Reciting T.S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday from Memory – Taylor Wilson
Last year Ron Dart suggested that the Contemplative Order of the Sons of the Holy Cross should read and reflect on T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday during Lent. I did as was suggested and found the poem was insightful in a manner that I could not grasp immediately (on account of the heavy use of symbolism).
In the spirit of Lectio Divina I decided to memorize the poem so that when I recited it I could dig a little further into the language that Eliot uses. Over the course of months, I did memorize the poem and have been influenced deeply by it. Often I dream of different verses within the poem as I sleep, and my hope is that it has penetrated to levels of my self beneath the level of the conscious awareness.
As Eliot says in Burnt Norton, "It is only by the form, the pattern, that words or music reach the stillness." This year during lent I am again spending time with Ash Wednesday while supplementing the poem with repeated reading of the book of Ecclesiastes supplemented by Gregory of Nyssa's commentary on the book, and Dante's La Vita Nuova, both of which figure prominently in Eliot's Ash Wednesday.
What’s Coming? by Eric Janzen (for Fresh Wind 2008)
As I listened to the Lord about what to expect in the coming year, this is what I heard the Lord saying last night and this morning. Last night he asked me if I could hear the wind. It was quiet and peaceful outside and I could hear it, so I said, “Yes, I can...
Theology, Culture and M.E. by Brian Schmidt
Theology, Culture & M.E. Brian Schmidt, BGS, M.Ed. [& M.E.] The following is an excerpt from my All Saints’ Day, 2007 reflections on living with M.E. after having the illness for 17 years, and a month after a dear person who had M.E. took her life after...
Welcome to My Living Room by Corinne Vooys
WELCOME TO MY LIVING ROOM A swirlingSoftnessFills the room, as a fog.It gently brushes my face, with sweetness and refreshing.A presence. I look through the fog and seeFaces of joy,Which in one world would be seen as a face of the disabled,but here it is the face of...
Michael Azkoul’s Ye Are Gods — Review by Ron Dart
Both the Scriptures and the Fathers attest to the truth of deification as the teaching of the church from the beginning, universally confessed even if not universally expounded. Michael Azkoul, Ye Are Gods (p.2)I have had an abiding interest in Orthodoxy since the...
Reviewing Lazar by Ron Dart
Book Reviews (books available through http://www.new-ostrog.org/synaxis/): Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, Freedom To Believe: Personhood and Freedom in Orthodox Christian Ontology (Dewdney, B.C.: Synaxis Press, Second Edition, 2007). Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, The...
Message of Hope for 2008 from Partners Relief and Development
“When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn…Where there is no vision, the people perish”. Proverbs 29:2 &18(KJV) Dear all, As I look towards 2008, along with many others I am sure; I cannot help but...
Where is God at Christmas? (part 2): Reflections for the New Year by Brian Schmidt
Today I celebrated Christmas Day with my dad in his Extended Care Unit—at a luncheon filled with people's bodies and minds frozen to various degrees, and staff and family members cheerfully feeding them, greeting them, teasing them. The wife of one of Dad's...
Message for 2008 to the Church
You have been living, drifting on the surface.You have been living in the desert with only a sip here and a sip there.You have been waiting season after season for evidence of a fertile womb.Like streams of fresh clean water that appear to people of the desert,like...
John the Baptist: Wild Wise Man – Excerpt from Radical Grace by Richard Rohr
For many reasons we have chosen St. John the Baptist as the patron of our Center for Action and Contemplation. Our feast day is celebrated on June 24, as the sun (reminiscent of John 3:30) agrees to decrease. John the Baptist is the prophet who rejects the...
Thinking on Community by Eric Janzen
There is a Hebrew word that most Christians are aware of: Shalom. It is generally understood to mean “peace”, but this word contains a deeper and broader meaning. Shalom more accurately means an absolutely unbroken and whole, as well as peaceful, state of...