Since You Asked

My grandson asked, "If you were to pick a day in history you remember well, which would it be?" I thought over my choices: the Cuban Crisis; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the inauguration of the first Catholic president. His assassination was certainly a staggering event as I was on the Judah streetcar in San Francisco on the way to a pre-natal visit when I heard the news. On a brighter side, the first words uttered on the moon thrilled me. However, none of these compared to one day in May. 

   My father had been assigned earlier in the year of 1945 to Jerusalem. Our family was staying temporarily at the American School of Oriental Research, overlooking the Mount of Olives. Dr. Nelson Glueck, an archaeologist and friend, came to the door one day and whispered to my mother, "The war is over." And then he left. She turned to me, her eyes wide, "The war is over!!" I knew what that meant as for the two years previous my dad had been assigned by the U.S. State Dept. to Angra do Heroismo, a city in the Azores where the Army and Navy soldiers made our house their, "Home away from home." I had overheard many a conversation about the "European Theater," the losses of people we had known and I had once slipped onto a plane full of wounded soldiers on their way back to the States. The horrors of war were branded in my mind and remain vivid all these decades later. Being only six, I didn't register the date or time but I remember clearly the sudden optimism, the feeling thatnow things would be "all better." I remember it was the month of May because that was my mother's birthday month and somehow the celebration became mixed with the personal joy we had. My mother often remarked that Rabbi Glueck's reaction to the news was vastly different from people dancing and shouting in the streets but I felt the same way--
stunned.  There have been momentous days in my life but none have compared to that very quiet announcement by a man who would years later give the benediction at the swearing in ceremony of President John F. Kennedy.

...may the blessings of good memories 

and learned lessons be yours...

