St Andrew of Crete (+740)
from the Great Canon, Canticle II
I persist in caring only for my outer garment, while neglecting the temple within -- one made in the image and likeness of God.
Through love of pleasure has my form become deformed and the beauty of my inward being been ruined.
A woman will search her house for one lost coin until she finds it. But in me has been lost the beauty of my original image, buried in the passions. Come now, O Savior, search to recover it.
Like the sinful woman I will cry to Thee, O Savior, "I have sinned." I alone have sinned against Thee! Accept my tears as once [Thou didst] hers when she came to anoint [Thy] feet.
Like the Publican I will cry to Thee : "Have pity on me, O Savior." Have pity on me, for among the children of Adam none has sinned more than I!
I have no tears, no change of heart, no remorse -- O my God and Savior, grant these to me!
O Lover of mankind, whose wish it is that all be saved, in Thy goodness receive me as I return to Thee.
Give ears to the groaning of my soul, and accept the tears that fall from mine eyes, O Savior, and save me.
from Daily Readings in Orthodox Spirituality, ed. P. Bouteneff (Templegate Publishers, 1996), p. 58.
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
the 55th day with 310 remaining
alias yesterday
A glass of grace. My strength and my song. The music of now, splendid and atrocious. A bright cold day in February. With more to follow. A chronicle of particular faults. The radiator's pleasant noise, industrious, recessive.
An entertaining sobriety. Lust & backaches. A flurry that peters out during the evening rush. Only to return around midnight. Everything human interests him, the annoying character who switches his nom de guerre, who glances at the grey-and-white snapshots of a happy inferno, in between his pesterings of perplexed parishioners. Shouldn't he stick to the wrong side of the tracks?
Quotations from the Daily Readings. Small snippets of antiquity. The staretz advises, get creative with it. Find play as well as work in these obligations & suchlike. Quotidian quarrel, the daily delight. The sonnets of a given Sunday, glum and gleeful. Sans blague. No doubt.
Write it down. Face reality. Lighten up. Let people be people. Trust above all. Look past the incidentals. Keep nearness at a distance. You know who's there, who's waiting for you behind the curtains and behind the music. Never mind the slogans, the pabulum, the chatter. Be attentive to the silent flicker of a most cordial flame.
alias yesterday
A glass of grace. My strength and my song. The music of now, splendid and atrocious. A bright cold day in February. With more to follow. A chronicle of particular faults. The radiator's pleasant noise, industrious, recessive.
An entertaining sobriety. Lust & backaches. A flurry that peters out during the evening rush. Only to return around midnight. Everything human interests him, the annoying character who switches his nom de guerre, who glances at the grey-and-white snapshots of a happy inferno, in between his pesterings of perplexed parishioners. Shouldn't he stick to the wrong side of the tracks?
Quotations from the Daily Readings. Small snippets of antiquity. The staretz advises, get creative with it. Find play as well as work in these obligations & suchlike. Quotidian quarrel, the daily delight. The sonnets of a given Sunday, glum and gleeful. Sans blague. No doubt.
Write it down. Face reality. Lighten up. Let people be people. Trust above all. Look past the incidentals. Keep nearness at a distance. You know who's there, who's waiting for you behind the curtains and behind the music. Never mind the slogans, the pabulum, the chatter. Be attentive to the silent flicker of a most cordial flame.
Yesterday's quiz winners
were Mrs vonH & Robert Wenson ... Mrs vonH, with the accurate "famous poet plus state dylan's in" ... and Mr Wenson giving us the next three places in the sequence :
Yorba Linda, CA
Omaha, NE
Plains, GA
Tampico, IL
Milton, MA
Hope, AR
New Haven, CT
... these being, of course, the birthplaces of US presidents since & including Richard Nixon.
Need some time to think of the next quiz. Maybe celebrity middle-names or something like that.
Or lines from a poem, & guess the poet.
Or Kevin Kline sticking chips up Michael Palin's nose and asking, "Where are the diamonds?"
were Mrs vonH & Robert Wenson ... Mrs vonH, with the accurate "famous poet plus state dylan's in" ... and Mr Wenson giving us the next three places in the sequence :
Yorba Linda, CA
Omaha, NE
Plains, GA
Tampico, IL
Milton, MA
Hope, AR
New Haven, CT
... these being, of course, the birthplaces of US presidents since & including Richard Nixon.
Need some time to think of the next quiz. Maybe celebrity middle-names or something like that.
Or lines from a poem, & guess the poet.
Or Kevin Kline sticking chips up Michael Palin's nose and asking, "Where are the diamonds?"
Monday, February 24, 2003
Bravura
The word appears both in the newest TV Guide & in an Eve post dated earlier today.
I like both bravura and the word "bravura." Whenever I encounter the word "bravura," I think : Somebody up there likes me.
:: :: :: :: :: :: ::
BTW
... not really related to the "bravura" business, but at least one reader will be able to follow my train of thought ...
This poem rocks. Demands to be read aloud, at least in part.
The word appears both in the newest TV Guide & in an Eve post dated earlier today.
I like both bravura and the word "bravura." Whenever I encounter the word "bravura," I think : Somebody up there likes me.
:: :: :: :: :: :: ::
BTW
... not really related to the "bravura" business, but at least one reader will be able to follow my train of thought ...
This poem rocks. Demands to be read aloud, at least in part.
Mile high?
Gregg the Obscure remembers a somewhat NORML version of the 1977 Debby Boone single "You Light Up My Life."
Gregg the Obscure remembers a somewhat NORML version of the 1977 Debby Boone single "You Light Up My Life."
Two by Derbyshire
Recently, on the war, which he thinks will happen. Noteworthy points : the praising-with-faint-damn of Tony Blair, the evisceration of his native land's Labour party, the apt cynicism about the "mountebanks" in the UN, and dismay ("Great god in boots, they take this seriously!") at hearing Condi & Co. quote UN resolutions as if they were holy writ.
Three months ago, on humor, "appropriate" and in-, PC or not. Aside : Do black Americans really have "a British taste" in comedy? Perhaps it's atypical, but I do know a black priest who loves the Britcom Keeping Up Appearances.
Recently, on the war, which he thinks will happen. Noteworthy points : the praising-with-faint-damn of Tony Blair, the evisceration of his native land's Labour party, the apt cynicism about the "mountebanks" in the UN, and dismay ("Great god in boots, they take this seriously!") at hearing Condi & Co. quote UN resolutions as if they were holy writ.
Three months ago, on humor, "appropriate" and in-, PC or not. Aside : Do black Americans really have "a British taste" in comedy? Perhaps it's atypical, but I do know a black priest who loves the Britcom Keeping Up Appearances.
Guigo the Carthusian : Undoing Our Undoing
From the meditation for the 27th in February's Magnificat
Do not drive people away, but drive away from them what rightly offends you -- that is to say, vice. And do this out of love for them -- just as you want for yourself. It is not human nature that offends you, but the vices which impair it. Why probe the bleeding wounds of your own race, unless it is to heal them -- as you should your own?
You should be concerned not with what others do, but with what you do. For the person who is of value to all is the one who pays attention not so much to what others do as to what he makes of them and their deeds, whether good or evil. You can bring good from both, but much more particularly and notably from evil.
If you are going to reject evil people, begin with yourself. The good and evil are raw material from which a just person can bring profit -- rejoicing with the former, and having compassion on the latter ...
From the meditation for the 27th in February's Magnificat
Do not drive people away, but drive away from them what rightly offends you -- that is to say, vice. And do this out of love for them -- just as you want for yourself. It is not human nature that offends you, but the vices which impair it. Why probe the bleeding wounds of your own race, unless it is to heal them -- as you should your own?
You should be concerned not with what others do, but with what you do. For the person who is of value to all is the one who pays attention not so much to what others do as to what he makes of them and their deeds, whether good or evil. You can bring good from both, but much more particularly and notably from evil.
If you are going to reject evil people, begin with yourself. The good and evil are raw material from which a just person can bring profit -- rejoicing with the former, and having compassion on the latter ...
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Schmemann : And yet ...
And yet, from its very beginning Christianity has been the proclamation of joy, of the only possible joy on earth. It rendered impossible all joy we usually think of as possible. But within this impossibility, at the very bottom of this darkness, it announced and conveyed a new all-embracing joy, and with this joy it transformed the End into a Beginning. Without the proclamation of this joy Christianity is incomprehensible. It is only as joy that the Church was victorious in the world and it lost the world when it lost the joy, when it ceased to be a witness of it. Of all accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said that Christians had no joy. ...
Let us, therefore, forget for a while the technical discussions about the Church, its mission, its methods. Not that these discussions are wrong or unnecessary. But they can be useful and meaningful only within a fundamental context, and that context is the "great joy" from which everything else in Christianity developed and acquired its meaning. "For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy" -- thus begins the Gospel, and its end is : "And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. ..." (Lk 2:10, 24:52). And we must recover the meaning of this great joy. We must if possible partake of it, before we discuss anything else -- programs and missions, projects and techniques.
Joy, however, is not something one can define or analyze. One enters into joy. "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Mt 25:21). And we have no other means of entering into that joy, no way of understanding it, except through the one action which from the beginning has been for the Church both the source and the fulfillment of joy, the very sacrament of joy, the Eucharist.
Alexander Schmemann, Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Herder and Herder, 1965), pp. 26-27.
And yet, from its very beginning Christianity has been the proclamation of joy, of the only possible joy on earth. It rendered impossible all joy we usually think of as possible. But within this impossibility, at the very bottom of this darkness, it announced and conveyed a new all-embracing joy, and with this joy it transformed the End into a Beginning. Without the proclamation of this joy Christianity is incomprehensible. It is only as joy that the Church was victorious in the world and it lost the world when it lost the joy, when it ceased to be a witness of it. Of all accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said that Christians had no joy. ...
Let us, therefore, forget for a while the technical discussions about the Church, its mission, its methods. Not that these discussions are wrong or unnecessary. But they can be useful and meaningful only within a fundamental context, and that context is the "great joy" from which everything else in Christianity developed and acquired its meaning. "For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy" -- thus begins the Gospel, and its end is : "And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. ..." (Lk 2:10, 24:52). And we must recover the meaning of this great joy. We must if possible partake of it, before we discuss anything else -- programs and missions, projects and techniques.
Joy, however, is not something one can define or analyze. One enters into joy. "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Mt 25:21). And we have no other means of entering into that joy, no way of understanding it, except through the one action which from the beginning has been for the Church both the source and the fulfillment of joy, the very sacrament of joy, the Eucharist.
Alexander Schmemann, Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Herder and Herder, 1965), pp. 26-27.
Nordlinger's impromptus
at NRO
On a brave Chinese dissident, on President Bush's refusal to allow hey-hey ho-ho rallies to sway foreign policy, on the American left dissing Eastern Europe, on Tony Blair's grammar, on a newspaper resurrecting "Reds." And other matters. An enjoyable read.
at NRO
On a brave Chinese dissident, on President Bush's refusal to allow hey-hey ho-ho rallies to sway foreign policy, on the American left dissing Eastern Europe, on Tony Blair's grammar, on a newspaper resurrecting "Reds." And other matters. An enjoyable read.
Queen Latifah is Irish
and believes in peace through cultural rhythms. Veritas Community College honored the performer yesterday.
And she's honorable in my book -- despite having uttered the sort of banality about geopolitics that seems de rigueur for entertainers nowadays.
and believes in peace through cultural rhythms. Veritas Community College honored the performer yesterday.
And she's honorable in my book -- despite having uttered the sort of banality about geopolitics that seems de rigueur for entertainers nowadays.
Literary quiz answer
In an essay called "Idiosyncrasy and Technique," Marianne Moore wrote that "structural infirmity truly has, under surrealism, become a kind of horticultural verbal blight threatening firmness to the core." See The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 508. So, the correct one-word answer was : surrealism.
Now, the common thread quiz still hasn't been tried. We'll add first names to yesterday's list of surnames to make things a wee bit easier :
1. Mo Vaughn
2. Oscar Mayer
3. Calvin Broadus
4. Fred McGriff
In an essay called "Idiosyncrasy and Technique," Marianne Moore wrote that "structural infirmity truly has, under surrealism, become a kind of horticultural verbal blight threatening firmness to the core." See The Complete Prose of Marianne Moore, p. 508. So, the correct one-word answer was : surrealism.
Now, the common thread quiz still hasn't been tried. We'll add first names to yesterday's list of surnames to make things a wee bit easier :
1. Mo Vaughn
2. Oscar Mayer
3. Calvin Broadus
4. Fred McGriff
Saturday, February 22, 2003
Schmemann
In this world Christ was rejected. He was the perfect expression of life as God intended it. The fragmentary life of the world was gathered into his life; He was the heart beat of the world and the world killed him. But in that murder the world itself died. It lost its last chance to become the paradise God created it to be. We can go on developing new and better material things. We can build a more humane society which may even keep us from annihilating each other. But when Christ, the true life of the world was rejected, it was the beginning of the end. That rejection had a finality about it : He was crucified for good. As Pascal said : "Christ is in agony until the end of the world."
Christianity often appears, however, to preach that if men will try hard enough to live Christian lives, the crucifixion can somehow be reversed. This is because Christianity has forgotten itself, forgotten that always it must first of all stand at the cross. Not that this world cannot be improved. One of our goals is certainly to work for peace, justice, freedom. But while it can be improved, it can never become the place that God intended it to be. Christianity does not condemn the world. The world has condemned itself when on Calvary it condemned the One who was its true self : "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not" (Jn 1:10). If we think seriously -- about the real meaning, the real scope of these words -- we know that as Christians and insofar as we are Christians we are, first of all, witnesses of that end; end of all natural joy; end of all satisfaction of man with the world and with himself; end, indeed, of life itself as a reasonable and reasonably organized "pursuit of happiness." Christians did not have to wait for the modern proponents of existentialist anxiety, despair and absurdity to be aware of all this. And although in the course of their long history Christians have much too often forgotten the meaning of the cross, and enjoyed life as if "nothing had happened," although each one of us too often takes "time off" -- we know that in the world in which Christ died, "natural life" has been brought to its end.
And yet ...
[to be continued ...]
Alexander Schmemann, Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Herder and Herder, 1965), pp. 25-26.
Subsequent editions of this book have been published under the title For the Life of the World.
In this world Christ was rejected. He was the perfect expression of life as God intended it. The fragmentary life of the world was gathered into his life; He was the heart beat of the world and the world killed him. But in that murder the world itself died. It lost its last chance to become the paradise God created it to be. We can go on developing new and better material things. We can build a more humane society which may even keep us from annihilating each other. But when Christ, the true life of the world was rejected, it was the beginning of the end. That rejection had a finality about it : He was crucified for good. As Pascal said : "Christ is in agony until the end of the world."
Christianity often appears, however, to preach that if men will try hard enough to live Christian lives, the crucifixion can somehow be reversed. This is because Christianity has forgotten itself, forgotten that always it must first of all stand at the cross. Not that this world cannot be improved. One of our goals is certainly to work for peace, justice, freedom. But while it can be improved, it can never become the place that God intended it to be. Christianity does not condemn the world. The world has condemned itself when on Calvary it condemned the One who was its true self : "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not" (Jn 1:10). If we think seriously -- about the real meaning, the real scope of these words -- we know that as Christians and insofar as we are Christians we are, first of all, witnesses of that end; end of all natural joy; end of all satisfaction of man with the world and with himself; end, indeed, of life itself as a reasonable and reasonably organized "pursuit of happiness." Christians did not have to wait for the modern proponents of existentialist anxiety, despair and absurdity to be aware of all this. And although in the course of their long history Christians have much too often forgotten the meaning of the cross, and enjoyed life as if "nothing had happened," although each one of us too often takes "time off" -- we know that in the world in which Christ died, "natural life" has been brought to its end.
