The family and I are off for a few days of R&R. Poems will be posted, but not much else. Enjoy the week and Independence Day.
…and
The Tortoise and the Mouse
A tortoise crawling o’er the plain,
Bearing her shelly house,
Met ‘fore she long had traveled
A fat and pompous mouse,
Who said: “I pity one past telling,
Who hath to carry such a dwelling.”“Reserve your pity, pray, my friend,”
The tortoise calm replied,
“And hie you to the palaces
Of man, to bloat your pride;
Though mine is formed of clumsy bone,
And is not handsome– ’tis my own.”* * * * *
The Shepherd and His Sheep
A shepherd shearing sheep one day
Declaimed most zealously
Upon the care was ta’en of sheep,
From utter charity.
How they had homes to rest their feet
And in the winter food to eat.The sheep he held was mute —”
The angry peasant cried,
“Ungrateful! no acknowledgment?”
When calmly it replied —”
“Well, God must pay men for their care:
From what is made the coats they wear?”
Translation from Poets and Poetry of Poland A Collection of Polish Verse, Including a Short Account of the History of Polish Poetry, with Sixty Biographical Sketches of Poland’s Poets and Specimens of Their Composition by Paul Soboleski
Żółw i Mysz
Że zamknięty w skorupie niewygodnie siedział,
Żałowała mysz żółwia; żółw jej odpowiedział:
“Miej ty sobie pałace, ja mój domek ciasny;
Prawda, nie jest wspaniały – szczupły, ale własny”.* * * * *
Owieczka i Pasterz
Strzygąc pasterz owieczkę nad tym się rozwodził,
Jak wiele prac ponosi, żeby jej dogodził.
Że milczała: “Niewdzięczna!” – żwawie ją ofuknie.
Więc rzekła: “Bóg ci zapłać… a z czego te suknie?”
Damet
The night bird sings upon the hazel tree,
The wind sweeps by, the leaves dance murmuringly.
She speaks,– the nightingale his strains gives’t o’er.
The leaves are still, the rude wind speaks no more.Myrtil
Fair is the rose when laughing in its bud,
Fair o’er the plain towers the tall cedar wood.
She comes! the cedars and the rose are dull;
Even Lebanon bows, though proud and beautiful.
Translation from Poets and Poetry of Poland A Collection of Polish Verse, Including a Short Account of the History of Polish Poetry, with Sixty Biographical Sketches of Poland’s Poets and Specimens of Their Composition by Paul Soboleski
Dameta
Słowik śpiewa w Leszczynie, wolny wietrzyk wieje,
Na wysokim Jesionu wiatr listeczkiem chwieje:
Nadobna Amarylli, gdy usta otwiera,
Milczy Słowik, list stanie, wiatrek obumiera.Mirtyl
Piękna róza w ogrodzie kiedy się rozwinie;
Piękny las Cyprysowy w przyjemnej równinie;
Lecz gdy śliczna w ogródku Amarylli stanie,
Nic róża przy niej, nic Cypr, choć w pośród Libanie.
Rosina, while dancing, an orange convey’d,
And promised the garland that circled her head;
I gave her my hand and with love and desire
The orange was turn’d to a ball of bright fire.
It burnt like a coal from the furnace, and made
Its way to my heart, while it fever’d my head.Rosina, my flame! that fair orange of gold
Has kindled a passion which may not be told.
I have learnt what love is; not Venus the fair,
But the whelp of a lioness fierce in her lair;
She-tiger of Caucasus nurtured to scorn
The hearts that are broken, and souls that are torn.
Translation from Poets and Poetry of Poland A Collection of Polish Verse, Including a Short Account of the History of Polish Poetry, with Sixty Biographical Sketches of Poland’s Poets and Specimens of Their Composition by Paul Soboleski
Rozyna mi w taneczku pomarańczę dała,
A potem i wianeczek dać przyobiecała,
Ale gdym jej pomagał wesołego tańca,
W ogień się obróciła ona pomarańcza,
Ono jabłko żarzystym węglem mi się stało,
Spaliwszy duszę nędzną, spaliło i ciało.Ogniu mój, o Rozyno! Prędkom cię zachwycił,
Prędko mi cię na sercu złoty owoc wzniecił.
Teraz wiem, co jest miłość; nie Wenus łaskawa
Spłodziła ją, lecz lwica na pustyni krwawa,
Tygrys, niemiłosierna nad błędnym człowiekiem,
Na Kaukazie szalonym karmiła ją mlekiem.
From the Young Fogey, Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA speaking to the ACNA Inaugural Assembly on the issue of Church Unity. More here.
What will a full ecumenical reconciliation take?
My take, the PNCC is 99.9% of the way there. While our discussions with Rome are exactly, as Met. Jonah posits, an effort at mutual understanding, discussion with OCA would have real purpose.
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Listened to 11 songs.
