A New Year, and an End

Happy New Year to anybody reading this.  I hope 2014 brings you God's peace and joy.

This post will be my last on this blog.  I thought long and hard about starting this post back in 2012.  I felt like I had things I wanted to say and I needed a format in which to do that.

Writing these weekly posts has allowed me to work out in a (hopefully) coherent form the ideas on my mind.  Looking back at 18 months of posts I can see my writing has become more focused.  I've learned to self-edit.  I have a habit of "getting lost in the weeds" as they say, both when I write and speak.  I think I've learned to weed better over the months.

But I think I've said just about everything I could on this blog.  Now I'm going to focus my attention on writing stories for my kids and poetry.

May God bless you and may you always remember our Lord from Whom all blessings flow.

The Face of Jesus, Rembrandt

Twelve Months in Verse

It started in January when I wrote a poem about the cherry tree in the front of the house.  I had built a simple bird feeder that we hung in that tree.  The feeder mainly attracted chickadees.  Our daughter and son liked to push a chair up to the kitchen window and watch them.

Then I wrote another poem in February about an Amaryllis that blossomed in the kitchen window.  I think it was after that poem that I set myself the task of writing a poem for each month of the year throughout 2013. 

I managed it and here they are.  I like some better than others, but I can say I'm pleased with each of them. 

The poem for March, Crocuses, isn't an accurate reflection of what March was this past year.  Normally crocuses do blossom here in March but this year we lots of snow through the first week of April (including a snow fall on Easter Sunday that had it looking more like Christmas!).  The crocuses had to wait until April.

All poems are written by me except where otherwise noted.  I include Wanda Chotomska's poem Łabędzie (Swans) in Polish that I translated for the month of December.

I hope you enjoy them.



Cherry Tree in January

Black against a lime green wall,
bare branches
with black-capped chickadees
          quickly
                      flashing
   from branch
                      to branch,
black against a lime green wall.


Amaryllis in February

Dull are the days in late winter.
Trees tug the skies like a blanket.
Freezing rain spatters the window.
In the sleeping kitchen darkness
A fire star erupts in the night:
Amaryllis in the morning light.


Crocuses

Up from the March mud
and melting ice of Winter's hems
retreating,
come sky blue, blood
red and sun fire gems:
Spring's greeting.


April Orchard

In clouds of blossom
Billowing pink and white
Bees thrum and birds sing bright
And clear - Listen
Fallen man
Listen and you will hear
Creation exult
He is risen!


For Our Lady

Come, crown the Queen of May
With lilacs, tulips and apple broth.
The chestnut trees will light the way,
A thousand torches held aloft.

Bring spotted lilies, peonies;
The dandy-lions will guard the way.
With flags of flowers such as these,
Come, crown the Queen the May.


June

There on my left the moon hangs white as wax.
On my right, the western horizon glows.
Some late birds twitter unseen in their roosts.
Incessant crickets pulse and pulse and pulse.
Overhead the stars slowly salt the night
As on we're hurled through frigid space.  Yet still
I stand in this orchard of swelling fruit.
A brief half-night and then the cocks will crow.
Now's the soft unfolding of the season.
The air is cool.  As it is in summer's
Beginning, so shall it be at the end.


Summer

In the cooling air of an evening in July,
Beneath a space of blue, magenta clouds sail high.
Swallows, sharp as arrows, swoop, turn, then rise again
In arabesques as swift as light, sweet as rain.


Harvest

August comes a fiery king
     In robes of radiant gold;
Embroidered figures thereupon
     With stories to be told:

Rolling fields of grain new shorn
     Reflect an amber light;
Squared and ribbed and crossed by roads
     Of blinding dusty white

That run away to wooded hills
     Of green burnt at the edges,
Where thrushes rustle furtively
     In thorny black cap hedges.

A hamlet's nestled on a stream.
     Great chestnuts and a steeple
Lift a cloudless sky above
     A bronzed and honest people.

There walks within an orchard cool
     A girl with golden hair,
'Neath russet apples, purple plums
     Suspended in the air.


Potato Season

A haze hangs low in fields
Where families stoop in staggered rows
Gathering potatoes into buckets.
A tractor and wagon stand nearby.

Hours turn, the wagon's slowly filled.
An autumn sun burns bright as now
One figure stands and stretches,
September light reflected in each eye.


Early Fire

Is that the smoke of war
this early morning,
punctuated with bursts of orange fire,
bursts of yellow, blasts of magenta,
a mute artillery fight?

The morning sun reveals
October fog
pierced by radiant oaks and maples
afire with day's new light.


