The Publican & the Pharisee at the Hospital

I heard it come from a nearby hospital room as I sat at the nurse’s station writing a note.  It was a man’s voice that was a little gruff saying “Well, are you saved?  ‘Cause I am.”

It piqued my curiosity enough that I got up and casually walked by the room to see what was going on.  The man who asked the question and made the assertion about his salvation looked to be in his sixties.  He wore a baseball cap, hands on hips, and was standing over the other man who looked frail and weak sitting in a chair in a flimsy hospital gown, probably in his seventies or older.

The imbalance of power in what I was observing upset me.  My impression was that the confident man was visiting someone that he did not know well.  Maybe for him it was a perceived good deed or a felt obligation or simply an opportunity to air his ego.

What I did not hear was love.  What I did not see was humility.  It reminded me too much of the self-righteous hypocrisy I’d seen growing up in a small town.  We were the “saved” confronting the “sinners” because they needed something we had.  A something not informed on any deep spiritual level, but an idea in our heads and a false confidence sustained by the liberal use of denial.

It suddenly felt like I was witnessing a reenactment of the parable of The Publican and the Pharisee where the haughty one stands in front of the temple thanking God he is “not like this Publican” and the humble one stays hidden in the shadows imploring God “have mercy on me, a sinner.”

***

Origin of “Lenin Lurking”

“Lenin Lurking” was one of the first stories I wrote in my early 40’s when I’d decided that writing was on my bucket list.  I was really pleased with it and like many of my stories before or since the idea was triggered by a photo.  The photograph was posted on flickr.com by a man named “Sergey Mustafin” and was taken in a former Soviet-controlled country where someone had removed a statue of Lenin and kind of hidden it away in an alley nook (whether to obscure it or preserve it, I do not know).

I was intrigued to say the least.  Because of the shadow he almost looked real, peering out malevolently, like someone who might want to waylay you for thinking the wrong thoughts.  It was this image of Lenin as a kind of shadowy shade roaming the streets of Moscow that put the story in my head.  And what might that be like with the Soviet Union so recently toppled?  I’d been reading about the explosive growth of churches and monasteries being built and/or revitalized throughout Russia after the fall.  It was like Lenin’s work was unraveling at a rapid pace as Russia was waking up from an 80 year nightmare.

And then there’s the introduction of St. Tikhon of Moscow into the story (his name was “Vasily Ivanovich” prior to taking monastic vows) .  He had been a thorn in Lenin’s atheist-side and when he died his body was hidden away from the Communists to prevent it from being desecrated.  And while St. Tikhon’s body lay in some unknown location, Lenin’s body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum on Red Square for the masses to venerate in a kind of bizarre mockery of the Orthodox tradition of venerating the saints whose remains are often-times found to be incorrupt.

In the early 90’s while the Soviet Union was in full free fall the main church of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow caught on fire.  What appeared to be a tragic event turned providential when a secret crypt was discovered in the clean up process which contained the incorrupt remains of St. Tikhon hidden away for the past 70 years!

In 1998 I was in Moscow and a Russian friend took me to the Donskoy Monastery to visit and venerate the relics of St. Tikhon.  He is referred to as “Enlightener of North America” due to his missionary efforts here prior to being elevated to being the Patriarch of Moscow (and by extension all of Russia).  His icon sits in the far left of the iconostasis here at our little parish in Columbus, Ohio.  When we arrived at the wooden gates they were shutting them as the monastery was closing for the evening.  My friend begged the young monk to allow us in briefly but was politely turned away.  I felt dejected at that the moment, but in writing this short story 15 years later I was able to not only get into the monastery, but encountered St. Tikhon himself by way of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin!  

 

for love and art

 

Sitting on the front porch

on a Saturday morning 

reading Gene Wilder’s 

“kiss me like a stranger - 

my search for love and art”.

It is peaceful with only the 

occasional jogger passing by 

or a dog walker on the sidewalk. 

Cicadas play their tymbals

as a breeze rustles the pages.

When I look up from the book

I catch glimpses of honey bees

on the flowering hostas and 

then a humming bird arrives

to flit to and fro.

A bright red cardinal is 

interested in our front bushes,

darting in and out, providing 

a brilliant flash of color 

to an otherwise green scene.

It is a waypoint in the search

for love and art:

to take a picture

to write a poem

and find solace in so doing.

