incidents and accidents

Everybody Got Their Something.

Woman1 : I was reading about a collection of pictures from the earliest days of photography, taken with pinhole cameras. But it was before the Daguerrotype and the Calotype and even crude transfers using etching, and there was no way to get the images onto a surface people could hold, external to the camera. So the images were captured inside a dark box -

Woman2 : A real camera obscura ...

Woman1 : ... exactly - and had to stay in blackness because the guy who invented them had no way to deal with light. So they can't be seen unless you poke a hole in the box -

Woman2 : - in which case the light would destroy the images -

Woman3 : - like Foucault's cat.

[pause]

Woman1 : Foucault had a cat?

Woman2 : You mean Schroedinger's cat.

Woman3 : Oh. I knew some philosopher had a thing with a cat. It wasn't Foucault?

Woman2 : No, Foucault had a pendulum. And he was a physicist, not a philosopher.

Woman1 : Foucault had a pendulum?

Woman3 : Foucault was a physicist? I thought he was that cultural philosopher from the 60s who wrote about sex.

Woman2 : That was Foucauld, with a "d," about a hundred years after Foucault, with a "t," who built the pendulum.

Woman1 : So, nobody's interested in my story about the un-seeable photographs.

Woman3 : Wait, so Foucauld-with-a-d, is he the one from that novel?

Woman2 : Well, he wouldn't be, would he? Foucauld-with-a-d didn't have a pendulum.

Woman3 : He was gay, he had some kind of pendulum.

[stares]

Woman3 : Well, he was.

Woman1 : You can make raunchy innuendos about a cultural historian from the 1960s but you can't keep him separate from a physicist who proved the rotation of the Earth?

Woman2 : You thought he had a cat.

Woman3 : We all have our areas of specialization.

Woman1 : And yours is the sexual preferences of dead French philosophers?

Woman2 : This could get ugly. As long as we're talking philosophers, can we apply Occam's razor to this discussion and change the subject?

Woman3 : What's that about, anyway? Some philosopher who liked to shave?

Woman2 : Well, technically speaking, Occam was a logician, not a philosopher. And his theory basically comes down to "Keep It Simple, Stupid."

Woman1 : Occam had a razor?

Woman3 : Yeah, and he used it on that other guy's cat. So what do you think they were of, these pictures nobody can see?

While You Were Blogging ...

Whatcha doing with a suitcase?
Trying to hit the ground with both feet running.
Aren't you tripping on your shoelace?

I've been

and

and

with a little time out for

... and I'll be back soon.

My Father's House.

Every so often I read something really insightful about living with faith in the modern world. Bryan's latest post, with its incisive criticisms, is one of those things. Then - and the two circumstances are usually related, unfortunately - I come across something that is most generously described as hateful. One of the comments to Bryan's post is one of those things. I can't link to the comment so I'll just quote it directly here :

[An article by John Nordin] makes the Bible sound as if it is a serious, scholarly book, and not the hodgepodge of silly, self-contradictory anachronisms that it is.

Perhaps Nordin's approach is the right way to reach people who are already well over the cliff and speeding, Wyle-E-Coyote-style, toward the canyon floor. Perhaps. But fundamentally, I can't help but feel that anyone who treats the Bible as a source of rational argument is granting these nutballs a level of legitmacy that they don't deserve.

Well.

As it would be unChristian of me to rip a new poopy-hole for Mr (or is it Ms) A. Nony Mouse, I've decided to write a letter instead.

Dear Random Commenter on Bryan Adams' Blog,

If I were going to respond in detail to your tongue-lashing comment, I would take issue with nearly all of what you've said. In the space of two short paragraphs you have characterized the Bible as silly, self-contradictory, anachronistic, potentially fatal (cf. speeding toward the canyon floor), irrational, illegitimate, and nutball-esque. (I admit I'm not sure of the adjectival form of that last noun. Nutballish? Nutbally?) Your words, and the progressively vituperous tone of your comment, have made me wonder which parts of the Bible you have read that you would characterize in these ways. Was it the Book of Matthew, with its evocative metaphors and careful attention to language? "So let your light shine unto the hearts of men, that they may see your good works" (Mt 5:16) seems an odd verse to declare silly. The Book of Psalms, with its luminous, poignant poetry? "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Ps 137:1) Is this the anachronistic verse, the one that elicits your annoyance? Those seem to me unlikely targets.

What do seem likely targets? Perhaps the Letters of Saint Paul. Let me tell you, fellow commenter, about my relationship with Saint Paul. I myself have taken issue with Saint Paul, in the past. I have struggled with his sense of absolutes and his single-mindedness. I spent a good many years calling Saint Paul a "misogynist" and a "bigot," and whenever I got inspired by the lucidity and plain good advice of his various Letters I felt a loathing for myself that went beyond contradiction : I felt I was betraying my principles and my kind.

If I were taking your rude and hasty words enough to heart I would tell you a personal anecdote. I went to a wedding, just about ten years ago, where the (Protestant) couple had chosen a passage from the Letter to the Ephesians as their Scriptural reading. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the Lord." (Eph 5:22) After the ceremony I left the church with my own new husband and our group of garden-variety unreligious friends. We went out and drank cheap beers and laughed at the couple and their simple, deluded ideals. We consoled ourselves with the thoughts of our own higher degrees and career paths and the truths we were so certain we had a firmer grasp on. At least one of us said or implied the same kind of thing you did in your comment on Bryan's thought-provoking post : that faith that required submission was outdated and misguided and outright negative and what kind of woman would agree to sign on that dotted line anyway. About five years after that I heard my own "Tolle, lege" and moved to France and converted to Roman Catholicism, and then my husband asked for a divorce and I lost my job, sank into depression and attempted suicide twice in three months and spent 9 weeks in the hospital. The world I'd known - my carefully constructed, guided-by-intellect-and-proud-of-it world - simply fell apart. (The fact that I came out of the hospital, finished my dissertation, eventually left France to come back to academia, and stayed in the Church with a more meaningful understanding of how to live faithfully just proves that God has a very wry sense of humor when it comes to dealing with those who mock His word and the sacredness of other people's beliefs. Nice job on the smiting, Lord.)

At some point - maybe even in the hospital itself - I started reading Saint Paul instead of yelling about him. I read beyond Chapter 5 verse 22. I read verse 25 : "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." And thought about the kind of love that would demand of a man. The angry-feminist voice of my college days piped up with a "but- but- but-" and for the first time I told her to shut the hell up and let me read.

And I came to understand that faith does require submission, does require selflessness - not abdication with its subsequent lack of responsibilities, but abnegation, the willingness to be empty of our own noisy needs, in order to receive and respond better to the needs of the people we love. Love, as the poet Rilke put it, is the greatest test, the ultimate striving. To love another person, quoth Victor Hugo, is to touch the face of God. How much was I really willing to give up of myself, in order to touch the face of God through my love for my husband? How much did I trust God and my husband to keep what John Irving has called "the me of me" safe, if I let go of my clamoring doubts and demands?

