Words 8.22

 Words Twice a Week        8.22

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.

Ok – we are getting back into the groove.  But first off, backspace, backspace to 8.20 and “Booth Led Boldly With His Big Bass Drum/Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?”  That’s right, Gen William Booth, who walked out of the Methodist Church and founded the Salvation Army, died on 8.20.1912.  The poem is by Vachel Lindsey

Some days from the church calendar -

Aug 23  Rose of Lima – her family named her “Rose” because she was a beautiful baby.  But she wanted to be known for more than beauty – she moved into a summer house in the garden, blistered her skin with pepper, dressed in rough clothing, and cut off her hair.  She focused on the plight of the poor, Indians, and slaves, and is heralded as the originator of social services in Peru.  She died at age 31.  She was the first person born in the Americas to be canonized by the Catholic Church.

Aug 24  Bartholomew, Disciple, Apostle  In the first three Gospels, he is always mentioned together with Philip.  In John, Philip is mentioned with Nathaniel.  Some people think they are the same, some don’t.  The tradition is that Bartholomew and Jude/Thaddeus preached in India and Armenia, and that Bartholomew was martyred for converting the king of Armenia to Christianity.  

Aug 25  St Louis, King of France  The only king of France who was a saint.  He was known for his fairness; he introduced the idea of the presumption of innocence into the legal system; he was respected by other European monarch, who sometimes asked him to mediate their differences.  On the other hand, he was pretty strict and punished blasphemy by mutilation of the tongue and lips, and he burned 12,000 manuscripts of the Talmud and other Jewish books.  St Louis, MO is named for him, as is the cathedral in New Orleans, and , I assume, the church in Harvey!  And a lot of other places and buildings.

Aug 27  Monica, mother of Augustine of Hippo  Well, she also is remembered on May 4, a little closer to Mother’s Day.  You can check back to then -

Aug 28  Augustine of Hippo – he was a good student, but “in spite of the good warnings of his mother, as a youth Augustine lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, associating with young men who boasted of their sexual exploits. The need to gain their acceptance forced inexperienced boys like Augustine to seek or make up stories about sexual experiences.”  At age 31 he converted to Christianity and became a priest.  Believing the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he helped formulate the doctrine of original sin and made significant contributions to the development of just war theory. When the Western Roman Empire began to disintegrate, Augustine imagined the Church as a spiritual City of God, distinct from the material Earthly City.

Aug 29  The Beheading of John the Baptist  -  well, we never really covered that in Sunday School, singing the songs, acting it out, and all that!

Aug 29  Also John Bunyan   One Sunday the vicar of Elstow preached a sermon against Sabbath breaking, and Bunyan took this sermon to heart. That afternoon, as he was playing tip-cat (a game in which a small piece of wood is hit with a bat) on Elstow village green, he heard a voice from the heavens "Wilt thou leave thy sins, and go to Heaven? Or have thy sins, and go to Hell?"  He wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress. He spent 12 years in jail for preaching outside of the church.

And some days from the world/earth calendar -

Aug 22

+ it’s the birthday in 1922 of Ray Bradbury.  Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, I Sing the Body Electric, Dandelion Wine and many more. Something called Farewell Summer as an audiobook at PWPL. A little bit early, maybe. I'll give it a try and let you know.

Aug 23

+ It’s the birthday of Edgar Lee Masters in 1868. We (or at least, “I”) know him as the author of Spoon River Anthology, but he also wrote a bunch of other things - The New Star Chamber and Other Essays, Songs and Satires, The Great Valley, The Serpent in the Wilderness, An Obscure Tale, The Spleen, Mark Twain: A Portrait, Lincoln: The Man, and Illinois Poems. In all, Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry (one called The Domesday Book), six novels and six biographies, including those of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, (afore mentioned) Vachel Lindsay, and Walt Whitman.  I dabble in Spoon River now and then, but never seem to get all the way through it!

+ It’s also the day in 1966 that the first photo taken of Earth from moon orbit.  (And by the way, hasn’t the moon been something these last few nights.  I’ve been sleeping downstairs because of my knee, and it has really shone through the back windows!)  Back to the picture of Earth, what beauty it displays and what evil and suffering is there under the surface.  We noted that last time.  

Aug 24 

+ it’s Waffle Day – the waffle iron was patented in 1869!  Waffles for dinner?  I’m good with that. And maybe Stroopwaffles for dessert!

Aug 25

+ it’s the birthday of Leonard Bernstein in 1918.  He had a career that covered just about everything musical.  In October 1976, Leonard Bernstein led the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and pianist Claudio Arrau in an Amnesty International Benefit Concert in Munich. To honor his late wife and to continue their joint support for human rights, he established the Felicia Montealegre Bernstein Fund of Amnesty International USA to provide aid for human rights activists with limited resources.  He conducted his final concert at Tanglewood on August 19, 1990.

+ It marks the beginning on The Great Moon Hoax of 1835.  Really, you got to read it for yourself.  It was published in The Sun, a New York paper which never did print a retraction. (Note the Edgar Allen Poe also wrote a “moon hoax”.)  Again, if there really was a civilization on the moon, we would have seen it over these past few days!

Aug 26

+ the first public kindergarten in the US established in St Louis.   The first kindergarten in the US was founded in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1856, and was conducted in German by Margaretha Meyer-Schurz.  Elizabeth Peabody founded the first English-language kindergarten in the US in 1860. The first free kindergarten in the US was founded in 1870 by Conrad Poppenhusen, a German industrialist and philanthropist, who also established the Poppenhusen Institute. The first publicly financed kindergarten in the US was established in St. Louis in 1873 by Susan Blow.  These were all influenced by the thought of Freidrich Froebel.  I mention that because when I was growing up there was a school at Pine and Ridge that I think was called Froebel.  I did not go there though I lived a block away.  I went to Pierce for kindergarden – with Mrs Willmer -  through 8th grade because my family was connected with Northern Michigan (College, at that time).

Aug 27

+ Petroleum discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859.  Amazing what we have done with that in 150 years!  A day to work on reducing our “footprint”!

Aug 28

+Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream speech” delivered in 1963.

+ Frederick Law Olmsted died in 1903.  He designed parks and landscaping, with an eye towards keeping things natural.  And yes, the wikipedia page notes 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 around the Island!

Aug 29

+ Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast as a category 5 in 2005, devastating New Orleans, site of afore mentioned St Louis Cathedral!

+ Ingrid Bergman was born on this day in 1915 and died on this day in 1982.  In between she had one off the most influential movie careers in history.  She played opposite Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, and Gregory Peck, among others.  “Play it again, Sam”

That’s what I got for now…..

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