Two days ago, I spent the evening contemplating the connection between the soul and God. The thought process began that afternoon while I was running at the gym. While listening to an audio-lecture¹ about Saint Augustine on my iPod, the author brought up the Platonists’ concept of the inner world and began comparing it to John Locke’s philosophies, and finally discussing Augustine’s conclusions on the subject. The lecture really stuck with me and led me to some long overdue decisions.

The single greatest barrier between me and Catholicism has been Jesus; his validity, his divinity, and his relation to God. That is to say, I have had a very hard time believing in the doctrine of the Trinity, and while it has not kept me away from the Church per se, is has kept me from making a permanent commitment in the manner to which I feel called.

Without believing firmly that Christ is the path to salvation, indeed, without believing that Christ is himself God in every essence of being, it would have been hypocrisy to commit myself to a life of that teaching. Even more-so, it would have driven a wedge of lies into a place already tender with doubt. So for the past few years, I have avoided the commit-of Christ, I wanted it very much. I prayed as often as I could for God to steal away the doubts in my mind, to solidify my faith. In the end, each night I was assailed by my uncertainty and disappointment.

The problem I had with faith was that of rationality. Despite everything I have read² and everything I’ve been taught, I still find it difficult to respect the numinous irrationality of God. My search has been with the empiricism of mysticism and the rationality of logic; and while my greatest triumphs of faith have always come from those moments when I, in my creature-consciousness, feel my place juxtaposed against my creator to be proclaiming my unworthiness with greater truth that can be known to mankind, after the fleeting moment of hierophany fades, I breathe deeply and again make the false attempts to puzzle out the unspeakable mysteries with inadequate tools.

It was most certainly a gift of God’s grace that led me down the path that day in the gym. The lecture was able to put some things into perspective that had long been out of place in my mind, and this reasoning led me down that same path of logic, but this time it led me with the open heart and compassion necessary to understand and believe. Here is the path:

John Locke envisioned our mind as a dark room in which we sit alone. There are no windows or doors in this room, at least not that can be used to look outside. Instead, there is a small lens that lets light trickle in and form a picture on the opposite wall. In this camera obscura, literally “dark chamber,” we interact only with this image reflected on the wall. We do not see the true object, only a reflection.

This argument reminded me at once of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in which our entire world seemed to be nothing but shadows dancing on the wall, while in reality³ (or in the ideal reality, I should say) the world was filled with real creatures who were walking in front of a fire and casting those long shadows. The Platonists built upon that allegory in their further discussions of the inner self. The ideal world is like a giant crystal sphere, they thought, holding in it all the perfection of Truth. Our minds are tiny faces on the surface of this sphere, perpetually looking outward from it.

Augustine knew the Platonist teachings very well and worked hard at integrating these philosophies with the beliefs of the Church in his day. He saw this sphere as an obvious symbol of God, but it was incomplete. The ideal world is not God, but rather like the heavens that surround him. God is, after-all, indivisible, he is One. And so Augustine saw the picture a little more clearly than those who came before him. In this newer metaphor, God is the single point from which all of the sphere is derived. He is inconceivable, immeasurable, and unique. Around him he is surrounded by the world of the ideal or perfected bodies⁴. On the surface of the sphere are tiny individual spheres. These are the spheres of our souls. In each of these is a small window that glances back into the greater sacred, but we are isolated from it, floating on the surface. This was the key for me to understanding why Christ came to us, why God would not just enter the physical world as God the Father, and why we had a need for the Holy Spirit.

The first question I asked myself when I heard Augustine’s idea of these metaphorical sacred spheres was why can’t we gain access to God by studying those windows in each of our souls? Just as some people believe, couldn’t we gain access to heaven by acting right and looking inward? But that question overlooked a very basic problem, or perhaps a more basic question that needed to be asked. Why aren’t we in that inner sphere already? What has kept us on the surface? That answer, as Augustine found it, was sin.

When the first man sinned in the garden⁵, he sinned for all mankind. He broke the special bond that had connected us with all of the perfect things next to God. He ruined the possibility that we could lead a perfect life. And in doing so, he justifiably damned us all to leave God’s presence. Why, then, did Jesus Christ come and die for our sins? That answer now seems quite self-explanatory. And what tools were granted to us that we could avoid the pitfalls of being human? The grace of God is in each of us, asking a simple two-fold task. Love God with all your heart, and Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

It is that love and compassion that truly makes us a part of Christ’s Body, the Church. It is that Body that is forgiven its sin and has a chance of salvation. All of the logic of it seems very clear to me in using that analogy, but on its own it is still empty of the emotional quality of faith. However, as I meditated over the image of the sphere of God, our souls dancing on its surface, of Jesus–whose essence always was in that great, eternal sphere–being born into our profane little world to forgive a lost people and offer them the chance to come home, of God’s mercy and His presence, that is when I finally felt at peace. I was no longer meditating over those things in doubt or theory. They were a part of me like the air I breathe, as surely true as anything can be.

I prayed to God that my doubts would be taken away and replaced by faith. Two days ago, God answered my prayers.

1. The audio-lecture I refer to is by Professor Philip Carey.
2. In particular, Das Heilige (The Idea of the Holy) by Rudolf Otto, and The Sacred and the Profane by Mircae Eliade, which are referenced here.
3. It should be clarified that the ideal world might not be that single step back from the cave wall, but perhaps an infinite number of such revelations. The concept is the same, in any case, that there is a perfected reality, though it may not exist in our physical world. Professor Philip Carey makes an excellent allusion to it in his metaphor of the Pythagorean triangle.
4. The term “bodies” is inaccurate as the things in this sphere do not have an only “physical” body.
5. This as well may be a metaphorical story that is suggestive of man’s development from unconscious creature to self-awareness, when the we first became capable of pride-the original sin. It is, in that context, a sin that is shared by all people and entwined in the very essence of what it is to be human.

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Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
    - Hebrews 11:1

I love this reading. It’s the most direct explanation of faith in the New Testament, and though it’s not meant to be a precise definition, per se, it teaches us something remarkably important about it. Faith is more than an on/off switch. It is more than whether you think God is real or not. Faith is not a synonym of belief.

Faith is a gift and it’s a response. It is a mystical part of us that forms up around our hope and orients on the awesome. It is our ground-work, the foundation upon which we walk. It is the strength upon which we build up our belief, because it allows us to look at the numinous, the ineffable, and give us the strength of will to answer yes. It is God’s hand reaching down to us and saying, “It’s okay to believe.”

I think that’s what I love most about faith. It doesn’t come from us. It, like all of our great gifts, comes from God. We are asked to take it, be thankful for it, and offer it back to him. When we don’t have faith, what we’re really doing is turning away that gift, and that, in a nutshell, is true free will. God offers us something and we can choose to accept it or not. The rest of what we call freedom is an illusion, but I’ll write more on that another day.

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No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
    - Edmund Burke – On the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)

When Burke began writing about the sublime, he offered a wonderful new delineation. It was his observation that while beauty comes from the appreciate of aesthetics, the sublime comes from our abject fears, especially our fears of things that can kill us. Terror, he said, is akin to pain in our minds. It anticipates it and so experiences a shadow of what pain is. I suppose one could say that in anticipation of death we experience a little bit of that death. Oh wait… someone did say that!

One day when I was in boot camp, our division went down to the pool area for swim training. There were a number of different things we were going to practice once we got wet, not the least of which was the invaluable skill of not drowning; but before we could press on to the details, we had to get in the water. The pool had a diving platform over the deep end. I couldn’t say exactly how high it was, though I’m certain that memory over time has increased the height by no small margin. Still, I clearly remember being intimidated at the first sight. It was big, no fooling around.

The instructors explained what was about to happen to us as we stripped into our bathing suits. The divisions were lined up heel to toe in that familiar Navy fashion, each recruits back pressing uncomfortably close to the chest behind him. We formed a long sinuous line around the pool and up to the long ladder of the platform. Someone had thought to turn out most of the lights in the building, turning the water into a strange black unknown. A spot light shined down on the tip of the platform, though, bathing it in a yellowish light that called out the dust more than illuminating anything interesting. We stood there, carefully focusing our eyes on nothing in particular. As one of the lucky guys with glasses, I found myself even more blind than usual, having had to leave them back on the pile of clothes to my side. My entire world was reduced to a sweat stained white t-shirt in front of me, and the hazy, bright heat of the lamp far overhead.

My nervousness started climbing up into my throat as I took each step on the ladder. Step, choke, step, choke. As I reached the top, things took on a whole new reality. The ground was different here. It was roughly textured, like grated asphalt or maybe one of those rocks people use to exfoliate. The platform felt solid enough, even though we were so high. There were more instructors up here too. They split our thin line into several, each as tightly grouped as before. I thought we looked like the heads of a hydra, reaching out over the water like gaping jaws.

Up ahead of me, four recruits stood in my line leading up to the illuminated edge. The one in front took a step forward until his feet were as far as they could go. To his sides, another five were in step with him. The line reminded me strikingly of gallows. A sharp command sounded out from an instructor too near to be anywhere but the platform, but seemingly invisible as he stood just outside of the light. “Go!” he shouted, and the men stepped forward into oblivion.

The giant hall was not made for normal acoustics. Sounds ricocheted off the metal walls again and again while each splash and command stretched on forever. The line pressed forward. My heart was thundering so loud that I thought it must be echoing off the walls too. We stepped forward. Another vague splash and the air was empty. The little group of men in front of me shortened dangerously while I tried to come to grips with what was about to happen.

I was instructed on what to do. I knew how to cross my arms, how to position my feet, and where my hands should rest. I knew that once I hit the water I would need to swim forward and find my group, buddy up and distribute the PFDs so we could all stay afloat. I knew somewhere in my mind that Navy Seals were lurking down below in the water, waiting for poorly conditioned recruits to kick when they shouldn’t, or splash too much. They were waiting like sharks in the water, there to teach us a lesson. Somewhere in all my thinking, a few more splashes were heard.

The last body in front of me disappeared into the darkness and left behind that bright spot light glaring into my eyes. I could see the edge of the platform. I could feel the rough stone on my feet, gripping. A command was uttered and I stepped up to the edge, my toes hanging off into the darkness. I didn’t look down; there was no point. I knew already that it would just be darkness and sounds.

In my head, my mind raced with thoughts, trying to catch up with what was happening. Things were moving too quickly. I wasn’t ready to go yet. My throat was solid and my chest weighed down with a heavy feeling I couldn’t understand. I could feel the breathing of the recruit behind me, and I wanted to step to the side, look around, catch my breath, ask for a minute, do anything.

“Go!”

My hands crossed, gripping my shirt and my nose. My feet stepped. I was falling. But no, that wasn’t right, I was still protesting, trying to find my place, to center my fear and deal with it. I needed to get it in check before I could…

Splash!

The water was cold and it hit like the shock from an old wool blanket. I shot back up into the air and took a gasping breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. It was over.

It took me a while to understand how my body could act on one set of signals from my brain while the rest was so overly concerned with meaningless things like fear. My arms and legs did what they were told to do. They did it without a pause, without doubt, and without error. They did it without the fear that was all pervasive in my mind.

When Burke talks about the sublime sense of terror, of feeling ones own mortality, I think he only halfway addresses the origins of that psychology. There is obviously a great meaning in the way our animal fears can plague us. We can be shaken to the core, go pale as a ghost, or just let our jaws drop. I don’t think that’s enough of the story, though. It doesn’t address that other part of us.

That night on the platform, I was told what to do, but I hadn’t been trained at it. It was no mere reflex of action. It was not a conditioning to follow orders when they came from that self-confident voice. It was a spark of control over the uncontrollable that had come to me through pain, practice, and the knowledge that fear was no longer useful. I find something of the sublime in that and wonder at its meaning and place in my future life. Will I have cause for it one day?

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In 1995 Mars, Inc. (hereafter referred to as Evil-Inc) ran a sneaky contest inviting the public (hereafter referred to as The Great Douchery) to choose a new color M&M. What Evil-Inc failed to mention to the Great Douchery was that this new color was slated to replace, nay, destroy the sacred Ambrosia!

This wasn’t the first time a tragedy struck M&M colors, of course. In 1976, there was a scare around the use of amaranth (Red Dye #2) in lots of foods. It was discovered to be a carcinogen and awareness by the Great Douchery swept across the land picking fights with all the red foods they could find. Never mind that M&Ms didn’t use amaranth to begin with, Evil-Inc decided it was best to cut them out anyway. You may be saying to yourself, “but there are red M&Ms now!” You’re right of course. They brought them back years later and started using Allura Red AC (Red Dye #40) as the new dye (which, consequently, is banned in several European countries due to potential health risks).

What’s worse is that when the red M&Ms were stolen away, they were replaced by an awful orange M&M. Our poor tan M&Ms, Ambrosia if you will, suddenly found themselves threatened not only by the dark brown, but suddenly a new similar color. Their uniqueness slipped even further. Still, Ambrosia stood strong for many years. In fact, some very resourceful candy-nerds did some shady measurements which suggest that prior to the contest in 1995, tan M&Ms accounted for over 30% of the entire bag. What they lost in individuality, they made up with gusto in presence.

Still, all of this was not enough to save them. The evil Blue M&M was born and lovely Ambrosia was lost to time.

At this point, you might be asking yourself, “what does all this have to do with anything?” If you are, you obviously don’t understand the awesomeness of the Tan M&Ms. They were the softest, most natural of all the colors. They didn’t offend or demand attention with their brightness. The question should be, how can this not bother you?

Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to my snack foods. Maybe that’s why I’m the only one that seems to have noticed Count Chocula changed its recipe in the mid 90′s. Yes, I was still eating it in high school; got a problem with that? Anyway, I think someone needs to take a stand on these issues. Some things are worth fighting for!

I will not eat blue M&Ms. My respect for Ambrosia is strong enough for that at least. Who’s with me?

PS: I apologize to anyone who mistakenly thought this post was going to be in any way related to the DC Comics superhero of the same name. Though, in retrospect, he is also downright awful. I think I’ll boycott him too.

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Deus caritas est. (God is love)
    - 1 John 4:16

Theologians talk about caritas, or agapē, when they talk about God’s love for us. It’s an overwhelming, pure, unlimited kindness that goes beyond romance or want or even need. It is what first Corinthians talks about when it says it isn’t boastful, it isn’t proud. It’s the type of love, in particular, that religious are to seek in their relationships with, well, everyone.

It’s still hard for me to find that type of love, even (or especially) in relationships I’ve had for a long time. Maybe that makes it harder, though. When I have a certain type of love for someone already, it is so much more difficult to shift that into caritas, into charity. Romantic love, especially, screams at me saying that it is more important, or deeper than charity, that it deserves to be respected and explored. I know in my mind that’s not all true, that it gets a part of its strength from its self-serving nature. Still, the difficulty remains. It’s a struggle I don’t foresee becoming any easier with time.

It may not be easy, but when it comes I feel it more strongly than anything else. I know that if any of my tiny loves compare to it, it is only as a shadow cast along a wall in passing. God’s love is enormous and subtle, and it provokes such awe and clarity that it wakes us up from our petty dreams to point us in a direction and say with the clear clarion only available to angels, "Here it is! Here I am!"

Still, even with the experience in my pocket, there are days when I fall for the old habits. I want love, not just to love. It’s inescapable, even if it weren’t broadcast across our culture in blazing lights. That want is human as well, and I don’t think I can necessarily call it wrong. Though the selfless love may be altruistic and divine, and thus qualitatively better, that doesn’t diminish the greatness that comes from being loved by another person. Just because one thing is infinitely good, infinity minus one is still increasing without bounds. (There’s a cardinality vs. cardinals joke in there somewhere, but my math nerd skills aren’t up to it)

I know what I should do. I know that I need to bridge those gaps and put things in the right perspective. Times will come in the future where I’ll experience this same dilemma and I should put in the practice now at developing those relationships into a love that is healthy for celibacy. Based on what I’m experiencing so far, I’d say it’s a slow process.

Of course, I can’t turn a blind eye to romantic relationships. Even though it’s not the path I’m headed down, I already find myself counseling other people on theirs. I typically take the position of offering up my mistakes as a guide for things they might want to avoid, but that’s only really appropriate for surface level advice. So many friends are coming to me these days with worries about finding a love in which to share their life. I guess with all of us hitting our 30s, they’re beginning to wonder why life hasn’t fallen into place like they expected. But that’s the key, isn’t it? Life is never what we expected. How many of us can look back at our 8th grade yearbook, slide our finger down to the “What do you want to do when you grow up?” line, read off our grand plans and say honestly, “Yup, I nailed it.” How many of us planned out our futures when we left for college? How many of us are even in the same career as when we began? These are just the mechanical things of the day to day. They are jobs, homes, cars. How much more complex and unpredictable is love!

Even though it’s unpredictable, and life takes us on twists, that doesn’t help people who feel left behind, who feel alone. I want to say, “of course you’ll find someone!” I want to tell them that it will work out better than they could have planned, but that’s not the way of life, and it’s not the way of God. He challenges us at every turn. The better we are at things, the more skilled or talented, the more the challenges become. He never abandons us, but he doesn’t make it easy.

It’s tempting to take a break from your life and look to the side, at the lives of others passing by like cars on a highway. It’s tempting to look and say, “look how easy they have it! They’re in the carpool lane and it’s moving so quick.” We so rarely see their challenges, though. We trick ourselves into simple habits, like pretending that if we could only have this one thing, all of life would be okay. That’s never the case, though, is it?

More often than not, I think my friends will find the love they’re looking for. It might happen soon, or not for many years. Most will find it. There is another group, though, who may not. That’s the big conspiracy of our modern world. That’s the horror movie too scary for the big screen. What happens to the people who never find a romance to last the rest of their lives?

They live and love anyway.

That’s the big secret. God doesn’t call us all to married life! Just as he doesn’t call everyone to religious life, just as he doesn’t give us all the same gifts and passions. And that’s okay.

I know we all want it, but the wanting isn’t love in itself. The wanting is just the self crying out at the outrage of not having what others have. There is still love available for everyone, even if it isn’t romantic love. Don’t be fooled into thinking it’s anything less than romance, either. It is far more grace-filled and awe-inspiring. It is the love that creates worlds!

Whether you’re one of those people who has already found your special love, one who is still looking and will discover it soon, or one of us who will live by the love of charity and fill your life with the friendship of many, God’s love is there for every single person, without exception. It’s even there for us screw-ups who misuse it, abuse it, and fail to spot it when we should be on our knees thanking heaven. It’s there for sinners and saints alike.

Let all that you do be done in love.
    - 1 Corinthians 16:14

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There are a number of books I should be reading right now that could help me prepare, but instead I’ve been bingeing the Dresden series. It’s really started getting good and I’m just tearing through them so fast that it’s really satisfying, but I think it has contributed to my present situation. Normally I institute a very strict policy for myself that I can read only one fantasy novel between my non-fiction books. This keeps me from going off the deep end and losing myself into rich series, like I did with the Wheel of Time back at Rowan. I’ve let myself become lax, and that will have to change.

As soon as I finish reading the 9th book in the series, I’ll be jumping back into The First Jesuits, which is incredibly interesting, but reads like an encyclopedia. Still, it is one of the books I’m supposed to be reading in preparation for entrance day, and I’ve let it slide now for too long.

What about you folks out there? Is there something going on that you’ve lost sight of, something you need to refocus, to stay on target?

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That’s the biggest problem I have with gnostic ideas. It’s not that there isn’t anything to be learned by classifying and delineating, but when we attribute individual value and stop seeing our bodies as part of our souls and vice versa, we stop seeing the entire person. More than that, we stop seeing each other.

There is no path to God through the soul alone. You can’t shed this flesh and ride your spirit alone up to the heavens. The body is not an anchor weighing you down. It is not a prison. All these ideas, they make us see ourselves in such a dark way, as if the only thing of worth were buried beneath a dirty mask. It’s a wonder how people survived with those thoughts at all!

Theology is a little beyond me tonight. It’s late and I’m only up because of an ill-advised nap this afternoon. In a few minutes I’ll be back in bed letting my slumbering mind take me on silly journeys where my cat is the conductor of an illegal space-train. I guess I just needed to get that thought out of my head.

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You can’t clone a SWF because you can’t clone a MovieClip in AS3. The problem is actually due to the Shape class. Unlike most of the other core display classes, Shape does not have a clone method. With a bit of recursion, you can duplicate most complex objects, but without Shape things hit a brick wall.

Depending on the type of SWF I’m loading, I’ve found a few silly ways around the problem. If the SWF is just a still image, you can do a bitmap clone in much the same way as you’d handle a normal Bitmap. You lose the ability to scale the vector information smoothly, but sometimes that’s okay. If you have more control of the source SWFs, you can build your assets into Library symbols with some linkage information, then instantiate as you need them. This has been my preferred method in the past as it allows you to perform only one external load, and you can control each instance as a fully vector, fully functional MovieClip object. Sometimes, though, you just don’t have the access and control needed to pull off that method. That’s where this other solution comes in.

Enter DuplicateLoader, another handy utility class from yours truly. This class loads your external SWF as a ByteArray, keeps a reference to it, and then as you need an instance, it processes that ByteArray through a Loader and voila, presto-chango, MovieClip! Simple right? Lets take a look.

package com.tomasino.display
{
	import flash.display.DisplayObject;
	import flash.display.Loader;
	import flash.display.LoaderInfo;
	import flash.events.SecurityErrorEvent;

	import flash.events.Event;
	import flash.events.EventDispatcher;
	import flash.events.ErrorEvent;
	import flash.events.IOErrorEvent;
	
	import flash.system.ApplicationDomain;
	import flash.system.LoaderContext;

	import flash.net.URLLoader;
	import flash.net.URLLoaderDataFormat;
	import flash.net.URLRequest;
	
	import flash.utils.ByteArray;

	public class DuplicateLoader extends EventDispatcher
	{
		private var _byteLoader:URLLoader;
		private var _request:URLRequest;
		private var _instances:Array;
		private var _application:ApplicationDomain = new ApplicationDomain ();
		private var _context:LoaderContext = new LoaderContext ( false, _application );

		public function DuplicateLoader ( url:String = null )
		{
			if (url) load (url);
		}

		public function load ( url:String ):void
		{
			// Cleanup
			destroy ();
			
			// New Instances
			_instances = new Array();
			_byteLoader = new URLLoader ();
			_byteLoader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY;

			// Listeners
			_byteLoader.addEventListener ( Event.COMPLETE, onBytesLoaded );
			_byteLoader.addEventListener ( SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, onError );
			_byteLoader.addEventListener ( IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, onError );

			try
			{
				_request = new URLRequest ( url );
				_byteLoader.load ( _request );
			}
			catch (e:Error)
			{
				trace (e);
			}
		}
		
		public function convert ():void
		{
			if (_byteLoader && _byteLoader.data)
			{
				var converter:Loader = new Loader ();
				converter.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener (Event.COMPLETE, onConvert, false, 0, true);
				
				try
				{
					converter.loadBytes ( _byteLoader.data , _context);
				}
				catch (e:Error)
				{
					trace (e);
				}
			}
			else
			{
				var e:ErrorEvent = new ErrorEvent ( ErrorEvent.ERROR, false, false, 'No data available to convert');
				dispatchEvent (e);
			}
		}
		
		public function getInstance ():DisplayObject
		{
			var returnInst:DisplayObject;
			if (_instances && _instances.length)
			{
				returnInst = _instances.shift();
			}
			return returnInst;
		}
		
		public function destroy ():void
		{
			// Remove any orphaned instances before loading a new byte-array
			if (_instances && _instances.length)
			{
				while (_instances.length)
				{
					_instances[0] = null;
					_instances.shift ();
				}
			}
			_instances = null;
			_byteLoader = null;
			_request = null;
		}
		
		/*
		 * Event Handling
		 */
		private function onError (event:ErrorEvent):void
		{
			_byteLoader.removeEventListener ( Event.COMPLETE, onBytesLoaded );
			_byteLoader.removeEventListener ( SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, onError );
			_byteLoader.removeEventListener ( IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, onError );
			
			var e:ErrorEvent = new ErrorEvent ( ErrorEvent.ERROR, false, false, event.text);
			dispatchEvent (e);
		}
		
		private function onBytesLoaded (event:Event)
		{
			_byteLoader.removeEventListener ( Event.COMPLETE, onBytesLoaded );
			_byteLoader.removeEventListener ( SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, onError );
			_byteLoader.removeEventListener ( IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, onError );
			
			var e:Event = new Event ( Event.COMPLETE );
			dispatchEvent ( e );
		}
		
		private function onConvert (event:Event)
		{
			var loaderInfo:LoaderInfo = event.target as LoaderInfo;
			var converter:Loader = loaderInfo.loader as Loader;
			converter.removeEventListener ( Event.COMPLETE, onConvert, false );
			_instances.push ( converter.content );
			converter = null;
			
			var e:Event = new Event ( Event.CHANGE );
			dispatchEvent ( e );
		}
	}
}

There are two main segments to the class. The first is the load() method that grabs your external content and loads it up into the ByteArray using a URLLoader. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Following that process, we need to convert the ByteArray into a usable Flash DisplayObject. This type of decode operation is best left to the folks at Adobe. They’ve written some wonderful magic into the Loader class that lets us pass in just about anything to a loadBytes() method and get back a useful object.

Calling the convert() method tells the class that you’d like a new instance of your SWF to be made available. You might be asking, “Why can’t I just use a getter and grab an instance right away?” If you were asking that, kudos. I was asking the same thing myself. The short answer is, Adobe sucks. The long answer is, the Loader class loadBytes() method is asynchronous only. Stupid, right? Right.

If that’s something that annoys you as much as it annoys me, please feel free to vote for change on the Flash Bug Tracker. Maybe we’ll start getting methods with the option to perform the operation synchronously or asynchronously. A simple change like that would allow me to stop making wordy blog posts like this.

Back to the class at hand. We were talking about the convert() method and how it will tell the class to make a new instance available. You can call this guy over and over and over to your heart’s content. Each time you do so, it preps a new instance and stores it. Once the instance is ready, DuplicateLoader fires off a CHANGE event to let you know things have been converted. Finally, you can hit the getInstance() method and get back the handy instance you’ve always wanted.

Now, a few internal notes. DuplicateLoader loads all SWFs into their own LoaderContext to avoid collisions and avoid a nasty security hole left by loadBytes. Also, as soon as you getInstance(), the class gets rid of its reference to that instance. The idea behind this was, when you are done with the SWF, you should be able to just delete it yourself. If I were maintaining a reference in my class as well, poor ol’ garbage collector would never know it was okay to delete it. Also, if there’s an error anywhere in the class, I grab the messages and dispatch them to a nice generic ErrorEvent to simplify event handling. Too many listeners make my head hurt.

If you’d like to see the class in action, here is a sample project that shows it in action. As always, the class is free to use, rip apart, call names, drunk-dial, or whatever floats your boat. I’m always happy to hear your comments and see projects where you’ve found my code useful. Enjoy!

Special thanks to Kristine McDermott for pointing my head in the right direction on this one. She’s such a smarty.

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I am building a holiday card creator where little kids can place stamps and words and things to build cards for their friends and family. Once they’re done, they can share the cards via e-mail or Facebook. To send the data, I’m using a multi-part form post via a library written by a real awesome Flash dude. Lets call the service I’m using to send the data, “Service #1″. So far, so good.

Next, the client wanted us to add a profanity filter into the form so keep naughty little kids from spreading their potty-mouths across the interwebz. This filter will be called, “Service #2″.

Here’s where the problem came in. Now, when the users click “send”, I have to submit data to Service #2 first, wait for the asynchronous response, then, if it is valid, submit the data to Service #1. It’s not nuclear physics or anything. And I’d know, cause I learned that stuff back in the day. Unfortunately, this is where Adobe stepped in and ruined my party.

SecurityError: Error #2176: Certain actions, such as those that display a pop-up window, may only be invoked upon user interaction, for example by a mouse click or button press.

Now that I am calling Service #1 in the event handler of Service #2, it is disconnected from the original mouse click action. The result is this really nasty Flash security error. Boo!

I was left with a nasty problem and only a few possible solutions.

1. Get Service #1 and #2 to execute inside the mouse event handler
2. Fake a mouse event for Service #1
3. Combine the services (this one was totally valid and probably the way to go, but I didn’t do it for reasons explained below)
4. Change the internal operation of the Multi-Part URLLoader class to send a property other than “filetype” and thus bypass Flash Security
5. Cry

Surprise, surprise, getting AS3 to hit a service synchronously is stupidly annoying. My options quickly degraded to choosing between writing my own socket connection and handling everything manually, or figuring out a way to do it in JavaScript, and do it with ExternalInterface. My JavaScript chops, while not great, are better than my experience with socket connections. Thus the following utility class was born:

package com.tomasino.net
{
	import flash.external.ExternalInterface;
	import com.tomasino.external.Availability;
	
	public class SynchronousLoader
	{
		private static var _availability:Boolean = Availability.available;
		private static const LOAD_JS:String = 'function com_tomasino_net_SynchronousLoader_load ( url, params ) { RequestType = function () { try { return new XMLHttpRequest (); } catch (e0) {} try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.6.0"); } catch (e1) {} try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.3.0"); } catch (e2) {} try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e3) {} return false; }; var xhttp = RequestType (); if (xhttp) { xhttp.open("POST", url, false); xhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); xhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-length", params.length); xhttp.setRequestHeader("Connection", "close"); xhttp.send(params); return xhttp.responseText; } else return false; }' ;
		public static function load (url:String, params:String):XML
		{
			var returnObj:String;
			var xmlReturn:XML;
			if (_availability)
			{
				try
				{
					returnObj = ExternalInterface.call (LOAD_JS, url, params);
				}
				catch (e:Error)
				{
					trace ('Could not call XMLHttpRequest via ExternalInterface:', e.message);
				}

				try
				{
					xmlReturn = new XML (returnObj);
				}
				catch (e:Error)
				{
					trace ('Could not parse XML response');
				}
			}
			return xmlReturn;
		}
	}
}

That big mass of javascript that is all condensed to one line does all the hard work. Here it is expanded for your reading pleasure.

function com_tomasino_net_SynchronousLoader_load ( url, params )
{
	RequestType = function ()
	{
		try { return new XMLHttpRequest (); } catch (e0) {}
		try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.6.0"); } catch (e1) {}
		try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP.3.0"); } catch (e2) {}
		try { return new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP"); } catch (e3) {}
		return false;
	};
	
	var xhttp = RequestType ();
	if (xhttp)
	{
		xhttp.open("POST", url, false);
		xhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
		xhttp.setRequestHeader("Content-length", params.length);
		xhttp.setRequestHeader("Connection", "close");
		xhttp.send(params);
		return xhttp.responseText;
	}
	else
	{
		return false;
	}
}

Lets take a closer look at what I’m doing here. First, I’m utilizing ExternalInterface to call a JavaScript function that I have hard-coded into my class as a constant. I know that ExternalInterface performs its calls synchronously, so that’s perfect for my needs right away. Second, I learned that the JavaScript object XMLHttpRequest can perform its load operations synchronously or asynchronously depending on a boolean. (One could argue that building Flash’s URLLoader the same way would have made a little more sense than forcing developers to have only one option. Developers without options = angry developers.)

Now XMLHttpRequest is a newer class and some IE versions don’t have it, so I needed to use their weird ActiveXObject versions. You’ll notice that weird little block of try..catches doing the heavy lifting. That’s pulled almost directly from the wiki page for the class. Finally, I need to perform my request. I pass in the URL and the parameters as, well, parameters, then format everything and make my call.

There’s a few things to note. First, without the request headers, the service doesn’t understand what type of data it’s getting, so those are a must. That took some time to figure out. Second, the “params” should be a string of url-encoded name/value pairs, separated by ampersands. At the end, we return back the string of the server response to our flash method. We’ll let Flash try to parse that string into a native XML element. If it works, everyone is happy and you have your results, synchronously. Hooray!!!

Now the caveat: XMLHttpRequest can’t operate across domains. There might be some sneaky ways around that, but it’s out of scope for this solution. If you know a good way, let me know in the comments!

Also, you’ll notice I’m using my Availability class in here. For those that are unfamiliar, all it does is test to see if we are in an environment where ExternalInterface is available. You can make that work your own way, or grab the class from my server… whatever floats your boat.