My preoccupation with, or resentment of, the single word "submit" grew paler and paler until finally (actually, during a traditional Latin rite Catholic wedding, one summer in France) I decided it wasn't worth holding onto anymore. I discussed the etymology of the translation with a priest I'd met who substituted "se donner" for "se soumettre" every time he celebrated a wedding Mass. We talked about the linguistic distinctions and importance of giving oneself. But to my ear today, "se donner" is a bit too New-Age-y, and "se soumettre" has a coherence and a dignity the euphemism can't touch. When you love someone truly, you are willing to lose a little of yourself in order to let a little of him shine through. You agree to watch the special on praying mantises he's interested in, even though you'd really rather see a rerun of the Gilmore Girls. You let him pick the restaurant even if Greek food isn't your favorite. You put down your knitting when he needs a hug. You do these things, and you understand that they don't diminish you ; that they enrich you ; because your small attentions and kindnesses enrich someone else, and because that someone means enough to you that you're willing to put yourself second. I went back to the Letter to the Ephesians, and kept reading. I read verse 32 : This is a great mystery ...

Love is a great mystery. Faith is a great mystery. Hope, as Charles Péguy wrote, is a very great mystery indeed, perhaps the greatest, a fantastically improbable thing. The greatest thing I've learned from Saint Paul I have also learned from Sainte Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus, and Saint Augustin, and Saint Placide and Saint Maur, and Blessed Mother Teresa, and Sainte Bernadette, and Saint Peter, and my abbés in France and the parish of Holy Trinity here in Boston, and the countless generous souls who have contacted me in some way after a blog post that talks about what I believe, and how I manage to live that - namely, that faith, that timeless falling-in-love-with-God, is a wholeness made up of many elements that all work together. This "hodgepodge" only makes sense when you step back from deconstructing it and open yourself to accepting what it tells you. The reason in faith lives on, where logic based on mere temporality gives up. Who am I to scoff in academic superiority at the mystery of someone else's love, their faith? Who are you, Mr A. Nony Mouse, to scoff in polysyllabic cynicism at the mystery of mine?

When I lived in my parents' house, growing up, I had to abide by certain rules, DOs and DON'Ts. These were essentially practical, logical things like keep your room clean, and do your homework, and mind your mother and be nice to your sister, and don't have sex on the couch. By and large I was an obedient child, even if I didn't always agree with or understand all the rules. Living by the tenets of faith is not much different from that. It comes down to pretty much the same things, really - do the work you need to do, be respectful of your parents, help other people when you can, and be responsible with your body. And though I agree with Bryan that the phrase "[God's] moral code" is awkward, I (apparently unlike Senator Santorum) have read the Bible cover to cover (though I may have skipped a couple aphorisms from Proverbs or some of the "begat" sequence in Chronicles) and would argue that "God's moral code" is laid out fairly clearly. (As to how a believing person can understand that code, a few centuries of complications after the life of Christ, consult one of the books on this page.)

I realize, fellow-commenter Mouse, that by choosing Saint Paul and relating these personal stories, I'm putting the Word in your mouth. You didn't mention any specific Biblical books or passages that strike you as anachronistic or silly or unworthy of rational argument. In fact, you dismissed the entirety of the Bible, all sixty-six books (using the Latin Vulgate Bible as a measure of canonicity), much the same way that I myself used to dismiss Saint Paul - a categorical gesture that makes me think two things : one, that you are speaking rashly, and (because?) two, you haven't done your research. It is much easier to shout about something than it is to analyze it and inform yourself. The first merely requires a grasp of irate vocabulary ; the latter requires the time and effort to learn before you speak.

These are some of the things I would bring up, if I were to respond to your comment in detail.

Since I'm not going to give you the three hours and thirty-eight minutes of my life it would require to write out this kind of exegetical explanation, I'll just point out gently that the name of the Looney Tunes character is written with an "i" not a "y," and that you've misspelled "legitimacy." And I'll add, with the slow, velvet-coated-razor smile I reserve for students who interrupt me in class, that I will be more inclined to take your words seriously when you've taken the time and care to proof-read them.

... we beseech you, brethren, that ye ... study to be quiet, and to do your own business ...

(1 Thessalonians 10-11)

What's So Amazing About Really Deep Thoughts?

At times I think I've told all the stories I have to tell, about the hospital and how I got there and the people I knew Upstairs during those weeks. Then a pocket of memory opens up, really a pocket, like a hidden compartment I'm just discovering in a favorite purse, and I realize there's so much more to tell.

Like this week. I was just chatting with the always-delightful Patricia, and it occurred to me that I haven't written anything new since last Tuesday when I was getting ready to take M to the airport. A week without writing. There was a time, and not so very long ago either really, when such a lapse in my life could only have meant my computer was broken, or I was in a monastery - or else that I'd done it again and was back on a guerney in a pale-green hall waiting to wake up.

These days my reasons are duller, and brighter. Since last Tuesday, I've been busy with packing for my upcoming move, which also means organizing a life's worth of crap into some shape that can fit into boxes. And I've been busy marveling at how much crap I can amass in a single not-quite year. And busy marveling as well at the things that are marvelous in this world, like faith and close four-part harmony, and roses almost ready to bloom, and songs that make my heart dance, and light over the Charles, and the absolutely perfect shape and texture of my cat's paws, and friends who haven't forgotten how much they mean to me. I've been making time to write personal emails, or send photos, or chat.

I've also had to spend a significant amount of time dealing with certain pesky practical details of my life. In the past week I have paid off two credit cards, gone apartment-hunting for my brother, and insisted that my landlady make repairs to the 35-year-old appliances that have, unsurprisingly, ceased to function. And I've managed to do all of this without freaking out and thinking "I'm a total freak and failure and the broken oven is all my fault," even in the face of a 29-minute tirade from my landlady which I can only classify as hysterical - and I'm going to go ahead and chalk that up to personal progress. I've found my brother an apartment, and am looking forward to visiting him next year on Beacon Hill. I've been spending a lot of time on flickr, which is a whole lot of fun to play with. And I'm pretty sure I've been watching too much TV. This has only really become a crisis tonight, since I invented a title for the Lifetime-TV movie du soir, and the name I gave the title character was only a couple letters off. Those are my excuses for how little I've written, and some of them truly are weak reasons.

I want to tell you what I've been thinking about. Ecclesiastical things. The "stay of execution" the Archidiocese has given my parish. Certain recent items of news and, as I see it, the folly of assigning temporary human or geographical delimitations to God's province. Personal things. The several sets of anniversaries this summer marks. About contradictions, and making peace with spiders, and how duck-liver sausage tastes sweet and heavy after a sip of chilled Sancerre.

And yes, I want to tell you about Rémy and the green missal. Angéla singing "Pater Noster" at the dinner table, grinning through the Latin, hands outstretched. About playing Scrabble with Paulette and Our Daniel. Saying goodbye to Abdel. Shouting at Claude because he called me a tease. Learning to appreciate the subtle distinctions of Stargate with Christian. The other songs on the Isabelle Boulay CD, and an evening game of pétanque in the courtyard below Upstairs. And about the people who came to the hospital to find me. Liliane. Ghislain. Aude. Fatiha. Marie-Anne. Those moments - grace slanting through windows I wasn't allowed near when they were open - are still finding their way to the surface, each with the logic of its own particular music. Part of me feels I should be sitting down and looking backward so I can write them out, these hospital stories. I know they're important, I know they're worth telling. There is always a song ; these are my songs. For now, though, part of me is enjoying looking around, and inward, and outward, instead, and letting myself see what I see.

