This Journal
9.12 Does Anybody Like Sunday?

Pretty nice this morning, but as the afternoon came on it got kind of rainy. After Mass with Jay and Dom and Dom's relatives, I straightened out some stuff in The Closet, particularly that long poem (because somebody read it yesterday and I'd been meaning to make it more legible, easier on the eyes, so now it is, I think, but maybe a bit too late). Then I decided to hang a picture I don't like very much anymore. And I got around to school work, catching up on that pile of paper and the stack of response journals, which force me to recognize the needful work ahead with these students. I filled out some progress reports that are due on Tuesday, but I'll need to collect and check all the other freshman journals tomorrow. I sat down and read a bit in a good book. I put on the earphones and listened to Steve Earle, thinking I might not get to run again today - or should I do it in the rain? I thought about what I might have to say here.

About Steve Earle. I never paid much attention beyond reading a bit about how he pulled back from drugs and revived his career. I'd never really listened until a few months ago when I heard "Telephone Road" coming over XRT. A few weeks ago I bought the album (El Corazon) simply on the merits of that one song. The merits? I lived a little ways off Telephone Road for nine years, though I frequented different establishments than those mentioned in the song. It's a kick to have a song about a place you know. Last night Steve showed up on David Byrne's show "Sessions", and he talked a bit about what he believes, which is congruent with stuff I believe. (I'd forgotten that he was responsible for a fine song called "Ellis Unit One", from the viewpoint of a guy who works on death row.) So now I'll be looking for more of his work, which has tapped into the roots.

Anyway. I was thinking about the gospel this morning. I remembered Jesus and Jay saying we had to forgive seventy times seven times lest our spirits and lives be poisoned. And I think I can do that, it almost seems too easy, which makes me wonder whether I'm really doing it at all. There are a very very few people whom I perceive as having hurt me at some point. I say in my mind that I forgive them, but I would still feel ill at ease in their presence. Yet, what difference does it make if I don't have to see them every day or hardly ever at all? It's easy to let go of all the crap at a distance (or easy to pretend to). I can just let it go, as if it were some unpleasantness between strangers on a bus. Why should I care that a stranger does not think well of me? Plenty of people who know me think I'm just fine.

So these are rainy day thoughts, I guess. And what about that Smartypants quote down below? When I came upon it the other day, it felt like a perfect fit. Probably because I have done such things to avoid embarassment. This is a human trait. I've done much in my life simply for that reason. What is embarassment? It flows from that which causes us to feel ashamed, less than who we want ourselves to be. We fear the other will not think enough of us to acknowledge us, so we take ourselves away. This is a shy person's regular strategy, who puts so much power into other hands - hands that probably do not really know or care. It's one of the lessons from that great, insipid play The Glass Menagerie (which, thank you, I do not have to teach this year).

You might have noticed a new link down below. Chronic Relations is already known to some as a messageboard, a spot for anyone to sound off and possibly receive some response. I thought I'd link it to This Journal to make it easier for a reader to respond to something I said or to share a tale of his/her own day. You see, I am eager to do what I can to make your stay in The Closet as comfortable as possible... a symptom of my sometimes compulsive need to please.

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