Finally, and I really mean it this time, I promised I’d explain why I used this solution instead of just combining the services and making one call. To put it simply, AS3 forums pissed me off. I searched around for 15 minutes looking to see if someone had already solved my problem for me (like you are likely doing right now), only to find a frustrating number of post replies saying things like, “Why are you trying to do it synchronously?! That’s NEVER a good solution. Whine-whine-whine…” Sometimes I just wish people would answer the questions asked instead of going off on nerd-rants. Oh well!

Enjoy, comment, share, modify, whatever. Have a blast.

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Some of the people I’ve met recently can point to one or two parables or passages in the Bible and say, “Look at that! That is where I found God’s purpose for me!” I’m not sure I ever saw a message so personal or clear in any particular thing. I identify with a lot of different biblical stories. As most of you know, I like to make a lot of analogies and find metaphor in just about everything that crosses my path. Maybe that has kept me from developing a special bond with any one thing; there’s too much to choose from.

The parable of the fig tree, though, has long managed to fall into a special category, or perhaps I should say a lack of category. It’s not that I don’t understand it, and it’s not that I can’t place its meaning in my life. The fig tree has some other element to it, an element of the numinous, ineffable sacred. I suppose, if you allow me to personify it a bit, the parable is like a man facing away from me. I know he is a man. I see what he is about and what he is doing, but his face is hidden.

A few minutes ago, I experienced a totally cheesy, totally predictable twist. At least, that’s how I’d describe it if my life were a movie. As I read the passage again that person/parable turned around to face me and there I was, staring back at myself. I told you it was predictable!

I’ve been learning to pray by placing myself in the scenes, becoming the actors, becoming onlookers, really being there. I have no idea why I never put myself into the position of that tree before, but the moment I realized it things woke up inside me.

How do I see myself? Am I worthy of being saved? How much longer can I go on “bearing no fruit”? If I am tended to, if I make the right decisions and respond to what my vineyard-keeper is trying to sow in my life, will I have a real worth? What is my fruit? It is love (caritas), obviously! Charity is the fruit that becomes the seed, that grows and spreads and falls again and again… The questions, the metaphors, they go on and on until I catch myself shaking my head back and forth in wonder at the blindness of a moment ago, of a lifetime ago.

This is what contemplative prayer is. It is waking up. It is suddenly having words stop being words in such a profound way that you shake your head at your former self, wondering how you could have ever been that person. It is waking up in a moment and knowing, just knowing, that you are making the right decision.

On that note, I received word that I have been accepted to enter the tri-state novitiate for the Maryland, New York, and New England Provinces of the Society of Jesus this summer.

The letter represents a culmination of a decade of discernment, countless hours of writing, of reading, and prayer; and yet this is just another beginning. It is a milestone, a thing to be celebrated with joy and excitement, but I can’t fool myself into thinking I have really accomplished anything yet. I still stare at my branches and see no fruit. Maybe this represents buds?

I try more and more every day to live my life like I am fully in bloom, to share the love and faith and my sense of joy in the Lord. Soon I will have more support in that respect than I’ve ever known. I will also have people pushing me (and pulling me, I’m sure) to do more, to be more, to grow in that relationship of faith. The idea is so amazing, I can’t even come up with a pretty metaphor!

New things are on the horizon. I love new things.

To those of you who have been praying for me, thank you so much for absolutely everything. If you have a moment, join me in praying for the other (currently anonymous) souls who are still in the long discernment/application process. God bless!

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There’s been a lot of questions about the vows in particular. How do I see poverty, chastity, and obedience? What do they really mean, and why are they so fundamental? How do I see myself living them? What is it about my call that feels particularly fitting to the Jesuits?

Like I said, I feel talked out. These are easy questions, but the answers are not short and simple. It takes time to explain fully the reasons I see obedience as the cornerstone of an active faith, to split apart the different forms it takes in our lives and differentiate and explain the necessity of each. I can’t rely on theological answers like that anyway. Instead, it takes even more time to convey the sense of helpless panic that hit me in the Navy, where I had no control over my life or death and the only choice I had in the morning was which of the same uniform to put on. How long does it take me to show how that helplessness transformed into a peace and a beauty of simplicity and acceptance. How long it takes to demonstrate how all these little moments in my life when I have stopped thinking and planning ad infinitum and simply listened with an open heart… Moments of obedience to God are easy to recall, but never simple to explain.

There’s no quick way to talk about how living in poverty is more than a simple rule for emulating the life of Christ, or how it brings a closer relationship to the poor, suffering, and meek in the world, or even how removing the clutter from your life removes the noisy barriers that keep you from hearing God’s whispers like Elijah. Indeed, to really explain my personal relationship to the vow, I need to talk about my time in Alaska, my constant yearning for movement, the deep quiet of meditation I find in long car rides or sitting alone in an empty room. It takes so many words to draw these pictures and make them accessible and clear enough that they can be felt. How can I make you feel the amazing power of Grace that fills me until I am overflowing with the essence of everything, the mystical numinous power that terrifies me into awareness of my smallness and yet embraces me with a personal affection more powerful than any single love. Or how I see the shadow of a flower draping across newly fallen snow, and it is a metaphor for the calling I feel. Unencumbered. Profound. Draw me a haiku that can bring that depth in 17 syllables.

And there is the ever present question of sexuality, as pervasive in interviews as it is in society. Where do I begin to talk about celibacy and its neighbor chastity? Do I repeat them the go-to reply of religious, that living the life doesn’t make you love less, but opens you up to love everyone even more? It is true, but again it is only part of an answer. It is the answer of the Church explaining a doctrine, not of a person explaining a call. Why am I called to celibacy? Because God has shown me that is the type of Love I excel at and find true grace in. I am not just a bad boyfriend and a good friend, it is deeper than that. I am called to celibacy because I have an affinity and natural skill at it. Sexuality and individual romantic love doesn’t bring me closer to God the way it does so many people. But it’s also hard to explain, as you can probably see already. It takes time and energy and a deeply reflective emotional examination that pulls and pulls at you. It’s exhausting.

So, as I said, I’m a little talked out these days. So in closing, let me just say: things looking good, need sleep, prayers welcome.

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A week ago I met with the Vocation Director for the Society of Jesus. The interview was long, incredibly personal, and quite draining on both of us; but in the end he invited me to continue my application for the Novitiate. Now I have approximately four weeks to complete another 5 interviews, arrange for 5 letters of reference, get a physical, dental exam, opthamologist exam, transcripts from everywhere, military service records, church records, a psychological evaluation, and a partridge in a pear tree. How am I taking it? I’m glowing with excitement.

This past week has been a blur of scheduling, e-mailing, phone conversations, distracted prayers, and insomnia. It’s been a long time since the excitement of good things has kept me from sleep. I’ve missed it.

Tonight, a friend from Atlanta talked to me about patience. He’s doing a study on it that sounds fascinating. He said something very important to me that reaffirmed what I’ve been feeling through the discernment so far, and what I’ve been feeling more than ever since that meeting last week. He said, “a patience person is an active person…active in standing either against something…or in the face of something.”

It’s the active part that resonates so well right now. This application has certainly not been something to passively let happen. The Jesuits have all been very up-front with me that to get through this process in the right mind to move forward, I need to keep up my prayer life and spirituality. I think that might be the action of patience my friend was referring to—actively standing (or praying) in the face of the challenge of constant discernment, interviews, and paperwork.

There is a certain quietness that comes from it, though, that reminds me of the sense of calm, passive patience I’m used to. Rather than being the core of the virtue, though, I’m beginning to see it more as the result.

The remarkable thing is how the process has done more than just force me to consider my call. It’s already begun changing my behavior, readying me for a life to come. A lot of close people have started remarking about the changes, and the support has been amazing. Whether from close people now or those far into my past, all the prayers and sentiments give me strength.

My choice to live my call is a continuous struggle to make the right decisions, the decisions to follow what the Spirit is asking of me each and every day. They are hard choices sometimes, taking me farther away from the familiar and sometimes hedonistic past experiences and out on to a limb where I am surprisingly exposed. That’s where God likes to keep me, though. It’s part of the humility I’m always learning more about. When we are exposed, weakened, without comfort, it is easiest to turn to Christ for assistance. “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mt. 19:24)

These next four weeks will be difficult to schedule, but they will also be spiritually full. Every day I learn something new about myself and my relationships with those around me. Spiritual indifference comes a little closer. Contemplative prayer becomes more natural. Some people call the application the true Jesuit postulancy, and I can see why.

As always, please keep me in your prayers. I’m praying for you too.

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Mine eyes will ne’re behold
which my heart dost see so clearly
inward stirs this passion
deep, benighting
leading my path away from all
and to my love

I reach out for thee
and pray your hand
be there to welcome mine
your light to illum where
my light be spent
for my soul is sore
    - Carl Reiner – “The Life and Love of Joe Coogan“, of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1964)

I’ve been doing a lot of spiritual reading lately, the sort that makes its way into your daydreams and forms elaborate connective metaphors with everything around you. It becomes easy to see the way all the patterns in your life add up in simple, elegant equations to one another, and tempting to let those harmonies overwhelm your concept of God. It’s easy to think of God as the connective force, or the connections themselves, or maybe just a power moving behind them. It’s a part of so many spiritualities, and it feels so right; but in living with these sorts of thoughts for so long, I’ve come to find it somehow shallow. God is so much more than that.

One of the most basic concepts in Ignatian Spirituality (that is, the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola) is the ability to discern God’s active hand in our lives through discerning the spirits. Does this spirit, this concept / act / path in life, lead you closer to God, unite you with the virtues of faith, hope, and love? Or does this spirit lead you someplace else? It’s not a matter of whether thinking about something makes you happy or sad, righteous or indignant, but rather about how it interacts with your soul.

When I am filling my nights with spiritual reading and my thoughts are on my own discernment, the role of Jesus and his sacraments in my life, and looking for God in all things, that’s exactly what I find: God in all things. I see him in the way a conversation suddenly turns, or in the way a new friend opens up to me unexpectedly. He’s there when I drive to work and when I’m remembering each of my friends in my prayers. His presence is more than just with me, though, it’s active and guiding if I pay attention. It leads me to things and away from others. Sometimes, like it has been in the sense of my discernment to religious life, it is “leading my path away from all, and too my love,” as the poem says.

Jillian of Norwich says in her own spiritual writings that we are closer to God than we are to our own Spirit. It is because our spirit is made of and by God, not of the earthly things like our bodies. The only way we can come to know our spirit is by first coming to know God. In the view of Ignatian Spirituality, that makes such beautiful sense. It is the way of God to illuminate his path for us through reason and faith together, and so what better way to come to know ourselves as well?

Which brings me to this past Monday night. I had mass and dinner with the Jesuit community at the Arrupe House in Philadelphia, and a wonderful discussion afterward about St. Ignatius’ spirituality. We were talking about these very things and I asked them something that had been on my mind. In the Examen, the daily practice of prayerful reflection on the day to discern God’s presence and direction, I told them I found it easy to spot God’s active and guiding hand in the big moments of my life, like joining the Navy, moving from one place to the next, or volunteering for certain things; but at the end of a day when I did nothing but work from my chair at home, write a blog post, draw a map for a D&D game, and watch some Hulu, how do you sense God’s presence? One of the priests talked a bit about his own experiences in the Examen and described something wonderfully helpful to me. He said he spends his time trying to find the “scent of God.” He doesn’t look at the actions, necessarily, but for something else. He looks for an element of presence in his day via a different sense than scrolling through your day like it’s on Tivo. To sense a scent requires a different tactic, more passive than active, an opening of yourself to the things in the air around you. When I think of it, I want to close my eyes and think of nothing but the deep inhalation and the questing search for something I know is there. It’s not a game of Where’s Waldo.

Tonight as I settled down to do the Examen, I kept this idea in my mind. I sense God’s presence in the little conversations I had over instant messenger, and in the choices of my reading, but there was something more. A general scent of God being with me, encouraging and guiding despite the lack of decision making. He was there with me in force, though no force was necessary. He was filling me up, illuminating my benighted soul at the very moment while I watched a simple episode of the Dick Van Dyke show on Hulu. When the plot revealed that Laura’s long-lost love, her boyfriend before Rob, was now a priest, I saw it in his light. And finally, when she realized that all those love poems he had sent her were not about her at all, but were about God, it was that sense of loving companionship that I was already experiencing that brought me tears.

So yes, in a way I do see God as the connecting force between everything I experience, and as a guide in that journey, but I also see him as a light of insight into who I really am, a companion on my constant pilgrimage, a teacher, father, friend, and confessor. He is all these things and so much more! I guess it’s like I told the Jesuits on Monday. Sometimes sensing his presence is pretty easy.

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Fellow blogger, Elizabeth Esther from “Kids, Twins, and Laundry Bins” is hosting a special Saturday Evening Blog Post where people are asked to submit their favorite blog entry from 2009. I chose The Most Beautiful Thing in the World. What will you pick? Pop on over here and make your choice.

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If you try it out and enjoy it, let me know! Merry Christmas!

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His mouth moves silently, stretching over the playful shapes and hiding a hint of smile. A bit of dust from the road kicks up until he can taste it on his tongue. It’s sour. The smile turns to a grimace but his legs don’t stop. The march continues.

Damp air reminds him of the river nearby, and to be watchful for slick rocks. Slowly, like a great behemoth set into motion after eons of corroded stillness, his eyes drift up from his feet and see his trail. He’s seen it before—rocks, trees, flora and insects—maybe not here exactly, but it’s all the same. The sun sprays its light across the verdant sea, callously optimistic in its glimmer, indifferent to precision or purpose, all-encompassing and definitive. A frame of trees—spruce or pine or some such weald—envelops a painting brought to life. Colors fall out of the sky and pour across the ground, highlighting every shrub and brush as if it were a quotation to be noted and studied. The vale is completely still but for the fluttering of the tiniest wings, flashes of bright yellow over indigo and violet. Pristine silence pounds the earth in altitonal crescendos, as if Peace were trying to punch him in the face. He’s seen it all before.

Eyes are spared a moments energy then fall back to rest in their place. The march continues. Lemonberry Shantyball wraps its delicate phonemes in transcendent colors as it wiggles its way back into his head.

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I came to an odd place in my reflection where it didn’t seem right to pray for his soul as I might pray for a stranger, and it also didn’t feel right to pray in the personal way I do for friends and family. It’s not that I think he deserves more or less than anyone else, but rather that it’s important for me to face prayer openly, honestly, and in the correct way for each situation. It is that right fit that was illuding me.

As is has been said (and I totally forget by whom), “to find something, you must stop looking for it.” It was the case again for me. I stopped fretting over the issue and sat down to watch an episode of Northern Exposure on my computer. Now, I’ve spoken here before about my love of that particular show and the great wealth of wisdom I find in its characters, and tonight was no different. I quite randomly chose an episode from the fourth season entitled, Kaddish for Uncle Manny. It’s the story about the main character Joel Fleischman learning the news of his uncle Manny’s death. Saying the prayer of mourning—Kaddish—requires him to have a ten Jewish men—a minyan—present with him. The town comes together and begins the massive search across Alaska for ten Jews to help out.

The real powerful moment, though, happens right at the very end. In the final scene when Joel stands in front of his community and asks them all to be witnesses to his prayer even though they aren’t Jewish and didn’t know his uncle. He says to them “Maybe when I say the Kaddish, you can think about someone in your own life who you loved and feel free to say a prayer in your own way if you like.” Then he begins to pray and you can see on each of their faces that the connection has been made.

Kaddish is a prayer for the sanctification of God’s holy name. Sanctification. The term is translated from the Greek word ἅγιος (hagios), meaning sacred. It is also sometimes translated as holiness, purity, or separateness. It is this last term that brings out the true meaning in the term. Separateness, finding its root in God’s infinite separation from all things evil, but speaking most plainly about our separation from God as creatures, and our call to separate ourselves from sin as sons and daughters of Adam. It is a beautiful prayer to God, and one will notice the remarkable absence of any language about death, loss of life, or mourning.

יִתְגַּדַּל וְיִתְקַדַּשׁ שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא.
בְּעָלְמָא דִּי בְרָא כִרְעוּתֵהּ
וְיַמְלִיךְ מַלְכוּתֵהּ
וְיַצְמַח פֻּרְקָנֵהּ וִיקָרֵב(קיץ) מְשִׁיחֵהּ
בְּחַיֵּיכוֹן וּבְיוֹמֵיכוֹן
וּבְחַיֵּי דְכָל בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל
בַּעֲגָלָא וּבִזְמַן קָרִיב. וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן
יְהֵא שְׁמֵהּ רַבָּא מְבָרַךְ
לְעָלַם וּלְעָלְמֵי עָלְמַיָּא
יִתְבָּרַךְ וְיִשְׁתַּבַּח וְיִתְפָּאַר וְיִתְרוֹמַם
וְיִתְנַשֵּׂא וְיִתְהַדָּר וְיִתְעַלֶּה וְיִתְהַלָּל
שְׁמֵהּ דְקֻדְשָׁא בְּרִיךְ הוּא.
לְעֵלָּא (לְעֵלָּא מִכָּל) מִן כָּל בִּרְכָתָא
וְשִׁירָתָא תֻּשְׁבְּחָתָא וְנֶחֱמָתָא
דַּאֲמִירָן בְּעָלְמָא. וְאִמְרוּ אָמֵן

---

May the great Name of God be exalted and sanctified, throughout the world, which he has created according to his will. May his Kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the entire household of Israel, swiftly and in the near future; Amen. May his great name be blessed, forever and ever. Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored elevated and lauded be the Name of the holy one, Blessed is he—above and beyond any blessings and hymns, Praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; Amen. May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and life, upon us and upon all Israel; Amen.

He who makes peace in his high holy places, may he bring peace upon us, and upon all Israel; Amen.

(Listen to Joel Fleischman (Rob Marrow) say the Kaddish for Uncle Manny.)

When I listened to that prayer at the end of the episode, I took Joel’s advice. I let my mind go from my uncle to those I’ve known more intimately, those who I’ve loved and lost. I thought of my maternal grandparents mostly, and their spirit of goodness that filled my life for so long. My grandma in particular, in whom I see a personal saint, one to be emulated for her devotion to Christ. I don’t know Hebrew, but I know the meaning of the words. I prayed to God and to the beautiful, eternal sanctification of his name, the origins of the Word, and the ultimate love (caritas) that sustains all life and gives everything meaning. I thought of my grandma, and my grandpa, and there in the distance along with a fading mental image of his face, I prayed with and for my uncle. He and all of them are swept up in the prayerful movement of my heart to God, filled with the loving words and thoughts present in the Kaddish, and given the personal strength added by the thoughts of those closest to me.

I will think fondly of my uncle now, and remember him along with the others until it is my own turn to go to God. Now, like Joel Fleischman, I invite you to pray along in your own way as you think about those whom you have loved.

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Before I get started, let me first make it very clear that this implementation is totally ripped off from a few other sources, most notably, the awesome Flex Logger. I don’t use Flex a lot, and I honestly don’t really care for it, but there are still some very cool things it does. I don’t know how many times I’ve been reading through the AS3 API when I come across a fantastic object that I want to use only to find out that it’s from the infamous “mx” package. Curses! Alas, I’ll have to just settle for recreating all Flex’s cool mumbo-jumbo in pure AS3 myself.

Now, lets get talking about the logger. For those of you who don’t care about the inner workings and just want to use it, you can find the link to the source code and sample implementation FLA at the bottom of this post. For the rest of you (all two of you), here we go:

My logging system is built around three core components: the Log, the Loggers, and the Consoles. Lets talk about each in turn.

The heart of the logging system is a singleton class called “Log” (it rolls over your neighbor’s dog). For those who care, I used a slightly different singleton implementation on this class than on my TabManager, not for any particular reason, but just because I like to mix it up. The roll of the Log class is to handle all of the logging messages sent out from the various Loggers in all of your classes, do some simple error checking, and then pass those to the active Consoles. As a singleton, there’s only ever one instance of Log, which keeps things nice and organized.

package com.tomasino.logging
{
	import flash.errors.IllegalOperationError;
	import com.tomasino.logging.*;
	
	public class Log
	{
		private static var _allowInstantiation:Boolean = false;
		private static var _inst:Log;
		
		public var logLevel:int = 0;
		public var filters:Array = new Array();
		
		private var consoles:Array = new Array ();
		
		public function Log ()
		{
			if (!_allowInstantiation)
			{
				throw new IllegalOperationError ('Cannot instantiate Log. Use Log.inst.');
			}
			
			var traceConsole:TraceConsole = new TraceConsole ();
			consoles.push (traceConsole);
		}
		
		public static function get inst():Log
		{
			if (_inst == null)
			{
				_allowInstantiation = true;
				_inst = new Log();
				_allowInstantiation = false;
			}
			return _inst;
		}
		
		public function log (category:String, level:Number, msg:String):void
		{
			if ((level >= logLevel) && (logLevel != -1))
			{
				var show:Boolean = true;
				if (filters.length)
				{
					show = false;
					for (var i:int = 0; i < filters.length; ++i)
					{
						if (filters[i] is RegExp)
						{
							var matchRegExp:RegExp = filters[i] as RegExp;
							if (matchRegExp.test (category))
							{
								show = true;
								break;
							}
						}
						else if (filters[i] is String)
						{
							var matchString:String = filters[i] as String;
							if (matchString == category.substr (0, matchString.length))
							{
								show = true;
								break;
							}
						}
					}
				}
				
				if (show)
				{
					for (i = 0; i < consoles.length; ++i)
					{
						IConsole (consoles[i]).log (category, level, msg);
					}
				}
			}
		}
		
		public function addConsole (c:IConsole):void
		{
			consoles.push (c);
		}
	}
}

The “Logger” class is your workhorse. This is the class that gets instantiated in each class of your project. Each Logger gets passed either a string name or a reference to “this” in its constructor so it gains a particular identity. These identities are used by the various consoles to organize all of your debug information in a logical and pretty way that makes searching for errors a cinch. Logger has methods like info(), warn(), and error() that allow you to send messages to debugger with specific levels of importance. With some configuration of the Log class, you can filter out these messages by level, string or regular expression (how fancy!).

package com.tomasino.logging
{
	import flash.errors.IllegalOperationError;
	import com.tomasino.logging.LogLevel;
	import com.tomasino.logging.Log;
	import flash.utils.getQualifiedClassName;
	
	public class Logger
	{
		private var _category:String;
		private var _log:Log;
		
		public function Logger (category:Object):void
		{
			_log = Log.inst;

			if (category is String)
			{
				_category = category as String;
			}
			else
			{
				_category = getQualifiedClassName (category);
			}
		}

		public function log (level:int, message:String, ... rest):void
		{
			if (rest.length)
			{
				message +=  ' ' + rest.join (' ');
			}
			_log.log (_category, level, message);
		}

		public function debug (message:String, ... rest):void
		{
			if (rest.length)
			{
				message +=  ' ' + rest.join (' ');
			}

			log (LogLevel.DEBUG, message);
		}
				
		public function info (message:String, ... rest):void
		{
			if (rest.length)
			{
				message +=  ' ' + rest.join (' ');
			}

			log (LogLevel.INFO, message);
		}
			
		public function warn (message:String, ... rest):void
		{
			if (rest.length)
			{
				message +=  ' ' + rest.join (' ');
			}

			log (LogLevel.WARN, message);
		}
		
		public function error (message:String, ... rest):void
		{
			if (rest.length)
			{
				message +=  ' ' + rest.join (' ');
			}

			log (LogLevel.ERROR, message);
		}
				
		public function fatal (message:String, ... rest):void
		{
			if (rest.length)
			{
				message +=  ' ' + rest.join (' ');
			}

			log (LogLevel.FATAL, message);
		}
	}
}

Finally there are the Consoles. The Consoles are the classes that get the debug information and present it back to you in some way. By default, Log is set up to have the “TraceConsole” enabled automatically. TraceConsole is a wrapper around the AS3 trace() method that does some pretty formatting, and automatically hides your traces in live environments (unless you pass a particular query string parameter). The other Console I have included is “LogBookConsole”, which uses a LocalConnection to send your debug data to LogBook. All of the Consoles implement an interface called “IConsole”.

If you aren’t familiar with LogBook, it’s a really awesome AIR application built by Comcast for their own debugging needs that takes LocalConnection data, parses it, and displays it within a really pretty DataGrid. It also has some great searching and filtering options. I highly recommend it.

package com.tomasino.logging
{
	public interface IConsole{
		function log(category:String, level:Number, msg:String):void;
	}
}

package com.tomasino.logging
{
	import com.tomasino.logging.IConsole;
	
	public class TraceConsole implements IConsole
	{
		private var _lastcategory:String;
		
		public function TraceConsole ():void { }
		
		public function log (category:String, level:Number, message:String):void
		{
			var t:String = ''; // Define output string
			if (category != _lastcategory)
			{
				t += (_lastcategory) ? '\n' : '';
				t += '==> ' + category + '\n';
			}
			
			t += '\t';
			
			switch (level)
			{
				case LogLevel.DEBUG:
					t += 'DEBUG -- ';
					break;
				case LogLevel.INFO:
					t += 'INFO  -- ';
					break;
				case LogLevel.WARN:
					t += 'WARN  -- ';
					break;
				case LogLevel.ERROR:
					t += 'ERROR -- ';
					break;
				case LogLevel.FATAL:
					t += 'FATAL -- ';
					break;
			}
			
			t += message;
			
			_lastcategory = category;
			
			if (t) trace(t);
		}
	}
}

package com.tomasino.logging
{
	import flash.events.StatusEvent;
	import flash.net.LocalConnection;

	public class LogBookConsole implements IConsole{

		public static const LOGGING_METHOD:String = "logMessage";
		private var _lc:LocalConnection;
		private var _connection:String;
		
		public function LogBookConsole(connectionId:String)
		{
			_lc = new LocalConnection();
			_lc.addEventListener(StatusEvent.STATUS, statusEventHandler);
			_connection = connectionId;
		}

		private function statusEventHandler(event:StatusEvent):void
		{
			//trace("statusEventHandler: " + event.code);
		}

		public function log(category:String, level:Number, msg:String):void{
			
			var d:Date = new Date();

			try {
				_lc.send(_connection, LOGGING_METHOD, d, category, level, msg);
			} catch(error:Error) {
				trace('ERROR - Cannot sconnect to local connection');
			}
		}
		
		public function toString():String
		{
			return "LocalConnectionTarget[" + _connection + "]";
		}

		public function getConnectionId():String {
			return _connection;
		}
	}
}

In a normal implementation, all that is necessary to use the basic logging system is to import Logger into one of your classes, instantiate and name it, and call one of its methods. This will use the standard TraceConsole and give you some pretty output. If you want a greater control of the system, import Log into your document class and manipulate the filters array (takes either strings or regular expressions), add or remove consoles from the consoles array, or change the default log level by accessing the singleton instance. For instance: Log.inst.consoles.push (new LogBookConsole(‘_com.tomasinoblog’)); // will enable a LogBook connection on the string _com.tomasinoblog. One small note: for some reason, LogBook likes connections that start with an underscore.

That’s all it takes. It compiles down pretty small, too, which I’m a fan of. Ready to try it out?

There’s no license on this or any of my utility code (anything in the com.tomasino packages). Feel free to use it or modify it at your own discretion. If you find something useful I’d love to know about it. Thanks.

Download the source and example FLA: here

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So to fix my problem, I started looking up options for focus management in AS3. I saw a few things floating around online, but most were either Flex based, cumbersome, or not as easy to implement as I wanted. So, being a lover of utility classes, I decided to build my own.

I wanted a very specific set of features, and listed them out:

• Define groups of tab-able items
• Groups can be defined by any object, not just a string name
• Define the order of items within a group
• Allow items to be in more than one group
• Maintain one active group at a time
• Quickly toggle between groups
• Clean up nicely

Below is the class I came up with for my first draft. It uses a couple other utility classes I’ve built in the past (included in the ZIP below).

package com.tomasino.accessibility
{
	import flash.display.InteractiveObject;
	import flash.utils.Dictionary;

	public class TabManager
	{
		private static var _inst:TabManager;
		private var _hash:Dictionary = new Dictionary(true);
		private var _activeCategory:Object;
		
		public function TabManager (_singletonEnforcer:SingletonEnforcer):void { }
		
		public static function get inst ():TabManager
		{
			if (!_inst)
			{
				_inst = new TabManager (new SingletonEnforcer ());
			}
			return _inst;
		}
		
		public function addTabItem (category:Object, io:InteractiveObject, index:int = -1):void
		{
			// Set this as active category if this is the first item added
			if (!_activeCategory) _activeCategory = category;

			var cat:Array;
			
			// If no existing category, create it
			if (exists(category))
			{
				cat = _hash[category] as Array;
			}
			else
			{
				cat = new Array ();
				_hash[category] = cat;
			}
			
			var existingIndex:int = cat.indexOf (io);
		
			if (existingIndex == -1)
			{
				// If item is already in category...
				if ((index >= 0) && (index < cat.length))
				{
					// Put it in a valid index
					cat.splice (index, 0, io);
				}
				else
				{
					// Put it at the end
					cat.push (io);
				}
			}
			else
			{
				if (existingIndex != index)
				{
					cat.splice (existingIndex, 1);
					if ((index >= 0) && (index < cat.length))
					{
						// Put it in a valid index
						cat.splice (index, 0, io);
					}
					else
					{
						// Put it at the end
						cat.push (io);
					}
				}
			}
			if (_activeCategory != category)
			{
				var activeCategory:Array = _hash[_activeCategory] as Array;
				if (activeCategory.indexOf (io) == -1)
					io.tabEnabled = false;
			}
			else
			{
				io.tabEnabled = true;
			}
			
			//io.focusRect = false;
			updateTabOrder (category);
		}
			
		public function removeTabItem (io:InteractiveObject):void
		{
			for (var key:Object in _hash )
			{
				var cat:Array = _hash[key] as Array;
				if (cat)
				{
					var existingIndex:int = cat.indexOf (io);
					if (existingIndex != -1)
						cat.splice (existingIndex, 1);
				}
			}
		}
		
		public function removeTabItemFromCategory (category:Object, io:InteractiveObject):void
		{
			var cat:Array = _hash[category] as Array;
			if (cat)
			{
				var existingIndex:int = cat.indexOf (io);
				if (existingIndex != -1)
					cat.splice (existingIndex, 1);
			}
		}
		
		public function removeCategory (category:Object):void
		{
			_hash[category] = null;
		}
		
		public function cleanup ():void
		{
			for (var k:Object in _hash )
			{
				var key:Array = k as Array;
				if (key)
				{
					for (var i:int = key.length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
					{
						if (key[i] == null)
						{
							key.splice (i, 1);
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
		
		public function get activeCategory ():Object { return _activeCategory; }
		
		public function set activeCategory (category:Object):void
		{
			if (exists(category))
			{
				if (category != _activeCategory)
				{
					deactivate (_activeCategory);
					activate (category);
				}
			}
			else
			{
				trace ('Category does not exist:', category);
			}
		}
		
		private function deactivate (category:Object):void
		{
			if (_activeCategory == category) _activeCategory = null;

			if (category)
			{
				var cat:Array = _hash[category] as Array;
				if (cat)
				{
					for (var i:int = 0; i < cat.length; ++i)
					{
						var io:InteractiveObject = cat[i];
						if (io)
						{
							io.tabEnabled = false;
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
		
		private function activate (category:Object):void
		{
			_activeCategory = category;
			
			if (category)
			{
				var cat:Array = _hash[category] as Array;
				if (cat)
				{
					for (var i:int = 0; i < cat.length; ++i)
					{
						var io:InteractiveObject = cat[i];
						try
						{
							//io.stage.focus = io;
						}
						catch (e:Error)
						{
							// Fail quietly
						}
						if (io)
						{
							io.tabEnabled = true;
						}
					}
				}
			}
		}
		
		private function updateTabOrder (category:Object):void
		{
			if (category)
			{
				var cat:Array = _hash[category] as Array;
				if (cat)
				{
					for (var i:int = 0; i < cat.length; ++i)
					{
						var io:InteractiveObject = cat[i];
						io.tabIndex = i;
					}
				}
			}
		}
		
		private function exists (category:Object):Boolean
		{
			return (_hash[category] == null) ? false : true;
		}
		
	}
}

internal class SingletonEnforcer
{
	public function SingletonEnforcer ()
	{
		// there can be only one
	}
}

All-in-all, though, I think it’s a pretty solid start at a good tab management system.

