The doomed boy could’ve been Udric’s son. Tonight, the dream had him reading in a corner, sunlight spilling through the window and splashing across his blond hair. Udric tried to cry out a warning about the approaching shadow, but he was powerless to intervene, as always.
The boy looked up in terror. The shadow hefted a bloody ax and stepped forward, his face becoming clear. Udric’s face. Clammy hands crumpled sweat-soaked sheets. Udric’s eyes shot open. His heart raced like a mad jackrabbit, each beat spiking pain through his chest. He gasped for air, only to have his breathing disintegrate into a dry, racking cough. Stay calm! Panic will only make it worse. His private hospital room remained sterile, every corner illuminated by incandescent light. No innocent children. No darkness where murderous shadow-impersonators could lurk. Just his bed, a table with his laptop and pills, and a grandfather clock ticking a steady, unstoppable countdown. As reliable as it had been a decade ago when he’d contracted the virus. If only his heart beat with the same precision. Udric banished all thoughts of his recurring nightmare and tried to focus on his future. Three days until the transplant. That’s how long he needed his heart to last. After that he could rejoin the legislative assembly. He could-- A weight settled over him. Udric let out an empty laugh. What was the point of going back to his job as one of Chairman Zell’s toadies? Days spent nodding at every policy enacted by the Emerald Party leader, nights spent tormented by the same phantasms? All while waiting to see which killed him first— his heart troubles, or the virus lying dormant in his lungs? The door creaked open, and Madison entered. Udric scowled to hide the little bit of the weight that lifted. She should let him rest— this wasn’t time for one of his checkups. Was she coming to push her moral code on him again? Madison walked stiffly to his side and looked down. Fear wormed into Udric’s heart. Her face was grim— no trace of her usual quiet joy. “What is it?” Udric snapped. Madison glanced away. “Your old party speeches claimed that you wanted to use your life for good. Was that true?” Udric scoffed. “You realize I could turn you in for harassing a government official with your morals, right?” “Why haven’t you? You’ve mocked my beliefs but you’ve still listened to me.” The answer caught in Udric’s throat. Memories of the epidemic surged before him. Bodies thrown into the streets. Hospitals overflowing. Patients hacking up blood. And a nurse that served rich and poor alike, working tirelessly, pouring compassion on the needy. Because you’re real. Udric shoved the thought aside, as he’d been doing for the past decade, and shrugged. “I need something to amuse me in this depressing place.” Fear crept into Madison’s eyes. “Not because any part of you wants to change?” Udric fell silent. Then, “Why are you bringing this up now?” Madison heaved in a deep breath and withdrew a photograph from her pocket. “Because I need you to make a choice. Right now.” She slammed the picture against Udric’s chest, shaking his bones. Udric coughed— and then looked at the person in the photo. The boy from his dreams. Udric’s heart stopped. For a moment, he thought this was the end— then it quivered back to life, weak and irregular. “The government knows him as Donor 3211.” The ghost of a stifled sob haunted Madison’s words. “He was brought to this facility at six months old. Raised for his heart, a sacrifice so that people like you could extend their lives. His name—” Madison swallowed. “His name is James. My son.” Udric’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “No. Organs come from willing donors. The government can’t just—” Madison clenched a fist. “You’ve worked for the Emerald Party your entire life. How reliable is their propaganda?” “What do you expect me to do?” Udric threw up a hand, knowing the answer, refusing to acknowledge it. Madison was silent. The clock kept ticking. “He—” Udric forced the words out. “He has my heart.” A tear slid down Madison’s cheek. “They kill him in three days. I— I can get him out. I need your access card to infiltrate the facility’s lower levels.” The clock kept ticking. Three days. One of them had to die. The donor— no, the boy. Madison’s son. Or Udric. The nightmare had become reality, but with one critical, terrifying difference. Udric pushed it aside, but it assaulted his mind again with greater strength. He was not powerless. He could stop that axe from falling. No— he could direct it toward himself. A meaningless life, stolen from that boy. Or a good death, allowing James to live. Udric reached a trembling hand into his back pocket and withdrew his access card. “Take it. Before I change my mind.” Madison froze. Then wonder bloomed on her face, and she bent down and embraced Udric. Strength flooded into him, strength to do what he’d spent his whole life avoiding thinking about—strength to face his own end. “Thank you,” Madison whispered. “James and I will always remember you.” She broke away, hope dancing in her eyes, and turned to leave. “Wait,” Udric said. “Hand me my laptop. I’m not dead yet.” Madison hesitated, then gave him the device. Udric opened it and began to compose an email addressed to the Assembly, calling for an investigation into Chairman Zell’s authorization of illegal organ harvesting. Udric nodded toward Madison. “I’ll do everything I can to make sure James is the last child taken.” Madison beamed, then hurried out, clutching the access card as if it were life itself. Udric hit send. This would get him dismissed from the Assembly, maybe even arrested on trumped-up charges, but what did it matter? At last, he was free. The clock kept ticking. Udric turned to face it. The End
0 Comments
Oddball, Kentucky. Population: 1,755 souls, and who-knows-how-many monsters. I kill the engine on my battered pickup and grab my rifle. “You got your deodorant on?” Alat nods, then hesitates. “Sure we should be doing this? “Saving innocent townsfolk from terrible beasts?” “That’s a job for the national guard, not traveling salesmen!” I sigh. “I hate to break it to you, son, but our new product line ain’t doing so hot. Without some more investment, we’re broke.” Alat glances at the aerosol spray cans piled in the back—my life savings, gambled on the invention of a crazy hermit. “Maybe we should cut our losses.” I pat his shoulder. “There’s always hope, son. Besides, you think Loula May is cute, don’t you?” Alat chokes at the mention of the Oddball mayor’s daughter. “No! She’s just—” “What?” Alat throws up his hands. “Kind and caring and wonderful in every way, except the ways that are relevant to our situation!” “She’ll look at you differently once you save her from the wolf-squids.” I open the door. “Sally forth!” Alat