CONFESSIONS
by Broderick Barker
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by Jim Holman.
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CONFESSIONS
May 2005
LOVE BREAKS THROUGH
We have a pope; Benedict XVI. I'm thrilled and hopeful. When a friend drove down my driveway beeping his horn in exultation, I found myself raising an exultant fist. It was a gesture of triumph, not because I had longed for Ratzinger's elevation, not because I had been worried that a different pope would betray Catholicism as I knew it, but because the Church I love had a new head. Beyond that, I leave the commentary to those who are better informed and better disposed. Me, I'm a mess. (A sure sign of that — we have a new pope, and I'm already talking about myself.) I soldiered through Lent, keeping to my resolution of daily prayer before anything else, but the habit didn't take. I made it over the wall of Easter Sunday and promptly set aside my Magnificat.
Why? Because I wanted to check my email first thing. And my blog. And my Amazon page. That's the trouble: I went and wrote a book. I don't plan on mentioning it again, but just now, I feel like it needs mentioning. I wrote a book, and I worry over it way too much. It's not just another part of my daily routine — checking up on it, self-Googling, etc. All that might not take more than half an hour a day. It's more pervasive than that, a sludge in the system that leaves me feeling heavy and sluggish. Home life has been chaotic of late, but that doesn't account for my failures. Ordinary tasks seem to take longer. Thoughts seem harder to dig up.
I am plagued by the vision of a waterfall. Over its rim flow 150,000 books a year, down into the black depths of oblivion below. A chosen few — The Da Vinci Code, anyone? — are plucked from the current and lifted by the Muses to Olympus, where they dwell in comfort, untroubled by the destruction below. A few others, the fighters, claw their way back from the edge, grasping at something, anything — a review here, an interview there, maybe just a happy customer at Amazon — as they fight against the inevitable, prolonging their life for just a little longer. This is where I hope to see my own book; hanging on to the rim. This is why I fret and fuss. Anything to keep it alive.
"Just a little while longer and it'll be over," I tell myself. (Unless Someone Else is telling me.) "Whatever buzz you've managed to create will die down, the book will drop out of the public eye, and you can go back to your little life — and your daily prayer, your better work habits, your normal level of anxiety."
And while this is not an excuse for my failings — e.g., my wife asked me five times to send some emails; each time, I went into my office and promptly forgot her request — there is no doubt some truth to it.
"Unless...." Ah, ambition, there you are. Come in, tell us about it. "Unless the book finds an audience. Unless it takes off and carries you with it."
To where, exactly? And if it leaves me feeling and living like this, would I really want to go? Even as I'm writing this, I'm thinking, "Should I be writing this? Can't be good for the book. Makes me look like a wretch. But then, the book is supposed to be an honest account of my spiritual life, and this is plenty honest. So maybe it'll be good for the book." Gad.
I'm not saying that I've done wrong. I wrote the thing in the hopes that people would read it, and I'm happy to promote it. As ever, it's my attachment that I've got to rein in. Strive, but trust and accept. Be disciplined. Go back to daily prayer. It's a book about being Catholic; don't neglect the faith because of it.
The death of my grandmother broke through the murk. (It was a beautiful death, apparently free of the fear and agitation she had felt about the afterlife.) The first time I spoke with my father, I forgot to tell him I was sorry he had lost his mother. A member of our small family had died; we had all lost someone. But of course, Dad's loss was particular. I was talking to Mom a few minutes later, and I had her hand the phone to him. I had wept at the news of Grandma's death, but it was in telling Dad I was sorry for his loss that I broke down. Love pulling me out of myself — thank God.