G.M. Hopkins' "Peace"

PEACE

When will you ever, Peace, wild wooddove, shy wings shut,
Your round me roaming end, and under be my boughs?
When, when, Peace, will you, Peace? I’ll not play hypocrite
To own my heart: I yield you do come sometimes; but
That piecemeal peace is poor peace. What pure Peace allows
Alarms of wars, the daunting wars, the death of it?

O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu
Some good! And so he does leave Patience exquisite,
That plumes to Peace thereafter. And when Peace here does house
He Comes with work to do, he does not come to coo,
He comes to brood and sit.

G.M. Hopkins' "Kingfishers"

Kingfishers

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Philip Larkin's "Solar"

Solar

Suspended lion face
Spilling at the centre
Of an unfurnished sky
How still you stand,
And how unaided
Single stalkless flower
You pour unrecompensed.

The eye sees you
Simplified by distance
Into an origin,
Your petalled head of flames
Continuously exploding.
Heat is the echo of your
Gold.

Coined there among
Lonely horizontals
You exist openly.
Our needs hourly
Climb and return like angels.
Unclosing like a hand,
You give for ever.

Wendell Berry's "The Dance"

The Dance

I would have each couple turn,

join and unjoin, be lost

in the greater turning

of other couples, woven

in the circle of the dance,

the song of long time flowing

over them, so they may return,

turn again in to themselves

out of desire greater than their own

belonging to all, to each,

to the dance, and to the song

that moves them through the night.

What is fidelity?  To what

does it hold?  The point

of departure, or the turning road

that is departure and absence

and the way home?  What we are

and what were once

are far estranged.  For those

who would not change, time

is infidelity.  But we are married

until death, and are betrothed

to change.  By silence, so,

I learn my song.  I earn

my sunny fields by absence, once

and to come.  And I love you

as I love the dance that brings you

out of the multitude

in which you come and go.

Love changes, and in change is true.

Mary Oliver's "The Poet Dreams of the Mountain"

The Poet Dreams of the Mountain

Sometimes I grow weary of the days with all their fits and starts.
I want to climb some old grey mountain, slowly, taking
the rest of my life to do it, resting often, sleeping
under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
that we have smothered for years now, forgiving it all,
and peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.
All that urgency!  Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.

G.M. Hopkins' "Hope Holds to Christ the Mind’s Own Mirror Out"

HOPE holds to Christ the mind’s own mirror out
To take His lovely likeness more and more.
It will not well, so she would bring about
An ever brighter burnish than before
And turns to wash it from her welling eyes	5
And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs.
Her glass is blest but she as good as blind
Holds till hand aches and wonders what is there;
Her glass drinks light, she darkles down behind,
All of her glorious gainings unaware.	10
.   .   .   .   .   .   .   . I told you that she turned her mirror dim
Betweenwhiles, but she sees herself not Him.

Caroline Bird's "Trouble Came to the Turnip"

Trouble Came to the Turnip

When trouble came to the village,
I put my love in the cabbage-cart
and we rode, wrapped in cabbage,
to the capital.
When trouble came to the capital,
I put my love in the sewage pipe,
and we swam, wrapped in sewage,
to the sea.
When trouble came to the sea,
I put my love inside a fish
and we flitted, wrapped in fish,
to the island.
When trouble came to the island,
I put my love on a pirate ship
and we squirmed, wrapped in pirate,
to the nunnery.
When trouble came to the nunnery,
I put my love inside a prayer book
and we repented, wrapped in prayer,
to the prison.
When trouble came to the prison,
I put my love on a spoon
and we balanced, wrapped in mirror,
to the soup.
When trouble came to the soup,
I put my love inside a stranger
and we gritted, wrapped in a mouth
to the madhouse.
When trouble came to the madhouse,
I put my love on a feather
and we flapped, wrapped in a feather,
to the fair.
When trouble came to the fair,
I put my love inside a rat,
and we plagued, wrapped in rat,
to the village.
When trouble came to the village,
I put my love in the turnip-lorry
and we sneaked, wrapped in turnip,
a hurried kiss.