groans, but he sneaks after me toward the town square. Howls echo in the distance, followed by the slapping of tentacles. My bowels gurgle. Three cans of refried beans before a critical mission wasn’t the best idea, but it was the only food we had. The homes we pass are locked tight—no sign of the evil beasties that terrorize the citizens of Oddball every night. Perhaps they heard us coming and fled. Alat cries out. My gaze follows his pointing finger—straight to the mayor’s house. The busted door to the rear entrance swings crazily on its hinges, and an inhuman shape slinks inside. I charge. A wolf-squid leaps from the shadows and blocks the doorway with a snarl. I fire my rifle, but the beast’s super-fast tentacles whip out and deflect the shot. Something crashes inside the house. A woman’s voice calls for help. “Loula May!” Alat draws his own weapon, a cavalry sword passed down from my grandfather. The wolf-squid leaps. Alat raises his blade and slices through the tentacles as the beast crashes into him and knocks him to the asphalt. Adrenaline surges through my old bones. I leap toward Alat’s prone form. The wolf-squid opens its jaws over my son’s throat. At that moment, my dinner comes due, and the stinkiest fart ever to haunt the streets of Oddball erupts from my behind. The wolf-squid freezes, then whimpers. Its head whips about wildly moments before my rifle hits it. The beast recoils, then screams as Alat stabs it through the heart. I remember one of the legends whispered around Oddball fireplaces late at night— wolf-squids hunt by scent. I have never been more grateful for gastrointestinal distress. I help Alat heave the dying wolf-squid off his chest, then pull him to his feet. “Good work, son. Now let’s go save your girl.” “She’s not my—” A scream. Alat darts forward, and I follow. Loula May wields an oak-handled mop at the entrance to the mayor’s kitchen, standing alone against the wolf-squid crouching in the hall. Tentacle slime makes her weapon glisten as brightly as the legendary sword of King Arthur. I raise my rifle; Alat raises his sword. But before we can strike, Loula May smacks the wolf-squid over the head with her mop. The beast squeals, then turns tail and flees. Loula May turns toward us, half her face aglow with moonlight. She locks eyes with Alat, and they stare silently for a moment. I smile. My son has found true love. “So, we’re, um, trying to save your town.” Alat scratches his head awkwardly. Loula May smiles. “That’s very kind.” “But we have ulterior motives!” Alat blurts. “We, uh, need your father to invest in our business selling Friend Repellant.” I groan. Didn’t that boy learn anything from my stories of how I wooed his mother? Loula May cocks her head. “Really?” “Yeah!” Alat flushes. “It’s not like I cared about saving you or anything, it’s just… we gotta make a profit, you know? So Dad can repay his business loans.” “As you might’ve guessed, my father sleeps like a rock.” Loula May gestures toward the busted doorway. “But you can pitch your business to him in the morning.” I lean against the wall, breathing heavily. Not since Alat’s birth have I had this much excitement crammed into one night. A cacophony of howls echoes in the distance. Loula May tenses. “They’re coming. Help me drag the table out of the kitchen and barricade the door.” “Wait.” Alat touches her shoulder. “If they broke down the door to get in here, that means they’re hungry. If we keep them out of your house, they’ll just hunt down some other innocent victim. We need to stop them for good.” Loula May steps back. Sorrow eclipses her features. “Father tried for years. But no matter how many wolf-squids we killed, more came. All you can do is lock your doors tight and hope they don’t come for you. I learned that the hard way. Everyone in Oddball did.” Alat clenches his fist. More howls, followed by the slapping of tentacles on asphalt. I creep toward the doorway and glance across the town square. Dozens of wolf-squids slink down the street, eyes glowing with bestial hunger. “She’s right, son,” I whisper. “We can’t survive this many. Unless—” The answer dawns on me. There’s one way out— the only way, as sure as Highway 42 is the only way out of Oddball. “Unless we use our product.” “No,” Alat says. “You have to sell that.” “I’ll get it out of the truck,” I say. “You stay here and protect Loula May.” “You can’t go to debtor’s prison, Dad,” Alat stiffens. “Get the truck and get out of here. Find the customers you’ve always dreamed of. I’ll rally the townsfolk. If we stand together, we can—” I grab Alat in a suffocating embrace. “I’m so proud of you.” Then, before he can object, I shove my rifle into his hands and rush into the streets. I creep past the square. Alat fires into the mass of wolf-squids gathering across the street. As one, the pack lets out a spine-chilling howl and charges toward the mayor’s house. The beasties are distracted enough that they won’t notice me unless I fart again. Now, Alat’s fate rests on whether I can retrieve the product before he’s overwhelmed. I reach the truck and throw open the tailgate. Over six hundred cans of Friend Repellant— a truly unique product with no competitors. I know each one of these compressed canisters by heart, having pitched them at sales exhibitions across the country. Today, I’ll finally turn my first profit: 1,755 innocent lives. I throw the key in the ignition and turn it. The engine sputters, then dies. Come on! A second try— and my truck roars to life. I send several trash cans flying as I race through the deserted streets. By now, the avenue leading into the square is so packed with wolf-squids that I can’t see the road. I floor it, hoping to ram through as many as possible, but my tires lose traction on the tentacle slime. The truck spins out of control, hurling me out of my seat. My head cracks against the passenger-side door— then all is still. I groan. A thin trickle of blood runs down my cheek. The window shatters. Tentacles grope at my head. I jerk backward, heart pounding. The wolf-squid shoves its maw into my truck. I fumble in the back seat and manage to grab a canister of Friend Repellant. A tentacle wraps around my arm. I pull the trigger. Aerosolized particles fill the truck cab with a scent orders of magnitude more dreadful than my worst fart. I forget to hold my breath at first, and my nostrils suffer the consequences. The wolf-squid freezes for a moment— then screams. It scrambles backward into the road and runs in circles blindly. I heave open the door, spraying a cloud of Friend Repellant. The other wolf-squids try to flee, but with their dominant sense overwhelmed, most of them stumble into a wall, or tear each other apart in their panic. I grab two fresh cans, reading the flavor labels: Skunk Juice and Rotten Pumpkin. Then