Secrets of a Loud Shout

How do we ask You

For the strength to be so still

As a tree of life?

 

As Blessed Mother,

Docile as the garden earth

To the husbandman.

 

Look at us spinning;

Gazing on Your blessed Cross,

My heart is dizzy.

 

Seeking knowledge so

Serves to remind me only

Love pierces the veil.

 

Hidden in Your wounds,

But it is hidden from me,

How did You find me?

 

Bread of Life came down,

Assumed my fragile nature,

Died my very death.

 

Live my hidden life!

Give me Jesus what You will,

You whose will is love!

---

August 2020 (#2)

Title is based on Ignatius to the Ephesians 19.1.

Read more "Secrets of a Loud Shout"

The Rational Shrimp (PART 2) (2020 dream)

I was up late the night of the day I awoke a shrimp to the use of human reason. To get my mind off things, I decided to go to school for anthropology.

 

        Four years later I was spelunking the recently unveiled Mayan caves in the forests of Guatemala and Yucatan. They were tunnels of amber-colored rock which seemed to go on forever, winding up and down, side to side. The tunnels weren’t quite as human-shaped like I remembered in the documentaries I'd watched with my friend, where the pathway interestingly had a little extra space for the head and shoulders; they were more like the shape of an eye, which is also like the meeting place of a Ven Diagram turned sideways. In fact, the floor and ceiling were so smooth they were almost polished, as if by water. There was a long way to go, so we went fast, almost running, up and down, side to side. I spelunked those caves, let me tell you; I spelunked them all the way to Australia.

 

        In Australia, my research team and I stood on a very bare, light-colored beach on a bright, sunny day. I had almost forgotten about the team; they, a man and a woman, were always behind me to my right and left, even though I was the youngest member and not the leader. We were there to survey the wildlife, looking out for anything unusual. But before getting started, I stared off into the ocean horizon. It was peaceful, the only sound coming from the long gentle waves. I almost forgot why I was here. Eventually, I noticed that the team was talking about a creature that washed up in front of my feet.

 

        My eyes took a few moments to adjust to what I was seeing. We gazed with the same stillness as I had over the water. Their comments and questions were no interruption to the gentle pace of the waves, searching for words and not finding them. "Look at that..." "How about that..." "What is that?..." "Could it be a...?" "It might be a..." Least of all did I know how to feel about it. I felt many feelings. It was eerie and fascinating, but at the moment it was as if I hardly reacted.

 

      It was a crustacean; that much seemed obvious. If I had to narrow it down to one creature which I know exists, my first thought would have been a lobster. But that can’t be all; its face was much too human. But it wasn’t a human face. It was as if the shell over the face of the crustacean had been reshaped to have just the essential proportions and features—blurred together as they were—of a human face, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, but without it awkwardly jutting off from its body. It had a pinkish shell over most of its body, but the face was almost white. What expression did it have? Or, did it have an expression, really? It was, after all, just shell over the flesh of its face, wasn’t it? Was it simply a blank, motionless face, or had some shock moved it to this frozen stupor? The creature was completely still, my body was still, even my eyes were still upon the creature, but the image would not stay quite still on my mind. It shifted, my mind toyed with it, it danced; it shifted color, it became transparent, it lost color; it dimmed, it brightened. Once I think it moved like a typewriter: click, click, click, ding! Shhhhoonk! There was no drama about it; sometimes I forgot I was looking at it and thinking about it while it was before my eyes. The face also slightly reminded me of a cat’s face, probably owing to its meeting somewhere between that of a man and a crustacean. But its body was more like the size and proportions of a fat housecat. That crustacean was so fat and meaty, the ridges of its shell-segments were all pressed and flattened together. Many of its features confused me about just where it fit in the animal kingdom, but in the final analysis, its legs and crust declared its station.

 

        The more I looked, the less my mind cared to know what it was doing. I don’t remember what happened between here and our return to the eye-shaped cave tunnels, but that was our next destination, home. I trusted one of the more senior team-members had either taken the creature or whatever samples or pictures were necessary. We were rushing even more quickly this time, I suppose because it was getting late, but it didn’t seem entirely necessary. It isn’t as if we depended on sunlight in here. Come to think of it, I’m not sure where our dim light was coming from in there, but the team was always behind me, pushing me on. Apparently, we took a different tunnel back, because we were just going up and up and up. Why didn’t we take this way on the way over?