The biggest issues for implementation are:

• Focus Rectangles are still default yellow and there’s no good way to style them otherwise automatically
• You must be diligent about adding every tab-able item to the manager. If you miss something, the TabManager won’t know about it and it will remain in the normal tab order.

One day I would like to tackle the optimization and add some new features. I think it would be neat to have some auto-focus detection or something that could toggle the tab system for you, if you wanted, perhaps driven by a boolean. That way, if you were using one tab group and you manually clicked with your mouse to another, it would toggle to use the new group’s tab order.

Anyone out there have any other ideas or requests that could make this thing more usable? Either way, the files are down below. Feel free to grab and play. Please comment if you find it useful or interesting.

There’s no license on this or any of my utility code (anything in the com.tomasino packages). Feel free to use it or modify it at your own discretion. If you find something useful I’d love to know about it. Thanks.

Example Code, source, and FLA: here

UPDATE: I’ve done some surgery to the class to remove the excess dependencies and fix a few bugs. The example project will be updated shortly as well.

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Advent, from the Latin verb advenire—’to come’ or adventus—’an arrival’. It is a season of waiting and preparation, but its real significance seems to fade into the background for many of us when faced with the imminent Christmas holiday. The sombre celebrations we have at mass, the simple decorations and quiet anticipatory spirit don’t mesh with the manic energy of holiday shopping, fourth quarter work binges, and family trips. We are entering a season that calls upon us for extra vigilance, yet we find ourselves perhaps less aware of the happenings around us than ever.

What is it we’re celebrating, anyway? Why do we call out the time before Christmas like this, or why do we call out the Lenten time before Easter? Wouldn’t it be easier on us to simply get together on Christmas morning with our families and friends and give gifts? What’s with all the anticipation?

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
    - Ezekiel 36:26

The promises of God to his people Israel go back to the earliest books of the Bible. Through all the scriptures of the old testament we hear the prophets speak again and again of the fulfillment of these promises. As the poor, enslaved people fled into the desert and wandered for years and years, they lived and thrived upon the promises of God. For generations, through strife with enemies from abroad and disturbingly misguided actions from within their own numbers, they continued to preserver, waiting for the promised days to come. They chose their first king and watched as his love for glory almost destroyed them, but God’s promises still held true. With the new king raises a great house, one that would survive for 41 more generations (or 27 according to Matthew) before the fulfillment of God’s promise.

These weren’t empty years for Israel. They weren’t just opening acts to the main event. These hundreds of years were filled by real lives, real suffering and real joy. Their hope for the future was real, and their vigilance was strong. From Ezekiel to Jeremiah to Luke, the sense of anticipation is so powerful you can feel it in their words.

Advent is a symbol, but it is not just a red (or purple, if you will) carpet leading to Christmas. It is a symbol of Israel and their long history of faith, hope, and watchfulness.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.
    - Isaiah 7:14

Read carefully the lines of my favorite Christmas hymn and see if you can find Advent’s powerful sense union and anticipation.

Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, our Wisdom from on high,
Who ordered all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, oh, come, our Lord of might,
Who to your tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times gave holy law,
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come O Rod of Jesse’s stem,
From ev’ry foe deliver them
That trust your mighty pow’r to save;
Bring them in vict’ry through the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, O Key of David, come,
And open wide our heav’nly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, our Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by your drawing nigh,
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!

Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Oh, bid our sad divisions cease,
And be yourself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to you, O Israel!
    - Veni, Veni Emmanuel or O Come, O Come Emmanuel (12th-13th century) translation by John Neal

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Jesus set the book of nature before me and I saw that all the flowers He has created are lovely. The splendor of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not rob the little violet of its scent nor the daisy of its simple charm. I realized that if every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness and there would be no wildflowers to make the meadows gay.

It is just the same in the world of souls — which is the garden of Jesus. He has created the great saints who are like the lilies and the roses, but He has also created much lesser saints and they must be content to be the daisies or the violets which rejoice his eyes whenever He glances down. Perfection consists in doing His will, in being that which He wants us to be.
    - St. Thérèse of Lisieux – Story of a Soul (1898)

There’s something to be said for feeling special. We think of it as a good thing, that special denotes a value above ordinaray, above normal. Parents tell their children, teachers tell their students, bosses tell employees. They say, “Develop pride in yourself,” though not usually with those words. We think of it as a good thing.

Ask a group of people to raise their hand if they think they’re an above-average driver. In that fictitious crowd, will half the hands remain still? Will the number be even close? We are all affected by this sense of unreality we project on ourselves and others. We are the exception, the unique ones, worth more than the others and deserving of more.

But what about those hands? If so many are raised, what does that mean? Are we all above average? Are we all special? Some people will tell you that’s it exactly! We are all unique and beautiful and special in our own way, but then what does "special" even mean? Words become devoid of meaning and semantics takes the reins.

These days even mentioning alternatives is offensive. To say that yes, some people are not special, that they are just regular average Joe’s seems to raise up hackles. Or worse, think about how you feel when you read this sentence: Some people are better than others.

Ready to leave an angry comment yet? What is it about the idea of (in)equality that offends our sensibilities so deeply to elicit such a primal reaction? I didn’t even qualify my statement by defining what I meant by better. I could have been talking about some people being better at balancing on a high-wire, but it didn’t matter. It’s not simply a matter of me being wrong. If I had said, “There’s no such thing as a person over six feet tall,” people would dismiss it as uninformed and ridiculous. No, with this question there is something more invested. Why do you think this is? Why is it okay to call someone special as long as everyone is special, but not to say that everyone is the same, or that one person is better than another.

I look upon myself as a weak little bird, with only a light down as covering. I am not an eagle, but I have only an eagle’s eyes and heart. In spite of my extreme littleness I still dare to gaze upon the Divine Sun, the Sun of Love, and my heart feels within it all the aspirations of an Eagle…
    - Ibid.

I don’t want this post to turn into a big diatribe about the modern cause for equality vs. the pedagogy of uniqueness and individuality. I recognize that these are necessary and positive things in many arenas. Certainly understanding the innate equality of rights of all human beings is important just as is developing children that can act with confidence. Instead, I want to focus on the specific question of individual self-value.

By self-value, I don’t necessarily mean self-esteem. I mean the understanding of the deep, natural value of a human life. These are indistinguishable from one another. These are equal, and like St. Thérèse says, they are all important. Some lives burn bright, some muddle through life dimly, but they’re all part of God’s plan. Even the littlest birds can sing a beautiful song. This young saint, in her early 20s at the time of her death, never accomplished great things. She never traveled. She wasn’t martyred. She simply lived life’s little moments and found God in them. This simple girl, who was certainly not special for her time, is now one of only three women to be called Doctor of the Church.

I was dished out an extra helping of pride as a child, and I clung to it dearly as I grew older. Long after I’d put away my stuffed camel (never had a teddy-bear), I still had the comfort of knowing in my heart that I was special. I deserved more from life and I was going to see that it came to me, no matter the cost. It’s a sense of entitlement that I see in a lot of people and groups around me. Perhaps because I know it so intimately, it fills me with anger when I recognize it now. I see my own weakness and ignorance in others, and I want to scream, “Look at my weaknesses!”

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
    - 2 Corinthians 12:9

It’s okay to want two kids in the suburbs. You can still face the challenge of God in every little thing you do. Lets be honest, it might not be special, but that doesn’t make it worth less than any other great achievement. You don’t have to be a movie star or own a powerful company, and you don’t have to be a saint. Just don’t be tempted by pride, not even false pride.

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When I was very young, my great-uncle Oscar showed me a magic trick. He gripped his left thumb firmly in his right hand and then pulled. The tip of his thumb slid right off and floated there for a moment before reattaching. My childhood world of simple rules exploded. I was terrified and shaken. Fingers were removable. What else didn’t I know? What other things were possible?

I look back at the little boy and laugh now about how firmly I believed in his little trick, but that feeling of suddenly not understanding the world around you has stayed with me. In some of the more profound moments of learning it crept back into the forefront.

I was sitting in 6th grade science class when I casually flipped through my text book. In the opening paragraph of the new chapter we were beginning was a fairly innocuous little sentence mentioned in passing without a further note. It said just before the paragraph break, that as you approach objects of intense gravity, time slows down. Let me say that again. Time slows down. Imagine yourself in sixth grade suddenly realizing that time isn’t the constant, ever-flowing march of inevitability that you thought it was. More than a removable thumb, this idea pulled me out of my comfort zone and tossed me into a spiral of questioning, doubting, and disbelief.

The textbook never mentioned it again; how’s that for teasing? Luckily my teacher shed some light on the subject. He told us about Einstein and the idea of relativity. Things became a little more settled in my head when I could grasp this amazing mystical idea in some frame of reference. It allowed me to suspend my uncertainty long enough to recognize the truth. It allowed me to experience something so horrifyingly "other", but not fear it or let my imagination twist it into something gruesome.

In this idea originated the plan of the "Lyrical Ballads"; in which it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.
    - Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Biographia Literaria (1817)

In Nassim Nicholas Taleb‘s book, The Black Swan, the author talks about things he calls Black Swan Events. They are the outlying, improbable events that turn things upside down. In the 17th century, it was common knowledge that “all swans are white,” so much so that the term, “black swan,” became synonymous with something that was impossible and couldn’t exist. How shocking was it for those people when, in the 18th century, black swans were discovered in Western Australia? What had been a term for the impossible was instantly transformed into an argument against the impossible, or perhaps to keep your eyes open to the possibility of the improbable.

Taleb is concerned with the practical implications of these events, of how they might affect banks, or politics. His talks focus on the true events, like learning that time is relative. He values these as either negative or positive based on their impact to a particular group of people. But what about the false events, the events like my great uncle’s thumb popping off his hand suddenly. The impact is no less profound, even if it is only an illusion or shadow of truth. In its falsehood it still affects and influences. It still strikes with a profound sense of surprise. Afterward, the effect can still be rationalized by hindsight and even expected, even if that rationalization determines the deception. It fits the same rules for a Black Swan Event, and it itself may be positive or negative. What value can we find in these?

What about you? What moments were so profound to you that it shattered your understanding of the world? Was it a real event, or a trick? Was it in life or in literature? Was it in a classroom or in a movie?

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I’ve always been a believer in predetermination. There is one future for every single one of us, and it is known to God. How can I be so sure? It’s easy! Not one of us is a time traveler. That’s it. That’s all the explanation necessary. Sure, things would get much more complex if we suddenly figured out how to leap back in time, but since that’s not the case I can sum up my argument neatly with a bow.

Every one of us will make choices, face events outside our control, try to be spontaneous, but it all amounts to the same thing. We each live our single thread of decisions from the moment we are conceived to the moment we pass away. That single thread is as straight as an arrow to Mr. Time, despite all our scheming and philosophizing. No matter how hard we try, we never branch, split, knot, or fray.

But what about those paths not taken. The limits of our lives enable us to see life from one long road, and though we can sometimes glimpse at turns we didn’t take and see hints of signs and life around the corner, before long we’ve moved on. Sometimes that’s a sad thing and sometimes it isn’t.

That’s what I love about this poem. Unlike some of the things I’ve written about loss and being unable to go back to those earlier days, there isn’t such a clear claim to the value of the limit—whether it is good or bad. Maybe here and there is a tinge of regret or nostalgia, but only so much as to acknowledge that natural sorrow of mortality. Moreover, there is the sense of inevitability and acceptance. Nothing expresses the idea of our linear existence quite like these lines, “The crossroads seem to lie unbarred before you/But four-faced Janus watches what you do.”

I come back to thoughts like this when I face life-changing decisions. To choose A or B? There is a thrill in it when you keep the grand idea of predetermination in mind. Whatever you choose will have been your destiny. It will have been because it is, and it is because you chose it. That is exciting indeed. It gives me a comfort knowing that my choices will all add up to a single thread in the end and that it will be woven flawlessly into the tapestry of the world. Even when I’m feeling empty and alone that sort of thinking can remind me of just how connected I really am, not just to other people, but to the entire course of history.

It may be that time is a limit, but I find it to be a blessing and a grace. Given the option, I think I would kindly decline a trip in the Delorian.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the book Priestly Virtues: Reflections on the Moral Virtues in the Life of the Priest, which I quoted a while back. In it, Rev. O’Keefe talks a length about St. Thomas Aquinas and the ways in which we develop our sense of virtue and form ourselves into whom we want to be. We bring about change in ourselves through our own actions, and through the grace of God, but also through the relationships we have with our friends and family. In a very real sense this community is a part of us, and we of it.

There was a time when I didn’t see how my "community" could help me be the person I feel called to be. If I couldn’t see the values in them, how would they be reflected back in my own life? So I learned to emulate, or at least admire, the hermits who find their path to God through grace and faith alone, without the aid of other people. I wrapped myself up in my solitude and found it thrillingly conducive to prayer and growth.

As much as I love solitude, though, I’ve become aware that my lack of community with regard to my spiritual growth and discernment has its costs. There are the obvious problems. I tend to stagnate and remain fixed on one aspect of my discernment without noticing the graces moving past me. Sometimes I talk myself into behavior that I know is contrary to what I should be doing. I may walk the line too much, but these aren’t my only problems. It seems that without realizing it, I’ve become stir-crazy.

I met with the Vocation Director of the New York and Maryland Provinces of the Society of Jesus last weekend. I was so nervous while I took the train up to New York. My mind kept jumping back and forth between extremes. On the one hand, I was hoping that he would ask me to begin the application process, to begin writing my spiritual autobiograph (which is the first step in the process), and give me some guidance on what to do next. On the other hand, I also had the irrational fears that he’d tell me I wasn’t right for the Society, that I wouldn’t make a good Jesuit and should do something else. It was a silly thought, but a fear that was present nonetheless. Moreover, there were the insidious middle-thoughts. Maybe he would tell me that I should wait another few years to apply. Maybe he would tell me that I should look more into the Dominicans. Maybe maybe maybe.

When we finally sat down to talk, my nervousness made me jumpy. I talked way too much, rambled, and before I knew it I was talking about all sorts of odd-ball theological topics. At one point I made the random exclaimation that I didn’t like evangelical language because it seemed unnatural and creates a seperation for me between faith and daily living. After-all, I’ve never used the word "rejoice" in normal conversation. Why would I use it in prayer or worship?

The Director was great, though. He laughed with me at my randomness and was in good spirits throughout our lunch-talk. In the end, he asked me to begin my autobiography after all. All my worries were for nothing, but the meeting revealed something important to me. I was so eager for someone to talk to about theology, philosophy and discernment that I jumped all over the poor man at any opening he gave me. My desire for community has been bottled up, corked, and fermented for too long. I need to let it air before my insides turn to vinegar.

So in the next few weeks, while I begin crafting my essay, I’ll also be trying to reach out more and talk about the topics that interest me. I’ll try to take more trips to St. Joe’s and meet with the Jesuits there. I’ll try to involve my friends and family more and talk about things.

The people in my life aren’t like they used to be. They’re good people and the virtue that can develop from living and sharing with them fits right in line with what Rev. O’Keefe was talking about in his book. Who knows, maybe next time I go to New York, I won’t horribly embarrass myself either.

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It was at one of these holidays when I first noticed my Grandpa’s thumb shaking. He placed his fork back on his plate as he chewed on some stuffing, placed his hand on the table, but his thumb didn’t stop moving. It shook back and forth, back and forth. Somewhere in my childhood brain I filed it away as something that “just happens to old people.”

We didn’t know about Parkinson’s Disease, or at least I didn’t. His hand trembles were just part of who he was, as was the way he slowed down as the years went by. That’s a normal thing to expect with the years, right? I just imagined that his frailty was a natural progression and there was nothing to be done about it.

Before too long, he couldn’t drive anymore. Whether it was his shaking or the way his limbs didn’t listen to him anymore, I’m not sure. He’d try to get up from a chair and his legs wouldn’t respond. I’d pull his arms to get him started and I’d see the struggle on his face, the struggle to regain control of his body. Grandma would help him up the stairs, a step at a time and with a good grip on the rail. He worked less in the garden, took less trips out. The frailty worked over him and little by little took his freedom. But to me it was just the cost of age, the cost of a long life, and I never questioned it.

Until my Grandma died.

It happened at night, when they were going to bed. She complained of chest pains and he knew right away what was happening. That’s when my Grandpa did what I never imagined he was capable of doing. He lifted her from the bed and carried her down the stairs. He carried her to the car. He drove to the hospital. He picked my Grandma up again and walked her into the cardiac ward and called out for Myrna, my brother-in-law’s aunt who worked there as a nurse. From the depths of his soul he pulled the strength and control to do all these things in the moment they were needed.

Sadly, it wasn’t enough to save her that night. God took an amazing woman years before we ever thought she’d go. My Grandpa was left alone.

In a short time he moved into an assisted living home and found a new doctor for his parkinson’s. The new medications pulled him out of the molasses and let his limbs free. In those visits I saw the familiar guise of the disease with its rocking, shaking, endless movement. It was very far progressed and we all knew there wasn’t a lot of time left.

We went to church with him in the home’s little chapel. The priest walked in and Grandpa sat down near the front, in the section where he and his wife would have sat at their own church years before. He no sooner sat than the quakes settled and he was the familiar Grandpa from my childhood Thanksgivings. No shaking, no movement, just his eyes closed in prayer.

I don’t know if he was with her or with God. Perhaps both. His peace was so deep that not even the disease could stir him. There in the presence of God, a simple act of worship did what no drugs could do, if only for a little while.

A few years later I made the drive back to Ohio when my Mom told me he was in his last few days. I saw him there in the bed, the disease having wasted him away. He weighed half of what he used to, with morphine dripping into his arm and labored breathing. He was so weak, so parched. It wasn’t what I wanted to remember.

I didn’t stay that night. I drove back home. There was no need for me to see it happen. I prayed from afar.

My father’s parents, now in their late 80s, are dealing with the problems of advanced age. My Grandma says she doesn’t have much time. She’s been saying it for years, we all joke, but lately the jokes haven’t had the same strength in them. I talk to her about dying and with a shaky voice, she tells me that she’s scared. She’s scared to leave all the people she loves, the family, the friends. She knows that she’ll be with her other family soon, her parents, her brothers and sisters, but still she’s afraid of what’s to come.

I know I’ll miss her when it finally happens, but it doesn’t scare me like it used to. When Grandpa carried my Grandma down the stairs and rushed her to the hospital, he gave me a glimpse of something so deep in his spirit, something so rare in all of us, that it’s only ever seen in glimpses or in stories. When he sat down in that church and I saw the strength of it overwhelm the wasting disease that would eventually take his life, I knew what that power was. One day my other Grandma will leave this world, just as my Grandpa, my parents, sister, and even I will go; but I know, I believe, that there’s nothing to fear in it. As sad as I’ll be to lose them in this life, I’ll be so much happier inside to know that all their suffering and limitations have been stripped away and that they are in the presence of God in the full strength of their spirit.

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Locke’s understanding of our existence was likened to a dark closet with only pinholes and door cracks to let in light. These, he gathered, could be likened to our perceptions of things via the various senses we have at our disposal; the five physical senses, and the innumerable mental and spiritual senses that define our inner reactions and predilections. To me, this sense of the world always triggers memories of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Everything we can know and understand is just a reflection on the wall of some perfect nous that is forever out of reach.

Neoplatonists later built upon the image in their dissection of the order of the heavens and used it to define many levels of the gods that were known to them. The Demiurge, hyper-cosmic and cosmic gods, and of course, the “One” were all built into their mythos by way of this logic. Who knew that describing perfection could become so complex.

Plotinus, one of the most famous neoplatonists, had a particular visual analogy used to describe the celestial spheres and explain our relationship to the sacred that stands out quite clearly in my memory. Our world is a great crystal sphere in which each person is a single facet facing outward toward the void. Deep within that sphere is a world filled with perfect beings, and at the very center, God. Of course he doesn’t use those terms. In fact, in my inprecise memory I think it might have been St. Augustine that made the connection to God. Somewhere in that metaphor I lose track of what was Plotinus, what Augustine, what Locke, and what parts come from the other floating bits of disconnected philosophy that make up my daydreams.

In my conjoined vision, I see the light from God pouring outward through the sphere. The perfect bodies in the center let that light fill them and pass through unbiased to us, but we, the imperfect children are turned away. We watch the outer world with rapt attention and marvel at our shadows. The world for us becomes this dancing puppet theater of shadows on the wall even as we are bathed in God’s light.

It’s an incomplete vision, but a helpful one. I’ve used it time and time again to put certain theological questions into perspective. In fact, it was instrumental in helping me come to terms with and believe in the doctrine of the trinity.

In the light of my recent discernment, the metaphor has become a tool to help me in the Jesuit way of finding God in everyday life. I try to see it not in an abstract way of floating in space, but rather to picture this physical space that I embody as the my facet on the crystal. All directions for me on this world are outward from the sphere, and everything I see is a reflection upon creation. I imagine that to look inside and past myself is like trying to turn around and glimpse back into the crystal, toward heaven. I try it at times but often find myself standing in the way. Though, some places have been more successful than others.

Resurrection Bay in Seward, Alaska, was one of the most beautiful and thought provoking places I’ve ever been. I found the opportunity to kayak on the bay twice while I lived up there, and both times were filled with lengthy introspective trips across my metaphorical celestial sphere. At first I thought it was just the natural beauty and unending wilderness that surrounds everything that put me into that mood and let me step out of the way and feel God’s presence wash over my face. In retrospect, I think the act of kayaking may have had a much larger place in that equation that I originally thought.

Skimming across the surface of the water, glancing into the depths, gently dipping my fingertips; on a kayak the metaphor seems more real than the physical world. I squint into the sky and watch an eagle floating in place on invisible currents. Even without the paddle in the water I can feel the pull of my own currents. On that great surface there isn’t a need to close my eyes to picture the crystal anymore.

In the waking dream, floating on my tiny vessel, the world is alive with signs and omens. The eagle is more than a bird. Each body becomes perfect, and my sense of God is omnipresent.

I really like kayaking!

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In doing the examen, even with my horrible irregularity, I’ve noticed that it’s not hard for me to pick out a lot of sinfulness. In fact, on any average day I’d say I could take down 5 of the 7 deadly sins (in thought if not in action). It’s not something I’m proud of, quite the contrary. It’s a difficult thing to face each time I do it, but each examen brings a new opportunity to change and grow. That’s what it’s all about, right?

But that’s not what this post is all about. This post is about something else, something I wasn’t expecting in these last few weeks. I’ve been putting off writing this post specifically because in my recent examen experiences I’ve noticed a new sin brewing in me. Wrath.

I’m not a hateful person, and though I enjoy awesome, mindless action films like the next guy, and though I really enjoy fantasy novels and role playing games, I am not an altogether violent person. I’m find martial arts fascinating, the art of fencing, in particular, but not for its violence as much as its skill and technique. It’s the same with shooting; I enjoy it for the meditative focus and skill, not for the violence.

The past few weeks, though, I’ve been having a lot of trouble with truly violent, angry feelings. It’s all wrapped up in the drama of this latest move to Pennsylvania. I hired a local mover to take my things up here, and it’s turned quite disastrous. I’d rather not go into details since it only seems to rile me up. Needless-to-say, the movers have been the target of all that rage.

Now I know it doesn’t help anything to be so angry. I’m not making the situation better and I’m certainly not making myself feel any better. In fact, all that anger inevitably turns itself inward and gives me a big stomach ache.

When I was younger, I didn’t have any control over it, and I would lash out, speak out, get into fights, or any number of destructive things. As I got older I learned to hold back, but not in a healthy way. Like many people, it became natural to just bottle it up and press it down, smothering the anger with self control. It seems like a functional method at first glance, but it has its cost. All that rage doesn’t just go away when I hold it in. Like any strong emotion bottled up, it eats at you from the inside. Bottled up worry gave my mom ulcers. Not good stuff. There’s also the matter of what happens when the feelings boil over. What happens when you can hold any more inside? I think we’ve all experienced explosions like that before.

The past couple weeks have had me trying new things with my anger. I tried praying about it in my normal ways, but the emotions kept me from focusing. So I tried saying the Rosary and actually found some decent relief in it. It’s like my spiritual director in Atlanta told me not so long ago, when you don’t have the energy to pray anything else, sometimes a memorized prayer is exactly what you need.

I’ll keep doing what I can to let the feelings pass back out of me. I keep telling them they’re not welcome here anymore. Anger is stubborn, though. It doesn’t like to listen to logic.

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The runtime font system has four parts to it:

• The Font Manager – The core of the system that handles loading the fonts, all the events, and manages which have already gone into memory.
• The Font Manager Extension – The application-specific manager describes which fonts are loadable in this application and sets up some string constants to make things easier to use.
• The Font Manager Implementation – The application needs to implement the manager in order to use it. This is where that happens.
• The Font File – Very important indeed, we need to actually prepare the fonts we want to use at runtime.

The Font Manager will provide the methods for loading fonts, managing which have already been loaded, dispatching events properly when loading groups of fonts, and so on. The application will lean on these events to know when the fonts are ready for each view.

My manager uses the BulkLoader project. It’s released under the MIT License, so you can grab a copy for yourself over at Google Code. The role it plays in this class is important, but I don’t think it would be too difficult to re-author the batch loading algorithm to cut out the dependency. If someone else wants to tackle this, I’d be happy to use it.

package com.tomasino.fonts
{
	import br.com.stimuli.loading.BulkLoader;
	import flash.events.EventDispatcher;
	import flash.events.Event;
	import flash.errors.IllegalOperationError;

	public class FontManager extends EventDispatcher
	{
		protected static var _fonts:Array = new Array();
		protected static var _fontsLoader:BulkLoader = new BulkLoader(BulkLoader.getUniqueName());
		protected static var _loadingFonts:Array = new Array();

		public function FontManager ()
		{
			_fontsLoader.addEventListener (BulkLoader.COMPLETE, onFontsLoad, false, 0, true);
			_fontsLoader.addEventListener (BulkLoader.ERROR, onFontsFail, false, 0, true);
		}

		public function loadFont (id:String):void
		{
			var match:Boolean = false;
			for (var i:int = 0; i < _fonts.length; ++i)
			{
				if (_fonts[i].id == id)
				{
					match = true;
					var font:FontVO = _fonts[i];
					break;
				}
			}

			if (match)
			{
				if (! font.loaded)
				{
					font.loaded = true;
					_loadingFonts.push (font);
				}
			}
			else
			{
				throw new IllegalOperationError("Error: FontManager cannot find Font named '" + id + "'");
			}
		}

		public function start ():void
		{
			if (! _fontsLoader.isRunning)
			{
				if (_loadingFonts.length)
				{
					var currentLoadLength:int = _loadingFonts.length;
					for (var i:int = 0; i < currentLoadLength; ++i)
					{
						_fontsLoader.add ( _loadingFonts[0].path );
						_loadingFonts.shift ();
					}
					_fontsLoader.start ();
				}
				else
				{
					dispatchEvent (new Event(Event.COMPLETE));
				}
			}
		}

		private function onFontsLoad ( event:Event ):void
		{
			start ();
		}

		private function onFontsFail ( event:Event ):void
		{
			throw new IllegalOperationError("Error: Invalid path to font");
		}

		public function register (id:String, path:String):void
		{
			var match:Boolean = false;
			for (var i:int = 0; i < _fonts.length; ++i)
			{
				if (_fonts[i].id == id)
				{
					match = true;
				}
				break;
			}

			if (! match)
			{
				var fontVO:FontVO = new FontVO(id,path);
				_fonts.push ( fontVO );
			}
		}

	}
}

The Font Manager also uses a little value object I’ve called FontVO. Here it is:

package com.tomasino.fonts
{
	public class FontVO
	{
		public var id:String;
		public var path:String;
		public var loaded:Boolean = false;

		public function FontVO (_id:String = null, _path:String = null)
		{
			id = _id;
			path = _path;
		}
	}
}

This seems like a good place to talk about the work-flow of the FontManager. When we implement this code into our project, we’re expecting the following behavior:

1. Register one or more fonts with the Manager
2. Load the font(s) we need.
3. Listen for the COMPLETE event to know our fonts are now ready
4. Display our text using the font
5. Repeat as necessary from #1 or #2

The FontManager class handles the majority of the operations on its own, straight out of the box. The parts that are missing from the equation are the list of which fonts to load, the fonts themselves, and a place to implement them. The Extension class, which we’ll look at next, provides the specific list of fonts to use, where to find them, and some constants to make things cleaner.

The Font Manager Extension looks like this:

package com.tomasino.example.fontmanager
{
	import flash.events.Event;
	import flash.events.EventDispatcher;
	import flash.errors.IllegalOperationError;
	
	import com.tomasino.fonts.FontManager;
	
	public class Fonts extends FontManager
	{
		private var urls:Object = new Object();
		
		// String Literal must match FontName property.
		public static const ARIAL:String = 'ArialFont';
		public static const GROTESQUE:String = 'GrotesqueMTFont';
		
		// Statics for Singleton Construction
		private static var _instance:Fonts;
		private static var _allowInstantiation:Boolean;
		
		public function Fonts ():void
		{
			super();
			if (!_allowInstantiation) 
			{
				// There can be only one!!!
				throw new IllegalOperationError("Error: Instantiation failed: Use Fonts.instance instead of new.");
			}
			
			urls[ARIAL] = '/fonts/arial.swf';
			urls[GROTESQUE] = '/fonts/grotesque.swf';
			
			for (var s:String in urls)
			{
				register (s, urls[s]);
			}
		}
		
		public static function get instance():Fonts 
		{
			if (_instance == null) 
			{
				_allowInstantiation = true;
				_instance = new Fonts();
				_allowInstantiation = false;
			}
			return _instance;
		}
	}
}

As you can see, I made this font into a Singleton for easy use in any of the views in my application. That is, however, not necessary. Even if you instantiate a new copy of the Manager, the data properties are all static and will work regardless. I’ve defined two static constants (ARIAL, GROTESQUE) which are given string literal names as values. These are important, as they’ll be the names we give our actual fonts in a moment. They should not match a font’s native name. I like suffixing the font with “Font”.

Inside the constructor the important part to note is the call to the register method. Since this class extends FontManager, we’ve inherited that method. The urls object is just an organization mechanism and isn’t really necessary as long as you’ve called register() properly. The second parameter in the register method is the path to your font swfs (which we’ll make in a minute). Simple, right?

Now lets look at the font implementation:

package com.tomasino.example.fontmanager
{
	import flash.display.Sprite;
	import flash.text.TextField;
	import flash.text.TextFormat;
	import com.tomasino.example.fontmanager.Fonts;
	
	public class FontImplementation extends Sprite
	{
		public function FontImplementation ():void
		{
			Fonts.instance.addEventListener (Event.COMPLETE, onFontLoaded);
			Fonts.instance.loadFont(Fonts.ARIAL);
			Fonts.instance.loadFont(Fonts.GROTESQUE);
			Fonts.instance.start();
		}
		
		public function onFontLoaded ( event:Event ):void
		{
			var myTextTextField = new TextField();
			myText.embedFonts = true;
			myText.defaultTextFormat = new TextFormat(Fonts.GROTESQUE, 12, 0xFFFFFF, true);
			myText.text = "This is the Grotestque Font";
			addChild(myText);
		}
	}
}

In this example, I’ve created a new FLA and I’m using this file as the document class. It would work equally well in an ActionScript project, or even in a Flex project. If the font is already loaded, the COMPLETE event will fire immediately, so be ready. Once we’re done loading, I’ve created a TextField and TextFormat object, and I’m using that same static constant of the font name to reference the actual font in memory. Keen!

Finally, you’ll probably want to know how to actually build the fonts for runtime. This is the trickiest part because it involves dealing with ugly Unicode ranges. I’ve included a website I use for reference in here. Again, this file is a document class of a Flash file (CS4 is required to use the Embed syntax), an ActionScript project, or–though I wouldn’t recommend it–a Flex file.

package com.tomasino.example.fontmanager
{
	import flash.display.Sprite;
	public class FontArial extends Sprite
	{
		/** Fonts By Unicode Range:
		  * http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fontsbyrange.html#u0000
		  */
		[Embed(systemFont="Arial", 
			fontName="ArialFont", /* This name must match the string literal in your class */
			mimeType="application/x-font", 
			unicodeRange="U+0000-U+007E,U+2000-U+206F")]
			var regular:Class;
			
		[Embed(systemFont="Arial", 
			fontName="ArialFont",
			mimeType="application/x-font", 
			fontWeight="bold",
			unicodeRange="U+0000-U+007E,U+2000-U+206F")]
			var bold:Class;
		
		public function FontArial ():void
		{
			Font.registerFont(regular);
			Font.registerFont(bold);
		}
	}
}

This file gives an example of how to embed the Arial font into a swf. I’ve included both the regular and bold type faces here to show you that they can be stored with the same “fontName”, which is pretty handy. Obviously, you can ommit one or the other, or include italic, bold-italic, or whatever else by using the same method. Once you publish this, just put the swf into the location you defined in the Extension class. Oh, and by the way, U+0000-U+007E is the basic character set you’ll almost always want to include. See that URL in the source to find others. If you want to embed the whole font, just remove the unicodeRange parameter from the Embed all together. To build another font, just make sure the “systemFont” parameter equals whatever Flash calls your font in the IDE, and make sure that “fontName” is a different string that matches the String Literal value in your Extension class.

