Delalande: Super flumina Babilonis (part 1)

2 In salícibus in médio ejus, * suspéndimus organa nostra 
Courtesy of Edward Ross

Open thou the eyes of my heart

O Lord Jesus Christ, 
open Thou the eyes of my heart, 
that I may hear Thy word 


and understand 
and do Thy will, 


for I am a sojourner upon the earth. 


Hide not Thy commandments from me, 
but open mine eyes, 
that I may perceive 
the wonders of Thy law. 


Speak unto me 
the hidden and secret 
things of Thy wisdom. 


On Thee do I set my hope, 
O my God, 
that Thou shalt enlighten my mind 


and understanding 


with the light of Thy knowledge, 
not only to cherish those things which are written, 


but to do them; 


For Thou art the enlightenment 
of those who lie in darkness, 
and from Thee cometh 
every good deed and every gift. 


Amen.


This is a prayer St John Chrysostom composed for reading the Bible. 
I breathe it as I am going ahead. 


Pray for me too. 


M. 

A Stupid Limerick for the Whirring Minds

A heel at the wheel was driving uphill
And plotting to steal some pills for his meal
     Was sitting upright
     Was thinking “all right”
And suffered from measles and wheal


Thought you might enjoy a bit of rhymed silliness dear Club :)

Memory as constant revolution

"Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of 'memories'. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten. Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past. A memory that is not alive to the present does not 'remember' the here and now, does not 'remember' its true identity, is not memory at all. Those who remember nothing but facts and past events and are never brought back into the present, are victims of amnesia."

Thomas Merton

I take this to mean that we need to constantly re-invent or experience. Life is then not a hostage to past events or constantly reoccurring thoughts, and the mind is cleared out to have the opportunity to experience the present properly. Like much of FUC logic, this seems paradoxical, and yet I think it is the only proper attitude to hold in order to feel the possibility of each moment as fully sacred - even the crap moments too for that matter. Life's not all beer and skittles, but it does need to be experienced without hindrance from past programming.

Whatever it may turn out to be

"Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would "lief", or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits with his preconceived ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be". Alan W. Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity. 

So...what if I admitted that actually, nothing is wrong with my shaky, insecure world of falling upwards? That I do not have to seek conformity with any way of life; that I do not have to squeeze myself into any idea of how "it" -- God, love, life, family, men, community, religion -- should be? What if all I had to do is to accept, embrace and be grateful for my experience just as it is, without attempting to bring it to some "average" abstract normality? Whatever it may turn out to be, I want my life real. Then (shrug) just go and live it as it is. 

Noli Me Tangere

Holbein clearly knew something the Western civilization totally missed : that the Risen Lord practiced martial arts... 

It is also clear why he said those words we can not digest, Noli me tangere: wouldn't you, facing this life-threatening Mary? 

Happy Easter, dear Club; thanks God, Christ has risen. 

Lazarus' Sister

***

For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always... 

Jn 12:8 

To break, O to break this jar,

Let the sweet oil stream, the fragrant perfume fill

The air, and your smallish hearts, men, your mean

Good-doing, born of hidden pride; stale,

Calculating charity. Oh, could I bring the world

To give its best, it wouldn't be too much,

Could I pour more than I have, more than I am! 

Oh, come and serve Him in my stead, you holy lot,

How come there's none but me, a sinner, to anoint

His feet, with joy and grief; how come you know not?! 

- Gently!  Don't stand in her way, men. Let in. 

Don't you see? You just cannot keep her within 

Limits. Mind your business. She will stay; I say, 

Don't you touch her! Don't you dare to keep her away

From Me.

Paris, 9 April 2012

Adoro te devote, latens Deitas

Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, 

your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses.

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Let me say it in calm, poised, less violent words. Two things stand out for me distinctly against the darkness of the Good Friday this year.

The Body of Christ : a living reality, a vital organic unity we all participate in. The balance, the homeostasis of this unity is maintained by all its members. So closely knit we are, so essential we all are to the life of the whole, so vital is the exchange of love between us, that when one of us goes, when one tiny member of this Body is taken out -- the whole Body is shattered, the whole Body is crippled and wounded, and Christ Himself is trembling in pain. 

Each and every individual death is a wound to the Body, and an offense to its members. When it befalls those we know and love, we take on the shock, absorb the wave, grieve, and bear the scar; we stand in the frontline, we are the adjacent cells suffering from a brutal removal of the flesh that, we feel, is our own flesh. And so we must, for we are in Christ -- we are allowed to bear a little. But it is no different when death takes people we do not know; their own adjacent cells then absorb the shock, so that the wave of pain doesn't reach us. The wound is nevertheless inflicted to you and me, members of Christ's Body. This happens everywhere, every moment - here and now; we are just spared the feeling of loss, for we cannot bear it all. 

All days are Good Friday. There is no such thing as death or grief that are none of my business. 

Another thought comes from Gethsemany and feet-washing. God's love has no other way to reach the world than through you and me. Through us and in us He loves, and His own very life we carry when we let it happen in our hearts and minds. No Kingdom is possible unless there are people who desire the Kingdom and let it be brought down here -- now and then, little by little, one piece after another, smuggling it in whenever possible. No matter how weak and inadequate, no matter how totally irrelevant we might feel  -- we must forget it all for a while, and let God give, care, help, serve through us;  and sometimes, us!  We have to, simply because there is nobody else to do the job: He has only our hearts and minds, our voices and our hands to make overflow the fountain of His life. 

God's love is running in Christ's blood, like grief is running in mine, and the transfusion is slowly taking place. To be fully human means holding in our hearts both the tragedy of life and the fountain of love; allowing both the sore grief for what is irreversibly lost, and an overflowing gratitude for what is so generously given. 

Poem for Holy Saturday

THE Lord will in the future wipe away the tears from every eye – but not now. .....
Jesus knew something of the glory he was called to – we simply do not.
We do not know where our loved ones have been taken to and we want them back.
The pain of separation is intense, as it was for Jesus’ friends after they lost him.
We may not forget that the Eucharistic meal that we eat commemorates a departure:
a wrenching, tearful separation.
Your grief is your own, all the days of your life.
Let no one deprive you of it, not even out of love.
Pain is inseparable from love; that is a truth we must live with.
It is a proof of our true inner reality, a judgement of ourselves,
as to how and with what courage we face and accept that truth.

Gerard S Sloyan(1919- )

The grass never sleeps.Or the roses.Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.The cricket has such splendid fringe on its feet,and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybethe wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move,maybethe lake far away, where once he walked as on ablue pavement,lay still and waited, wild awake.Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could notkeep that vigil, how they must have wept,so utterly human, knowing this toomust be a part of the story.Mary Oliver, p.45 Thirst, Bloodaxe Books (2007)

Come Round

***

O grief, untimely, come round, come

Sit on my chest, burn in my mind, weep,

Stream in my blood, be buried in my sleep, 

O violent grief for those who have gone

Or yet to go beyond the sacred hills,

And yet to rise behind the earthly veil

O hungry wolf, the wound that never heals - 

Come, break my heart, and go back to hell.

Paris 04/04 /2012 

Lisa Hannigan - Lille