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.
First a few issues to catch up with -
1) did anyone find Twinkies? I couldn’t find them at SuperOne. I didn’t ask, but there weren’t any in the Little Debbie display. The internet says Walmart and Meijers have them, but I don’t usually shop there.
2) At first I thought someone was playing with me – the “stats” said there were something like 28 views for last week’s post. Then I figured out it was probably me looking back through back issues for that quote from Buechner. Had me going for a while!
3) For folks who enjoy following the church calendar through the year, here’s a webinar (tomorrow, Monday, at 3pmEDT) you might be interested in – Art and the Liturgical Year. It’s free, but you have to register. If you are going to do it and want to zoom for coffee after, let me know and I’ll set up a meeting!
4) If you want to be part of a workbook-type spiritual growth activity in May on money and the role it plays in our lives, here’s a link for more information.
Some of the days from the church calendar this week -
April 27 Christina Rossetti (Actually this is apparently a “commemoration”, less significant than an actual “feast day”.) She was a poet. Love Came Down at Christmas and In the Bleak Midwinter are two of her poem that we sing as hymns. And here’s a “Dear John” sort of poem. Here’s a video of someone singing When I Am Dead, My Dearest, backed by a little chamber orchestra with some kind of interesting instruments! It’s on youtube and you have to click through an ad or two – irritating.
April 27 Zita an Italian saint, born around 1212, she was a faithful servant to the Fatinelli family in Lucca, even though she was at first reviled and abused. One anecdote relates a story of Zita giving her own food or that of her master to the poor. On one morning, Zita left her chore of baking bread to tend to someone in need. Some of the other servants made sure the Fatinelli family was aware of what happened; when they went to investigate, they claimed to have found angels in the Fatinelli kitchen, baking the bread for her. Some families bake a special loaf of bread for her day. She is the patron saint of maids, domestic servants, waiters and waitresses. Hey – waiters and waitresses are having a rough time these days – I guess we could order out for pickup and give the person who brings it out a tip!
April 30 Sarah Josepha Buell Hale Ok, we remember her for writing __________ and for pushing the ______________ holiday. Can you fill in the blanks without clicking the link? A prestigious literary prize, the Sarah Josepha Hale Award, is named for her. Notable winners of the Hale Award include Robert Frost in 1956, Ogden Nash in 1964, Elizabeth Yates in 1970, Arthur Miller in 1990, and Julia Alvarez in 2017. Hale was further honored as the fourth in a series of historical bobblehead dolls created by the New Hampshire Historical Society and sold in their museum store in Concord, New Hampshire. (apparently no longer available, at least not at the online store!) And, did you know you can have a bobblehead made of yourself? I didn’t. $50-$150. Probably too late for Mother’s Day. Not sure that would be a good idea, anyway.
A couple of guys who were disciples/apostles and that we really don’t know much about. Philip brings Nathaniel to Jesus, asks Jesus how they could possibly feed 5,000, lets Andrew know that some Greeks want to see Jesus, and at the Last Supper asks Jesus to show them the Father. So kind of like Thomas, he seems to ask leading questions that give Jesus a chance to explain and expound. This James is also known as “James the Less” or familiarly as “Litttle Jimmy”! The main question seems to be figuring out which of the other Jameses he is not!
And some of the days from the world/earth calendar -
April 26
+ Hitler’s forces bombed Guernica in 1937. Picasso painted the picture. The Tree of Gernika was/is an oak under which official things happened. The first one was planted in the 14th century and lasted 450 years. The tree's significance is illustrated by an event which occurred shortly after the Guernica bombings. When the Francoist troops took the town, the Tercio of Begoña, formed by Carlist volunteers from Biscay, put an armed guard around the tree to protect it against the Falangists, who had wanted to fell this symbol of Basque nationalism. (That’s from wikipedia - I have no idea who those various groups were.) All in all, the town looks like a fairly pleasant place to be today.
+ Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. Today you can fly over the site. Or stay at the nearby Desyatka Hotel – 4 circles on Trip Advisor!