Sketch by Halit

Friday Noon

Strolling along York Avenue, I noticed a cluster of buildings that seemed to fit in with the hospitals close by but had posters which indicated a wealth of what my daughter at age four called, "Distinguished Avocados." Rockefeller University overlooks the East River and has a history in science I did not know. It is a biomedical center with 73 laboratories devoted to basic and clinical research. 23 of its scientists have won a Nobel prize. However, the real surprise for me was the small recital hall with free recitals on Fridays at noon. Last Friday there was a group singing and playing my favorite kind of music (well, tied with my other all-time favorites). TENET, according to the New York Times is, "Sensational." SPIRITUS COLLECTIVE  "unites breath, spirit and inspiration to produce meaningful sacred music utilizing wind instruments, specifically period brass instruments (natural trumpet, cornett and sackbut). Combined with period strings and voices spiritus is a versatile ensemble, capable of recreating the vast and fascinating 17th century repertoire." Behind the performers, placed in a wide arc, were forty votive candles which were the perfect touch. It was so easy to imagine a side, or Lady chapel, in a country far away where the music filled the space for an hour or so of enchantment. I did not know the pieces but the words such as, "Sanctorum" sent me right back to my childhood when morning classes would be suspended to go pray and sing along the stone work corridors of the convent school. How lovely to feel the music shut out the world beyond the walls. A tiny glimpse of Heaven. The Friday Noon Recitals are gems, hidden just past the front garden. Are you as fond as I of beautiful things not seen from outside? A geode. A cavern. A pocketful of silver coins. 

~~~~~~~~~~

...may the blessings of delightful surprises be yours...

Carolyn Meyer and Moi

  It was a dark and stormy night in Eureka, California. Earlier in the day, I had been to the wonderful Eureka library which resembled a ship builder's project with its strong wooden beams and its high windows looking out to an inlet of the bay. I had gone to see if there might be a DVD of The Phantom of the Opera. Just past the entrance, on the left, was the Young Adult collection, an unusual placement for a library. I have a great fondness for YA books. They are imaginative, compact, and tell a good story. A cover caught my eye, Loving Will Shakespeare. It showed a young couple appropriately dressed for his time, walking away from the reader, wrapped up in themselves, unconcerned about anything, briskly on their way to their destiny. I was not familiar with the author. I grabbed the book and headed for staying up late in the night reading this completely entrancing view of Shakespeare's youth. I looked up the website and discovered I could, "Contact." I wrote a short fan message. I like short as short doesn't interrupt a busy person and cuts to the chase, much like the writing of a YA book. I was pleased to receive a prompt reply. Today, some three years later I met Carolyn Meyer in person while she was visiting her agent in NYC. We talked of many things. I particularly liked learning about her family and her breaking into the writing world. And, of course, I had to tell her several of my stories. In our brief time together, I flashed back to that stormy night in Eureka, and thought about how, once again, the Keeper of the Universe had been working behind the scenes to arrange a lovely conjunction of friends at lunch. Who would have guessed such a possibility? I am currently reading The Bad Queen in which Carolyn Meyer has given us a perfect example of what she does best--putting herself into the setting and becoming the character. How does she do this?? How can she be Anastasia, Isabella, Catherine, Nannerl (Mozart's sister), and numerous others? The blurb says she has written 50 books. It was a rare and beautiful day in the Big Apple and I was privileged to meet the recipient of my fan letter, a generous and gifted writer with a deep and hearty laugh and a willingness to listen.

New Blob

I am my brother's sister. I have started a new blob. This time it is only poems and essays and eventually, the one short story I wrote in 1964 on Clipper Street in San Francisco. http://innochronologicalorder.blogspot.com

Gone Fishing

Current posts may be seen at http://christineintheshire.blogspot.com/

Perpetually Historical

I have a friend in Roanoke, Virginia with a keen interest in history. I nicknamed her "perpetuallyhistorical." I, too, have a curiosity about times gone by. The Treehouse is situated in a landmark building which, even if one wasn't told, could be deduced by the marble staircase and banister woodwork. The surrounding neighborhood has some Bring Back Memories locations such as the Isle of Capri restaurant established 1955 when I was encountering Sarah Orne Jewett and The Country of Pointed Firs in high school. I'll wager I've been on the search for those firs ever since. I really do believe, "There is no poem as lovely as a tree." A short bus ride or subway to 34th Street brings me close to the Tick Tock Diner. It is inside the New Yorker hotel. This establishment predates the Empire State Building by one year, 1930. The breakfast menu features something unusual in the Big Apple--a choice of grits. The fabled Automat is gone but other places have held on. The daffodils at Rockefeller Center attest to the jubilant cycles of life. I can easily see Wordsworth writing,

"I wandered lonely as a cloud

that floats on high o'er vales and hills

and all at once I saw a crowd,

a host of golden daffodils."

Walgreen's has a sign stating its first store dates to 1901. My mother was fond of the 59 cent lunch special at Walgreen's in St. Pete at about the time the Isle of Capri welcomed its charter customers. I like the way the years interweave like the wedding rhyme, "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue." It's likely my passion for historic places began with my brother on his expeditions. That's what I called them but, really, they were just long walks behind our house in Jerusalem. I remember him saying, "Solomon walked here." I wasn't sure who Solomon was. I had a vague idea he had been the richest man in the world and the smartest but how could he be rich and smart at the same time? Why would he lay up treasures on Earth? Hadn't he heard about Jesus? My brother, ever patient, said Solomon lived long before Jesus which meant to me that it was smart to be rich back when. That still didn't make sense because I had been told the rich were discontent, ever striving, never satisfied. My brother wasn't prepared for my strong streak of logic and declared, "Solomon was an exception. Exceptional Solomon." Naturally, being six years old, I pestered the issue. "Why?" My brother diverted my attention by handing me a tiny square rock of such beauty, I have it to this day. A short silence ensued and then I asked, " Did Solomon have any of these?" Later, at home, my brother complained "She never stops. She has to know everything." My mother suggested I let my brother go on his walks without me. Thus began my own adventures and investigations. In Blowing Rock, North Carolina, there is a plaque, "In 1731 on this spot, nothing happened." Now that's a rare bit of history, don't you think? I wonder if whoever put up that plaque had a little sister with an inquisitive streak. From the tram to Roosevelt Island "Landmarks galore" can be seen, one of which used to be a smallpox hospital. I learned about this on Kaye Barley's blog when reading an entry by New York mystery writer, Linda Fairstein. It's Spring Break week at the Treehouse. My next post will come from the Shire. Till then..."

