tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23040960348959037432024-03-13T05:33:33.864-05:00The Pen and the SwordFighting for Culture through Great Literature and the Catholic FaithMary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-79725599301912638572015-08-01T13:13:00.001-05:002015-08-01T13:15:13.237-05:00Farewell, and See You In God's Country<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbDX-NkIcAA/Vb0EnnncN1I/AAAAAAAAAf8/eMEXI0EA1jM/s1600/Wind%2BRiver%2BPeak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SbDX-NkIcAA/Vb0EnnncN1I/AAAAAAAAAf8/eMEXI0EA1jM/s320/Wind%2BRiver%2BPeak.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Dear readers,</div>
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Tomorrow evening I board a plane headed west. At long last, I am entering this grand adventure called Wyoming Catholic College. And I will be so busy reading Great Books and climbing mountains and making friends and praising God--that I will not have time to keep up this blog any longer. </div>
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The two years I've spent writing "The Pen and the Sword" have been very fruitful. I've been able to share countless insights and enthusiasms about my favorite authors, poets, and Church traditions. I want to thank everyone who read my posts, especially if you showed your appreciation by leaving comments. I've learned a great deal about blogging, networking, and developing a readership. Thank you all!</div>
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Sometime in the future, I will probably start another blog. Although I will not be updating this one any longer, it will remain online as an archive. Please feel free to browse and comment on any post, no matter how old. I still appreciate it.</div>
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Throughout the next year, I may occasionally pop in as a guest blogger on the <a href="http://blog.catholicwritersguild.com/" target="_blank">Catholic Writers Guild</a>, relating my college adventures. And I will probably maintain a slight presence on Facebook. For the most part, though, I will be immersed in the fantastic curriculum, outdoor programs, and spiritual life of Wyoming Catholic College. I would ask your prayers as I leave home for the first time! This adventure is going to take a lot of trust in God.</div>
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I'd like to share one last literary quote before I officially sign off of "The Pen and the Sword". For summer reading, the College sent all the freshman a copy of Owen Wister's <em>The Virginian, </em>the classic Western novel, set--naturally--in Wyoming. Besides being a gripping adventure story and the best romance I have read in years, it's also a gorgeous portrait of the land itself. Here is a passage from the beginning of the book which set me daydreaming of Wyoming once again:</div>
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<em>The air was like December, but in my blankets and a buffalo robe I kept warm, and luxuriated in the Rocky Mountain silence. Going to wash before breakfast at sunrise, I found needles of ice in a pail. Yet it was hard to remember that this quiet, open, splendid wilderness (with not a peak in sight just here) was six thousand feet high. And when breakfast was over there was no December left; and by the time the Virginian and I were ten miles upon our way, it was June. But always every breath that I breathed was pure as water and strong as wine.</em></div>
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Pure as water and strong as wine. That, too, is my memory of the mountain air and the Wyoming sky. And I am returning to it, not simply to visit, but to live, learn, and pray there. I am seeking wisdom in God's Country. I'll see you there.</div>
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Farewell, blessings, and thanks to all,</div>
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Mary J. Woods</div>
Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-23962427462836775522015-07-01T15:19:00.001-05:002015-07-01T15:19:18.530-05:00A Heart-cry<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-size: 78%;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: 85%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow</span></span></span><br />
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Today I post on an impulse, and in a different vein than my usual. I do not generally write on current events, but the things which have happened in this country the past week demand that every Christian, every lover of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, stand and shout. So here is my heart-cry. Lord, shield your people!<br />
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The spirit groans in me as I read of the world's corruption, and our country's sickness in particular. The Church stands as an island in the mad world's river-rush. Per-se-cu-tion. It comes, a sure and no-longer-so-faint roaring from up that terrible stream. I do not fear for the Church in an ultimate way. Christ told us the very jaws of Death would not prevail against it, and in two thousand years they have not. But I fear for the people--the people of the Church who are weak, and the people outside the Church who roar against us, for whose hearts God also agonizes, though they do not yet hear Him. And I am afraid of the pain--the loss and misunderstanding and helplessness and injustice and suffering. For holding a firm hope in the Lord does not mean that suffering will be taken away or eased. It must be endured. Faith allows that we endure it with purpose, and not in vain. But the pain itself will not be alleviated, until all things have been fire-purged and drawn to their destiny.</div>
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O God, God! Jeremiah's words echo eternal: </div>
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<em>I did not sit in the company of merrymakers, </em></div>
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<em>nor did I rejoice; </em></div>
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<em>under the weight of your hand I sat alone, </em></div>
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<em>for you had filled me with indignation. </em></div>
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<em>Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable,</em></div>
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<em> refusing to be healed? </em></div>
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<em>Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook, </em></div>
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<em>like waters that fail.</em></div>
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Oh, cry, prophet, cry for all of us, for all times when nations and peoples turn from their natures and destroy themselves, in a tsunami of evil and agony. When will we stop, Lord, <em>when will we stop</em>?</div>
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And when our heart-grief and our strength is spent, and we grow weary of asking why this has happened to us, and how we are ever to stand, let us lie in that tear-cleansed silence, and listen with Jeremiah to the Lord our God's reply:</div>
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<em>If you turn back, I will take you back,</em></div>
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<em>and you shall stand before me.</em></div>
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<em>If you utter what is precious and not worthless,</em></div>
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<em>you shall serve as my mouth.</em></div>
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<em>It is they who will turn to you,</em></div>
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<em>not you who will turn to them.</em></div>
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<em>And I will make you to this people</em></div>
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<em>a fortified wall of bronze;</em></div>
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<em>they will fight against you,</em></div>
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<em>but they shall not prevail over you,</em></div>
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<em>for I am with you</em></div>
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<em>to save you and deliver you, </em></div>
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<em>says the Lord.</em></div>
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Listen, my people, listen and turn! Stand before Him! Utter the precious Truth! If this is an age of suffering for the Church, it only means it is an age of saints, and our weeping should be not only for anguish but also for indescribable joy! Christ's very Cross is our sign of this; torment, transformed to salvation. So brothers, sisters, lay your hands on that Cross with Him, let the splinters tear your skin and the beams crush your shoulders. Mingle your soul-bleeding with His own. Surrender and undertake the trial. You will find this bitter water changed by His touch into the very wine of Life.</div>
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, come to us and save us!</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-82234447465062134442015-06-11T20:34:00.000-05:002015-06-11T20:34:32.652-05:00We Are God's Poeima: Poetry and the Human Person<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by DeduloPhotos, <a href="http://morguefile.com/creative/DeduloPhotos">Morguefile.com</a></td></tr>
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In the midst of novel-writing, volunteering for the Catholic Writers Guild, and starting to prepare for a freshman year of college which seems threateningly close, I find I have neglected my own blog (again) for a full two weeks. Sadly, I <em>still</em> haven't time to make a proper post! In lieu of that, however, I will share a couple of related links I've found over the past few weeks, on that favorite subject of mine--poetry-philosophy-theology.<br />
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The first is a video series called <a href="http://www.letterstotheexiles.com/">For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles</a>. The best description I can make of this is that it's a sort of modern, film equivalent of <em>Mere Christianity</em>. While I have not been able to buy the entire series, the trailers look excellent--a straightforward and fervent, contemporary and beautifully artistic exploration of what it really means to be a Christian today. Evan Koons, the creator of the series, also has a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCziOiGFkgf0HnR4FwnVGb7A" target="_blank">Youtube channel</a> with a vlog where he posts numerous other beautiful and insightful bonus videos. They are all worth watching, but today I'd like to draw your attention to the one below. Do not be deceived by the informal and humorous opening--it becomes stunningly profound.<br />
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The same afternoon after I had watched this video (and was still rather giddy with the beauty and holy thrill of it), I had picked up my latest issue of <a href="http://dappledthings.org/" target="_blank">Dappled Things Magazine</a> and flipped open a random page--the middle of an essay by Ryan Wilson called "How To Think Like a Poet". To my astonishment, my eyes fell upon a paragraph in which the author made reference to the exact same passage from Ephesians that Mr. Koons had in the video above; "we are His <em>poeima.</em>"</div>
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I had encountered the exact same spiritual concept in virtually identical words from two different sources in the span of two hours. Usually when that happens I know the Holy Spirit's up to something. By the time I had read the essay from beginning to end, I felt as if my brain were on fire with enthusiasm and excitement. I have read and thought a good deal about the purpose and craft of poetry (not to mention writing some of my own), but this essay beautifully pulled together the most important concepts into an integrated whole. Read it <a href="http://dappledthings.org/7507/how-to-think-like-a-poet/" target="_blank">here</a> on the Dappled Things website. It is not a quick read, but for anyone with any serious interest in poetry, art, and the philosophy (and theology!) behind it, I would strongly urge you to set aside some time to carefully read the entire thing. </div>
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The work of Mr. Koons and Mr. Wilson is, I think, far more edifying than anything I could write on short notice. Explore, enjoy it, and then go out and <em>be God's poetry</em>!</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-43443224919722319462015-05-27T14:33:00.001-05:002015-05-27T16:28:48.951-05:00Divine Authorship: Reflections for Novelists from "Mere Christianity"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by JulesInKY, <a href="http://morguefile.com/creative/JulesInKY">morgueFile.com</a></td></tr>
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In my post last week I mentioned that one of the most significant events of my spiritual retreat was reading C. S. Lewis' <em>Mere Christianity</em>. It was the last major work of his I hadn't yet read, so I was very pleased to find it in the monastery library. As usual, Lewis' perceptive insights, personable style, and profound implications made <em>Mere Christianity </em>very much a life-changing read. Venturing into this book is a little like a conversion experience in itself--whether you're already a Christian or not. </div>
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During the "dramatic arc" of my retreat, I strongly heard God calling me to a complete surrender of my will to His own, and a renewed faith in the reality of His love. There were many, many passages in <em>Mere Christianity</em> which guided me through that week's journey--too many to write about in one blog post. Instead, I would like to share one particular passage which, while not directly related to the main "drama" of my retreat, still affected me deeply--thanks to my experience as an aspiring novelist.<br />
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In the chapter "Time and Beyond Time," Lewis attempts to explain in layman's terms the mind-boggling mystery of God's life in eternity:<br />
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<em>Almost certainly God is not in Time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to Him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty--and every other moment from the beginning of the world--is always the Present for Him. If you like to put it that way, He has all eternity in which to listen to the split second of prayer put up by a pilot as his plane crashes in flames.</em><br />
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<em>That is difficult, I know. Let me try to give something, not the same, but a bit like it. Suppose I am writing a novel. I write "Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!" For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is no interval between putting down the work and hearing the knock. But I, who am Mary's maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary's time (the time inside the story) at all. </em><br />
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Instantly, when I read this paragraph, I could relate to Lewis' analogy. In working on my own novel over the past several months, there have been countless times when I've left a scene, or even a sentence, suspended while I picked up my journal and did some brainstorming. It's such an everyday experience for an author (or reader) that the profundity of it never struck me before. While I was still marveling over this, a new insight unfolded in my mind, related to my specific relationship with the characters in my story.<br />
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I have known my full plot for a long time. I have lovingly crafted my protagonist's journey, aware of both the entire arc of his character development, and experiencing individual events through his eyes as I write out the story. Any event--the trials my character has already experienced, in his "timeline," and the ones he has yet to undergo--can become the present to me, whenever and however long I desire.<br />
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The result of this mock-eternal viewpoint is that I know my protagonist fully, and I am extremely fond of him. So I was a little mortified when, after giving the several first chapters of my novel to family and friends, several commented how much they disliked the main character. (He's a cocky, irresponsible hothead of a medieval Scottish prince--I will leave the rest to your imagination.) I admitted that, at the beginning of the story, the protagonist was <em>supposed</em> to be a jerk. So I should not have been surprised at the negative reaction. And yet I still felt defensive of my character. I wanted to exclaim to my readers, "You have to wait and see how he turns out before you decide if you like him!"<br />
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Lewis' comments on eternity shone new light on my novel-writing experience. After reading the above passage of <em>Mere Christianity</em>, I realized more clearly how my early readers and I could have two completely different attitudes towards the protagonist. My readers, in a certain sense, share the timeline of the novel's characters. They cannot see (until the end) the full arc and meaning of the events, much less foretell the development of individual characters. They disliked my protagonist, quite naturally, because most of what they saw of him in the early chapters was dislikeable. <br />
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I, on the other hand, knew my character not only for his actions at any given moment, but also for who he would be by the end of the story--<em>who I was crafting him to be</em>. Thus I could love him (though not necessarily approve of him) even in the midst of his rash, prideful, and downright dumb mistakes. In fact, I found myself especially close to him in the fury of his darkest and most anguished moments.<br />
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All this to say, I realized that God probably sees me--and all of us--in something of the same way a novelist sees his characters. The comparison is only a shadowy hint of the reality, but it is worth reflecting on nonetheless. God loves each of us infinitely and intimately, not for our weaknesses and failures in Time, but for the splendid vision He conceives of each of us at every moment in the Eternal Now. If we thought of this more often, how would it change our approach to life's challenges and trials? And how would it alter our treatment of the people we encounter every day--fellow characters, who are, together with us, being crafted by the Holy Spirit--all towards that astonishing and unimaginable moment, when we will step out of the book of His Story (history) and into Reality--the full life of the Trinity.<br />
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C. S. Lewis in <em>Mere Christianity</em> reminds us of our true place in the spiritual world. I know I could stand to think about it a lot more often. If you have not read this classic work, I urge you to acquire a copy as soon as possible. Like a mountain climb, it's a self-revealing journey--and the view from the summit is beyond breathtaking.</div>
Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-21325994429003161972015-05-21T16:01:00.000-05:002015-05-21T16:01:39.273-05:00A Week at Christ the Bridegroom Monastery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Greetings, readers! It's very good to be back. A few days ago I returned from a week-long retreat at Christ the Bridegroom Monastery in Burton, Ohio--a new women's monastic community in our Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma. It was a beautiful, life-changing experience--the week was so chock full of reflections and insights that I think it will take me the whole next month to unpack them on this blog!</div>
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Since I'm still recovering from the experience, so to speak, this is really a mini-post, a sort of preview of what I read and reflected on over the week. Hopefully I'll write in more detail about at least some of these points in the coming month. (If there's a particular one you'd like to hear about, let me know in the comments!)</div>
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Also, in gratitude to the sisters of Christ the Bridegroom for welcoming me into their community for the week, I'd like to share the link to their website and blog, and a few points of their mission. </div>
