, mean:
They gave him dinners, poured him gin and wine,
And he for them indicted not one line;
His invitations few, his cooking bac,
But worst--he bars them from THE LACEIAD. -350
Each season fresh excuses bloom and wilt:
"There's no ambivalence!" But there is guilt.
"What rhymes with Hopkinson?" he asks. "O Hell!"
The world replies: "What doesn't rhyme with Dell?"
The truth of that rings clearer than a bell:
Happ's calculating conscience scarce could tell
The reasons that like blighted blossomes fell,
And none would buy what he would cheaply sell:
For unsubstantial reasons will not gel--
Excuses worse than fest'ring lilies smell. -360
E'en fickle Charles was truer to his Nell,
Who thought on her misfortune as his knell,
(Too late for deeds his conscience' pangs to quell)
Than poet to his practice: what a shell
Of fragile pretense! Rhymes would come pall-mall
If Ellen Pall required them for "The Trell-
Issed Lane," and she would judge them well.
He gloats to see his students glut the press,
Out-do him quite, he sadly must confess, -370
And Regency afficionados thrill
To each new novel of Fiona Hill.
But slower than a pearl sinks in green Prell
Our poet was to rhyme one word with Dell:
A monkey at the keys might him excel.
(The reason his Unconscious knows! Won't tell.)
Caught writing for excuse, the little worm
Commits high blasphemy, and blames his form, -380
Suggests that poets of more ancient fame
Were pattern for a son of Notre Dame,
Whose temposs, more Adagio than Lento,
And seeks his model verse in High Tercento.
And thus when Pope's or Johnson's rhyme scheme fails,
Our poet apes the "Canterbury Tales:"
"Whan thattë Laceiye with his frendes cavourte,
Our Bille y-cookëd Spanische Windtorte."
But finding each new metre's more a bomb,
The poet turns to celebrating Tom, -390
Whose hair becomes more glorious as it greys,
Whosepale blue eyes suggest the morning haze,
Whose broad-cheeked smile would melt the Arctic snows,
Whos body would look better without clothes,
If modesty vied not with Tommy's beauty,
These lines in detail could fulfill their duty:
More would the poet say if he were able,
Who once felt his embrace upon Steve's table,
Where semi-comatose in drink he lay,
But keeps this mem'ry clear to e'en this day. -400
Once more his verses spread their broadest sails,
Fanned by the breeze of fancy for fair males,
And lets his couplets sing his praises, fond
Of altar-boyish William's pink and blond.
More than his viands, table-settings, flow'rs,
O'er which he spent his earning and his hours,
Bill was the proper aim of taste and sight:
A blushing Irish bon-bon! Want a bite?
How oft the Reverend in his fondest dream
Indulged his fantasy for Irish Cream; -410
Imagined, as sleep's suasions teased his smile,
Just government once more on Erin's Isle,
True order, true Religion there restored,
And he an Irish bishop and a Lord;
Imagined William, rescued from the stable,
To hold his chair, pour wine, and grace the table,
To trudge up creaking stairs with steaming tub,
To bathe his master and give him a rub,
To pour in perfumed oils, refresh his gin,
'Til bishop pulls his bath-attendant in. -420
Who'd not prefer a naked Irish boy
To rubber ducky as a bathtub toy?
But, fantasies aside, the poet whines
For respite from these penitential lines.


With conversation, 's lost a promised feast;
Postponed the breakfast of a starving priest ,
Who, scowling, left his bed to find no board;
What’s worse, with idiots’ babbling, he is bored,
Whilst he no breakfast and no luncheon grieves,
He dreams of better times he’s had at Steve’s: -430

His steps in haste ascending, one might view
A boy’s bare body, or a beauteous two.
Perhaps some Ganymede is sitting there
With Botticelli body, Titian hair;
His face a girl’s in loveliness of gaze,
Who yet unblushing manly parts displays.
He couches ‘gainst the the shoulder, t’wixt the thighs
Of gentle giant, half again his size,
Whose bronzed, broad-shouldered, tapered, muscled length
Is kitten’s softness, caged in tiger’s strength; -440
Whose figure Michelangelo might own,
And yet his features are Columbia’s own.
His eyes, dark blue; his hair, a dusky blond:
A tender cut of rare Chateaubriand.

The Father in his musing finds he tends
To list and catalogue all Stephen’s friends.
First, there’s Chris Carrol, thoughtful, blond and trim,
Who comes from beach, from studio or gym.
He wrought Steve’s fabled table with his hands,
Which, swinging and not standing, stable stands. -450
Thanksgiving feasts and culinary hopes
Will leave guests sated t’wixt its straining ropes.

[Desunt nonnulla] Chris Carroll Wolf

For Stephen wine was love, and food was living;
His highest feast, not Easter, but Thanksgiving . . .
The sea grows grey, then gold with morning's ray,
And Steve, exhausted, greets Thanksgiving Day.
He stumbles to the kitchen, nearly dead,
And views the thawing bird, the dried herb-bread
That lies in piles as countless as the sands,
Which Steve had turned with tireless, thyme-strewn hands -460
The night before as long as he was able
While blond Adonis framed and raised his table,
Which labor, sharp, observant reverend eyes
Delight to watch and deign to supervise.
(Chris wrought Steve's hanging table with his hands,
'Though yet his garish rom unfinished stands.)
The Father seeks, while rambling 'round the room,
To lighten with his leisure labor's gloom:
Refreshes drinks, sniffs, pinches, tastes the dressing,
O'er Carroll's labors mumbles frequent blessing, -470
Drinks bourbona, changes records, pours forth chatter,
Imagines Chris, not turkey, on his platter;
Envisions his pale torso, well-trimmed hams
Veiled modestly by parsley, gravy, yams.
O ye of little tastes, know priestly palates
Prefer "garçon nature" to veal or shallots.
Such preparations done that eve, by ten
Next morning, whiskey's poured again.

