CAC's comment to the previous entry set me to thinking. In fact, it was a combination of that and the sneaking suspicion that the Groff book is no better or worse than any other xian self-help book. And, like most of these books, I have to fight off the sense that I'm being duped.

And yet I find myself returning again and again to these kinds of books. I'm like any other joe in that sense: I'm the big bass that the marketing department is desperately trying to hook. And I keep taking the fly.

Why am I susceptible to such things?

Certainty is the siren's call for me, and I think to some extent for my family. It's the promise of standing on firm ground again, even if only to die there, rather than be tossed about on waves of uncertainty with no guarantee of a final return or of a final recognition.

It's not just me, either. I've seen this in my entire family: brother, sister, father, mother, grandparents.

It's unfortunately what I think underlies a kind of hereditary smallheartedness among Smith family men. Now, before TJS and JFS react, let me say that I think our family has come a loooooooong way from the early days, and we are starting to act differently. But think about it, guys: how many times have we, in a conversation, smugly laid the smackdown on somebody, rooted in our sense of being uncontrovertibly right? I've seen us do it to each other. I've watched myself do it to people.

What's behind this tendency? What need is it that we are trying to answer in this way? I wonder if it is really about identity: who we think we are, who we secretly suspect or fear that we are. I have jokingly termed this the Smith curse: a perpetual sense of anomie ("namelessness"). After all, what's distinctive about a Smith?

There's this sense that we are nobody. We look into our past and what do we see?

• My father's parents were the children of Virginia coal miners. My grandmother says nothing more about their origins to me, even when repeatedly asked.
• My dad can't remember huge chunks of his childhood. They're just gone. His brother remembers them, though, and they certainly sound like the kind of thing that a body would make itself forget.
• My mom's father made a point not to bless my parents' marriage, and pictures of the wedding suggest that he had just returned from a proctoscopy exercise at a teaching hospital.
• My mom's mother's side basically came from backwoods country people. My grandmother grew up along the banks of the Pee Dee River. We don't know much more.
• And my mom's father was adopted, a fact that he carried with him his whole life in a time when being adopted was not nearly so accepted as it is now.

Mixed in our blood are traces of Fulton, Leggett, Warwick, but we really can't trace any of it back farther than two or three generations. Who the hell am I?

It would be one thing if it were just a sense of namelessness. But the other side of it is that we--I--haven't responded to this condition particularly well. The hereditary response is to try to lord it over others that we know more, that we have the right answers, or that we are competent in some area. Fortunately or unfortunately, we are able to be good at a lot of things, and my friends have in the past looked to me for advice about things. But that kind of expertise can and has been a shield to me from the pain of hearing, deep down, that same message: "You're nobody."

I look at my brother and sister, who for all I love them, seem sometimes to be casting about for something to do with their lives. Like me. Like my dad three decades ago. And whenever we set out on another path toward legitimacy -- a college degree, a graduate program, moving to another area of the country, a new career, or just running 26.2 miles -- more than any other kind of burden, I hear that message. That one voice, deep in me, smugly satisfied and certain: "Nobody. Nobody!"

I guess that's the thing that makes me long for some other certainty -- some clue that there is a home somewhere with my name on it, that there is a career for which I was meant, that there is a reason I struggle with God. It's that kind of uncertainty that lays me open for books like Groff's even while my brain is saying, "wake up, dude, this author's using floral sidebars and 3-page chapters."

But that's not to say that I want to swing the other way and dismiss Groff completely. That would be another form of negative certainty. One thing I learned from watching my friend PM over the past 8 years is the virtue of moderated appreciation: he can, as his email sig advises, "see through the signifier to the thing signified." In this context, it means that he can read a book that halfway stinks, or watch a movie that got a 30% freshness rating at Rotten Tomatoes, or listen to factory-made P&W music, and he can find the kernels of gold in all three. He doesn't justify what's bad; he simply appreciates what's good, and refuses to dismiss the whole enterprise out of hand because it's not all Grade A.

