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I don’t know the story behind this song by The Velvet Underground, but then, oddly, I do, and so do you.
F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the famous line “”In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning”. True One lays awake…wondering not about Jesus or God so much as about the life one has, doesn’t have, wishes to have, or has destroyed.
This is where the “dark night of the soul” of mystics like St John of the Cross and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux differ, for they ended in mystical union with the Divine.
Most of us just wish to reach morning.
A friend of mine was detoxing from heroin and had agonizing nights. To make matters worse, his friends and family had written him off as hopeless and his ex-girlfriend, who he still loved, lived in the next room and as he was writhing in pain (with the words of John Lennon’s Cold Turkey churning in his brain over and over and reverberating through his body), she was having loud sex with some guy she had never met over the phone.
[Um...note that "Jesus" is playing bass...ahhh life]
Inconsolable and unable to form any thought that did not lead back into a hopeless loop he remembered that a pastor had suggested that he simply say the name of Jesus over and over again in his head when he was sleepless and in pain. The man had suggested that the name of Jesus was one both to focus on (whether one believed or not) simply because it was inherently and utterly GOOD. (There was other advice, like find a rehab facility and get some support, but this is all my friend remembered as he shook violently in bed hearing the ecstatic screams from the next room).
He told me later that this “Jesus thing worked” for him. He was not interested in Church (said he wasn’t “good enough”) but he said “It’s the one name that isn’t messed up…it’s pure and makes me feel safe.”
I use to be an insomniac…mostly born from worry, anxiety and no small amount of legitimate fears and questions. I thanked him for the insight, which he felt was odd.
“But you are a Christian” he said “I would think that a given.”
“No, it really isn’t. And as horrendous as your story is I have had a lot of sleepless nights where that would have come in handy.”
“Well what do you think about?” he asked.
“Mostly girls…”
After we stopped laughing he said “doesn’t work does it?”
“It works a little, but certainly not when they are in the next room..you know…”
He slumped back and took a long drag of his cigarette and was quiet. “I do ask a lot of questions though,” I said “. “I mean, it’s quiet, I think God is a good listener, though God probably gets real tired of the whining…”
“What do you ask?”
“Mostly what the Eff I am doing here? Is this all there is (working for an ad agency trying to get people to buy stuff they don’t need).
“I thought you Christians had all the answers” he said leaning back smugly.
“Do I look like I have all the answers?”
He laughed. “But I like that old ‘Jesus’ song Lou Reed did with the Velvet Underground.” I said. “It’s a sweet heart-filled simple song where he just asks Jesus to help him find his ‘proper place’. I don’t have the answers, but I think that’s a core question for me.”
We parted with a hug and for the rest of the day I couldn’t get it the “Jesus” song out of my head..but I didn’t mind. It’s not like that stupid
“Free Credit Report” song that makes me want to shoot my TV or hunt Canadians.
My only beef with the song is the slight self-flagellation of “cuz I’ve fallen out of grace”. You cannot fall out of grace. By it’s very nature is holds and protects and secures. You’d have an easier time of falling off the Salt flats in Utah.
But I love the song, and the question. Now that the grace of Jesus has found me, can I find my “proper place”?
Sweetness
There was also a sweetness and playfulness at moments at the Old Simpson. Doc skewering Rich or me, the pranks…some serious learning, and lastly the man we kind of all looked to: Doc.
The only commemorative thing I have ever purchased was a paver stone at the Valley Springs Presbyterian Church in Roseville. It was my last footprint in that whole (for me) somewhat loathsome valley, just as Doc left his footprint inside me from that one year at Simpson. A man of refined taste, humor, grace and intelligence, he was a fine mentor.
As I have been Jedi master to as many as ten serious “patowans” (seven of which are in ministry or ordained), Rich and I were Doc’s renegade patowans. He had others. Dale S. was president of the student body and a boy scout…true, a Canadian boy scout, but we were converts from across the tracks. Raw, uncultured and devoid of religion. Doc took a quiet joy in our exploits, even as he tried to impart the beauties of art and literature in Western culture and managed to pass on his love for Kierkegaard on to me.
Over coffees, he endured my constant, and not yet gracious, railings against church institutions, including the one that he was vice president of.
