March 25, 2022

 Thought for Today

 

“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!”

 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

 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

March  24,  2022

 

Thought for Today

 

“I would like to have engraved inside every wedding band, ‘Be kind to one another.’  This the Golden Rule of marriage, and the secret of making love last through the years.”

 

Randolph Ray,

My Little Church Around the Corner,

Simon and Schuster, 1957

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 3^rd 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 

Thought for Today

 

“A lady of 47 who has been married 27 years and has six children knows what love is and once described it for me like this: ‘Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.’”

James Thurber,

Life, March 14, 1960

 March 23, 2022

PROVERBS 6: 6-11

  
Each Spring, when the moths appear, we all remember to put up or pull down our screens – especially in the night.
 
Moths search for the light.
 
Each Spring, when the moths appear, after I put up my screens, I think of Monkey Monahan.
 
We were teenage boys at the time – around 14 or 15 years of age. Or maybe we were 13.  Well, anyway, it was Spring and this meant we became big game hunters.
 
I’ve gone fishing and crabbing a few times, but that Spring was the only time I did anything like this – hunting and killing.
 
I was no Franciscan. I was no Hindu or Buddhist. Monkey Monahan and I were cold blooded killers.
 
Now, 50 years latler, I don’t remember the exact circumstances or the chain of particulars on how we came up with what we started to do that Spring.
 
The first step was the hunt.
 
Our prey were the moths.  We used bath towels as our weapon of choice. We had a nearby ball field as the best hunting ground.   We would kill about 25 moths and put them in a cardboard shoe box.  One night we killed 100 moths.
 
The second step was to find an ant hole.
 
Yes, ant hole…. We would find an ant hole and sit down on the grass near it. Out of the shoe box would come one dead moth. We would place it next to ant hole.
 
At the entrance of the ant hole would be 2 guard ants.  They would spot the dead moth. They headed down the hole.  Out came hundreds of ants.
 
I can still picture the scene some 50 years later.
 
They would drag the moth down the hole.  What a scene. To them it must have been like dragging a 747 into a hanger or an elephant down into a cellar.
 
Then we would proceed to put moth 2,3, 4, 5 to 25 at the hole.  They never gave up.  They took all we could give them.
 
There’s a story here – but I’ve never mentioned this in a sermon. Hey, I wouldn’t want to be thought to be that strange. Then again, it might make a good sermon on Proverbs 6: 6-11.
 

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022