January’s poem

I used to post poetry during my first year or two of blogging. I’d like to try again. However, I don’t know very many poems; I might exhaust my supply after a few entries.

This month’s selection is by Matt Berry of Toast of London.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

All men somehow pay for love
While this world turns under stars above
It’s unfair how fingers point and blame
Now I hang my head in fear and shame

Who am I to cast a stone?
I’ve enough dark demons of my own
Just a pawn in a very complex game
Now I hang my head in fear and shame

How I hang my head in fear and shame
Yes, I hang my head in fear and shame

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I think it’s very moving.

Jasper and Ziva sing: “Now we hang our heads in fur and shame.”

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A philosophic bonus: “The Genesis of Shame.”

The funeral, etc.

On Friday, Karin & I rode to Kansas City in Martin’s & Mary’s car, arriving with them in time for the “viewing” ceremony. Grandpa looked very peaceful in his casket. He’d been laid out in one of his comfortable flannel shirts. I talked to many people, including a guy named Ryan with whom I’d gone to high school in Missouri in 1996. A member of the armed forces, he’d traveled virtually everywhere; he had much to tell me about Antarctica. Later, I introduced Karin to my grandma, but only briefly because everyone wanted to speak to her.

Afterward, I ate at a Waffle House, which I hadn’t been able to do since 2010. Then Karin & I spent the night in a well-wisher’s basement. M&M shared a hotel room with Ana & David and were attacked by bedbugs. Edoarda & Stephen, who’d used that room the previous night, also suffered bug bites.

The funeral itself was held the next day. Three hundred people attended (or so I estimate). I and the other grandsons bore the casket. I was reunited with Amber, a schoolmate from Ecuador who’s now a missionary to Papua New Guinea. Later, an old farmer from Duluth, Minnesota, questioned me about my dissertation. One woman learned that I’d studied philosophy and then asked if I believed in God.

On the whole, it was a grueling day.

The next morning, Karin & I got back into the car with M&M and rode back to South Bend, where we discovered that Jasper and Ziva had broken into their plastic container of treats and eaten the lot. The kitties were but little harmed: their treats aren’t very calorific. Jasper actually looks thinner now.

Today, some undetonated pipe bombs were found at a busy intersection near my favorite Vietnamese restaurant.

R.I.P. Grandpa

My grandpa – my mother’s father – died in his sleep yesterday, in Kansas City, Missouri. He was ninety-five. Many of his relations, who are scattered around the globe, will join my grandma at the funeral. Karin & I will travel to Kansas City on Friday.

My grandpa was known to U.S. evangelicals for discovering the bodies of the five slain “Operation Auca” missionaries. The “Operation Auca” story has been told by Elisabeth Elliot in Through Gates of Splendor and other books; in Steve Saint’s book End of the Spear, and in the movie of the same title; in the documentary Beyond the Gates of Splendor, for which my grandpa was interviewed; and in my grandparents’ 2010 book, Unmarked Memories: Five Friends Buried in the Jungle of Ecuador. Many people also read my grandparents’ earlier book, Mission to the Headhunters: How God’s Forgiveness Transformed Tribal Enemies (1961; revised edition, 2002), which recounts their first years among the Shuar people.

My grandparents lived in Ecuador for thirty-seven years and then retired to the Missouri countryside. They helped out with various ministerial projects, traveling often. At home, my grandpa farmed pine and fir trees and beef cattle. I used to lend him a hand – bitterly, against my will. My grandpa didn’t understand why this teenaged grandson was so sullen. He enjoyed working with other people; he was naturally chatty and upbeat; as my other grandfather describes him, he was as confident as a person could be without turning downright cocky. Recreationally, he liked to fish … and to work (but I’ve already mentioned that) … and to be around other people who were fishing or working. He would attend a tractor auction for the fun of it.

He also could be very witty – even when he suffered from dementia (I describe this in a blog entry written during my last visit to him). A plain man, he enjoyed deftly pricking the balloons of pretense.

Here is a picture of him that I found on the Internet. With one hand, he holds his Bible, and with the other he greets a Christian of a warmer clime.

A local homicide; a visit to the Episcopalians

On Thursday night, a 17-year-old girl was shot to death about a block from our apartment, on a stretch of road along which I routinely walk to IUSB. Karin & I were outside the neighborhood when the homicide occurred. The victim was driving when she was shot, and she crashed into a house. (No one else was hurt.)

Here is a very sad news report about it.

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This morning, Karin & I visited the Episcopal church attended by one of Karin’s work colleagues.