And yet ...
[to be continued ...]
Alexander Schmemann, Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Herder and Herder, 1965), pp. 25-26.
Subsequent editions of this book have been published under the title For the Life of the World.
Evdokimov
Eve is called "mother of all the living," but the author of Genesis who, in his prophetic clear-sightedness assigned this name, envisioned infinitely more than a mere biological continuation, more than a "seal of grace promised," more than the prospect that from such a race, would arise "the queen arrayed in gold of Ophir" (Ps 45:10). Our biological conformity to the life of our species reflects our spiritual conformity to eternal life. The second Eve was proclaimed "God-bearer" (Theotokos) by the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431). The one who gives birth to the Eternal God, the one who gives human life to the Ever-Living One, is herself immortalized. It is in this magnificent sense that Eve is called Life (Gen 3:20). Now we can understand why it is the woman who received the message of salvation. The message of the Annunciation is addressed to a woman; the risen Christ appears first to a woman, and it is "the woman robed with the sun" (Rev 12:1) who represents the New Jerusalem. Scripture exalts woman as the religious element of human nature. Woman is the mouth of humanity through with the humble "Be it done unto me" (fiat) of the servant of God replied to the creative fiat ("Let it be done") of the heavenly Father. Woman is this free "Amen" of all humanity which, in the work of the Incarnation, becomes the indispensable human foundation.
Paul Evdokimov, Woman and the Salvation of the World : A Christian Anthropology on the Charisms of Women, trans. A. P. Gythiel (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1994), pp. 155-6.
Eve is called "mother of all the living," but the author of Genesis who, in his prophetic clear-sightedness assigned this name, envisioned infinitely more than a mere biological continuation, more than a "seal of grace promised," more than the prospect that from such a race, would arise "the queen arrayed in gold of Ophir" (Ps 45:10). Our biological conformity to the life of our species reflects our spiritual conformity to eternal life. The second Eve was proclaimed "God-bearer" (Theotokos) by the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431). The one who gives birth to the Eternal God, the one who gives human life to the Ever-Living One, is herself immortalized. It is in this magnificent sense that Eve is called Life (Gen 3:20). Now we can understand why it is the woman who received the message of salvation. The message of the Annunciation is addressed to a woman; the risen Christ appears first to a woman, and it is "the woman robed with the sun" (Rev 12:1) who represents the New Jerusalem. Scripture exalts woman as the religious element of human nature. Woman is the mouth of humanity through with the humble "Be it done unto me" (fiat) of the servant of God replied to the creative fiat ("Let it be done") of the heavenly Father. Woman is this free "Amen" of all humanity which, in the work of the Incarnation, becomes the indispensable human foundation.
Paul Evdokimov, Woman and the Salvation of the World : A Christian Anthropology on the Charisms of Women, trans. A. P. Gythiel (St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1994), pp. 155-6.
Go shawty, it's your birthday ...
Twenty-eighth birthday, to be precise.
But will David Letterman dance on her furniture?
Her middle name is Blythe.
:: :: :: :: ::
And in other entertainment news
I was wondering when (or if) this would happen. There is a striking resemblance!
Twenty-eighth birthday, to be precise.
But will David Letterman dance on her furniture?
Her middle name is Blythe.
:: :: :: :: ::
And in other entertainment news
I was wondering when (or if) this would happen. There is a striking resemblance!
The Old Oligarch
visits my favorite theme-park ... Morrisseyland !!
Time for a St Blog's Confidential III : Why does a significantly large percentage of the sans blague parishioners have a fascination with the Smiths? Something tells me Irondale would not approve!
And you're always busy ... really busy ...
visits my favorite theme-park ... Morrisseyland !!
Time for a St Blog's Confidential III : Why does a significantly large percentage of the sans blague parishioners have a fascination with the Smiths? Something tells me Irondale would not approve!
And you're always busy ... really busy ...
Today's quizzes
First, the arcane literary quiz :
What did Marianne Moore describe as "a kind of horticultural verbal blight threatening firmness to the core"?
Or, if you prefer, a common thread quiz :
1. Vaughn
2. Mayer
3. Broadus
4. McGriff
Answers by e-mail preferred.
Note also that the first quiz has nothing whatsoever to do with the second.
First, the arcane literary quiz :
What did Marianne Moore describe as "a kind of horticultural verbal blight threatening firmness to the core"?
Or, if you prefer, a common thread quiz :
1. Vaughn
2. Mayer
3. Broadus
4. McGriff
Answers by e-mail preferred.
Note also that the first quiz has nothing whatsoever to do with the second.
Heaney
Old ploughsocks gorge the subsoil of each sense
And I am quickened with a redolence
Of the fundamental dark unblown rose.
Wait then ... Breasting the mist, in sowers' aprons,
My ghosts come striding into their spring stations.
The dream grain whirls like freakish Easter snows.
Seamus Heaney, "Glanmore Sonnets," 1, lines 9-14. From Field Work (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979), p. 33
Old ploughsocks gorge the subsoil of each sense
And I am quickened with a redolence
Of the fundamental dark unblown rose.
Wait then ... Breasting the mist, in sowers' aprons,
My ghosts come striding into their spring stations.
The dream grain whirls like freakish Easter snows.
Seamus Heaney, "Glanmore Sonnets," 1, lines 9-14. From Field Work (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979), p. 33
Fascinating article
by Kathryn Jean Lopez in the December 2002 crisis on the retrievability of lapsed Catholics. And why they lapsed in the first place. Spotted the link at Eve's.
by Kathryn Jean Lopez in the December 2002 crisis on the retrievability of lapsed Catholics. And why they lapsed in the first place. Spotted the link at Eve's.
Friday, February 21, 2003
Cantalamessa
As in Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., preacher to the papal household. From yesterday's Magnificat meditation :
The greatest thing in the world is, therefore, not a just suffering but an "unjust suffering," as it is called in Peter's first Letter (1 Pt 2:19). It is so great and precious because it is the only type of suffering that is close to God's way of suffering, Only God, if he suffers, does so unjustly, as one who is innocent. All men, when they suffer, must say, like the good thief on the cross, "We are suffering justly." Only of Jesus can it be said absolutely, as the good thief said : "This man has done no wrong" (Lk 23:41).
from Magnificat, Feb. 2003, p. 296
:: :: :: :: ::
All men must say 'We are suffering justly' even when the suffering is unjust?
I see his point, acknowledge its veracity, or at least its consonance with Christian tradition -- nonetheless, I recoil. I run for the hills. I ask myself, What did I get myself into with this Christianity?
That's because I'm still very much the Bad Thief, who I often think has gotten the bummest of bum raps.
Who wouldn't, in his position, want to be freed from the agony? And what of this fellow who has been called Savior -- whom, precisely, has he saved? He's dying! Ignominiously, painfully, and will surely be forgotten. Whose agony can he relieve now? What pains can he assuage? How can you rescue anyone from the jaws of death when, despite your innocence, you're dying as the worst of criminals die?
Now, part of the foregoing is an attempt to see things from the bad thief's perspective, but one must admit that it is the perspective that comes most naturally, most of the time.
Unjust suffering is precious? One is tempted to list examples of unjust suffering and ask after each item of the litany : This is precious? The greatest thing in the world? And we are asked to assent to the notion that none of the unjustly suffering is "truly" innocent because none of them is God?
:: :: :: :: ::
Now, if Catholic priests decided to give homilies on a theme as dark, as grand, as mysterious, as urgent, as incomprehensible, as essential as this, I might be inclined to listen. Because this is Christianity. It's not about "doing community" or "being Eucharist" or "sharing your time, talent and treasure." It's about Incarnate Innocence dying on the cross and rising from the dead. It is about the illimitable, transcendent God vouchsafing to dwell with us : the immortal Word made mortal flesh.
And as we say the ICEL version of the Nicene Creed at the breakneck speed of an auctioneer on Vivarin, do we ever stop to think? Do we pray what we say? Do we worship what we profess to worship? And do we ever pause to ponder the dreadful implications, and the glorious implications ... or is being nice good enough?
What is Catholicism? Is it "all are welcome" or is it the mysterium paschale ??
As in Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap., preacher to the papal household. From yesterday's Magnificat meditation :
The greatest thing in the world is, therefore, not a just suffering but an "unjust suffering," as it is called in Peter's first Letter (1 Pt 2:19). It is so great and precious because it is the only type of suffering that is close to God's way of suffering, Only God, if he suffers, does so unjustly, as one who is innocent. All men, when they suffer, must say, like the good thief on the cross, "We are suffering justly." Only of Jesus can it be said absolutely, as the good thief said : "This man has done no wrong" (Lk 23:41).
from Magnificat, Feb. 2003, p. 296
:: :: :: :: ::
All men must say 'We are suffering justly' even when the suffering is unjust?
I see his point, acknowledge its veracity, or at least its consonance with Christian tradition -- nonetheless, I recoil. I run for the hills. I ask myself, What did I get myself into with this Christianity?
That's because I'm still very much the Bad Thief, who I often think has gotten the bummest of bum raps.
Who wouldn't, in his position, want to be freed from the agony? And what of this fellow who has been called Savior -- whom, precisely, has he saved? He's dying! Ignominiously, painfully, and will surely be forgotten. Whose agony can he relieve now? What pains can he assuage? How can you rescue anyone from the jaws of death when, despite your innocence, you're dying as the worst of criminals die?
Now, part of the foregoing is an attempt to see things from the bad thief's perspective, but one must admit that it is the perspective that comes most naturally, most of the time.
Unjust suffering is precious? One is tempted to list examples of unjust suffering and ask after each item of the litany : This is precious? The greatest thing in the world? And we are asked to assent to the notion that none of the unjustly suffering is "truly" innocent because none of them is God?
:: :: :: :: ::
Now, if Catholic priests decided to give homilies on a theme as dark, as grand, as mysterious, as urgent, as incomprehensible, as essential as this, I might be inclined to listen. Because this is Christianity. It's not about "doing community" or "being Eucharist" or "sharing your time, talent and treasure." It's about Incarnate Innocence dying on the cross and rising from the dead. It is about the illimitable, transcendent God vouchsafing to dwell with us : the immortal Word made mortal flesh.
And as we say the ICEL version of the Nicene Creed at the breakneck speed of an auctioneer on Vivarin, do we ever stop to think? Do we pray what we say? Do we worship what we profess to worship? And do we ever pause to ponder the dreadful implications, and the glorious implications ... or is being nice good enough?
What is Catholicism? Is it "all are welcome" or is it the mysterium paschale ??
Death on a Friday Afternoon
by Richard John Neuhaus : an excerpt from chapter 4, "Dereliction"
I do not think the twelve-year-old boy meant any disrespect, but I confess it took me off guard. This was many years ago when I was teaching a coonfirmation class at a black parish in Brooklyn where I was for many years the pastor. I was discussing how, in his dying for us, Jesus had lost everything. "I don't say it wasn't real bad," said Michael, "but he did what he wanted to do, didn't he?"
Of course Michael had never read Philip Rieff's brilliant analysis of American culture, The Therapeutic Society. But he had, willy-nilly, imbibed its message that in our kind of world everything is reduced to the psychological. Put so bluntly, it sounds blasphemous and, pressed persistently, it is blasphemous, but wasn't Jesus "doing his own thing"? So where is the sacrifice? So where is the abandonment? Is it not rather the case that the Sixth Word from the cross -- "It is finished" -- is a statement of what in pop psychology is called self-actualization?
Michael was no child prodigy. He simply breathed, as all of us do, the toxic cultural air of a disenchanted world in which the mark of sophistication is to reduce wonder to banality. Even more, the acids of intellectual urbanity turn sacrifice into delusion, generosity into greed, and love into self-aggrandizement. In academic circles, this is called "the hermeneutics of suspicion," meaning that things are interpreted to reveal that they are not in fact what they appear to be. At least things that seem to suggest the true, the beautiful and the good are not what they appear to be. They must be exposed and debunked if we are to get to "the truth of the matter." The false, the self-serving, the ugly and the evil, on the other hand, are permitted to stand as revealing "the real world."
Neuhaus, op. cit. (Basic Books, 2000), pp. 124-5
by Richard John Neuhaus : an excerpt from chapter 4, "Dereliction"
I do not think the twelve-year-old boy meant any disrespect, but I confess it took me off guard. This was many years ago when I was teaching a coonfirmation class at a black parish in Brooklyn where I was for many years the pastor. I was discussing how, in his dying for us, Jesus had lost everything. "I don't say it wasn't real bad," said Michael, "but he did what he wanted to do, didn't he?"
Of course Michael had never read Philip Rieff's brilliant analysis of American culture, The Therapeutic Society. But he had, willy-nilly, imbibed its message that in our kind of world everything is reduced to the psychological. Put so bluntly, it sounds blasphemous and, pressed persistently, it is blasphemous, but wasn't Jesus "doing his own thing"? So where is the sacrifice? So where is the abandonment? Is it not rather the case that the Sixth Word from the cross -- "It is finished" -- is a statement of what in pop psychology is called self-actualization?
Michael was no child prodigy. He simply breathed, as all of us do, the toxic cultural air of a disenchanted world in which the mark of sophistication is to reduce wonder to banality. Even more, the acids of intellectual urbanity turn sacrifice into delusion, generosity into greed, and love into self-aggrandizement. In academic circles, this is called "the hermeneutics of suspicion," meaning that things are interpreted to reveal that they are not in fact what they appear to be. At least things that seem to suggest the true, the beautiful and the good are not what they appear to be. They must be exposed and debunked if we are to get to "the truth of the matter." The false, the self-serving, the ugly and the evil, on the other hand, are permitted to stand as revealing "the real world."
Neuhaus, op. cit. (Basic Books, 2000), pp. 124-5
And now for something
completely different. The 100 greatest dance songs of all time, according to VH1.
1. "I Will Survive" - Gloria Gaynor (1975)
2. "Don't Leave Me This Way" - Thelma Houston (1977)
3. "We Are Family" - Sister Sledge (1979)
4. "Vogue" - Madonna (1990)
5. "The Hustle" - Van McCoy (1975)
6. "Last Dance" - Donna Summer (1978)
7. "Y.M.C.A." - Village People (1979)
8. "The Twist " - Chubby Checker (1960)
9. "Gonna Make You Sweat" - C&C Music Factory (1991)
10. "Stayin' Alive" - Bee Gees (1978)
11. "Respect" - Aretha Franklin (1967)
12. "Get Down Tonight" - KC & the Sunshine Band (1975)
13. "Love's Theme" - Love Unlimited Orchestra (1974)
14. "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" - Sylvester (1979)
15. "It Takes Two" - Rob Base & DJ E Z Rock (1988)
16. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" - Michael Jackson (1979)
17. "Disco Inferno - the Trammps (1978)
18. "Dancing In The Street" - Martha & the Vandellas (1964)
19. "Shame" - Evelyn "Champagne" King (1978)
20. "Got To Be Real" - Cheryl Lynn (1979)
21. "That's The Way (I Like It)" - KC & the Sunshine Band (1975)
22. "Love Hangover" - Diana Ross (1976)
23. "Lady Marmalade" - Labelle (1975)
24. "Let The Music Play" - Shannon (1984)
25. "Mashed Potato Time" - Dee Dee Sharp (1962)
26. "Le Freak" - Chic (1978)
27. "Louie Louie" - the Kingsmen (1963)
28. "Billie Jean" - Michael Jackson (1983)
29. "Finally" - Cece Peniston (1992)
30. "Turn The Beat Around" - Vicki Sue Robinson (1976)
31. "Best Of My Love" - the Emotions (1977)
32. "You Should Be Dancing" - Bee Gees (1976)
33. "Upside Down" - Diana Ross (1980)
34. "Forget Me Nots" - Patrice Rushen (1982)
35. "It's Raining Men" - the Weather Girls (1983)
36. "Rhythm Is A Dancer" - Snap! (1993)
37. "Push It" - Salt-N-Pepa (1988)
38. "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" - McFadden & Whitehead (1979)
39. "Love Train" - the O'Jays (1973)
40. "Into The Groove" - Madonna (1985)
41. "Rock The Boat" - Hues Corporation (1974)
42. "Love Is The Message" - MFSB (1974)
43. "Celebration" - Kool & The Gang (1981)
44. "Good Times" - Chic (1979)
45. "More, More, More (Part 1)" - Andrea True Connection (1976)
46. "Boogie Oogie Oogie" - A Taste Of Honey (1978)
47. "Dance To The Music" - Sly & the Family Stone (1968)
48. "Cool Jerk" - the Capitols (1966)
49. "Shout" - the Isley Brothers (1959)
50. "Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)" - Soul 2 Soul (1989)
51. "Never Can Say Goodbye" - Gloria Gaynor (1975)
52. "Brick House" - the Commodores (1977)
53. "Ring My Bell" - Anita Ward (1979)
54. "Doctor Love" - First Choice (1977)
55. "The Loco Motion" - Little Eva (1962)
56. "Rock Your Baby" - George McCrae (1974)
57. "Cherchez La Femme" - Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band (1977)
58. "All Night Long (All Night)" - Lionel Richie (1983)
59. "La Bamba" - Ritchie Valens (1959)
60. "Believe" - Cher (1999)
61. "Jump (For My Love)" - Pointer Sisters (1984)
62. "Shake Your Groove Thing" - Peaches & Herb (1979)
63. "Love To Love You Baby" - Donna Summer (1976)
64. "Funkytown" - Lipps Inc. (1980)
65. "Land Of 1,000 Dances" - Wilson Pickett (1966)
66. "1999" - Prince (1983)
67. "Flashdance" - Irene Cara (1983)
68. "Take Your Time (Do It Right)" - the S.O.S Band (1980)
69. "Shotgun" - Jr. Walker & The All Stars (1965)
70. "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine)" - James Brown (1970)
71. "Let's Dance" - David Bowie (1983)
72. "Fly Robin Fly" - Silver Convention (1975)
73. "Show Me Love" - Robin S (1993)
74. "My Prerogative" - Bobby Brown (1989)
75. "I Got You (I Feel Good)" - James Brown (1965)
76. "I Feel Love" - Donna Summer (1977)
77. "Ain't Nobody" - Rufus featuring Chaka Khan (1983)
78. "And The Beat Goes On" - the Whispers (1980)
79. "Heart Of Glass" - Blondie (1979)
80. "You're The First, The Last, My Everything" - Barry White (1975)
81. "Straight Up" - Paula Abdul (1989)
82. "Play That Funky Music" - Wild Cherry (1976)
83. "Got To Give It Up" - Marvin Gaye (1977)
84. "Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)" - Los Del Rio (1996)
85. "Keep On Truckin'" - Eddie Kendricks (1973)
86. "I Want To Dance With Somebody" - Whitney Houston (1987)
87. "TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)" - MFSB Featuring the Three Degrees (1974)
88. "U Can't Touch This" - M.C. Hammer (1990)
89. "MacArthur Park" - Donna Summer (1978)
90. "Heartbeat" - Tanya Gardner (1981)
91. "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" - Dead Or Alive (1985)
92. "Disco Lady" - Johnnie Taylor (1976)
93. "Thank You (Fallettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" - Sly & the Family Stone (1970)
94. "Flashlight" - Parliament (1978)
95. "ABC" - Jackson 5 (1970)
96. "What'd I Say" - Ray Charles (1959)
97. "Dancing Queen" - ABBA (1977)
98. "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" - Rod Stewart (1979)
99. "Rock Lobster" - the B-52's (1980)
100. "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" - Will Smith (1998)
completely different. The 100 greatest dance songs of all time, according to VH1.
1. "I Will Survive" - Gloria Gaynor (1975)
2. "Don't Leave Me This Way" - Thelma Houston (1977)
3. "We Are Family" - Sister Sledge (1979)
4. "Vogue" - Madonna (1990)
5. "The Hustle" - Van McCoy (1975)
6. "Last Dance" - Donna Summer (1978)
7. "Y.M.C.A." - Village People (1979)
8. "The Twist " - Chubby Checker (1960)
9. "Gonna Make You Sweat" - C&C Music Factory (1991)
10. "Stayin' Alive" - Bee Gees (1978)
11. "Respect" - Aretha Franklin (1967)
12. "Get Down Tonight" - KC & the Sunshine Band (1975)
13. "Love's Theme" - Love Unlimited Orchestra (1974)
14. "You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)" - Sylvester (1979)
15. "It Takes Two" - Rob Base & DJ E Z Rock (1988)
16. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" - Michael Jackson (1979)
17. "Disco Inferno - the Trammps (1978)
18. "Dancing In The Street" - Martha & the Vandellas (1964)
19. "Shame" - Evelyn "Champagne" King (1978)
20. "Got To Be Real" - Cheryl Lynn (1979)
21. "That's The Way (I Like It)" - KC & the Sunshine Band (1975)
22. "Love Hangover" - Diana Ross (1976)
23. "Lady Marmalade" - Labelle (1975)
24. "Let The Music Play" - Shannon (1984)
25. "Mashed Potato Time" - Dee Dee Sharp (1962)
26. "Le Freak" - Chic (1978)
27. "Louie Louie" - the Kingsmen (1963)
28. "Billie Jean" - Michael Jackson (1983)
29. "Finally" - Cece Peniston (1992)
30. "Turn The Beat Around" - Vicki Sue Robinson (1976)
31. "Best Of My Love" - the Emotions (1977)
32. "You Should Be Dancing" - Bee Gees (1976)
33. "Upside Down" - Diana Ross (1980)
34. "Forget Me Nots" - Patrice Rushen (1982)
35. "It's Raining Men" - the Weather Girls (1983)
36. "Rhythm Is A Dancer" - Snap! (1993)
37. "Push It" - Salt-N-Pepa (1988)
38. "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" - McFadden & Whitehead (1979)
39. "Love Train" - the O'Jays (1973)
40. "Into The Groove" - Madonna (1985)
41. "Rock The Boat" - Hues Corporation (1974)
42. "Love Is The Message" - MFSB (1974)
43. "Celebration" - Kool & The Gang (1981)
44. "Good Times" - Chic (1979)
45. "More, More, More (Part 1)" - Andrea True Connection (1976)
46. "Boogie Oogie Oogie" - A Taste Of Honey (1978)
47. "Dance To The Music" - Sly & the Family Stone (1968)
48. "Cool Jerk" - the Capitols (1966)
49. "Shout" - the Isley Brothers (1959)
50. "Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)" - Soul 2 Soul (1989)
51. "Never Can Say Goodbye" - Gloria Gaynor (1975)
52. "Brick House" - the Commodores (1977)
53. "Ring My Bell" - Anita Ward (1979)
54. "Doctor Love" - First Choice (1977)
55. "The Loco Motion" - Little Eva (1962)
56. "Rock Your Baby" - George McCrae (1974)
57. "Cherchez La Femme" - Dr. Buzzard's Original "Savannah" Band (1977)
58. "All Night Long (All Night)" - Lionel Richie (1983)
59. "La Bamba" - Ritchie Valens (1959)
60. "Believe" - Cher (1999)
61. "Jump (For My Love)" - Pointer Sisters (1984)
62. "Shake Your Groove Thing" - Peaches & Herb (1979)
63. "Love To Love You Baby" - Donna Summer (1976)
64. "Funkytown" - Lipps Inc. (1980)
65. "Land Of 1,000 Dances" - Wilson Pickett (1966)
66. "1999" - Prince (1983)
67. "Flashdance" - Irene Cara (1983)
68. "Take Your Time (Do It Right)" - the S.O.S Band (1980)
69. "Shotgun" - Jr. Walker & The All Stars (1965)
70. "Get Up (I Feel Like Being A Sex Machine)" - James Brown (1970)
71. "Let's Dance" - David Bowie (1983)
72. "Fly Robin Fly" - Silver Convention (1975)
73. "Show Me Love" - Robin S (1993)
74. "My Prerogative" - Bobby Brown (1989)
75. "I Got You (I Feel Good)" - James Brown (1965)
76. "I Feel Love" - Donna Summer (1977)
77. "Ain't Nobody" - Rufus featuring Chaka Khan (1983)
78. "And The Beat Goes On" - the Whispers (1980)
79. "Heart Of Glass" - Blondie (1979)
80. "You're The First, The Last, My Everything" - Barry White (1975)
81. "Straight Up" - Paula Abdul (1989)
82. "Play That Funky Music" - Wild Cherry (1976)
83. "Got To Give It Up" - Marvin Gaye (1977)
84. "Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)" - Los Del Rio (1996)
85. "Keep On Truckin'" - Eddie Kendricks (1973)
86. "I Want To Dance With Somebody" - Whitney Houston (1987)
87. "TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)" - MFSB Featuring the Three Degrees (1974)
88. "U Can't Touch This" - M.C. Hammer (1990)
89. "MacArthur Park" - Donna Summer (1978)
90. "Heartbeat" - Tanya Gardner (1981)
91. "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" - Dead Or Alive (1985)
92. "Disco Lady" - Johnnie Taylor (1976)
93. "Thank You (Fallettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" - Sly & the Family Stone (1970)
94. "Flashlight" - Parliament (1978)
95. "ABC" - Jackson 5 (1970)
96. "What'd I Say" - Ray Charles (1959)
97. "Dancing Queen" - ABBA (1977)
98. "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" - Rod Stewart (1979)
99. "Rock Lobster" - the B-52's (1980)
100. "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" - Will Smith (1998)
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Dale Price at Dyspeptic Mutterings
on Pagans, Liturgy & the Transcendent. Absolutely, positively required reading.
And deepliest heartfelt thanks to MCNS of Ad Orientem for having linked to it.
There may be more on this later. But is it getting to the point where some neo-pagans are more "High Church" than many Catholics?
I especially cherish Mr Price's thoughts for his praise of the Eastern Churches.
on Pagans, Liturgy & the Transcendent. Absolutely, positively required reading.
And deepliest heartfelt thanks to MCNS of Ad Orientem for having linked to it.
There may be more on this later. But is it getting to the point where some neo-pagans are more "High Church" than many Catholics?
I especially cherish Mr Price's thoughts for his praise of the Eastern Churches.
Added earlier today to Places Oft
The Holy See's English homepage and the index of the current pontiff's addresses to the weekly papal audiences.
The Holy See's English homepage and the index of the current pontiff's addresses to the weekly papal audiences.
I thought
about writing and blogging a Gertrude Stein parody but then I figured what the heck here's Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) herself unparodized
:: :: :: :: ::
Susie Asado
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Susie Asado which is a told tray sure.
A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers.
When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow, it is a silver seller.
This is a please this is a please there are the saids to jelly.
These are the wets these say the sets to leave a crown to Incy.
Incy is short for Incubus.
A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees tremble, the old vats are in bobbles, bobbles which shade and shove and render clean, render clean must.
Drink pups.
Drink pups drink pups lease a sash hold, see it shine and a bobolink has pins. It shows a nail.
What is a nail. A nail is unison.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
about writing and blogging a Gertrude Stein parody but then I figured what the heck here's Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) herself unparodized
:: :: :: :: ::
Susie Asado
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Susie Asado which is a told tray sure.
A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers.
When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow, it is a silver seller.
This is a please this is a please there are the saids to jelly.
These are the wets these say the sets to leave a crown to Incy.
Incy is short for Incubus.
A pot. A pot is a beginning of a rare bit of trees. Trees tremble, the old vats are in bobbles, bobbles which shade and shove and render clean, render clean must.
Drink pups.
Drink pups drink pups lease a sash hold, see it shine and a bobolink has pins. It shows a nail.
What is a nail. A nail is unison.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Fluctuations
Am also thinking of linking a Derbyshire column on ethnic humor that'll get me killed, and to another Derb column on the next phase of the war that'll get me brought back to life so I can be killed again.
Almost certainly the latter -- valuable as much for what he says about the UK's Labour party & about the United Nations as for anything about the war.
I think I'll just spend the rest of the day telling you all what I'm going to post -- and not post a blessed jot or an unholy tittle of anything that I've promised !!! Ha!! Ha, ha !!!
Am also thinking of linking a Derbyshire column on ethnic humor that'll get me killed, and to another Derb column on the next phase of the war that'll get me brought back to life so I can be killed again.
Almost certainly the latter -- valuable as much for what he says about the UK's Labour party & about the United Nations as for anything about the war.
I think I'll just spend the rest of the day telling you all what I'm going to post -- and not post a blessed jot or an unholy tittle of anything that I've promised !!! Ha!! Ha, ha !!!
dylan of morelast
Lives on the road
He lost his lady two months ago
Maybe he'll find her, maybe he won't
Oh, wonder, nooo
He sleeps in the back of his grey Cadillac, oh my honey
Blowing his mind on cheap grass and wine
Oh ain't it crazy baby, hey
Guess you could say hey, hey
This man has learned his lesson, oh hey
Now he's alone
He's got no woman and no home
For misery, oh, oh
Cherchez la femme
:: :: :: :: ::
My lack of musical knowledge? Ha !!
And again, I say : "Ha!!"
(For the blogger at Disordered Affections -- surely, the only person who will not be mystified by the foregoing !!)
And a note to KTC: The first line of "Cherchez La Femme" was (and is) "Tommy Mottola lives on the road ..."
Lives on the road
He lost his lady two months ago
Maybe he'll find her, maybe he won't
Oh, wonder, nooo
He sleeps in the back of his grey Cadillac, oh my honey
Blowing his mind on cheap grass and wine
Oh ain't it crazy baby, hey
Guess you could say hey, hey
This man has learned his lesson, oh hey
Now he's alone
He's got no woman and no home
For misery, oh, oh
Cherchez la femme
:: :: :: :: ::
My lack of musical knowledge? Ha !!
And again, I say : "Ha!!"
(For the blogger at Disordered Affections -- surely, the only person who will not be mystified by the foregoing !!)
And a note to KTC: The first line of "Cherchez La Femme" was (and is) "Tommy Mottola lives on the road ..."
