Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Moving On



"What needs to be discharged is the intolerable tenderness of the past, the past gone and grieved over and never made sense of. Music ransoms us from the past, declares an amnesty, brackets and sets aside the old puzzles. Sing a new song. Start a new life, get a girl, look into her shadowy eyes, smile."
Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins: A Novel

Friday, July 13, 2012

Romance in Romanticism

This is one of my favorite moments in German Romantic history.  Schelling was one of the most acute, passionate, and profound thinkers of Romanticism, whose insights challenged thinkers such as Fichte and Hegel.  His thought was incredibly influential to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who would really stoke the fires of British Romanticism.  Schelling's rigorous intellect, strong-willed character, and joyful stoicism was so remarkable, that upon first meeting him, Caroline Schlegel wrote to her brother-in-law, Friedrich . . .

Caroline Schlegel: Believe me, my friend, he is, as a man, more interesting than you concede: a real primal nature [rechte Urnatur]; in terms drawn from the world of minerals—granite.
Friedrich Schlegel: But where will he find female granite?

This is quite a statement coming from Caroline, who was married to another great German Romantic, August Wilhelm. She was a tenacious mind during this period, who between debating Novalis, Fichte, Hegel, Schiller, and even Schelling, was able to find the time to translate Shakespeare's works into German. This poignant moment of correspondence brings a smirk to historians' faces, because after divorcing Friedrich's brother, Caroline proved this moment prophetic moment by marrying Schelling, and showed that granite comes in many forms.


Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Why Gold Is Precious

Schüler: Das sieht schon besser aus! Man sieht doch, wo und wie.
Mephisto: Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie,
                 Und grün des Leben goldner Baum.
Schüler: Ich schwör' Euch zu, mir ist's als wie ein Traum.
                                                              (Goethes Faust)


When the sun bathes green trees with gold
no one wonders why this color enchants us.
A golden bracelet or ring reminds of evenings
when the sun's raiment clothes us like gods.


Gold is the color of the dying day,
that precious precipice where
the sun shakes her amber tresses
and we, her struck lovers, pause
as the whole enamored room turns
to all shades of rose and warmth.


We love gold because it testifies
to the setting we all long for,
the setting we're working for,
the vital concern of this 
living death or dying life.


We live for those Midas moments
whose alchemy and aura will
transfigure everything in sight
before we restfully settle
into our place in the horizon.



Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Book Spine Poetry: My Way of Life






















There are new seeds of contemplation
growing in
the place within
my way of life:
the way of the pilgrim is
walking
with ambition and survival,
with confessions and cricket songs.
Searching for the the Discarded Image
of God who comes to mind.

We wander with Paradise lost
while God's many-splendored Image lies
like love in the ruins,
when love alone is credible.

The fact that earth abides
is a severe mercy
especially when miracles
sting through our broken music.

So let us rejoice in
poetry, language, thought,
till we have faces
and the courage to be.

Books
New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton
The Place Within: The Poetry of John Paul II, John Paul II
My Way of Life. A Pocket Edition of St. Thomas. The Summa Simplified for Everyone, Frs. Farrell and Healy
The Way of the Pilgrim, Anonymous Russian Peasant
Walking, Henry David Thoreau
Ambition and Survival: On Becoming a Poet, Christian Wiman
Confessions, St. Augustine
Cricket Songs. Japanese Haiku, Harry Behn
The Discarded Image. An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, C. S. Lewis
Of God Who Comes To Mind, Emmanuel Levinas
Paradise Lost, John Milton
God's Many-Splendored Image. A Theological Anthropology for Christian Formation, Sr. Verna E. F. Harrison
Love in the Ruins, Walker Percy
Love Alone is Credible, Hans Urs von Balthasar
Earth Abides, George R. Stewart
A Severe Mercy, Sheldon VanAuken
Miracles, C. S. Lewis
Broken Music, Sting
Let Us Rejoice: Poems 2003-2009, Seth Jani
Poetry, Language, Thought, Martin Heidegger
Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis
The Courage To Be, Paul Tillich

Friday, July 6, 2012

Rob Bell Doppelgänger

So today I saw this actor Jere Burns and he struck me as someone very familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it . . .
The tone of voice, the facial structure, the delivery of his lines, etc.  Too bad he's playing a manipulative and villainous psychiatrist, when he could be a great Southwest Michigan pastor . . .

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Conflicted By Fireworks

Like dandelions or chandeliers,
shards of stars are scattered across the sky. 
They crackle and splinter into weeping willows
or blast and cast light on the children's faces,
as they look up with joy and dreams,
holding the grass between their toes as
they watch these graceful explosions in the sky
on safe soil, bathed in radiant liberty.

Between the backs of lawn chairs,
one boy reclines and I can only see
his hand brightened by blasts
with two fingers, a barrel
and one thumb, cocked.
With each red, white and blue burst
his hand recoils from his pistol.
The heavens are his shooting ground.
The thunder echoes from his trigger.
His freedom shouts bang bang bang . . .

I close my eyes and the night is still glowing
as blasts break daylight upon
the arid mountains surrounding my village.
I hold my prayer cap as I run through the streets
as I see women running like shadows
as their black burkas flow between
the streets now turned to rubble.
I am half deaf and my head whirls
from bombs and the ringing of my ears.

I open my eyes to see
in the fading light of fireworks
ghastly skeletons of smoke
ushered off stage by the wind.
The boy put his hand down
fingers still smoking
because in his country
those sounds don't mean
the same thing.
These immaculately virgin skies
are pregnant with thunder
only on the joyous day
of this country's birth.
Explosions in heaven
are a Grand Finale
and here he applauds
and I wonder if I ever could.