I stride forward, wolf-squids parting before me like the Red Sea before Moses. Alat battles heroically across the square. Dead and dying wolf-squids surround him on all sides— but I see the weariness creeping across his face, and a wound mars his shoulder. As his last foe turns tail, he meets my eyes. I smile, and Alat nods in relief. Then he breathes in-- and crumples to the ground, gagging. Loula May beats a hasty retreat inside. A moment later, she re-emerges with a clothespin clamped over her nose. She tosses one to Alat, and another to me. I repay her with a can of Friend Repellant. We spray the entire square while the remaining wolf-squids hobble about randomly. Loula May helps them find their way out of town with a few stout whacks from her mop. For now, at least, Oddball is free of those monsters. Loula May and Alat stand side-by-side, faces flush with triumph and noses pinched. They turn toward each other, making eye contact for a few precious moments. Loula May bursts into a fit of giggles. “Sorry,” she says. “It’s hard to take you seriously with a clothespin on your nose.” Alat chuckles, then walks toward me. “I, uh, guess we’d better get going now. We can’t be late for the next entrepreneurs’ conference. You still have some of the product left. Maybe if we get an investor—” I drink in the sight of the strong young man he’s become, thanking God for his loyalty to me. But I see him cast a final, furtive glance at Loula May, and I know what I have to do. I shake my head. “No. Stay here. Build a life. Don’t be hampered by my foolish ambitions.” “Excuse me,” Loula May says, holding up her canister of Friend Repellant. “This is what you’re trying to sell?” I nod. Loula May laughs. She produces a pen, scratches out ‘friend’, and writes ‘wolf-squid’. “You don’t need investment! Brand it like that, and I can get you 1,755 eager customers.” The End My rhetoric professor, Dr. Carolyn Weber, knows poetry. Oodles and oodles of poetry that she’s memorized and can recite at the drop of a hat. And she’s inspired me to start memorizing poems myself.
One of these poems is a short, profound work by George Herbert that I want to share with you today. It goes like this. The Pulley When God at first made man Having a glass of blessings standing by “Let us,” said he, “Pour on him all we can. Let all the world’s gifts, which dispersed lie Contract into a span.” So strength first made a way, Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honor, pleasure. When almost all was out, God made a stay, Perceiving that, alone of all his treasure, Rest in the bottom lay. “For if I should,” said he, “Bestow this jewel also on my creature, He’d adore my gifts instead of me, And rest in nature, not the God of nature, So both should losers be.” “Let him keep the rest, But keep with them repining restlessness, Let him be rich and weary, that at least, If goodness lead him not, then weariness May toss him on my breast.” One of the really fascinating things about this poem is its title. The Pulley— what does a simple machine have to do with rest and blessing and all that? I think the title is, in fact, a reference to God. A pulley is device that redirects force, which is precisely what God does in the poem. He takes the strivings of mankind and turns it toward Himself. All the energy that people pour into chasing after wealth or pleasure or honor, temporary things that can never satisfy the desires of their heart— this energy is not wasted. It would be, if we were left to our own devices. All our efforts would spill out and fade away. But God does not abandon us as we pursue our myopic goals. My moral philosophy class just finished discussing Augustine’s Confessions. In that book, Augustine laments all the time he spent looking for satisfaction away from God, but he also realizes that each lesser good he chased after turned out to be a tool used by God to draw him to Himself. The force of young Augustine’s passions and desires went one direction; God captured that force and turned it to a better direction. Seeing how God works as a pulley encourages me in my own Christian walk. I am not smart enough to figure out how best to use my time and energy. The world is vast. Who knows what the far-rippling consequences of my actions will be? I don’t, but I don’t need to know, because God does. If I strive to love my friends and neighbors, God will take that striving and use it to further His kingdom. When I serve others, do I do so because I love them with the pure of love of Christ, or because I am seeking to be praised? The answer is yes. But it is better to love imperfectly and trust God to redeem my impure motives than to not love at all. This is the lesson I learn from ‘The Pulley’— that has God has lavished abundant gifts upon his creatures, and that as we attempt to use those gifts well, we will fail. But our failure is the beginning, not the end. While we seek after God in our weak and faltering way, God is seeking for us in His strong and unyielding way. Living a fruitful Christian life does not rely on our foresight so much as it relies our Lord. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6). Five years ago, I read Homer’s Odyssey for the first time and hated the main character. I couldn’t get over Odysseus’s infidelity, especially contrasted with the unwavering love of his wife, Penelope. Sure, ancient Greek culture had different standards of morality, but that didn’t mean I had to be happy with Homer letting his hero have (on the surface) consequence-free affairs with goddesses. I returned to the Odyssey this year for my Moral Philosophy class. And this time, I appreciated it a lot more— not only in spite of the way Homer handles Odysseus’s bad choices, but because of it. As I read more closely, I noticed a deep significance to the events on Calypso’s and Circe’s islands. Odysseus’s character is more layered and complex than I’d realized! We first meet him on the island of Calypso, a goddess who offers immortality, safety and endless pleasure— if only he’ll stay on the island forever as her husband. Although Odysseus recognizes the attractiveness of the offer, he says “even so, I want to go back home, and every day I hope that day will come.” Odysseus desires his homeland, his wife, his son: Ithaca, Penelope, Telemachus. His desire runs so deep that he turns down an opportunity to join the ranks of the gods. And yet, this desire has not always been so strong. Earlier on his journey, Odysseus makes a brief stop on the island of another woman, Circe— a brief stop that morphs into a year-long love affair. Only at the prompting of his men does he finally leave her and resume the journey home. While with Circe, it seems that Odysseus has forgotten any love he might have once had for his home and his family and is content