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A starets called Rasputin, a Yankee classicist, The Holy Mountain above the restless cerulean sea ... God. Joy. Wonder.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.

 

A starets called Rasputin, a Yankee classicist, The Holy Mountain above the restless cerulean sea ... God. Joy. Wonder.

 

Author's program note. I went to Greece, to Mount Athos through a slick of my own blood, because of a single line in a book I read over and over again, only when "finished" to continue by listening to the film score all over again.

 

In 1971 it was all "Nicholas and Alexandra"  all the time, and you must hie thee at once to any search engine for the stupendous music that evokes the greatest of empires, as it hurtled through its last days to Hell, taking us all along on an epic journey of death and a tragic destiny that enthrals us still.

 

Homage to Robert Massie, author "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1967)

 

Robert Massie (born 1929) is not merely an historian, though he is surely that; nor is he simply a poet though his magic turns every line, even the most prosaic, into something no god, not Zeus himself, would disdain to call his own.

 

You might have thought such a rara avis would warble only in the most fastidious circumstances... but you would be wrong for Mr. Massie once lived not far from me, along the hallowed route the citizen-solders of April '75 traversed and from where they made such a ruckus when they used musket against King and Crown, the shot heard round the world.

 

So positioned, with stirring history on his door step, he might have written of the Great American Coming Together which is a way of seeing the thirteen factious Colonies forge a great Nation. However he had a dearly beloved son who was hemophiliac and like every parent of such a child, he lived in a state of helplessness, a tragic condition where every new idea, every new specialist, every new therapy and treatment did no good... merely breaking his heart... again.

 

And thus the hopeless search for a miracle goes on... as it did for Nicholas and Alexandra, at the pinnacle of human position, for whom science offered no solution; their power and riches counting for nothing.

 

Miracles.

 

Grigori Rasputin, peasant from Siberia would have said, "Do not look for miracles where there are no miracles and can never be. Science begets science, not miracles. Look instead for God... for in God there are miracles." And so because he wanted to know this God of miracles, he set off in 1900 on foot, without shoes, without a kopek, with no map but with the profound faith that moves mountains.

 

Mount Athos, over 3,100 miles from his first step, was his destination, but God was always his purpose, then until the last day of his life when his still cunning fingers broke through his frozen tomb, the better to bless the great people of Russia, so needing a miracle of their own.

 

Thus he blessed them and expired... and so the common folk wondered and spoke of the reality of God, the mysterious ways of God and the living God who works His ways howsoever He would, to the confounding of the ungodly and the comfort of the rest. And across the landscape of Holy Russia, unravelling, there were dark mutterings and awe as swift-moving fingers made the sign of the cross with the deep fervor of unquestioned, uncritical belief and wondered what the dead starets had found at Mount Athos and knew it was God, then quickly crossed themselves again...

 

Professor Mason Hammond, Pope Professor of the Latin language and literature, 1903-2003.

 

Professor Hammond would never be hired today to teach at Harvard -- or any renowned institution of higher education. Amongst other drawbacks, he lacked the "meal ticket"  of the Ph.D. and his literary output, though durable, was thin at best consisting principally of two well-regarded studies on "City State and World State" and "The Antonine Monarchy." I found both, not a lyric word in either, heavy going.

 

Notwithstanding such lackluster work product, on the day of the 1994 Harvard Commencement, when he was given the highest honor of the ancient university, Doctor of Letters honoris causa there was joyful pandemonium, and men, once shy and lost, now eminent and gray, wept with a glad heart and shouted themselves hoarse, for Hammond was the keeper of the flame, and every true Harvard man knew it and rushed to honor him. I was there that day... and I cheered heartily indeed for I had benefited more than most.

 

"You'll need a 'dago dazzler' ".

 

Once each week, generally on Thursday, the Hammonds were "at home" in their gracious residence on Brattle Street. There in a room graced with a Sargent portrait of Hammond's mother they received their wide acquaintance, always including present and past students. I think I am right to say I never missed a single chance to visit, never taking such occasions for granted. My thanks to my hostess, Mrs. (Florence) Hammond were never perfunctory but sincerely grateful.

 

During one such visit I mentioned I was going to Greece, my first visit. "Well, then," he said "You must go to Mount Athos. " A bell went off... Athos... the place of pilgrimage to which the starets Rasputin walked. "I'd like that," I said. And he said, "Of course you'll need a 'dago dazzler'. I'll make the necessary arrangements."

