Eve of All Saints, 2005

....Sarah and I spent some time wandering in the dark, stargazing. We could see the Milky Way spanning the zenith like a dusty arroyo - the dust being the faintest light - and the other stars seemed to swarm at us, offering us a semblance of eternity, unveiling a place with neither day nor night, north nor south. Distances wherein light is slower than time. A sea so deep that the light of a raging sun will freeze in the offing and wash up here as this frostdire were-light, shuddering, not really illuminating anything. It made me want to bless the dim scarf of light overhead that now seemed like a mother's arm, holding us back from a still greater darkness. And then again, there is nothing fearful in the stars with their eyebeams of Chartres-blue cathedral light, when you remember that the whole universe lies like a little hazelnut in Christ's hand.

evening in early November

Today at sunset everything changed. A Helen-head of cloud rose from the sun, lavender linen, sun-sewn edges, brighter breath of light dispersed through lower part from molten saffron sun. Turn around and face the tree with light full on its crown, red leaves transfigured into something antique seeming, a rusted filigree on a gate to some older Old World where a half-remembered tongue returns at evening in that lost land. And then standing dizzy by the fountain round, behold the light tilted against trees and merging with the autumn mountain where summer sheds its blood and makes an even of its own - yet not harshly, with a rosehip redness and fume of fire that is yet gentle.

Some good modern poetry (ie, written by people who are still alive) on the internet:

Pavel Chichikov

Esther Cameron
(I'm quite taken with this neat Metaphysical-style sonnet of hers:)

Love's Catechism

That water may be taught to flow uphill,
The sun to rise out of the western ground;
That lively ichors from cold stones distill,
That our lost years may somewhere yet be found;
That roses blossom at the arctic pole,
That freshets purl across the desert path,
The swift-sent arrow will not find the goal,
Nor the slow tortoise feel Achilles' wrath;
That there may be two hills without a dale,
That lions may be taught to draw the plow,
That moth-wings make invulnerable mail,
That war-ships founder on a drowned man's brow:
All these false things true lovers must believe,
For the world wears worse, when these illusions leave.

Actually, the Hypertexts website in general is useful.

And now a thought about the Ballade...

I've seen a lot of poets writing sonnets and sestinas and villanelles lately, but not very many ballades, which is a shame, because it's a form capable of great emotional effects. Observe: Ballade to Our Lady of Czestochowa by Hilaire Belloc; A Ballade of Suicide by GKC. Actually, villanelles and sestinas are usually kind of annoying. Sonnets are awesome. In short, I want to read more ballades.

"Even before baseball, they knew there was something sacred about the number three." - Dr. S.

Also, Sheila's account of Medieval Fest.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, everyone!

This sounds like fun. Not that I endorse it or anything. (Mwa ha ha!)

Via Diogenes, this bit of NCR cluelessness.

I picked up the phone to hear a precise French accent pleading, “Peg, tell me it is not so!”

“What is not so, Abena?”

“On the news they say they will ordain a woman as priest. How can this be in the Catholic church? All day I pray, ‘Jesus, how can a woman be priest?’

“ ‘Call Peg,’ he said. ‘She will give you peace.’ So, I know you are a woman of wisdom and faith. Tell me, how can this be?”

“Abena, in the current Roman Catholic church this cannot be. Perhaps they mean some other church or an unrecognized ordination.”

“Oh, thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Peg. Not our Roman Catholic church!” She was laughing, nearly giddy with relief. “I prayed, ‘Lord, take me now if this should happen.’ I would rather be dead than see such a thing.”

“Abena,” I sighed with regret, “You and I will not live to see such a day in our Catholic church. This will not happen in our lifetime.”

“Oh, thank you! You give me so much hope and happiness.” But, suddenly serious, she said, “I think this cannot happen ever -- as it was in the beginning it shall be in the Catholic church until Jesus comes again.”

Her distress evident, she continued:

“I do not know why women keep trying to be Jesus. They should try only to imitate the example of humility and obedience of our Blessed Mother.”

“Abena, are you saying that men should not try to imitate the example of Mary?”

I struggled to contain my anger. And I succeeded because this was Abena, a very simple woman, not a bishop, the pope or a Vatican spokesperson, all of whom, I think, should have a broader view of church history and the place of culture in determining our ever-evolving, collective understanding of God.

She laughed readily, “Of course, we all should. But what is more important is that women learn the beauty of raising children.

“Just today God has answered my prayer. The husband of a sister of ours planned to divorce her because she has not been pregnant in many years. I learned today that she is two months with child. God is so good!”

My blood nearly boiled at the sexist content of this assertion and her archaic proof of God’s mercy. Yet, I forgave her immediately because I recognized that she is a product of her culture. Only recently from Cameroon, she was jailed there for her faith. Shackled, she was beaten on the soles of her feet. Now, walking is difficult. Wearing shoes is still painful.

“They wanted to break my spirit,” she laughed when she told me. “They only strengthened my faith!”

She is temporarily here, illegally, an accident of clerical errors (or the truest intervention of the grace of God), awaiting deportation so she can return to spread the Gospel to prisoners until she is again jailed and, as she anticipates, tortured to death. As she awaits deportation, she cares for dying women in their homes. Between chores, she prays the rosary many times a day. Paid in cash by grateful families, she lives on handouts, saving the money to send basic necessities like soap, underwear and food to her beloved prisoners. “In Cameroon,” she said, “if you have no family to care for you while in prison, you die. We are all family in Jesus,” she said. “So, we must care for these brothers and sisters.”

This reads like a conversation from a Michael O'Brien novel. It seems too perfectly ironic, stark, and revealing to be real. Nevertheless, it is.

"I think this cannot happen ever -- as it was in the beginning it shall be in the Catholic church until Jesus comes again.”

"I struggled to contain my anger. And I succeeded because this was Abena, a very simple woman, not a bishop, the pope or a Vatican spokesperson, all of whom, I think, should have a broader view of church history and the place of culture in determining our ever-evolving, collective understanding of God."

Peg fancies that there is no real discord between her beliefs and Abena's beliefs ("I felt profoundly blessed as Abena pointed to the truth in her own experience without condemning the truth in mine"), but in reality there is a great gulf fixed between these two women.

And I am no better than Peg, because I say that I believe what Abena believes, but I am still living my comfortable and complacent little life. Abena and her sisters will save the world. Peg should have longed to kiss her beaten feet.