The New Simpson would be more free and joyful and not be about fundraising or building expansions. Someone like Doc would be at the helm…a quiet, thoughtful, even reserved man of wisdom and depth. Those there would have the mirth that Lewis speaks of—a laughter that is deeper because those involved have taken each other and their callings seriously first.
That’s the dream and my view. On the other hand, it might just have been something I ate.
I
I just woke up from a dream. It was another Simpson College San Francisco dream. I have had them for 30 years now. But this one was different. It was not dark or mixed; the others have always been a mixture of longing, some alienation, some sweetness and often humor…very much as my experiences that year were.
Let me start with the dream while it is still fresh. I am returning and, as is always the case, the place is Simpson, but not the same one. It retains a Simpson-esque nature, which I think anyone who has any sense at all would pick up on immediately. It could be seen in the furniture, which was always cheap, nearly weightless wood, with a decent stain. Perhaps in some cases emblematic. The other physical aspect was the dark red brickwork. Old, weathered, a throwback to the 1920s, if not earlier.
This Simpson was larger, more modern, but still retained those features somewhat (my desk was ridiculous…I thanked God immediately that I have most everything I need on my laptop). There was not much shelving for books. I thought, “good, I only need about 140 of the best books, both reference or otherwise, and I’m pretty sure I know what most of them are.” My other 2,200 volumes have been sitting in a storage unit in Roseville, California, for years. I wouldn’t care if it caught fire. One less trip or two to Roseville.
This Simpson was in San Francisco, but in a new location, just as I myself have returned and now live in San Anselmo (named for the great Catholic apologist and priest St. Anselm). I live at The Citadel, a converted mansion, and we have the middle flat with three old-style windows set into some kind of mortar that is impervious to anything short of dynamite. That’s my room with a massive view of the hills of San Rafael. It has been my haven, but also a prison of sorts, however self-imposed. Still, as prisons go…
I laughed at the desk in the small dorm room and then noticed there was no bed. I hardly needed one then, and I hardly need one now, running often for weeks on end on 5 hours sleep a night, or less…and not because I am driven. I have been largely unemployed the last four months.
It was about 2 a.m., and I went down to the Library area. On my way I saw Rich standing at someone’s study desk, joking around. I nudged past him, slamming him just a little, like I didn’t see him. He called after, “Bakdon, I’ll see you in your room in ten.” I was in no hurry, as that meant he’d be there around 3 or so.
The library was small but adequate and open 24 hours. Late is best, as serious students like quiet and free reign. I saw a younger student I had seen perform before. He was brilliant. I liked him and thought he would do well.
After that I showered, then grabbed my clothes. Still in a towel, I thought, I haven’t seen one girl, and I’m too old for this bullshit when it’s just 25 steps away. Some personality traits never change.
Others do. I was my present age, but I have been fortunate. I am youthful, strong, sharp, and in reasonably good shape despite two divorces, 15 moves, two “crash and burns” and a long battle against a deadly disease. I should look like a man of 80. In fact, only a full head of gray hair, the typical battle of paunch, and some slight puffiness under my eyes distinguish me much from the boy who entered Simpson 30 years ago. Perhaps vanity will be part of God’s last purging before resurrection. Either that or it’s meant to be a sign, as this dream may, that I have turned the new page on a new life and that all the previous 50 years have been leading up to this.
But let me finish with the dream. It is not much longer. After, I will extrapolate.
I was suddenly dressed and wanted to see what view was availed me out the four windows on the northern wall of my small room. There were cheap bamboo roll-down shades inside, and similar, yet different, wood-stick shades outside hanging from the awning. As usual, it was all one large complex so that one might not ever have to out outside and actually feel the shudder of the Pacific under one’s feet or feel that wet, sweeping air on your cheeks. I tried to roll them up, but they were of the usual type with that small steel dragging clip that is supposed to work but never does. Still I could see the tops of trees outside, and to the very far right saw the top of the southern tower of the Golden Gate Bridge jutting up behind them in the not-too-far distance. This pleased me no end, as I have always been an utter mixture of Urban and Ocean. Baker Beach would not be far, nor Crissy Field…both favorite haunts the last 20 years.
