Just Thinking

Hopkins vis-à-vis Salinger

In light of J. D. Salinger's recent death and the talk of his avoidance of publication over the years ("There is a marvellous peace in not publishing"), the career of Gerard Manley Hopkins offers an interesting comparison. I'm fascinated by the fact that none of Hopkins' works were published until after his death. He kept at it over the years, made sure his friend Bridges gathered them together in an album, and in 1883 wrote a prayer that God would dispense of it all according to his will, "that he would have them as his own and employ or not employ them as he would see fit." Two years prior, he had written in a letter to Bridges about the need to live by faith even in regards to the disposal of his work, "Now if you value what I write, if I do myself, much more does our Lord. And if he chooses to avail himself of what I leave at his disposal he  can do so with a felicity and with a success which I could never command. And if he does not, then two things follow; one that the reward I shall nevertheless receive from him will be all the greater; the other that then I shall know how much a thing contrary to his will and even to my own best interests I should have done if I had taken things into my own hands and forced on publication." In a letter to Bridges in 1886, Hopkins seemed more certain that his work should be distributed when he expressed his belief that works of art are meant to be shared in order to do its good, "We must then try be known, aim at it, take means to it." Yet, the only active effort he made toward publication was to send an occasional piece to the Jesuit newsletter.

(Above info and quotes from Hopkins, Gerard Manley. Gerard Manley Hopkins: The Major Works. Ed. Catherine Phillips. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.)

The uninym everyman

The current issue of The Rake, a local publication, has an interesting--and well written--article about Jared, the Subway guy.

Remembering August Wilson

August Wilson died this past Sunday of liver cancer. As the world knows, he was an African American playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner. My husband and I knew him when he was a cook. A chef, really.

Little Brothers of the Poor: Friends of the Elderly (“of the Poor” has since been dropped from their name) was my husband’s first employer after graduating with a sociology degree from University of Minnesota. He had his eye on a career in social work, specifically working with the elderly, and so he had been volunteering there while he was in school. He moved from volunteer to paid employee by taking on the job as driver. He picked up the elderly friends and drove them where they wanted to go, which often was to an event at Little Brothers.

Dave–-my husband only we were not yet married--was one of about ten people on the staff at that time. Most lived communally, sharing a house and cars. They ate their meals together at the Little Brothers building. Although Dave didn’t live in the communal house, he ate most of his meals with them. I sometimes ate there too. At that time, the meals were cooked by August Wilson.

Wilson had moved to Minnesota in 1978 to write for the Science Museum in St. Paul. We didn’t know much about that part of his life at the time but we knew that he was a wonderful chef and a kind and gentle part of the Little Brothers team.

Food was an important part of the mission of Little Brothers, which had begun in France in 1946 as an outreach to the poor and lonely elderly. Then and now, however, their approach is different than that of many charities with the same focus. This difference is reflected in their motto, Flowers before Bread. They seek to bring joy, pleasure, and dignity to their elderly friends. Although they do this in lots of ways, one of the primary ways is through food. Elderly friends were (and still are) invited to extravagant meals at the Little Brothers building. The friends were picked up and brought home by people, in cars. The food was fine-restaurant quality. Multiple courses, china dishes, tablecoths, flowers on the table, live music, wine.

Part way through Dave’s tenure at Little Brothers we were married. Several months later, he resigned his position because we were moving out of state for him to attend graduate school. The staff gave us a lovely farewell dinner at the communal home. We have a black-and-white photograph of Wilson at that event, standing by the table of food, eating and talking. He gave Dave a poem he had written as a good-bye gift. I’m not sure how much longer Wilson was there before he left also.

My husband went on to become what he had wanted to be, a social worker with the elderly. August Wilson went on to become what he had wanted to be, a playwright telling the 20th-century African American story.

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"Faith Fired by Literature," this weekend on "Speaking of Faith"

Paul Elie, author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage will be Krista Tippett's guest on this weekend's edition of  "Speaking of Faith," public radio's national conversation about belief, meaning, ethics, and ideas. In The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Elie has written about four influential 20th-century thinkers and writers: Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton, southern writer Flannery O'Connor, philosophical novelist Walker Percy, and journalist and social activist Dorothy Day. These individuals will be at the center of the discussion between Tippett and Elie on this week's show, "Faith Fired by Literature." scheduled to air this weekend on radio stations across the country.