That’s the jist. If you have any questions, ask away and I’ll try to answer or clarify things for you.

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Somewhere nearby a heart beat steadily with silent rhythm. Each percussive throb felt infinitesimally through the deep currents of air that linked them by blood, its sweet cadence calling to him.

Blood, vilely profane and alluring in its concupiscent vivacity. Blood, tantalizing, forbidden, safeguarded beneath lusciously corpulent flesh. But no, not a delicacy cured in spices, the salty taste is just diaphoretic nervousness, human and natural. A nervousness deserved. A nervousness earned by nights like this.

In the mists light doesn’t touch the flesh, doesn’t reflect off turgid irises or the enamel of teeth. The light knows to keep to itself and haunt its own corner of the world. The mists belong to something else.

The palpitations grew stronger as passing zephyrs carried with them the hint of iron and danger. Disgust filled his throat with bile even while the temptation grew hot in his eyes. Covet, want, need, thirst; and the seductiveness was everything. Understanding fell away and with it the revulsion. At last, minacity had met moment in lustful surrender.

Somewhere in the mists, lips parted for a lovers embrace while far overhead, a full moon smoldered.

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Thomas Merton’s great work, Thoughts in Solitude, begins with the powerfully direct assertion that, “[t]here is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us.” His concept of reality is quite different than many of ours, though. It is the type of hyper-reality, the super-reality, or magical realism, that fills up our spiritual cups in a way that no mere materialism can manifest. Merton’s reality is God.

Reality and unreality, the Sacred and the Profane, these dichotomies are revealed to me relentlessly as I philosophize and study my nights away, but that’s nothing new. The unassuming children’s classic, Paddle-To-The-Sea, may be my earliest memory–my earliest glimpse of understanding–of this natural dualism. It was in the words of the little Indian boy, at last grown to take his father’s role in life that pinned the understanding into my heart.

‘I made you, Paddle Person, because I had a dream. A little wooden man smiled at me. He sat in a canoe on a snowbank on this hill. Now the dream has begun to come true. The Sun Spirit will look down at the snow. The snow will melt and the water will run down-hill to the river, on down to the Great Lakes, down again and on at last to the sea. You will go with the water and you will have adventures that I would like to have. But I cannot go with you because I have to help my father with the traps.
    - Ibid.

The child and the old man, they understood the role the Spirit played in the journey of the Paddle Person, and they let me understand it too, even as young as I was. His father’s traps waited for him, just as the day-to-day things in my life wait for me as I go to sleep each night and wake again. The true path, the one he wanted to live, the one with the adventures, began with the Sun Spirit melting the snow on that bank. That was his reality and he never forgot it.

When I read the story as a boy I carved my own wooden boat. My dad helped me write the familiar words on the bottom. “Please put me back in the water.” I don’t recall if we ever set the boat in a stream; that wasn’t the point. Even at that age, before I could fully understand what it all meant, I felt a call to float down stream and have my own adventures with nothing to guide me but “a tin rudder to keep it headed forward, and a lump of lead for ballast.”

Not everyone finds themselves called to set out on the rivers and streams. Some are called to help, to keep an eye out for those travelling along. There are as many callings as there are people. For some of us, all we can hope to do is build our toys and keep them in our memory. I never identified with the little boy in the story, though. I was always the Paddle Person.

‘Ho!’ he called. ‘You have started on your journey! Good-by, Paddle-to-the-Sea!’
    - Ibid.

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There is an insatiable restlessness that slowly creeps up my spine as a change nears. Like the flight or fight response that evolutionists tout as the basic behavior of fear, my nerves tense in anticipation of something soon to come. They are ready, even if the rest of me isn’t, for that unknowable future that will befall at any moment. Yet I have to wonder about this unease and its usefulness. Is it helpful to me? Does it provide some security to be on guard, excited, or otherwise energized?

The important things are done. My life is tidy, the various threads in order. There is nothing to provoke this nervousness, but still it comes. It forces my mind to parallels and analogies, of times, in particular, that I wasn’t so prepared for the same.

Things take the shape of a great cloud of doom that approaches from the West, and I, fatigued, broken, struggle to run away on legs too short and insufficient. Foliage tears at my feet, grasping my ankles, pulling me to the ground again and again; all the while I know that the running is hopeless. Even if there were a destination, that cloud will overtake me long before I make my way anywhere important.

And it is at times like these of fearful clarity that I recognize what it is that terrifies me so much as to drive all logic and planning away and leave me shaking, unable to concentrate or breathe deeply. I fear that small spark of mortality to which I cling with endless pride and selfishness. It is a fear not of letting go, but of being unable to do so. What if I cannot surrender myself to this? What if the temptations of flesh or food, of rest and rain, of any and everything, of this world cannot be broken? There I see condemnation, failure.

So I run, careful to cut the ties with my planning and organization, careful to avoid the connections that might bind me immutably to this place or these people. After-all, wasn’t it St. Augustine who said, “Complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.” Let me be away from all things and let my time here be short, for I am not strong enough to keep there long.

I’d always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain’t going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving
…
You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so you can fly away
You gotta make a decision
You leave tonight or live and die this way
    - Tracy Chapman – Fast Car (1988)

Of course, the panic settles after a few deep breaths and I remember that I’m not alone. There’s no fear in being too weak to go through this alone. God is with me, hand-in-hand. I can grasp for His strength and it is always there ready to lift me up and past these fears. It is a battle won in His service, not with guns and swords, but with an open and steady heart that gives itself over rather than being its own keeper.

The fear remains, but I don’t shake now. My hands are held steady and I am ready again to take a step forward, and another, until my time does come. Sometimes the simplest decisions are the most important, and the most difficult. The decision to wake up each day and say to Him, “Yes, I still believe,” is sometimes all I can bear to give, and it has to be enough.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.
    - Frank Darabont (Screenplay) – The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

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Childe Hassam – Cliff Rock – Appledore, 1903

There was no landing here. The river was wild and the rocks sharp. To leave the safety of the captain’s narrow path would mean death for all of them. It wasn’t the cliffs jutting up high into the air on either side that they were watching with such fearful vigilance. No, the river ran wide with plenty of room to maneuver. The real worry was the shallow rocks lurking just below, invisible, like diamonds in a pool; they were scattered pins dropped in a carpet, threatening to prick from the quiet, murky depths.

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Mary Shepard Greene Blumenschein – Louisa Fletcher, 1912

She stepped back against the curtained wall for added support. Her hands were trembling slightly still from the excitement of it all. He was handsome, yes, but he was something more. He engaged her. He was direct. She was an equal.

His eyes spoke of a hidden power, like a wild lion buried under his gentlemen demure. She wanted him, that was no doubt, but she wanted more. She wanted him to release that power on her, to be controlled or uncontrolled, to be an animal.

Thoughts came rushing in such a torrent of feeling that her breath began to tremble. She beamed wild eyes across the room at the back of his head, begging in her mind that he would turn around and acknowledge her once again. Her hand slid along the curtain behind her and a sensual smile crept to her lips. She would catch him. It was one predator to another.

As he slowly turned to look once more in her direction, her heart sighed through her eyes with romance and suspense. She would have him.

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We sneaked up to the roof to share a cigarette. I didn’t smoke–or hadn’t tried it before–but I wanted to be with her. She took a long drag off a Virginia Slim, its delicate form a manufactured homage to her fingers, her lips, her eyes, which closed sweetly to shut out the world as they savored the flavor of the moment before parting again only to let her treasure lift away on her breath, soft as the touch of a ghost and twice as chilling. She breathed for both of us while I stood motionless, afraid to disturb the air. Her eyes flashed up at me standing astride the doorway. They were hungry.

My first taste of cigarette smoke was filtered by her lungs and drawn through her lips, sweet and ashen, evoking images of vampires and other morbid, sexual beings; a clear contrast against the brilliant summer sun cutting in through the rooftop doorway. Instead, I thought to myself, I should think her a spirit. The mist climbed its way around her head and through her hair–still damp from the pool and ruffled from my hands–where it all became lost again in the haze of too much or too little light. I thought that if I looked away she might fade completely and leave me only the taste on my lips by which to remember her.

The waves softly rolled down the shore some distance below us, but all we could see was the brilliant sun, a few feet of stony roof and an endless sea beckoning in the hypnotic way of great distances and heights. My stomach pined with the urge to let go and step into the abyss, wondering if I might be caught in that vapor as well and become like her, only half real and magical.

We took too long to meet, she said. We’d wasted all our time with flirting and wondering, daydreaming about what might be. Now that we were together, it was already over; too much to say, to much to be done, and neither of us had the stomach for it. We kissed.

The next day I sat the long drive home in silence. I let the sun wash over me as I stared at it as directly as I could manage. Vision slowly burned away and I was blind again and with her once more. She was the ghost of light and dust, and I was still so as to not disturb. With a deep breath I breathed her in, and for a moment tasted sweet ash before it turned to salt and spread to my eyes.

Too much time wasted; too much dreaming and not enough living? Was it all just time locked away in a closet, staring at the summer through a crack in the door locked by my own hand? That day it seemed that way and more. After all, it was the end of something beautiful before it had begun, but distance cultures wisdom and perspective gathers peace. She is a ghost, part of the past, with no purpose but to haunt. The other, the one with the real lips that press gently and smile at children, drove away that same day dealing with her own ghosts.

There is beauty there, and love of a sort. For all of that I am thankful.

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Today is the Feast of Saint Barnabas, Apostle, Martyr, and all around good guy. In the Office for his feast day, I read a familiar passage of the Book of Joshua that details the conquest of the city of Jericho. On the one hand, it’s a story that’s very much in the style of Joshua; Israel swoops in and with the assistance of God and lead by the arc of the covenant, succeeds in battle and takes the land. On the other hand, this particular passage also serves a great purpose in the metaphor of both conversion and Armageddon.

The conversion metaphor was most interesting to me as I spent time with the reading. After-all, it has the most direct relationship to my own life. You see, the first thing the Israelites did when they approached Jericho was to send in spies. These men found their way to Rahab’s home, as it was connected to the outer walls of the city and gave them access inside. When the guards came around looking for them, Rahab hid them and misled the guards. She knew what was coming and chose to help the Israelites in exchange for her life and her family’s. In this way, she acted like the spark of grace inside each of us which opens our back door and allows the Holy Spirit to sneak inside (One might say, “Like a thief in the night”).

The seeds were planted, then, and the conquest was only a matter of time. When Joshua was instructed by the captain of the Lord’s host as to how to attack, it wasn’t by storming the walls or starving them out by a siege. After seven days of marching his men around the city, blowing their rams horns (Another reference to the trumpets of Revelation to come?), his men let out a yell. At the sound, the walls of Jericho fell and every creature inside was killed. Only Rahab and her relatives were spared. This part more than any other fits my personal experience.

For years I’d closed myself off to Christianity and sought answers anywhere else. Through all that time, though, the Spirit was at work inside me, preparing for the day. When it finally came, it was with trumpet blares and screaming, at least in metaphor. In an instant all my walls against faith were gone, crumbled to dust, and in a wave I watched as all those useless, misguided thoughts and searching were destroyed. All that was left was that single spark of faith that couldn’t be doused. Suddenly, my faith was alone in me and there was no denying it. Catholicism set the old me ablaze and a new nation was formed.

I think it’s for this reason that the reading was chosen for Barnabas’ feast. He was, after all, a great missionary and along with St. Paul, was probably most responsible for bringing Christianity to the gentiles. St. Luke, normally quiet on his personal opinions of others, said of Barnabas “he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of Faith”. That “good” quality, his immutable accepting of people and hope for their inclusion in the faith led him to not only sponsor Saul of Tarsis (St. Paul) into the Church when others were wary of him for how intensely he had persecuted them previously, but also to defend and include his cousin John Mark (later the Evangelist) when Paul would accuse him of desertion.

The story of Jericho is certainly an interesting reading, and there’s so much more that could be said about it. That’s the way of scripture, though.

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When I first tried it out, I had the inflated hopes of a child with a new fancy toy. I signed up for the interactive Sleep Coaching, monitored and scrutinized every line on all my various charts, and was generally annoying to all my friends. Things were new and cool and I couldn’t get enough of them.

So what about now? It’s been about a month since I started using my Zeo, how are things going these days? Well, I’ll be honest. Things are pretty great. I’m not obsessing about every little curve anymore, but I do make sure to note my ZQ (that’s Sleep Quality, folks) each morning, and every few days I take some time to review my time in each stage of sleep, how many full cycles I get in the night, and make sure to properly punish the cat for waking me up so much during the night.

I don’t fill out my sleep journal every day, but even without all the data it provides, I have still learned a lot. Stephan Fabregas says, “If you can measure it, you can manage it,” and he’s really hit the nail on the head. I thought the most valuable feature of my Zeo was going to be the SmartWake feature when I first started using it, and don’t get me wrong, it’s fantastic. Perhaps more importantly, though, I’ve learned about some depressing trends in how I treat my body and my sleep during the work week. I see ZQ scores in the 40s and 50s all week long, and then bask in the glory of a 130 on Saturday. It just isn’t healthy in the long run.

I’ve already begun changing some things. Zeo makes me more accountable to myself, and that’s a good thing.

On a side note, just yesterday morning I found myself starting to wake up and cursing in my half-conscious state. I knew I was going to trigger the SmartWake if I woke up any further, and then my glorious night of sleep would end. Lo and behold, my pretty little alarm jingle started a moment later. Curse you, Zeo. You’re just too smart.

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I was just reading a wonderful post from Jennifer over at The Conversion Diary, and it got me thinking about my own journey back to a Christian spiritual life. Her post was in reference to the abundance of press surrounding the book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, and the Time magazine article that followed it. The book and article talk in depth about the 50 year “spiritual crisis” that coursed through the life of the famous nun.

Teresa’s “dark night of the soul”, a term for the time of spiritual loneliness and desolation as coined by St. John of the Cross, is a very common thing for people of faith. Pope Benedict XVI calls this time the “monotonous desert path” that each of us is called to walk at some time or another (more on that here).

For Jennifer, she faced one of these deserts almost as soon as she came to the church. My conversion (return to the church might be a better term) went much the same way. There came a point when I believed with my mind, but couldn’t feel it in my heart. I threw myself into everything I could to try and force that feeling but it didn’t come. In fact, I’ll admit to being quite thankful that I went through that process while I was away in the Navy. It saved me a lot of embarrassment with old friends who would have surely rolled their eyes to see me trying to be so “holy”. Luckily, the phase came to an end as I was forced to face what I was really doing.

I was approaching faith in the wrong way. In fact, I was approaching it in several wrong ways all at once.

First, I was trying to force God into my life through “right living”. If I lived the right way, I thought that would bring him into the light and get me a good look at him. The argument for and against justification has a long history in the church, but I was still too green to even be aware of it. All I knew in my infancy was that I wanted to feel faith in my bones, and the fastest path I could think of was to emulate the people I saw as being the most holy. I still think there’s elements of a good idea in there somewhere, but I was still a long way from “getting it”.

Second, I was trying to win at faith. I think this is a really common problem with converts to any faith. Its frightening being new in a faith, even one you’ve been raised in. There’s a tendency for people in that position to overreach, to try to be the best and take it all on at once. Maybe they’re trying to prove that they belong, or maybe they’re trying to play catch up to all those others who have lived with their faith for so long. I think that many, like me, were jumping into religion by clinging to the oldest of the deadly sins, pride. I was prideful in my old life, so I didn’t even think about it in this new one. I wanted to be the best Christian, the best Catholic. It seems pretty silly now.

Third, and finally, I wanted my faith to fit my life, not the other way around. I thought that I could own it, and control it, by choosing these things that I did and the people I spent time with. I could make my life strong in faith by my own will. It was another failing to pride, but a more subtle one that the other. This particular hang-up of mine hasn’t gone away completely. I still keep a constant vigil in my prayer life to make sure I’m not falling prey to the temptations of being my own voice of God.

Obviously, my first crack at being religious was totally unsuccessful. God didn’t appear in my prayers or speak to me in those long nights of Eucharistic adoration. I didn’t win the award for “best Catholic” or manage to wrangle church life into my already packed schedule. In fact, I failed in just about every respect possible.

I think that is part of the blessing of faith, though. God knows better than to come to us on our terms. It would teach us the wrong lessons about faith and about what it means to believe. I needed to learn that I wasn’t the center of the universe, and that I couldn’t make God come to me any more than I can make the stars move. When I stopped talking and started listening, things became a lot easier, but that’s another story.

In a way, I think coming to my own faith through that long dry desert (of my own making) taught me a fundamental lesson. There are blessings in all the ways we try to find God. Even banging my head against a wall, as it were, was an important step in my formation. I had to make those mistakes.

Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
    - John 6:28-29

I was putting way too much effort in all the wrong places. My focus was on going and doing when it needed to be on being and believing. That was Jesus’ instruction and the simplicity with which he left us. Though there will be times when our spirit may be dry and lonely, though we might face our own dark crises where God seems miles away, though some days our prayers may seem empty, these are just temporary exhaustions. We have the instruction to make our way back. All it takes is a strength of faith to continue believing.

Be content simply with a loving and peaceful attentiveness to God.
    - Saint John of the Cross – Dark Night I

Even St. John of the Cross, the man who coined the familiar term, knew that just because we might find ourselves in darkness on occasion, that was no reason to give up or listen to our doubts. They are, perhaps, a good time to reflect and make sure we haven’t let our lives run ahead of our faith. God knows that even Mother Theresa needed those times.

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The Westclox Model #22651 is a powerhouse in a tiny box. I’m fairly certain the alarm can banish demons. It certainly did the trick of waking me up in the morning.

I kept that alarm clock by my side for the next nine years. Very slowly over that time I have found myself becoming a little less startled in the morning and more willing to risk the snooze button. Still, it has remained an incredibly effective device, that is, until I dropped it eight feet onto my hardwood floors.

The alarm still sounded, but the clock itself was only visible from one small angle when you tilt the clock back 80 degrees. It made a nice audible crunchy sound when you click the buttons, too. It was pretty obvious. I needed a new clock.

So after all these years I found myself searching around for a new alarm clock online. I figured, if my last one lasted almost a decade, I should spend the time and pick one that is worth having around for a while. I researched different alarm types, clock radios, water proof ones, traditional bells, clocks that work with your computer, and a few crazy ones that wake you up with bright lights instead of sound. Then I found Zeo.

The Zeo is a different class of alarm clock altogether. With a sporty fabric headband, this device monitors you brain activity while you sleep and gives you detailed readouts about your night of rest. It distinguishes between REM, light, and deep sleep, and even tells you how many times you woke up in the night, and for how long. It gives you extra information too, like how long it took you to fall asleep, the total time you spent sawing logs, and tracks trends over time. Most importantly is has an amazing feature called Smart-Wake that wakes you up at the optimal time in your sleep cycle so that you feel the most rested in the morning. You give the clock a range of times in the morning and if it detects you entering a lighter sleep phase, the alarm will go off quietly and slowly increase volume to ease you awake. It’s amazing.

In the morning, you can pop the SD card out of the clock and sync it up to their website and track all of your sleep data online. They’ve got a sleep coach e-mail program that I haven’t tried yet and a really cool interactive sleep journal so you can make notes of environmental distractions (I’m looking at you, Sniffles), reasons for waking up during the night, or other sleep information.

The website and device are wonderfully designed and relatively simple to use. Their sleep tracker website uses an Adobe Flex site with wonderful, pretty charting tools. And the alarm sounds are soothing, but unique enough to wake you up rather than put you to sleep.

The downside is the price. It’s a $399 alarm clock, when you get right down to it, but if you’re like me and you love unique tech gadgets, or you’re like me and have a horrible sleep schedule and can use a little more information, it might be worth the investment. If I can make this clock last for the next ten years, I won’t be complaining. In the meantime, I’ve only used it the one night so far, so there isn’t much data to review yet. I’ll tell you one thing, though. The chart above is my actual sleep results from last night. That little bit of "wake" time on the right was when my cat jumped on my head. This Zeo thing definitely does its job. Oh, and click the image for a screenshot of the full web application.

Sleep well!

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Inside you are the outside
formless, grand
without regard to decency
or privacy, self, tact
without regret
without

But outside, here inside
welcoming small with affection 
and smiles over history and loss
there is something of the vastness
the incalculable infinite
gone

Now in this whole
the giant wanes
to a tiny cup, a thimble
which holds the barest drop
of half a tear
forgotten

Not by so many
as by us few
who held it
who shed it
together with you
before

So, myself
without will to admission
or words of expression
fail to measure so tiny a cup
without precaution or
reflection

Knowing and knowing
memory and moment
the ineffable essence of one true tear
though bolstered and brocaded
is undeniable
true

You are a giant
in all ways and means
built twice, or once, or taken apart
to happy thoughts, to tears
though some forgotten
true

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Not only do I save a ton of money on gas (the scooter gets 100mpg) but I can also sneak over to Sacred Heart Church during lunch for daily mass. I kicked off the season in style today by showing up in my Nintendo t-shirt. I only realized how I was dressed when I got to the door. Oops! But as soon as I sat down, I forgot all about it and relaxed. I decided that the bit of time before mass began would be a great time to start working on the contemplative prayer I’ve been reading about in my new book, Armchair Mystic. The vocation director of the Maryland/New York Provinces sent it to me with a few other books to help me stay focused while I’m working my way north.

The book, by Mark E. Thibodeaux, SJ, is a great introduction to contemplative–that means wordless–prayer. I’ve only had it a few days but it’s been a struggle to put down. I know I should take it slow and practice the things I’m reading for a while before I rush on, but the writing is so friendly and the topic is so intriguing. Some of the recent exercises I’ve read remind me so much of the guided meditation I used to do back in the day. It’s wonderful how the author has managed to pull in so many ideas from so many places and still make the book seem like a consistent process and idea. I’ll have to write more about it when I finish reading.

So back in the church I was sitting in the pew working in vain to silence my mind and let God pull me into his presence more fully when all these thoughts came flooding into me. Just like I learned a long time ago, I let the thoughts come and gently flow back out of me, trying to maintain an empty, silent state. It was working well until I got wrapped up in the joy of being in church again on a weekday. It has been so long since I’ve been to daily mass I’d forgotten about how much it lifts my spirits for the rest of the day. The thoughts were so happy, in fact, that I decided to put off trying to empty my mind for contemplative prayer for another day. I just wanted to bask in that feeling a little longer.

I’m looking forward to this season as my time in Atlanta draws to a close. It’s not a bad city no matter how much I complain. It might not be the right one for me, but I can see why people would like it here. There’s a lot of great people I’m going to miss, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to stay in touch.

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This little book, by Ron Hansen, is a story of a small community of cloistered nuns during the early 1900s who are about to face their greatest challenge. Their typically quiet, simple lives are turned upside down when a young novice, Mariette, joins them and claims to have had a vision of Jesus. To some she seems a saint growing before their eyes, to others she is a deceitful flirt who takes pleasure in the attention her holiness garners. Which side of her do you see as you read the story? That is the question the author leaves his readers.

I first heard about this book when I read a blog post on A Nun’s Life about a local theater group who performed the book as a play. It sounded interesting, so I jumped on Amazon immediately to buy a copy. I was a little upset they had no Kindle version, but I made due with the paperback. Besides, now I have a book to give away to someone else who wants to read it. Maybe Kenn.

Now before I begin critiquing the book, let me first say that it was a wonderful story. The characters had a life to them and there was an element of truth to both points of view. Mr. Hansen seems to have a wonderful writing talent and some of his imagery was almost poignant. All-in-all, the book was a great success, and I’m glad I read it.

There were, however, a few things that bothered me a great deal. The first is a general complaint about a lot of modern writers I’ve read recently. Several times throughout this book, Mr. Hansen chose to describe a scene and create a sense of emotion by the way his sentences were displayed rather than with their content. I accept that sentence structure can play an important role in the pacing of the story, but taken to this extreme it reminded me of a similar practice in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. With the sentences written in near bullet-points, the stacatto rhythm was meant to convey a sense of silence, tranquility, and serenity, but with an undercurrent of tension. It does accomplish its task, but the cost to me as a reader is huge. The writing style also serves to take me completely out of the story, becoming more aware of the words on the page and less aware of the scene as a whole. It leaves me wondering why these authors, who are incredibly talented and can write amazing descriptive scenery, are flocking towards tricks of formatting. More than anything, I feel as if the style robbed me of a great wealth of description. Even now, after having read the book, while i can picture a few main characters and a room or two, I’m at a general loss for what the rest of the world looks like. While the moral and religious conflicts may stick with me for a time, I’m certain that I will have soon forgotten any imagery herein.

Finally, I must protest about the ending. Perhaps it is the American in me, but I wanted more resolution. I understand that the book had to keep things up in the air, and I’m fine with that, but the way the ending played out seemed less to bring the tension to a head than it did to deflate it and fizzle away. I’ll leave my complaint on this point with that statement. Anything more may spoil the reading experience for others.

So, in closing, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject matter. If you’re not enticed by the wonders of cloistered life or the mystery of a religious calling, or if you think a story about a nun who may or may not have had a visitation from Christ is not very interesting, you’ll want to pass this one by. Enjoy!

Amazon Link

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In the past, we’ve gotten around this problem by uploading to a server-side script that stores the data in a database or on the server’s file system and passes a string back to Flash with the URL or database ID. Its a solution that works reliably and is fairly straight forward. The only problems we’ve had was in a situation on a load-balanced server, but it was fairly esoteric.

Tonight, though, we really wanted to see if it was possible to just pass the file into Flash and let the server immediately forget about it. We don’t need to keep these images online after the user plays with them in their player, so we thought it would be a great opportunity to see if it was possible.

KeMo had the first brilliant idea. He thought that we should be able to simply write an image header from the server-side script and then output the raw image data. Flash should, in theory, pick up that data in the event that signals the upload’s completion. We could then display the file. That’s when we found out a few nasty things about Flash’s FileReference Class.

The FileReference Class returns a DataEvent when an upload completes. This seemed promising at first until we realized that DataEvent extends TextEvent, an event usually used to monitor typed user input. The data property of our DataEvent was hard-typed to text! It totally ignored the mime-type of the returned data and forced it into a string.

Our next thought was to try and convert the returned string into a ByteArray. Our thinking here was that once we had a ByteArray, we could further convert it back into the BitmapData, and finally display it. Sadly, there seems to be no documentation on exactly what type of character encoding was used by the DataEvent when it forced the content into a String. Therefore, we had no way of properly using ByteArray’s writeMultiByte method to convert it back. We were starting to get worried. The solution was so close, but we were having trouble getting there.

That’s when the idea hit me. If Flash is going to force our returned data to be a String, then so be it! We could serialize the data being returned from our server-side script. Then, in Flash, we’d deserialize it, convert the ByteArray to a Bitmap, and presto!

We decided to use Base64 encoding/decoding as our serialization technique. There are probably smaller and faster options, but we were just concerned about getting it working. After a few Google searches, we found a fantastic Base64 decoder in AS3 by “foxarc”. We did the encode in PHP, the decode in Flash, and suddenly we were looking at a proper ByteArray.

The final step of the puzzle was to take a ByteArray and convert it to a Bitmap object. We found a few solutions that involved using the setPixel method with a few nested loops and a horrible amount of bitshifting. The blogs claimed it was very fast and efficient, but we wanted to go home at some point tonight. Instead, I found a neat trick of the Loader class. I had always wondered why Loader was in the flash.display package instead of flash.net. Well, now I understand why. In addition to the file loading capabilities, it also contains all of the necessary mechanisms to convert a ByteArray into Flash datatypes. Specifically, in this instance, Bitmaps. Here’s the magic:

private function uploadCompleteDataHandler (event:DataEvent):void
{
    var ba:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
    ba.writeBytes (Base64.decode(event.data));
    var loader:Loader = new Loader();
    loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener (Event.COMPLETE, getBitmapData);
    loader.loadBytes (ba);
}

private function getBitmapData (e:Event):void
{
    var image:Bitmap = e.target.content as Bitmap;
    image.smoothing = true;
    addChild (image);
}

If you’re curious like I was, this method will also allow you to load uploaded SWFs just as easily as images. Basically you can upload any file format at all and it will act like it came from a trusted domain. Such a wonderful solution to get around one of Flash’s nastier security policies.

Now I don’t want to post all of the code here, mainly because I don’t have a good CSS class set up for displaying code, but I wouldn’t leave you all without a way to get the files. The zip below has all the files necessary to get your own file uploader working in Flash. Just edit the classes and change the paths to the php file on your own localhost or web server and you’re good to go. Good luck.

Edit: I’ve installed a code highlighter plugin, so now I can start writing more code posts!

• FlashOneStepUpload.zip

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This is one of my favorite passages from any religious text. The Upanishads are all exceedingly beautiful, but this one short segment so well summarizes the idea of hierophany—of joining with the Sacred in a moment of transcendence—that I always keep it close by. There are days when it’s hard to pray at all, let alone feel that beautiful connection with God. At those times when faith is a dry desert I fall back on poetry. The written word can put me in an empathetic mood so easily it often helps me find my way back. Can you feel it when you read that quote? Doesn’t it call to something familiar inside you and beg you to share in the memory of that experience?

Despite the wonderful strides I’ve been making in my discernment, the spiritually dry days still come. I wake up late for work and rush without breakfast or prayer. I come home late and exhausted and all I want to do is sit and watch Hulu and eat pizza. There are days when I feel like there’s no energy left for God. I know I’m being ridiculous, of course. I know that I’d feel better if I made the time, but some days my quest for motivation fails.

My spiritual director reassures me it happens to everyone, and that while I’m still in this lifestyle I’m going to find it particularly difficult to find the time here and there for prayer. He says that when you live a life structured around it, things come a little easier. Its certainly a relief to think that one day I might live a life where the feeling they talk about in the Upanishads will be a daily occurrence.

I’ve been looking for that connection to the world of the Spirit for a long time, much longer than my present discernment. Even in the really early days before I turned away from the church, it was the most beautiful thing I could want. After I started looking at other religions it remained with me as a common theme pulling them all together. It was there when I looked at Judaism, Islam, and the Bahá’í Faith. When I studied Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Sufism, and Tantra, it was there. Through Buddhism, Hindu and Jainism, uniting with the sacred held it together. Confucianism, Shinto, Taoism, the same. Even when I looked at Sami, Tadibya, Tengrism, Leni Lenape myths, and all the wonderful Neopagan interbreeding branches, there was my familiar friend.

With all of that searching, it took me so long to finally come back to where I had started. It took me going away, falling and failing, scraping deeper into everything I could find only to see reflections of what I already had. Finally, when I was forced to stop thinking and searching and I just started listening and being, I finally felt a call to that Third World that spoke to me. It called me instead of waiting for me to seek it out.

You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
    - John 15:16

So now when I have a dry spell, I look back on one of those many sacred texts I’ve read and enjoyed for their beauty of language and idea and I let them return me to the mindset of faith, not because I found a particular truth in them, but because they were so integral to the journey that opened my eyes to the call I’d had all along.

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After I write my own posts, I click the publish button right away. Only then do I go back and proof them, fixing spelling errors (if I manage to catch them) or rewording a sentence here and there. It should surprise no one that while I’m reading my own writing I can’t help but compare my own style and tone to those other blogs I read. Most of the time I’m self-conscious, wondering why I can’t be funnier or more positive. I always seem to be dragging readers through my struggles and pains and failures. I worry about that at times.

It’s not all self-criticism, of course. I think I have my own strengths in writing. I feel pretty happy with my sense of description and ability to set a scene, for instance.

But I’m curious what the rest of you think. Do you notice a big difference between your writing and mine, or between different things you read? Do you relate to one better than the other? Do you see a problem with one more than the other? Do you have anything to say about any of this?