Novemberland

Gray watery sky
On damp brown weeds;
No sun, no song, no breath.

No sparrows fly
To gather summer seeds;
A day of quiet death.


Swans

Great swans are flying.
Their white feathers fall
on the quiet earth below.

Careful swans a'flying,
you're losing feathers all!
But no -
'Tis only winter's first snow.


Łabędzie
Wanda Chotomska

Odleciały
łabędzie o świcie.
Białe pióra
spadły na brzeg.
- Uważajcie,
pióra gubicie!
- To nie pióra,
to pierwszy
śnieg.

Maranatha!

There's a Hindu legend that tells of Yashoda, the foster mother of the god Krishna, looking into Krishna's mouth and seeing the entire universe there.

This paradoxical story happened long, long ago . . .  That is, in the mists of legend.  It's merely a fable, however interesting.

Icon of the Creation by Fr. Luke Dingman

In the 42nd year of the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus, year 752 since the foundation of the City of Rome, the whole world being at peace, in Judea, a provincial outpost of the Roman Empire, a young Jewish woman carried the Creator of the entire universe in her womb. 

Such is the astounding paradox that in a specific place and at a specific time in human history, a woman gave birth to her Creator.

The King of the Universe entered human history not with the blare of trumpets and pomp and splendor.  He came as a vulnerable baby, born in a stable to parents of no great social standing.  Splendid angels from heaven did announce his birth, but apparently only to some simple shepherds in a nearby field.  As C. S. Lewis wrote somewhere, Jesus the Christ entered the world rather quietly, as if behind enemy lines.

 

Nativity by Marc Chagall

With that, I'd like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, and peace and joy in the New Year.  May our Lord find a home in our hearts. 



Midwinter Light
by Randall Peaslee

In bleak December days of snow
And fog, mud and gloom,
A fire blazes, candles glow
And friends are gathered in a room
Of carols, wine and mirth;
And the dying twelvemonth ends
                                      with a Birth.

 

 

Lambs

A few years ago my wife was with our two small children in a shopping mall.  This particular mall had a children's play area located where four of the mall alleys meet.  There was no restraining barrier around this play area; it was open in all directions.

My wife was watching our kids but turned her attention away for a moment.  When she looked back to see where our kids were, she saw our daughter Emilia but didn't see Adam.

"Emilka, where's Adam?" my wife asked.

Emilia didn't know and my wife couldn't see Adam anywhere.  She stood up to look for him.  The mall was crowded with people and, as I've mentioned, the play area was open to four different alleys. She looked in all directions, wondering which way he might have gone - or been taken.  

The worst fear a parent can experience chilled my wife's heart.  Oh God, where can he be?

And then, she saw him.  Adam was wearing a shirt the exact same color as the children's play equipment.  The little chameleon was playing happily the whole time, just a few feet away!

I once dreamt of losing Adam in similar circumstances and woke up from that dream with my heart racing.

 

That's as close as my wife and I have come to losing one of our children, real or dreamt.  (How ever many times they have been saved unawares from harm by their guardian angels, we'll probably only know in heaven.)

December 14th marks the one year anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre at the primary school in Newtown CT.  My wife and I can only imagine the pain and grief of those parents who lost children that day. 

I'll now turn the rest of this posting over to some text from this month's Magnificat.

From the Editorial, by Father Peter John Cameron, O.P., Editor-in-Chief:

There is something that many Magnificat readers may not know.  Since my main apostolate is Magnificat, I am not assigned like other priests to a parish.  But each Sunday I help out in a parish.  And the parish where I have been celebrating Mass on Sundays for the past four years is Saint Rose of Lima Church in Newtown, Connecticut.

On the evening of the massacre, Mass was held at Saint Rose.  I got there early, and was overwhelmed at the turnout.  Easily a thousand people packed the church too small for such a crowd.  And another thousand massed outside.

I kept wondering: Why are they here?  What are they looking for?  Not all of them were parishioners . . . or even Catholic, for that matter.  And although they could not get inside the church, people did not opt to leave.  They stayed because they had to be there.  The atrocity had incited an instant Advent: the urgent need for God amidst the pain of human powerlessness.  Together we had become expectation.

What was the only thing adequate to meet the agony people were suffering in that desperate moment?  The answer appears on the lips of one of the bereaved young mothers.  Jenny Hubbard's beautiful, redheaded, six-year-old daughter Catherine had been slain in the rampage.  Barely a month later, Saint Rose Church held a gathering of grade school parents.  And Jenny volunteered to speak to them.  I asked her where she found the strength to do what most people would consider impossible.  Jenny replied, "There is a Presence that is so much better than ourselves, and we have to acknowledge it."


