WILFRED OWEN

WORLD WAR 1 POET

Poem for Today - July 12, 2014

FUTILITY

Move him into the sun —
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds —
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, — still warm, — too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
— O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

© Wilfred Owen

OTHERNESS: 

LEARNING  TO  LIVE  WITH  OTHERNESS 

INTRODUCTION 

The title of my homily is, “Otherness: Learning to Live With Otherness.”

Today is the feast of St. Benedict – and looking at his life – as well as today’s readings – there are various comments and various themes and issues one can talk about and think about.

The theme that hit me last night was a theme that I spend a lot of time thinking about and learning about – and you do too.

It’s the question, the issue, the theme, the reality of otherness.

Other people are different from me. It's their otherness that intrigues - surprises - irritates - and enlightens me.

I consider talking about other people to be the # 1 topic of conversation for all people – most of which takes place under one’s own hood. Yes we talk about weather and sports – but nothing compares with those ongoing questions and conversations we have with them and most of the time they don't know it. They  all have going on inside our brains all the time.

I'm saying: most of the time we’re talking to ourselves about someone else – about their motives – about their behaviors – about their comments.

It’s their otherness that pushes our buttons - and energy flows and flies.

If we sit down in a seat in the mall and watch people going by – we’ll see a lot of different faces, mannerisms, costumes, jewelry – tattoos, shoes, cellphones – so many people different than ourselves.

There are over 7 billion people on the planet – and we’re all different.

We’re all other with our otherness from each other.

FOR STARTERS

Today’s gospel is from Matthew.  Mathew is different from Mark, Luke and John.

Today’s first reading is from Hosea. He is different from the prophet Amos whom we had last week – and both are other than all the other prophets.

Today is the feast of St. Benedict. He is different from other saints – like St. Alphonsus or St. John Neumann or Saint Gemma Galgani or St. Rose of Lima or St. Francis of Assisi.

Our present pope chose the name Francis. Our last pope – who is still alive – chose the name Benedict.

Both popes are different – very different from each other. 

For example, take their shoes. You’ve never seen Francis wearing red leather papal shoes.  Paul Vallely in his book, Pope Francis, Untying the Knots, makes some comments about his shoes. They are only anecdotes – but they are  telling stories. Jorge Mario Bergoglio arrived in Rome from Buenos Aires wearing “an extremely shabby pair of plain black shoes….”  Just before he left, some friends chipped in some money  to get him a new pair. Nope! The ones he had were fine. [Cf. page 149; 170.)

Different shoes are, different faces, different takes on life.... 

This homily is different. I'm simply bringing up the human reality of otherness - so as to trigger your thoughts and experiences on how well you are dealing with others and their otherness.

CONCLUSION: A SHORT  QUESTIONNAIRE ON OTHERNESS?

Besides listening - besides patience - what are 5 life skills needed for dealing with others?

On a scale of 1 to 10 - 10 being the best - how good are my life’s skills in dealing with others and their otherness.

Can I accept that another sees differently than I see – like everything?

In fact, do I realize if I think another is seeing the scene I’m seeing the same way I’m seeing it, I’m being self-centered?

As today's gospel puts it, some people are wolves in sheep clothing; some people are sheep in wolves clothing. Can I tell the difference?  Who  decides?

As today's gospel puts it, some people are shrewd as serpents and some folks are as simple as doves. Thinking about people you know, name some people who fit those labels.

Can I laugh at our differences? Male/female, neat/sloppy, logical/intuitive, liberal/conservative, always late/always early, control freak/a secure person, dreamers/doers, back benchers/front benchers, formal/informal, tall/short, fat/thin, givers/takers, cheap/lavish, conventional/casual, right brain/left brain,  young/old, stuck in the past/stuck in the future, planners/seat of the pantsers, and on and on and on?

Can I ask others what they are seeing or thinking or perceiving?  Then how well do I listen to others?

Do I celebrate otherness – knowing it can lead to better teamwork, new discoveries?

Or am I stuck on myself or in myself?

Do I agree with this quote or statement, “The greatest sin is our inability to accept the otherness of the other person?”

