17. A Letter to My English Lit. Professor

May 20, 1992

Dear Karen,

I thought of you on Saturday as I perused the offerings at the new Cambridge University Press bookstore and saw your 1985 book on typology.  I picked it up and read a few excerpts, but I regret to say it remained unsold, as interesting as it sounded (seriously, for I am at last reading the Bible—up to Chronicles so far).  What a book store, though it is a mortal thought to see more than a lifetime's reading.  A little later in the day the dons gathered a few doors down to vote on the controversial honorary degree for M. Derrida.  It passed by a fairly close vote.

BBC foreign service chief had an interesting article in the weekend paper about the trials of translating English into 37 other languages.  One of the complaints: English has a multitude of fudge words like "fairly," which are quite difficult to translate into languages requiring more precision.  Ours is a language of compromise and nuance, though certainly more so over here.  This morning on Radio 4, the interviewed Virginia state prosecutor called his convicted murderer's innocence, "ludicrous," and I was reminded how we lawyers overuse that word until it doesn't have the same strength it once had.  People over here take better care of their language, and use greater restraint.  Hence words have greater meaning.  The American equivalent of a British citizen saying, "I am quite upset over thus and so," is to sue the person who caused the thus and so.  We swagger our words, like the cowboys we are, and have to invent new words like "proactive" to replace the overused ones.  I hate it, if only because I hate having to keep up with fashions, being Brooks Brothers all the way.

The Derrida affair was in the papers for weeks, as was the Cambridge history fellow who was accused of shoddy scholarship on the English Civil War by a Harvard professor, and has just, we have learned, taken on a job outside the university.  Ted Hughes and Salmon Rushdie are always in the news, but then so is the Church of England and speeches by Archbishop Carey.  The Resurrection was a lively topic for editorials over Easter.  What a difference from home!  Most crimes are relegated to little boxes on the inside pages; politics are the front page priority in the "quality" dailies (Times, Guardian, etc.).  The tabloids are more like the Las Vegas Sun or National Enquirer with top billing for the Royals.  The Sun is the leading tabloid, outsells all the qualities put together, and has a daily foldout, but then Europeans don't get as excited about nudity as Americans.  (I've read that the Basic Instinct sex scenes are a minute longer over here.  Cathy and I are still debating whether to go to what the Sunday Telegraph film critic has retitled "killer lesbians go bananas."  One thing very different here, if a film is certificate 12 or 15 or 18, under those ages cannot go, even if accompanied with adult.  Very good idea!)

We have been over here for almost 11 months.  It has been better than a dream.  Theater (lot of Shaw these days, but we have neglected our Shakespeare), concerts (Mozart bicentennial, Christmas Messiah), art museums and shows (Mantegna, Dix, Rembrandt), all the architecture, churches with their graveyards; the rivers and greenery.  Trips to France (Paris, Caen, Bordeaux, Lourdes, Cannes), Ireland (Cork, Dublin), Scotland (Edinburgh) and Italy (Venice, Rome, Tuscany), Austria (Salzburg), Germany (Munich, Dachau), Belgium (Brugges).  It was only when I was about 20, at UCLA, that I realized how fortunate I was to have spent a similar year in England when I was eight; before that I had never given it much thought.  But for a year history and nature were really alive (didn't Wordsworth say something like that?) to a kid who had grown up being entertained at Malibu beach, where history was a trip to my grandmother's house in Pasadena and nature was a field of winter weeds if there happened to be a wet year.  Ever since 1970 or so I have always wanted to do this again, for myself, but knowing the children would have their own experience, as well.  (Las Vegas is even more removed than Malibu from history and green.)  I think it has been a successful experiment, but I will be curious to observe whether my children recognize at an earlier age than I did the magic of the year, and into what lesson (?) each of them will translate this year.  Jeffrey at eight says he will bring his children here to keep the tradition alive (he was the only one to throw the coin into the Trevi Fountain); by now we have a tradition: our family in 58-59 and my mother's family in long trips to Europe in the 30's and 40's.   

Cathy and I have been to the Sunday Times Literary Banquet (open to the public if you pay), where William Trevor gave a reading; and to the Folio debate (ditto) where (Baroness) P. D. James proposed that crime fiction these days is more interesting than the real thing, opposed almost successfully by John Mortimer.  (The debate ended in a draw after a recount.)  At the end of March, I attended a weekend class on Coleridge in the Lake District.  Both teachers (adult education professors in danger of losing their jobs if Tories won--oops!) and students (mostly retired people) rattled off Coleridge and Wordsworth as if it really meant something!

Everyone seems interested in America.  People want to know if it is possible that George Bush can really lose, many lament the Americanization of England during Mrs. Thatcher's time.  (When you listen to people talk about her, it's hard to believe she ran the country for so long.  Best summary I heard was that in her first two terms she did everything right, and in her last term she did everything wrong.)  I get the impression people like the US where it is, don't like it exerting any cultural influence over here.  American commercial influence continues to spread; but there are battles, e.g., the fierce debate over Sunday trading.  The sad part is how far down the road we (US) have gone.  Amidst the Christmas concerts of classical and sacred music (British really get into that; Christmas school concert was at St. John's college chapel, absolutely lovely performance of Nativity readings and Christmas carols.  What a change from Rudolph and the 12 days of Christmas), we hear complaints that Christmas is too commercialized.  If only they could see our subdivision back home, with the blinking house decorations, especially Santa's workshop with the lifelike, moving deer and elves!

