I got an email asking how I'm doing ...
Well ... I think on the whole by God's Grace I'm getting a bit better but days remain very dark for me since Momma's death.
I've been told that for losses like this the first year afterward is mostly a matter of sheer emotional survival so by that standard I guess things are unfolding in a "normal" manner. Today is the 8 month anniversary of her funeral. And really the sheer magnitude of the loss has been a paradoxical blessing. Just as all human loss has something of Good Friday in it, and all days have something of Holy Saturday in them, I guess most of my days are Holy Saturday, and that is of course no small blessing.
I visit Momma's grave in the morning and cry and pray Matins for the day, and then Lauds from the Office for the Dead. I talk with Jesus and His Blessed Mother and St Monica and St Augustine and St John of the Cross. They hold me in their arms when it's more than I can bear, and they weep with me as I weep. Then I shake my head and thank God for my mother, and then God binds up my wounds a bit so I can trudge through my day. Then I visit her in the evening and cry and pray Vespers from the Office for the Dead. All in all I have nothing to complain about. But I do and when I do God just holds me in His Arms and rocks me back and forth with me till like a little child I stop wailing and complaining and sobbing. Then I fall asleep on His Lap and He holds me close as I slumber. Till the next day when I awake. And then it begins again.
Of course this is all there in the Psalms and Job and Ecclesiastes and Augustine and more. I feel like I'm following despite myself in the footsteps of holy men and women who have grieved and Followed in the Footsteps of Him Who takes upon Himself All Grief, Who wept at the Tomb of Lazarus, Who Knows and Feels the losses of each and every one of us far more deeply than even we can ever know and feel.
Of course I hope in the Resurrection to see my dear mother again. In the meantime ... well, again, they say that for the first year it's just a matter of trying to survive in Christ one day at a time, and that does seem to keep my long days rather full, if that's the word. Hey, I've suffered nothing like the losses of good Father Job, and if he can sit in dust and ashes for a few days and nights, and survive by God's grace, I figure I can too, God willing, one day at a time.
Momma I miss you so very very very much
O Jesus please please please ... take good care of my good Momma
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
Thank you ... Oh thank you so much
Charles Delacroix
Last of my line in one way
Just another bozo on the bus in another way
Son of Adam and Eve
Son of my dear Momma
on this 6th Sunday in Eastertide
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Deracination, and Loss of Legacy ... and the Last of the Mohicans
One source of pain that comes up again and again ... and that is really so very connected to deracination I guess ... is loss of legacy.
Momma ... I know ... from what you said ... and from your voice ... and from your eyes ... how very precious it was to you that I wanted the precious, precious personal things in your legacy to me. You loved that I loved the pictures, the photo albums, the spoons you collected from our trips overseas, the special clothes that meant so much to you ... and of course the things that you had received from your mother, and your grandmother ... all these have been, and are, so precious to me ... and it was so precious to you that these were precious to me, your son.
Oh Momma sitting here I can look at pictures on the walls, and over at your photo albums, and at that wedding chest you got in Libya, and at so many things ... precious to me, precious to you, precious beyond words, precious beyond measure.
And ... to be very selfish yes but also perhaps to be very human ... who will want the things of Charles?
I have no children. No heirs. My sister is estranged. My cousins kind and courteous beyond words but these are not, I think, things that will be greatly meaningful to them ... they have and should have their own lives ... how kind they have been ... but ...
There's that but ... in another time, another place, there would be no but of this kind ... no deracination that left someone wondering, "who will want my things that are not of great monetary value but of great personal value?"
Well ... let's not over-glorify even our dear departed generations. Today's deracinations that are everywhere evident may have been far less frequent in their day, but no doubt happened then too.
Fire and flood and earthquake ... and rape and pillaging and conquest ... all took harsh toll, didn't they, on many, many families and villages and communities ...
The very name of the Last of the Mohicans speaks of the losses that happened throughout time to whole tribes and communities.
Momma you loved James Fenimore Cooper ... and the Leatherstocking Tales ... and perhaps especially the Last of the Mohicans ... is it possible that to you even then the chill of deracination that reaches all of us in our ill-starred family was touching your great heart as well?
Oh my.
Well O Lord may Thy Will Be Done in this as in all things.
Oh but how it hurts.
Father Job pray for me.
I love you Lord Jesus
I love you and miss you so much Momma on this the anniversary of 8 months since we laid you to rest. O Momma I saw the bunny rabbit in the back yard this morning ... he raced across and was gone ... we would have talked about him ... and you would have laughed and smiled ... and I with you ... but O ... so fast does time and life race away from all of us.
I love you and miss you Momma so much.
Please please please good Jesus ... take good care of my good Momma
I miss you and love you
Thank you
Thank you for everything.
Charles Delacroix
The Last of this Line of Our Family
on this 8th month Anniversary of Your Funeral Momma
on this 6th Sunday in Eastertide
Momma ... I know ... from what you said ... and from your voice ... and from your eyes ... how very precious it was to you that I wanted the precious, precious personal things in your legacy to me. You loved that I loved the pictures, the photo albums, the spoons you collected from our trips overseas, the special clothes that meant so much to you ... and of course the things that you had received from your mother, and your grandmother ... all these have been, and are, so precious to me ... and it was so precious to you that these were precious to me, your son.
Oh Momma sitting here I can look at pictures on the walls, and over at your photo albums, and at that wedding chest you got in Libya, and at so many things ... precious to me, precious to you, precious beyond words, precious beyond measure.
And ... to be very selfish yes but also perhaps to be very human ... who will want the things of Charles?
I have no children. No heirs. My sister is estranged. My cousins kind and courteous beyond words but these are not, I think, things that will be greatly meaningful to them ... they have and should have their own lives ... how kind they have been ... but ...
There's that but ... in another time, another place, there would be no but of this kind ... no deracination that left someone wondering, "who will want my things that are not of great monetary value but of great personal value?"
Well ... let's not over-glorify even our dear departed generations. Today's deracinations that are everywhere evident may have been far less frequent in their day, but no doubt happened then too.
Fire and flood and earthquake ... and rape and pillaging and conquest ... all took harsh toll, didn't they, on many, many families and villages and communities ...
The very name of the Last of the Mohicans speaks of the losses that happened throughout time to whole tribes and communities.
Momma you loved James Fenimore Cooper ... and the Leatherstocking Tales ... and perhaps especially the Last of the Mohicans ... is it possible that to you even then the chill of deracination that reaches all of us in our ill-starred family was touching your great heart as well?
Oh my.
Well O Lord may Thy Will Be Done in this as in all things.
Oh but how it hurts.
Father Job pray for me.
I love you Lord Jesus
I love you and miss you so much Momma on this the anniversary of 8 months since we laid you to rest. O Momma I saw the bunny rabbit in the back yard this morning ... he raced across and was gone ... we would have talked about him ... and you would have laughed and smiled ... and I with you ... but O ... so fast does time and life race away from all of us.
I love you and miss you Momma so much.
Please please please good Jesus ... take good care of my good Momma
I miss you and love you
Thank you
Thank you for everything.
Charles Delacroix
The Last of this Line of Our Family
on this 8th month Anniversary of Your Funeral Momma
on this 6th Sunday in Eastertide
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Deracination Revisited
I visited Philbrook again today and was once again moved by all those scenes ... there's a special exhibit from Florence's Uffizi right now and it's full of pastorals and landscapes ... and then the French gallery includes Corot and Duby and others that show once again how things can be ... and were ... Different ... in other times, other places.
How Different? Well for one thing ... Rooted.
Rooted in Family, in Culture, in Place, in Church, in Community ...