His Holiness John Paul II
in a recent Wednesday audience, 5th February 2003, speaks on Psalm 117 (Vulgate 116) :
In a technological world menaced by an eclipse of the sacred, in a society that delights in a certain self-sufficiency, the witness of the person at prayer is like a ray of light in the darkness. Initially, it can only awaken curiosity; then it can induce the thoughtful person to wonder about the meaning of prayer, and, finally, it can give rise to the growing desire to have the experience. For this reason, prayer is never an isolated event, but tends to expand until it involves the whole world.
in a recent Wednesday audience, 5th February 2003, speaks on Psalm 117 (Vulgate 116) :
In a technological world menaced by an eclipse of the sacred, in a society that delights in a certain self-sufficiency, the witness of the person at prayer is like a ray of light in the darkness. Initially, it can only awaken curiosity; then it can induce the thoughtful person to wonder about the meaning of prayer, and, finally, it can give rise to the growing desire to have the experience. For this reason, prayer is never an isolated event, but tends to expand until it involves the whole world.
Psalm 73. Quam bonus Israel!
TRULY God is loving unto Israel: * even unto such as are of a clean heart.
2 Nevertheless, my feet were almost gone, * my treadings had well-nigh slipt.
3 And why? I was grieved at the wicked: * I do also see the ungodly in such prosperity.
4 For they are in no peril of death; * but are lusty and strong.
5 They come in no misfortune like other folk; * neither are they plagued like other men.
6 And this is the cause that they are so holden with pride, * and cruelty covereth them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell with fatness, * and they do even what they lust.
8 They corrupt other, and speak of wicked blasphemy; * their talking is against the Most High.
9 For they stretch forth their mouth unto the heaven, * and their tongue goeth through the world.
10 Therefore fall the people unto them, * and thereout suck they no small advantage.
11 Tush, say they, how should God perceive it? * is there knowledge in the Most High?
12 Lo, these are the ungodly, * these prosper in the world, and these have riches in possession:
13 And I said, Then have I cleansed my heart in vain, * and washed my hands in innocency.
14 All the day long have I been punished, * and chastened every morning.
15 Yea, and I had almost said even as they; * but lo, then I should have condemned the generation of thy children.
16 Then thought I to understand this; * but it was too hard for me,
17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God: * then understood I the end of these men;
18 Namely, how thou dost set them in slippery places, * and castest them down, and destroyest them.
19 O how suddenly do they consume, * perish, and come to a fearful end!
20 Yea, even like as a dream when one awaketh; * so shalt thou make their image to vanish out of the city.
21 Thus my heart was grieved, * and it went even through my reins.
22 So foolish was I, and ignorant, * even as it were a beast before thee.
23 Nevertheless, I am alway by thee; * for thou hast holden me by my right hand.
24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, * and after that receive me with glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? * and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee.
26 My flesh and my heart faileth; * but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
27 For lo, they that forsake thee shall perish; * thou hast destroyed all them that are unfaithful unto thee.
28 But it is good for me to hold me fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord GOD, * and to speak of all thy works in the gates of the daughter of Sion.
TRULY God is loving unto Israel: * even unto such as are of a clean heart.
2 Nevertheless, my feet were almost gone, * my treadings had well-nigh slipt.
3 And why? I was grieved at the wicked: * I do also see the ungodly in such prosperity.
4 For they are in no peril of death; * but are lusty and strong.
5 They come in no misfortune like other folk; * neither are they plagued like other men.
6 And this is the cause that they are so holden with pride, * and cruelty covereth them as a garment.
7 Their eyes swell with fatness, * and they do even what they lust.
8 They corrupt other, and speak of wicked blasphemy; * their talking is against the Most High.
9 For they stretch forth their mouth unto the heaven, * and their tongue goeth through the world.
10 Therefore fall the people unto them, * and thereout suck they no small advantage.
11 Tush, say they, how should God perceive it? * is there knowledge in the Most High?
12 Lo, these are the ungodly, * these prosper in the world, and these have riches in possession:
13 And I said, Then have I cleansed my heart in vain, * and washed my hands in innocency.
14 All the day long have I been punished, * and chastened every morning.
15 Yea, and I had almost said even as they; * but lo, then I should have condemned the generation of thy children.
16 Then thought I to understand this; * but it was too hard for me,
17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God: * then understood I the end of these men;
18 Namely, how thou dost set them in slippery places, * and castest them down, and destroyest them.
19 O how suddenly do they consume, * perish, and come to a fearful end!
20 Yea, even like as a dream when one awaketh; * so shalt thou make their image to vanish out of the city.
21 Thus my heart was grieved, * and it went even through my reins.
22 So foolish was I, and ignorant, * even as it were a beast before thee.
23 Nevertheless, I am alway by thee; * for thou hast holden me by my right hand.
24 Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, * and after that receive me with glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but thee? * and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee.
26 My flesh and my heart faileth; * but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
27 For lo, they that forsake thee shall perish; * thou hast destroyed all them that are unfaithful unto thee.
28 But it is good for me to hold me fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord GOD, * and to speak of all thy works in the gates of the daughter of Sion.
Excerpts from Letter 3
of Letters to a Soul by Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB
Since you say in your letter that you are feeling sorry for yourself while you are writing I suggest that, without putting it into words, you know the answer to your problem. 'I have given God so much more' is your complaint, 'than he has given me. I accepted the grace of conversion from sin and worldliness and all the old life, and what have I got in return? Nothing but loneliness, alienation, non-comprehension.' Well, if religion is essentially the life of faith, what did you expect? You see only what you have given to God, not what he has given to you. When you accepted the grace of conversion you didn't haggle. You didn't say 'I'll alter my way of life provided you make it worth my while. In return for the renunciations it is only fair to expect something back.' You cannot strike a bargain with God. 'Seek first the kingdom of God' and to seek first the privileges of belonging to that kingdom is to get the order wrong. If you are deprived of the 'consolations of religion' you should remember that it was religion and not consolation that was the object of your conversion. You have not chosen the good and rejected the bad because the good is beautiful and the bad is ugly; you do not pray because prayer attracted you and sin disgusted you; you have not given yourself to the service of God for what you can get out of it but for what you can give to it.
***
If you were to munch on a mouthful of honey you would taste both too much of it and not enough. To taste honey properly you have to put something underneath it -- something ordinary and solid and dull like a piece of bread or toast. The service of God, which is a day-to-day fidelity, is for the most part ordinary and dull. But it is more solid than the sweetness which it supports and sometimes enjoys. So the moral of all this is 'look after the bread and the honey can look after itself.' Religion is neither a means of providing satisfaction nor a poultice applied to an injury. It is yielding. It is reaping too, but this aspect is best left to God. Yielding is a matter of the will, of faith, of trust : these are the important things. Reaping is important too, but we are apt to mistake enjoyment for it.
H. van Zeller, op. cit. (Templegate, 1976), pp. 12-14.
Probably the last van Z excerpt for a while!
of Letters to a Soul by Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB
Since you say in your letter that you are feeling sorry for yourself while you are writing I suggest that, without putting it into words, you know the answer to your problem. 'I have given God so much more' is your complaint, 'than he has given me. I accepted the grace of conversion from sin and worldliness and all the old life, and what have I got in return? Nothing but loneliness, alienation, non-comprehension.' Well, if religion is essentially the life of faith, what did you expect? You see only what you have given to God, not what he has given to you. When you accepted the grace of conversion you didn't haggle. You didn't say 'I'll alter my way of life provided you make it worth my while. In return for the renunciations it is only fair to expect something back.' You cannot strike a bargain with God. 'Seek first the kingdom of God' and to seek first the privileges of belonging to that kingdom is to get the order wrong. If you are deprived of the 'consolations of religion' you should remember that it was religion and not consolation that was the object of your conversion. You have not chosen the good and rejected the bad because the good is beautiful and the bad is ugly; you do not pray because prayer attracted you and sin disgusted you; you have not given yourself to the service of God for what you can get out of it but for what you can give to it.
***
If you were to munch on a mouthful of honey you would taste both too much of it and not enough. To taste honey properly you have to put something underneath it -- something ordinary and solid and dull like a piece of bread or toast. The service of God, which is a day-to-day fidelity, is for the most part ordinary and dull. But it is more solid than the sweetness which it supports and sometimes enjoys. So the moral of all this is 'look after the bread and the honey can look after itself.' Religion is neither a means of providing satisfaction nor a poultice applied to an injury. It is yielding. It is reaping too, but this aspect is best left to God. Yielding is a matter of the will, of faith, of trust : these are the important things. Reaping is important too, but we are apt to mistake enjoyment for it.
H. van Zeller, op. cit. (Templegate, 1976), pp. 12-14.
Probably the last van Z excerpt for a while!
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me
Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia on the Jesus Prayer
The Jesus Prayer is a prayer in words, but because the words are so simple, so few and unvarying, the Prayer reaches out beyond words into the living silence of the Eternal. It is a way of achieving, with God's assistance, the kind of non-discursive, non-iconic prayer in which we do not simply make statements to or about God, in which we do not just form pictures of Christ in our imagination, but are 'oned' with him in an all-embracing, unmediated encounter. Through the Invocation of the Name we feel his nearness with our spiritual sense, much as we feel the warmth with our bodily senses on entering a heated room. We know him, not through a series of successive images and concepts, but with the unified sensibility of the heart. So the Jesus Prayer concentrates us into the here and now, making us single-centered, one-pointed, drawing us from a multiplicity of thoughts to union with the one Christ. "Through the remembrance of Jesus Christ," says St Philotheus of Sinai, "gather together your scattered intellect" -- gather it together from the plurality of discursive thinking into the simplicity of love.
Via Daily Readings in Orthodox Spirituality, ed. P. Bouteneff (Templegate Publ., 1996), p. 54
Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia on the Jesus Prayer
The Jesus Prayer is a prayer in words, but because the words are so simple, so few and unvarying, the Prayer reaches out beyond words into the living silence of the Eternal. It is a way of achieving, with God's assistance, the kind of non-discursive, non-iconic prayer in which we do not simply make statements to or about God, in which we do not just form pictures of Christ in our imagination, but are 'oned' with him in an all-embracing, unmediated encounter. Through the Invocation of the Name we feel his nearness with our spiritual sense, much as we feel the warmth with our bodily senses on entering a heated room. We know him, not through a series of successive images and concepts, but with the unified sensibility of the heart. So the Jesus Prayer concentrates us into the here and now, making us single-centered, one-pointed, drawing us from a multiplicity of thoughts to union with the one Christ. "Through the remembrance of Jesus Christ," says St Philotheus of Sinai, "gather together your scattered intellect" -- gather it together from the plurality of discursive thinking into the simplicity of love.
Via Daily Readings in Orthodox Spirituality, ed. P. Bouteneff (Templegate Publ., 1996), p. 54
Common thread quizzes
Yesterday's thread was correctly identified by Kathy the Carmelite :
Queen Latifah, Roger Ebert, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Leonard Maltin all have birthdays on the 18th of the month. March, June, September, December respectively.
Today's common thread quiz
i. April 25th
ii. September 21st
iii. October 18th
iv. December 27th
Yesterday's thread was correctly identified by Kathy the Carmelite :
Queen Latifah, Roger Ebert, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Leonard Maltin all have birthdays on the 18th of the month. March, June, September, December respectively.
Today's common thread quiz
i. April 25th
ii. September 21st
iii. October 18th
iv. December 27th
Wednesday, February 19, 2003
Psalm 100. Jubilate Deo.
O BE joyful in the LORD, all ye lands: * serve the LORD with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.
2 Be ye sure that the LORD he is God; it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; * we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
3 O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; * be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name.
4 For the LORD is gracious, his mercy is everlasting; * and his truth endureth from generation to generation.
O BE joyful in the LORD, all ye lands: * serve the LORD with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.
2 Be ye sure that the LORD he is God; it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; * we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
3 O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; * be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name.
4 For the LORD is gracious, his mercy is everlasting; * and his truth endureth from generation to generation.
Aliquid obstat apud nihil
as first noted by Fructus Ventris
"This chap claims to a friend of Mark Shea, so the World Court will probably stay out of it."
So reads a 2/18 post by nihil, unrevised as of this hour ...
as first noted by Fructus Ventris
"This chap claims to a friend of Mark Shea, so the World Court will probably stay out of it."
So reads a 2/18 post by nihil, unrevised as of this hour ...
Alicia Keys
the Hell's Kitchen piano prodigy
keeps an online diary. An entry added about once a month.
The entry for October 20, 2002 (scroll down) is noteworthy for being both wise ... and somewhat "against the grain" ...
What is beauty? It is not immodesty. So says Alicia, and we agree.
the Hell's Kitchen piano prodigy
keeps an online diary. An entry added about once a month.
The entry for October 20, 2002 (scroll down) is noteworthy for being both wise ... and somewhat "against the grain" ...
What is beauty? It is not immodesty. So says Alicia, and we agree.
Excerpt from Letter 2
of Letters to a Soul by Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB
Lucifer did not know his place -- you would have thought the station of an archangel would have been good enough -- and his last recorded words were 'I will not serve'. Nor did Adam know his place but wanted a knowledge which was no business of his. It has been the same all the way down the line of failed vocation : Saul, Judas, Henry Tudor. None of them was content to stay in the second best place, so either rebelled or deserted -- or both. The saints accepted whatever place they were put in and did not question the providence of God. To fight our place in life is to fight life itself so, logically, to fight God. In one way or another everyone has to accept second best for himself. The happily married man takes second place to his family, the happily professed religious takes second place to his community. The artist, the writer, the composer, the actor : each has to sublimate himself in order to express himself. In gospel terms the seed has to die if it is to come to harvest, the man has to lose his life if he is to find it. Your objection to the second best shows how you have mistaken perfectionism for perfection.
H. van Zeller, op. cit. (Templegate Publishers, 1976), pp. 10-11.
of Letters to a Soul by Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB
Lucifer did not know his place -- you would have thought the station of an archangel would have been good enough -- and his last recorded words were 'I will not serve'. Nor did Adam know his place but wanted a knowledge which was no business of his. It has been the same all the way down the line of failed vocation : Saul, Judas, Henry Tudor. None of them was content to stay in the second best place, so either rebelled or deserted -- or both. The saints accepted whatever place they were put in and did not question the providence of God. To fight our place in life is to fight life itself so, logically, to fight God. In one way or another everyone has to accept second best for himself. The happily married man takes second place to his family, the happily professed religious takes second place to his community. The artist, the writer, the composer, the actor : each has to sublimate himself in order to express himself. In gospel terms the seed has to die if it is to come to harvest, the man has to lose his life if he is to find it. Your objection to the second best shows how you have mistaken perfectionism for perfection.
H. van Zeller, op. cit. (Templegate Publishers, 1976), pp. 10-11.
Six exemplars
five among the living
At least two of the priests at my favorite chapel; Papa Lolek; Fr Groeschel; a nonagenarian nun of my acquaintance; and (I'm already calling him Venerable) Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
The list is loosely connected with the lists of unofficial or potential saints that others around St Blog's have been making. But all the living members of this list would strenuously resist the prematurity of any "canonization"; still, deeply prayerful souls who inspire and fortify by example.
five among the living
At least two of the priests at my favorite chapel; Papa Lolek; Fr Groeschel; a nonagenarian nun of my acquaintance; and (I'm already calling him Venerable) Archbishop Fulton Sheen.