****His boys****

Steve's in his element, not stirring gravy,
Expecting hourly "Dennis-from-the-Navy," -480
Resisting priestly pleadings and requests
For some vague estimate of Stephen's guests.
Soon, soon they come, supplying from their means
A pumpkin pie, a casserole of beans.
The wealthy bring Jack Daniels, and the poor
Were clearly asked to brighten the decor.

A well-built lad, like Vulcan at his forge,
Stands lab'ring, that his mentor's friends might gorge:
He hammers on pig knuckle and cow hoof
To make the aspic for Françoise's boeuf . . . -490

Our friend, our mento, therapist and host:
It is his cooking that we'll miss the most.

Yet I forget the kitchen's brightest star:
Steve's ever-flowing, all-abundant bar.
How many vodka gimlets been poured
From that rich cab'net where the booze is stored,
That library more valuable than books,
The quarts of 'Daniels and of Ezra Brooks,
The countless limes whose essence has poured in
To lakes of tonic and to seas of gin? -500

Again, his boys . . .

Their languor and their license and their lust.
Is happiness collecting splendid dust?
That question's not conventionally half-meant:
These lines were written in the time of Lent.

And though Steve from these sun-strewn shores may stray,
Beaux, bums, and beach-boys hail a future day
When Santa Barb'ra's local lore will vaunt
Itself on having Lacey's fav'rite haunt:
His shrine, gus sanctuary, and his club,
His well-belovèd bar, the famous "Pub." -510

....

Whenever something broke or went amiss,
Nine chances out of ten,'twas Mike and Kris.
To save expensem Steve summons the fair-haired
Chris Carrolll, and the damage is repaired.

{The "Bug Canto"

Four limbs for wrestling, two for giving hugs:
Steve found three pairs de trop: he hated bugs!
Of all th'insects. arachnids, none can please:
Steve swats the glow-worms, lady-bugs, and fleas.
In outrage and in triumph hear him pant,
Pursuing to to its slaughter one poor ant; -520
In close encounters Steve was more than macho:
He cared not, cucaracha, cucaracho--
Indiff'rent whether Spanish fly or Mex,
In entomology Steve shied from sex,
For just as Mother Nature keeps us fed,
Chef Lacey liked her lower creatures dead.

...

Wom, first adoring, one soon seeks to kill:
The snippish vixen he-bitch named Bruce Hill . . .
How deep an education does he show,
Who mocks the Mass as merely "magic show?" -530
His hair, a silken sunset, reddish glows
Above a neck that shames the blushing rose;
So sanguine a complexion does not fit
His disposition's humour: purest shit.
A boyish face, a mustache set above
Soft lips, that seem the smooth, sweet source of love,
But are instead the killers of delight:
The fountainhead of scorn, deceit, and spite.
The nether beauties of the little whore
One can't describe, because he won't show more. -540
A friend who boasts of pounds he's lost--a score,
He blandly asks, how soon he's losing more:
The lad requests another cup of cheer
And warns his host that he should take light beer.
He calls for beers, and wishes the ingrate,
The insolent young veal were on his plate,
Or that he were the chef, the boy were bared:
His task, to choose how he should be prepared;
The boy, a-tremble, as he feels his lean
And supple limbs, while reading of cuisine -550
Tahitian, Maori, or West African,
Consid'ring, should he par-boil the young man,
Or have the little bastard stripped and tied
And turned upon a spit, or else French-fried?
(He hangs, he hurts, he hears each sizzling splat
As fresh-cut collops fall into the fat:
Thus rendered tasteful, render him his due--
Still hard to swallow, crunchier to chew.)

.....
Steve leaves the West for Washington,D.C.,
And Santa Barbara sinks beneath the sea, -560

Steve fears to be rejected for his race,
And nightmares show each leering , dusky face.
But surely charity must lurk beneath
Their gleaming switchblades and their grinning teeth. 160
And he were either slave or coward who
Would not with joy depart for Howard U:
For newer, brighter,younger* loves are found *truer
In Washington, where handsome lads abound;
And he were no less tasteles, dull, or blind,
Or void of sense and wit, who would not find
Each fed'ral agency a store of toys,
For every office has its office-boys.
How many Senate pages turn his head,
Corrupt his morals, or adorn his bed? -570
Imagine there some golden-fleecèd Jason,
A midnight's quest around the Tidal Basin.
The one time Proust's de Norpois spoke the truth
Was when he ventured that the golden youth
Within the various embassies employed
Were chosen to be looked at and enjoyed:
Each has a faultless figure, gait and grace:
A soldier's stature, and an angel's face,
A woman's eyes and hair, a hero's chin,
A giant's shoulders, and a baby's skin. -580
The treasured-up state secrets in each head
More of than not will be betrayed in bed.

....