As lovely as it is over here, one can see that it is much easier to put it all together in countries with essentially one dominant culture and one religion.  As recent events are proving, some of the countries do not do well with mixing it all up, as the US has done for 200 years.  I read something by Karl Rahner in The Tablet last week, talking about celibacy, but I think it applies to life in general:  "There is no human freedom without decision.  But decision means giving up other alternatives in favor of one limited good, which—by being chosen--, becomes a living reality and as such establishes a more positive relationship to the alternatives sacrificed than a man can have who, wanting `everything', never really makes a choice and therefore never really gets hold of anything."  I can see how the principle applies to a life; but it also makes sense in a culture, though how do you decide what you want to be?  For so long it was all decided for us, now it seems up for grabs.  Can a country as diverse as the US ever decide what it wants to be?  Can there be many small decisions which preserve the one choice (e.g., one culture), which then can better relate to others who have made similar choices? . . .

Exciting times here this past year: the Soviet coup, the (sadly) civil war in Yugoslavia, Bob Maxwell, general elections, rise of the far right hate groups, German strikes, Bishop Carey and Annie Murphy (good article by Germaine Greer in the Sunday paper here on that one, about Annie's own responsibilities, knee jerk reaction of the commentators that celibacy and not human nature is to blame). 

My autobiographical book was rejected, nicely.  I entered and lost (not surprisingly) an essay contest and a poetry contest, but comfort myself by having done (in addition to the travels) much reading I always promised myself I would get around to: Dante, Aeneid, St. Augustine, Trollope, more Austen and Eliot.  This week I have begun working my way through Ulysses.  My third try, but this time, with the help of a guide book (The New Bloomsday Book) and our visit to Dublin, I think I'll make it. 

Meanwhile, I am working on a novel, mystery type, hoping I can slap something together about Las Vegas, and fooling around with a play.  I work at my desk all day, reading, writing, then at five or six the children come home (having left at 7:30) in their red blazers to tell me about their days.  Jeffrey is first, then Mara (10).  Lately Robert (11) shies away, doing other things; he also I notice has swings of emotions, and I try to remember the lessons I have learned about adolescents. . ..

Cathy says I shouldn't write such long letters, but, consider it your letter from London in The New Yorker.  I hope you are well, safe from earthquakes and riots, and faculty politics!

All my best. . . . just call me Ozzie Nelson!

17. A Letter to Candy, My Secretary Back Home

18 May 1992

Dear Candy,

Thanks as always for your always enjoyable letter. 

The weather here is warm.  We have now had a stretch of very good days, getting up into the mid 70's during the day, with low clouds in the morning that burn off.  It reminds me of So California, though it is colder in the evenings and mornings.  We have even turned off the heat.  The days are very long, sunrise at five, the day begins to lighten around four.  Sunset at just about nine o'clock.  At ten it is not yet really dark.  The leaves have just about filled the trees, and the procession of blooming flowers, which began in February, continues.  Right now the peak flowers are the white and light and dark purple lilacs, the magnificent horse chestnuts with their "candles" of lovely white flowers all over the big trees, and, most spectacular of all, yellow fields, seas, really, of bright, solid, lemony yellow: oil seed rape (used for soap and livestock feed).  (It does stink a bit if you are near a field, something like Roquefort, but the color makes up.)  Bluebells are everywhere, as are daisies in the grass, plus a various assortment of blooming plants: fruit trees, hawthorns, gorse, candy tuft.  The roses have not yet bloomed.  The swifts, like small black swallows, which we last saw in August, have returned.  They whistle and swirl in the evening air, like flies almost, but, rather, I suspect, in search of flies.  Cathy feels the effect of spring allergies more than me.  On Saturday walking around Cambridge on a warm day with a cooling breeze in the air I suddenly realized what all the fuss is about in May.  Spring in its loveliest!

I gave my ankle a really good twist sideways, when I went running with the boys last Sunday and fell into a pot hole (at two minutes into the run!).  Jeffrey said I would have to walk it off.  If it didn't get better at Audley End (1 mile), I would have to jog to Great Chesterford (5 miles), if not, then Cambridge (12 miles).  Slave driver!  Robert has a more complicated mind.  I had cleverly rolled into a somersault when I went down so as to take my weight off of my leg and break my fall.  Robert was most worried about this aspect of my fall.  Remembering all the times Cathy has told the children:  "If you don't pick up these leggos I'm going to trip and break my neck!", Robert believed that my somersault was an actual example of a grown up falling over something trivial and breaking his neck!   (And thus why leggos should be picked up.)  In any event, I limped painfully to Audley End, where we were able to have a pot of tea and wait out a rainstorm and, thankfully, call Cathy to pick us up. 

I am still not quite recovered, and a little bit of a limp remains, but it gets better every day so I am not worried.  Despite my gimp leg, I strapped on my ace bandage and Cathy and I went into London on Wednesday (13th) and took the walking tour of Hampstead.  Our guide was an (ex) actress, lovely, in her 60's.  Stopped by her flat on the walk to give hubby (still in his bathrobe) the crossword at 11!  Magda had stories on about 100 personalities (I didn't count to verify).  The day was brilliant.  Hampstead is Cathy's new favorite spot in London, very quiet and village-y, home to the rich and famous.  Lot of literary types, including Keats, H. G. Wells, and D. H. Lawrence.  We saw John LeCarre's house.  Constable (artist) lived there, as did Richard and Liz (their first house together).  We stopped in front of Jeremy Irons little house.  Ringo Starr and members of Who also had houses. 

After lunch we stopped by Parliament Hill for a panoramic view of the entire London skyline, from east to west, beneath a big blue sky and even a hint of pollution in the air as if to prove it is a real city.  There was a crowd too, sitting on benches, lying on the grass.  Mothers and babies, kite fliers, bobbies on horse back, kids playing.  A rather unfortunate number of pink fleshed men with their shirts off.  No matter that the weather is often like So. California, spot one of those bodies and you know exactly where you are!