***

Charlie’s Angels vs. King Kong

 

Yes, that’s me in the photograph, probably around 12 years of age.  I was one of the shortest kids in my class and that didn’t change until high school.  The thing that sticks out to me in this photo posted by a childhood friend on Facebook is not the copper-rimmed glasses with miraculous PhotoGray lenses tinted brown or the the red-and-white striped sweatband, but that “Charlie’s Angels” t-shirt.  It’s the original trio from the popular TV show that ran through the late 70’s and early 80’s: Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jaclyn Smith.  

My favorite was Jaclyn Smith who in the opening credits would make a swirly-turn in a white bathing suit with one of those floppy 70’s style beach hats that she coquettishly plops onto her head.  It was an accelerant to my tween hormonal changes, like gas on a fire (an appropriate metaphor considering my propensity for pyromania at that time).  

I liked the other two as well, don’t get me wrong.  Kate reminded me of the teen girl who lived across the street and Farrah, well, Farrah was Farrah-of-the-Hair.  I ran into her at Santa Claus Land so to speak.  We were there with my church youth group.  I’d just gotten beat at tic-tac-toe by a chicken when I spied the ring toss booth with posters as prizes.  There was a King Kong movie poster where he is standing astride the two buildings of the World Trade Center (very cool, but sad in retrospect) and right next to that one was the iconic Farrah Fawcett poster in her red one-piece bathing suit and the aforementioned hair.

I confidently slung the rings and won a poster, but the question was: which one?  It was a battle between my upper parts and my lower parts.  King Kong was huge, ferocious, and the perfect embodiment of suppressed tween rage.  But there were those hormones circulating through my body and having an undue influence on my developing brain.  It was unfair, really, and I made the fated choice of the Farrah poster.  

When it was time to leave I found my mother and tried to hold the rolled up poster as unobtrusively as possible.  She must have sensed something odd in my behavior and asked to see the poster.  I reluctantly unrolled it and her eyes got bigger and bigger as the full image came into view.  Even then, on some level, I thought I had run an endgame around her because I had the poster and there was no undoing that.  That illusion was quickly dispelled when she marched me back to the ring toss booth and demanded they exchange the poster and how dare they give such a thing to a child!  It was not the first nor would it be the last time my mother would force me into a mortifying situation (maybe stories for another time).

So King Kong came home with me on a poster and somehow at some point I came into the possession of the Charlie’s Angels shirt seen in the photo above, though I have absolutely no recollection of where or how I got it.  And as I’m now writing this I remember I have a photo of me holding my pet rat and wearing a white t-shirt also with green trim around the collar and sleeves that bears the exact same King Kong movie image that was on that poster.  I believe it was a hand-me-down from my cousin (some odd juxtapositions are pinging around in my head right now).

And while I am swimming in these particular waters I have to dive just a bit deeper to when I was in elementary school.  We had a small barn in our backyard that had a playhouse under the roof accessed by a trap door.  My sister was two years older than me and in junior high.  She had two friends in the neighborhood who liked to play “Charlie’s Angels”.  They somehow roped me  into playing the role of both Bosley and “Charlie”.  In the TV show Charlie is never seen.  He communicates with his “angels” to give them their mission through a speaker which is supposed to add an element of intrigue.  So, I would come up with missions for them and climb up into the playhouse where we had a cassette recorder.  I tried to sound like Charlie as I recorded the message, “Hello Angels…” and then rewind it so they could return and push *play* in order to hear Charlie tell them what to do next while I stood by as Bosley.

Over the years I lost track of all three women until about 20 years ago when I saw a news story about Farrah.  She was gaining some notoriety by making paintings created from spreading paint all over her body and then rolling around on white canvas.  And then about 10 years after that I learned of her developing anal cancer and making a documentary about it with the hope of being able to film herself beating it.  It was a fight that she was unable to win.

Radiant Beings

 

I believe that those who suffer most in this life will be the most radiant beings in the world to come.  It simply follows from the assertion in holy writ that “God is love”, don’t you think?  The Christian symbol sine qua non is the Cross, is it not?

If that is not the case I would feel compelled to start my own religion to make it so for the sake of my own fractured consciousness and melancholy nature.  I’m sure I could find at least a follower or two.  Will you join me?  I need help.

Maybe it is a cult, though that word obviously carries a lot of negative baggage.  I am not a particularly effective leader or charismatic personality.  It might have to develop into a cult-by-committee once I’ve got it off the ground.  

