Last night I dreamed that Christopher who is now not going by that name but it kills me to try to call someone a different name arrived here unexpectedly. In the dream I cried and cried and cried - and NOT because I was sad. I wonder if that dream might one day come true? But I'll try not to cry.

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Voice from the past

So you called tonight. How long? Six years? It doesn't seem possible. Spur of the moment drives to Leavenworth, arguments in the kitchen, dinners eaten on the floor in front of your computer. Six years ago? More? Unthinkable. Your voice still sounds the same and can still lull me into that same complacency that says let's just drop the important and do the urgent; fly far from here. No, it's awareness into which you lull me. I know how quickly nine months pass and six years of silence take their place. Maybe seven. I haven't yet counted. Long time. I do read. I do lie on the grass and think sometimes. Not often enough, you'd say.

Your voice brought back so many good memories. I wish you to return.

Tears aren't always bad, young upstart. This post is for you. I raise my glass to you. The contents are unworthy, but the gesture means the same. Here's to you. To you coming home one day. To friendships that do not yield to the pressures of time. To loving forever. To understanding. To your mood not being my responsibility, but my concern. Here's to you. To children being a direct deposit by God Himself into the eternal bank account of our soul. To the means by which they are acquired being a non-issue. To life. Where there's life, there's hope. I will pray that God smiles on you and grants you a speedy end to trouble. God bless you. God bless you. God fill you with hope. God fill you with life.

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C.S. Lewis once gave the advice to never move away from one's friends. Good advice, that. A few simple words from a long-time friend, one who knows me as only a few others do, and the world is disassembled and rearranged. Home is where? A locality? An emotional frame of reference? A state of the heart? It is hard to be out of the presence of those one loves and by whom one is loved, even as one is in the presence of other loves. The heart yearns for home even as one is already home. In this life there is too much division—space and time are too real. Love is made more poignant by loss and longing. And all these words are so much static of the soul, the heart, as interpreted by the mind. There is only one faithful expression of all of this: I sigh.

Yes, ok. It's one of these cheezy quizilla things. But I thought the outcome was interesting. I happen to be just finishing up the book that I am.

Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose. You are a mystery novel dealing with theology, especially with catholic vs liberal issues. You search wisdom and knowledge endlessly, feeling that learning is essential in life.

Which literature classic are you?

Update

I was commenting on this with a friend and had the following exchange.

J. says:

i hold the belief that what we are drawn to is ultimately what is most important to us... whether we realize it or not

J. says:

so that makes sense

Tuirgin says:

Yeah, of modern authors Borges and Eco seem to be the most important to me -- and I see a lot of corollaries between them.

Tuirgin says:

Interesting as neither are terribly spiritual writers. But they are writers of mystery, the absurd, and encyclopedic knowledge.

J. says:

somehow i think that fits

Tuirgin says:

Yeah. Maybe it's the mature me. The one that is beginning (just beginning) to feel comfortable in my own skin. The one that senses that the urgent life and death spiritual questions need to take a backseat, not out of lack of importance, but because they are comprehended best in an oblique fashion.

J. says:

yeah, i like that interpretation

Update

I should clarify what I mean by "backseat". Unfortunately, the best clarification I can think of is a passage of Doctor Zhivago in which Z contrasts Pushkin and Chekhov with Gogol and Dostoevksy, the unfortunate bit being that I don't currently have the text at my fingertips. Essentially Z concludes that G & D were focused on the "big questions" while P & C, though not ignorant or avoiding the questions, focused instead upon the business of their personal craft.

In English letters we have a somewhat similar contrast between Lewis and Tolkien. My choice is to take Tolkien as a model over Lewis. Got it? Ok.