Lacey in Washington

Thus spake the priest, who, prophet though he be,
Possessed no mystic sight, no prophecy,
And thus was blest with blindness, lest he grieve* *But friends with students, relatives, must grieve
To see what Washington would do to Steve:
Unhappy Lacey, victim of black spite,
Condemned to battle in a losing fight,
There would he spend two years in fruitless strife--
No period, but a hyphen in his life. -690
Nor could the few fond friends in Chestertown
Suffice to shield sad Steve from Fortune's frown;
Nor could the psychic salves of Harvey Rich
Prevail to heal the wounds wrought by a bitch.
Devouring Durga! May her noxious name
Be drowned in anonymity and shame!
May Howard U. now feel stern Heaven's rod:
Damnation from his priest, His Church, and God!

"A Hymn of Thanksgiving on the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, 1977"

Tyranny dies! Oppression melts awau!
Peace claims her triumphs! Justice has her day! -700
Repentant Fortune rescues Steve from Hell Thus God saves Stephen from her harmful Hell/A gen’rous Heav'n saves Stephen
And brings him, joyous, to Fair Old Cornell! from her Hell
King's hallowed Hilltop welcomes him again;
Summer's abundance frolics on the plain;
Trees in the lavish verdure of late June
Swell like an orchestra their songster's tune:
Nature, exulting, flings the tidings wide
From Brushy Creek to distant Lake MacBride;
Melody flows from high Mount Vernon's hill The good news spreads from high Mt. V sernon’s hill
To Lisbon, Solon, and Mechanicsville; -710
Soon all Linn County's hills with song abound--
All fields of Iowa with song abound--
Its high thanksgivings e'en C.R. must owe:
Home of the never too-malignéd Coe.
Lacey returns! The brightest and the best,
Both coasts disdaining, crowns the glad Midwest!

But hark! What omen marks* Steve’s journey West? *greets
On Steve’s own birthday, see our culture blest!
Elvis expires! both earth and Heav’n rejoice!
Music herself in triumph lifts her voice, -720
Measure, decorum, harmony and grace
Sing, for a blemish fades from Music’s face.
Beauty exults, and scarcely less does Truth:
Gone is the tastelessness that stained our youth.
Note as he goes, the slight sulphurous smell--
For a just Heaven sends his soul to Hell.
Ripely to Death's scythe Presley falls like hay,
Perishing, timely, on Steve's natal day.
His fun'ral flames with banquet torches blend,
And celebrating flames to Heav'n ascend, -730
Whilst grieving rednecks throng to pass the pyre,
And bear home flow'rs--or bits of chicken-wire.
On Stephen's birthday * Fate sets no mean price: *Steve's departure
Supplies a "Star" as fatted sacrifice:
Who'd limit tears o'er such a famous head?
The pelvis-pumping King of Rock is dead.
Thus Stephen's birthday's filled with light and love,
Cheered by this birthday present from above.

Two paths divergge: as Presley speeds to'rds Hell,
Steve's ancient auto struggles to'rds Cornell. -740
A moral in their diff'ring progress lies:
One falls with ease; with labor gains the skies.
But 'twas not strain that caused Steve's eyes to fill
When once again he saw King Chapel's Hill
How many years had flown since that blest day
When Steve from Oregon reached Iowa?
Sixteen had passed! And he but eighteen old
When he commenced those precious years of gold
Whose days were marked by classes and by chimes:
What power can recall those distant times? -750
"The Mem'ry!" preaches Proust: again, again
Steve's body's every sense responds, "Amen!"
With ev'ry step or breath old scenes renew:
Steve's eyes behold each place in doubled view.
He drives through Solon, once again hears speak
A friend's inevitable line of Greek.
One bump recalls the route he rode, allowed
By grades to gourmandize with Dean's List crowd
At the Amanas, and, presiding there
With gourmet grandeur to deride the fare. -760
"How Protestant!" What scorn the phrase implies
About the chintzy rooms, the rayon ties,
The undistinguished dishes classmates pass
Around the checkered cloth, the cheap cut glass.
Two words suffice, 'though Steve might spend an hour
On how a sauce needs more than milk and flour,
For Steve perceives with patience, not with haste,
He'll elevate his friends' provincial taste:
Their nostrils can't identify a cork
Whose fingers aren't familiar with fork. -770
Steve's freshman strivings one mayh simply state:
To soften, sensitize, sophisticate
His clumsy comrades, or, in plainer sense,
To change naïveté to decadence.

The road's next turn, t'wards lovely Lake Macbride:
Steve's mem'ries drift, and he recalls a slide
A friend took, thinking that the photo's worth
Would be the record of Steve's pond'rous girth.
Unhappy times! Yet rather than to grieve
O'er gravity oe'rgaine, he made "Big Steve" -780
A Campus legend, in a campaign lost
By HIS ONE VOTE, and counted not the cost.

The road now reaches to the valle wide
Across which all Mount Vernon's tow'rs are spied--
The newest sight, old mem'ries countless drown:
Awash with these, Steve gains the dingy town"
The houses near the quary, where would walk
Steve's friends, in rare departures from his talk,
Which always, from mid-evening 'til mid-morn
Was so diverting, few from it were torn, -790
Thoug, some were giv'n to "drinking with the guys,"
Or walking silent streets 'neath midnight skies.
The turn down shabby First Street gives him chills,
Remembering Ma Fisher's unpaid bills:
Sad Maid-Rite! with the theatre now lost
To grey Mount Vernon by late holocaust.

