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Six Apostle In The Woods
Standish, Maine
January 9, 2007
A Day At The Beach
Last Sunday, with sun-splashed trees in our back yard, glancing down at the big outside thermometer to see if it truly was approaching 70 degrees Fahrenheit here in the middle of Maine on January 7th, Jean and I felt like going to the beach. She had lived there since 1940 when her parents first discovered Pine Point, lying on the eastern part of a seven mile long beach on the Atlantic Ocean.
We lived and worked in New Hampshire for almost 40 years, but spent all our summers on that beach. Two of our sons stayed on in Maine after high school. We made it our retirement home, when work slowed then stopped and became the old couple with the pair of Dachshunds who walked the beach daily. We had the best of New England all our lives.
While there last Sunday, the sand and sea, just beyond the tall and waving high sea grass, brought back for me the joy of being Catholic, because of the friendship we have for those who have gone on deeper into God’s kingdom. We used to walk the beach with six of the twelve apostles. They came up on the beach, walking in over the water, as if to prove that Christ was in them, despite our new pope’s blundering that only ordained priests can claim such a presence.
He said that, actually, on November 10, 2007, to a group of German bishops, one more little slip of the lip – sometimes I’m tempted to think that he does that deliberately, you know – to enrage others. Like Arabs, who are extremists. Or Poles, who lost their only pope and are bereft now, especially where their cardinals are rumored to have been cozy with communist secret police. Or the laity, that lowly mass of Catholics, which must be disciplined to stop them from saying out loud what St. Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “I live now, but not I, Christ truly lives in me.”
This pope, with all his cafeteria theologies, pays little attention to Scripture. Some of us go so far as to think that he and his friends make up their stuff as they go along, call it The Magisterium, and brand all other stuff as heresy, or “contrary to the official teachings of the church.”
The drive over from Standish was a Maine drive, narrow, curving country roads in tunnels of evergreens, broken only by glimpses of farm houses and potato fields. In Colorado, the roads are as wide open as the high plains, from horizon to horizon, under an infinite sky overhead, blue, cerulean blue. Like heaven.
My heart in such a tumble, it was easy to ignore the old familiar country roads flashing by, until I felt, yes felt not saw, that first great glimpse of the Atlantic from up on the bridge over the tracks, down towards the Chapel of St. Jude, the Clambake Restaurant, with Prout’s Neck way out there on the far side of the water. The first sight of the glistening, friendly waters of the North Atlantic, for those of us who lived there for years, hits deep and strong. It always does.
We parked at the end of our old street, Sea Rose Lane, told an astonished Dachshund that we were going to walk the beach. At the bulkhead, where we had planted sea roses, giving our Lane its name, we almost jumped down the wooden stairs to the sandy path splitting the sea grass, as Moses must have split the Red Sea thousands of years before. We were not alone.
I couldn’t help but keep looking for my apostles, The Six. We had such good times there on that beach, and, so far, they have not shown up in our new home in Standish, not even for a walk-by. True, our land there is 800’ deep to a wildlife preserve, heavily wooded, craggy paths, not an easy place for fishermen to hang out or walk through, but I always thought the church has to go to the people and not the other way around. The apostles did, too, they went out to teach all nations, every single one of them. That’s how we Gentiles got in, you know. Did you know, by the way, that “gentile” is dictionary defined as ”not Jewish?” I felt that The Six were there, waiting. But, no, they didn’t show.
We stayed for over an hour, drank it all in, salt air, salt spray, warm winds, floating clouds, people all friendly and waving as they walked on by, but never once regretted our having moved away, inland, to a quieter, more peaceful country home on the edge of the Maine woods.
Back Home At The Edge Of The Maine Woods
We had a moose, a big one, in our back yard a week ago. He stood and stared up at us, a big rack of antlers with no fuzz on them, nodding at our presence behind the windows on the second floor. When we went downstairs and closer to get a better view, he turned in that slow, stately way that only the owner of woods could project, and ambled back on down to the safety of his wildlife preserve.