I don’t think I’ll ever join a “high” church. For one thing – and this is something I’ve never enjoyed in any of the “high” congregations I’ve visited – it was exhausting and tedious to read, read, and read, vocally and in unison with others, from the church bulletin. For another, the communicants all drank out of the same chalice. Karin was amused and exasperated by how strongly that put me off.

I liked other things, though. The sermon, or homily, was about reorienting one’s life according to God’s will. I thought it very good, though its connection to the scripture – Jonah ch. 3, vv. 1–5 and 10 (the verses appointed for the third Sunday after Epiphany) – was rather tenuous. Also, I liked how the churchgoers greeted me with friendliness. “Peace be with you,” they would say. “Thanks,” I’d reply. “Peace be with you,” they’d say again. “Yes,” I’d reply again, “thank you very much.”

My son

I’ll tutor one more student tomorrow, and then the first week of tutoring will have been completed. So far, everything’s gone smoothly. I’m especially glad for new rules that simplify the emailing of tutees. (I used to waste hours every week trying to schedule meetings with a couple of deadbeats.)

This afternoon, one of my old tutees brought me a copy of the book that she and I had gone through together during the fall: Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. It was a lovely gesture.

She also told me that her husband had given her $50 to gamble in South Bend’s new casino, and that she’d won $300.

That’s great, I said.

Yes, she said, and I had the good sense to leave the casino while I still had $200.

Well, that’s still a nice haul. So your net gain was $150 once you returned the initial $50 to your husband?

It was $200, she said. I didn’t tell him I won anything.

I thought that was pretty good.

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Yesterday was the anniversary of Jasper’s adoption. He’s lived with Karin for three years. In a sense, I, too, have been his parent for three years: I was with Karin in the pet shelter when she chose him.

To celebrate Jasper’s adoption, we’ll give some tuna to both of the kitties. However, since it’ll be a celebration of Jasper, we won’t interfere if he tries to steal tuna from little Ziva.

(Actually, we probably will interfere.)

Here is my son:

And here he is with his sister:

Iterations

Karin & I hosted a dinner party last night. The guests were Karin’s grandpa, Karin’s mom, and Brianna. We had to spray Jasper with water to keep him away from the food. Even shy little Ziva came out of hiding a few times, and we had to spray her, too.

We discussed the Vikings’ dramatic playoff victory, which, in solidarity with Karin’s stepdad, we all had witnessed. (Here are some rather lengthy highlights, as well as the game’s winning play and the same play from a field-level perspective.) Later in the evening, Karin’s mom told me that “buffalo” is a verb. To buffalo is to baffle. Researching this, I learned that grammatical sentences of n words can be formed simply by saying buffalo out loud n times, for any cardinal number n; and that the writing of such sentences requires minimal punctuating. Here are a few examples:

“Buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing.

“Buffalo buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing to buffaloes.

“Buffalo buffalo,” which states that buffaloes do buffaloing.

“Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” which states that buffaloes do buffaloing to buffaloes.

“Buffalo buffalo buffalo,” which states that Buffalo’s buffaloes do buffaloing.

“Buffalo Buffalo buffalo,” a command to do buffaloing to Buffalo’s buffaloes.

And so on.

I stayed out of bed until one o’clock forming longer and longer sentences from iterations of buffalo. Then I lay awake in bed until three o’clock. This morning, bleary-eyed, I went to my first regular tutoring shift of the new semester.

We cleaned the apartment

Two days ago, the temperature was near 60°F. Then, yesterday, it was back down into the teens. Melted water refroze, and new snow blanketed the ice.

Today’s weather was equally cold and snowy.

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Karin hosted a baby shower for one of her friends. Two guests showed up. Not to worry: this friend is having approximately six baby showers.

The important news is that, at last, our living room, kitchen, and bathroom are utterly cleaned and decorated. They’re in the condition that we envisioned when we first moved into this apartment. If we stay another year, we might even have enough time to fix up the guest bedroom.

Lord Chesterfield

It was above freezing this afternoon.

Tomorrow: high of 46°F.

Thursday: high of 54°F, and rain to flush away the slush.

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Last summer, a fellow tutor lent me his Norton Reader (12th ed.). Since then, I’ve hardly read any of it. I had no incentive to return the book to him – he wasn’t around in the fall – but now that he’s back, I’ve been hurrying to get through the selections that interest me. So far, the best item has been this letter by Lord Chesterfield to his illegitimate son. (I’m reproducing the version posted by Project Gutenberg.)