I think that's one of the enormous differences between my mother's generation and those of other places & other climes. My mother's generation continued and brought to a new level an American and modern trend toward Deracination ...
and I am the product. Deracinated. Disconnected. Lonely. Alone.
Could it be that it was my sister's, and my, hunger for Roots in the face of the Rootlessness of our family, that led us to swim the Tiber and seek in the Church of Rome a Family with Roots ... ?
If so ... well ... all I can do is say *thank* you Lord Jesus ... and *thank* you O Ecclesia Patri, Ecclesia Petrii, Ecclesia Madre.
Maybe this is why I'm so hungry for the opportunity to have my own home ... meaning in my case a little house with a little yard ... your house, Momma, and mine; your yard, Momma, and mine.
Oh this is almost nothing compared to the Communitas of Tuscany and even Nice and Cannes and Elsinore ... what an exquisite painting of Castle Kronengberg ...
I guess centuries ago I might have been istting on a small piece of land that was part of a family, or extended family, complex arrangement of ownership and property and community. Instead of this little house in Tulsa, across town from a small remnant of our family. Yet that's something. Something for this deracinated son of our very deracinated family.
I guess centuries ago there would have been a family cemetery in which I would visit your grave Momma ... instead of my visiting it in a civic cemetery full of unrelated persons ... yet I have a place beside you Momma and our dual grave is only a few feet from that of our cousins ... even amid the many others we don't know ... that's somthing. Something for this deracinated son of a deracinated family.
To be American in this early 21st Century is to be in so many ways Deracinated. So different from a Medalgo family of Florence in the 15th Century. So different from a family living in the Palatine of the 16th Century in Roma.
Yet what can I do but seek to honor your passing, Momma, and honor our famly background, all gift of God, in so far as I can in very small way try to approximate and celebrate the rootedness that was our family long, long ago.
I love you Momma
I love you all my ancestors in Christ
I love you and thank you all.
Charles Delacroix
Eve of 6th Sunday in Eastertide
How Different? Well for one thing ... Rooted.
Rooted in Family, in Culture, in Place, in Church, in Community ...
I think that's one of the enormous differences between my mother's generation and those of other places & other climes. My mother's generation continued and brought to a new level an American and modern trend toward Deracination ...
and I am the product. Deracinated. Disconnected. Lonely. Alone.
Could it be that it was my sister's, and my, hunger for Roots in the face of the Rootlessness of our family, that led us to swim the Tiber and seek in the Church of Rome a Family with Roots ... ?
If so ... well ... all I can do is say *thank* you Lord Jesus ... and *thank* you O Ecclesia Patri, Ecclesia Petrii, Ecclesia Madre.
Maybe this is why I'm so hungry for the opportunity to have my own home ... meaning in my case a little house with a little yard ... your house, Momma, and mine; your yard, Momma, and mine.
Oh this is almost nothing compared to the Communitas of Tuscany and even Nice and Cannes and Elsinore ... what an exquisite painting of Castle Kronengberg ...
I guess centuries ago I might have been istting on a small piece of land that was part of a family, or extended family, complex arrangement of ownership and property and community. Instead of this little house in Tulsa, across town from a small remnant of our family. Yet that's something. Something for this deracinated son of our very deracinated family.
I guess centuries ago there would have been a family cemetery in which I would visit your grave Momma ... instead of my visiting it in a civic cemetery full of unrelated persons ... yet I have a place beside you Momma and our dual grave is only a few feet from that of our cousins ... even amid the many others we don't know ... that's somthing. Something for this deracinated son of a deracinated family.
To be American in this early 21st Century is to be in so many ways Deracinated. So different from a Medalgo family of Florence in the 15th Century. So different from a family living in the Palatine of the 16th Century in Roma.
Yet what can I do but seek to honor your passing, Momma, and honor our famly background, all gift of God, in so far as I can in very small way try to approximate and celebrate the rootedness that was our family long, long ago.
I love you Momma
I love you all my ancestors in Christ
I love you and thank you all.
Charles Delacroix
Eve of 6th Sunday in Eastertide
"The Trials & Tribulations of this Time"
Momma ... this morning, this is what I read at your grave:
"Because there are these two periods of time – the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy – we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of the Alleluia we sing.Both these periods are represented and demonstrated for us in Christ our head. The Lord’s passion depicts for us our present life of trial – shows how we must suffer and be afflicted and finally die. The Lord’s resurrection and glorification show us the life that will be given to us in the future." http://www.universalis.com/20080426/readings.htm
St Augustine raises what to me is both most appealing and most foreign about the two liturgical seasons. And I know that both are really at the heart of our Walk in Christ aren't they. For Holy Saturday really spans both doesn't it.
But the first liturgical season ... commemorating the "trials and tribulations of this life" .. that much at least makes sense to me as much as anything makes sense at a gut, feeling level. A life full of trial & tribulation; a life full of horror and pain and suffering; a life stripped of my Momma ... this is a life that to that extent at least seems consistent ... consistent in its devastation and despair ... a life that is Job ... a life that is Ecclesiastes ...
The other life ... the life to come ... the life we celebrate indeed in speaking the Easter Alleluia to one another ... that is a life that I acknowledge by faith but it resonates no where inside me except perhaps indeed at a level I cannot begin to fathom.
But St Augustine emphasizes the longings that are part and parcel of this time of trial & tribulation. That makse sense to me. Whatever is not, whatever is absent, whatever, that is, I want at some level ... that is what I long for daily, hourly, minute by minute, whether I know it or not.
O Lord
O Momma
O God may that we long for become indeed what we gain by Your Grace alone in Your Time
Ascension approaches ... full of promise ... full of announcement of fulfillment of our longings ...
But Ascension is not here yet
So we long and long and need and long for you and alll that You mean for us O Lord
O God I need you so
I love you
I love you
I need you so
Charles Delacroix
Eve of 6th Sunday in Eastertide
"Because there are these two periods of time – the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy – we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of the Alleluia we sing.Both these periods are represented and demonstrated for us in Christ our head. The Lord’s passion depicts for us our present life of trial – shows how we must suffer and be afflicted and finally die. The Lord’s resurrection and glorification show us the life that will be given to us in the future." http://www.universalis.com/20080426/readings.htm
St Augustine raises what to me is both most appealing and most foreign about the two liturgical seasons. And I know that both are really at the heart of our Walk in Christ aren't they. For Holy Saturday really spans both doesn't it.
But the first liturgical season ... commemorating the "trials and tribulations of this life" .. that much at least makes sense to me as much as anything makes sense at a gut, feeling level. A life full of trial & tribulation; a life full of horror and pain and suffering; a life stripped of my Momma ... this is a life that to that extent at least seems consistent ... consistent in its devastation and despair ... a life that is Job ... a life that is Ecclesiastes ...
The other life ... the life to come ... the life we celebrate indeed in speaking the Easter Alleluia to one another ... that is a life that I acknowledge by faith but it resonates no where inside me except perhaps indeed at a level I cannot begin to fathom.
But St Augustine emphasizes the longings that are part and parcel of this time of trial & tribulation. That makse sense to me. Whatever is not, whatever is absent, whatever, that is, I want at some level ... that is what I long for daily, hourly, minute by minute, whether I know it or not.
O Lord
O Momma
O God may that we long for become indeed what we gain by Your Grace alone in Your Time
Ascension approaches ... full of promise ... full of announcement of fulfillment of our longings ...
But Ascension is not here yet
So we long and long and need and long for you and alll that You mean for us O Lord
O God I need you so
I love you
I love you
I need you so
Charles Delacroix
Eve of 6th Sunday in Eastertide
The Rose Garden and Iris Show
Spooky and I went down to Woodward Park, and what a lovely afternoon it was. Lots of people there ... and to my delight, the Iris Show.
