Latest

Language

“Language”

If language were liquid
It would be rushing in
Instead here we are
In a silence more eloquent
Than any word could ever be

These words are too solid
They don’t move fast enough
To catch the blur in the brain
That flies by and is gone
Gone
Gone
Gone

I’d like to meet you
In a timeless, placeless place
Somewhere out of context
And beyond all consequences

Let’s go back to the building
(Words are too solid)
On Little West Twelfth
It is not far away
(They don’t move fast enough)
And the river is there
And the sun and the spaces
Are all laying low
(To catch the blur in the brain)
And we’ll sit in the silence
(That flies by and is)
That comes rushing in and is
Gone (Gone)

I won’t use words again
They don’t mean what I meant
They don’t say what I said
They’re just the crust of the meaning
With realms underneath
Never touched
Never stirred
Never even moved through

If language were liquid
It would be rushing in
Instead here we are
In a silence more eloquent
Than any word could ever be

And is gone
Gone
Gone
And is gone

Conversion of our Holy Father Augustine

Fr John has done it again! Provided all interested people with the Proper Office for April 24th: The Feast of the CONVERSION of St. Augustine. Go and read the introduction and particulars of the Office. Here is the Collect for the Day:

Lord God, you are the unfailing light
that guided Saint Augustine out of darkness,
the eternal shepherd who called him to follow you.
As we rejoice in his conversion
direct our lives by his example
and deepen our faith through his teaching.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.

The tyranny of “journeying”

This is the first time in my life – that I can remember – that I have not been moving towards a goal. Between seminary, marriage, ordination (three times!), child birth, or reception – there has always been a journey with a specified end that defined my life.

I was reflecting on that yesterday morning when it struck me that in one sense all the above journeys have changed me. Yet not only in a positive sense – I am more educated, blessed with a loving wife, and “rich in children” – but the process itself has sometimes been a negative expereince. During the journey itself the “me” often has had to give way to the “goal”. I have been so busy journeying and doing that I have had little time to develop the “me” that is journeying.

I know I have done that in my “walk with God”. I have been so concerned for the goal – getting to heaven or saving my soul – that I have missed the Providential Hand in the here-and-now. Or I have been so busy being active in restoring the liturgy, finding the perfect prayer or solving the problems of the Church that I have missed the graces and encouragement which both bring me even in this mixed up world.

Part of our baptismal vocation is to be counter-cultural. I am personally called by God to place Him and His ways before those of the world around me. By being focused on my actions and goals, do I fall into the temptation of missing God’s actions and goals in my life? Or am I so concerned with what “I will be” that I do not see “who I am”?

I know I need some space to sit and “be”. Not be working towards something but just “be”. To leave the journey to itself and enjoy God now – not for what we will or will not do for me in the future but in what He is doing for me and in me now. The journey image is often very productive but when pushed is it helpful for our life with God?

Thought starters:

Vespers on Great Friday


Source: Epitaphios

May Christ our true God, who endured dreadful sufferings, the life-giving cross, and voluntary burial for our salvation, have mercy on us and save us through the prayers of his most pure Mother, anall the saints; for Christ is good and loves us all.

Source: Great and Holy Friday: The Entombment Vespers (pdf)

Love and the Common Good

St Augustine writes in his Rule:

In this way, no one shall perform any task for his own benefit but all your work shall be done for the common good, with greater zeal and more dispatch than if each one of you were to work for yourself alone. For charity, as it is written, is not self-seeking (1 Cor 13:5) meaning tht it places the common good before its own, not its own before the common good. So whenever you show greater concern for the common good than for your own, you may know that you are growing in charity. Thus, let the abiding virtue of charity prevail in all things that minister to the fleeting necessities of life. (5.2)

“Love”, writes St Thomas Aquinas, “is to will the good of another.” How is the above not saying – alas, in a few more words – the same thing? Or how is the above not simply repeating what Jesus himself says: “love your neighbor as ourselves”.

St Augustine’s Rule teaches a simple lesson: in love I freely do the common good. My freedom is to make decisions for the good of the other even at the expense of my own good. Yet one needs to be reminded that the adjective “free” does not equate to “true” – a free decision is not necessarily a true decision. And that is above all the modern problem.

This morning


This is taken from our deck over the neighboring houses. I like the purple sky – almost Lenten. Like the whole of creation is getting into the season.

Wish you were here

I downloaded Audrey Assad‘s cover of my all-time favourite song, “Wish you were here“, this morning. (As soon as a version is available on YouTube I’ll post it.) I have been struck by how Existentialist the lyrics are.

The Wikiepdia article states that “The song’s lyrics encompass writer Roger Waters’ feelings of alienation from other people.” As I have been listening to it during the day I can see more clearly how the song is really about just that – alienation. But maybe it is about more than just alienation from other people. The song has an element of the soul’s search for God – like the journey described by St Augustine in his Confessions – especially with the opening line about heaven and hell.

Maybe St Augustine’s famous description of his conversion is a counterpoint to the song:

Too late did I love You, O Fairness, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love You! For behold, You were within, and I without, and there did I seek You; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty You made. You were with me, but I was not with You. Those things kept me far from You, which, unless they were in You, were not. You called, and cried aloud, and forced open my deafness. You gleamed and shine, and chase away my blindness. You exhaled odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after You. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace. (10.27.38)

The alienation is not primarily from other people but from ourselves and God. Anyway, here are the lyrics to the song:

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

I found this will searching for pictures of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. It is so cool I thought I would share.

Source: Lynn’s Timeless Treasures

© 2011 Domestic Hermit
Creative Commons License