What if… in the heat of battle in the confusion of the thousands of men gathered at Gettysburg to do battle, with cannon roaring and balls snapping, and smoke and yells and screams, with troops and companies and battalions ready for command and orders, waiting for General Lee to signal them, with all the intricacies of timing and positioning, what if word came to General Lee that a young private in General Pickett’s command had sent word to the General that he, the young private could not find his ramrod? And what if General Lee stopped what he was doing, and went down and showed the young private exactly where to look so he could find his ramrod? No. Incredible. Not to be believed.

How does God, our Father in heaven, hear all my prayers? How does He hear mine when a million others are praying to Him at exactly that moment? And how does He take time out from running the universes and all His creating new universes and caring for all His children, and help me with something so small as finding my lost fountain pen? But He does. He has. I know.

I am so much the homunculus.

It has been two years since I got my zipper--the scar from navel to sternum that has little dot-scars all up and down on each side. Purple-red. Shiny. Still hurts. The patch inside still hurts when I bend over, or exert, or just lie down to go to sleep, on my side.

I remember recuperating, sitting day after day, at first in a lot of pain, but then taking a pill and having the pain diminish. And trying to read, but having a hard time concentrating. And listening to Gounod's Mors et Vita once a day. And Air, and a few times the German Requiem. And Mozart, and Bach's St Matthew Passion. And starting to feel the beginnings, the entrance, into depression. That's what I take it to be, what I started to feel. I can't even describe it. Looking out the window at the trees across the way, feeling that feeling that I cannot describe. But it was horror, for one thing. Petite, but horror. Controlled, squashed, but still, that feeling. Helpless.

Now I have compassion on those who have depression, if it is a "chemical" thing that their body is doing to them. Or even if it's because of their choices. But if it's because of their choices, I can say, "Toldja." And I do believe if it's choices, there's a quick way out. Change choices; or when the choices have caused depressioning consequences, pay the consequences, but also publicly confess and decry and move on.

So you see I am compassionate. I am. I really feel for those who have a chemical thing going on that they can't help. Somebody please help them.

Dona nobis pacem.

At Campbell College so many years ago, Dr Gass taught history with his wife. Well, he taught history, and his wife went everywhere he went, holding on to his elbow as if she were blind. She would walk into the classroom with him, let go of his arm, and go over to her seat at the front of the row next to the windows. She would sit there until class started, all the way through class, and until he put his papers back into his leather briefcase that was wider at the bottom and tight at the top, with a big strap that snapped on the front, and then she would stand up, loop her hand around his elbow, and out they would go, back to his office, or off to the bookstore, or to a different classroom. She never spoke a word--ever. She never looked at anything, really, she just moved her gaze around like a security camera goes back and forth. She never looked anybody in the eye, not even Dr Gass. She never made a grimace, nor a smile, nor any expression at all.
One day some students, who had observed that she was fastidious, or perhaps suffering from what today would be called OCD--obsessive/compulsive disorder--needing for things to be just so, moved the map stand (remember those? twenty or so maps on a wooden stand that you could flip over to the right one for the day?) just about two inches out of where it always stood. Dr and Mrs Gass came into the classroom, she detached from him and went to her seat, was halfway seated when she stopped in mid-motion, stood back up, went over to the map stand and moved it back to exactly where it had been for so many classes in a row--just so. The class laughed imperceptibly.
I heard that her children had perished in a house fire.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

What if the requirements to go to heaven were all mathematical? What if you had to know π from φ, and do square roots and all sorts of calculus and chemistry formulae and solve complex equations? I was not born to do that. It would be very hard. But I would try. And knowing the Lord as much—or as little—as I do, I know He would make us all a promise: that if we just put forth a little effort, just try until we are frustrated, and then try again, He would step in and increase our ability, and help us move up to the next step, with all that we were struggling with now made easy and accessible.

But it’s not math that’s required. It’s not the quantitative skills on the GRE that are essential; it’s the VERBAL. In principio erat Verbum. We must all read. Even if reading is not your thing, you must try. You must push beyond the frustration until you realize (i.e., make real) the promise that the Lord does indeed make to every one: that the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men –that’s us—save He shall prepare a way for them to accomplish it. That is, if He gives a commandment, He automatically makes it possible to do it. Not easy. Possible. He gives us the way, the power, to do what He just got through commanding us to do. “He that hath the scriptures, let him search them.” “Search these commandments, for they are true.” There. Those are commandments that He has just given us. So will He make a way for us to do it?

