It all started when my brother took a trip to Peru and suggested I meet him there for a time. I am not one to take such a large trip so unexpectedly, but this time I actually got a little of the fever and would have gone, except for one minor detail. I didn’t have a passport, and wouldn’t be able to get one in time to make the trip.

Because of this I decided to get a passport even though I had no where in particular to go. I typed up all the paperwork on my old Smith and Corona and had some pictures made at Walgreen’s. The fiasco of getting those pictures made should have been an omen, but I ignored it, to my own peril. The photographer was a crotchety old lady who first informed me they had no return policy if the pictures were unusable for the document, and then went on to screw up my pictures three times in a row. I felt a little on display the whole time, as I had to stand in the middle of the drug store, in front of a white screen, and pose for the entire mass of patrons.

When I got to the post office to sign up it turned out that the pictures were, in fact, of incorrect measurements and I had been made the fool. Handing in my paperwork proved an error as well and I was forced to take more pictures and fill out the paperwork at the office from scratch.

I was told that with in five work weeks I would receive my passport. I waited with baited breath. I had not realized that a certified copy of your birth certificate was acceptable, and they had shipped my original off to Chicago and then to some other agency in New Orleans. My fear was that it would get lost in the mail and I would have to deal with that bureaucratic nightmare, or that worse, my identity would be stolen and my lack of credit would turn to very very bad credit very very fast.

When the five weeks were over I had no passport in hand and was starting to get anxious. Visions of a scuzzy man in a cutoff flannel, a forward-facing ball cap, and a missing tooth bearing a license with my name and his picture was starting to wake me up at night. To make matters worse, as I was lying there in that darkness I would torture myself with scenarios as to why it was so late. I began to conjure images in my head of John Ashcroft in some smoke-filled shadowy room leaning over my passport application and figuring it for a terrorist plot. “Why would someone need three separate addresses for home, permanent, and shipping? Looks like we got a candidate for Gitmo Bay. I think the cell next to Jose Pedia is open.”

I decided to take initiative and check the web-site to track the passport. It turned out that there was a 1-900 number to call and it was over a dollar a minute. I was stupefied. I wondered why my tax dollars didn’t pay for this service. The first question under the infamous FAQ section was, “Don’t my tax dollars pay for this?” The answer was simple, “No”. There was not even an attempt to explain this gross example of theft by our federal government. It also said that it could be six weeks for it to arrive. This got me off the hook in terms of dealing with a large bureaucracy, which is a situation I not so secretly loath.

After that extra week I waited another week just out of apathy and dread of dealing with these people who had already caused me so much stress by doing nothing at all. I finally called the number after work one afternoon and there were no live people to help me, as the office was closed. One dollar down the drain. I listened to the time it was open and adjusted for time zones and figured I had to call in the morning before work. After a few more days of putting it off because I didn’t want to deal with the tangle of government red tape I called in the morning and realized that my temporal calculations for the office hours were absolutely wrong and the office was open exactly at the time I was at work. I actually had to take off work in order to pay money to call some dimwit overweight government worker, whom my tax dollars already pay and who would no doubt tell me there was nothing to be done. I was infuriated, and put off doing this for weeks hoping the passport would come.

It was also around this time that a noticed I particularly disturbing trend in my attitude at work. This disposition had to do with the secretary and her duty to page everyone in the building when they get a call. I rarely get calls except from My Absentee Manager. I had requested the passport to be sent to work. This was a security precaution because I didn’t want it lying around in my mailbox, once again, to protect against identity theft. I rarely get packages at work. So rarely that when I do the secretary usually lets me know by paging me, and when I call her she tells me. This secretary did not know that I had applied for a passport. Nevertheless I was so expecting her to page me when it came in that after the five weeks were up that I started to unconsciously pricking my ears when I heard a page. Over the next few weeks the special notice to the pages became a special annoyance because they weren’t for me. Then slowly but surely, as if Wormwood himself were whispering in my ear, I started to get annoyed with the secretary herself.