But now that I’m thinking it out I’ll probably just stay within my current faith community and continue to believe that those who suffer most in this life will be the most radiant beings in the world to come, basking even now in their pre-glory.

***

The Dark Lighthouse

 

An orangish yellow glow plays on the back of the waves as he emerges from the dark water under a moonless sky.  The soft wet sand pushes up between his toes and sucks at his soles.  He is putting one foot in front of the other to escape the tide while the ocean tries to reclaim him with every return of its waters.  He stops at the edge of the surf where the line of water simply laps around his ankles as he looks up and down the beach unsure of where he is.

A flash of distant lightning brightens the sky to his front but to his back there is only a palpable darkness and undulating waters.  A second flash of lightning briefly reveals the silhouette of a lighthouse sitting just inside the tree line in front of him.  A thread of wind winds around his bare body looking for entrance and sends a violent shiver down his spine.  He does not know where he is, what he is, or why he is, but he *is* and therefore moves forward.

The near complete darkness makes navigating difficult as he moves over the sand in the perceived direction of the lighthouse, though numberless steps do not appear to get him any closer to the tree line.  He fears he has somehow got turned to the side and is heading down the beach.  Another flash of lightning reveals the dark tower looming overhead and blotting out the night sky.  In two long strides he finds seagrass and then dead foliage underfoot.

With two strides more he is touching the lighthouse having somehow slipped through the trees unimpeded.   His hand flattens on the curved brick surface to walk at arm’s length around its base and seek entrance, but once again the number of steps implies an impossibility of size or distance and he doubts his organs of perception.  Returning to the water seems more vexing than maintaining contact with the tower at his fingertips and so he trudges stubbornly on…

until stairs are eventually found leading up to a tall black door.  As he stands at the door contemplating entry a rain begins to fall and he instinctively steps through the doorway to avoid it.  The sound of wind and water that accompanied him up the beach immediately ceases, replaced by a distant thrum that makes him look upwards.  There is darkness here as well but it is of a different quality and high above he senses rather than sees a faint flickering light.

And he ascends one step at a time in a slow upward spiral that spins into days and then weeks and maybe even months but there is no progress as far as he can tell.  At a moment of despair he notices the faint flickering light is suddenly less faint and he stops to wait and see what it will do.  The light bounces through the railings and metal-webbed steps creating moving geometric patterns on the wall.  It is hypnotic and possibly terrifying.

The lights and shadows on the wall chase each other in circles, one swallowing the other as their relative sizes ebb and flow.  He sits and watches the spectacle.  The shadows appear to have the advantage but almost imperceptibly the light grows and the shadows begin to flee and consolidate further above and further below.  The sound of a boot hitting the platform above his head startles him.  He looks up to see a man descending with a swinging lantern.

The man is wearing a faded grey suit and rounded hat with short front brim.  His eyes are hidden in shadow, the lantern swinging at knee height, a hoary beard absorbing its light.  When he notices the man sitting below he stops and raises the lantern.  “Who goes there?”  No reply.  A groan reverberates above them and draws the attention of the keeper.  He looks down once again, locks eyes with the naked man, “You cannot be here!” and blows out the lantern.

The darkness is now complete.  He feels to be a disembodied soul or even a pre-soul existing outside of existence.  He forces himself to rise to a standing position but then stumbles and falls over the railing head first into an abyss, hearing the muffled thrumming like his mother’s heart beat.  And awakens coughing and sputtering in the wake of waves pulling him to shore while the sun breaks the horizon and skips its fire across the water.

***

A New Light

 

When life is normal we ply well worn tracks 

of self-deception and comfort in the lie of

who we think we are over and against who

others are in relation to this false-self.  The

alternative is seeing one’s self in the un-

varnished truth, with all the pretty and ugly

parts mixed together like a fruit-meat salad.

But when normal life is taken from us a great

gift has been bestowed, an opportunity to 

finally get to the end of ourselves and look

on in horror and fascination at who we truly

are.  It is an opportunity to begin the painful

process of healing the hurts, opening the eyes

of the soul, and to see the world in a new light.

***

The Sea Turtle

 

She must find the sea

having left her burdens 

on the beach

latent lives

buried in the sand

with great effort

a cycle

repeating endlessly

like the tide

and I, as witness,

must do my best

to honor it

with a persistence

towards selflessness

and grace.

***