to linger, perhaps forever. But later, on Calypso’s island, Odysseus encounters an even stronger temptation: all the pleasures of Circe, with immortality to boot. But this time, he rejects it, taking the course he knows will lead to pain and eventual death. What changed? Asking this question doubled or tripled my ability to enjoy the Odyssey. Once I realized that the contrast between the two islands was a deliberate choice on Homer’s part, I sifted through the poem for an explanation. Here’s the answer I found: In between Circe and Calypso, Odysseus has an earth-shattering epiphany, one that reignites the fires of his love for Penelope and makes him determined to get home. This revelation takes place during a strange and seemingly pointless detour along his way: Odysseus’s journey to the land of the dead. When Homer recounts Odysseus’s time among the dead, he gives little insight into his hero’s inner thoughts. And yet, he sows his poem with clues about the crucial nature of the incident. When Odysseus’s men convince him that it’s time to leave the isle, Circe says “you need not remain here in my house against your will. But first you must complete another journey. Go to the house of Hades and the dreadful Persephone, and ask the Theban prophet, the blind Tiresias, for his advice.” Odysseus obeys her, but this detour raises a question: why does he have to go to the land of the dead? Once he returns, Circe gives him instructions on how to get back to Ithaca without any reference to the dead. Couldn’t she give those instructions and send Odysseus homeward immediately? Indeed she could, but she knows a deeper truth: if Odysseus does not go the dead, he will never make it home— not because he cannot return, but because he will not. He spent a year with Circe, a year during which he could’ve left at any time with a full crew and an excellent ship. This Odysseus is not the kind of man who would choose to leave Calypso’s island alone on a shoddy raft. For Odysseus to pass by the remaining obstacles barring him from Ithaca, he does not need new ability— he needs renewed desire. Later, during the final phase of his journey home, Odysseus will tell his story to his Phaeacian hosts using a structure that emphasizes his experience in the land of the dead and shows how it changed him. The structure is called chiasmus, and it consists of having the front half and back half of a story reflect each other, the events in the back paralleling the ones in the front, only in reverse order. At the center of the chiasmus is the key turning point, the event that marks the biggest change in the story. Odysseus makes the center of his chiasmus the land of the dead. After his experience among the dead, he encounters a series of challenges that reflect those he encountered earlier— but he reacts to them differently. The most obvious parallel lies in the two visits to Circe’s island that bookend the journey to the land of the dead. Pre-dead, he meets Circe and stays for a year; post-dead, he’s reluctant to stay even a day, and only agrees to remain that long because he needs to hear Circe’s instructions and his men need to refresh their strength. “I am a stubborn man,” he tells his Phaeacian audience. After the land of the dead, this stubbornness manifests itself as a revived yearning for home, one that goads Odysseus onward throughout the rest of his journey. Two other parallels illustrate Odysseus’s transformation: the temptation of the lotus eaters vs. the temptation of the sirens, and Cyclops vs. Scylla. Homer masterfully weaves in other parallels, but addressing them is beyond the scope of this essay. Let us first explore how the chiastic structure of the poem reveals Odysseus’s newfound determination to get home; then, we shall focus on the land of the dead to understand how that determination is reborn. The island of the Lotus-Eaters represents one of the earliest temptations that threatens to draw Odysseus away from his homeward course— as well as one of the weakest. After Odysseus’s men partake of the lotus, Odysseus recounts that “they wanted only to stay there, feeding on lotus with the Lotus-Eaters. They had forgotten home.” The Lotus-Eaters offer freedom in its crudest form— freedom from all memories of home, and thus from all desire and obligation to go back. Take the lotus, and you no longer have the grief, loneliness and fear that come from homesickness. You have everything you want right in front of you, as long as let you the isle of the luscious lotus become your new home. At its core, this temptation is the same one Odysseus begins to succumb to on Circe’s island. But it has not yet reached that sophisticated later form. For now, Odysseus is wise enough to see right through it. He says of his lotus-eating men, “I dragged them back in tears, forced them on board the hollow ships, pushed them below the decks, and tied them up.” Odysseus’s wisdom is enough to save his men, even against their will. This proves vital, for they will later save him, even against his will. The temptation of the sirens is in many ways the opposite of the temptation of the Lotus-Eaters— knowledge instead of forgetfulness. The sirens call to Odysseus, saying “All who pass this way hear honeyed song, poured from our moths. The music brings them joy, and they go on their way with greater knowledge, since we know everything.” The knowledge of the sirens is truly godlike, and something that no living man can claim to possess. Their offer tempts Odysseus greatly. While his men plug their ears so as to pass by safely, Odysseus himself listens, and finds himself enthralled. “Their song was so melodious,” he says. “I longed to listen more.” But even as the sirens exert their hold over him, his desire for his home determines his course. For Odysseus has been warned of the siren’s song by Circe, and taken steps to prevent it from leading him astray: he is tied to the mast, with his men under orders not to free him until they are past the sirens, no matter how hard he begs them. With the Lotus-Eaters, Odysseus tied up his men to allow them a chance at getting home; now, he allows his men to tie him up. In recognizing his weakness and inability to control himself when presented with the temptation of the sirens, Odysseus shows that his desire for home exceeds his desire for personal glory. This, too, contrasts sharply with an earlier episode— the encounter with the cyclops, in which Odysseus’s yearning for glory nearly stopped him from ever returning to Ithaca. The cyclops parallels the monster Scylla. Both eat six of Odysseus’s men, and in both cases Odysseus wonders if he can overcome them by force. But Odysseus demonstrates drastically different attitudes toward these two foes. He overcomes the cyclops with trickery, and can’t help but make his