Monthly Archives: February 2024

Though dead, they speak.

death, poetry, saints, ,

FLUNG TO THE HEEDLESS WINDS

Flung to the heedless winds,
Or on the waters cast,
The martyrs’ ashes, watched,
Shall gathered be at last.

And from that scattered dust,
Around us and abroad,
Shall spring a plenteous seed,
Of witnesses for God.

The Father hath received,
Their latest living breath,
And vain is Satan’s boast,
Of victory in their death.

Still, still, though dead, they speak,
And, trumpet tongued, proclaim,
To many a wakening land,
The one availing Name.

–Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) 

21 New Martyrs of Lybia, beheaded in 2015

They’d embrace like parallel lines.

humor, poetry, ,

JOHN & MARY

John & Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
………–From a Freshman’s Short Story

They were like gazelles who occupied different
grassy plains, running in opposite directions
from different lions. They were like postal clerks
in different zip codes, with different vacation time,
their bosses adamant and clock-driven.
How could they get together?
They were like two people who couldn’t get together.
John was a Sufi with a love of the dervish,
Mary of course a Christian with a curfew.
They were like two dolphins in the immensity
of the Atlantic, one playful,
the other stuck in a tuna net —
two absolutely different childhoods!
There was simply no hope for them.
They would never speak in person.
When they ran across that windswept field
toward each other, they were like two freight trains,
one having left Seattle at 6:36 p.m.
at an unknown speed, the other delayed
in Topeka for repairs.
The math indicated that they’d embrace
in another world, if at all, like parallel lines.
Or merely appear kindred and close, like stars.

-Stephen Dunn

Love Poem for Frances

love, poetry, , ,

Ogden Nash wrote so many loving letters and poems to and about his wife Frances. Here is one typically playful poem on a favorite subject:

FOR FRANCES

Geniuses of countless nations
Have told their love for generations
Till all their memorable phrases
Are common as goldenrod or daisies.
Their girls have glimmered like the moon,
Or shimmered like a summer noon,
Stood like lily, fled like fawn,
Now like sunset, now like dawn,
Here the princess in the tower,
There the sweet forbidden flower.
Darling, when I think of you
Every aged phrase is new,
And there are moments when it seems
I’ve married one of Shakespeare’s dreams.

-Ogden Nash

Paintings About Love
Chez le Père Lathuille by Édouard Manet

We must be indifferent.

quotes, , , , , , ,

A word from an Athonite elder:

The faithful are often scandalized by the prosperity of sinners. And it is true that if we look at things from a purely human perspective it can seem as if God has distributed His blessings unjustly. Here, where He should have given a measure of happiness, He has given only misfortune. And there, where He should have dispensed riches, He gave only poverty. And where poverty was in order, he lavished wealth. When we wait for a blessing, He often deals us a hard blow, while at the same time He maintains smiles on the faces of those around us.

In a way that echoes modern social concerns, we might say that God discriminates, and this is something that scandalizes us. Why does this scandalize us? The answer is simple. It is because our hearts are still attached to earthly things, still clinging to false “goods” that we continue to covet and crave. Thus the solution to our dilemma must be sought elsewhere, and this means that we should not be hasty in abolishing whatever strikes us as discrimination or injustice.

We live in a time of rapid change, when every innovation is presented to us as “progress,” but before real change, real progress, can take place, something must first change within us. And for this to happen we must become completely estranged to all things earthly and human, to all human logic, to all human ways of thinking, and to every so-called material good. We must be indifferent in the face of all things. And only then, when we have become strangers to all, can God become all things to us, as if there existed nothing else in the world for us except God.

It is this alone that can grant us true and lasting tranquility. Otherwise, if our heart is attached to anything earthly, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to be, we can be sure that it will make us suffer.

—Elder Aimilianos of Athos