March 26, 2022
Reflection
Saturday, March 26, 2022
Friday, March 25, 2022
March 25, 2022
“Returning in 1894 from an inspiring trip to Pikes Peak
in Colorado, a minor New England poet named Katharine Lee Bates wrote a verse
she titled ‘America.’ It was printed the following year in a publication in
Boston to commemorate the Fourth of July.
“Lynn Sherr, the ABC News correspondent, has written a
timely and deliciously researched book how that verse was written and edited
and how it was fitted to a hymn called ‘Materna,’ written about the same time
by Samuel Augustus Ward, whom the poet never met. In America the Beautiful: The Stirring True
Story Behind Our Nation’s Favorite Song, Sherr reveals rewriting by Bates
that shows the value of working over a lyric.
“’O beautiful for halcyon skies,’ the poem began. Halcyon
is a beautiful word, based on the Greek name for the bird, probably a
kingfisher, that ancient legend had nesting in the sea during the winter
solstice and calming the waves. It means ‘calm, peaceful’ and all those happy
things, but the word is unfamiliar and does not evoke the West. Spacious,
however, not only describes Big Sky country but also alliterates with skies, so
Bates changed it.
“The often unsung third stanza contained a zinger at the
acquisition of wealth: ‘America! America! / God shed his grace on thee/ till
selfish gain no long strain / The banner of the free!’ Sherr writes that Bates,
disillusioned with the Gilded Age’s excesses, ‘wanted to purify America’s great
wealth, to channel what she had
originally called “selfish gain” into more ennobled causes.’ The poet took
another crack at the line that der-ogated the
profit motive, and the stanza now goes:
‘America! America / May God thy gold refine / Till all success be nobleness / And every gain
divine!’
“The line that needed editing the most was the flat and dispiriting
conclusion: ‘God shed his grace on thee / Till nobler men keep once again / Thy
whiter jubilee!’ That cast an aspersion
on the current generation, including whoever was singing the lyric. The wish
for ‘nobler men’ to come in the future ended the song, about to be set to Ward’s
hymn, on a self-depreciating note.
“In 1904, ten years after her firsts draft, Kathleen Lee
Bates revised the imperfect last lines of the final stanza. The new image called up at the end not only reminds
the singers of the ‘spacious skies’ that began the song but also elevates the
final theme to one of unity and tolerance.
Her improvement makes all the difference, especially in times like these:
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!”
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!”
March 25, 2022
A CASE OF UH OH’S!
I figure in every person’s lifetime, they get a case of
uh oh’s – 24 in a case.
We’re driving down Interstate 95 - going 13 miles over
the speed limit – listening to the raidio – minding our own business - just as we
go flying by a state trooper – obviously with his radar on.
“Uh oh!” is our immediate reaction.
We’re watching the evening news and there is a segment on
breast cancer or prostate cancer or melanoma.
We go, “Uh oh!” Or we’re taking a
shower and we feel a lump in our neck and we go, “Uh oh!”
Or we’re at a family picnic. We start talking to our cousin Tom.
He answers our “How’s the family question with, “Didn’t
you hear?”
And we begin to hear him tell about his marriage.
“We separated. Then we got back together a bit.”
We get nervous a bit when he says, “I’m scared. She could
reject me again.”
He adds, “I won’t date. Yet I don’t want any more rejections. Half a loaf is better than none. She can be
lovey dovey. Then she starts screaming
at me. I just don’t know….”
We say, “Uh oh!”
Life has lots of them. At least 24.
Like seeing the principal. Like getting a call from the
IRS. Like the phone ringing at 2:30 in the morning – knowing our kid is driving
back to college and it’s an icy night in January.
“Uh oh!”
Like being on vacation and we can’t find our wallet.
But I suppose we’ve also had the opposite. Total glorious
surprises. What do we call them?
“You wouldn’t believe this ….”
In a life time we
have at least two dozen of these as well. Isn’t that the case – 24 in a case as well?
“Surprise!”
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022
Thursday, March 24, 2022
March 24, 2022
PURPLE
Some nights - all looks purple – especially the water on
the cobblestones and the lipstick on the teenagers outside the drugstore.
Some nights – all looks purple.
That’s the way it looked the night they arrested
Jesus. They dressed him in purple. They wanted to mock him, needle him with
thorns, crown him as a king.