Da flickr Code.

flickr, as I understand it, is open-source. So what I want, from one of yall Linux-based programmers out there, is a code for the flickr badge (see left) that lets me choose which photos to include in it, not just "public" or "private" but from a list of my photo sets. That way, I'm thinking, the badge will show a representative selection of all my photos, rather than nine versions of my cat (see left).

A CD Meme

I was tagged for this meme by The Recovering Choir Director, and as my brain is at a serious all-time idea-poor level, well, here ya go, insta-content !

Total number of CDs I own :
Yeah. Around 1000 ? Though possibly more. Most of those are not mixes. And spread out in closets, garages, Case-Logic folders and leftover Dansko boxes from California to Massachusetts to France.

The last CDs I bought :
- The Very Best of Jackson Browne
- J.S. Bach Suites for Cello (performed by Pablo Casals)
- Bach : Favorite Organ Works

The last CD I listened to :
Solennité de Sainte Marie Mère de Dieu by the Moines de Fontgombault.

Five CDs that mean a lot to me :

- See above Fontgombault recording. A very dear friend gave the disc to me during my first year in Lyon, and ever since then it has been an essential and integral part of my listening repertoire. It was my first CD of Gregorian chant in the tradition of Solesmes (rather than Silos, for example) and has proven an auditory anchor ever since. The entire listening experience - which is more like breathing in the chant than merely listening to it - is one of profound wholeness and grace.

- Zizi Possi, Passione. This is a picture I never took*, of my last afternoon in Paris, the first day it was unquestionably hot, and the way the 4 p.m. sun still bleached the white walls of the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the Village Saint Paul. A song about dawn, with chords that spell sunrise over water, light in a gunmetal sky. A saline scent rose from the Seine over a labyrinth of streets I'd walked past in a rush but against whose addresses I had never before made my footsteps echo. If you walk in the map of this improbable photo, you will round a corner of a street you won't later be able to name or even locate, and hear suddenly a music you've known all your life, though you've never heard it played aloud. You will stop at the Italian restaurant with the dark blue-green awning and ask the barrista, who is setting up tables on the tiny sidewalk terrasse, who that singer is, and she will pull her drink-orders pad from a hidden pocket in her black linen apron, and write the name in turquoise ink. Which will seem the only logical color to carry in your pocket. Before you leave she brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes and then, in utter spontaneity, brushes a mirroring one out of yours, and offers you an espresso it is too hot to drink. And for the next five years whenever you hear that song you will feel the touch of a lithe hand on your temple and lift your chin to catch the taste of a faint hint of salt in the sudden summer air, in a hidden neighborhood by a tempermental river.

- Rachmaninov's Vespers, performed by the Swedish Radio Choir as conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste. From the swell of the opening crescendo as the choir steps into its "Amein" like the silver halo of a spotlight, to the sweeping grandiosity of the chords that follow it and call a listener on to worship ; from the delicate nuances of "Bogoroditsje Djevo" (Ave Maria) to the triumphant heraldry of "Vzbrannoy voevode" (Ô victorious leader) and the final morando "Amein," this liturgical setting is a masterpiece to be reckoned with. I first heard Rachmaninov's Vespers (also known as the All-Night Vigil, a name that makes you hear the candles flickering in the darkened nave) the weekend I was visiting Cambridge to learn about graduate school. Overwhelmed by the demands and choices the future was throwing my way in this brick city, and in the throes of insomnia, I turned my Walkman to its FM radio setting around 2 a.m. and heard the subdued strains of the Russian composer's chef-d'oeuvre. It calmed something frightened in me, and as I let myself fall into its rocking, lilting, chant-based repetitions, I found myself letting go of the day and the foreign city and the life opening before me which I knew nothing about, and my own confusion and fatigue. The music was a blanket - both brand-new and impossibly familiar - and finally I slid away from all of it, even the music, and slept.

- The Pop.It compilation I bought in Venice 5 years ago. I can't find a link to it anywhere, so I'll have to settle for telling you that it contains fabulous songs by Lunapop, Davide de Marinis, Subsonica, Kay Bianco, Gerardina Trovato, and Greta - who appears, unfortunately, to have been erased by the vagaries of the intervening years. Even her website has vanished. Che peccato.

- Once As I Remember ... : John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir. "The story of Christmas in readings and music based on the Springhead Christmas Play." One of several CDs that makes me nostalgic for the Christmases of my youth, as well as Christmases from the youth of some other person I've never known. My choir in Lyon regularly sings 8 of the 31 works on this disc, and I can say with some pride that I taught them half of those, including the traditional English folk song "The king of all kings," which we sang for the Veillée de Noël as the lights went down before the entrance Procession for the Messe de minuit. (I did have to specify that the word "manger" in English is not pronounced like the verb "to eat" in French. But aside from that, they did a beautiful job.)

Tag five people :
Dan (because I know some of his musical tastes and would love to know more), Miss Bliss (because I'm sure she revisited her collection before her recent road trip), Cacoa (if she can pry herself away from those files for a few minutes), Josh (because I don't know what he likes to listen to and it's usually my first question), and Charles (just because). Have fun !

* and thanks to Unphotographable for the phrase ...

A lot of alliteration but at least I'm employed, you boob ...

THREE WORDS, YOU IDIOTS :

Password. Protected. Posts.

Sheesh.

Logan Runs.

Tomorrow I will get up and (magari) go for a run in the morning, before the day's 93-degree heat settles in like a heavy wet towel, then limp through the humidity into my office where I have a stack of thesis-related paperwork to deal with and an academic calendar to create. Then, in the afternoon, I will go to M's house and accompany her to Boston Logan airport. This will be my second trip to the airport in as many weeks. The first one I've been keeping to myself, selfishly, but I think it's a story worth telling. And so here you go, my Tuesday gift to you.

*

"Ti aspetto alle sei e mezzo!" P says on Tuesday.

"Alle sei e mezzo!" I repeat, dumbly. "T'es fou?"

Six thirty in the morning! I tell him I would have to get up at le quattro e mezzo and take the very first bus which might get me there by 6h30.

"E ... alle otto e mezzo, basta?"

Eight thirty will be plenty early enough, he says, eyes twinkling, and I swat at his shoulder as I realize he is scherzando. He dodges the blow effectively and grins as he lopes down the department hall to the Spanish office.

I go home and try to sleep.

