7QT {v. 12} - we happy few

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Finally, back to the blog. It's been a while - a much-needed hiatus, if you will. Every now and then it's a good idea to take some time and refresh your mind, your spirit. So, I thought, what a great day to return to blogging - St. Crispin's Day!

Also known as, An Excuse to Put Tom Hiddleston On My Blog Day

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At last, The Furlough has ended! Things can kind of go back to normal around here... It was a wake-up call to have the rug pulled out from under us like that; everything you depend on can be taken away just like that. Politics has always involved a certain amount of theatre (the Tudors, anyone?) but this was really too much. 

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Speaking of monsters, completely coincidentally, Ignatius Press is releasing a new edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula that coincides with the premiere tonight of NBC's "Dracula" series. Though I think this new series is more about sex than ancient pagan rituals, it's striking to me how obsessed with the occult and/or demonic our culture has become. Movies, books, TV shows, etc. - for a society that has decided religion is medieval hogwash, they are awfully obsessed with it.

Not your grandpa's Dracula...

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“The world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters … we go out as the old knights of the Cross.” -Van Helsing, Dracula

What's not included, notably, in many (if not all) of these depictions is any sign that the forces of good in this world stand a fighting chance against evil. Should we, as Christians, be dwelling on this as much as our culture is wont to do? Of course not. (“…there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men’s eyes.”)  But we do have a role to play. In this brief article on the new Ignatius edition, the author notes how Bram Stoker accords this vampire the exact right silliness he deserves, and the exact right seriousness. Maybe we have something to learn from this. Maybe we shouldn't get too cozy with this strange, uneasy alliance. What do you all think? Agree, disagree, confused?

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Is it just me or do you feel like Pope Francis is speaking right to you? Lately, reading reports of his daily homilies, I have been so convicted by his words. 

 "The royal road the Lord paved for us 'is not a path to poverty for poverty’s sake' but rather 'an instrument so that God might remain God and the only Lord of our lives."

"For idolatry is a form of impiety...What is lacking is the sense we all have within us to adore God ... we all need to adore, because we have God's very imprint within us” and “when we do not adore God, we adore creatures”

"To hear the voice of God in one’s life, one needs to open his heart to surprise. Otherwise, one can start 'fleeing from God."

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And one more amazing quote from another awesome pope:

via Cassie Pease Designs

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Fall is slowly fading into winter; you feel the new cold snapping at your skin in the air now. What I love (among other things) about these fall-winter months is finding a good, long book or two you can really sink your teeth into. I just picked up the much-hyped, Man Booker-nominated book, The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, because it was shiny and new in the library.

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via pinterest

So far so good. But I'm think of finally tackling War and Peace or Middlemarch this winter, and finishing up an Austen novel. Has anyone read these before? What is your favorite curl-up-with-a-blanket-and-cocoa book for this season?

thoughts for a sunday

Suppose a musician in an orchestra freely strikes a sour note. The conductor is competent, the music is correctly scored and easy to play, but the musician still exercises his freedom by introducing a discord which immediately passes out into space. The director can do one of two things: he can either order the selection to be replayed, or he can ignore the discord. Fundamentally, it makes no difference which he does, for that false note is traveling out into space at the rate of more than a thousand feet per second; and as long as time endures, there will be discord in the universe.

Is there any way to restore harmony to the world? It can be done only by something coming in from eternity and stopping the note in its wild flight. But will it still be a false note? The harmony can be destroyed on one condition only. If that note is made the first note in a new melody, then it will become harmonious.                       -- Archbishop Fulton Sheen

The Cross is in sight. We can see its shadow over the edge of the hill. We can begin to hear the din of the crowds, crying for blood. We can feel the hopelessness of a humanity sunken down deep in its own mess. We can hear a future of gunshots and bombs and orphans crying and applause as leader after leader in an endless procession of misery orders the killing of innocents. We drown in it; will it ever end? It's the sound of screaming and someone pounding on a piano, notes flying all over the place, discord and pain.

It is not time for the Resurrection yet. We who know the end of the story, who've already flipped to the back of the book, must be patient. To get to the Resurrection, we know we must first go through the blood and fire. To hear that first, quiet, gentle note, slipping by unnoticed, that first note which begins the new song: Hope.

 

 

Ode to Autumn

Courtesy of La Tartine Gourmande

I love the changing of the seasons. There's a kind of sadness that you feel in your blood, the changing of your body rhythms, night, day. Watching the resplendence of spring lounge under the hot haze of summer. And then after such fullness, the earth cleanses itself again, shedding its leaves like an old skin. But all this happens in a big fire of color and symphony and wonder. I hate the years when fall lasts all of six minutes before that bear of a New England winter settles down until sometime in March. And I am trying not to that that so much.

So, in honor of the loveliness of fall, I'm posting this poem by the wonderful John Keats called "Autumn":