The list is loosely connected with the lists of unofficial or potential saints that others around St Blog's have been making. But all the living members of this list would strenuously resist the prematurity of any "canonization"; still, deeply prayerful souls who inspire and fortify by example.
Common thread
1. The Today Show has a weatherman named Willard Scott.
2. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air featured Willard Christopher Smith.
3. Massachusetts governor W. Mitt Romney suppresses the praenomen he shares with Messrs Scott & Smith.
Willard is the common thread! The only respondent to the quiz is, of course, the winner. Now, for Kathy & others, here's a much tougher one ...
1. Queen Latifah
2. Roger Ebert
3. Jada Pinkett Smith
4. Leonard Maltin
I'm expecting exactly nobody to get this one ...
1. The Today Show has a weatherman named Willard Scott.
2. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air featured Willard Christopher Smith.
3. Massachusetts governor W. Mitt Romney suppresses the praenomen he shares with Messrs Scott & Smith.
Willard is the common thread! The only respondent to the quiz is, of course, the winner. Now, for Kathy & others, here's a much tougher one ...
1. Queen Latifah
2. Roger Ebert
3. Jada Pinkett Smith
4. Leonard Maltin
I'm expecting exactly nobody to get this one ...
The dark underbelly of St Blog's
Schismatics! Expatriates! Subversives! Deceivers! Silversmiths!
Alibis! Aliases! Anagrams!
An investigative report reveals the hidden truth ...
Schismatics! Expatriates! Subversives! Deceivers! Silversmiths!
Alibis! Aliases! Anagrams!
An investigative report reveals the hidden truth ...
Five favorite moments in rap history
1973 -- "Blinded by the Light" by Bruce Springsteen. A proto-rap, perhaps, but one more agile and skillful and literate and magnetizing than anything that's been done since.
1978 -- "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang. Released as a twelve-inch vinyl single.
1985, was it? -- WALK THIS WAY!!!!! (.....talk this way) : Run-DMC collides with Aerosmith.
1996 -- My first glimpse of the iconically luminous, ineffably splendid Lauryn Hill in the "Fu-gee-la" video. It's not a question of admiration, and certainly not of political compatibility; it's a matter of awe and wonder and ... being left speechless.
1997 -- "Stomp" by Kirk Franklin & God's Property featuring Cheryl "Salt" James. For the glorious incongruity. Especially evident when you juxtapose Salt's contribution to this spiritual track with the lyrics of "Shoop" ...
1973 -- "Blinded by the Light" by Bruce Springsteen. A proto-rap, perhaps, but one more agile and skillful and literate and magnetizing than anything that's been done since.
1978 -- "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang. Released as a twelve-inch vinyl single.
1985, was it? -- WALK THIS WAY!!!!! (.....talk this way) : Run-DMC collides with Aerosmith.
1996 -- My first glimpse of the iconically luminous, ineffably splendid Lauryn Hill in the "Fu-gee-la" video. It's not a question of admiration, and certainly not of political compatibility; it's a matter of awe and wonder and ... being left speechless.
1997 -- "Stomp" by Kirk Franklin & God's Property featuring Cheryl "Salt" James. For the glorious incongruity. Especially evident when you juxtapose Salt's contribution to this spiritual track with the lyrics of "Shoop" ...
Cavils, complaints, annoyances, vexations, gripes
When bloggers fail to put LRR or some equivalent warning where registration is required to view the link. Not all of us have given our dental records to the great gray lady of New York.
Double-quotes within double-quotes.
Apostrophe after the final two digits of a year (bewildering! maddening! just saw it on TV) : The Blizzard of 78' ...
Not pronouncing "bruschetta" correctly. (Brew sketta !! Not brew shetta.)
When bloggers fail to put LRR or some equivalent warning where registration is required to view the link. Not all of us have given our dental records to the great gray lady of New York.
Double-quotes within double-quotes.
Apostrophe after the final two digits of a year (bewildering! maddening! just saw it on TV) : The Blizzard of 78' ...
Not pronouncing "bruschetta" correctly. (Brew sketta !! Not brew shetta.)
Tuesday this-or-that? Which one Wednesday?
1. Black or white? Ha!
2. Plaid or stripes? Plaid, but pinstripes are permissible. Certainly no stripes as wide as those on the French or Italian flags!
3. Paperback or hardcover books? Oh, of course, paperback -- easier to carry; easier to handle. Hardcovers are for museums.
4. Color or B&W printer? Color.
5. Golden oldies or the newest tunes? I'm a golden oldie (a third of the way to 101) who views the newest tunes with skepticism at best, horror at worst. Never managed to untangle all those 90s bands, Sonic Oasis Nirvana Jam Pearl Hole Garden. Neo-soul, as it's been called, is a salutary antidote to the baser, louder, more violent things out there. But my radio's tuned to jazz, & I think my ineluctable preference in pop or rock is '60s to '80s. There are a few exceptions.
6. Ice cream: in a cone or a dish? Dish. Spoon. Rainbow jimmies.
7. Bath or shower? Shower.
8. Are you outgoing or shy? Always off the mark, whether the mood of the day is intro or extro. Either culpably laconic or nervously garrulous. Never just right. Never moderate.
9. Answer the phone when it rings, or screen calls? I've never regretted screening a call. I've often regretted picking up.
10. VCR or TiVO? Memory! Slideshow! Oil on canvas! Or, if you press me to choose, VCR.
1. Black or white? Ha!
2. Plaid or stripes? Plaid, but pinstripes are permissible. Certainly no stripes as wide as those on the French or Italian flags!
3. Paperback or hardcover books? Oh, of course, paperback -- easier to carry; easier to handle. Hardcovers are for museums.
4. Color or B&W printer? Color.
5. Golden oldies or the newest tunes? I'm a golden oldie (a third of the way to 101) who views the newest tunes with skepticism at best, horror at worst. Never managed to untangle all those 90s bands, Sonic Oasis Nirvana Jam Pearl Hole Garden. Neo-soul, as it's been called, is a salutary antidote to the baser, louder, more violent things out there. But my radio's tuned to jazz, & I think my ineluctable preference in pop or rock is '60s to '80s. There are a few exceptions.
6. Ice cream: in a cone or a dish? Dish. Spoon. Rainbow jimmies.
7. Bath or shower? Shower.
8. Are you outgoing or shy? Always off the mark, whether the mood of the day is intro or extro. Either culpably laconic or nervously garrulous. Never just right. Never moderate.
9. Answer the phone when it rings, or screen calls? I've never regretted screening a call. I've often regretted picking up.
10. VCR or TiVO? Memory! Slideshow! Oil on canvas! Or, if you press me to choose, VCR.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
'03 doesn't measure up
Different methods of measuring.
In '78 they measured snow after it all settled.
Nowadays, they measure "ongoing" ...
If an inch falls in an hour over, let's say 12 hours, those 12 inches can settle to 8 or 10 ... In 1978 they went by the "settled" amount. Nowadays they calculate as it falls.
In other words, the total of 27.5 from yesterday's storm really didn't "surpass" the total of 27.1 from the storm of a quarter-century ago.
But still ... this wasn't a flurry !!
Different methods of measuring.
In '78 they measured snow after it all settled.
Nowadays, they measure "ongoing" ...
If an inch falls in an hour over, let's say 12 hours, those 12 inches can settle to 8 or 10 ... In 1978 they went by the "settled" amount. Nowadays they calculate as it falls.
In other words, the total of 27.5 from yesterday's storm really didn't "surpass" the total of 27.1 from the storm of a quarter-century ago.
But still ... this wasn't a flurry !!
Excerpts from Letter 1
of Letters to a Soul by Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB
You mention your discouragement and the sense of failure. You say you are trying to resist the obvious temptation to be discontented and bitter, and that everything you attempt only increases your feeling of inadequacy. But isn't this because you expected a certain kind of success and have not found it? Wouldn't it be better to accept your limitations and be content within them? It is an art in life to put up with being second best. I don't mean that we must make compromises with our weaknesses, but I do think that we have to admit we are mediocrities. To accept the role we have to play, even if it's a small part when we have the talent to play the more important and successful one, is not to invite failure or frustration. It is to submit to the condition of life that God has planned for us. Once we have made this submission -- which is not a lowering of an ideal but on the contrary, because it essentially involves humility, is a raising of the ideal of serving God in truth -- we are less disappointed at the evidence of our inadequacy. Accepting our mediocrity, while all the time trying to make the most of our opportunity, not only brings a certain peace but is what the parable of the talents is all about. So long as we don't bury the insignificant talent, and put the blame on God for its insignificance, we can go on trading with it as effectively as the more talented.
***
More and more as I get older I come to see the wisdom of St Francis de Sales where he says Là où Dieu nous a semés il faut savoir fleurir. But it takes a lot of learning. St Paul taught the same thing : 'I have learned in whatsoever state I am to be content therewith.' Don't you think contentment is about as much as we can hope for? I don't think we can expect happiness -- not as an abiding condition anyway -- so to be reasonably contented with what we have salvaged from the flotsam and jetsam of life is a good for which we should be grateful. All it needs is to trust in God's providence, and to work on the virtue of hope. The important thing is to believe that God has made you what you are, has put you in a particular century in which to do that work. Don't try to break out of the ring of God's providence. By accepting its boundaries, you arrive, paradoxically, at freedom. By banging your head against them you don't get rid of them and you only give yourself a headache.
H. van Zeller, op cit. (Templegate, 1976), pp. 7-9.
of Letters to a Soul by Dom Hubert van Zeller, OSB
You mention your discouragement and the sense of failure. You say you are trying to resist the obvious temptation to be discontented and bitter, and that everything you attempt only increases your feeling of inadequacy. But isn't this because you expected a certain kind of success and have not found it? Wouldn't it be better to accept your limitations and be content within them? It is an art in life to put up with being second best. I don't mean that we must make compromises with our weaknesses, but I do think that we have to admit we are mediocrities. To accept the role we have to play, even if it's a small part when we have the talent to play the more important and successful one, is not to invite failure or frustration. It is to submit to the condition of life that God has planned for us. Once we have made this submission -- which is not a lowering of an ideal but on the contrary, because it essentially involves humility, is a raising of the ideal of serving God in truth -- we are less disappointed at the evidence of our inadequacy. Accepting our mediocrity, while all the time trying to make the most of our opportunity, not only brings a certain peace but is what the parable of the talents is all about. So long as we don't bury the insignificant talent, and put the blame on God for its insignificance, we can go on trading with it as effectively as the more talented.
***
More and more as I get older I come to see the wisdom of St Francis de Sales where he says Là où Dieu nous a semés il faut savoir fleurir. But it takes a lot of learning. St Paul taught the same thing : 'I have learned in whatsoever state I am to be content therewith.' Don't you think contentment is about as much as we can hope for? I don't think we can expect happiness -- not as an abiding condition anyway -- so to be reasonably contented with what we have salvaged from the flotsam and jetsam of life is a good for which we should be grateful. All it needs is to trust in God's providence, and to work on the virtue of hope. The important thing is to believe that God has made you what you are, has put you in a particular century in which to do that work. Don't try to break out of the ring of God's providence. By accepting its boundaries, you arrive, paradoxically, at freedom. By banging your head against them you don't get rid of them and you only give yourself a headache.
H. van Zeller, op cit. (Templegate, 1976), pp. 7-9.
Paul Evdokimov
In the catacombs, the most frequent image is the figure of a woman in prayer, the Orans; she represents the one true attitude of the human soul. It is not enough to say prayers; one must become, be prayer, prayer incarnate. It is not enough to have moments of praise. All of life, each act, every gesture, even the smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should not offer what one has, but what one is. ... It translates the message of the Gospel : khaíre, "rejoice and be glad," "let everything that has breath praise the Lord." This is the astonishing lightening of the weight of the world, when man's own heaviness vanishes.
Via Daily Readings in Orthodox Spirituality, ed. P. Bouteneff (Templegate Publishers, 1996), p. 55. Originally appeared in The Sacrament of Love (SVS Press, 1985), pp. 61-63.
In the catacombs, the most frequent image is the figure of a woman in prayer, the Orans; she represents the one true attitude of the human soul. It is not enough to say prayers; one must become, be prayer, prayer incarnate. It is not enough to have moments of praise. All of life, each act, every gesture, even the smile of the human face, must become a hymn of adoration, an offering, a prayer. One should not offer what one has, but what one is. ... It translates the message of the Gospel : khaíre, "rejoice and be glad," "let everything that has breath praise the Lord." This is the astonishing lightening of the weight of the world, when man's own heaviness vanishes.
Via Daily Readings in Orthodox Spirituality, ed. P. Bouteneff (Templegate Publishers, 1996), p. 55. Originally appeared in The Sacrament of Love (SVS Press, 1985), pp. 61-63.
I share this tendency
Over the years, wherever I've been on the political spectrum, right or left or middle, whatever I've thought about religion, etc., I've been driven by one intense and unswerving conviction :
I'm right. Everyone else is wrong.
And if only more people could be like me, the world would be a better place.
The blogger at Doxos, on the occasion of the Sunday of the Pharisee and the Publican, reflects on the pharisaical habit of self-attributed wisdom, virtue, certitude ... accusing himself primarily, but I smile as I recognize myself in what he writes.
With the note that DHR makes on prayer, it might delight him to hear an anecdote about the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who, when asked about his prayer-life, described it thus : "I prayed this morning. I talked to God."
For how long?
"I talked to God for one minute. But it took me twenty-nine minutes to get there."
Over the years, wherever I've been on the political spectrum, right or left or middle, whatever I've thought about religion, etc., I've been driven by one intense and unswerving conviction :
I'm right. Everyone else is wrong.
And if only more people could be like me, the world would be a better place.
The blogger at Doxos, on the occasion of the Sunday of the Pharisee and the Publican, reflects on the pharisaical habit of self-attributed wisdom, virtue, certitude ... accusing himself primarily, but I smile as I recognize myself in what he writes.
With the note that DHR makes on prayer, it might delight him to hear an anecdote about the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, who, when asked about his prayer-life, described it thus : "I prayed this morning. I talked to God."
For how long?
"I talked to God for one minute. But it took me twenty-nine minutes to get there."
But we have to remember, though
that the really big problem is this oppressive Roman centralism & intransigent liturgical restorationism much deplored by Curly Reinhardt, Commieweasel, Noise of the Fretful, & all the other obstreperous twerps of tallerwince, not excluding ('twould appear) the freewheeling presbyter described here.
The other problem : There's just not enough doing community, being community, having community, eating community, drinking community, breathing community ... taking communnity into the whizzenzimmer, breaking the wind of community ...
Not exactly connected with the complaint at the other weblog, but I've always wondered : These priests who shove the word and the concept of "community" down our throats four hundred ninety-six times per homily -- who seem to think that the primary purpose of the dominical liturgy is social interaction -- what do they think we do the other hundred hours of the week that we're awake? Are we all stylites? Recluses? Cave-dwellers? Hermits? Do we not occasionally bump into other people? Isn't "community" something we always (too often!) have with us? Vocata at non vocata, communitas aderit?
Can't we have one hour or more each week where we take our attention away from each other, and direct it as one praying body toward the sweet Lord Jesus and the holy eucharistic Sacrifice?
Where's the transcendence? Where's the silence?