You can listen to "Faith Fired by Literature" on your local affiliate of American Public Media or online. Find a station in your area or to listen at anytime via free streaming audio from the show's home page using RealPlayer. Whether or not you listen to the program, I strongly encourage you to check out the webpage dedicated to this program. It contains a complete description of the program, broken down according to program time, as well as quotes from the program, book excerpts, photographs, identification of the music played in the program, and links to outside resources. It is truly a beautifully designed wealth of information. This is true for each of "Speaking of Faith's" programs. Each has its own webpage on which resources are generously shared with the program's audience. Krista Tippett and her team do a beautiful job with this radio program.

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Narnia on tour

The most recent issue of Addenda, the monthly e-mail newsletter from Mars Hill Audio, carried this blurb about Narnia on Tour, a series of events related to C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Narnia.

With the anticipated release of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe this fall, one can expect an avalanche of publicity, action figures, and the like. Nonetheless, one of the benefits of the movie is that, like Shadowlands a decade ago, it will draw attention to the life and work of C. S. Lewis. With the goal of fostering informed conversation about Lewis, his faith, imagination, and writing, the Matthew's House Project has organized Narnia on Tour , a series of Lewis-related events that will take place in various forums across the country beginning in September. Most events consist of a lecture and discussion time with a noted scholar (such as Ralph Wood, Bruce Edwards, or Dan Ritchie) but the Tour has also tied in with Wheaton College's Annual Writing and Literature Lecture Series and the Northern Michigan C. S. Lewis Festival. To find out if the Tour is coming to a city near you see the Narnia on Tour website for tour locations and dates. You can also find articles about Lewis (updated regularly), learn who was influenced by Lewis, and discover authors who write in a similar vein as he wrote. You also have the opportunity to be involved as a Tour road team member; to do so, contact the tour manager, Zach Kincaid (zkincaid@narniaontour.com).

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The tears and prayers of a Mother

You may--or may not--have noticed that my recent Sunday posts have been focused on the subject of prayer. Continuing with that Sunday focus, and in the spirit of Mother's Day, giving some attention to the story of Monica and her son Augustine, that is St. Augustine of Hippo, would be appropriate.

Augustine was born in North Africa in 354 AD. According to his Confessions, he became a wild young man on a "pitiful fall into the depths of hell, as I struggled and strained for lack of the truth." Meanwhile, his mother Monica was praying. And crying.

To God Augustine later wrote, "But you sent down your help from above and rescued my soul from the depths of this darkness because my mother, your faithful servant, wept to you for me, shedding more tears for my spiritual death than other mothers shed for the bodily death of a son. For in her faith and in the spirit which she had from you she looked on me as dead. You heard her and did not despise the tears which streamed down and watered the earth in every place where she bowed her head in prayer." The bishop of Monica's church assured her, "It cannot be that the son of these tears should be lost." She later told Augustine that she "accepted these words as a message from heaven."

Years past. One day Augustine found himself under a fig tree "weeping all the while with the most bitter sorrow in my heart." The nearby singing of a child interupted his tears. "Take it and read, take it and read," were the words being sung. Augustine took this as "a divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the first passage on which my eye should fall." His eyes fell on Paul's Epistles to the Romans, "Not in revelling and drunkeness, not in lust and wantoness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and nature's appetites." Augustine continued, "I had no wish to read more and no need to do so. For in an instant, as I came to the end of the sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled."

This section (Book VIII) of his Confessions ends with, "Then we went in and told my mother, who was overjoyed...And you turned her sadness into rejoicing, into joy far fuller than her dearest wish."

Victoria Moran and the humor of the universe

Victoria Moran's new book is Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit. It's a book of daily readings to help one "age in reverse" by being "concerned not only with your physical body and its conscientious care, but with the deep layers of your being: your mind, your emotions, and–especially–your spirit."

Today's reading is about "leela", a Sanskrit term that translates as "God's play." Moran writes, "[Leela is] seeing the vastness of creation as the Divine's favorite toy, and suggesting that, if there is playfulness indelibly etched into the cosmos, it's probably okay for us to light up too. When everything seems serious and quite a bit seems ominous, when we feel a lot of fear and carry a lot of tension, we're way out of touch with leela, the sense of humor of the universe. You know how it is when things go badly in a way that is almost comedic? Leela. When you think, "I may as well laugh because otherwise I'd cry"? Leela. When you play with a child or a pet or a half-off coupon at your favorite store and are not one bit concerned about all the "things on your mind," leela is operative. It shows up in sentences like "I don't have to worry about this now–let's go out and have fun." Leela allows you to chuckle on a rotten day, see beauty in the midst of pain, and find the game inside the dilemma."