Drendel Canto

Thus Fortune speeds Steve on to bette days:
Far busier, too, producing Shakespeare's plays,
While lect'ring endlessly from dawn 'til dusk
'Til the new system leaves him but a husk, -800
Since popularity with studens dubs
Him daily sponosr of their myriad clubs:
Thw Women's Honor Dorm, the Mortarboard,
The English Club, Cornellianl each is scored
A Lacey trium;ph, and a growing peril
To Crossett's cursèd concord with Bill Carroll.
At last to all his bays he adds the crown:
Men's Honor Res'dence claims him as its own,
Just as, to swell the honor of the House,
Mount Vernon hails the rich return of Klaus. -810
Yet once again Steve plays the favored host,
'Though 'tis no longer this role he loves most:
New enterprises all his pow'rs engage--
Steve leaves his parties' for the actual stage.
Here Shakespeare's lines Steve makes his students feel,
And joys to see his fantasies grow real.
There see the handsome athlete scorned and tripped,
Abused, made love to, fondled, nearly stripped;
His face is slapped, his fair cheek brightly wealed,
And with his stripes is Stephen briefly healed. -820

Steve's heart this lad one autumn day did scorch,
When, shirtless, sweating, he first trod Steve's porch.
Alas! poor wrestler, blest he did not know
Who had him in his grip, intent to throw
HIs glist'ning body down across the hard,
Spotlighted boards--the altar of the Bard.
Now see the boy his youthful ardors spend
As Bremner's ring and Lacey's stage contend.
With patient loyalty his suff'rings borne,
As ligaments, if not his hear, are torn. -830
When did theFates e'er cast such cruel dice
To doom this boy to Thespian sacrifice?
He means to play his part: beware, young Drendel!
You mean to play Demetrius, but Stephen, Grendel.
Displacement, hail thy bright, triumphant dawn!
The stage's drapes like ravening jaws now yawn,
And Stephen, both producer and gourmet,
Incorporates young Drendel in his play.

* * * * * * * * * *

Yet though his hair's with laurels crowned and bays,
Steve, solitary, saddens as it grays. -840
Success' bright triumphs loneliness can dim,
Though beauty burgeons, pickings still are slim.
Though subtlest, sweetest suasion Steve employ
That scholarship seduce a favored boy,
From California's sun to I'was snow,
Yet will he prove compliant? Heaven knows!
Thus, gazing in is glass a whit'ning hair,
Steve greets black Death's first herald, grey despair.
What glad event could Steve from sadness part,
And once again let joy reign in his heart? -850
Can solace come to one unus'd to pray'r?
To need, Grace, oft un-called, descends Heav'ns stair.
All-loving Heav'n its purposes achieves,
Unasked, makes saints from harlots, popes from theives,
And thus, from all eternity unmeasured Pow'r
Had foreordained for Steve the saving hour
That to his wants all succour would supply
And bless henceforth the Eighth Day of July.
Is there such balm? Could Heav'n prevail to send
So rich a blessing ev'ry ill t'amend? -860
How can we doubt, when all our health and weal
Was once an infant sent to save and heal?
This holy pattern, image of Our Lord,
Can Heaven's treasury with ease afford,
And thus we see the grace-bestowing mace
Bend from God's throne, to bless the Laceyan race.
Who is the lady, bearer of all joy,
To give redemption's image--a new boy?
The lovely Julianne, sweet, meek, demure,
Whose outward form is lovely; inward, pure; -870
Whose beauty, mind, charm, virtue all sufficed
That Laceyan arms with Gregory's be spliced.
As when the joy of Eastertide draws near,
The Church prepares herself in sober fear,
Marks foreheads with dark ashes, keeps as fast,
Weaned from the earth for Heaven's joys at least,
So, to prepare proud Portland for the day,
St. Helen's veils her face with dust of gray,
And thus the envious grumblings of Mount Hood,
Topped by a child as beautiful as good; -880
In vain the snow-crowned height outshines the skies,
When all in Portland elsewhere bend their eyes.
New lustre pales the marbled limbs of Greece:
Grace, new-embodied, in the face of REESE. -884

BOOK II

Swift fly the years, but swifter fly jet planes:
Their youth has fled; their frienship still remans;
And Stephen, starved fro sunshine, rest, and sex,
Is greeted by the priest at LAX.

...

Stephen's fortieth Birthday

For the event, the scribbling padre comes,
Fumbling with bags, dissheveled, and all thumbs, 890
He brings in lieu of gift or card or song
A paltry piece of poetry along.
When dinner numbs, lest else the senses bleed,
The host, bereft of choice, must bid him read:
We cite his doggerl in his epic verse
That reader think this better, hearing worse.

"To Stephen, Turning Forty"

