We who choose to surround ourselves
with lives even more temporary than our
own, live within a fragile circle;
easily and often breached.

Unable to accept its awful gaps,
we would still live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only
certain immortality, never fully
understanding the necessary plan....

--- Irving Townsend
"The Once Again Prince"

Farewell, Master, yet not farewell. 
Where I go, ye, too, shall dwell. 
I am gone before your face. 
A moment's time, a little space. 
When ye come where I have stepped, 
Ye will wonder why ye wept.


-- "After Death" 
by Edwin Arnold

The water bowl sits

untended;   unneeded in

the too-quiet house. 

A Dog on his Master

As young as I look,


I am growing older faster than he,


seven to one 
is the ratio

they tend to say.

Whatever the number,


I will pass him one day

and take the lead


the way I do on our walks in the woods.

And if this ever manages

to cross his mind,


it would be the sweetest 
shadow

I have ever cast on snow or grass. 

-- Billy Collins

Poet Laureate of the United States, 2001-2003

I was reading through some poetry about dogs' passings tonight, and ran across this Rudyard Kipling poem. I am not always a fan of his militant Christianity, but the line "I smile through my tears on this first day alone" did me in (it's my first day).  Here is the poem: 

A Dog for Jesus


(Where dogs go when they die)



I wish someone had given Jesus a dog.


As loyal and loving as mine.


To sleep by His manger and gaze in His eyes


And adore Him for being divine.



As our Lord grew to manhood His faithful dog,


Would have followed Him all through the day.


While He preached to the crowds and made the sick well


And knelt in the garden to pray.


It is sad to remember that Christ went away.


To face death alone and apart.


With no tender dog following close behind,


To comfort its Master's Heart.


And when Jesus rose on that Easter morn,


How happy He would have been,


As His dog kissed His hand and barked it's delight,


For The One who died for all men.



Well, the Lord has a dog now, I just sent Him mine,


The old pal so dear to me.


And I smile through my tears on this first day alone,


Knowing they're in eternity.


Day after day, the whole day through,


Wherever my road inclined,


Four feet said, "Wait, I'm coming with you!"


And trotted along behind.



Rudyard Kipling

Xena, 1997-2012

Xena
March 2, 1997 - June 4, 2012
Best. Dog. Ever.

Three years

It has been three years since I posted on this here blog. My reasons for abandoning my scribblings have been various. I took on a new job, one which raised my visibility in certain small corners of the political world, with the perceived danger that my ramblings would be mistaken for official policy. I had other outlets for expressing my opinions, including a Facebook page on which I amassed a considerable coterie of "friends" and, for a while, a radio show. I had less time to write this kind of writing.

The passing of Christopher Hitchens, however, has woken me from my slumber, however briefly. I met him in, I think, 2007 when he was on his book tour for "god Is Not Great." He engaged in a genial debate with Marvin Olasky, inventor of the phrase "compassionate conservativism" and a former Bush apparatchik. I say "genial" because Olasky's advocacy of the proposition "religion does more good than bad" was so tepid as to make me wonder whether he believed his own bullshit. I suspect he feared - knew - that were he to attempt an actual defense of the role of religion in Bush Administration debacles like pregnancy crisis centers, the war in Iraq, and other "faith-based initiatives," he would be eviscerated by Hitchens, who bantered good-naturedly with Olasky and moderator Evan Smith, but exuded a leonine alertness for opportunities to advance the thesis of his book's subtitle: "Religion Poisons Everything."

After the 'debate,' he signed books and chatted up the crowd. When I told him that I'd been a monk for ten years but was now somewhere between agnosticism and atheism, he was genuinely curious and spent about five minutes in conversation with me. I suspect he had many such conversations on his book tour.

Here's something else: when I was keeping this journal before, my goal was to be widely read. I hoped to publish ideas that were interesting enough, and frequently enough, that I would gain a readership. Now, I feel a little differently. The desire to write has been focused inward: to let me tell myself my own story. As I grow older, I find myself looking backwards more, wanting to recount the moments that formed me, wanting to tell the story of my life.

More on that soon. For now, I mourn the passing of a great intellect and fantastic writer.