A Pilgrim’s Digression

Ever since Brendan was born in 2001, my wife and I have occasionally discussed having another child. Sometimes we agreed that we did want another child; other times, we felt like the burden of raising yet another child would be too much. The subject would lie dormant for long periods, and then suddenly we would find ourselves talking about it again, perhaps because a friend became pregnant or had a baby, or because Lynn thought she herself might be pregnant.

This past weekend, I feel like we finally reached a definite conclusion on the subject. We have decided not to have another child.

The truth is that Lynn and I are at an age where we have to either do it now, or not do it at all. Lynn is three years older than me, and physically she does not feel up to having another child in her late thirties. Additionally, of course, the chance of complications grows as a woman ages toward forty. That said, we know someone who had a surprise pregnancy in her mid-forties–and she considered it a great blessing–but frankly it is hard for me to imagine 45 year-old versions of myself or my wife getting up at night with a crying infant.

I have a hard enough time imagining my 35 year-old self getting up with a crying infant.

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“Law and order” conservatives always extoll the virtues of the police and the armed forces as the “protectors” of our liberty. Anyone who has ever come into contact with the police, on one side of the law or the other, or whose country has been invaded, knows that the reality is decidedly a mixed bag. Give some people a gun and the authority to use it, and a guardian of liberty can become an autocrat.

This is not a “bash the police” post, but I do have a gripe with the Metropolitan Police of Washington, DC. As those of you who read this blog know, two weeks ago my car was broken into. I called the police. The policeman was not exactly friendly, but he was not menacing, either. He just seemed bored by the whole matter as he walked around the car, asking questions and jotting down information. His response to my anxieties was indifference. He’d seen it all before, many times, and it was nothing to get emotional about.

So then upon returning home, I tried to get a copy of the police report for insurance purposes. That’s when things turned sour.

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I am sure this has already been bandied about the blogosphere. Still, it’s worth pointing out that the cryptic “A Ishmael” and “Ismael Ax” referred to on the package the Tech murderer mailed to NBC, and which he had tatooed on his arm, is probably a reference to the character of Ishmael from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

In the Bible, the name Ishmael means “God will hear,” and he is described as being quite wicked. Genesis 16: “He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

Of course, in Moby Dick, he is considerable more sympathetic, though also something of an outcast from society. He says in the opening that he can only stand civilized society for so long before he needs to take to the sea for his sanity. At the same time, before setting sail, when he is put up in a room–the same bed, even–with the naked and physically imposing polynesian harpooner, Queequeg, Ishmael is troubled by this “noble savage” as well. People in general, of any sort, seem to make Ishmael uncomfortable.

Ishmael is also the only survivor from the destruction of the Pequod by the white whale, floating away on a coffin, of all things. In the end of the novel, he is as outcast and alone as at the beginning, “an orphan” as Melville describes him.

“And only I am escaped alone to tell thee,” Melville writes, quoting Job.

And in a way, although Cho did not escape alive to tell the tale, he did leave a sort of epilogue to the tragedy in the form of the package he mailed to NBC. I am pretty sure, then, that Ishmael is a sort of nom de plume (or nom de guerre as the case may be) for Cho. “A. Ishmael” seems pretty obviously so, since it is the name on the package he mailed. Cho views himself as quite literally a Ishmael, an outcast son, a “wild donkey” of a man. The only thing I don’t understand is the “Ishmael Ax” supposedly tatooed on his arm. What does the Ax mean?

There is an interesting article in the Washington Post today titled Hats, Shirts or Jewelry: If it says ‘Hokie,’ it’s flying off the shelf. It’s a brief article, unremarkable except in that it provides strong evidence that a school that has always played second-fiddle to its in-state rival, the University of Virginia, has suddenly been thrust to the forefront of world consciousness.

I had a discussion with someone yesterday about whether the murders would hurt enrollment at Tech. The person I was talking to said that parents would be reluctant to send their kids to such a notorious school. I disagreed. I argued that for one thing, parents may have no choice if Tech is where their child wants to go.

And I definitely think that far from harming the school’s image in the minds of young adults, a young person looking for a college is far more likely to think, “I’d be proud to attend such a school” than “I would be afraid to go there.” One thing that I think comes through very clearly is the pride and devotion Tech students take in their school. In Virginia, whether you go to UVA or Tech, students easily become attached and devoted to their school.

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I’ve been struggling for three days to find something worthwhile to say about the Virginia Tech murders on Monday, but in the end I don’t know that there is anything to say. Commentators have been asking whether we have become desensitized to gratuitous violence in society, but I don’t think my lack of response is desensitization. I’ve had moments of horror and pain akin to that other horrific day in our shared history, 9/11/01.