I went out there this morning, not looking for the moose, but to sense the contrast of beach and sand with 45’ tall trees, hardwoods and softwoods, comparing paths through seagrass with trails down the gentle slope of a forest floor, through undergrowth and densely packed greenery. It was warm for January, in the high 50s. As on Sunday, my companion was Hannah, our 12 year old Dachshund, a little slower, more careful, because she is almost blind, and on a lead, the security she needs to know she is not lost and is bound to the one to whom she gives, constantly, her unconditional love.
The Six Apostles - In The Maine Woods
And there they were! All six of them. Camped out in the first clearing below the house, where a prior owner had built a rough picnic table, near a cleverly laid brick fireplace for food and warmth. They were smooth-looking men, rough hewn yet ageless, masculine yet gentle, as if they belonged to another kingdom in which we were not yet members and yet had that unmistakable bearing, like our own, that can only come from being conscious of the kingdom within. “I live not, but not I, Christ truly lives in me.” Pope Benedict XVI, notwithstanding.
Been a long time, so let me introduce my friends again. These men are the six lesser known apostles, not famous like the others, some of them almost nameless. The leader is my friend Thomas Didymus, the one who dared ask questions, because he wanted to know what he saw and felt and he got it. The others, making quite a mix, as friends will do, are:
• Andrew. The one who brought people to Jesus, like his brother Peter.
• Philip. From Bethsaida, buddy of Andrew and Peter.
• Bartholomew. At the Sea of Tiberias and the Ascension.
• Thaddaeus. His other name is Judas, a bit confusing.
• Simon the Zealot. Out of a nationalistic sect with strong political views.
An Afternoon In the Woods with the Six
Thaddeus, the friendliest of the bunch, hollered, “Hey, Paul! Over here. Come, Hannah, come.” And off she galloped, well, Dachshunds can’t gallop, but it’s polite to think they do, even if it looks sort of like a waddle, more side to side than front to back. She arrived in their midst, barking her little head off and torn by the indecisions dogs have of which face to lick first, as she dashed back and forth to acknowledge each one of the six.
By the time I got there, Bartholomew was ready with his insights. “Pope’s got you down, hasn’t he, Paul? Way down.”
Holding out my arms, as if to embrace all six at once, I answered him, “Nothing he does is uplifting. He’s a mockery. The only word I can come up with to describe everything about him is “mincing.” His walk is mincing. His words are mincing. His theologies, all of them, are mincing. So’s his hat and his slippers and his Serengeti sunglasses.”
“Wow, you’re pissed off, aren’t you, old man,” came from Philip. “Shouldn’t let a little squirt like him get to you that much, you know.”
Thomas spoke, “Easy, Philip, easy. Paul and his friends have had a tough time since the Conclave. Don’t think they’ve gotten used to it yet. Sure haven’t accepted it. Let’s pick up here and head down towards that preserve, the other side of that pond at the bottom. ”
The leader’s strategy of changing the subject. As always, my favorite, my Doubting Thomas. If we Catholics suspect that a guardian angel is somewhat ethereal, heavenly, flitting about at a distance, and prefer a patron saint who is one of us, he knows, as do I, that he is mine.
Simon, the practical one, most alert, too, asked, ‘You got foxes, coyotes, round here?”
“Yes, we have. Fisher cats are the worst things around here.” I answered.
“Better keep Hannah on that lead, then. We aren’t quick enough to stop one from zooming in and snatching her away.” And he bent forward to clear the path ahead, using his shepherd’s staff to belt the brush out of the way.
We fell into a single line of seven plus a small dog, tail wagging like hummingbird wings, in her joy at being with the men she loved the most. The no-nonsense men, the unconditional men, the ones who lived and died in and for Jesus Christ, and were always around to calm down the frail men like myself who weren’t afraid to stand and speak truth to power, but got so tired doing it they had to sit down and rest every now and then. Because, as they knew in their own deep hearts, power wasn’t listening. Power doesn’t give a damn. Absolutely.