Mahmoud Darwish's "The Prison Cell"

The Prison Cell
 
It is possible…
It is possible at least sometimes…
It is possible especially now
To ride a horse
Inside a prison cell
And run away…
It is possible for prison walls
To disappear.
For the cell to become a distant land
Without frontiers:

What did you do with the walls?
I gave them back to the rocks.
And what did you do with the ceiling?
I turned it into a saddle.
And your chains?
I turned it into a pencil.

The prison guard got angry.
He put an end to the dialogue.
He said he didn’t care for poetry.
And bolted the door of my cell.
He came back to see me.
In the morning.
He shouted at me:

Where did all this water come from?
I brought it from the Nile.
And the trees?
From the orchards of Damascus.
And the music?
From my heartbeat.

The prison guard got mad.
He put an end to my dialogue.
He said he didn’t like my poetry.
And bolted the door of my cell.
But he returned in the evening:

Where did this moon come from?
From the nights of Baghdad.
And the wine?
From the vineyards of Algiers.
And this freedom?
From the chain you tied me with last night.

The prison guard grew so sad…
He begged me to give him back
His freedom.

Jacques Prévert's "IL"

IL

Il pleut Il pleut
Il fait beau
Il fait du soleil
Il est tôt
Il se fait tard
Il
Il
Il
toujours Il
Toujours Il qui pleut et qui neige
Toujours Il qui fait du soleil
Toujours Il
Pourquoi pas Elle
Jamais Elle
Pourtant Elle aussi
souvent se fait belle!


(My own shoddy translation)

HIM

It's raining It's raining

 It's beautiful out

It's sunny

It's early

It is getting late

Him

Him

Him

Always Him

It's always Him that rains and snows

Always Him that is sunny

Always Him

Why not Her

Never Her 

However, She also

Makes herself beautiful!

Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"

Jabberwocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 73"

SONNET 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
   This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
   To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Mahmoud Darwish's "Your Night is of Lilac"

Your Night is of Lilac

The night sits wherever you are. Your night

is of lilac. Every now and then a gesture escapes

from the beam of your dimples, breaks the wineglass

and lights up the starlight. And your night is your shadow—

a fairy-tale piece of land to make our dreams

equal. I am not a traveler or a dweller

in your lilac night, I am he who was one day

me. Whenever night grew in you I guessed

the heart’s rank between two grades: neither

the self accepts, nor the soul accepts. But in our bodies

a heaven and an earth embrace. And all of you

is your night ... radiant night like planet ink. Night

is the covenant of night, crawling in my body

anesthetized like a fox’s sleepiness. Night diffusing a mystery

that illuminates my language, whenever it is clearer

I become more fearful of a tomorrow in the fist. Night

staring at itself safe and assured in its

endlessness, nothing celebrates it except its mirror

and the ancient shepherd songs in a summer of emperors

who get sick on love. Night that flourished in its Jahili poetry

on the whims of Imru’ el-Qyss and others,

and widened for the dreamers the milk path to a hungry

moon in the remoteness of speech ...

G.M. Hopkins' "Heaven-Haven" & Philip Larkin's "Ugly Sister"

Heaven-Haven

A nun takes the veil

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail,
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

Ugly Sister 

I will climb thirty steps to my room,
Lie on my bed;
Let the music, the violin, cornet and drum
Drowse from my head.
Since I was not bewitched in adolescence
And brought to love,
I will attend to the trees and their gracious silence,
To winds that move.

John Donne's "The Good-Morrow"

 The Good-Morrow

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Philip Larkin's "Water"

Water

If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.

Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;

My litany would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

Richard Wilbur's "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World"

Love Calls Us to the Things of This World

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,

And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul   

Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple   

As false dawn.

                     Outside the open window   

The morning air is all awash with angels.

    Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,   

Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.   

