PENNY’S CALL

Penny at Mass

While the U.S. ponders whether it should cut off aid to Egypt’s military, Manila struggles with the aftermath of a typhoon that dumped two feet of rain, the stock market dips, and intermittent storms blow through various parts of this country, here on The Mountain, those of us who attend services at St. Mary’s have begun pondering the serious question of what to do about Penny’s "call."  Penny is an orphaned, mixed pitbull/retriever who found a home at the Convent a few years ago – a brown dog with an equable disposition who wanders through the halls, refectory, and, lately, onto the altar at St. Mary’s chapel. 

I’m sure that those who could be termed “preciousnists” or people who are obsessive-compulsive about liturgical matters, will recoil in horror as I present this question of what to do about a dog’s call to ministry, particularly when it involves liturgical functions. I’m one who appreciates dogs even though I’m allergic to animal dander and have to limit my petting privileges.  I inherited this fondness for them through the Greenlaw strain, a strain that has produced numerous dogologists who claim to speak in dog tongue, and I’m among those who have witnessed a dog being “called,” a call that should be given human and humane consideration.

As usual, the via media is at work among Anglicans who always try to hold two opposing viewpoints in tension as they attack theological questions–there are those who dismiss this canine’s call to ministry as nonsense and advocate banishing the dog from the chapel, and there are those who favor her at least answering an altar call and coming up for a blessing.

Penny normally lies in a dog bed behind the chair of Sr. Madeleine Mary, the Sister-in-Charge of St. Mary’s, who has been a strong force in the discipline of the dog’s behavior up to this point.  Several weeks ago, Sr. Madeleine Mary went on a short vacation, followed by a doctor’s visit in New York, and Penny began to stray from her bed during services, sidling up to various dog lovers and asking them why her mistress had abandoned her.  Those of us who understand dogs saw that Penny was questioning the strength of her mistress’s affection for her – she had been abandoned by a previous master and suffers from post traumatic stress syndrome, as well as certain separation issues that require a support team trained in petting, feeding, and walking pets who have been mistreated or abandoned by masters or mistresses lacking in sensitivity regarding the emotional lives of canines.

When Sr. Madeleine Mary returned, Penny began to shadow Sister even more than she had before Sister went on vacation, and she refused to tolerate any more schisms in their partnership.  Now whether Penny suffered so much psychological damage that she was driven into considering the ministry (this sometimes occurs, and people get ordained before the Commission on Ministry realizes that the aspirant's "call" is really an act of desperation) or just had a valid call to serve on the altar, we don’t know, since there's no canine Commission on Ministry or Discernment Committee, no dog Bishop to disavow this call.  But the fact is that during Friday Healing Service, Penny followed Sr. Madeleine Mary onto the altar and stood waiting to be anointed like the rest of God’s creatures, great or small.  However, she wasn’t given the oil or a blessing, and she went away to ponder the so-called healing practices of humans.

I don’t know if Sr. Madeleine Mary read aloud portions of The Wounded Healer to Penny, or if she simply went into a mini-retreat to ponder what she should do with her newfound desire to participate in the Episcopal services offered at the Convent, but during the Eucharist last Sunday, Penny exhibited her call and decided to help me prepare the table and carry out my diaconal duties.  It was evident she really felt called, and had I been invested with more authority than a deacon (defined as that “inferior order” in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer), I would’ve ordained her a subdeacon on the spot…

However, I just went home and re-read an interview I once had with the famous Louisiana painter, George Rodrigue, whose blue dog appears in the foreground of almost every painting he renders.  In part of the dialogue with Rodrigue, I comment: “There is a book called Dictionary of Scripture and Myths, and the definition of a dog is this: the dog is a symbol of the higher self and the going forth of the self as will.”

 Rodrigue answers, “When my dog Tiffany died, she came back to find her master.  The spirits of  dogs travel – there is no time – they travel from the first century to the present, and their job is to try and find their way back to their masters, but they have a difficult time because every situation is a human situation and they’re caught in these human situations…”   Hmmm.

