Stay In Touch -Have I not proven to you that I Am in the saving sinners business? -Jesus
Monday, June 27, 2011
Pentimento: Darnell Arnoult
Pentimento: Darnell Arnoult
Delusions of Grandeur
I sure loved this poem today.
Psychology Today
Have you ever had
delusions of grandeur?
I read all about it
in a magazine
on the coffee table
at Dr. Broadwell's office.
Have you ever thought
you were meant for
something special?
But you were afraid.
Afraid if you tried
you'd fail?
People
would think you
a fool?
You might risk
everything
only for
delusions of grandeur?
I have.
Thought that, I mean.
delusions of grandeur?
I read all about it
in a magazine
on the coffee table
at Dr. Broadwell's office.
Have you ever thought
you were meant for
something special?
But you were afraid.
Afraid if you tried
you'd fail?
People
would think you
a fool?
You might risk
everything
only for
delusions of grandeur?
I have.
Thought that, I mean.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Anecdotal Evidence: `Only As Children Do, But With Less Wonder'
Anecdotal Evidence: `Only As Children Do, But With Less Wonder'
Excerpt:
David Slavitt’s “Fritillaries”
......
Trees, birds, the flowers
underfoot, and the stars overhead I know
only as children do, but with less wonder.
Excerpt:
David Slavitt’s “Fritillaries”
......
Trees, birds, the flowers
underfoot, and the stars overhead I know
only as children do, but with less wonder.
SHIRT OF FLAME: CO-DEPENDENT NO MORE: THE SECOND CONVERSION OF ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX
SHIRT OF FLAME: CO-DEPENDENT NO MORE: THE SECOND CONVERSION OF ST. THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX
Also, if you try in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons to make other people happy, you tend to think, often rightfully, that people are taking advantage of you, because it is human nature to take advantage of someone who has, however inadvertently, placed him or herself in a position of weakness and victimhood. Which tends to make me, for one, come out fighting, often at what seem to the other person like completely random and unpredictable times, and in wildly out-of-proportion ways....
For weeks now, at the suggestion of my spiritual director, I’ve been carrying around a yellow Post-It in my wallet. On it are written:
--Make sure I’m putting myself first.
--I’m not responsible for making people happy or always doing what they need.
--I need to have a life first.
--I need to be sure my needs are being met.
I cannot begin to describe how thoroughly, absolutely, horribly each of those grate against my very identity. I was raised to believe that to be good is always to put the other person first, that love consists in ignoring your own needs, that your job is to make other people happy. This may come as news to many of those who are closest to me. Because what happens, it’s taken me almost 59 years to figure out, is that when you try in the wrong way and for the wrong reasons to make other people happy, they end up rebelling. You end up resenting. And the whole thing—your sacrifice, your martyrdom—blows up in your face.
From Burke to Kirk and Beyond...: Why so many books about the Nazis still?
From Burke to Kirk and Beyond...: Why so many books about the Nazis still?
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
I must agree with Mr. Kerr that the Nazis were the greatest evil of the 20th century, though the Leninists and Maoists crowd the top of the list. Their love of death, and their ability to persuade people of all backgrounds to leave their moral scruples behind and kill innocent people for ideology, power, and the thrill of cruelty should always be studied.
What bugs me the most today, however, is that fascists in Islamic countries read the same texts, plot the annihilation of the Jews, hate Western civilization as it was passed down to us, and consider the death of millions to be the beginning of a new millennium. Readers of this blog know that I don't spit bile about Islam, though I will criticize it and its followers. Nonetheless, fascists who hijack the religion of one billion people in order to bring death to innocents need to be called what they are: fascists. There is not a dime's worth of difference between Baathism and Nazism,
-------------
["...except that the Nazis gained power over more people." They are working on it.]
Those Cosmopolitan Jews | The Groom's Family
Those Cosmopolitan Jews | The Groom's Family
Heading: A bunch of Hasidic Jews walk in as four novice nuns are about to take their vows, becoming Brides of Christ. Mother Superior: To what do we owe the honor of your presence? The Jews. We are the Groom's family.
=================================
Excerpt:
I feel defined by my lack of a place of origin just as strongly as some do by their hometown in upstate New York or provincial France.
Heading: A bunch of Hasidic Jews walk in as four novice nuns are about to take their vows, becoming Brides of Christ. Mother Superior: To what do we owe the honor of your presence? The Jews. We are the Groom's family.
=================================
Excerpt:
I feel defined by my lack of a place of origin just as strongly as some do by their hometown in upstate New York or provincial France.
Friday, June 24, 2011
A Year with Rilke: David Sings Before Saul (II)
A Year with Rilke: David Sings Before Saul (II)
Comment from Ruth: I feel profound sadness in this reading, darkening in tone from yesterday's first segment of the poem. I hear the plea of the younger, who is being drained of all his youthful energy for the one who does not release him from his duty to sooth. Saul is a selfish being here, wasting that young hand for only his own comfort.
It reminds me of the Hebrew concept of hesed. My understanding of it is that it is mutuality in relationship, in which the two who 'shake hands' in hesed agree that they will each not only uphold their side of the agreement, but they will also do their best to uphold the other's side of the agreement. It's more like saying 'I'm responsible for 100%' not 'I'm responsible for 50%, and you 50%.' This is a beautiful concept in the relationship with God, and biblically is often translated as 'mercy.' But 'mercy' does not contain the breadth and depth of this idea.
In this story of Saul and David, I see David doing all the work, and Saul not even holding up his own side, to want to be healed of his deep and violent emotions.
Comment from Ruth: I feel profound sadness in this reading, darkening in tone from yesterday's first segment of the poem. I hear the plea of the younger, who is being drained of all his youthful energy for the one who does not release him from his duty to sooth. Saul is a selfish being here, wasting that young hand for only his own comfort.
It reminds me of the Hebrew concept of hesed. My understanding of it is that it is mutuality in relationship, in which the two who 'shake hands' in hesed agree that they will each not only uphold their side of the agreement, but they will also do their best to uphold the other's side of the agreement. It's more like saying 'I'm responsible for 100%' not 'I'm responsible for 50%, and you 50%.' This is a beautiful concept in the relationship with God, and biblically is often translated as 'mercy.' But 'mercy' does not contain the breadth and depth of this idea.
In this story of Saul and David, I see David doing all the work, and Saul not even holding up his own side, to want to be healed of his deep and violent emotions.
Supremacy and Survival: The English Reformation: June 24: The Puritan and The Jesuit
Supremacy and Survival: The English Reformation: June 24: The Puritan and The Jesuit
Excerpt:
These two men shared the same birthday, the same first name, and the same generation, but little else--except for the general atmosphere of danger in Tudor England.
Robert Dudley, the 1st Earl of Leicester was born on June 24, 1533; Robert Persons or Parsons, SJ on June 24, 1546.
As a young man, Dudley experienced the dangers of the Tudor dynasty....
Excerpt:
These two men shared the same birthday, the same first name, and the same generation, but little else--except for the general atmosphere of danger in Tudor England.