I trudged along, wondering where our conversation would take us, thinking of that nutcase in Lincoln, Nebraska, or the commie spy in Warsaw, when Andrew, seeing the thoughts tumbling in the roundy well of my head, offered, “Last time we walked and talked it was all about the Serenity Prayer and you discovered there were three parts to it, not just one, acceptance. How’s it been since then?”
“Discouraging,” was the first word to pop out spontaneously, in direct contradiction to the second part of that prayer, courage.
“Good. Good. Lose any wisdom yet?” he asked.
To which my grunted comment was, “Aw, c’mon Andrew, c’mon on.”
“Remember, Paul, serenity was for accepting what we couldn’t change. Courage for what we could. And wisdom was to know which one was which, the most important part. Remember?” Still as pushy as the last time, I thought.
“Yah, I guess so.”
The Woods --- A Place To Talk And Think
Hannah tugged at the lead, tried to slip between Bartholomew’s legs and barked loudly, very loudly for such a little animal. We all stopped and felt the hush settle in around our shoulders and slide on down our chests and backs, wrap around our legs and hold us still and quiet, as if canonized. They were. I wasn’t.
Not too far from us, in the swampy ground around the pond, on our side, stood a black bear, slowly rising from his normal four point stance to standing attention, one mighty paw rising as if to snap a salute, great dark eyes, unfrightened, piercing each of us, one by one. All in slow motion. No sound. Then, he unfurled and folded back down to his normal way of being a black bear in the Maine woods, gave one look back over his shoulder, in a tossed-off way like a star running back throwing the football up into the stands after scoring a touchdown, and slouched away around the pond. We knew we were guests.
Thomas saw what a doubter can always see, the truth behind the façade, the essence behind the glitter and show, the unspoken word in body language, “It’s OK. We’re OK. He knows we are church, like him. Let’s go around the other side of the pond, find a place to sit and see whether we can put Paul back on the track of Ecclesia semper reformanda – Our ever changing church. I think he’s thinking in terms of years, while we think in centuries. This week is the fifth anniversary of the disclosure of the sexual abuse of minors by some priests and the worse crime, the cover-up by bishops, archbishops and cardinals. Five long, hard years with some success, but still without accountability from bishops, despite Jesus’ comments on great millstones. That’s where the discouragement is. Even wisdom knows that.”
Long speech for the doubter. Most doubters talk more sparsely. As if great doubt led to great effort to great faith and words weren’t important. Deeds were. I thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s great line in that untitled poem I have made my own as the title of my blog: “I say more: the just man justices. ” But didn’t dare speak it aloud. Sounds so much like a courtroom proclamation from the bench that most know what it means, and so avoid it.
When we were settled, and Hannah chose Thomas’ lap for security and comfort, I was bold enough to unclothe my mind. “It’s so hard, friends, so hard to work such hours alone, write so many pieces, and see that nothing changes. The bishops are the same. The pope is worse. Cardinals are an abomination. The disciplines get heavier. Pogroms against the marginalized are commanded and conducted by the inquisitors. Nothing changes. Stuff just gets worse and worse. Makes one think that we just might as well leave them the church to destroy forever. Discouraging? Hell, no, it’s closer to despair.”
Discouragement --- Changing An Ever-Changing Church
“Which bother you the most, Paul? Corruption? Hypocrisy? Absolute Power? Papal Primacy? Stalemate of Silence? Arrogance? Hierarchy? Spiritual Pap? Fear of Women? Expulsion of Gay sheep from the sheepfold?” All this from Thaddeus, the meek one.
“All of them, damn it, all of them. Why do we bother with goons like them? They’re never going to change.” I burst out, in all the confusion and despair built up over five long years. “Why not just start a new church? Of our own?”
Not to be outdone in silence, Simon the Zealot had to bring up politics, “Whose own, Paul? Yours? Or Ratzinger’s? Your centrist friends on the next street who think nothing’s wrong and the bishop’s doing just fine? The flaming liberals in New York who have started TMCs, Third Millennium Catholics, with no apostolic succession?”