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I did more reading over the past week than I probably have in the past three months. It reminded me again just how much I need Great Books--spiritual and literary--to nourish my mind, heart, and soul. Here are some of the discoveries I delighted in, with mini "teaser" reflections!</div>
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<strong>"Leisure: The Basis of Culture" and "The Philosophical Act" by Josef Pieper</strong></div>
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A pair of essays by a Catholic German professor and philosopher, written after World War II. Full of sound and piercing insights on the nature of true leisure as opposed to the "workaday world", receptivity to the "essence of things", philosophy's relation to poetry and wonder, etc. Fabulous. They've inspired me to pick up my Plato again!</div>
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<strong><em>Mere Christianity </em>by C. S. Lewis</strong></div>
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A Lewis classic that I'd been wanting to read for a long time and finally got around to. Reading it was a kind of re-conversion experience in itself. If you've never read this book, watch out--it's life-changing.</div>
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<strong>Song of Songs and Theology of the Body</strong></div>
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If there was one book of the Bible I'd avoided for years, it was the Song of Songs. Similarly, I'd long avoided picking up any works on Theology of the Body. It was a topic I simply didn't want to deal with for most of my teenage years--and my misunderstanding of which caused me quite a bit of emotional and spiritual pain. Finally allowing God to open me up and lead me into a truer understanding of both human and divine love, was the climax of this retreat. I feel a new world has opened up before me.</div>
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Christ the Bridegroom Monastery, on their <a href="http://www.christthebridegroom.org/p/about-us_4.html" target="_blank">website</a>, describes their identity thus:</div>
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<em>We are a Byzantine Catholic monastic community of women in the Eparchy of Parma dedicated to a vigilant life of prayer and hospitality according to the traditions of the Christian East. Laying down our lives in imitation of the Bridegroom, we joyfully embrace the monastic virtues of poverty, chastity and obedience. We participate in the dynamic love of the Trinity by sharing a life of prayer, work and recreation at our monastery. Meditating on Scripture, especially the Song of Songs, and immersing ourselves in a life of personal and liturgical prayer, we enter into a spousal relationship with Christ the Bridegroom. Looking to the Theotokos as our model, we open ourselves to the Divine life of the Holy Spirit, bearing forth fruit for the Church and the world. Our monastery provides a spiritual garden and a bridal chamber in which we draw others into this same life-giving relationship with Christ the Bridegroom.</em></blockquote>
The emphasis on the spousal relationship with Christ was the most significant aspect of the monastery life for me. I had long been familiar with the icon image of Christ the Bridegroom, but had never seriously ventured into having that kind of personal relationship with Jesus. As I've only just begun to discover, it is infinitely beautiful. The sisters elaborate on this unique ethos of their community:<br />
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<em>We seek to reclaim the spousal language from the distortions of our culture, showing not only that monastic celibacy points to mankind’s union with God in heaven, but also that human sexuality is designed by God to lead men and women to this same union and to participate in the life of the Trinity. Being vulnerable to the movement of the Holy Spirit, our monastery aspires to remind all baptized Christians of this personal invitation to union with Christ as their Bridegroom and to renew a healthy, integrated view of the human person, body and soul.</em> </blockquote>
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It certainly reminded me. Honestly, my life is not the same. God bless these nuns for nurturing this crucial aspect of our humanity and our relationship to the Divine Trinity!</div>
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Besides this mission, the sisters also provide hospitality to visitors and retreatants, support of priests and seminarians, a witness to youth groups and pro-life events like the March for Life, and a joyful example of Eastern Catholic monastic life. They are small, but already doing wonderful, wonderful work. Check out their blog here: <a href="http://www.christthebridegroom.org/">http://www.christthebridegroom.org/</a> They also have a presence on Facebook and Youtube, so be sure be take a look at those links as well! And if you happen to live or be passing through the Cleveland, OH area--what are you waiting for? Go down and stop by for an hour--or a day--or a whole week...</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">All photos and quotes taken from </span><a href="http://www.christthebridegroom.org/"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">http://www.christthebridegroom.org/</span></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></div>
Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-88333581419468331912015-05-06T11:05:00.000-05:002015-05-06T11:05:47.871-05:00Being Happy Thinking: Tidbits from Stevenson's "Walking Tours"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vq10Otg4dko/VUo6U2EIIEI/AAAAAAAAAc8/X346SJgPv-E/s1600/Island%2BPrairie-Morning.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vq10Otg4dko/VUo6U2EIIEI/AAAAAAAAAc8/X346SJgPv-E/s1600/Island%2BPrairie-Morning.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of Glen Frankfort (aka Island Prairie Park), where I have spent many hours "being happy thinking".</td></tr>
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Dear readers,<br />
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My apologies for the irregular blog posts, which will continue to be irregular for a while yet. Working part-time and attempting to finish a novel before August do not leave much time for reading and reflecting on Great Books. Thus this week I do not have much prepared to share with you except a passage pulled from my faithful commonplace book. (See my first post on that <a href="http://marywoodsblog.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-mishmash-of-masters-my-commonplace.html" target="_blank">here</a>.) It's a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson's essay "Walking Tours". <br />
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A bit ironically, this particular selection has nothing to do with either walking or touring, but rather sitting by the fire. It's one of Stevenson's numerous odes-in-prose on the importance of leisure. I thought it particularly appropriate for me just now--the past several months I've been working my head off, applying for scholarships, saving for college, and writing a fantasy novel. But next week I'm putting that all away for seven full days, going on retreat at a small Byzantine Catholic women's monastery in Ohio. I know it's going to be a challenge, denying my workaholism for an entire week, but I believe this retreat will be the best thing I've done for myself for years. I look forward to many hours of being "happy thinking".<br />
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Stevenson does not venture into the spiritual effects of leisure, although he comes very close, in the moralistic tone he was rather fond of. What I mean to say is, that although he does not bring up the essential part God plays in contemplation, some of his points are spot-on anyway. I'll expound further as we proceed through the quote. Without further ado...selections from RLS's "Walking Tours":<br />
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<em>Or perhaps you are left to your own company for the night, and surely weather imprisons you by the fire. You may remember how Burns [Robert Burns, 18th-century Scottish poet], numbering past pleasures, dwells upon the hours when he has been "happy thinking." It is a phrase that may well perplex a poor modern, girt about on every side by clocks and chimes, and haunted, even at night, by flaming dial-plates. For we are all so busy, and have so many far-off projects to realize, and castles in the fire to turn into solid, habitable mansions on a gravel soil, that we can find no time for pleasure trips into the Land of Thought and among the Hills of Vanity.</em><br />
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The poor, clock-haunted moderns Stevenson was referring to, by the way, were the inhabitants of Victorian Britain. How much deeper have we moderns of the 21st century fallen among the "flaming dial-plates"! From education to the workplace to being up on the latest technology, so much of society is focused on that vague thrill of "getting ahead". Apparently the phenomenon isn't quite so modern as we thought, if Stevenson sensed it back in the 1870s.<br />
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Another interesting point: "Hills of Vanity" might strike one as an odd phrase at first reading. The word "vanity" generally has negative connotations, calling to mind the shallow, the ephemeral, the ultimately meaningless. But in this context, Stevenson uses the word to the precisely opposite effect. The Land of Thought and Hills of Vanity are those pursuits of leisure which seem vain in the eyes of a utilitarian, materialistic world, but in truth are a return to the contemplation of goodness, truth, beauty, and God--everything that makes us human. <br />
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To continue:<br />
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<em>Changed times, indeed, when we must sit all night, beside the fire, with folded hands; and a changed world for most of us, when we find we can pass the hours without discontent, and be happy thinking. We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts--namely, to live.</em><br />
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I rather think Stevenson would have disapproved of social media. Even when things like Facebook and Twitter are being used in good causes, so much of it simply makes us crave constant distraction. One of the immediately noticeable things, when watching people in a public place (like the restaurant where I work), is the apparent inability of many individuals to sit still for two minutes without taking out their phones. This includes adults, not just tech-savvy teens! Passing contented, quiet hours without the iPhone or tablet on hand might be unimaginable for these technology users. But our brains and souls need rest--to nurture things like creativity, real relationship, and wisdom. As Stevenson says, to live!<br />
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As we've seen, even these couple of short passages contain a plethora of points for reflection. Stevenson was fond of writing about imagination and leisure--just recall any of his famous poems from <em>A Child's Garden of Verses</em>, or, less well known, his essay "An Apology for Idlers" (a defense of leisure against constant work and study). His words are excellent reminders for all of us about the perils of over-activity. That's what our Christian Sabbath is for--to slow, to stop, to turn back towards our Center, Who is God. I look forward to a whole seven days of slowing down as I take my retreat next week in Ohio.Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-31716619568556963742015-04-23T16:52:00.000-05:002015-04-25T13:02:01.337-05:00God's Forgotten Friends: Two Reviews of Susan Peek<em></em><br />
<em>Recently through the Catholic Writers Guild I met the wonderful </em><a href="http://susanpeek.com/" target="_blank"><em>Mrs. Susan Peek</em></a><em>, homeschooling mother and novelist. Like one of my favorite authors, Louis de Wohl (whose books, strangely, I have yet to write about on this blog), her specialty is saint stories. In addition, Mrs. Peek is doing her fellow Catholics a beautiful favor by bringing to light the tales of saints who have fallen into obscurity, through her ongoing series, "God's Forgotten Friends." Geared especially towards teens, they are not only inspiring examples of holiness, but also rollicking adventures! I am happy today to offer my readers reviews of two books in her series: </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Surrenders-Conversion-Camillus-Lellis/dp/0979630142/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1425406627&sr=8-11&keywords=A+Soldier+Surrenders" target="_blank"><em>A Soldier Surrenders: The Conversion of St. Camillus de Lellis</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Saint-Magnus-The-Last-Viking/dp/0979630126" target="_blank"><em>Saint Magnus: The Last Viking</em></a><em>.</em><br />
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In this brand-new edition of <em>A Soldier Surrenders</em> (previously published by Ignatius Press), Susan Peek takes us back in time to a lonely Italian road in the winter of 1570. It's here that we meet Camillus de Lellis--a giant of a young man devoted to drinking, gambling, and offering his sword as a mercenary to the highest bidder. This rough exterior conceals a soul of surprising compassion--he feels deep pity especially for the wounded and dying of the battlefield. But, as a "soldier of fortune", he carries his share of bad habits and hard luck. Despite his skill at the cards, his love of the tavern and the gaming table more often leave him penniless than not. And he bears a secret shame--a mysterious, painful wound on his leg which can't seem to be cured by ordinary doctors. </div>
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The quest for healing brings Camillus to the San Giacomo Hospital in Rome, where, empty-pocketed as usual, he reluctantly serves as a volunteer caretaker in exchange for receiving treatment of his wound. His hospital experiences increase his desire to aid the sick through personal love for each patient. Nevertheless, his raucous tavern habits and his tainted reputation as a mercenary leave him few friends among the hospital staff, with the exception of one kind-hearted fellow orderly, Curzio Lodi. But even Curzio's patience wears thin when Camillus persists in indulging his passions to drown his personal woes. At a crucial turning point of the story, Curzio berates his friend:</div>
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"You think you know so much about courage, Camillus? Well the truth is, courage comes in a lot of different forms, and God is only interested in one of them! You're not a soldier; you're not even a servant! You're nothing but a <em>slave</em>, Camillus! A slave to your own self-will!"</blockquote>
Camillus stubbornly tries to forget his best friend's chiding. Dismissed from the hospital for unruly conduct, he attempts to reenter his former life as a mercenary. But continued ill luck and the still-unhealed ulcer on his leg eventually reduce him to destitution and beggary. Finally, at the lowest point of pain and humiliation, he sees the light. He commits his noblest act as a soldier, gives up his own will, and surrenders to God's.<br />
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Having given his personal struggles into Divine hands, Camillus finds renewed direction in life. He returns to San Giacomo, where his vigor and commitment in serving the sick earn him the rank of hospital superindendent. But Camillus realizes his vocation does not end there. To fulfill his lifetime longing to minister to the dying souls of the battlefield, he enters the priesthood and founds the order of the Servants of the Sick. Their symbol: a red cross on a black cassock--the original Red Cross organization. <br />
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Mrs. Peek punctuates the spiritual drama of the plot with battles, duels, and lively dialogue. While I was a bit taken aback by the modern idiom of the narrative, her contemporary style offers a lively sketch of the boisterous, hot-tempered, and ultimately God-passionate Camillus de Lellis. He's a man we can all imagine knowing--and loving. Applause and thanks to Susan Peek for rediscovering the life of this "saint for strugglers"!<br />
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<em>It had never occurred to Magnus, second son of Erlend, to arm himself with a weapon before setting off for Vespers...</em></div>
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This opening line of Chapter 2 in Mrs. Peek's latest saintly adventure story introduces us to Magnus Erlendson, the teenage prince of an 11th-century Orkney Isles kingdom, who would much rather dedicate his life to God in the monastery than spend it as a sword-toting warrior. Fortunately, Magnus is not in line to the throne--his older brother Aerling and his cousin Hakon are. Unfortunately, that is about to change.</div>
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When Magnus catches the unscrupulous Hakon committing an atrocious crime, he is swept into a life of turbulence, bloodshed--and holiness. Hakon is banished from the kingdom, swearing vengeance on Magnus. True to his promise, Hakon enlists the help of the king of Norway to overthrow the Orkney Islands. While Hakon snags the throne, Magnus and his brother Aerling become Norse prisoners. </div>
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After many trials, spiritual and physical, Magnus manages to flee to Scotland, where he lives for ten peaceful years. Despite his cousin's treachery, Magnus defeats his impulse to hate and now only wants to put his past behind him. But duty calls again when Hakon himself enlists the exiled prince's aid to help put down illegitimate rivals to the Orkney throne. Magnus returns, reluctantly, only willing to leave his tranquil exile to restore the peace at home. But Hakon's hate has not faded over the years--and his further treachery will test Magnus' spiritual mettle to the core. The climax of this story is so heart-racing and heart-wrenching that I dare not reveal it--readers will have to experience it for themselves!</div>
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Packed with desperate battles and action galore, this is no saint story for the faint of heart. However, the spiritual themes are an equally integral part of the tale. Magnus' struggle against hatred and revenge proves to be more dramatic--and more important--than any of his clashes with the blade. The unlovable villain Hakon also turns out to be a surprisingly deep character, when faced with Magnus' <em>choice</em> of love over hate.</div>
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Mrs. Peek's distinctive contemporary style is noticeable in the book, but doesn't detract in any major way from the historical setting. My only critique would be that some of the minor characters verge on being caricatures, seeming only to further the book's theme of forgiveness. However, the main drama between Magnus and Hakon is well-rounded and fully satisfying.</div>
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Overall, <em>Saint Magnus: The Last Viking</em> is a rollicking good tale of a truly extraordinary man--a warrior-saint whose innate peace changed the hearts of everyone around him, including his enemies. It's sure to be a favorite among all young adventure-lovers of the Faith!</div>
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<em><a href="http://susanpeek.com/" target="_blank">Visit Susan Peek's webpage to purchase these books, and to see more reviews and upcoming novels!</a></em> </div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-44093192159505289232015-04-16T15:16:00.000-05:002015-04-16T21:12:14.826-05:0045 Years of Thrilling Truth: Rediscovering Apollo 13<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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On this blog about truth, beauty, and literature, most of the adventure stories I write about are fictional. But every once in a while, I encounter those absolutely true adventure stories which are all the more marvelous. The saga of Apollo 13--NASA's "successful failure"--is one of those tales.</div>
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Tomorrow, April 17, is the 45th anniversary of the splashdown of Apollo 13. Inside that tiny command module which landed safely in the Pacific Ocean were astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise. These three men had just been through a four-day ordeal unlike any other in the annals of survival stories--guiding, with the help of the Mission Control technicians on the ground, a dangerously malfunctioning spacecraft back to earth from 200,000 miles away.</div>