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New blog post: By the numbers http://bit.ly/W0VIH [#]
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For those who like stats and numbers, and for the sake of reflection:
- I have been blogging for 47 months, nearly 4 years.
- I have written 3,015 posts and 44 pages.
- I have developed 2 WordPress plugins and my site uses 17 widgets.
- My posts fall under 16 categories and 347 tags.
- The site contains 241 homilies.
- There are 778 comments from visitors.
- The blog has been spammed 137,774 times.
First reading: Wisdom 1:13-15; 2:23-24
Psalm: Ps 30:2,4-6,11-13
Epistle: 2 Corinthians 8:7, 9,13-15
Gospel: Mark 5:21-43
There was a woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years.
She’s annoying:
What an absolutely annoying woman. Jesus is on His way to the bedside of a dying child and this woman shows up, with her problem, and holds up the works. Jesus is rushing, Jarius is leading the way, the crowd is massive, and there’s this woman.
After she gums everything up we find out that the child has died. In this day and age the government would arrest the woman for interfering, for contributing to the death of a child. The newspapers would ridicule her, online pundits would call for the death penalty, a Grand Jury would be convened, and the child’s parents would be shown, distraught on TV. Grief counselors would be assigned to the neighborhood.
What was Jesus’ point?
Did Jesus have a point here? Did this woman’s healing serve a purpose? Homilist pundits have explored this woman’s situation for centuries. They’ve cited:
- People who show strong faith are healed;
- The empowerment of women —“ the woman takes matters into her own hands in seeking healing;
- Society’s negative attitude towards women’s bodily functions;
- How touching Jesus heals us;
- Jesus doesn’t just cure, but demand a personal connection with those He helps;
- The delay provides Jesus with an opportunity to show His ultimate power in raising Jarius’ daughter from the dead;
- The woman’s healing and the raising of Jarius’ daughter shows Jesus having ultimate power over incurable diseases and death; or
- That this is a neat story twist that heightens suspense: Will Jesus get to Jarius’ house on time?
We could choose any of these points and have an interesting discussion about it. Each of the points is instructive in showing us another aspect of Jesus. I am going to ignore all of them. What this woman’s healing teaches us is that we matter, that we more than matter because we have the fullness of life.
Context:
If we read this Gospel passage in light of the other scripture readings assigned for the day we see a different aspect to everything Jesus said and did. In Wisdom we read:
God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
For he fashioned all things that they might have being
Further on:
For God formed man to be imperishable
St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians says:
For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor,
so that by his poverty you might become rich.
These passages provide the context for today’s Gospel, the healing of the woman with a hemorrhage and the raising of Jarius’ daughter. They tell us that God is a God of life and that by His grace we have become rich.
Jesus came to bring life:
In Jesus’ presence people are brought back to life. Jesus isn’t just acting out His power, His contact with people brings life that they couldn’t have imagined before. Certainly the woman is cured, but more than that she is brought back to life, as part of her community, as part of the body of Christ. The healed woman is a member of those who profess faith in Jesus. Jarius’ daughter is certainly raised, but more than that, she walks about and is fed. Whatever her sickness, she is now whole, and living a rich and full life.
In John 10:10 we read:
I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
Jesus came to bring new life; a full, whole, and abundant life; life to the fullest. As wisdom says: God did not make death, nor destruction, but made life and the fullness of being.
This Gospel in this context teaches us that contact with Jesus, faith in Jesus, courage, and Jesus’ power are not ends in themselves, but the path to the new life we possess in the body of Christ. The life we possess is life to the fullest.
Jesus came to give us a better life:
In the Letter to the Corinthian’s Paul is exhorting the Corinthians to charity. This was part of Paul’s charity mission on behalf of the Church in Jerusalem. Again, we could focus on an obligation of charity, but that’s not what this is about.
Life in Christ, that full life I just described, is better life. As St. Paul recounts, it is life in which we take care of each other, a life where no need is unmet, where equality prevails (and no, not the modern notion of equality).
Jesus came to give us life to the fullest:
Both the woman and Jarius’ daughter received the gift of life. They received full life, glorious life, joyous life, a life free from the constraints the rest of the onlookers lived with.
The woman and Jarius’ daughter didn’t get a life of theater, of riches, of granted wishes. Rather, they received the life of the Christ.
We often speak of our lives, especially as Christians in this age, as a life of suffering, as life mocked. We are oddballs. The world says that we believe in ghosts in the sky, in magic, in silly superstition. We may feel like we’ve entered the company of the Church’s confessors, those who suffered for their belief. We need to turn that thought pattern on its head.
We, the people who bear Christ to the world, do not place our trust in the opinions of the world. Rather, we know that we are living life to the fullest, a life that is without end. We don’t pick and choose convenient belief, but believe fully. We do not teach the teaching that are no-brainers, we teach the truth that is everlasting. In the fullness of the Church, in all we profess, believe, and proclaim we have life to the fullest. That is the life Jesus brought, that is the life that the woman and Jarius’ daughter encountered.