That's the way I'd like to approach books like Groff's, and the rest of the stack of spiritual guidance books I'm plowing through. I have to remember myself, and more or less lash myself to the mast as I read each of these books.

A few thoughts from the Groff book:

"A person who claims to know the mind or will of God is pathological." -- Alan Jones, Dean of Grace Cathedral, San Francisco

"Maps of previous generations can still be helpful, but they are more like the geographers' maps showing things before the great continental rifting took place--when Africa, humanity's birthplace, was still connected to the Americas and other continents." (Groff 5)

On doubt and its role in transforming faith: "Like the emperor moth struggling to emerge from a chrysalis that once kept it safe but now constricts it, the gift is in the struggle. (6, author's emphasis)

This last is rather like one of my comments to CAC in an earlier posting: that eva xianity was like an ill-fitting suit that was worn of habit and necessity rather than informed choice.

And Jones' statement electrified me. It gets at the meat of the matter as quickly and as ruthlessly as any other critique I've read. It's also paralleled by the story that Abraham Lincoln would not pray that God would be on our side, but that we as a nation would be on his side. Prayer is about the most direct way of expressing yearning toward something that lies beyond our purview and control. That's one of Groff's next topics: prayer as an action that we each express in different modes.

Interestingly, Groff compares our various paths to prayer with Howard Gardner's work on multiple intelligences: how we as individuals have distinct but classifiable modes of understanding truth and knowledge. Interesting stuff!

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish happy birthday to my friend CH and his new son JH. They share the same birthday! Here's a great pic of the young'un snoozing, while being surreptitiously investigated by a brave Sidney.

And a big "you go, girl!" to WH, who was the champ during what was a difficult delivery. Amazing lady!

One of a number of books I'm reading on spirituality right now is Kent Ira Groff's What Would I Believe If I Didn't Believe Anything? A Handbook for Spiritual Orphans. It's supposed to be a humble sort of guide for the burned-out, cynical, skeptical joe. Despite that that's so not me, I started reading it anyway.

So the book contains various short texts -- I guess I'd call them vignettes or meditations -- on what it means to live nowadays, and what and how we might find mystery in this our postmodern life. So far, so boring. Like many a self-help book, though, this one encourages the reader to keep a journal. And unfortunately, Gentle Reader, that means that you are going to suffer through some stank-ass self-absorbed reflections on what's in Groff's book. No promises on the quality or quantity, either: as journaling is in some ways the ancestor of blogging, I reaffirm my right to say what I want, whether or not that is satisfactory, accurate or even a falsehood. Ugh.

The first concept Groff introduces is the one suggested by the title: that our natural condition in the here and now is that of orphans:

"Orphan"--the last word in Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick--includes each of us. We are all Ishmael, born of Abraham and his "foreign" wife, Hagar, Sarah's slave girl, who represents our own partly Muslim, partly Christian, partly Jewish rainbow coalition. After Captain Ahab's great ship Pequod (established religion) is wrecked, each of us Ishmaels is floating at sea. Then the roaming ship (Rachael) marginalized religion) drifts by in search of her missing children and finds "another orphan." (xvii)

Are those timbers I hear creaking, or is it just his metaphor? Anyway, the idea that there's no spiritual home anymore, but that there once was, and that now it's gone for good, is painfully familiar to me.

Once, several years ago, Shel was having a phone conversation with LWB about my spiritual situation. LWB was understandably concerned, and was apparently somewhat discouraged. At length she asked Shel something to the effect of "will he ever get back to the way he was?" Meaning, would I ever return to more or less straightforward evangelical belief. I overheard this, and in my anger at the question, I retorted, "I might if I get in a car wreck and suffer brain damage." Now this was a rotten way to repay someone's concern. But what it says to me, now, is that there is no going back. You can't put the evils of the world back into Pandora's box -- once they get out, they're out.