Oh Momma ... do you remember ... can you remember ... when we went to the Iris Show last year? How you loved the Iris ... you called them Flags ... all over Southeast Missouri, weren't they ... ? And remember that big, big bed of Iris in Knoxville, on Spence Place ... ?
And oh Momma ... the roses were blooming .. ! Last weekend there were no roses at all ... this weekend, a couple of beds of deepest red roses were blooming, and those lovely pink roses were just starting to put out where we used to sit. Just a few ... so far ... but so many buds ... so much fresh green growth ... but o Momma ... you aren't here ... you aren't here ... oh how can the roses bloom without you here ...
Oh but there was a bunny rabbit in the back yard ... I think yesterday morning ...
Tomorrow is the annivesary of your funeral dear Momma ... oh my ... oh my ... I talked with Spooky and I hope God willing that we can both visit you tomorrow for a special camera shoot ... the faux pink azaleas & faux red roses really do look nice I think Momma ... but oh ... oh ... August 27 ... tomorrow will be 8 months ... how is it possible ... oh Momma ...
I love you Momma
I miss you so much
Oh I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
Thank you so so so so much for my dear Momma ...
And oh please please please please please take good care of my dear Momma ...
I love you
Thank you
I miss you so
Oh Momma
Charles Delacroix
Eve of 6th Sunday in Eastertide
Oh Momma ... do you remember ... can you remember ... when we went to the Iris Show last year? How you loved the Iris ... you called them Flags ... all over Southeast Missouri, weren't they ... ? And remember that big, big bed of Iris in Knoxville, on Spence Place ... ?
And oh Momma ... the roses were blooming .. ! Last weekend there were no roses at all ... this weekend, a couple of beds of deepest red roses were blooming, and those lovely pink roses were just starting to put out where we used to sit. Just a few ... so far ... but so many buds ... so much fresh green growth ... but o Momma ... you aren't here ... you aren't here ... oh how can the roses bloom without you here ...
Oh but there was a bunny rabbit in the back yard ... I think yesterday morning ...
Tomorrow is the annivesary of your funeral dear Momma ... oh my ... oh my ... I talked with Spooky and I hope God willing that we can both visit you tomorrow for a special camera shoot ... the faux pink azaleas & faux red roses really do look nice I think Momma ... but oh ... oh ... August 27 ... tomorrow will be 8 months ... how is it possible ... oh Momma ...
I love you Momma
I miss you so much
Oh I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
Thank you so so so so much for my dear Momma ...
And oh please please please please please take good care of my dear Momma ...
I love you
Thank you
I miss you so
Oh Momma
Charles Delacroix
Eve of 6th Sunday in Eastertide
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Better Now ...
Oh Lord ... I feel a bit better now ... thank you ...
That was a rough night.
But then some nights are always rough aren't they Lord
Oh Lord
I did enjoy googling up the info on past schools I've been to ... Momma you would have enjoyed this too I think ...
I looked into the back yard this morning. Those Cotton Tailed Bunnies still aren't there ... they really ought to check in every now & then, oughtn't they, Momma ... ;-) .,..
But I saw a little bird ... a little bird and you would have liked it too Momma
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
Thank you Jesus for my Momma
For everything
Thanks
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St George
That was a rough night.
But then some nights are always rough aren't they Lord
Oh Lord
I did enjoy googling up the info on past schools I've been to ... Momma you would have enjoyed this too I think ...
I looked into the back yard this morning. Those Cotton Tailed Bunnies still aren't there ... they really ought to check in every now & then, oughtn't they, Momma ... ;-) .,..
But I saw a little bird ... a little bird and you would have liked it too Momma
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
Thank you Jesus for my Momma
For everything
Thanks
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St George
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Rhubarb
Rhubarb ... you made the best rhubarb Momma ... you loved to make rhubarb and smiled and laughed as I carried on as I always did wolfing your wonderful rhubarb down ...
Oh God
Momma I hope you like the flowers. I put nice pink azaleas and deep red rosebuds in your vase on your grave Momma.
Momma the grass is starting to grow over your grave. It's splotchy but it's growing ... and oh God ... I can't stand it ...
But I can it seems ... how do people do it though ...
they do though don't they
oh God
how I miss you
how I miss your rhubarb
Your rhubarb
Oh God
Oh God
Momma I hope you like the flowers. I put nice pink azaleas and deep red rosebuds in your vase on your grave Momma.
Momma the grass is starting to grow over your grave. It's splotchy but it's growing ... and oh God ... I can't stand it ...
But I can it seems ... how do people do it though ...
they do though don't they
oh God
how I miss you
how I miss your rhubarb
Your rhubarb
Oh God
You Alone ... Solus ... Solus
Today is April 22
8 months since you left this world Momma
I just sent to the lawyer my response to her draft of the final report for probate
August 22 Momma you left this world
why oh why
why not ... fair enough o lord
But God
Oh God
Oh God
It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
ok Lord I'm sitting here feeling my feelings and oh God ...
honestly ...
oh god I can't even say it
It just hurts so much
like
like
like what
like nails through hands
like nails through feet
like a spear in the side
like a spear in the heart
like what
like my Momma missed her Momma
like my Momma missed her Dad
like they missed their Mommas and their fathers
like everyone has missed their Moms and Dads
like we all miss at omse level our Father Adam and Mother Eve
like we all miss You O Lord
like we all miss you oh Mary 2nd Eve Holy Mother of God
Oh God
I miss my Momma so much
so much
so much
oh God
it hurts so much
Oh God
I love you God Jesus Lord Jesus I need you so much so much so much.
God it hurts so much.
So much.
Here ... here in the midst of the Tomb that is Life
Here in the midst of Holy Saturday
Here and Now
Here and Now in You O Lord
in You
In You
My only HOpe
My only Hope O Lord
My only Hope
You
Only You
You Lord Jesus You are All in All
You Alone
Alone into the Alone
Alone into Your Alone
You Alone
You Alone
8 months since you left this world Momma
I just sent to the lawyer my response to her draft of the final report for probate
August 22 Momma you left this world
why oh why
why not ... fair enough o lord
But God
Oh God
Oh God
It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
ok Lord I'm sitting here feeling my feelings and oh God ...
honestly ...
oh god I can't even say it
It just hurts so much
like
like
like what
like nails through hands
like nails through feet
like a spear in the side
like a spear in the heart
like what
like my Momma missed her Momma
like my Momma missed her Dad
like they missed their Mommas and their fathers
like everyone has missed their Moms and Dads
like we all miss at omse level our Father Adam and Mother Eve
like we all miss You O Lord
like we all miss you oh Mary 2nd Eve Holy Mother of God
Oh God
I miss my Momma so much
so much
so much
oh God
it hurts so much
Oh God
I love you God Jesus Lord Jesus I need you so much so much so much.
God it hurts so much.
So much.
Here ... here in the midst of the Tomb that is Life
Here in the midst of Holy Saturday
Here and Now
Here and Now in You O Lord
in You
In You
My only HOpe
My only Hope O Lord
My only Hope
You
Only You
You Lord Jesus You are All in All
You Alone
Alone into the Alone
Alone into Your Alone
You Alone
You Alone
Feeling ... oh God ... so so so ... lonely ...
I visited the Will Rogers Memorial today while I was up in Claremore at the hospital ... and looked at those places I saw Dad & Mom in the pictures from the 50s ... or was it late 40s ...
And then saw where Momma and I were only last year ...
Oh God how I miss you Momma ...
I just feel so horribly horribly horribly alone ... and lonely and ... oh God ...
I saw Smart People (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0858479/ this evening too. A 2nd time.