Robert Dudley, the 1st Earl of Leicester was born on June 24, 1533; Robert Persons or Parsons, SJ on June 24, 1546.
As a young man, Dudley experienced the dangers of the Tudor dynasty....
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
IDLE SPECULATIONS: Prayer and Psalms
IDLE SPECULATIONS: Prayer and Psalms
Addendum: I am pleasantly shocked! I have been a reader of Idle Speculations for awhile and NEVER noticed the hamster. I still can't stop laughing.
Excerpt:
A butterfly broken on the wheel ?.........
Addendum: I am pleasantly shocked! I have been a reader of Idle Speculations for awhile and NEVER noticed the hamster. I still can't stop laughing.
Excerpt:
The work was executed at a time when she was involved in an affair with François-Auguste-René Rodin (12 November 1840 – 17 November 1917), a deep but horribly destructive relationship which only ended in 1898. As well as romantic, the two artists were united in their artistic work so much so it has been said that it is hard to see who influenced whom.
Rodin never fulfilled the promises he made to Claudel and was never faithful to her. She, on the other hand, was utterly devoted to him while the relationship lasted.
While Rodin`s fame flourished and he achieved world wide renown in his lifetime, Claudel`s career never took off during her life. It has only been after her death that her true worth and greatness have been belatedly recognised. There is evidence that on occasion Rodin and his set did consciously cause set backs to Claudel`s career.
At this time, a sculptor who was a woman was not recognised.
Her health first started to break down in 1906. She started to destroy some of her sculptures with a hammer. She continued to work but eventually she was committed to a mental health institution by her family in 1913.
By 1914 the doctors were writing to her family asking them to integrate her back into the family. They refused all such requests and she died in an institution and was buried in a common grave with no marker. Her family did not attend.
Gerasene Writer's Conference: Epithalamium: Twelfth Hour
Gerasene Writer's Conference: Epithalamium: Twelfth Hour
Excerpt:
Philosophy unlocks the temple gates
That poetry paints in paneled pictures.
So theology ushers in with rites
The unity of alien natures
Which nave and vestry breathe with air refined
By doctrine first defined
Upon the windy shores of Galilee:...........
Excerpt:
Philosophy unlocks the temple gates
That poetry paints in paneled pictures.
So theology ushers in with rites
The unity of alien natures
Which nave and vestry breathe with air refined
By doctrine first defined
Upon the windy shores of Galilee:...........
To Lose Every Book
h/t Dolce Bellazza:
"The loss of his library had been a blow so pulverizing that he had not yet begun to suffer the torment that was later to come to him. He was still dazed and bewildered, but he sensed instinctively that his only hope lay in turning his mind as often as possible from the tragedy and in applying himself unstintingly to the routine of the day. As the weeks passed by, however, he found it more and more difficult to keep the horror of that night from his mind. Books which he loved not only for their burden, but intrinsically, for varying qualities of paper and print, kept reminding him that they were no longer to be fingered and read. Not only were the books lost and the thoughts in the books, but what was to him, perhaps, the most searching loss of all, the hours of rumination which lifted him above himself and bore him upon their muffled and enormous wings. Not a day passed but he was reminded of some single volume, or of a series of works, whose very positions on the walls so clearly indented his mind. He had taken refuge from this raw emptiness in a superhuman effort to concentrate his mind exclusively upon the string of ceremonies which he had daily to perform. He had not tried to rescue a single volume from the shelves, for even while the flames leapt around him he knew that every sentence that escaped the fire would be unreadable and bitter as gall, something to taunt him endlessly. It was better to have the cavity in his heart yawning and compeltely empty than mocked by a single volume. Yet not a day passed but he knew his grip had weakened." (p. 247) ~Read Along from Titus Groan
"The loss of his library had been a blow so pulverizing that he had not yet begun to suffer the torment that was later to come to him. He was still dazed and bewildered, but he sensed instinctively that his only hope lay in turning his mind as often as possible from the tragedy and in applying himself unstintingly to the routine of the day. As the weeks passed by, however, he found it more and more difficult to keep the horror of that night from his mind. Books which he loved not only for their burden, but intrinsically, for varying qualities of paper and print, kept reminding him that they were no longer to be fingered and read. Not only were the books lost and the thoughts in the books, but what was to him, perhaps, the most searching loss of all, the hours of rumination which lifted him above himself and bore him upon their muffled and enormous wings. Not a day passed but he was reminded of some single volume, or of a series of works, whose very positions on the walls so clearly indented his mind. He had taken refuge from this raw emptiness in a superhuman effort to concentrate his mind exclusively upon the string of ceremonies which he had daily to perform. He had not tried to rescue a single volume from the shelves, for even while the flames leapt around him he knew that every sentence that escaped the fire would be unreadable and bitter as gall, something to taunt him endlessly. It was better to have the cavity in his heart yawning and compeltely empty than mocked by a single volume. Yet not a day passed but he knew his grip had weakened." (p. 247) ~Read Along from Titus Groan
Cuban prisoner on hunger strike for almost 3 months | Babalú Blog
Cuban prisoner on hunger strike for almost 3 months | Babalú Blog
A Cuban imprisoned in one of the Castro regime's gulags has been on a hunger strike now for 58 days. Marcelino Abreu Borona, who has been hospitalized because of the effects of his hunger strike, has not been classified as a "political prisoner." However, the dubious charges the Cuban dictatorship brought against him for which he was imprisoned indicate that Abreu may indeed be another of the thousands of political prisoners rotting and dying in a Castro prison.
A Cuban imprisoned in one of the Castro regime's gulags has been on a hunger strike now for 58 days. Marcelino Abreu Borona, who has been hospitalized because of the effects of his hunger strike, has not been classified as a "political prisoner." However, the dubious charges the Cuban dictatorship brought against him for which he was imprisoned indicate that Abreu may indeed be another of the thousands of political prisoners rotting and dying in a Castro prison.
VIS news - Holy See Press Office: THE PSALMS: THE BOOK OF PRAYER PAR EXCELLENCE
VIS news - Holy See Press Office: THE PSALMS: THE BOOK OF PRAYER PAR EXCELLENCE
"The Psalms teach us to pray", the Holy Father explained. "In them, the Word of God becomes the word of prayer. ... People who pray the Psalms speak to God with the words of God, addressing Him with the words He Himself taught us. ... Through these words it is also possible to know and accept the criteria of His actions, to approach the mystery of His thoughts and His ways, so as to grow and develop in faith and love".
"By teaching us to pray", the Pope went on, "the Psalms also teach us that at times of desolation, even in moments of suffering, the presence of God is a source of wonder and consolation. We may weep, plead and seek intercession, ... but in the awareness that we are advancing towards the light, where praise will be unending".
"The Psalms teach us to pray", the Holy Father explained. "In them, the Word of God becomes the word of prayer. ... People who pray the Psalms speak to God with the words of God, addressing Him with the words He Himself taught us. ... Through these words it is also possible to know and accept the criteria of His actions, to approach the mystery of His thoughts and His ways, so as to grow and develop in faith and love".