I’m not really sure where I’m going with these comparisons. I’m certainly not going to try to turn my blog into something its not. I suppose it’s just curiosity. That and I haven’t seen any comments in a while. (I’m looking at you on this one!) So this is my not-so-subtle way of trying to get some dialogue started.

What are your opinions?

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In our talk, though, we also discussed things I felt were a hindrance to my discernment. Specifically, we talked about canon that would preclude me from religious life. Of course, my mind immediately went to the one sin I keep asking forgiveness for at every confession. It took some faith in that moment, but I told him about it, worried about what he might say. I tried my best to explain it in our brief talk and put things into perspective. I also tried to be as honest as I could be. In the end he made it clear that it wasn’t one of those situations I’d feared. It wouldn’t stop me from serving.

At first I couldn’t help but smile. It was, after all, the very event that brought me back to faith. If not directly or immediately, eventually by the way my life changed because of it. It seems an odd path that God would have me walk if it brought me to this faith and accepting this calling only to turn me away at the end. Luckily my fears were unnecessary. Things can still move forward despite my past.

But it didn’t end there. After the fleeting moment of joy, I felt like I had opened up an old wound. The guilt and shame and depression were still there beneath the surface with their familiar taint. Everything they touch turns cold and bitter. It took a vast life-changing decision to join the Navy to calm them down and put me back in control of myself. It took the physical pain and suffering to take me away from the emotional pain I felt.

I asked for it, you know. I wanted that pain and suffering. I prayed for it without knowing it. I asked Christ to give me the suffering I deserved, and it came. It came and it changed me. When I found myself in a position where all I knew was pain and there was no hope of anything else, I found the strength to push forward.

I remember that last run in Battle Stations, on the final night of training in boot camp. My broken legs were in searing pain. My feet covered in blisters. My lungs burned with a fire that said I had nothing left to give. My body was in shock from suffocating a few hours earlier in “mass casualties”. Still, with a sea-bag on my back and a mile between me and the end, I knew that there was absolutely nothing this world could bring against me that I couldn’t face and conquer. Not my body, not my mind, certainly not a few extra pounds on my back. In that moment when everything in my life was pulled down around me, there was nothing left but to finish. I was able to put it behind me then, just far enough to move forward. That’s what I still do today.

Still, no matter what I have done or what I will do, I will live with a mistake that scars across my past. I will never forget it, I will never feel release from the sadness it brings. But, as the Brother said to me tonight, I have to move on and do what I am called to do and not let the past rule my life.

I don’t talk about what happened. I feel the pain and live with it well enough on my own. Still, I will continue to confess it and continue to ask for the grace to move on, and when I feel that familiar pain in my knees, I thank the Lord.

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I stretch and shimmy out of the bag careful to keep any bare skin on the warm cloth parts and away from the vinyl tent floor which might or might not be soaked through with ground water. The air is crisp still, so I’m quick in throwing on a shirt and pants. I pull a pair of socks from deep in the sleeping bag. For the last few trips I’ve learned to keep them there so they’ll be warm in the morning. Morning warmth is rare.

I tell people I’m always hot, and it’s true for the most part. My body does run warm, especially at night. Its difficult to find a comfortable position in a bed with sheets, let alone a constrictive sleeping bag. But somewhere in the night, or perhaps the early morning, that heat seeps out of me. When I wake up in those first moments I am cold. With the exception of being sick, its the only time I ever really feel cold.

I unzip the flap to the tent and reach out for my boots which have hopefully stayed dry beneath the rain fly. Its awkward positioning myself to step up into them, but my bladder cannot be ignored. I don’t bother tightening the laces yet; that can wait for later. I shuffle in too few layers over to the woods to relieve myself, all the while shivering with the cold, sticky feeling of morning dew. It’s too early to wash up even if there were a stream nearby so I do what I can and wipe my face on the inside of my shirt, trying to rub off the feeling of night. It never works.

The fire is out. Not even coals are left. We’ll use our stoves for breakfast. Putting the fire back out would take too long and we have a lot of distance to cover today. Still, the fire would force away the chill. The smoke would offer a welcome change to the smell of mildew and unwashed bodies. Nearby, someone coughs in their tent.

I wander around the camp a bit, avoiding breaking down the tent just yet. My hands are numb and not functioning well just yet. They’ll need time to wake. So I stretch my legs and look around.

The camp isn’t in a valley, per se, but more of a saddle before the next peak. Our trail hit a moraine late in the day so we decided to hike around. I didn’t really like the spot we chose, but it was late and I was out voted. The wood here is mostly ponderosa and apache pine which smell like old root beer to me. They tell me it smells like vanilla. Perhaps it’s just too early to tell.

Everything is cast in a pale, gray light that seems less like dawn and more like the night got bored and floated away. We eat breakfast in that shell of light. No one speaks. Slowly we break camp. The condensation on my tent pools as I roll it and strap it to my pack. It will be dank tonight. Finally I kneel to tighten my laces and feel every hot spot on my foot ache with the knowledge of what is about to come. With a great heave, my pack slides onto my shoulders. Someone decides to hike along the side of the mountain until we catch the trail again. I’m a slow hiker, so they put me on point to keep us together.

The ground is all wet needles and shrub grass. We hold saplings for support and hop from tree to tree. Every few hundred feet someone loses their footing and glissades down below. It isn’t long before we have two rows marching together. I keep my footing this day and stay with the high group. Still no one speaks.

The time stretches on like it can only do in the wilderness. It has been only, perhaps, thirty minutes, but it might have been days. My body, still sticky with cold and soot and grime, is in autopilot. My mind is back in the tent struggling between the heat and the chill. We are all lost in our heads. Then it comes.

Without a hint of gradation, without any preface at all, the sun is in my eyes. A great wave of warmth slams against my face and the chill that seemed to creep from my bones is banished in an instant. The high line stops hiking. We soak in the light and open our eyes for the first time. Here, off the trail, halfway up the mountain I can see everything. The light shines across the landscape with a flood of color and vibrancy that reveals the hidden treasures we’ve been moving through. Everything is alive, pulsating, breathing with the wind. Everything is aflame with the sun.

But there, below us not 20 feet away is the low line, still shambling along half asleep. No one speaks. I look to our line and they look to me. No one speaks.

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Now I am seeing my mistakes echoed in the life of someone close. For her the pain is real, it is now, it is everything; and whenever I talk to her about it, I can’t help but feeling the empathy rise to confront me. When I took advantage or acted without consideration and compassion in my past it caused this same pain in others. It’s something I still ask forgiveness for.

But seeking forgiveness implies a distance, or at least an end. Can I ask forgiveness for something I still find myself doing. Can I pull myself away from who I am and ask forgiveness as if I am already the person I want to be? Perhaps the answer is yes, and in doing so I take a step toward changing, or perhaps the answer is no, the seeking of forgiveness without change is a fallacy and imitation of repentance. I’ve thought on it a lot recently, and it led me to a decision.

What kind of person am I to spend my time pondering the value of my own inaction when there is someone close to me who is suffering from that same type of disconnection. What kind of friend offers nothing but the occasional kind word when there is someone in honest need. So for that, I ask more forgiveness and seek to change. Perhaps I’ll wonder about the merits of this little circular path later.

For now I want to address and offer what little insight I can as an antagonist to so many. Maybe she’ll find something in this to be of real value, and if not, maybe one of the other few who read this will. If nothing else, let me make an honest try at being the person I want to be instead of philosophizing.

I’ve been blessed to be loved by a few wonderful people. Some of these are still in my life in some positive way, and I hope I have a similar role in theirs, but there are others whom I have cut out, or who have cut out me with great effect. In this group who has gone off in different directions there are a few who cared for me so much, that when I, in my indifference, acted without regard to that feeling, I did more than bruise. Still others–and these are my true shame–I hurt in this fashion on purpose, knowing that their feelings would make the sting that much more powerful.

In all of this I was wrong. I acted horribly and hurt people sometimes just to see them hurt. All of that pain was my fault. It wasn’t the people who loved me who are to blame, but it is they who suffered. I need to make that point perfectly clear. I can’t claim ignorance in any case, even those caused by indifference. I am responsible.

And so, for you reading, it’s not your fault.

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.
    - Anaïs Nin

The world is full of people who will take advantage of us in our most vulnerable moments. These people, like me, will hopefully find the opportunity to see their errors and work to change. In the meantime, though, all of us should seek to find the strength in ourselves to turn away from these actions and seek out people with the respect to treat us as we are. Though we may love and want someone with all our heart and all our being and all the force we can muster, when we are not respected and treated with love we absolutely must take a stand. Stop that very moment and say to the person, say to me, “You treat me like I’m not human, not worthy of your love.” And there, in that moment, look into their eyes and see if you see it. Is the love there and overlooked, or is it something else. Is it power to be used.

When I was young, I was trusting and was hurt too. We all go through something similar, but its in the way we handle these situations that proves to us who we really are. I was a person scared to be without power, and so I took on the same role as the person who hurt me. It has been one of the harder things about myself that I’ve had to face so far in my meditations.

Our lives are made up of moments like these where we can suddenly find ourselves being cruel and jaded, weak and dependent, prideful and full of vengeance, or perhaps even strong and noble. Sometimes we fall down. Sometimes we stand up.

There’s a beauty though, just beneath the surface of things. It is a beauty of their being that has nothing to do with action or power or even love. It is a beauty of existence and relationship that can be likened to the fearful beauty we feel when we consider the inplausability of our own existence, the unlikelihood of being here with each other.

It’s the type of stillness of being that is so beautiful that it makes a kitchen sink seem filled with such wonder that it takes on the metaphoric mist of heaven. It makes a flower seem more than a collection of petals and stem. It makes a man or woman who treats us badly as an unfortunate soul who just doesn’t see it all. It makes us fall to our knees as we are overcome with all of it. The stillness is everything. The silence is awe.

Beneath the civic gardens and the roots
of plants, under the blue fumes,
the darkness at first reports nothing
to displace the world above,
or its cold air nipped by the cries of finches.

But change follows change: the threshold turns
to a corridor, then to a room filled
with a morse of footsteps tapping overhead,
then comes the rush of a drowning downpour,
resolved as a pool where every ripple
converges to drain away at the centre,
leaving only the red earth. The water
brought to nothing, and with it
the flesh and all its working parts.

Yet here, in the starless sump of the city,
the siren songs of its weathered people
are held on stems of silence that prove
unbreakable: black frequencies
that fill and empty, fill again.

    - Lawrence Sail – Out of Silence (1995)

In those times when things in my life seem so dark that they become poems with sinister rhyming couplets, and the songs on the radio have all subscribed to the news-feeds of my life, that’s the time when I force myself to look at it. That’s when I look past all of the endless painful situations I have caused and that I have faced because of others and all I see is the infinite improbability of creation unraveling in such pristine, perfect spirals of chance and being, all roads of fate and time across the universe converging their energies on a cosmic scale. And there, in the midst of all of this fantastic beauty is the most beautiful thing in the world. You.

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Just because I’m trying to be open to the call doesn’t mean I’m going to sit around waiting for things to fall in my lap, though. As much as I try to just listen in prayer instead of talking my head off with all the things I want to do and want to be, I understand that God will not live my life for me. So this summer, in July, I intend to move up to Pennsylvania and begin the application process to join the Jesuits. I’ve updated my portfolio site at jamestomasino.com and am actively seeking a job or contract that will pay the bills for the next year while I prepare. I’m making strides to keep in constant communication with the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus as well, and trying hard to keep myself grounded in daily prayer; though that part continues to be a struggle with the work schedule of late. I know that entering the novitiate and heading towards seminary isn’t a decision, but a continuation of my discernment, and that distinction gives me faith that it is not my will stepping on my call, but rather a slow process of active listening leading me on a path. Whether it takes me through it all to ordination or leads me through a few years of growth in my faith before telling me something else is right, this next step seems to be what I am called toward.

Even my parents have become more supportive in the process. I was wary of telling them at first, to be honest. Though I was raised Catholic, our church life was never anything extraordinary. We went on Sundays, when I could be dragged, and went home after. There was very little involvement beyond the basics. My parents have always been very supportive, though, even when I tell them I want to do something crazy, like join the Navy, so it shouldn’t have surprised me when my mom called and told me she’d talked to a Franciscan from their parish about me. She understands things better now, I think; and as she talks to more people about it, she’s been finding more and more friends who have relatives in religious life. I think that’s been important to her so that the whole thing can be grounded in the world we know.

For my dad, the focus has been a little different. He’s always wanted me to be self sufficient, especially financially. So when I told him that I was looking at religious life, I think he was probably a little disappointed on that front. He too, however, has been growing more supportive, or at least less opposed. He hasn’t offered any of his customary "suggestions" that I look into something else, so I take that to be a very good sign.

I’ve had a rougher time with some of my friends who have known me a long time. I don’t blame them for not seeing it in me, though. I have never been one to talk about faith with my friends, so it must seem pretty odd or sudden for many of them. It’s a habit I’m trying to work on, though, with the people around me now. It’s like Thomas Moore said, you should develop virtues until they become habit.

So while I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, I am excited for it. God’s path for me will take time to understand, and I can accept that. I’ll do what I can to keep moving forward, and with the help of friends and family, I’ll do my best to be my best at whatever it is I am supposed to do. (Try saying that three times fast.)

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I’ve been working on my story a lot recently, though not so much to keep Kenn from making fun of me. I spent most of the plane ride from Salt Lake City jotting down note after note about my characters. It was deeply invigorating. A boy across the aisle kept trying to peek at what I was writing. The whole experience put a smile on my face.

Best of all, none of it seems like a waste of time. There were days not long ago when I would spend all my energy writing only to see the results and toss them away. Looking back I can probably blame those days on my own impatience; taking up the pen when I should have continued working on the structure. Still, I think I need both types of writing to survive the creative process. It’s a truly amazing feeling when I write so much and feel the story developing and flushing out, but I don’t think I’d have the will power to stick with it unless I occasionally write from the hip, even knowing that the product will amount to less than the effort.

Lately my focus has been on completing the backstory of my book. With the first draft of the outline complete it’s been a lot easier than I expected. I let my mind and pen wander across the pages of a moleskine for a few hours and it’s like the characters write themselves. Before my plane ride, the father of my main character was a shell whose only purpose in the plot was to die. Now he has a rich history that entwines not only with the core characters, but also manages to influence how I handle trade and business in the area, how I treat foreign immigrants, and what roles are defined for the class system in the southern province of a major country. It’s not so much that I wrote his story, it’s that a gray blob of plot became vibrant and alive.

I think that’s the way it must be for authors who write as they go. The discovery of what happens next and how it relates to what has come before must feel as exciting and motivating as filling in my outline. I used to wish I could write that way, but perhaps planning and outlining isn’t so devoid of the vigor itself.

I should get back to it now. I just wanted to share some of the excitement I was feeling while it was still fresh.

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My very first journal was a dark green book with thick lined pages that reminded me of the old composition books from grade school. The paper was acidic and cramped my hand quickly, so I didn’t really enjoy the act of writing as much as I’ve come to since. Despite its shortcomings, it was the first book I filled with my thoughts and aspirations. For that reason alone I imagined I’d never get rid of it. I went back and read it a few times. Most of it made me cringe with shame and wonder at how young I seemed, but there were the occasional pockets of insight.

It was only page two or three in the book when I made a dramatic claim about life. I set myself on a path in it with vigor, purpose, and resolve. I had made up my mind and would press forward. Then I turned the page. There, in the very next entry, I read and remembered how everything had gone immediately wrong. Not only had my plan not worked out, it hadn’t even begun. Life chose another path for me and I was left with no say at all.

Now I don’t want to complain about how things didn’t work out as I’d planned. In fact, things went much better than I could have ever hoped! The point was, my decision had much less influence on my life than I ever expected.

When we grow up, we imagine that we are the masters of our own fate. We are told we can do anything, be anything, as long as we strive for it with our hearts and work for it with our minds. But that’s not exactly true. For some of us, opportunity doesn’t present itself, and no manner of application, study, planning, or vigor will get us to where we dream. It’s not something to be depressed about, though, and I hope no one takes it that way. The truth is much more beautiful.

You see, people are different. Saying that will probably get me in trouble with some people, but it’s the truth. Some of us are smarter than others. Some of us have more wealth, access to better education, or just access to running water. Some of us are born in a ditch and die there before we can learn that there are people a hundred miles away living in metal buildings that stretch higher than the clouds. And some of us are born to such comfort and privilege that we never bother to learn that there are people a mile away starving in a gutter.

We can plan and try all we want, but our lots in life are as varied as we are. We can strive to be more, to become successful, or even powerful, but not "anything". It’s okay, though. You see, it’s not our ambition that makes us great. It’s not our struggle to be the most powerful or adventurous that is even most important. When we tell our children they can be anything they want to be we are leaving out a very important piece of the equation. We have left out what we are called to be.

My first journal taught me that just because something wasn’t my plan, it doesn’t mean it is bad. It may be even better! The difficult part is accepting that possibility.

A monk once told me that he believed God didn’t call people to things they didn’t like or want on some level. I’m not sure liking or disliking it has very much to do with the equation. Sometimes God calls us to difficult lives, or lives of pain and suffering, but even these lives are for a reason. I believe, though, that God calls us to be what will make us the best possible us, whether it is in an office in America or a farm in Cambodia.

So what does all this mean to me now? In the face of yet another "plan", I am left wondering whether I am relying too much on myself and not enough on whom I should. After all, if I just shut up for a minute, it’s perfectly clear what he’s saying. Ten years ago I didn’t want to hear it. Five years ago I thought I had better plans of my own. Three years ago I thought I could listen, but on my own terms. How long is it going to take before I realize that some things aren’t really in my control? How long until I accept and stop with the bull-headed selfish wishes of childhood?

And [Christ] showed me that it was His great desire of being loved by men and of withdrawing them from the path of ruin that made Him form the design of manifesting His Heart to men, with all the treasures of love, of mercy, of grace, of sanctification and salvation which it contains, in order that those who desire to render Him and procure Him all the honour and love possible, might themselves be abundantly enriched with those divine treasures of which His heart is the source.
    - St. Margaret Mary Alacoque – Revelations of Our Lord to St. Mary Margaret Alacoque (1673-4)

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Last year I talked about trying out NaNoWriMo in my blog. It turned out to be a wonderful challenge for Kenn, who is still working hard on his book and loving it. I, on the other hand, managed to pack enough trips and work into the month that I barely even started my own novel. It was a pretty pitiful showing, honestly. I think I managed about 5,500 words out of the 50,000 word goal. But I don’t feel too bad about the loss. It was a gamble to begin with, knowing my own writing process, and it did give me some valuable insights into my story’s background and outline.

I’ve read a lot of blogs, books, and articles where authors explain their methods of writing. Some, like Maria V. Snyder write from the hip, coming up with each piece of the story as it unfolds. For them, writing is as much a process of discovering what happened next as it is for the reader. For other authors, a novel requires a lot of planning, organization, maps, outlines, reworking, and sticky-notes. I definitely fall into the later category.

My story is about a woman who makes a fatal mistake because of her pride, and is faced with the option of dying knowing she has failed her people, or sacrificing her soul to save them. The book starts with her sacrifice. From there the story is very much an adventure with a race against time. Typical of epic fantasy, there are a lot of interwoven plots and character backgrounds. Also typical of the genre, things rarely go according to plan.

Originally, when I started writing this story years ago, it was far from fantasy. It was the story of a girl growing up in Pittsburgh during the Great Depression. There were mystical elements to it, but I wanted to stay away from genre work so badly, I fought against it anywhere I could. At the time, I wanted to see it in the literature section, not the sci-fi/fantasy section of my bookstore. Time has made that distinction much less important. In fact, I don’t think I’d be too upset if it never sees publication. These days, the story is much more about writing it for myself, not that I’d complain if someone wanted to put it out there.

So much has changed from that original story. The main character’s names have shifted, as well as the setting and even the main plot. Whatever their names, though, the characters remain the same in their core. The young girl who is our heroine still has the dark streak in her that risks turning her into the anti-hero. The brooding boy that accompanies her still makes the same adolescent mistakes that keeps him in his familiar cloud of problems. The older gentleman, who everyone goes to with the problems of the world, has that same arrogance that lead his student down the dark path that put the plot in motion. So even with all the changes and growth, I still feel it is the same fundamental story. It is, perhaps, just a little bit less personal now.

So why is it on my mind today? Well, recently I found the time to finish the first complete draft of my outline. Every chapter is in place with a rough description of the action for each main character, with notes on point-of-view and notes on character development. Next up is a complete outline of each character’s development throughout the book. Then I’ll go through a revision of each of these, and begin writing.

Maybe I’m not quite where Kenn is, but I’m feeling very good about writing. I’m not looking toward finishing, but beginning, expanding, and opening out.

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In this apartment my bed is lofted about 5.5 feet. It provides a very snug spot for me to slide in at night, especially with the ceiling fan being so close. In a way it reminds me of my Navy times, some had, some that I would have had. The little sleeve of space is just like a ship berth.

I’ve always liked little spaces. When I was a little kid, my dad built me little fort areas under the basement stairs. In my first two houses they offered me a small bit of isolation in which to feel totally secure and alone. I dreamed stories and lives in those forts. To me, it makes sense when I draw associations between those old forts and this bed I’m on my way to. The dreams are even the same.

When the correlation game begins to play in my mind, it’s difficult to stop it. After I remember the fort under the stairs, or the solitude and strength found in a tent in the wilderness, or the cells in the monastery in southern Indiana, I begin to see that same sacred space in my own mind. It is there, hidden behind the bright smile or the laughing eyes, or perhaps the tired brow and snapping teeth. Inside that space is a secluded refuge where the gusty winds of life are filtered down to a soft scent on a breeze and the confusions of society are reduced to spiraling self-absorbed thoughts of the divine.

It is as peaceful as any closet and as protected. From inside, I let open the screen door to allow in the Chopin in my headset, careful to leave out the strange noises of the cat near my door. I draw a deep breath and let my mind wander on the thought that in so many places in this very moment, there are so many others in their sacred space as well.

It was one of the first topics of discussion in Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane, when his treatise on comparative religion espoused the great similarities in the treatment of a sacred space. There were so many powerful shared properties, from the axis mundi to the discussion on microcosmic connotations for the super-space of our existence. And it makes logical sense why it would be so important to so many cultures throughout the ages.

Our understanding of space lies outside our sociological learned behaviors. It is a core emotion granted to us from the beginning. No matter how outgoing, inquisitive or friendly, we each value our moments of isolation. Even if those moments are only a breath in length, they give us strength and resolve. They give us rest.

When I was little I built forts. I played under the stairs, or connected cardboard boxes. I hung sheets from bunk beds and stacked cushions in corners. Sometimes I would invite friends in, just sometimes. These days my cat shares my newest fort with me. He’s climbing up there now, letting me know in his not-so-subtle way that I’m taking too long at the keyboard.

In any matter, I recognize that I’m a person who values and loves his alone time. It is the source of the true me and the place to which he returns every night. It is beautiful and powerful. And you’re all invited.

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I went for a ride around the city on my scooter today. The cold was bitter after the warm spell of the last few days. Even so, it was invigorating and filled me with its deep mystery.

Winter is the only time of year that does that for me, fills me up with secrets that have no name. Just walking in it, being part of it, makes me more whole than before. When I was in Alaska the feel of snow crunching under my boots was the only sound all around me. Snow piled up waste or shoulder high from plows long passed acted like buffers to the rest of the world, and in those moments walking this way or that way everything became internalized. The steps I was taking were in me, headed somewhere unknown. Every journey, whether to a store or mailbox, was a journey of the soul.

It was that automatic, intrinsic internalism of the dark months that I fell in love with as a child. Every year they come back, romantically calling to me to step outside and visit myself again. And, like nature’s antithesis to hibernation, I come out of my warm hole and wake up for the first time, every time. The stinging air on my cheeks, the cramping fingertips, the taste and smell of the world all beckon me forward. They pull me out in no particular direction, but with such amazing security and passion that creativity drips off of my fingers and tongue without trying.

Winter is my writing time. It is my time of reflection and inspiration. It is a time of such powerful action that even sitting in a chair by a fire is an activity bursting with energy; energy of the spirit.

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Pope Benedict must know me very well, indeed. The lustful exhuberance with which I jump into things inevitably fades and I’m left with the dreary dolldrums of day to day life again. What lasts in the face of that? For years my technique has been to start as many projects as possible knowing that most will be thrown to the wayside after a few days, a week, maybe a month if I’m lucky. But the hope was that with many tries, some would occasionally stick and become a part of me. They would weasel their way into my life and become a normal thing, something I didn’t have to think about. The worst part is, it works.

I can think back on all the ridiculous projects I’ve started and stopped before they had even really begun, and interspersed among them are little gems that I still follow through with today. These rare pieces of my life give me a hope that more will come and that I’ll find life fulfilling in this way. The little choices that stick, like spaghetti dripping down the wall, become my life. When I think about it directly, though, it depresses me.

Why is it that I can be so accepting of so much failure. Yes, it is a failure each and every time, if of nothing else than my own will power to stay on task. I certainly ask to much of myself, but that is not an excuse; it is more of a second issue to address. Every time I stop writing my novel, or fail to do a lesson in my Italian book, or skip a trip to the gym, or put off building my next portfolio site, or any number of other little jobs I’ve assigned myself, I have failed. I have watched the initial enthusiasm fade away and lost the patience to measure each day in the desert so that I could complete the journey. Certainly, some of the tasks are no big loss in the grand scheme of things, but that also isn’t the point. The point is my lack of perseverantia. And the real fear is will this lacking in myself also rear its head in my religious life.

I can accept the many little daily failures because they don’t mean so much to me. If I go to the grave having never learned to properly speak a foreign language, it won’t be the symbol of my total failure in life. If, however, I try–if I pursue that call that comes from outside myself and my own weakness of character and will keeps me from fulfilling my duty, I don’t know that I would be able to forgive myself. I would hope that my investment of soul, energy, and love would carry it through the difficult days, but my little testing attempts have not gone well.

I try very hard to pray daily, whether it is the Divine Office, a Rosary, reading the daily mass, or at the very least well intentioned prayers of reverence and hope for friends and family. Even with this simple task I look back at the months gone by and see long stretches of time that are empty of any spiritual life. I try to tell myself that living a full life with others around who are living as I know I should will help me stay on task, but how can I know? Is this another step in faith, to trust that I’ll find the spirit to carry on as the Pope says? Most likely, but it is still frightening.

There’s so much I want from life, and there’s so much I know I should be doing. These two things are not always the same list, but in the case of religious life, I think they are. I just wish I wasn’t so terrified of failure. I suppose it does at least prove its worth to me, though.

Pope Benedict says that this sense of perserverence of faith comes from being one in essence with Jesus in all of the little ways he taught us. As it says in the Gospel of Thomas, “Whoever drinks from my mouth shall become as I am.” It carries the same message of John’s Gospel that while Christ is the vine, we are connected to it, one with it and him. Though he doesn’t use St. Paul’s "Body of Christ" terminology, the metaphor is obvious. By being one in the body with him, as a Church, we find the strength of God in ourselves, through the Holy Spirit. But I don’t want to get preachy here. I suppose my point is that it all makes sense both logically and in the numious way that God can’t make sense.

I guess it all comes down to choice. God, like any human father, asks things of us, but he gave us the power to say no if we want. We can live out our lives ignoring what he asks of us. We can live for ourselves and for the riches and treasures we can scoop together in our brief time here. We can put our value in life itself and seek to extend it as long as possible and experience as much of the world as we can. We can enjoy all the pleasures granted to us; but in the end, when God looks at his vine and calls on his servants to give up to him what is his, what he allows us to tend to and care for, what type of wine will we offer him?

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My favorite part of the story of the Prodigal Son is the understanding the father has of the situations that his son has been through which are never spoken. He knows that he has journeyed, seen amazing and horrible things, fallen to the lowest depths, and there, alone, made the choice to come back. We wonder, then, about the other son who stayed with his father the whole time. Did he stay out of love and understanding, or out of fear for what was out there? Did he choose his path because of love or because of selfishness? I really don’t know for sure, but the parallels are clear to me. I see myself in both of those sons at times. It’s long past time to follow the path of the prodigal son. You can’t half-deny God, it doesn’t make any sense.

It confuses me more than anything when I see people who know and accept that God is real, but don’t act like it. How can you know it is true and at the same time deny the implications? How, if you know you are asked to do something, can you say no? How long can you wander the earth for your own reasons with your own small interests in the face of that?

In other news, I wrote a riddle today for a friend. I got her a little present for Christmas and she wanted a hint at what it could be. I spent a little time looking online for something decent but there’s so few quality riddles there. Instead, I did a little research, opened up a rhyming dictionary and made the following:

One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
A rhyme in a riddle
Is no decoy
Three for secrets
known to fly
A homophone
Four every pie
Follow the jay
And you’ll arrive
amidst the verse
at the number Five.

I talked to some others and they agree that it’s a ridiculously hard riddle. If you want to try it out, I recommend using Google to help. And keep in mind that the answer is still only a hint at what the present is. I wasn’t going to give it away.

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What line separates the personal me from the public me? Is it even a line? Does it move around? I say so much on here but even that is in vague riddles half the time. And why? Other people ask me why, I ask myself as well, but there is no real answer. I’m not comfortable. I don’t like other people to know things. They can use that knowledge then. They could tell more people I don’t want to know and everything could spread. Am I hiding something? Sure, I’m hiding lots, but nothing specific. I don’t have a secret book in my closet of all my dirty history or anything. It’s everything all at once.

Of the seven muses of ancient Greece it seems fitting that the singing goddess Melpomene would become known as the muse of tragedy. Even so long ago it was obvious that the inspiration of song, dance, and literature stems from this same fountain. I see no reason for it to be different for me, or for anyone.

My inspired moments most often have their roots in a sort of melancholy which alternates between the preponderously mundane and the factitiously contrived. Regardless of earnestness or pretense, the resultant state of interminable woe regularly leads toward a steady stream of artistic creation galvanized into being by what Twain refers to as a “storm-swept desolation”. Some nights, like tonight, I find it difficult to rest, not because of any particular dysphoria or anguish, but rather in response to my own reverberation to this state. The muse strikes with such force, such potency, that I am exhausted of any inclination towards any real production. Instead I am left with something akin to a metacognative rambling on the nature of my own… nature. Perhaps it’s simply a contradiction of my own fatigue and obstinacy.

Whatever the rationale, it’s clear that I am not alone in this consideration. It was, indeed, just such a time when Twain’s character finally heard the muse clear enough to let go of her clouded countenance and put the last remnants of her old life to the flame. Melpomene’s song is, after all, quite intoxicating.

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Atonement is an act of reparation made for the goal of reconciliation. I’ve had more than my share of things to ask forgiveness for.

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Every year for the past ten years I’ve toyed with the idea of finishing my novel. My poor plot outline has changed so many times, been scraped and begun anew, that I never seemed to be making any forward progress. My characters gained a little more depth, my world became a little more colorful and full of history, but the story always hovered around chapter one.

I sat down and wrote out chapter one a few times, sharing it with a few people, taking criticism and editing away. My biggest problem was that I’m not a from-the-hip author. I need planning, careful outlining, character sketches and biographies, country histories and cultural overviews. I need to know the staple products in the region and justify the existence of rivers with the rainfall and terrain in the area. I need to draw up charts of flood cycles, crop infestations, wind directions and migratory patterns. I need to know everything before I can do anything.

And so for the past ten years I’ve struggled to get anywhere in my novel because I can’t get everywhere. This year, though, I’m done. My outline is nearing completion and my world is in a clear enough state that I’m comfortable guessing my way through the rest. I know that the natives of the Monastiraki mountain range subside on staple crops of olives and wheat, and use the two together in a olive liquor that will take the hair off an ox. And I know about the various tides of the Ioma river that spans a distance that would run from Moscow to Johanasburg. All of this I know and it will have to be enough.

Next month is the tenth anniversary of NaNoWriMo. That’s the National Novel Writing Month, for those not in the know. The goal of the event is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1667 words a day, or about 3 pages in Word. The timeline is agressive because that’s what authors really need. I know as well as the next writer how easy it is to get wrapped up in editing as you go. You write a sentence, then rewrite it for hours until it’s perfect. With NaNoWriMo, that’s just not an option.