*

Ieri ho capito che
è da oggi che comincio senza te

At 7h49 the following morning I am on the bus. My hair is wet, pulled severely back into what would be a chignon if I had the patience to make one. Instead it is merely a twisty ponytail that will dry and leave gentle waves in its wake. I carry : an over-the-shoulder purse from Chile, a gift from one of my students, my backpack full of various things I think I might need during the course of the day, a plastic carrier bag full of clean gym clothes and socks, and the sky-blue Bodum caddy my mother bought during our too-brief weekend in Copenhagen, the summer of 2001. I bought its orange twin and used it so much in the following three years in Lyon that, literally on my last day there, both wheels fell off and the scuffs that had been threatening to bloom into full-fledged holes did so. I threw my orange caddy out two hours before I left the city for the last time. My mother gave me her blue one back in December. I have promised P I will bring this caddy, to help move the things he can't fit into a suitcase or a trash bag, the things he can't simply throw away.

We spend an hour picking up the pieces of a year's life in a small university flat. He offers to make coffee but drops the metal cafetière and burns his hands. I dash to the sink and let the water run out until it is cold as silver, then push his wrist and fist underneath the faucet while I mop the floor with his much-used sponge. In the bathroom, he tells me, there is some antiseptic wash. He asks how you say "scottatura" in English.

Burn, I tell him.

We hail a cab and let ourselves be driven the kilometer into the Square. One of his suitcases and all the random bags go into the trunk. The other suitcase, the one he has borrowed from his sister, sits on end in the front seat, like a passenger. The driver asks occasional questions. We speak Italian in the back seat, answer when spoken to.

"So, yall movin' out," the driver says. It is not a question; P shrugs in confirmation.

"S'that time-a year," the driver says. His eyes catch mine in the rear-view.

*

We enter the building at G level, in the basement, down a little concrete ramp and through an automated wheelchair door. My arms are full of hard-plastic suitcase handles and sky-blue-canvas caddy pulls, plus a couple plastic carrier bags ; I perform a yoko-geri to the automatic door-switch that will set the opening mechanism in motion. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain I hear my Washington State sensei joking that the yoko-geri is the easiest kick-name to remember. All you have to do is think of Yoko, and "side-kick" will come instantly to mind. In other recesses of my brain I am reliving a thousand yoko-geris to lightswitches in Paris and the occasional admiration from someone passing in the hall. It's one cool thing I can do, turn on lights with perfect aim and the ball of my foot. Sometimes I need to remember that I have cool skills, even though my friends these days will never know about them. That my life has taught me cool things, taken me to cool places, no matter how much I have to let go of along the way. Nonetheless, I do not hit the button for the fourth floor with my toe. I am, after all, wearing newly-washed jeans, and do not want to be unladylike.

Two women join us in the elevator at the first-floor level. I recognize them as the department administrators from Classics, two floors beneath ours. They clamber into the elevator around all the bags and parcels, and one of them turns to P to ask "you're leaving?"

"Yes," he says simply.

"Where are you going now?" the other one asks, and he responds, "Italy," and the rest of us laugh while he looks bemused.

"In this very elevator!" I say, so he'll get it. "We all knew the university had secret passageways ..."

Later I will explain the shifting present tense in English, the way the added "now" changes the referent. For the moment, I am enjoying his discomfiture : I already miss him.

Io sopravviverò
Adesso ancora come non lo sò
Il tempo qualche volta può aiutare
A sentirsi meno male...
A poter dimenticare
ma adesso è troppo presto

*

Throughout the day he pops into my office. "What happens if I don't return this one book to the library?"

"You'll be charged. The university could even withhold your final paycheck."

"Che cazzo."

Later, "I have some photocopies that will not fit in my suitcase."

"Ship them, ship them, ship them." My refrain.

"From the post office! But the lines are always -" he gestures wildly, "seventeen hours long."

I stare. "No, you can send them from the department. Just address your envelopes and put them in that wooden box over there by the faculty mailslots." There is a pause. "You didn't know?"

Another pause. "Ah che cazzo."

Later still, as I am shuffling through some paperwork from the Registrar to make sure our seniors all graduate with their correct degrees, I sense a presence at my door. Sure enough, there he is, looking abashed.

Cosa c'è?

Allora, ho visto che non ho lo spazio per ... questo. His hands come forward from behind his back, and he presents me with a bottle of Vino Santo.

"You don't have room for it? What about your backpack?"

But I am not getting it. He shakes his head, shoves the bottle forward at me. It is special, a vintage from some time in the 90s, and brand new. He has been saving it. A paper import seal still chokes the neck.

"I'll send it to you," I offer.

He shakes his head. "Prendila." Just take it. And explains what it goes well with. Biscotti, as we call them, or dry crumbling cheeses. Or chocolate. Nero, not bianco. He gestures to mime the enjoyment of a glass of vin'santo, one finger even scooping underneath the palm to catch falling biscotti crumbs.

*

We take the red line T to South Station, then the new Silver Line to the airport. On the way I flip back through the things people asked me when I was leaving Lyon, leaving France. You must be excited to see your family again. Even though you live a thousand kilometers from them. Distances adjusted, divided by five, for him. Your family must be happy to have you coming home. Even if, since you left home, they've only seen you once a year. Your friends must be delighted, you'll have such a great time seeing each other again. Even if only a few people still live where you left them when you left.

I dutifully parade these platitudes out for him so he can answer them and remember, maybe, for some unforeseen time in the future when a younger colleague will leave Pisa. After each of them he nods, then offers a short sentence in response.

*

His luggage is checked in, his tickets officially stamped. I suggest getting a drink. I am staring at the café to the right of the security checkpoint, thinking a cappuccino would add nice punctuation to this long day. He slides one of those dark-eyed Roman looks at me and says, "Stop looking at Dunkin Donuts. If we're getting a drink, let's get a drink."

It's four thirty in the afternoon. I let myself be convinced by the logic that it is clearly evening in Europe, and we sit down to a plate of crab cakes and glasses of sparkling wine from a Sonoma vineyard. And we talk. About journeys, and homecomings, and family reunions. About students and teachers. And I realize that no matter how close I feel to him there will always be essential stories he will not know about my life, and vice-versa, and that the omission matters. He says his father will drive the family to the airport to pick him up. Makes a bitter comment about his father's not coming to visit. I lift my glass and clink his in solidarity he doesn't understand. Raise and lower my eyebrows. And smile. And we are returned to solid ground. Pre-flight ground. Some confusion arises when he says he will connect through Monaco and I reply that I didn't realize Monaco was even big enough to house an international airport. We blink blankly at each other for a few moments then he says Monaco di Baviera, which of course explains everything.

*

E resto immobile qui
senza parlare, non ci riesco a stancarmi da te
E cancellare tutte le pagine del tuo immagine
E vivere ... come se non fosse stato amore?

Outside the terminal he lights a cigarette and smokes into the wind, blowing ash away from me. I am tempted to ask for one but don't. Instead I hand him the gift bag I have brought with me out to the airport.

Per te, I say.

Ma ... cosa c'è? he asks.

Vedrai. You'll see. And he will.

I explain that the small orange box is for his sister. I do not tell him : that the wine is from California, which no matter how French I believe myself to be at heart will always be my home. That the book is by my favorite American author. That the gift for his sister is from the monastery in Provence where I found a soul I didn't know I was searching for. That I wept during each and every song while making the CD. That I used my online Italian dictionary only once as I wrote the card to go along with these goodbye tokens. These details - like the story of the yoko-geri and a thousand Parisian light-switches - he does not need to know.

