Tag Archives: faith

The Day of Gifts — a poem by Paul Claudel (read by Tom O’Bedlam)

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A beautiful poem beautifully read. Via 3quarksdaily (3QD).




The Day of Gifts

It’s not true that Your saints have won everything: they left me with sins enough.
Someday I’ll lie on my deathbed, Lord, ill-shaven and yellow as a lifelong drunk.
And I’ll make a general examination of myself, looking back over all my days,
And I’ll see that I’m rich after all, ripe and rich with evil in its unnumbered paths and ways.
I haven’t lost one single chance, Lord, to make matter for You to pardon.
Now I hearten myself with vice, having long ago sloughed off virtue’s burden.
Each day has its own kind of crime, plain to see, and I count them like some paranoid miser.

If what you need, Lord, are virgins, if what you need are brave men beneath your standard;
If there are people for whom to be Christian words alone would not suffice,
But who know rather that only in stirring themselves to chase after You is there any life,
Well then there’s Dominic and Francis, Saint Lawrence and Saint Cecilia and plenty more!
But if by chance You should have need of a lazy and imbecilic bore,
If a prideful coward could prove useful to You, or perhaps a soiled ingrate,
Or the sort of man whose hard heart shows up in a hard face—
Well, anyway, You didn’t come to save the just but that other type that abounds,
And if, miraculously, You run out of them elsewhere . . . Lord, I’m still around.

And what kind of a man is so crude that he hasn’t held a little something back from You,
Hasn’t in his free time fashioned something special for You,
Hoping that one day the idea will come to You to ask it of him,
And maybe this little that he’s made himself, kept back until then, though horrid and tortuous, will please Your whim.
It would be something that he’d put his whole heart into, something useless and malformed.
Just like that my little daughter once, on my birthday, teetered forward with encumbered arms
And offered me, her heart at once full of timidity and pride,
A magnificent little duck she had made with her own two hands, a pincushion, made of red wool and gold thread.

by Paul Claudel Paul Claudel (translated from the French by Jonathan Monroe Geltner)


The Mad Farmer Liberation Front: a poem by Wendell Berry

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Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

— Wendell Berry (The Country of Marriage)

A little Trinitarian awesomeness by my 5-year-old daughter

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Today, I was strolling with my recently-turned five-year-old daughter, Sofie, when she said, “You know the three big giant boys on the clouds?.” “No, not really,” I replied. She said, “You know, Jesus, God and that other one — I can’t remember his name…”

Careful Southern Baptist Sunday School indoctrination meets wry and subversive five-year-old. Look out.

Sabbath Poem VII– by Wendell Berry

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Sabbath Poem VII

The clearing rests in song and shade.

It is a creature made

By old light held in soil and leaf,

By human joy and grief,

By human work,

Fidelity of sight and stroke,

By rain, by water on

The parent stone.

We join our work to Heaven’s gift,

Our hope to what is left,

That field and woods at last agree

In an economy

Of widest worth.

High Heaven’s Kingdom come on earth.

Imagine Paradise.

O Dust, arise!



— Wendell Berry (1982)

Prayers According to the Hours of the Day and Night

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Prayers According to the Hours of the Day and Night by St. John Chrysostom

O Lord, deprive me not of Thy heavenly blessings;

O Lord, deliver me from eternal torment;

O Lord, if I have sinned in my mind or thought, in word deed, forgive me.

O Lord, deliver me from every ignorance and heedlessness, from pettiness of the soul and stony hardness of heart;

O Lord, deliver me from every temptation;

O Lord, enlighten my heart darkened by evil desires;

O Lord, I, being a human being, have sinned; do Thou, being God, forgive me in Thy lovingkindness, for Thou knowest the weakness of my soul.

O Lord, send down Thy grace to help me, that I may glorify Thy holy Name;

O Lord Jesus Christ, inscribe me, Thy servant, in the Book of Life, and grant me a blessed end;

O Lord my God, even if I have done nothing good in Thy sight, yet grant me, according to Thy grace, that I may make a start in doing good.