And the silence came, the branches of the trees whispering “Hush, hush, hush for a little while, go hush.”
We watched the black bear watching us from the other side of the pond, saw a pair of deer bound through his space, quickly, and then, the moose strode in, stopped, took us all in, pawed the ground with that craggy hoof at the end of a jagged front leg. His antlers loomed as the tallest living thing in the preserve he owned. I looked down at Hannah, who couldn’t see much of anything at all, yet was sitting up in the begging position, taut, alert, front paws moving slowly for balance, tail out straight behind her and stable. We were thinking church.
“Delicate, isn’t it, Thomas?” asked Philip. “We need change now. There is none. Schism won’t work. Never did. Can’t start up a new church without the old one helping on the foundation. Seem to be in a stalemate we never saw in our history before. Right?”
Thomas answered, “You’re right, Philip. So is Paul. These modern times are different than the times before, when all the hierarchy had to do was send out an army to march and conquer, burn down a village, kill all the heretics, or band together into such a strong and impregnable political force, in alliance with emperors and kings, nations and states, that nobody could breach the walls. Our popes had political, temporal power and they used it to the fullest.”
“No way Benedict XVI can do that now,” said Andrew, “even if he wanted to, which I doubt. I don’t think he knows what he wants besides slippers and hats. He’s been a flip-flopper theologically speaking and has such a second class mind that nobody pays much attention to him at all.”
Abolish The College Of Cardinals
“That’s part of the problem, don’t you see,” I broke in, “Nothing can change unless the pope says so and the cardinals agree. And I have a simple solution, just to get things moving. Abolish the College of Cardinals. There are only a relatively few of them, around 130 or so, compared to the almost 5,000 bishops, a little over half of whom run the 2,874 dioceses in the world. ”
“Whoa, there, Buster. Whoa! Who do you think you are? Alittle reverence, some respect, if you please. Why would you want to do that Paul?” asked Simon. “How do we elect popes without them?”
“Same way you did for the first thousand years. The first Conclave was in 1059, A.D. The cardinals elected Pope Nicholas II, ” I said.
Thomas, “I see what Paul sees. The absolute power of Rome cannot be held by one mere man. That’s an impossibility without a military force. The current absolute power in Rome lies in the Curia, the Pope’s Cabinet, if you will, and probably the reason the cardinalate got started in the first place back in the darkness of the Dark Ages.”
He stopped, summoning up his great memory of events some 1,500 years before, and continued, “The leaders of the church were always bishops, nothing higher. But as the bishop of Rome came to rely more and more on certain bishops, the strongest, most reliable ones, he had to bring them out of dioceses and closer to Rome. A bishop has to possess his diocese to be bishop. So, the pope turned them into ersatz bishops, or Titular Bishops, giving each of them a Roman parish church to call home. Then he changed their title to Cardinal a Latin word for "hinge", sort of like opening doors, you see? Still a bishop, but now a step above that highest spot, a bishop very special, very close to and sharing in the power of the pope.”
“Once they got the power, they went on a spending spree,” was the glee from Bartholomew. “Had to have different colors in their gowns, bigger miters on their heads, heavier croziers to whang on the ground to let low laity know they were coming. Scared the stuffing out of little bishops.”
“Ever see their palaces?” was the Zealot’s question. “Where do think Cardinal Law ended up? In the ocean with a great millstone, or a basilica, as resident janitor, with a huge raise in pay. Nothing titular about law, Bernie Law that is.”
Warmed that an apostle saw what I see, I jumped in to add, “ Look, my friends, it is no secret that the Curia is more powerful than the pope and that no pope dares to challenge that power. The real power of the Roman institution is in the hands of the pope working closely and in unison with the cardinals of the curia, even to the extent of ignoring those cardinals outside the curia who are actually heads of super dioceses, like Egan of New York, Mahony of Los Angeles, O’Malley of Boston. We are not dealing with one man. We are up against an extremely powerful group of men who have been there for hundreds of years.”