I'm a fan of Victoria Moran. She's written Shelter for the Spirit, Creating a Charmed Life and a number of other books. On the page and in "real life", she is as warm and gracious a person as you would ever want to meet. You can practically hear her cheering for each of her readers as she moves from sentence to sentence offering suggestions of tangible ways to improve their lives.

If you want to get a sense of her encouraging and authentic style, as well as a taste of her new book, tune in to an online radio show tonight at 9:55 p.m Eastern time, "Creative Health and Spirit with Linda Mackensie." Go to healthylife.net radio and click on "Listen Live." You'll need Windows Media Player which you can download free on the site if you don't already have it.

A model for living and dying

In Just Think I wrote, "I am grateful when people mark their paths...so that someone wishing or needing to follow a similar path can better find the way." Watching Pope John Paul II in his final years, months, and days, I'm grateful for the marked path he left behind. He lived out his calling with all his being, despite physical limitations. His limitations became part of his path but never defined his path. He didn't seek personal entertainment or pampering, but rather he sought always to be about his work.

Even as he died he was about his work. The Pope had asked for the Stations of the Cross to be read to him in his final hours. In a television interview, a Catholic Bishop commented that the Pope knew that part of his work was modeling how to live and that even here he was modeling for us how to live with suffering, how to find meaning in suffering by joining with Christ's suffering, and how to die. This Bishop added that because of how the Pope lived his final years and days, he had greater courage to face his own aging, suffering, and death. I agree.

Thank you Pope John Paul II for the path of courage, calling, and faith you marked for all of us, Catholic or not.

Public radio's Speaking of Faith has produced a radio program about the Pope, "The Religious Legacy of Pope John Paul II." You can listen to it at the program's home page.

The Shield of St. Patrick

I bind unto myself today the strong name of the trinity,
by invocation of the same, the Three in One, the One in Three.

I bind this day to me forever by power of faith Christ's incarnation,
his baptism in the Jordan river, his death on the cross for my salvation;
his bursting from the spiced tomb, his riding up the heavenly way,
his coming at the day of doom I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself today the power of God to hold and lead,
his eye to watch, his might to stay, his ear to harken to my need,
the wisdom of my God to teach, his hand to guide, his shield to ward,
the Word of God to give me speech, his heavenly host to be my guard.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me;
Christ to comfort and restore me;
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the name, the strong name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same, the Three in One, and One in Three,
of whom all nature hath creation, eternal Father, Spirit, Word;
praise to the God of my salvation, salvation is of Christ the Lord!

Attributed to St. Patrick
Paraphrased by Cecil Frances Alexander

For further reading on St. Patrick, see The Confession of St. Patrick.

David Brooks on John Stott in "The New York Times"

Raise your hand if you've read Your Mind Matters by John R. W. Stott. It's a very short book that I commend to you all. I first read it years ago and it further fueled my long-standing interest in the balance and coexistence of faith and reason, heart and mind, emotion and thought which ultimately culminated in the writing of my comparatively humble book.

I bring it up today because in this morning's "The New York Times" David Brooks has an excellent commentary on John Stott and how he is a more realistic representative of a Christian evangelical and a person who tries to apply Christian faith to public life than the stereotypical extremists that are usually presented to us by the media.

Here is an exerpt from Brooks' commentary:
"There's been a lot of twaddle written recently about the supposed opposition between faith and reason. To read Stott is to see someone practicing "thoughtful allegiance" to scripture. For him, Christianity means probing the mysteries of Christ. He is always exploring paradoxes. Jesus teaches humility, so why does he talk about himself so much? What does it mean to gain power through weakness, or freedom through obedience? In many cases the truth is not found in the middle of apparent opposites, but on both extremes simultaneously."

I recommend you read the entire piece. Here's the link: Who Is John Stott? By David Brooks. If you don't already read "The New York Times" online, you'll have to register but it's free. If you'd rather not register or have trouble getting to this, send me an email and I'll email it to you.