A radical saint

He wore a filthy tunic, with a piece of rope as a belt, and no shoes.  While preaching, he often would dance, weep, make animal sounds, strip to his underwear, or play the zither.  His black eyes sparkled.  Many people regarded him as mad, or dangerous.  They threw dirt at him.  Women locked themselves in their houses.

After the Virgin Mary, St. Francis of Assisi is today the most popular of Christian saints.  So claims a recent six-page New Yorker review,¹ discussing two books that analyze Francis's life.  That claim may well be accurate.

We all know that St. Francis's life has been frequently sentimentalized (look at the statue by the birdbath in your neighbor's back yard), and we all know that the saint was, in actuality, a strong man and fairly sophisticated.  But the New Yorker review reminds us just how eccentric Francis was, how unsettling his example was for those who met him, and how distorted his message became even while he was still alive.

Francis was a popular and rambunctious teenager; he was no scholar.  He gladly went off to war with neighboring Perugia, dressed nattily and riding a good horse.  He was quickly captured, and spent a year as a P.O.W., during which time his conversion apparently began.  He had an oft-recounted dispute with his parents: he renounced his inheritance, stripped off all his clothes, and walked away naked from his family, never to be reunited with them.  Traditional family values were not uppermost among his concerns.

He began working with lepers, and it was while so engaged that his conversion became complete.  He gathered a dozen like-spirited men about him, and these "friars" lived together in absolute poverty.  They owned nothing.  They slept on the ground. They were allowed to receive food for a day's work, but no money, and were to save nothing for the following day.  Although his original followers deferred to his leadership, there was no formal heirarchy among friars.  They were to love all of creation, including their enemies and including the wealthy who opposed them.

The New Yorker review points out that all of these strict rules had exceptions.  He proposed the rules to help his followers guide themselves in living Christian lives.  But the friars did not live for the sake of the rules.  Francis tended to be permissive. He was not a militant leader; he was no Ignatius of Loyola.  He had, says the review,"an extreme natural sweetness.  He was courteous, genial, extroverted -- he was fun, a quality not always found in saints -- and he laid it upon the brothers, as a duty, to be cheerful."

As the order grew in size, and during Francis's frequent absences,later members took advantage of his permissiveness.  Absolute poverty was both unpleasant and often impractical, if not impossible.  The papacy took increasing note of the order's popularity and began taking control, bringing the friars' practices increasingly into line with the rules -- less obsessed with poverty -- followed by other religious orders, such as the Dominicans.  Papal support of the Franciscans deflected criticism that the Church opposed any organization composed primarily of laymen, and also deflected attention from the embarrassing wealth of the heirarchy.

As the order slipped away from Francis's original concept, Francis turned its leadership over to another member.  Francis grew increasingly ill, as well as emotionally upset by the changes in his order.  The New Yorker review suggests that Francis can be viewed as an exemplar of the "inconvenient elder" -- the guy whose ideas get the whole thing going, but who is too impractical to make it work in the long term.  We have only to look at some of our own start-up corporations to see analogies in our own time.

Ultimately, St. Francis received the "stigmata" -- the review notes that most modern biographies prefer not to attempt a natural explanation for this occurrence -- which provided him some final sense of validation as his life neared its end.  He died in "horrible pain" from his illnesses, and in some spiritual distress.

The story of Francis's life related by these scholarly biographies is not the popular, pretty story of the childlike saint talking to the birds and animals -- or at least it moves far beyond that story.  It's a story of inspiration, striving, some success, eventual fears of failure, and the sense of a man who lived long enough to see his ideals distorted and misused.  But it's also a very human story, one that represents the experience of virtually anyone who has ever strived to bring the world to a higher level of civilization.  I suspect that Karl Marx, had he lived to observe the formation and development of the Soviet Union, would have had similar thoughts and feelings.

Francis of Assisi was truly a saint with a radical vision of humanity.  As one of the books under review expresses it, Francis's example "constitutes proof that Christianity, at least once, has been lived by a human being in all its radicality within the context of a historical life."²
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¹Joan Acocella, Rich Man, Poor Man (New Yorker, Jan. 14, 2013)
²André Vauchez, Francis of Assisi: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval Saint

Five days in Bombay



Gateway of India

After five balmy days in India, I've spent five wretched days in Seattle, struggling with a debilitating cold (hence the delay in filing this dispatch).   Between the two experiences, India wins -- hands down.

You can see a lot in five days, but you can't see everything.  And Mumbai, at 13 million souls, is not a compact, tidy destination.  We (Kathy, Juliana and I) agreed that, physically, it reminded us of a rather unkempt Paris.  In personality, on the other hand, it bore a definite resemblance to New York.


Cricket pitch in shadow of
Bombay High Court

But after spending five days in midtown New York, no one could assert that he "knew" or "understood" New York.  And we definitely confined ourselves to "South" or "Downtown" Mumbai --  the old, original British town and still one of the city's major commercial areas.  South Mumbai has most of the monuments and sights that one associates with the city.  Without disparaging the huge swaths of the city that I've never seen, I suspect it would be fair to say that they are all Queens and the Bronx, to South Mumbai's Manhattan.