"Tot annos, tot labores"--Virgil

Call the day not ill-begotten,
Think not that life's pleasures fly, 900
When a fruit's decayed and rotten,
Boys, like maggots, multiply.
Think not lads and loves of youth-time
Like the years have flown away:
For tomorrow's face-the-truth-time
Offers more than yesterday.
Every pleasure one delights in
With the lads with whom one's lain,
Can return, as when one bites in
To a tea-soaked madeleine. 910
Think of all that handsome harem
You acquired in seasons past--
Will the age of forty scare 'em?
No! They'll come as thick and fast!
Will they come as solemn duty
That their debts should be repaid/
No! but greedy of the beauty
Still you have which cannot fade.
Why before did heroes chase you,
Seek your door both night and day, 920
Hardly that they might embrace you,
Deathless, fairest flow'r of May.
Why did they flock in, make tables,
Do you favors, all unpaid,
Deck your porch with forms from fables,
Give massages, or get laid?
T'was not your physique that charmed them,
Not the tawdry gifts of youth
Where your glamour? You school-marmed them
With seductive talk of Truth. 930
Frankly, Stephen, had Kit Marlowe
Passed you, he'd scarce glanced at you,
Hastened off, t'wixt hope and sorrow,
To see how you'd reviewed "The Jew."
Not the curls which fabled Jason
Rashly raped from Colchis' shore,,
Nor the head set in a basin
Sick Salome slobbered o'er,
Not the eyes that Alighieri
Hoped to see at Heaven's door,
Nothing that would please a fairy 940
In grim fact or Grimm's folkllore;
Not the shoulders that an Atlas
Would shrug off the world to buy,
Not the arms, the back, the hairy
Chest keeps t.v. ratings hight;
Not the bulging pecs, the slim
Rib-cage, or the abdomen flat
You devoured in Bud or Jim
And thereon felt nauseous at:
Not the transient charms of flesh, 950
The cause of passion and distaste,
None that one could catalogue
Above, or e'en beneath the waist,
Was the charm that led them to you:
T'was your learning and good taste.
From the days when first I knew you,
From the hey-day of your youth,
You possessed those fading beauties
Less than you do now, in truth.
Yours the figure growing thinner, 960
Mine the image of the whale:
I th'admirer, you the winner;
I, the Johnson, you, the Thrale.
They admired the wealth of learning
And the gen'rous, caring heart,
And the gift you have of turning
Sentences, all works of art,
Life's not over when one's forty!
Thinking so befits a child:
Then the hunt becomes more sporty, 970
And the game is far more wild.

THE LACEIAD, part III (Variorum edition.) [Recovered from disc, Friday, July 28, 2000]

The years go by--the Father's hairs grow few--
While Steve's progress from grey to powder blue:
One turns to God's as Nature's glory thins--
The other, far more practical, tries rinse.
Steve asks his mirror daily how he greys,
And sighs, rememb'ring Santa Barb'ra days,
And calls upon deaf Heav'n to answer why
He loses colour as he's lost his Kai,
Who once, Nijinsky-like, graced Stephen's lair, 980
Bewitched his guests, and cut and styled his hair.
'Twas hard to tell what Steve in Kyle loved most:
HIs talk, his torslo, haircuts at no cost.
Immured in I'was ice, Steve cannot hear
The glorious news: his student's now his peer!
And Steve, if he seek Kai to dye his locks.
Must steel himself to face the shock of shocks:
His barber has a new M.A. degree,
And Stevem though shaggy, can't afford the fee.
The danseur-tonsor has become a don-- 990
Legs weaken, edges dull; he'll lecture on!
Kai from his mentor well acquired the pow'r
Of pumping language to inflate an hour,
Thus mast'ring phrasing as he rules orchesis--
You don't believe me? Read Ganado's thesis!
Then joine with countless friends to hail the god:
A Proust with p;en, Barishnakov in bod!
And sing the wisdom of U.C.L.A.,
Who dignifies herself with Kai's M.A.
In Heav'n Archangels for sheer joy are dancing--
And Earth's response sets fauns and faggots prancing! 1000
If Fame and Fortune make their fav'rites mad,
Then fear for Kai--he's made THE LACEIAD! 1002

[Inscribed, "Congratulations, Kai! Love, Howard+" St. Blaise's, 1986]

He could not love at all, who would not gladly
Abandon love of all for love of Bradley,
A Christian Scientist, who made Steve feel,
Despite Miss Eddy, that the flesh was real.
His was the praise once poured to gold or wine
Or sung by sages to the Truth Divine:
In him some editor sublime had spliced
The grace of Ganymede with that of Christ. 1010
Not mountain lakes nor snow 'neat Summer's skies
Drew more to Joseph than Jim Bradley's eyes,
Where passion heated as it slaked desire,
Like melting diamonds, or ice on fire,
They flashed love, wrath, or humor at a phrase:
Their warmth caused chills; their coolness set ablaze.
By light thus blinded, eyes fell, one suspects,
To rest and feed upon Jim's peerless pecs,
Matched as to one a mirror's image fits,
The trimmed, tanned muscles, taut erectile tits. 1020
Just as a thurifer tow'rs or a boat-boy,
Jim was to Bud: Adonis to a goat-boy.
If not so tall, Jim's pure-proportioned form
Embodied in each limb and nerve the norm
Which in his verse blind Homer gave Achilles,
To'rds which in marble struggled Praxiteles:
The perfect shoulders, rippling stomach, thighs
'Twixt which one oft sees beauty's apex rise;
Beside Jim's buttocks blushed Bud's boasted splendor;
Jim's are more round, more firm, more full, more tender.
Jim's head was framed with far more lovely mane,
Yet triumphed most in this: it held a brain! 1030
Add this, when all Jim's praises have been sung:
His beauty's crown: he was divinely hung.
His soul, his mind, his beauty were his wealth--
His was the end of Science: perfect Health!
If Eddy's lore so shaped all human clay--
Forget the Scriptures! Throw the Key away!

