"Saint" Thomas Merton

Since June 6, I have read a lot of spiritual books, but none has touched me more than the work of Thomas Merton. A Franciscan Friar I am friendly with at Saint Peter's in the Loop introduced me to Thomas Merton a couple of years ago. In a documentary entitled Merton: A Film Biography, one of the interviewees said when a person reads a work of Thomas Merton that person will become addicted. I second that.

Like me, Father Louis (Merton's religious name) grew up in a secular household and environment. Like me, he knew from childhood that he wanted to become a writer. Like me, Merton committed acts in his childhood and young adulthood that shamed him. And like me, God always haunted him.

Merton's writing would be welcome to any person no matter his or her spiritual leanings or lack thereof. So far I have read The Seven Storey Mountain, No Man Is an Island, and a collection of his work on writing taken from his books, essays, journals, and letters entitled Echoing Silence.

Merton's writing and spirituality matured from TSSM. Perhaps the biggest lesson I have learned and am working to ingrain within me is being silent. This helps writing and, of course, becoming closer to God.

Rereading Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca

As a child and a teenager, I spent summers with my late beloved godmother. She loved old movies in addition to being a bibliophile. I first saw Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca with her the summer I turned fourteen. I loved the movie, and she said I had to read the book, which was very different from the movie and better.

How right she was. Hitchcock had cinematic style, but De Maurier's prose not only created a story with depth and resonance but also showcased a skill in dramatic story telling. I read the book again in college and again in my early twenties. I just finished reading the novel again in my late thirties, and it still remains brilliant.

Life and maturity have changed the book's impact each time I have read it; I have learned not only more about fiction's craft and art but about myself. The 1997 version featured an actress who more embodied my vision of the the novel's unnamed narrator who I identified with in terms of her shyness and insecurity. A skillful writer, Du Maurier brilliantly chose to create a narrator that would allow Rebecca's ghost to overpower her own personality.

Tatiana and Me at the Jewish Book Festival

On Tuesday November 11, Tatiana de Rosnay and I met in person. After years of connecting through MySpace, Facebook, and e-mail, I finally met my friend from across the pond. One of the women at Beth Shalom in Northbrook selling Tatiana's paperback edition of Sarah's Key thought we were related. Guess that sliver of French and chunk of English worked out.

2008 ended up an Annus Horribilis for my husband, friends, and me, yet finally meeting Tatiana in person proved to be a ray of light that helped further shatter the darkness. She's a beautiful person and artist who gives of herself to others. As I've said in previous posts, that combination are indeed rare and special. I'm blessed to call her my friend and am so grateful we connected via the web a few years ago.

Her Sarah's Key presentation at Temple Beth Shalom was beyond remarkable. Learning more about the passion and drive she had for Sarah's story and revealing the Vel d'Hiv atrocity proved inspiring for me on multiple levels.

A Song for Murph

What a voice. These lyrics say it perfectly. Miss you, Murph. I hope you are looking out for and praying for Bill and me in heaven.

On a Happy Note. . . : Leave's final album available October 20.

Leave's final album On a Happy Note will be available for purchase on October 20. Go to www.myspace.com/leavechicago for ordering details. All monies will go to the Michael J. Murphy Scholarship Foundation, which will fund young, promising musicians.

Donations can also be sent via U.S. Mail:

The Michael J. Murphy Scholarship Foundation
11665 Rogowski Drive
Merrionette Park, IL 60803
E-mail: mjmmusicfund@aol.com

For Murph

Grieving for Murph.

"Lament"
by Anne Sexton

Someone is dead.
Even the trees know it,
those poor old dancers who come on lewdly,
all pea-green scarfs and spine pole.
I think . . .
I think I could have stopped it,
if I'd been as firm as a nurse
or noticed the neck of the driver
as he cheated the crosstown lights;
or later in the evening,
if I'd held my napkin over my mouth.
I think I could . . .
if I'd been different, or wise, or calm,
I think I could have charmed the table,
the stained dish or the hand of the dealer.
But it's done.
It's all used up.
There's no doubt about the trees
spreading their thin feet into the dry grass.
A Canada goose rides up,
spread out like a gray suede shirt,
honking his nose into the March wind.
In the entry way a cat breathes calmly
into her watery blue fur.
The supper dishes are over and the sun
unaccustomed to anything else
goes all the way down.

From All My Pretty Ones

Murph's Last Show, June 5, 2008

A clip from the Larkin and Moran Brothers featuring Mike at his final show.

Why? Please know I love you.

Never have I felt a loss as this. Mike was too talented a person as well as a musician to be taken away from us so soon and so violently. He knew how to love and unselfishly give. I will always remember him like this and not the broken body I saw. More than one life was destroyed and taken the night of June 6. So much pain and so many tears.

Today I bought a gold-plated medal featuring St. Michael the Archangel. I have been told that medals and belief in angels are nothing but psychological methods to help us cope. Doesn't matter if that's true. It's what I need right now.

So many internet posts about Mike, his music, and the love he gave to everyone. I am seeking out answers that I know I won't uncover in this lifetime. All I hear and read state that Mike's death was God's will and we cannot understand or question God. The only thing that has made sense to me and given me some hope is that someday we will be able to sense Mike along with the music he left behind. We are in darkness and cannot sense the worlds Mike now belongs to. If I don't sense it in our reality, I must strive to reach the place where I can sense him after I die. My friend Eleanor says Mike can still sense us and is looking out for us. I have to believe that is true.

I'm not a poet, but I have begun composing poems about Michael. Knowing my lack of lyrical competence, I have checked out a book from the Harold Washington Library that was written by award-winning and nationally recognized poets. Mike was such a talented songwriter, and I know he will kindly smirk at my immature attempts. But my intention is there; I hope it reaches him.

I will never get over losing Mike. His parents, friends, girlfriend, and family echo me. Mike showed me what true friendship is and to recognize the true friends in my life. Nothing about him was manufactured or patronizing. Mike was pure genuine love.

Larkin and Moran Brothers' Tribute to Murph (Michael J. Murphy).