Kathy and Juliana
Sunset on Marine Drive

My only earlier visit to India focused on Delhi, and Delhi is very different.  Delhi has more architectural history -- all those Mogul forts and monuments -- and is immersed more deeply in traditional India.  Mumbai -- the Mumbai we saw, at least -- is all about today.  In Delhi, we got around in three-wheel tuk tuks.  In Mumbai, the streets are full of small taxi cabs.  In Delhi, male and female tourists were warned that even Indian married couples do not hold hands in public.  In Mumbai, amorous couples were wrapped around each other all along the waterfront, and women were stylishly dressed in Western clothes.  In Delhi, merchants sat around chatting and drinking tea with prospective customers.  In Mumbai, office workers poured out of railway stations and down the streets in endless, fast-walking processions -- reminiscent of time-lapse films of New York rush hour.

Delhi was, perhaps, Boston; Mumbai was, unquestionably, New York.

We walked miles along the Arabian Sea waterfront.  We photographed the Gateway of India and had drinks in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.  We took a boat to Elephanta Island to explore the ancient Hindu cave carvings.  We had dinner with an upper class family (servants!) on exclusive Malabar Hill, where we learned that, for many Mumbaikars, the city is, without question, still "Bombay."   We stayed in a small hotel, with funky old-European charm, where ascending the stairway that wound around an elevator shaft was usually much faster than taking the elevator, and where breakfast was served on a roof overlooked by not-so-picturesque apartment houses.  We ate at tiny coffee shops and, the last night, at a trendy, upscale restaurant ("Indigo") under the stars.

We did, in other words, the expected tourist things.

And, of course, we cheered Juliana as she emerged from the Bombay heat and smog, crossing the finish line at just over five hours running time -- exhausted, but all grins, laughs and hugs. 

Marthon finish line with
Victoria Terminus in background

My traveling this very long distance for a very short stay almost didn't happen.  It sounded embarrassingly silly, and probably was.  But it was a great experience, and I loved every minute.  I wouldn't say that a return to Bombay (Mumbai), in itself, is high on my to-do list, but certainly a return to India is.  It's an exciting country, still "exotic" and a bit mysterious to a simple guy from the Northwest Corner, but also a country emerging into the 21st century.

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2-1-13: Since writing the above, I've happened upon the following interesting quote:

"'You must not run down the Mogul Empire,' he [André Malraux] said and then rapidly outlined how Akbar the Great [proved to be] a universalist in the manner of the French Revolution; ... and how this explained why the Muslims made a great civilization in India and the British never did, comparing the Mogul cities like Agra, Delhi and Lahore with the Anglo-Indian Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, which he described as 'transplanted British building suffocated by bidonvilles [i.e., slums].

--Bruce Chatwin, What Am I Doing Here [discussing an interview with Malraux in 1974]. Both Malraux and Chatwin were notably opinionated. Whether you prefer the Mogul or the Anglo-Indian cities seems mostly a question of personal taste.

Mumbai Marathon

I arrived home last night from a very enjoyable family birthday celebration in Yosemite Valley.  But you, my readers, get from me today not even a few words of serious thought on nature, environmental protection, political support for national parks, humorous aspects of family life, or the peculiar manner in which birthdays seem to pass in ever faster succession.

Instead, almost as soon as I had stepped in the door of the house and assured the cats of my continuing devotion to their welfare, I was confronted with the need to prepare for a quickie trip to Mumbai tomorrow.  Wha ..... ?  Why am I going to Mumbai, the neuro-normal reader may well ask (fearing already the response)?

Well, duh!  The Mumbai Marathon is run on Sunday, and naturally one of my many peculiar relatives or near-relatives would be inspired to run it.  And how could I let her (for Juliana is indeed a she) do that without my presence?

Hence, I'll jump onto a 20-some hour flight tomorrow.  High January temperatures in Mumbai appear to be in the low 80's, so it's not as though she'll be running (or I'll be cheering) in the steaming sauna that you and I may have first envisioned.  Still, Mumbai heat isn't Sahara heat, and -- in any event -- the climate will be different from the single-digit (Fahrenheit) night temperatures that I've experienced in Yosemite over the past few days.  But it'll all be over in five days.  Juliana -- God willing and her ACLs not tearing -- will be off exploring the rest of India, joined at times by my sister.  I, on the other hand, will be flying back to face the fuel oil bills and windshield defrostings of a Seattle January.

As Yosemite habitués know well, Curry Village is the place to camp in Yosemite Valley.  The recurring joke has been that I'd be going from Curry Village to Curry Dinners in three days' time. 

Meh.  Whatever. See you in a week.

Winter in wonderland

Readers will recall my love of trains: European trains, Canadian trains, Lionel electric trains.  Even Amtrak!

Tomorrow morning, I once more board the Coast Starlight for points south.  To Yosemite.  Yosemite, you gasp?  Do trains run to Yosemite?