And liked it ... very much ... at one level ...
At another ... oh God ... how rootless it felt ... and that old feeling of deracination overwhelmed me again ...
partly I know it's because in the movie there's the constant presence of the deceased mother ...
oh God how it all hurts
Everything hurts so much
horrible
horrible
it all hurts
so much
Oh God
Help me God
Hellp me
Oh God it hurts so much
so much
Oh Father Job ... please pray for me
Oh Father Job
Oh Father Soloman ... Qoheleth ... Eccl ... pray for me
Oh St Dismas ...
Oh St all
Oh God it hurts
hurts hurts hurts
Oh be with me in this hour of darkness
Oh St John of the Cross pray for me
Oh Lord Jesus God of the Way of the Cross
have mercy on me
Oh Holy Mary
Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death
Oh it hurts so much
so much
so much
The TV is on and the lady in the ad smiles and smiles happily and prettily ...
why not
why not
But oh God to sit here alone and hurting
Yet
Yet You are here aren't you oh Lord Jesus
Oh Hope of the Hopeless
Help of the Helpless
You Who come to all of us who sit in darkness and pain and loneliness
How we need you
You O Lord
You in this Tomb of Holy Saturday
Here in this Place of the Dead
in this living death that is life
oh God
oh God how i miss my Momma
How lonely I feel
How lonely
How alone
Oh You Who are above all with those of us Who sit in our Loneliness
You Who Alone on the Cross cried out to Your God the Father
You in Your Loneliness
Be with me now i beseech you
Oh how it hurts
Tuesday in the 5th Week in Eastertide
Eve of the Feast of St George, Martyr
And then saw where Momma and I were only last year ...
Oh God how I miss you Momma ...
I just feel so horribly horribly horribly alone ... and lonely and ... oh God ...
I saw Smart People (2008) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0858479/ this evening too. A 2nd time.
And liked it ... very much ... at one level ...
At another ... oh God ... how rootless it felt ... and that old feeling of deracination overwhelmed me again ...
partly I know it's because in the movie there's the constant presence of the deceased mother ...
oh God how it all hurts
Everything hurts so much
horrible
horrible
it all hurts
so much
Oh God
Help me God
Hellp me
Oh God it hurts so much
so much
Oh Father Job ... please pray for me
Oh Father Job
Oh Father Soloman ... Qoheleth ... Eccl ... pray for me
Oh St Dismas ...
Oh St all
Oh God it hurts
hurts hurts hurts
Oh be with me in this hour of darkness
Oh St John of the Cross pray for me
Oh Lord Jesus God of the Way of the Cross
have mercy on me
Oh Holy Mary
Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
now and at the hour of our death
Oh it hurts so much
so much
so much
The TV is on and the lady in the ad smiles and smiles happily and prettily ...
why not
why not
But oh God to sit here alone and hurting
Yet
Yet You are here aren't you oh Lord Jesus
Oh Hope of the Hopeless
Help of the Helpless
You Who come to all of us who sit in darkness and pain and loneliness
How we need you
You O Lord
You in this Tomb of Holy Saturday
Here in this Place of the Dead
in this living death that is life
oh God
oh God how i miss my Momma
How lonely I feel
How lonely
How alone
Oh You Who are above all with those of us Who sit in our Loneliness
You Who Alone on the Cross cried out to Your God the Father
You in Your Loneliness
Be with me now i beseech you
Oh how it hurts
Tuesday in the 5th Week in Eastertide
Eve of the Feast of St George, Martyr
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Inky Binky Spider
When I visited Momma this morning, I'll swear I heard the cemetery sound system playing the tune for Inky Binky Spider.
That must be the same tune as for another song.
Or maybe I'm just imagining it. Looking back now I wonder.
But when I was very young, I remember learning Inky Binky Spider at Boston Ave Methodist Church here in Tulsa. The choir director taught it to all us young young young choir members.
The "lyrics" go like this:
Inky Binky Spider crawled up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed th spider out
Inky Binky Spider crawled up the spout again
Down came the rain and washed him out again.
Something like that.
Momma and I every now and then recalled the song to each other. Always with smiles and laughs.
A happy memory.
Oh Momma how I miss you
Thank you Lord Jesus for my dear Momma.
I love you Momma so much
I love you Jesus so much
Charles Delacroix
Here and Now
5th Sunday in Eastertide
That must be the same tune as for another song.
Or maybe I'm just imagining it. Looking back now I wonder.
But when I was very young, I remember learning Inky Binky Spider at Boston Ave Methodist Church here in Tulsa. The choir director taught it to all us young young young choir members.
The "lyrics" go like this:
Inky Binky Spider crawled up the water spout
Down came the rain and washed th spider out
Inky Binky Spider crawled up the spout again
Down came the rain and washed him out again.
Something like that.
Momma and I every now and then recalled the song to each other. Always with smiles and laughs.
A happy memory.
Oh Momma how I miss you
Thank you Lord Jesus for my dear Momma.
I love you Momma so much
I love you Jesus so much
Charles Delacroix
Here and Now
5th Sunday in Eastertide
Pink Azaleas and Red Roses
I found some really nice faux pink azaleas and faux red roses for Momma's grave and put them in her urn this afternoon.
Oh Momma I hope you like them. I think they are so pretty.
I love you Momma and I miss you so.
Charles Delacroix
5th Sunday in Eastertide
Oh Momma I hope you like them. I think they are so pretty.
I love you Momma and I miss you so.
Charles Delacroix
5th Sunday in Eastertide
Christ is the Day
In OOR this morning St Maximus of Turin says "Christ is the Day" and "The light of Christ is endless day that knows no night."
Oh Lord how I need your Light.
Oh Lord how I need You.
Oh Lord how I miss my Momma
I pray that she awaits me even now in Your Endless Light.
I looked out the back window this morning ... and there were at least 4 puppies spilling joyously out of a box in the next door neighbor's yard. Oh Momma. How you would love them. They are fuzzy and floppy and full of energy and scampering everywhere. And they are cute, so cute. You would love them and how we would laugh and talk about them ... and how you would want to go out into the back yard, even if in your wheelchair, to get a chance to poke your fingers through the fence hoping they would lick your fingers and hear you telling them how cute they are.
Oh Momma how I miss you.
I miss you so much.
Oh Lord.
Oh Lord please please please please take good care of my good Momma
Oh Christ Who Art the Day of Endless Light have mercy on me and my Momma
I love you so much
Charles Delacroix
5th Sunday in Eastertide
Oh Lord how I need your Light.
Oh Lord how I need You.
Oh Lord how I miss my Momma
I pray that she awaits me even now in Your Endless Light.
I looked out the back window this morning ... and there were at least 4 puppies spilling joyously out of a box in the next door neighbor's yard. Oh Momma. How you would love them. They are fuzzy and floppy and full of energy and scampering everywhere. And they are cute, so cute. You would love them and how we would laugh and talk about them ... and how you would want to go out into the back yard, even if in your wheelchair, to get a chance to poke your fingers through the fence hoping they would lick your fingers and hear you telling them how cute they are.
Oh Momma how I miss you.
I miss you so much.
Oh Lord.
Oh Lord please please please please take good care of my good Momma
Oh Christ Who Art the Day of Endless Light have mercy on me and my Momma
I love you so much
Charles Delacroix
5th Sunday in Eastertide
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Star Trek and Gratitude
I just saw part of an episode on TV from the original Star Trek series.
Oh Momma you would have loved this ... :-)
Momma, I mowed the yard today and worked at cleaning up the back yard. You would have liked this too. I kept looking over at the back glass door ... where you would have been sitting watching me mow. You weren't there though. At least I could not see you. Oh Momma I miss you so much ...