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For those of you not already familiar with this incredible account of courage, teamwork, and ingenuity, I cannot enough recommend Jim Lovell's own book,<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Moon-Perilous-Voyage-Apollo/dp/0395670292" target="_blank"> <em>Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13</em></a> (co-authored by Jeffrey Kluger). The popular <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Apollo-13-Tom-Hanks/dp/B001JI72AI/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1429213204&sr=1-1&keywords=apollo+13" target="_blank">1995 movie</a>, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, was based off this book. The movie was actually my first introduction to the story. I watched it over and over as a kid, though I didn't really understand much of it until later. Although naturally a dramatized and somewhat abridged account of the events, the film is thrilling and well done. It's definitely worth a viewing (or a re-viewing, if you've seen it before!). The book is even more exciting. <em>Lost Moon</em> gives the reader a much fuller grasp of the story, including the backgrounds of the main characters, Apollo 13's place in the context of the NASA moon missions, and explanations of the highly-technical spacecraft operations in layman's terms--all woven into a plot so skillful and tight, you'll forget you're reading a non-fiction memoir and think you've plunged into a novel.</div>
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This past winter, I read the book for the first time, and watched the movie again for the first time in a few years. I was struck very deeply by the <em>romance </em>of the tale--the improbable catastrophe and the even more improbable triumph. And so this high-tech, space-age rescue story came out in my own words as a poem.</div>
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The references to Ulysses, Ithaca, and other names and places from ancient Homer, are not just my love of the classics randomly making themselves known. The name of Apollo 13's command module was actually <em>Odyssey</em>. (How NASA expected to blast a ship into space named after the most misfortune-ridden quest in literature, and not have a little trouble, is beyond me.)</div>
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Here, then, is my own retelling of this remarkable tale, in verse. It is dedicated to the three astronauts and Mission Control team of Apollo 13, and all those others who took part in or witnessed the extraordinary events of one April in 1970.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Crucible
of Love: Apollo 13, April 17, 1970<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">By
Mary Jessica Woods<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Reentry<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
placid arc of earth fills up the glass<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Odyssey</i> spins silent homeward-bound—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">No
great Greek fate-tossed warship, lone-captained,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">But
a thimble of steel crafted for airless seas,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Guided
by three chilled crew with rudders of flame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Four
days the ship has fought, a blasted cripple,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Tracing
a giddy whorl through death’s void,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Brilliant
with cold stars and a starkling sun;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Four
days in the gray tiered fort of Mission Control<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A
thousand have strained at their screens, marking the numbers,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Nursing
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Odyssey’s</i> slowing breath and
blood;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Four
days. Now, minutes from Ithaca,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">All
guidance is shed, all tillers are abandoned,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Surrendering
to the fierce mother-love of Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">For
the mother cries for the children of her body:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
metal drawn from the hard depths of her womb,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
mortals raised in the bounds of her warm breath—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">These
she clasps close again with a deadly joy,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">An
engulfing kiss of fire, a crushing strength;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Her
fragile sons, knit of soft flesh and bones,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Plunge,
trusting, through her crucible of love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">These
men who have survived the span of space,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Now
merely seek to endure the Earth’s embrace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span></i> </div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Splashdown<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Odyssey,
Houston standing by, over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Odyssey,
Houston standing by, over.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
silence on the surface swallows hearts<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Of
millions: wives, children, parents, friends;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Technicians,
flight controllers dragging smokes;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Navy
men glassing the South Pacific surge;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And
strangers by the hundreds of thousands,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Willing,
praying their mortal brothers home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
sizzle of the empty radio<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Is,
for three minutes, the smolder of burning hope;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And
for the fourth, the crackling choke of fear;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And
by the fifth, the sputter of despair—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Again
the hopeless greeting ventures out:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">“Odyssey,
Houston standing by, over.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Of
a sudden the radio gives a gasp—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A
raspy, rushing hack of stirring life—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Odyssey</i> replies to a
heart-stopped world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A
roar goes up, a million pulses freed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Ulysses
once hailed his wife and son; now,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The
whole world is Telemachus, Penelope,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">To
three men strapped exhausted in their ship,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Watching
the scarlet ‘chutes, with quiet eyes,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Spin
like three jewels against the silken skies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">
<o:p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<em>~ Poem </em><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">Ó </span></span><em>Mary Jessica Woods, 2015</em></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo credit: "Mission Control Celebrates - GPN-2000-001313" by NASA - Great Images in NASA Description. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mission_Control_Celebrates_-_GPN-2000-001313.jpg#/media/File:Mission_Control_Celebrates_-_GPN-2000-001313.jpg">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mission_Control_Celebrates_-_GPN-2000-001313.jpg#/media/File:Mission_Control_Celebrates_-_GPN-2000-001313.jpg</a></span></div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-17783420130039328842015-04-09T15:07:00.000-05:002015-04-09T15:08:38.425-05:00Long Live the Weeds! ~ Hopkins' "Inversnaid"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PQg6yHH7tQ4/VSbMB1V1fkI/AAAAAAAAAbM/YKmUs0l9qTw/s1600/Mist%2Boff%2BLoch%2BHeron%2B2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PQg6yHH7tQ4/VSbMB1V1fkI/AAAAAAAAAbM/YKmUs0l9qTw/s1600/Mist%2Boff%2BLoch%2BHeron%2B2.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Loch Heron", September 2014 - Photo by Mary Woods</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I happen to live right on the border of where the sprawling Chicago suburbs begin to peter out into flat Illinois farmland. Consequently, in my town, the orderly ranks of streets and lawns and strip malls are occasionally invaded by wildness. Streams flanked by armies of reeds and young willows. Wedges of forest, stubbornly holding out between baseball diamonds and residential build-ups. Spreading creekside trees, like bulwarks of romance against the mundane tyranny of Suburbia. <br />
<br />
Loch Heron. Linden Cove. Smuggler's Nook. The Forest of Silver Hands. You won't find these names on any map of Frankfort, IL, but they are important places, nonetheless, for me. They are my own haunts, my own landmarks. Wonder is the guide which leads me to them. They are beautiful spots, in their unobtrusive way, with endless surprises for those who wait and keep open eyes. Old mussel shells, washed from mud, which gleam royal pearl inside. Muskrats nuzzling through cool water, slick-furred and beady-eyed. Geese taking flight in magnificent, thunder-winged, trumpeting hundreds. These are the poems I read and love from God's "First Book" of nature. <br />
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Recently I came across a poem--with human words--expressing much the same sentiments. Not very surprisingly, it's by Gerard Manley Hopkins. This 19th-century English poet and Catholic priest is most famous for his inimitable descriptions of nature in pieces like "Pied Beauty", "God's Grandeur", and "Hurrahing in Harvest". Not just descriptions--raptures. The mere way he uses words usually makes me want to fall flat on my face for sheer joy (in the beauty) and utter despair (because I will never even touch his skill and imagination). <br />
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Despite that, I never regret picking up a volume of Hopkins. Some of his works are so richly and convolutedly packed with ideas, like glittering mosaics, that they are hard to comprehend. But many of his poems are simpler in concept and no less lovely in art. One of these small gems is "Inversnaid".<br />
<br />
Written in 1881, the poem describes the landscape of Inversnaid, a small settlement in the Scottish Highlands near Loch Lomond. Hopkins' natural descriptive abilities, his skill in playing with alliteration and assonance, and a sprinkling of Scots vocabulary, make for a poem as delicious in the mouth as it is lovely in the mind's eye. I myself am not certain what all the words mean precisely, but I let my ear create images for me--if that makes the least ounce of sense.<br />
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Finally, Hopkins ends the poem with a poignant cry for the preservation of wilderness. <em>Let it be left</em>, he says, <em>O let it be left</em>. It is good for the mind and body; it is good for the soul. Let it be left--even small corners of it, for the good of us all.<br />
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<div align="center">
<strong>Inversnaid</strong></div>
<div align="center">
<strong>By Gerard Manley Hopkins</strong></div>
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</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This dárksome búrn, hórseback brówn,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">His rollrock highroad
roaring down,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Flutes and low to the
lake falls home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A wíndpuff-bónnet of fáwn-fróth</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Turns and twindles over the broth</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of a póol so pítchblack, féll-frówning,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Degged with dew, dappled with dew</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What would the world be, once bereft</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">O let them be left, wildness and wet,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-10980256189590187412015-04-02T14:09:00.002-05:002015-04-02T14:09:51.571-05:00Bridegroom Song: A Poem for Great and Holy Week<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Christ_The_Bridegroom_icon_011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Christ_The_Bridegroom_icon_011.jpg" height="320" width="237" /></a></div>
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<i>The title of the of icon above is "Christ the Bridegroom". This juxtaposition of concepts, this inherent mystery, strikes me to the heart every Great Fast. This is how Christ comes to His divine wedding with His bride, His people, His Church--God bleeding, tortured, utterly humiliated. Earlier this Lent, my own meditation on this icon called forth this poem into being. May we all be blessed as we enter into His Passion tonight and tomorrow.</i></div>
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<i>A note: The accents indicate an unusually long stress on a word, and should be read as such. The form is meant to be extremely simple and forceful, expressing, I hope, something of undiluted longing and anguish.</i></div>
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<b>Bridegroom Song</b></div>
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<b><i>By Mary Jessica Woods</i></b></div>
<b><i> </i> </b><i> </i>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Sée hów I come to thee—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wrísts ráw and bound for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Brów blóody-crowned for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wílt thóu come to me?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Lóok hów I gaze for thee—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Éyes sált-blind for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Weeping God divine for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wílt thóu come to me?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Féel hów I ache for thee—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shoulders stiff with blood for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Féet fóuled in mud for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wílt thóu come to me?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hear my lóve sóng to thee—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Whíp-wáils high for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Every shaking cry for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wílt thóu come to me?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Knów, nów, my thirst for thee—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Bríde, my own, I long for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Behold my sorrow strong for thee,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Wílt thóu come to me?</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">~ © Mary Jessica Woods, 2015 </span></i>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-2822180765160644692015-03-26T16:06:00.000-05:002015-05-06T16:09:15.959-05:00Descent into the Heart: "The Way of a Pilgrim" and the Jesus Prayer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em>Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.</em><br />
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A dozen words. A dozen words make up the most powerful prayer of the Eastern Christian tradition--the Jesus Prayer, or the Prayer of the Heart. <br />
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The Jesus Prayer is one of the most ancient in the Church. When exactly it came into being is unclear, but it was certainly being used by the 7th century, and is probably a good deal older. The text itself is clearly drawn from two Gospel passages--the parable of the publican and the pharisee, and Christ's encounter with the blind Bartemeus--blended into a single potent petition:<br />
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<em>But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' </em>(Luke 18:13)</div>
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<em>And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" </em>(Mark 10:47)</div>
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The purpose of the Prayer is simple: to put oneself into the presence of God. It is an aid to meditation, meant to be recited slowly, with attention, and repeatedly--indeed, unceasingly. As the Rosary, in the West, has its beads, so the Jesus Prayer has its prayer rope, known as a <em>chotki</em> in Russian. The chotki is typically made of wool, a loop of closely-nestled knots, ending in a cross and tassel. The number of knots varies, but is often 100, divided by beads into sections of 25. On each knot is recited one Jesus Prayer. Other prayers can be said on the beads, if desired. The purpose of the tassel--traditionally--is to wipe away tears of penitence. </div>
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I cannot remember when I first learned this prayer. My family entered the Byzantine Catholic Church when I was four. I know my father must have discovered the tradition of the Prayer soon after, but I have no memory of him first teaching it to me and my siblings--in the same way I cannot recall first learning the Our Father or the Hail Mary. I do remember getting my first chotki, when I was six or seven. I remember wearing it doubled around my wrist for years, until the knotted loop stretched out of shape and the tassel at the end wore away to a nub. And I remember my father reading us stories from <em>The Way of a Pilgrim</em>.<br />
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<em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Way-Pilgrim-Continues-Shambhala-Classics/dp/1570628076/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1427402308&sr=1-3&keywords=the+way+of+a+pilgrim" target="_blank">The Way of a Pilgrim</a></em> is considered a flower of 19th century Russian Orthodox spirituality. And yet it is a small book, simple in style and approachable in form. And it's probably the best introduction to the Jesus Prayer. Here is the book's first paragraph:<br />
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<em>By the grace of God I am a Christian, by my deeds a great sinner, and by calling a homeless rover of the lowest status in life. My possessions comprise but some rusk in a knapsack on my back, and the Holy Bible on my bosom. That is all.</em><br />
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Thus we are introduced to the Pilgrim, an anonymous peasant living in mid-1800s Russia. While not considered strictly autobiographical, the stories are likely based around the experiences of a real Russian pilgrim, re-written with the focus of spiritual edification. The tale begins when the Pilgrim, attending Divine Liturgy one morning, hears the words of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, to "pray unceasingly" (1 Th 5:17). These words, recalls the Pilgrim, "engraved themselves upon my mind". From that time on he is launched on a journey--both physical and spiritual--to pursue unceasing prayer.<br />
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Before long, he encounters an elder at a monastery, the first person to give him clear guidance on the meaning and method of constant prayer:<br />
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<em>As we entered his cell he [the elder] began to speak again: "The constant inner Prayer of Jesus is an unbroken, perpetual calling upon the Divine Name of Jesus with the lips, the mind and the heart, while picturing His lasting presence in one's imagination and imploring His grace wherever one is, in whatever one does, even while one sleeps. This Prayer consists of the following words: - 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me!' Those who use this prayer constantly are so greatly comforted that they are moved to say it at all times, for they can no longer live without it.</em><br />
