should not be so critical. My master is a sensitive man who has given me a home, however frequent the reminders of its end. I should be grateful.
Matt 15:32–39. Why repeat the miracle of the loaves and the fishes with fewer people and more food? Matthew seems to be pulling things together from different sources, but then what are his sources and why are they not included in Scripture? Anyone who has ever been truly hungry (as I have been) understands why food is miraculous, no matter how much food or how many people. The wild ratios (and the repetition) drive home the point that we are all starving and that it is not necessary to live in that way, though, as my people are fond of saying, “A person gets used to anything.”20 Mrs. H. worries that my master’s appetite is not what it should be. He works long hours in his library and merely “grazes,” as she likes to say. She is quite maternal toward my master. It is possible she is a distant relation from the Jutland, as was my master’s mother, who was brought to this house presumably as a family favor. Such a large family at one time, and now just one brother and a handful of nieces and nephews. My master’s books are his children, I like to think, which puts me off the moroseness that the very walls of this house seem to breathe, not to mention the family name.21
June 15
I am grateful my master does not have real children, for if he did, I would be called upon to teach them. It was in my past life as a governess that my prospects for future happiness were ruined. If I were a man and could have had a choice in my profession, I would have chosen the ministry over teaching. But aside from marriage, which is the livelihood of most respectable women, the choices are few: a nurse, a governess, a prostitute. I became a governess and learned to play a variety of roles.
Matt 16:1–4. The Pharisees want a sign. Good and bad signs. Good and bad times. What is the sign of Jonah? His prophecy of the destruction of Ninevah? Its people and animals in sackcloth? The withered shrub? Or the storm that delivered him into the belly of the big fish (since all the talk here is of weather)? The story of Jonah, so short, so ridiculous, so deadly serious. I wonder if Jesus is not making fun of religious credulity itself, which cannot see what is in front of its nose while asking after the supernatural. This tendency to misread signs or to look in the wrong places for the truth is just as much a fault of the educated as the ignorant. I certainly misread the signs when I was a governess, and the being that was delivered into my belly did not come out alive. How awful to remember—impossible to forget. I am destined to make many more mistakes in this life, but that will not be one of them.
June 16
Is it a sin to use Scripture as a crutch merely to keep going, to survive? I have never heard a sermon on this and probably never will, as Christendom is complicitous in this crime of misuse of the Word. Life is good when I do not think on the past and unbearable when I do—mistakes and failures with years-long consequences overshadowing bright moments. John the Evangelist writes: “In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not grasped it.”22 Scripture keeps me in the present and orients me toward the future on the basis of a summary recognition that my past is a morass best left behind, where my sins are forgotten not by me, but by God, who covers them over with his darkness, the darkness that precedes all sin, the darkness that gives birth to light. Yes, that gentle darkness is the feminine side of God, containing the potential for life within. God is in the pre—no, Jesus is in the present—no no, the Holy Spirit is in the present (the Spirit of Jesus)—Jesus is past (supplanting Satan, like Jacob supplanting Esau, though Esau did nothing wrong!) and future, and God comprehends all of it. Probably not sound Trinitarian doctrine—what would those fierce Dominicans have to say, those wolves in sheep’s clothing, though I think the sharp contrast of their black-on-white habit gives them away—but it matches my experience in this body.
What happens to the Holy Spirit after death, I wonder. It cannot be our lifeline to Jesus any longer—it seems it will not be necessary. Does Jesus stop having a spirit when there are no longer any bodies to get in the way? What kind of talk is this? This is why I need Scripture as a crutch—to keep from landing in a heap on the side of the road, lost in fruitless supposings, passed over by the priest, who hurries on to more important errands.23 But what I really wanted to express is the notion that the very same book, whether the Bible or Faust, can open one’s mind to reality one day and shut it down the next, depending on how one uses it. So its being a “crutch” is not the point so much. I am not clear on this—maybe another time.
Matt 16:5–12. The yeast of the Pharisees is false nourishment. When Jesus breaks bread with his followers, it is the same bread and yet different. The Pharisees do not bother to feed the multitudes (this is part of the problem—they are all talk and no action), but even if they did, it would be all wrong. So if books are like bread (Jesus says bread is a metaphor for teaching), the real issue is not so much the substance of the book (it must be a good book but even a good book can be offered in the wrong way), or how the followers are inclined to use it (this is usually mistaken as well), but how it is offered that matters. Jesus offers us bread, teaching, a crutch freely, and as soon as we realize the freeness—the grace—of that offering, the fact that we are using it as a crutch no longer matters. The crutch falls away at that moment of realization, and we find we can walk without it, though we keep it in a safe place (our hearts) so we can offer it to others when the time is right.
The need to write is a gift in two ways. It forces me to give my world back to myself and give to the world what I have found. It becomes an offering. My world is so small—a few people—a few books. But does this really matter? “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees.” Leaven makes bread appear to be bigger than it really is. The size of one’s world is not determined by the number of one’s friends or the desirability of one’s attributes, but by the freeness of the offering.
June 18
I sound like a frustrated preacher. How pathetic! My master—how is it with all his education and wealth and the privileges and opportunities afforded him as a man, he is so at odds with everyone and everything? I have heard it said that younger sons have more trouble than older ones. What is (or was) it like to be the youngest of seven (four girls and three boys)? I would hardly know, an only female child and no mother to speak of. Mrs. H. has children of her own but does not draw comparisons. “Bless God, they live” is all she will say.
Matt 16:13–20. I am reminded of Faust’s complaint that anyone possessing truth and revealing it will be hounded to death, not by the truth but by liars. Jesus strongly warns his disciples not to reveal who he is. That is to protect them, to keep the real threat to himself for as long as possible. But once he is gone and they are sent out, there is no more safety. Or rather I should say the Holy Spirit protects the mind and heart, but not the body as we know it. The body is a great mystery. All the saints’ bodies are the rocks that make up our foundation. To rename Simon Peter is to predict his martyrdom. To confess is to seal one’s fate. No wonder there is so little genuine confession.24 For things to make sense, one need only look squarely at them. And then try not to look away.
June 19
Headache. Clouds, then sun, then wind, then rain, over and over. The dog pacing the kitchen, underfoot all day. Faust gives me life. A different Word.
June 20
Struck by the seriousness of the historical references in Goethe’s burlesque tavern scene25 to choosing a pope, Doctor Luther, and the devil afoot in Spain. Remembering the historical Faust lived 1480–1540 and the Faust of the drama is no longer young, so putting the action circa 1520, at the start
