As The Deer

“and I said you can shirk all things and he said Ah can you”---Faulkner

As The Deer

My pillow lies over on the empty side where Kara used to sleep. I stretch to pull it toward me, noticing the fan unplugged in my peripheral. I sigh. The multiplication of little things unhinges a man. Silence multiplied by stray pillows multiplied by unplugged fans is equal to… nothing but the arbitrary combination of words. Every explanation, every story amounts to nothing but the arbitrary combination of words.

How long have you slept with a fan Kara asked. Since I was fifteen, I said, when my dad’s salary dropped after becoming a pastor and we moved to Florida in a smaller house where I had to sleep in the garage for a summer. I still sleep with it in Pennsylvania, I said noticing her look, because I am too used to the sound of the hum. Then she asked whether the rhythm of her breathing would be enough to replace it and I said I hoped so.

The fan plug lies on the floor behind a leather chair on the empty side. I roll out of bed to go plug it in. The feat of rolling out of bed is the same as in, only reversed. Like when Jesus rolled the stone away, only reversed. That there is a grave at all is a miracle let alone the resurrection; all of it an accident of consciousness. Jesus is an accident of consciousness, an attempted therapeutic amalgamation of words that’s no more therapeutic than anything else.

The clock reads 11:50 on the bureau a few feet off the foot of the bed. Six months at 11:52. He stared at his at his watch, reaching for the sheet with his right hand while starting at the watch on his left. We were shivering from the cold but Kara was not. Then he looked up from his watch to say to the driver. 11:51, the clock clicks another minute as I walk by the foot of the bed to go plug in the fan. I knew what he was doing when he started at his watch.

Before the ceremony my father said of marriage that it amounts to a commitment to the annihilation of selfishness. She was a nurse at St. Mary’s and already had that advantage on me. That’s why she drove us to and from breakfast, because she knew that’s what I needed. Doubting Thomas she said do you need to see Jesus’ hands and feet? What evidence do you need? She chewed her waffle. Her eyes. What do you need, she said. I need to sleep before class tomorrow I said we should go, and she said she’s driving. Kara was tired when we drove for home and so was I, but she didn’t work till second shift and I had classes.

My gait gradually lowers like in those evolution pictures where amoeba changes into man, only reversed. Now crawling to reach the outlet. The decline of being concomitant with the incline of amoebas. Stuck on a memory; stuck on the arbitrary combination of words. Keep still, I said; don’t talk. Keep your eyes open. Wait. Wait. Keep your eyes open. Her wide eyes. Her lashes, she used to wink; her wide eyes watched the world. The carpet curves around my knees, my hands leave tracks like deer tracks.

My fingers trace the boarders of the mattress over Kara. Just think I said about how Jesus would hesitate to wash those uglies, and she said ugly feet are better than hairy feet. She wiggled her toes. She smiled. I trace her legs and her back, ivory and smooth and sensitive. I trace around her ear, her hair, blond and wavy when its wet.

But nothing but the sheets and Kara’s smell on the sheets. Cotton blossom she called it. Called it. Past tense active indicative. Words.

Professor Davies says that we wear the Holy Spirit like a Halloween costume. People and people like him have these habits of saying what they do not know they mean. A Ghost somehow inside us and in us and with us. Prepositions. Words. Sometimes the fan blows under the sheets lifting them body-like above the mattress, and I am haunted by the space Kara used to fill. Comfort that was beside me and across me. Cotton blossom comforting me. Yet still we call Him Comforter. Professor Davies also says that as the deer panteth after the water so his soul panteth after God. How can one drink on God and hope to be sated when he is thirsty only for his wife of two short years? More words. Professor Davies drinks what he calls life, and thinks he is filled when all he is, is distracted with words.

Because ever since that night I have believed that life and death are siblings not strangers, the offspring of that accident of consciousness we call hope. Among other accidents. I cannot shake unbelief, I said. She smiled her nurse’s smile. Let’s go get breakfast since we’ll be up talking anyway. Her eyes. I have class tomorrow I said I need to sleep, but she whisked back the sheets, and I smiled and turned off the fan, grabbing the keys off the nightstand.