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The elder then introduces the Pilgrim to the <em>Philokalia</em>--a collection of writings by the Church Fathers on this practice of inner prayer. This book, along with the Holy Bible, is destined to be the Pilgrim's constant companion on the rest of his journey. As they sit together in the cell, the elder gives the Pilgrim his first lesson in the Jesus Prayer:<br />
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<em>He opened the book, and after having found the instruction by St. Simon the New Theologian, he began to read: "Take a seat in solitude and silence. Bend your head, close your eyes, and breathing softly, in your imagination, look into your own heart. Let your mind, or rather, your thoughts, flow from your head down to your heart and say, while breathing: 'Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.' Whisper these words gently, or say them in your mind. Discard all other thoughts. Be serene, persevering and repeat them over and over again."</em><br />
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This lesson is the foundation of all the rest of the Pilgrim's spiritual endeavors. He stays with the elder for a few more months, learning the art of constant prayer, until the old monk passes away (although that is not the end of the elder's teaching--he appears multiple times in the Pilgrim's dreams, continuing, even after death, to give him guidance!) After this, the Pilgrim takes to the road, reciting the Jesus Prayer, reading the Bible and <em>Philokalia, </em>and visiting shrines and churches. On the way, he encounters a host of characters, from robbers and army captains to priests and pious married couples. Many of these have their own tales of spiritual journeys, to which the Pilgrim listens eagerly for his enlightenment. <br />
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But the essence of the book still revolves around inner contemplation and the Jesus Prayer. These passages continue the instruction given by the Pilgrim's elder, describing how to time the Prayer with one's heartbeat and breathing--an integrated body-soul experience--all for the purpose of drawing closer to Christ. The Pilgrim exults in the peace, holy longing, and spiritual insight the Prayer gives him. He has his share of trials, too--spiritual and physical--but the pure joy of the Jesus Prayer always buoys him up once more.<br />
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The stories in <em>The Way of the Pilgrim</em> are truly life-changing. The instructions on the Prayer of the Heart are so simple and straightforward, that it's actually hard <em>not</em> to try and incorporate them into one's spiritual life. The most difficult thing, I have found, is perseverance. Often the Prayer seems dry repetition; but then I have never yet labored enough to get past that part of the process. However, even in short spurts, it is a beautiful comfort. I pray it before Liturgy, to focus my mind. I wrap my chotki around my wrist every night and recite it while falling asleep. It is always the first prayer to spring to my mind and heart in times of trouble.<br />
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The Jesus Prayer is so simple. It is so powerful. If you feel so moved, I urge you to take it up. Read <em>The Way of the Pilgrim.</em> Most of us don't have the time to devote the entire day to inner prayer, as the Pilgrim does. But that is no excuse for not bringing ourselves to Christ. Set aside a little time. Pray the Jesus Prayer. Take a step into your heart, away from the world, and into the Divine Presence of God.<br />
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-74739064508372718252015-03-12T15:40:00.000-05:002015-03-12T15:43:11.757-05:00A Mishmash of Masters: My Commonplace Book<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Six AM on a weekday morning found me at the breakfast table, bleary from another late night, novel-writing like a madwoman. As I munched my toast and swallowed tea, desperately hoping for an energy burst, I opened up Homer's <em>Odyssey--</em>meals are often my only time for reading-- and stared at the first lines of Book II:<br />
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<em>Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Telemachus rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on his comely feet, girded his sword about his shoulder, and left his room looking like an immortal god.</em><br />
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I almost burst out laughing. Man! Why can't I get up like that in the morning?<br />
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The lines, besides making me smile, also struck my poetic imagination. I wanted to remember them. In fact, they delighted me so much that they urged me to restart my commonplace book.<br />
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I have kept a commonplace book since May of 2013. I was inspired to begin by a passage in the "Guide to Daily Reading", an introduction to a set of books <em>The Pocket University, </em>published in 1934. Among a series of lovely little essays on books and the art of reading in general, I came across this passage by Richard LeGallienne, in a section on how to remember what one reads:<br />
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<em>Yet it often happens that he [the reader] forgets much that he needs to remember, and thus the question of methodical aids to memory arises.</em><br />
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<em>One's first thought, of course, is of the commonplace book. Well, have you ever kept one, or, to be more accurate, tried to keep one? Personally, I believe in the commonplace book so long as we don't expect too much from it. Its two dangers are (1) that one is apt to make far too many and too minute entries, and (2) that one is apt to leave all the remembering to the commonplace book, with a consequent relaxation of one's own attention. On the other hand, the mere discipline of a commonplace book is a good thing, and if--as I think is the best way--we copy out the passages at full length, they are thus the more securely fixed in the memory. A commonplace book kept with moderation is really useful, and may be delightful.</em><br />
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I have certainly found my commonplace book a delight, and in fact a very helpful tool for memory. I don't always copy long passages, but I may enter a short poem, or a few paragraphs of prose, or verses from spiritual reading and Scripture. The book has proven a good way for me to memorize the latter. In some places it has served double duty as a prayer journal, when I copy down Bible verses and reflection to help me through some spiritual trial. The other entries--the poems, the bits of novels, the Gaelic song lyrics, and other miscellania--are my personal treasure trove of fond memories and future inspiration.<br />
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My main criterion when choosing passages for a commonplace book entry is the <em>strikingness</em> of them. Occasionally I will enter things that I think I simply ought to memorize--like the Creed, or, more recently, the list of American presidents--but usually I only copy a passage because it plucked some chord in my heart, of drama, or beauty, or romance. Thus, flipping through my commonplace book is a detailed portrait of the characters, scenes, themes and words which have most shaped my thoughts and writing over the past two years. <br />
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Many of these entries I have already shared on my blog--like Frost's <a href="http://marywoodsblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-love-of-bare-november-days-frosts.html" target="_blank">"My November Guest"</a> and <a href="http://marywoodsblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-stalwart-soul-frosts-lone-striker.html" target="_blank">"The Lone Striker"</a>, Stevenson's <a href="http://marywoodsblog.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html" target="_blank">novels and poems</a>, Eliot's <em><a href="http://marywoodsblog.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-mystery-of-martyrdom-eliots-murder.html" target="_blank">Murder in the Cathedral</a></em>, Tolstoy's <em><a href="http://marywoodsblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/death-awakening-leo-tolstoy-and-john.html" target="_blank">War and Peace</a></em>, and others. But many I have not shared. Here, then, is a selection of my favorite passages from my commonplace book. May they inspire you to read some of the beautiful works they come from!<br />
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<strong>May 22, 2013</strong><br />
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"On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head this way. A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again. -- Oh Mary! Mary! -- boy! boy! boy! -- But if I wake thee not to death, old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week may sink with all the crew! Great God, where are Thou? Shall I? Shall I? -- The wind has gone down and shifted sir; the fore and main topsails are reefed and set; she heads her course."<br />
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"Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!"<br />
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Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man's tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the long dumb dream to speak.<br />
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The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against the panel; Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.<br />
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"He's too sound asleep, Mr Stubb; go thou down, and wake him and tell him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know'st what to say."<br />
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<strong>~ Herman Melville, <em>Moby Dick, </em>Chapter 123</strong></div>
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I DARE someone to tell me <em>Moby Dick </em>is a big boring book about a whale.</div>
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<strong>June 10, 2013</strong></div>
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The Gobhaun Saor and his son were left in the dun without light, without food, and without companions. Outside they could hear the heavy-footed Fomorians, and the night seemed long to them. "My sorrow," said the son, "that I ever brought you here to seek a fortune! But put a good thought on me now, father, for we have come to the end of it all." "I needn't blame your wit," said the father, "that had as little myself. [...]"</div>
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"If we had light itself," said the son, "it wouldn't be so hard, or if I had a little pipe to play a tune on." He thought of the little reed pipe he was making the day the three Fomorians came to him, and he began to search in the folds of his belt for it. His hand came on the lock of wool he got from Mananaun, and he drew it out, "Oh, the fool that I was," he said, "not to think of this sooner!" "What have you there?" said the Gobhaun. "I have a lock of wool from the Sea God, and it will help me now when I need help." He drew it through his fingers and said: "Give me light!" and all the dun was full of light. He divided the wool into two parts and said: "Be cloaks of darkness and invisibility!" and he had two cloaks in his hand colored like the sea where the shadow is deepest.</div>
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"Put one about you," he said to the Gobhaun, and he drew the other round himself. They went to the door; it flew open before them; a sleep of enchantment came on the guards and they went out free. "Now," said the son of the Gobhaun Saor, "let a small light go before us"; and a small light went before them on the road, for there were no stars in Balor's sky. When they came to the Dark Strand the son struck the waters with his cloak and a boat came to him. It had neither oars nor sails; it was pure crystal, and it was shining like the big white star that is in the sky before sunrise. "It is the Ocean-Sweeper," said the Gobhaun. "Mananaun has sent us his own boat!" "My thousand welcomes before it," said the Son, "and good fortune and honor to Mananaun while there is one wave to run after another in the sea!"</div>
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They stepped into the boat, and no sooner had they stepped into it than they were at the White Strand, for the Ocean-Sweeper goes as fast as a thought and takes the people she carries at once to the place they have their hearts on. "It is a good sight our own land is!" said the Gobhaun when his feet touched Ireland. "It is," said the son, "and may we live long to see it!"</div>
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<strong>~ From "How the Son of the Gobhaun Saor Shortened the Road", retold by Ella Young</strong></div>
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This is Irish fairy-tale at its most striking and moving. Elements of this story haunt my own Celtic tale.</div>
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<strong>August 8, 2013</strong></div>
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<em>Hotspur:</em> He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,</div>
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The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,</div>
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And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside,</div>
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And bid it pass?</div>
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<em>Vernon:</em> All furnished, all in arms;</div>
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All plumed like estridges that with the wind</div>
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Baited like eagles having lately bathed;</div>
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Glittering in golden coats, like images;</div>
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As full of spirit as the month of May,</div>
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And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;</div>
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Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.</div>
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I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,</div>
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His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm'd,</div>
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Rise from the ground like feather'd Mercury,</div>
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And vaulted with such ease into his seat,</div>
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As if an angel dropp'd down from the clouds,</div>
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To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus</div>
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And witch the world with noble horsemanship.</div>
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<em>Hotspur:</em> No more, no more: worse than the sun in March,</div>
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This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;</div>
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They come like sacrifices in their trim,</div>
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And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war</div>
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All hot and bleeding will we offer them:</div>
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The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit</div>
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Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire</div>
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To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh</div>
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And yet not ours. Come, let me taste my horse,</div>
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Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt</div>
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Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:</div>
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Harry to Harry shall, hot horse to horse,</div>
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Meet and ne'er part till one drop down a corse.</div>
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<strong>William Shakespeare, <em>Henry IV Part I, </em>Act 4, Scene 1</strong><br />
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Could you possibly heap any more praise on an enemy than Vernon does on young Prince Harry (the future King Henry V of Agincourt fame)? And can't you just see Hotspur fuming in envy as he leaps astride his charger? This Shakespeare play is as gripping as an adventure novel!</div>
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<em>Epilogue: </em>If you have actually read to the end of this post, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. There's a heck of a lot more I'm dying to share from my commonplace book, and this post makes me realize I should do it more often. Until next time--happy reading.</div>
<em></em><br />Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-84941611823115619722015-03-05T17:37:00.001-06:002015-03-05T17:37:51.457-06:00The King of Glory Enters: A Journey through the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It is a Friday evening during Great Lent. The church is muted, except for the rhythmic rush and jingle of the bells of the incenser as the deacon moves about the sanctuary. The cantor and people raise their voices in an opening hymn--a traditional Slavic Ruthenian chant, perhaps the heartbreaking "Now Do I Go to the Cross":<br />
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<em>Now do I go to the Cross,</em></div>
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<em>nowhere else shall I find You,</em></div>
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<em>Jesus Lord, peace of my soul.</em></div>
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<em>There I shall find the Mother of God,</em></div>
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<em>sorrow and pain piercing her heart.</em></div>
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<em>Sorrow now is all I feel.</em></div>
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The deacon strides out through the side of the icon screen, stands before the royal doors, and declares to the celebrant in the sanctuary, "Father, give the blessing!"</div>
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The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts has begun.</div>
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The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts--often referred to as "Presanctified Liturgy"--is a unique Lenten tradition among the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches. In form, it is essentially a Vespers service with the distribution of the Eucharist. Besides that, one important fact distinguishes it from a regular Divine Liturgy--it has no consecration. The reason, as the name of the service implies, is that the gifts of bread and wine are <em>pre-sanctified</em>--they have already been consecrated on the previous Sunday.</div>
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Roman Catholics should be familiar with this concept through their commemoration of Good Friday. Good Friday, in the Western Church, is an "a-liturgical" day--meaning it is not allowed to consecrate the Eucharist that day. But in the Eastern tradition, <em>every weekday</em> of Lent is considered a-liturgical. Thus, during the Great Fast, we celebrate Presanctified Liturgy with the already-consecrated Body and Blood every week--typically on Wednesdays and Fridays. </div>
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The service begins, as the normal Vespers service always does, with the chanting of Psalms. The words are utterly familiar, but the mournful Lenten melody lends them a special poignancy. Sorrow, joy, peace and longing strain forth in the flow of alternating verses. The Psalms finish with the singing of the Stichera, or propers for the day--liturgical poems often centering on a theme of Lenten struggle or repentance. </div>
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The service proceeds with the Hymn of the Evening, "O Joyful Light"--also a standard part of Vespers and one of the most ancient Christian texts. Traditionally, the church is dark or only partially lit up until this point; now, as we sing of the Light of Christ, the church is fully lit:</div>
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<em>O Joyful Light of the holy glory of the Father Immortal,</em></div>