 

And that is how just weeks later my two friends and I happened to be spending the most uncomfortable of nights in the far north of Greece, in the squalid port of Ierirros ... a place where the mosquitos slurped so much of my blood and were then so contented that when I look a towel to kill them the walls were streaked with what had once been mine, now graphic evidence that I had been there, scourging myself like any devout pilgrim might. Still the morning came, the more welcome after the lurid night before. We were soon on our way to Mount Athos... and God.

 

You must understand that Greece, a laughing stock as a nation, is yet amongst the most beautiful of places... and so it was as Mount Athos approached each view was breathtaking, picture postcard perfect, until at last we were there and told to strip in the town square, so that we might be properly cleaned as pilgrims should be.

 

All obeyed.... but me. Whilst my fellow countrymen, hippies, and erstwhile seekers after God stripped to their underwear, knelt for a quick lather and a bucket of cold water, thence to have their hair chopped off I declined. My two companions looked at me for instructions. But I was a Harvard man, semper paratus, already wearing my ultra serviceable blue blazer.... and had the "dago dazzler" at the ready. I made myself clear that I wished to see the highest ranking gendarme.

 

And it was he who first saw the product of Professor Hammond's kindness and forethought. It was magnificent indeed and I confess  I did not like the ill-kempt officer's fingers upon it.... but my dignity was at stake and that was the priority, along with saving my friends, who never before looked at me with greater hopes and expectations. The gendarme, of course, had to show the document; in Greek and beautifully illustrated in the medieval fashion to his superior... and that superior, too, needed to pass it to his. No one wished to be responsible for improperly greeting such a worthy as me.

 

And so for an hour, for an order we waited, until a young priest came to escort me to an abbot, the first one who understood that I, as specifically named in the document, and my two companions (not specifically mentioned and therefore needing to heed my every whim) was a personage of consequence under the special protection of the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of New England, thereby outranking any mere abbot or two.

 

And so it began, "Would your excellency's party care to walk in? The abbot is expecting you." I bet he was.... Thus did I enter the first of Mount Athos' 20 monasteries in ceremony, so very different from Rasputin...

 

Whilst waiting for the Abbot, young priests delivered, first, a glass of the purest water, then a plate of Turkish delight, the very sweetest variety of jelly beloved of my Grannie. The Abbot, with acolyte then arrived. I shook his hand as I should do with any man; he gave me the kiss of peace and brotherhood, right, left, right.... his patriarchal beard tickled. I did not smile; he was doing his duty, I was doing mine

 

And so we complimented politely whilst he asked the expected questions. We were all men of the world and our manners were comme il faut. Of course he invited us to dinner, at his end of the long trestle tables, the pilgrims far at the bottom, we privileged well above the salt. But how did you converse, you say? In French. For each abbot spoke it fluently as did my best friend William Powers Ingoldsby, who joined perfect pronunciation to insinuating manners.

 

I handled my French the way Sir Winston Churchill did, with blunt authority and audacity. It worked anywhere, even on the Champs Elysees.

 

And so it went for a week or so. Up early to walk in the sweet sunshine of dawn to the next great monastery of Oxthodoxy where they was another glass of cool water, another plate of Turkisih delight, and the three expected kisses, right, left, right.

 

On the last day I decided to go to mass. My mother had always urged me to understand even if I did not believe a particular rite. And so I immersed myself in the glories of the Eastern Mass... until it was time to kiss the icon. Then just a minute before my time to submit arrived, the pilgrim before me spit up and covered the icon with the most nauseating mixture on earth.

 

I shied away... the priest pushed my head down in case I had any idea to escape as I must assuredly did. And then I remembered the genteel young man is never without a clean linen pocket handkerchief and he was not remiss here. With is, I covered the outrage -- just -- without missing a beat or turning green.

 

I had learned much, seen much and used my time well...but God had not favored me with either audience or sign. Thus I waited at Ouranoupolis for the tiny craft designated to take up back to the  mainland, to Greece. And here fate intervened. Six priests arrived, going to the mainland to do their shopping. Since they rarely if ever bathed their pungency was high and notable. I asked the captain to lash me to the mainmast so I could breath.