"By teaching us to pray", the Pope went on, "the Psalms also teach us that at times of desolation, even in moments of suffering, the presence of God is a source of wonder and consolation. We may weep, plead and seek intercession, ... but in the awareness that we are advancing towards the light, where praise will be unending".
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere.
- H. Rider Haggard, born on this date in 1856
Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go. Like a storm-driven bird at night we fly out of the Nowhere; for a moment our wings are seen in the light of the fire, and, lo! we are gone again into the Nowhere.
- H. Rider Haggard, born on this date in 1856
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Eschatological Psychosis: СРСД
Eschatological Psychosis: СРСД
[My goodness! And a translator at that!]
Tags: All history is Church history.............
[My goodness! And a translator at that!]
Сказания о русских святых для детей: Вступление
(This post is part of a series of translations of Aleksandr Khudoshin's Stories about Russian Saints for Children. Explanatory post here.)
............."fathers"? Whose fathers? Now, each of us has our own father, yes, that's clear. But a father of the Church- he is like a father to all, to all who come to him and appeal to him.....Should a poor man come, thin, poorly dressed, with a pale face- the dear father will take him, hug him, press him to his chest, cry together with him over his afflictions. And will teach him the necessary way, and help with words and deeds, and sometimes will give money. Now, is that not a father? But among the Church fathers there are very special fathers, they are called "elders".
...........
............."fathers"? Whose fathers? Now, each of us has our own father, yes, that's clear. But a father of the Church- he is like a father to all, to all who come to him and appeal to him.....Should a poor man come, thin, poorly dressed, with a pale face- the dear father will take him, hug him, press him to his chest, cry together with him over his afflictions. And will teach him the necessary way, and help with words and deeds, and sometimes will give money. Now, is that not a father? But among the Church fathers there are very special fathers, they are called "elders".
...........
I was unsure about what tense to use from "Пришёл богач..." onward. Ultimately I think the hypothetical conditional best reflected the spirit of the original, but if anyone has better suggestions, or thinks I've misread something, do let me know!
More minor uncertainties:
- обращаться as "to appeal" (something like "to turn to" strikes me as more etymologically accurate, but clunky)
- пышно разодетый as "lavishly dressed" (especially when плохо одетый is "poorly dressed"). It seems that разодетый doesn't have a precise English equivalent, implying something perhaps along the lines of "decked out"; ie, implying a level of extravagance above the fairly unmarked English "dressed" or "clothed"; again, if I'm wrong, please speak up!
[This brought to mind my poem: [Sorry, this is an interjection by this blog, emigres....]
XXXIII. Fall’s Leaves
"Suppose there should come into your assembly a poor man in shabby clothes...”-James 2
Today stripped to shiverin’ bones, donnin’ shabbies
I met my Maker’s kin, so lofty, sleek, oft dire fabbies.
Yesterday on Paradox Trail, non martyred wailing lot
Espied, but wait, there, aside the Tree, a Divine Plot.
Peeking exploding light, laughin’ played among leafs
Poor knights ‘nointed for bumblin’ bundlin’ gold sheafs
Mean rags, fabric coarse, roughed, bruised, torn callin’
‘Neath high canopy coverings strewn o’er Fall’s fallen.
Angel doves, floating feathers flying, ragged moaning coos
Deepening, haunting symphonies crescendos, His soft woos,
Ravaged, hungered leaves, strewn, felled far from Bloody Tree
So many, colored, stripped, offerings mean, for Thee.
8/14/10
=============================
=============================
- прижимает к сердцу translated literally is "pressed to the heart", which isn't something we really say in English. Is it common to replace "heart" with "chest" in contexts such as these, or does it imply something stronger or different?
- над его горем: over his afflictions? over his sorrows? in sorrow, in grief?
- нужную дорогу as "necessary way"- is this too literal? Would "right" or "proper" have been more in the spirit of the original?
- Ну как же не отец? as "Now, is that not a father?" Went largely on feeling, there. Does it work? [ :) ]
- есть и совсем особые отцы in general confused me. Anyone care to explain the и there (I have a vague memory that it may be related to a superlative construction, but I may be making that up)? Also совсем особые seems to demand something stronger than "very special", but I'm not sure what.
Tags: All history is Church history.............
l'malheur and A Year with Rilke: With Each Thing
Bedroom at Arles
Who can say what is? Who is able to judge the true worth of things?
I can only measure the world in terms of longing. All things are so ready to accommodate our many and often mistaken thoughts and wishes. With each thing I would like to rest for a night, after a day of "doing" with other things. I would like to sleep once with each thing, nestled in its warmth; to dream in the rhythm of its breathing, its dear, naked neighborliness against my limbs, and grow strong in the fragrance of its sleep. Then, early in the morning, before it awakens, before any good-byes, to move on, to move on...
Early Journals [Rilke]
===============
I read this post earlier and went on my merry way. Not. Anyway, I keep coming back to the van Gogh picture. It reminds me of a book I read when I was a lot younger. Internally I was troubled by the suicide of my grandfather and its devastating effect on the lives of my family. I was almost 30 before the short article on Van Gogh's troubled life and suicide brought me some measure of 'hope in ambivalence', because before such troubling, l'malheur, that must be the reality answer.
The author's approach, beneath the Cross, where I seem to stay, brought a tender, compassionate wind into my heart about such things. There on the Cross God brought us the most loving answer of a tender, compassionate, forgiving and Merciful God.Now, in my own period of l'malheur, I am again 'reminded' to remember, by Christ, by Van Gogh, by Simone Weil and by Elie Wiesel; for, to remember is to walk in two worlds[Wiesel].
First Known When Lost: How To Live, Part Three: "A Single Grain Of Rice Falling -- Into The Great Barn"
First Known When Lost: How To Live, Part Three: "A Single Grain Of Rice Falling -- Into The Great Barn"
Excerpt:
The Chinese poets of the T'ang Dynasty are a great source of wisdom. Seamus Heaney writes, in a poem about reading the poetry of Han Shan: ". . . enviable stuff,/Unfussy and believable." ("Squarings XXXVII" in Seeing Things.) The wisdom of the T'ang poets is of particular value in a time of media and political hysteria. In recent days, I have been reminded of lines from Patrick Kavanagh's "Leave Them Alone": "Newspaper bedlamites who raised/Each day the devil's howl." Kavanagh concludes:
The whole hysterical passing show
The hour apotheosised
Into a cul-de-sac will go
And be not even despised................
Excerpt:
The Chinese poets of the T'ang Dynasty are a great source of wisdom. Seamus Heaney writes, in a poem about reading the poetry of Han Shan: ". . . enviable stuff,/Unfussy and believable." ("Squarings XXXVII" in Seeing Things.) The wisdom of the T'ang poets is of particular value in a time of media and political hysteria. In recent days, I have been reminded of lines from Patrick Kavanagh's "Leave Them Alone": "Newspaper bedlamites who raised/Each day the devil's howl." Kavanagh concludes:
The whole hysterical passing show
The hour apotheosised
Into a cul-de-sac will go
And be not even despised................