This week is busy.  Tonight (Monday) and Wednesday, Robert and Jeffrey are in the school concert.  Cathy went tonight, I'll probably go Wednesday.  Robert's cricket game is on Wednesday.  (He made the team, but only as a scorer.  Still he is happy.)  Thursday, we are off to London.  We will miss Pat and John! but force ourselves to enjoy the company of Sara Gordon, who you may remember helped us out with immigration last year, but is now "redundant" (English: laid off), and has by chance a rather loose schedule, as she says.  We are off to see the Rembrandt exhibition and "Death and the Maiden" (Best Drama this year), as well as the Chelsea Flower Show.  It is a heavy dose of culture, but there are bars at the art museum, bars at the theater and bars I suspect at the flower show.  The English are very civilized, you know! 

Big news here last week was a toss up between the bankruptcy of Olympia and York in US and Canada (they own Canary Wharf, which is a huge new development in London, with the tallest building in Europe) and the two speeches given to the members of the European Community, one by the Queen and one by Mrs. Thatcher.  They both wore blue, but no other similarities.  Mrs. Thatcher sounds almost like Winston Churchill in the 20's when she talks about the threat of Germany (more economic than military now).  Hard to tell whether she is on target or she has missed the boat.  It is fun however to see a politician give her candid opinions, whether you like them or not.  Very rare, here or home.  (The real news here, however, is whether Fergie's return to England is a real reconciliation or just show, and, with all those pictures of the lovely Princess Di, standing all alone before the pyramids (last year she was all by her lonesome at the Taj Mahal in India), why is her husband, Prince Charles off on an archeological dig?  Does he really have girl friends? [Doesn't seem the type if you ask me.])

USA always in the news.  More and more on Perot.  Bits and pieces on LA.  We even prayed in church for the US in light of the retrial of the one policeman!  What must they really think of America!  FYI: in noticing how many people over here say "America" in referring to the US; I also see how we at home often say "England" when we often mean Britain.  (They say big part and mean smaller piece, we say piece and mean big part.)   People over here are shocked and amazed by the verdict in the R. King case.  In the process of feeling ashamed of being a representative of the American legal system, however, I give you this:  since we have been here, I would say that about ten people have been let out of jail because the appeals court determined that the original conviction was in error, usually because the police did not give the defence all the evidence.  Most recently, Judith Ward, who was confessing to any crime she could think of at the time, was freed after 18 years in jail for an IRA attack on a bus of soldiers and families.  The reporter commented that, at the time, passions were so roused by the IRA killings (the bus and others) a jury would have convicted anyone proposed as an IRA bomber.  This is the same as King verdict!  Instead of the English jury which would have convicted anyone, the all suburban Simi Valley jury wouldn't have convicted any policeman for beating up a black man who appeared to threaten police order.  So, in spite of all the shock at LA justice, things really aren't that much different. 

I went to the travel agent and told the agent to book us seats to Kennedy on the 28th of July, that would put us home around 8th of August.  Me at work about 10th.

Cathy refuses to allow me to choose any materials or furniture, etc. for my new office without her looking it over, so if it is all right, I would like to wait until I get home, recognizing the delays with ordering.  

My book was rejected, nicely.  I am working on a novel, mystery type, hoping I can slap something together about Las Vegas.  My character is Walter Briggs, and his secretary's name is Carla (motherly type, sorry).  Small firm, ten lawyers, Beth his paralegal, Larry McCullers his associate.  His big client is a Palace Station type casino.  He has a good looking blond girlfriend, Jill, from Santa Fe.  They can't decide what to do.  Walt's friend, Jimmy is missing.  There's some shenanigans going on which I can't fully describe because they haven't been decided yet!  I'm trying to work on a play about angels visiting a modern day family.  Today I worked on a story.  So I do little and little.  Enjoying it still, as you might suspect!

Hello to all!   

At the Chelsea Flower Show

17. Sin and Forgiveness; the Centurion's Faith

Monday 18 May.  8:45 a.m.  Sunny, low clouds.  We are reminded again of Southern California, though cooler (and remembering that So. California does not have winters like the winters here!).

To follow up on the Karl Rahner idea re America.  What is it that America is?  What will it consciously accept, what reject?  And how will it do it?  What is the one limited good?  As respects culture, it was decided at some point we were European.  Is that changing now?  Can it change successfully?

10:40 a.m.  Same day, clouds cleared, cool, sunny (warm in sun, cool in shade).

Sin and Forgiveness.  Thinking yesterday about sin: that Jesus died on the cross for all sin.  I notice that in the Agnus Dei, the word is "sins."  In the Gloria the word used is "sin."  I have usually thought of this idea in terms of Jesus dying for all sins, mine included; and there is some temptation to think that my sins, being committed in full knowledge of what Jesus has done for me are the worst of all.  When, however, I think of Jesus taking away the sin of the world, there is a different perspective, that of Jesus actually changing people forever. 

Jesus brought into existence the idea of a human being no longer with sin, "the resurrection of the dead."  Before the Resurrection/Redemption, sin still existed and people could not really change the way they were.  All the way back to Adam something crept in to make us spoil our relationship with God, or so it seems is the message of the Old Testament, with its constant references to God's steadfast love and the Jews' continuing inclination to turn away from God, not to trust Him and to turn to the local gods.  (It is easy to see how our times parallel the OT times, for we are constantly turning away from reliance on the one, true God [even to such a lesser degree of honoring each other and treating one another with dignity, love, respect] and turning to the current idols, which are not Baal and the sacred poles and golden calves, but cars and jobs and money and, in my case, all the little things I like to buy.  I wonder, did the Israelites feel the same empty sense of their things as I do in mine?  Or did they ignore their feelings and pretend their needs were satisfied?)