SEAMUS HEANEY 
- AN EXCERPT

Poem for Today - July 11, 2014

WHATEVER YOU SAY,

SAY NOTHING

I.
I'm writing just after an encounter
With an English journalist in search of  'views
On the Irish thing'.  I'm back in winter
Quarters where bad news is no longer news,

Where media-men and stringers sniff and point,
Where zoom lenses, recorders and coiled leads
Litter the hotels. The times are out of joint
But I incline as much to rosary beads

As to the jottings and analyses
Of politicians and newspapermen
Who've scribbled down the long campaign from gas
And protest to gelignite and Sten,

Who proved upon their pulses 'escalate',
'Backlash' and 'crack down', 'the provisional wing',
'Polarization' and 'long-standing hate'.
Yet I live here, I live here too, I sing,

Expertly civil-tongued with civil neighbours
On the high wires of first wireless reports,
Sucking the fake taste, the stony flavours
Of those sanctioned, old, elaborate retorts:

'Oh, it's disgraceful, surely, I agree.'
'Where's it going to end?' 'It's getting worse.'
'They're murderers.' 'Internment, understandably ...'
The 'voice of sanity' is getting hoarse.

III.
"Religion's never mentioned here", of course.
"You know them by their eyes," and hold your tongue.
"One side's as bad as the other," never worse.
Christ, it's near time that some small leak was sprung

In the great dykes the Dutchman made
To dam the dangerous tide that followed Seamus.
Yet for all this art and sedentary trade
I am incapable. The famous

Northern reticence, the tight gag of place
And times: yes, yes. Of the "wee six" I sing
Where to be saved you only must save face
And whatever you say, you say nothing.

Smoke-signals are loud-mouthed compared with us:
Manoeuvrings to find out name and school,
Subtle discrimination by addresses
With hardly an exception to the rule

That Norman, Ken and Sidney signalled Prod
And Seamus (call me Sean) was sure-fire Pape.
O land of password, handgrip, wink and nod,
Of open minds as open as a trap,

Where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks,
Where half of us, as in a wooden horse
Were cabin'd and confined like wily Greeks,
Besieged within the siege, whispering morse.

IV.
This morning from a dewy motorway
I saw the new camp for the internees:
A bomb had left a crater of fresh clay
In the roadside, and over in the trees

Machine-gun posts defined a real stockade.
There was that white mist you get on a low ground
And it was déjà-vu, some film made
Of Stalag 17, a bad dream with no sound.

Is there a life before death? That's chalked up
In Ballymurphy. Competence with pain,
Coherent miseries, a bite and sup,
We hug our little destiny again.

© Seamus Heaney

YOU'RE ON 

STAGE! 

Poem for Today - July 10, 2014 

ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE 

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. 

At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like a snail

Unwillingly to school. 

And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. 

Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. 

And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. 

The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. 

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

© William Shakespeare – 

Monologue in As You Like It.

MORNING PRAYER

Poem for Today - July 9, 2014

WHY  I   WAKE  EARLY

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

© Mary Oliver

POEMS:

CHISELED WORDS

Poem for Today - July 8, 2014

THE STONE-CUTTERS

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems. 

© Robinson Jeffers

HOSEA

THE  PROPHET  HOSEA

 This week – for our first reading at 5  Weekday Masses  - the Prophet Hosea is featured.

We can thank Gregory Norbert of the Weston Priory in Massachusetts for making Hosea better known by his song, “Come Back to Me.”   We’ve heard it sung at many Penance or Reconciliation Services.

If 100 people were given a box of crayons and a piece of clean white paper – and told to draw a picture of God what would be their response?

If they were little children – I can picture them – reaching for their crayons and immediately drawing an old man in a robe with a beard.

But maybe not……….

Unless you be like little children – as Jesus once said – you won’t picture the kingdom of God.

If the 100 people were adults – what would we get as an image of God? Circles? Arrows? A Hand? A Question Mark? An Eye? A Face?

How would you picture God?  

Those who got their words and images into the scriptures have pictured God as a Shepherd, a Warrior, a Father, a Mother, a King?

Hosea pictures  God as a Spouse  - who wants to marry us – stay loyal to us – come back to us – forgiving us no matter what - because of this God has for us..

Unless one has a good hand and a good imagination for drawing – I would assume that adults would prefer words to crayons.

Read Hosea – read the 5 readings for this week – and see what images and pictures about God – in his words hit home.

We can thank Hosea the Prophet – who lived around 725  B.C.  – for telling us that God is a forgiving God – no matter what.

When it comes to the theme of forgiveness and second chances  - we’re used to sons returning home  to their father or lost sheep being found. Hosea uses the husband and wife reality – and in this case a forgiving husband taking back his wife – even though she was prostituting herself.

Hosea is telling Israel what God is like.

Doodle with that image – pray and play with that image – and see where God takes you - hear what God is saying to you.