Languages
The super-frigid temperatures have subsided somewhat, and so the snow has had a chance to melt a bit. Today it’s in the 40s, with the high 50s forecast by Friday. If this prediction holds, the New Year will come riding in on a mild current of air. Thought I love the cold weather, it has been nice to walk with Jinx in the evenings and not wince and shiver and grimace against the onslaught of the twin blades of wind and ice crystals.
I’ve shoveled with a diligent rhythm against the mountain of leftovers remaining after Christmas day, and we are nearing the end of them. Unlike many others, I do not easily tire of turkey sandwiches, reheated potatoes & gravy, or slabs of pumpkin pie. Already I am thinking of our New Years Eve meal, and the main one for New Years Day, which will include black eyed peas and cabbage. One of the great mysteries about the region in which we live is the indifference to the noble black eyed pea. In Texas and in most of the South, this legume is a table staple year-round. In these parts, the only time people eat them is on New Years…and most of them neither understand nor have the energy to research the origin of the custom. The favorite legume in these mountains is the “half-runner” green bean, a tough and stringy specimen for which I have never been able to cultivate much of an appreciation. If they are cooked to death with lots of bacon drippings and just a touch of vinegar, I can kinda-sorta enjoy them in moderation. I have never met one local person who grows black eyed peas. We have grown them at our little farm several times, and they take wonderfully to the rocky soil here. We have produced bumper crops without even trying. And yet every spring, we watch folks out laboring in the gardens, building frames and fences for the Anderson Cooper of green beans.
It’s been some time since we’ve attended a church service, except at a monastery. This lack of attendance has nothing to do with the covidization of modern America, but rather with the deadly combination of (1) leaving Protestantism and (2) discovering that the Catholics really don’t want me as I am. I continue to think of myself as a Catholic In Exile, but it is a lonely and perhaps presumptuous (and pretentious?) claim to make. I take comfort in my lectio divina, in my prayers, both written and whispered, in my time of silence before the candlelit crucifix, in my personal devotions and rituals. And there are certain things about church life that I do not miss.
Take, for example, my recent contact with a fellow who still attends church regularly (after an initial suspension of things ecclesiastical) and is as active as the current situation will allow. We were barely a minute into our “let’s catch up” conversation when I realized that I no longer speak the language he speaks. I am chagrined to confess that I once spoke this language quite fluently. The language is Churchy Pious-Speak, and I probably don’t need to either define or explain my term. The purpose of Churchy Pious-Speak seems not to be effective and clear communication, but rather a startling attempt to pack as many Bible verses and reverent references into a sentence as possible. When practiced by two or more people at once, the phenomenon truly becomes a matter of people “talking past each other.” I am forced to confess that Churchy Pious-Speak reminds me of nothing so much as it reminds me of Communists in countries like China or the USSR blathering tenets and platitudes at each other, while the speakers are constantly aware that a charade is being carried out.
The feeling I got during my recent encounter with the church-going fellow was a familiar one. It is the feeling that I want to take a mental and spiritual shower after the conversation ends, as though I have been at best smudged and at worst defiled by the conversation. It’s a feeling similar to that experienced when one is in the presence of people with serious mental illness. There is also within me a lingering feeling of being aghast, aghast that certain people actually equate holiness with the ability to string together bible verses and quotations from theologians. I am also aghast when I remember that I once carried on in this fashion. I confess this with the sincere terror of this mindset ever dropping down on me again in my lifetime. It is a killing thing. It makes one almost unable to have an honest conversation. I remember this mindset all too well.
I sometimes wonder how the cloistered monks and nuns would react if set upon by a sincere and chirping Christian determined to make a big impression. I suspect the silence and solitude of the monastery’s halls would be especially sweet in the aftermath.
It really is possible to live something of a semi-monastic life in one’s own home. The trick is to be able to endure the assaults against the spirit and the senses when one is forced to walk out into the vulgar world for job, for groceries, for essential errands. When one is slapped frequently enough, one learns to flinch.
Oh, for the day when there will be no flinching.
~ S.K. Orr