Spleen—Political

I confess to not listening to the president's speech Monday night, nor to the replies from the Republican leadership. The summaries on the web were depressing enough. The two parties deserve each other, and, sadly, I'm not sure our perishing republic deserves any better.

It embarrasses me to admit I'm a Republican; it has for the last twenty years, ever since the debacle of the Clinton impeachment (no love lost for him, by the way, though he does look better and better in the wake of his successors). As for the Democrats . . .

We have spawned a political class that has little in common with us. Our elected legislators and our often unelected government minders are distinguished, not by party or principle, but by which trough they and their clienteles like to feed at. Some prefer the mash that keeps an unlikely coalition of unions, academics, and investment bankers fed; others dine with factory farmers, defense contractors, smokers of Atlas Shrugged, and talk-radio nitwits. No matter—there's always been plenty to go around, and if there isn't much today, the blue pigs and the red pigs can fight over who gets to devour the scraps.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Okay, okay . . . I broke my promise. So sue me. No more talk: From now on, only action!

By Way of Introduction

I am a Secular Franciscan, a lay person who tries to live the Gospel according to the example of St. Francis of Assisi. (And who, in my case, does a rather poor job of it.) The name I use here is that of the Seraphic Doctor, St. Bonaventure, who, in addition to his teaching and writing, served as the Minister General of the Friars Minor and is regarded as their second founder.

Poverty, inner and outer, is the special charism of the Franciscans. Our founder is known as the Poverello, the Little Poor Man, the troubadour of his beloved Lady Poverty, his brothers are the Friars Minor, the lesser brothers. Disputes about the living out of the poverty he willed for his followers threatened for a long time to destroy the order, and finally resulted in its division.

All this is by way of background for a series of reflections prompted by the resistance to thinning out my library I've documented below. Over the course of the next week or two, in addition to the usual japery, I'm going to be exploring detachment, attachment, and the meaning of poverty in the life of a fairly self-centered, comfortably middle-class American, who, in spite of all that, calls himself a Christian.

Nailed

My dear wife took up the challenge of my May 25th post here. Since then, four bags of books have found their way to the Strand, another box has taken up residence behind the loveseat, the blockade in the bedroom has been dispersed, and a hundred and fifty CDs have found a more space-efficient home in binders. These cheering signs of progress, alas, have not quite dispersed the wifely thunderclouds: the two bedroom bookcases that are particularly neuralgic are still there, though somewhat less laden, and the other thousand or so CDs still await jewel case–free homes. (It's amazing how much those suckers weigh, even with the CDs and booklets removed).

Still, progress is progress, and given the emotional cost to yours truly, might perhaps be greeted with more enthusiasm.

Getting the Lead Out

Did I say I was going to blog more regularly? Well, this is better than once every couple of years. I'll post Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—at least. I promise.

Spring cleaning

My wife is a devotee of clean surfaces. Clutter distracts her, unsettles her, and makes her grumpy. Alas for her, she married a man who is both a pack rat and a stacker. I rarely throw anything out if I can think of the least excuse to save it, and view any available surface as a resource waiting to accommodate books, papers, and CDs.

Right now I'm in the midst of a Grand Dislocation: the spousal foot has come down, and come down hard, on all my iniquities: stacks, piles, clumps, and, of course, heaps have to go. Heart-wrenching decisions have to be made, and salty tears spot the covers of books read, reread, and unread, the accumulation of forty-five years.

Piled up (what else?) in front of the living-room wall of bookcases, they testify to spiritual pilgrimages (most of the Anglican books and some of the Orthodox books are going, while most of the Catholic books stay), jobs held (the publishing business is a bibliomaniac's paradise), enthusiasms of years gone by (the Buddhist books are almost all there), and self-imposed courses of study that never got past the intro phase (What can I say? I really did mean to learn Chinese.)

Still 0n the shelves is the evidence of lifelong obsessions: Mormonism (a particular source of uxorial unrest), esoterica Western and Eastern, Hasidism and Kabbalah. And there are still-growing collections I race against time to master, as if purgatory were a comprehensive exam: philosophy (Will I ever get through Fichte and on to Schelling and Hegel?), with the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin occupying a shelf and a half; theology, Barth and Balthasar in the lead; and biblical studies, Von Rad and Bultmann and Childs and a yard of unread commentaries; the case full of poetry. I'm fast running out of strategies to keep them hidden from wifely eyes. Double shelving? Of course. Closets? Just about full. Apartment living has its limitations.

For the unsentimental, ebooks beckon—like music, they occupy no space—but not for me; the pixel will never replace the page. The feel, the smell, the weight of a book are beyond the capacities of Kindle, iPad, or Nook. (Though if you want to give me one of those—especially the iPad—I wouldn't object.) So DW and I will continue our marriage-long struggle, the minimalist aesthetic of the Ryoanji temple versus the joyous prodigality of the Strand Bookstore. And I'm afraid I know who'll win in the end.

A Note from Underground

Well, it's been a long time—a year and a half, more or less
—since I last posted here. I won't try to tell you what's happened since then. Suffice it to say that the time has been eventful.

Now I have more time to post, more tranquility to think, and a real desire to write. The purpose remains much the same: to share what I'm reading, what's on my mind (often the same), and, I can only pray, a useful observation or two. Keep watching this space!