the return of happy things from my week to christen the weekend! Continue reading
happiness list
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(another) quotation of the day, with comment: Emily Dickinson
One who wrote unflinchingly of death, Ms. Dickinson’s poem (below) has been bouncing around in my head and heart this week. I don’t know that I quite agree with her that we shall not use our love again until eternity, but I know the busyness of funeral-planning that often overtakes one (or an entire family), and the urge to vacuum up broken bits of heart.
The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth –
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity –
I hope we do use that love again; even the same love I had and have for Grandpa used for his children, grandchildren, and hoped-for great-grandchildren. I think that’s a piece of resurrection in the midst of death. Hope in the middle of darkness.
quotation of the day
“If Job cries out that he is innocent in such despairing accents, it is because he himself is beginning not to believe in it; it is because his soul within him is taking the side of his friends. He implores God himself to bear witness, because he no longer hears the testimony of his own conscience; it is no longer anything but an abstract, lifeless memory for him.” – Simone Weil, “The Love of God and Affliction”
precious breath
spending the last few days keeping vigil at grandpa’s hospice bedside, I’ve counted each of his breaths. As the pauses between his exhale and inhale lengthen, I hold my own breath, listening for his lungs to heave once more, knowing that at some point soon, they won’t. He will exhale, his body will go slack, and he won’t breathe anymore till his Maker remakes him, on the last day. Continue reading
Quotations of the Day:
papal namesakes being not-indifferent to each other…
“No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”
-John Chrysostom
“Indifference to our neighbor and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.”
-Pope Francis
hope of things not seen 