No time for distractions, for checking e-mail, reading blogs, learning to speak Portugese, or how to tame wild ferrets. No time for procrastination, saying, “I’ll work on this tomorrow, or this weekend.” No time for excuses.

50,000 words won’t finish my book. It will get me a good chunk of the way there, though, and that’s what’s important. Whether I finish or not, at the end of November, I’ll have crossed that difficult chapter two mark and I wont look back.

If any other aspiring authors are out there and want to join me, you can add me as a buddy on the NaNoWriMo site. My username is “jamestomasino”. Good luck, and pray for me!

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Tomorrow I set sail for Brighton, UK, to attend an Adobe Flash conference called Flash on the Beach. My wonderful company has a program called Professional Development in which employees are given a percentage of their base salary as a bonus to be used on conferences, seminars, training, books, or any other activity that contributes to their growth in their field. What this means for me is that I get to attend one of the premiere Flash events on the company dime. There’s no better way to travel than free.

I’m so looking forward to the conference not only for the sessions, but also for the networking and the time I’ll be spending touring around Brighton and London. See, I’ve decided to extend the trip an extra few days and pop over to the capital for some sight-seeing and maybe a game. In typical Tomasino fashion, I’ve got nothing at all planned for those extra days, not even a hotel in mind. Depending on my mood, I may try to take in a show in the West End, or I may throw it all to the wind and pop over to Paris. We’ll see how it goes.

I wish every job had opportunities like this. I hope I get to see some churches.

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Back as the millenium came to a close, my friends and I had a lot of good humored conversations about the end of the world as we know it. We talked about what it would be like, all the great things, all the terrible things, and what we would do if we survived. It wasn’t uncommon then, or even now, to talk about these things, but most of the time it’s done with an air of jest while we hold firm to the belief that our society is impregnable, and that we cannot fall back to the dark times that came before.

But the fact is, our civilization can fall. History has proven this again and again, and we would be wise not to let our pride convince us otherwise. While most people take the path of blissful self-deception, fate favors the prepared.

The possible causes of such a future are numerous, diverse, and lead to different potential problems. While fifty years ago it may have seemed likely that a large scale nuclear war would be the end of us all, today the cause seems much more likely to be economic. Terrorism is still a potential, but a new depression would do the job just as thoroughly and leave the cities untouched. So how do you prepare for anything?

For me, the answer was to prepare for the worst physical destruction possible. The plan for an attack of that magnitude would be simple: get away from largely populated areas to an area of little strategic or political value, but one that would serve a small community well. My solution: Devil’s Tower, Wyoming.

In the worst possible situation, the majority of this country would be uninhabitable, but select pockets of land would manage to stay untouched. Devil’s Tower is one of these places. Located in north-eastern Wyoming, America’s first national monument is outside of the nuclear blast zones and sits comfortably out of the path of the fallout. Obviously, the remote location would also serve well as protection from biological attacks, or even from hording riots in an economic crisis. Most importantly, the land is fertile and accessible with plenty of publicly available maps, trails, and roads, but it is not a highly sought after resource.

Besides the location itself, the most important issue that would confront survival in a post-apocalyptic world is the ill-preparedness of the survivors. Most of us haven’t grown up in a world where we are responsible for our own basic needs. Food is easily accessible without knowing how to grow it, hunt it, or trap it. Shelters are built for us. How many people in 10 can honestly say they know how to build a fire in the woods without a lighter or a match? How many people in 10 can make rope from grass, weeds, or bark? How many people know what plants in their area are edible? The answers are fairly depressing. We’ve become incapable of maintaining our own basic survival.

So in that vein, I invite all of you, my few readers, to join me at the tower in this “just in case” situation. Together, with our skills and knowledge combined, we stand a much better chance of survival than we would alone.

Though it may seem unnecessary or silly right now, talk with your family and friends. Mention that there is a plan, just in case. Let everyone know, if things fall apart, you have a place to go. Don’t waste time trying to search around other cities for each other. Just grab your emergency supplies (you have these set aside, right?) and head to the tower.

Here’s a few resources to toss in your emergency kit to get it started. Good luck, and I hope I never have to see the monument in person.

• Devils Tower Relief Map
• Devils Tower Area Map
• Devils Tower Trail Map
• North-eastern Wyoming Map

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Each place is rarely one extreme or the other. For the most part, every city or town has its mix. In Boston, for instance, I was struck at once by the beauty and life of the place, but it was overshadowed by a frightening sense of entitlement and, dare I say it, snobbery. Most of the others have that type of balance as well.

It’s a rare city that makes me feel either totally welcomed or totally alienated, though recently Atlanta has been threatening to fall into the later category. Each day I find myself acting a little more cynacal or a little more angry. This next year will definitely be the last one here.

Luckily, there are some good people here to keep me distracted from the overwhelming amount of filth and degredation. Good people are worth an extra year, I think.

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What surprised me most about my fransiciscan endeavor wasn’t the difficulty in cutting the strings, but the way my mind and body were at ease the moment each piece went away. Obviously it’s hard to give away that picture given to you by your father, or the dresser you’ve used since you were three years old, but once they are gone and out of sight, there isn’t an overwhemling sense of guilt like I suspected would fill the void. Perhaps it was the constant intercession of my interior dialogue reminding me that these things are not the love I feel for those close to me, they are only reflections, signs, stuff. You can’t take any of it with you anyway. The mantra was helpful, for sure, but I think the clean feeling has more to do with my own desire for a clean slate (read: conscience) than more free space.

Let me diverge for a moment:

When people asked me why I was giving things away, I had a number of answers. “I’m planning on moving to Europe soon, so I want to minimize what I have to put in storage,” was my most popular response. It fit that nitch of both truthful and incomplete while seeming to satifsy the curiosity of whoever had confronted me. You see, questions are complex things. When someone asks me, “What did you do last night?” I hear, “I want to know what interesting things you are willing to share with me about your activities last night.” They look similar, but they are certainly not the same. For one thing, my answer is totally dependant on who is asking the question. Do I know you? Are we friends? Can I confide in you confidently and openly? Then, of course, there’s a matter of what you would find interesting. Do I tell you all about the time I spent practicing typing to keep my speed up, or maybe about the time spent petting my cat? Unless you’re into that sort of thing, I’d probably keep it to myself. So what do I share then? I could tell you that I watched some obscure 80′s drama online and that you should watch it too. I could tell you that I daydreamed about writing things for my book or that I spent a few minutes planning out a board game idea I’m working on. Or I could tell you that my mind wandered back to a moment in my life that I’m totally ashamed of and that makes me fearful of my own redemption. There’s so much in every question. It’s never black and white… unless it’s a geometry test. Then I’m pretty sure it’s black and white.

Anyway, now that summer has come to a close, I’ll be jumping back into my winter hobbies. No, not cross-country skiing; as much as I love it, there’s no snow here! I’ll go back to working on my book or other stories. I’ll write more in this blog too. Winter is my season of introspection, I suppose. What better time to be writing.

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At first, the thought was that I would simplify by getting rid of a few highly annoying items, things that are big, combersome, and meaningless to me. So, I made a list. It’s hard to describe all your possessions in that way, expendible or essential. If you get nothing else out of this post, I would recommend making that list. You’ll be amazed at the results.

Once I had my list in hand, I realized right away that it wasn’t enough. I really want to cut down on the clutter, but the things I most want to shed were gifts or heirlooms, sure-in’s for the essential list. Not a good start.

So I tried again, this time choosing to ignore the meaning of the item, and instead picking things purely by function. I kept my bed – I like a good night’s sleep – the large metal rack, my laptop, my kindle, my keyboard, and my kitchen junk. Everything else is truely expendible. But I digress.

At the core of all of this is a simple assertion, that the accumulation of possesions is not only unnecessary, it’s harmful to how I want to live. The reasons are simple. I’m nomadic, and as such, I move fairly often. The more stuff, the more expensive it is to move. Also, it requires me to find bigger and bigger apartments, to fit all my extra stuff. I haven’t gotten any bigger – not too much, anyway – so it doesn’t make a lot of sense why I need a bigger place. Thirdly, when my possessions clutter my life, there is a large psychological cost (there’s a lot more that could be said on this point, but I’ll save it for another time). And finally, I get wrapped up in these emotional attatchments to certain items because of their history. The result is a bit of a three-way Catch-22, where I’m unhappy that my apartment is too small for all my clutter, I’m unhappy that I have so much useless stuff, and I’m unhappy because I can’t get rid of sentimental things and new ones keep appearing.

So once I decided that I was going to get rid of my stuff, the question became, how much should I keep. My religious aspirations aside, in living my life for the day-to-day, I put a value on what it was I really needed to keep me mentally, physically, and spiritually happy. The result was an overwhelming, “Less is more.”

The best decision I made on this front in Alaska was to get rid of my internet access. I let that slide when I moved to Atlanta due to some pressures from distant friends, but the result has made it all the more clear that I can’t be trusted to budget my time properly as long as I have this persistent connection. In a similar vein, there are lots of other habits I have around my apartment that lead to time-wasting, messiness, and generally bad living conditions. I’m going to need to take care of all of these.

The next step for me was to evaluate certain special collections or objects. What do I do with all my books, for instance? At first, I thought I would just do the same process of identifying the books I wanted to keep and shedding the rest, but I’m a pack rat. The behavior was passed down from my Dad, and it’s alive and well in me. The only way to shed the books is all or nothing. The same goes for lots of other things: records, DVDs, CDs, etc. To go from having a lot to having a little, you must purge.

I won’t lie. It’s emotional. It’s frightening to think of the amount of money I’ve poured into all these things, and to think that I’m going to give them away or sell them for next to nothing. In the end, I believe it’s worth the cost to simplify. The lesson having been learned, I’ll hope to avoid this same problem in the future.

So, to reiterate, I’m getting rid of all my stuff. If there are any of you out there who want something I have, please let me know. I’m terrible about shipping things, and it’s an extra expense I’d like to avoid, but if you can pick things up and take them away, they’re yours.

Here’s a brief list of items that will be going: books, movies, music, game systems, clothes, instruments, accessories, computers and other hardware, random electronics, and much more. Give me a call if you want something.

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One of the greatest things about my Kindle is the ability to wirelessly browse Amazon’s store, decide I want to read a book, purchase and download it, and begin reading immediately. This was the case with Poison Study, by Maria V. Snyder.

Ms. Synder, a former meteorologist, became a career author in 1995 when this, her first book, was published. She’s a self-described “Pantser,” or someone who writes from the seat of her pants. Her novels are written from start to finish with her plot twists and surprises developing for her as well as her readers on-the-fly. It’s a technique that some authors can follow to excellent results, while others flail about and fall on their face. Luckily for Ms. Snyder, she is in the former category.

The main character of the story, Yelena, begins the book locked in a dungeon awaiting her execution for the murder of her former lord when she is offered a choice, become the new food-taster for the Commander or face the noose. Yelena makes the obvious choice and all manner of subterfuge, assassination attempts, magic, swordplay, and betrayals commence. The book picks up your attention quickly–a rarity these days in the fantasy world–and doesn’t let go until the final page. Ms. Snyder’s ability to weave complex character motivations and give a sense of a living, breathing person are her greatest attributes. Her plots, while simple, are carried on by the vibrance of the characters and the ever-developing world around them.

After laying down this first book in her “Study” series, I can say with some confidence that I’ll be reading the sequel very soon. For those of you looking for a quick fantasy book filled with adventure, danger, magic, and of course poisons, this book will fit the bill nicely. I recommend reading it with a cup of hot tea you made yourself, just to be safe.

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At the turn of the 20th century, Henry Cowling published this fine little book (about 70 pages) as an autobiography of his life as a young sailor boy in the Royal Navy and the journeys that led him towards the Baptist ministry. Mr. Cowling, while not an author by trade, still manages to conjure up a vivid picture of his life in those sea-faring times.

The short volume covers Mr. Cowling’s life from a young child dreaming of a life at sea to the moment, years later, when his family petitioned to buy him out of his remaining service so he could enter seminary. His life, while not remarkable in any particular way, had many moments the reader could admire and enjoy in the light of sympathy and empathy. In one particularly insightful passage, the author describes how his life’s ambition of joining the Royal Navy went from a barely containable excitement to an overwhelming, fearful dread in the matter of a few steps along the gang-plank. It was passages like this one, where the true timbre of the author’s character shown forth in an all-too-real and all-too-familiar way that made the old book accessible.

Though there were enjoyable parts, and altogether the story was illuminating, I found myself rather thankful of the books brevity. The stories of life at sea for a young man who had not yet achieved the rank of Ordinary Seaman were interesting indeed, but there is only so much that can be said of these few years of non-ficticious journeys.

For those of you who might be interested in a realistic image of what life was like at sea at the turn of the century on boats powered by steam and sail, this quick, little book might be just what the doctor ordered. Read it with a nice cup of tea.

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Last night I read paragraph 7 of Pope Benedict’s encyclical several times, catching new insights each time and repeatedly kicking myself for missing so much. People have called the current Pope bookish, but I don’t think that quite covers it. A year or so ago, I picked up a few of his books written in his Cardinal days, one of which was Many Religions, One Covenant: Israel, the Church, and the World. I remember clearly that night which I read the chapter titled, “The Christian Faith and the Mystical Religions.” Afterwards, putting the book down, I felt a great connection to the Pope through his acceptance and his support of a metaphysical study of God. I learned from that short chapter that the Pope is more than bookish, he is deeply mystical and philosophical.

In the above quote from “Spe Salvi,” he chooses carefully to leave the word “hypostasis” untranslated, commenting briefly on the trouble it has caused biblical exegetes over the years. Indeed, in comparing the translations of that same passage by Martin Luther and by Thomas Aquinas, we see two very different interpretations. It was fitting that he would choose such a contentious passage for the organizing statement of his second encyclical. Not only does he bring it the fruit of his years of study and inspection, but he draws out of it a wealth of meaning beyond the points brought up by biblical scholars of the past. His evaluations go beyond literal translations and comparisons of grammatical structures. For Pope Benedict, the topic of Faith is not a question of semantics, it’s a question of metaphysics.

As I’ve mentioned previously, for St. Aquinas, the spiritual realm of faith as a virtue was a habitual and abiding disposition, granted to us through God’s grace, and practiced through repetition and the power of our will. Martin Luther, on the other hand, who was admittedly never a big fan of the Letter to the Hebrews, read the words to say that faith was “standing firm in what one hopes, being convinced of what one does not see.” (ibid.)

While both ideas are insightful and helpful towards spiritual understanding, they are quite different. Two differing lessons taken from the same sentence. What is it then, that makes up faith? Is it a habitual disposition, granted by grace? Is it the will’s power to stand firm to things we hope? Benedict explains that they each have a part of the truth.

Hope, as he explains, implies the desire for something to come. It is a focus on the future. Obviously, it makes no sense for us to hope things will happen in the past. Our hopes are undeniably focused forward, but faith brings something more to the equation. “Hypostasis,” a word meaning “substance” and so much more, leads the translation to suggest that faith is not a disposition of the subject, as Martin Luther suggests, nor is it simply a property of our disposition as Aquinas put forth. Faith is a wholly unique substance that replies to the concept of hope and provides a proof for things which we cannot see.

Faith, then, is a response to hope–granted by Grace, yes–that allows us to live our lives of hope today, rather than just for the future. We do not close our eyes to the world around us and say things like, “Judgement day will come, and God’s plan will be completed, so we can just sit on our butts until it happens.” We understand through faith that the things to come are already here, in part, through our faith. Christians understand that it is not the possessions we have in this profane life that define us, but the possessions we claim in our sacred lives, reflections of that everlasting life to come. It sounds simple when you word it that way, but metaphysically speaking, it is profound.

As I re-read this paragraph again and again, I get more and more out of it. That is quite a legacy for a bookish mystic, after-all.

For us who contemplate these figures, their way of acting and living is de facto a “proof” that the things to come, the promise of Christ, are not only a reality that we await, but a real presence: he is truly the “philosopher” and the “shepherd” who shows us what life is and where it is to be found.
    - Ibid.

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I’d like to start off by saying I’m a sucker for a good fantasy book. You can call it a weakness, or a predilection, or preference, and I won’t argue with you. Since my dad brought home my first Piers Anthony book when I was a child, reading about sword and sorcery has always made me smile.

Of course my love of the genre does not necessarily translate to my love of a particular book. I’ve read enough epic fantasy stories to find many cliché, obtuse, obvious, or the dreaded fan-boy driveling of an author who is obsessed with their old Dungeons and Dragons characters.

When I picked up A Game of Thrones, I knew straight away it wasn’t going to be one of those amateur pieces. At the same time, though, I recognized right away that George R.R. Martin was in no hurry to rush into the action.

In much the same way as The Wheel of Time, the book began laboriously slow. I admit it took me more than a few tries to finally push through to the end. In fact, with many of these epic stories that are planned to be a series from the start, much of the first book is just set-up, character development, setting and mechanics development, or training to get you in the habit of reading lots of silly names. For A Game of Thrones, there was plenty of that last part.

By the time I had reached the halfway point of the book, I was ready to call it quits on the series. Nothing much had happened and I wasn’t very attached to any of the characters. One of my biggest complaints was that the author seemed to give each of his chapters only a single scene that when concluded would inevitably end with a cliffhanger and a switch to a new point of view. The result was that as each chapter ended I found myself just settling in to that character, only to be jolted over to a new one.

The quick character swaps eventually lost their sting as I took them in the stride of the greater story. Once the hand-full of cast members were established, Martin’s chapter technique seemed fitting. When a chapter ended and a new one began with the new character’s name printed in bolded letters as a title, I would smile and look forward to picking up where we had left off a few chapters earlier.

As my progress reached about 70%, I hit the ‘hook’ as I like to call it. That is the moment when the story has you so fully invested, finishing is no longer in question. 70% might be a new record for leisure in the fantasy setting, one that I’m not sure Martin should be proud of. It seems a bit excessive for anyone but the most invested reader.

Aside from the lengthy introductions, this book did have its charms. It is rare to find an author so comfortable with killing off his characters. The result is a very gritty world where showing any mercy leads to tragic death. Perhaps it isn’t the most upbeat message, but as one character explains, “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.”

Martin’s characters are colorful, dynamic, capable of learning and growing yet still subject to their core qualities and weaknesses. Concepts like honor and duty are double-edged swords, as likely to lead to impossible and dire situations as they are to glory. It is not a book of fairytales where the valiant always win, but somehow it does leave you with a sense of hope. Perhaps it’s just hope that all of the books in the series won’t be so dark.

All in all, my biggest complaint was also my biggest distraction from the characters and plot. The sexuality in certain scenes burst forth in an often awkward or haphazard way, both graphic and violent. While some might try to argue that it supported and expanded on the bitter settings and grizzly characters, I believe these parts of the book were little more than the author’s frustrations passing onto the page. After the hundredth rape, I felt less convinced that the men of this world had different values than me than I felt sure that the author had a bad date-night.

After several reading attempts, a long period of development, surprising deaths, beautiful battles, raunchy sex, despicable characters and epic cliffhangers, A Game of Thrones left me with a positive feeling for the rest of the series. While I wont be running out to pick up the sequel today, it will be on my short list for the future. With any luck the author found a nice stable relationship before he penned book 2.

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Long before hyper-modern forms of travel enabled us to escape to a new life or a new world in the blink of an eye, the overwhelming desire to leave, to travel, to explore, boiled the blood of many men. Passion du voyage, reislust, mehetnék, λαχτάρα για ταξίδια, страсть к путешествиям, wanderlust; the words carry the same feeling in every language, but I believe it is the German word ‘fernweh’ that speaks most linguistically true. As heimweh is the word for ‘homesick’, so fernweh, then, is that same longing feeling for another, unknown place. It is a farsickness.

Perhaps the why’s of wanderlust aren’t as important as they once were to me. I’ve come to know the feeling as a part of me. At times it is quiet, waiting, letting me enjoy a place or people. At times it grows restless and I know it’s time to go. Even in those quiet times, though, I am aware of it like I am aware of the gasoline in my car. I know one day the tank will run dry and I must be ready. That readiness is something that’s grown over time.

As a child, the choice to stay or go was never mine. I remember times when my parents’ jobs would force us to pick up and head to a new city, and it was frightening. I didn’t want to leave my friends, my home, my school. I don’t know if the lust wasn’t in me yet, if I hadn’t come to understand it, or if I was blissfully ignorant because of my lack of control. Whatever the reason, those times ended with high school.

In college I took drives, many drives. The need to get away grew stronger all the time and I didn’t know what else to do. I packed up the car with snacks, if I had that much forethought, and started driving. The roads took me where they willed.

Once, I remember crossing the endlessly flat, barren terrain of Nebraska. A rail-road ran along side of my car. Slowly I passed by a train, only to stop and fill up my tank and watch the train pass me by again. I think that is when I understood.

Every now and then we throw an old schoolmate over the stern with a string of thought tied to him, and look–I am afraid with a kind of luxurious and sanctimonious compassion–to see the rate at which the string reels off, while he lies there bobbing up and down, poor fellow! and we are dashing along with the white foam and bright sparkle at our bows;–the ruffled bosom of prosperity and progress, with a sprig of diamonds stuck in it! But this is only the sentimental side of the matter; for grow we must, if we outgrow all that we love.

    - Ibid.

Over the years, I’ve grown better at moving on. I’ve learned how to pick up any stray roots I’ve lain, organize my life and possessions, plot a course and set sail. It’s never been a sad thing, for me at least, to leave a place. I know I take so much from each stop on my journey, from each person I’ve met and story I’ve heard. The experiences fill me with joy and strengthen my faith, not only in God, but in human beings. It’s allowed me the distinct opportunity to share in the lives of hundreds of fine people, some of whom I will not see again. Regardless, they are a part of me now.

At times I look back on those people and compare myself, judging whether I’ve made any real progress or not. Like Mr. Holmes says, “…we cannot help instituting comparisons between our present and former selves by the aid of those who were what we were, but are not what we are.” It is not a point of pride, or a means of looking down on the others. The true comparison is against our former selves. When the wind changes, am I a better person than I was?

Wanderlust is not the why. It is not the how or even the what. It is a spark inside that calls for change, but it is the change itself that is the message. What do we want from our new place and people? Who does it serve? What can we do to make it better, make ourselves better? In all my traveling, that is the most important lesson I’ve learned. I know of no better way to prepare for the journey.

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Lee Strobel’s book shows a heavy influence from his time as a journalist, an influence he makes no attempt to deny or deminish. This book, like his others in his “The Case for…” series, relies heavily upon the reasoning and logical deduction he learned as a reporter with the Chicago Tribune. So it came as no surprise when he logically ordered the interviews and chapters around eight organizing questions, or “The Big 8″ as he calls them. These questions represent to Mr. Strobel the most convincing arguments against faith in Christianity.

1. If there’s a loving God, why does this pain-wracked world groan under so much suffering and evil?
2. If the miracles of God contradict science, then how can any rational person believe that they’re true?
3. If God is morally pure, how can he sanction the slaughter of innocent children as the Old Testament says he did?
4. If God cares about the people he created, how could he consign so many of them to an eternity of torture in hell just because they didn’t believe the right things about him?
5. If Jesus is the only way to heaven, then what about the millions of people who have never heard of him?
6. If God really created the universe, why does the evidence of science compel so many to conclude that the unguided process of evolution accounts for life?
7. If God is the ultimate overseer of the church, why has it been rife with hypocrisy and brutality throughout the ages?
8. If I’m still plagued by doubts, then is it still possible to be a Christian?

As a journalist as his core, Mr. Strobel doesn’t seek to answer these questions on his own, or even summarize other answers from journals, periodicals, and books. He interviews experts in the christian community who have particular familiarity with each question. The author then becomes a voice of the questioner, the doubter, and at times the athiest, who argues against christianity with the sense of truth that comes from a person who was indeed once an athiest himself.

The authors anticdotes about his own path to faith and the parallels he shared with the book he is authoring is a helpful guide and a binding force to what might have otherwise been disjointed apologetic interviews with top christian leaders. As the organizing questions keep the book on target, Lee’s own sub-plot of searching for answers keeps the book together as a unit.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for help in their own faith journey. It is not, however, a book of solid apologetics to be brandished at the nearest athiest in hopes of conversion. There are plenty of mixed messages inside, including a strong position that those who don’t want to believe will not believe. Overall, the author makes excellent points that “the Big 8″ lose their venom when tackled one by one, and when taken as a whole, the evidence for faith is overwhelming.

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At the suggestion of a close friend, I’ve been reading The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity, by Lee Strobel. In one chapter, an interviewee makes an excellent point about people who have doubts that keep them from embracing their faith. The claim was that for many people, doubts are a way of justifying an underlying desire not to believe, because the cost associated with faith is so high.

Now, I should say right away that the statement was made in a setting of appropriate context and sounds much harsher taken on its own. I’ll also say, as it is said in the book, that it is not necessarily the case for everyone. I wanted to bring it up, not as a way of creating argument, but as a way of shining some light on my own situation.

Personally, I used to find it very hard to accept my faith completely because of a few fundamental questions that still lingered in the back of my mind. These days, I see those lingering questions as being more and more helpful towards me solidly moving forward with my discernment, but it wasn’t always so. For a very long time, the questions of faith were a barrier keeping me from everything, even from sitting in a church. But as I look back upon those times and truly evaluate what I was feeling, I have to agree with the book. I was scared to let go of my comfortable life, free from the demands that faith brings with it.

You see, Aquinas was right about virtues being a habitual state, but he also teaches the same about vice. My life, especially my teen years, had grown deeply in vice; so much so that the very foundation of my thought processes and even dreams were centered in them. I fell very low for a time, if not in a material sense, then certainly in a spiritual one. I was a habitually drawn to make the bad decision. It was easier and required less and less internal deliberation. And faith, poor self-effacing faith, was a powerful threat to that way of living.

So I asked myself, “Do I want to believe?” I asked, “Can I let myself believe?” And still, “Is belief worth it.” A funny thing happened when I did that. I realized that by asking the question, I had admitted to myself that my faith existed already, that I was surpressing it, hiding away from the guilt. It wasn’t pretty.

Even these days, as I know I’ve moved forward a great deal, I still see the sense of habitual vice in me. I’m a long way from the place where good decisions are easy and simple, but I have accepted that I want to be that way one day. Aquinas also said, if you lack a clear understanding of what should be done in a particular situation, look to the example of the virtuous person. Lucky for me, I have several of them as friends.

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Most of the stores weren’t very inviting; either selling kids clothes or personal electrolysis kits. We had a little fun in the EB Games, but as our game systems are mostly modded, we weren’t really planning on buying anything.

Then we came to the Apple Store. It was a glorious, pearly haven of electronic goodness, bountiful in innovation and style. Behind the counter, the Apple Geniuses were hard at work training and explaining all the latest Mac concepts to the shoppers. Stepping inside, we could feel the excitement. Customers swarmed around iPod touches, MacBooks, new iMacs, and of course, the new MacBook Air.

It was our first time seeing the device in person. The commercials had been a big hit, showing how thing and elegant the design was, but I wasn’t impressed. To me, thin meant fragile, stripped-down, even backwards. Then we touched it.

I knew I was wrong right away. As I lifted the unit, I was as impressed by how sturdy and solid it felt as I was by how little it weighed. Gone were the days where the screen wobbles as you walk the laptop around. The hinges held tightly as I closed and reopened it, noticing another nice surprise. Apple had also removed the annoying push-button to open the laptop. On my 12″ PowerBook at home, that very switch has recently being giving me problems. On the Air, you just lift from the recessed notch and it’s done.

With the outside examined, I wanted to put it to the real test. As I moved my hand to the touchpad, I paused. It had been enlargened to a big comfortable size. I could barely keep my excitement in. I’d been dying to try this out for a while. Opening safari, I went to the first webpage I could think of, this blog, and pinched my fingers together. Instantly, the text size shrunk. I spread my fingers out and the text grew. Multi-touch touch-pads may be the coolest thing since the hotdog was invented.

Plopping my thick fingers onto the keyboard, I was in for another surprise. The new keyboard design was fantastic! Rather than the shoddy loose keyboard faceplate of the old PowerBook models, the Air had a solid metal faceplate with large, unencumbered buttons rising up. No tapered sides or miniature footprint here; this keyboard was solid, easy to use, and comfortable.

I loved the keyboard so much, I wanted one right then and there. I couldn’t afford the 1799$ pricetag of the Air, though, so I went the easy route. I picked up the Apple Wireless Keyboard for use on my PC at home.

Without going into too many details, let me just say it’s amazing. The smallest footprint you can imagine, with the feel of a full-size keyboard. As I type this blog entry out on a big, clunky, monster of an HP keyboard, my fingers feel dirty. They crave the AWK even now.

Setup had a cost, though. While I’m certain that integrating with a Mac would have been simple, doing so with a PC had a few problems.

First, setting up the bluetooth connection was really problematic. I purchased the Kensington Bluetooth USB Adapter 2.0 from Best Buy on the way home. I followed the installation instructions, set up the Bluetooth device, and turned on the Keyboard. My Bluetooth configuration picked up the keyboard right away and knew exactly what it was, but when I went to handshake and share pass-key to connect, the problem was apparent. The screen told me to type in the PIN number on my keyboard and press Enter, but there was no PIN number on the screen. After some searching online, I found more information on this forum.

In the end, the solutions they presented helped lead me to my own solution, even if they didn’t work as stated. I downloaded an old version of the Wildcomm Drivers (v. 1.4.2.10), as they suggested at one point in the forum. The order in which I installed things was important. After a few errors, I uninstalled everything and did the following. I installed the old Wildcomm Drivers. Then when it asked me to plug in my Bluetooth device, I plugged in the USB adapter. It popped up asking for a driver. At that point, I had Windows search the driver CD for the correct driver. When it finished installing, the Wildcomm install also finished. After a reboot, I turned on the Keyboard and told Windows to supply the PIN itself. Voila!

If that wasn’t crazy enough, I had a new problem. The FN button wouldn’t work. That made it very difficult to perform a CTRL-ALT-Delete. After a few more forums, I found the solution via the utility, AutoHotKey. I started with someone’s prefabricated “Apple Wireless Keyboard” script, and edited it to make the eject button into a delete button, which was my preference. Now not only can I CTRL-ALT-Delete, but the keyboards media keys work with Winamp too!

All in all, I’d say the keyboard is downright fantastic. If you don’t mind messing with firmware and drivers a bit, or installing and scripting some fancy hot-keys, this keyboard might be a good fit for you too.

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For me, the hardest thing about ending a long relationship is not the physical separation or loss of intamacy, but the loss of a confidant and counselor. It is that special person above all others who you turn to with problems and complaints, joys and victories, and above all, heartache. So it is quite inevitaable that when that greatest loss comes, the sword is felt as strongly when striking as when it is pulled away, revealing the hole in its stead.

My first post addressed the confusion and lonliness I was feeling then. It was a pain that was unsharable, but not because there was any uniqueness to it. Most of my friends have felt it before and would certainly have sympathized with me, offering comfort and companionship. That very reaction, though, was why the feelings were unsharable for me. As I put it in that first post, “just let the damned compassion die away and give me someone who will wallow with me and tell me that they ‘empathize’ instead of ‘sympathize’. It can’t be that hard to find a person who would rather cry with me than console me.”

Of course, that was only the half-truth that I could cry out in the pain of the moment. In truth, the real reason I didn’t want a comforting friend was because of what it would mean for the relationship that had ended. To turn to another friend in that moment, away from the loving confidence of her in whom I had trusted for years, was as sure a sign of the end of things as anything could be. It was as simple as that. I wasn’t ready to let it go.

So the fifteen entries went by, each darker than the last, each one seeking some new me on the other side of grief. In the two months I wrote, new friends and commentors gathered. I shared with them, the strangers, what I couldn’t share with my friends. I poured out detail after detail, condemnation and prostration, and in the end I was empty. The pain was there, floating with me as fresh as ever, but the dispair had moved on.

There was no goodbye message in my last post. It, just like the others, was an empassioned tirade on the falicies of my actions and the entirety of sexuality in my being. But, in the last few words, there was a hint of a new beginning, or at least a new resolution as I continued the ongoing journey I had begun long before.

In those few months I lived a secret life. I survived on the empathy of strangers and the bitter resentment of my own weaknesses. In those last moments, I fittingly closed a dark chapter in my life with dark, harsh words. It was not a time I am proud of, but it did bring me to some helpful discoveries.

