BRUISED REEDS

Dr. Samuel Johnson, from his 18th Century Prayers and Meditations, wound up speaking to me unexpectedly tonight. I opened an old literature text book of mine, and there they were, his words — and I was hearing his voice, the voice of a giant; among the most exalted figures of his or any time, especially that brainy time in which he lived. He was speaking to me from the heart of the Age of Enlightenment in which the mind was allegedly trumping faith and civilization had at last emerged fully from the grip of the Age of Darkness or, as it is commonly known, the Dark Ages — a time before the Renaissance and High Middle Ages that we now know was not so dark; was actually rich in scholarship and the slow, cloistered but deep, relentless nurturing of Christian civilization due to blossom brilliant hearts and minds, Dr. Johnson, it seems, among them, though, as an Anglo-Catholic, he remains a product of Henry VIII’s rebellion, however knowingly.

There he was, on the page before me, in 1761, calling out to our heavenly Father, almighty and most merciful God in whose hands are life and death….

I guess, on this late rather anxious and unhappy Sunday evening, I needed to hear a smart guy saying he believes in God. He was writing in a journal, and, in doing so, must have –through his famous amanuensis and biographer Boswell — intended to share it with me in the 21st Century.

Easter Eve, 1761

Since the communion of last Easter I have led a life so dissipated and useless, and my terrors and perplexities have so much increased that I am under great depression and discouragement; yet I propose to present myself before God tomorrow with humble hope that He will not break the bruised reed.

So devout, so humble.

As I copy this, Barbara Streisand and Don Johnson are singing a duet on that little 21st Century device in which you ask an imaginary woman named Alexa to play music. Diane requested this, for dinner. Barbara and Don, of Miami Vice fame, are saying, over and over to one another, I love you….

And then, Barbara alone, there’s a place for me….from West Side Story.

Is there a place for us? Barbara and Don ask a good question. And, well, life in ours and any time can be itchy. For instance…

At the gas pump of a filthy 7/11 in Tampa this afternoon, an older guy in shorts and jersey was done pumping gas, but would not move his high-end Porsche, even as we waited in my old Forester behind him, because with sqeegee and cups of water he was methodically cleaning the windshield of his top-of-the-line sedan edition of the coveted automobile, which markets for about $125,000 new and $77.000 used.

We waited. He went on splashing water on that crystaline windshield. “I’m going to be cleaning my windshield a bit longer,” he said. He indignantly directed us to another of the four pumps, only two of which had the gas cap on the passenger side, which I need. Another one was broken, as indicated by the red plastic bag over the pump nozzle handle. Another was occupied. It had seemed exedient just to wait for our Porsche owner to move away, since he was done pumping gas. The Porsche and its owner were worth more money than I’ll ever see in my life. He probably lived in one of those palatial south Tampa mansions.

But for Mr. Porsche, an absolutely spotless windshield was salvation.

Dr. Johnson, in a journal entry of April 21st, 1764 at age 55, wrote, my indolence, since my last reception of the Sacrament, has sunk into grosser sluggishness, and my dissipations spread into wilder neglicence. My thought have been clouded with sensuality; and except that from the beginning of this y ear I have in some measure forborne excess of strong drink, my appetites have predominated over my reason.. A kind of strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not what has become of the last year; and perceive that incidents and intelligence pass over me without leaving any impression….Grant, O Lord, that I may receive the Sacrament with such resolutions of a better life as may by thy grace be effectual, for the sake of Jesus Chrsit. Amen.

No more singing in the other room. I have eaten a chicken dinner 262 years and several months after the esteemed Dr. Johnson wrote those words. I wonder what Barbara and Don are doing tonight?

The guy at the 7/11 pump — he finally pulled away, but I’d already had to move a bit awkwardly into positon at another pump — has no doubt stowed his Porsche in his garage with a very clean windshield and eaten his dinner.

Perhaps he’s unwisely left that Porsche out under a tree, where a seagull or one of the other many seabirds in this region will teach him the transgency of all material cleanliness and he shall be forced to go on, once again, with a profound sense of futility, seeing the world through the clouds of avian feces spattered over that once perfectly clean windshield. The same spattering will cloud his visiion — or perhaps plunge him into a deep revelation. Perhaps, after a white dove like the Holy Spirit deposits an act of grace on that glass — even white doves have to crap before they “sleep in the sand” — he might think suddenly of the people he made wait at the pump in the filthy parking lot at the untidy, malfunctioning pumps (the kid in the 7/11 had to instruct me that the REGULAR button would only work if I punched it repeatedly. I’ll bet Mr. Porsche didn’t have that kind of trouble.

But perhaps Mr Porsche, graced by bird crap that falleth on the just and the unjust alike, might, after a jolting metanoia, sell everything and….what might be next for casually elegant, invincibly arrogant, filthy rich Mr. Porsche? A bruised reed with the illusory belief that his windshield is the window to his soul might even be visited with chunk of cement off a crumbling bridge. I pray not. Lord, please protect Mr. Porsche.

Perhaps he’ll stumble on some words by Dr. Johnson. Not that they are sharply and obviously relevant. But Dr. Johnson is always relevant –for the ages, ours and his. Someone is watching, almighty and most merciful. He sees you holding up people at the gas pump. He sees you through your spic-and-span windshield. A bruised reed at the wheel.

And, on that great celestial Interstate, I see Dr. Samuel Johnson in his 2024 Porsche Macan convertable traversing the clouds…Boswell at his side with his iPad, catching every word.

Amen.