I’m not sure what to expect from today. I have meetings nearly all day long, and I only have the vaguest of ideas about what the agenda will be for these meetings. I don’t do well with the unknown, especially when it comes to my job. While I think there is nothing to worry about, one never knows. In at least three of these meetings, I will be meeting with the woman who will be my new boss. Regardless of how these meetings go, I will be glad when today is over. I have a vacation day tomorrow, and I am looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend, at least I hope it will be a relaxing weekend. I have no plans, nor do I have anything that I must do this weekend. I have a feeling, I might need three days to recover some today. I hope all will go well, but I just don’t know how smoothly things will go today. 🤞
When I saw the picture above, I was reminded of a used bookstore that was in the small town where I live. Sadly, it could not survive the pandemic. I had hoped it would reopen, but the last time I drove by there, weeds had grown up all around the old Victorian house that was home to the bookstore. I don’t know what has happened to the books, but it was one of my favorite bookstores anywhere. The bookshelves were floor to ceiling and filled with books on nearly every subject and in the corners books that didn’t fit in the stacks were stacked next to the bookshelves. There were books everywhere. The organization was not the usual bookstore categories, but it was fun to wander around and look at what was there. The store also sold vintage posters and postcards. I even found a postcard of Montgomery, Alabama, which showed the downtown fountain made famous by Zelda Fitzgerald dancing in late one night when she was dating F. Scott Fitzgerald. You never knew what you’d find in the store. I always went away with too many books and having spent more money than I’d planned to spend. And as you left the store, there was another set of shelves holding books that were given away for free. It was an amazing store, and one I had looked forward to patronizing when I moved to my small town, but alas, like so many businesses, it could not survive the lockdown necessary during the pandemic. It was not able to adapt online, mainly because I’m not sure the owners even knew all the books they were selling.
Nonetheless , when it was open, it was so much fun and fascinating to wander through the store for unexpected finds. I loved the travel section the most. While I never finished my PhD dissertation, my interest in nineteenth century travel was still strong. This bookstore always had a wide selection of nineteenth century travel books and journals. A lot of people who went abroad would write about their experiences and have them published. It was a popular genre at the time when most people did not travel very far from home. Plus, I love old books. If you remember the picture of Isabella below, you’ll see some of those travel books on the shelf above her.
How calmly does the orange branch Observe the sky begin to blanch Without a cry, without a prayer, With no betrayal of despair,
Sometime while night obscures the tree The zenith of its life will be Gone past forever, and from thence A second history will commence.
A chronicle no longer gold, A bargaining with mist and mould, And finally the broken stem The plummeting to earth; and then
An intercourse not well designed For beings of a golden kind Whose native green must arch above The earth’s obscene, corrupting love.
And still the ripe fruit and the branch Observe the sky begin to blanch Without a cry, without a prayer, With no betrayal of despair.
O Courage, could you not as well Select a second place to dwell, Not only in that golden tree But in the frightened heart of me?
Nearly 30 years ago while I was still in high school, I was attending a summer honors program at the University of Alabama. (It was a momentous summer in many ways, but those are stories for another time.) We took three college classes along with other summer students at Alabama, and every week, we had to attend several honors seminars. One of those seminars was about Tennessee Williams.
The next week, we were taken by bus down to Montgomery to see Williams’s play “The Night of the Iguana” at the Alabama Shakespeare FestivaL. I’ve seen many plays and musicals at ASF, and while not all of the plays were great (I always found the plays that were part of their Southern Writers Series to be godawful), they were all very well produced. I was awed by “The Night of the Iguana” because they made it rain onstage. This might not sound that impressive to everyone, but I always thought it was one of the coolest things.
If you are not familiar with “The Night of the Iguana,” the play portrays the story of Reverend Shannon, a defrocked Episcopal clergyman gone astray, torn between his passions and his devotion, who leads a bus-load of middle-aged Baptist women on a religious-themed tour of the Mexican coast and comes to terms with past demons in re-evaluating his life.
Throughout the play, in a secondary story about a woman, Hannah, and her aging poet-grandfather, the grandfather attempts to finish a poem he feels will be his masterpiece. The poem comes at the end of the play when the grandfather recites his “last” poem while Hannah transcribes it for him. The grandfather dies a few moments later.
The poem represents Tennessee Williams’s poetic view of human nature and the human story. Williams wrote many flawed or tragic characters who might survive, adapt, or make significant change if they only had the courage and confidence that goes with that important quality. Tennessee Williams is not to everyone’s taste, but I have always greatly admired his writing. Of Mississippi literary figures, I consider Williams to be the greatest by far.
I slept later than usual this morning. I’d not been feeling great last night and went to bed early. Isabella tried to wake me a few times, but I just didn’t get up until my alarm went off. Anyway, have a great day.
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?”
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
—John 14:1-6
“‘Yo soy el camino, la verdad y la vida,’ Juan, catorce seis.” When I took Spanish in high school, we had to memorize a Bible verse in Spanish every week. The first one we learned, and the only one I can still remember, is John 14:6. This verse has always stuck with me, not just because it was the first one I leaned in Spanish class, but also because of the message. Sometimes, in life, it’s no doubt that we get lost. We are not going towards the right path anymore. We even tend to give up in finding the right place. However, Jesus tells us that we shouldn’t let our hearts be troubled and just believe in Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life. We might not know where we are going but we must keep in mind that there’s Jesus who’s willing to guide us at any time of the day. We should have faith in Him, and we’ve got nothing to worry. He will bring us in the right place. With Him, everything is possible.
John 14:1-6 is meant to give us comfort and hope. This passage is part of a larger story of the Last Supper, and his disciples are greatly distressed that their Savior is going to leave them. They believe they will be lost without him. Jesus responds to the anxiety of his disciples by saying, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me” (14:1). Jesus calls them back to this fundamental relationship of trust and assures them that he is not abandoning them. Rather, he is returning to his Father, which is good news for them. In speaking of his ascension to the Father, Jesus assures his disciples that this is also their destination. There are many dwellings in his Father’s house, and he goes to prepare a place for them, so that they will be with him and dwell with him in his intimate relationship with the Father (14:2-3).
When Jesus says that they know the way to the place where he is going (14:4), Thomas, like most characters in the Gospel, takes Jesus quite literally. He wants directions, a road map to this place (14:5). Jesus responds by saying that he himself is the way: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (14:6).
When we get lost in life, which can be very hectic, stressful, and even disorienting, if we believe in Jesus, follow His teachings, we will never be lost. When we’re lost, Jesus can and will show us the way. He tells us to “believe in God, believe also in Me.” There are times we all feel lost and in despair, know that Jesus is the way through our troubles.
Joe
The Closet Professor 