First Known When Lost: "Stop Chasing After So Many Things": Ryokan And Wang Wei
First Known When Lost: "Stop Chasing After So Many Things": Ryokan And Wang Wei
...I....can say no more
About success or failure than the song
The fisherman sings, which comes to the deep shore.
Vikram Seth (translator), Three Chinese Poets (1992
...I....can say no more
About success or failure than the song
The fisherman sings, which comes to the deep shore.
Vikram Seth (translator), Three Chinese Poets (1992
Monday, June 20, 2011
Shabat: The Edge of the Forest
Excerpt from Part II: Danse de Paradoxe
Elie Wiesel wrote:
The beginning of the Sabbath. The celebration of its perfect holiness…”
“As I returned from the house of prayer with my father, and when I became older, we both sang:
“Shalom aleichem, malachei ha-sharet malachei ha-shalom”
[Peace be with you, servant angels, angels of peace.]
“The following day, after the morning prayer and the meal, my father made all of us fulfill our charitable duties…Dina(his sister) organized cultural get-togethers. My mother visited hospitals. As for me, my father used to take me to the edge of the forest to visit the Jewish patients in the insane asylum….Though he was not at all wealthy and worked hard to earn a living, he took an interest in the insane, for according to him, they were more defenseless than the poor.”
“At first he used to leave me outside, in the courtyard or garden, while he went and brought ‘his patients’ sweets and fruits. During the Pesach holiday he gave them matzoh.”
“…once I spoke with one…who said, “Who can rescue me today?”
Doriel digressed and said to the doctor: “There’s also religion, Doctor. By clashing with reason, it can prevent you from living in reality…The rigidity of the laws, the bewitchment of the mystics: these I knew and even liked….You who belong to another world and another time, can’t understand Jewish life in a small town---and Brooklyn was a small town, a shetl, which in spite (of all)…became lively spiritual centers “attuned to the slightest flutter of the Lord’s eyelid.”....
Little by Little
And then a little bird came and landed beside me on the bench. It didn’t seem afraid of me at all. It was as if it was sent to comfort me. “Have no fear, you are worth more than many sparrows” I thought. And I tried to take courage.
No matter where I go or do not go, You are there, O Lord.[Ps. 139..]
---------------
The question, "Can you hold a teardrop?" was inspired by St. Therese's relationship with her youngest novice, Sr. Marie of the Trinity and of the Holy Face. St. Therese had gifted Sr. Marie of the Trinity with a seashell for her tears. When the shell was full she was to stop crying. Being 'oft alone' we lose common symbols.
===============
From Part I: North Face Search:
No matter where I go or do not go, You are there, O Lord.[Ps. 139..]
---------------
The question, "Can you hold a teardrop?" was inspired by St. Therese's relationship with her youngest novice, Sr. Marie of the Trinity and of the Holy Face. St. Therese had gifted Sr. Marie of the Trinity with a seashell for her tears. When the shell was full she was to stop crying. Being 'oft alone' we lose common symbols.
===============
From Part I: North Face Search:
"Whenever I come to the conclusion that there is no hope, God always manages to apply a cosmic 2 x 4 to get my attention."
Can you hold a teardrop?
XII. Burnin’ Tears
They are not the mark of weakness, but of power
They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.
They re messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.
~Washington Irving
They are not the mark of weakness, but of power
They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues.
They re messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.
~Washington Irving
“To cry is to sow, said Maharal of Prague, to laugh is to reap.
And to write is to sow and reap at the same time.”
Can you catch a teardrop, stopping it intact, whole,
At best, perhaps, watch it roll, ever slow, down my soul?
Nature’s tears drop, sliding fall at whim on windows’ pane
Snatching Grief’s sobbing throes through sequestered pain.
Aye, tain’t fair, know, I mind the frails, as does God
Remember? It’s a long, dyin’ night out, heads nod.
A-feared, oh, mighty is the drawin’ out of soul’s reserves
Strength, when tears are gone, leaving frayed numbed nerves.
~6/19/2010
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
-----------------------
I have found the paradox, that if you love
until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt,
only more love. ~Bd. Mother Teresa
A Common Reader: A Grand Day Out
A Common Reader: A Grand Day Out
Excerpt: [Need to be back on the mountain top NOW.]
On Saturday I headed to Napa Valley to explore some sights related to Robert Louis Stevenson. The first stop was the Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, the site where he lived as detailed in The Silverado Squatters. The Toll House used to be where the picnic area is located. ...
The rock wall where the structure stood still looks imposing.
Stevenson mentioned the wind quite a bit in his book, noting that the area below this ridge would escape the occasional gale. I noticed that the wind increased markedly as the day warmed up. The opening to the abandoned mine lies across a clearing and up a steep hill.
The change of view due to the heat is apparent when comparing the above picture and this one, taken 90 minutes earlier, from a couple of miles south and a thousand feet lower.
In The Silverado Squatters Stevenson describes a memorable scene of the valley covered by sea fog, the nearby lesser peaks looking like islands. It was, he said, "as though I had gone to bed the night before, safe in a nook of inland mountains, and had awakened in a bay upon the coast." For anyone that has seen such a roiling of fog in this area you can overlay that image on these peaks to the south.
....
After the hike, I headed to St. Helena for a look at the Robert Louis Stevenson Silverado Museum. While not large, the museum has plenty of information on Stevenson's life and family, not restriced to his stay in the area...
Afterwards there were other sights to see. Rumor has it Napa Valley has more to offer than just hiking and museums.
Excerpt: [Need to be back on the mountain top NOW.]
On Saturday I headed to Napa Valley to explore some sights related to Robert Louis Stevenson. The first stop was the Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, the site where he lived as detailed in The Silverado Squatters. The Toll House used to be where the picnic area is located. ...
The rock wall where the structure stood still looks imposing.
Stevenson mentioned the wind quite a bit in his book, noting that the area below this ridge would escape the occasional gale. I noticed that the wind increased markedly as the day warmed up. The opening to the abandoned mine lies across a clearing and up a steep hill.
The scene of this little book is on a high mountain. There are, indeed, many higher; there are many of a nobler outline. It is no place of pilgrimage for the summary globe-trotter; but to one who lives upon its side, Mount Saint Helena soon becomes a centre of interest. It is the Mont Blanc of the California Coast Range, none of its near neighbours rising to one-half its altitude. It looks down on much green intricate country. ... Its naked peak stands nearly four thousand five hundred feet above the sea; its sides are fringed with forest; and the soil, where it is bare, glows warm with cinnabar.
...
And there was something satisfactory in the sight of that great mountain that enclosed us to the north: whether it stood, robed in sunshine, quaking to its topmost pinnacle with the heat and brightness of the day; or whether it set itself to weaving vapours, wisp after wisp growing, trembling, fleeting, and fading in the blue. ... She over-towered them [foothills] by two-thirds of her own stature. She excelled them by the boldness of her profile. Her great bald summit, clear of trees and pasture, a cairn of quartz and cinnabar, rejected kinship with the dark and shaggy wilderness of lesser hill-tops.