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<em>the heavenly, holy blessed One, O Jesus Christ:</em></div>
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<em>Now that we have seen the setting of the sun, and see the evening light,</em></div>
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<em>we sing to God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.</em></div>
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<em>It is fitting at all times to raise a song of praise in measured melody to you,</em></div>
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<em>O Son of God, the Giver of Life.</em></div>
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<em>Therefore, the universe sings your glory.</em></div>
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Next come the Prokeimena--the equivalent of Responsorial Psalms--and the readings. Unless the service takes place during Holy Week or some other major feast day, the readings are always from the Old Testament--Genesis and Proverbs, Exodus and Job. These books encompass essential Lenten themes: returning to beginnings to discover who we are and ought to be; humility and desire to pursue wisdom; escape from sin; and the purpose of suffering and repentance. </div>
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After the readings, we chant the Solemn Evening Psalm: <em>Let my prayer arise to you like incense, and the lifting up of my hands like an evening sacrifice. </em>The people sing this refrain standing, then kneel as the priest chants each of his verses. The bodily gestures of repentance continue with the full prostrations performed during the reciting of the Prayer of St. Ephrem (see <a href="http://marywoodsblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-arena-of-virtues-selections-from.html" target="_blank">this post</a> for the text of the prayer).</div>
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During a regular Divine Liturgy, the text sung after the readings is the Cherubic Hymn. As the clergy process around the church with the yet-unconsecrated gifts, we sing of the angels and of the mystical sacrifice in which we are about to participate. But in a Presanctified Liturgy, the bread and wine the clergy hold are already the Divine Body and Blood of Christ. Thus the text is slightly different. This, as the priest and deacon prepare in the sanctuary, is what we sing:</div>
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<em>Now the powers of heaven are serving with us invisibly.</em></div>
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<em>For behold the King of Glory enters.</em></div>
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<em>They escort the mystical sacrifice, already accomplished.</em></div>
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When the clergy process out from the sanctuary--the priest holding up God and the deacon incensing Him--the church hushes. The people bend to the ground in a full prostration. In complete silence--the only noise being the slow tread of the clergy, and the jangle of the incenser--we adore Christ passing through our midst. </div>
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(To understand the full power of this moment, you have to understand the ethos of Eastern liturgies in general. Unlike in the Western Mass, there are few moments of silence and meditation during services. Literally everything besides the homily is sung, and the litanies, responses, and hymns follow one upon the other with hardly a pause. This fosters an atmosphere of holy exuberance and joy--a gorgeous and occasionally overwhelming experience, especially for newcomers! In contrast, quiet moments during liturgy, even accidental ones, are rare. Thus a period of prolonged, purposeful, and solemn silence--as during the Great Entrance of Presanctified Liturgy--is almost overwhelming. To close the eyes and touch the head to the cold floor and listen, in that breathless hush, to God walking by--I am no theologian, but in my own small experience, it is a pinnacle of love and existence.)</div>
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After the Great Entrance, the service moves fairly quickly towards Communion. The text of the Communion Hymn is the beautiful Psalm verse, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." And we do indeed taste and see. In the East, the Eucharist is received not in the separate forms of wine and an unleavened host, but combined--small pieces of leavened bread soaked in wine, dropped into the mouth by a spoon. On regular Sundays, the loaves of bread used are fresh, and soft wine-soaked pieces dissolve easily in the mouth. But for Presanctified Liturgy, the Body of Christ--being, after all, in the physical form of bread which has been sitting in the tabernacle since the previous Sunday--is, well, harder than usual. Hard enough to require chewing. There is nothing irreverent about this. Christ is our Nourishment, body and soul; why should He not come to us solid and physically filling, as well as spiritually saving?</div>
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After Communion the service concludes in a tone of solemn thankfulness and joy. In the Byzantine Ruthenian tradition, the short final hymn "Having Suffered" is sung three times, in English and Old Slavonic. Sometimes, during its passionate mournful phrases, the church is darkened again, leaving, once more, only the candles burning before the icon screen, in mystical darkness.</div>
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<em>(For the extra-curious or musically inclined reader, below are some to videos I've hunted up, providing a sample of the music I've referenced in this blog post. For the full experience, of course, visit your nearest Eastern Catholic--or Orthodox!--church.)</em></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaitHOYjRb0" target="_blank">Now Do I Go to the Cross</a> ~ A slightly different version, melodically, from the hymn I'm familiar with, but with the same text and surging mournful spirit. Beautiful.</div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8UtqHgx1e4" target="_blank">Let My Prayer Arise</a> ~ A short clip from a liturgy celebrated in one of our own Byzantine Catholic Ruthenian parishes in the Midwest by our Bishop John Kudrick. The video shows the clergy in the sanctuary; you can see the congregation through the open royal doors in the icon screen. The video includes the recitation of the Prayer of St. Ephrem directly afterwards.</div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-05lT8-N0k" target="_blank">Let My Prayer Arise</a> ~ A choral arrangement of the Solemn Evening Psalm by Russian composer Dmitry Bortniansky. A favorite of mine, and hauntingly performed in this recording.</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-11422607827537673662015-02-26T15:32:00.002-06:002015-02-26T15:32:50.197-06:00The Celtic Stereotype: A Rant<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's the end of February and Chicago is still buried in snow. But recently I've seen a certain kind of green plant popping up in various places--usually on windows or walls of homes and storefronts, or plastered on posters and event announcements. It's the clover, and it's been making its annual appearance as the United States (prematurely, as usual) prepares to celebrate its absurd version of St. Patrick's Day.<br />
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I know St. Patrick's Day is still weeks away. And I know I should be used to how our secular culture trashes real holidays. But the diluting of this particular holiday touches one of my pet peeves--the romanticization of the Celtic.<br />
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I've always had a vague interest in Celtic culture, given my heritage. My grandmother's maiden name was Gallagher, and there is a family legend (mostly a joke, but who knows?) that our ancestors were Irish horse thieves. However, my family never put special emphasis on our Celtic background, so it wasn't until I read Robert Louis Stevenson's <em>Kidnapped</em> that I began unearthing the Celtic riches for myself. <br />
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<em>Kidnapped, </em>of course, is set in Scotland, so the book left me obsessed with all things Scottish. Having quickly depleted the list of Scottish stories by Stevenson, I turned next to Walter Scott. In books like <em>Waverly</em> and <em>Rob Roy</em> I discovered more adventure, more romance, more delicious Scots dialect. Soon after I found myself writing a short story (very much inspired by <em>Rob Roy</em>) which featured an 18th century Highland village. Now, in Scott's story, the stereotypical Highland peasant, along with being ragged and uneducated, spoke an unintelligible language called Gaelic. So for fun, I thought I'd translate bits of my story's dialogue into Gaelic. It would give it that more foreign, romantic atmosphere, wouldn't it?<br />
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An internet search revealed no automatic translations tools for Scottish Gaelic. But it did turn up a truckload of resources for <em>learning</em> Scottish Gaelic. Curious, I tried out a few websites. (The first thing that boggled me--not surprisingly--was the phonetics. "You mean, <em>mh</em> sounds like <em>v</em>? And <em>th</em> sounds like <em>h</em>?? And what's with <em>dh</em>--it sounds like <em>g</em>???")<br />
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Despite my bewilderment, I was hooked. My study of modern Scottish Gaelic launched me into a whole new consideration of Celtic culture. It was more than romance. It was real. Its language was more than unintelligible babble--it was a poetic, expressive tongue, both liquid and edgy. Its people were more than the nostalgically uncivilized peasants portrayed by Scott--they were human beings, who lived, worked, prayed, loved, sang, mourned, rejoiced. Their lives were harsh and often primitive by our standards, but that did not reduce their humanity.<br />
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After discovering this nugget of true Celtic culture through the Gaelic, I found I could not return to my old obsession with romantic Scotland. Scott's portrayal of the primitive Highland life irritated me. On the other hand, movies like <em>Brigadoon</em>, with its over-idyllic Highland village (not to mention its Highland villagers who speak in Lowland Scots), annoyed me as well. The truth lay deeper than the bagpipes and plaids, the thatched roofs and hairy cattle. I don't mean to say that these things were not a real part of Highland culture. They were--but not in the picture-postcard way they're often presented. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><em>Brigadoon, </em>the musical</td></tr>
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Perhaps I split hairs. But I insist the deeper study of a culture reveals beauties far more engaging than any romantic stereotype, because it reveals real human personalities. To prove it, I here share the English translation of an old Gaelic song, once sung by real Highland women while milking real Highland cows.<br />
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<em>Come, Mary, and milk my cow,</em></div>
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<em>Come, Bride, and encompass her,</em></div>
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<em>Come Columba the benign,</em></div>
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<em>And twine thine arms around my cow.</em></div>
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<em>Ho my heifer, ho my gentle heifer,</em></div>
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<em>Ho my heifer, ho my gentle heifer,</em></div>
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<em>Ho my heifer, ho my gentle heifer,</em></div>
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<em>My heifer dear, generous and kind,</em></div>
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<em>For the sake of the High King take to thy calf.</em></div>
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<em>Come, Mary Virgin, to my cow,</em></div>
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<em>Come, great Bride, the beauteous,</em></div>
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<em>Come, thou milkmaid of Jesus Christ,</em></div>
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<em>And place thine arms beneath my cow.</em></div>
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<em>Ho my heifer, my gentle heifer.</em></div>
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<em>Lovely black cow, pride of the shieling,</em></div>
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<em>First cow of the byre, choice mother of calves,</em></div>
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<em>Wisps of straw round the cows of the townland,</em></div>
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<em>A shackle of silk on my heifer beloved.</em></div>
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<em>Ho my heifer, ho my gentle heifer.</em></div>
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<em>My black cow, my black cow,</em></div>
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<em>A like sorrow afflicts me and thee,</em></div>
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<em>Thou grieving for thy lovely calf,</em></div>
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<em>I for my beloved son under the sea,</em></div>
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<em>My beloved only sun under the sea.</em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">(From "Carmina Gadelica" Vol. 1, collected and translated by Alexander Carmichael)</span></em></div>
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This song is chock full of reality. It reflects the deep Christianity of the old Highland peasantry. It reveals their poetic love of nature and animals. And it hints, in that mournful last stanza, of the harsh and tragic side of their lives. No Broadway writer could have reproduced the glinting nuance of joy and sorrow in such a song. Only a real woman, who had prayed and milked cows and lost a son to the sea, ever could have composed it. </div>
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In this country St. Patrick's Day is primarily an excuse for a party, featuring small three-leafed plants, small green-clothed men, and green beer. But I challenge my readers this year to treat it as a chance to explore real Celtic culture. Read <a href="http://catholicism.about.com/od/prayers/qt/Lorica_Patrick.htm" target="_blank">the prayer of St. Patrick</a>. Listen to a traditional Gaelic song. Never mind the cute cartoon leprechauns--read one of the ancient Irish myth cycles, like <em><a href="http://adminstaff.vassar.edu/sttaylor/Cooley/" target="_blank">The Cattle-Raid of Cooley</a></em> (a warning, though: Cu Chulainn and company are not for the faint of heart!). <br />
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Enjoy a bit of this true heritage. I bet you won't be able to go back to the stereotypes, either.<br />
<br />Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-37017791602817712812015-02-19T14:47:00.001-06:002015-02-19T14:47:41.631-06:00The Arena of Virtues: Selections from Cheesefare Sunday<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2DGhwgmgND0/VOY5fGF3RGI/AAAAAAAAAYo/oTbdV2RIKsE/s1600/Ladder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2DGhwgmgND0/VOY5fGF3RGI/AAAAAAAAAYo/oTbdV2RIKsE/s1600/Ladder.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Ladder of Divine Ascent</td></tr>
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Yesterday, for Roman Catholics around the world, marked the official beginning of Lent. Ash Wednesday is a beautiful and solemn tradition in the West. But the Eastern lung of the Church offers its own unique set of services meditating on the beginning of (as we call it) the Great Fast. For us, the Fast began four days ago, on the evening of Cheesefare Sunday.<br />
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The name requires a bit of explanation. The Church, in her wisdom, realizes that the Fast has a tendency to sneak up on us all. So she lets us ease into the penitential season in stages--a sort of pre-preparation period. The Sunday Gospel readings for the weeks leading up to the beginning of the Fast features characters like Zaccheus and the Prodigal Son, who are called to repentance and reconciliation. The second-to-last Sunday before Lent is called Meatfare Sunday--for the very simple reason that it's the day we "say farewell" to eating meats until after Pascha. Similarly, the Sunday after that is labeled Cheesefare Sunday--the final day we can indulge in dairy products.<br />
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However, the focus of the liturgical prayers on Cheesefare Sunday is anything but food. Instead, the prayers for Vespers and Matins commemorate the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. Through the plethora of hymns we enter into the character of Adam, weeping "over the memory of what used to be". The these verses from Ode 4 the Matins Canon bemoan the sorrow of separation from the Creator:<br />
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<em>I was filled with honors when I was with you in Eden, O Master. Woe is me! How was I deceived by the envy of the Devil and rejected far from your face?</em></div>
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<em>Choirs of angels, pour out your tears for me, and also you beauties of Paradise, the magnificent trees; for I was led astray by my misfortune and chased far away from God.</em></div>
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<em>O pleasant meadows, O sweetness of Paradise, you trees planted by God, let your leaves, as so many eyes, pour out tears for my nakedness and my estrangement from the glory of God.</em></div>
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The poetry brims with the tone of a funeral dirge, and forces us to confront our own state of sin. But the Church hardly leaves us to drown in despair. By the second half of Matins, the verses during the Psalms of Praise offer a stern but joyful encouragement for the spiritual struggle to come:</div>
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<em>The arena of virtues is now open!</em></div>
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<em>Let all who wish to begin training now enter!</em></div>
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<em>Prepare yourselves for the struggle of the Fast;</em></div>
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<em>Those who strive valiantly shall receive the crown!</em></div>
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<em>Let us put on the armor of the Cross to combat the Enemy,</em></div>
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<em>Taking faith as our unshakable rampart.</em></div>
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<em>Let us put on prayer as our breastplate,</em></div>
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<em>And charity as our helmet.</em></div>
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<em>As our sword, let us use fasting, for it cuts out all evil from our hearts.</em></div>
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<em>Those who do this shall truly receive the crown</em></div>
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<em>From the hands of Christ, the almighty One, on the day of judgement.</em></div>
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(Because I am an incurable romantic, that particular verse has always held a special place in my heart. Being patient and charitable and not taking that extra helping of breakfast cereal become more endurable when viewed in terms of an epic quest.)</div>
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The most distinctive service of Cheesefare Sunday--Forgiveness Vespers--takes place after the Divine Liturgy. (Although it's technically an evening service, many parishes, for the sake of convenience, celebrate it directly after the morning Liturgy.) Forgiveness Vespers marks the official beginning of the Fast. During the service, the altar cloths and clergy vestments are changed from gold to the penitential red. The ordinary melodies for the psalms and litanies switch over to the plaintive Lenten tones. Finally, we recite the signature prayer of the Great Fast--the Prayer of St. Ephrem--complete with full-length prostrations after each stanza:</div>
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<strong>The Prayer of St. Ephrem</strong></div>
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<em>Lord and Master of my life,</em></div>
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<em>spare me from the spirit of indifference, despair,</em></div>