The Eighteenth of September! Once a line
Laid tributary wreaths at Johnson's shrine; 1040
Now Thames alone flows soft past Johnson's tomb
Whilst Lake Wallowa's shore can scarce find room
For Passion's pilgrims, lustful, crazed, and noisy,
Who flock from Portland, Bend, Spokane, and Boise.
The heart of one professor, one learns sadly,
Lets flicker Johnson's lamp, but flames for Bradley.
For Paris' choice still holds: let wealth and duty,
Truth and learning go--first seek out beauty,
Most when with wit and virtue it is one
In Joseph's citizen and Boston's son, 1050
Born on this day, inscribed on Fortunes page,
Whose mind surpasses, face belies his age!
What wonder, tehn, that life should death outclass,
The ranger's love the lines of Rasselas?
Survey the world from China to Peru:
Who cares for Bradley? Thousands! Johnson? Few.
'Neath Johnson's gaze, a scholar 'mid his junk
Indicts poor verses to the handsome hnk,
A priest neglects his prayers to write a hymn
Whose only burden? "Happy Birthday, Jim" 1060
The moral is as certain as unjust:
Lads live, when lexicographers are dust.

Sonnet VII 1984

With eyes set on Olympus, not the Styx,
Adonis gains the age of thirty-six:
As yet no furrow mars his godlike brow,
And beauty triumphs in the transient Now.
But dare the lyre's strings to his pages tune,
To sing once more his eyes, his chest, his hips,
When poets are illumined by the Moon,
And her light's from the Sun, now in eclipse? 1070
O let Apollo bid his Sun return,
'Ere forty winters freeze 'neath Shakespeare's curse:
Before Time turn our good enough to worse.
The Poet's pen grows dry, his ink grows colder,
While Beauty, once his object, s'growing older. 1075

In Natalitia Johnsoni, 1984

Once more the birthday dawns, and then grows dim:
Brief day lights Johnson, and elipses Jim.
While "Nations slowly wise and weakly just
To buried merit raise the tardy bust,"
Our Steve, so tardy to remembrance carried, 1080
Thinks Justice week indeed, if Jim's not buried.
For rancor rises as his fondness fades,
And Steve, rememb'ring, hopes that Jim has Å.I.D.S.
He sees him, in the fancy of the mind,
Half skeleton, half-living, and half-blind,
And most rejoices, as the wretched wraith
Sees realism triumph over faith;
His ski as shrunken as its color pale,
Sees Eddy's pages darken, feels her fail. 1089

{At Ashland--a disco]

Her torso twists, her silver cymbals clinke: 1090
The customers, a-goggle, stare and drink.
They gyrate to cacaphony, whose ground
Reveals how far Alberti's was profound.

[The following written after the Lacey/Austin visit to Los Angeles, Feb., 1986.]

See how each Fall for Steve sheds new delights,
Thick as the leaves, new students, pages, knights:
Some yield true friendships, some at length ring hollow:
Sing one, O Muse: Mount Vernon's own Apollo.
Steve's view of Iowa: abomination--
Was metamorphosed into adoration
When one fine Autumn, answer to his prayer,
The Corn-God freshman, tassled gold for hair, (error somewhere) 1100
So thick, so soft, so rich in sunlit curls,
The talk of campus, envy of the girls,
Crowned Cornell College, mesmerized the town:
What won the students? Body! Brain, the gown:
Except where taste and intellect conjoin:
No mind appraised more keenly than the loin.
More quickly than the Danes to Bismarck's Prussia,
Our Steve surrendered: Luxemburg to Russia!
And could one blame him? Certainly not I:
Though one could find him quiet, almost shy, 1110
Our hero, though of meek and mild demeanout,
Yet shielded, like the aegis of Athena,
A weapon dazzling bright--his flashing smile:
Enough to melt the Arctic, dry the Nile.
Quiet in manner, open, yet half-shy,
Strong in opinions as in humor dry,
His eyes as open as the mid-June sky,
Seeming naïve, yet complicate, wry,
Clamb'ring with thougts, though quiet as the tomb,
He'll grasp the Students' sceptre, and Liz Isaac's broom, 1120
'Gainst all his virtues, balancing the list--
He was a liberal, and a Populist:
A stout defender of his native sod,
He championed peasants as he mirrored God,
Recalling the young Hermes 'mid his flocks--
If only he wore naught but wings for socks!
Imagine Bob a tiller of the soil--
Could one resist enacting his dark foil?
A robber baron, anxious to foreclose
On farm, on funds, on few remaining clothes,
Scarcely content to leave him hones sweat,
Ready to take his virtue for the debt, 1130
To seize possession of the bankrupt boy,
And bear him to Bar Harbor as a toy,
And there claim interest dailhy, which in turns
He yields on yacht, in bed, 'neath potted ferms
Of plush Victorian parlor, or, when able,
He's sprawled at night on beach or billiard table. 1136
......

Ten days on Southern California rained
The weather, who from fear and envy feigned
Seattle's, lest his bright and sunny fair
Should be outshone by Robert Austin's hair. 1140


July 5 Cornell College

Can modern minds believe some heav'nly race
Serves God, saves man, and flies from sphere to sphere
Without traversing interstellar space
Moving by virtue straight from Heav'n t here?
Franciscan painters of St. Thomas' School
Could this debate, paint irridescent wing;
This notes the scholar; this believes the fool:
For who since Mary ever heard them sing? 1150
Thus might the ministers of love and grace,
Unknown, watch o'er, unguessed at, help and heal,
Had not their King so framed your heart, limbs, face,
And halo hair, that we might think them real,
And, in your presence, almost feel their breath,
And, in your angel image, welcome Death. 1158

7.5.85
(Included in his Christmas card, 1991, which produced an end to our correspondence.)

