Give Peace a Chance?
Most Advent meditations have no need of a trigger warning, but here goes: If you’re expecting warm fuzzies, you should make a peace sign and hum a few bars of “Kumbaya.” My thoughts as I pondered today’s Advent Word did not incline me to subtitle my post “Give Peace a Chance.” Continue reading
Richard Jolley, “God’s Map of the Universe”
In an argument that has informed my efforts to understand God ever since I first read it, Walter T. Stace wrote, “Either God is a mystery, or he is nothing at all.” However, it seems that some of the attributes of God are more ineffable than others. Even though we can’t comprehend God’s omnipotence, we can at least understand something about the nature of power and thus imagine the all-powerful. The same goes for omniscience; since we ourselves know things, we can wrap our heads around knowing everything. Continue reading
Metaphor was my guide as I pondered today’s assigned word.
First, my thoughts strayed to one of the Bible verses I memorized as a girl in Sunday school. It was the very early 1960s in a very Protestant church, so we used the King James version: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee” (Psalm 119:11). That trope of hiding reflects significantly on the act of memorizing itself—what we used to call “learning by heart.” Of course, in addition to committing the scriptures to memory, this verse—and those that surround it—suggests that we must internalize the word of God to assist us in living according to his precepts. Some modern translations (notably, the NIV) preserve the metaphor of “hiding,” but even those that use other verbs (“treasure,” “lay up,” “store,” “bank”) maintain a focus on using the scriptures as guides against behaving badly. Continue reading
Christina Rossetti, the fervent proponent of High Anglicanism who gave us #112 in the Episcopal hymnal, the haunting carol “In the Bleak Midwinter,” also wrote the brief poem below, often anthologized for children:
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894); chalk drawing by her brother, Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you;
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I;
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
Read in the context of Rossetti’s ardent faith, these deceptively simply stanzas offer subtle but powerful suggestions for us as we begin our observation of a holy Advent.
The precise diction with which Rossetti presents the images in her two stanzas carries obvious Biblical connotations. The leaves in the first stanza are trembling—a word that appears throughout Bible, often characterizing the proper behavior of sinners and saints alike in the presence of God: Continue reading
What were you doing 60 years ago today? (If twinkling somewhere in a galaxy far, far away, don’t bother to reply.) Continue reading
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. . . . And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:7-8, 10b)
This was not judgment day — only morning. Morning: excellent and fair. (William Styron, Sophie’s Choice)
My relationships with red ink have been myriad and complicated.
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Russell Banks (photo credit Bryan Mann, NPR, 10 Jan., 2021)
Browsing the “Books and Arts” section of the Wall Street Journal today (matutinal guilty pleasure #2, close on the heels of “Opinion”), I glanced at a small headline in the lower left-hand corner, revealing the death of Russell Banks. I didn’t read the article, was, instead, so powerfully reminded of my first encounter with the writings of Russell Banks, that I opened Apple Messages and typed to a dear friend and colleague in the English Department, “Russell Banks has died.” My use of the present perfect tense was based on my assumption that Banks died yesterday. I included a brief snippet of what would become this post, with a link attached. It was only later, after deciding that this event was momentous enough to commemorate on my blog, that I learned my mistake: Russell Banks actually died on January 7. It hardly matters. He is immortal because of the personal story I am about to tell—and the short story I am about to share with you. Continue reading
Peter Paul Rubens, “The Dying Seneca” (1615)
In my previous post, “An Accident on the Wheel of Fortune,” I mentioned a book that plays a significant part in the way I start each day. The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman comprises 365 brief daily meditations based on the philosophy of Stoicism, each with an epigraph from one of its ancient Roman practitioners. Yesterday, in my haste to pour out my feelings about accident and fate and gratitude, I neglected to read the daily meditation. Returning to it today, I find that its focus was—as usual—perfectly attuned to that of my own thoughts.
It begins with a delightful quote from Seneca the Younger: “It’s a disgrace for an old person . . . to have only the knowledge carried in his textbooks. Zeno said this . . . What do YOU say? Cleanthes said that . . . What do YOU say? How long will you be compelled by the claims of another? Take charge and stake your own claim—something posterity will carry in its notebook.” The editors’ explication ends with this advice (a version of which I say to each student who crosses the threshold of my English 111 classes): “Your own experiences have value. You have accumulated your own wisdom too. Stake your claim. Put something down for the ages—in words and also in example.” Continue reading
My experience behind the wheel
I am told that around 8:00 p.m. on October 28, 2022, I had a car accident. Empirical evidence certainly supports such a hypothesis. If the picture alone isn’t enough, I can report that I had extensive bruising between my knees and on both breasts, a minor liver laceration with internal bleeding, and an Uber ride home from the emergency room wearing only a hospital gown (dress stolen, bra cut off) and blue hospital socks (shoes remained in the car). I received a substantial payoff for my car, which was a total loss, and a verdict of “case dismissed” from the magistrate of the Hoke County traffic court. Oh, and as recently as yesterday I still managed to find little pieces of shattered safety glass in the pocket of my leather jacket.
Otherwise, I don’t even know that it happened. I remember turning on my signal, entering the left-turn lane, looking carefully to my right (I am a cautious driver with a previously unblemished driving record), and then pulling out as I did every night, usually after dark, at the same intersection about two miles from home. I saw headlights coming towards me, but I made the instant calculation that pressing hard on the accelerator would get me safely out of the way. It turns out I must have been mistaken. Those lights and that decision are the last thing I remember until I was lying in an ambulance and being asked to tell what happened. I didn’t know because I was mercifully spared the entire experience—the sounds of crash and sirens, the jolt and pain of impact, even the terror itself. After answering to the best of my ability all the questions put to me by paramedic and state trooper, I made my first telephone call: “I think I have been in an accident.” Continue reading