As the deer panteth across the road, so my soul after You.

I do no heal bodies, I heal despair she said sipping her orange juice. Patients press the nurse’s button, and I must be as ready for death as for turning the sheets. And there really is no difference between the two; death is just as much a practical matter in the end as anything else. Ask the elderly dripping into their bed pans or signing their last will and testament.

She paused and drew a circle in the syrup with her fork, smiling. Hope like waffles must come in increments, she teased, must be commensurate with the appetite, be it a hope for clean sheets or salvation from God. And whether you choose to hope or believe in it or just desire it doesn’t matter so long as you have it, a bite at a time. And even if it is an illusion then it is a pleasant fantasy because it is sweeter than the alternative. And I asked what she thinks is the alternative and she said an empty stomach.

My head is propped against the chair, the fan in my peripheral. I can hear my hair scraping against the leather through my skull while stabbing for the outlet. I can hear the heater too, vibrating, breathing. The plug goes in and the fan is already switched on, pointing in the wrong direction toward me on the floor. I know because I can feel the air; and I can hear it and had heard it before and would keep hearing it. And I remember anew the white noise and the unmeaning. It blows fresh against my face, like the feel of her breathing while she kissed, only not. Kara breathed heavily and with a pitch in her voice.

She shouldn’t have turned the wheel. The headlights cracked and windshield and my ribs. She shouldn’t have turned the wheel. As the deer panteth across the road, so my soul after You.

I do not have the luxury of bricks or birds where the wind and the weathering don’t because they can’t. The fan and the white noise and the unmeaning. But I have class tomorrow I said, and she smiled, so I smiled. Words, words, words. Unmeaning doesn’t mean unmeaning. It can’t; I can’t.

I push myself off the carpet, smelling to see if she’s still in the sheets. One should never stick their necks out for giraffes, I kidded, and she laughed, her wide eyes and the orange juice everywhere. The waitress got a good tip. Nighttime breakfast and the waitress poured her more orange juice. The wind and the weathering and the waitress got a good tip. Keep your eyes open, I said. Wait. Wait.

The clock reads 11:52. I stand up, the fan breathing, and scud back around the bed, tracing the border of the mattress with my finger. Her wide eyes and that dip in her neck, that cotton blossom dip, in the valley of the collar bone, the valley of the shadow of death. And her breasts and waist, ivory and smooth and sensitive. Then her legs and feet.

She’s not breathing, he said, and I mumbled words I do not remember. Time of death, he said, 11:52. I do not remember what I said, and it would not matter if I did. The fan and the white noise, and I call it silence not her breathing, and I call it the unmeaning and the hum of the fan as if that’s not a meaning. And I, bending over, retrograde, smell her in the sheets again like in the evolution pictures, only reversed. Stuck on a memory, stuck on the arbitrary combination of words.

She stopped laughing about the orange juice. The antlers nicked the mirror on my side. Her wide eyes. Don’t turn the wheel. Headlights. It tipped. The sound like crackling fire. It rolled, and only I was there. She was there and then she was not. The sound like crackling fire, like splintering wood. The windshield and my ribs. Powder from the airbag. My ribs. It rolled again.

The sheets are cold, so I make friction with my hand and slip back in. Then the fan isn’t blowing on my face so I turn it toward me, and the sheets feel cold again. I pull the covers over my head, forgetting and not forgetting to turn the lamp off, forgetting and not forgetting about the light. She’s not breathing, he said.

The windshield was not there, and she was not there. I crawled out on my elbows, my shoes scrapping against the glass and pavement, like the crunch of walking over acorns during autumn, only not. I looked back into the jeep, then looked at my hands, and back into the jeep. She was not there. I tried to stand, pulling myself up by the door handle.