Now they are rising together in calm swells   

Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear   

With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

    Now they are flying in place, conveying

The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving   

And staying like white water; and now of a sudden   

They swoon down into so rapt a quiet

That nobody seems to be there.

                                             The soul shrinks

    From all that it is about to remember,

From the punctual rape of every blessèd day,

And cries,

               “Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,   

Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam

And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”

    Yet, as the sun acknowledges

With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,   

The soul descends once more in bitter love   

To accept the waking body, saying now

In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,   

    “Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;

Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;   

Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,   

And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating   

Of dark habits,

                      keeping their difficult balance.”

Emily Dickinson's "Life -- is what we make of it --"

Life — is what we make of it –
Death — we do not know –
Christ’s acquaintance with Him
Justify Him — though –
He — would trust no stranger –
Other — could betray –
Just His own endorsement –
That — sufficeth Me –
All the other Distance
He hath traversed first –
No New Mile remaineth –
Far as Paradise –
His sure foot preceding –
Tender Pioneer –
Base must be the Coward
Dare not venture — now –

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī's "Ghazal 636" (3 translations)

Ghazal 636

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone
suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

 Ghazal 636

Go and die, go and die,
in this love, go and die.
Once you've died in this love,
you shall become a holy spirit.

Go and die, go and die,
don't  fear death, go and die.
Go and leave this dusty earth,
go fly high towards the sky.

Go and die, go and die,
go cut loose from your ego.
Your selfish ego is the shackles
holding you captive forever.

Go pick up a hammer,
go dig a huge hole into the prison of your own being.
Once you've torn down your prison,
you shall become a prince or king.

Go and die, go and die,
go die in front of your Beautiful King.
Once you've died for your Beautiful King,
you shall become  a royalty or celebrity.

Go and die, go and die,
go rise up high above your own darkest clouds.
Once you've risen above those clouds,
you shall become a brightly shining  moon.

Be silent, be silent,
Because silence is the very breath of death.
But silence is also the breath of life,
so don't moan or complain about silence.

Ghazal 636

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself in this love.
When you lose yourself in this love,
you will find everything.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Do not fear this loss,
For you will rise from the earth
and embrace the endless heavens.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from this earthly form,
For this body is a chain
and you are its prisoner.
Smash through the prison wall
and walk outside with the kings and princes.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself at the foot of the glorious King.
When you lose yourself
before the King
you will become the King.

Lose yourself,
Lose yourself.
Escape from the black cloud
that surrounds you.
Then you will see your own light
as radiant as the full moon.

Now enter that silence.
This is the surest way
to lose yourself....

What is your life about, anyway? -
Nothing but a struggle to be someone,
Nothing but a running from your own silence.

Robert Frost's "After Apple Picking"

After Apple Picking

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and reappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin
That rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

Hail, Autumnal Equinox!

October is Poetry Appreciation Month, Says I

Beginning October 1st, I will imbibe one poem a day, and post it here. I shall read it, memorize it, lectio it, talk about, let it steep into my soul. It's the only proper way to hail the Autumnal Equinox. After all, Christmas is coming, and my 1st annual Advent fast will not be very meaningful if I don't slow down and steady myself before it begins.

Here is some Hopkins, as appropriate, to begin.

Hurrahing in Harvest

SUMMER ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,	5
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, éyes, heárt, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!—	10
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.

 Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets, invigorate me on the pilgrim way.

The Giving Tree

Listening to the Pride & Prejudice soundtrack at the day's end with my hairpins removed makes me feel so spiritual. I'm sitting here, trying to write honestly. Right now,  I feel the lack of God's presence in my life. This week I've felt so. . .heavy laden. My soul feels as though it has been tied up in knots, twisted and gnarled, my psyche is suffering from Indian burn.