All too soon he is stubbing out his cigarette in the sand of the cement ashtray and turning toward the terminal again. For the first time he leans in to kiss my cheeks first.

Ci vediamo, he says, after the baci.

Altra scelta non c'è, I quote, numbly.

He walks through security, and does not turn to wave once he is past the last visible set of guards.

*

I do not collapse in sorrow. I do not weep and cling. I do not make embarrassing emotional declarations. I do not swoon. It's not that kind of grief. I don't even stand in place watching him walk through the metal detectors. Instead, I go to the freshly cleaned restroom, touch up lipstick I was not wearing with an only slightly shaking hand. I walk outside and stand in the sun and wait for the next Silver Line to pull up, and when it does I climb on board and flash my monthly pass, curl into a corner seat and plug my headphones firmly into my ears, and choose the "italiano" playlist on my Creative player.

Of course, the Fates being what they are, Laura Pausini pops up without too much delay, and tears spark against the backs of my eyelids and I haven't brought my sunglasses so can't hide behind them as I listen, so can't listen and cry, and so I turn the music off savagely and ride the MBTA home in silence. Come se non fosse stato mai amore - how come you were never a lover - there are too many reasons, most of them good.

Resto ancora così
Senza parlare, senza dirti "non te ne andare"
Non mi lasciare tra questa pagine

Goodbyes, I tell you. Che cazzo.

*

Questions for God

My own second-grade teacher would probably scold me for stealing ideas from Mrs Vaughan, but her post has inspired me.

Mrs Vaughan writes :

I asked the students, "if you could ask God one question what would it be?"

Her students asked questions with varying levels of theological complexity, from "Is there a city in Heaven?" (Amanda) and "How can I be more like Jesus?" (Sara), to the more personal "How is my Grandfather doing?" (Richard), and the ever-puzzling "Why did you make rattle snakes?" (Matthew)

So I put Mrs Vaughan's question to you. Given everything you have learned since second grade, if you could ask God one question, what would it be?

Saturday.

I've got a choir rehearsal in half an hour and tons of thoughts but no energy to write them out for the moment. So, instead, I'm listening to Pablo Casals play the Bach suites for unaccompanied cello, and exploring my possibilities with Flickr.

In that spirit, here is a little visual overview of the big ceremonies that took place on campus this past week. Happy viewing. Commencement 2005.

Commencement.

Yesterday afternoon our department had a reception for the 2005 graduates. Ph.D.s comforted M.A.s about the road ahead, and graduating seniors stood with their parents and basked in the glow of the department chair's speech, having just finished their first major academic hurdle. One of the topics under discussion among professors and parents was the title of the diploma-awarding ceremony. It's true, it's an odd title. The fact that we earn "degrees" would seem to favor the word "graduation" - moving through stages as we progress. And yet, there's a certain charm to "Commencement," a certain poetry, the unifies the entire campus community. Commencement means beginning. The discussion made me think back over the years through my own Commencements - high school, college, Master's degree, Doctorate - and how the title grew more and more appropriate with each ceremony. And now that I'm done with all those degrees and diplomas, each new situation is a commencement, with a small "c."

"But what are they beginning?" a French professor asked.

The answers came in, some with laughter, some ironic, some poignant. "Their real lives." "The future." "Graduate school." "A job!" (from one gruff grandparent.) "Their own tax deductions." For the Ph.D.s, the choices were different, and not. Teaching in a university. Another doctorate. A family. A different career.

Parents, children, husbands, wives, professors, and not-my-turn-yet fellow students surrounded the graduates as they laughed and reminisced and chatted, all together in one place for the last time before they donned their robes and mortarboards and walked in procession into their futures, whatever they hold. What are they beginning? Everything.

What are you beginning today?

Thank you for playing.

After being seriously underwhelmed by responses during the first week - a fact which merely confirmed what I have long suspected, that is, I am not only nowhere near as cool as Greg but also not as good at crafting interactive readership on my blog - I've suddenly had a series of emails with answers to my quiz, some from people whose names I don't recognize (hi!). And the CDs have all left the building. (OK, not all of them have even left the CD burner. But the quiz is over. **UPDATE : the last CDs will be in today's* mail.**)

It's been interesting to see who answered which questions. Some people got #2 (Cantique de Jean Racine, by Gabriel Fauré) and #3 (St Cecilia) right away and had to search several of the internets to find #1 ("You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon). Others got the Paul Simon reference with no trouble, but got stuck on Fauré. Some people thought of the patron saint of musicians as a continuation of #1 and quoted the Simon & Garfunkel song "Cecilia" in their responses ("Oh Saint Cecilia, you're breakin' my heart, you're shakin' my confidence daily!").

My favorite answer of all was to question 2. I edited Charles's comment that supplied all the answers and left blanks to fill in, and one contestant filled them in as follows : "no idea about French music or classical stuff but I know you were in a church choir so I'm gonna say it's the Cantique de Jesus, Romy by George Fox."

Yep. And we sang it about every three weeks.

*for values of "today," read "tomorrow."

Stopping By Pentecostals on a Snowy Evening.

Lida drives me home from an evening choir rehearsal that has devolved into arguments (with the director) and ill feeling (against the Archbishop). The issue is whether we will sing the Carolingian Acclamations in their entirety, or leave out the verse about Eminentissimo Cardinali Archi-Episcopo. I raise my hand, timidly. "With all due respect," I begin, then realize nothing worth listening to begins with "with all due respect." I fidget. A silence fills the tribune, punctuated by the low electric hum of the organ. I try again. "We can't cut the Archbishop out of Christus Vincit. He's second in the order of acclamations. The Pope, the Cardinal Archbishop, the Bishop and then all the priests who serve the Lord."

"We'll sing it only for the Pope," a soprano says, annoyed.

"We can't," I return. "Besides, do you think the Pope would appreciate knowing we'd left out those in whom he placed the trust of Christ's ministry?"

"You think he'd be happy to know what this Archbishop is doing to the Catholic Church here in Boston?" It comes back to this. "Our" church is slated to close in June 2005, along with 85 other churches from the Archdiocese. The community here feels adrift, angry, lost. Some of these people have given their lives to this church - helping with the soup kitchen, doing clerical tasks, cleaning the Sacristy. And I am an interloper, the newest member of this choir, mourning my own church left behind across the Atlantic. What happens to Holy Trinity matters less to me, in some sense, than what happens to St Georges. All of us are blind.

"He's not my archbishop," one bass says finally, anger rumbling deep behind his words. The director agrees, and we strike the verse. We know exactly whom we're singing for, and exactly whom we're not. The passion in our debate has stirred the choir, and when we run through Jan Kunc's setting the chords ring out more gloriously than ever. I wonder silently if, given our exclusivity and ill will, we can truly call what we're singing an acclamation.