~~~~~~~

..may the blessings of sacred spaces be yours...

"This Little Light"

"She was a triumph of image over reality. I'm not even sure if she knows what

reality is anymore, she's so busy creating this image of herself."

Still Life -- Louise Penny

The first time I chose to re-invent myself I was four years old. The family had moved to Santo Domingo where the house fronted a beautiful flower garden. My mother had often read the tale to me of Ferdinand the reluctant bull who never wanted to enter the ring to face an elegant matador bent on total destruction. Ferdinand wanted peace in the world and beauty. My cup of tea! I wanted to Be Ferdinand. Consequently, I decided to go sit under a tree in the midst of the tropical flowers, And just like Ferdinand, I was bitten by a bumblebee. Oh, the agony. The incident made me re-think re-invention. I tried being Joan of Arc until I realized the ending would not be peaceful. At the age of eight, I discovered Gene Autry's tumbleweeds and set out to be a cowgirl. My Aunt Stella had gone to school with Gene Autry's wife so an autographed 8X10 glossie was arranged. I was thrilled when it arrived as a surprise in the mail with an inscription, "To Christine, the Singing Cowgirl." However about the same time, my Uncle Henry sent a magnificent art book, Indians of the Plains, a reminder of the fact that I was the descendant of an Apache. I squared this with my cowgirl persona by putting feathers in my hair. At age 11, I became friends with Lola, Marcia, and Connie who came over to play what we termed, "Olden Times" which my dad immediately dubbed, "Olden Dames." My friends and I were low on board games so we acted out stories. I was Lorraine, who had melodramatic near-death experiences from either consumption or smallpox. One day, I ventured to go ahead and die. Connie, the literalist among us, said I couldn't play anymore because I was dead and she didn't believe in ghosts. I settled that problem by saying, "It's my house." Lorraine miraculously recovered and the blame for her "death" laid at the foot of zombies. Olden Dames continued until we all read Nancy Drew and re-invented ourselves as spy catchers. There were plenty of them around. In high school, I yearned to be Willa Cather writing lyrical novels of places I had never seen because of spending too much time in the tropics. By college it was clear that none of my re-inventions were going to happen. The next decades had people suggesting I become a politician or go on the stage or run an orphanage. My dad thought I would make an excellent cub reporter but I had read Shakespeare by then and stuck with, "To thine own self be true." It was less dangerous than Ferdinand or Joan and I could spend my leisure reading all about characters, as in Louise Penny's quote above, without having to drain the budget with a major investment in outfits. Although...I guess it wouldn't be out of the question to have one last transformation. How about I try being...nah. Never mind.

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...may the blessings of your little lights shining be with you this primavera week...

Among the Shamrocks

Offhand, I'm guessing it's likely my maternal grandmother, Mary Leahy Reinhardt, did not celebrate St. Paddy's Day even though she was born in County Wicklow. She did give presents at birthdays, though. Other people's presents. One January my mother sent a gift to her sister, Stella, in Providence, Rhode Island. In May, Stella sent the gift on for Granny Reinhardt's birthday. Later that May, came the same gift back to my mother with a note, "Stella sent this blouse. She doesn't know my taste." It was true. When Granny R. died, Stella had the funeral director use a pink theme. My mother said, "Mama never liked pink. It didn't go with freckles." My mother didn't like pink, either. Stella was not one for "go with" so she didn't notice. She also had fewer freckles. I have a photo somewhere that shows a genetic link between Granny R. and me. She is wearing a plaid jumper (my standard uniform for most of my life), a hat, and she it toting an oversized handbag in which she, no doubt, carried one of the volumes of the complete Charles Dickens. She is waiting at a bus stop to go into town for her weekdays salad, pie, and coffee at the YWCA. I don't think she ever cooked after her husband died. Well, no wonder. She had the reputation of baking the hardest biscuits in Indian Territory. Like me, she was also a bear about alcohol. Despite her entering a household and immediately pouring out all the whiskey bottles, she was still every woman's favorite midwife. Whenever my mother was sick in some foreign country she pined for Mama and in a tuneless quaver, sang, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child." Once when I was frantic with helplessness, I asked my mother what was so special about Granny R.'s healing powers. There was no definite description but it had to do with Irish humor, no-nonsense, and a very strong streak of optimism she called Muddling Through. Granny R. was one of the few in miles who could read music so she played for the Saturday night dances and three church services on Sunday. In her way, celebration was not a set aside time. It was all the time in her steady quiet manner. I was going to post another Irish poem but I happened to come across this one by Sarah N. Cleghorn which is very Granny Reinhardt. Someone wrote about Sarah, "She called her earlier poems 'sunbonnets' --poems which characterized country life--and her later poems 'burning poems'--poems that pointed to social injustices." It has the lilt and imagery of an old Irish ballad, perfect for recitation. Sing away, delve into some myths of kings, and do a little jig!