Then came the pause and the drop and the ineffable. She lay on her back on the ground some 20 yards away, heaving, her waist wrapped around a tree. I ran, autumn beneath my feet. A man stepped out of his car watching me run. I fell on my knees next to her. My ribs, and I pulled her toward me. The orange juice stained my shirt and the blood stained the orange juice. Keep still, I said; don’t talk. Keep your eyes open. Wait. Wait. Keep your eyes open.

Words, words, hollow words. Silence is a sound the second you say it. And it was silent when she went limp and I say it, and it is silent now in the white noise of the fan and I say it. The banality of words. The banality of the dead. The banality of that goddamn deer. The drama banal par excellence. Therapy is Lethe or death or her alive. Not prayer, not Jesus. It is not even therapeutic to say there is no therapy. Just words. From an is to a was, a thou to a that. Calling it languor doesn’t accustom you to the fan.

The covers are over my head, but the light still sneaks through. I remember the lamp. Me trying to sleep in the darkness, but the light always shining through. The little things unhinge a man, like stray pillows or unplugged fans or kindled lights. I pull the covers back squinting in from the brightness, and stretch to pull the lamp chain. It slips a bit so I shift further over to get a good grip and tug.

It is dark now; I close my eyes. But even now I see. Somehow my eyes always have patterns, though less so than when in the light. How can I see colors on the back of my eyelids when there is no light? What am I seeing if not light?

Of the Aged and Aristocratic

If you were to say that old people love me, you would be understating the point. Old people coddle me, adore me, wink at, joke on, hug, and talk to me as if I am simultaneously their only grandchild and best friend. It has something to do with my silent charm, I think. It might have something to do with the fact that I listen to them--something I find easy I might add. Old people are as a rule quirky because old people as a rule no longer give a damn. Who doesn’t find that interesting?

This week in particular sent me into the circles of the aged and the aristocratic. I had my usual chit-chat with Henry, an 87 year old Upenn Professor emeritus of psychology, on Thursday. But instead of the normal hour and only Henry, we spoke for almost three hours alongside Tony, an 85 year old sociologist. A psychologist, a sociologist, and a philosopher walk into a bar... And in a way, it was a joke. Here sit three men talking metaphysics, abortion, and lets not forget about (as Henry put it) “the seriousness of jokes.” It’s fun being the religious youth of the group.

Last night continued the trend. I had dinner and a show with Betty, Mo, Bill, and my grandparents. I ate crab cakes, they were the show. Mo, I think, is the youngest—somewhere in his early sixties—the rest are in their seventies. We ate at Ludwigs, a restaurant both as pretentious and delicious as it sounds. Once again I am the only youth present. The first half of the night consisted of me listening to their stories—ones I’m certain had been repeated amongst themselves at least 5 times. The second half of the night consisted of them listening to me blather on about the history of philosophy, the current sentimental state of my generation, and the psychology of love.

The difference between these two sets of people is undoubtedly drastic. Henry and Tony are raving atheists while the other bunch are raving Christian fundamentalists. (No one can tell me my life is uninteresting.) And I have no pithy remark to make concerning the violence of this juxtaposition. I just wanted to recount the week.

I might add though that I’m used to the feeling of violent juxtapositions. Age/youth, educated/uneducated, wealth/poverty, religious/non-religious. A friend of mine in Penn's classics Ph.d program told me last week, “My parents said I could be either the president or a basketball player or a lawyer, and it all just makes me want to curl up and work at Starbucks till I’m dead.” I repeated the sentiment in different terms last night to Mo and my grandparents, “everything is available,” I said, “and we don’t know what’s worth owning; everything is knowable, and we don’t know what to believe; any identity is possible, and we don’t know who we are.”

Whether illusory or no, our grandparent's generation could at least feel they had an object toward which they aimed. Whether atheist or Christian (or whatever), they have their definitives and absolutes. And sitting there listening made me re-realize the attractiveness of that sentiment, that modern sort of comfortability with the world.

