It is Good Friday, and Poetry Friday (and April ushers in National Poetry Month), and it's also Jazz Appreciation Month, which means our resident jazz expert, Atticus, will be weighing in next week.
For Good Friday (and for Poetry Friday):
Thomas Merton's "Death" is a beautiful, evocative, sobering ("Take time to tremble lest you come without reflection/To feel the furious mercies of my friendship,/[Says death]) and ultimately hope-filled poem. It speaks for itself, so click on the link to read the whole thing.
In Googling around for Thomas Merton/Lent/Good Friday, I also found this post at New Wood. It's a quote from Thomas Merton's Raids on the Unspeakable and it's perfect for Good Friday. (And I'll be digging further into New Wood. I like his About page, and identify with his feelings of being something of a misfit.)
For More Poetry Friday:
Amy has the round up at The Poem Farm. There's more about National Poetry Month here, at Poets.org and here, at The Poetry Foundation.
For Jazz Appreciation Month:
More about jazz next week (thanks, Atticus) but for now I'll send you to the Jazz Journalists Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities JAM page.
Showing posts with label Lent 2015. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent 2015. Show all posts
Friday, April 03, 2015
Wednesday, April 01, 2015
Lent With Kristin Lavransdatter
And sometimes, I'm reading an 1,100 page book.
Recently, it's been a case of Both Those Things.
It's fitting that Kristin became my Lenten reading. It's a stunning novel -- an epic, really. And it is radiant and blazing with the mercy and glory of God.
Please forgive me, all you anti-dog-earers, but sometimes I just can't help myself. I don't keep pen and sticky-notes handy when I'm reading. I try, I fail. So I dog-ear, then later I go back and copy down all the quotes I want to keep, savor, remember.
I couldn't really dog ear the entire book, but sometimes I thought I'd come close:
Kristin deserves so much more than a quick blog post, and I'll work on that. But I decided this quick post was better than nothing. Make Kristin your Easter reading. Make it your summer reading. Make it your I-Will-Read-It-Before-the-End-of-2015 reading. Make the time -- it's worth the time, in so many ways.
~~~~~
Commenting over at Facebook, too.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Poetry Friday: Deep in the Quiet Wood
Winter does, sometimes, leave me bowed down in heart. But, spring -- o lovely spring! -- is here. Even in Nebraska. And I am ready to "come away to the peaceful wood" and be restored.
Deep in the Quiet Wood
by James Weldon Johnson
Are you bowed down in heart?
Do you but hear the clashing discords and the din of life?
Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,
Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,
From out the palpitating solitude
Do you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?
They are above, around, within you, everywhere.
Silently listen! Clear, and still more clear, they come.
They bubble up in rippling notes, and swell in singing tones.
Now let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scale
Until, responsive to the tonic chord,
It touches the diapason of God’s grand cathedral organ,
Filling earth for you with heavenly peace
And holy harmonies.
("Deep in the Quiet Wood" is in the public domain. Thanks to Poets.org for the poetry that daily arrives in my Inbox.
~~~~~
The round up is being hosted today by Reading to the Core.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Lent With a Sensitive Child
This is a re-post from when Anne-with-an-e was younger:
When Anne-with-an-e was much younger, she was very sensitive. A picture of Jesus on the Cross could reduce her to tears. Singing certain hymns would leave her spent. The idea of forty days of sorrowful mysteries drained her. I sometimes wondered how someone so little could feel things so deeply.
Lent became a difficult time.
I, being an enthusiastic convert, looked forward to doing everything I could during Lent to challenge myself. But, I realized that my vision of Lent and the Lent I needed to provide for my tenderhearted daughter were two different things.
In a way, it was humbling to create a "more relaxed Lent," if I can call it that, than I had previously practiced, but that's what I needed to do. I pulled back, I stopped trying to do things such as Stations of the Cross for children. Anne just couldn't take it; it broke her heart.