Some nights all looks purple – especially the purple cuts
and chunks of flesh of Jesus’ back – after they scourged him – and beat him.
Then there was purple blood flooding and flowing down his
back and onto the purple stone below.
Some nights all looks purple.
And Judas that same night turned purple. His purple tongue
hung out of his mouth as he gave his
last shout. He hung himself – the very
same night he drank the wine of Jesus – the very same night he heard Jesus’
words of love.
Judas’ hands were purple – hands that touched the bread –
hands that fondled the coins till they bled – turning his hands red – becoming purple in the night - hands
that threw the coins head first back at the high priest – hands that tightened
the rope as he put it around his neck.
Some nights are purple.
Father forgive us – for we don’t know what we are doing.
Forgive me my sins – for wearing purple vestments and
white linen – while not seeing Lazarus
at my door step.
Purple – the color of my sins.
The Dark Night of my Soul is colored purple.
Purple is the color of the King – the King of Kings.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022
Wednesday, March 23, 2022
TAKES ON LAW – UH OH’S!
The title of my homily is, “Takes On Law. Uh Oh’s,”
Laws, statutes, decrees, commandments, are the theme of
today’s first reading – for this Wednesday in the 3rd Week of Lent.
Here in the Book of Deuteronomy – today’s first reading – they are
bragging that Israel’s laws are the best of any nation in all the world.
Today’s first reading says to brag about our laws. Don’t
let them slip from your memory. Teach them to your children and your children’s
children.
Today’s gospel
from Matthew has Jesus saying, “Do not think that I have come to abolish
the law or the prophets.” [Cf, Matthew 5: 17-19]
It adds that we better not let the smallest letter - or the smallest part of a letter of the law
– pass out of the Law.
Now a problem – a pause – something to think about.
Whenever we have this gospel reading I feel an, “Uh
oh!” It says, “You better not let
anyone break one of the commandments of the law. If you do so, you’ll be called
least in the kingdom of heaven.”
My “Uh oh!” comes from all those new testament comments
from Paul about not letting the law take away our freedom.
My “Uh oh!” comes from all those comments from Jesus
about using the law as a way of not loving or serving one another.”
My “Uh oh!” comes from thinking we can control God by our
keeping a law.
My “Uh oh!” comes from when we use laws to control things
– especially mainly for our own convenience.
In the Parable of the Good Samaritan which we heard in a
talk here last night, two people – a priest and a Levite – keep the law by not
stopping to help the guy who was beaten up. The Samaritan stops to help the
injured man. Samaritans and Jews had
laws not to deal with each other.
Jesus told that parable to answer the Lawyer’s question
on what he had to do to gain eternal life.
The law said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as
yourself.”
We need Laws. We need love. We’re seeing on television
and the news Putin breaking all kinds of laws – international laws – written
and unwritten laws – and he hopefully will be judged and condemned at the Hague
– their courts – for war crimes. We need
laws. We need laws for protection – for hedges (a Hebrew metaphor for law) –
for markings – for boundaries.
We had on television yesterday – the hearings on Judge Ketantji
Brown Jackson. It was to look at her skills and expertise on laws and the
constitution. People viewing the confirmation hearings can make a judgment –
can be a judge - and see through and pick up the nuances of negativity and
nastiness and capture the purpose of those who will vote against her or for
her.
Law is important – but it needs to include the Golden
Rule and justice and conscience and honesty – love and concern and care for
each other.
Law is also complicated – so we need to have hearings and
courts and honesty of deliberations – to know and to discover the nuances and
as many sides of the question as possible.
That’s the stuff we need to hope for and praise when we
see it – and hear it – as we get trials underway and when we weigh the law.
March 23, 2022
PROVERBS 6: 6-11
© Andy Costello, Reflections
2022
Tuesday, March 22, 2022
March 22, 2022
GIVERS AND TAKERS
Their kids were draining them – emptying them – of time,
money and energy.
“Some people just bring your life. You love these people
when they come in the door. They are
alive, refreshing - and then there’s our
kids.”
After a pause they added, “And they are draining us.”
She then added: “And we just don’t know what to do.”
I joking said, “Move!”
His face, his head, jumped back at that – as if I had punched him in the
stomach.
“Yeah,” I added, “I read somewhere about a couple with 3
kids who were in their late 20’s and early 30’s – who were not moving out."
I paused and continued, "They
then decided to move out. They retired.
They bought a mobile home. Off they went
to have the best year of their life.”