- (from the opening paragraph of The Silverado Squatters and the final paragraphs of Part I, Chapter 1)
I continued on the trail and hiked to the top of the north peak of Mt. Saint Helena, which provided spectacular views of Napa Valley and the surrounding area. The day had heated up quite a bit when I reached the top, so there is plenty of haze in this picture.
The change of view due to the heat is apparent when comparing the above picture and this one, taken 90 minutes earlier, from a couple of miles south and a thousand feet lower.
In The Silverado Squatters Stevenson describes a memorable scene of the valley covered by sea fog, the nearby lesser peaks looking like islands. It was, he said, "as though I had gone to bed the night before, safe in a nook of inland mountains, and had awakened in a bay upon the coast." For anyone that has seen such a roiling of fog in this area you can overlay that image on these peaks to the south.
After the hike, I headed to St. Helena for a look at the Robert Louis Stevenson Silverado Museum. While not large, the museum has plenty of information on Stevenson's life and family, not restriced to his stay in the area...
Afterwards there were other sights to see. Rumor has it Napa Valley has more to offer than just hiking and museums.
And perhaps the most curious feature of the whole matter is this: that we should have dwelt in this quiet corner of the mountains, with not a dozen neighbours, and yet struggled all the while, like desperate swimmers, in this sea of falsities and contradictions. Wherever a man is, there will be a lie.
- From The Silverado Squatters, after Stevenson helps in the jumping of a claim...
Anecdotal Evidence: `What They Have a Word For'
Anecdotal Evidence: `What They Have a Word For'
[Inspiring as usual!]
One hundred fifty-three years ago today, after reporting on the bird nests and eggs he found in Holden Swamp, and on the sound a pickerel makes striking the underside of a lily pad, Thoreau notes in his journal:
“Walking in the white pine woods there, I find that my shoes and, indeed, my hat are covered with the greenish-yellow pollen of the white pines, which is now being shed abundantly and covers like a fine meal all the plants and shrubs of the forest floor. I never noticed it in such abundance before. My shoes are green-yellow, or yellow-green, even the next day with it.”
Our chief pollen-shedder is the Western red cedar. ..
A typical woods or fringe of trees along a road here includes Western red cedar, Douglas fir, alder and big-leaf maple – a lovely bouquet of mixed colors, shapes and sizes. Thoreau writes later in the same June 20, 1858, passage:
“I see that the French have a convenient word, aunaie, also spelt aulnaie and aulnage, etc., signifying a grove of alders. It reminds me of their other convenient word used by Rasle, cabanage.”
I can’t think of a collective noun in English referring to groves of any specific species of tree, only generic words -- “grove,” “copse,” “spinney,” “orchard,” “stand,” “thicket.” Cabanage means hut, campsite or slave quarters. “Rasle” is Sébastien Rasles (1657-1724), a French Jesuit missionary who compiled a dictionary of the Abenaki language. In his journal for March 5, 1858, Thoreau writes:
“Father Rasle’s dictionary of the Abenaki language amounts to a very concentrated and trustworthy natural history of that people, though it was not completed. What they have a word for, they have a thing for. A traveller may tell us that he thinks they used a pavement, or built their cabins in a certain form, or soaked their seed corn in water, or had no beard, etc., etc.; but when one gives us the word for these things, the question is settled,--that is a clincher.”...
[Inspiring as usual!]
One hundred fifty-three years ago today, after reporting on the bird nests and eggs he found in Holden Swamp, and on the sound a pickerel makes striking the underside of a lily pad, Thoreau notes in his journal:
“Walking in the white pine woods there, I find that my shoes and, indeed, my hat are covered with the greenish-yellow pollen of the white pines, which is now being shed abundantly and covers like a fine meal all the plants and shrubs of the forest floor. I never noticed it in such abundance before. My shoes are green-yellow, or yellow-green, even the next day with it.”
Our chief pollen-shedder is the Western red cedar. ..
A typical woods or fringe of trees along a road here includes Western red cedar, Douglas fir, alder and big-leaf maple – a lovely bouquet of mixed colors, shapes and sizes. Thoreau writes later in the same June 20, 1858, passage:
“I see that the French have a convenient word, aunaie, also spelt aulnaie and aulnage, etc., signifying a grove of alders. It reminds me of their other convenient word used by Rasle, cabanage.”
I can’t think of a collective noun in English referring to groves of any specific species of tree, only generic words -- “grove,” “copse,” “spinney,” “orchard,” “stand,” “thicket.” Cabanage means hut, campsite or slave quarters. “Rasle” is Sébastien Rasles (1657-1724), a French Jesuit missionary who compiled a dictionary of the Abenaki language. In his journal for March 5, 1858, Thoreau writes:
“Father Rasle’s dictionary of the Abenaki language amounts to a very concentrated and trustworthy natural history of that people, though it was not completed. What they have a word for, they have a thing for. A traveller may tell us that he thinks they used a pavement, or built their cabins in a certain form, or soaked their seed corn in water, or had no beard, etc., etc.; but when one gives us the word for these things, the question is settled,--that is a clincher.”...
Marks in the Margin: Why Write?
Marks in the Margin: Why Write?
The title of her talk was Why Write? (Perche Scrivere?) ...
There are few readers and it takes years to write one, let alone finding a publisher. If that hurdle is passed, you struggle to preserve its copyright, suffer through all the criticism it receives and the abusive remarks of bloggers. At the same time she suggests this has always been true for the writers of any era.
…Keats suffered the barbs of a few critics but never had to contend with half the internet calling him an asshole; Emily Bronte struggled to find an audience, but she wasn’t competing with a global audiovisual entertainment industry, cinema, television, online gaming, iPods, iPads, and tricked-out phones loaded with a lifetime’s worth of two-minute distractions.
Do writers consider all this misery as they put pen to pad of paper or pound away at the keyboard? I had imagined they rarely did, that they wrote because it was second nature to them or with only themselves in mind.
Why write then? If the act is so attendant with misery? ...
Pope’s answer will be familiar to writers of all times and all ages. Because he couldn’t help it, ...
She cites Gregor von Rezzori to illustrate way writers are ever mindful of their readers. “It [the value of writing] has created a reality—and people are touched by it. I have this feeling. Do you? I saw this thing. Can I make you see it? I had this thought. Can you understand it? I am in this elation to death. Are you? I am wondering whether writing is possible. Are you?”...
Smith continued that we write for other reasons too—because we are concerned with the “beauty in words and their right arrangement,” to engage in a dialogue with the wider world, “to counter that overwhelming sense of one’s own pointless,” and finally to see if we can, “that we do still have abilities, ideas and means of communication that are our own…”
But her emphasis on the social context of the writing enterprise did surprise me. It is not an answer I would have given to the question Why Write? and I wonder how many real writers would attach such weight to it....