And what that means for me, is that I'm out, too. Once you've taken the evangelical world out of the man, you can't put the man back in the evangelical world.

f late, Gentle Reader, you will note that my reading diet consists chiefly of two kinds: those such titles as penned by Lovecraft, Leguin, Pratchett, and those concerned with issues of faith in this our present age of postmodernity. Fiction and non-fiction, broadly speaking; more specifically, fantasy narrative and spiritual contemplation. Story undergirds both, and in both, it serves to convey the reader from a place of confinement (of dreary everyday necessity, or of religious deadends) into a liberation of the imagination and the heart. An unkindly eye would dismiss both as escapism, no doubt.

And such a criticism would be met with the contempt it deserves from yours truly. What is more to the point regarding my reading these recent months is that there is no "serious" fiction among the stacks at my bed-table. Certainly, Lovecraft is considered the inheritor of Poe in his emphasis on the macabre and the otherworldly; likewise, LeGuin has garnered praise and awards for the application of political and social ideas in her books; and there are few who can match the inventive humor and linguistic chicanery of Pratchett. But, respectively and with all due respect, Lovecraft was a hack, LeGuin a niche writer, and Pratchett is out for a laugh. None of them really transcend the genres in which they excel.

Ms. Clarke's fantastical novel

Which should not suggest that I rate them as inferior reads (excepting Lovecraft, I think). It is just that as one who has been schooled in some of the formative serious fiction of the modern era, I find little in these authors to match the subtlety of an Austen, the wit of a Fielding. Not that I minded this much; the absence of such works seemed to suggest the futility of their undertaking.

Until now. Susanna Clarke's recently published novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell has in effect kicked the doors down of both historical fiction and fantasy in one motion, and it unites both in a book that, were Ian Watt tricked into reading it 60 years ago as a successor to Austen, would have most certainly found its way into that grand early literary history, The Rise of the Novel. Not that Watt is still regarded as the authority on the subject, but he did tell a good story. Ms. Clarke's novel would very easily serve as an interpolation to that story.

It reads like a novel of the era in which it is set: pre-1820 England. Thus, if you have been fortunate enough to enjoy Austen, Radcliffe, Sterne, or Fielding, you will feel right at home in narrative. Except, of course, that the story is about an England where magic was real, and where two men--the title characters--try by their respective means and temperaments to revive English magic: something they view essentially as a union of English "arts and arms."

The book's narrator uses a version of free indirect discourse (think third-person omniscient narrator with an opinion of his/her own), and the narrative is fastidiously documented and footnoted with all manner of anecdotal backstory. The scope is large, yet the focus often on drawing rooms and libraries, to the accompanyment of a roaring fireplace. Terrifically fun, deliciously mysterious, and an overall thumping good read. Do not miss this one, Gentle Readers.

That sucked. Except for the fact that running a marathon flat out rules, that is, and that this is a really great one to run. And the fact that I'd run it again.

I was shooting for a sub-4. I scored a 4:35 or so. The day wasn't cold, exactly, once we got going, but the wind whipping through the shaded concrete canyons of urban Chicago was not kind to someone wet with sweat. I got cold.

And, as I found out running the Marine Corps Marathon in 2001, windy chill doesn't agree with me. My legs started to seize up a couple of times, and I actually had to fight the urge to ralph on three occasions. Groan...

I'll tell you what: they let in 41,000+ runners this year. What does that mean, practically speaking? It means that not once in the entire 26.2-mile race was I running alone. You know that Nike commercial where the whole pack of people is running cross-country and it sounds like a herd on stampede? That was this race, for the entire distance. People were all around, all the time.

So there wasn't a lot of room to move, should I even have tried to do so. Oh, well. Sometimes you do as well as you want, and you learn from the times you don't perform as well as you'd like.

One thing that was really cool about this race: you run through all of these ethnic communities in Chicago. In the Polish district, there was a stage with an authentic Polish folk band, and folk dancers lined the street. In Chinatown, a couple of dudes had traditional Chinese dragon costumes on. We passed an Elvis impersonator, and several groups of Village People tributes. There was fantastic crowd support for most of the race -- MUCH better than in Nashville's Metro district. We ran up Lakeshore Drive, and cars passing on the opposite side were honking; folks were screaming and whistling constantly.