+ Frederick Law Olmsted was born in 1822. He helped design Central Park in New York, and the grounds near Niagra Falls. According to wikipedia, Olmsted was also known to oppose park projects on conservationist grounds. In 1891, Olmsted refused to develop a plan for Presque Isle Park in Marquette, Michigan, saying that it "should not be marred by the intrusion of artificial objects." Good day to go round the Island!
April 27
+ Ralph Waldo Emerson died in 1882. In October 1817, at age 14, Emerson went to Harvard College and was appointed freshman messenger for the president, requiring Emerson to fetch delinquent students and send messages to faculty. By his senior year, Emerson decided to go by his middle name, Waldo. He served as Class Poet and as was custom, he presented an original poem on Harvard's Class Day, a month before his official graduation on August 29, 1821, when he was 18. He did not stand out as a student and graduated in the exact middle of his class of 59 people. Just in time, here’s a May Day poem, but it does kind of go on forever. Plan to spend much of the afternoon reading it if you are going to.
+ Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa. He had voted for the first time in his life in the election.
+ Beethoven composed Fur Elise, apparently in 1810. The music wasn’t discovered until 40 years after he died. There are three candidates for “Elise” – check the website. Listen here.
April 28
+ a vaccine for yellow fever became available in 1932.
April 29
+ Duke Ellington was born in 1899. He once said “I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that when I played a girl would appear and sit on my left and another on my right”. He played It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing, Mood Indigo, and many more. After playing in Stratford Ontario while the Festival was going on, he did an album Such Sweet Thunder based on works of Shakespeare. Listen to a track from it here. It’s also got a Sonnet for Caesar, and one for Sister Kate. And a track for Lady Mac – if you’re feeling brave! He wrote Come Sunday that we try to sing as a hymn. And he still found time to play this little roadhouse in Michigamme!
April 30
+ Willie Nelson was born in 1933. You can hear him sing How Great Thou Art.
+ Muddy Waters. “father of Chicago blues”, died in 1983. He had his first introduction to music in church: "I used to belong to church. I was a good Baptist, singing in the church. So I got all of my good moaning and trembling going on for me right out of church," he recalled. By the time he was 17, he had purchased his first guitar. "I sold the last horse that we had. Made about fifteen dollars for him, gave my grandmother seven dollars and fifty cents, I kept seven-fifty and paid about two-fifty for that guitar. It was a Stella. The people ordered them from Sears-Roebuck in Chicago." (wikipedia) Hey – I had a Stella guitar. I would say he got his mojo working. Muddy Waters sang Rollin Stone, and editor Jann Wenner explained “The name of the magazine is Rolling Stone, which comes from an old saying: 'A Rolling Stone gathers no moss.' Muddy Waters used the name for a song he wrote; The Rolling Stones took their name from Muddy’s song, and 'Like A Rolling Stone' was the title of Bob Dylan’s first rock and roll record.”
May 1
+ May Day – we used to hang may baskets on doorknobs early in the morning, ring the doorbell, and run away. That was long years ago.
+ International Workers Day. It began in 1886 with a general strike on May 1 in Chicago for an 8 hour workday. On 4 May, in what came to be called The Haymarket Affair, the police acted to disperse a public assembly in support of the strike when an unidentified person threw a bomb. The police responded by firing on the workers. The event led to the deaths of seven police officers and at least thirty-eight civilians; sixty police officers were injured, as were one hundred and fifteen civilians. Hundreds of labour leaders and sympathizers were later rounded-up and four were executed by hanging, after a trial that was seen as a miscarriage of justice. The following day on 5 May, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the state militia fired on a crowd of strikers killing seven, including a schoolboy and a man feeding chickens in his yard. (wikipedia)
+ In the Catholic church it’s a Feast Day of Joseph the Worker
+ Antonin Dvorak died in 1904. Here’s a link to his Symphony #9 (New World Symphony). Deeply religious, he wrote as variety of works, including a Requiem, a mass, and a Te Deum.
+ The Empire State Building, tallest in the world at the time, opened in 1931.
May 2
+ Leonardo da Vinci died in 1519. He did about everything – I guess you just have to click on the link.
That’s what I got for now….
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