In moments like these, days like these, I see how hard it is for me to be even superficially pleasant. I don't know what makes me feel so badly, and I am aware, almost every moment, of my own inability to live a life of love. At work, one of the instructors read the book "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein. She asked all of the students, and some of the staff, to choose one thing they would like to give others throughout the school year. I decided that I would give love, because that is the best gift I could think of, and the most costly. That gift mocks me every day, as I sit in my classroom looking at the Mother Theresa prayer for those serving the sick pinned to the bottom left corner of my bulletin board. It's hard to love, I tell you! But sometimes it's hard merely to want to love.

Today I feel full of despair again. It's so hard, sometimes, to believe that righteousness is possible. It's very easy to believe that the road to happiness is getting my own way, or the removal of every difficulty: it isn't though. When I pray, it feels like I'm begging an indifferent passerby on the street for sacks of gems. I don't expect anything, because I feel like a) I don't deserve it, and b) giving is not in the nature of the one I am beseeching. This is a lie of course, well, not the first part. I don't deserve anything beautiful, true, or good, but I'm expected to expect these things anyway. It's so hard to pray for joy when I feel like it never comes. It's so hard to pray for faith when you don't believe anything. It's impossible to believe that God is happy when I am so miserable. Or is it?

I need to be re-taught that God is a giving tree, that he hears us, hears me, when we pray, that he gives benevolently out of the overflowing goodness of his own excellent nature. But I doubt it; I doubt.

God is a giving tree. He gives conditionally, in that he gives us what is good even when this is not what we have desired. He gives conditionally, in that he gives when he ask according to his will. Is God deaf to my prayers? Have I sinned against him in a way that would cause him to stop-up his ears? Oh, God, grant what you command, and command what you will.

I have been thinking a lot about St. Augustine, Dante, George MacDonald, John Donne, Plato--everyone who writes about ordinate love and the beatific vision. It is so easy to love inordinately. 

"If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee." 

It's hard to be good. Part of the difficulty of being good is believing that God will make you good when you ask.

But God is a giving tree, he loves to give, to bless. He gives pain and he gives great joy.

Oh, I wanted to relate this back to George MacDonald. I'm re-reading At the Back of the North Wind, and I'm re-remembering (again) all that MacDonald says about being at the still point. Do you remember the still point? The still point harkens back to Boethius, to Dante, to lots of people. The point is this: at the center of the universe is God, a Being supremely perfect and happy. Evil happens around him, and he uses the good and the bad to shape human events while he himself remains wholly uncontaminated and unchanged. If I keep myself at the still point, where God is, I will not be shaken by the things in this life, small or great, that threaten to tie knots in my soul. I need to understand this because it is so easy to tie a knot in my soul. I am derailed by weather changes.

But God is a giving tree. He is a giving tree, and he loves us. He loves us. O! How he loves us!




Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.

The Valley of Vision: On Desire

O Thou that hearest prayer,

Teach me to pray.

         I confess that in religious exercises

the language of my lips and the feelings

of my heart have not always agreed,

that I have frequently taken carelessly upon

my tongue a name never pronounced above

without reverence and humility,

that I have often desired things which would

have injured me,

that I have depreciated some of my chief mercies,

that I have erred both on the side of my hopes

and also of my fears,

that I am unfit to choose for myself,

for it is not in me to direct my steps.

Let thy Spirit help my infirmities,

for I know not what to pray for as I ought.

Let him produce in me wise desires by which

I may ask right things,

then I shall know thou hearest me.

May I never be importunate for temporal blessings,

but always refer them to thy fatherly goodness,

for thou knowest what I need before I ask;

May I never think I prosper unless my soul prospers,

or that I am rich unless rich toward thee,

or that I am wise unless wise unto salvation.

May I seek first thy kingdom and its righteousness.

May I value things in relation to eternity.

May my spiritual welfare be my chief solicitude.

May I be poor, afflicted, despised and have

thy blessing,

rather than be successful in enterprise,

or have more than my heart can wish,

or be admired by my fellow-men,

if thereby these things make me forget thee.

May I regard the world as dreams, lies, vanities,

vexation of spirit,

and desire to depart from it.