I thought that I haven't seen those Cotton Tailed Bunnies in the back yard for awhile. But then why should they come here. You aren't here to see them.
Spooky and I went for a walk down at Woodward Park. There were so many people there ... the weather is lovely ... and the rose bushes in the Rose Garden are growing and thriving it seems. Spooky and I walked past the little alcove that we all sat in so often Momma ... I could almost see you in your wheelchair there, enjoying the weather, enjoying the roses. I looked at the tip top of some of those tall evergreens ... the tip top's where little birds sometimes sat ... you and I loved to spot them and laughingly point them out to each other. Oh Momma ... I miss you so much ... I pointed them out to Spooky but of course she could not laugh like you Momma. We both miss you so much.
I love you Momma
I miss you
I love you Lord Jesus
Thank you so much Lord Jesus
Thank you so much for my Momma
Thank you so much for everyone and everything
Everything is Your Gift
Oh but Jesus I so miss my Momma
Please please please please please take good care of my good Momma
I love you
I love you all
Charles Delacroix
Eve of 5th Sunday in Eastertide
Oh Momma you would have loved this ... :-)
Momma, I mowed the yard today and worked at cleaning up the back yard. You would have liked this too. I kept looking over at the back glass door ... where you would have been sitting watching me mow. You weren't there though. At least I could not see you. Oh Momma I miss you so much ...
I thought that I haven't seen those Cotton Tailed Bunnies in the back yard for awhile. But then why should they come here. You aren't here to see them.
Spooky and I went for a walk down at Woodward Park. There were so many people there ... the weather is lovely ... and the rose bushes in the Rose Garden are growing and thriving it seems. Spooky and I walked past the little alcove that we all sat in so often Momma ... I could almost see you in your wheelchair there, enjoying the weather, enjoying the roses. I looked at the tip top of some of those tall evergreens ... the tip top's where little birds sometimes sat ... you and I loved to spot them and laughingly point them out to each other. Oh Momma ... I miss you so much ... I pointed them out to Spooky but of course she could not laugh like you Momma. We both miss you so much.
I love you Momma
I miss you
I love you Lord Jesus
Thank you so much Lord Jesus
Thank you so much for my Momma
Thank you so much for everyone and everything
Everything is Your Gift
Oh but Jesus I so miss my Momma
Please please please please please take good care of my good Momma
I love you
I love you all
Charles Delacroix
Eve of 5th Sunday in Eastertide
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Welcome Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI
I felt really surpisingly moved and grateful by the news that our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, is in the United States.
I had heard he would be visiting months ago and even thought about trying to travel to the Northeast to find a place somehow in one of his general audiences.
I sometimes find myself wishing I had been born in Italy ... in Roma ... or in France ... anywhere, in fact, but here. In Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Reality stepped on that dream ... but I am blessed in that even as I can't leave "wife & oxen" I am blessed that God comes to me ...
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
Thank you for Momma
Thank you for Benedict XVI
Thank you all
Charles Delacroix
Eve of Saint Bernadette Soubirous
4th Week in Eastertide
I had heard he would be visiting months ago and even thought about trying to travel to the Northeast to find a place somehow in one of his general audiences.
I sometimes find myself wishing I had been born in Italy ... in Roma ... or in France ... anywhere, in fact, but here. In Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Reality stepped on that dream ... but I am blessed in that even as I can't leave "wife & oxen" I am blessed that God comes to me ...
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
Thank you for Momma
Thank you for Benedict XVI
Thank you all
Charles Delacroix
Eve of Saint Bernadette Soubirous
4th Week in Eastertide
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Philbrook, and Art, as Windows on Life and History
I went with the dog to Woodward Park late this afternoon, and afterward went to visit Phibrook Museum of Art.
I was thinking about how I've been feeling almost a hunger and need to go visit the Museum ... pretty much once weekly for a long time ... since you departed, Momma.
Honestly it's not the "art" in the Museum that really seems to grip me. It's the amazing windows onto life and history that these works give me. And it just plain won't work to look at "pictures" in books or on the web. These works aren't exactly famous and aren't exactly first-rate from an "artistic" standpoint. Philbrook is wonderful, but this is a small museum serving a relatively small metropolitan area (Tulsa).
But the museum buildings and grounds are truly delightful, exquisite, and provide a wonderful setting for artwork that for characters like me serve as Windows into History, Windows into Life.
Partly the appeal to me too is that my eyes are just so far gone that I can't read very well ... or not compared to what I did at one time. I used to read, for example, on my "darker days", one of those amazing volumes in Ludwing Pastor's Lives of the Popes. Guaranteed, for me, to bring my upset feverish imagination back to earth with some kind of perspective. Whew. I think of my problems, and then read what the Church was grappling with at almost any time in history, and get these wonderful glimpses ... Windows ... into the lives of men and women who have gone before me in the Life of the Church ... and hey, it's very hard to feel sorry for myself after reading what the Popes have been through and Capranica and Bellarmine and Sixtus and so many others ... and am reminded of what I need to be reminded so often: to be Grateful for those who have gone before, and to be Grateful that I'm even allowed to walk my short distance in my own little place here on earth. For here we have no lasting place. But while here ... there are gifts everywhere, and everywhen, if I'll just open my eyes to see them.
But like I say, I can't really read as well as I did, so I can go to Philbrook ... and it's almost like walking into another world ... many other worlds ... or rather into other lives from the past in this amazing world that God had in His Grace and Mercy given us. Glimpses of people and places and times gone past. And more importantly, glimpses of these all-too-brief slices of life and the things of this life that others have thought important, and precious, to them, as they walked their brief ways in this world.
Philbrook has some delightful works in its permanent collections ... especially a whole range of "sacred art" from Italy of (say) the 13th - 17th centuries; and these wonderful more contemporary paintings from France - Courbet and Corot and more. The temporary exhibits have included a wonderful collection of prints of 19th centure Rome that has been on view since you departed, I think, Momma. And more recently some wonderful Modernist work ... Duby and Kandinsky and Picasso and so many more. And, opening last weekend, a collection of works on loan from the Uffizi in Florence / Firenze. These are just spectacular or moving or heart-wrenching or overwhelming, as the case may be ... pastoral scenes, landscape scenes, wonderful paintings of Florence and Tuscany and the Gulf of Naples and (of all things) Kronigsburg Castle in Denmark. All these things may or may not be conveyed in "great art" ... that's something I sure wouldn't know about ... but they are conveyed in ways that speak to my heart very deeply, and cry out with voices from deep in the History of Humanity that I can, if I wish, remember that little old Charles Delacroix is deeply, deeply privileged even to be allowed to walk for a few days longer the face of the earth on which have dwelt such men and women of such courage and fortitude that they did what they did, as best they could, I have no doubt, before being called from this vale of tears.
And God knows this truly is a vale of tears ... God Himself wept tears of sorrow, He knows these tears better than anyone, truly. No question about that. But in the meantime ... granted the tears ... there is so much to be deeply, deeply grateful for in this life, isn't there.
Maybe that's partly what God is trying to teach me from Momma's passing. Here we have no lasting place; here we have what we have, and then must pass on; here and now we are called to do what we are called to do; and that's that.
And everything ... everything! ... has value, has meaning, has worth in this world because it is vested with worth by You O Lord.
So what is there to do but bow my head in Gratitude. And do what I'm called to do. Before passing on from this old world.
Oh my.
Well ... thank you Lord then.
And thank you so much dear Momma
Thank you Lord for my Momma
Please please please dear Lord ... take good care of my good Momma.
I love you Momma
I love you Lord
Charles Delacroix
4th Sunday in Easter
I was thinking about how I've been feeling almost a hunger and need to go visit the Museum ... pretty much once weekly for a long time ... since you departed, Momma.