*

In the car on the drive home, Lida tries to explain the anger. Closing the churches is a financial measure, she says, designed to pay off the debt from Boston's priest-sex-abuse trials. The Archdiocese's insurance will bear the brunt of that hefty cost, but the Arhdiocese itself has to contribute. And in order to do that, the Archdiocese has to find money somewhere. And church attendance is shrinking. The upkeep on some of these old buildings is tremendously expensive. I've read the explanations too. They make sense to me, but I am an outsider and don't feel I can say that. The Archbishop has just released a letter to the Archdiocese, reiterating that the decision to close churches has shaken him to the core as well, asking the faithful to trust him. Lida explains that many people in this archdiocese do not want to hear the words "trust me" from a high-ranking Church official. The faithful of Boston are still suffering.

I look at the map of the Archdiocese, Lida says, and the 85 churches that will close, and every one of them is a light going out. A red light. The Real Presence won't live there any longer. And the thing is, there is darkness the world over. We need these red lights.

*

Around the corner from my apartment stands a church under construction. I walk up the hill past it on my way to the bus stop. It used to be Catholic, my landlady has told me, but was bought when the parish was closed a few years ago. A sign outside the ornate front door explains the building now houses a Pentecostal community. I've never really known what Pentecostal means, except etymologically - fifty days after Easter, the Holy Spirit descended unto the Apostles who began speaking in tongues, much to the amazement of the "devout men" who stood near them and witnessed the occasion. The feast of Pentecost is recognized as the one when we receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit - whether the traditional Catholic seven gifts conferred with the sacrament of Confirmation, or some looser interpretation, based on Saint Paul's letter to the Ephesians ("And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers" - Eph. 4:11) and frequently involving the notion of inspired healing through the laying-on-of-hands. I had a friend in Washington who had been a Pentecostal for a while ; she, with a mixture of disgust and affection, referred to herself as a "Holy Roller" because she fell to the floor during prayer meetings and let the Holy Spirit dance its way through her limbs until she was exhausted and lay still.

I've never been to a prayer service at the church behind my house, or at any Pentecostal church for that matter. All I know (or, if I'm honest, really care to know) about the denomination has been encapsulated in the results of a 19-second Internet search, which gave me a website offering sermons for the busy contemporary Pentecostal pastor. About halfway down the page comes an animated .gif file of the words "But WAIT - There's MORE!" flashing attractively like some car-lot commercial from the 1970s. (Go See Cal!) The services on Brooks Street start at 11h on Sundays, by which time I've long since left for my downtown Mass. I don't even hear the bells. In fact, I've only noticed the church because of its unusual stained-glass door in shades of gold, purple, and green. Sometimes, if I walk past it in the evening, when the light is on inside for some youth group activity, the door-glass radiates outwards. It's a lovely nineteenth-century building, or perhaps early-twentieth-century building built in nineteenth-century style, and it sits slightly uphill from the sloping sidewalk, so the basement is just about at sidewalk level.

A couple months ago I was on my way home from a late evening at work, and as I walked past the Pentecostal church, something in the basement caught my eye. A red light, gently glowing and refracted through the rectangular basement window. Do the Pentecostals have the Real Presence? I found myself wondering. It seemed surprising. I had never imagined a Tabernacle in any church other than a Catholic one - especially not in one of the more charismatic Protestant denominations. I was far enough away that I couldn't make out more of the light, and then the light inside was partially obscured by a tree, and then by the casing of the window. I realized that if I walked past a Tabernacle out here on Brooks Street, in the Pentecostal church behind my house, I would kneel on the cold sidewalk and say a prayer. A prayer of Thanksgiving, to have the Real Presence so close to my daily life. Then I was abreast with the window, and looked in again, and saw the same gentle dark-red glow : an Exit sign. I stood still for a second, unable to move. Something in me shook - in distress I couldn't find words for, and disappointment I could - and then I turned at the corner and went home.

*

At the Central Square T stop in Cambridge hangs a billboard with a close-up on a young man's face. He looks about 35, serious, clean-shaven - a perfectly photogenic intellectual face for this part of the country. The ad is for Vineyard Churches, which have opened a new franchise in Cambridge. Vineyard, whose slogan is "non-traditional by choice," has issued several of this sort of billboard in the past few months, all featuring young people who are at least visually on the cutting edge of what is beautiful, spiritual and hip. The captions tend to focus on the music, the fellowship, the community. Vineyard has its own music label and every year releases a compilation of worship songs. The music is catchy, popular, featuring the kind of ear-pleasing harmonies that make you hum along without paying too much attention. (A couple years ago I heard one used as the Introït Antiphon for a Life Teen Mass in California. I objected to its being part of a Mass but have added it to the running mix on my mp3 player. What doesn't work as sacred music is perfect for running - it's rock, not too deep, with a steady beat and a bass line that makes you want to move.)

Although I am automatically suspicious of any church that feels it needs to run commercials, I've never really seen much harm in these billboards. Kind of like Oh God! Book Two, I guess my philosophy is it's ok as long as it gets people to "Think God." But when the new Vineyard billboard went up in Central Square, so did a little red flag of objection in my mind. Put aside the total racial, class and age hegemony of the people pictured on these billboards ; put aside the (to me) absurdity of advertising for religion ; put aside even the slick production that seems to contrast with Christ's message of the virtue of poverty. Aside from all that, the words on this billboard bother me. The caption for the photo is a sentence in quotation marks : "The sermons are surprisingly relevant and practical."

I walked down the platform away from the billboard, thinking back over the nearly five years of weekly (and at various points, daily) sermons I've listened to, and while I am no homiletic expert, I'm pretty sure they've all been relevant. Certainly there have been times when I've found them a bit long, or wondered how much time the priest spent putting his words together, or why he'd chosen to read nearly a full chapter from the Life of Sainte Jeanne d'Arc. But all in all, I have learned much from the sermons of my Roman Catholic clergymen, and especially learned to respect their process of crafting a sermon to explain a Scriptural reading or a particular saint's legacy. And I have learned to accept five, or ten, or seventeen, minutes away from my own thoughts, to focus my attention on a lesson someone else finds important for me. To appreciate the time of reflection and concentration on an Epistle or a Gospel. To open a window in the day, through which the Holy Spirit can soar.

The billboard's idea makes me want to suggest something drastically unpopular. If we don't find our spiritual leaders' sermons relevant and practical, if relevance and practicality in sermons comes as a surprise, perhaps we're looking at worship the wrong way. The Church is not a consumer culture in which we can hire or fire people according to how well they serve us. The Church is not a democracy in which we get to vote periodically to choose those who will do God's work with us. If we have trouble finding relevance in Church teachings and Church doctrine to our own daily lives, why are we so quick to assume that the Church is at fault? Why not hold our own lives up for scrutiny instead? Or do we avoid doing so because we know they couldn't stand the test? Perhaps we are only "non-traditional by choice" (and, especially in modern-hungry Massachusetts, the idea of being thus "non-traditional" is itself dated and ironic) because we recognize tradition as a vocation, a calling. And we are afraid, afraid of not being called. And afraid, too, of being called. "You must train yourself to let go of the things you fear to lose," says a very wise character in a popular movie, in for-once unstilted syntax. What would we have to let go of, to live our vocations? To live our faith, every day, with relevance and grace, in the world?