In the still cold before the sun (Her Matins)

Her brothers and her sisters small 

She woke, and washed and dressed each one.                 

And through the morning hours all (Prime) 

Singing above her broom she stood 

And swept the house from hall to hall. 

Then out she ran with tidings good (Tierce)

Across the field and down the lane,

To share them with the neighborhood.

Four miles she walked, and home again, (Sexts)

To sit through half the afternoon

And hear a feeble crone complain.

But when she saw the frosty moon (Nones)

And lakes of shadow on the hill,

Her maiden dreams grew bright as noon.

She threw her pitying apron frill (Vespers) 

Over a little trembling mouse 

When the sleek cat yawned on the sill.

In the late hours and drowsy house, (Evensong)

At last, too tired, beside her bed 

She fell asleep — her prayers half said.

...may the blessings of little green sprouts be with thee...

Pancakes and Ashes

Shrove Tuesday is celebrated in many different ways. It's the last day of Mardi Gras and since the next day begins the season of smaller portions, people fill up on pancakes. "In Ireland, Irish girls were given an afternoon off to make their batter and the eldest, unmarried girl would toss the first pancake. Success meant she would be married within the year." The word shrove comes from the notion that before fasting, we are to confess our sins. Perhaps that's why Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday became a more common name than Shrove. Anybody would rather be eating pancakes than thinking about past sins, especially the "sins of omission." It's bad enough to have committed the active sins but to have to be nailed for what we "accidentally" didn't do or say, is a real festival squasher. The pancake events started in the 15th Century in England. Pancake Tuesday was first observed in the U.S. in Mobile, Alabama in 1703 but most of us associate it with Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It's a state holiday in Louisiana. During the Civil War, there were no celebrations but after, it was one of the first to be revived. I was going to include another Irish poem but I love this one by Sara Teasdale and since the first word to come to my mind to describe a place I've never seen is "loveliness," I am posting this instead. Indulge in your pancakes! Load them up with blueberries and a sprig of shamrock on the side and then enjoy, yes, enjoy the introspective, kindly, lean season of Lent.

Barter
by Sara Teasdale
Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things, Blue waves whitened on a cliff, Soaring fire that sways and sings, And children's faces looking up Holding wonder in a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, Music like a curve of gold, Scent of pine trees in the rain, Eyes that love you, arms that hold, And for your spirit's still delight, Holy thoughts that star the night. Spend all you have for loveliness, Buy it and never count the cost; For one white singing hour of peace Count many a year of strife well lost, And for a breath of ecstasy Give all you have been, or could be. ...may the blessings of feasting be with you tonight and the blessings of peacefulness follow your week...