One might argue that our Lord's crucifixion is supposed to break our hearts. Yes, it is. It does. But, a soul in formation has to be handled with the utmost care, and I knew that forcing certain practices on this child would not help her to love God more, and it may even have the opposite effect. Clearly, that was not my vision for teaching my child about how fabulous Jesus was.
All of the usual "Lent with Children" practices were good: baking pretzels, putting cottonballs on the Lamb, putting beans in the sacrifice jar for kindnesses and unselfish actions. But anything too raw, too harsh, too weepy, was just plain too hard. (And remember, Holy Mother Church doesn't technically require our children to abstain from meat on Fridays and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday until they are fourteen years old.)
As Anne grew, our practices slowly grew and changed, too. Things that were once too hard are handled now, and I see an extremely sensitive child growing into a beautifully sensitive and perceptive young lady. Now in her teens, Anne chose her own penance for this Lent (and it's something she really loves, so I do believe she's challenging herself) and she also chose to take on a devotion that I hadn't even suggested.
I don't mean to suggest that Lent should be watered down. I offer all of this only to help anyone out there who has found that Lent is "just too much" for their sensitive child. You're not alone, and I can almost assure you that "pulling back" or "taking it easy" or tailoring Lenten practices to make them work for your particular child in your particular situation is not necessarily a compromise. In your case, it's sensitive parenting, and it can bear lovely fruit.
And, the beauty of the Catholic Church's teaching (that the parent is the first educator in a child's life) means that we can and should make careful, prudent decisions about these sorts of things.
Every house, every child, every soul is different.
So is every Lent.
At least, that's been the experience at our house.
~~~~~
When Anne-with-an-e was much younger, she was very sensitive. A picture of Jesus on the Cross could reduce her to tears. Singing certain hymns would leave her spent. The idea of forty days of sorrowful mysteries drained her. I sometimes wondered how someone so little could feel things so deeply.
Lent became a difficult time.
I, being an enthusiastic convert, looked forward to doing everything I could during Lent to challenge myself. But, I realized that my vision of Lent and the Lent I needed to provide for my tenderhearted daughter were two different things.
In a way, it was humbling to create a "more relaxed Lent," if I can call it that, than I had previously practiced, but that's what I needed to do. I pulled back, I stopped trying to do things such as Stations of the Cross for children. Anne just couldn't take it; it broke her heart.
One might argue that our Lord's crucifixion is supposed to break our hearts. Yes, it is. It does. But, a soul in formation has to be handled with the utmost care, and I knew that forcing certain practices on this child would not help her to love God more, and it may even have the opposite effect. Clearly, that was not my vision for teaching my child about how fabulous Jesus was.
All of the usual "Lent with Children" practices were good: baking pretzels, putting cottonballs on the Lamb, putting beans in the sacrifice jar for kindnesses and unselfish actions. But anything too raw, too harsh, too weepy, was just plain too hard. (And remember, Holy Mother Church doesn't technically require our children to abstain from meat on Fridays and fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday until they are fourteen years old.)
As Anne grew, our practices slowly grew and changed, too. Things that were once too hard are handled now, and I see an extremely sensitive child growing into a beautifully sensitive and perceptive young lady. Now in her teens, Anne chose her own penance for this Lent (and it's something she really loves, so I do believe she's challenging herself) and she also chose to take on a devotion that I hadn't even suggested.
I don't mean to suggest that Lent should be watered down. I offer all of this only to help anyone out there who has found that Lent is "just too much" for their sensitive child. You're not alone, and I can almost assure you that "pulling back" or "taking it easy" or tailoring Lenten practices to make them work for your particular child in your particular situation is not necessarily a compromise. In your case, it's sensitive parenting, and it can bear lovely fruit.
And, the beauty of the Catholic Church's teaching (that the parent is the first educator in a child's life) means that we can and should make careful, prudent decisions about these sorts of things.
Every house, every child, every soul is different.
So is every Lent.
At least, that's been the experience at our house.
"In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity."
