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.
The challenge for the week was an “Easter haiku” before the season changes.
Here’s what I got -
From darkness and death
Jesus rose on Easter morn -
New life, light, love, leaves.
You probably did better.
Some days from the church calendar -
May 17 Thurgood Marshall He was the first African American Associate Justice of the US Supreme court, nominated by Lyndon Johnson. Previously he had argued several cases before the court, including Brown v Board of Education. He and Justice William Brennen were supporters of abortion rights and staunch opponents of the death penalty. Marshall retired in 1991 and was replaced by Clarence Thomas.
May 21 John Eliot He was born in 1602 in England, and graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge. A Puritan, in 1631 he emigrated to Boston, and was minister and teaching elder at First Church, Roxbury. With three other ministers, he edited the Bay Psalm Book, the first book printed in the British North American colonies. In order to convert the local “Indians”, he studied the Massachusett or Wampanoag language, which had not previously had a written form. Eventually he translated the entire Bible, which was the first bible printed in the Western Hemisphere. So – some of the standard “colonizer issues” (Doctrine of Discovery), but he did seem to have a concern for the welfare of the Native people in his heart. He was known as “the apostle to the Indians.” He donated land in the Jamaica Plain district for a school; his donation required that the school accept Black and Native American students without prejudice, rare at the time.
Also -
May 21 Lydia of Thyatira She was the woman who sold purple and after hearing him, invited Paul and friends to stay at her house (Acts 16). She is regarded as the first documented convert to Christianity in Europe. She is also honored on Jan 27 along with Dorcas and Pheobe.
May 22 Helen of Constantinople (It’s a hard word to spell – yuk, yuk) She was the mother of Constantine. She detected or discovered or identified a variety of sacred historical sites and relics – pieces of the True Cross, nails from the Crucifixion, the site for the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Holy Tunic.
May 23 Pentecost
And some days from the earth/world calendar -
May 17
+ The Supreme Court decides in Brown v Board of Education. See Thurgood Marshall above!
May 18
+ Florence Nightingale died in 1910. She was the founder of modern nursing. She came to prominence in the Crimean War, in which she organized care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople. She became known as “The Lady with the Lamp” for making rounds for wounded soldiers at night. A good day to once again be thankful for health care people.
+ the Bath School Disaster/Massacre in 1927. It happened in Michigan, downstate. Never learned about it until last year as part of the Email a Day adventure.
May 19
+ birthday of Malcolm X in 1925.
+ Jose Marti, Cuba’s “apostle of freedom” was killed in 1895. He was a Cuban poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the liberation of his country. One of his poems was worked into the song Guantanamera. Here’s another -
I cultivate a white rose
In July as in January
For the sincere friend
Who gives me his hand frankly
And for the cruel person who tears
out the heart with which I live,
I cultivate neither nettles nor thorns:
I cultivate a white rose.
+ the Celcius/centigrade thermometer was invented in 1743. In 1742, Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius created a temperature scale that was the reverse of the scale now known as "Celsius": 0 represented the boiling point of water, while 100 represented the freezing point of water. Physicist Jean-Pierre Christin, permanent secretary of the Academy of Lyon, and several others, reversed the scale. On May 19, 1743 he published the design of a mercury thermometer built by the craftsman Pierre Casati that used this scale. Originally called “centigrade”, it was renamed Celsius in 1948. The first scientific paper using it was by Carl Linneaus. So - water freezes at 0, boils at 100, it’s as simple as that.
May 20
+ the Council of Nicaea opened in 325. “Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son and his relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, mandating uniform observance of the date of Easter, and promulgation of early canon law.
+ Charles Lindbergh left New York for Paris in The Spirit of St Louis in 1927, and became one of our first real celebrities. An odd story that came out around 2000 that he had affairs and fathered children with 3 German women while remaining married to Anne Morrow. I first came across this at the end of Bill Bryson’s book One Summer: America 1927
+ Blue Jeans were patented in 1873
+ Christopher Columbus (Doctrine of Discovery issues) died in 1506; Clara Schumann in 1896. Piano Trio in G here
May 21
+ Amelia Earheart took off and became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Northern Ireland, in 1932. She had flown it before in 1928, pretty much as a passenger with Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon. She was also the first (1935) to fly from Honolulu to Oakland, CA. She and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared and apparently died in July 1937 after leaving Lae, New Guinea, in an attempt to fly around the world.
May 22
+ Pac Man was released in 1980. Pac Man wikipedia link here.
+ Constantine died in 337 – it was apparently his mother’s birthday. (See above)
May 23
+ Carl Linneaus was born in 1707. Interesting note - “Linnaeus's remains constitute the type specimen for the species Homo sapiens following the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, since the sole specimen that he is known to have examined was himself.” I’m not completely sure I know what that means -
+ Kit Carson died in 1868. He was born while his folks were at a Christmas Eve Party at the home of Christopher and Sarah Houston in 1809. He was a frontiersman and soldier, and his life took on a legendary quality. In recent years, Kit Carson has also become a symbol of the American nation's mistreatment of its indigenous peoples.
A prayer for the week, sort of. Actually a thought from Henri Nouwen about prayer -
Prayer is not a way of being busy with God instead of with people. In fact, it unmasks the illusion of busyness, usefulness, and indispensability. It is a way of being empty and useless in the presence of God and so of proclaiming our basic belief that all is grace and nothing is simply the result of hard work. Indeed, wasting time for God is an act of ministry, because it reminds us and our people that God is free to touch anyone regardless of our well-meant efforts. Prayer as an articulate way of being useless in the face of God brings a smile to all we do and creates humor in the midst of our occupations and preoccupations.
Worth thinking about through the week!
Anyway, that’s what I got for now…...
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