I see it has been a while and that little progress has taken place. But it is Maundy Thursday in Holy Week. Perhaps the most important report for such a week is to comment on the movie Risen, for the delightful thing about the movie is that it takes the reality of the resurrection seriously. Jesus really comes out of the tomb, appears in the upper room with the apostles, the disciples, and it should be said, with the Roman tribune Clavius, who like a detective is determined to get to the bottom of the resurrection story, and who bursts into that group. Imagine that! Which is what the movie does. Clavius has seen the face of the crucified, very dead Jesus when he was taken off the cross, and yet there the living Jesus is across the room laughing and having a good time presumably with his friends.
Also, there is a novel quite worth reading by a contemporary Russian Christian novelist, Eugene Vodolazkin, called Laurus. The heart of the novel also involves Pilgrimage, as the central figure makes his way through the medieval landscape and eventually to Jerusalem. I decided that if I am to see life as pilgrimage I had best read the novel again, and am thus on my second time through it. The book could very well serve as a hand book perhaps, or a kind of guide book.
"Do you not know that any journey harbors danger within itself? Any journey--and if you do not acknowledge this, then why move?" (297) The Orthodox Elder to the central character, Arseny, standing before the Empty Tomb in Jerusalem, sometime during the fifteenth century.
From March 24 to April 6: it feels as though I had fallen off the edge of the world. That may be the problem with Pilgrimages, one may fall off the edge of the world. Yet here I am, freshly awakened into a stormy world from a nap with my little dachshund, Simon. I was just about to pass out of consciousness when I heard him bark and felt his paws hit the side of the bed. Of course, as in the Tarot pack, the Fool of the major arcana must have his little dog with him, not at his feet this time but by his side. I got up and hauled him up. We napped. Having napped for an hour, we got up. Simon won't come to the side of the bed to have me lower him to the floor though until he gets a belly rub. The Fool always complies. Back to the journey.
4/7/16 Thursday. I rolled out of bed this morning bursting with ideas for this on-going entry, picking up the journey, so to speak, and moving on; but then I took my first set of pills and fell back to sleep. Simon had kept me company all that time, apparently, sleeping on the enormous doggie pillows on the other side of the bed. Real companionship that. The next time I awoke, I got up.
A real journey, that which we are all on, unless our minds have gone dead and we are no longer moving, in any sense whatsoever, involves coming into contact with other travelers. On March 6 (I wrote down the date since the contact that took place that night was memorable), Mary and I had just been dismissed from Mass at St. Clare's Catholic Church.
"Go forth, the Mass is ended, alleluia, alleluia.
Thanks be to God, alleluia, alleluia."
Mary was hungry for Famous Recipe fried chicken, one of her favorite eating places in Berea, and it is just down the highway and across the interstate. They have a nice barbecue chicken sandwich and good green beans. I agreed.
In the small restaurant we ordered our food and carried our trays into the small room off to the left of the small main dining area. The room was deserted and there was a space heater at the far end. Since the night was quite chilly yet, we sat in front of it, closely. After a bit one of the workers came in and turned the heat up for us. Cozy! I had eaten the green beans (one thing at a time) and was getting around to working on the barbecue sandwich, when I noticed that we had company. Another person, a little scruffy looking, had come into the room and was sitting at the other end, well, about two tables away. I had never seen a plate so heaped with food as his was. About that time Mary had decided to go back into the main room for more sauce, or something. Since she loves chicken and had to walk past the man's table, I called over, ever the wit, or fool, "Guard your food, my wife loves chicken!" He heard me say something, though he obviously hadn't heard what I said, or he simply chose to be curtious, but when Mary returned shortly thereafter, he got up from his table and came to ours. So goes the journey. He was a very large man. He pulled up a chair from the table behind us and sat down, arms resting on the back of the chair as he sat a straddle, close to us, very close to me, as a matter of fact, but friendly. In fact, now that I think about it, there was something rather reassuring in his manner. He didn't ask whether he could join us, he just joined us and that seemed right. We had never seen him before that moment, and yet there we were, best friends.