*

Lida's car weaves through the darkened lanes of traffic down Storrow Drive. We move in thoughtful silence through the post-rehearsal night. I picture the last day of Holy Trinity - Tabernacle left open, a dramatic French-Revolutionary image, the gold door tarnished and hanging off its hinges. I picture the last person out of the church who will lean over the tall red candle and extinguish the flame, breath mixing guiltily with smoke that will be all too visible in the sudden darkness, then all too quickly gone.

Lida, I say, Jesus lives wherever people recognize His sacred presence. If the Archdiocese administrators, or the government, or our own spiritual fathers put out His light in church buildings, then it is up to us to keep the lights on.

Lida slides me a look. I thought you weren't for the vigils and church occupations? she says.

I'm not talking about vigils and church occupations, I tell her. What I mean is, we have to be the light. We have to carry the red flame in ourselves.

Because what we believe, and how we live it on a day-to-day basis, is practical, is relevant. All around us are "devout men" who don't understand or agree and who would rather we just shut up about it, already. If we save our faith for Sundays and the call of parish bells, if we say the teachings don't fit our lives or our habits, if we try to change two thousand years of holiness ; or, if we close our minds to the decisions of our spiritual leaders, if we refuse to accept their wisdom as wisdom, if we let resentment keep us from praying for them even (especially!) when we disagree ; and perhaps most of all, if we see God only within the walls of consecrated buildings ... it sounds elementary, but we don't win. Nobody wins. The churches go empty, and the land and the buildings are sold, and the red glow we pass in the window is not an altar candle but an exit sign.

You're right, Lida says, but her eyes are sad. I'm just not sure we're strong enough, here and now.

We have to be, I tell her, Especially here. Especially now. I kiss both her cheeks before I get out of the car. It is 10:30 pm as she drives off into the snow. In Lyon, I would hear the half-hour toll of the carillon from the Eglise Saint-Paul around the corner from my apartment - two muffled strokes of the tenor bell. I stand outside my house for a moment, listening, but the night in Boston holds its tongue. We have to be strong enough, I have told my sad friend, and so we will be, even if the place we love, the place we sing and pray, becomes just a building. I don't know how to accept that. For the faithful of this parish, and for the people like me who have found it, with the help of Providence, and become attached, Holy Trinity will always be sacred. But we too must train ourselves to let go, because certain truths are greater than the shape of the nave.

I don't have answers, or even all the questions, just songs, and the path around the back of the house has never seemed so long. I walk to my door, singing to bring these prayers to the surface, as if my small voice could fight off the encroaching darkness.

Christus vincit !
Christus regnat !
Christus, Christus imperat !

Mini-rant.

Remember how up there, just underneath my title banner, there used to be a series of ads you could click on? I've removed them. Know why?

I got an email a couple weeks ago from the Google AdSense people - now that I am no longer participating in the program I figure I'll go ahead and utter That Which Shall Not Be Named - saying that there had been illegal activity on my account. The email quoted the AdSense policies which state that a site-publisher may not click on his/her own ads, and that click-bots are not allowed. I wrote a respectful response requesting clarification. Was AdSense suggesting, with this choice of quoted passages from the rule-FAQ, that I had violated one or both of these policies? If so, how?

Now if you know me at all, you know I am about a technologically adept as whoever does special effects for Sifl and Olly. I can type fast but have no creativity or how-to knowledge when it comes to programming. So the "bot" issue seemed to me highly unlikely, and I don't know anyone who would set up a click-bot for my site. I mean, this is a fairly low-key, low-profile site, and I don't have techie henchpeople who would want to boost my astronomical 13-cents-per-day revenues. (Pips, I have. Minions, not so much.) I explained, further, that when I registered with AdSense I'd set up the account from a shared computer at work (rather than my computer at home). That several people who use the computer also occasionally pop by to read my site. That the "illicit" clicks could have come from them, but I could only verify this if Google would provide me with IP information for the machine or machines in violation. I was annoyed by the decision, but convinced that I could look into what had happened and make sure it didn't happen again.

But I received an email back in which the "AdSense Team" informed me that there was no discussing the issue, they had subtracted all my clickety earnings from my account and given them back to their advertisors. The next paragraph read thus (my emphasis) :

We understand that you wish to receive specific information regarding the invalid clicks we observed on your account. Unfortunately, due to the proprietary nature of our algorithm, we cannot disclose any details about how our monitoring technology works or what specifics we found on your account.

Essentially, what this means is that Google can cancel and deactivate your account at any time, for the stated reasons, and not be required to provide any proof that you have done something wrong. And you are not permitted to participate in the AdSense program ever again once they have shut you down. And anything you've earned they will not pay you, even if the offending click happened at 12h01 today and you had $7000 accumulated at 11h59. Oh, and? They have your home address, Social Security Number, bank account and tax information. Cheers then.

So for all those of you who have AdSense on your pages - be warned.

Azalea.

Last Saturday I was on my way to a choir rehearsal and I stopped to take this picture of a plant around the corner from my house. I thought the plant looked kind of funny, like it couldn't decide if it was an artichoke or a bulb. And because I totally dig artichokes, and enjoyed the novelty of a fuschia-tinted artichoke - really, who wouldn't - I got in as close as the neighbor's fence would allow and focused my new Pentax lens on the thing. I didn't think too much of it after that.

I went to South Boston, to Holy Trinity and my choir, and waited for nearly half an hour as the director fumed about Sunday's solemn high mass for the Feast of Corpus Christi (which I didn't recognize at first, as it is called la Fête-Dieu in France). It seemed she was unhappy about who would serve as deacon and who as subdeacon for the Mass and processional afterwards, and did not agree with the assignment of liturgical roles. I sat waiting for rehearsal to start, thinking with regret of the sleeve of Saltine crackers I'd left at home and wondering how much of the afternoon we would spend not singing. I was impatient, and I admit I thought one or two uncharitable things about this kind of discussion and the time it wastes.

*

Suddenly I flashed back to an image of myself in the priests' office in Lyon. I saw the strange pale-yellow light that came in through the sea-green shutters and bounced off the beige walls. I heard my own voice, strident and full of discord. I was arguing with a certain abbé over his choice of two tenors to sing the Litanies des saints at the Vigile Solennelle for Samedi Saint.

The Litanies des saints are sparse, the organization of notes so crisp and simple that they have to be sung with great care. The whole sequence is based on a call-and-answer relationship between the cantor(s) and the congregation. The cantors begin with "Kyrie eleison," which the faithful crowd echoes. Then they sing a series of pleas to the saints, starting with the Mother of God : "Sancta Maria," and the congregation responds "Ora pro nobis" (Holy Mary/ Pray for us). There is a first part and a second part to the Litanies, with the sacred rite of benediction of the baptismal waters in the middle, the chant (or polyphony) "Sicut cervus" to reflect the strong thirst of the catechumens for faith and holiness. Then baptisms, and then a return to the Litanies before the solemn Mass begins. And this time, the cantors launch straight into their to-be-echoed pleas : "Propitius esto," and the congregation sings "Parce nobis, Domine" (Be generous with us/ Forgive us, Lord). Over the course of the cantors' four or five syllables, the psalmody returns to the note where the plea begins, so "pro" of "propitius" and "e" of "esto" are on the same level of the scale. For example, Pro-pi-ti-us e-sto = fa-fa-mi-ré-fa-sol, and then the crowd picks up Par-ce no-bis Do-mi-ne = mi-fa-ré-do-ré-do-si-bémol. (Click on the links to hear unseasonal and unpracticed versions of these bits of the Litanies des saints.)