And may I seek my happiness in thy favour,

image, presence, service.

Because I Need to Write More Book Reviews, Silly

Sometime soon, I'll start writing reviews on this blog, it's the only responsible thing to do. Goodness, my best intentions turn to dust so quickly!

http://theprettylibrarian.com/wp/2011/04/book-jane-eyre/

http://theprettylibrarian.com/wp/2011/07/book-gods-grandeur-and-other-poems/

St. Joan

What Are All These Fragments For (Why Aren't You Writing, Ayodele)?

Working makes me feel good and responsible, but not working makes me feel amazing. This week, and probably next week, business is slow, so I'm enjoying lots of time off. The problem with time off  is that it feels so entirely natural--the way I expect Heaven to feel--fantastically new and sweetly familiar. With time off, my creative side takes over. Usually, I spend a great deal of time whining about how I'm bad at choosing creativity, but at times like this I know that I only forsake creativity because I'm tired. I don't feel that my profession demands very much creative spirit, so why does it still suck me dry?

This week a few of my best loved activities have come back. Well, not writing. I'm not counting blog posts as creative expression in written form. But time off this summer has meant indulging in culinary arts and paper crafts. Want to see? Ahem.

First, Art Project 1 of 2

OK, so the picture quality isn't great, but it's a quotation from M. Robinson, my favorite. I've been trying to read through some of her non-fiction this week, but it's too hot for intellectual activity, apparently. This quotation is from Housekeeping, which is my favorite book of hers, next to Gilead. I painted the frame gold because it was originally supposed to gird my $3.50 print of "St. Joseph and the Infant Christ" (see previous post); it turns out that St. Joe and our Young Redeemer look really kitschy in a painted gold frame. Lucky for me, this is not true of anything penned by Marilynne Robinson (or stamped by me). Do you like my color scheme? I'm going to hang it somewhere.



Art Project: 2 of 2

I should have done this one a while ago. This is from the last 3 lines of The Divine Comedy, translated into English of course. I added some black dots to the top left side because it seemed out of balance. I just don't know what to do with it now. I can't frame it, like the other one, and if hang it I'm afraid it won't stay flat. I had to pile books on top of it to keep the edges from curling through the entire process.  Oh!  I added punctuation marks, too (this is so not the final draft). I really need to buy punctuation stamps.

Iced Lollies: 1 of 2
Green tea with lavender. Aromatic, sweet, but not worth the thousand words.

Gratuitous Lavender Field

Iced Lollies: 2 of 2

Watermelon Rosemary Popsicles

These popsicle sticks have wee blue hearts on them because I have another flavor of popsicles in the freezer (in the same mold).

Rosemary

Imagine me using this to make simple syrup. This is the actual rosemary I used.

Lemons

Watermelon

And these, the actual lemons.














Note the swirly lines in the watermelon.

Everything all mixed up

Avant garde iced lolly molds

Here they are, the finished product. More pinkish now, than reddish.

My name is Ayodele, and I enjoy cutting, stirring, and pasting as an excuse for not writing. Next week, I'll write while looking at my art projects and eating popsicles. I won't have any excuses then--there won't be anything left for me to do.

Keeping the Sabbath: The Infant Christ, Lemon Meringue Pie, and One Honorable Bird

I love Christian art. I love it the way I love monasticism, liturgy, and trees. Christian art helps me sense the reality of the depth of the faith I profess. It connects me to the Church throughout time and space. I love that I can say the words "Christian Art" and conjure up images rendered long before the advent of Thomas Kincaid. I love that people have long been using art to wrestle with and build their faith. I love that art can be prayer, worship, scholarship, and contemplation. I love that beauty and creative expression are long established components of Christian worship.

Today I stayed home from church for a solitary sabbath: I slept in, had pan au chocolat, tea, and strawberries for breakfast. I compared 4 different versions of Psalm 91: in the ESV, the Message,  the Book of Common Prayer, and the Louis Segond French translation. I re-read bits of Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God, read now in the solemn mindfulness of her latest work, Still. I tried to pray Psalm 91 for a few people I've been feeling worried about, and for myself. I asked for an increase of faith.