cleverness known. After poking out the cyclop’s eye and stirring him into a rage with taunting, he reveals his true identity: “Cyclops! If any mortal asks you how your eye was mutilated and made blind, say that Odysseus, the city-sacker, Laerte’s son, who lives in Ithaca, destroyed your sight.” At this point, the journey home has just begun. Part of Odysseus’s soul still lingers on the battlefields of Troy, where warriors fought for glory and the greatest thing a man could hope for was to make his deeds known. But Troy is sacked and the war is done. The time has come for Odysseus to bring order to Ithaca, not glory to himself. Odysseus pays the price for his boasting: now that he knows the identity of his attacker, the cyclops calls upon Poseidon to block his way home. This is the real beginning of Odysseus’s troubles. Odysseus has to cross the sea to get to Ithaca, and since Poseidon is the god of the sea, he’s the worst enemy Odysseus could possibly have. Many trials and temptations pass before Odysseus must face the cyclop’s parallel, the six-headed monster Scylla. But this time, a desire for glory and deeds of renown has no place— not when considered alongside Odysseus’s dogged determination to return home. The warrior-spirit hasn’t left Odysseus, as is evident when he asks Circe if he can defeat Scylla rather than letting her eat his men. But Circe’s reply puts that spirit in its place: “No, you fool! Your mind is still obsessed with deeds of war. But now you must surrender to the gods.” Odysseus accepts Circe’s rebuke. He realizes that he is no longer at Troy, that winning glory is no longer his primary goal. After losing six of his strongest men to Scylla, he says “That was the most heartrending sight I saw in all the time I suffered on the sea.” Yet he does not weep. Odysseus grieves his men, but he refuses to let it distract him from his course. His mind is fixed. Glory and grieving alike pale in importance next to his impending arrival at Ithaca. Odysseus has changed. His spirit is reoriented toward Ithaca, his desires stoked into a fire that propels him ever homeward. Even once he has lost his ship and all his men, he longs to get home, longs for it more than the everlasting life and pleasure of Calypso’s island. At last, we have reached the final question of this essay: how was this desire formed? What happened in the land of the dead that so changed Homer’s wandering hero? Odysseus goes to the land of the dead to hear a prophesy from Tiresias. But when he retells the story, he emphasizes the other spirits whom he speaks too— specifically, the spirits of women. Odysseus names no less than fifteen women who speak to him in the land of the dead, and goes on to say “I cannot name each famous wife and daughter I saw there; holy night would pass away before I finished.” In fact, he originally ends his story of the dead with these women, and only at his host’s insistence does he tell of the men who spoke to him. Clearly these women make an impression on Odysseus. In fact, they are the reason behind his final, irrevocable decision to go home. Meeting these women among the dead snaps Odysseus out of his own form of deadness, a deadness toward Penelope and Telemachus, a deadness that, as we shall see, robs him of truly living even while he yet breathes. The first female spirit to speak to Odysseus is that of his own mother. The sight of her shocks Odysseus as if he’d taken a spear-thrust, for he did not know that his mother had died. The reason behind her death drives the spear in deeper, for it makes clear that Odysseus’s absence has had irrevocable costs— costs he could easily have set aside during those ten long years at Troy. “It was missing you, Odysseus, my sunshine; your sharp mind and your kind heart,” his mother says. “That took sweet life from me.” Until now, Odysseus has been well-supplied with plausible justifications for remaining on Circe’s island. Ten years is a long time; ten years of brutal warfare, longer. He deserves some rest. Besides, Penelope has begun to fade from his mind, and Telemachus is a stranger to him. Who knows if Penelope even cares about him after so long? Perhaps she’s taken a new husband. But his mother’s revelation changes all that. Ithaca, so long consigned to dusty corners of his mind, bursts into the light. He cannot escape the truth: his home needs him, and suffers in his absence. More ghosts follow, and they all have one thing in common: they are “the daughters and wives of warriors.” As they tell their stories, another common thread emerges. Most of these women had poor relationships with their husbands in life, and most of them met tragic ends. Some, like Iphimedeia and Tyro, have affairs with gods. Their children are powerful— but never know their fathers. As he listens, Odysseus could not help but be reminded of one of who would one day join their ranks: Penelope. She, too, is the wife of a great warrior; she, too, is separated from her husband; she, too, has a son who has never known a father. The stories told by the ghostly wives raise a single, burning question: which story will Penelope tell? Although he has not seen his wife for over a decade, Odysseus receives one small hint about the answer to that question. He asks his mother, “tell me what my wife is thinking, and her plans. Does she stay with our son and focus on his care, or has the best of the Achaeans married her?” Odysseus seems to consider Penelope’s faithfulness no greater than his own. He believes she could have taken the easy path— the path of remarriage to a wealthy and powerful suitor. Given her husband’s willingness to linger a year in the arms of another woman, it would be hard to hold such a decision against her. But his mother’s answer reveals a far different reality: “She stays firm. Her heart is strong. She is still in your house. And all her nights are passed in misery, and days in tears. But no one has usurped your throne.” Penelope’s faithfulness to Odysseus outstrips Odysseus’s faithfulness to her. In the face of mounting pressure and dwindling hope, Penelope still looks out for her husband, shaping her every action around the belief that he’s alive and that he will return to her. Suddenly, the stakes are clearer than ever before. If Odysseus fails to return, he betrays Penelope’s love and kill the hope she’s nourished for so long. Love is what drives Odysseus ever onward toward home. Love is what he finds on Ithaca that he finds nowhere else along the journey— the newly-awakened love given him by Telemachus, the patient love from his loyal servants, the grief-stricken love of his father, and above all the unyielding love burning bright within Penelope. And how does he know Penelope loves him? Because she’s willing to suffer for him. The spirit of Odysseus’s mother emphasizes