 

Then after a half hour or so a sudden storm arose.... and I felt a pure exhilaration such as I had never felt before... the waves breaking on the deck, the wind running through my uncut hair, my skin pummeled by rain, the benediction of heaven. And I was happy, traveling the route of the Virgin Mary, the last woman to be allowed at the Holy Mountain.... and all those who had followed her, for good or ill and somehow amidst these elements summoning me to life, there was the whisper of God which simply said "You and I shall meet again, my son."  And I felt, in the roiling sea, His awe and infinite wonder and knew the reality of bliss.

 

About the Author

 

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author's permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com/associates   out Shoe-In Money ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=ul7z48tV

 

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A great sadness in the land. An open letter to my president, the Honorable Barack Obama.

Posted on October 3, 2011

October 3, 2011 | Author: Jeffrey Lant | Posted in Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Article Archive, US Economy

 

Dear Mr. President

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
A special preface for my readers worldwide. Today, with a measure of reluctance, I step outside my usual role as a commentator on a myriad of facts, occurrences, events, trends and happenings to be what from my birth I have been and treasured, a Citizen of the United States, my country.
Today I shall not merely report on the news in all its many aspects, at home and universally, but I shall, in a small but not insignificant way, make history… which is what Citizens do when they consider their nation, its affairs and directions, its misadventures and glorious achievements and report their opinions, feelings, complaints, concerns and admonitions to the individual who is, for the moment, the chief magistrate of the Great Republic, a position granted by the people who remain the ultimate repository of all power… and who, therefore, are, in such reporting doing what they have the right and indeed the obligation and responsibility to do… for all that their language may, from time to time, become choleric, injudicious, and intemperate.
As one of these people, these Citizens, I am today writing for and immediately thereafter sending to my president my thoughts and observations at this moment in our history, for I sense a great sadness beginning to move across the land, which must give pause to every thoughtful member of the body politic.
I want you, Reader, to note the matter of how I have headed these remarks, for I am sending them not just to the President of the United States, but to “my president,” for first and foremost he is not just a quondam official, holding office from such a time to such a time. He is, instead, the lawful leader of my country, a nation in which my hopes and dreams, along with the hopes and dreams of unseen millions of my countrymen, reside. I therefore write because I must… for the stakes are far too great to be silent… and I trust that the first lesson to be drawn from this letter is that you, too, shall, with thought and high seriousness of purpose, send to your president the fruit of your wisdom and concern, for whatever divides us, we have everything to unite us…. the articles and means of governance, centuries of shared triumphs and adversities, the first fashioned, the second overcome by our united actions. We share hopes, dreams, visions, and the abiding knowledge that, of all peoples on this earth, we have created our realities… and so we must take action when our direction falters… and our vision is obscured.
… as it happening now, to the growing certainty, concern, lamentations and jeremiads of the people. And because all these are not the best of us… we call upon you, as we are in duty bound to do, to lead the people… exhort the people… lift up the people and return us intact, renewed to former greatness and greater greatness yet to come.
Mr. President, you came into office in a flood tide of exclamations, gratitudes, hosannahs… a man not merely of destiny but a man of reconciliation, joy, and healing purpose. You broke the stringent and oppressive color barrier, for every office and high position in the land, an invidious reality that too long oppressed a nation dedicated to eradicating the oppressions of others, yet for long unable to eradicate the oppressions we inflicted upon ourselves. You were a living symbol of all that is best in us. And we were glad of it… and thanked you for liberating all the people from the cancer of oppressing.