In the long run it is just as hard to understand the Redemption whether the word is sins or sin.  (Of course it is both, for if all sin is gone, then sins fall as well.)  In one case ("sins") I tend to doubt and not understand how God can forgive me, in the other case ("sin") it is hard to understand how and why, if we are changed, we still behave the same.  Perhaps, however, we are slowly changing, evolving; things that used to be commonplace, torture and cruelty everywhere, slavery, etc., are gradually leaving our human nature, but then, along comes Bosnia-Hercnegovia/Sarajevo.

I have often wondered if I really believe I forgive other's trespasses (as I believe I do).  The reason I wonder is that I find it hard to believe God can forgive me so freely.  I think I forgive freely; yet maybe I hold back.  Otherwise, why would I feel so tentative about God's forgiveness?  Perhaps if someone knew me, he or she would believe I forgave, whereas if he or she didn't know me very well, he or she might say, why I can't believe that he'll forgive so easily!  Thus, if I knew God better, I might find it easier to believe in his forgiveness.

*  *  *  *  *

The Centurion's Faith.  I like to think my faith is strong, but I was thinking this morning of the centurion.  Such a great story!  (Perhaps one of my top ten soundbites is "Lord I am not worthy . . ..")  It is hard to think of myself as the centurion, able to go to Jesus and say, "Say the word and she will be healed."  I suppose if someone were pointed out to me, "That's Jesus!" I could say it, but how would I know, and wouldn't I be afraid of approaching him?

Faith moves mountains.  I do not know if St. Paul is talking figuratively or not, but, while I believe I have faith, it is more in the nature of hope, as in I hope my faith will move mountains.

 What causes my doubts?  Is it the doubt of modern man?  In pre-modern times, people as a rule were more superstitious than now and were more likely to believe in miracles or magic.  Today, we are skeptics and even though I profess to believe in miracles and in the hand of God, I haven't really experienced it (though sometimes I feel it in small things: birds singing, a sunny day, the wind . . .).

 The point, I suppose is that I find my faith a weak imitation of the centurion's.  And it is really that faith that I need to die with, for only when I take that faith in as my own (what do I ever take and believe in as my own?) will I be willing to die in Christ (and if I am willing to die in Christ, or, I hope to say, when I am willing to die in Christ, then I will be willing to live in Christ!  So I pray in mass to be like the centurion, and to really believe.

 *  *  *  *  *

I've forgotten another entry I wanted to make regarding all the information there is these days.  Even in Joyce's times, the amount of books, etc. to learn, study was limited, and I suspect was more or less limited to classics (e.g., novels weren't too much more than 100 years old).  So much is published today that it is hard to know where to start.  All the old stuff is around, but there are hundreds of times as much new stuff as well.  How are we supposed to handle this?  No one will ever be able to manage it, and of course it will only get worse.  Will life be ruled by specialists?  And then will we continue not only to analyze but to create as well.  Will we be overburdened by it all, how to handle it?   Just ignore it?

I don't think I put it in my book (autobiography), but I'm sure one of the reasons I did not become an English professor is that I wasn't smart enough!

Same day.  4:30 p.m.  Returned from walk to travel agent and bank (as well as hardware store, where I set off the alarm going into the shop with my bottle of Listerine green).  It was cool up here, but when I got into town, it was hot.  The town center is in the low spot of the hills surrounding it.  It is much cooler, breezier here on top.  Made me think that Italian towns might be on hilltops not just for defensive reasons, but for the cooler airs as well.  I imagine it gets very hot in the summer!

Same.  7 p.m.  Thomas takes pleasure in calling me, "Dad."

I told Cathy (she laughed): I grew up with Ozzie and Harriet.  Thomas is living it.

17. Karl Rahner; Ulysses; Bullying

Friday 15 May. 

8:30 a.m.  Further notes: God does forgive, even in the Old Testament, but the people keep turning away!  (Almost as if the writer wants to emphasize how bad the people were.)

Karl Rahner, Servants of the Lord (1968) (re: celibacy):

There is no human freedom without decision.  But decision means giving up other alternatives in favor of one limited good, which thus--by being chosen--becomes a living reality and as such establishes a more positive relationship to the alternatives sacrificed than a man can have who, wanting "everything," never makes a choice and therefore never really gets hold of anything.  Do not forget the weighty truism: you only live once.  Of all the alternatives that life offers, only one can really be lived.  Only once do we step into the stream of life at a given point.  We cannot try everything out for ourselves.  When all is said and done we cannot first tentatively explore each different opportunity life offers and then go back and start living the right one, the one that suits us best, in earnest this time.  There is much that we can only experience in its true, complete being by really giving up--having no desire to experience its contrary. . . .  At bottom human sexuality is not a fixed quantity but a task, a challenge, an opportunity, a tremendous riddle. . . .  Christianity is still a very unmodern thing.

10:15 p.m.  A touch of light in the evening sky.  It began raining this morning, from about 5 to 7:45, then gradually cleared, till, by later afternoon, it was blue again and warm, though not as warm as Wednesday or Thursday.  As always, the breeze bordering on windy. 

Just closed the window in the drawing room, where the cool night air reminds me of Pasadena, always cooler than the beach (and hotter) though even the beach was cool at night, yet never bordering on cold as did Pasadena.

