Moment of Zen: Wishing I Were Somewhere Else

The past two weeks have been some of the most heart-wrenching of my life. Though it's over now, the loss of Grandmama is not something that I will actually ever get over. It may get easier with time, and I will always have fond memories of Grandmama, but none of that is a lot of consolation at the present time.

However, today is Bastille Day in France, and I can without hesitation say that I would much rather be in Paris today, or anywhere in Europe for that matter, just to be somewhere else.

Where the Heart Beats

When I was first contacted about reviewing Kay Larson's book Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists I knew very little about who John Cage was. So I did a little cursory research.  I found out that he was a musician, composer, artists, and a Buddhist homosexual. He sounded like an interesting and quirky individual, especially considering that his most famous composition is a piece titled 4'33".  It was composed in 1952 for any instrument (or combination of instruments), and the score instructs the performer not to play the instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements (which, for the first performance, were divided into thirty seconds for the first, two minutes and twenty-three seconds for the second, and one minute and forty seconds for the third). The piece purports to consist of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, although it is commonly perceived as "four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence". Needless to say, I was intrigued and was interested in reading the book.

At first you might think that Where the Heart Beats is another biography of John Cage. Though there is a strong biographical element in the book, it is more the biography of an idea, a study of the way Zen Buddhism came to be at the center of the working life of a group of artists, centered on John Cage. There is a lot of name dropping in the book of those of the Beat generation who Larson believes influenced Cage's music and Zen philosophy.  Central to this is Cage's attendance at the lectures of Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki in New York in the 1950's. Suzuki, a Zen Buddhist teacher, was an influential figure in the spreading of of Zen Buddhism to the West.  The description of Suzuki is intriguing, telling that he was not a Zen master, though still considered an expert on Zen.  He was not formally educated, but clearly a master of languages, having taught himself Sanskrit, Tibetan Sanskrit, and Pali, and fluent in Japanese, English, classical Chinese, and "several European languages."

Larson's book is divided into three parts, which attempt to follow the arc of revelation as Cage comes to discover Zen Buddhism and through it effect changes to his work.  The first part, Mountains are Mountains, is largely narrative and biographical though it is more of a collage than a single biography, with portraits of Cage and his colleagues, teachers and influences brought together into a single narrative.  The middle section, Mountains are no longer Mountains, covers just the years 1950-52.  The final section Mountains are again Mountains deals with the years afterwards, the after shock. But Larson is not really interested in Cage the man at this stage, more in the way his ideas are transmitted. She gives us a series of vignettes and snapshots as knowledge and influence move out in increasing circles from Cage himself.

From the very outset, Larson sees Zen in everything.  She became a convert of Zen Buddhism in 1994. Larson extensively quotes from Cage's own writings, putting these passages separately so that it seems as if Cage is himself contributing. But Cage is an unreliable observer of his own life, tending to re-shape events to suit the legend. Larson's writing style is often hard to understand. She waxes philosophically about the influences of Zen Buddhism, and her flowery writing style is one of my pet peeves.

This was a book that I wanted to like more than I was able to. I have to confess that I found it a little heavy going. There are so many people mentioned that it sometimes becomes rather difficult to keep up with who's who unless you are already familiar with all the names mentioned. Larson's goal was an interesting goal, but the outcome was not nearly as interesting as I hoped it would be. It demonstrates the centrality of Zen Buddhism to Cage's thinking. If you have a serious interest in the subject of John Cage and of Zen Buddhism, then I believe that you would enjoy the book.  Though I teach about Buddhism in my classes, Zen Buddhism is not a concept I am greatly familiar with, therefore I found myself lost at times reading this book.  Also, I have to admit that I might have found this book more interesting and an easier read had I not read it while sitting in a hospital's noisy ICU waiting room.

I'll Be Back Shortly

I have spent most of today resting from this long and emotionally draining week. I think I am ready to be back posting regularly again. I'm sorry for my absence but I think you all understand the reasons.  Thank you for all the support you have given me.

Later today, I will be posting a book review that I was asked to do a month or so ago and was asked to publish on this date.  I am almost finished with the review, but it will probably take a little while longer to get everything together.  So stay tuned for later today, when I want to tell you all about the book WHERE THE HEART BEATS by Kay Larson.