Every life counts:
God did not make death and life is imperishable. Jesus came to give us that, to make us rich in life, a life that is full and beautiful in keeping with God’s design. Close your eyes and imagine that life, where each person loves, where there is no conflict or strife, where peace abounds, where people can stand in the fullness of what they were meant to be, without pretense, without masks. Imagine that life, where we join together in praise and worship of God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the life where nothing is lacking.
That is the world of God — the world in which every life counts. That is the life where no one is an enemy, where no one is inconvenient, where no one is cast aside, where no one is unforgiven, where no life is destroyed for any reason.
The woman and Jarius’ daughter met Jesus and found life fulfilled and rich. They met the richness of God who is among us. The woman, she wasn’t annoying and she wasn’t an unclean outcast, but fully part of life in Jesus. Jarius’ daughter found life restored, because Jesus shows us that life is eternal. That is the promise and we are the recipients and the bearers of the promise. Tell everyone — you count, you matter, you can be rich and fulfilled, you can live at peace, and best of all you can have eternal life. It is here, in this parish, this Holy Church, and in the company of all who profess the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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New blog post: Daily Digest for June 26th http://bit.ly/11cqYs [#]
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New blog post: New Ordinary for the Western Diocese leaves Stratford, Connecticut http://bit.ly/YxKyI [#]
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New blog post: Upcoming PNCC events http://bit.ly/ZDAAo [#]
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New blog post: June 26 – Trees by Joyce Kilmer http://bit.ly/4vpNmr [#]
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New blog post: June 27 – I Am Too Near by Wisława Szymborska http://bit.ly/VFyyJ [#]
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New blog post: Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – B http://bit.ly/1ayd9x [#]
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I am too near to be dreamt of by him.
I do not fly over him, do not escape from him
under the roots of a tree. I am too near.
Not in my voice sings the fish in the net,
not from my finger rolls the ring.
I am too near. A big house is on fire
without me, calling for help. Too near
for a bell dangling from my hair to chime.
Too near to enter as a guest
before whom walls glide apart by themselves.
Never again will I die so lightly,
so much beyond my flesh, so inadvertently
as once in his dream. Too near.
I taste the sound, I see the glittering husk of this word
as I lie immobile in his embrace. He sleeps,
more accessible now to her, seen but once
a cashier of a wandering circus with one lion,
than to me, who am at his side.
For her now in him a valley grows,
russet-leaved, closed by a snowy mountain
in the bright blue air. I am too near
to fall to him from the sky. My scream
could wake him up. Poor thing
I am, limited to my shape,
I who was a birch, who was a lizard,
who would come out of my cocoons
shimmering the colors of my skins. Who possessed
the grace of disappearing from astonished eyes,
which is a wealth of wealths. I am near,
too near for him to dream of me.
I slide my arm from under the sleeper’s head
and it is numb, full of swarming pins,
on the tip of each, waiting to be counted,
the fallen angels sit.
Translation is unattributed
Jestem za blisko, żeby mu się śnić.
Nie fruwam nad nim, nie uciekam mu
pod korzeniami drzew. Jestem za blisko.
Nie moim głosem śpiewa ryba w sieci.
Nie z mego palca toczy się pierścionek.
Jestem za blisko. Wielki dom się pali
beze mnie wołającej ratunku. Za blisko,
żeby na moim włosie dzwonił dzwon.
Za blisko, żebym mogła wejść jak gość,
przed którym rozsuwają się ściany.
Już nigdy po raz drugi nie umrę tak lekko,
tak bardzo poza ciałem, tak bezwiednie,
jak niegdyś w jego śnie. Jestem za blisko,
za blisko. Słyszę syk
i widzę połyskliwą łuskę tego słowa,
znieruchomiała w objęciu. On śpi,
w tej chwili dostępniejszy widzianej raz w życiu
kasjerce wędrownego cyrku z jednym lwem
niż mnie leżącej obok.
Teraz dla niej rośnie w nim dolina
rudolistna, zamknięta ośnieżoną górą
w lazurowym powietrzu. Ja jestem za blisko,
żeby mu z nieba spaść. Mój krzyk
mógłby go tylko zbudzić. Biedna,
ograniczona do własnej postaci,
a byłam brzozą, a byłam jaszczurką,
a wychodziłam z czasów i atłasów
mieniąc się kolorami skór. A miałam
łaskę znikania sprzed zdumionych oczu,
co jest bogactwem bogactw. Jestem blisko,
za blisko, żeby mu się śnić.
Wysuwam ramię spod głowy śpiącego,
zdrętwiałe, pełne wyrojonych szpilek.
Na czubku każdej z nich, do przeliczenia,
strąceni siedli anieli.