A Momentary Taste of Being

A kind friend gave me the gift of an Kindle copy of Fr. Stinissen's magnificent book Into Your Hands Father.   Being a Kindle edition, my highlights and notes are made available online (another fact that I owe a great debt to my friend for making clear to me.) Having my highlights available online makes it so much easier to write and comment about the book.  One of the point that Stinissen makes is that God speaks to us in the ordinary events of life, even those events with which we are not so pleased. from Into Your Hands Father Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen If God is the creator of heaven and earth and the great director guiding the drama of the world and mankind, then I can encounter him everywhere. He pours out his love upon me in and through all that happens. “Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it” (Ps 81:10). I do not need to consider when it is wise to open my mouth and when it is better to close it. I will always have my mouth wide open. I live in a land where...

Any Catholics out there have any? I haven't figured mine out yet.  But it appears that Pope Benedict has a new volume in his Jesus books--perhaps that will make a good, if somewhat daunting read.

The X-Men's Nightcrawler And the story that goes with it

It's nice to see that the perfect lacks perfection.  Even in that Washington may have been the perfect man for his time  (and for ours). from Washington: A Life Ron Chernow All summer and fall Washington was exasperated by military arrangements on the western frontier. He objected in strenuous terms to Lord Loudoun's decision to station Virginia troops at Fort Cumberland in Maryland, when it made more sense to keep them at Winchester, Virginia. Washington's tenacity on this issue led to a clash with Dinwiddie, who sided with Loudoun. Until this point Washington had prudently tended his relationship with the royal governor and was exemplary in bowing to civilian control. Now, in a terribly impolitic move, he bypassed Dinwiddie to lobby House of Burgesses speaker John Robinson, violating a cardinal rule of Virginia politics that the governor had final authority in such matters. The decision also smacked of disloyalty to someone who has consistently boosted Washington...

The Future of Reading I loved my Kindle, still love its airy lightness.  But I love even more, despite its greater weight my iPad.  I have five different reader programs on it, including the redoubtable ISilo, for which I had created countless books during my palm days.  I have hundreds, soon to be thousands of books at my fingertips--and while the organization of the book reading programs is not ideal--nevertheless, when I feel I must take up Titus Livius, he is there waiting for my attention.

Father James Martin's (S.J.) The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything provides some interesting perspectives and insights into the spiritual life.  In the excerpt posted below, taken from another writer on Jesuit spirituality, Martin highlights the importance of desire in the spiritual life. from The Jesuit Guide to Almost Everything Father James Martin, S.J. The Energy of Life Itself We tend to think that if we desire something, it is probably something we ought not to want or to have. But think about it: without desire we would never get up in the morning. We would never have ventured beyond the front door. We would never have read a book or learned something new. No desire means no life, no growth, no change. Desire is what makes two people create a third person. Desire is what makes crocuses push up through the late-winter soil. Desire is energy, the energy of creativity, the energy of life itself. So let's not be too hard on desire. --Margaret Silf, Wise Choices W...

On Waiting for God. A wonderful, cogent, concise and interesting review from a blogger who never fails to be interesting.

I have been too infrequent a visitor to Tea at Trianon, a delightful Catholic blog with literary diversions.  Today's on Isak Dinesen.

from The Prelude Book V William Wordsworth Great and benign, indeed, must be the power Of living nature, which could thus so long Detain me from the best of other guides And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised, Even in the time of lisping infancy; And later down, in prattling childhood even, While I was travelling back among those days, How could I ever play an ingrate's part? Once more should I have made those bowers resound, By intermingling strains of thankfulness With their own thoughtless melodies You really don't need me to talk you through it--it's just a lovely thought nicely expressed.

At Reading for Believers, one of the bloggers is posting a series of excerpts from the poetry of James K Baxter.  Start with the linked poem and then browse more recent entries for more poetry and commentary--worth your time! I really loved the poem from which this is excerpted: Now I see you conquer age As the prow of a canoe beats down The plumes of Tangaroa. Read the whole thing here: He Waiata mo Te Kare

The Rest is Noise --Alex Ross   on April 8, 2009 Serialism, atonalism, 12-tonalism, spectralism, minimalism, polytonalism, microtonalism, whole tonalism, tritones, open fifths, symphonies, sonatas, and music concrete. If you've ever wanted to understand classical music in the twentieth century, this book may be for you. Alex Ross introduces us to the wild world of twentieth and twenty-first century music--from Schoenberg's Harmoniolehre to John Adams's Harmoniolehre and Nixon in China . Along the way we have whole chapter divergences into the work of Jean Sibelius and Benjamin Britten. I have to admit to not fully comprehending all that the book had to offer by way of commentary. Nevertheless, Ross opened my eyes to some of the developments within music and made me more inclined to try to understand and appreciate what had happened in this century. The book starts with Debussy, Ravel, Les Six, and Stravinsky and moves chronologically throug...

