As this country rocked like a boat in Galilee's storms. I spent the whole year not losing my faith in God alone, just doing as I could what had to be done. Laid up sick, I suffered for more than a month. there were many hard things in the family and the world, but having endured it all meekly. it proved more valuable than any good fortune could have been. These days, as I dream bright dreams of the world beyond, entrusting all things to His divine Will, even if storms are forecast for the coming New Year there is nothing I fear.
(c) Ku Sang,
translated from
the Korean by
Brother Anthony
of Taize.
Painting on top: The Storm on the Sea of Galilee [1633]. This is the only known seascape picture by Rembrandt van Rijn. It was on a wall at the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts when it was robbed in 1990. Check Mark 4: 35-41.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
DEAD
Poem for Today - April 13, 2014
POETE MANQUE
I have beaten him often, head and heel says the Lord, and I find no sound in him, neither the savage growl of the drum nor the sweet clean resonance of the bell. I never hear the sea of the seasons roll through him, nor night and day toss and hum. A sodden gourd, or cracked vessel, says the Lord, he is good for nothing now but heaven or hell.
(c) Ernest Sandeen
THE RELATIVITY OF TIME
As you know, as Einstein said, “Time is relative.”
Years ago when most houses hadone bathroom, this old saying made sense,
“How long a minute takes depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.”
Sometimes - time seems to sit still – like sitting in
traffic – like sitting in a waiting room at the doctor’s. Sometimes - time
flies – like a great meal and it’s getting late and the waiters and waitresses
want us to finish up so they can clean up and go home – and we’re wrapped up in
great conversations.
Not every day, not every weekend, not ever week, not every
month nor every year is the same.
Holy Week – Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday – is upon us. Some
of us remember Ash Wednesday. Maybe we whispered to ourselves a spiritual hope
or two – a Lenten Resolution – and here it is Palm Sunday.
It makes a difference how we spend time. The key is not to
judge others – but to judge ourselves: how we’re
doing.
I know I judge. When driving I wonder about those who drive
along the shoulder or the exit ramp as far as they can and then move left to
get into the regular two or three lanes – and beat 50 cars on Route 50. I
wonder about those who sneak in side doors and skip lines if possible. Is that
their regular personality? Does that pattern sneak into how they give their
time and life to family or work or what have you – or who have you?
I went in a side door at a wake in a church in Bowie two Sunday’s ago. The crowds were enormous. I still
feel a bit of guilt about that. Hey those on the long lines were waiting –
slowing stepping their way to the Church steps – why can’t I? – like everyone else? I
rationalized. As I was meeting family members of the deceased – I could see
those on line in the back still coming in. And whispers of “unfair” were
clinging to my inner ear.
Time is relative.
It all depends on who we are – our spirituality- our sense
of fairness and how we treat one another. Everything relates, is relative, to
the I, I am.
I would assume that how we do Lent, how we do Holy Week, how
we move those 40 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, how we move these seven from
Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, how we drive, how we notice other drivers, how we
notice waiters and waitresses in a restaurant – how they notice our needs, is
somehow connected to how we spend time – how we see or don’t see each other –
and especially how we see ourselves.
I would assume how we spend Holy Week will help us deal with
the Good Fridays of our life that might or might not happen on Friday’s. Deaths happen every day of the week. Crosses,
betrayals, family deaths - and then the long wait to go through a wake in a
Funeral Parlor, the Funeral Mass, the long ride to the cemetery, the burial, all
happen –all take time often when we
weren’t or aren’t ready for them. Then there’s the time - till we experience a personal Easter for us –
the time from the death of another - to the acceptance of a death of another - to
the experience of the act of faith we make that the one we loved is with the
Lord – and it’s time for us to rise from feelings of death – and walk in new
time.
It’s all relative. It all relates to how we spend our time –
instead of sneaking in side doors to avoid life – or speed past all those in
the same traffic of the same kinds of pain and waiting.
So this week is Holy Week. We’re in traffic near the end of
the 40 day trip called Lent. We’re getting into Holy Week – closer to the
Bridge into Easter and resurrection and flowers – new garments - and new life
in Christ.