Read more "The Rational Shrimp (PART 2) (2020 dream)"

On My Way Out from the Town Wall's Gate

On my way out from the town wall's gate,

The welcomest words draw my ears on—

What my angel never fails to say—

From heaven to heaven to God:

Truth springs forth because I listen;

Not because I wish to speak.

"Thank You, Lord, for this Your good lesson

To write down for all those who seek."

But it was an angel I addressed,

Who stands between this fiery gate,

Who requires my heart be put to the test

That no untimely word may escape.

In so much zeal to give a lesson,

I took and I dropped it all too fast.

Kindled as quick by the heart's sweet confession,

Longing for His voice, free again I passed.

Here the air rang my ears with, Good news!

And with cheer I sprung 'round to tell all,

To find myself, as every time I do,

Face to face with the guard of the wall.

---

June 2020

Read more "On My Way Out from the Town Wall's Gate"

The Rational Shrimp (PART 1) (2016 dream)

In the winter of twenty-sixteen

    One the oddest things happened to me;

On a break of a rare sunny day,

    Parked my feet in the lot 'hind Ocean State,

    Where the semi-trucks take their tea.

    It was unusually warm for February, so I took a walk through Peterborough, my mind feeling restful, passing behind the department store, when by an inspiration I pulled out my notebook. I wrote the thought which came to me, a maxim about the relationship between man and the animals. This topic was much on my mind those days and I had undergone unexpected, even reluctant shifts in worldview. But I cannot remember what I wrote in my notes for two reasons. First, because I wrote it in Italian, but I don't know Italian. Second, because after reading it once over, the words disappeared from the paper. 

~

    Walking around in my hometown, Dublin (not Ireland), I tried to clear my head.—But wait! I wasn't done telling my first story. Back to that:

~

    Now inspirations have a life of their own, but this was something else! Where did it go? It—the thought, not the words—went across the planet, into the mind of one pacific ocean shrimp who lived where no man has ever been. I learned this when a thought was sent back my way, saying, "Oh my God! You have made me realize what I could never have thought, and you are a very wise man! I will be your servant and you will be my master!"

    Uhhh-oh. . . . Oh no. . . . What can be done? How will he cope? If one abstract thought, of any kind, was actually forced into a shrimp, was actually understood, then it couldn't help but create with it in him the whole faculty of reason, implying with it a cascade of concepts previously inaccessible. How would he relate to his own kind? This is now, properly speaking, a person, all alone. What could be done? Nothing, but to make it worse. So I walked away, most ill at ease.

~

    Walking up the hill from behind the Dublin town hall, I ran into a friend. He was big and boisterous. I needed to get this off my chest, so I told him what had happened with the shrimp. Well, he thought it was hilarious! 

    "Yesssss!" he burst in laughter. "You are awesome! Haha! Oh, that's so great!"

    "Uh, well, I don't know," I mumbled. "I don't know that that should have happened."

    To my relief we dropped the subject and kept walking in the direction of my parents' old house. We ran into two friends of ours, two girls who joined us for the walk. Hardly had we said hello when my boisterous friend spilled the story, according to his condensed interpretation.

    "Hey, check it out, check it out! He declared his superiority to a shrimp and the shrimp declared its inferiority to him!"

    That wasn't how I explained it, but I didn't know how to explain it and didn't want any more conversation about this. The other two looked amused, though not nearly as much as him. I was worried they thought I was such a pitiful egomaniac that I looked for shrimp just to assert myself.

    "Yeah," I said, "it was really weird. I don't know why that happened, but I can't really do anything about it, so yeah. Uhm... But yeah." I didn't really have a way to conclude it. I just wanted the topic dropped.

    Thankfully, we dropped the subject for real this time. We continued walking a fair ways. About halfway to our old house, where Old Country Road joined Main Street, we stopped by the way where the woods opened out to a marsh about fifty feet wide. The sun was setting. I was quickly immersed in the beautiful view, as if I had been long meditating. It was soothing to the eye as pastels. I was momentarily relieved of what burdened my mind, but I quickly returned to the guilt of what I had done. Still, it was something of a rest, so I took it.

---

I dreamt a continuation of this dream years later. Part 2 will be posted later.

Read more "The Rational Shrimp (PART 1) (2016 dream)"