Read first five chapters of Ulysses, along with the guide to tell me what's going on!  There is so much there, and I couldn't help but be impressed by Joyce's grasp of so many different backgrounds, from Hamlet to Tennyson to early Christian heretics, as well as by his humor.   As impressive as all that erudition was, I couldn't help but think that this is what must be called modernism, making something so complicated that you need an extra book along to help translate it, make sure you know what's going on.  It's great once you understand it, but most of us don't have the background any more to properly appreciate everything that Joyce has going on.  He is, in a sense, then, a writer's writer, for those educated enough to discover what he's doing.  From what I remember of Proust, he adds the extended dimension to the present not by references to history and literature, but by references to his own memory, increasing the meaning of the present.

In summary, I couldn't help but think how wonderful it was, properly explained, but also, whether or not it was worth all the effort.  (I would answer an enthusiastic, yes, as of the moment.)

At various points, Joyce finds himself on the side of England, the Catholic Church and Ireland, then wonders who he is writing for, feels like a slave to all three, doesn't want to write for any of the three.  Who, then, is he writing for?  (Who else is there?)  Perhaps it is the individual?  I do not know.  Maybe that's it, the individual, rather than the culture.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying Thomas Keneally's book (our Thomas can read his own name) about Africa, and enjoying it immensely, as it tells of the stories of African revolution with the details, but without the background depth of Joyce.

Sunday 17 May.  10:30 a.m.  Cloudy, bit of a breeze, looks like another warm day once the clouds blow over.

The Highs and Lows of England.  Yesterday walking in Cambridge was a day which gave real meaning to the "merry month of May" or "May Day."   I knew exactly what all the fuss was about: spring in its peak, trees filled with fresh leaves, still many flowers and blossoms, sunny and warm, but a delicious breeze keeping the day on the cool side of warm.  It reminded me again of Southern California, and I thought of how wonderful it would be to live always in a place like this.

And that is the bright, green side of living here.  Last night we heard the other side.  About a young girl who killed herself, probably as a result of bullying by the other kids in her class (she looked to be about 15).  After the show was over, Robert told us of how the boys in his class pick on a classmate, C., who walks on tip toes because he has no ligaments in his toes or feet (something like that).  Boy on television told how other boys call him "spastic," "queer," etc.  Robert says this is just what happens in his class, the other boys calling C. names, like spastic, and actually hitting him, kicking him.  It is so routine now that the other boys, the particular group that picks on C., line up before him every day and say, "Dailies," which means that they want their portion of C's break snack.  Robert says he gladly gives it, seeming to believe that C. is resigned to this, or, better, accepts that this is the way things are and willingly accepts them.  I tell Robert it is like protection money: one guy beats you up and his friend says I won't let him beat you up if you pay me.  Robert thinks it is much different, that C. does this out of his good nature, I suppose.

We try and talk Robert out of this dream, but he doesn't really get it.  Perhaps refusing to believe that people can be evil.

Meanwhile, towards the end of the discussion, Jeffrey is getting more and more upset until he finally cries, and then Cathy is in tears as well, dwelling on the plight of this halfway crippled boy who is so abused and yet appears to accept it.  It is a pathetic picture.

Cathy tries to tell Robert he must stop it, tell the teacher, etc.  (She says she will.)  I tell Robert I don't expect he can stop it, but perhaps he can try and be a peacemaker.  (I discuss Jesus' sayings here and also how St. Peter gave into group pressure in his denial of Jesus.)

8:30 p.m.  Ideas to explore: a story called "Driving all Night."

The idea that US is a lot like the quotation from Karl Rahner.  That is, it can't be everything, it has to decide.

Idea that I am preoccupied with the ordinary natural world because I grew up in the country: Malibu, Flintridge, Horley, rather than the city, yet it wasn't a farm, either, it was easy life of rural/suburban middle class.  (Thinking of Joyce's relationship to Dublin.)

17. Graham Greene; My Soundbites

(May 14, cont.)   What is it about G. Greene that I like?  I wonder if it is somehow connected to these ideas.  If you take the Catholic idea about the soul, that the soul is the true self, the individual, yet take away or cast doubt on the eternal life of that soul, wouldn't you have a person with no real ability to communicate, an isolation which can never really be satisfied?  If one comes to the conclusion that there is no happy afterlife, but merely now, with a soul that no one can really understand, one comes to not only a profound despair, but to a profound sense of detachment from the world, because all the reality, the big questions, are wrestled within the forum of one's own mind.

 The only real company one has in such a life's journey, in Green's case, is the knowledge that there are many, many like you who wonder the same things.  Many before as well.  Much is made in Greene as well of the rituals of belief, sacraments and the like.  On one level, they are a reminder of old times when they provided relief and hope. They become nostalgic rather than life giving, as they would be to the good/real Christian.

 Why is there the doubt in the first place?  The answer must be in the cataclysmic events of the 20th century: the disruption of the old moral order, the voice of The Waste Land, the throwing open of the entire world, the use of great ideas and inventions for wars, which brought with them more spectacular evils than could have been imagined before.  (It occurs to me that the openness of sin and pragmatism in Las Vegas is something of a metaphor for the 20th Century itself, where all is suddenly exposed to harsh light for everyone to see.)

 If someone like Greene can better explain this isolation and detachment because of its relationship with Christianity/God, can someone, who sees the soul as the true self and who sees the purpose and end of that self to be in God, can have a place writing?  To rephrase the question, can a good Catholic be a good writer?

 I think the answer must be, yes, because the believer suffers the same detachment and isolation as the non-believer: even believers have doubts in times of trial.  Then there are the questions in faith itself: How is it that God allows cruelty and senseless acts of violence to occur?  Certainly one can never know the mind of God, but why doesn't He do something?  (Perhaps, though, the same question can be asked of ourselves: how and why do we allow this?  Perhaps my little acts of cruelty and violence, satire, sarcasm, hatreds, etc. are a part of the bigger violence.)  Thus, not only does the believer have the same questions of doubt as the non-believer, but questions regarding the purpose and ability of faith to effect a better world.