Wormwood is a character in the Screwtape Letters. He is a demon tempter to whom his affectionate uncle Screwtape (the undersecretary of tempters) is writing advice. Interestingly, one can glean from the letters that the main job of a tempter is not to put ideas into people’s heads, as one might think. It’s to keep them out. C. S. Lewis was a firm believer that the Truth is real and any education, any true knowledge is a benefit. It would be the job, therefore, of malignant beings, to keep one from recognizing the fact of the world around oneself and stay in unbothered self-interested bliss.

The main fact I kept from myself was that the secretary not only didn’t know I was eagerly expecting a passport, but it isn’t even her job to page me if she receives mail for me. By blocking these facts, I allow that little bit of annoyance to turn more and more into a little bit of anger, and, if kept unchecked, a little bit of hate. The clincher would be that I wouldn’t even know why I hated this secretary, only that somewhere in the distant past she had wronged me. I never had to be told by this demon to hate, I only had to be kept in ignorance of the facts and my own human mistrusts, paranoias and frailties would handle the rest. It was the type of set-up of which Screwtape would have been most proud. No direct assault wasting valuable effort, only a sly psychological movement using the opponent’s (or as Screwtape would call him, the patient’s) weight against them, like Judo.

One day I was paged for some minor point and when I hung up the phone I felt a particularly fierce shot of rage. Shortly thereafter I realized how utterly stupid my anger was and began to laugh–this passport fiasco was tearing me apart. I was taking vacation soon and would be able to call this infamous agency on my time off, but until then I could only wait and hope the little blue book came.

The week before my vacation my Absentee Manager was actually at work and saw me sitting around doing nothing, so sent me home an hour early. I think it was the only time in my whole career at the lab that I’ve spontaneously gone home early. I got home and immediately called the 1-900 number to find out my status. The lady on the other end was not a bothersome bureaucrat as I feared, but was very helpful. Oddly enough, because she was very helpful, the picture in my head was that of a thin, demure, and sharp-witted woman. After hanging up I reflected on how the physical picture in my head corresponded with the help I received and cursed Plato for his unity of the virtues. The passport lady told me that it had been sent out on time and the only thing I could do was go down to the regional agency, fill out a certificate of non-receipt and get another passport. I had in effect lost my birth certificate and had to start all over. I then knew the truth: that once you get the ball rolling on red tape, the only way to be out of it is to kill yourself.

I now had to take a day out of my vacation to go to some huge government building in the Central Business Distract and wait in lines to be sent to new line, and asked questions so I could be sent to other lines. I got on-line at work the day before my vacation started and printed out the forms I needed to fill out. It was a little slow that day so I had an idea. Maybe I should go over to the secretary and ask her if she got anything for me in the mail lately. After thwarting Wormwood through the knowledge of her lack of knowledge I decided this might be wise. So, with my passport now almost two months late, I walked to the other building and approached her desk. “You haven’t, by any chance, gotten a package or something for me recently have you.” I explained the whole situation to her (leaving off the part about hating her for no good reason). She mustered a confused yet pondering look on her face and said, “No . . . not that I remember. . . . Have you checked your mailbox?” My response was simple.

“What mailbox?”

Thus it was that I learned that my Absentee Manager has a mailbox and the metals department itself has a mailbox. By process of elimination, me being the only other person in the department, this was my mailbox. My passport with my birth certificate had been sitting in it for over a month.

Phillip G.

We were late. I hate being late. The lateness we suffered from was no restriction imposed on us by an outside timetable. It was a lateness imposed on us by my oppressive neurosis that forces me to remain seemingly unchanged over long stretches of time. Every Sunday I arrive at Mass at five thirty, regardless of the fact that Mass starts a six and sit in the same place I always do. I sit in the quiet and reflect on many things. It is a point of stability for me at the end of the week to sit in that quiet then proceeded through ritual to benediction. So it is obviously quite disturbing to me to break this rule which I have never officially made for myself. Rebecca and I peddled our newly acquired bikes through Audubon Park blowing past all the rest and, no doubt, breaking the ten miles per hour speed limit. The Church loomed at the distant end of Audubon Park towering over the tree line like a great fortress we were racing to assault. Her bike is a more modern mountain bike, mine is a Cruiser class, black with small red knobs along its spine, like some cruel spider grown large and set to be my mount.