Writers will always write, regardless of the views or number of their readers-....
The title of her talk was Why Write? (Perche Scrivere?) ...
There are few readers and it takes years to write one, let alone finding a publisher. If that hurdle is passed, you struggle to preserve its copyright, suffer through all the criticism it receives and the abusive remarks of bloggers. At the same time she suggests this has always been true for the writers of any era.
…Keats suffered the barbs of a few critics but never had to contend with half the internet calling him an asshole; Emily Bronte struggled to find an audience, but she wasn’t competing with a global audiovisual entertainment industry, cinema, television, online gaming, iPods, iPads, and tricked-out phones loaded with a lifetime’s worth of two-minute distractions.
Do writers consider all this misery as they put pen to pad of paper or pound away at the keyboard? I had imagined they rarely did, that they wrote because it was second nature to them or with only themselves in mind.
Why write then? If the act is so attendant with misery? ...
Pope’s answer will be familiar to writers of all times and all ages. Because he couldn’t help it, ...
She cites Gregor von Rezzori to illustrate way writers are ever mindful of their readers. “It [the value of writing] has created a reality—and people are touched by it. I have this feeling. Do you? I saw this thing. Can I make you see it? I had this thought. Can you understand it? I am in this elation to death. Are you? I am wondering whether writing is possible. Are you?”...
Smith continued that we write for other reasons too—because we are concerned with the “beauty in words and their right arrangement,” to engage in a dialogue with the wider world, “to counter that overwhelming sense of one’s own pointless,” and finally to see if we can, “that we do still have abilities, ideas and means of communication that are our own…”
But her emphasis on the social context of the writing enterprise did surprise me. It is not an answer I would have given to the question Why Write? and I wonder how many real writers would attach such weight to it....
Writers will always write, regardless of the views or number of their readers-....
Friday, June 17, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Feeling for the Fictional — The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
Feeling for the Fictional — The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
Brandon Watson and Kyle Cupp both explore possible solutions to the “paradox of fiction”:
Brandon Watson and Kyle Cupp both explore possible solutions to the “paradox of fiction”:
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
f you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space. - Joyce Carol Oates, born on this date in 1952
f you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space. - Joyce Carol Oates, born on this date in 1952
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Wuthering Expectations: Reading badly
Wuthering Expectations: Reading badly
In context, this quotation is a bit of a joke. The narrator of this Javier Marías novel is the one who barely pauses, who spills out words breathlessly, literally, I guess, since he is writing, but the speakers in the novel seem to have the same problem with digressions, qualifiers, and finding a place to end their flow of words. I have trouble imagining the reader who reads this exhausting novel without pause, without many good long restorative pauses....That is the illusion of all writers, the belief that people open our books and read them from start to finish, holding their breath and barely pausing. (from p. 366 of Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear, Javier Marías, 2002, tr. Margaret Julia Costa)
Pentimento: The Old and New Man
Pentimento: The Old and New Man
"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, and who is going to make amends." ~Joan Didion
"I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, and who is going to make amends." ~Joan Didion
Monday, June 13, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Why I Am Catholic: To Run Against the Wind -UPDATED
Why I Am Catholic: To Run Against the Wind -UPDATED
Excerpt:
G.K. Chesteron, in his biography of Charles Dickens, weighs in with some thoughts to conclude this post with.
"If we are to save the oppressed, we must have two apparently antagonistic emotions in us at the same time.
Excerpt:
G.K. Chesteron, in his biography of Charles Dickens, weighs in with some thoughts to conclude this post with.
"If we are to save the oppressed, we must have two apparently antagonistic emotions in us at the same time.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Crack the Shell
h/t ShirtoFlame blog:
And then one day I realized if I stay any longer, I wasn’t going to be on pilgrimage any more, I was going to be hiding out. It was almost literally like a baby bird must feel like when it knows it’s time to crack the shell and emerge.
And then one day I realized if I stay any longer, I wasn’t going to be on pilgrimage any more, I was going to be hiding out. It was almost literally like a baby bird must feel like when it knows it’s time to crack the shell and emerge.
Offer It Up: The Feminine Genius
Offer It Up: The Feminine Genius
Mary, after receiving the news that she was to be the Mother of God, went to her kinswoman Elizabeth, an older woman whom Mary had just found out was pregnant. Her love and sensitivity to her relative's need overshadowed the shock of her own situation. She saw the need of another and responded to it.
That is the "Feminine Genius." It's no surprise that when Fr. Guanella saw the needs of the developmentally disabled people of Nineteenth Century Italy, as well as orphans, the poor, senior citizens, and whomever was marginalized, he turned to women for help. He founded the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence before he founded his congregation for men, the Servants of Charity. Though he may not have used these words of Blessed John Paul II--the feminine genius--he knew their reality.
Here are some excerpts from Pope John Paul II's writings about the feminine genius:
In our own time, the successes of science and technology make it possible to attain material well-being to a degree hitherto unknown. While this favors some, it pushes others to the margins of society. In this way, unilateral progress can also lead to a gradual loss of sensitivity for man, that is, for what is essentially human. In this sense, our time in particular awaits the manifestation of that "genius" which belongs to women, and which can ensure sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance: because they are human! --and because "the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13: 13). [1988 Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatis (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women on the Occasion of the Marian Year), #30.
[W]omen have the task of assuring the moral dimension of culture, the dimension, namely, of a culture worthy of the person.... How great are the possibilities and responsibilities of woman in this area, at a time when the development of science and technology is not always inspired and measured by true wisdom, with the inevitable risk of "de-humanizing" human life, above all when it would demand a more intense love and a more generous acceptance. [1988 Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World), #51]
Progress usually tends to be measured according to the criteria of science and technology. ... Much more important is the social and ethical dimension, which deals with human relations and spiritual values. In this area, which often develops in an inconspicuous way beginning with the daily relationships between people, especially within the family, society certainly owes much to the "genius of women." ... Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts.
Mary, after receiving the news that she was to be the Mother of God, went to her kinswoman Elizabeth, an older woman whom Mary had just found out was pregnant. Her love and sensitivity to her relative's need overshadowed the shock of her own situation. She saw the need of another and responded to it.
That is the "Feminine Genius." It's no surprise that when Fr. Guanella saw the needs of the developmentally disabled people of Nineteenth Century Italy, as well as orphans, the poor, senior citizens, and whomever was marginalized, he turned to women for help. He founded the Daughters of St. Mary of Providence before he founded his congregation for men, the Servants of Charity. Though he may not have used these words of Blessed John Paul II--the feminine genius--he knew their reality.
Here are some excerpts from Pope John Paul II's writings about the feminine genius:
In our own time, the successes of science and technology make it possible to attain material well-being to a degree hitherto unknown. While this favors some, it pushes others to the margins of society. In this way, unilateral progress can also lead to a gradual loss of sensitivity for man, that is, for what is essentially human. In this sense, our time in particular awaits the manifestation of that "genius" which belongs to women, and which can ensure sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance: because they are human! --and because "the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13: 13). [1988 Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatis (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women on the Occasion of the Marian Year), #30.