 Is the non-believing side of the question simply more interesting, since there is more to sink one's teeth into in the world of flesh than the world of spirit?    No, for if we answer yes to the question of faith, then we must also figure out what to do with that faith.  What is it that I should be doing about it?

 Perhaps I should conclude by saying that the issue of faith and all of its permutations (its relationship with our need for individuality, its call to action, its existence) makes for interesting reading, and that I see no reason to doubt that a good Catholic can be a good writer.  Even the idea of sacraments being nostalgic can be incorporated into this writing as well, for not only do the sacraments remain nostalgic reminders of when faith was simple ("My Lord and my God!" at communion, reverently, but with a child's understanding; in confession listing members of easily identifiable sins vs. trying to understand sin in every day modern life social sins, etc.), but those same sacraments are an occasion for renewed relationship with Christ, and how, where and when can that come into our lives now and deepen our self identity?

 *  *  *  *  *

 My Soundbites.  Thought I would list the ten remarks made to me that most influenced my life.  I will list the ones I remember best today.  They may be different, at least some of them, tomorrow.

 1/2.  Thinking this morning of Father George to me, "Your time will come," when he made Cathy a eucharistic minister before me (#1).  I always thought it portended something, like my mother's "Johansings are late bloomers."(#2)  Perhaps it was George's standard throw away wisdom, but maybe he meant something.

 3.         "American ends in `I can.'"  Sister Soccorra in the 5th grade.  Never forgotten it; it follows the expression that we make time to do the things we want to do.

 4.         Fr. Van Dorn, 1968, "You did some great things for me, too bad you didn't try harder."  Like Mother Fridolin, who expected more, felt I had talent/potential, but what was it?  Was I really wasting my time?  Was I learning other things?  What was my talent?

 5.         "You get what you give."  Mer, 1968-69, and after.  Like many other pearls ("live for today"), so much help in life in so few words.

 6.         "You have nothing to fear but fear itself."  My mother, 1960 or so, quoting FDR to me as I sought comfort after terrifying thoughts of final judgment, nuclear world war and my own death.

 7.         "I've given you a taste."  (Also, "those far away places.")  My father.  Often repeated, from 1967 on, I suppose.  I continue to taste and go back.

 8.         "April is the cruellest month."  T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land. (c. 1970 in my life.)

 9.         "Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, you cannot have eternal life."  The Mass, c. 1960?

 10.       "Somewhere beyond the sea."  Bobby Darin.  1959-60.

 It is a beautiful, breezy afternoon here, sunny and warm.  Even Cathy said yesterday this reminds her of Southern California.  12:45 p.m. (PB & J sandwich in hand.)

 P.S.  11.  Just about anything the children say in wonder.  Thomas brought inside a big, green leaf today.  Proudly displaying to Cathy.  I love now how Thomas looks at the newspapers, other writings, scanning the page for T's (T for Thomas).  In the past week, we have progressed to S and H for Thomas as well!

17. Hampstead Heath; Reflections on Grafitti

Wednesday 13 May.  8:40 p.m.  The swifts have returned.

Thursday 14 May.  9:30 a.m.  The days are very long.  Sunrise on Saturday 16th is 5:07, sunset is 8:48.  By 24th sunrise is 4:57, sunset 8:59.  23rd of June is 4:44, earliest is 15 June at 4:43.  Latest sunset is 9:22 on June 23 (wow!).  5 a.m. to 9 p.m. is 16 hours, vs December 8, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., 8 hours.

Cathy and I walked around Hampstead, saw where Leigh Hunt lived, ditto: Constable, D. H. Lawrence, several Du Mauriers, painters, H.G. Wells, K. Amis.  I know there were more.  Quite a good walk, with a lot of history.

I've always thought of myself as a good travel guide, love to show people around, always giving tours of LA, but always by car.  True the details of any square quarter mile can supply stories beyond the grand scenes of the panorama, yet the panoramas are wonderful too.  I loved the stories of Hampstead, but then what a view from Parliament Hill!

Sometimes I think of going to mass like visiting my parents.  Should be more.

I no longer feel self conscious walking about town or being in the house during hours normally reserved for office work.  I do not know whether I have fundamentally changed or whether I have simply got used to this.  How I will react when I return is something else.  For about six months after we left Las Vegas I dreamt of work.  Now however, I rarely dream of being a lawyer.  I did dream of Gary last night.  I dreamt, I was in an office, perhaps it was my lawyer's office; if it was, it was not with the same sense of work I dreamt of before.  I don't think I thought of work as a lawyer, just of being at the place, and I think Brian or Kevin was there.  Anyway I went outside and greeted Gary and Jodi in their car.  (Wagoneer?)  I was running in front of them, leading the way, to the back door of the office.  Gary kept going faster and I was doing all right running, but it was time to slow down or make a turn and I could not slow, because of the car behind me, nor could I turn, because I would have to pivot too quickly and turn on my still tender ankle, which I sprained on Sunday.  The end result was that I had to keep on running, when I would be able to stop was in Gary's hands.  Did I detect a bit of an evil gleam in his eye?  It was hard to tell, it could just have been the glare of sunlight.

I don't know whether my dream was about work or about time or about ending my sabbatical or all three.  If it was about work, it was about work in a more abstract way than before.

Catholic Writers.  There was an article, in last week's Sunday Times, about Catholic writers, with the subtitle, "Do bad Catholics make good writers?"  Two examples were Graham Greene and Beryl Bainbridge.  Since I consider myself to be a good Catholic, does that make me a bad writer? 

