Drawn into the wounds: Feast of St. Thomas

 

It's the feast of the apostle Thomas today, and I'm reflecting on the readings for Give Us This Day. The piece was written last fall, while I was on the road in Scotland and Rome. We'd been to the National Gallery in Edinburgh (which has no Caravaggios in the collection, though it does have a portrait of Carravaggio) so visual art was on my mind. Some of my favorite churches in Rome have Caravaggios, but The Incredulity of Saint Thomas lives in Berlin.

I wrote that Caravaggio’s depiction of the scene from John's Gospel "pushes me to wonder if Jesus is seeking more than a simple “yes” or “no” in this encounter—hoping for yet more than the exclamation wrenched from Thomas’ heart, “my Lord and my God!"... [here] Jesus is shown with his head bent near Thomas’ head, his hand guiding Thomas to touch his wounds. It is an intimate moment as Jesus reaches out to draw Thomas deeply into his very self, into the woundedness that healed the world.

Perhaps this Gospel is also an invitation for to me to be drawn into the woundedness of the world, to believe that I can [ed. and do and must!] encounter Christ, bruised and pierced, at every turn."

Earlier this week I listened to an episode of a new podcast, The Spiritual Life, hosted by James Martin SJ and Maggie van Doren. This episode included an conversation between Fr. Martin and Timothy Cardinal Radcliffe which touched upon Cardinal Radcliffe's time as a patient after serious surgery. 

Fr. Martin referenced Joseph Cardinal Bernadin's little book, The Gift of Peace (completed just two weeks before he died).  It's short, so I pulled it off my shelf to read on Sunday. I was struck by Bernadin's view of his vocation to be present to people in his own illness. I was struck by the tangible, physical nature of his response. The handwritten note at the start of the book, the script titles to each chapter. The list of 700 names of people who had asked for his prayers, held in his hands at the altar.

What does prayer look like in our most difficult moments? Perhaps when we doubt we can find our way to prayer, Jesus takes our hands and says, "touch me, feel my wounds."

The Princess Diaries

TIL about "the princess treatment" which has emerged from TikTok. I am not going to link to these viral princess diaries. Do feel free to read the article in the NYTimes or Huffpost, which has all the links you might want (or not want.)

I am going to admit to being horror struck. The influencer wants her husband to treat her like a princess. Fine. Why? To let him lead, to help her discover her softer side. OK, I guess, if that's a mutual thing. It's the how that had me gasping.

She doesn't speak in restaurants. She remains mute while he lets the front desk know they've arrived. He orders for her. If he must drop her off, he will get out of the car to open her door, walk her into the resaturant and then...deal with the valet or park the car. Other people waiting to park? Hang on, the princess is getting her due. Should the host or hostess try (dare?) to engage her (having missed all her body language that says don't speak to me) while her husband goes to park, she tells them she really couldn’t say and they must await her husband. Oh..and she rarely ties her shoes. Obviously he should notice and do it for her. It’s that last that really got to me.

I would like to introduce the princess to my Parkinson's diaries. Before I was diagnosed I was having trouble tying my shoes, opening car doors, fastening my seatbelt. Medication has masked these symptoms, but they are still there, and there are times when I need help, not because I want the princess treatment, but because I have Parkinson’s, not because I want to showcase my softer side, but because I am dealing with something hard.

Parkinson’s affected my voice, will it eventually become so soft that Math Man must order for me in a restaurant, or that I have to wait for him to speak to the host/ess? Will things progress so that I will need my husband to walk me to the door and open it for me? No one knows.

I am grateful beyond measure that I can currently tie my shoes and speak for myself, that I don’t need to be treated like a princess because of my Parkinson's. I wonder if the influencer would find these attentions so attractive if they were necessities? Or if her husband needed her to tie his shoes?

I know myself well loved without having to cosplay a princess. Math Man sometimes appears with roses, for no reason other than .. roses! Or brings me a popsicle from the basement freezer. Or disposes of the deceased mice (don't ask). And should I lose my voice, I trust him to speak for me.

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Photo is of the Fife Tiara, designed by Parisian jeweler Oscar Massin, and given to an actual princess (Queen Victoria’s granddaughter Princess Louise). On permanent display at Kensington Palace, London. Used under a CC license. See here.

Math Man notes that when we waltz, I never do let him lead. 

Styling T Rex

I got the proofs for an essay yesterday that opens with a mention of Tyrannosaurus rex. “Shouldn’t that be italicized?” asked a co-author. Well, yes. Most publications would say that the scientific names should be italicized. But should it be? Maybe T. rex should be bold - to suggest the extra space that I'd be willing to cede to a predator of T. rex's stature. Or perhaps italic's tilt does reflect T. rex's literal posture, as it leans forward chasing its prey. Should I elect an underscore, a subtle nod at italics, or a stylized sketch of the ground across which a T. rex races? Maybe it’s best to use strikethrough - suggesting what might happen to me should I be too slow to escape a Tyrannosaurus.

Which brings me to fonts. Serif? Non-serif? I think the serifs hint at the teeth and claws that stand ready to shred a T. rex’s prey. Leave the smooth roundedness of Arial or Comic Sans to the brontosaurs (though they don't exist? didn't exist?)

_____

At least according to Wikipedia, brontosaurs are indeed dinosaurs. 

And I did correctly correct the proofs and italicize Tyrannosaurs rex. TBH I italicised it, it’s a British publication.

(Un)rest stop

I fed my youngest, Math Guy, and his husband’s cats the other day and saw this bench along the trail that runs near their house. The pinwheels were pinwheeling madly in the breeze. It was just too much. Just looking at it made me feel tense. So much movement in a spot that is designed for rest and respite. Why? 

I felt…curmudgeonly.

Breathing is complex

"Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring." Edward Gorey

The trick, perhaps, is to see the astonishing underneath the boring.  Every once in a while I recall that more than fifteen of every hundred nitrogen molecules I breathe is behaving in a way that would cause any self-respecting 19th century physicist to shriek, "Impossible! Imaginary^* velocities? No, no and simply, no!" (Also, that's on the order of 10²¹ molecules in each and every breath I take.)

Or, to Gorey's point, that there is a non-zero probability that I could tunnel through the closed door of my study. Vanishingly small, true, but still, non-zero. Could today be the day that the door shivers and my wavefunction slips through its wavefunction to emerge on the upstairs landing? The door is marginally more exciting when seen in that light, no?

Or perhaps the boring is what would delight us? I follow TinyTales on Bluesky for a quick step outside the maelstrom of current events. (Browse their offerings if you, too, need a moment of respite: tinytalesdaily.com) The other day the story was about a diary:

The diary predicts tomorrow, but only the boring parts.
"You'll forget your keys," I read. "Lunch will be adequate."

My diary these days is pretty boring. Errands. Medical appointments. Email. I might forget my keys (roughly as likely as that air molecule ibeings stretched beyond its classical limit.) Lunch will be adequate. (#defaultLunch: plain yogurt, cheese and crackers, a piece of fruit — the same thing I have had for lunch most days since graduate school.)  

And in the mornings, I write. Don't tell my diary. It's not in the least boring.

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*By "imaginary" I don't mean the velocities are made up, I simply mean that the values are complex. Just to complicate things, "complex"in this context doesn't mean complicated, but means they are not real numbers. Right. Well, they involve factors of i, where i is the square root of -1. Never mind...just trust me, it's very, very upsetting to a classical physicist.