London, October 16, O.S. 1747

Dear Boy:

The art of pleasing is a very necessary one to possess; but a very difficult one to acquire. It can hardly be reduced to rules; and your own good sense and observation will teach you more of it than I can. Do as you would be done by, is the surest method that I know of pleasing. Observe carefully what pleases you in others, and probably the same thing in you will please others. If you are pleased with the complaisance and attention of others to your humors, your tastes, or your weaknesses, depend upon it the same complaisance and attention, on your part to theirs, will equally please them. Take the tone of the company that you are in, and do not pretend to give it; be serious, gay, or even trifling, as you find the present humor of the company; this is an attention due from every individual to the majority. Do not tell stories in company; there is nothing more tedious and disagreeable; if by chance you know a very short story, and exceedingly applicable to the present subject of conversation, tell it in as few words as possible; and even then, throw out that you do not love to tell stories; but that the shortness of it tempted you. Of all things, banish the egotism out of your conversation, and never think of entertaining people with your own personal concerns, or private affairs; though they are interesting to you, they are tedious and impertinent to everybody else; besides that, one cannot keep one’s own private affairs too secret. Whatever you think your own excellencies may be, do not affectedly display them in company; nor labor, as many people do, to give that turn to the conversation, which may supply you with an opportunity of exhibiting them. If they are real, they will infallibly be discovered, without your pointing them out yourself, and with much more advantage. Never maintain an argument with heat and clamor, though you think or know yourself to be in the right: but give your opinion modestly and coolly, which is the only way to convince; and, if that does not do, try to change the conversation, by saying, with good humor, “We shall hardly convince one another, nor is it necessary that we should, so let us talk of something else.”

Remember that there is a local propriety to be observed in all companies; and that what is extremely proper in one company, may be, and often is, highly improper in another.

The jokes, the ‘bonmots,’ the little adventures, which may do very well in one company, will seem flat and tedious, when related in another. The particular characters, the habits, the cant of one company, may give merit to a word, or a gesture, which would have none at all if divested of those accidental circumstances. Here people very commonly err; and fond of something that has entertained them in one company, and in certain circumstances, repeat it with emphasis in another, where it is either insipid, or, it may be, offensive, by being ill-timed or misplaced. Nay, they often do it with this silly preamble; “I will tell you an excellent thing”; or, “I will tell you the best thing in the world.” This raises expectations, which, when absolutely disappointed, make the relater of this excellent thing look, very deservedly, like a fool.

If you would particularly gain the affection and friendship of particular people, whether men or women, endeavor to find out the predominant excellency, if they have one, and their prevailing weakness, which everybody has; and do justice to the one, and something more than justice to the other. Men have various objects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel; and, though they love to hear justice done to them, where they know that they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel, and yet are doubtful whether they do or not. As, for example, Cardinal Richelieu, who was undoubtedly the ablest statesman of his time, or perhaps of any other, had the idle vanity of being thought the best poet too; he envied the great Corneille his reputation, and ordered a criticism to be written upon the “Cid.” Those, therefore, who flattered skillfully, said little to him of his abilities in state affairs, or at least but ‘en passant,’ and as it might naturally occur. But the incense which they gave him, the smoke of which they knew would turn his head in their favor, was as a ‘bel esprit’ and a poet. Why? Because he was sure of one excellency, and distrustful as to the other. You will easily discover every man’s prevailing vanity, by observing his favorite topic of conversation; for every man talks most of what he has most a mind to be thought to excel in. Touch him but there, and you touch him to the quick. The late Sir Robert Walpole (who was certainly an able man) was little open to flattery upon that head; for he was in no doubt himself about it; but his prevailing weakness was, to be thought to have a polite and happy turn to gallantry; of which he had undoubtedly less than any man living: it was his favorite and frequent subject of conversation: which proved, to those who had any penetration, that it was his prevailing weakness. And they applied to it with success.

Women have, in general, but one object, which is their beauty; upon which, scarce any flattery is too gross for them to swallow. Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person; if her face is so shocking, that she must in some degree, be conscious of it, her figure and her air, she trusts, make ample amends for it. If her figure is deformed, her face, she thinks, counterbalances it. If they are both bad, she comforts herself that she has graces; a certain manner; a ‘je ne sais quoi,’ still more engaging than beauty. This truth is evident, from the studied and elaborate dress of the ugliest women in the world. An undoubted, uncontested, conscious beauty, is of all women, the least sensible of flattery upon that head; she knows that it is her due, and is therefore obliged to nobody for giving it her. She must be flattered upon her understanding; which, though she may possibly not doubt of herself, yet she suspects that men may distrust.

