Blouson noir—c’est mon manteau d’hiver, epais, garde le chaud, garde contre le froid et le vent. Cuir noir, epais. The leather itself is heavy ; but adding in a camera, then a little, tiny flashlight, then some keys in the pocket, and then a Sig und Sohn Model A-H .32 cal. that weighs a couple of pounds, with eight rounds, another half pound? quarter? It is a weighty coat. People would not believe the weight I carry around when I have my coat on. Maybe ten pounds. It feels like my heart has put on my leather jacket. So I found myself alone, and I put on FAMINE: Remembrance, into the player and turn up the volume where it ought to be: not worrying this time about infringing, bothering—playing it like it needs to be heard. For me, that makes the heaviness a bit more bearable. Perhaps because the music is heavier than my heart. Perhaps because the music soaks up the heaviness and neutralizes it. Something light-hearted and gay would not do. I need the heavy and somber tones of Cassidy’s Remembrance, requiem, to palliate the somber shades of my heavy heart. Perhaps the commiserating strains give a hand to the oar the galley slaves pull to their chest and push away, over and over again.

One day Jim was walking to school and didn’t see the giant hole in the sidewalk. He fell in.

It was way over his head and had steep, crumbly walls of wet dirt, and it took him a long time to climb out. He was afraid, down there in the bottom of that hole, and worried, and he was glad he got out. The rest of the day he was dirty and miserable.

The next day, Jim was walking to school. He fell in the same hole. He was aggravated and very upset, and after a long struggle he climbed out and went on to school. He was dirty and miserable. It was not a good day.

The third day Jim was walking to school, and fell into the same hole. He thought, “Well, at least I know where I am.” And he struggled to get out. But because he had struggled to get out two times before, he had crumbled away most of his footholds and hand holds, and it was much harder to get out. He was mad at himself when he finally got out. He went on to school, late, wet, dirty, miserable, and tired.

The fourth day, Jim was walking to school and he went around the edges of the giant hole. He didn’t fall in.

The fifth day, Jim went to school a different way.

How do you keep on being stupid time after time? I don’t know the answer to that, even I am guilty in many ways. Like the kid who whacks on the furniture with a drumstick until there are dents all in the nice wood of a beautiful piece, and then when asked, “What made you do that? Huh? What? What possessed you?” the kid answers, “I dunno.” And he’s not lying.

Repentance is not easy. But once you realize the pain it relieves, don’t you want to do it?

Eh oui, c'est moi, le vieux crapaud.
Mea culpa,
Mea culpa,
Mea maxima culpa.
What? Something's done wrong there, some time ago? Yes, it must have been me. I guess I'm the one to blame. In very fact. Who else would there be to blame?...you?
Well, that's OK, I am the one to blame. You put the load right back on me... --Van

So, there's a new way of doing things. It's called compromise. You give your idea, then I give mine; then we do what you want. That's how it works. That's the uxorial dilemma.

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.