We are all commanded to pore over the scriptures, reading them and studying them. There’s no way around it. But at the same time that we are obliged to read the scriptures, God will help us do it. What if we are poor readers? What if that was not one of the gifts we received as we got our kit to come down here? What if we have struggled our whole life long with the Verbal side? With reading? Trust Him. He said He would prepare a way for you to accomplish the thing which He hath commanded you.

Start. Pick it up. Begin to read. He will help you. Perhaps just a tiny bit at first, and you will struggle and become frustrated, as He tests your faith and your trust. Will you trust Him, and keep on? Then He will reward you with more help, and more, and then you love picking up the scriptures and reading them. Because you can. Because He prepared the way.

John Canaday lived with his wife and daughter in a single-wide set into a hill of red dirt near the Cape Fear River, and John came to church alone. I went to visit him and saw the recliner where he sat each night after a hard day’s work as a mechanic specializing on Detroit diesels. Next to the recliner chair was a round table with a lamp built into it, coming up out of the middle of it, with a plastic lampshade made to look like stained glass, like a Tiffany. On the table there, next to his chair, spread around randomly, were comic books—his. And a paperback missionary copy of the Book of Mormon.

I asked if he read it. He said not a whole lot, because it was too hard, and he wasn’t all that good a reader. He was a little embarrassed by the comic books. He laughed and picked one up, and slapped it back down, saying that was his level.

I said to him, John, I said, if you will read a little bit in the Book of Mormon each night, it will get easier.

He began to carry his paperback Book of Mormon to church, and then he started bringing his priesthood manual. In priesthood meeting he began to accept a turn at reading a paragraph, instead of declining as before. After some time had passed, John would raise his hand in Sunday School class and tell something about what he had been reading recently. After a year, John was a proficient reader—not just the Book of Mormon, anything. Reading the Book of Mormon a little every night had led to greater reading ability; and with greater reading ability came more confidence and more involvement. He had put the principle into practice: read the scriptures, and God will help you read the scriptures. And everything else.

I was born with ability in the VERBAL column. I am woefully lacking in the QUANTITATIVE. I believe I have discalculus—the inability to compute, or even to grasp, mathematical thought. But I can read and understand. I’m not a fast reader, but I get it. I use a dictionary, and I like to learn and use words. I love to read and study and pore over the scriptures. I’m glad for the gift. I feel for those who struggle; but struggle they must. And though it’s easy for me to say, it is nevertheless true.

My confession:
These are not my pictures. They're M's. He took them in al-Anbar when he was at FOB Ramadi. The sandstorm and the moon over the desert, looking out from OP-2 (Forward Observation Post 2).
Now he's back. And things are OK.
I think.
I mean, how do you go and do that and come back the same? You don't. You don't even go to the beach for vacation and come back the same. Something has changed. But when you are walking through blood, trying to see if anyone is alive, and there are more parts than bodies, and you see blood splattered up the walls and bodies stacked up, and then one of the bodies moves his eyes, and you go get him and try to do everything you can for him, and you can't even speak his language, but you want to say to him something that will help him hang on to life, are you changed by any of that?
But you come back, and everything is good.
Except it takes a little while to slow down on the big roads, because you are used to going faster than the bad guys can pull the trigger on an IED; and you are frustrated because all traffic does not move to the side of the road when they see you coming up.
But you laugh and eat a lot and sleep a lot. And then you slowly get back to what it was you were trying to do before they called you up and sent you over.
Where are you now?
What's coming back now and popping into your head without you wanting it to?
Or are you actually OK? I mean, you can be.

Mea culpa
Mea Culpa
Mea maxima culpa

It has been several days, maybe weeks, since my last time...
But maybe that's because I have nothing to report that would be worthy of flagellation.

I have thought, though, of spending money on myself. Is that bad? It's my money, in a way, and ours in the other way. Which always wins. The secret to marriage is compromise. You say what you want, the wife says what she wants, then you do what she wants. That way you have each expressed your feelings, and she is happy.

