Ille epistula est divisa in partes tres. Ten points to everyone who gets the reference. Ten points of sad, sad Latin-knowing geekery. Excessive education or no, the post is indeed tripartite, and it is divided thusly:

1. Reflections on CPE
2. A few thoughts on Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, and
3. A magical third part, made up of delightful photograms scattered throughout the posting, taken from my excursion with my goddaughter Miss Ketturah Sloan to the Philaselphia Zoo.

And so, I submit for your consideration, a web log empostation.

I.

As you may or may not have guessed, CPE continues to be a part of my life. Like a bad cold, I can’t seem to shake it, and I have a sinking feeling that I will be metaphorically coughing (that goes out to you, Dr. K) for another four weeks, minus one day. As I write this e-ssay (see how clever that is?), I am on call at the hospital, one Thomas Jefferson Univerity Hospital, and I even just got back from a page. Did you miss me? So, now that I’m seven weeks into CPE, and am starting (ha) to run out of steam, I heard something today that has reframed what it is that I’m doing here. In a discussion on grief and the presence (or non-presence) of God, one of my colleagues in the program made the observation that for many of our patients, we the chaplains are the only concrete symbol of God’s presence in their suffering. This is not to suggest that we all have giant messiah complexes or that we each believe that we are Christ come again, but rather that if we are to take the Christian message seriously, and actually think about what baptism means, then we have to realize that God is acting through us to be with these people. For my own part, I have always experienced God most closely through other people. A lot of the time, they probably never knew that’s what was going on for me, but that doesn’t matter: God knows what God’s doing.

So, thinking about my work in such a way, that I am privileged to relate to these patients strictly and explicitly on those terms, as a potential instrument of God’s love in their lives (that, indeed, is the whole work of the chaplain), I am somewhat renewed in my energy for the next four weeks (minus one day). Does this mean I’m magically un-exhausted, or I suddenly love the idea of being a hospital chaplain? No, of course not; don’t be silly. But it does mean that I have a new appreciation for the work here, and it’s something I’m happy to be doing, even if I don’t exactly enjoy it.

II.

One of the best things about this summer has been the Septa train that obligingly carries me from Swarthmore Station to Market East Station and back again each day. I am obliged to the Septa train for providing me with approximately eighty minutes every day during which time I can do little but read. And read I have. My pile of read books grows apace, and lo, it is glorious to behold.

The latest addition to said pile is C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. It’s not one of his better-known books, but by connoisseurs of his work it is considered amoing the best. Indeed, my English teacher in high school valued it as one of the finest works of twentieth century fiction. My own opinion is, how shall I say, more moderate.

The novel is a retelling, indeed somewhat of a “this is how it really happened” version, of the Greco-Roman myth of Cupid and Psyche, form the perspective of the oldest sister. Ever a man of his age, Lewis’ often brilliant insights into human nature are often sadly obscured by an often unnecessary gender-essentialist language. (That is, talk of “women are this way, and men are this way”). If those comments can be excised from the manuscript (and they usually can without any real damage to either the content or quality of the book), then the insights he has into some of the primary forces of human nature are remarkable. Thankfully, I think that, at least in this book, Lewis’ spiritual and philosophical insight may serve to soften somewhat the impact of his paternalism, by rendering them in the context of a greater divine reality. [Man, Lewis would be so very, very upset by what I’m writing right now.]

As Lewis composes it, the story becomes a multi-layered fable describing the struggle of the mind over the passions, and the troubled relationship between rationalism and mystericism. Neither rationality nor mystery is categorically repudiated or unquestioningly praised, but a dogmatic adherence to either (the -isms) is justly criticized. At its strongest, Till We Have Faces provides a subtle and nuanced examination of the (post)modern western tug o’ war between the process of rational analysis and the potent and mysterious symbolic language of religion. The title line, which comes near the end of the book, and which can really only be understood after the preceding 280 pages, encapsulates a theology and philosophy of profoundly humane and insightful dimensions.

I heartily recommend the book, especially the last thirty pages. Whatever you do, though, don’w skip to the end. Read the whole book, which itself is a shining exapmle of Lewis’ spare, beautiful style, looking forward to the final theological / philosophical climax.

Having set aside Till We Have Faces, I have picked up A Letter of Mary, the third installment of the Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes novels. If you haven’t read these, and you’re reading this web log, you really should. I can almost guarantee you’ll enjoy them. The first is called The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and they are all (unsurprisingly) written by Laurie R. King (an alumna of GTU+CDSP, by the bye).

