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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (July 15, 1999)
wws Divinations down the drain Early-morning bath leads to ruminations on the existence of a soul MARK BALDRIDGE is a senio English major. Well I woke up this morning with my mind Where was your mind? Centered on Jesus. — devotional son Before dawn I slip, still sleepy, into the tepii bath. I soak for an hour, reading Cocteau in translation, lolling in the gray water. Hie light coming up through the window falls on the door, slides toward the floor. Cocteau, with his obsession, I should say insistence, on the invisible, with what this most public figure (author, playwright, filmmaker, artist) would call his own invisibility, leads me, through beautiful labyrinths, back to my own invisibility, my own unknown soul. If my personal hygiene is impeccable (wate washes away the dirt and grime, the softened scabs of yesterday) Cocteau reminds me of that other ablution, the baptism of the inner man. Not that I (nor Cocteau in his sophistication his worldliness - but I shouldn’t speak for him) swallow that parable, spit so often from pulpits, of the bookkeeper god and his terrible ledger of r wrongs accumulated, debts owed, interest to be paid. No, but there is yet a soul, of the world, of a moment, of a man bathing as the sun comes up in his heart - of the sun’s rising. A soul nonethe less fragile for being indestructible, g Point to it, with your knowing finger; you’ll find it eludes you but that doesn’t make it unre 1 al. Point to the dance while a dancer is dancing and you’ll find it equally elusive - still, you don’t storm the box office demanding a refund on your ticket. The dance is there, an event, a field of activ ity, so present as to draw you into its presence. The soul, my soul, is like that, I think: plain ly invisible. “And What does it profit a man, if he gain the Whole world and lose his own soul?” Some rhetorical apostle asks as I pull the plug, letting the water ebb around me in the tub. Lose your soul? What can that mean to a soul? But it can happen, happens all too easily. Like the slip of soap in wet hands, the soul dis appears beneath the flood, sinks like a stone and is lost, is broken, is darkened, troubled, drowned. ft If my personal hygiene is impeccable (water washes away the dirt and grime, the softened scabs of yesterday) Cocteau reminds me of that other ablution, the baptism of the inner man” Or it can be left behind, like a briefcase at a bus stop, thrown out like the baby with the bath water. It can be abandoned to die dogs of worry, gluttony or guilty vice. I have seen men and women, squeaky clean, go toddling off to work of a morning like Dagwood without his trousers, having left their souls behind - perhaps in the cushions of the couch with tiie TV remote. Worse, through inattention, to starve the soul. Nourished only on beautiful acts and calm reflection the soul goes too often crammed with the junk food of a busybody media, empty calo ries of days spent “earning a living” - as if a moment’s lassitude forfeits the right to live. Amid tiie noise, the stale ugliness of another stripmall, another day-in-the-life of a too-loud America, the soul’s quiet notes go unheard. Even in the attempt to get back to the soul, some run pell-mell off the precipice of consumerism, charging prayer mats and yoga postures on cred it cards already overloaded with responsibility in the death of the soul. And yet here is Cocteau, or his ghost, van ishing before me as I stand, shivering, dripping on the carpet, my hair on end. In the world, he retained his own elusive ness. Neither critic nor ardent fan ever grasped what he was when he was among them. - Like a pansy Christ he reveals now some thing other than what we expect of great artists or great men - the great immortal dead - what ever that may be. Pointing out his own invisibili ty to me as I dress and start the day. ^MDS Harris Together, We're Making Lives Better 621 Rose Street, Lincoln vwwv.mdsharrisxom/rcrt/recruit.htm jf_~ __ OPEN 24 HOURS 1 ■ I ' ■' - . Your Most Complete Print Center Catobrattoa; lO Year* NOW OPEN | ' . 1320 Q Street {next to Wstoislis Bookstore) 477-7400 _ Fax 477-8960 <4Mz£ Kgi&iilKI&SiiilSiSH mmmmm HI '^91 m~ ^• v ''?''x IMWI» f your student ID GOLDEN CUTT1 “You will make heads turn” 201 Capitol Beach Blvd. L v 477-7666