Looking down, I saw two small bookshelves. They already had all my writings. There were many—probably measuring three feet wide and each of the two stacks just high enough to hold thick binders. That’s actually probably conservative.
One huge difference in my second Simpson experience would be speed. I write like a banshee on crack, sometimes publishing five or six online articles by the time others are groaning out of bed. This little piece might take a few weeks for someone who simply journals. It will be done in a few hours, sent to the few who have the maturity to handle it (and who will appreciate it) and that is probably the end of it—like much in those binders.
I would put another row of bookshelves at my own expense in front of those so I could see just the spines if needed. I figured I probably wouldn’t, but nice to always have a hard copy.
The books would be dominated by needed reference materials. What I lacked in that department was at the Library probably 800 feet away and one floor down. The other 40 percent would be the concentrated books, each of which was like having 10 of the best on the subject. Becker, Berger, Brueggemann, Brooks, Bonhoeffe, Beauchner…all the Killer B’s. Then Merton, Lewis, Nygren, deRougemont, the Dalai Lama, Lamott, Kierkegaard, Percy and Pascal. Then small esoteric works that are hard to find but you want closer than 8,000 feet. The Art of War, The Desert Fathers, Bernard of Clairvaux, Otto Rank, Andre Malraux. The last would be art books and Russian, French, and English/American literature including only a few poets—Everson, Eliot, Oliver and Pinsky.
The experience this time in class would be very different. I would immediately transfer out of any bullshit classes and go for the hardest ones that offered depth. These teachers would know more than I on their subject and I would gladly learn from them. But I would retain different angles of approach alongside their more rigid Modernistic/Critical approach and avoid reading any assigned works with titles like “Towards a preliminary understanding of….” You fill in the nonsense. We live in a different time, and plain, deep, relevant and compassionate speech is called for.
We needed a grounded Christology. That seems obvious, but apparently it is not.
Rich came laughing down the small hall with a friend named Cal. He was familiar in an acquaintance way. Apparently we had met long ago and had given each other quite a ribbing. He seemed a decent fellow, and anyone in Rich’s good graces has always been good enough for me.
It seemed odd to be back and ready to study. It was apparent both of us would settle right back into simple routines of long hours, good conversation and lots of dark French roast. Rich seemed lighter than in the last decade and, frankly, so did I.
And perhaps that is true, despite our trials that have often, in some ways, mirrored each other—and in other ways were simply the trajectory we were always on. I was always the more complicated one…perhaps more inwardly troubled. We shared nearly the same past and, as such, were solitary warriors. I, the warrior-poet; Rich, the warrior-strategist. We have a Jonathan/David relationship.
Point is, all the others we had known there were gone or would not be joining. Doc is dead. Delinda is serving and loving young mothers and helping them have their babies in Colorado, and Devan Devan, as a good Lutheran, is probably at the bottom of a pint still muttering about the humiliations we placed him through. No, only the two of us back in San Francisco with separate yet similar callings. And both with renewed vigor, settled hope, and old issues finally laid to rest.
Now the above does not seem like much until you allow it to inform and reform the last 30 years.
Why have I had these reoccurring dreams of a small Bible college in San Francisco that I only attended for a year? I think I mentioned them to Rich once, and he said he has not had any. That is also typical. I am the brooder who, with rare exception, has not had much “success.” Rich, on the other hand, took the bull by the horns and has been quite successful. Yet the deeper longings and truths have always been there for us both. Most of the time I did not want them. Now I’m glad they stayed alive in me.
Nothing particularly major happened on the surface of the dream, but then I have never been a surface person. I did not meet a girl there, have my heart truly broken there, break a bone, lose a family member, or have sex for the first time. The most stunning achievement was doing 40 units in that one year at a 3.75 clip. Big deal. With the exception of Walmark, Doc, and to some extent Claspill, I hardly had to study. The other three more than made up for it. Even Greek came easy. It was a system so logical and with tables and, unbeknownst to me then, I was ADHD and immediately grasped complex relational systems that others found daunting. More than once Devan Devan cursed me before a Greek test.
Now I would assert that the dream is about what I began with: longing, alienation, sweetness and humor.
Part 2: Humor
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