As we glided up to the side door of the church I pulled the watch from my hip pocket and checked our time. Five minutes late, “not too bad” I thought. Then as we rolled up I saw the imminent castigation for my tardiness. I eased my coster break as we came to the doors, but Rebecca lagged behind. On the walkway was an older man standing and looking at a door that was not the entrance. My brain took in his posture, his confused and somewhat embittered expression as well as his seeming desire to go into the utility closet as a sign that he was not a usual attendee. He headed for the correct door as Rebecca approached.

We usually sit at a pew very close to the door but not the closest. This makes our seat prime real estate for those who go into the side door. It’s not the closest, so you don’t look like you want to skirt out. But it is very close, so you can. This man was obviously breaking one of his old rules, one prohibitive of church attendance. He looked somehow upset to be standing at that door. This made me believe there was a good chance that when I walked into the doors he would be sitting in my seat if he beat me in. The flame of my Christian charism for charity was extinguished immediately in the face of my neurosis for stability, already insulted once for the day by being late and soon to be bruised again by geographical considerations. By this time he had reached the correct door. He paused staring at the entrance as I eyed him. Suddenly the few seconds it was taking Rebecca to catch up to me seemed an eternity, I had an urge to leave her and bolt for the door cutting the guy off. He proceeded in as she pulled up not knowing the dilemma she was to cause by her tardiness to our tardiness.

After locking the bikes up for fear of losing our worldly goods we went into the nave of the church. My worse fears were not realized but what I saw threw me into a moral dilemma fitting for our individualistic American culture. Being that we get to church so early if we are not the first people there we are usually close to it. At this time there were a few knots of people around but the large church stood relatively empty. Preoccupied as I was by my territorial desire to pee on my pew my focus went directly to it only to see that it sat empty. The relief was quickly tempered when I saw that the old gentleman sat in the pew directly behind where I am accustom to sitting surrounded by an ocean of isled empty benches. The American in me immediately saw the great insult to be levied if I was to walk up and, in all this vastness, sit directly in front of this new comer to my church. Yet in me there stirred a counter intuition that still urged me toward the micturition of that grand padded pew.

As I contemplated these things standing mouth agape next to the holy water Rebecca had already stepped past me and moved to the pew ahead of where we normally sit placing her bag down and opening it. Apparently she too inherently knew the value of space in the American mindset and instinctively left pews length between her and the stranger. But does not share my dominant desire for stability, because she did not hesitate to change location as I did. With little time to think I leapt into action walking briskly over to our normal spot and leaned over the back of the pew to her, “Don’t you wanna sit here?” I whispered. She looked at me and replied, “Sure, . . . I guess.” I reached down and grabbed our weekly donation to the food bank from the bang and turned to walk to the statue of St. Anthony at the back of the Church where the dry goods are deposited. I saw the man look at me and I looked back. Our eyes locked like two bull moose during spring as I walked by.

The church consists of four rows. Two main sections in the center forming a main isle down the middle of the church. And two-side row on the extremes creating two lesser isles on outer ends of the main rows of seats. Our location is on the row furthest to the right. Upon returning to our seat I immediately noticed that the man had moved from the seat directly behind us to the seat immediately to the left of us on the main isle. I felt the pangs of guilt for my rudeness, and rued the afternoon timeline that lead to all this unpleasant posturing.