But nevertheless a masterpiece of its own kind--a review of Helena

I return us now to the briefly abandoned (so it might seem to you) Wordsworth.  I gave you a respite, but my own progress through the book depends in part on my continued sharing of what I find there.  I find that telling you about its wonders keeps me plowing through them and relishing them.  I will admit that it is not easy to read through a book-length poem--no matter how fine the poetry--I remember my struggle with Paradise Lost, and with other, similar works.  And the less epic, the less mythic, the poem, the more difficult.  The Prelude is an intimate epic--not the expansive expression of a golden age of heroes, but the canny and careful observation of a poet coming into being. But this next piece I share for the sheer delight of the scene.  It says much about Wordsworth, about poetic composition, and about poetry.  But it also says much about a dog. from The Prelude Book IV William Wordsworth Among the favourites whom it pleased me well ...

I could sense that you've been longing for today's installment of Wordsworth and so I offer it.  Perhaps it is just my quirky reading, but I find something very wryly humorous in today's passages.  It is as though Wordsworth is paying homage to the King of the Puritans in his own late eighteenth century way--that is, entirely inappropriately. After a brief litany of previous poets including Chaucer and Spenser, Wordsworth gives us Milton: from The Prelude Book III William Wordsworth Yea, our blind Poet, who, in his later day, Stood almost single; uttering odious truth— Darkness before, and danger's voice behind, Soul awful—if the earth has ever lodged An awful soul—I seemed to see him here Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth— A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks Angelical, keen eye, courageous look, And conscious step of purity and pride. It is one of those impossible images, rather as a child we wonder...

Yesterday, I kept the excerpt short and to the point.  So short and to the point, that indeed, the point wasn't even there.  And so today, the point. from The Prelude: Book II William Wordsworth Thus were my sympathies enlarged, and thus Daily the common range of visible things Grew dear to me: already I began To love the sun; a boy I loved the sun, Not as I since have loved him, as a pledge And surety of our earthly life, a light Which we behold and feel we are alive; Nor for his bounty to so many worlds— But for this cause, that I had seen him lay His beauty on the morning hills, had seen The western mountain touch his setting orb, In many a thoughtless hour, when, from excess Of happiness, my blood appeared to flow For its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy.  In his ecstasy of auto-mythmaking, Wordsworth recalls not merely his youthful relationship with all things natural, but that relationship as it was changed by aging and by a more materialistic...

After sampling the wares of the caterer who would supply the feast for the Golf Club dance, Grace remains hesitant. from Major Pettigrew's Last Stand Helen Simonson "I wonder if it might be a little spicy for the main course," said Grace, cupping her hand around her mouth as if making a small megaphone. "What do you think major?" "Anyone who doesn't find this delicious is a fool," said the Major. He nodded his head fiercely at Mrs. Rasool and Mrs. Ali. "However. . . ." He was not sure how to express his firm conviction that the golf club crowd would throw a fit if served a rice-based main course instead of a hearty slab of congealing meat. Mrs. Rasool raised an eyebrow at him. "However, it is perhaps not foolproof, so to speak?" she asked. The Major could only smile in vague apology. "I understand perfectly," said Mrs. Rasool. She waved her hand and a waiter hurried into the kitchen. The band stopped abruptl...

Apropos of Maverick Philosopher's request for input the other day: from St. Thomas Aquinas: "The Dumb Ox" G. K. Chesterton A lady I know picked up a book of selections from St. Thomas, with a commentary; and began hopefully to read a section with the innocent heading "The Simplicity of God." She then laid down the book with a sign and said, "Well, it that's His simplicity, I wonder what His complexity is like." If you go and read Maverick Philosopher's article, you'll understand even better what she meant.  I'm always boggled by God's Simplicity.

from a sermon by Pope St. Leo the Great Dear friends, at every moment the earth is full of the mercy of God , and nature itself is a lesson for all the faithful in the worship of God. The heavens, the sea and all that is in them bear witness to the goodness and omnipotence of their Creator, and the marvelous beauty of the elements as they obey him demands from the intelligent creation a fitting expression of its gratitude.  Not only His mercy, but his chesed which is often translated as loving-kindness, but which really doesn't seem to have a word or word chain in English that can encompass the fullness of the phrase.  It is God's deep love that sustains all that is--His abiding concern for His creation is not the fondness of a watchmaker for his wares, but of a Father to His children, each of whom He loves as though an only child. If you are of a mind to read more, and there is much more worth reading, you can find the whole of the Office of Readings at Universalis.

For Ash Wednesday--from the Office of Readings Isaiah 58:1-12   1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.   2 Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.   3 Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.   4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.   5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt t...

Why Progressivism is Passé