I want to accomplish something, an end result, with my writing, but the end results are hard to reach.  My problem is compounded because I have no vision of what it is I should be writing.  Too many thoughts, not enough clarity of vision. (I hear the swifts outside, their sounds a higher note than the rest of the chirping.  I keep waking up to birds singing at about 4:30 in the morning as the sky begins to lighten.)

Coming home on the train yesterday, reading about the riots some place in England Tuesday night.  Kids got mad after police cracked down on motorcycle riders.  I happened to look up as the train passed beneath the motorway bridge near Stanstead/Newport, and saw all the graffiti. As I saw the ugly graffiti and thought of the riots and their relationship to my own writing, it seemed to me that each of us, in our own way, is just looking for a voice that stands out from the rest, in a world where our numbers often make individuality hard to achieve.  We all dress the same, eat the same, have the same cars, etc. mostly, so we look for ways to single ourselves out from the crowd.  I suppose my way is to frequently sit with my journal, writing about myself and the world.  Another attempt may be in fashion.  Cathy is like this (and perhaps this striving for individuality may be what we most share in common, besides four children!).

Others seek to stand out from the crowd by graffiti, pink hair, earrings, making the television news while causing a scene somewhere, etc.  All, in the long run, are trying to stand out in the crowd.  (In England, Scotland, Wales, this is done among the upper middle classes through achieving a knighthood.)

Because of the dissemination of information today, and our searches for singularity, we often pick up on things that others are doing and adopt them.  (Some people think of things and then publicize them, they are called designers or even writers.)  Soon the once singular thing is no longer singular, but fashionable.  A good example of this is the wearing of earrings by men.  What once was a statement of sexual orientation or lifestyle (I suppose, for I have never figured out exactly what it meant) is now a fashion and it no longer means what it once did, it is merely a style, indicating one is up with the times.

There will be new fashions in the future which will come and go, just as earrings will one day lose attraction and young men will want to not have earrings in order to be different.

Graffiti is similar.  Perhaps also the acts of rioters in LA and England, some incited by anger and a sense of injustice, but others no doubt moved by the need to be seen making a statement that he or she has contempt for the system.  Graffiti seems to have different ideas: some want to shock (swear words, sexual statements), some wish to protest (anti-war, anti-gun, green), others wish to show off in rudeness or comedy, show how bright he or she is.

The idea I want to get to is that the Christian believes that he or she achieves real uniqueness in God.  God recognizes our uniqueness, therefore we have less of a need to try and achieve it on earth.  (I think that may be why I often write and write, knowing what I write will not go anywhere but here.)

I myself see uniqueness all around me, in each face, voice; in clouds, leaves, the voice of a bird; each moment is different, will never be repeated.  I will never be the same after each passing second.  Looking at faces in a mob I can see the differences, even though there is the same anger, same loss of control.  Does one need to be a Christian to see this?  Perhaps, though it's hard to say.  If one is not a Christian, I wonder if one's view of the world works strongly to limit one's view of individuality?  If I were a socialist, would I be overwhelmed by my belief that the system weighs people down and doesn't permit them to live their dreams or be themselves?  Would I see the system as overwhelming their individuality.  (Isn't this G. Orwell? I saw his house and the book store where he once worked.)

James Joyce goes the opposite way, I think, bringing individuality to the center of the universe.  (Isn't this Ulysses? Though I shouldn't say, not having read it.)  But would Joyce give this individuality to everyone?  Or does it have to be bestowed on the individual by an appreciation of art/history and all the ties into one's life?

Could I write a Christian Ulysses?  Is such a thing possible?  In Ulysses the fellow is lost going home, an idea very suited to the Christian who truly believes that he or she is headed home and often gets lost along the way.  I suppose Joyce was more proposing the idea of the individual as the hero.

I suppose that if one is a Christian, one has less of a need to search for, achieve, publicize the singularity we all want.  We realize that it is in God that our individuality is complete and only there.  (The swifts again, like whistles.)  If one expects to achieve this status through God, and only through God, there is both less need to seek it now and a realization that seeking that individuality now is something that can never really succeed and will probably end in the frustration of not finding true individuality, only the tastes and mores of changing fashion.

The Christian finds that real individuality lies in the soul, in the inner being, that part of us that no one but ourselves can really know, the consciousness, the self that governs all else, our companion (if we can split the self from that consciousness, which by definition we cannot) at the moment of death, and our companion for all eternity.

(Eternity I thought to be a dirty word when I was young, and, in trying to see how big it was, found myself feeling the barest trace of being.)

If the soul is the real self, the real individual, then expressing it now can never really be complete.  The two, soul and world, do not really speak the same language.

17. Bob & Bobbie; York; the Procession of Flowers

May 11 (cont.)    6:40 p.m.  Mom and dad arrived 30th of April, Thursday.  Dad left Saturday, 2d, Heathrow to Amsterdam, then Sunday to Ghana.  He called Sunday night (same time zone as here), while we watched S. Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" on television.  They left Saturday, rendezvoused at Gatwick, arrived and departed in the rain.  In between were a number of sunny, lovely days.

The King Riots.  When they arrived on the 30th, the big news story was the riots in Los Angeles which left so many people dead.  I shall add my peace (that is, piece, Freudian slip) to those voices which have written so much about the riot.

Where does one start?  The obvious: the Rodney King brutality verdict, acquitting all of the cops but one, who had a hung jury, flies in the face of common sense, common decency, fair play, justice, etc.  The verdict is simply a disgrace and one can think of all the explanations one likes, but no explanation truly makes sense.

The next thing that struck me were the comparisons of the LA riots to other events, e.g., almost as many people died in the English soccer riots (1986?); there are as many murders a day in the U.S.  One also thinks of natural disasters, preventable diseases, road accidents, wars, etc.