Lamb of God
Jenny Hubbard

It is the time during Mass where my tears flow steadily:

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

It is then that the pain becomes overwhelmingly raw.  The wound that I think has started to heal is suddenly ripped open.

Lambs are innocent, exposed, and vulnerable, and yet they are always protected.  My lamb is my Catherine.  I knew her cry before it came from her lungs.  I knew it was Catherine calling "Mama" even though she was in a room full of children calling out.  I knew where she was, even when I couldn't see her.  She is the lamb I knew had been called home before I truly understood what had happened.  Just knowing - it is a gift God gave me when he placed her next to my heart for nine months.  A gift he gave me when he allowed the quiet beating of our hearts to find rhythm next to each other's.

It is always a lamb I see when I think of Catherine.  She is the lamb that she would nuzzle right beside Mary in the Nativity.  She is the lamb that greets us from the pasture as we walk on a foggy spring morning.  She is the lamb I had carved into the footstone at her resting place.  And now, as I tuck it into the pages when I close my Bible, it is Catherine that I see walking confidently beside Jesus on her prayer card.

"The Lord is my Shepherd there is nothing I shall want" (Ps 23:1).  It is Jesus who was waiting for her as he welcomed his flock.  He led her to still waters, and she fears no evil.  She is his lamb, innocent and vulnerable - naïve to what the world is capable of.  She is sheltered under his vigilant watch; she is whole and is resting peacefully at his feet.

And I too am his lamb.  It is myself he has cradled across his shoulders.  He knows my heart aches to feel the beating of hers against mine.  He acknowledges my cry, even when it hasn't yet left my lungs.  He hears my quiet calling through all the voices and comes to me.  I know that he will guide me as I seek his guidance, and that he will answer my voice when I call out.  He continues to scoop me up and carry me when the days seem too much.  He shows his unending love in the simplest things that are so undeniably Catherine.  In doing so he reminds me that his promise has not been broken.  He reminds me that one day he will gently lift me from his shoulders and place me beside her.  When that day comes, I will close my eyes and relish the quiet rhythm of our beating hearts.

I Love You

I've recently re-discovered a band called The Blue Nile.  They were a trio out of Glasgow, Scotland.  I used to have the CD of probably their best album, Hats.

Somehow in my many moves to and fro, I misplaced that CD.  I found the complete album on youtube a week ago and have listened to it nearly every day since.

It's a 7-song, 39-minute album that begins with the yearning song "Over the Hillside."  The horns on that track slowly and majestically unfold to a heart-lifting crescendo.  Another of my favorites is the rhythmic and stirring "Headlights on the Parade."  The album ends with the gentle "Saturday Night."  However, all of the tracks are lovely.  When I'm not listening to the album on youtube, the songs keep playing in my head wherever I go.

Paul Buchanan was the singer and main song-writer in the band (that's him front and center in the picture below).  His singing style is passionate yet restrained.  There's a delicious tension in most of his songs.

The Blue Nile

I saw in an interview one of the other band members commenting on Buchanan's songs and saying, "Really, every song could be titled 'I Love You'."  I've listened to numerous other songs of theirs from other albums this past week and yes, I think "I Love You" just about sums it up. 


The Choice Food of Advent

I read this meditation earlier this week in Magnificat:

How busily employed you must be during this holy season in preparing a lodging for the Guest who is coming to you!  I fancy I can see you, as solicitous as Martha, and yet as peaceful as Magdalen, preparing to give to your coming Savior the service both of soul and body; and he is worthy of both, for he is your God.  O blessed time, which brings before our minds the truth that God came in the flesh to dwell amongst us, to enlighten our darkness and to direct our feet in the way of peace, so that being made his brethren, we might share in his inheritance!

Earnestly indeed may you long for Christ's Advent, and prepare your heart to be his dwelling-place, for men wished for his coming ages before his birth, so that the prophet styles him "the Desired of all nations."  Jesus gives himself to none but those who anxiously look for him.  Choice food is thrown away on such as cannot taste it, and so those who long not after God's presence cannot value him as they ought.  Our Lord hears "the desire of the poor" (Ps 10:17) and bends his ear to listen to the sighing of their hearts after him, for that is all he cares for in the children of men.  When their sighs reach him, he comes into their souls; nor can he refuse himself, for, as he tells us in the Canticle (4:9), "Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes and with one hair of thy neck."  What can be more tender than that which is wounded by a glance of the eye, or more weak than what is bound by a single hair?

by Saint John of Avila