III.

The photograms above presented repesent the following animals: The Hippo, the Giant Elephant Shrew (whose nose and legs are of prodigious, even absurd length), the More Reasonably Sized (though markedly tank-like) Elephant Shrew, the Elephant, the Coati, the Meercat, and the Harvest Mouse (who would kill you as soon as look at you).

I should also mention before I finish that I very much appreciate your comments. I am unclear as to why they are not showing up on the “Comments” link for each post, but they are collected in the “Comments Feed” found at the bottom of the sidebar. We have all our experts looking into the problem, and we hope to have regular service back very soon.

Peace and Love.

Not much to report from the weekend. There was a big music festival here, sponsored by WXPN, the public radio station that plays rock music. For all you San Diego-types out there, think 91X meets KPBS. It’s actually quite a good radio station. They play it all the time at the coffee shop I go to before and after CPE. In any case, they had a big, three-day music festival which I entirely failed to attend. I lost most of my interest in the event when I realized that Dar Williams had played the night before... alas.

Instead, what did I do? I played Magic! For those of you who are not so familiar with the ins and outs of nerd culture, Magic is a game played with vividly illustrated collectible cards that pits one player against another in the context of a magical battle. The game itself is like a combination of poker, chess, and Lord of the Rings, except not actually like any of thos things at all. In any event, it’s a great game, and is generally played by the wide spectrum of geekery that roam ungoverend and ungovernable across this great land of ours.

This weekend there was an open tournament that I heard about and signed up for. Going to the tournament was in many ways like coming to a certain kind of spritiual home: everybody I knew was there: the skinny pale nerds, the giant be-t-shirted nerds, the bored girlfriends waiting for their boyfriends to be done, the really brilliant girlfriends who learned to play and are now better than their boyfriends, the random old guy, the handful of 13 year olds who hardly know how to play, the pinch of 14 year olds who kick my ass, the hipster geeks who think they’re cooler than all the rest... ahhh, the gang was all there. I didn’t do so well in the tourney, but I had a great time. It was mosly just nice to see all the same people I’ve seen at every other magic tournament I’ve played in (they just had different faces...)

I finally finished Pillars of the Earth. It’s really quite good, and very, very long. Not precisely high literature, but a damn fine story. I’m not sure what’s next, but I think I will in the morning. Speaking of morning, it’s time for bed. Good night!!

Dear readers, please let me offer my sincerest apologies for depriving you of my words of comfort and succor from El Ciudad del Amor de Hermanos. Comfor. Succor. There. I hope you’re happy. With luck, I will be writing twice a week starting next week: Mondays and Thursdays I hope. With that: Happy In-Dependence Day. This’ll blow your mind: what if we called it Inter-Dependence Day? Wouldn’t that totally change the world? No? Fine. Be that way.

Last weekend, I took the exciting and reportedly dangerous Chinatown Bus from Philadelphia to New York. For those of you who don’t know, the Chinese crminal syndicates use the cover of a cheap busline to traffick heroin, tiny shoes, and the latest prophecies fresh in from China, authorized by Beijing’s Ministry for Lying to Americans, for use in fortune cookies. For the mere price of twenty dollars roundtrip, and the sure knowledge that you are participating in a criminal endeavor, you can get almost anywhere on the eastern seabord in approximately two hours. Word on the street is that J. K. Rowling researched the Chinatwon buses for her transparent ripoff, the Knightbus.

My stay in New York was too short, but a lot of good times were packed into those few days. Friday afternoon Harry Huberty and I tromped merrily around the Metripolitan Museum of Art. We refrained from holding hands and skipping merrily, but it was a close thing. In order to prove to all you skeptics out there that I did indeed visit the museum which is called Met, I present Photo-Magical Imagery!

This is some kind of pagan idol from the Eurpoean Dark ages. No one is quite sure of its significance, or what kind of practices it inspired, but it sure is lovely.

This is another pagan idol, though it dates much later, to the Rennaisance. It is a representation of the dark Goddess Kaphé, imported from the New World. See how her twin tails stand ready to dispense scalding black nectar and delicately foamed milk? Other theories suggest it is a depiction of a siren from Greco-Roman mythology, but this has yet to be proven by science.

