Dart writes that his family’s apartment has become the central gathering place for the Burke clan as they prepare for Flora’s funeral. I find it interesting that while the majority of the family – the four unmarried siblings – live together in a large house, it is the home of Helen and Dart, Sr. where they all congregate for comfort. It promises to be a very busy few days for Dart and the others.
He attended church this morning. When he saw that the sermon was entitled “Controlling Your Emotions,” he expected to have pangs of guilt over some of the things he and Dot had done recently, but there was nothing in the sermon that could be construed that way. He tells Dot that she has probably seen the idea behind this sermon before Dart did, in her decision not to be so narrow-minded and judgmental. “Surely you have been a better Christian than I, by attempting to stop such feeling. My feelings of intolerance of things which do not suit me, which grate on my nerves, are so deeply-rooted that I must first train my conscience to remind me of things I do which are intolerant or narrow-minded.”
He continues, “In the first place, my bitterness, though I’ve reasoned for it and tried to explain it, has no real basis. It leads nowhere, except to more bitterness (of which the world has too much), it does neither me not the people I’m bitter against no good at all.”
He asks what he or others have to gain from his narrow-mindedness. Perhaps, he suggests, his intolerance has created a refuse for himself when he fears that outer influences may damage his ideals. “But how am I to judge the right thing without a wrong thing for comparison? The wrong thing may not be in me now, but unless I see it, tolerate it in some others, I shall never know fully how to combat it in myself.”
“The Christian spirit is not a retiring one. True, there are some…who don the homespun shirt of a monk to live unto themselves. …Am I perhaps akin to the monks, for I have shut, almost entirely, the forces of evil from my life, yet have done nothing to serve as a reminder to evil ones that it is possible to live a full, happy, well-rounded life and still not commit too many sins.”
“I have used profanity, told falsehoods, stolen (petty larceny – Navy style), entertained evil thoughts, become frightfully angry at inconsequential things, and abused my body. Why, then, should I be of any effect in the criticizing of others?”
He summarizes, “The sermon this morning was mainly about knowing and mastering one’s weak spots in his emotional set-up, thereby strengthening one’s character.”
Perhaps this sermon provided Dart with the impetus to give up his intolerance for others and simply focus on being the best man he could be – a man he could be proud of. Now that would be the Dart that I knew as my father.
In his final paragraph he asks Dot if she has been feeling exceptionally lonely when she awakes. Dart is always profoundly sad when he awakes to find the she is not with him. “I’m sure glad it’s you that I love and not anyone else. Mom spoke last night as though it were known to her to be a definite fact that we will be married in June of next year. ”
# # #
Dot admits she has bitten off more than she can chew. Between classes all day, work almost every night until 10:00, and the usual laundry, studying, and writing to Dart and her parents, there is little time for sleep. Then there’s the fact that her room continues to be the place her housemates choose to congregate to rehash the events of their nights. Tonight she was besieged by a group of housemates, most of them smelling like liquor, just as she collapsed momentarily on her bed after serving over 100 people in two banquets. It has all stretched her nerves nearly to the breaking point.
She seems particularly distressed by the treatment Ellie and Dorie gave some hometown friends that visited them this weekend. Ellie’s friends were so shocked by how much she’s changed, that they hardly wanted to be around her, and Ellie very nearly ignored them all for the whole weekend. Dorie’s guests, neither of whom drink or smoke, were forced to endure an evening in a smokey bar. Sounding a bit like Dart, Dot writes, “Perhaps I take the whole thing too seriously and am too narrow-minded, but I can’t help that I feel so strongly.”
She, too, reported on the topic of today’s sermon at church. The topic was Alcoholics Anonymous, with a guest speaker named Mr. Johnson. She was very impressed with his courage to talk about how alcoholism had ruined his life, and how he has fought back to overcome it.
After the way things developed over the weekend with her housemates and their guests, she surely wouldn’t want Cynthia to come to Kent for a visit. Her own mother has noticed a lack of news about housemates recently, and has assumed it’s because she spends so much time with Dart. How Dot wishes that were the case! If her mother knew how most of her housemates behaved, she would be sick with worry.
Phyll spoke with Al via phone tonight and Dot asked Al if he would let Dart know that she loves him. Did he get that message? She hopes he did because she’s missed him more than usual today.