The progression achieves wholeness through simple psalmody, the series of notes coming full circle with the cantors and then completing a cadence of resolution in the collective voice of the faithful. The melodic intervals of the Litanies reflect this sense of completion, this fullness of prayer. A note flat or sharp, a missed interval, throws off the progression and leaves a hole, marring its logic, its message, its point.

That year, my priest wanted Eric and Pierre-Marie to sing the Litanies. I didn't have anything in particular against either of the two, but I knew that (1) Eric was fed up with choir and wouldn't rehearse, and (2) Pierre-Marie needed to be paired with someone absolutely certain not to make mistakes, or else his voice would wander over the octave like a sparrow in fog, uncertain where or how to land. And so I objected to the choice. I suggested a bass to sing with Pierre-Marie - a lovely, timid man named Jean who was too frequently overlooked. The priest refused because he didn't like Jean's penchant for faux-bourdons. I said some strong things, and the priest said some other strong things, including the very sharp message that I was not in charge of the liturgy.

I am in charge of the choir, I retorted. You have given me this charge. I know these voices. I just want the Easter Vigil Mass to be perfect.

I want it to be holy, he responded, and that was the end of the discussion.

That Samedi Saint I knelt on the stone floor of the side chapel with the choir and listened as Eric and Pierre-Marie together missed an interval in the "Propitius esto" section of the Litanies, jumping a whole step too high. They jumped from ré to sol, instead of fa. Tears smarted my eyelids. The mistake jarred my own prayers and made me panic selfishly : I knew that, as the choir director, I - not the priests - would hear criticism for this error. I wanted to enjoy the solemn beauty and austere glory of the Easter Vigil, without planning my responses to the usual suspects who would come to me with reproaches for the choir's performance. I looked around the choir and saw people shaking their heads. The nearest soprano touched my arm and gestured at the pair of cantors, and I nodded and shrugged. What did she want me to do? I didn't have a valid liturgical voice. I crawled, still kneeling, over to one of our most reliable basses and asked him in a desperate whisper if he wouldn't go closer and correct their pitch. He wouldn't, didn't want to disturb them. The organist couldn't yet play - until the Gloria of the Easter Mass, we were still technically in the Temps de la Passion, a time of penitence and suffering, in which the organ was forbidden. Eric and Pierre-Marie carried on. They repeated the mistake for every single one of fifteen verses, and I cringed. The choir heaved a collective sigh of relief as they moved into the final, "Peccatores" section of the Litanies, to which the faithful respond "te rogamus, audi nos" (As sinners/ We beg you, hear us).

Quel dommage ! the soprano said to me after the Mass, at nearly 2h30 in the morning. Il ne fallait pas les laisser chanter comme ça ! You shouldn't have let them sing.

I had no say in the matter, I told her, d'un ton sec. She moved off, and I moved off and walked home through the late-March early-morning fog that sank down toward the cobblestones of Vieux Lyon, alone. I had to get home and try to get some sleep : the next morning, just a few hours later really, the choir was scheduled to meet at 9h to rehearse one last time before the Easter Sunday High Mass.

*

The Mass at Holy Trinity last Sunday began minutes before noon, with a chanted Angelus and the ongoing Novena Prayer to Our Sorrowful Mother in hopes of keeping the church open (its closing date is scheduled for 30 June). Then the priest, deacon, subdeacon, and altar boys processed up to the altar, in reverse order of liturgical importance, and the Mass began. The Gregorian schola sang the proper of the feast day, and the polyphonic choir sang the SCHMALTZY TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY slightly dated setting of the Kyriale we have sung EVERY DAMN SUNDAY SINCE OCTOBER with some regularity, and the children's choir sang "O Sanctissima" and then the Mass ended with a procession and hymns out in the sunshine around the church, and then the priest gave his blessing and the ceremony drew to its end. The organ played a resounding hymn as the church emptied, and the faithful remained standing as the liturgical procession left the altar and returned to the sacristy. All in all it was a moving ceremony Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, with no noticeable glitches. But when I went back up the worn wooden stairs to the tribune to collect my things, I found our choir director shaking her head and muttering.

"What happened in that first hymn?" she demanded. "There was something going on that was not at all what is written on the page."

I shrugged, disingenuously - the hymn was "Tantum ergo" in an English translation, and one of the sopranos had suggested we sing it in Latin, an idea which delighted me. But it wasn't the time or the place to tell the director what had happened, so I kept my mouth shut and reassured her that the whole Mass had been beautiful and prayerful, the procession had gone off without a hitch, the congregation had sung with us outside, the sun was shining, everything was fine. I thanked her and went back down the worn wooden stairs and out into the afternoon, and walked through Boston to my T-stop, alone.

*

This morning on my way to work I passed the same flowering bush in my neighbor's yard, and realized the spiny artichoke bulb had opened into a brilliant series of hot-pink blossoms. The azaleas are opening all over Boston these days, each bloom more vivid than the last. The needling sections of the closed bulb unfold to reveal a multilayered flower, and if you put the two side by side you realize that what look like hard dry leaves with only a tip of color are actually azalea cloves, protecting the flower within until it is ready to burst open. When it does open, the spiny-ness disappears into delicate whorls of color, curling petals and fragile pistils in shooting-star patterns, repeating across the edges of the dark waxy leaves behind like exploding constellations taking shape before your eyes. I stopped, though I was in a hurry to catch my bus, and got in as close as the neighbor's fence would allow, and took a picture.

And it occurred to me as I rode into work, Jackson Browne on my headphones and a camera manual open and ignored in my lap, that this flower is a seasonal, temporal representation of faith. Faith in the beginning is hard and defensive, afraid to encounter contradiction or challenging interpretations. As it matures, the soul lets go of its insecurities, its stubbornness, its damage ; the spiky-tipped, disagreeing and disagreeable creature accepts the aperture and turns a fragile inner self toward the sun. When the shell of the azalea blooms open, you realize it is not a singular spiny artichoke but a multitude of flowers, each one nuanced in shape and striations. It becomes a glorious multitude of possibility. What appeared hard and unwelcoming turns out to be delicate and gracious ; what appeared lonely and ugly turns out to be inviting and lovely. With the touch of true faith, fear vanishes, and generosity takes its place. And you can hear the great dedication and effort in two choristers' voices, instead of the mistakes they make singing. God is in the details, but He is also in the whole, in the hearts of the faithful as they pray and sing His praises. And that's what makes even an imperfect Mass holy.