Monday, March 18, 2013

at home in the bathtub

Conversation between Scout Finch and Miss Maudie Atkinson in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee:

“You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist-”
“That’s what you are, ain’t it?”
"My shell’s not that hard, child. I’m just a Baptist.”
“Don’t you all believe in foot-washing?”
“We do. At home in the bathtub.”

Sunday, March 10, 2013

birth is nothing but...

by V. Rae

 "Birth is nothing but the separation of one living body from another." 
[Mortimer Adler, Aristotle for Everybody]

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

in a word, eager purity and weary virtue

In we shuffle, hooded amplitudes,
scapulared brooms, a stray earring, skin-heads
and flowing locks, blind in one eye,
hooked-nosed, handsome as a prince
(and knows it), a five-thumbed organist,
an acolyte who sings in quarter tones,
one slightly swollen keeper of the bees,
the carpenter minus a finger here and there,
our pre-senile writing deathless verse,
a stranded sailor, a Cassian scholar,
the artist suffering the visually
illiterate and indignities unnamed,
two determined liturgists. In a word,
eager purity and weary virtue.
Last of all, the Lord Abbot, early old
(shepherding the saints is like herding cats).
These chariots and steeds of Israel
make a black progress into church.
A rumble of monks bows low and offers praise
to the High God of Gods who is faithful forever. 
[Kilian McDonnell, "The Monks of St. John's File in for Prayer"]

Monday, March 04, 2013

my heart only has entrances


"My heart only has entrances. It doesn’t have exits. Whoever enters remains there. Whatever he may do, I love him the same as I loved him when he first entered into my heart. I pray for him and seek his salvation."

[Elder Epiphanios]

in each sister and brother

If God comes down to earth through [the] Son made flesh, then we ascend toward heaven through Jesus present in each sister and brother for ...