She asked, “Did they sell their home.”
I said, “I don’t
know.”
I then added that I didn’t remember
the other details of the story. But once more, I said: “All I remember was they thought it was a
great move.”
“We can’t do that,” he said.
She countered, “Why not?”
“We wouldn’t have enough money to buy a good truck and a good
mobile home.”
“Well,” she responded, “Let’s tell our kids we’re selling
our house and then get moving.”
Silence.
People are thinking.
She continued, “You always say, ‘There are givers and
there are takers.’”
Silence.
People still thinking
She said, “And we’ve been taken and we keep giving.”
More silence ….
He said, “Okay. Let’s give them a chance to become what
we are about to become: movers.”
I sat there. I saw two people converted before my very
eyes.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022
March 22, 2022
Thought for Today
“Our masters taught: Who is wealthy? He who is content
with his wealth – so said Rabbi Meir.
But Rabbi Tarfon said: He who has
one hundred vineyards, one hundred fields, and one hundred slaves working in then. Rabbi Akiva said: He who has a wife comely in deeds,
Rabbi Yose said: He who has a privy not far from his table.” 11
Footnote 11: “At that time, privies were out in the fields. B. Shah 25b.
From page 602 in The Book of Legends Sefer Ha – Aggadah, legends from the Talmud and Midrash, edited by Hayim Nahman Bialik and Yehoshua Hana Ravnitzky, translated by Willim G, Braude
Monday, March 21, 2022
March 21, 2022
BLESSED ARE THEY
WHO DO NOT SEE,
YET THEY STILL BELIEVE
Saw a Zen saying, “The seed never sees the flower.”
Wow!
I added in my own thought, “The writer does not see the
reader – most of the time – 99,999 times out of a 100,000 times.”
Most books over 10,000 sales are a good deal.
Yet, the author, he or she writes on.
Who am I writing for: me or she or he?
Me!
Yet it does help to have an audience – better, a reader in mind.
Words are seeds….
Planted in hearts ….
Earth….
Formed by God’s hands – sculpted into me and you.
The parents who slave 2 jobs at times – and sometimes
more – while working - don’t see their kids in college having a great
time – feeling free – enjoying a great basketball game – screaming – happy –
running onto the court – pizza afterwards – a beer – fun – joy – yet if they
saw all that would they still see all their work and slavery – that it was all
worth it?
Of course ….
Okay, better they see graduations.
So the Zen writer was saying something significant when
she or he wrote, “The seed never sees the flower.”
That’s life 101.
We don’t see where our money in the special collection in
church goes – but we still take out our wallet and make that extra donation.
We pray – we sing at church – we reflect there Sunday
after Sunday - knowing – faith sinks
down deep into the soil of our hearts – like a seed.
Yet we pray seeds – knowing faith increases without our knowing
or seeing it happening. Didn’t Jesus say
something like that a long time ago?
We write words – seeds of black ink on white pages or
screens – knowing some of them will sink into the unconscious of others.
We know that. We just know that.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022
Thought for Today
“What can I say?
It’s Spring.”
Line in the movie,Escape From
Stalin’sDeath Camp,
2017
Sunday, March 20, 2022
March 20, 2022
I WAS WRONG!
Sometimes it is very easy to say, “I was wrong” and
sometimes those three words are the most difficult words to say in one’s whole
life.
“I was wrong!”
Take Jephthal in the Book of Judges. I always wish he copt out and told God, “I
was wrong. I made a mistake when I made that dumb vow to you.”
Nope.
He had vowed to God to sacrifice the first creature that
came out his front door when he got home – if he beat the Ammonites in battle.
[Cf. Judges 11:29-40.]
He killed his daughter.
What a dumb move. What a dumb vow. Why not say, “I was wrong” and move on.
How many people have taken vows in marriage or religious
life or priesthood – for the wrong reason – and discover it was a dumb move.
It’s self-destructive. It’s murder and suicide and others are involved.
“I was wrong!”
I can always hear God saying to Jephthah, “Wrong!”
And I hear God saying the same thing to those in knots –
in dumb vows.
“I was wrong!”
And then there are those who admit they are wrong, but
they don’t get moving - they carry that
wrong for the rest of their lives.
They need to see Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and have a
spiritual catharsis in seeing here washing and washing and washing those hands
after her terrible wrong.
“I was wrong!”
There I said it.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022
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