The thing about LA was that it was all there to see in the film capital of the world, like a bad movie script: the shoddy court verdict, the ineffective police chief out on the campaign trail, the angry poor, the gangs, the party atmosphere, looting, Korean shopkeepers guarding their grocery stores with machine guns.  Who would have believed it?

And afterwards, if the papers are to be believed, President Bush at first one way, then the other; quickly taking to heart the formerly banished Secretary of Housing, Jack Kemp.

The question rightfully posed is, what has gone wrong?

After the 60's all sorts of money flowed into the cities, into riot torn areas, but I suspect things got worse.  Why?  There was the continuing underlying racism.  I suppose Reagan and Bush more so than the Democrats, but it was rich vs. poor as well.  NIMBY attitudes, pulling up the ladder behind.  The 20th Century, which replaces concerned individuals with a bureaucracy and rules and regulations and money to spend.  Why can't people be people to people again?

The Korean shop owner shot the girl because he thought she would rob.  Why?  He was afraid, just like the cops who beat up Rodney King.  Perhaps we need to say:  So what, fear is no excuse! But how can we justify living in fear?  Somehow, the poor need to be integrated into the non poor world. We need to behave more humanely to each other.  FIGHT FEAR!

What is it that makes us fear?  Fear of harm, fear of injury, fear of death, of losing things.  The real Christian is not afraid to lose any of those things.

 Sunday May 3 was a lovely day.  We went to 8 am mass the drove an hour to Peterborough where we took the 10:33 train to York, arriving at 12:30 after a very long stop.  We had lunch near the station then tokk the AA self guided walking tour to Minster, Shambles, Guilhouse, Viking Center, before boarding the tour bus.  York is walled like Canterbury and very busy, with a good sized river.  Everyone enjoyed the day.  We left on the 6 pm train and were home by 8:30 in time to watch the Stephen Hawking TV show.

 

Nice visits here with John Ryder, Friday May 8th and then again Saturday.  Friday here, Saturday at Greenleas, the other half of Greenfields, the manor house we lived in in 1958 - 59.  Cup of coffee, tour the house, look out to the copper beech in the backyard.  JR says probably two acres in the backyard at Greenfields.  He moved to Horley in 1951 or so.

Three new poems:

The last days of winter unleashed

A procession of color, which will
Not stop till fall,
Beginning with the lowly crocus and
Ending only with the bright red
Ivy leaves that cover brick buildings
with tenacious wooden roots
Growing sideways up the stone.


(For Robert, sitting on the roof, upset at life:)
Sitting on the roof
Thinking at the edge
If you jump
It will only hurt
it will not make
your sorrows disappear.

I used to think I was crazy
And my father said, "Good,
A sign of mental health!"
As I grow older I think more and more
That all the world has gone crazy
With guns and money,
Banking its way to insanity,
little by little, but
with outbreaks of sheer dementia
growing more prevalent.
Was I ever really healthy,
Or was I mad all along,
And it's only my recent
Shock treatments that
Bring me back to sanity?

Monday 12 May.  10 a.m.   It is a very windy day, I can hear it howling through the windows; yet the predictions are for the weather to be hot and humid by tomorrow, in the high 70's.

Many stories yesterday about the drought, which is still page 1 news in The Times, despite one of the wettest springs in quite some time.  The weatherman says it must rain in the winter for rain to be any good.  Rain after April evaporates too quickly to replenish the underground water supplies which are so low.

Our hedge has two parts, the front half or bottom of the "U" next to the lane, and the back half closest to the house, being the tops of the two legs.  The bottom half was bare when we left for Italy and green when we returned (27th March to 18th April).  The top half remained bare until last week when the clusters of leaves, which were swirled up, wrapped ever so tightly, began to unfurl, almost like a butterfly unfurling its wings.  Now, a week later, the back half is almost brown, the leaves are brown, in contrast to the green up front, though, as I recall, it all turns brown in the end, with the leaves remaining until they are bumped off by the next year's growth.

The procession of flowers as I recall them:

Crocus and white flowering trees and shrubs (February to early March).  Also some small yellow bulbs in our garden.

Daffodils in early to late March.
Hyacinths. 
Pink and white flowering trees continuing.
Yellow flowering shrubs.  We saw many of these in late March, on our way to France.
Tulips in early to late April.
Fruit trees in mid to late April.  (Apple trees in late April, cherry blossoms (?) in late April.
Oil seed rape yellow!  Late April to mid May.  (Still now continuing.)
Bluebells, lilacs, horse chestnuts in early to mid May.
Hawthorn in early to mid May.

Present flowers: stock, snaps, primroses and pansies still look good (though ours never did).  Honeysuckles getting ready.  Roses still preparing.  Lilacs are white, light purple and dark purple.

4 p.m.  Thinking about the seasons here.  Winter has slipped almost imperceptibly into spring.  The fog is gone, the frost gone, and we go through different flowerings.  Finally, but quickly in the last two weeks, the leaves have almost filled out just about all of the trees but the oaks.

I welcome spring, and I welcome it most heartily, but it is not at all like the passage of summer into fall in Las Vegas.  In September/October we, oh so anxiously, await the coming of fall, and the cool nights we know lie ahead.  When they come at last, it is hard to believe that it all really happened.  Did we really live through days that hot!  It's unbelievable!

Now I look back on winter and autumn and see the days one by one, most of them individual, though some go on for days, up to a couple of weeks, when the low clouds hung around.  Still, it's easy to see how the days came upon us, how they gradually left, the worst days of winter, the coldest and the shortest, darkest were but a day, not a season, to be appreciated or unappreciated as only a day.

In Las Vegas it is definitely a season.  The succession of days with an impact so great they strip all memory of past and futures.