O Lord, sprinkle on my heart the dew of Thy grace;

O Lord of heaven and earth, remember me, Thy sinful servant, cold of heart and impure, in Thy Kingdom.

O Lord, receive me in repentance;

O Lord, leave me not;

O Lord, save me from temptation;

O Lord, grant me pure thoughts;

O Lord, grant me tears of repentance, remembrance of death, and the sense of peace;

O Lord, grant me mindfulness to confess my sins;

O Lord, grant me humility, charity, and obedience;

O Lord, grant me tolerance, magnanimity, and gentleness;

O Lord, implant in me the root of all blessings: the fear of Thee in my heart;

O Lord, vouchsafe that I may love Thee with all my heart and soul, and that I may obey in all things Thy will;

O Lord, shield me from evil persons and devils and passions and all other lawless matters;

O Lord, Who knowest Thy creation and that which Thou hast willed for it; may Thy will also be fulfilled in me, a sinner, for Thou art blessed forevermore.

Amen.

ethics, morality and religion

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It is the moral nature of man by which he rises to good and noble thoughts. The different sciences show us the world as it is. Ethics tells us what it ought to be. It enables man to know how he should act. Man has two windows to his mind : through one he can see his own self as it is; through the other, he can see what he ought to be. It is our task to analyse and explore the body, the brain and the mind of man separately; but if we stop here, we derive no benefit despite our scientific knowledge. It is necessary to know about the evil effects of injustice, wickedness, vanity and the like, and the disaster they spell where the three are found together. And mere knowledge is not enough, it should be followed by appropriate action. An ethical idea is like an architect’s plan. The plan shows how the building should be constructed; but is becomes useless if the building is not raised accordingly. Similarly, an ethical idea is useless so long as it is not followed by suitable action. There are many who memorize moral precepts and preach sermons, but they neither practise them nor do they mean to do so.

— M K Gandhi

the wisdom of roasted vegetables

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(pretty roasted vegetables, just not as good as Mary Plunkett’s)




Last night we had dinner with some friends in our now traditional lots of eating, little bit of talking about a book, format. I personally think the mix is just right. The ostensible occasion this time was a discussion of the book, Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience (Vintage) by Stephen S. Hall. This is an interesting and thought-provoking book about something, i.e. wisdom, that used to be central to our cultural identity, but which now feels kind of pretentious and embarrassing to think and talk about in our irony-saturated age. I just don’t feel grown-up enough.

The book addresses the difficult issue of defining wisdom and looks at some the behavioral and biological studies that have tried to quantify these important but fuzzy ideas. While the book was interesting, I didn’t love it enough to make it through the entire thing. For me it was like some food that a little bit of is good, but a plateful of is a bit much.

Speaking of food…

We had a unbelievable meal — ribs, bruschetta, Greek salad, heath bar ice cream, fresh berries, deviled eggs and the best roasted vegetables ever. A couple of us asked the genius behind them (chef, caterer, event planner extraordinaire, Mary Plunkett) what her recipe was. She looked puzzled and explained that there really isn’t a recipe, you cut up the right vegetables into the right size and shape pieces, put a little bit of olive oil on it, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and then cook them at the right temperature for the right amount of time and that’s it. Brilliant. Simple. Nothing could be better.

Sometime this morning while I was walking around looking at daylilies I began thinking that there might be a connection between what wisdom is and the spectacular simplicity of Mary’s vegetables. Maybe, wisdom is the ability to gracefully and effectively do the basics of life — loving your spouse and family, being a good friend, reliably doing your job, enjoying nature, being in touch with one’s biology, learning, appreciating food, drink, music and other arts, and having a personal relationship with God. Maybe this is what we lack more than the ability to make difficult decisions in high-stakes and ambiguous situations.

It also feels in some way “doable.” I think maybe this week I’ll work on learning to make roasted vegetables.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer — Power, Justice and the Christian

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Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.

Sermon on II Cor. 12:9

Every Riven Thing – a poem by Christian Wiman

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Every time I read this poem it moves up a notch in my pantheon.



Every Riven Thing

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he’s made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he’s made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into the stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he’s made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He’s made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he’s made.

— Christian Wiman