Honestly it's not the "art" in the Museum that really seems to grip me. It's the amazing windows onto life and history that these works give me. And it just plain won't work to look at "pictures" in books or on the web. These works aren't exactly famous and aren't exactly first-rate from an "artistic" standpoint. Philbrook is wonderful, but this is a small museum serving a relatively small metropolitan area (Tulsa).
But the museum buildings and grounds are truly delightful, exquisite, and provide a wonderful setting for artwork that for characters like me serve as Windows into History, Windows into Life.
Partly the appeal to me too is that my eyes are just so far gone that I can't read very well ... or not compared to what I did at one time. I used to read, for example, on my "darker days", one of those amazing volumes in Ludwing Pastor's Lives of the Popes. Guaranteed, for me, to bring my upset feverish imagination back to earth with some kind of perspective. Whew. I think of my problems, and then read what the Church was grappling with at almost any time in history, and get these wonderful glimpses ... Windows ... into the lives of men and women who have gone before me in the Life of the Church ... and hey, it's very hard to feel sorry for myself after reading what the Popes have been through and Capranica and Bellarmine and Sixtus and so many others ... and am reminded of what I need to be reminded so often: to be Grateful for those who have gone before, and to be Grateful that I'm even allowed to walk my short distance in my own little place here on earth. For here we have no lasting place. But while here ... there are gifts everywhere, and everywhen, if I'll just open my eyes to see them.
But like I say, I can't really read as well as I did, so I can go to Philbrook ... and it's almost like walking into another world ... many other worlds ... or rather into other lives from the past in this amazing world that God had in His Grace and Mercy given us. Glimpses of people and places and times gone past. And more importantly, glimpses of these all-too-brief slices of life and the things of this life that others have thought important, and precious, to them, as they walked their brief ways in this world.
Philbrook has some delightful works in its permanent collections ... especially a whole range of "sacred art" from Italy of (say) the 13th - 17th centuries; and these wonderful more contemporary paintings from France - Courbet and Corot and more. The temporary exhibits have included a wonderful collection of prints of 19th centure Rome that has been on view since you departed, I think, Momma. And more recently some wonderful Modernist work ... Duby and Kandinsky and Picasso and so many more. And, opening last weekend, a collection of works on loan from the Uffizi in Florence / Firenze. These are just spectacular or moving or heart-wrenching or overwhelming, as the case may be ... pastoral scenes, landscape scenes, wonderful paintings of Florence and Tuscany and the Gulf of Naples and (of all things) Kronigsburg Castle in Denmark. All these things may or may not be conveyed in "great art" ... that's something I sure wouldn't know about ... but they are conveyed in ways that speak to my heart very deeply, and cry out with voices from deep in the History of Humanity that I can, if I wish, remember that little old Charles Delacroix is deeply, deeply privileged even to be allowed to walk for a few days longer the face of the earth on which have dwelt such men and women of such courage and fortitude that they did what they did, as best they could, I have no doubt, before being called from this vale of tears.
And God knows this truly is a vale of tears ... God Himself wept tears of sorrow, He knows these tears better than anyone, truly. No question about that. But in the meantime ... granted the tears ... there is so much to be deeply, deeply grateful for in this life, isn't there.
Maybe that's partly what God is trying to teach me from Momma's passing. Here we have no lasting place; here we have what we have, and then must pass on; here and now we are called to do what we are called to do; and that's that.
And everything ... everything! ... has value, has meaning, has worth in this world because it is vested with worth by You O Lord.
So what is there to do but bow my head in Gratitude. And do what I'm called to do. Before passing on from this old world.
Oh my.
Well ... thank you Lord then.
And thank you so much dear Momma
Thank you Lord for my Momma
Please please please dear Lord ... take good care of my good Momma.
I love you Momma
I love you Lord
Charles Delacroix
4th Sunday in Easter
Envy, Gratitude, Sadness, and Longing ... in the Desert
I am feeling so exhausted these days ... but also have had this strong, strong sense that (once again) much of my own sadness may be connected with Envy rather than with more creditable things.
Envy truly is my besetting sin, in so many ways.
I was at Woodward Park this afternoon walking the dog. And saw a man tossing a football back & forth with a youngster I take to be his son. He would pass the ball, and his son would catch it, and his father would say, "Good catch!" "Nice going!" and encouraging things like that.
My own memory of my own rare back-and-forth's with my own Dad involved a baseball; and those were emphatically very, very different. Whew. The anger of my father at me when I didn't catch the ball ... and his angry pitches, harder & harder, intended, no doubt, to "toughen me up" and get me to catch the ball ... had exactly the opposite effect: and I ended up dropping every pitch he "burned in" to me ... more or less I was holding up my mit to shield myself from what was actually him throwing the ball at me rather than to me ... or so it seemed to me ... and I ended up just crying and my father tossing his mit & ball away in disgust and walking off.
I do regret very much not having something of the more common experience with balls & Dads. But how much of my feelings of loss about things like that involve mostly Envy? Envy of others for having what I don't?
I long ... oh how I've always longed ... for the Normal. I didn't get it. So should I then Envy those who did? If anyone did get this semi-mythical Normalcy that is ...
Oh Momma. Oh Dad ... Oh God.
Gratitude though seems far more healthy and far more potent than Envy.
For all things. Almost all things anyway.
Here in the Desert ... isn't that better anyway? To miss; to long, indeed; but to be Grateful for what I have rather than Envy those who fared better in this or that.
There's that wonderful scene in (I think) 1984 when Smith is being consigned to Exile. He is offered a choice of locales. He chooses one that is blasted, devastated, desert-like rather than one that is lush, lovely, tropical, beach-like. Why? Because he doesn't want to become complacent and satisfied and fail to any longer perceive the real absence of things that are very, very precious to him. Longing for such things is right and good. And is the gift of God to the Alien and Exile, not to the wealthy and established person who feels "at home" in this world.
Oh my.
God grant me Gratitude and Longing
God grant me freedom from Envy.
God grant me that Your Will not Mine be done.
In this as in all things
Amen
Charles Delacroix
4th Sunday in Easter
Envy truly is my besetting sin, in so many ways.
I was at Woodward Park this afternoon walking the dog. And saw a man tossing a football back & forth with a youngster I take to be his son. He would pass the ball, and his son would catch it, and his father would say, "Good catch!" "Nice going!" and encouraging things like that.
My own memory of my own rare back-and-forth's with my own Dad involved a baseball; and those were emphatically very, very different. Whew. The anger of my father at me when I didn't catch the ball ... and his angry pitches, harder & harder, intended, no doubt, to "toughen me up" and get me to catch the ball ... had exactly the opposite effect: and I ended up dropping every pitch he "burned in" to me ... more or less I was holding up my mit to shield myself from what was actually him throwing the ball at me rather than to me ... or so it seemed to me ... and I ended up just crying and my father tossing his mit & ball away in disgust and walking off.
I do regret very much not having something of the more common experience with balls & Dads. But how much of my feelings of loss about things like that involve mostly Envy? Envy of others for having what I don't?
I long ... oh how I've always longed ... for the Normal. I didn't get it. So should I then Envy those who did? If anyone did get this semi-mythical Normalcy that is ...
Oh Momma. Oh Dad ... Oh God.
Gratitude though seems far more healthy and far more potent than Envy.
For all things. Almost all things anyway.
Here in the Desert ... isn't that better anyway? To miss; to long, indeed; but to be Grateful for what I have rather than Envy those who fared better in this or that.
