Meister Eckhart

It is the general consensus from those who know me that I did not receive the electronic or the appliance gene in my DNA wrap. I received an e-mail from a friend inquiring about the photos I posted on this blog: "How did YOU do that?" Emphasis on YOU. I have told this person for a decade or two that I don't know how to work a computer. I have also told her that I can't work the remote control for the T.V., nor can I manage the automatic programming for the thermostat of my furnace. On every trip home to Minnesota, my mother and I have this conversation about the dish washer:
Me: "How do you work this thing?"
Her: "Put the soap in the cup, close the door, push the start button."
I believe the family has moved from worrying about senility as it would pertain to my mother, and has located the on-set of this disease to my brain. I have given them no reason not to think so, and sealed my fate this Christmas when I asked where the drain pan was for the dehumidifier. "How do you empty this thing?"
While in Professor DeFrancisco's class, 'Mystics and Mystical Experiences,' I found myself in a small group gathered around an enormous table. Professor DeFrancisco would stand on the other side of the table, sometimes sit. But not often. If he did sit, only a few minutes would pass before he leaped from the chair with a raised and animated voice. The word animation does not describe him, the word passionate does. Determined that we would read these writers, he was not convinced that we would go out and secure their literature. This meant hours in a library. So he developed an obsessive habit of copying their work, especially work that he felt was crucial to the subject of knowing God. Proud beyond belief for binding us to the literature, he would throw it across the table at us with a wicked twist of the right hand. "Read this." It slapped the table and slid into our laps. "Read this." Slap and slide. "Read this." Slap and slide. "Read this." Slap and slide. No one would escape with the lame excuse: "The book is out of print," or "I can't get to the library," or "I went to the library and someone had checked it out."
Everytime a sheaf of stapled papers came flying across the table, to land on the floor, or in my lap, I felt that supposed gap in my DNA. I had the same reaction that I have to any microwave, blender, or washing machine: stubborn refusal to embrace the operating directions and stubborn refusal to take my hand to it. So at the beginning of every class with Professor DeFrancisco, I said no, I can't do this, I am not built this way.
About mid-semester, the vicious slap and slide delivered Meister Eckhart somewhere close to my table proximity. Before I secured the first ton of wood fiber, another came flying across. Great, I thought, a washer AND a dryer. Born in the middle ages, Eckhart became a Dominican friar. He was put on the fast track and became a favored rising star in his religious community. Free to teach, preach, and write he lasted a very short time before his ass was nailed by the Vatican. Still trying to explain what he said, he died at a young age. And what brought him to the feet of his inquisitors? Pantheism. God exists in all of creation. My kind of guy. I know this is a simplistic analysis of a complex theologian living in a restrictive period. However, the basic point of this story is this: I can do it. I like to say I can't do it for many reasons, (all located in my subconscious). How I did it this time was by taking reams of paper to my bed, setting the lamp in the right direction, adjusting the quilts, and reading. I read St. Augustine's Confessions twice I am proud to say. Do not come over to my house. Currently, there is a food sealing device called 'Meal-o-Matic' in my bed, along with a food dehydrator.