I was dismayed to be passed by a guy in a San Diego Chicken costume, and later by a guy dressed in a cow outfit (somehow the pun "cowabunga" loses its comedic force 23 miles into a marathon). Perhaps the most degrading moment came when I was passed by a dude in a leopard-print pair of Jockeys (accessorized with dollar bills) and a bowtie. Later, I wondered where he had pinned his race number; and then I quickly started thinking of something else.

Yeah, I'd run it again.

Last week, Shelley and I got away from the rigors of settling in to spend a few days in the loveliest city in the West: Seattle! Shelley went up there on Sunday, and I followed that Wednesday evening; we stayed through this past Sunday.

We stayed with KWT and ST, in their new digs in Queen Anne. In fact, they live right across from Larry's Market, which conveniently contains a Peet's coffee stand. Did some toodling around the city, drinking lots of great coffee, doing some shopping, and getting lost on a long training run.

My sister has noticeably developed her counselor's eye. I spent an evening getting a talking to about my use of humor as a personal smokescreen. It's something Shel and KWT have talked to me about before, but they really hit it home this time. Thanks, you two. It's a subject that's been broached before, both by KWT and others, but this was a concentrated exploration of my tendency to do that. Thaaaaaaaanks...;-)

And lest I be misunderstood, KWT doesn't walk around subjecting everyone to counseling techniques; in fact, I'd say that she seems more natural and comfortable about the whole thing than in the past. Seasoned is the word. That, or marinated. Nope, definitely seasoned.

On Saturday, we all went to Ollie's, where we screamed loud and long and quaffed two pitchers of Fat Tire Ale in support of Auburn's crushing Tennessee.

Against all expectation and reason, in Seattle I had the best fried okra I've ever tasted, at a terrific restaurant called The 5-Spot. This place changes its menu every couple of months to offer a new regional taste. We made it there during the Mississippi Delta Blues menu. And, believe it or not, this Seattle establishment got just about everything spot-on. They even served ST his catfish plate on a red plastic tray with a checkered placemat. All we needed was a surly teenager waiting on us, and it would have been just like old times at Allan & Son BBQ in Chapel Hill.

And finally, we stumbled across an interesting bookstore, which seemed only too fitting for ST and I in our illustrious clubical personages. This might become the official bookstore of the Secretary of the Ancient and Venerable Swat and Swoop Club.



Loved the visit, you two. Always a wrench to leave...

If you know my family, you know that many of us have serious sweet tooths (Note: would that be "sweet teeth?"). My dad used to swipe Krispy Kreme doughnuts as a kid from the back of the delivery van; he's still a dessert-oriented guy. While Dad has always preferred highbrow sweets like cake and such (that disgusting Claxton fruitcake abomination notwithstanding), TJS, EWS and I grew up eating junk candy: Rain-blo bubble gum balls, Lik-Em-Aid, Twizzlers, Nerds, Jolly Ranchers, Jelly Bellies, Charms Blow Pops, Laffy Taffy, and so forth.

Imagine my surprise and pleasure, then, at discovering that our new home is just down the road from the Ferrara Pan Candy factory, across the freeway. While relatively few people recognize that name, almost everybody's enjoyed Jawbreakers, Lemonheads, and--best of all--Atomic Fireballs. And they make them a mile and a half from my door!

When I was younger, I lived across the street from a kid whose family was from Pittsburgh. He told me once about his family's visit to Hershey, Pennsylvania, home of the chocolate company: "You walk down the street and it smells like chocolate in the air," he said. Frankly, I never really thought that sounded all that good, because Hershey's chocolate has always been a second-class sweet for me: preferable only to the lemon and lime flavors of the hard candy in the bottom of the Halloween candy bag. I always preferred fruity candy to chocolate stuff.

Now, there are mornings, as I'm sitting in traffic on the Eisenhower onramp, when the delicate bouquet of Lemonheads comes stealing into the car. Mmm-mmm. I'll take the savor of sour lemon over a squirt of Hershey anyday.