Incidentally, Bishop Seraphim Sigrist in his book Theology of Wonder has a wonderful meditation [chapter 7] on silence in the liturgy. I wish all Catholic priests could be compelled to read this chapter, & perhaps write it out ten times, or until they have it memorized.
Forgive the underoptimism, but I'm beginning to think that Papa Wojtyla's just about the only living Catholic who's getting things right.
that the really big problem is this oppressive Roman centralism & intransigent liturgical restorationism much deplored by Curly Reinhardt, Commieweasel, Noise of the Fretful, & all the other obstreperous twerps of tallerwince, not excluding ('twould appear) the freewheeling presbyter described here.
The other problem : There's just not enough doing community, being community, having community, eating community, drinking community, breathing community ... taking communnity into the whizzenzimmer, breaking the wind of community ...
Not exactly connected with the complaint at the other weblog, but I've always wondered : These priests who shove the word and the concept of "community" down our throats four hundred ninety-six times per homily -- who seem to think that the primary purpose of the dominical liturgy is social interaction -- what do they think we do the other hundred hours of the week that we're awake? Are we all stylites? Recluses? Cave-dwellers? Hermits? Do we not occasionally bump into other people? Isn't "community" something we always (too often!) have with us? Vocata at non vocata, communitas aderit?
Can't we have one hour or more each week where we take our attention away from each other, and direct it as one praying body toward the sweet Lord Jesus and the holy eucharistic Sacrifice?
Where's the transcendence? Where's the silence?
Incidentally, Bishop Seraphim Sigrist in his book Theology of Wonder has a wonderful meditation [chapter 7] on silence in the liturgy. I wish all Catholic priests could be compelled to read this chapter, & perhaps write it out ten times, or until they have it memorized.
Forgive the underoptimism, but I'm beginning to think that Papa Wojtyla's just about the only living Catholic who's getting things right.
Common thread quiz
We didn't get a blizzard of answers, or even of guesses. KTC wins -- the only entrant, & one who was clever enough to use a search engine -- which was only helpful because, well, great minds think alike.
1. Christmas in French is Noël ...
2. Lauryn Hill's middle name is Noel.
3. And the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life is NOEL.
And that's the common thread! Try this one (perhaps easier?) :
1. The Today Show
2. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
3. Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney
We didn't get a blizzard of answers, or even of guesses. KTC wins -- the only entrant, & one who was clever enough to use a search engine -- which was only helpful because, well, great minds think alike.
1. Christmas in French is Noël ...
2. Lauryn Hill's middle name is Noel.
3. And the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life is NOEL.
And that's the common thread! Try this one (perhaps easier?) :
1. The Today Show
2. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
3. Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney
We beat '78
in terms of total snowfall (27.5") and we may get 3 or 4 more inches later in the day. Right now we're in a lull. If you're in the Boston area, & you have a camera, take lots of pictures !!
And Mitt did the sweater thing !! (Translation : Our governor gave a press conference, in the manner of Michael Dukakis in 1978, in a sweater.)
But trust me, kids -- nothing can beat 1978. We've had some fun things since then, but nothing can beat the sensation of being eight and a half and seeing those two mammoth storms. Nothing can beat no school for nearly a month. All right, we've got a better president, and possibly a better governor now. But '78 was immortal, and this (despite the profusion of snow that surpassed its ancestor) comparatively placid.
Or am I getting old? Or used to it, having seen four of the five largest snowfalls in recorded Boston history?
The April one, six years ago, was fun. Rain turning to six inches of snow predicted -- 25 inches of snow received! Conversation overheard between two cops. "Did you shovel? "I'm gonna use the Italian shovel -- the sun." In April, that can work!
And January of '96 -- with its rapid succession of two (or was it three?) storms between 12 and 18 inches, where snow was piled in Post Office Square as high as, well, the post office!
Any storm where you can walk in the street, where the traffic is exclusively pedestrian, is fun. But nothing beats '78.
in terms of total snowfall (27.5") and we may get 3 or 4 more inches later in the day. Right now we're in a lull. If you're in the Boston area, & you have a camera, take lots of pictures !!
And Mitt did the sweater thing !! (Translation : Our governor gave a press conference, in the manner of Michael Dukakis in 1978, in a sweater.)
But trust me, kids -- nothing can beat 1978. We've had some fun things since then, but nothing can beat the sensation of being eight and a half and seeing those two mammoth storms. Nothing can beat no school for nearly a month. All right, we've got a better president, and possibly a better governor now. But '78 was immortal, and this (despite the profusion of snow that surpassed its ancestor) comparatively placid.
Or am I getting old? Or used to it, having seen four of the five largest snowfalls in recorded Boston history?
The April one, six years ago, was fun. Rain turning to six inches of snow predicted -- 25 inches of snow received! Conversation overheard between two cops. "Did you shovel? "I'm gonna use the Italian shovel -- the sun." In April, that can work!
And January of '96 -- with its rapid succession of two (or was it three?) storms between 12 and 18 inches, where snow was piled in Post Office Square as high as, well, the post office!
Any storm where you can walk in the street, where the traffic is exclusively pedestrian, is fun. But nothing beats '78.
Just between me & my notebook
dreadfully jolly pontifications on poetry,
solemnly trivial jottings on politics :
nonsequiturs, apothegms & bits of stray dialogue ;
culture at its finest
"Perspicuous opacity." Phrase Miss Moore used to praise Gertrude Stein. I like opacity, perspicuous or (as is oftener the case) not.
Democrats are entertaining devils. Republicans do less damage.
It's England o'clock in London.
Can't avoid feeling as if I'm in the home stretch of a very long and tiring baseball season.
Bibliographies. Benedictines. Those awful, awesome Ashbery poems.
If everything had gone according to Hoyle we would've been in & out in half an hour, forty-five minutes tops.
Anything is possible if you don't put your mind to it.
Iambics can get too portentous. Or is that pretentious? A good prose poem keeps things comic. Except for tame James Tate who doesn't page my beeper or make me laugh.
We need more communists in poetry. More subscribers to treason chic. More anti-Mosaic black radicals, more lesbians and porcupines, more angry armadillos. A few more sarcastic minimalists wouldn't hurt. Several dozen ambassadors of the aleatoric. Promiscuous technicians of Sodom, scrupulous harlots from Gomorrah. Tongue-tied confessional charlatans with pierced blue brains. Snail-suckers, lint-spinners & lemon-biting rodhamites. Disreputable professors with marijuana beards (hammer 'staches and sickle sideburns) who know much better than the sweet Lord Jesus how to run the bloody universe. And they all should invade 1600 and jabber of peace. And blather of love. And yak about pretzels. And congratulate themselves on infinite understanding.
Me, I'll take George Ivan, muttering mystic dithyrambs about William Blake and the Eternals shining their light into the days of, what is it, glory and wonder? over the daughtersons of spiteful ephemera.
Everybody plays the fool, sometimes. But the cool fools know it. The vile ones think they're unfailingly wise & impeccably true.
"The truly beautiful, their bodies cannot lie." Where have you gone, Theodore Roethke? Our nation turns its thirsty soul, its irritated mind, its burning eyes, its parched exhausted heart, unto you ...
Language poets, beware! It's the Clement Clarke Moores that get remembered. Say something worth saying. And worth listening to. Ape a trend & you're up Schlitz Creek without an ampersand.
Cummings & Herrick. Fraternal twins, equal in merit, born centuries apart. (I don't care what the usually sagacious Mr H says on the subject.)
dreadfully jolly pontifications on poetry,
solemnly trivial jottings on politics :
nonsequiturs, apothegms & bits of stray dialogue ;
culture at its finest
"Perspicuous opacity." Phrase Miss Moore used to praise Gertrude Stein. I like opacity, perspicuous or (as is oftener the case) not.
Democrats are entertaining devils. Republicans do less damage.
It's England o'clock in London.
Can't avoid feeling as if I'm in the home stretch of a very long and tiring baseball season.
Bibliographies. Benedictines. Those awful, awesome Ashbery poems.
If everything had gone according to Hoyle we would've been in & out in half an hour, forty-five minutes tops.
Anything is possible if you don't put your mind to it.
Iambics can get too portentous. Or is that pretentious? A good prose poem keeps things comic. Except for tame James Tate who doesn't page my beeper or make me laugh.
We need more communists in poetry. More subscribers to treason chic. More anti-Mosaic black radicals, more lesbians and porcupines, more angry armadillos. A few more sarcastic minimalists wouldn't hurt. Several dozen ambassadors of the aleatoric. Promiscuous technicians of Sodom, scrupulous harlots from Gomorrah. Tongue-tied confessional charlatans with pierced blue brains. Snail-suckers, lint-spinners & lemon-biting rodhamites. Disreputable professors with marijuana beards (hammer 'staches and sickle sideburns) who know much better than the sweet Lord Jesus how to run the bloody universe. And they all should invade 1600 and jabber of peace. And blather of love. And yak about pretzels. And congratulate themselves on infinite understanding.
Me, I'll take George Ivan, muttering mystic dithyrambs about William Blake and the Eternals shining their light into the days of, what is it, glory and wonder? over the daughtersons of spiteful ephemera.
Everybody plays the fool, sometimes. But the cool fools know it. The vile ones think they're unfailingly wise & impeccably true.
"The truly beautiful, their bodies cannot lie." Where have you gone, Theodore Roethke? Our nation turns its thirsty soul, its irritated mind, its burning eyes, its parched exhausted heart, unto you ...
Language poets, beware! It's the Clement Clarke Moores that get remembered. Say something worth saying. And worth listening to. Ape a trend & you're up Schlitz Creek without an ampersand.
Cummings & Herrick. Fraternal twins, equal in merit, born centuries apart. (I don't care what the usually sagacious Mr H says on the subject.)
Monday, February 17, 2003
18 inches of snow
and several more inches to come through the night and tomorrow, which should put (can we say it?) The Blizzard of 20-oh-3 into the top five Boston snowstorms, behind Feb. 1978, Feb. 1969, April '97, and Jan. '78 ... maybe even ahead of the January storm (21.4") ...
We should easily beat NYC's 19 inches, and come rather close to Baltimore's 26.
and several more inches to come through the night and tomorrow, which should put (can we say it?) The Blizzard of 20-oh-3 into the top five Boston snowstorms, behind Feb. 1978, Feb. 1969, April '97, and Jan. '78 ... maybe even ahead of the January storm (21.4") ...
We should easily beat NYC's 19 inches, and come rather close to Baltimore's 26.
Irish? Jewish? Scottish? English?
A recent Globe column takes a lighthearted look at the various ethnicities of Massachusetts junior senator John Forbes Kerry -- whose recuperation from recent surgery, we hope and pray, continues apace.
A recent Globe column takes a lighthearted look at the various ethnicities of Massachusetts junior senator John Forbes Kerry -- whose recuperation from recent surgery, we hope and pray, continues apace.
Sticking with Haloscan
... with apologies to the two friendly souls that posted comments on the briefly installed enetation !!
But one of the primary advantages of Haloscan is the ability to see all the most recent posts, regardless of where on the weblog they've been placed, and the ease with which one can delete incivil comments or ban incivil commentators.
Haloscan provides a page listing the IP numbers of banned commentators. Such a page comes in very handy, as I've discovered.
There's a fellow flitting around St Blog's who switch-hits between surnameless pseudonyms, and who has vexed at least three bloggers that I know of. On more than one occasion, the fellow was injudicious enough to leave an email address.
I will provide both pseudonyms, the email address, and the IP identification number(s) to any fellow blogger upon request.
... with apologies to the two friendly souls that posted comments on the briefly installed enetation !!
But one of the primary advantages of Haloscan is the ability to see all the most recent posts, regardless of where on the weblog they've been placed, and the ease with which one can delete incivil comments or ban incivil commentators.
Haloscan provides a page listing the IP numbers of banned commentators. Such a page comes in very handy, as I've discovered.
There's a fellow flitting around St Blog's who switch-hits between surnameless pseudonyms, and who has vexed at least three bloggers that I know of. On more than one occasion, the fellow was injudicious enough to leave an email address.
I will provide both pseudonyms, the email address, and the IP identification number(s) to any fellow blogger upon request.
What is the common thread?
1. Christmas
2. Lauryn Hill
3. Pro-life Episcopalians
Answer (necessarily!) by e-mail. Will post the correct answer within 48 hours of receiving the first "winning" response! We have a winner ... silver & bronze medals still available !!
Oh, yes : in the comment-box a while ago, I asked what Roberta Flack & Al Gore had in common. The answer is Lieberman. Al Gore's running mate in 2000 was Joe Lieberman. "Killing Me Softly ..." was first recorded by Lori Lieberman.
1. Christmas
2. Lauryn Hill
3. Pro-life Episcopalians
Answer (necessarily!) by e-mail. Will post the correct answer within 48 hours of receiving the first "winning" response! We have a winner ... silver & bronze medals still available !!
Oh, yes : in the comment-box a while ago, I asked what Roberta Flack & Al Gore had in common. The answer is Lieberman. Al Gore's running mate in 2000 was Joe Lieberman. "Killing Me Softly ..." was first recorded by Lori Lieberman.
Love & diversity
What they have in common : You can't force love at gunpoint. Roger Clegg's must-must-MUST-must-read at NRO.
Warning : This column may be too rational, too sensible, too sane for some readers out there ... but I suspect those readers have long since stopped visiting ...
Or, to put it another way, diversity's benefits are like love: Love is wonderful, no one is against love, but it cannot be forced. Or like happiness: One is much more likely to reach it if one is not obsessing about finding it. Diversity achieved by bean-counting and quota-mongering is not only not any good, it is worse than colorblind nondiversity.
And to quote myself : Juxtaposition does not necessarily lead to communion.
What they have in common : You can't force love at gunpoint. Roger Clegg's must-must-MUST-must-read at NRO.
Warning : This column may be too rational, too sensible, too sane for some readers out there ... but I suspect those readers have long since stopped visiting ...
Or, to put it another way, diversity's benefits are like love: Love is wonderful, no one is against love, but it cannot be forced. Or like happiness: One is much more likely to reach it if one is not obsessing about finding it. Diversity achieved by bean-counting and quota-mongering is not only not any good, it is worse than colorblind nondiversity.
And to quote myself : Juxtaposition does not necessarily lead to communion.
The induplicable, irreplaceable, invaluable Peggy Noonan
has bought her duct tape and her 10-year-old single-malt Scotch, her asparagus and her crackers. She deflates a few urban legends, kicks the French in the escargots, and praises Dennis Miller for his rare fit of common sense in this, her latest at opinionjournal.com.
has bought her duct tape and her 10-year-old single-malt Scotch, her asparagus and her crackers. She deflates a few urban legends, kicks the French in the escargots, and praises Dennis Miller for his rare fit of common sense in this, her latest at opinionjournal.com.
It's coming ...
The Snow-Storm
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
The Snow-Storm
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
Popular baby names
Really fun search engine and charts of popular names from the Social Security Administration.
Really fun search engine and charts of popular names from the Social Security Administration.
Sunday, February 16, 2003
from Approach to Prayer
by Dom Hubert Van Zeller, OSB (1904-84)
Whatever success there is in the work of restoration depends primarily not upon either penance or prayer but upon the grace of God. It is in Christ that we are restored, not in our own effort. But in order that Christ's merits may be drawn upon, there has to be an element of co-operation on the part of the soul. This co-operation is expressed in the twofold response of penance and prayer.
***
Peace is possible only when the warring elements have agreed to recognize certain rights. The soul can know peace only when the warring elements inside itself have agreed to surrender to God. Where there has been rebellion, the rebels must relearn the grammar of authority; they must begin again.
It is by faith that man works his way back. First by faith in Christ, who grants him adoption into the family of God; second by faith as exercised in prayer. Work, suffering, human relationships -- indeed the whole of life -- is the field of this faith.
***
A man's faith is consequently the measure of his prayer, and his prayer is the sign of his faith and love. Thus the level at which the soul lives is conditioned by the life of faith and the life of prayer.
Just as there can be no prayer where there is no faith, so there can be no supernatural conceptions of God without faith. By the light of reason a man may come to know something about God, but unless this knowledge is informed by the light of faith it will not help him to form a supernatural idea of God. It will not elicit an act of love.
Where the soul's conceptions of God, and of God's dealings with man, are of a material order, the soul's prayer will be of a material order. Where knowledge of Christ is superficial, prayer will be superficial.
Knowledge of Christ is something more than knowledge about Christ, and in order to know him in spirit and in truth the soul must learn to pray in spirit and in truth.
The soul that prays in spirit and in truth learns to live at the level of spirit and truth. The spiritual life is nothing else than this -- the soul allowing itself to be drawn by grace into the deeper knowledge and love of God, who is truth itself.
Van Zeller, op. cit. (Sheed & Ward, 1958), pp. 5-8, passim.
by Dom Hubert Van Zeller, OSB (1904-84)
Whatever success there is in the work of restoration depends primarily not upon either penance or prayer but upon the grace of God. It is in Christ that we are restored, not in our own effort. But in order that Christ's merits may be drawn upon, there has to be an element of co-operation on the part of the soul. This co-operation is expressed in the twofold response of penance and prayer.
***
Peace is possible only when the warring elements have agreed to recognize certain rights. The soul can know peace only when the warring elements inside itself have agreed to surrender to God. Where there has been rebellion, the rebels must relearn the grammar of authority; they must begin again.
It is by faith that man works his way back. First by faith in Christ, who grants him adoption into the family of God; second by faith as exercised in prayer. Work, suffering, human relationships -- indeed the whole of life -- is the field of this faith.
***
A man's faith is consequently the measure of his prayer, and his prayer is the sign of his faith and love. Thus the level at which the soul lives is conditioned by the life of faith and the life of prayer.
Just as there can be no prayer where there is no faith, so there can be no supernatural conceptions of God without faith. By the light of reason a man may come to know something about God, but unless this knowledge is informed by the light of faith it will not help him to form a supernatural idea of God. It will not elicit an act of love.
Where the soul's conceptions of God, and of God's dealings with man, are of a material order, the soul's prayer will be of a material order. Where knowledge of Christ is superficial, prayer will be superficial.
Knowledge of Christ is something more than knowledge about Christ, and in order to know him in spirit and in truth the soul must learn to pray in spirit and in truth.
The soul that prays in spirit and in truth learns to live at the level of spirit and truth. The spiritual life is nothing else than this -- the soul allowing itself to be drawn by grace into the deeper knowledge and love of God, who is truth itself.
Van Zeller, op. cit. (Sheed & Ward, 1958), pp. 5-8, passim.
The Boston Sunday Globe
(specifically, religion editor Michael Paulson) gives us a largely sympathetic portrait of the Apostolic Administrator of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Bishop Richard Gerard Lennon. The usual suspects get in their usual jibes, but those are brief and almost not worth mentioning. On the whole, a sanely written, fair, balanced, sometimes laudatory & laudable piece of writing.
The article takes note of Bishop Lennon's having conquered a stutter, but not having conquered "a notoriously unmelodic singing voice" -- one which in no wise impairs his love of music!
Link spotted first at the Catholic Blog for Lovers.
(specifically, religion editor Michael Paulson) gives us a largely sympathetic portrait of the Apostolic Administrator of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, Bishop Richard Gerard Lennon. The usual suspects get in their usual jibes, but those are brief and almost not worth mentioning. On the whole, a sanely written, fair, balanced, sometimes laudatory & laudable piece of writing.
The article takes note of Bishop Lennon's having conquered a stutter, but not having conquered "a notoriously unmelodic singing voice" -- one which in no wise impairs his love of music!
Link spotted first at the Catholic Blog for Lovers.
A pair of poetry links
A link to a poem called "Tenebrae" by Paul Celan (1920-70). Note : In English translation (from the German); translator unknown. Part of a website called "Art of Europe." Will have to examine; am considering linking to it in Places Oft.
And from the Academy of American Poets, an ebullient "interview" (conducted by e-mail) with American poet Heather McHugh (b. 1948). McHugh has translated the poetry of Celan into English. She confesses in this essay answer to an interviewer's question(s) to "logophiliacal obsessions," to an enchantment with the etymological, and to a distaste for the merely personal or the pretentiously political. I like much of what she says, and am not put off in the least by the antic punstering that would have been nearly impossible in a conventional interview. Note : the link to Part Two of the interview doesn't work.
A link to a poem called "Tenebrae" by Paul Celan (1920-70). Note : In English translation (from the German); translator unknown. Part of a website called "Art of Europe." Will have to examine; am considering linking to it in Places Oft.
And from the Academy of American Poets, an ebullient "interview" (conducted by e-mail) with American poet Heather McHugh (b. 1948). McHugh has translated the poetry of Celan into English. She confesses in this essay answer to an interviewer's question(s) to "logophiliacal obsessions," to an enchantment with the etymological, and to a distaste for the merely personal or the pretentiously political. I like much of what she says, and am not put off in the least by the antic punstering that would have been nearly impossible in a conventional interview. Note : the link to Part Two of the interview doesn't work.
Chapter
Autumn's revision, brothers, must be bold,
Hatred forsaken, avarice cast aside.
November is austerity's beginning,
Slaying of blisses, end of blithest dream.
All vex and blither, language that explores
Our grandest griefs, pretending to explain.
Transcribe belle mort, bête jaune, invidium.
Our psalmody make plain, our lives make pure.
All words have meaning. Nature's fleeting words
In season, out of season, sermonize :
The Preacher's chasing after wind, Job's woes,
Bitterest balm of perishing and birth.
But have we eyes to see or ears to hear
The messages, the proofs, the pictures plain?
Truth of a time, of every saeculum,
Impinging on the sacred-sordid globe,
Invading groves of plastic, lakes of glass,
To change the page, alter the chronicle
Of hearts and spirits, merrily sad, all souls
Briskly evading their terrible greatest need.
2000
Autumn's revision, brothers, must be bold,
Hatred forsaken, avarice cast aside.
November is austerity's beginning,
Slaying of blisses, end of blithest dream.
All vex and blither, language that explores
Our grandest griefs, pretending to explain.
Transcribe belle mort, bête jaune, invidium.
Our psalmody make plain, our lives make pure.
All words have meaning. Nature's fleeting words
In season, out of season, sermonize :
The Preacher's chasing after wind, Job's woes,
Bitterest balm of perishing and birth.
But have we eyes to see or ears to hear
The messages, the proofs, the pictures plain?
Truth of a time, of every saeculum,
Impinging on the sacred-sordid globe,
Invading groves of plastic, lakes of glass,
To change the page, alter the chronicle
Of hearts and spirits, merrily sad, all souls
Briskly evading their terrible greatest need.
2000
Saturday, February 15, 2003
Solidarity. The Pope. And 14 billion types of vodka.
I have this little Polish phrasebook, one of those five-dollar jobbies that give you just the basics, and if you go to the Restaurant section of this phrasebook, it gives you a little menu of various comestibles & potables you might encounter during your sojourn in Poland. Apparently, the papal homeland is really big on vodka. There are several vodka-related terms in this phrasebook, including :
Cytrynówka : lemon-flavored vodka
Jarzebiak : rowanberry-flavored vodka
Mysliwska : hunters' juniper berry-flavored vodka
Pieprzówka : pepper-flavored vodka
Soplica : flavored, dry vodka
Wisniak : medium-sweet, cherry-flavored vodka
Wisniówka : sweet, cherry-flavored vodka
Wyborowa : dry, clear vodka
Zubrówka : vodka with a blade of bison grass in the bottle
Zytnia : clear, dry vodka
Kieliszek wódki : glass of vodka
:: :: :: :: ::
If I ever need a liver transplant ... remind me not to get it done in Warsaw!
I have this little Polish phrasebook, one of those five-dollar jobbies that give you just the basics, and if you go to the Restaurant section of this phrasebook, it gives you a little menu of various comestibles & potables you might encounter during your sojourn in Poland. Apparently, the papal homeland is really big on vodka. There are several vodka-related terms in this phrasebook, including :
Cytrynówka : lemon-flavored vodka
Jarzebiak : rowanberry-flavored vodka
Mysliwska : hunters' juniper berry-flavored vodka
Pieprzówka : pepper-flavored vodka
Soplica : flavored, dry vodka
Wisniak : medium-sweet, cherry-flavored vodka
Wisniówka : sweet, cherry-flavored vodka
Wyborowa : dry, clear vodka
Zubrówka : vodka with a blade of bison grass in the bottle
Zytnia : clear, dry vodka
Kieliszek wódki : glass of vodka
:: :: :: :: ::
If I ever need a liver transplant ... remind me not to get it done in Warsaw!
Not very encouraging
This charming little chanson (WARNING : bad language) is currently #1 on the BET countdown.
This charming little chanson (WARNING : bad language) is currently #1 on the BET countdown.
True grit
Vinny Gambini : How could it take you 5 minutes to cook your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world 20 minutes?
Mr. Tipton : Um...I'm a fast cook, I guess.
Vinny Gambini : You're a fast cook? Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than any place on the face of the earth?
Mr. Tipton : I don't know.
Vinny Gambini : Perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove! Were these magic grits? Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?
Vinny Gambini : How could it take you 5 minutes to cook your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world 20 minutes?
Mr. Tipton : Um...I'm a fast cook, I guess.
Vinny Gambini : You're a fast cook? Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than any place on the face of the earth?
Mr. Tipton : I don't know.
Vinny Gambini : Perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove! Were these magic grits? Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?
If a tune plagues the ear
as Marianne Moore advises
the best thing is to let it forth unhindered. Throw your homework onto the fire! Yes, the Smiths, if you were wondering ...
as Marianne Moore advises
the best thing is to let it forth unhindered. Throw your homework onto the fire! Yes, the Smiths, if you were wondering ...
the girl is only comfortable in her father's presence when her 14-year-old, six-foot-one-inch brother is near
C'est un mystère inexplicable.
C'est un mystère inexplicable.
In case you missed it
... every no[w] and again I'd trot down to Commander Salamander's in Georgetown and get my hair spiked and done in a variety of non-natural, but quite washable colors.
Need we say that this is somewhat at variance with the mental picture we had formulated?
... every no[w] and again I'd trot down to Commander Salamander's in Georgetown and get my hair spiked and done in a variety of non-natural, but quite washable colors.
Need we say that this is somewhat at variance with the mental picture we had formulated?
Psalm 49. Audite haec, omnes.
O HEAR ye this, all ye people; * ponder it with your ears, all ye that dwell in the world;
2 High and low, rich and poor, * one with another.
3 My mouth shall speak of wisdom, * and my heart shall muse of understanding.
4 I will incline mine ear to the parable, * and show my dark speech upon the harp.
5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, * when wickedness at my heels compasseth me round about?
6 There be some that put their trust in their goods, * and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches.
7 But no man may deliver his brother, * nor give a ransom unto God for him,
8 (For it cost more to redeem their souls, * so that he must let that alone for ever;)
9 That he shall live alway, * and not see the grave.
10 For he seeth that wise men also die and perish together, * as well as the ignorant and foolish, and leave their riches for other.
11 And yet they think that their houses shall continue for ever, and that their dwelling-places shall endure from one generation to another; * and call the lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless, man being in honour abideth not, * seeing he may be compared unto the beasts that perish;
13 This their way is very foolishness; * yet their posterity praise their saying.
14 They lie in the grave like sheep; death is their shepherd; and the righteous shall have dominion over them in the morning: * their beauty shall consume in the sepulchre, and have no abiding.
15 But God hath delivered my soul from the power of the grave; * for he shall receive me.
16 Be not thou afraid, though one be made rich, * or if the glory of his house be increased;
17 For he shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth, * neither shall his pomp follow him.
18 For while he lived, he counted himself an happy man; * and so long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak good of thee.
19 He shall follow the generation of his fathers, * and shall never see light.
20 Man that is in honour but hath no understanding * is compared unto the beasts that perish.
O HEAR ye this, all ye people; * ponder it with your ears, all ye that dwell in the world;
2 High and low, rich and poor, * one with another.
3 My mouth shall speak of wisdom, * and my heart shall muse of understanding.
4 I will incline mine ear to the parable, * and show my dark speech upon the harp.
5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, * when wickedness at my heels compasseth me round about?
6 There be some that put their trust in their goods, * and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches.
7 But no man may deliver his brother, * nor give a ransom unto God for him,
8 (For it cost more to redeem their souls, * so that he must let that alone for ever;)
9 That he shall live alway, * and not see the grave.
10 For he seeth that wise men also die and perish together, * as well as the ignorant and foolish, and leave their riches for other.
11 And yet they think that their houses shall continue for ever, and that their dwelling-places shall endure from one generation to another; * and call the lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless, man being in honour abideth not, * seeing he may be compared unto the beasts that perish;
13 This their way is very foolishness; * yet their posterity praise their saying.
14 They lie in the grave like sheep; death is their shepherd; and the righteous shall have dominion over them in the morning: * their beauty shall consume in the sepulchre, and have no abiding.
15 But God hath delivered my soul from the power of the grave; * for he shall receive me.
16 Be not thou afraid, though one be made rich, * or if the glory of his house be increased;
17 For he shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth, * neither shall his pomp follow him.
18 For while he lived, he counted himself an happy man; * and so long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak good of thee.
19 He shall follow the generation of his fathers, * and shall never see light.
20 Man that is in honour but hath no understanding * is compared unto the beasts that perish.
Friday, February 14, 2003
dylanesque comment chez Riddle
the 1970s, continued
Hell, a herd of Winnebagoes, we're givin' 'em away! Or how about a McCullough chainsaw?
Fee. And, for that matter, Midge.
So glad you mentioned Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry ("More than This," 1982). Although Origen tells me he prefers Bryan Adams, for "Cuts Like a Knife."
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
Boomtown Rats for "I don't like Mondays."
Réalisant mon espoir, je me lance vers l'étoile ...
Oh, squidnunc! How in the name of all things Sumnerian could we forget "Roxanne" or "Message in a Bottle"???
And the Schoolhouse Rock ditties!!!!!!!
the 1970s, continued
Hell, a herd of Winnebagoes, we're givin' 'em away! Or how about a McCullough chainsaw?
Fee. And, for that matter, Midge.
So glad you mentioned Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry ("More than This," 1982). Although Origen tells me he prefers Bryan Adams, for "Cuts Like a Knife."
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
Boomtown Rats for "I don't like Mondays."
Réalisant mon espoir, je me lance vers l'étoile ...
Oh, squidnunc! How in the name of all things Sumnerian could we forget "Roxanne" or "Message in a Bottle"???
And the Schoolhouse Rock ditties!!!!!!!
Yes, indeed, Sir Kairos ...
That audacious comparison can be found in Letters to Malcolm (I don't have page number, as I don't have the book at hand). And I agree : it's either an incredibly fatuous, or an incredibly Holy, way of looking at things. From my limited & all-too-worldly perspective, it's often difficult to distinguish 'twixt the two.
Go read the Kairos Guy, meditating on the question of whether we can see Christ even in the evil emmer effers of the world.
That audacious comparison can be found in Letters to Malcolm (I don't have page number, as I don't have the book at hand). And I agree : it's either an incredibly fatuous, or an incredibly Holy, way of looking at things. From my limited & all-too-worldly perspective, it's often difficult to distinguish 'twixt the two.
Go read the Kairos Guy, meditating on the question of whether we can see Christ even in the evil emmer effers of the world.
Psalm 77 (KJV)
1: I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me.
2: In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
3: I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
4: Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5: I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.
6: I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.
7: Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?
8: Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?
9: Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
10: And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
11: I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.
12: I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.
13: Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?
14: Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.
15: Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
16: The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled.
17: The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
18: The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.
19: Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.
20: Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
1: I cried unto God with my voice, even unto God with my voice; and he gave ear unto me.
2: In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.
3: I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
4: Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5: I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.
6: I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.
7: Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?
8: Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?
9: Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.
10: And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
11: I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.
12: I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.
13: Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary: who is so great a God as our God?
14: Thou art the God that doest wonders: thou hast declared thy strength among the people.
15: Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah.
16: The waters saw thee, O God, the waters saw thee; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled.
17: The clouds poured out water: the skies sent out a sound: thine arrows also went abroad.
18: The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook.
19: Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.
20: Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Nameless nocturne of the 34th winter
Passages of lucidity. A three-degree wind. And having writ.
Jazz version of "Time After Time," with the orange tears intact. O clock radio, tristful and poignant and utterly benedight.
Rules for Good Living. Post it tomorrow.
Dark speech upon the harp. The doctor in Berlin. La demoiselle de Brooklyn, exultant, tyrannical, supreme.
Eccentric mythologies, and a perpetually disastrous disclosure. Keep the veracities tangled up in traffic.
The publicity is closed on account of weather. Rigid, puritanical, the bright wind scowls. Memorandum to Selwyn : No unncessary rules about adjectives.
A plaintive saxophone makes 1984 immediate. All the proper emotions take attendance, and find themselves present.
When did it all begin, was it with Mrs Watkins and the misconstrued syllabus?
If a tune plagues the ear, unhinder it and give it voice. Uncloister, unlock the song.
It was not enough to live within that golden voice, or under the dominion of those dark brown eyes.
Epiphanies of abject flesh and bone.
Zachary's short lines, as unshrill as a murmur. Secure as a president, modest as a saint. And freezing air apostrophized as the unseen savior.
Those were the days of dead leaves in public parks, alternative lyrics of doom, original disparities. This, the creative world in its rust and splendor. Its tinted agonies and blighted bliss.
Those were the reckless afterthoughts of many a cautious day. And was there a moment when the semblances coalesced, when the things of this world made a prettier kind of sense.
Impossible hopes were nourished by the calendar's slow velocity. Miles of proclivity (read : "possibility") lay ahead. But somewhere along the line, at many junctures, in fact, roadblocks and detours. Obstruction, reclusion, retreat.
Ambitions moribund, frosted burgeonings : is there no chronicle that is not of wasted days?
Back to the diaries of Bardstown & vicinity, to the liturgies of loss, to the great entertainment of grief and forsaken glory. Back to the strange-sounding Now with its dusty radiance, its bleary sobriety.
Make note of the smaller triumphs, the precious renunciations. Make note of all those arduous escapes.
Passages of lucidity. A three-degree wind. And having writ.
Jazz version of "Time After Time," with the orange tears intact. O clock radio, tristful and poignant and utterly benedight.
Rules for Good Living. Post it tomorrow.
Dark speech upon the harp. The doctor in Berlin. La demoiselle de Brooklyn, exultant, tyrannical, supreme.
Eccentric mythologies, and a perpetually disastrous disclosure. Keep the veracities tangled up in traffic.
The publicity is closed on account of weather. Rigid, puritanical, the bright wind scowls. Memorandum to Selwyn : No unncessary rules about adjectives.
A plaintive saxophone makes 1984 immediate. All the proper emotions take attendance, and find themselves present.
When did it all begin, was it with Mrs Watkins and the misconstrued syllabus?
If a tune plagues the ear, unhinder it and give it voice. Uncloister, unlock the song.
It was not enough to live within that golden voice, or under the dominion of those dark brown eyes.
Epiphanies of abject flesh and bone.
Zachary's short lines, as unshrill as a murmur. Secure as a president, modest as a saint. And freezing air apostrophized as the unseen savior.
Those were the days of dead leaves in public parks, alternative lyrics of doom, original disparities. This, the creative world in its rust and splendor. Its tinted agonies and blighted bliss.
Those were the reckless afterthoughts of many a cautious day. And was there a moment when the semblances coalesced, when the things of this world made a prettier kind of sense.
Impossible hopes were nourished by the calendar's slow velocity. Miles of proclivity (read : "possibility") lay ahead. But somewhere along the line, at many junctures, in fact, roadblocks and detours. Obstruction, reclusion, retreat.
Ambitions moribund, frosted burgeonings : is there no chronicle that is not of wasted days?
Back to the diaries of Bardstown & vicinity, to the liturgies of loss, to the great entertainment of grief and forsaken glory. Back to the strange-sounding Now with its dusty radiance, its bleary sobriety.
Make note of the smaller triumphs, the precious renunciations. Make note of all those arduous escapes.
Thursday, February 13, 2003
On the other hand
Butterflies are free, penguins don't fly, Democrats are silly and the French eat snails.
On the other hand. I need a light-weight goose-neck desk-lamp.
On the other hand. If this be surrealism, then make the most of it.
On the other hand. The lady Deborah's newly-minted poetical currency (dithyrambs, postage stamps, lucky charms, screwdrivers & the brown paper-bag with Magritte's mendacious legend) refreshes the pockets of a tired winter day.
On the other hand. Have you ever seen anyone run across a tightrope?
On the other hand. The magician's assistants leave nothing to the imagination.
On the other hand. This garret, this turret, this eyrie, this pied-à-ciel ... it sure could use a fireplace.
On the other hand. Digital semaphore requires agile mittens.
On the other hand. Has anybody here seen Frank?
On the other hand. This is not a beer.
On the other hand. Yes. I agree. I think that what you say is so. I think that what you say is true. I like what you say.
On the other hand. Anything before MTV was the seventies. So give me the night.
On the other hand. On the down low, Nick quotes Hamlet and the Psalms of David. Cruel to be kind. All men are liars.
On the other hand. I loved Paula's countdown. It's eighteen degrees. Above or below, I can't tell.
On the other hand. What if that's where the shoe was?
On the other hand. Miranda's memoranda. Mementoes of misspelled moments.
On the other hand. It behooves me when you say that. There's so much normalcy at stake.
Butterflies are free, penguins don't fly, Democrats are silly and the French eat snails.
On the other hand. I need a light-weight goose-neck desk-lamp.
On the other hand. If this be surrealism, then make the most of it.
On the other hand. The lady Deborah's newly-minted poetical currency (dithyrambs, postage stamps, lucky charms, screwdrivers & the brown paper-bag with Magritte's mendacious legend) refreshes the pockets of a tired winter day.
On the other hand. Have you ever seen anyone run across a tightrope?
On the other hand. The magician's assistants leave nothing to the imagination.
On the other hand. This garret, this turret, this eyrie, this pied-à-ciel ... it sure could use a fireplace.
On the other hand. Digital semaphore requires agile mittens.
On the other hand. Has anybody here seen Frank?
On the other hand. This is not a beer.
On the other hand. Yes. I agree. I think that what you say is so. I think that what you say is true. I like what you say.
On the other hand. Anything before MTV was the seventies. So give me the night.
On the other hand. On the down low, Nick quotes Hamlet and the Psalms of David. Cruel to be kind. All men are liars.
On the other hand. I loved Paula's countdown. It's eighteen degrees. Above or below, I can't tell.
On the other hand. What if that's where the shoe was?
On the other hand. Miranda's memoranda. Mementoes of misspelled moments.
On the other hand. It behooves me when you say that. There's so much normalcy at stake.
Seventies songs, you say?
KTC has posted a list -- here's mine (more than 10!)
"A Horse with No Name," America
"American Pie," Don McLean
Something by Sir Elton ("Goodbye, YBR" mayhap)
Maybe something by David Bowie (the Italian version of "Space Oddity"?)
"I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor
"Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang
Maybe something by Paul McCartney & Wings
All in the Family theme song
"We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions", Queen
"Killing Me Softly ..." Roberta Flack
Springsteen? I'll go with "Blinded by the Light," "Born to Run," "Adam Raised a Cain"
Donna Summer, "On the Radio" merits mention because it always sounded to me like she was saying riddy-oh.
10cc, "The Things We Do for Love"
Oh, yes, Rock the boat (don't rock the boat, baby) ... rock the boat (don't tip the boat over ... ) .. the Hues Corporation
Carpenters! "Top of the World," "Hurting Each Other," "Superstar"
But most especially : Van Morrison's "Moondance."
What, no Bee Gees? ("Stayin' Alive" the strongest candidate ... )
No Debby Boone?
Rollin' at sea, adrift on the waters,
Could it be finally I'm turnin' for home?
KTC has posted a list -- here's mine (more than 10!)
"A Horse with No Name," America
"American Pie," Don McLean
Something by Sir Elton ("Goodbye, YBR" mayhap)
Maybe something by David Bowie (the Italian version of "Space Oddity"?)
"I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor
"Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang
Maybe something by Paul McCartney & Wings
All in the Family theme song
"We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions", Queen
"Killing Me Softly ..." Roberta Flack
Springsteen? I'll go with "Blinded by the Light," "Born to Run," "Adam Raised a Cain"
Donna Summer, "On the Radio" merits mention because it always sounded to me like she was saying riddy-oh.
10cc, "The Things We Do for Love"
Oh, yes, Rock the boat (don't rock the boat, baby) ... rock the boat (don't tip the boat over ... ) .. the Hues Corporation
Carpenters! "Top of the World," "Hurting Each Other," "Superstar"
But most especially : Van Morrison's "Moondance."
What, no Bee Gees? ("Stayin' Alive" the strongest candidate ... )
No Debby Boone?
Rollin' at sea, adrift on the waters,
Could it be finally I'm turnin' for home?
Three cheers for Charles Yancey
via the Globe
"I haven't heard any legitimate reason why the building should not be named after Honan [the late Boston city councillor Brian Honan, who died last summer at 39]. I say, 'If there's a problem, let's discuss it in the Menino Wing of the Hyde Park Library.' "
-- Boston City Councilor, and former council president, Charles C. Yancey, tweaking Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on his ostensible reluctance to rename a branch of the Boston Public Library in Allston after Honan, his late colleague. This morning's Globe reports Menino is no longer showing signs of reluctance, and agrees that the honor would be fitting.
via the Globe
"I haven't heard any legitimate reason why the building should not be named after Honan [the late Boston city councillor Brian Honan, who died last summer at 39]. I say, 'If there's a problem, let's discuss it in the Menino Wing of the Hyde Park Library.' "
-- Boston City Councilor, and former council president, Charles C. Yancey, tweaking Boston Mayor Thomas Menino on his ostensible reluctance to rename a branch of the Boston Public Library in Allston after Honan, his late colleague. This morning's Globe reports Menino is no longer showing signs of reluctance, and agrees that the honor would be fitting.
Pelosi redux
via newsmax.com (scroll down to 2/11)
Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 1:28 p.m. EST
Pelosi Denies Invoking Black Rape to Defend Abortion
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is vehemently denying reports that she once defended the practice of abortion by using an anti-black slur.
"I've talked with Ms. Pelosi and it's absolutely not true," her spokesman Brendan Daley told NewsMax.com. "She did not say this to Mr. Dornan."
Pelosi's office was responding to a report in Tuesday's New York Daily News quoting former Congressman Bob Dornan, who said that the top California Democrat once defended abortion to him by asking, "What would you do if one of your daughters was raped by a black man?"
Daley said that Pelosi "doesn't recall saying anything of the kind to him. And she knows that that's not the thing she would say. So she did not say it." [Italics are dylan's.]
The Pelosi aide further maintained that his boss had no recollection of any conversation whatsoever with former Rep. Dornan on the subject of abortion.
An unnamed press aide for Pelosi told the Daily News yesterday that the congresswoman had "no response" to Dornan's allegation, leaving the impression that she was unwilling to dispute his account.
However, Daley told NewsMax, "I talked with the Daily News this morning. At the time when the reporter had called, the young woman he spoke to in our office did not know about this allegation and so therefore did not want to respond."
via newsmax.com (scroll down to 2/11)
Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 1:28 p.m. EST
Pelosi Denies Invoking Black Rape to Defend Abortion
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is vehemently denying reports that she once defended the practice of abortion by using an anti-black slur.
"I've talked with Ms. Pelosi and it's absolutely not true," her spokesman Brendan Daley told NewsMax.com. "She did not say this to Mr. Dornan."
Pelosi's office was responding to a report in Tuesday's New York Daily News quoting former Congressman Bob Dornan, who said that the top California Democrat once defended abortion to him by asking, "What would you do if one of your daughters was raped by a black man?"
Daley said that Pelosi "doesn't recall saying anything of the kind to him. And she knows that that's not the thing she would say. So she did not say it." [Italics are dylan's.]
The Pelosi aide further maintained that his boss had no recollection of any conversation whatsoever with former Rep. Dornan on the subject of abortion.
An unnamed press aide for Pelosi told the Daily News yesterday that the congresswoman had "no response" to Dornan's allegation, leaving the impression that she was unwilling to dispute his account.
However, Daley told NewsMax, "I talked with the Daily News this morning. At the time when the reporter had called, the young woman he spoke to in our office did not know about this allegation and so therefore did not want to respond."
Results of the quiz
Schmies Vocabulary Test -- spotted at Eve's, the Rat's, & at Oblique House
4. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
29. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
65. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
101. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
138. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
161. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
169. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
172. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
174. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
184. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
185. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
You got 189 out of 200 correct.
Schmies Vocabulary Test -- spotted at Eve's, the Rat's, & at Oblique House
4. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
29. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
65. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
101. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
138. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
161. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
169. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
172. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
174. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
184. same ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is opposite
185. opposite ... INCORRECT... the correct answer is same
You got 189 out of 200 correct.
Psalm 121
in the KJ21 version, as episcopalnet.org, the site that provides the 1928 BCP Psalter, is undergoing maintenance until Septuagesima (the 16th) ...
1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help!
2 My help cometh from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not permit thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
4 Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is thy keeper; the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil; He shall preserve thy soul.
8 The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
in the KJ21 version, as episcopalnet.org, the site that provides the 1928 BCP Psalter, is undergoing maintenance until Septuagesima (the 16th) ...
1 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help!
2 My help cometh from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not permit thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber.
4 Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is thy keeper; the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.
6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil; He shall preserve thy soul.
8 The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)