Yom Kippur & Succoth; Break

It's still before sunset here as I write, so I can still wish all Jewish readers a good Yom Kippur. And then may you have a joyful Succoth.

Well, I'm not going to be posting much, if anything for the next ten days or so. So please don't think it's anything personal if I don't comment. And don't worry if you don't see any activity from this quarter. (But if it gets to be October 11 and there's still nothing, you can begin to be concerned — not that there's any reason to anticipate trouble: all is well, I'm just going to be otherwise occupied.) 

Welcome — September, 26, 2009: Glorfindel

My newest follower is Glorfindel, who actually joined several days ago. There are two blogs for you to check out, Jugendfest, and Victory of Faith. Jugendfest has pictures of young boys (innocent, from what I've seen), and Victory of Faith has thoughts on Popes, monarchs, and Aryans, from what appears to be a fairly traditionalist point of view. I spent a fair amount of time following some of the monarchist links. So, you might like to check them out. Some of the blogs that are linked on Victory of Faith appear to have a pro-Aryan or anti-Israeli point of view.

Welcome, Glorfindel. I hope you continue to find worthwhile material here.

September 21, 2009: St. Matthew & Welcome — Secretly Gay

I don't want to bury either of these items, so this post's a twofer.

Secretly Gay is my newest follower. His blog is called A Secretly Gay Teen Boy Blog. He lives in England, describes himself as working class, and writes about things that are going on in his life and his hopes for self-improvement. Maybe you can offer some good advice. Maybe you'll just like hearing about what he's doing. Why not check out the blog?

Glad you've decided to follow, Secretly Gay. I hope you find it worthwhile.

Today is the Feast of St. Matthew, the tax collector who answered the call to become one of the 12 apostles. One of the four gospels in the Bible bears his name. His profession of tax collector for the Romans meant that he was despised by his fellow Jews as a collaborator. Furthermore, it was a job which gave copious opportunities for extortion and fraud. So when Jesus and his disciples were joined by a large group of tax collectors and sinners for dinner the pharisees didn't like it. Table fellowship implied a considerable degree of closeness, and they thought that good people should have nothing to do with sinners. When they questioned Jesus' disciples about how he could do that, Jesus replied, "Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' I did not come to call the righteous but sinners." Matthew 9:11-13

Because I worked for the IRS, I consider Matthew to be one of my patron saints. But more generally, I think we can realize both from the fact that Jesus chose him and from the reply to the pharisees that God does not reject people. If we realize that we have been doing things that are wrong, that doesn't mean that we can't get back to God. God still wants us and he'll help us to do better if we let him. 

Welcome — September, 17, 2009: Charlie S

A warm welcome to my newest follower, Charlie S, a high school student. I noticed that I had a new follower a couple of days ago, but when I clicked on the icon , I got nothing back.* Now, he has commented on one of my posts, and I've found his blog.

The blog is titled Boyintree, and it contains some wonderfully evocative writing. In trying to think how to describe it further, I thought of some of the slow movements in Beethoven concertos: there is great beauty combined with a deep sense of longing that is almost unbearable at times — I think of it as longing for heaven. Sometimes it is explicitly sad, and sometimes it is calm. Anyway, check it out and see for yourself. As of now, there are not many posts, so you can easily read it all.

* Edit 3:35 p.m., Sept. 17 — Thanks to Baz for pointing out that when I followed blogs, the same problem occurred and thanks for also pointing out the solution. Now everybody I follow can find me, and if you're as much a technological neophyte as I am, you might find the link helpful too.

September 15 — Our Lady of Sorrows

On September 14 the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of  the Triumph (or Exaltation) of the Cross. The following day (which it still is in this time zone as I write) it remembers Our Lady of Sorrows — the mother of Jesus, who stood by the cross as Jesus died. (The day was also called the Seven Sorrows of the BVM.)

In the Middle Ages popular devotion, encouraged first by the Servite and later by the Passionist orders, discerned and contemplated seven especially sorrowful moments in the life of the Virgin Mary: 1:) the prophecy of Simeon at Jesus' Presentation in the Temple, that a sword (understood figuratively) would pierce her heart in association with the opposition to Jesus; 2.) the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt to escape the murderous intent of King Herod; 3.) the incident in which Jesus was lost in Jerusalem at the age of 12; 4.) her meeting with Jesus as he carried his cross to Calvary; 5.) her standing beside the cross; 6.) her holding of his body when it was taken from the cross — the popular "Pietà" subject of sculpture and paintings; and 7.) the burial of Jesus.