This is a picture of Mary Magdalene, recovered from the chapterhouse of a Christian worker’s guild from the middle ages. These societies helped thier dead members by paying for services to be said for them after their deaths. In this case, the society’s patron saint was Mary of Magdala, and so their prayers are addressed through her. No, this is true. Really. Why are you lookign at me like that?

In typical fashion, European colonial powers not only enslaved the inhabitants of this island paradise, but they crystalized its panoramic views and took them back to their dreary and icy homes in the European Wastlands. This is an example of such a stolen vista.

After our sojourn amongst the beautiful art, Harry and I made our way to meet Master Dan Chamberlin of the New York Chamberlins, and then made haste to the Tambasco household, where we played an excellent roleplaying game called Dogs in the Vineyard. We learned how dangerous wine can be. (It apparently can lead people to try to summon demons. Who knew?)

The next day, after settling the island of Catan, The native New Yorkers helped Harry and me find our way to a rain-soaked barbecue in Brooklyn.

Finally, I went to church at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (which is HUGE), then spent a couple of hours in the surprisingly disappointing Strand bookstore in Union Square, then jumped my bus back to Philadelphia. All-in-all, an excellent long weekend. You should try it sometime.

For those of you keeping up with my reading, know that I am slowly making my way through Pillars of the Earth. It’s good, but getting a little bit predictable/repetitive. I must know what happens to Tom Builder, though! Damn you Ken Folleeeeeeet!!!!

Dear and faithful readers, it falls to me to thank you for you patience during the past week or howeversolong it’s been since my last update. Poor Samwise, my faithful and long-suffering lappy-top precipitously gave up the gost one quiet afternoon. For those of you wondering about such, no, it did not in the end have anything to do with a previous encounter the poor laptop had with a reckless young bottle of St Peter’s English Ale. (Which good Cephas has wisely seen fit to remove from the marketplace.) Unprovoked and without the least malice on the part of dear Samwise, the ruffian beverage laid itself out on the poor computer, fouling the keyboard and screen. Amazingly enough, the prolem at hand had nothing to do with said assault. Instead, it was your typical day-to-day “Oh, God, I can’t take it anymore” hard drive failure. So, while fixing the hard drive issue, the good people at Apple made so bold as to fix everyting else (for a not-small donation to their cause on my part). So, here we are, fresh of screen, newborn of hard drive, and almost entirely lacking in any sense of how properly to behave as a laptop. I mean really. The amount of instruction you have to give computers these days in how to look and what to do is shameful. Hence the lag-time in w’blog entries. I’ve had to entirely retrain the pitiful creature in what software to run. So sad…

In any case, here we are. Refreshed, renewed, and ready for adventures.

Since we last spoke, a fair bit has gone on in the life of this sojourner in the land of Beer Distiribution Centers and the Amish.

Last saturday I had my first overnight in the hospital. The shift starts at 4:45pm and goes til 7:45 the next morning. With any luck, a good bit of that time is spent sleeping in the on-call room. In my case, “a good bit” has a rough value of “four and a half hours.” Nothing else of not having happened until then, at 2:30 in the morning I got a page to the Emergency Department (so much more than an ER). It turns out that a poor man had been mugged, and so I spent hte rest of the morning with his wife while we waited to find out how he was doing. All things considered, it was a good night. It was good to be able to be there for someone in such a hard time.

Other than that, CPE has been remarkably without incident. I’m still getting to be more comfortable with walking into strangers’ rooms to say “hi.” It’s not that complicated a procedure, and generally speaking they’re ahppy to see us, but nonetheless, all the intorverts out there can probably agree with me on the existential terror involved in such a project. It’s been nice to establish relationships with a few of my patients. For the most part my people seem to come and go, but there are a few who are sticking around. Likewise, I’m getting to know the nursing staff on my floors, which is good, since even if the patients come and go, the nurses remain. The other day I gave my opinion on a birdesmaid’s dress one of them was looking at on the interwebs that she was going to have to wear at a wedding (of all places!). It was actually decent, not one of these “make the bridesmaids look ugly so that the bride looks better” deals. In any event, it’s good to remember that nurses are just people, too, right?

For those keeping track at home, I’ve finished A Monstrous Regiment of Women and moved on to Ursula K. Le Guin’s new book Lavinia, which is about the wife of Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s Aeneid. The jury is still out on this one, but I’m afraid my dedication to Le Guin will probably win out over my actual thoughts on the book. We’ll see…