All posts by GretchenJoanna

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About GretchenJoanna

Orthodox Christian, widowed in 2015; mother, grandmother. Love to read, garden, cook, write letters and a hundred other home-making activities.

Our astonishment collects in chill air.

birds, poetry, winter,

PRAISE THEM

The birds don’t alter space.
They reveal it. The sky
never fills with any
leftover flying. They leave
nothing to trace. It is our own
astonishment collects
in chill air. Be glad.
They equal their due
moment never begging,
and enter ours
without parting day. See
how three birds in a winter tree
make the tree barer.
Two fly away, and new rooms
open in December.
Give up what you guessed
about a whirring heart, the little
beaks and claws, their constant hunger.
We’re the nervous ones.
If even one of our violent number
could be gentle
long enough that one of them
found it safe inside
our finally untroubled and untroubling gaze,
who wouldn’t hear
what singing completes us?

-Li-Young Lee

 

We can distinguish between higher and lower.

culture, quotes,
T.S. Eliot, 1950

“[T]he most important question that we can ask, is whether there is any permanent standard, by which we can compare one civilisation with another, and by which we can make some guess at the improvement or decline of our own. . . . We can distinguish between higher and lower cultures; we can distinguish between advance and retrogression. We can assert with some confidence that our own period is one of decline; that the standards of culture are lower than they were fifty years ago; and that the evidences of this decline are visible in every department of human activity. I see no reason why the decay of culture should not proceed much further, and why we may not even anticipate a period, of some duration, of which it is possible to say that it will have no culture.”

-T.S. Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, 1948

 From the Touchstone article by Ken Myers, “Ruler Over All: Notes Toward the Restitution of Christian Culture,” July/August 2023.

Elves used to be gods — what happened?

Christmas, culture, myth, , , , ,

For a lighthearted history of elves, brownies, goblins and such like, and how they became part of our Christmas folklore, visit: “The Evolution of Elves,” by Rebecca Sicree.

“Over the past centuries, three major events changed the perceptions of elves. First, the arrival of Christianity dethroned them as gods. Then the Reformation shrank them. And finally, the American Revolution sent them to the North Pole.”

 

The sunny face by my front door.

my garden,

A tiny zinnia bloomed along my front walk this morning, where its seed must have been lying for more than a year — or has it been two? — since I had trailing orange zinnias growing there. For some time I’ve had snapdragons and verbena in that bed, and they have pretty much retired for the winter. The zinnia seed was waiting, through days and months, and more months, until the time was right…. Really? December? Well, thank you, you Dear Little Thing, for your perseverance, and for cheering this wet day with your sunny face.