Obliged to Sing

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I was introduced to Scott Cairns through reading his book, Short Trip to the Edge, a Pilgrimage to Prayer. I put that book in the category of books that not only are about beautiful things but are also beautiful to read.  One I have reread and certainly will again.  Here is a poem of his on poetry and how it serves us.

They Open Us

Scott Cairns

—After Pappas [ΝΙΚΟΣ ΠΑΠΠΑΣ]

Because of this poetry, which, like the Gospel
opens us to waves of unexpected dangers
and elations, which bids the condemned to loosen
his tie as he ambles to the wall to be shot,
and woos meandering millions yet to notice
the brother or sister teetering on the cliff,
compelling that we reach out a hand, deliver
those wretched, belovéd ones to safety, at least,
to momentary safety and, in that moment,
a passing sense that they are not alone; because
of poetry’s vertiginous capacity
to center one’s attention on what might make us
whole, and what might break us, spanning the desolate
hours as well as the blessed, and laving with honey
both corpses and the morning toast, even as it
raps upon the door, unrelenting in its claims;
because of this poetry, rising from the souls,
the ancients of every land, the generations
thereafter, all the radiant host, both famous
and obscure, offering their breath to the flowing
chorus circling the spheres, giving voice to every
exultation, every desolation, ever,
we raise our heads, and do not shirk, obliged to sing.

The beloved disciple

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I am looking over some notes I took on a book I read quite awhile ago that struck me as very profound, Only Love Creates, by Father Fabio Rosini. (I believe it’s the only book of his that is translated into English.) I had it checked out from our library for so, so long but finally returned it so someone else might have the opportunity to read it. As I said, today I was looking over the notes that I had taken while reading it. Here is just a snippet from the introduction.

“Why does Jesus know how to love?  Because he’s loved.  He is, and he lives in, a gift—namely, that the Father begot him, gave him being, gave him all of himself.”

“In John 13:23-25 there is a person called ‘the beloved disciple’ who at the Last Supper makes a gesture and reclines his head on Jesus’s chest.  At that moment he has an intimate dialogue with Jesus concerning Judas’s betrayal:

One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking.  So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’

“In that moment he feels Jesus’s heart beat with love for Judas.  It’s from that moment that he’s called the ‘beloved disciple,’ not before, because he encountered love. ‘He reclined his head on the chest’ of Jesus: that expression has already appeared at the end of the prologue at the beginning of John’s Gospel, where there is an extraordinary hymn that, toward the end, says, ‘No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known’ (John 1:18).  This is the same image, that of a little boy curled up against his daddy.  Jesus is always attached to, turned toward, and aimed at the Father, and the beloved disciple does the same thing with Jesus, listening to his heart.”

Eucharisteo

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

I began this gratitude journal in 2010 after reading Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. I have let it lapse way too many times–otherwise, I would be way past 1800 items by this point–but I am always glad when I pick it back up. It helps keep my mind focused during the day on what I might be thankful for, to record later in the day in this little book. Lately, I have been keeping an art card at the side just to bring some more beauty into my day. (This one is John William Waterhouse’s, “The Flower Picker”.)

“An act of thanksgiving, when things go wrong with us, is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations.” (St. John of Avila)

“Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted–a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding the good in every situation you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.” (Rabbi Harold Kushner)

The Icon

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Sharing another poem this Sunday by Anne Porter. I think this was one of the first I ever read by her and made me fall in love with her poetry.

Cretan School; Madonna and Child (Icon of Panagia Glykofilousa): Virgin of Tenderness; Government Art Collection; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/madonna-and-child-icon-of-panagia-glykofilousa-virgin-of-tenderness-28000

The Icon

Here in this icon out of ancient Russia
Brown as amber the little Mother of God
Holding her infant to her cheek
Is present to us
In all her wise
And peaceful sorrow

A forest hermit painted this
They say at night his face
Lit up the snow

He befriended robbers
And often gave
The bears his bread. 