Oh God, the body count just kept rising all morning, didn’t it? In some ways that was the worst thing, and the most apt similarity to 9/11. Every time I tuned back in to the event, it seemed there were more dead, and I felt shocked and sickened all over again.

So I do feel pain and grief for what has happened. Lynn took foreign language classes in Norris Hall when she went to Tech for her Spanish endorsement; she had heard of the German professor who was killed, Jamie Bishop. I myself visited the campus several times during the period that Lynn took classes there. And in the ensuing years, as we continued to work in secondary schools in Virginia, we came to know many students who went on to college at Tech–thankfully we have had no word that any of them were among the victims. Nonetheless, this is personal, for us.

But in the end, there are no adequate words. Since she has a much more intimate connection with the school and its loss, maybe Nikki Giovanni will eventually find the words for us, through her poetry, but until then I am at a loss.

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My son’s birthdays always catch me by surprise. He turned six yesterday.

It was not really a surprise, since we had been planning events for him for several weeks, if not longer. Small children who are well loved have month-long birthdays, it sometimes seems. A couple weeks ago, he spent spring break with my family in West Virginia, where my Dad bought him his first bicycle, and my Mom loaded him up with toys.

Then on Saturday, he had his birthday party, two days before his “official” birthday. When he was two years old, he had a Bob the Builder party; when he was three, he had a Thomas the Tank Engine party; when he was four, he had yet another Thomas the Tank Engine party; when he was five, he had a SpongeBob Squarepants party; and this year, for the first time, he had a non-theme party at the Creative Kiln, where he and his friends painted small clay animals.

I hope it has been a memorable birthday for him. At the very least, in future years he will have a rather oddly colored rhinoceros to remind him of the event, assuming it does not get broken at some point.

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I can tell there is something wrong with my car as I approach it. Even from a block away, it just doesn’t look right. Something about the passenger side window. I am pretty sure that I am going to find it busted, even as I tell myself that can’t be right. No, that’s just foolishness.

Why would it be broken? Who would break it?

As I get closer, my hope starts to sink. The window is broken. I can see it now. There are bits of glass sticking to the rubber seal around the window, and the window itself is lying shattered inside the car, all over the seats and floor.

I look inside: the center console has been opened and the contents scooped out and dumped into the passenger seat; the glove box is hanging open, but the contents have not been removed. I don’t immediately see anything taken. “Damn, what did they think they were going to get?” I don’t leave money in the car, and I carry my iPod with me.

Then, my next thought is: “My laptop.”
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A heavyset woman and a five-year-old girl are exiting a Kroger’s as my wife enters.  The heavy woman is carrying a 24-pack case of Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Suddenly, she stops in her tracks and says, “Damn it, Erika, I forgot the eggs a-gin!”

I think I am going to make that my new email signature.

But hey, at least she bought the essentials.

In case you don’t get the title reference, it’s from the ’90’s band The Presidents of the United States of America: “Lump lingered last in line for brains / And the one she got was sorta rotten and insane…”

The Washington Post features an article today titled Mormon Base a Mixed blessing for Romney, but although it holds out the promise of addressing the central question I have about his candidacy–will Baptists, Catholics, and other mainline Christians vote for him?–it never even comes close to stepping on that particular land mine.

I have admitted here previously that I am somewhat prejudiced against Mormons. I live in a town where, due to the presence of a private Mormon university, the Mormon population is high. There are so many Mormons in our town that the church holds services almost every hour of the day on Sunday in order to accommodate all of its parishioners.

As a result of living amongst Mormons, I have to deal with the almost weekly door-to-door visits of brightly smiling, white young Mormons evangelizing on behalf of their religion. On the very day I moved in to my house last year, two young Mormon men going door to door accosted the movers as they worked, and then came up on the porch to try to talk to me. I’d probably be prejudiced against Baptists, if they pestered me as much as these Mormons do.

Thus, I am not tolerant of the Mormon religion. Frankly, I find its theology to be false and its communal ethic creepy. I won’t be voting for Mitt Romney.

The Post article linked to above does nothing to allay my prejudice; in fact in its silence on the central issue–will mainstream Christians vote for a Mormon–it actually increases my fears. The way in which the article links Mormonism to mainstream Christianity is frightening, because there are plenty of ill-informed Christians out there who know nothing about Mormonism and the way in which it contradicts mainstream Christianity. I can easily see Christians voting for Romney under the mistaken belief that they are voting for someone who simply belongs to another denomination of Christianity.

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