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Rest
When Betsy was younger, before we had her asthma figured out, there were some long and terrible nights. She coughed. Miserably. I felt helpless. Sleep wouldn't come although we had given her each and every medication that the doctor had approved. There was water on the nightstand, available for sipping. A cushy, cozy bed. Extra pillows that propped her troubled head and eased the air flow to her lungs.
Still she coughed.
And so I turned to the last weapon in my arsenal. I'd snuggle up beside her and she'd rest against me. I held her close, stroked her hair. Sometimes I sang. I was simply there. And she rested. It startled me every time, that my mere maternal presence eased her breathing, relaxed her limbs, opened a clenched fist, left her small mouth slack in sleep. A sweet reprieve it was, for both of us.
Sometimes I am like my daughter. I have followed my prescription and everything is in its place. Bits and pieces of life have been comfortably settled, readied to deal with any situation that may arise. The water glass, the cool pillow ... we have done our best.
But my restlessness can be calmed by only one thing -- it is the presence of my Father that I need. I do not need any "thing" that He can grant me. I need only to rest in His arms, and that is my consolation. That is the sweet reprieve I need to wake up tomorrow and rise to another day.
Still she coughed.
And so I turned to the last weapon in my arsenal. I'd snuggle up beside her and she'd rest against me. I held her close, stroked her hair. Sometimes I sang. I was simply there. And she rested. It startled me every time, that my mere maternal presence eased her breathing, relaxed her limbs, opened a clenched fist, left her small mouth slack in sleep. A sweet reprieve it was, for both of us.
Sometimes I am like my daughter. I have followed my prescription and everything is in its place. Bits and pieces of life have been comfortably settled, readied to deal with any situation that may arise. The water glass, the cool pillow ... we have done our best.
But my restlessness can be calmed by only one thing -- it is the presence of my Father that I need. I do not need any "thing" that He can grant me. I need only to rest in His arms, and that is my consolation. That is the sweet reprieve I need to wake up tomorrow and rise to another day.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Lent Has Changed. Or We Have?
When my daughters were young, I wrote about "Lent with Young Children."
We always did our Lamb of God calendar:
We made caterpillars from egg cartons, baked homemade pretzels, read about saints, talked about prayer, learned new prayers, went to daily Mass more often, and dropped iridescent purple stones into a teacup to count down the days until Easter.
And now? My girls have outgrown all the lovely, childish, beloved traditions they grew up with. Cotton balls, beans in a jar, and shiny stones are things of the past. But you know what? New traditions have emerged as young women have slowly appeared, replacing the children in this house.
Last night, Betsy gave a witness talk, about her relationship with Mary, to a group of 7th and 8th graders. It came about by chance (I mean the way in which she was asked to do it) but she saw God's hand in the timing, and she said yes, although she doesn't like to speak to groups. And as she chatted about what she planned to say, Ramona chimed in with her perspective, too: "Do you know how I would explain it? It's like you have a best friend, but better than any friend you have on earth, and you can tell her everything." The talk went beautifully, by all accounts, and Betsy was so glad she said yes.
Lent with old children is nice, too.
We always did our Lamb of God calendar:
We put beans in the Sacrifice Jar for every tiny, kind act, and every prayer sincerely uttered:
We made caterpillars from egg cartons, baked homemade pretzels, read about saints, talked about prayer, learned new prayers, went to daily Mass more often, and dropped iridescent purple stones into a teacup to count down the days until Easter.
And now? My girls have outgrown all the lovely, childish, beloved traditions they grew up with. Cotton balls, beans in a jar, and shiny stones are things of the past. But you know what? New traditions have emerged as young women have slowly appeared, replacing the children in this house.
Last night, Betsy gave a witness talk, about her relationship with Mary, to a group of 7th and 8th graders. It came about by chance (I mean the way in which she was asked to do it) but she saw God's hand in the timing, and she said yes, although she doesn't like to speak to groups. And as she chatted about what she planned to say, Ramona chimed in with her perspective, too: "Do you know how I would explain it? It's like you have a best friend, but better than any friend you have on earth, and you can tell her everything." The talk went beautifully, by all accounts, and Betsy was so glad she said yes.