[W]omen have the task of assuring the moral dimension of culture, the dimension, namely, of a culture worthy of the person.... How great are the possibilities and responsibilities of woman in this area, at a time when the development of science and technology is not always inspired and measured by true wisdom, with the inevitable risk of "de-humanizing" human life, above all when it would demand a more intense love and a more generous acceptance. [1988 Apostolic Exhortation Christifideles Laici (On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World), #51]
Progress usually tends to be measured according to the criteria of science and technology. ... Much more important is the social and ethical dimension, which deals with human relations and spiritual values. In this area, which often develops in an inconspicuous way beginning with the daily relationships between people, especially within the family, society certainly owes much to the "genius of women." ... Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
SHIRT OF FLAME: THE WRITING LIFE, PART II: I'D RATHER BE WRITING: Updated
SHIRT OF FLAME: THE WRITING LIFE, PART II: I'D RATHER BE WRITING
One night, Bernard handed back our essays and in one of the margins I found scribbled in black pen: “You’re a terrific writer.” I stopped breathing. I wasn’t sure that was true,....
I’m a total ham, and don’t at all mind talking in front of groups of people, and actually enjoy being on panels but I tend to get all overwrought and trembly about the nobility of writing, and the calling of being a writer, and how writing for me is a religious vocation, which is fine except that nobody seems to have the slightest idea what I’m talking about and by the end, I need to get out of there and take a really long, solitary walk.
Updated:
Till then, I had actually thought that writers operated by some moral code that was loftier than the rest of the world’s. I dropped out of the group, have never felt moved to join another, and to this day, for better or worse, rarely show anyone my work before it goes out to my agent, or a magazine, or an editor.
Another way I've been blessed from the beginning is that I have an almost violently protective urge toward my writing. I had wanted to write since I was six. I couldn't get to it for thirty-five years because of my drinking, and fear, and sloth, and spiritual bankruptcy. I had given so much of myself away--body, mind, soul--out there in the bars that when I finally began to write I felt toward it as St. Maria Goretti did about her virginity which was that she would rather be stabbed to death (at the age of twelve, no less), than yield it. I just thought: NOBODY is going to undermine me. NOBODY is going to tell me this is not the calling of my heart. Nobody is going to lay their repulsive, monstrous, cowardly, lemming-like political correctness or Phariseeism or pretentious literary blowhardism or shallow commercialistic (is that a word?) lies on my writing and wreck it for me.
One night, Bernard handed back our essays and in one of the margins I found scribbled in black pen: “You’re a terrific writer.” I stopped breathing. I wasn’t sure that was true,....
I’m a total ham, and don’t at all mind talking in front of groups of people, and actually enjoy being on panels but I tend to get all overwrought and trembly about the nobility of writing, and the calling of being a writer, and how writing for me is a religious vocation, which is fine except that nobody seems to have the slightest idea what I’m talking about and by the end, I need to get out of there and take a really long, solitary walk.
Updated:
Till then, I had actually thought that writers operated by some moral code that was loftier than the rest of the world’s. I dropped out of the group, have never felt moved to join another, and to this day, for better or worse, rarely show anyone my work before it goes out to my agent, or a magazine, or an editor.
Another way I've been blessed from the beginning is that I have an almost violently protective urge toward my writing. I had wanted to write since I was six. I couldn't get to it for thirty-five years because of my drinking, and fear, and sloth, and spiritual bankruptcy. I had given so much of myself away--body, mind, soul--out there in the bars that when I finally began to write I felt toward it as St. Maria Goretti did about her virginity which was that she would rather be stabbed to death (at the age of twelve, no less), than yield it. I just thought: NOBODY is going to undermine me. NOBODY is going to tell me this is not the calling of my heart. Nobody is going to lay their repulsive, monstrous, cowardly, lemming-like political correctness or Phariseeism or pretentious literary blowhardism or shallow commercialistic (is that a word?) lies on my writing and wreck it for me.
SHIRT OF FLAME: THE WRITING LIFE: PART I:Updated
SHIRT OF FLAME: THE WRITING LIFE: PART I
I would way rather have 400 readers a day and be free to write what and how I want and get the occasional donation, speaking gig, mentoring job, book sale, and/or email from someone who tells me I have helped shore them up or made them laugh or deepened their love for Christ than to have my work appear on the same page as any kind of promotion and get 4000 readers an hour.
In fact, that I have 400 readers a day is such a miracle and the whole subject of the writing life so sets me on fire that I'm planning a series of posts on this very issue.
With all due reverence, respect, adoration, worship, and praise, if Christ--my Lord and King--did not play from his fucking heart, I don’t know who did. So I beg to differ. To play from your fucking heart is about as Catholic as you can get. And as long as I can afford to, and have the energy, I mean to keep trying to do it myself."
My response: I was not raised with profanity and am no fan of it; however, the 'profanation' in the Church and the world today makes the 'oh, so shocked' response inane at best. Just as Christ can handle anger and our other sins and embraces us in love, so should we get off our high horse and 'fall on our face' before His Love for all.
I had a dream recently and realized plumbers can't fix anything in a flood AND plumbers better be able to handle getting their hands, etc., dirty. I wonder what all those standing around in their clean, golden robes thought about Jesus when he reached down for some dirt, spit on it and rubbed it in the eye sockets of the blind man. Did they go, oooooooh....?
"Go, learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice." Gert Behanna is still great: "Fisher of men, whose pool?"
So, Heather King, you go, girl. You just 'shored me up.'
I would way rather have 400 readers a day and be free to write what and how I want and get the occasional donation, speaking gig, mentoring job, book sale, and/or email from someone who tells me I have helped shore them up or made them laugh or deepened their love for Christ than to have my work appear on the same page as any kind of promotion and get 4000 readers an hour.
In fact, that I have 400 readers a day is such a miracle and the whole subject of the writing life so sets me on fire that I'm planning a series of posts on this very issue.
So the blog stays with me. And with deep gratitude to Elizabeth, and hopes to occasionally continue to appear in their pages, as of last week I bowed out of Patheos.
With all due reverence, respect, adoration, worship, and praise, if Christ--my Lord and King--did not play from his fucking heart, I don’t know who did. So I beg to differ. To play from your fucking heart is about as Catholic as you can get. And as long as I can afford to, and have the energy, I mean to keep trying to do it myself."
My response: I was not raised with profanity and am no fan of it; however, the 'profanation' in the Church and the world today makes the 'oh, so shocked' response inane at best. Just as Christ can handle anger and our other sins and embraces us in love, so should we get off our high horse and 'fall on our face' before His Love for all.
I had a dream recently and realized plumbers can't fix anything in a flood AND plumbers better be able to handle getting their hands, etc., dirty. I wonder what all those standing around in their clean, golden robes thought about Jesus when he reached down for some dirt, spit on it and rubbed it in the eye sockets of the blind man. Did they go, oooooooh....?
"Go, learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice." Gert Behanna is still great: "Fisher of men, whose pool?"
