update from sparkleup

writing/sawtooth/limerent-object/discernment.html

@@ -41,14 +41,14 @@
 <p>Dee cupped his fingers over the bridge of his muzzle and pulled down gently while pushing his snout up. The isometric stretch served to highlight every bit of tension within his neck, and as he held the pressure, he closed his eyes, counting the knotted muscles. Pressed, pushed, and held until he could feel the lactic acid burn deep in the tissue, and then released. With his targets thus marked, he ducked his muzzle down and slid his paws back, fingers kneading along sore muscles.</p>
 <p>Not for the first time, the coyote wished that he could simply disappear within the written word. Wished that he could relinquish the very idea of physical sensation and surround himself in successive layers of scripture, commentaries, notes. Wished, most of all, that he could wrap himself in the warmth of his faith.</p>
 <p>If, at the end of time, faith and hope are to fade, there would be a final sense of completion, but until then, his faith was a comfort.</p>
-<p>Dee shook his head to try to clear the clinging rumination, closing the book of Corinthian commentaries and the notebook that he&rsquo;d been attacking with a highlighter and pen.</p>
+<p>Dee shook his head to try to clear the clinging rumination, closing the book of Pauline commentaries and the notebook that he&rsquo;d been attacking with a highlighter and pen.</p>
 <p>Standing from his rickety chair, he stretched toward the ceiling, claws brushing up against the off-white-towards-gray paint momentarily before he leaned to the side to stretch.</p>
 <p>If there were any one place that Dee belonged, it was here. Here in one of the study rooms in the library. There were books here. There was the quiet contemplation of knowledge, the surety of faith, and the heady scent of aging paper.</p>
 <p><em>And,</em> he mused. <em>Far fewer people.</em></p>
 <p>He had five minutes until the library closed, which, he figured, was enough time for him to return the book and start the walk back to his apartment without needing to endure any encounters with the pages sweeping the stacks for lingering students. Sure enough, the only other person he encountered on his way out was the page who numbly accepted his book at the returns desk. A wordless exchange &mdash; no small talk, not even a thank you.</p>
 <p><em>Perfect.</em></p>
 <p>The Minnesota air hung heavy around him. The air seemed as loath to relinquish the heat of day as the year was to give in to autumn, but now it was nearly eleven, and the long hours of evening had managed to pull some of the warmth. Mosquitoes drifted lazily beneath the trees, leading Dee to keep his ears canted back, lest they take interest.</p>
-<p>Saint John&rsquo;s Seminary was lopsided circle nestled at the north edge of a narrow isthmus between two lakes, a marble set over a gap it couldn&rsquo;t hope to pass through. It would be easy enough for Dee to essentially walk straight north to his apartments along the road that bisected the campus, but he preferred to put off walking along a road as long as possible.</p>
+<p>Saint John&rsquo;s Seminary was a lopsided circle nestled at the north edge of a narrow isthmus between two lakes, a marble set over a gap it couldn&rsquo;t hope to pass through. It would be easy enough for Dee to essentially walk straight north to his apartments along the road that bisected the campus, but he preferred to put off walking along a road as long as possible.</p>
 <p>Instead, he headed east from the library, walking bowered sidewalks for as long as he could. Past the utilities building, past the bookstore, until he hit the quad. Only then did he turn north, walking through close-cut grass instead of long the sidewalks.</p>
 <p>Here, at last, he could look up and see the stars.</p>
 <p>His steps were slow, contemplative. It wasn&rsquo;t a meander; his walk still had purpose. Instead, it was a putting-off of the inevitable. The inevitable time when he would rejoin walking along the road. The inevitable moment of stepping into his dimly-lit apartment. A delaying of engaging with the real, physical world as long as possible.</p>
@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@
 <p>Perhaps the iniquities were within.</p>
 <p><em>&hellip;I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope; my soul waits for the lord more than those who watch the morning, more than those who watch the morning.</em></p>
 <p>Dee wished it were night. He wished he could once more sit in the quad and look up at the stars, or down at the grass and try to differentiate the shades of green, there in the dark where color eluded him, to find in that liminal state some sensation of the Lord.</p>
-<p>At least he could get get up from where he was and away from this edifice of concrete and glass. It was, he was promised, beautiful in its own way. But around behind the Abbey, toward the lake, a small path wound through the woods, and there, between the trees and beside the water, stood the statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the only other coyote saint he&rsquo;d ever come across, and the saint most venerated by his father.</p>
+<p>At least he could get get up from where he was and away from this edifice of concrete and glass. It was, he was promised, beautiful in its own way. But around behind the Abbey, toward the lake, a small path wound through the woods, and there, between the trees and beside the water, stood the statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the only other coyote saint he&rsquo;d ever come across, and the saint most venerated by his father.</p>
 <p><em>&hellip;O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem&hellip;</em></p>
 <p>Dee was not the farmer his father was, had few enough ties to her patronage of ecology and environmentalism, but in her he saw at least a face like his own. In her, he saw something of a people he could belong to, though she was from far to the east of his home in Idaho &mdash; for Saint John&rsquo;s would never truly be his home.</p>
 <p><em>&hellip;It is He who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.</em></p>
@@ -128,11 +128,11 @@
 <hr />
 <p>As promised, Dee was not run out of the campus in the dark of night. He was given the remainder of the month to wrap up his affairs and attend to the task of packing his meager belongings in order to move out of his room and bus back to Idaho, to Sawtooth. To home.</p>