My Grandmama

Grandmama was raised in rural south central Alabama.  She only had an eighth grade education, but that was relatively normal where and when she was growing up.  The one or two room community schools that she attended only went to the eighth grade, then students transferred to the high school in town.  For many, that was too far, especially for a girl who got to school each day by riding on the back of her teachers donkey.

By seventeen, she had blossomed into a beautiful woman.  Basically, she was a dark haired Barbie doll figure, with long legs and large breasts.  She was the epitome of a woman of the 1940s.

In her younger years, she was far from perfect.  She was pregnant when she got married at seventeen, she had at least one short affair with a famous country music figure of the time, and even spent one night in jail.  The night in jail is an interesting story.  My granddaddy was an alcoholic in his younger days, and he and his brother had been arrested for public intoxication.  Grandmama, in her eighty-nine years, never spent a night alone.  From the time she was a child, she was afraid of the dark and that fear never changed.  So, instead of going home the night that Granddaddy was arrested, she stayed that night in jail with him.  He was released the next day, and they went home.

Grandmama gave birth to her first child, Hope, seven months after her marriage.  Hope lived shortly over a year, but developed pneumonia.  She died on the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.  My grandparents came home from the hospital after my aunts death, turned on the radio, and heard the announcement that the Japanese had bombed Hawaii's Pearl Harbor.

During World War II, she followed Grandaddy to his training camps, and when he was shipped to England with the Corps of Engineers, she stayed with family in Alabama working various jobs, but mostly as a beautician. When he returned home after the war, my daddy was born, roughly nine months later.  Shortly after Daddy was born, Grandmama told Grandaddy that he could either quit drinking or she would leave him.  He never took another drink, except to test her homemade cough syrup and to taste the bourbon to make sure it was good enough for her fruit cakes.

Grandmama spent most of her life working in factories.  We lived in an area that before NAFTA was rich in textile factories. When she was thirty-nine, she became, surprisingly, pregnant with a third child.  She swore that would never happen again, and she and my Grandaddy never slept in the same bed again. My aunt was born a few weeks before Grandmama's fortieth birthday.  With Daddy almost grown, Grandmama was basically starting over again with raising another child.

In January 1978, when I was six weeks old, my mother had to return to work.  At the time, Mama was a public home health nurse.  From that point on, I spent every week day with Grandmama, who kept me for Mama.  When I started school, I spent every Friday night with Grandmama, and we ate supper with her every Wednesday night.  During the summers, I spent the days with Grandmama again.  My sister was also always there with us, but in the twenty-one months before I was born, my sister was with the nanny who had helped raise Mama.

After Grandmama retired from working in the factories, she began what would be her daily routine until my Grandfather's death in 2001.  She woke up at dawn each morning and made a pot of coffee, then she began making breakfast. Breakfast could be as simple as homemade buttermilk biscuits and sausage or as complex as biscuits, sausage, gravy, eggs, and grits.  No matter, it was always a hearty breakfast.  While Grandaddy was still working, she also packed his lunch each day.  When breakfast was over, she cleaned up and did one of a few things. If it was Monday, she did her laundry for the week.  If it was the summer, she spent the cool hours of the morning up in the fields picking peas, butter beans, corn, okra, squash, or whatever else they were growing that year.  When she came back from the field, she would start dinner.  When dinner was finished and eaten she cleaned up and sat to watch her soap operas.  During her "stories," she often crocheted.  About the middle of the afternoon, she started cooking supper, which was the most elaborate meal of the day.  She was a true southern country cook, and the best I have ever known.  After supper, she cleaned up, and then finally had some time to rest.  On Friday nights when we spent the night with her, after supper was time for Dallas and Falcon Crest.

Though she had her faults at times in her life, she was a good Christian woman.  Before she became to sick to do so, she went to church every Sunday.  She told me once that though she was raised and originally baptized a Baptist, when she was baptized into the Church of Christ, she knew she had found God and the right church.  Incidentally, I have always felt the same way.

 She was always proud of her grandchildren, but she and I had a special bond. That is what makes this so very hard.  On her 89th birthday two weeks ago, she was so proud to have all of her family with her.  She was still in relatively good health for an 89 year old woman with COPD.  She especially loved her great-granddaughter, my precious little niece.