So, Heather King, you go, girl. You just 'shored me up.'
Monday, June 6, 2011
SHIRT OF FLAME: THE WRITING LIFE: PART I
SHIRT OF FLAME: THE WRITING LIFE: PART I
When the unstoppable bullet hits the impenetrable wall, we find the religious experience. It is precisely here that one will grow...Heroism could be redefined for our time as the ability to stand paradox.
--Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow
You see cinnamon teal, which are marsh ducks, in the L.A. River because there are no more marshes, and I feel like, it’s like the same [as] with people: Only the tough survive in Los Angeles.
--Lewis McAdams, writer, poet, co-founder of FoLAR, Friends of the Los Angeles River
Interesting blog
When the unstoppable bullet hits the impenetrable wall, we find the religious experience. It is precisely here that one will grow...Heroism could be redefined for our time as the ability to stand paradox.
--Robert A. Johnson, Owning Your Own Shadow
You see cinnamon teal, which are marsh ducks, in the L.A. River because there are no more marshes, and I feel like, it’s like the same [as] with people: Only the tough survive in Los Angeles.
--Lewis McAdams, writer, poet, co-founder of FoLAR, Friends of the Los Angeles River
Interesting blog
Running 'Cause I Can't Fly: Viktor Frankl
Running 'Cause I Can't Fly: Viktor Frankl
“The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.” - Viktor Frankl
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Thought for the day ...
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. - Thomas Mann, born on this date in 1875
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. - Thomas Mann, born on this date in 1875
A Momentary Taste of Being: Compassion Considered
A Momentary Taste of Being: Compassion Considered
Excerpt:
Compassion impels us to work tireless to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, with exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.
It is also necessary in bot public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others--even our enemies--is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.
We therefore call upon all men and women
--to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion;
--to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate.
Excerpt:
Compassion impels us to work tireless to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, with exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.
It is also necessary in bot public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others--even our enemies--is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.
We therefore call upon all men and women
--to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion;
--to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
A Momentary Taste of Being: What Catholics (and other Christians) Can (and Should) Learn from Buddhism
A Momentary Taste of Being: What Catholics (and other Christians) Can (and Should) Learn from Buddhism
Excerpt:
Such a statement comes only from certain knowledge of a shared fate and a deep compassion for human frailty and weakness--a compassion that demands walking with those more frail and weaker than ourselves and helping shoulder their burdens. We do this in prayer, in corporal works of mercy, and sometimes in our mere presence--a listening ear to turn to...
---------------
Note: I have lived a long time and still I find only that single heart every few years, and in some areas decades, before that 'compassionate' soul walks across the great abyss and embraces who I am. I am grateful for being able to experience it at all. However, it is a great tragedy that it is not the agape of each and every second for souls, especially in the Church.
The "He ain't heavy, he's my brother" was the truth but not walked.
Excerpt:
Such a statement comes only from certain knowledge of a shared fate and a deep compassion for human frailty and weakness--a compassion that demands walking with those more frail and weaker than ourselves and helping shoulder their burdens. We do this in prayer, in corporal works of mercy, and sometimes in our mere presence--a listening ear to turn to...
---------------
Note: I have lived a long time and still I find only that single heart every few years, and in some areas decades, before that 'compassionate' soul walks across the great abyss and embraces who I am. I am grateful for being able to experience it at all. However, it is a great tragedy that it is not the agape of each and every second for souls, especially in the Church.
The "He ain't heavy, he's my brother" was the truth but not walked.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Part III. A Glance: Introduction/Canto 1: What Key Are We In..?
Part III. A Glance: To Stalk and Freeze and Fire/Eternity’s Outpost
Introduction: What Key Are We In, By the Way?
* The Panther
From seeing the bars, his seeing is so exhausted
that it no longer holds anything anymore.
To him the world is bars, a hundred thousand
bars, and behind the bars, nothing.
that it no longer holds anything anymore.
To him the world is bars, a hundred thousand
bars, and behind the bars, nothing.
The lithe swinging of that rhythmical easy stride
which circles down to the tiniest hub
is like a dance of energy around a point
in which a great will stands stunned and numb.
which circles down to the tiniest hub
is like a dance of energy around a point
in which a great will stands stunned and numb.
Only at times the curtains of the pupil rise
without a sound . . . then a shape enters,
slips though the tightened silence of the shoulders,
reaches the heart, and dies. ~Rainier Maria Rilke, Panther
without a sound . . . then a shape enters,
slips though the tightened silence of the shoulders,
reaches the heart, and dies. ~Rainier Maria Rilke, Panther
* Interpretation by Fallingcat:
A friend told me these opening lines (Sein Blick hinter der Stäbe... / His glance from behind the bars...), but, frustratingly, not whose translation it was. He pointed out that ‘Blick’ has a double meaning in German - glance/ view – so the same word refers to the blank look in his eye and his image of the bars.
I’m sure others have thought of this but I’m fairly new to Rilke and haven’t read it anywhere yet. I see the bars as ambiguous (and it’s ambiguity that makes good poetry so powerful and moving), both real and as a metaphor for the barriers we erect to hide our vulnerability or defend our egos. As explored in Rilke’s “First a childhood….” And sustaining such psychic defences is exhausting and makes us tired like the panther.
* “My powers have been taken from me". "Then, please, say a prayer, recite a litany, work a miracle". "Impossible", the Master replied, "I have forgotten everything". They both fell to weeping. ~’Memoirs: All Rivers Run to the Sea,’ Elie Wiesel
* Questions: Door At the Bottom of the Stairs
...by then you're out the door and it's too late, because you have a date with destiny.
~8/30/11
Canto 1: Distances Between Theory and Practice
"Be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore." ~ John Keats once
advised his friend Percy Bysshe Shelley
* An Infinite Distance
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke
* Surprising and Intriguing Exploration and Connections
o "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley." ~Robert Burns, The Mouse
"1 go among the fields and catch a glimpse of a stoat or a fieldmouse peeping out of
the withered grass--the creature hath a purpose and its eyes are bright with it."
~Keats, in an 1819 letter
* On turning her up in her nest, with the plough, November, 1785. All readers of Burns know of the "Wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beastie" but not many understand the sadness and despair contained within the lines of this poem. What was the Bard saying when he was inspired by turning up a fieldmouse in her nest one day while out ploughing? - George Wilkie
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
* “Malacology” was coined in English in the nineteenth century, from the Greek malakos, “soft,” by way of Latin and French. “Whatever the forest and field have to offer: fungi, lichens, green plants, worms, centipedes, certain insects, animal feces [is there any other sort?], carrion, other slugs.” ~Patrick Kurp, Anecdotal Evidence
…a network of meeting points between eternity and time. ~Annie Dillard
‘The fields of heaven covered with eye-brights’ ~Hopkins, Notes
One must hold ideas loosely in the relative spirit…not disquiet oneself about the absolute…
I once visited a zoo and looked directly into the eyes of a snow leopard…Annie Dillard
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