Well, no.  Trains don't, not into the Park.  But Amtrak does, through the magic of connecting buses.  I'll take the Coast Starlight as far as Sacramento, where I disembark at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m. (assuming -- always a dangerous assumption -- that it's on time).  A shuttle bus then takes me a few miles south to Stockton, where I jump onto a San Joaquin, heading south from the East Bay. I leave the San Joaquin at Merced, and board an Amtrak bus that will take me to Yosemite Valley, directly to the Ahwahnee Hotel.

Ah, yes.  The Ahwahnee.  Perhaps the crown jewel of the lodges offered anywhere by the National Park Service, one equaling in quality the excellent lodges found in the Canadian national parks.  As its web page proclaims:

The Ahwahnee was specifically designed to highlight its natural surroundings, featuring Yosemite Falls, Half Dome and Glacier Point. The destination of queens and presidents alike, this distinctive Yosemite hotel offers a perfect balance of history, hospitality and elegance.

Hardly the sort of place in which I'd ordinarily pass the night in a national park.  But this trip is special.  A family gathering, to celebrate Barton and Clinton's .... birthday.  Well, let's not embarass the twins by announcing their age publicly.  We'll just say that, as birthdays go, it's an important landmark.

So.  I'm about to pack.  A friend writes to advise me that I really should pack a sports jacket if I'm staying in the Ahwahnee.  A sports jacket!  In a national park?  The outdoorsman in me rebels.  As does the logic of a practical packer! How will I squeeze a cotton sports jacket (I know, I know, but it's all I have handy) into my bag without crushing the soul and spirit out of it?

Oh, hush, you barbarian.  You're not going camping.  It's a rare and special event at a magnificent and special place.  It won't hurt you to dress up a little.

Yosemite, here I come.  Temperatures in the low 20s are forecast.  I look forward to seeing your Half Dome dusted with snow, your many waterfalls brilliant with icicles.   

Living life before a camera

Neil at age 14

"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man."
--St. Francis Xavier (attributed)

In 1964, British television produced a documentary, later released in theaters as Seven Up!, showcasing the lives of fourteen British seven-year-olds from various socio-economic classes.  Since then, every seven years a follow-up film has been released, following the lives of these kids as they grew up and aged. 

This year, 56 Up is being released, reviewed in yesterday's New York Times. The series explicitly takes the quotation from St. Francis Xavier as its theme.

I'm not sure when I began watching the series, but it probably was with either 21 Up or 28 Up.  Each film to date has set the stage for its discussion of each participant by showing brief scenes of his or her life from earlier films.  The primary lesson of the project is the continuing lack of social mobility in the United Kingdom, contrary to the expectations of the producers of the initial film. 

The boy from a privileged school, who at age seven told the camera that "We think I'm going to Cambridge and Trinity Hall," was close enough in his foresight.  He went to Oxford and is today a successful lawyer.  The three girls from a working class school grew up as genial, friendly, but clearly lower class adults.  The most riveting story, as most viewers agree, and the one least representative of the series's eventual thesis, was that of Neil.  As a seven and fourteen year old, Neil appeared to be scientifically precocious with dreams of being a physicist.  By his twenties, he had lost direction, and for years was a homeless wanderer.  By the time of 49 Up, he had regained some minimal direction to his life, although at a far lower level than one would have expected from his childhood.

The study of the persistence of class distinctions is interesting, although probably more so to a British than to an American audience.  For me, the fascination has been the ability to watch kids from different walks of life grow into middle aged adults.  Fascinating, and -- to me, at least -- saddening.  Neil is but an extreme example of my general observation that children -- no matter how "successful" -- rarely live up to the hopes and expectations of their childhoods.  I suppose this is logically necessary and obvious -- a child has a million potentialities; an adult, in the limited years of human life, can fulfill only one, or a very small number, of those potentialities. 

The uppermost quotation on my sidebar begins: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel."  I suppose that much of life's tragedy is rooted in this contrast between the seemingly unlimited potential of children and their limited accomplishments as adults.

I'm reminded of a novel I read long ago about an English boys' school.  An assistant headmaster, watching a graduating class assemble, mused over this same question.

Chaps came back, sometimes up to his room at night for tea and biscuits, and one could sense a disappointment.  They found him old, limited, unaltering, parochial.  ...  They were all profoundly unaware of the fact that they had been remarkably curious young birds, filled with unexpectedness, humor, vitality and promise, and were now ordinary, domesticated young men and, by comparison with their former selves, cracking bores.

--Michael Campbell

The teacher was wrong to blame the boys, who had moved on with their lives, and it's wrong for us to blame either 56 Up's now-aging adults personally, or the British class system in which they live, for the sadness we may feel as we watch their lives pass swiftly before us.

Similar sadness has been felt in every era of mankind's history.  This sadness flows necessarily from the shortness of our lives and the dwindling levels of curiosity and energy that begin for many of us almost before we leave home.  Such sadness represents a significant part of the "tragedy" of the human condition.