There's that wonderful scene in (I think) 1984 when Smith is being consigned to Exile. He is offered a choice of locales. He chooses one that is blasted, devastated, desert-like rather than one that is lush, lovely, tropical, beach-like. Why? Because he doesn't want to become complacent and satisfied and fail to any longer perceive the real absence of things that are very, very precious to him. Longing for such things is right and good. And is the gift of God to the Alien and Exile, not to the wealthy and established person who feels "at home" in this world.
Oh my.
God grant me Gratitude and Longing
God grant me freedom from Envy.
God grant me that Your Will not Mine be done.
In this as in all things
Amen
Charles Delacroix
4th Sunday in Easter
Saturday, April 12, 2008
The Desert
It's been a ruff, ruff week. Lots of overwork, lots of under-attention to my diabetes care, and above all, that overwhelming sense of aridity, hopelessness, vapidity ... tasteless, odorless, colorless is life even as spring brings colors and smells and warmth.
There is so much ... so, so, so much ... that seems wrong and dry and lifeless without you here, Momma.
Oh I know ... I know that by God's Grace you must be in a far far far better place where there is no more desert, no more tears, no more loneliness.
But oh it feels so ... so so so so ... arid and lifeless here ... oh Momma ... oh Lord ...
I was drinking milk earlier today ... and thought of way back when as a child I called milk "Gook". You told me this, Momma; you remembered this ... and knew that I was trying to say "Good" because I thought milk tasted good. We remembered this every now and then ... like so many many things. And now you are not here. Who am I to say something as simple as, "Oh this is good ... this is Gook." Only you Momma. Only you and God know ... or would care ...
I saw an article about Libyan Head of State Ghaddafi. His picture makes him look so old. We would have said something about when we lived in Libya, wouldn't we Momma. I still have a picture of then Col. Ghaddafi at the Sebha rally back in ... when? about 1970? Oh Momma. Who else to talk with about such things?
I saw that Charlton Heston died earlier this week. Oh Momma. We would have talked about his passing with great sorrow and gratitude for the movies he's been a part of that have brought us both such joy. Here indeed there are many, many who have been touched by Charlton Heston's life. But Momma: only you would know how you and I have been touched by his work. That is past, gone.
And now it's Saturday night ... at 9:00 ... and the OETA Movie Club is on ... Momma, they're showing Fiddler on the Roof (1971) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067093/ ... I remember so well, Momma, when we watched this last together ... it was on OETA a year or so ago I think. And how we talked about this wonderful, wonderful movie. And now you are gone ... and I have no one with whom to talk about this movie ... and how it did and didn't reflect some of the many things your generation grappled with regarding Tradition and Change ...
OK. I know I know ... I know ... at some level ... at the only true level really ... nothing is lost; nothing can be lost; for all things have Value and Truth and Reality in You and You Alone O Lord. History herself is only in You. In You we live and move and have our being. All that is is in You. Nothing that is Not can be in You. Nothing that Is can be lost anymore than You can be lost.
But Oh Lord. In this world ... in this bleak, bleak desert wasteland that is Charles's Here and Now ... in this tiny, tiny wasteland that is Charles ... the arid wind blows and carries with it only a sense of desolation and death and dying.
So what can this be but the Cross of Christ. In this world to be is to be in pain. In this world to be is to be either Following Christ on the Way of the Cross; or not Following Christ, in which case we still walk a Way of Suffering and Death, tho not the Way of the Cross.
Well ... in Charles's Here and Now there is in addition to Desert Nothingness and Desert Absence, Your Presence and Your Being. That I feel the one and not the other doesn't change the
Reality beyond all realities, does it, O Lord. Even in the midst of Your Own Great Devastation, of Your Own Great Desert Loneliness ... when You cried out the words of Job and of Ecclesiastes and of every son of Adam and Eve ... when You cried out My God My God Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me ... even then in the midst of that horror and devastation You Were There. In the Tomb on Holy Saturday, when You Lay Dead, when the very Heart of Jesus lay Dead on the Slab, You Were There. In the midst of pain and suffering and loss and in my little Desert and in the Desert of every man and woman born of Adam and Eve ... You are There.
I do not understand but I don't need to understand. All I know is that there You Were in that Great Devastation; and in every devastation You are There.
So in my own devastation You are Here.
It's the only thing that can make this if not bearable, at least not utterly intractable.
Oh Lord I miss my Momma so much
Oh Lord please of Your Courtesy ... take good care of my good Momma.
I miss you Momma
I love you Momma
I love you Lord Jesus
I love you so much
Thank you for Momma
Thank you for everything
Thank you
I love you ... and even to whatever extent that's true it's true only because of Your Gift of Love
Everything is a Gift.
So ... Thank You Lord Jesus
Now and always
Charles Delacroix
Saturday in the Third Week in Eastertide
Eve of the Fourth Sunday in Easter
There is so much ... so, so, so much ... that seems wrong and dry and lifeless without you here, Momma.
Oh I know ... I know that by God's Grace you must be in a far far far better place where there is no more desert, no more tears, no more loneliness.
But oh it feels so ... so so so so ... arid and lifeless here ... oh Momma ... oh Lord ...
I was drinking milk earlier today ... and thought of way back when as a child I called milk "Gook". You told me this, Momma; you remembered this ... and knew that I was trying to say "Good" because I thought milk tasted good. We remembered this every now and then ... like so many many things. And now you are not here. Who am I to say something as simple as, "Oh this is good ... this is Gook." Only you Momma. Only you and God know ... or would care ...
I saw an article about Libyan Head of State Ghaddafi. His picture makes him look so old. We would have said something about when we lived in Libya, wouldn't we Momma. I still have a picture of then Col. Ghaddafi at the Sebha rally back in ... when? about 1970? Oh Momma. Who else to talk with about such things?
I saw that Charlton Heston died earlier this week. Oh Momma. We would have talked about his passing with great sorrow and gratitude for the movies he's been a part of that have brought us both such joy. Here indeed there are many, many who have been touched by Charlton Heston's life. But Momma: only you would know how you and I have been touched by his work. That is past, gone.
And now it's Saturday night ... at 9:00 ... and the OETA Movie Club is on ... Momma, they're showing Fiddler on the Roof (1971) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067093/ ... I remember so well, Momma, when we watched this last together ... it was on OETA a year or so ago I think. And how we talked about this wonderful, wonderful movie. And now you are gone ... and I have no one with whom to talk about this movie ... and how it did and didn't reflect some of the many things your generation grappled with regarding Tradition and Change ...
OK. I know I know ... I know ... at some level ... at the only true level really ... nothing is lost; nothing can be lost; for all things have Value and Truth and Reality in You and You Alone O Lord. History herself is only in You. In You we live and move and have our being. All that is is in You. Nothing that is Not can be in You. Nothing that Is can be lost anymore than You can be lost.
But Oh Lord. In this world ... in this bleak, bleak desert wasteland that is Charles's Here and Now ... in this tiny, tiny wasteland that is Charles ... the arid wind blows and carries with it only a sense of desolation and death and dying.
So what can this be but the Cross of Christ. In this world to be is to be in pain. In this world to be is to be either Following Christ on the Way of the Cross; or not Following Christ, in which case we still walk a Way of Suffering and Death, tho not the Way of the Cross.
Well ... in Charles's Here and Now there is in addition to Desert Nothingness and Desert Absence, Your Presence and Your Being. That I feel the one and not the other doesn't change the
Reality beyond all realities, does it, O Lord. Even in the midst of Your Own Great Devastation, of Your Own Great Desert Loneliness ... when You cried out the words of Job and of Ecclesiastes and of every son of Adam and Eve ... when You cried out My God My God Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me ... even then in the midst of that horror and devastation You Were There. In the Tomb on Holy Saturday, when You Lay Dead, when the very Heart of Jesus lay Dead on the Slab, You Were There. In the midst of pain and suffering and loss and in my little Desert and in the Desert of every man and woman born of Adam and Eve ... You are There.