This dialogue goes on several hours, and I tell Rodrigue about the old legend that took place after Adam, the first man, appeared.  The legend relates that after the creation, a gulf opened up between Adam and the animals that he had given names.  Among them was this dog who kept looking at the ever-widening breach.  The separation was almost complete, but the dog suddenly leaped across the gulf and took his place beside man.

Maybe, just maybe, Penny thinks that like George and his blue dog, she and Sister Madeleine Mary should take their places side by side on the altar, or perhaps she even envisions serving as a subdeacon with me, despite my allergies.  It’s a thorny question, but I wouldn’t want this kind of "inclusiveness issue" to be deliberated at General Convention because I'm certain that Penny would become a dog with white whiskers before the warring factions made any decision about her “call” to serve or celebrate at The Table.

MOSQUITO CONTROL (?)

Daddy-longlegs on the prowl

One thing I don’t miss about life in south Louisiana is the onslaught of ubiquitous mosquitoes, or, as the French call them, “maringouins.”  Usually when I return to New Iberia in October, they’re still hovering outside my window that faces the backyard patio, and they’re probably the last thing I see dancing on the window before I leave for The Mountain in Sewanee, Tennessee in the early Spring. In bayou country, I seldom see granddaddy-longlegs or daddy-longlegs poised on my sill, and I’ve always heard that these spidery-looking insects hunt and consume mosquitoes.

However, here in my cottage on the Cumberland Plateau, daddy-long-legs seem to enjoy peering in my bedroom window, bunching up in pairs or groups on the wall near one window and delighting in startling me when I look outdoors to greet the morning, their long legs outstretched as if ready to envelop me in an unwanted embrace. I know they’re harmless and aren’t true spiders, but these critters with their long skinny legs look sinister enough for me to hunt for a broom so I can sweep them into the yard where they feed on dead organisms, which is one of their favorite meals.

I find several daddy-longlegs entwined at times and suppose they’re either mating or getting ready to dance, but I don’t understand why they appear in the morning as they’re known to prefer nocturnal life in the nightclubs of the woods. They join the crowd of insects and critters that congregate in my yard at night – a parade that includes katydids, fireflies, coons, deer, brown rabbits, foxes, and marauding skunks. Recently, I wrote a poem about these critters that will be included in my new book of poetry, In A Convent Garden and Other Poems, but I won’t preview this poem until the book is published sometime next month.

Back to daddy-longlegs – they don’t weave webs, and if you see them in a web, it’s because a large spider with fangs captured them. They also like to play dead when disturbed, and I always fear they've met their Maker when I take a broom to them, only to see them suddenly spread their long legs and descend the moss-covered steps leading to our front porch.

Daddy-longlegs were on this earth 410 million years ago and are related to scorpions, but I guess they’ve evolved into a more compassionate insect and can actually be held in your hand, if you can stand the tickling sensation. Despite bad press about being poisonous, they actually have no fangs, praise be my privilege to porch sit without fear of insect bites.

In the evenings when I sit on the front porch and watch squirrels playing in the white oaks or fawns emerging from the small woods facing our cottage, I usually have to dispose of my long-legged peeping Tom friends who have begun to gather in groups that are too close for my comfort. But I must admit, I hardly ever see a mosquito, even though we’ve been besieged by rain this summer on the Plateau – the stories about their appetite for mosquitoes must be true.

When my daughter from California visited me a few years ago, she was appalled by the abundant insects and critters in the yard, including a line-up of redbugs, ticks, spiders, locusts, and the sinister-looking daddy-longlegs. She also encountered poison ivy and went home, scratching mightily, leaving behind the comment, “I don’t think I’d like to live here.” However, she has learned to live alongside lizards, possums, desert rats, snakes, and other critters that populate her backyard in the Mohave Desert, not to mention wildfires, earthquakes, and an absence of gentle rain that she, a native Louisianan, likes to hear pattering on the roof.

