unrhythmically When I moved up to the cabin, I brought a few boxes of unsorted papers with me, which I went through as the spirit prompted me. The completely useless papers – for with me, all things must be completely useless before I can destroy them – went into some paper bags which I keep by the wood stove, to start fires with. One night, as I lay some wood into the stove and reached for some paper, I pulled out an envelope. It was just a manila envelope, ripped open and quite useless, but I found I could not burn it. I found myself staring at the addresses written on it, my own former address and a return address: they had been written by the hand of a man now dead, a hand that was mouldering in a grave somewhere, and I found this mystery so overpowering that I could not burn the work of those hands that would work no more, but laid it next to my stove. Now every time I light a fire I see this envelope, grinning at me like a skull, and I will keep it there, until somehow, someday I will be comfortable with the idea.
http://ashmann.uk/digital-2/what-will-you-pay-for-education-education-education The man who traced those letters in ink, Ray Feerick, was an assistant head of upper school at Saint David’s. He was always one of my favorites there. He had been one of the dedicated teachers of the school for decades, and then became head of the Upper School, but the work required dealing politically with parents, teachers, and students, and being ruthlessly organized, which was not him. He was transferred to a more administrative post, doing all the scheduling, arranging substitute teachers, and working behind the scenes, which was more to his temper. He ran the school theology department, and produced a newsletter called Sursum Corda, which was really quite good: I always found something in it worth reading. He wrote a stupefying amount of content for it, almost all of it thoughtful and some of it beautiful. I wrote a few pieces for it as well, and was always amazed to find that people read them: parents and other teachers would stop me to talk about them. Ray was a devout Catholic, and had a deep and abiding love for Pope John XXIII.
I know that not everyone is like this, that they would not throw out an envelope out of strange reverence for the mystery of death and those who have been taken by it. But there is something in death and transience that I simply cannot quite get my head around. Often my idea of God is simply the One that remembers Everything.
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