On Meetings With Old Men

Every Thursday at 2:30 I meet with former professor emeritus of psychology at Upenn Henry Gleitman. We discuss, well, really most anything, but have both shown a particular interest in ‘religious experience.’ Henry is a pleasant old man, clearly sophisticated, but not pretentious by any means. You might say that he, at 87, knows himself very well, and is content with his talents and weaknesses. He is, as he put it, “a staunch agnostic,” unbending in his conviction concerning the explanatory power of empirical science. Clearly, he's comfortable among the modern materialists, though thankfully not a sentimentalist like so many during his time.

I liked him immediately after meeting him. Agnostics tend to be my favorite brand of people. They have a similar temperament to my own, never taking one particular idea more seriously than another. Once you’ve read enough, been exposed to the world, as it were, academic hero worship vanishes, as does the sensation arising from a new and possibly true philosophy. All philosophies are possibly true to the agnostic, and he feels it.

It’s interesting, I think, that Henry and I have such similar psychological propensities considering we fall into two very different camps of agnosticism. When after only just meeting him he said, “moral ambiguities, despair, the inevitability of death: you know, the usual things,” I knew I had found a comrade. “Yes, the usual things,” I thought. He is 87, myself 25, yet both of us have concluded not only that hope and absurdity lie at the essence of human experience as important issues, but that they are “the usual things.” There’s a kind of indifference toward the whole procedure of internal dialects once you’ve gone through them enough. A kind of ‘worn out-ness’ on the cyclical nature of what is probably unknowable, in the epistemological sense anyway.

To say with this in mind that I have lived on the fringe of Christian belief over the past 3 years would be a dramatic oversimplification. I have not and will not commit the intellectual fallacy of assuming that because most Christians I have known have a certain bland naivety—even the most intelligent among them—concerning despair (and all it entails) that Christianity is false. Christianity, whether true or false, at the very least functions therapeutically to remove that despair, and perhaps the very possibility for that despair; that function is of its essence. (Of course, no worldview, not even that of Absurdism—however hard it tries—,can successfully avoid the narrative of hope. It may change the object of hope and thus the character (and value) of hope, but not the impulse to hope). That most people are naïve about this aspect of their own psychology, and theology, does not sully the truth or falseness of those beliefs. It does not even remotely suggest sullying. Totemism is not false because its adherents are too emotionally attached to a giant stick in the ground. It is false probably if for no other reason than worshiping giant sticks as opposed to Omni-attributed Beings is silly. I thus reject the popular sentiment that because normal Christians are naïve that the creeds of Christianity are naïve. In any case, who could accuse Dostoevsky or Kierkegaard of being naïve? Yet they certainly believed.

The questions up here in the stratosphere of being are, in my view, the most significant of the bunch. Those down to earth quibs over the minutia of some theological point, over types of baptism or denominational differences, even of heaven and hell, I leave to the experts. What concerns me and what has always concerned me is a Christianity which leaves none of the data out, now matter how upsetting, and yet, somehow, by some roads—familiar or foreign—demonstrates itself to be at the very least tenable.

Why I Shouldn't Watch Youtube Videos

I can’t help but comment on the sheer volume of responses to the recent video, “Why I Hate Religion, but Love Jesus.” And I have to start with an obvious point made by Chesterton all those years ago that a thing is not all the more serious for being taken seriously. The videographer—Jefferson his name—certainly has good intentions. He demands that a distinction be made between possessing a personal relationship with Jesus and adhering to a series of dogmas reducible to the name ‘religion.’ The video is little else besides the old Evangelical obsession with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as the element sui generis—God coming down to man—distinguishing Christianity from all other religious systems. The truth, of course, is that all religions claim to have the element sui generis which stands over and against other religious systems. His brand of Christianity is not all the more unique for claiming to be unique; it is only unique if it is right.

That’s not to say that I think he is wrong; nor is it to say that I think he is right. I’m unconcerned at present with the truth of his assertions. What interests me is that we’re talking about this guy’s claims at all. I have watched the video several times bemused and befuddled not at what he means but that so many people are interested in what he means.

Of course, I have two disadvantages. The first is that I have been overly exposed to the vocabulary of Evangelicalism. I find most of it empty of content and the rest worn out from overuse. The other, I confess, is that I get all snooty when the word “poetry” is used loosely. Sorry, but the guy is as much a poet as I am a pillow-case.