"Come Child of Misfortune, Come Hither"

As far back as I can remember there was a small green songbook of Thomas Moore's Irish favorites in the various piano benches of my childhood. I don't know if my parents bought it when they lived in Belfast or if it was a gift, perhaps from Cassie Main, my mother's best friend. At any rate, it was another instance of predestination as far as I was concerned. My brother and I took piano lessons from Joy Cutler whose house was across a stone bridge over the road to Mt. Vernon when my dad was assigned to Washington, D.C. For my brother, the lesson outing was the best part. He didn't really take to music notes telling him what to do. I, on the other hand, practiced Teaching Little Fingers to Play for hours. This delighted my tone-deaf mother who envisioned my triumphal acceptance to the Julliard School of Music. She was also fond of sentimental pieces so the day I started in on "The Last Rose of Summer" was a day of transformation for us both. As the songbook aged, patches of brighter green appeared. I began to treat it in a ritualistic way as a form of preservation. Each March, out it would come for a daily singing, one song a day. On St. Patrick's, I would play the entire table of contents. The illustrations were graceful glimpses into an era that suited my fanciful nature. Sometimes I read the lyrics as the poetry they were, impassioned lines of loss and exile. There were a couple of snappy ditties such as "The Rakes of Mallow" which had the strength of Irish humor conquering the many troubles of Irish history to soften the mixture. Here is a sample of the kind the mother/daughter relished.

Has Sorrow Thy Young Days Shaded

Has sorrow thy young days shaded,
As clouds o'er the morning fleet?
Too fast have those young days faded
That, even in sorrow, were sweet?
Does Time with his cold wing wither
Each feeling that once was dear? --
Then, child of misfortune, come hither,
I'll weep with thee, tear for tear.

Has love to that soul, so tender,
Been like our Lagenian mine,
Where sparkles of golden splendour
All over the surface shine --
But, if in pursuit we go deeper,
Allured by the gleam that shone,
Ah! false as the dream of the sleeper,
Like Love, the bright ore is gone.

Has Hope, like the bird in the story,
That flitted from tree to tree
With the talisman's glittering glory --
Has Hope been that bird to thee?
On branch after branch alighting,
The gem did she still display,
And, when nearest, and most inviting,
Then waft the fair gem away?

If thus the young hours have fleeted,
When sorrow itself look'd bright;
If thus the fair hope hath cheated,
That led thee along so light;
If thus the cold world now wither
Each feeling that once was dear --
Come, child of misfortune, come hither,
I'll weep with thee, tear for tear.

Thomas Moore

It was a natural progression to investigate Yeats and his epic tales of yore and the fascinating "automatic writing." For my first March post, I'd like to conclude with what I think is the best of all Irish poems, Thomas Moore notwithstanding.

When You are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

--W. B. Yeats

...may the traditional road-rising Irish blessing accompany your March days... Poems courtesy of PoemHunter.com and POETS.org

Out and About

The plan for the day was to take the R train to have lunch at Whole Foods where I like the "kids'" sandwiches and the upstairs seating, and then walk over on Warren Street to Poets House. Poets House is a poetry center with a library of some 90,000 poetry books, also with upstairs seating, this time overlooking the Hudson River. On the way after lunch, I barely looked at the window displays as I was noticing the historic buildings. Once there, for my reading matter, I chose a slim volume by W.B. Yeats. I had in mind finding a "signature" for my March e-mails as he wrote lengthy poems of antique times. You may have noticed my signatures rely heavily on the long ago and far away. The book was of his early works and I was surprised to read such a tender, short but compelling verse called A Cradle Song:

"I kiss you and kiss you,

My pigeon, my own.

Oh how I will miss you

When you are grown."