Penelope’s tears, tears she sheds every day. Penelope’s willingness to continue suffering for Odysseus’s sake earns her praise throughout the poem. For twenty year she waits, holding out against pressure to remarry, and for twenty years she offers love to Odysseus that Calypso could never match. This is why Odysseus admits that, on the surface, Calypso’s island has more attraction than Ithaca— and chooses to go back to Ithaca anyway. Calypso cannot show love for Odysseus because she cannot suffer for him. Her island is so abundant that even another god is amazed when he sees it. In the midst of all this luxury, Odysseus can never be more than a trophy to her. She saves him from the sea and provides him everything his flesh could desire— at no cost to herself. She is beautiful and powerful, and yet Penelope— a weak, mortal woman— makes her jealous. She tries to brush her off, saying to Odysseus, “If you understood how glutted you would be with suffering before you reach your home, you would stay here with me and be immortal—though you might still wish to see that wife you always pine for.” Despite seven years of working her wiles, Calypso cannot dethrone Penelope from her place in Odysseus’s mind and heart. In the land of the dead, Odysseus discovers an unforeseen depth to Penelope’s love. It burns itself into his mind, he cannot escape it. The knowledge of that love prevents him from making his home in any of his stops before Ithaca. Although he finds himself overwhelmed at times, he cannot rest until he returns to Ithaca and makes right everything that’s gone wrong in his absence. Over the summer, I watched a movie called Patterson. The title is very appropriate— it’s about a bus driver named Patterson, who lives in the town of Patterson, whose favorite poet wrote a poem called ‘Patterson’. Patterson the bus driver writes poetry himself, and his poetry is simple yet sublime. The words he scribbles in his notebook sound as natural as if he was merely talking to himself, while conveying a vast depth of feeing beneath his calm exterior.
The film left its mark on my mind, and pretty soon I found myself thinking of poetic ways to describe the world around me. Sometimes poems sprang to me unbidden, and I scribbled them in my own little brown notebook. One of these poems tells of the little creek behind my condo complex, and the transformation it experiences during a rainstorm. This is the one I want to share with you today. Is it a terrible poem? Maybe! I haven’t delved deep enough into the art of poetry to know for sure. But I enjoyed writing it, so that gives me hope that you’ll enjoy reading it. Here you go: The Creek I crossed the creek with bare dry feet Before the rain began last week Then clouds called out from the sky Waters roared with answering cry And for one flooded, frenzied hour My sweet still creek surged with power Burst its banks and broke its bonds Sweeping soil toward the pond But past the firmament’s full furor It once again took up its murmur The sky is blue, the storm is done My creek still frolics beneath the sun The prophet Elijah really liked fire. When soldiers came to take him to the king, he called fire from heaven to consume them (2 Kings 1:9-15). When he faced down the 450 prophets of Baal, he gravitated toward fire as the most obvious sign to determine which of the two gods was truly God (1 Kings 22-24). And in the end, he couldn’t even die normally— God had to send chariots of fire to escort him into heaven (2 Kings 2:11). All this fire surrounding Elijah reflected the fiery spirit on the inside. When we first meet him, he’s face-to-face with most evil king Israel has ever known, declaring that a drought will come as punishment for his crimes. Elijah’s zeal for God drives him to confront idolatry and injustice wherever he sees it, even in places that could endanger his life. And yet, after Elijah declares the drought, God sends him away. I imagine that such a zealous personality would’ve preferred to stay in Jezreel, where he could continue to warn against evil. But Elijah obeys the word of the Lord. He leaves civilization for the side of a brook in the wilderness, where ravens bring him food to eat (1 Kings 17:3-7). I suspect this was a divine cool-down time. Perhaps God knew that Elijah, after stoking his fires in a high-stakes confrontation with an evil king, needs time to rest. Or maybe Elijah just needs a place to hide because Ahab wants to kill him. Either way, he can’t stay long. The brook might be a prime vacation spot in ordinary times, but Elijah just called in a drought, and pretty soon he’s left sitting by a dusty riverbed. Fortunately, God has a new assignment for him: “Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. Behold, I have commanded a widow there to feed you” (17:9). Here’s a weird detail: Elijah is traveling out of the country. Sidon isn’t part of Israel— it’s a pagan nation, one that the prophet Isaiah will denounce for its wickedness hundreds of years later (Isaiah 23). But that’s not the weirdest part. The weirdest part is that God expects Elijah to get food from a widow— one of the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. The last thing any widow needs is a random prophet showing up and eating her food. An extra mouth to feed would be a burden even in times of plenty. But now… Elijah finds the widow— but he also finds a desperate situation. The widow makes an impressive sacrifice when he asks for water. Despite the drought, she’s immediately willing to give this stranger a drink. But when he asks for a morsel of bread, the widow replies, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die” (17:12). The first words out of the widow’s mouth parallel the first words we ever hear from Elijah: “as the Lord your God lives.” This must come as both a surprise and an encouragement to Elijah. He’s just been among the Israelites, God’s chosen people, and witnessed how they’ve abandoned the God who loves them and forgotten everything God calls them to be. Then he leaves for a pagan nation steeped in idols and oppression— and he finds a destitute widow who calls on the name of the Lord. God isn’t working in the halls of power. King Ahab rejects him and seeks only to fulfill his own lusts. But God is working among the weak and broken, and there’s a widow who invokes his name even as she prepares to die. But there’s a deeper significance to the parallel between the words of Elijah and the words of the widow. Elijah says to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel lives, there shall be neither dew nor rain” (17:1). The widow says to Elijah, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing.” Why does the widow have nothing? Because there’s a drought. Why is there a drought? Because of Elijah’s pronouncement to Ahab. As I explored in my last post, Elijah invoked God’s promise to punish evil in Israel. Elijah yearns to see righteousness, and he knows that God will be faithful to carry out his words in Deuteronomy 11:17. I think that, amid all his zeal, Elijah missed something. I think he was so on fire for justice and the honor of God that he forgot to ask an important question. He forgot to ask why God hadn’t sent the drought already. This widow is God’s answer to that question. The problem with shutting up the heavens is that it doesn’t just harm evildoers. Wicked and righteous alike need food, and without rain, neither of them is going to have an easy time getting it. By sending Elijah to this widow, God reminds him that he cares for widows, for orphans, for the oppressed. He reminds Elijah that there’s more at stake than Elijah can see. God miraculously provides for the widow. That little bit of flour and oil that she was going to bake and eat right before she died— that wildly insufficient portion lasts the entire drought, providing enough for the widow, her son, and Elijah (17:13-16). In confronting Ahab, Elijah gave all Israel a reminder of God's justice. Now, he receives a reminder of God's mercy. Three years pass before God sends Elijah to confront Ahab once more. Three years in which he presumably stays with the widow and, as far as the Biblical text records, doesn't make any great prophetic pronouncements. There's one intense moment where he raises the widow's son from the dead (17:17-24), but other than that, Elijah simply waits for God. I don't know Elijah's thoughts during this time, but I suspect he's growing restless. Ahab still rules Israel. Idolatry rages. Jezebel kills any faithful servant of God she can get her hands on (18:4). Surely Elijah aches to do something about the injustice running rampant among his people. But what if this period of waiting is exactly where God wants Elijah? What if simply witnessing God's faithfulness day after day is the most important work the prophet could be doing? What if all Elijah needs to learn is to receive the flour and oil that keeps him alive? In that case, it seems that Elijah's walk with God would not be too different from that of an ordinary Christian. Intense fiery ordeals at times-- but for the most part watching, and waiting, and receiving reminders of God's steadfast love and mercy. The letter of James ends with an apparently absurd description of prayer:
“Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain in the earth. Then he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit” (James 5:16-18). Elijah prays that the rain would stop, and the rain stops. He prays that rain would return, and the rain returns. James makes clear that Elijah isn’t a special case— rather, he has ‘a nature like ours’. Which means that every Christian who reads James’ letter should expect their prayers to wield the same kind of power as Elijah’s. Except that’s not how prayer works, and James’ persecuted 1st-century audience knew it. Maybe some early Christians wished they could control the weather through prayer. That would’ve been a convenient way to stop the Roman Empire from killing their friends and family. But it’s not that simple. So what is James talking about here? The reference to Elijah isn’t just an isolated example of the power of prayer. Instead, it references the broader context of Elijah’s story— a story intimately familiar to first-century Jews. To understand the point James makes in his letter, we need to go back to Elijah’s first appearance in the Old Testament. ”Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years except by my word” (1 Kings 17:1). Notice that this verse gives us no reason to assume Elijah that is relaying a message from God. He warns that a drought is as certain as the fact that the God of Israel lives (pretty darn certain), but he doesn’t say “God told me to tell you this.” The text isn’t shy about telling us when God speaks directly. The very next verse reads, “And the word of the Lord came to him: Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan” (17:2-3). God tells Elijah where to hide after confronting Ahab, but he doesn’t tell Elijah to confront Ahab in the first place. So what makes Elijah so certain? How does he know this drought is coming? To answer that question, we need to go even further back in biblical history. Because Elijah is a prophet— a fiery prophet devoted to God with all his whole being. I imagine that this dedicated, passionate servant of God has spent a good deal of time studying the words of God, particularly the Mosaic law given at Mt. Sinai. And in his studies he likely came across this passage: “If you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full” (Deuteronomy 11:13-15). That’s the first half of the promise in this passage— blessings for obedience. But there’s a flip side: “Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you” (16-17, emphasis added). Back to Elijah. Remember, he doesn’t deliver the warning of a drought to Israel in general. He delivers it to the king. And not just any king— Ahab, who “did evil in the sight of the lord, more than all who where before him” (1 Kings 16:30). Ahab has led all of Israel into idol worship. He’s done everything he could to break the covenant between Israel and Yahweh. He’s killed any who remain faithful to Yahweh, so much so that at one point Elijah thinks he’s the only survivor (19:14). If the warnings of Deuteronomy were meant for any king, they were meant for Ahab. When Elijah warns Ahab about the drought, he’s not trying to control the weather through prayer. He’s not making up his own plan to deal with the evil king and expecting God to go along with it. Instead, he’s calling on God to fulfill a promise he made hundreds of years ago. Elijah sees the evil of King Ahab. And he knows that God promised not to let such evil go unchecked. So he makes a bold move based off the utter trustworthiness of God, and he invokes the promise in Deuteronomy. The prayer of Elijah isn’t “God, I want it to stop raining, so please make it stop raining.” It’s “God, you made this promise, and I know you are always faithful, so I know that you will fulfill it.” That’s the prayer James is talking about when he references Elijah in his letter. The prayer of righteous person isn’t effective because we can pray for whatever we want and get it. It’s effective because God loves his children, and always, always fulfills the promises he’s given them. Elijah’s confrontation with Ahab displays a gutsy faith that’s based on an intimate personal relationship. Elijah doesn’t just know that God keeps his promises. He expects it, demands it, because anything less would be out of character for the God he knows and loves. God honors Elijah’s faith. The heavens are shut