A very dear friend once told me that I am an excellent friend, but a terrible boyfriend. It was never so true as it was with that one relationship. I had all the possibilities one could hope for, and none of the integrity to fight for it. Looking at those times and my other relationships that have fallen for similar reasons, it is hard to dispute the truth.

Some of us are called to lives of companionship, of marriage and family. Some of us are called to remain single, unattached, and free for service.

Were I able to treat those intimate relationships with the same love and affection that I have for my close friends, my calling would be far more difficult. Perhaps it is just another example of how God calls us to good things even through our faults.

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The Ignatius House runs silent, reflective retreats on weekends throughout the year. Some of those weekends are themed, where every few hours a priest will give a brief talk about the faith as it relates to both the chosen theme and St. Ignatius’ Spritual Exercises. The talks last thirty minutes or so, and then everyone is let loose to wander the grounds, both inside and out, in search of peaceful reflection on the topics. Sometimes that peace comes sitting in a fluffy chair in the library, while other times it strikes you suddenly in the middle of a trail leading down to the river. One thing I’m fairly confident about, though, is that it did strike all of us that were there.

Before the retreat kicks off, there is an informal gathering where people introduce themselves and share tidbits of their lives over cookies. It’s a friendly meeting, but you can tell that most everyone is anxious to get on with the silence and enter their own mini-worlds. When the bell rang that signaled the beginning, there was a palpable weight that lifted and at the same time settled over everything. I remember clearly the reaction of a Methodist woman who was very unsure of the whole enterprise when that tiny ringing began. Her eyes widened and searched around the room, then, seeing everyone’s eyes turning inward, she smiled a broad grin and closed hers.

I’ve described the first day’s silence as a weight, like a foreign presence that sits on top of everything. You are keenly aware of it, careful not to disturb it, and anxious of the hows, whens, and whats of everything around you. The first few hours, my head raced with things I wanted to say, or ask, or mumble. I mentally ordered them, filed away for safe keeping until later when we could speak to each other again. It was daunting, thinking of how much I had to remember for the whole weekend. I even toyed with the idea of writing down all my thoughts and questions for later. And then we had our first lecture.

The topic was very apt, about Jesus’ love for us, and welcoming of us. It was an excellent introduction to the weekend filled with as many questions as it was pleasantries. By the time the old Jesuit had finished his little talk, I had forgotten my questions from earlier. In their place was a warm fuzzy feeling, like I wasn’t really there, in that place, in that chair, in the midst of strangers. I was on the first steps of a long journey and there was no one on the road but myself. I went to sleep early that night, dreamed heavily, and woke late. In the morning, things had changed already.

Besides the nagging questions of faith I was having, and the amazing clarity and speed at which I was addressing them, there were other things floating through my mind; like a metacognative awareness of my own learning, and a recognition of the spirituality of the place as a whole, outside of the realm of the people, statues, and paths carved all around. I found a leaf hanging ten feet below a branch from a single thread of a spider’s web. Plucking it free, I placed it into my journal with a smile. So much meaning comes from such little places when the silence is upon you.

That second day, the silence was a part of me. The stranger that had oppresessed my speech yesterday had settled into me in the night. When the third day came, and the bell rang again signalling the end of the silence, it was a long breath before anyone bothered to speak up. When the words came out, they were quiet, like they didn’t want to break that tenative thread that held each of us in that place. We could feel ourselves suspended by a thread.

On the drive home, I left the radio turned off. I took long winding roads and several purposful wrong turns. I was scared that silence would be gone the instant I was back in my old world again.

This summer, I’ll be taking a week-long retreat instead of the short weekend one. Instead of lectures every few hours, this retreat is individually guided, meaning I’ll meet with my spritual director once a day and spend the rest of the time in silent meditation. My fear this time is not that I wont want to leave, but that I wont be able to.

My discernment is not an endless process. It leads somewhere tangible. Some day or another I’ll take that step, and places like the Ignatius House make me feel that the moment is very close indeed.

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To convey information in writing, that is the one plain duty, and the one most easily forgotten. It’s the art that overwhelms us and distracts us from our responsibilities. It’s the art that tempts our pride with possibilities of greatness, or happiness, or uniqueness. In the end, our simplest duties are forgotten and we are left feeling lost. The line, the shape, the curve, balance and contrast, division and surface: the possibilities are endless and distant. Each of us feels the limitations of our tools. We complain that they hold us back, that we aren’t free to express ourselves, but we know that we are only part of a vast machine. We are a small part, putting our stamp where we can, marking our names here or there. The tools are our guides, to keep us close to the task at hand. The message would be lost in possibilities even faster were we free of those few remaining constraints.

Design is like the stars. The beauty is undeniable, but the distance is vast. A glint of light, barely understood, further than we can imagine from our beings, but with a poetry that pulls at us from all sides. The gravity can be felt in our dreams.

Oh why is heaven built so far,
    Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
    That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
    One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
    Beyond my range.

I never watch the scatter’d fire
    Of stars, or sun’s far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
    And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
    Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
    And catch at hope.
    - Christina Rossetti – De Profundis (1890)

As our ships strive endlessly forward into darkness, we spare a passing thought that our engines may sparkle like stars for those we left behind.

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In that brief moment when I ceased to be me, when I was empty and void as much physically as mentally, something changed in me. Some deep question that I had thought I would never answer was answered. It was like I found some tiny piece of a puzzle so large, I’d never be able to see it all at once. But just having the one piece proved there was a puzzle. And so, before I did jumping jacks, I was Agnostic, and after I did them, I was Catholic again.

It’s a simple way to put it. It suggests that all in one moment, I was converted from not believing to believing; in the blink of an eye, I found God. That’s not the way of it at all, though. In fact, my division already called me Reverend long before those jumping jacks. I led the nightly prayer just after lights out. I was the one people confided in.

So what changed, then? I didn’t find God in that moment. I didn’t recognize or necessariliy believe in the divinity of Christ, yet. I had always been interested in religions, especially in gnosticism, and metaphysics. This was different, though. Something changed the Sacred from an aspect of my intellectual desire, manifested through the numinous, and experienced through hierophany to a totally inhabited presence around and with me. And most importantly, I felt it very strongly.

It was strong enough, in fact, that I felt the need to explain to my old friends as soon as I talked to them. I told them I considered myself Christian again, setting it up before them like a sign they could either accept or walk away from. Despite all of my previous observations on converts and the rediculous over-zealous acceptance and implementation of their new faiths, I walked right into the same trappings. I am a little embarrased now about that time, but I think it’s necessary for some people.

So this strong presence was upon me, and somehow I knew it was God, and I knew what the message was. It was as clear as day, but totally unexpressible in words. I was called to something, I had a vocation. I didn’t know what it meant, precisely, and even now I still see only tiny pieces of the puzzle. I assume it will always be like that.

Part of me always expected that the Saints felt something overwhelming and precise when they had their revelatory moments. Something in them should have snapped and seperated the one day sinner to the new day saint. I always thought that was how things happened, quick and absolute, like in Bible stories. But even those stories didn’t happen overnight. Long years of oral tradition may have made them seem that way, but things always seem to have taken their time.

As an example, though not Biblical, Saint Ignatius Loyola was a soldier in the army when on May 20th, 1521, in the citadel of Pampeluna, a cannon ball passed between his legs, crushing the bone and muscle. While he was recovering from his wounds (a process that nearly killed him) he read the stories of Christ. After a long time, the true message was finally revealed to him and he realized that he had been living for the things of this world, but he was being called to live for the eternal. From the story, it sounds like there and then he was a changed and holy person, destined to become a saint, but that’s only the beginning. Just like me, Ignatius found his calling while he was injured in the military, and just like me, he had no idea what to do with the knowledge when he left. He travelled to Jeruselem and back again and to all manner of places for six years before he decided to seek formal education. During those years, he starved himself next to death in hope of finding revelation of God’s intentions for him. He ran wherever he felt called and did whatever he could. In the end, time and prayer brought understanding. Later, St. Ignatius would organize that time of careful reflection and self examination into his Book of the Spiritual Exercises.

If God causes you to suffer much, it is a sign that He has great designs for you, and that He certainly intends to make you a saint. And if you wish to become a great saint, entreat Him yourself to give you much opportunity for suffering; for there is no wood better to kindle the fire of holy love than the wood of the cross, which Christ used for His own great sacrifice of boundless charity.
    - Saint Ignatius Loyola – The testament of Ignatius Loyola, being sundry acts of our Father Ignatius, under God, the first founder of the Society of Jesus, taken down from the Saint’s own lips by Luis Gonzales (1900)

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It’s refreshing to be back in the South again. There are some quirks of speech and personality here that I find a little annoying, but on the whole the place is a sunshine filled break from my last rural stop. Alaska was definitely my favorite place to live so far, touting both an incredible wilderness, local culture, and a few diners, but there is something to be said for being connected to the rest of the world. It’s nice to know that my best friends are only a drive away, rather than an all day flight.

My job here is also great. I learned a whole lot working at Pango Media about web design and development, and also about the process of working in a small consultancy with quick turn-around times and tight budgets. The experience at a large firm like Moxie Interactive is the exact opposite. I am protected from the wrath and flightiness of clients by my art directors and project managers. My tasks are well documented, and I have a support structure of peers and colleagues whose knowledge of flash and interactive design is on par with my own. When a problem arises, it’s good to know I have someone to turn to.

In the grand scheme of my educational pursuits, Georgia looks like it’s going to be a great resource, too. The path towards the first Tomasino doctorate seems to have revealed itself in two distinct options. I’m still debating which to take, or whether doing both is an option. I think it will probably involve a long talk with my family for some guidance in the near future.

That being said, my direction towards the Church has never been stronger. I’ve done some private writing for myself to flush out some ideas and issues I’ve been tossing around in my head. I feel much clearer these days than ever before. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been discerning for seven years now. The time has just flown by, but I suppose all those years were necessary to take me from where I was to where I am now. It took a very long time before I could have a conversation about it with my parents or even Kristin. There are still friends that I haven’t told directly, though I’m pretty sure nobody is really in the dark anymore.

Looking back, when I first felt a call, I thought I could follow it in my own way. It was silly, really, to think that I was in charge of any of it, but that is my way. Mankind’s original and greatest sin is pride, and it is very strong in me. Little by little, I’ve come to the realization that I’m called to more than I want to give, but that’s the way of God’s call. I am not God, and it’s not my will that is the most important thing. A few years ago, when I went to the seminary, I thought that I could follow the path of a diocesan priest where I could continue to make some money, save up, do some freelance work, maybe secure myself a comfortable living. But God gave me a wanderlust that is more powerful than even my own pride. He knew that I couldn’t stay in one place long enough to join a diocese. He knew that the itch would prevent me from halfway following his call. The tingling I feel will take me all the way. I know holy orders are in my future, and now after seven years of trying to figure out just how I am going to deal with it, I can say with some measure of self-assuredness that it doesn’t matter. My part in the whole thing is so tiny, so insignificant, that in the end it doesn’t matter at all. God has set a path for me, and I’m going to follow it, whether I like it or not.

I have a whole lot more to say about all that, but I think I’ll wait for another post.

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If I do end up living in Georgia, I think the heat will be less of an issue than I worried about. With the plentiful air conditioning everywhere, the wonderful public transit system, and the close proximity of all the wonderful places that don’t exist in Alaska, surviving in the city seems pretty easy.

All in all, it was great to see where Markus lives and to meet Natalie. She’s really sweet and even leant me the use of her horrible nostril-washing device. Hanging out on rooftops, skipping around in high-class grocery stores, chowing down on apple-pie and installing useless gizmos on other people’s laptops is how weekends are meant to be spent. And wherever life takes me, I hope it has a parks like Atlanta (ugly ducks and all).

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Last night I was taking more notes on Rudolf Otto’s book, The Idea of the Holy, when I came upon this quote from William James’ work. It is the quote of a clergyman taken from the manuscripts of Edwin D. Starbuck, of Stanford University. It’s quite the path leading back to the original quote, but it summed up so much that I wanted to say that I had to track it down. In all the researching I’ve been doing both for my book that I toy with endlessly and for my own personal discernment, I keep running into the same themes again and again; themes of heirophany that speak to me on a very personal level.

The root of my religious choices have been a series of experiences that I thought were unique for a very long time. When I was in Jr. High School, I found it hard to believe that other people could have similar feelings, or experience what I was experiencing. These days, I seem to have the opposite problem. Having found so many similar people in my life, I find it hard to comprehend those people who have never felt the feeling of religious ecstasy, witnessed the mysterium tremendum, or come face to face with the ineffible truth of their being, “I am nothing, YOU are everything.”

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The story is amazing in its detail of her tribulations. The author of the article put it well when he compared her trek to that of Hercules facing his twelve trials. Through her epic journey, she was tossed against the shores for hours at a time, hit by a car on her bike, forced up 18 degree inclines for miles on end, and forced to land to avoid the devastation from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. The pitfalls seemed endless, but she persevered.

The most fascinating part for me was her reasoning, her driving force that made her get up and force herself forward. I was surprised to find that I had it backwards. The expedition wasn’t an adventure, it was an escape; a long, painful escape from the pain of losing her fiancée and her brother.

I put myself in her shoes (or kayak) and wonder if that strength is in me. Could I do what she did? With training and time, maybe, maybe not. I think I give myself over to the world in different ways, though. Her technique to find herself was to go looking, to force herself forward, though the next wave, over the next mile, up the next hill. For me it is a matter of stripping away each piece until there is nothing left but me. When I am most alone and empty, I am most me.

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Tonight I set myself a few specific tasks to accomplish. I thought I’d be done with everything by the early afternoon and I could go do something fun, or maybe just work out. Instead, I’m still sitting in my office at 10:15, writing a blog post as another print job inevitably fails. I am frustrated.

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Sometimes it feels like part of growing up is running into more and more of those tough decisions that aren’t automatic. For instance, each of the times I get that wanderlust itching me forward to a new city, the automatic choice is harder and harder. Do I go to Alaska? Do I go to Italy, to Toronto, to India? What about a Ph.D.? Is it time yet, or should I do more industry work. Or the more recent: Do I move back to Indiana and start teaching?

On some level, I feel all important decisions have a bias in them. Nature or God has a built in suggestion, but it gets harder and harder to just choose it and be done. Still, the decisions are all singular ones. Given time, you overcome. But what happens when the problems complicate one another, though?

Do I move forward in a relationship that is good, if a bit scary, because that is the way the choice is leaning? On the one hand, it involves a lot of other good things, such as teaching, moving back where I have already made friends (and enemies), finishing my Ph.D., and an assortment of other bonuses that are equally unrelated to the actual relationship. Things would change, but is it so bad? Well, my wanderlust would be hindered greatly–a problem that doesn’t seem too bad now, but can cause big issues down the line. Also, the selfish track of life takes a big hit. Perhaps the oddest confict is the religous one, though.

I’ve basically put my seminary thoughts on pause while I’ve debated on this issue. The real complication comes from the way I ask the question: Do I give up the seminary for a relationship, or do I give up a relationship for the seminary? Each question, asked separately seems to lean towards yes. It is right to sacrifice.

I’ve been avoiding this conversation for a while as I’ve tried to figure things out on my own. Unfortunately, this decision isn’t making itself. All of the choices I’m making here are in a path to put off the choice. I choose not to rent an apartment from my boss that, while nicer than my current one, would tie me to this state for six months to a year. That choice would force my hand in others, were I to make it. So I choose to stay where I am, giving myself more time to try and choose Indiana, to talk myself into it.

Is that really the best thing for me, for her? I know the choice should be automatic, and were it not for the questions of self, nature, and God, it truely would be. I could like that life I see for myself with her. I could get past the headaches and frustrations that will accompany it. I can ground myself in a place and plant roots. The choice of standing up and saying definitively “Yes!” is the problem.

So I bend the rules as best I can. I make choices that will make the big one easier. I send e-mails and resumes around, fishing for opportunity, for invitation. And if these things provide me with a way back there, with a job and an opportunity to better myself, then one of my blocks crumbles out of the way. If I convince her that I’ll need to move around, that staying still in the same place for more than 6 years or so will crush my spirit, and if she understand and accepts this, that is another block crumbling.

There are many little choices I make because I’m not strong enough to just make the big one. I play the non-committal game because I am scared that if I choose too abruptly, or without comment, that I will regret, blame, or at worse, resent her for it. Time has been my friend in this, as is the distance of Alaska. I face these issues on my own as I need to, without interruption or distraction. I just wish things were easier.

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I forget about more ideas than I remember, and those that get followed through to the end are unique indeed. It’s not that I intend to let all these things slip through the cracks. Rather, I don’t have a good way to track them all, invest balanced amounts of time, and see real progress made.

Until recently, the biggest blame for that has been the internet. I would come home from work and sit down in front of the laptop. Usually I’d get as far as opening up a website I was working on, or pulling up a google result on woodcarving. Perhaps, if I were really inspired, I would even code a few lines of a program before the inevitable sloth overtook me. The television would come on, and I would open up an instant messenger. Thirteen chat windows and an evening of television later, the clock would let me know in alarming terms that I’d wasted another opportunity.

A few days ago, I gave up my internet connection at home. I took back the modem in hopes of breaking my time-wasting addiction. I can only hope I can avoid the same pitfalls with television or whatever else catches my eye.

More than anything, I need some sort of repository to keep track of all of my hobbies, their statuses, and how much time I’ve invested recently. It’s a project in itself, of course. Time will tell if I’m ever able to finish that one.

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While working on my book tonight I fell back onto a popular theme of mine. My mind started rambling over the idea of the hero’s journey, Joseph Campbell, and eventually (and inevitably) the Tarot.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve done any Tarot readings of any note, but I suppose it’s one of those things that will never leave me. Whenever a friend I know starts learning, a part of me wants to cry out, “That’s what I used to do!” Or perhaps I want to just dig out a deck and show them what it’s all about. More than likely I am feeling that deep urge within me to jump into the spotlight and show the world what I can do. That’s not what I want to be like, though, and I quickly fight back the urge.

I imagine things like this happen for other people too. Sometimes I feel a deep guilt that underneath it all, I’m just a selfish person wanting attention. That’s not why I learned what I learned. That’s not why I practiced it. That’s not even why I taught people. So why now, after all this time, is my only motivation showing off?

Perhaps it’s a sign of growth that I’m aware of it now. Maybe I was like this before, but the guilt wasn’t there to illuminate me. I doubt it, though.

Tonight, anyway, the motivation wasn’t ego. I looked over the first few chapters of my book and realized that I had finally begun the story of the Major Arcana in a way that wasn’t obvious or ostentatious. It was almost refreshing to look at my work and not feel completely inadequate or predictable. Of course, I can’t say for certain that I’ll feel the same way in the morning.

I hope that the Tarot helps me to add strength and clarity to the book. The story is about a fool’s journey through the world of the occult, after all. It’s fitting.

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Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, a day of repentance before God. It marked the beginning of the Lenten season, which runs 40 days until the Easter Vigil. Traditionally, every day during this period was a ritual fasting day in which Catholics would abstain from eating meat. More recently, the practice is only held on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all of the Fridays of the Lenten season.

As with all important days of repentance and fasting, the day is not without meaning. The ashes scored across foreheads around the world today harkens back to the bible when the early Jewish prophets would put on sackcloth and roll in the ashes (Jer 6:26, Is 58:5, Dn 9:3). The act was one of self-sacrifice as a way of atoning, or of penance. Today we don’t wear sackcloth or roll around, but the ashes we wear on our forehead carry the same symbolism.

The most vital part of this day is not the act of wearing ashes, or sackcloth, or even of fasting. It is the inner repentance, which these things symbolize. The true abstinence comes from within us and is only externalized in part through our ritual and rite.

This season is a time of atonement. It is a time to thank God, and to look closely at ourselves and examine what we find there. To lay naked before Him, covering our sins with nothing but ash and sackcloth, prostrated and cleansed as we can be, we ask forgiveness. It is a powerful day.

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I brought everything home and quickly put it all together. I was ready for a few configuration headaches, so I didn’t sweat anything when nothing worked the first time. I tried again, and again, and again. Finally I gave up for the night. I spent most of that weekend and several software installs before the system was finally up and running.

The aftermath wasn’t pretty. When I looked back at everything I did, I was left with three dead hard drives and not a single piece of hardware from the original system. At least I had a powerful and stable machine, right? Wrong.

Nearly immediately, the crashing began. It started during certain gaming sessions. I would be playing EVE, or City of Heroes, and then blam! The black screen would appear and my system would reboot. Of course I thought the problem was my video card. So the testing began.

Much time and effort was spent on forums and downloading new drivers. In the end, benchmarks and hardware tests were run and no errors were found. That’s when the real troubles began. The computer began restarting when I wasn’t in games. First it was during video encodes, and then when I was watching movies, and finally, when I was doing nothing at all.

So my computer-centric brain has settled on the thought that the problem lies in either my RAM (most likely) or the CPU. I could test these things quite easily. I even have the software to test the RAM. But something has happened over the past few months of problems. I stopped caring.

I disabled my internet access recently. I stopped playing video games. When I go home, I don’t want to touch the computer, let alone troubleshoot its seemingly endless hardware problems. I’m just burnt out. I have no dillusions that I’ll stay this way forever, but for the moment, I could care less if my computer works tonight or ever. My only guilt in all this is the wasted money invested in a new system. I guess that’s the way these things go, though. Given time, you get bored of everything, right?

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1. The permalinks should be taken from the original RSS source
2. Only the proper article should be displayed
3. The article should be styled just like the normal RSS page, theoretically using the same XSLT and/or CSS

Thanks to XPath, PHP, and SimpleXML I was able to make it work without too many problems. In fact, I wasted most of my time trying to find a Python solution. Unfortunately, the built-in Python XML API doesn’t have XPath support (at least not that I could find). And while there are many Python XML libraries I could have chosen to fill in the gaps, I had a heck of a timei trying to install them. Eventually I fell back on PHP.

I’ll keep looking for more Python solutions when I have time, but this works pretty well for now. It looks like all that is left for this blog is a good method for doing comments. If anyone knows how other RSS feeds handle those, please fill me in.

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Web browser support is still inconsistent, but I’m working on it. The blog shows up properly in Firefox 1.5 and 2.0, and Opera. If you disable your overpowering RSS reader built into Safari, it renders properly there as well. I’ll be testing IE in a bit. Next I need to make an xslt that renders the permalinked pages. Then comments!

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Now, I pick up a lot of hobbies. Many of those I happily abandon after a few tries, but 200 yards was not going to be my breaking point. So last night, I suited up again and met up with Emmy to try again. This time I had an experienced cross country skier with me to show me the ropes. We made some good progress on fairly flat terrain for about 45 minutes. I’m really happy about that.

By the end of the run, I was starting to get sloppy because I was so tired. However, I picked up some better form and made some great progress. I think I’m going to enjoy this sport.

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Well, this time, I’m trying something new. Since I haven’t found any public blogs out there that I really enjoy, I’ve decided to make my own. And how am I going to do that? Simple! I’m doing it by hand. I’m going to write all the code for the RSS feed right here in .

I figured, most people don’t read blogs on the actual blog site, especially not mine. So there’s no reason for me to make a whole GUI for it. Instead, I’ll write the RSS feed. Eventually, if I get around to it, I’ll write the code to “perma-link” these posts, and maybe even enable comments. For now, enjoy the texty goodness.

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A week and change later, we stared into our hole dug with only as much enthusiasm as we could muster in the short sessions devoted before trekking into the woods on trips of discovery. For a moment as we stared we thought the dangerous thoughts of those who have learned the doomed lesson of giving up. We contemplated how easily we could stretch our legs and busy ourselves with something more charming, such as pushing down dead trees or throwing rocks.

We eventually completed the pond, which included a pump and bacterial filter system run through a six tier waterfall that fed into the thousand gallon reservoir littered with koi and goldfish. We learned to line the pond, affixed a charming rock garden around it, complete with japanese hanging lanterns and a stone bench. By the winter, the pond was a beautiful addition to the house.

I can still recall our surprise in winter as the pond first froze over. we punctured small holes in the ice, worried about the fate of the fish. days later, our small holes had blossomed into ice funnels standing as high as six inches off the surface. that was sign enough for us that everything would be fine again by spring.

The fish survived. The pond still stands, but it has lost some magic over the years. I can still see it if I visit, but that sense of creation, of destruction, of love… has faded, like a shadow, like a forgotten bruise.

My girlfriend and I snuck out in the middle of winter, deep in the freeze, to trudge through the snow and find an old bridge she knew. To call it cold was to call that ghostly orb taunting us from low above the trees a pretty moon. There was something treacherous in the air. Had I been a more instinctual animal, it would have been a good night to stay low in my hovel and bide my time for fairer weather. These choices are not our own when girlfriends find their way to romantic ideas.

We stood on the bridge overlooking the solid lake. She mentioned that she used to ice skate and I let the memory pass right through me, giving it no place to rest in my mind. Her breath was solid and I could smell the coffee stained upon it. Her wool coat scraped against my skin as her familiar hair crept its way into the corner of my mouth choking me. I was frozen, sickly, and drowning in morbid thoughts of the night. I was in love.

We made love briefly on the snowy bridge. It was unpleasant but thankfully short-lived. She would call it romantic and smile at me, but I knew she felt the night as well. Had something between us changed?

Sometime during the walk back I noticed a bruise on her neck. I thought that it was my doing and I held my tongue. Perhaps I was scared to let her know I had hurt her, perhaps I feared the night’s warnings. I wouldn’t find out for almost a decade from where the bruise had really come. By that time, our spring had come and with it, new life and new loves.

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Someone had buried an old matress, lain a carpet over it and scattered dirt and brush to hide the evidence. We all tripped but none of us fell. The ground recoiled and we bounced, giddy and smiling only seconds after the panic. We looked into each others eyes, seeing only the glints off of torches nearby. We wanted to call each other chicken, to laugh forever. I wanted to scream my inhibitions away. To love, to kiss. I wanted to stay and jump on the matress. Someone was coming, though, and the alert was called. We giggled and vanished into the brush by a creek. We watched a young couple escaping off of the hayride wander their way back to the entrance. They were alone, we were the wind. They smiled, they laughed, they loved. and then they stepped on the matress.

I’ve found so many ways to herd myself forward over the past two years. Everytime I turn around I see another way to motivate myself even if it is only for a day. My gypsy blood has pulled me all the way to Alaska; a farther spot is hard to find.

At the edge of civilization I toil by day in the drudgery of multimedia. It is my burden, though it can hardly be called that. The work is enjoyable, the time not a waste. And yet I know that I would never spend my time there were I given an option. I would be standing in the woods with friends deep at night. We would tell ghost stories and scare ourselves with the horrors we paint. We would press close together in the cool air, smell each other, touch each other, and be at peace.

This place will be a respite. I will force it that way. I have given myself over to goals and lists as usual. I want to do everything, but I will be happy if I do any of them. One day I will leave this place. I know this even though I have just arrived. I know this and I accept it. I am a gypsy.

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It seems like something out of biblical scriptures. With all the talk of flooding and devistation, and yet there it is on the news covered channel to channel. Today the news isn’t about a mythical island of 10,000 years ago but rather a popular place of parties, drinking, and fun. It’s like having the heavens rain brimstone upon Disneyland.

I’m not upset, though. It is unfortunate that all of those homes are lost and people displaced, but I have to admit I’ve never been a fan of New Orleans. Perhaps the distaste comes from my Navy time; afterall, most of bootcamp was spent around so-called cajuns. It is a learned behavior, wherever it comes from. I suppose that should be a consolation.

Somehow this whole event has me smiling. Mother Earth took a step forward a few years ago with a blast called tsunami to remind us all that we’re not as high and mighty as we’d like to believe. Human beings have far from conquored this planet. While that message was certainly clear in the East, having this slight echo as a reminder on our western shores should help bring that into perspective. I suppose it is a relief to me that the Earth is so comfortable slapping us back after those years of torment. It feels like a parent delivering retrobution onto a naughty sibling.

Whether 360BCE or 2005CE, we’re all on the same little planet dealing with the same problems. In all that time, we haven’t changed at all in the eyes of nature. Though, perhaps we have a bit more waste.

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To any foreigner listening to these prayers, should he understand their language, he would hear words very similar to those of the Judeo-Christian rites. They pray to the will of an all-powerful creator whom they hope to join in the afterlife in the spirit-world, should their actions on this Earth dictate them worthy. They acknowledge the powers of the Earth and the spirits as being granted by the single creator, and part of his will. Even their talks of morality seem word for word.

And so, in this hut in the middle of the forest, buried amongst the hills and valleys of Northeastern America, this great culture built their churches as a gateway to the Sacred truth, just as people around the world build their own churches for the same purpose. We all need our sacred spaces, whether they be towers or huts, or quiet apartments in bustling cities. Like all symbols, we find a connection to something greater; perhaps a metaphor for that greater power.

Several nights ago, I dreamt of a vivid house, gothic architecture with baroque scroll-work on the wooden door frames. I spent a long time in the house that night, learning all the secret passages and hidden creaks. Unlike most of my pleasant dreams, the memories stayed around with me of this old house. I could smell the dust in the air, the wavy way the light passed through the old deformed glass, the cool touch of the bare wood against my feet, and the warmth of the evening light across my face.

I kept thinking about the house over the last few days, exploring it with my mind on long drives, or while I daydream. I search through each of the rooms in turn, leaving no shelf unbrushed, no crack unnoticed. Only recently, I’ve begun to start adding things, flowers, furniture, etc. I am fixing it up like an old house waiting for my attention. I take my time with it, carefully paying attention to each room. And now, after it is becoming a regular place for my thoughts, I’ve begun to file them away. I place those memories of childhood sports into the spare bedroom closet, organizing them by year and by sport. My ex-girlfriends have shelf space in the great foyer, each with a subtle shrine. My seventh grade math class lives in a shoebox beside the exit to the roof-garden, next to my cutting shears.

A place for each thought, and each thought in its place. My mind is slowly structuring itself, like a good spring cleaning. I don’t know where the motivation came from, but it feels right. The house is more than a way to keep my thoughts in place, though. It is a sacred thing, like my meditations feel. When I am there, I am in prayer, supplication, and prostration. It is a good place for me.

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In grade school I had a health class teacher of the sort we all know. He wasn’t a popular teacher at all. In fact, he was one of those people you look back upon and cringe at how horrible his life must have been. No one respected him, not the students, not other teachers, no one. But he was always there and he always did his job. It was from his lips that I first learned the term “self esteem” and all that it implies. In one of my most powerful memories of that time, I recall him telling us that he had only two friends. He said he knew many people and was friendly with them, but he had only two friends that he would carry for the rest of his life. I used to think that was sad, an echo of the poor man he was in spirit. Lately I’ve come to understand how lucky he is.

Like those stormy seas or giant turtles, perhaps, friendships float by us all the time. We are fated to cross paths with so many in a lifetime that it is our devoir to forget more than we recall. Maybe this makes those special people all the more special, though. Those islands we find in our vast oceans are our navigation points, our anchors, our vacations at times. Mainly they are the real adventures for us to explore ourselves.

I think that poor despised teacher of mine had something really good going for him back then. Though I had nothing but pity, he didn’t need even that from me. He had his waypoints, his islands. And though there were only two of them, that’s more than enough to make the whole journey worth it.

It’s a well known fact to most people that I am luckier than the average person. Given fair odds, my coin will land on heads much more than one might expect. So when I take stock of my life and find four islands already, it doesn’t surprise me greatly.

Three of those islands are married now and the fourth claims she never will be. It fills me with joy to see them all so happy. One of my close friends had a child yesterday. Technically I believe the date was the 16th when the baby boy finally joined the world. In this miracle, I see the reflection of my own life and smile at the brilliant harmony of it all. No matter what ills befall us all in the future, we have those people we love. Nothing, not death or fights or bad cooking can take that away from us. They are islands and they aren’t going anywhere, like it or not.

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Has it always been this way? Have I ever lived in a place where I could settle enough to enjoy the existence? I have, several times, but not in a home per se. I found the simple joy of now in the blades of grass brushing my bare feet as I walked, or the smell of sweet spring in the dewy air as I broke camp for another day of hiking. In nature I found something I couldn’t anywhere else, the present. As I leave my apartment each day and take the brief walk to my car, my mind floats back to the days in the woods walking over sandy trails, blazing a rocky one, or cutting across a stream, pausing to stare up its glorious length in awe. I drank in that stream and it became a part of me. As Chief Seattle said in his letter to Lincoln in 1852, “The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst.” It is not just a physical thirst. I’ve always understood the Earth as a spiritual place where everything is sacred.