Do not mistake me, and think that I mean to recommend to you abject and criminal flattery: no; flatter nobody’s vices or crimes: on the contrary, abhor and discourage them. But there is no living in the world without a complaisant indulgence for people’s weaknesses, and innocent, though ridiculous vanities. If a man has a mind to be thought wiser, and a woman handsomer than they really are, their error is a comfortable one to themselves, and an innocent one with regard to other people; and I would rather make them my friends, by indulging them in it, than my enemies, by endeavoring (and that to no purpose) to undeceive them.

There are little attentions likewise, which are infinitely engaging, and which sensibly affect that degree of pride and self-love, which is inseparable from human nature; as they are unquestionable proofs of the regard and consideration which we have for the person to whom we pay them. As, for example, to observe the little habits, the likings, the antipathies, and the tastes of those whom we would gain; and then take care to provide them with the one, and to secure them from the other; giving them, genteelly, to understand, that you had observed that they liked such a dish, or such a room; for which reason you had prepared it: or, on the contrary, that having observed they had an aversion to such a dish, a dislike to such a person, etc., you had taken care to avoid presenting them. Such attention to such trifles flatters self-love much more than greater things, as it makes people think themselves almost the only objects of your thoughts and care.

These are some of the arcana necessary for your initiation in the great society of the world. I wish I had known them better at your age; I have paid the price of three-and-fifty years for them, and shall not grudge it, if you reap the advantage. Adieu.

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At the end of the selection, the Norton Reader gives the following prompts:

1. Chesterfield recommends to his son the rule “Do as you would be done by” (paragraph 1). What kind of behavior does Chesterfield suggest? How does his injunction differ from Jesus’ injunction “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them” (Matthew 7.12; see also Luke 6.31)?

2. Chesterfield does not recommend “abject and criminal flattery” of vices and crimes but rather “complaisant indulgence for people’s weaknesses, and innocent, though ridiculous vanities” (paragraph 8). Make a short list of what you consider vices and crimes and another of what you consider weaknesses and vanities. Be prepared to defend your distinctions.

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The selection is in the part of the Norton Reader called “Ethics.” It’s shockingly amoral, but no more so than the very next selection, Mark Twain’s “Advice to Youth.” Newer editions seem to have dropped it and kept the inferior selections.

A weekend diary

Friday evening

IU South Bend’s new school term is due to begin next week. I’ll welcome this change. I’ve gotten tired of staying at home.

Today I was in job training at IU for nearly seven hours, and it felt downright refreshing (though I’d dreaded it).

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Saturday morning

The high temperature today is 15°F. That is, 15 on the plus-side. It no longer feels unbearable to leave the house.

Saturday afternoon

Having left the house for two minutes, I retract what I previously wrote. The temperature is lousy. Also, I’m perturbed by how very long and sharp the icicles are that dangle, like Swords of Damocles, from the awnings of our housing complex.

Karin has come home from her job (she works half of each Saturday) and gone straight to bed, sick.

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Saturday evening

Karin slept all afternoon. Then she felt slightly better. We performed some errands and now Karin is doing the bookkeeping for our church (she’s the treasurer). I’m watching an NFL playoff game.

The kitties are little sweeties. Jasper lets me pick him up and carry him around the house. He sits on my lap while I watch the game.

Are you very manly? I ask Jasper.

Chirp, chirp, he says.

Earlier this afternoon, Ziva lay in bed with me. She insisted that I hold up my left forearm, and then she burrowed herself into its crook.

The kitties have found my stash of groomsman neckties. They drag them around the house.

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Sunday, early hours

I’m reading Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer. Karin continues to work on the bookkeeping. For background noise, she plays a TV show called Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., whose characters are from the “universe” of the Marvel comics.

Which universe is that? I ask. Ironman’s universe?

Yes, says Karin.

And ScarJo’s?

Sure.

And Harry Potter’s?

No, says Karin. You pip.

The cold

Today’s was a record low temperature in South Bend (−15°F). When it’s like this, what else is there to write about?

I left the apartment for three minutes to take the trash out to the dumpster. My mustaches froze.

On the map, it looks as if Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio are the coldest of the contiguous states. Minnesota and North Dakota are ten degrees warmer than South Bend. So is Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. What’s the point of not applying for teaching jobs in the beautiful Upper Peninsula, if this is how South Bend’s weather is going to be?

This morning, before I got out of bed, I made two important philosophic breakthroughs.