Returning from Poets House to catch the R subway, there is a wonderful path through a pile of impressive slabs of granite. There was construction on the street ahead so we detoured to Warren Street. It was a U. detour as you can imagine. I was looking in the various windows and stopped briefly to admire a painting. What an extravaganza of color and fury! The title struck me as a real thought provoker, "The Killing of Social Security." Behind me there was a young woman I was about to let pass when she said, "Do you like the painting? It's my dad." I was floored. How could it be that I stopped at the precise moment when our lives intersected? What if I had gone a different way? What if I had examined the buildings as I had before and skipped the window? What if I had lingered at the Battery Park rock pile or read more poems? That night, out of curiosity, I searched on Facebook to see if Joe or Noemie were there. The spelling of Noemie's name takes me back to when I lived on Clipper Street in Noe Valley. I found her and sent a message. She replied with a note telling me her art can be seen on cargocollective. My Out & About adventure turned into one of those ripple effect days (remember Slinky on the Chapel Hill bus?) where the unexpected blooms like a magician's bouquet springing from a top hat. I'm reminded of the first line of a poem I wrote in 1962, "The beautiful days of my life have lost their number" So many beautiful days! Such elegant arrangements and collisions provided by the gentle, merry U.

~~~~~~

...may your days be filled with festive blessings...

Photo Credit: K Ripp

Guidebook: Courtesy of the Battery Conservancy

"Ah, Sweet Mystery"

Heart courtesy of Gone Coco Boutique

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Continuing the theme of Heart Month, I'd like to mention I "heart" mysteries. Starting when I used to sit in a tree reading Nancy Drew in her roadster adventures, I couldn't resist the page-turning quality of the old clock, the haunted house,and the broken locket. There was a interval of time when I read novels instead but the first time I saw Mystery on Masterpiece Theater, I began another binge which has lasted without breaks. What a delight to run across an original paperback of Winston Graham's The Walking Stick in the basement room of a small bookstore in Boone, North Carolina. Recently I have found Japanese, Chinese, and Swedish mysteries where I have not only enjoyed the plotting but also discovered so much about the settings. For instance, I never knew the extent of the Cultural Revolution. Just think. While America was having the summers of love, Chinese students were forbidden mixing. The beautiful long flower skirts I saw on Haight Street in San Francisco would have been the worst of the worst "bourgeois decadence." How horrible to be a dedicated scholar and then sent out to the countryside to live a life completely alien and arduous under the guise of needing to be "re-educated." What back breaking work as glimpsed in the movie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress! I am beyond glad that times have changed and I can now be reading the mysteries of the Chinese writer, Qui (last name first) who lives in St. Louis. I don't have a hankering to go to these places but I luxuriate in Michael Connelly's Catalina Island; Martha Grimes' British pubs; P.D. James' Scotland Yard; Tony Hillerman's New Mexico; George Simenon's French countryside, and Qui's China. Sometimes I think the perfect symposium would be a gathering of the fictional detectives rather than the authors. Dalgleish could read Chen's poetry and Chen could read Dalgleish's. Jury could give us an account of Wiggins' investment in the health care industry and Jim Chee could perform Blessing Way dance. What is most striking about these protagonists is how much heart they have. Blustery and rebellious Frost really cares. Havers cuts sarcastically through the upper crust hypocrisy but worries herself senseless over her mother. If you'd like to read an outstanding mystery blog try http://meanderingsandmuses.blogspot.com on which the calendar of authors is a treasure trove. Speaking of heart, here is a poem I wrote years ago, published in Hearts Afire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the Rim

You have been here always in my phantasy

walking up the road, laughing,

with shells from a prehistoric sea

just for me.

We have been together here, everywhere

joyously.

Climbing, falling pilgrims are we

in an old geography.

We do not wonder on how we met or why.

And if by chance you do appear

in the early sun's mirage

(as surely soon you must)

to discover that I am not the me I know

and you and your photograph are

strangely mismatched

and the canyon is there simply

ever-changing,

my phantasy will carry me through

the meeting you.

~~~~~

...may the blessings of heartfelt endeavors and mysterious encounters be yours...

Remembering Poldark

"Do all the good you can,

By all the means you can,

In all the ways you can,

In all the places you can,

At all the times you can

To all the people you can,

As long as ever you can."