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<em>lust for power, and idle chatter. </em>(Prostration)</div>
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<em>Instead, bestow on me, your servant,</em></div>
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<em>the spirit of integrity, humility,</em></div>
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<em>patience, and love. </em>(Prostration)</div>
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<em>Yes, O Lord and King,</em></div>
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<em>let me see my own sins</em></div>
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<em>and not judge my brothers and sisters;</em></div>
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<em>for you are blessed forever and ever. Amen. </em>(Prostration)</div>
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The beautiful words combined with the physical action of humility make for an unforgettable experience of the solemnity of the season.</div>
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Finally, the service concludes with the profound Ceremony of Mutual Forgiveness. In it, the celebrant and the congregation ask each other for forgiveness, and then each person comes forward to embrace and ask forgiveness of every other individual. It's a moving tradition, which forces us to step out of our personal shells and commit to the Fast as a community. All the while, the cantor quietly intones the Canon for Resurrection Matins--giving us a tiny glimpse of our Lenten goal:</div>
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<em>Let us cleanse our senses</em></div>
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<em>that we may see the risen Christ</em></div>
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<em>in the glory of his resurrection</em></div>
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<em>and clearly hear him greeting us:</em></div>
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<em>"Rejoice!" as we sing the hymn of victory.</em></div>
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<em>Christ is risen from the dead!</em></div>
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(But, shhh! Not quite yet!)</div>
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Indeed, let us cleanse our senses, body, mind, and soul. A blessed Great Fast to you all!</div>
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<em></em>Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-57991075466793961792015-02-12T14:06:00.000-06:002015-02-12T14:06:03.318-06:00Call of the Wild<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TKRwhSHeZR0/VNz4NKIfgHI/AAAAAAAAAYM/KQI00OVgve8/s1600/Sinks%2BCanyon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TKRwhSHeZR0/VNz4NKIfgHI/AAAAAAAAAYM/KQI00OVgve8/s1600/Sinks%2BCanyon.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of Sinks Canyon, near Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, WY<br />
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No, this is not a post about Jack London's sled dog adventure novel (although I did have a short obsession with that book when I was younger and could blog about it sometime). It's actually another ramble on my already-beloved school, Wyoming Catholic College.<br />
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Just over a year ago, I wrote the following in my journal:<br />
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<em>How can I express my excitement reading the newsletters and brochures from Wyoming Catholic College? They speak of the Holy Spirit-filled joy of this community, the students challenging each other in their faith, their studies, and their adventures, the absolute immersion in beauty and truth...it sounds like a training ground for the Catholic equivalent of Marines, or maybe knights.</em><br />
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Shortly after this, in a burst of enthusiasm, I printed out an image of the College's gorgeous crest, which I taped to my closet door, bearing the caption, "Knight of Wyoming Catholic College". My heart was set.<br />
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Several months later found me and my journal on a grassy June hillside. I was "in training" for the mountain hiking I'd be doing at WCC's summer camp in just a few weeks. Sweating in the Midwestern humidity, I took refuge in daydreams, and then in reflection:</div>
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<em>Sitting midst the clovers, looking at clouds, imagining mountains. The other day I re-watched WCC's latest video "Everything in Excellence." It moved me again.... Indeed the whole video reminded me again of the necessity of being both hardworking and <u>joyful</u>, if I want to be a part of WCC. And I think the fact that in this way the college is making me [want to be] a better person, even before I've enrolled or set foot on the place, is telling...it is not like other schools at all.</em></div>
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I carried a golden picture in my mind of Wyoming Catholic. And incredibly, my real experiences of the College did not dispel my idealism. They actually confirmed it. </div>
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Later on I discovered that the College had on its website a list of "attributes of the ideal WCC student". This I read, admired, and eventually taped up on either side of the eagle and shield on my closet, as a kind of knightly code. The list is a constant inspiration--and intimidation. You'll see what I mean.</div>
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<strong>The Ideal WCC Student</strong></div>
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<em>From Wyoming Catholic College's <a href="http://www.wyomingcatholiccollege.com/admissions/idealstudent/index.aspx" target="_blank">admissions webpage</a></em></div>
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"Wyoming Catholic College is focused on educating the whole person: mind, body, and spirit. Since our mission is different than the missions of other colleges, what we look for in an applicant is also different. While we expect certain levels of academic achievement on standardized tests and high school transcripts, we also look beyond scores to find the character of the student. Below is a list of intangible traits we are looking for in our students."</div>
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- Unwillingness to settle for the satisfactory, but always striving for excellence.</div>
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- More concerned with uncovering the truth than appearing right.</div>
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- Desire to know what is true for its own sake, not just to pass a test or get a job.</div>
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- Unafraid of the consequences of speaking out about what is true.</div>
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- Enjoys listening and asking questions, not just hearing oneself talk.</div>
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- Deep personal prayer life.</div>
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- Life aimed at becoming a saint.</div>
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- Desire to know our Lord through His marvelous creation.</div>
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- Willing to consistently break out of his or her comfort zone to grow as a person.</div>
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- Willing to work hard to improve in those areas where he or she is not naturally gifted.</div>
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- Willing to sacrifice to achieve greatness.</div>
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That's one heck of an admissions criteria. This is the call of the Wild, the divine adventure of sainthood. As an incoming freshman at Wyoming Catholic College this August, I am terrified--in absolutely the best way possible.</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-2363764961752366212015-01-29T15:20:00.000-06:002015-05-06T16:09:15.955-05:00A Mystic Mouse: Holiness in "The Tale of Despereaux"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/2NB8wSNgPOw/0.jpg" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2NB8wSNgPOw?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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Before you read this post I'd like you to watch the short video above. It's a trailer for the movie <em>The Tale of Despereaux</em> which came out in 2008, based on the excellent children's book by Kate DiCamillo. Back when the movie first came out, I thought it was a fun film--besides the usual unnessecary, annoying, and even plain absurd changes from the book. However, I realized recently that the most fundamental change the film makes is to the character of Despereaux himself. The differences are subtle but important. They distinguish the stirring, unique fairy-tale which is the book, from the faintly clichéd storyline which is the movie.</div>
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Listen to the voiceover on the trailer: "Now when it comes to being a mouse, there's a right way and a wrong way. But Despereaux can only do things <em>his way</em>." The movie proceeds to show a very bravado little Despereaux leaping over mousetraps, facing a cat in a gladiator-style arena, and hang-gliding on his gigantic ears. In fact, the swashbuckling, imperturbable hero portrayed in the film closely resembles the chivalrous-but-vain Reepicheep from <em>The Chronicles of Narnia </em>film series:</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NQkYonihV4s/VMqNt8TlXcI/AAAAAAAAAXk/k7aDBHvHDnE/s1600/Despereaux.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NQkYonihV4s/VMqNt8TlXcI/AAAAAAAAAXk/k7aDBHvHDnE/s1600/Despereaux.jpg" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ECgGyOLMKRE/VMqNxzX0-eI/AAAAAAAAAXs/eGYVtHF4zHQ/s1600/Reepicheep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ECgGyOLMKRE/VMqNxzX0-eI/AAAAAAAAAXs/eGYVtHF4zHQ/s1600/Reepicheep.jpg" height="200" width="148" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Um...yes. Definite similarities. Right down to the scarlet headgear.</span></em></div>
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But is this the real Despereaux? I invite you inside Kate DiCamillo's novel to find out.</div>
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<em>He [Despereaux] said nothing in defense of himself. How could he? .... He </em>was<em> ridiculously small. His ears </em>were<em> obscenely large. He </em>had<em> been born with his eyes open. And he was sickly. He coughed and sneezed so often that he carried a handkerchief in one paw at all times. He ran temperatures. He fainted at loud noises. Most alarming of all, he showed no interest in the things a mouse should show interest in.</em></div>
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Except for a few points, this portrait is the stark opposite of the film Despereaux. The reasons are obvious. A sickly, fainting, meek mouse could never be the hero of a major motion picture. It simply wouldn't do. Despereaux has to survive a dungeon and escape evil rats and rescue a princess. He must be braver, stronger, bolder than the rest of his fellow mice. He must assert himself. He must demand "his own way". Right?</div>
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But the Despereaux presented in the book is not different from his mouse community by virtue of defiance. He's simply different by oblivion:</div>
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<em>But Despereaux wasn't listening to [his brother] Furlough. He was staring at the light pouring in through the stained-glass windows of the castle. He stood on his hind legs and held his handkerchief over his heart and stared up, up, up into the brilliant light.</em></div>
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<em>"Furlough," he said, "what is this thing? What are all these colors? Are we in heaven?"</em></div>
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<em>"Cripes!" shouted Furlough from a far corner. "Don't stand there in the middle of the floor talking about heaven. Move! You're a mouse, not a man. You've got to scurry."</em></div>
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<em>"What?" said Despereaux, still staring at the light.</em></div>
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<em>But Furlough was gone.</em></div>
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Physically and emotionally, Despereaux is weaker than his fellow mice. He practically has no self to assert. And this is precisely what allows him so receptive to objective truth, goodness, and beauty. </div>
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This is nothing less than a symbolism of Divine grace. (Whether this was the author's explicit intention I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out it were.) From his birth, he is called to see and hear things that the other mice, in their mundane, materialistic culture, can't. Despereaux does not break the laws of mousedom by asserting his own will. Instead he is caught up, almost without his own will, in a higher world of light. Throughout the book, he draws strength from many things--love, stories, and even a bowl of soup. Not once does he draw strength from himself. He is far more a mystical, spiritual knight than a self-reliant, swashbuckling one.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ufcSR0xd-0A/VMqfgl9J2UI/AAAAAAAAAX8/9mAm_r_b2yo/s1600/Despereaux2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ufcSR0xd-0A/VMqfgl9J2UI/AAAAAAAAAX8/9mAm_r_b2yo/s1600/Despereaux2.jpg" /></a></div>
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But that just smacked too strong of real holiness for Universal Studios.</div>
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I'll admit, the movie did keep intact some of the book's other important themes, like the power of forgiveness. But it eroded Despereaux's unique character of saintly knight, replacing it with a stererotyped, "rugged individual" hero. So if you're hungry for a fairy-tale of true depth, spiritual insight, and timelessness--just read the book.</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-23646887555951300672015-01-15T19:13:00.000-06:002015-01-15T19:13:10.362-06:00Faith in the Night Sky: Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Winter nights are best for stargazing. The dark comes on early, and the air--if bitter--is beautifully clear. Often, if I happen to be outside for a moment on a cloudless winter evening, I stop to greet a few old friends--the sweeping Big Dipper, the jagged Cassiopeia, the faint but distinctive Pleiades, and marching over all, the majestic Orion. They're not much compared to the grandeur of the Milky Way, but considering that I live in a Chicago suburb, I just take what I can get.<br />
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On that note I'd like to pull out a Robert Frost poem concerning stars. "Choose Something Like a Star" is one of the final pieces in Frost's <em>Complete Poems 1949</em>. It's one of his more metaphorically profound poems (and Frost is really, really good at being metaphorically profound), and, I think, a particularly pointed reminder to us as Christians and American citizens. Read away.<br />
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<strong>Choose Something Like a Star</strong></div>
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<strong>By Robert Frost</strong></div>
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<em>O Star (the fairest one in sight),</em></div>
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<em>We grant your loftiness the right</em></div>
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<em>To some obscurity of cloud--</em></div>
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<em>It will not do to say of night,</em></div>
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<em>Since dark is what brings out your light.</em></div>
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<em>Some mystery becomes the proud.</em></div>
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<em>But to be wholly taciturn</em></div>
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<em>In your reserve is not allowed.</em></div>
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<em>Say something to us we can learn</em></div>
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<em>By heart and when alone repeat.</em></div>
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<em>Say something! And it says, 'I burn.'</em></div>
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<em>But say with what degree of heat.</em></div>
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<em>Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.</em></div>
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<em>Use language we can comprehend.</em></div>
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<em>Tell us what elements you blend.</em></div>
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<em>It gives us strangely little aid,</em></div>
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<em>But does tell something in the end.</em></div>
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<em>And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,</em></div>
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<em>Not even stooping from its sphere,</em></div>
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<em>It asks a little of us here.</em></div>
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<em>It asks of us a certain height,</em></div>
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<em>So when at times the mob is swayed</em></div>
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<em>To carry praise or blame too far,</em></div>
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<em>We may choose something like a star</em></div>
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<em>To stay our minds on and be staid.</em></div>
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Let me say it outright. I think the entire poem is one long metaphorical reflection on faith in God. However, the metaphor is gorgeously layered. Take a look at the first three lines from this angle:</div>
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<em>O Star (the fairest one in sight),</em></div>
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<em>We grant your loftiness the right</em></div>
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<em>To some obscurity of cloud--</em></div>
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To me this comes across quite clearly as an appeal to a Divine Being. I.e., "Dear God, you are so infinitely greater than our human minds, that we admit we can't understand you fully. So go ahead--be a little mysterious." Of course, "we" don't stop there. We'd like a word or two of guidance:</div>
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<em>But to be wholly taciturn</em></div>
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<em>In your reserve is not allowed.</em></div>
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<em>Say something to us we can learn</em></div>
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<em>By heart and when alone repeat.</em></div>
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<em>Say something!</em> <em>And it says, 'I burn.'</em></div>
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The cryptic poignancy of that response echoes the scene of Moses and the burning bush. Indeed, since it is a star that is speaking, "I burn" seems a similar statement of essence to the Lord's "I AM"--in poetic terms, of course. But "I burn" also carries the meaning, "<em>I desire</em>." Desire what? It's no wonder we're a little confused:</div>
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<em>...And it says, 'I burn.'</em></div>
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<em>But say with what degree of heat.</em></div>
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<em>Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.</em></div>
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<em>Use language we can comprehend.</em></div>
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<em>Tell us what elements you blend.</em></div>
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Here, on the surface, Frost contrasts the poet's understanding of the star with the scientist's. The scientist wants something to measure; Frost makes it clear this star's meaning is immeasurable. The line of thought is the same if the star represents God. God's existence cannot be explained (or unexplained) by time- and matter-bound measurements. Not that He is irrational--rather, He is rational <em>and more</em>. The next lines give us a hint of this.</div>
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<em>Not even stooping from its sphere,</em></div>
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<em>It asks a little of us here.</em></div>
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<em>It asks of us a certain height...</em></div>
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A certain height--the height, hope, and dignity of faith. A height that lets us think and act above the bewildering vicissitudes of changing times and social mores:</div>
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<em>So when at times the mob is swayed</em></div>
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<em>To carry praise or blame too far,</em></div>
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<em>We may choose something like a star</em></div>
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<em>To stay our minds on and be staid.</em></div>
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(The pun in the final line is brilliant, by the way.) This is the bit I thought particularly relevant to us as Americans. Although we may technically live in a republic, when it comes to general culture we are definitely a democracy--as in, mob rule. The pressure to be politically correct, "to carry praise or blame too far," can be almost overwhelming. That's why "we may choose something like a star". </div>
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But even that isn't quite the right way to put it, considering what we've seen from the rest of the poem. Remember? "<em>It asks a little of us here. / It asks of us a certain height</em>". The title of Frost's poem may be "Choose Something Like a Star", but that is a line of ultimate understatement and irony. In reality, the Star chooses us.</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-29183855430602928762015-01-08T16:20:00.000-06:002015-01-08T16:20:52.995-06:00The Ordered Inner Life: Socrates' Portrait of the Just Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em>When you have read, you carry away with you a memory of the man himself; it is as though you had touched a loyal hand, looked into brave eyes, and made a noble friend; there is another bond on you thenceforward, binding you to life and to the love of virtue.</em></div>
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<em>~Robert Louis Stevenson, "Books Which Have Influenced Me"</em></div>
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Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the beautiful sentence above in reference to the relationship he felt with his favorite authors. It happens to be a great description of how I feel about Stevenson. But there's another literary character I've come to know recently, who fits the bill perfectly as well--Socrates.</div>
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Although Socrates did not technically write any of his famous dialogues--his student Plato did--it is still Socrates' personality which dominates the text. Anyone who has even skimmed works like the <em>Republic</em> or the <em>Apology</em> will be familiar with his persona: witty and yet methodical, clear-minded, inquisitive, humble, and never budging an inch from his principles. The most vivid impression I have received of Socrates is one of immense integrity. Here is a lover of truth and virtue the world has seldom seen.</div>
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Over the past few months I have been meandering my way through the <em>Republic</em>. Although it's not exactly what you'd call light reading, I have found it surprisingly refreshing. The clarity of Socrates' speech and logic seems a mental cleansing which sets my thoughts in order. Besides that, Socrates' own enthusiasm for the topics at hand is infectious. He livens the long abstract discussions with amusing metaphors like the following, from the fourth book of the <em>Republic</em>. The context: Socrates and his disciple Glaucon have been trying to pin down the essence of justice. On the way they've gotten a bit sidetracked, creating an ideal State. But now Socrates wants to return to the original issue:<br />
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<em>The time then has arrived, Glaucon, when, like huntsmen, we should surround the cover, and look sharp that justice does not steal away, and pass out of sight and escape us; for beyond a doubt she is somewhere in this country: watch therefore and strive to catch a sight of her, and if you see her first, let me know.</em><br />
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I can picture him speaking, with a twinkle in his eye, like a jovial professor. It's little things like that which distinguish Great Books from textbooks--a Great Book conveys a <em>person</em>.<br />
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The longer passage I'd like to share with you today is a bit more serious, but an equally vivid painting of Socrates' personality. A little later on in Book IV, after a long and winding discussion on the nature of justice, education, and the State, Socrates finally lays out his portrait of the ideal just man:<br />
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<em>But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, <strong>but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man</strong>: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others,--<strong>he sets in order his own inner life</strong>, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself; and when he has...become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he proceeds to act...always thinking and calling that which preserves and co-operates with this harmonious condition, just and good action, and the knowledge which presides over it, wisdom, and that which at any time impairs this condition, he will call unjust action, and the opinion which presides over it ignorance.</em><br />
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I'm afraid I cannot convey the whole genius of this little summary without diving into an explanation of Socrates' definition of justice and his division of the soul into the rational and the passionate. But that second phrase which I highlighted above simply arrested me the moment I read it. In the light of Socrates' piercing insight, I recognized that many of my own anxieties, frustrations, and failings are a result of a disorganized inner life. More often than not my desires are self- and pleasure-centered, when they should be love- and truth-centered. I found the call to set my inner life "in order" an inspiring one. And unlike Socrates' ideal man, I don't have to be "my own master" and "my own law". Considering my imperfections, that's probably a good thing. Instead, as a Christian, I discover both in the Person of Christ. <br />
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I hope I have succeeded in conveying at least a little of Socrates' unique personality through these quotes. Reading his dialogues has truly been what Stevenson described: a blessed obligation, binding me to life and the love of virtue.<br />
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-77743338466486842652015-01-01T13:51:00.000-06:002015-01-01T13:51:01.721-06:00A New Year (And A New Blog)Dear fellow-explorers of literature,<br />
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The past several months have been happily successful for "The Pen and the Sword". I've explored Catholic tradition, liberal education, and literary greats from Robert Louis Stevenson to Robert Frost. I have very much enjoyed this opportunity to share my thoughts on all these topics. On the statistical side, I'm delighted to report that this past December broke my previous record for monthly pageviews--nearly 850! Thank you, readers, for all you've done to support this new and fumbling blogger.<br />
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However, I do have one small request. Although I'm happy to see my stats moving up, I find little satisfaction as a writer not knowing who my readers actually are! Numbers don't read blog posts. People do. But when people do not leave comments on said blog posts, how am I to be the wiser?<br />
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(Now, admittedly, I am hardly an exemplary blog commenter myself. However, I here make a New Year's resolution, with the World Wide Web as witness, to comment on more blogs this year.)<br />
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My request is simple: if you have enjoyed any of my posts this past year, please comment and let me know. What topic interested you most? What would you like to see more of (or less of)? I did not start this blog merely to "add my voice" to the blogosphere. I want to connect with people of like mind, and to share my love of literature in dynamic discussion. So please--leave a brief comment on this post and let me know.<br />
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I've one last favor to ask before letting you go. When you've finished reading (and commenting on) this post, please visit this page: <a href="http://derholzburg.blogspot.com/">http://derholzburg.blogspot.com/</a>. "Der Holzburg" ("The Forest Castle" in German) is my older brother David's brand new blog. He and I share interests in culture, literature, and theology, but David also has a penchant for history, political philosophy, economics, and current events. In other words, if you've enjoyed "The Pen and the Sword", chances are you'll love exploring "Der Holzburg" as well. Here's a sneak peek at <a href="http://derholzburg.blogspot.com/2014/12/tangled-vs-frozen-how-disney-finally.html" target="_blank">his latest post</a>--a comparison of the recent Disney movies <em>Tangled</em> and <em>Frozen</em> in the light of traditional fairy-tale symbolism:<br />
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<em>Urban legend has it that the protagonists of "Tangled" appear briefly in the movie "Frozen" among the guests at Elsa's coronation, and some try to use this as evidence of deeper connections between the two stories. It's fun to try and find the little hints that point to a broader picture of Disney's reworked fairy-tale world. In fact "Tangled" and "Frozen" are closely related. They are sister movies with almost identical themes, and they both aim to put a thoroughly modern spin on an old story. The difference? "Tangled" failed to overcome the power of moral symbolism, and what was meant to be an iconoclastic revolution against the princely hero and damsel in distress, accidentally became a traditional, original fairy-tale. On the other hand, "Frozen" beat moral symbolism and achieved a victory which Disney has been pursuing for decades: the creation of a modern fairy-tale.</em><br />
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Intrigued? <a href="http://derholzburg.blogspot.com/2014/12/tangled-vs-frozen-how-disney-finally.html" target="_blank">Read on...</a><br />
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Thank you again for a wonderful 2014. May God bless your endeavors this year, and let us all remember to comment on each other's blogs. Amen.Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-47446564473186609082014-12-24T21:00:00.000-06:002014-12-24T21:00:01.787-06:00Nollaig Chridheil! ~ Two Gaelic Christmas Carols<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em>Nollaig Chridheil dhuibh, a h-uile duine. </em>Merry Christmas, everyone.<br />
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Today I'm afraid you, my readers, will have to endure another outburst of my Scottish geekiness. Fortunately, this one is appropriate to the season, and it involves more listening than reading. So turn up your speakers and prepare yourself for a wash of musical Christmas beauty.<br />
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Last Christmas I taught myself one Gaelic carol. That was all I had time for, what with the host of other preparations I had to make for the feast day. But this year I was eager to discover more: traditional Gaelic music holds a special place in my heart and I was sure there were some gorgeous Christmas songs out there just waiting for me. I was not disappointed. In my search I quickly uncovered the album <em>Duan Nollaig: A Gaelic Christmas</em>, by Fiona Mackenzie.</div>
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The album is lovely as a whole, including, along with the traditional Scottish carols, translations of some English favorites, like "In The Bleak Midwinter" and "Silent Night". Two of the native Gaelic songs in particular caught my attention: "Oran na Nollaig" (The Christmas Song) and "Bha Buachaillean an Dùthaich Shear" (There Were Shepherds in an Eastern Country). Below I post the videos and English translations of each song.</div>
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As soon as I read the lyrics to this song I knew I had to learn it. The words tell the story of a different kind of "Night Before Christmas"--this time, the midnight visitor is not a jolly St. Nicholas, but the voice of the Holy Spirit Himself. I invite you to read along as you play the video.</div>
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<strong>Oran na Nollaig (The Christmas Song)</strong></div>
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<em>The night before Christmas sleep fled far from me,</em></div>
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<em>I lay on my elbow with a whisper in my ear</em></div>
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<em>Saying, "Arise, get dressed and we'll go for a wander--</em></div>
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<em>To a town far away across the ocean.</em></div>
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<em>"There'll be a star in the sky," said the voice in my ear:</em></div>
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<em>"Follow it and you'll get your reward:</em></div>
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<em>You will glimpse the child they call the Lamb</em></div>
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<em>Lying in a manger--his cheek like a star.</em></div>
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<em>The Lamb of Reconciliation in the manger. Give him hospitality and welcome.</em></div>
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<em>The Savior of the world, the beautiful child of joy,</em></div>
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<em>What the prophets reported in the Bible</em></div>
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<em>You will see tomorrow night--come sail with me."</em></div>
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<em>"Who are you," I asked, "Whose voice do I hear?</em></div>
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<em>Who leads me to the sleeping child?</em></div>
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<em>Why did you invite a poor, wretched sinner?</em></div>
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<em>Come and tell me the reason--don't leave me so quickly."</em></div>
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<em>"Farewell," said the whisper, "I'm the Author of the book;</em></div>
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<em>May the song of Christmas be daily on your lips</em></div>
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<em>May the child's mercy follow your steps--</em></div>
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<em>As long as you're on earth give honor to Him."</em></div>
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If you've read this far, it means you've survived the beauty of Fiona Mackenzie's voice and the heart-wrenching violin interludes. I congratulate you! But you ain't seen nothing yet...</div>
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When I first heard the opening harp chords of "Bha Buachaillean an Dùthaich Shear", a chill pricked my spine and felt my heart pulled into a kind of swoon. <em>This</em> I had to learn! To my surprise, when I looked up the lyrics, they were merely a straightforward account of the angels' appearance to the shepherds on Christmas Eve. The story itself was utterly familiar, but the Gaelic poetry and swoon-inducing melody infused it with a new beauty, gentleness, and wonder. The song <em>sounds</em> like stars. I'm sorry, that's the only way I can describe it.</div>
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<strong>Bha Buachaillean an Dùthaich Shear (There Were Shepherds In An Eastern Country)</strong></div>
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<em>There were shepherds in an eastern country,</em></div>
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<em>Watching their flocks by night,</em></div>
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<em>When there came an angel from heaven,</em></div>
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<em>And the slope lit up with light.</em></div>
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<em>The men were terrified but he said to them,</em></div>
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<em>"Fear not, for I bring good tidings of great joy</em></div>
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<em>To you and all generations."</em></div>
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<em>"The Savior of the world,</em></div>
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<em>The Christ, the Holy Lord,</em></div>
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<em>Tonight has come to Bethlehem,</em></div>
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<em>A helpless, gentle child;</em></div>
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<em>And you shall find him securely wrapped</em></div>
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<em>In a warm manger in the hay,</em></div>
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<em>The precious, heavenly babe</em></div>
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<em>Promised to us since the beginning of time.</em></div>
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<em>Thus said the angel to them,</em></div>
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<em>And suddenly the heavens were full</em></div>
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<em>Of angels singing sweetly</em></div>
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<em>And this was what they sang:</em></div>
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<em>Glory to God in the heavens,</em></div>
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<em>Everlasting peace of earth!</em></div>
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<em>Glory to God in the heavens,</em></div>
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<em>Everlasting peace of earth!"</em></div>
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I have no doubt these two carols will become part of my favorite Christmas repertoire. There is something breathtaking about viewing Christ's birth through the eyes of another culture's language. I have enjoyed it immensely, and I hope I've helped open your ears to another world of Christmas music. <em>Beannachd leibh, agus Nollaig Chridheil!</em> (Blessings and a Merry Christmas to you all!)</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-9060567440471785822014-12-18T10:16:00.000-06:002015-05-27T09:46:30.693-05:00Four Advent Candles...Plus Two More<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If a Roman Catholic walked into our dining room at dinnertime during the last week before Christmas, he might be a bit perplexed. Yes, there would be the familiar Advent wreath with its four candles...but there'd also be two additional candles lit, making a mysterious total of six. <em>What's with the extra candles?!</em> he might wonder.<br />
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My father was a practicing Roman Catholic for the first 40 years of his life. Then, when I was about 4, he discovered the Byzantine Catholic Church. Feeling God's call, our whole family switched to the Eastern rite. But with so many beloved Advent practices left over from our Western heritage, our preparation for Christmas became a unique amalgamation of traditions.<br />
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Like I mentioned in <a href="http://marywoodsblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-love-of-bare-november-days-frosts.html" target="_blank">an earlier post</a>, the Eastern Church's Philip's Fast starts two weeks before the West's Advent. Thus our family keeps the Advent wreath, but adds two candles for the two extra weeks. At meals we sing Byzantine hymns during the beginning of the fast, but during the final week carol "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". We set up our Western-style nativity scene and tree, and then on Christmas Eve sit down to a traditional Slavic meal of sauerkraut and mushroom soup.<br />