Lines indicted on hearing that the Dark Forces of Techno-Capitalism have closed Kienow's, the Good, Old-Fashioned Market in East Portland, Oregon

Limerick Introductory:

I should like to excise all the p----s
From the guys who are shutting down Kienow's:
They are more than just mean
To Steve's mother, Claudine:
They make Portalnd's lanes look more like Reno's. 1165

Bad news, like storms, blow from the north and west:
Times seek the mediocre, scorn the best.
From kind Claudine, whence protest's never heard,
Comes seldom-sighed, but oft-discouraged Word:
Kienow's is closing: close, old-fashioned mart, 1170
As cherished by the palate as the heart.
Here barbecuing Laceys trooped in June
And raced, last-minute, morning, night, or noon,
For haste-neglected dressings, sauce with jazz,
For milk, for coffee, or for mayonnaise.
If Clarke were guest, they gathered, as one please,
The best of wines, of gins, of breads and cheeses;
For most, good bourbon; for the clergy, scotch;
To warm the cockles, and to cool the crotch. 1179


[There lack here about sixty lines penned at Stephen's former house while Reese read and I scribbled, mid-morning, July11,
St. Benedict's, 2000.]

Finally, there remains the concluding sonnet which I sent to Diane and have myself lost. All this may be in my school office.
[It wasn't.] I thought it proper to finish and dispatch this fomr home, on this, the anniversary of Stephen's birth, The Feast
of St. Stephen of Hungary, 2000.

"Qujs sit desiderio pudor aut modus tam cari capitis?"

All the above is of my authorship. (c) 16.8/00 Howard J. Happ, Ph.D. Entered into my blog, Jessehowards.blogspot.com,
on the 36th Anniversary of my Priesting, St. Charles Borromeo, 2009H

"Darkest before the Dawn"

“Darkest before the Dawn”

A Hallowe’en Sermon on Sin, Confession, and Justification

Delivered at St. Nicholas’ of Myra Parish,

Encino, California 90275

The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost,

Sunday, the Eve of All Hallows’, MMX. A.D.

Ps. 32: 3-6 For while I held my tongue, my bones consumed away

through my daily complaining. For thy hand is heavy upon me day and night, and my moisture is like the drought in summer. I will acknowledge my sin unto thee; and mine unrighteousness have I not hid. I said, I will confess my sins unto the Lord; and so thou forgavest the wickedness of my sin.

St. Luke: 19: 5b, 7. “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay in your house today … All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who was a sinner.”

“Simul justus et peccator.” --Martin Luther

O Lord, thou knowest our faults, and our sins are not hid from thee, nor by thy saving, forgiving, and cleansing grace are they altogether hidden from us, for they stand before us, before Thee, and between us night and day, and there is neither day nor hour, nor scarcely minute or second when our self-love and self-will do not darken or corrupt utterly our love for thee and for our neighbors. In thy mercy, we beseech thee, keep thy Cross before the faltering eyesight of our faith that by thy grace daily bestowed through thy Holy Church and Sacraments we may have the comfort and reassurance of thine abiding peace, mystical union, and indwelling presence with us, and thus come to dwell in thine house with thee forever, as in thy Holy and Saving Name we pray. Amen.

I’m pretty sure that most of you these days, like me, are almost amazed, and perhaps amused by the degree to which the popular and probably peculiar American custom of observing Hallowe’en by buying up, storing up, and possibly gobbling up with as much goblin-like delight as the younger folk about us the tricky treats (for they contain as much as they conceal calories) of this rather recently concocted holiday, has grown, developed, even exploded—in our lifetimes? No doubt many of us—even a goodly proportion of the folks in my retirement home, have been busied in decorating our doorways, windows, rooftops, driveways, and table-tops with jack-o-lanterns, plain old pumpkins, skeletons, witches’ gangrenous faces, ghosties, ghoulies, feline-footed beasties, and other decorations in the—to the privileged among us—sacred--colors of orange and black—not to mention welcoming in the now elongated “holiday season” with parties, even masquerades and dances for those in their second childhoods as well as the kiddies. I wonder if you all wonder as I do just how such a widely and even weirdly now almost month-long celebration has come to be. Does it have any meaning? If so, has it any deep, perhaps psycho-sociological, only half-conscious, cultural meaning? Perhaps even disguisedly theological—or else demonological—deeper meaning?

I confess that my graduate studies in religion have led me to think so. Holidays, their observance, are after all part of the ritual structuring of human life, and I doubt that it takes college classes in religion or anthropology—at least not for us Episcopalians, certainly Anglo-Catholics—to realize how centrally and perhaps inescapably important ritual is for our humanity. Ritual is, after all, the acting-out, the dramatizing of the symbols, the primal graspings of reality, probably preceding language, on which our common consciousness, our communication, our culture depends, from which the structures of social and political life spring.

Two scholars particularly come to my mind as having shaped my understanding of ritual. The first was Victor Turner, an Australian anthropologist, who taught about what he called “structure versus anti-structure” as fundamental to human society and elemental to ritual, which he saw as a social, a dramatic way of coming to know the basic rules, the norms, of human life through occasional acts of reversal—of precisely violating those laws, of reinforcing social order—morality—in occasional rites or rituals that recognize, realize, enact disorder, chaos—violation, immoral behavior, even orgy. An earlier scholar, another anthropologist, Sir Edmund Leach, suggested or illustrated the same idea in an article called, “Of Time and False Noses,” in which he argued that through custom and costume we enact, we realize norms and their reversal—at special, “sacred” times—on “holidays,” through ritual. Such holiday rituals usually, Leach argued, involve three stages: the middle one, orgy, is a sort of anti-drama--frenzied dancing, falling into trances, that can involve licentiousness, violation of moral norms and the shedding of social distinctions through the shedding of clothes: think of Mardi Gras, of Mayday, of fraternity initiations, freshman-Fall’s hazings—or of baptism in the ancient Church. On either side of this ritual reversal, people emphasize proper norms and roles sometimes by disguising them through masquerades of Mardi Gras and Hallowe’en disguises, New Year’s Eve’s party hats, noisemakers and confetti, and then also people overemphasize norms, standards, and ideals by overemphasizing them: eucharistic vestments, clerics, uniforms, Masonic ritual costume, public ceremonies, white tie dinners, formal dances.