Simon again, “Well, I’m the politician here. How do you break up a gang like that? Catholics don’t vote for bishops.”
At last, Thaddeus, as always the friendliest of my six friends, found his voice, “Umm, I remember something Peter said just after he began to lead us, after Jesus left. He wanted to spread the teachings of Jesus everywhere, just us, the apostles and the disciples, men and women, unorganized, separate and apart from the religion we grew up in, Judaism, and persecuted by the high priests and that guy Saul of Tarsus. He said, ‘Go and teach. Let God provide.’ And Saul became Paul, worked side by side with Peter, and they founded a church in Rome, where it still is today.”
Encouraged somehow, just by being with them, my people, down to earth laity actually, not a hierarch among the Six, I said, “Story?” On their quizzical nodding of heads, I launched out.
On that Tuesday in April, 2005, when the Cardinal Deacon said, “Habemus Papam,” I waited for the name. “Josephum” told me that Cardinal Ratzinger is Pope. He took for his papal name Benedict XVI.
I ran down the beach, yelling, “Saint Peter! Junia! Saint Paul! Apphia! Hey! Saint Peter! The people who walked with me before you guys showed up.
And the surf rolled in, a quiet tide, the relentless kind that comes and comes to the high-water mark on the sand, stays for a while, then recedes, Twice a day.
I yelled again, “Saint Peeeeeeteeerrrrr!”
The lap of the waves on the sand in the sun.
Slowly, a figure appeared, head bowed, but shoulders straight and firm, stride long and with purpose. He waved. It was you, Saint Thomas, my favorite apostle, you, the Doubting Thomas. And you were alone.
Close to tears, I ran towards you, muttering, “Thomas, Saint Thomas, my friend. Saint Thomas, what, what happened? He was conclaved. Why? Oh! Why? Why was he conclaved? ”
We closed and just stood there in a sacred silence of our own, man to man, eye to eye. As on command and in perfect unison, like in rubrics, we each took a huge and deep breath, air and salt and spray and all.
We smiled.
Our arms came up. First, our hands on the other’s forearms, then to our shoulders and finally all the way around to our backs. And the hug was strong, not a quiver in it, a mutual strength flowing in and out.
It lasted a long time. In silence.
We broke. You gave me that shy smile, coupled with a shrug of your shoulders, and you took my hand and said very, very quietly so quietly the waves went hush,
“I say to you, Paul, what he said to me:"Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."And Thomas, you said to him, “My Lord and my God!"
Going Back Up through the Woods --- a Walking Meditation
Hannah barked again, giving emphasis to the understanding that was growing inside our circle. The black bear had gone. No moose either. Lots of birds, though, gliding through the rays of the setting western sun. We were all pretty tired, and started to gather our things, to walk the long climb back up to our yard, where Jean was putting out scones and tea. I had suggested fish and bread, and she just looked at me.
We didn’t need to talk any more, walked along in silent thought, looking back at each other, these six apostles from the days Jesus walked with them and began what is now the Catholic Church all over the world.
The Six -- Thomas, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Thaddeus, Simon --- never forced, threatened, punished, whipped, killed to make others believe in their message. They simply lived the life Jesus had given them, were, in fact, other Christs, and let their acts speak for their words.
And so should we.
We will read more, think more, pray more, exchange ideas with each other more, give encouragement to those who are down. Let others know when we are down. We will be what we are, a people, a people of God, an assembly, a church for this 21st century.
We will continue to write, to explore the power structure of the Roman institution and, thus, expose it, until there is a crack, which will grow into a fissure, and then a breach in the walls of power. We have looked closely. It is already there.
And a just person will appear to rearrange the power structure into a holy one, a College of Bishops with a Petrine charism linking it to the twelve apostles and Jesus himself.
As Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote,
I say more: The just man justices.
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