I do not understand but I don't need to understand. All I know is that there You Were in that Great Devastation; and in every devastation You are There.
So in my own devastation You are Here.
It's the only thing that can make this if not bearable, at least not utterly intractable.
Oh Lord I miss my Momma so much
Oh Lord please of Your Courtesy ... take good care of my good Momma.
I miss you Momma
I love you Momma
I love you Lord Jesus
I love you so much
Thank you for Momma
Thank you for everything
Thank you
I love you ... and even to whatever extent that's true it's true only because of Your Gift of Love
Everything is a Gift.
So ... Thank You Lord Jesus
Now and always
Charles Delacroix
Saturday in the Third Week in Eastertide
Eve of the Fourth Sunday in Easter
Monday, April 7, 2008
Back to the Desert
Well ... Monday AM and it's time for me to go visit you on my way to work. Your tea is ready, Momma. Oh God how I miss you.
I looked out the back window this morning and looked at the mown grass. I think the yard looks nice. But Momma you're not here to tell me it looks nice. So I wonder why it should look like anything. I know that all things are ... "live and move and have our being" ... in You O Lord. But oh God ... why should the yard look nice or look like anything with Momma not here.
Saturday I mowed the front yard ... and yesterday the back yard. The first mow of the season is always the hardest in a way ... things to pick up ... tough winter grass to cut through ... and you and I always talk about this Momma ... but oh ... you weren't here this time to talk about these precious, mundane things ...
I miss you so much ... the flowers are out ... Spooky and I went down to Woodward Park yesterday and they have the loveliest flowers out down on that little triangle by 21st ... you would love the flowers Momma ... I saw redbuds (your favorite) and daffodils and Easter flowers and tulips, yes tulips, and forsythia ... and green, green spring grass. Your favorite time of year Momma.
I love you Momma and I miss you so much ... it's lovely out ... but inside all I feel is arid wind blowing across a desert landscape. Desert everywhere.
Oh my.
I love you Momma in the midst of the desert
I love you Jesus in the midst of the desert
I love you so much
Thank you
Thank you so much for your time here
Oh how I miss you
But Thank you
I love you
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John Baptist de la Salle
I looked out the back window this morning and looked at the mown grass. I think the yard looks nice. But Momma you're not here to tell me it looks nice. So I wonder why it should look like anything. I know that all things are ... "live and move and have our being" ... in You O Lord. But oh God ... why should the yard look nice or look like anything with Momma not here.
Saturday I mowed the front yard ... and yesterday the back yard. The first mow of the season is always the hardest in a way ... things to pick up ... tough winter grass to cut through ... and you and I always talk about this Momma ... but oh ... you weren't here this time to talk about these precious, mundane things ...
I miss you so much ... the flowers are out ... Spooky and I went down to Woodward Park yesterday and they have the loveliest flowers out down on that little triangle by 21st ... you would love the flowers Momma ... I saw redbuds (your favorite) and daffodils and Easter flowers and tulips, yes tulips, and forsythia ... and green, green spring grass. Your favorite time of year Momma.
I love you Momma and I miss you so much ... it's lovely out ... but inside all I feel is arid wind blowing across a desert landscape. Desert everywhere.
Oh my.
I love you Momma in the midst of the desert
I love you Jesus in the midst of the desert
I love you so much
Thank you
Thank you so much for your time here
Oh how I miss you
But Thank you
I love you
Charles Delacroix
Feast of St John Baptist de la Salle
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Memory, Anamnesis, and Longing
I was just looking at that picture Momma always loved so much. She said again and again that she got it ... when? Back in the 1950s? Before I was born, I think. She always said she got it because it reminded her of home.
That's a big part of my struggle I think ... that nothing reminds me of home.
There's no home in this world to remind me of.
Oh my.
But perhaps that's not such a bad "space" to be in.
For "here we have no lasting place."
And here "we are aliens and exiles in this world."
Sacred Scripture is right.
My true Home is with Christ in God.
Until then ... nothing reminds me of home in this world ...
But everything ... everything ... reminds me of my true Home ...
And the Longing ... the Longing ... for my true Home ...
The same kind of Longing as our forefathers felt ... in exile in Babylon ... Ps 137 ...
That Longing is an inalienable part of my right and my heritage and my dignity as a human person. It's part of what makes me human. It's part of what makes me a Son of Adam and Eve. And it's part of what makes me a Son of the New Adam and the New Eve.
Oh Lord ... how long ... Maranatha ...
Charles Delacroix
3rd Sunday in Ester
That's a big part of my struggle I think ... that nothing reminds me of home.
There's no home in this world to remind me of.
Oh my.
But perhaps that's not such a bad "space" to be in.
For "here we have no lasting place."
And here "we are aliens and exiles in this world."
Sacred Scripture is right.
My true Home is with Christ in God.
Until then ... nothing reminds me of home in this world ...
But everything ... everything ... reminds me of my true Home ...
And the Longing ... the Longing ... for my true Home ...
The same kind of Longing as our forefathers felt ... in exile in Babylon ... Ps 137 ...
That Longing is an inalienable part of my right and my heritage and my dignity as a human person. It's part of what makes me human. It's part of what makes me a Son of Adam and Eve. And it's part of what makes me a Son of the New Adam and the New Eve.
Oh Lord ... how long ... Maranatha ...
Charles Delacroix
3rd Sunday in Ester
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Love and Longing and Tons of Loneliness
I just saw an Israeli film with the English title The Band's Visit (2007) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032856/
Remarkable at so many levels ...
I've had a rough, rough week ... and what this movie does for me ... what movies sometimes do for me ... is help me reconnect with painful feelings that I've managed to get disconnected from ... that is, this kind of movie can help me get back onto the Way of the Cross that is above all the Way in this world ...
The movie is full of poignancy and aridity and starkness and humor ... and (as the Band's conductor sings at the end) "love and longing".
And loneliness ... as an Israeli character says in a wonderful scene in the bedroom of his infant son ... "tons of loneliness" ...
Oh God.
Missing Momma means of course Love and Longing and Tons of Loneliness ...
But these things I felt long before you passed away, dear Momma ...
What is life in this world except Love and Longing and Tons of Loneliness ...
Here St Peter says that we are "aliens and exiles". And until we continue on to our True Home ... our Home with Your, O Lord ... well, here we will feel like the exiles in Babylon ... as in Ps 137 ...
Full of Longing and Loneliness ... and Love ...
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
I love you and am more grateful than I can ever say for you
I love you
Remarkable at so many levels ...
I've had a rough, rough week ... and what this movie does for me ... what movies sometimes do for me ... is help me reconnect with painful feelings that I've managed to get disconnected from ... that is, this kind of movie can help me get back onto the Way of the Cross that is above all the Way in this world ...
The movie is full of poignancy and aridity and starkness and humor ... and (as the Band's conductor sings at the end) "love and longing".
And loneliness ... as an Israeli character says in a wonderful scene in the bedroom of his infant son ... "tons of loneliness" ...
Oh God.
Missing Momma means of course Love and Longing and Tons of Loneliness ...
But these things I felt long before you passed away, dear Momma ...
What is life in this world except Love and Longing and Tons of Loneliness ...
Here St Peter says that we are "aliens and exiles". And until we continue on to our True Home ... our Home with Your, O Lord ... well, here we will feel like the exiles in Babylon ... as in Ps 137 ...
Full of Longing and Loneliness ... and Love ...
I love you Momma
I love you Jesus
I love you and am more grateful than I can ever say for you
I love you
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