Words Twice a Week 8.8
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 – having gotten back into the swing, let’s see if we can stay there!
A few days from the church calendar -
Aug 9 Edith Stein (St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) Born in 1891, she was a German Jewish philosopher, who became agnostic by her teenage years. Moved by the tragedies of WW1, in 1915 she took lessons to become a nursing assistant and worked in an infectious diseases hospital. After completing her doctoral thesis at the University of Freiburg in 1916, she obtained an assistantship there. Reading about St Teresa of Avila, she was drawn to the Catholic Church and was baptized on Jan 1, 1922. She taught at a school in Speyer (Germany), when she was forced to quit, not having an “Aryan Certificate”. She became a nun, and was moved to the Netherlands, for her security. “Ultimately, she would not be safe in the Netherlands. The Dutch Bishops' Conference had a public statement read in all churches across the nation on 20 July 1942 condemning Nazi racism. In a retaliatory response on 26 July 1942 the Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, ordered the arrest of all Jewish converts who had previously been spared. Along with two hundred and forty-three baptized Jews living in the Netherlands, Stein was arrested by the SS on 2 August 1942. Stein and her sister Rosa were imprisoned at the concentration camps of Amersfoort and Westerbork before being deported to Auschwitz.” Along with her sister Rosa, she was probably killed in a gas chamber on August 9. She is one of the 6 patron saints of Europe.
(Interestingly, the Sunday Book Group at St Paul’s is reading The Only Woman in the Room, a novel about the life of Hedy Lamarr. She was Jewish, but converted to Christianity when she married an Austrian arms merchant who was besotted with her, hoping to be a kind of “Esther figure” for the Austrian people, especially the Jews. She didn’t have an Aryan Certificate. It didn’t go well - She finally escaped and came to America. She and composer George Antheil developed a “frequency-hopping spread spectrum” technology for use in Allied torpedoes. While the Navy did not pick it up until 1957 [the book says – because it was developed by a woman!], some of the same technology is apparently used in Bluetooth and some cell phone and WI-FI systems. Huh.)
Aug 10 Saint Lawrence He was a deacon in the church at Rome, in charge of the treasury and riches of the Church and “the distribution of alms to the indigent.” Then as the story goes - “At the beginning of August 258, the Emperor Valerian issued an edict that all bishops, priests, and deacons should immediately be put to death. Pope Sixtus II was captured on 6 August 258, at the cemetery of St. Callixtus while celebrating the liturgy and executed forthwith. After the death of Sixtus, the prefect of Rome demanded that Lawrence turn over the riches of the Church. St. Ambrose is the earliest source for the narrative that Lawrence asked for three days to gather the wealth. He worked swiftly to distribute as much Church property to the indigent as possible, so as to prevent its being seized by the prefect. On the third day, at the head of a small delegation, he presented himself to the prefect, and when ordered to deliver the treasures of the Church he presented the indigent, the crippled, the blind, and the suffering, and declared that these were the true treasures of the Church.” No surprise here, on Aug 10, Lawrence, last of the deacons and thus the highest ranking church official, was put to death. And yes, on his second voyage, French explorer Jacques Cartier, arriving in the river estuary of the North American Great Lakes on the Feast of St. Lawrence in 1535, named it the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And, the Perseid Meteor Shower, which should be happening about now, is sometimes called “the Tears of St Lawrence”.
Aug 11 Claire of Assisi One of the first followers of St Francis, she left her father’s house and lived with some Benedictine nuns. When other women joined her in a life of poverty, austerity, and exclusion from the world, she established an order – the Poor Ladies of Assisi – and wrote a Rule for them, the first written by a woman. After her death it was renamed the Order of St Claire, or commonly, “the Poor Claires.”
Aug 12 – Florence Nightingale Founder of modern nursing. “She gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.”
Aug 15 Mary, Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of our Lord Jesus. How much of her story is factual, how much is myth, how much is true/truth? I don’t know. I especially like the annunciation where all Creation waits for this young girl to respond. I am touched by thinking of her as Jesus’ mother, watching him head off into a life that she must have known was not going to end well, (at least until it did).
And a few days from the earth/world calendar -
Aug 9
+ Bombing of Nagasaki in 1945, killing 75,000?. And yes, that means Aug 6 was Hiroshema, killing 100,000? We noted last time that war offers us only compromise solutions. And yesterday was the closing ceremony of the 2020 Olympics. What themes of forgiveness, restoration, renewal do you see in that?
Aug 11
+ Steve Wozniak was born in 1950, to build the Apple Computer.
+ and 42 years later, in 1992, the Mall of America opened for all those who like to shop in person instead of online.
Aug 12
+ William Blake died in 1827. He was a poet, painter, and printmaker.
+ the Social Security Act was signed in 1935. I’m thankful for that!
+ Katherine C Bates was born – she wrote “O Beautiful for Spacious Skies…”
Aug 13
+ Opha May Johnson joined the US Marine Corps in 1918. She was the first woman. She was assigned to a desk at the headquarters.
+ Annie Oakley was born in 1860. At 15 she won a shooting match against a traveling show marksman named Frank Butler, who said he could beat any local fancy shooter. The hotelier arranged a match with Annie, saying “The last opponent Butler expected was a five-foot-tall 15-year-old girl named Annie." They later married. They joined the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, where she would shoot a cigar out of her husband’s lips and split a playing card sideways at 30 paces.
Aug 14
+ Maximilian Marie Kolbe died in 1941 – he was a brilliant Polish priest, skillede in theology, philosophy, mathematics, physics, and astronomy. Outspoken, he was arrested several times by the Gestapo and finally imprisoned at Auschwitz. In retaliation for the escape of an inmate, all the prisoners were made to stand in the scorching sun and some were selected for death by starvation. When one cried out because of his wife and children, Kolbe stepped forward and said, “I am a Catholic priest. I would like to take his place.”
+ Bertold Brecht died in 1956. He wrote The Threepenny Opera, adapting John Gay’s 18th century The Beggar’s Opera. “Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear, and he shows them, pearly white. Just a jack-knife has Macheath, babe, and he keeps it out of sight…..”
Aug 14
+ It’s the birthday of Steve Martin. “He is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. Over his distinguished career he has earned five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and was awarded an Honorary Academy Award at the Academy's 5th Annual Governors Awards in 2013. Among many honors, he has received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the Kennedy Center Honors, and an AFI Life Achievement Award. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics.” A “wild and crazy guy”, he sang “King Tut” and won a Grammy with Earl Scruggs in 2002. What do you remember about him?
Aug 15
+ First showing of The Wizard of Oz in 1939.
+ Woodstock opened in 1969.
+ The US pulled out of Vietnam in 1973.
That’s what I got for now…..
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