“We are part of the earth as it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family. The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors.” (ibid)

Whitman’s charge, “O lands! O all so dear to me – what you are, I become part of that, whatever it is,” speaks the oath more clearly and poetically than I can dream. In those moments of pure “now” I feel securely and utterly part of the world. I am not a driving force of the web, but a simple strand of it. Though I may manipulate, change, affect, grow, it is all part of that web’s design. As a priest once told me, “How can a person have a plan that is not God’s, when we are all part of Him?”

I heard the words again today. “Whether you are here for four years for four weeks, you are here now. Be here.” Not quite the words of a poet, priest or chief this time, though his character has no end of quoting such people. Instead, it was the sublime wisdom of the character “Chris” from Northern Exposure. He was always a guide in the show, and he managed to speak his mind again. Why his words, written in the guise of a fictional show should resonate more deeply than an established educator and artist is beyond me. There are no bounds to the complexities of the human psyche.

So again, I will refocus. I push myself to live in the now and not preoccupy myself with the uncertainties of the future. That time will always become the now; the only time it is truly important. Somehow, though, I know that I will continue in the ways I always have to a point. Part of me, a very big part of me, has always been a dreamer. That part will always be more concerned about the possible than the present. Sometimes, though, that can be its own spiritualism. Then the question can always be raised–

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” – W. Whitman

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The past is always more simple. There was only one way in, and there is only one way out. All roads lead to now. If two roads diverge in that yellow wood, there is only one traveled. Does it make a difference how the past went besides that it brought you here? Does it make a difference where we came from as long as we are who we are now? If there was no past and we were in the now, what would be different? Why not erase the whole damn thing?

And yet, in the face of the abstract and its etch-a-sketch quality, I’m wary to shake it up just yet. There’s that tiny bit of past that makes up for the whole thing… those memories you remember with the fondness called “missing.” In the meal of life, those fond memories are like the cashews in the jar of mixed nuts (testagina); never enough, but they always keep you digging. They are so insignificant, and yet rule you even today in the most mundane of things.

I miss the poetry nights with open mics and high school crowds that don’t know Rimbaud from Rambo. I miss the days when squinting your eyes and swaying with the beat of your impromptu slam made you deep and mysterious. I miss when coffee was transcendental.

I drink mine black now, as plain and strong as can be. Sometimes I think it’s like moving on to a stronger drug; the heroin of baristas. I shoot up looking for that age-old fix that time has glorified and life has tainted. Swirling in the black cup I see a web of people, places and sex that I can never let go and never find again. There are no battles across a chessboard at 4am these days. There is no sand to draw the line in, to demand of the lost boys to stand with Pan. There is no going back to memory, to childhood wonder. It is the most powerful of all magics, and the most fleeting.

I scribble down my frustrations in a pen low on ink, hoping the tearing paper will soak up what I can’t squeeze into my poetry. It is all a spell, a magic cast upon the page, buried in the chanting words, in the action of the pen and paper, and present in the mind of the reader. It is powerful, adept, refined, and empty. There are no readers anymore. Like a tree in the woods, the great oaks grew tall for no reason. As soon as the branches were out of reach, the children stopped playing. And now it falls, without a sound.

When we are children, we think childish thoughts. When we became men, we lost that power, but gained a new friend. The best friend of all old men: memory.

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What line separates the personal me from the public me? Is it even a line? Does it move around? I say so much on here but even that is in vague riddles half the time. And why? Other people ask me why, I ask myself as well, but there is no real answer. I’m not comfortable. I don’t like other people to know things. They can use that knowledge then. They could tell more people I don’t want to know and everything could spread. Am I hiding something? Sure, I’m hiding lots, but nothing specific. I don’t have a secret book in my closet of all my dirty history or anything. It’s everything all at once.

Some people are so happy to tell your their life stories in five minutes. Others claim no secrets at all and say that everything they do they wear on their shoulder. But most of us hide. We are wary to share our pasts because of the hurt they caused us or others, or the fears we have about how others will perceive us. I’m a little of all of that, and a little of something different. I enjoy the mystery. I enjoy the private life, knowing that others don’t know me. It makes me smile when I’m in bed at night and I think about all those secrets bottled up inside. Is that a secret in itself?

I was at a wake yesterday. A lot of things run through your mind when standing in front of a coffin, looking at the deceased body of someone you once knew alive. I like to imagine that they are all the same thoughts. That everyone thinks the same few things. Maybe something like:

• What will I look like when I’m gone
• Will I even care?
• Will other people think the same thing when they look at me?
• How will they remember me at my wake?

The list isn’t really that large. There is, of course, a good deal of memory of the deceased. Thoughts, wishes, prayers to that person. And the rest, I feel, must be very self-centered. Perhaps it’s just me and my selfish ways. But maybe it’s all of us, like I imagine.

I don’t fear my secrets after death. Letting them die with me will be just fine with me. All those people who entrusted things to me, all of those moments in my life, all gone. It’s a beautiful things, really. How much can people really remember about you, anyway? I’d much rather take things to the grave then let the world digest upon scraps, taking only the barest of interests. Does that make sense? Selfish again. They’re mine, my secrets, and I’ll keep them forever.

But the end will decide. We’ll see what I do, how I fare, and who I tell. It’s a short list so far.

“There are two kinds of people in Alaska: those who were born here and those who come here to escape something.”

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Sometimes the past comes back, not in a hurtful way, not in a manner of sublime sadness, or even in a way of longing. It just comes back when you don’t expect it and says hello. I imagine myself opening the door to my apartment looking outside and seeing my old house in Maryland or a sandy trail in Jersey, or a frozen bridge in tabernacle. It’s not that it’s surprising necessarily. just definitely unexpected.

How can I explain some people in my life? Years go by and rather than get less important, some individuals seem to get bigger, more full of meaning and relevancy. Old yearnings transform into complex criteria for future relationships and the most painful moments become the most valued. In this, still, there are fires burning deep inside that warm me to my core where once they burned me deeply. Is it the same when a beaten child finds a sense of comfort in it?

So the past wrote me, as it was. Soft underbelly… When I think back, I can’t remember more than two times that I ever found weakness in those eyes. Perhaps that was one of my early faults. I’ve become a much stronger person since, but even so, it’s nice to be offered a sign of weakness. It’s comforting.

So I’m an addict born of my early pains. I’d like to think we all are, but that’s wishful thinking and I’m anything but an optimist. I will talk to her, and she will lose something for that. Maybe I will help her and she will get something from it, or maybe life will take a direction I don’t foresee. I’d like to believe that can happen in a good way.

The crux of it is that my life is defined by people. A very short list of people. And at the top of that list is one person who, through no fault of her own, I find both intoxicating and nauseating. The best mental image in my mind is of her smile, and yet I’ve never known such pain as that very same moment. It is these complex feelings that make up me, as James at least. As for the rest of me, well… that’s a whole different post altogether, and one I don’t expect will come out anytime soon.

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I smiled sadly for a love long lost
to tears and wishes and dried up wells
and inside felt a great wall crack
splitting side to farthest side
a dam flooded with torrent anew.
From wellspring to memory, I
lost inside the downpour
left dry, cracked and empty
now inside filling with brackish delight

Breaking away the docks washed by
hurled in a sea of storms and
tore from me those lingering dreams
and anchors to the past.
Set adrift the touching the breathing
and perfumed hair of long gone winds
pulled along amidst the waves
to endless sky and endless sea.
On this shore buried deeply
my feet and legs and torso drought
with fear or pain or numbness parched
for any small piece of rain to fall
of waves to splash or sweat to rise.
Waiting in vain for tears to fall
when all had washed love long away.

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New York was finally destroyed in a miraculous blast. It was like the buildings were suddenly candle flames blown into nothing but ash and memory. The whole moment was over in a flash of an eye and all that was left was the grey of loss. The city, once filled with vibrant colors, lights, ambition and power was now an empty shell, like the creature who lived there had stepped out, leaving behind only this floating husk upon the earth.

I remember sitting in a pub, days before, after the first wave hit. A few blocks to the East had taken the brunt of the damage, but even here, in the heart of the city the signs of the water were clear. Debris filled the streets. People didn’t drive anymore, the abandoned cars filling the roads made it impossible. Inside the pub, I went to order my usual, but the waiter made excuses. Glancing around, the place was bustling with people in every corner. Where they didn’t have enough seats, the management had put up collapsible tables and folding chairs. Everywhere people came out to eat. Whether it was an escape from the memory of what had happened, or perhaps they had lost the ability to cook at home, whatever the reason, from here to Chelsea every restaurant was filled with people. The waiter looked anxiously at me, ordering a meal that took long preparation time. “Just a Guinness, then.”

The hours were getting closer, I knew. I could feel the pre-tremors of the next warning, of the next sign. People were oblivious, walking in fear of another tidal wave, more of what had already happened. I knew, however, that it was only the beginning. It was a precursor to what would come. Soon, everyone would see the end.

I didn’t say anything to anyone. Perhaps it was part of the unspoken arrangement that let me knew what was to come. I couldn’t tell, and I couldn’t leave. I was tied to this place until the end. I would feel the pain of a city dying. Of a city already dead. The faces in the crowd were masks upon masks. No one talked about the wave. No one talked about the damage. They talked of theatre, of bands and music, of dancing, of drinking and dirty jokes. The eyes of the room saw nothing. Emptiness filled them like a void threatening to engulf the world before it had time to turn on itself. Everyone was a piece of this death. It was their arrogance, their blindness, their lack of faith. They thought the world was theirs, but it would show them otherwise.

The days were filled with omens. Earthquakes, insects, heat waves and hail in the same afternoon. When the fog settled over the city, so thick it stuck to your skin, clung to you like it was trying to suffocate you, to hold you embraced and touch your lips, to draw out that last bit of life left inside, the city called it a relief. Though they must have felt it inside by then, they were already empty. It was too late to change, too late to admit they were wrong. The twinge each person felt that day was a subtle remorse, and echo of God’s sadness, perhaps. The earth held itself huddled by the fire of the sun, trying to warm away the unbearable cold, too ethereal to be felt by these people, yet somehow present in each of them. It was as if they were the cold itself, chilling the earth, God, the very spirit of life.

When the moment came every knew. They stopped, in their cabs, in the schools, restaurants, clubs, bars, bedrooms and bathtubs. They stopped and looked up, whether inside or out, and they saw. No ceiling, rooftop or subway could block their vision. No mortal structure had the power to block out that light. It fell slowly, unbearably slowly, and caused such anticipation that more than one New Yorker felt the familiar tingle of watching the new year’s ball drop. They cried out, silently, for the light to touch them, forgetting for that last instant their insolence, pettiness, sarcasm and scorn. They cried out, silently, and were forever silent.

A young man walking in the airport cried a single tear, thinking of his sister across the sea. An old woman, too pained from arthritis to crane her neck, sobbed without sound as she thought of her grandchildren a few blocks away. A lawyer sitting on stone steps with a sandwich and her briefcase let her livelihood fall to the ground and lowered her face. In an instant it was done.

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Squeezing through tight spaces in life drags things out of you that you never knew you had. The same can be said for floating through those great open stretches that demand nothing. It’s a different type of discovery, of challenges, but that’s what life is about. The differences from situation to situation make us who we are, or at least determine how we deal with the world. Some people can fly through the tough times and drag listlessly in the freebie moments. Others are the opposite, of course. I think I deal moderately well with each. I get very stressed when workloads get beyond me, but I think I get equally stressed (in a different way) when I have nothing at all to do but wonder.

I need some time to myself. Not this moment, but in the near future. A few days maybe, a month, a year. Something. I need to shut myself away in my bedroom, read a few books, listen to good music, and not speak. Meditative, regenerative… just a break. There’s been too much thinking going on and not enough growth.

Somewhere between busy and empty is a place where I exist, “be”, and accomplish dreams. It won’t be found on a computer, or in a school, or at a job, or in a cup of coffee. It could be found in a garden, a subway car, or a bathhouse in Rome. Or on a trail, with a dead leaf in one hand, a sigh ready in pocket, or a steak-knife in hand. Zen is such an odd idea, but it fits what I mean sometimes.

The other night, a piano practice room was open on the third floor of the IT building. I was in there for a bit with a few people. I played a lot of fun things on that piano. Well tuned is nice. When I was alone, in those moments between visitations, I played things I didn’t think I’d play ever again. A song I wrote a long time ago. Not very good or anything, but a very meaningful tune. It was a song of leaving, of endings and changes. Like the hanged man it dangles with a force of both dread and anticipation. I played it on the verge of tears, remembering those feelings I’ve lost since I wrote it. Hoe much love did I have bottled in me that created that piece. How is it that it’s remained inside so tightly, so deeply buried, that it can burst forth again with the same vigor yet be completely dormant for so long? What does that mean for love? What does it mean about me?

The slow days bring on memories or fears. Worry drowns out the relaxation, saturates it, and leaves a swampland where green fields were imagined. One day there will be a happy medium between the dirty city gutters of crunch-time and the spoiled earth of this wasteland. It’s already there… buried deep, silent, powerful and anonymous.

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In a little bit of time, I’ll have finished my undergraduate degree and with it, all of the expectations of schooling anyone has ever had for me. In essence, this means I will be free to do whatever I please without any pressure from family or friends. Of course, that isn’t completely accurate. I’m a smart guy, I’ve done well here, and so people do expect me to go to graduate school. It’s not like I don’t want to, either. I think graduate school could be really fun and give me a lot of time to do projects I would like to do. I have scripts I’d like to write. I’d like to work on publication in some academic journals. I’d like to do all those things that make you respectable in the academic community. All of that really intrigues me.

So why am I bitching about where I am going to be next. Why do I still feel the itch to move on if I’m happy here. Well, happy isn’t the best word. I’m satisfied here, certainly. I can breathe a bit. Life isn’t too fast like in other places. I am no overwhelmed by anything at the moment. In fact, I’m doing better than a lot of people. But satisfaction does not make me want to stay. I fear that even if I were incredibly satisfied by what I was doing I would still feel the urge to go.

I am a Gypsy. I have Romani blood coursing through my veins and I’ve given a lot of thought to what that means for me. I’m a very spiritual person and I take into consideration mystical meanings and consequences for nearly everything I come into touch with. Speaking along these terms for that blood I spoke of, I feel that it is inherent in me spiritually as well as genetically to desire a nomadic existence. We are creatures of tendency and routine. When we do something often, it becomes ingrained with us us. If it is something important to our survival, that imprint is often passed to our children and to their children. It becomes part of the living spirit of a people to follow these methods. It could be theorized it may have some part in evolution as well, but the science of a thing is less important to me than the spirit of it. I can explain the spirit, justify it in my mind, without expensive equipment and years of research. So when I say that I am a Gypsy, I don’t mean that as a simple metaphor.

Josh has his theories on people, their paths and success in life. It’s not an uncommon view, that we each have a path we should be on, and if we work along that path, or near it, we will be happier/do better/be successful/be awesome. He thinks my path is a very random one, where I made odd decisions and move from place to place all the time. I’m inclined to agree. I am not happy “here”. I don’t mean Indiana. I’m just not happy where I am. I can be for a little while, but I need to move on. Can I justify graduate school to myself as moving on? Maybe for a few weeks I’ll be able to, but certainly not for the entire year and a half. So what after that? Will I fold and move to Alaska?

My friends have left me a lot of great responses on my last journal entry about this very topic. All of them seem to feel it’s most important to do what makes me happiest, which I can’t argue with. Does the adage apply to me, though? Does it apply to a life of constant change? It’s hard to justify throwing away good opportunities over and over again to jump off a cliff.

But that is me. That is what I do. I jump again and again, even when I try hard not to.

I remember years ago, I was in a club, Haven, or Asylum, or one of those Philly clubs that was around briefly that I used to hit pretty often. I ran into a friend there I hadn’t seen in a long time. She and I kept looking at each other all night from far away. We looked so familiar to each other, but when you haven’t seen someone in a long time, seeing them in a completely new setting makes it difficult to put together faces and names. Towards the end of the night, she came over to me. I was sitting on a red velvet couch in this heavily smokey red room trimmed by chrome, mirrors and hanging strips of black velvet. It was the inspiration, decor-wise, for my bedroom. She stood near me for a minute and then she sat down near me in a chair. She started fanning herself with this advertisement for a local DJ. Her dress was long, a style which I enjoyed that lasted only a month or so at the clubs. She looked away from me deliberately, perhaps waiting for me to recognize her. I didn’t, of course. My memory was terrible even then. She talked to me later that night as we were both leaving. She said she was scared to talk to me because she wasn’t sure I was there. In the red light at the club, she said I tended to fade into the light a bit too much. She was on drugs, of course, but it made me smile.

That moment we shared was enough for me to trigger a desire. I got a feeling in my head, an itch, an opportunity. We drove to New York that night. Her car. Her room was bathed in red too. That’s when I first discovered that a woman’s skin is most beautiful in red light.

It’s hard to know what the right thing is when the right thing for so many people is different than yours. My life is a string of random incidents, events strewn together haphazardly. I see each moment like an impressionists painting, more the feeling of the moment than the moment itself. It wears on me. “It wears, sir, as it grows.”

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I am staring out of my own portrait these days. My world is becoming so saturated with the same things day in and day out that I’m ready to burst. It is new media, it is working on projects I don’t feel more than a passing interest in, it is surrounding myself by people whose interests fulfil only one of my own. Most of all, it is this place.

I hate being stagnant more than almost anything else. It get this itch, perhaps my gypsy itch, that propels me to leave, to walk away and change to a new life. Every day it gets harder. Every day I feel like I’ve sunk into the mud a bit more.

So now I am looking beyond. Not in the excited way of expectation. Not in the interested way of philosophy. I’m looking ahead in the yearning way, the way that nearly brings me to tears, the way that is so frustrated, so amazingly antagonized that I can do nothing but sit and stare. It’s like I’ve already given up.

Tonight I was quiet. Less talkative than normal. I was made to notice because of what a friend of mine told me. I can’t keep up the energy to talk most of the time. I am way too tired. Like now. I am exhausted, utterly, waiting for something to change. Bed tonight will bring no comfort in the grand scheme of my life, but at least I won’t be yawning.

Someone tell me why I didn’t study religion and mysticism in college? Someone tell me why I, a person who values his individuality, his freedoms, and his sense of being alone more than anything… someone tell me why I feel like I want someone to lay against at night. It doesn’t make sense. People never do.

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When I drive late at night, I tend to retreat into my head. I guess I retreat into my head just about all the time, but it is especially true when I drive at night. On the way back from my parents house tonight, I was driving Josh back with me, but we didn’t say much at all. I was looking at the stars above the treetops and the strange lights of the moon cast across the urban settings. It made the whole thing seem really out of wack. I felt like I was way out of the world, far back in my head in some place where nothing would ever touch me again. It was comforting and disturbing, at the same time. Not at all like normal meditation for me.

The last time I remember this disconnection, the one that wasn’t completely pleasant, is from late October my junior year of high school. It was the time when I worked at the haunted hayride with Colleen and Stephanie. Come to think of it, that might have been my sophomore year. Who knows. The point is, I was walking through the woods and completely out of my head, out of control, out of my mind. I was dancing around campfires one minute, crouching in the cold wet grass the next and for some reason that was the entire world for me. There was nothing outside of that camp, outside of the hayride. Such an odd place to find yourself, as the final haunting grounds. I wonder if it might be some manner of afterlife for someone.

I guess it’s normal to have moments like that. Maybe the turkey overload did something to me tonight. Maybe all the triptofan was flowing in my blood and made me a little too lucid. That’s what it felt like, a lucid dream. Not quite real, but real enough to claim it is. I should have shrunk myself or started flying when I had the chance. Instead, I am blindfolded with earplugs typing this entry. I’ll go back and format it in a minute and correct my spelling. I can’t stand when I do a sloppy job these days. Gah… what horrible rambling.

To the point? I swear sometimes that life is too complex for its now good. I wonder if I am meant to really do it like other people. I don’t think I want to, and sometimes I doubt if I really can. It’s depressing. I want to get a house-husband job or something on occasion so I wont have to worry about the hustle and bustle. I want to focus on one thing at a time, on loving and being loved (I just listened to Nature Boy as performed by Nat King Cole), or just being. I want to rest my eyes, meditate away the hours, and feel that my life was spent doing more than following suit. I don’t think people are suited for this job. For this illegitimate spirit-drain. Ugh. I want to retreat sometimes from it all. I want to retreat most times.

I want to be a father one day. I want to raise children and teach them what I’ve learned and set them off to make their own mistakes. I want all that stuff, but not work, not dancing at clubs or buying sheek clothes, a new car, or daycare. I don’t want to worry about flossing, or flavored ice-cream. I most certainly don’t want to worry about “work”. I think I’d be happy doing what Lemieux is doing sometimes. It may be a lot of so-called work, but it’s honest. It’s doing physical movements, exploring, guiding, teaching. I don’t want my life to be constrained to this chair and this machine. I feel like to do so would make all my time here pointless. I think I’m just repeating Markus’ complaints, but I feel them very strongly too.

I guess I just want to make the decision soon. Do I really do this stuff? Or just use the education and do something simple. I know what my guidelines say. I hope I can listen to them.

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When I was a little boy, I was scared of the basement. I was terrified of nothing in particular. I didn’t fear people under the stairs or aliens or a boogey-man. I feared the basement itself.

I wasn’t alone, though. I had a stuffed camel that protected me. His name is camel and he still lives up on the top shelf in my room. Camel didn’t have a personality attached to him or anything. He didn’t talk to me. He was just a stuffed animal that for some reason made it okay to go in the basement.

So, one day I got a plan to stop fearing the basement. It wasn’t a brilliant plan, since I was still very young, but it did work. I decided instead of being scared of the basement, I’d make it scared of me. So I made myself frightening, dangerous, deadly. It was all in my head, of course, but it changed everything. I could go into the basement without any fear at all. The whole basement would hold its breath as I passed by, hoping not to draw my wrath.

But the idea didn’t end there. It became natural for me. When I would be afraid of anything, inside I would change to become frightening to it instead.

Tonight, a old acquaintance IM’ed me quite out of the blue. We talked, much more freely than usual. She asked, “Why did you like to hurt people in relationships?” And I told her, “I didn’t want to be afraid of the basement.”

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I suppose it’s too late to find people online much anymore. The ones I am talking to are either too tired or too enraged in their own affairs to care much for philosophy, eternity, or peace. That’s alright with me, though. I’m too far inside my own head to be of much use in that interpersonal ether anyway. There is a story of a monk fresh in my mind that is distracting me from the real world. Perhaps it is the real world breaking through that false busy-bee drama.

There was a monk, long ago, who was loved by all the other monks for his happiness. From waking till sleep this monk would smile and laugh. When others were sad or angry, he would still smile and laugh. In fact, none of the other monks had ever seen him sad or upset. So one day, when the monk was dying, laying in his bed and still laughing all the while, a young monk asked him, “How is it that you are so happy? Especially now, when we are so sad to be losing you?” And the old happy monk looked at the young boy and smiled his warm smile and said to him, “When I was a very young boy, I was sad. And when I saw an old monk smiling and laughing and going on, I asked him how it was that he was so happy all the time, and he told me, ‘I choose to be’. From that day I understood. When I wake up each morning, before I am sad or happy or angry, I decide at that moment how I want today to be. Will I be angry, upset, melancholy? Or will I choose to be happy that day. And so, I choose to be happy, every day.” With those words, the old monk died, a smile still on his face.

Sometimes, most of the time, I wish I could be that old monk. I wish I had that sense of self awareness in the mornings, that I could make a decision like that. I wish I knew when I was becoming sad that if I wanted to, I could choose to be happy. I wish I was that smiling, loving monk. I love my melancholy too much, however. I revel in that sadness. I find the dreary dream-state to be a comfort, like an old blanket. And it triggers such wonderful ideas in my mind, such creativity that I find fruition in it as well. If sadness had nothing for me, if it were always unwanted, perhaps it would be easier to choose a happy path.

When I broke up with Jen, long long ago, I didn’t have a good reason for doing it. I had thought earlier that perhaps I hadn’t meant to date her. I thought that perhaps it was to be closer to Colleen. Was that such a horrible idea? I think I felt guilty that it was. Did I love Jen, certainly. Did that justify why I initially started dating her? The guilt said nothing could justify that, no matter how I felt. So I ended things with her, without real reason, completely out of the blue. I found solace soon after with another, and the matter was lost to the past. It was over before I had to worry about whether I was right or wrong. She was no longer my problem. Others took her place. But since then, I have looked back. The smoke long cleared, the way is easy to see the mistakes and to judge them. I was not justified to end things, but nor was I to start them. The problems I caused with that selfishness were large and came back to bite me often and painfully, but there were good things as well. So many good things. The other night I found a book of poetry of hers that she gave me towards the end of our relationship. I read each of the poems, loved them, and let them go.

But I fell…
Deeper and deeper into the folds,
Further into the flame.
You love fire better than I,
I wish I had your eyes again.

I wish I had a great many things,
Things fashioned of oceans and air,
That I could wrap these moments in
So I could remember I was there.
Oh the colors, All the colors,
That tempt my weary mind
To the place beneath your glaciers
That you would never find.
I long to be its queen once more;
A rank yet to be touched,
Until I step down from my throne
In dreams of forever and such.
And these dreams refuse to leave me,
Threatening a thaw,
Allowing you to see me
In springtime’s hungry maw.
Regard me as a statue,
Abhor my seething cold,
Just don’t forget I dreamed of you,
Though I’m too hard to hold.

Deeper and deeper into the folds,
Farther into the flame.
You love fire better than I,
I wish I had your eyes again.
    - Jen Kennedy (March 16, 1997)

I really do wish there were someone around to talk to in these late night hours. It’s traditionally been the role of my girlfriend through my years. Perhaps that is a special requirement I have, late night conversationist. I could certainly use it these days. Maybe journals are filling that role. I think it might be nice to hear back from her sometime, though. Is that a feature to request on their boards? Anyway, these curtains are pulled back, or drawn forward, whichever way you look at it. I am vividly here, yet distant and aware. Meditative is the real name for it, but I don’t think this state was meant for what I do in it. Somewhere, an old monk is rolling over in his grave. That is just my way, though. I love the melancholy feelings. I choose them far too often. I prefer to relive my mistakes than to let go of them. I take pleasure in revisiting those painful moments. They are the fragments of my scrapbook surrounded by stars and stickers. Is it so wrong? Perhaps. I’d rather not forget.

I wish I had your eyes again.

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I’ve had many opportunities to be cruel. I’ve taken most of them and proven my lack of “good” on many occasions. Betrayals, deceits, the whole lot. Someone told me once that I am wonderful to my friends, terrible to my girlfriends, and horrific to those I’m indifferent to. I understand I can be despicable at times, annoying constantly, and mean with regularity. I don’t mind these things too much. My friends still enjoy my company. However, I can look back and feel guilt for those people whom I’ve slighted wrongly. Those who might have become my closest of friends had I given them the opportunity. People who may have even loved me.

I have very animalistic concerns when it comes to partners; concerns which I’ve tried to overlook with many of my girlfriends, and which I can subjugate given enough time and energy. Even so, they are built into me deeply, and come into my mind often when appropriate. I’m sure it is based upon a care that my children will be as healthy as possible, and that should be a positive thing, but I have a nagging feeling that to voice my care for the unblemished health of my partner to others would seem taboo. When I meet a girl who has a family history of cancer, or heart disease, or short lifespan, headaches, bone disorders, skin ailments, or any other problem which may have a root in genetics I get standoffish. I worry about adding more problems into my bloodline that I already have.

She was one of the reasons I went to Rowan, though I suppose you could say it was for her ideals. Her group, her friends, the whole lot, seemed like the perfect place for me to seek out next. By the time I got there, though, I had all but forgotten. We found each other later, in many ways. In ways that neither of us had expected, or even desired, in the past. We were growing closer, something which is often considered a good sign, but there were problems.

She had problems, as I said. She wasn’t an immaculate specimen by any stretch of the word. In fact, she may have been the single most unhealthy woman I’d ever been with. Had modern technologies and medicines not been present, she surely wouldn’t have been living and interacting with me at that moment. And so, with those worries in mind, I severed the problem before it arrived. I ended things before they were started, no matter how good they could have been. A compatible match psychologically, personally, and emotionally we were, but physically, the worry was too great for me.

Did I tell her this? Did I share my very real concern with her and let her know that I had reasons for not wanting things to go farther? Of course not. Somewhere inside I justified myself by thinking that she wouldn’t want to hear so honest a comment from me, knowing that she would always live with her health, and having to fear that there were others out there like myself who would turn away from a good thing simply for that reason. I just vanished. I said nothing and that was the end of the story. Guilt built up, of course. But I have never contacted her since, nor will I. When I make a mistake, I like to live with it forever. A bit of masochism perhaps. Maybe like the whip of a monk, it is a bit of pain I keep around to remind myself of my sins.

I think, sometimes, that the reason I fought so hard to accept other girlfriend’s health issues was because of that girl. I didn’t want to give up another opportunity for my selfishness. I’m not sure how I stand on the issue now, though. Perhaps I’ll meet someone really healthy and I wont have to worry about it anymore.

Here’s hoping for that impeccable luck of mine to pan out a few more times.

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When I was a child, I dreamed of life as a game being played all around me. Someone–the scorekeeper–was keeping close tabs on me, or perhaps on all of us. When I kept quiet and in my own head, I could break ahead of the curve and be prepared for the new things life would bring. I felt like I was ever so slightly smarter than life expected me to be, and so, with proper planning and a great deal of self-control I could surprise life.

When I was a boy, I had a dream that one day sex would awaken me from this game. I would be there, in the moment, and suddenly I would be turned around, as if for all my life I was a separate person held to a mask. In that mask was my life and I was pressed to it so closely that I couldn’t pull back. Or perhaps the process of being born into this life lost that memory, and so I am stuck here because of my ignorance. Would death release the mask? Would sex?

O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
to drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.
    - William Shakespeare – The Comedy of Errors (1592 – 1594)

My life over the past ten years had been particularly prurient. Life and relationships have been guided by my salacious desires much more than anything else. It’s been the cause of much of my pain and suffering, and yet I still fall prey to its beckoning.

And so I try once again to elude the lubricious siren’s call. Each day is a new test, and unlike Odysseus, I have no mast on which to bind myself back.

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`I’m sure I’m not Ada,’ she said, `for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, SHE’S she, and I’m I, and–oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is–oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table doesn’t signify: let’s try Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome–no, THAT’S all wrong, I’m certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say “How doth the little– “‘ and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:–

`How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

`How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!’

`I’m sure those are not the right words,’ said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, `I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying “Come up again, dear!” I shall only look up and say “Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else”–but, oh dear!’ cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, `I do wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!’

In this section, Alice is beginning to doubt who she is. She wonders if she is, in fact, someone other than herself specifically… not just a different person in general. In the end, she decides that she must be Mabel, a less intelligent friend of hers. Now, there are other sections I could quote you, about how Alice farther suggests that she might be more than one person… such as a part where she remembers trying to box her own ears for cheating against herself in a game of croquet, but this first quote is the most important. In particular, pay attention to the line: “I’ve made up my mind about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here!”. It has always been my thought that in the two person dichotomy of Alice, there is a split between the real world personality of Alice, and the wonderland personality of Mabel. Mabel is, in fact, the personality that stays, and not only interacts, but eventually controls wonderland. She is beyond control of even the Queen, and later, when she goes through the looking glass, not even the jabberwocky can pose a threat to her. Mabel is the power in Alice, a power which exists and resides permenantly within the fantasy. It is her real strength, despite its containment within her psyche. It is an inner strength, a true inner strength personified, and while it is less intelligent than herself, it has a common sense that overwhelms the logical, the mundane, and see’s past the predictability of a simple nursery rhyme. Mabel saw beyond all of it to a super-normal place where the innermost childish logic rang true, her desires became powerful potions… spells even, and the magic of her dreams was completely reality. Mabel’s power was in her imagination, but for her it was more than that. It was truth… mystical truth.

One day, I’d love to put all of this into a story… a book perhaps, or just a short fiction. I dunno… it’s one of those few original ideas I have that no one else seems to have noticed yet. Weird I guess. I never gave it a whole lot of thought before, beyond the basics. I guess the timing of it with Erin made it pop out at me. So… yeah. It’s halfway a commentary on how I feel these days, but I thought it might be a good story for this journal too.

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