"They took the body down from the cross and one of the few rich men among the first Christians obtained permission to bury it in a rock tomb in his garden; the Romans setting a military guard lest there should be some riot and attempt to recover the body. There was once more a natural symbolism in these natural proceedings; it was well that the tomb should be sealed with all the secrecy of ancient eastern sepulture and guarded by the authority of the Caesars. For in that second cavern the whole of that great and glorious humanity which we call antiquity was gathered up and covered over; and in that place it was buried. It was the end of a very great thing called human history; the history that was merely human. The mythologies and the philosophies were buried there, the gods and the heroes and the sages. In the great Roman phrase, they had lived. But as they could only live, so they could only die; and they were dead.

On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn."

- G.K. Chesterton, from 'The Everlasting Man'

Thanksgiving Diary

Of all of our peculiarities as Americans, the celebration of Thanksgiving is by far my favorite. Though we must forgive its Puritanical origins, the holiday always forms such a nice kickoff to the commercial pre-Christmas mania, and is perhaps the only thing that keeps us from being inundated with Christmas ads immediately after Halloween (though, of course, Hobby Lobby always seems to be about three holidays ahead in what they display on their floor). The irony, I suppose, is that the Puritans wouldn't have celebrated Christmas, and would, I gather, cast a characteristically dour gaze toward our overblown Black Friday hullaballoo - or any hullaballoo, for that matter.

In any event, your humble and obedient scribe was home for the holiday in Grand Rapids. Time was well spent with family, friends, and food, though not necessarily in that order of importance. A grave number of calories was ingested on several different occasions over the Thanksgiving reprieve. And, a similarly obscene number of hours were spent lying in bed - a delightful occupation for those of us who are so often deprived of our sleep due to the demands of architectural instruction. So, what have we got - gluttony and sloth? Our cardinal sinning was decidedly confined to these two vices, which seems permissible, since Dante's punishments for the gluttonous and slothful are not terribly vile.

Also accomplished was the annual Schmalzelian dispersal of Christmas knick-knacks throughout the house. I say dispersal because once the giant rubbermaid tubs are hauled up out of the crawlspace, the various Christmas accouterments seem to automatically find their respective ways to their traditional posts throughout our home - much as we wish that the confounded garland that goes over the mantle would somehow disappear quietly in the night. In due course, the house was Christmasified, which was followed  with a celebratory ingestion of even more turkey, reinvigorated in the form of turkey Manhattans - the most agreeable way to deal with Thanksgiving leftovers.

The chief event of Saturday was the implementation of the new translation of the mass, which I have detailed extensively in the previous post. After our sacred language adjustment, dinner at Salvatore's commenced. Salvatore's is one of those staple West Side eateries that always sounds good, no matter what one's disposition happens to be at the time. Though, we must report regret in not making a pilgrimage to the laudable Red Jet Cafe on the Northeast end of town.

Sunday was chiefly a day of trial, in the form of driving back to Muncie. It rained abominably the whole drive, which apparently aggravated certain drivers from Illinois enough to encourage them into the ditches off the interstate - which caused quite a spectacle (read: traffic jam). We seldom mention persons from Illinois, for our mother taught us that if one does not have anything good to say, one should not say it. This also goes for Ohio, though mention must be made of the University of Michigan finally triumphing over the barbaric oafs of Ohio State. Deo Gratias! All's well that ends well, as they say, and we finally returned to Muncie in good health, well-rested, and prepared to handle the final three weeks of this semester.

The Camp

Over the long holiday weekend my extended family gathered in Michigan's Upper Peninsula at a cabin that has been in the family for 38 years. It is a simple cabin with three rooms and a front and back porch. There is no electricity or indoor plumbing; water is gotten by means of an old red, iron hand pump that channels the water into the sink. The experience is rustic and uncluttered.

The cabin is situated in the midst of a vast forested swath of the central UP. The nearest town of any decent population is more than an hour's drive from our eighty acres. When you're at the Camp (as we call it), you're at home in the wild. Four wooden walls separate you from the raw power of nature. It is one of my favorite places in the world. It is to me what Walden Pond was to Thoreau. I am extremely blessed to have access to such a beautiful and restorative place.

Out in front of the cabin is a small lake of perhaps fifteen acres. It is ringed by marshy lowlands that vary in width from a few yards to several hundred yards. Beyond the marshes, birch-forested hills strewn with boulders arise and give shape to the lake's natural basin. Our cabin is the only cabin on the lake. At night, stars like you've never seen fill the sky over the water. Sometimes the northern lights dance on the horizon. Wolves howl often.

I love the cabin itself. It suits its surroundings perfectly - it looks like it's always been there. The kitchen is clustered around the old wood-burning stove in one of the back corners. A big iron grate in the middle of the floor lets up heat from the furnace in the basement. Propane lamps hang from the ceiling and cast their soft light over the room at night. Wide picture windows face southeast, making for a dramatic sunlit awakening for whoever sleeps on the pull-out couch. The interior decor is an eclectic affair: numerous deer antlers and old forest-y prints mixed with 1950s paint-by-numbers and an imitation Salvador Dali painting I did my senior year of high school. Bumper stickers are affixed to the fridge (which we use as a cabinet, since there is no electricity to have it function as a fridge).

The fire pit out in front of the cabin is the true center of life at the Camp. One rock for every year of our ownership of the Camp encircles the fire. Two boulders that my dad excavated from the driveway sit there - one is usually a convenient place for sitting my grandpa's trusty old radio. I like that the radio is our only media up there. It makes things less complicated. You get news and entertainment without all of the sensory overload of TV or internet.

Up at the Camp I feel much more energized than I do in Muncie or Grand Rapids. I think it's because we spend most of our time outside. For a good two hours on Saturday I chopped down small trees in front of the cabin that had become overgrown. It's nice to do some physical work without the pressure of necessity or time constraint. I even enjoyed mowing the lawn. I went to bed exhausted every night.