Anne Porter

Saint Silouan

The Heart of Virtue

Sr. Dorcee, beloved4 Comments

I have been plagued by Jansenism most of my life, and Lent can be an especially difficult challenge in that regard. But over the past couple of years, God has been freeing me of this heresy by his sovereign intervention in my life and by writings like this by Joshua Elzner (building on my years of reading Thérèse). You can see that I have read and reread these pages a few times now. I share them with hope that your eyes may also be opened to the true heart of virtue.

When you feel that you are sinking

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Another poem from Malcolm Guite, speaking especially to those who feel like they are sinking.

The Christian Plummet

Down into the icy depths you plunge,
The cold dark undertow of your depression,
Even your memories of light made strange,
As you fall further from all comprehension.
You feel as though they’ve thrown you overboard,
Your fellow Christians on the sunlit deck,
A stone-cold Jonah on whom scorn is poured,
A sacrifice to save them from the wreck.

But someone has their hands on your long line,
You sound for them the depths they sail above,
One who takes Jonah as his only sign
Sinks lower still to hold you in his love,
And though, you cannot see, or speak, or breathe,
The everlasting arms are underneath.

Malcolm Guite

Refuge for my broken spirit.

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

(Oops. I meant to schedule this for this coming Sunday, but made a mistake. I trust God will use it for you now.) This Sunday I offer you this bit of a longer poem by Gregory of Narek:

Refuge for my broken spirit lies in your
living incorruptible, constant hope,
that looking on me with mercy,
as one condemned to perdition,
when I present myself before your heavenly beneficence,
empty-handed and without gifts,
bringing with me the evidence of your untold glory,
I will remind you
who never shuts your eyes,
never ignores the sighs of grief,
that with your cross of light
you may lift away from me, I beg you, the peril that chokes me,
with your comforting care, the vacillating sadness,
with your crown of thorns, the germs of my sin,
with the lashes of the whip, the blows of death,
with the memory of the slap in the face, the neediness of my shame,
with the spitting of your enemies, my contemptible vileness,
with your sip of vinegar, the bitterness of my soul.

Gregory of Narek 

Do not fear the memory of sin

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

A lovely, lovely poem from Malcolm Guite. I find it most encouraging at the beginning of this Lent. Lent can be a discouraging time for many of us because we are so aware of our obvious faults.

Through the Gate

Begin the song exactly where you are,
For where you are contains where you have been
And holds the vision of your final sphere.

And do not fear the memory of sin;
There is a light that heals, and, where it falls,
Transfigures and redeems the darkest stain

Into translucent colour. Loose the veils
And draw the curtains back, unbar the doors,
Of that dread threshold where your spirit fails.

The hopeless gate that holds in all the fears
That haunt your shadowed city fling it wide
And open to the light that finds, and fares

Through the dark pathways where you run and hide.
Through all the alleys of your riddled heart,
As pierced and open as his wounded side.

Open the map to him and make a start,
And down the dizzy spirals, through the dark,
His light will go before you. Let him chart

And name and heal. Expose the hidden ache
To him, the stinging fires and smoke that blind
Your judgments, carry you away, the mirk 

And muted gloom in which you cannot find
The love that you once thought dying for.
Call him to all you cannot call to mind.

He comes to harrow Hell and now to your
Well-guarded fortress let his love descend.
The icy ego at your frozen core

Can hear his call at last. Will you respond?

mgupIXg

Blessing the dust

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

Jan Richardson is a poet I discovered just a few years ago. My favorite book of hers is the one from which this poem is taken. She has a number of poems just for this day, Ash Wednesday.

“For you, for Ash Wednesday, with gratitude. May we keep learning what God does with dust; may we be part of the answer. So many blessings to you, beloveds, as Lent arrives.”
 
BLESSING THE DUST
 
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
 
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
 
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
 
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
 
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
 
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
 
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
 
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
 
—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons