Last Temptation of Christ

I'm going to try doing it by hand. I'm not enamored with hypertext, but I feel compelled to keep my journal going. Several visitors have come by and emailed. Not to mention the self-expression factor. Writing about myself, people, and ideas I care about always feels good, like settling down into a big chair in front of a fire with a good novel you're dying to read, like getting into a zone during a basketball game.

A lot has happened and not happened in the last few months. I of course finished the course, the philosophy of mind, my last entry talks about. I ended up with an A, quite unexpectedly, but pleasantly received. With that, I graduated with my Bachelor in English Literature. This spring I've done quite a bit of tutoring in writing and literature comprehension. I started to rewrite my fantasy novel with a new angle in mind. I've read about 10 or more books, not including the continuation of my mission to read all of Shakespeare's plays -- I've completed the Histories and Comedies, and I'm now halfway through the Tragedies (starting Hamlet) -- and also not including poetry and short stories. I've rented and have gone to see a plethora of movies. I was severely sick the last two weeks of March and most of April with a bladder infection (see the movie "The Green Mile" for a visual of what that feels like) which was at first mis- diagnosed and mis- prescribed. I'm fine now. And I've handwritten about 7 or more long letters, which to be honest has been my principal form of self-expression the last few months, for even my personal journal has suffered abandonment.

I had a dream the other day that I hadn't thought about until I was just outside reading The Book of Embraces by Eduardo Galeano, an enchanting book comprised of a different prose poem on each page accompanied with an illustration. The book was indirectly recommended by a friend of mine, Graeme, who lives in Chicago and with whom I correspond regularly. Anyway -- the dream. I should contextualize it by saying that in the last month I've twice seen a coyote run past my window when I've been on my computer and that coyotes are common around this area despite its suburban location mainly because the yards are still quite large, mostly one or two acres.

The dream starts with me going out the open front door in my wheelchair (making this dream already notable since I usually am not in wheelchair in my dreams). Outside the front, I look across our large, green front yard and see a huge coyote, so big and so rough looking, I thought, in the dream, that it had to be prehistoric. As soon as I saw it, it looked at me and stared. It crouched slightly then began to bound across the yard towards me. My father appeared at the doorway and saw the coyote running towards me and then ran back inside. I remember thinking that he wasn't abandoning me. He was getting help. But I wasn't sure about my assertion. I had seen his face, and it had registered terror and cowardice. I turned back to the coyote. Then it lunged with its paws outstretched and teeth bared. I close my eyes and lifted my arm to defend myself, but the coyote mis- judged the leap and it jumped over me. As it passed over, my arm hit its hind legs and I heard it yelp. I turned around and saw it stop, turn around, and leap at me again. I knew it was going to kill me, and I wondered, just before its teeth sunk into my neck, if my father was coming to help me or not. I woke up immediately, I think.

It was a very strange dream. Very Native Indian, I suppose. The coyote plays a principal role in their mythology. I wonder if dreams are just dreams, or if they are a product of our subconscious desires and fears, or if they are a message from beyond the invisible bubble that envelops our reality. But supposedly we dream several times a night. I don't think each could be a message. I don't know, it's a mystery, as Mr. Henslowe says so appropriately in the movie "Shakespeare in Love".

I finished a book yesterday. The Last Temptation of Christ by Kazantzakis touched me deeply as it engaged in many of the ideas that I struggle with in my journey towards death, ideas like the reconciliation between the terrifying God of justice one sees in the Old Testament and the God of gentleness and mercy one sees and Christ. The book is very expressive in the literal and esthetic sense of that word, and in the characters and their intense striving, I can see how Kazantzakis' study of Russian literature and existential philosophy influenced his fictional writing. The physical book itself has some history. My late grandfather read the book decades ago, and when he died, my father inherited several of the books that were in decent enough condition to keep. I can just see my grandfather reading this book, arguing, as I did, with the ideas it puts forward, struggling with the tension between the historical and the fictional, laughing at the expressive humor and humanity of the too human disciples and apostles so similar to himself, and feeling the tenderness and melancholy of sacrifice and the inability of humanity to shed its earthy cloak and flower without light. Yes, reading the same book that he did made me think of him, and this morning, after church, my father and I took our traditional drive down to the coffeehouse, and while we were there I brought the conversation around to his father. We talked about the different families. I could see my sadness in his eyes. I wish he was still around.