up. Israel receives no rain for three and a half years. But Elijah’s story isn’t over yet. He loves God, and he’s full of zeal for righteousness. He longs to see good triumph over evil in the land of Israel. But I think he’s missing something— something that explains why God didn’t send the drought earlier. After all, Ahab’s been doing evil for a while by the time Elijah comes to him. And he’s not unique. Rather, he’s the latest installment in a whole dynasty of evil kings, kings that have been building idols and murdering each other ever since the reign of Jeroboam. Generation after generation of ruler has given God more than enough reason to put the curses of Deuteronomy into action. But God waited. Waited until one of his servants invoked the promise. And as soon as it begins, God sends that servant away. Elijah leaves the evil king, leaves the halls of power. He leaves all the places where idolatry and corruption need denouncing. He leaves, I suspect, because God wants him to learn an important lesson. But that lesson is the subject of another post. I said I was done with Marvel, but it’s kind of hard to avoid these days. I ended up watching Loki over the summer because my sister asked me too. (Overall, I wouldn’t recommend it. The characters were interesting, but fell flat in the end because the entire final episode was devoted to setting up the second season instead of giving any sort of resolution.) But this isn’t about Loki. It’s about the movie I saw in the theatre yesterday, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Before you get on my case for repeatedly backsliding after swearing off the franchise, let me explain: I didn’t watch it because I wanted to watch Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I watched it because half the students at my school all planned to watch it together, and I wanted to spend time with my friends. Marvel merely served as a tool for the greater good, not as an end in itself. That being said, if you want to watch a movie for its own sake, you could do a lot worse than Shang-Chi. If you’re not a fan of Marvel’s past work (or were a fan until you watched 50 hours of world-saving shenanigans and tired of it) there’s nothing here to change your mind. But if you enjoy the superhero genre, you’ll find Shang-Chi a worthy addition. After a sweeping prologue in which an immortal warlord loses his heart to a maiden from a mystical village, the film cuts to present-day San Francisco. We meet Shaun and Katy, two valets with no greater ambition than to park cars by day and sing karaoke by night. Then Shaun wins an MMA fight on a bus, becomes a viral YouTube sensation, and boards a plane to China with a doggedly insistent Katy by his side. Turns out Shaun is actually Shang-Chi, the son of the warlord from the prologue. His father wants nothing more than to reunite his family— and is willing to kill anyone who gets in his way. Shaun thinks his father’s methods are a bit extreme, so he teams up with his vengeful sister, an ex-terrorist actor, and a faceless furry chicken-pig to stop him. The humor is excellent, and the central conflict between father and son lends the story some emotional weight. Interestingly, there’s no romance— Shaun and Katy remain solid friends throughout, but without a hint of anything more. My favorite character was the one-armed mercenary who looked shockingly similar to my music teacher. I walked out of the theater weaving a backstory to explain how he went from viola virtuoso to machete-wielding militant. Anyway, if you’re looking for an action movie, Shang-Chi is worth your notice. There’s a fair bit of swearing, although nothing that doesn’t reflect that way that most young Americans actually talk. A lot of punching, kicking, and yelling. Zero sexual content. Nothing to worry about if you’re comfortable watching any other Marvel film. If you skimmed this article instead of actually reading it, I made a flow chart to summarize: Dad played hymns. Mom played country. And for the first thirteen years of my life, those were the only two types of music I heard. Neither of my parents are musically inclined, and I only remember them occasionally listening to songs as they did chores. Music wasn’t a notable feature of our household. Of course, my sister changed that as soon as she reached her teenage years. Now you can walk into my parent’s house at almost any time, listen closely, and catch the strains of One Direction or Hamilton playing in the background. But I was the oldest. The guinea pig. And as I didn’t show any interest, my parents didn’t include music in their great child-raising experiment. So I grew up thinking of music solely as hymns and country. Until age 13, when I stumbled upon the music of Andrew Peterson. Which really, really confused me, because it didn’t fit neatly into either of those categories. I soon came to absolutely love Andrew Peterson’s music, and I still do today. (You might remember that in an earlier song spam I introduced a song by his daughter, Skye, who is also a phenomenal musician) My favorite song in the bygone days of my youth was ‘You’ll Find Your Way’. It resonated with me more than any song I’d ever heard before— because it’s addressed to a young boy on the cusp of adulthood, the very situation I found myself in. https://youtu.be/NMn3ThuvGMo -Zachary Holbrook I like words. Well… you probably could’ve guessed that, as you know that I’m a writer. But when it comes to songs that I listen to for my own personal enjoyment, I place a higher value on the words than the music. Most of all, I like songs that tell a story. And not just any story, but a story with change and progression. And so I’m really happy that I stumbled upon Joanna Newsom’s ‘Emily’, a song that tells a wonderfully in-depth story through sweeping and beautiful lyrics. This song stands out in several ways: it’s 12 minutes long. It expanded my vocabulary. (If you don’t know what an ‘asterism’ is, look it up, then listen to this song). It bursts with incredible imagery. It’s the kind of song I would aspire to write, if I wrote music instead of books. I listened to it every day for a week when I first discovered it. Usually several times a day. Then I sang along at the top of my lungs while I cleaned the kitchen. It’s delightful, and I look forward to listening to it again and again. A bit of backstory: ‘Emily’ is about the singer’s sister, an astrophysicist who crossed the world to work at observatories in Argentina and New Zealand. With that in mind, go listen to it: https://youtu.be/D1lBOA_8OZ0 (Seriously. It’s amazing). -Zachary Holbrook |
Progress on Doombear, Rough draft:10%
Progress on The Lore of Yore, third draft:
100%
"In truth, by leaving, I was seeking only one thing. A journey."
-Oathbringer, pg 981 Types of blog posts:
All
|