Lent with old children is nice, too.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Hate to Go, Love Having Gone
(from the archives:)
I want to share my three best tips for a meaningful Lent (or any month):
They are:
1. Go to confession.
2. Go to confession.
3. Go to confession.
(And, if I haven't mentioned it lately, I also think going to confession would be a good thing to do.)
If you love going to confession, good for you. Keep it up.
If you hate going to confession, consider giving up "not going to confession" for Lent.
If you hate to go, but love having gone, you may be a Dorothy Parker fan. (Of her profession, she said, "Hate to write ... love having written.")
I am a Dorothy Parker sort of confessee. Hate to go. Love having gone. Love going regularly, even though I hate going. (And, although it has no place in this post, I'll share another Dorothy Parker quote: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Love that, although it's completely out of place here.)
And, finally, one more Dorothy Parker quote that does have a place here:
“It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes.”
Confess the mess.
And, that's the last of Dorothy Parker I can share. If I repeat her most famous stuff, I'll have to head straight to confession.
I want to share my three best tips for a meaningful Lent (or any month):
They are:
1. Go to confession.
2. Go to confession.
3. Go to confession.
(And, if I haven't mentioned it lately, I also think going to confession would be a good thing to do.)
If you love going to confession, good for you. Keep it up.
If you hate going to confession, consider giving up "not going to confession" for Lent.
If you hate to go, but love having gone, you may be a Dorothy Parker fan. (Of her profession, she said, "Hate to write ... love having written.")
I am a Dorothy Parker sort of confessee. Hate to go. Love having gone. Love going regularly, even though I hate going. (And, although it has no place in this post, I'll share another Dorothy Parker quote: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Love that, although it's completely out of place here.)
And, finally, one more Dorothy Parker quote that does have a place here:
“It's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes.”
Confess the mess.
And, that's the last of Dorothy Parker I can share. If I repeat her most famous stuff, I'll have to head straight to confession.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
As I was saying over on Facebook:
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| Find Donna-Marie Cooper O'Boyle's book here. |
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| Fr. Barron's LentReflections.com |
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| Go to Gracedays.net to enter |
Thursday, February 12, 2015
On Morning Air Today
... at 7 a.m. central time, on Relevant Radio. I'll be talking with John Harper about teens and young adults -- digging deeper during Lent and making the faith their own.
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
Ash Wednesday is Coming! Ash Wednesday is Coming!
Top Ten Things For Me To Consider Doing (Or Rather, Not Doing) This Lent
(Based on things I have done in the past):
10. Give up meat.
9. Give up coffee.
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| Anyone can give up bad coffee.... clipart from Vintage Digital Stamps |
8. Give up radio/music in the car.
7. Give up wearing jewelry/accessories.
6. Give up wine (I'd say "alcohol" but let's face it ... wine).
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| There's nothing quite like you. photo from FreeImages.com |
5. Give up online time-wasters and/or TV.
4. Give up complaining.
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| You know what I'm talking about. cliplart from Vintage Digital Stamps |
3. Give up sugar.
2. Give up all purchases that are not necessities.
1. Give up some time and devote it to reading/re-reading spiritual favorites and classics.
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| This doesn't sound like a sacrifice at all. |
~~~~~
I'm still thinking and praying on what I really need to do this Lent, which begins in two weeks.
~~~~~
"It feels like it's always Lent!" said Atticus yesterday. "Lent is always just around the corner!"
~~~~~
Last year I wrote Lent a letter as I pondered what to give up, take on, do, refine, ponder, pray. It's like we're old friends having a vist: "Happy to see you come, happy to see you go."
~~~~~
If you're looking for more ideas and discussion, here's a link to A Meaningful Lent: The Monstrously Long Post.
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