Grandmama passed on to the next life yesterday evening. It may get easier eventually, but it's very difficult right now to think of her as gone.  I can only console myself in the fact that she is no longer struggling and she is with Granddaddy, her baby Hope, and her friends and family who preceded her.

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. (Romans 8:18 KJV)

John 14:1-4  Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.

John 14:27  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Matthew 5:4 "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."

Matthew 11:28 "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

John 6:39-40 "And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day."

Romans 8:18 "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

1 Peter 1:3-9 
A Living Hope
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice,* even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Although you have not seen* him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

Thank you all again for your comments, emails, thoughts, and prayers.  They truly mean a lot to me and have been a great comfort in the period of great stress and sadness.  Grandmama is hanging in there, but the doctors hold out no hope.  She just won't give up, though the doctors say her heart eventually will not be able to handle the stress it is under. She has not had a good last two days as she is beginning to feel more pain. At first she was not feeling any pain, but it is obvious whether medicine wears off that she is in great distress. The hospital is doing what they can to keep her comfortable.

Happy Independence Day

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Fourth.  Thank you all for your comments, emails, thoughts, and prayers.  They truly mean a lot to me.  Grandmama is hanging in there, but the doctors hold out no hope.  Her heart is just too weak.  We are keeping her comfortable and are at her side as much as the hospital will let us.

The Grandmother by Lord Alfred Tennyson

I.
And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne?
Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man.
And Willy's wife has written: she never was over-wise,
Never the wife for Willy: he would n't take my advice. 

II.
For, Annie, you see, her father was not the man to save,
Had n't a head to manage, and drank himself into his grave.
Pretty enough, very pretty! but I was against it for one.
Eh!--but he would n't hear me--and Willy, you say, is gone. 

III.
Willy, my beauty, my eldest-born, the flower of the flock;
Never a man could fling him: for Willy stood like a rock.
`Here's a leg for a babe of a week!' says doctor; and he would be bound,
There was not his like that year in twenty parishes round. 

IV.
Strong of his hands, and strong on his legs, but still of his tongue!
I ought to have gone before him: I wonder he went so young.
I cannot cry for him, Annie: I have not long to stay;
Perhaps I shall see him the sooner, for he lived far away. 

V.
Why do you look at me, Annie? you think I am hard and cold;
But all my children have gone before me, I am so old:
I cannot weep for Willy, nor can I weep for the rest;
Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. 

VI.
For I remember a quarrel I had with your father, my dear,
All for a slanderous story, that cost me many a tear.
I mean your grandfather, Annie: it cost me a world of woe,
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. 

VII.
For Jenny, my cousin, had come to the place, and I knew right well
That Jenny had tript in her time: I knew, but I would not tell.
And she to be coming and slandering me, the base little liar!
But the tongue is a fire as you know, my dear, the tongue is a fire. 

VIII.
And the parson made it his text that week, and he said likewise,
That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies,
That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight. 

IX.
And Willy had not been down to the farm for a week and a day;
And all things look'd half-dead, tho' it was the middle of May.
Jenny, to slander me, who knew what Jenny had been!
But soiling another, Annie, will never make oneself clean. 

X.
And I cried myself well-nigh blind, and all of an evening late
I climb'd to the top of the garth, and stood by the road at the gate.
The moon like a rick on fire was rising over the dale,
And whit, whit, whit, in the bush beside me chirrupt the nightingale. 

XI.
All of a sudden he stopt: there past by the gate of the farm,
Willy,--he did n't see me,--and Jenny hung on his arm.
Out into the road I started, and spoke I scarce knew how;
Ah, there's no fool like the old one -- it makes me angry now. 

XII.
Willy stood up like a man, and look'd the thing that he meant;
Jenny, the viper, made me a mocking courtesy and went.
And I said, `Let us part: in a hundred years it'll all be the same,
You cannot love me at all, if you love not my good name.' 

XIII.
And he turn'd, and I saw his eyes all wet, in the sweet moonshine:
Sweetheart, I love you so well that your good name is mine.
And what do I care for Jane, let her speak of you well of ill;
But marry me out of hand: we two shall be happy still.' 