The key to successful marriage is communication. The key to communication is conversation. The key to conversation is to listen enough that you catch the auditory cues for when to respond. Not necessarily a repartee, but an acknowledgment that you are listening. You need to learn to bifurcate your hearing, with the 60/40 rule: 60% of your hearing goes to the conversation when necessary, then 40% when you want to keep up with something on the radio or TV. But if you slip below 40% listening to "the conversation" you may miss a cue, and you'll be caught not paying attention. And the whole purpose of marriage is to pay attention.

The old man was asked the secret of his long life and long marriage. He said when he was first married a wise old man told him that whenever he and his wife argued, he should go outside and get some fresh air. He said I owe my long life and long marriage to a lot of fresh air.

More in Uxorial, when it is finally published.

Mea culpa,

mea culpa,

mea maxima culpa

I thought of how many times I have tried to change my thoughts.

I was not one to go around swearing in my youth. It was not allowed in our house—at least not by the kids. The parents sprinkled some mild profanity here and there in the sparkle of frustration and little flashes of anger. So when I went to college, off on my own for the first time ever, free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I was free at last, I took up the habit of swearing. I say habit and I say took up, because things are conscious decisions, whether to start or stop, to do or not. So I drew the line at profaning Deity. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. I never did. I never have. But I tried the normal college-level swearing. Of course being in the novitiate of nugatory neologisms I overdid it, and that made me somewhat ridiculous. After a time I decided that it was morally offensive to myself and God, and probably everybody else who heard me trying it out. In the month of May, Anno Domini one thousand nine hundred and something, I said to myself, “No more.” Of course, some things lingered, and I would slip up and say a word here or there in my mind. That’s the trouble. Can you get that out of your mind? Especially when working construction, where every third word is a swear-word. It’s not “Hey stupid, hand me that wormdrive,” said in polite terms, actually, without the disrespect those who are not familiar with construction work might infer; it’s “Hey ****-fer-brains, hand me that ****ing piece-o’-**** wormdrive.” Can you say you quit swearing if you only quit letting the fricatives and sibilants pass over the tongue and out the lips? Well, yes, because who can know what goes on in your mind? Well isn’t the answer to that quite obvious? So it’s a total victory when you don’t even think to say the words, much less say them. Then the real total victory is when you stop and think, you have not even thought to say the words for so long now. But the test comes when you are caught off your guard, and in an intense moment you say something without thinking. The test came one day in the year nineteen 80something, when I was giving a friend a ride home, saving him the humiliation and agony of public transportation. I was on the ’66 Mustang GT, burgundy, with a 302 engine (the 289 blew a piston through the wall), and had not gone more than five or six blocks, long enough for the engine to reach maximum heat, when a loud pop started the engine missing, so bad that I pulled over and opened the hood. My friend got out and looked around inside like I was doing, but I found the problem first. A spark plug had worked its way out and blew out of its hole in the block. Fortunately, there it was hanging by the plug wire. Without thinking, I picked it up, thinking to pull off the wire and put it back in its hole. It was hot. Maybe 600° or more?? My first reaction was a sound that came out of my mouth without my filtration, without my thinking of what to say—you know, it just popped out: “Ow!” But stretched out and diphthongized, and rather loud. Not “****!” or “****!”, or “****!” And not, “Holy ****ing ****!#&#@$%^&^%#” or any expletives proscribed by my self-imposed covenant. My friend said, “I guess you weren’t lying.” And I said, “What do you mean by that?” And he said, “You said you didn’t swear.” I used to.

IN a lively discussion of the New Testament the question was, “The man who is unstable in all his ways is a ________________.” Fill in the blank with the scripture from James, “double minded man.” But one guy spoke out boldly with “Married!” I laughed out loud.

The hardest thing I’ve ever done in all my life is stay married. Numerous were the times when I was told that it was over, or that it really, obviously was never meant to be that we got married, and it was all wrong and not worth it anymore. What do you do? What do you say? I just did what I could to keep on going, to keep it going, so things would not come apart—any more than they had up to that point—not come to an end. I tried. It was hard.

Worth it. Now things are smoothly slipping by, and the end is in sight: not the end of the uxorial venture, but the end of the mortal trial and probation.