But I think when I boil it down, I am mostly frustrated with the quality of our public discourse. Why is there a giant kerfuffle over this particular video, over what is so obviously a semantic quib, over whether the belief in and personal relationship with Jesus is a religious statement? I understand the need to help justify one’s claims with a corresponding sentiment; what I don’t understand is why we’re doing quasi-religious theory in order to generate that sentiment. Why are so many so desperate to correct a small, insignificant error--if it is an error at all? I do not reject the importance of the answer, i reject the importance of the question. If he is right, so be it. If he is not....so what?

It is symptomatic, I think, of an Evangelical tendency to neglect good thinking. To put it less delicately, many people talk most adamantly concerning issues they do not understand. And the best indication that someone does not understand is that they get disproportionately emotional about it. The first markers of bad arguing are overreactions and oversimplifications. In this case, Jefferson is oversimplifying the Jesus/religion dichotomy, and everyone else is overreacting to his oversimplification. The reality of the situation is that he deserves a pat on the head for his efforts, and everyone else deserves a disapproving glance for taking him too seriously. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yet it is this general neglect of sensible discourse, this penchant for all things trite, which does more than irritate me. It worries me. It proves conclusively, I’m afraid, the failure of our church education to inculcate not mere doctrine, but quality of dispute. Really, it is the failure to educate Evangelicals in the principle of epistemological humility. Whatever happened to, “be wise as serpents but gentle as doves”?

The truth is that whatever else Christianity must be over the next century, it must not be this simple minded if it is to fit the needs of a dissonant American people. It must be able to harbor in one bay the multifaceted consciousnesses of millions whose internal lives are infinitely more complex than their forbearers. People used to live in a village, or a city, or, if they were truly experienced, a country. They used to do what they were told and get along. But we, dear friends, live in the world, and the world is fairy-land without the fairies. We have returned to Canaan, and the gods tempt us on all sides. Jesus conquered Olympus, I grant, but he has not yet conquered Absurdism (perhaps his most formidable and long-standing opponent), or the Eastern religions, or tribalism, etc. Baal greets us with smile at the click of a button or the purchase of cheap plane ticket. We will know, and already do know, Philistines whose actions don’t seem all that philistine. Idols are everywhere, and the people who flock to or fight against our Christianity will not be of one mind. This is America for heaven’s sake. This is the world. We had better get used to the idea of being wrong, as well as the idea that others might be right. We must learn the distinction between theory and dogma, and which must be defended (to the death) and when. We must gain that maturity which chooses which battles to indulge and which to ignore. It seems altogether obvious to me that Jefferson’s video does not deserve the attention it has received. It is thoughtful enough for a youth camp; it is not thoughtful enough to be treated as theology.

Bedtime: a short story

Bedtime

My pants fell to the floor, and I slid into bed. The covers were getting cold just like the beginning of last winter, and my pillow had traveled over to other side where she used to be. It was stuck underneath a sheet. I yanked it, and looking I noticed the fan unplugged. The little things annoy, like a dripping faucet or a bug bite or a fan unplugged. I turned over, and my boxers rolled up underneath my thigh as I rewound my motion, getting out of bed to go plug it in. The same motion of getting in only reversed. Like me now, the same height of passion only reversed. The outlet lay behind a leather chair, just out of arms reach, on the empty side where she used to be, like all things, just out of arms reach. They were unbunched now, and I walked slowly around the bed, lowering my gate till I began a crawl like in those evolution pictures where ameba changes into man, only reversed. Crawling to reach the outlet. The night was silent, and so were my words. Like all words, they crawled. Like me, my words crawled.