~~John Wesley

What I like in a homily, sermon, or e-mail message is a phrase which changes my perception. Last week, listening online to Riverside Church, I heard the new interim minister tell us what was wrong with mainline churches. "They have forgotten the stories." The fundamentalists are ever ready to tell others of their salvation--the hour, day, and year-- and ask in return, "Where were you when you were saved?" But the mainline churchgoer seems embarrassed to even admit that instead of the morning paper, jog, or outing to Starbucks, he or she went to church. "There is no inner transformation." There is no confrontation with that other kind of fundamentalism, blind faith in science. This past Sunday, I visited Christ United Methodist Church. One of the best parts for me in the Winston Graham novels, the Poldark series, was the supporting character Drake Carne. The time frame is the early days of what would become Methodism, what was then known as The Connexion. Christ United Methodist Church on Park Avenue is a far cry from John Wesley riding on horseback preaching the freedom for all to learn to read, to reject a life of alcohol and despair. What an arduous life those circuit riders had in America. Sometimes the circuits were as wide as five hundred miles. Many of the riders slept outside as bedbugs and fleas were the bane of parishioners' hospitality. Women had prominent roles. They led classes, ran orphanages, and if the rider didn't show up, gave the sermon. John's brother Charles Wesley's birth was one of those miracles that seem predestined. Premature, he hardly cried or had signs of life for weeks. However, his mother encouraged him. She taught the children (19 of them) Latin, Greek, and French and, probably the most important lesson, a fire for living. He wrote something like 8,000 hymns. The best of the morning at Christ UMC was the nine o'clock service. Such simplicity in a setting so elaborately beautiful! And what a joy to hear a homily of the kind that has the one focus of attention that upsets preconceived suppositions. In this one, the minister talked about "naming." He mentioned the Sermon of the Mount and how radical it was. When Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world," he wasn't talking about a future state; he was naming us, telling us who we are, our identity. Rev. Bauman said, "Your middle name is Child of God." What a difference it would make if when we introduced ourselves we said, "I'm Salt," or "I'm Light." This early service in cane chairs rather than pews set in a side chapel with a domed ceiling right out of antiquity reminded me of those Drake Carne days. As Charles Wesley recommended, I sang fervently.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...may the blessings of sudden insights no matter at what age be with you...

The Following Day

Before jumping to conclusions as to why I am late posting, I have to ask myself, "Why do you think I'm late?" This was a self-imposed deadline, after all. First I was only going to do one post and then I started dailies and then I figured out that this was a whole lot of work and there was nobody handy to be designated guest blobber. I settled on Tuesday for my posts as that is my favorite day of the week which involves a long story from my childhood, natch, and a George Gershwin songbook. This will be the Following Day. (I've liked the word following ever since I learned about the following sea). February is heart month. Personally, I can't think heart without thinking soul. We all care about our friends' physical health but how many of us shy away when we observe mental disintegration? I can't remember at what age I heard a sermon which branded me for life. It was what is known as a homily instead of a sermon by a kindly Irish priest. He was speaking of the Good Samaritan. He said all of us if we encountered someone having an appendicitis attack would rush to help the person realizing it was an emergency. Why is it, he asked that we are reluctant to do the same when someone is having a mental attack? Shouldn't the rush be similar to the urgency of the appendicitis event? I thought at the time it was because we wouldn't know where to turn, how to offer help. Maybe we'd be frightened of the unknown consequences. How many times have there been killings in the news which led to interviews with neighbors, teachers, even friends who shook their heads and admitted they knew "something was wrong." How often have we been witnesses to mass hysteria and shrugged our shoulders in helplessness. There was a woman in Eureka I called The Shouter. She would walk miles shouting in a language of her own. She often stood right under my window. I asked a neighbor if she had once lived in the house. The answer was, "No. She feels safe with you. She has picked you as her protector." I once saw her in a fast food restaurant on the other side of town. She was speaking quietly. How remarkable! She knew about, "Inside voices," a pre-school term for managing a classroom. Her unkempt look made me wonder at first if she were homeless but she didn't have a shopping cart. She didn't appear to have a caregiver or family. Did she eat from dumpster diving? Did she sleep on the beach? How sad that she had been allowed to sink to this strange yet happy existence. Where along the path had everyone given up on her, let her have the appendicitis of the soul? I'm thinking during heart month it might be good to remember the soul and the people who need soul mending. Heart & Soul. They are enterwined like the links on a delicate necklace. If one breaks, the other is not far behind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...may you find rest in contemplation and strength in stopping by the side of the road...