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Personally, I love the hodgepodge. We breathe with both lungs of the Church and share the best of two worlds. Today--since I'm guessing most of my readers are more familiar with the Western side of things--I'd like to share a bit of Byzantine hymnography for this final week before Christmas.<br />
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Like Advent, the Eastern Philip's Fast is a time of preparation. Through our hymns, we remind ourselves of the miracle about to take place. Just read this text, from the prefestive troparion of the Nativity:<br />
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<em>Bethlehem, make ready,</em></div>
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<em>Eden has been opened for all.</em></div>
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<em>Ephrathah, prepare yourself,</em></div>
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<em>For the Tree of Life has blossomed from the Virgin in the cave.</em></div>
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<em>Her womb has become a spiritual paradise</em></div>
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<em>In which divinity was planted.</em></div>
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<em>If we partake of it,</em></div>
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<em>We shall live and not die like Adam.</em></div>
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<em>Christ is born to raise up the likeness that had fallen.</em></div>
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In a single hymn, we cover the redemption of the old Adam, the prophecies about Bethlehem and Ephrathah, the Incarnation, and even a hint of the Resurrection at the very end. The prefestive troparion clearly places Christmas in the wondrous context of all salvation history. </div>
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This is also the theme of the Emmanuel Moleben, a short prayer service that can be said during Philip's Fast. Near the end of the service, the priest recites a long "kneeling prayer" (so called because it's one of the few occasions during the year when Byzantines actually kneel!). It too recounts the crucial place Christmas holds in the true epic of our salvation (emphasis added):</div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">O God and Father, the Almighty One, you created the human race in your image and likeness, and when we fell through disobedience,</span> <strong>you promised to send a Savior</strong>. <span style="font-size: x-small;">When the fullness of time had come, your favor rested on your only-begotten Son, and</span> <strong>he was born of the Virgin Mary</strong>. <strong>Thus, what Isaiah the prophet foretold was fulfilled: "Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call him Emmanuel, which means 'God with us.'" His birth filled all creation with light; he gave us the baptism of repentance, and restored our ancient dignity. Now most compassionate Lord, you bring us to these honored days of the Christmas Fast that we may do battle with the desires of the flesh and draw strength from the hope of resurrection.</strong> <span style="font-size: x-small;">Receive us, then, as penitents and forgive our wrongdoing, those done knowingly and unknowingly, through malice and through weakness. And may our prayers our fasting, and our works of mercy rise up before you as incense, as sweet spiritual fragrance</span>, <strong>that in the company with the Magi and the shepherds we too, with pure hearts, may be found worthy to bow down before the Nativity of Jesus Christ, your beloved Son.</strong> <span style="font-size: x-small;">To him, together with you and your all-holy Spirit, belong glory, honor, and worship, now and ever and forever. Amen.</span></em></div>
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Christmas is both an arrival and a turning-point, a culmination and a beginning. The long-promised Savior is now visible to the world, but His mission is only just begun. As for us, Eastern and Western Catholics alike, the Christmas Fast is not quite over. Keep battling, soldiers! The King is almost here.</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-23641318173341026532014-12-11T13:10:00.000-06:002014-12-11T13:10:46.980-06:00Literature, A Mode of Knowledge: "The Lost Country"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This week I'd like to share with you a small but fine literary journal I have discovered--<em>The Lost Country</em>. It's a bi-annual publication of fiction, poetry, criticism, and reviews produced by The Exiles--a group of men and women in Forth Worth, TX, who in the tradition of the Inklings have founded a club for the creation and appreciation of great literature. The magazine is only in its third year, but they already have some fine work to showcase. This fall's issue includes an essay on William Wordsworth, a fairy tale with a generous dose of cracked humor, a plethora of insightful poems (including--I admit it--one of my own), and much more. I encourage you to <a href="http://www.inexsilio.com/read" target="_blank">take a look at it online</a> for free.<br />
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While exploring The Exiles' website a bit more deeply, I happened across their philosophical vision statement, <a href="http://www.inexsilio.com/manifesto" target="_blank">"Literature as a Mode of Knowledge".</a> By the first two sentences, I was hooked:<br />
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<em>The members of The Exiles share the conviction that literature is one of the modes of knowledge through which truth becomes accessible to man. The contemplation of a literary work of art, far from being a momentary diversion, an escape from reality, is, rather, a vision of that deeper reality which we mean by the term Truth.</em><br />
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As a young woman who feels a vocation to write, this idea is extremely exciting to me. Of course, I have read such speculation on the purpose of literature before, but every time I encounter it, it reminds me all over again of the real, joyful, intimidating nature of my art. I'll explain what I mean in a moment.<br />
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Often in the daily (well, almost-daily) grind of working on my novel--agonizing over adjectives, bridging plot holes, chiseling out characters--I can forget what all the labor is actually for. That's why I enjoy stepping back and realizing the true end of my craft, which The Exiles express quite beautifully:<br />
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<em>...[L]iterature presents an eschatological view of human life and experience, a view as though from the end of time when the meaning of everything that has happened is seen, a view in the light of eternity which is beyond our ordinary mode of perception. By seeing human actions in relation to their end, the literary work of art reveals that all the events, the agonies and the conflicts, of human life have meaning.</em><br />
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Now you see what I mean by intimidating? What a calling! The writer not only has a responsibility to hone his or her craft. The craft is inextricably bound to the pursuit of transcendent truth in the human condition. Keeping the physical ear tuned to the sound of the right words is just as important as keeping the spiritual ear alert for that inner harmony, that music of meaning. Writing requires perceptiveness on multiple levels.<br />
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This concept is as fascinating as it is frustrating. Lately an odd sense of the <em>mystery</em> of reality, in relation to the writer's craft, has been pressing on my mind. Every detail of real life seems overwhelmingly important. How does one really describe the glimmer of wet grapes, or the whistling hush of bird wings, or the satisfying pain of a hard run in the cold? Or, on the spiritual level, how does one truly pin down that elusive, irrepressible impulse bound in our beings, Love? Each experience has its own unique reality, which we only encounter directly when undergoing the experience. Words are comparatively vague. Writing seems to me a bit like trying to hand-mold a fine clay sculpture while wearing very bulky mittens. Words, those little meanings enfleshed in sound and shape by language, are all we have to trace the inimitable outline of God's reality.<br />
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This is the "mode of knowledge" that is literature. Like any art that tries to reconcile the real and the ideal, it's tremendously difficult to do well. In fact, given that no human can be all-knowing, it may be impossible to perfect. Nevertheless we try. The people behind magazines like <em>The Lost Country</em> try. On the whole, the results are quite beautiful. So I applaud their efforts, and quietly return to my own work, re-inspired.<br />
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<em>Quotes in this post are copied with permission from the article "Literature as a Mode of Knowledge", <a href="http://www.inexsilio.com/manifesto">http://www.inexsilio.com/manifesto</a>. </em>Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-34651304794131444882014-12-03T12:04:00.000-06:002015-05-06T16:09:15.964-05:00"Staggerford", by Jon Hassler<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<em>The following is a book review written for <a href="http://catholicfiction.net/" target="_blank">CatholicFiction.net</a>. </em><br />
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<em>Losing. That was the melancholy strain running through dozens of papers every year. Parents lost in death and divorce, fingers lost in corn pickers, innocence lost behind barns and in back seats, brothers and uncles lost in Vietnam, friends lost in drug-induced hallucinations, and football games lost to Owl Brook and Berrington.</em><br />
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Thus middle-aged bachelor Miles Pruitt's impression of his hometown of Staggerford, Minnesota. Set in the 1970s, Staggerford--like most small rural towns--has its share of saints and sinners. Miles, a high school English teacher and fallen-away Catholic, is an observer. Quiet and unobtrusive, he seems content to let life trundle along in its ordinary way. But he has had his share of losses as well--most significantly, the loss of both of the women he loved and might have married, to other men. Yet while Miles shares in the vague malaise of regret infecting the town, he does not seem to have the will or direction to pursue a deeper purpose.<br />
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The novel <em>Staggerford</em> is a chronicle of one week of Miles's life, taking place between October 30 and November 7. Thanks to a host of colorful supporting characters and side-stories, the main plot can be difficult to trace. In that way the book marvelously resembles a detailed snapshot of small-town life, rather than a traditional novel. However, the main story can be said to center around Miles, his landlady Agatha McGee, and one of his English students, Beverly Bingham.<br />
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Agatha and Beverly are the only two characters to whom Miles means, in the words of the landlady, "a deep, abiding lot." However, they could hardly be more different. Agatha, an elderly spinster and a staunch Catholic, has taught in the town's Catholic school for over forty years. Coming from an orderly, uncompromising moral worldview, she too feels loss as she witnesses the upheaval in both the Church and the secular world. But she gets along with the steady, uncomplaining Miles (though they do have their differences--he teases her about her pre-Vatican II missal while she prays every day for his lost faith). Agatha is the very picture of discipline, loyalty to tradition, and common sense.<br />
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Beverly, meanwhile, is the polar opposite. Although one of the brightest students in Miles's English class, she carries the burden of a terrible home life, a deranged mother, and a devastating family secret. Terrified for her future, she comes to Miles more and more often for advice and support. She is attracted to his steadiness precisely because her own life is so off-kilter. Miles, meanwhile, begins to wonder if he, a middle-aged bachelor and a teacher for over a decade, is actually falling in love with this 18-year-old girl. This new relationship sets off old memories of his previous failed romances.<br />
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While Miles struggles with past and present loves and Beverly endures her broken family, Agatha grapples to understand the purpose of evil in the world. In a central passage of the novel, she attempts to draw an analogy between the moral order and a bed of ferns in her garden:<br />
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<em>"So what I was thinking, Miles, was that maybe there is a similar process going on in human affairs. If you let sunshine stand for the goodness of the world and you let rain stand for evil, do goodness and evil mingle like sun and rain to produce something? To bring something to maturity, like those ferns? Does God permit sin because it's an ingredient in something he's concocting and we human beings aren't aware of what it is? Is there sprouting up somewhere a beautiful fern, as it were, composed of goodness and sin?"</em><br />
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Although this analogy does not put Agatha's mind entirely to rest, it does reveal her deep trust in Providence. Throughout the rest of the book, goodness and evil mingle, eventually climaxing in a great good--a healing relationship between the motherly Agatha and the desperate Beverly. However, it will take a tragedy to accomplish it.<br />
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These hints at Providence, along with Agatha's moral compass, provide a quietly Catholic backdrop to a very real story. With gentle soberness and humor, Jon Hassler also brings to life a medley of supporting characters--a female librarian obsessed with facts, an ambitious but nervous principle, a superintendent with a phobia of death, and many more. Each brings a mingling of good and evil to the landscape of Staggerford.<br />
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Overall, <em>Staggerford</em> is a comfortable, easy read, with a memorable cast of characters and a poignant ending. Hassler does not preach Catholicism with this story. Instead, he uses it to gently illuminate his characters' actions, in a quiet attempt to make order of our small, sometimes messy, ordinary lives.<br />
<br />Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304096034895903743.post-44326742664986603182014-11-20T15:11:00.000-06:002014-12-18T10:26:22.747-06:00The Love of Bare November Days: Frost's "My November Guest"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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November is typically the month people start complaining about the cold. I personally don't feel the need to complain about weather, unless there's a tornado in the vicinity. But there are particular reasons I actually enjoy the "ugliest" month in the year. Mostly they relate to Advent.</div>
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The season of Advent, for most of the Catholic Church, starts ten days from now. But for us Eastern Catholics, it's already here. Our "Advent", called Philip's Fast (it begins on the feast of the Apostle Philip), lasts six weeks instead of four. The middle of November is just the time when the soul-stressing noise and empty glister of the "holiday season," begin in earnest. It is just at this time, that Mother Church opens her arms to us, hushes us, and tells us to steady our hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.</div>
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Fasting, good works, and re-focused prayer are the main tools she gives us. But even nature itself encourages the ascetic ethos. By mid-November, the blazing autumn colors have withered. The grass is damp and yellowing. The wind begins to have a vicious bite. Beauty has gone, at least until the first real snow. Or has it?</div>
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Robert Frost might disagree. Recently while reading his volume of poetry, <em>A Boy's Will</em>, I ran across this short piece which is truly a November gem: </div>
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<strong>My November Guest</strong></div>
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<strong>by Robert Frost</strong></div>
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My Sorrow, when she's here with me,</div>
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Thinks these dark days of autumn rain</div>
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Are beautiful as days can be;</div>
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She loves the bare, the withered tree;</div>
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She walks the sodden pasture lane.</div>
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Her pleasure will not let me stay.</div>
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She talks, and I am fain to list:</div>
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She's glad the birds are gone away,</div>
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She's glad her simple worsted gray</div>
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Is silver now with clinging mist.</div>
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The desolate, deserted trees,</div>
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The faded earth, the heavy sky,</div>
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The beauties she so truly sees,</div>
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She thinks I have no eye for these,</div>
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And vexes me for reason why.</div>
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Not yesterday I learned to know</div>
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The love of bare November days</div>
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Before the coming of the snow,</div>
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But it were vain to tell her so,</div>
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And they are better for her praise.</div>
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At first it seems as if Frost views November like anyone else--a cold, dark, unpleasant, even unnecessary time of year. As we see, his Sorrow persuades him otherwise. But how can we understand this strange love of bare trees and cold fog? Is it a morbid obsession with pessimism and death? I think not. I also think the Church's wisdom can give us insight into Frost's fondness.</div>
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The two major fasting seasons of the year, in the Eastern Church, both posses an ethos of what we call "bright sadness". This is in obedience to our Lord's command, "And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their <span class="criteria" id="yui-gen38">fasting</span> may be seen by men" (Mat. 6:16). It is a fused spirit of deep repentance and buoyant hope, which prepares us for the greatest feasts of the Church year.</div>
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Bright sadness and Frost's Lady Sorrow are close cousins. In fact, November as a season epitomizes this attitude. The world has been stripped of its outward beauty and warmth, just as we strip ourselves of bodily pleasures. Nature grows stiller, darker, more rigorous, as we strive to keep a more peaceful spirit and a deeper prayer life. For six weeks we humble ourselves, preparing for the coming of Christ, just as November becomes naked, in preparation for the baptism of glittering December snow.</div>
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This is the "love of bare November days"--a love of quiet, repentance, and purification. It's not always pleasant--I don't like a November blast breathing down my neck any more than the rest of us--but it is good. A good chill, which reawakens our souls to the task before them: the task of loving God and each other. Ponder that the next time you're tempted to grumble about the forecast.</div>
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Mary Woodshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16609779859563259002noreply@blogger.com0