And thus it seems evident that in our increasingly secular, pluralistic, non-church-attending, country, a purely secular, non-denominational ritual should attain an almost universal observance, since it places emphasis on all sorts of reversal: death, decay, decadence, self-indulgence, reversal if only in children ‘s demanding that adults render a tribute of goodies, etc. And thus it is understandable that in mediaeval and Renaissance Europe, high and solemn feast days were often preceded by their “Eves,” such as Mardi Gras, Midsummer-night’s Eve (that of St. John the Baptist), and All Hallows’ or All Saints’ Day’s Even. Thus it was appropriate that on the Eve of All Saints’ in 1517 a university professor and priest (dangerous combination) named Martin Luther should tack upon his church’s door (I’m uncertain whether it was the cathedral’s or the university church’s, or if they weren’t the same) 95 theses challenging practices that were normative for the Church at that time. To speak of Luther in what at least has been an Anglo-Catholic parish may seem my own sort of reversal ritual. I do think that our Episcopal Church is right in not observing today as “Reformation Sunday” as our Lutheran brethren do. But I do think it appropriate to remember one way in which Luther was a model for Anglo-Catholics: at least in his earlier years, he very much believed in and practiced frequently the unquestionably Catholic custom that he regarded as a sort of “half-sacrament:” having a confessor and going to or going through private confession.

This is not to say by any means, certainly Luther did not himself believe, that a Christian’s offering up a private prayer of confession of sin—or, more regularly, saying the prayer of general confession along with the parish congregation in its Sunday liturgy, isn’t really, fully, theologically sufficient to gain us God’s merciful forgiveness—indeed, the theological certainty of our pardon and restoration to the guiltless holiness of Christ’s Body through the sacramental ministry of that body, the Church. But it may well be the case for some faithful Christians of tender conscience and troubled memories, that a more particular, concrete, and assured sense of forgiveness and peace within themselves and with God is needed. At least at one time Luther is said to have needed such a sense of absolution and assured justification before God. Sometimes even contemporary Episcopalians feel that need and present themselves for the Sacrament of Penance. I know that regularly if occasionally this priest does. I trust it’s no great breach of Church etiquette to tell you that I made an appointment for such with your gifted Rector this morning—a superb confessor, I’ve discovered, as I first intuited upon meeting him years ago. Hence the topic of this sermon, a Sacrament about which Father Williams taught me decades ago, then directed me to Bishop Campbell up at Mt. Calvary, my first confessor—and a saint!

For just as ritual generally reinforces socio-cultural norms by ritually, perhaps just playfully, violating them—making moral lines known by drawing them as if with colored chalk on the sidewalk, so Hallowe’en seems to provide an at least semi-conscious sense of order and orientation to our otherwise seemingly mindless and conscience-free secular nation by leading us at least playfully to deal with death and the demonic; with self-indulgence if not serious sin. And far more effectively the Sacrament of Penance, of confession and absolution, the opportunity to focus our attention on our sins, and thus upon moral theology—Fr. Williams’ great subject of interest and expertise—coming to understand the structure of moral behavior by studying the different moods, motives, and degrees that constitute sin—is a practical and useful and indeed refreshing as well as morally strengthening exercise, whether or not it’s recognized as a soul-saving Sacrament.

Today is the Eve of All Hallows’. At least our nation is playing, if not praying, with its inadequate notions of evil, of sin and the Devil, and all the bewitching attractions of the world—its treats—and too sadly, its tricks. Again we face the darkness of this jack o’lantern-lighted night. Tomorrow we rejoice in the company of all the saints into which Our Saviour’s Grace has brought us. It’s always darkest before the dawn.

Zacchaeus, like the persona of St. Paul behind the text of Second Timothy, could well have thought himself “the worst or chief of sinners.” To be a tax collector was first of all to be a traitor: a collaborator with the Roman oppressors of your own people, God’s chosen ones. And it was to be a greed-obsessed, superlatively self-centered, successful genius at money-grabbing and cheating: Zacchaeus, the Gospel Lesson tells us, “was rich.” He put himself ahead of and in place of God, and he betrayed his neighbors. He didn’t know that when he climbed the sycamore tree. He knew it when Our Lord called him by name and told him to come down: that He loved and accepted and forgave him and would dine as a guest at his table that evening. Our Lord accepted; Zacchaeus converted. Grace preceded faith, and faith preceded repentance. He came down: it was a ritual of reversal—the Sacrament of Penance. It was acceptance and then assurance of absolution. Zacchaeus dined with Christ. We have heard Our Lord call us to come down. We have received His saving absolution, the assurance of our justification: our reception of His Holiness through the mystical Union we receive in dining at his table, in beholding his Presence on the Altar, of dining in the fellowship of His Love. Together let us, like Zacchaeus, come down.