XIV.
`Marry you, Willy!' said I, `but I needs must speak my mind,
And I fear you'll listen to tales, be jealous and hard and unkind.'
But he turn'd and claspt me in his arms, and answer'd, `No, love, no;'
Seventy years ago, my darling, seventy years ago. 

XV.
So Willy and I were wedded: I wore a lilac gown;
And the ringers rang with a will, and he gave the ringers a crown.
But the first that ever I bare was dead before he was born,
Shadow and shine is life, little Annie, flower and thorn. 

XVI.
That was the first time, too, that ever I thought of death.
There lay the sweet little body that never had drawn a breath.
I had not wept, little Anne, not since I had been a wife;
But I wept like a child that day, for the babe had fought for his life. 

XVII.
His dear little face was troubled, as if with anger or pain:
I look'd at the still little body--his trouble had all been in vain.
For Willy I cannot weep, I shall see him another morn:
But I wept like a child for the child that was dead before he was born. 

XVIII.
But he cheer'd me, my good man, for he seldom said me nay:
Kind, like a man, was he; like a man, too, would have his way:
Never jealous--not he: we had many a happy year;
And he died, and I could not weep--my own time seem'd so near. 

XIX.
But I wish'd it had been God's will that I, too, then could have died:
I began to be tired a little, and fain had slept at his side.
And that was ten years back, or more, if I don't forget:
But as to the children, Annie, they're all about me yet. 

XX.
Pattering over the boards, my Annie who left me at two,
Patter she goes, my own little Annie, an Annie like you:
Pattering over the boards, she comes and goes at her will,
While Harry is in the five-acre and Charlie ploughing the hill. 

XXI.
And Harry and Charlie, I hear them too--they sing to their team:
Often they come to the door in a pleasant kind of a dream.
They come and sit by my chair, they hover about my bed--
I am not always certain if they be alive or dead. 

XXII.
And yet I know for a truth, there's none of them left alive;
For Harry went at sixty, your father at sixty- five:
And Willy, my eldest born, at nigh threescore and ten;
I knew them all as babies, and now they're elderly men. 

XXIII.
For mine is a time of peace, it is not often I grieve;
I am oftener sitting at home in my father's farm at eve:
And the neighbors come and laugh and gossip, and so do I;
I find myself often laughing at things that have long gone by. 

XXIV.
To be sure the preacher says, our sins should make us sad:
But mine is a time of peace, and there is Grace to be had;
And God, not man, is the Judge of us all when life shall cease;
And in this Book, little Annie, the message is one of Peace. 

XXV.
And age is a time of peace, so it be free from pain,
And happy has been my life; but I would not live it again.
I seem to be tired a little, that's all, and long for rest;
Only at your age, Annie, I could have wept with the best. 

XXVI.
So Willy has gone, my beauty, my eldest-born, my flower;
But how can I weep for Willy, he has but gone for an hour,--
Gone for a minute, my son, from this room into the next;
I, too, shall go in a minute. What time have I to be vext? 

XXVII.
And Willy's wife has written, she never was over-wise.
Get me my glasses, Annie: thank God that I keep my eyes.
There is but a trifle left you, when I shall have past away.
But stay with the old woman now: you cannot have long to stay.

My Heart Is Breaking

A few days ago my grandmother suffered a heart attack. This was something we did not know until this morning when she was taken to the emergency room because she was having trouble breathing. She has suffered from COPD for years. Sadly, the heart attack has done a great amount of damage and because of her already failing health, she is not a candidate for any surgery or other invasive treatments. The only hope that the doctors have given us is that they will keep her comfortable as long as her heart holds out, though they do not expect it to be long.

Until my grandaddy died nearly 11 years ago, Grandmama had never really been sick, but without him for her to take care of, her health has steadily declined. When I was growing up, I spent as much time with my Grandmama as I did with my parents. She kept me when my parents were at work, and we have always been very close. Right now, my heart is breaking. I have cried off and on all day today and the tears are far from being over. I only ask that you keep my Grandmama, my family, and I in your prayers and thoughts.

I am typing this on my cell phone because I don't have internet here. My posts may be sporadic, but I think you will understand.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Hoping For Something More

C.S. Lewis Quotes on Hoping For Something More

"Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.
"At present we are on the outside… the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the pleasures we see. But all the pages of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get "in"… We will put on glory… that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.
We do not want to merely "see" beauty–though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words–to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.