Keep still, I said; don’t talk. Keep your eyes open. Wait. Wait. Keep your eyes open. Her wide eyes took in the world. Her wide eyes watched the world. I crawled like my words toward the outlet. The carpet curved around my knees, my hands leaving tracks like deer tracks. Silence is a sound the second you say it. And it was silent when she went limp, and I say it, and she is still limp, and it is silent now and I say it. Just therapy. Just words. Unmeaning doesn’t mean unmeaning. It can’t; I can’t. I do not have the luxury of bricks or birds. Because I can see the stars fall from her eyes. I watched Orion tumble from his perch; I watched the big dipper droop and fall. She shouldn’t have turned the wheel. The headlights cracked and windshield and my ribs. She shouldn’t have turned the wheel.

I had changed the thermostat ten minutes ago, and finally heard the heater vibrating to life through the walls. The outlet was far away and I stabbed at it. The fan was already switched to on, pointing in the wrong direction. I knew because I could feel the air toward me on the floor and I remembered anew the white noise and the unmeaning. It blew fresh against my face, like the feel of her breathing while she kissed only not. She breathed heavily and with a pitch in her voice. The fan too has a pitch, only not. I pushed myself off the carpet, smelling her leftovers on the sheets. She’s not breathing, he said, and I mumbled words I do not remember. I do not remember what I said, and I can’t hear her sleeping, even though she’s sleeping. The fan and the white noise, and I call it silence, not her breathing, and I call it the unmeaning and the hum of the fan, as if that’s not a meaning. And I, bending over, retrograde, smelled her on the sheets again like in the evolution pictures.

I stood up, my shoulders slummed, and scudded back around the bed. The covers were still cold, so I made friction with my hand on the sheet and slipped back in. One should never stick their necks out for giraffes, I joked, and she laughed, her wide eyes and the orange juice everywhere. The waitress got a good tip. The unmeaning of the white noise and her breathing while she kissed. Nighttime breakfast and the waitress poured her more orange juice. She snorted, and could barely say I am cute, so she said it with her eyes, and I saw Orion’s tumble, and the waitress got a good tip. Keep your eyes open. I said. Wait. Wait. Then the fan wasn’t blowing on my face so I turned it toward me, and the covers felt cold again. I pulled them over my head forgetting and not forgetting to turn the lamp off.

Just therapy. Just words. She’s not breathing, he said. The orange juice stained my shirt and the blood stained the orange juice. I heard the ribs crack as he pumped her breast; him touching my breasts and it was ok and it was not ok. Her breasts not breathing. Him touching my breasts. My breast cracking at hers cracking. I said Wait. Wait. all selfish. And when she was limp and the stars were gone I knew my sin. She couldn’t talk, her eyes were afraid, and I knew my sin.

Words. Words. Words. She couldn’t talk and I have nothing to say. As if the story of the thing makes the thing more bearable. As if saying that the story isn’t therapeutic isn’t just a story wanting what’s therapeutic, and us learning another meaning ad infinitum. The banality of words. The banality of the dead. The banality of that goddman deer. The drama banal par excellence. Therapy is Lethe or death or her alive. Not God, not distraction. It is not even therapeutic to say there is no therapy. Just words. And yet we say them and feel the therapy. But we have only dominated with words, words, words. An infusion of meaning into the mundane, as if saying it is mundane isn’t just a substitute meaning. As if saying we don’t need any aid isn’t an attempt at some kind of aid. As if the revolt against the unmeaning isn’t grasping for meaning, and the rejection of hope doesn’t hope for something. We are hope. We are meaning so long as we are human. And it does not matter whether it is true, it does not matter what is true if truth is unmeaning. It is. I am. She was. Calling it languor doesn’t accustom you to the fan.

She used to pull the covers over my head because she knew I sleep like that. But the light still gets through, and even though they were over my head now the light still sneaked through. I remembered the lamp. The little things annoy, like a dripping faucet or a fan unplugged or a lamp still turned on. Me trying to sleep in the darkness, but the light always shining through. I whisked the covers back and stretch to pull the lamp chain. It slipped a bit, so I shifted further over to get a good grip and tugged. It was dark now, and I closed my eyes. They always have patterns, though less so in the light. How can I see colors when there is no light on the back of my eyelids? What am I seeing if not light?