Words Twice a Week 12.6
If you are more into listening than reading, Words Twice a Week is available, along with other good stuff, as a podcast from St Paul’s Episcopal Church. Click here.
Day late and a dollar short department - Roy Orbison died on Dec 6 in 1988. He sang Pretty Woman, Only the Lonely, and that all time classic - Ooby Dooby! In my mind I also had him connected with Mack the Knife, but that is not correct. So this week’s challenge, for 10 points extra credit, without googling it, who sang Mack the Knife? And I know, Frank Sinatra and your uncle Stanley and a bunch of other people, but who sang the definitive Mack the Knife?
And last week’s challenge – write a poem that could be overprinted on one of Monet’s paintings -
Haystacks in twilight
Home to small birds, mice, needles -
I rest in the shade.
Best I could do – once you start writing haiku, it’s hard to write longer poems!
A couple of days from the church calendar (and I use the calendar of the Episcopal Church – there are some other “church related days” in the earth/world section below) -
Dec 10 Karl Barth, Thomas Merton Karl Barth was a theologian. (Yawn – ok, theology is not my strong suit or passionate interest.) Barth actually was a pretty significant figure, important in the Confessing Church opposition to Hitler and the Nazi’s, and the list of people he influenced is pretty substantial, from other theologians to novelists to ethicists. So, shows what I know.
Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk. Here’s what W Paul Jones, another Trappist monk, has to say about him. “Merton was an unknown Trappist monk until his autobiographical The Seven Story Mountain dominated the best seller lists, thrusting him into a public spotlight that no other monk has ever known. (Certain amount of prejudice there, Mr Jones?) From there, he wrote widely, a seemingly alternative voice to his times. A number of his books, including New Seeds of Contemplation, have become classics. Since his premature death, his popularity has encouraged the publication of almost everything he ever wrote.” (Tiny little bit of jealousy there, Mr Jones?)
Dec 13 – Saint Lucy/Lucia Ok, this is a bit of a story. She was a martyr sometime around 304. The story goes that she took her conversion to Christianity so seriously that she gave her dowry away to the poor, at which point her suitor rejected her. Not only that, he denounced her, and she was sentenced to be defiled in a brothel. But when the soldiers came, they could not move her, even with a team of oxen. So they piled wood around her but when it wouldn’t burn, someone finally stabbed her in the throat with a sword and she died. Someplace along the line either her eyes were gouged out, or she gouged them out herself, and so she is sometimes depicted looking at you (with her eyes still in her head), but holding a plate with two eyes on it that are also looking at you. It’s a little weird. (But hey, the best story United Methodists have is John Wesley preaching while standing on his father’s grave.) “Lucia” means “light” and before we switched calendars, her day came on or close to the winter solstice, so particularly in Scandinavia we have this tradition of the daughter dressed in white with a wreathe of candles on her head bringing cookies and sweets to the family. The two images don’t really juxtapose all that smoothly. In some portions of Italy her day is celebrated with a feast of home-made pasta. This would please my son.
And a few days from the world/earth calendar -
Dec 7
+well, Pearl Harbor Day.
Dec 8
+ 1965, the end of Vatican II. Like the Gothic cathedrals, it was started by one generation/pope (John XXIII) and finished by another (Paul VI). It made a significant difference in the Roman Catholic Church – some say too much, some say too little – and also spilled over into Protestant church life, particularly worship practices.
+ John Lennon was murdered in 1980. And all we are still saying is, Give Peace a Chance.
Dec 10
+ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted – a milestone in the expression of human conscience. The rights identified include the right to life, liberty, and security; the right to education; the right to employment, paid holidays, unemployment security; right to participate in culture; freedom from torture; freedom of thought, conscience, religion; freedom of expression.
+ The Fellowship of the Ring movie was released in 2001
+ the birthday of Emily Dickinson in 1830. Interestingly enough, perhaps what many of us remember about Emily Dickinson is that she was a recluse, almost never leaving her room, more than any of the poems she wrote. She wrote almost 1,800, including a series beginning
“It’s all I have to bring today…..” which included -
“It’s all I have to bring today,
This, and my brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat beside…”
(No, that’s an inside joke back from the “An Email A Day” time.) Only 10 of her poems were published in her lifetime. “Her poems were unique to her era. They contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.” (wikipedia)
+ Otis Redding died in 1967. How many of us have whiled away an hour or two Sitting on the Dock of the Bay?
Dec 11
+ UNICEF was established in 1946. I went “Trick or Treating for UNICEF”. Did you? Don’t know if that still happens – you can buy UNICEF Christmas/Holiday cards.
Dec 12
+ Our Lady of Guadelupe – the Catholics really do have all the good stories. This was the day in 1531 when Juan Diego showed the roses and mantle with image of Mary to the bishop. You can read the whole story here.
+ Jane Frances de Chantal – left a widow when her husband was killed in a hunting accident, she approached Francis de Sales to be her spiritual advisor. She had a difficult journey, often dipping into despair and depression. Nevertheless, she helped de Sales found the Congregation of the Visitation for women unable to endure the rigors of other orders. Together they founded 86 houses before she died. I just think that’s a really comforting story.
+ the birthday of Frank Sinatra in 1915. He did it his way and loved New York. At least he said/sang that he did.
+ Edvard Munch was born (screaming?) in 1863.
+ Robert Browning died in 1889.
And here’s a piece from Henri Nouwen as we wait for whatever we are waiting for -
God is a God of the Present
The real enemies of our life are the “oughts” and the “ifs.” They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and the now. God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful or painful. When Jesus spoke about God, he always spoke about God as being where and when you are. “When you see me, you see God. When you hear me, you hear God.” God is not someone who was or will be, but the One who is, and who is for me in the present moment. That’s why Jesus came to wipe away the burden of the past and the worries of the future. He wants us to discover God right where we are, here and now.
Guess that’s it -
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