This week we have some sacred moments – we might miss – lots
of times for Confession – now called, “The Sacrament of Reconciliation”. Is
there anyone or anything we need to reconcile? This Thursday can be like any
other Thursday or it can be Holy Thursday. We’ll have that renewal of the Mass
this Thursday night at 7:30 at St. John Neumann. This Friday can be like any
other Friday, or it can be Good Friday – where we enter into the Lord’s Passion
on the Cross – and with the whole community we venerate the Cross in silence
and song. Next Saturday evening we have the Long Easter Vigil when folks come
into our church – and that night and the next day, next Sunday, we renew our
Baptismal time – and celebrate once more The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus
Christ.
How we spend this week, how we spend our time, is relative.
That’s the title and theme of this homily.
But how we spend our time affects and effects who we are -
and how we are to each other and to the Lord – but especially how we are to
ourselves.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
WHAT WAS
YOUR MOTHER LIKE
Poem for Today - April 12, 2014
HOT COMBS
At the junk shop, I find an old pair, black with grease, the teeth still pungent as burning hair. One is small, fine toothed as if for a child. Holding it, I think of my mother's slender wrist, the curve of her neck as she leaned over the stove, her eyes shut as she pulled the wooden handle and laid flat the wisps at her temples. The heat in our kitchen made her glow that morning I watched her wincing, the hot comb singeing her brow, sweat glistening above her lips, her face made strangely beautiful as only suffering can do.
(c) Natasha Trethewey
Friday, April 11, 2014
WHAT WAS
YOUR FATHER LIKE?
Poem for Today - April 11, 2014
AMATEUR FIGHTER
- for my father
What's left is the tiny gold glove hanging from his left key chain. But, before that, he had come to boxing, as a boy, our of necessity - one more reason to stay away from home, go late to that cold house and dinner alone in the dim kitchen. Perhaps he learned just to box a stepfather, then turned that anger into a prize at the Halifax gym. Later, in New Orleans, there were the books he couldn't stop reading. A scholar, his eyes weakening. Fighting, then, a way to live dangerously. He'd leave his front tooth out for pictures so that I might understand living meant suffering, loss. Really living meant taking risks, so he swallowed a cockroach in a bar on a dare, dreamt of being a bullfighter. And at the gym on Tchoupitoulas Street , he trained his fists to pound into a bag the fury contained in his gentle hands. The red headgear, hiding his face, could make me think he was someone else, that my father was somewhere else, not here holding his body up to pain.
(c) Natasha Trethewey
Thursday, April 10, 2014
HOLDING ON FOR DEAR LIFE
Poem for Today - April 10, 2014
WEDDING CAKE
Once on a plane a woman asked me to hold her baby and disappeared. I figured it was safe our being on a plane and all. How far could she go? She returned one hour later, having changed her clothes and washed her hair. I didn't recognize her. By this time the baby and I had examined each other's necks. We had cried a little. I had a silver bracelet and a watch. Gold studs glittered in the baby's ears. She wore a tiny white dress leafed with layers like a wedding cake. I did not want to give her back. The baby's curls coiled tightly against her scalp, another alphabet. I read new new new. My mother gets tired. I'll chew your hand. The baby left my skirt crumpled, my lap aching. Now I'm her secret guardian, the little nub of dream that rises slightly but won't come clear. As she grows as she feels ill at ease I'll bob my knee. What will she forget? Whom will she marry? He'd better check with me. I'll say once she flew dressed like a cake between two doilies of cloud. She could slip the card into a pocket, pull it out. Already she knew the small finger was funnier than the whole arm.
(c) Naomi Shihab Nye
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
UNDERWOOD
Poem for Today - April 9, 2014
from A FRAME FOR THE ANGELS
39.
The Spring that I was six I found in the woods Far in the back of our house a little dump, A pile of rusty cans, bottles and one Treasure: an Underwood typewriter, ancient, rusty, Rusted solid in fact. But the black keys Had not rusted, the bakelite or whatever it was Had held the letters legible there in the woods, And I, who knew the alphabet, had stared Dumbfounded at that mysterious order. No wonder, No wonder they threw it out, the letters are all Mixed up. I hunted for an A and B and C And through to Z, touching them one by one.
I remained dumbfounded long after I'd asked And learned the reason for that disorder. The logic I lacked there in the woods was, all along, Right in the very structure of my hands.