For the Mass of the day, the sequence (a hymn to be sung between the epistle and gospel readings) Stabat Mater was composed. When I was a boy the hymn was sung to a fairly simple chant melody during the popular Lenten devotion called the Stations of the Cross — one stanza for each of the 14 stations. (Something similar happened with the sequence "Dies Iræ," which was originally written for the first Sunday of Advent, when the scripture readings referred to the final judgment at the end of the world. Bu it came to be used in Masses for the dead — Requiems — and as part of the Requiem it has received notable treatment by many composers, most spectacularly Berlioz, Verdi, and Mozart, IMO.) As wiki notes, the hymn has been given musical settings by numerous composers, famous and obscure. One of the most notable is that by Pergolesi in the early 1720's. (I think Abbado takes the tempo a bit on the slow side in the link, but you can find others, such as Scholl and Bonney, in the links to the video.) I'll put links to examples from other composers (and my Latin joke) in my music blog.

The name Dolores means "Sorrows," and is clearly a reference to Mary under the title Our Lady of Sorrows.

The prayer for the Mass of the day — which reads "Father, as your Son was raised on the cross, his mother Mary stood by him, sharing his sufferings. May your Church be united with Christ in his suffering and death and so come to share in his rising to new life, where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever." — might give us some pause if we think carefully about what we're asking for. But taking up our cross is no more than what Jesus says is required of all his disciples. We see Mary as leading us on the way, and we know that we all have our sufferings — it is just a question whether we choose to unite them with our following of the Lord so as to join Paul in filling up in our bodies what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the church.

PEI Family Visit/Ball Game with Bob and Mark/Commenter's Block

Last week I went to Prince Edward Island for a brief visit. I flew there by plane and was on the ground for just over 72 hours. The first evening I had dinner with the family of the youngest of my second cousins. He and his wife have four children —one starting his second year at university, teen-aged girl, teen-aged boy, and a 14 month old son. After dinner, another cousin (I'll call her "Marian") took me to her place, and later we attended a singer's performance in a rural restaurant.

The next day, I visited the widow of my mother's first cousin (the mother of the second cousins) at the ancestral farm, and my mother's remaining first cousin in the city. Marian had me peel onions that were going to become part of a chow that some of her siblings and their mother would make the next day. We were visited for supper by a friend of hers and the two autistic boys the friend is caring for. Next another cousin dropped off her 12 and 10 year old sons for an overnight. We all went to a ceilidh (pronounced kaylee), a performance of traditional music with fiddling, singing, and step dancing. We met the friend and the autistic boys there. Marian says her nephews' regular bedtime is 7:30, but they were up until about 11:00 that evening.

The boys played in the yard in the morning and we all took a walk along a trail in the woods at before lunch. Then the mother picked the boys up.

My last morning there, Marian sent me to the Premier's office to pick up an item he was donating to her organization's auction.

What struck me from the visit is the sense of family and community — people taking care of each other, doing things especially for family members as a matter of course. This is not something I experienced growing up. Most of the family was too far away for easy contact. One grandmother and an uncle lived 15-20 minutes away, but I didn't observe a lot of back-and-forth. So I learned to be pretty much on my own, not expecting to be called on by relatives for help nor expecting to get much from them, resenting interferences in my routine. Coming to know these cousins as I have over the past four years has reminded me how self-centered I have become — something I need to work on if the second great commandment is to love others as I love myself.

Yesterday (Wednesday) evening I went to a Red Sox baseball game with Bob, who organized it, and Mark. I hadn't been to a major league baseball game for decades. It was thoroughly delightful. We met in Kenmore Square and went to a restaurant nearby (where I was recognized by the past commodore of my yacht club, who was with a group at the adjacent table). Our seats were high above left field, with a good view of everything except a corner of left field.

It was great meeting Bob and Mark, both nice guys. And we had such a lively conversation that I actually paid less attention to the game than if I had been at home in front of my TV. Of course, at the park, there's a lot more to look at than the small pice being shown on TV at any moment. And the experience of being there, just being part of the event (including singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th inning stretch), felt exciting.

I sometimes wonder if I would like some bloggers I really like over the internet if I were to meet them irl. Well, with Bob and Mark, I was not disappointed. I like them just as much in person as I did in cyberspace and I'm sure I'd enjoy seeing each of them again.

I wouldn't recommend people under 18 meeting with adult bloggers, but for adults who have built up some degree of acquaintance and cyber-friendship, it can be worthwhile. Of course there is always an element of risk, as there is in any first encounter. The other guy could be an axe-murderer, someone who wants to out you if you're closeted, or just a jerk. And it's always wise to meet in a public setting for starters. But when you like what you know of someone from the internet, it can be worth a try, IMO. It certainly worked out very well for me. Just a wonderful evening with friends. And the Red Sox won!

Since I got back from PEI, I seem to be experiencing some commenter's block. I'll look at new posts on blogs I like and just not be able to come up with a worthwhile comment. There probably aren't many of you who notice when I don't comment on your blog, but if you have been missing my comments, let me assure you, it's not that I've stopped liking you or your blog. My feelings haven't changed since last month. But I have been thinking that I should cut down the time I spoend on the internet, and I should spend a bit more time at some websites I was a regular at before I discovered blogging. So maybe I won't have as many comments. But I'll be following you as I have been.