 <p>It was more than enough. His stuff was packed into two file boxes within an hour. After all, all of the furniture in the room belonged to the school. What had he besides clothes and books? Clothes, books, and his rosary.</p>
-<p>He carried with him always, now, his fingers marching through the decades of beads as words tumbled through his mind, spilled from his mouth without a sound. Over the next two weeks, he prayed the Rosary dozens of times. Hundreds of <em>Hail Marys</em> and <em>Our Fathers</em>.</p>
+<p>He carried it with him always, now, his fingers marching through the decades of beads as words tumbled through his mind, spilled from his mouth without a sound. Over the next two weeks, he prayed the Rosary dozens of times. Hundreds of <em>Hail Marys</em> and <em>Our Fathers</em>.</p>
 <p>He knew not what drew him to begin this litany of prayer. He strove to pray the Rosary every day, as a rule, but now, he needed that reassurance of faith. He needed some sign, whether to himself or to those around him he wasn&rsquo;t sure, that this discernment was one of vocations, not of faith.</p>
 <p>With his possessions packed away, Dee had little to do beyond pray and spend as much time in the library as he could before it would no longer be available to him.</p>
 <p>&ldquo;Technically,&rdquo; Borenson had confided. &ldquo;You shouldn&rsquo;t have access to anything but the refectory, the chapel, and your room for the remainder of your time on campus, but I don&rsquo;t think anyone will begrudge you access to your beloved books.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>The Saint Bernard was waiting for him, sitting on the stone and cement bench by the statue of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha. The dog had rested his shoulders on his knees and clasped his hands, and was looking down between his feet through the opening this has created. Or, well, not looking. Father Borenson was not looking at anything.  He had the absent expression of thought or prayer.</p>
+<p>The Saint Bernard was waiting for him, sitting on the stone and cement bench by the statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. The dog had rested his shoulders on his knees and clasped his hands, and was looking down between his feet through the opening this has created. Or, well, not looking. Father Borenson was not looking at anything.  He had the absent expression of thought or prayer.</p>
 <p>Dee had been making a round of all his favorite spots on this, his last day, and his final stop was here. A statue, a stone bench, a lake. Trees and heavy air.</p>
 <p>He stood awkwardly by the statue, unsure of what to do with his advisor &mdash; his old advisor &mdash; present. This had always been a place of solitary engagement for him. Were it anyone else, he would have left and aimed to come back a little later. He still had an hour before he needed to head to the bus station.</p>
 <p>&ldquo;Afternoon, Mr. Kimana.&rdquo;</p>
@@ -146,7 +146,7 @@
 <p>Dee nodded numbly. This was already wildly outside of his normal interactions with Borenson. Less academic, more informal, emotional.</p>
 <p>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t really tell our students because we want you to come in feeling devoted, but there&rsquo;s a whole set of guidelines already in place behind the scenes to deal with this. Has been for centuries, really. It used to be, you&rsquo;d be whisked away before you had the chance to even say goodbye. We&rsquo;d box up your stuff and send it to you. It was a different church back then.</p>
 <p>&ldquo;Now, we see it more like a process. Discernment is something that takes place over time. You&rsquo;re in your twenties, you&rsquo;re not going to have it all figured out, much as you might sometimes imagine.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>Dee frowned. <em>Saint Kateri Tekakwitha,</em> he prayed silently. <em>Favored child and Lily of the Mohawks, I come to seek your intercession in my present need. I don&rsquo;t know what to do&hellip;</em></p>
+<p>Dee frowned. <em>St. Kateri Tekakwitha,</em> he prayed silently. <em>Favored child and Lily of the Mohawks, I come to seek your intercession in my present need. I don&rsquo;t know what to do&hellip;</em></p>
 <p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little clumsy, but the analogy I always use is to think of these first few years of your degree like dating. You and the Church &mdash; the Church as an institution, not just a faith &mdash; like each other, and want to maybe get closer, but you&rsquo;re going to try things on for size for a bit. See how it works out.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>Outwardly, the coyote nodded. &ldquo;That makes sense. It&rsquo;s not a divorce, just a break-up before it gets serious.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>Inwardly, Dee was doing his best to let go. Let go of this place. Let go of his study. Let go of the idea of what life would be like that he had built up to over so long a time. <em>I admire the virtues which adorned your soul: love of God and neighbor, humility, obedience, patience, purity and the spirit of sacrifice. Help me to imitate your example in my state of life.</em></p>
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@
 <p>Dee stood as well and turned the helping paw into a shake. &ldquo;Thank you, Father.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>&ldquo;I wish you the best of luck. You&rsquo;re always welcome to come visit.&rdquo; The dog relinquished his grip, turned to the statue, crossed himself, and walked back toward campus.</p>
 <p>Alone again, Dee turned from the statue and stared out over the lake. One final time, he asked if he was doing the right thing, and one final time, God spoke to him in the gentle lapping of the water at the shore, in the quiet hum of a bee in flight, in the sweet taste of surety in his mouth.</p>
-<p>He stretched, crossed himself before the statue of Kateri Tekakwitha, brushed his fingertips over her stone paws, and then began to walk back through the campus.</p>
+<p>He stretched, crossed himself before the statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, brushed his fingertips over her stone paws, and then began to walk back through the campus.</p>
 <p>It was a long trip home.</p>
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