Later that night the homily was discussed in our courtyard between the house hold attendees and non-attendees of church. It was agreed by all that the homily was unarguable in its assertions, but lacking in zeal, educational value and originality to the point of criminality. The readings for this Cycle are mostly from Mark, but for this few weeks the readings have been taken from John 6, the Eucharistic Discourses of Christ. The priest started off in good stride explaining all of this, but very quickly faltered, never to recover. The basic message was “we eat the Eucharist here and are good to each other. We need to be good to all people even away from here.” The priest said this about three different ways and very abruptly turned to his chair. It was short and to the point and that’s always a plus, but a point with substance is nice too. Besides, are we all “nice to each other here” at the eucharistic table?
The time had come to go to that table. The way the line works is that those on the inner rows stand and head to the main isle, followed by those on the outer row. They form two lines representing each side of the church and all proceed up the middle. When the row to the left of us stood we stood too, and turned left. I noticed the gentleman had not stood. Now I am confronted with a new moral dilemma. The rows are very narrow forcing anyone who goes to communion to climb over those who do not to get to the center. As I looked at the man I saw him give the slightest hint of a scowl as he contorted his knees to the side giving all the room possible in anticipation of our passing.

It is my opinion that Christian ethics is based on one principle. Love God with all you heart, all your mind and all you soul. From this is derived a secondary principle, Love your neighbor as yourself. All other “rules” of Christianity are but commentary to these two maximums. The odd thing, in terms of acting in the world, is that by doing to your neighbor as you would want done to you, you wouldn’t necessarily be doing to your neighbor what your neighbor want’s done to himself. All ethics becomes self-centered and self-affirming. Wouldn’t you want done to you what you want done to you anyway? Should I appease others? What if what I want done to me is bad for me, don’t I always want good things for myself. This is why the primary rule is to love God unequivocally, meaning, I assume, expressing gratitude for the fact that you exist, because you didn’t have to exist at all. Assuming everyone did, I guess we would all want the same types of goods done to ourselves, but who knows. It’s already impossible to know if we do indeed love God with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our souls. So we walk blind in our ethics forced by our Christian values to judge not lest we be judged, eschatologically if not civilly, because we are finite and ignorant.

I know as an American, I would not want someone to sit directly in front of me in a church that is almost empty, so I had already screwed up once in the past hour. I also know that, as an American, it would be equally uncomfortable to have some stranger to crawl over me, so what was I to do now?

Luther said that we are to “sin boldly” and the ire or the Romanists was raised to a pitch because he was misunderstood. The common misconception is that Luther asserts we are all saved sola fide, by the grace of Christ and can do nothing to save ourselves, so its alright to sin since we can do nothing to merit salvation anyway. Why not do it up right? A grave misinterpretation. What Luther seems to mean by this apparent antinomian phrase rests on his definition of sin as a self-interested act. It contradicts the dictum, Love God with all you heart, all your mind and all your soul because it is self-centered. His second axiom is that all our acts are self centered, thus inherently sinful in the gravest fashion. This raises the ultimate dilemma of how one is to act for the good, if one cannot? His answer is “sin boldly.” Sin for the good. Do not be afraid to act in ignorance of the good, but try for the good. Is he right? Of this I’m afraid we are ignorant as well.

I did not know what the gentleman wanted me to do, and according to my own ethic it did not really matter. I made a b-line for the pew in front of him, which stood empty, breaking the rules laid out for an orderly communion precession and my own love of such ordered stability. In this I allowed him the comfort of not having me rub my knees against his and scooch my crotch past his face in a most indecent display of unwelcome. His face lightened as I walked past and made my way into the line rather smoothly, not even disrupting the flow.

The man did not go to communion, but when I returned he was sitting in his original seat directly behind mine. After communion he made fast his escape which was originally his plan no doubt, but I like to think he didn’t need to stop and sit behind be on the way out. I like to think that by pausing and sitting in his old seat for an extra few minutes he was trying to let me know something. He was trying to let me know that he knew I turned aside in order to let him know he was welcome, in the way we Americans do, by staying as far away from him as possible. And that he now found it easier welcome me in a more than American way.

Phillip G.