To each its own in the natural world… even if I take a broom to those insects that appear on my porch each morning lately. However, I do wield the broom gently, honoring the food chain and attempting to keep my mosquito control program active.

P.S. The daddy-longlegs haven’t moved a sixteenth of an inch since I looked out at 7 a.m. and it is now close to 11. I guess they’re sleeping off their nighttime revelry.

Photograph by Victoria Sullivan

HOTELS I HAVE KNOWN

Friends often tease me about my love of hotels and my not-so-secret yen to own a luxury hotel somewhere in the world.  The last time we visited Asheville, North Carolina, several months ago, we drove out to the Omni Grove Park Inn, Asheville’s showplace hotel that has a 100-year old history.  The hotel has recently spent 25 million dollars upgrading its facilities, and is touted as offering guests spaces that include modern technologies and conveniences.  It also boasts a 43,000 square foot subterranean spa that has 10 mineral-based pools and three fireside lounges.

Built by magnate, Edwin W. Grove, who created a formula to prevent malaria called “Grove’s Tasteless Chill Tonic,” the hotel opened in 1913 after Grove had made his millions selling 1.5 million bottles of the miraculous tonic.  Grove suffered from bronchitis, and physicians sent him to Asheville for a cure in the fresh mountain air.  In Asheville he began purchasing property and later became renowned as “The Father of Modern Asheville.”  When Grove Park Inn opened in 1913, William Jennings Bryan delivered the ribbon-cutting address to a gathering of 400 southern gentlemen who heard him proclaim that the Inn was “built for the ages.”

I sat in a rocker on the porch of the Inn and watched people streaming through the lobby into the multiple restaurants and strolling through interconnected retail shops…and I coveted a room in the 513-room resort, vowing that next summer I’d book one and “take the air,” as the Cajuns say, in the Blue Ridge Mountains while sojourning in this refined place.

I’ve spent the night in many elaborate hotel complexes, but the lodging I enjoyed the most was the Shah Abbas Hotel, now known as the Isfahan Abbasi Hotel in Isfahan, Iran, which we toured while living in southern Iran during the 70’s.  The hotel was built at the time of King Sultan Husayn of the Safavid Dynasty approximately 300 years ago and was originally built as a caravansary for visiting traders and diplomats.  At its zenith, the city of Isfahan was described as “half the world,” and when I stayed in this elegant hotel and strolled in the gardens during Now Ruz, I experienced the charm of that phrase.  The hotel has been renovated and remains one of the hotel showplaces of the Mideast.

Although I admired the beauty of the Hotel Grande Intercontinental in Paris, my stay there was limited by two children, 12, and 7, and a Persian cat I brought back to the States (not to mention eleven pieces of luggage I was transporting home).  The hotel’s luxurious amenities didn’t include a cat box for the immigrating kitty that developed a fever while we were ensconced in our elegant room.  The calming shot we had given kitty Roya before leaving Tehran had worn off during the first night of our stay, and I spent most of the early morning hours tending a sick cat and listening to the children’s complaints about a hotel that offered no decent pet accommodations.

I’ve savored Dutch ambiance and delicious beer cheese while staying at the Intercontinental Amstel on the banks of the Amster River in Amsterdam and eaten breakfast in the atrium at the Gaylord Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee during our stay there, have danced in the old Blue Room of the Roosevelt Hotel while sojourning in this New Orleans hotel, and have certainly stayed in less-luxurious digs elsewhere in the U.S. and the world… but I still have an envee to book a room with artsy-craftsy oak furniture at the Omni Grove Park Inn,  I could sit on the porch and imagine that I’m a female version of F. Scott Fitzgerald “taking the mountain air,” and dream about being a hotel magnate with the money I’ve made from writing the Great American Novel. 

The picture above is extracted from the cover painting of Iran In A Persian Market, my first published book (1980).  The painting was rendered by Oscar Ortiz, now deceased.