 "His huge outstretched arms protect you—
      under them you're perfectly safe;
      his arms fend off all harm."

"Il te couvrira de ses plumes, Et tu trouveras un refuge sous ses ailes."

"He shall defend thee under his wings, and thou shalt be safe under his feathers." 

 "He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge."

My faith is not what it ought to be. I often find it hard to pray. I often don't want to pray, and when I do pray, I find it overwhelming; I want to stop, because there are so many things to pray for.
I went to the Norton Simon, because it's only a 30 minute walk away (I took the bus) and because I imagine myself as a person who goes to art museums all the time. It involved strolling through the water lotus gardens, watching grey-green tadpoles flit and gold-orange dragonflies gleam. It involved the kid's meal: grilled cheese and a fruit salad. It involved sunshine and shady trees and lemon meringue pie. It involved trying to pick up snippets of conversation made by French tourists (vous connaissez?). It involved an attempt at deep contemplation of Christian art.
After walking the museum over, I returned to a few paintings that especially spoke to me. I realized today that I have an official favorite painting at the Norton Simon. It is "St. Joseph and the Infant Christ", by Giovanni Battista Gaulli. I think I love this painting because it radiates relationship. The whole painting is about the deep love which exists between the Christ-Child and St. Joseph, it's beautiful because St. Joseph manifests such tender love for his adopted son. It's meaningful because it reminds me of the Book of Ruth, of the Book of Revelation, of spiritual adoption, and of God's complete and substantial love for me, his adopted daughter.

But I love this painting in a sort of ironic contrast to the rest of Christian art. I realized that the most important thing about Christian art, about beholding a Christian painting, is being made to see what is not visible.
I spent a long time looking at Francesco Bissolo's "The Annunciation", a painting which depicts Mary receiving the angel Gabriel' s words into her heart, and the Christ-Child into her womb: the birth of our salvation and the Magnificat. It's a warm and lovely painting. I stared at it for a long time before realizing that the most important visible thing in that painting is an Honorable Bird: the Holy-Spirit-as-dove hovering---radiantly and slightly---at the top of the painting. The presence and power of God is often hard to see, it is even invisible sometimes, as was the unborn Christ dwelling within Mary.

This painting struck me because, as I gazed at it, I realized that the Dove of Primal Importance, the Honorable Bird, resides in me. I am the visible element in the painting, imbued with the often intangible presence of God. Wow.

But there is one more painting which today brought me closer to the contemplation of the invisible. It's "Madonna and Child with Book" by Raffaello Sanzio.

This one, while showing the incarnate body of Christ, actually points to the eternal, invisible reality of God. Mary and the Christ-Child sit reading a prayer book. Here is Christ, the one who created Mary and the entire landscape behind them, sitting in his incarnate form, reading about his future death and resurrection. Here is God, the God who always IS, rendered in the past as a child, contemplating his own future acts. At the time of the painting, all the work of redemption had been accomplished--Christ was seated on the throne in heaven, interceding for us: it is a meditation piece concerned with the constant presence, the constant being, of God. It is eternity past, present, and future all in one. Here is Mary, teaching her son about his own nature, as he sits in her arms, the arms that he himself created as the "Firstborn of all creation". God very God, here with us as creator, redeemer, and word. Here is the description given with the painting:

"The inscription in the book introduces the ninth hour, or Nones of the Canonical Offices, recited daily by all monastic communities. The Nones commemorates Christ's Crucifixion and Death. With eyes turned to heaven, the Christ Child contemplates His own sacrifice as man's Redeemer."

I need to see Christian art. I need to present my eyes with things that invite them to believe and worship: it's so good for my soul. So today church was held in an airy museum, and the Eucharist was a slice of lemon meringue pie, imbibed under the acrylic gazes of penitents St. Francis and St. Jerome.