Now, however, the man who verily walked upon the water, is in danger of being swept out to sea, a victim of expectations too high, a man perhaps to be remembered and derided, for having peaked as president in his first hour on the job. What has caused this implosion, this great fall from grace and on high?
It is not the problems which assail us, for the Great Republic was conceived, born and grew strong and proud because of great problems greatly engaged. Because we believed — and still I trust believe — that only from great problems solved can a great people evolve towards perfection.
It is not that the political climate is more divisive, harsh, noisome and belligerent than our Founding Fathers and their generations of descendants faced, for the political atmosphere and actions in this pantheon of strong opinions have often been incendiary, ad hominem, vulgar, and abusive. As a people we know the alchemy for turning such bile into unity. It is our particular genius.
Nor is it that we are less dedicated and committed to the usages of our great system of governance and life, for the blood and passions of our forefathers run strong in us, too.
What then is the cause for our disappointment, dismay, and of the incipience of despair and growing disillusion? And what then must we do?
There are many causes, profound, significant, challenging… and many are at work even now to bring solutions to the problems at hand. But your office, our customs and immemorial usage all dictate that you, our oathed and solemnly sworn leader take precedence in action and constructive purpose. And here you have faltered, and I wish to suggest why.
I am writing to you now from a neighborhood and institution you know well and loved, Cambridge and The Harvard Law School. There you learned and then mastered the principles and procedures of the law, one of the glories of our entire civilization. Here amongst the grassy precincts and serene buildings redolent of learning, judgement, and, above all, due process you found yourself and grew. You were happy here… but it did not prepare you for your current responsibilities, turbulences, conundra, attacks and altercations. As a result you are suffering… for lawyers learn how to divide pies… not how to make them. You are now the duly chosen Chief Baker… but without a recipe for sustaining and improving your aggrieved customers to be had.
These good people were at first confident, then patient, then exasperated, frustrated and irritated, now they have turned angry and exigent. They know what you should know: the casualties inflicted by global economic maelstroms and a host of related economic and social realities are greater than the greatest of wars. If a wreath was placed on the door of every individual adversely affected we should fall down in disbelief and horror. For the people know how great is the trouble in the land where God once shed His grace.
Your job, your only job, is to put America to work… for only an employed America can be a happy land of serenity, security and sustained peace of mind. You are Commander- in-Chief. Thus declare war on America’s most pressing enemy, unemployment
Create a “war cabinet” and set up your headquarters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, already hallowed as a place to secure and defend America’s interests. Make it known throughout the land that this is not an Obama initiative; it is an American initiative and therefore you call upon all Americans to do their bit, as their parents and grandparents did in World War II. And if some oppose, let them. You have God’s work to do and cannot allow little men and their self-serving objections to hinder you. You are America’s leader, and you have America’s work to do.
Every time any business or organization adds a job, post a notice and laud the job creators. They are all heroes in a war we must fight and we must win. They deserve recognition. Set up a website where you list jobs created. Go live on the Internet at least one each day and show and tell the American people just what you are doing and results achieved. Our people do not understand our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they will all understand this. You are at a crossroads of your life and office. But there is a grand, honorable and necessary thing which you can do. Leave the many good things you would do if you had world enough and time. Focus on the one thing we must have now and without which we can achieve little else. Embrace your true calling, sir, and lead the endeavor to put America to work. It is what’s needed… a goal we can reach together and must start today.
* * * * *
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy

‘If you’re ever in a jam, here I am.’ Thoughts on a friend you adore, eat, and shamefully forget (until your next craving): jam.

 

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Howard Martell

Reply

October 1, 2011 | Author: Jeffrey Lant | Posted in Dr. Jeffrey Lant’s Article Archive

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note: Jam! Can you imagine life without it… smooth, delectable, always there, never contumacious like your last lover, never foul mouthed or vulgar (like some of your friends); something which never disappoints… always satisfies… a friend in fair weather or foul. Yes, jam is all this — and more.
Thus, we will today remember the preparers of jam (some of the most important people on earth)… moments of pure joy as you ate it… then dipped a spoon into the jar.. and ate some more, for additional, predictable bliss.
For such a day of exaltation, celebration and mouth-watering delectation, I have selected (as theme music) the peppy little number written by Cole Porter (1940), sung by Judy Garland at her most bouncy. She belts it out, “If you’re ever in a jam, here I am….” The tune is, of course, “Friendship”.
Go to any search engine now… find the recording. Don’t play it quite yet. First, get your very best serving bowl out… and fill it, heaping, with something you love now, have loved from the beginning, something you will always love and desire… jam.
Grammie’s best crystal… for a boy she loved who loved her incomparable jams.
The snows in the interminable prairies of the Great Republic bring days when you are sure the sun is a hoax, when the light is gray and harsh, when the wind howls early and late and your thoughts turn maudlin, oppressive, inward looking and sad. For such days God invented Grammie… and her jams.
My grandmother, Victoria Burgess Lauing, was of English stock… and this, I am sure accounts for her sweet tooth… and her love of (amongst many glorious foods) the concentrated joy that is jam. She came by it, I am sure, in her genes… even in her name, for the Great Queen she was named after had a sweet tooth, too, which she indulged with imperial frequency. Sweeties, and this included jam, were the secret of the empire… the reason the sun never set… and tea was religiously served each day… for tiffin meant….. jam and thoughts of England, home, so very far away and loved.
The very best jam in the very best crystal.
Grammie was what young women today disdain, but do not know or understand. She, the “lady of the house”, was a house wife. She mastered, she perfected, she exemplified every virtue of her place and profession… and just how practiced and most excellent she was could be seen to clear advantage with the jam she served on her best crystal.
It may have been Lennox or even Waterford, a boy doesn’t notice such things, but you knew you were being treated better than Little Lord Fauntleroy (published 1886) when, with great ceremony, she presented what you craved — jam — on a dish ordinarily used only and solely for the great family festivals of the year. On such a Winter’s day when the bleakness of the prairies had seeped into your soul, she knew a potent counterattack was absolutely necessary. And she knew where to find it… in the jams which harbored the sunlight and sweetness we all require on such days.
She, a thoughtful, conscientious, practical woman, had planned for just this day when, in high Summer, she had decreed it was time for making the jams, so sweet, so necessary against the inevitable Winter, its winds, and howling oppressions.
Pursuit of sweet perfection, labor of love.
It is time to tell you, for unless you had such a Grammie you cannot know, of the process, at once exacting and precise, that produced the jam which would, all too soon, sustain us.
My grandmother’s kitchen was her domain, everything about it was redolent of who she was, of her beliefs, values, organizational skills, what she deemed essential… and what she discarded, and when. Unobservant folk missed all this, but other house wives of the prairies never did… and it was partly for them that all was laid out in perfection. Grammie was a competitive woman… and she would never allow or tolerate any imperfection that would cause her neighbors to cavil, denigrate, or exult over any fault found. She was a proud woman… and she wanted to stand well before her peers and the world. She never disdained the house wife’s role… and what she did, she did in exemplary fashion, with exemplary results. So it was when it was time to make the jam.
Hot, hot, infernally hot.
If Illinois was arctic in Winter, it was nothing less than an inferno in Summer when the oppressive heat slowed the pace and made one wish, if only for a moment, of the snows they would get soon enough and disdain.
Jam, as you probably don’t know if you are an urban dweller, is made of chopped or crushed fruit and sugar. To begin, you wash the fruit. Crush it, but don’t puree. Then cook it stove top until the ingredients are well mixed and start to boil. At this point, very much on the qui vivre, Grammie would be vigilant, alert, watchful so as not to scorch. Perfection, she knew, is the result of every necessary decision exactly made, no error made, allowed, or tolerated.
The mixture, having reached a boil, would then be transferred from stove top to oven, always being sure to stir with practiced skill and care. Maestro that she was, she would have taken, time to time, a spoon full’s quantity of perfection in progress; to place this small amount in the freezer for just a minute, thereby knowing, in meticulous fashion, whether the jam was done, or would be better still by waiting a bit. These were not matters of conjecture… but of a lifetime’s knowledge of her subject, sternly to be followed and adhered to now, without rush or cutting corners. That would never do, and so was never done.
This was work that called for judgement, unstinting care, patience… of knowing just what to do and when to do it… and it was all done in a place heated twice, first by the unrelentingly sun of Summer… and then by the high heat of stove and oven. It was all necessary to derive the excellence, the perfection of the jam she would afterward share with her critical neighbors and friends (proof of her mastery) and with her family, who tasted in the finished jam the evidence she loved us so and would never give less than her always astonishing best.
Grammie gone, her revelations gone, too.
I have always wondered why neither of Grammie’s two daughters, my mother and her younger sister, bothered to record Grammie’s recipes, for they were her true genius and legacy. My mother now is gone herself so I cannot ask… but whatever the reason I rue the result and wish it otherwise. All this came home to me the other day when I saw that Tommy at the Montrose Spa right up the street was having a sale of Bonne Maman jams. I bought the fig preserves first… and the next day went back and bought the plum, the blueberry, the strawberry, and (for good measure) another fig. They are (and this is my highest praise) reminiscent of my Grammie’s highest skill. Product of France they may be, they yet bring me home to my English Grammie, who on the highest days of Summer could be found stirring the mixture that brought sweetness and comfort to all, reassurance we would get through the rigors of the Winter to come, made bearable by her great art and always by her love.
* * * * *
About The Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell http://HomeProfitCoach.com . Check out Massive Traffic Ultimatum -> http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=sk9BRJWy