SHIRT OF FLAME

IN PRAISE OF EDWARD SNOWDEN

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:03:00 +0000

RISING SUN
PAUL KLEE, 1907

From the chapter entitled “BLESSED ARE THE MEEK”

"I would like to dip my pen in the tears and blood of all martyrs for peace, of all victims of violence and hatred, of all those who have confronted the sword of abused power with the weakness of their own flesh, after the shining example of the man who willed to offer himself as an unresisting lamb to the teeth of the wolves: Jesus.

First, then, a very brief preamble.

When God wanted to find images through which to convey something of himself to our minds and hearts, he chose two and two only: the dove and the lamb.

The dove indicates the vitality, the gentleness and the humility of Christ, the divine victim.

The man who prides himself on his shrewdness chooses instead the lion or some such animal, imagining, in his folly, that he will conquer the earth more quickly by the use of force and the abuse of power.

People have been trying to conquer the earth for many thousands of years and still no one has succeeded. The fact is that the lions, tigers or serpents emblazoned on the standards of the aggressor are confronted with other lions, other tigers, other serpents, all of whoch have the same significance and inevitably clash with the first. The story of what happens next is terribly simple and terribly monotonous: in the evening, when the battle is over, the two opposing armies lie in a lake of blood surrounded by heaps and ruins and incalculable evils.

There they rest a while, the worst of the wounds get bound up, the great fear is to some extent forgotten, the lion is sewn back in place on the standard with an even more ferocious grimace; then they begin all over again, thinking that this time things will go well and in the wake of victory will come true and lasting peace, our own peace. Tell me, is not the whole affair a tragic farce, to be explained by one single word: you are mad, all mad?

But then was this not the very conclusion Jesus himself came to as he was dying on the cross?

Was it not he who, at a time when people were not accustomed either to joke or to lie, said that ‘madman’ was the appropriate title for man? In fact, while he was dying a victim of man, he turned in his agony to his Father, and pronounced his own judgment on man: ‘Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.’ And that is the true definition of the madman.

But do you imagine that man, who is thus defined by Jesus as ‘mad,’ accepts the description, believes that he is mad? On the contrary; if anything, he applies the term to those who go before him, to those who failed to assess accurately the forces involved in earlier wars, who committed this or that error; but himself, mad? Oh no! and he will actually prove to you that he is not.

Indeed, speaking of madmen, who is the arch-madman of them all? There he is: the arch-madman, Jesus Christ, who during his trial was dressed in a white garment and silenced with derisive and mocking words.

You, too, are mad, you who want to conquer through non-violence, to win the earth with meekness.

You are mad, you who dreamed of beating down swords into ploughshares and spears into sickles (Is 2:4).

You are mad, you who wish to turn the defenceless other cheek to the hatred of the enemy (Mt 5:39).

We are not mad like you, and there are some follies that we do not commit: we do not even think of them.

So runs the argument, and echoes of this tremendous dialectic ring in our ears every time people discuss the problem of how to achieve some social advance or liberate a people; how to realize man’s personal dignity or bring the human race a step nearer to the attainment of justice. And it is when one picks up this echo, deep as the heart of man, that once comes to realize just how irreconcilable are the two spirits that produce it: the spirit of the world and the spirit of Jesus.

Each calls the other mad and is answered in the same terms.

History has shown, and will go on showing to the end, which of the two is right; which of the two, the meek or the violent, will more truly possess the earth; which of the two is happier, the man who destroys his enemy or the one who lives with him under the same roof.

The incompatibility between the world and Christ is total, and I will certainly not be the one to persuade the lion that the lamb is right. I only want, and in all humility, to offer a helping hand to those who have not yet chosen between the two camps and the two systems; those who, as Christians, have savoured the beauty of the Gospel message, and suffer when they feel compelled to side with the others, simply because they have the impression that violence is more decisive, or worse still, as is frequently argued nowadays, that it features as in inevitable element in the process of history.

‘If we do not fight, if we do not make use of guerilla warfare we will achieve precisely nothing, and in any case we are not fighting for ourselves, but for the poor we wish to liberate.’

This is the dilemma, and on the walls of so many Christian homes hang the virile photographs of the prophets of a liberating hope more persuasive than the liberating hope of the Gospel.

It is not that I do not appreciate the way in which they have paid and continue to pay personally for their beliefs. They are worthy indeed to take their place at the workbench to inspire us, to help us with their courage and their strength of purpose.

This I accept, but knowing Jesus as I do, I wonder whether such men might not have achieved far more in the revolution for justice had they taken up the cause of meekness and non-violence.

You say that one cannot do this without arms, and I answer in the name of Jesus that this is not true, that one can do without them, and obtain greater results. This is why we can be helped by the witness of those two great prophets of non-violence: Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

They believed in the beatitude of meekness, not only for themselves, but for all; not only as a subject of meditation and chosen by individuals, but as a subject for meditation and chosen by entire peoples; not only as an instrument of individual peace, but as an instrument of universal liberation.

And yet how hard it is to believe in meekness!

In no other situation more than in this one do Jesus’s words apply: 'If your faith were the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move' (Mt 17:2)."

--Carlo Carretto, In Search of the Beyond

POSSESSED GIRL
PAUL KLEE, 1924

URBAN FARMING

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 05:18:00 +0000

RHODE ISLAND RED

THIS IS A POLISH HEN, POST-MENOPAUSAL
SHE HAS A GOITER AND HER PLUME IS SO BIG
IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE HER FACE!

Welp, I am on to the next leg of my adventure, which is house-sitting for my friends Donald and Alan in the L.A. neighborhood of Glassell Park. What is truly exciting here is, as I'm sure I've mentioned multiple times already, is--CHICKENS.

I am constantly running up to the coop to feed, water, give snacks to, chat with, and check the laying box. Twice already I have collected eggs that were still warm.

What has also been exciting is that while here I have purchased a brand-new car (my first ever) upon more of which later. Suffice it to say for now that the experience made me want to lie down in a cool room with the shades drawn for at least a week.

No sooner did "Armen" of Glendale Fiat deliver the thing, however, than--I forgot to say there is NO cell reception up here in the hills--my laptop, out of the blue, began exhibiting signs of analeptic shock. Every time I hit the "e" the calculator would inexplicably appear onscreen and it went downhill from there. I may have spilled a TINY bit of water on it yesterday morning but it worked fine for hours afterward. Anyway, since then I have had it in front of the fan AND the space heater and "Norm" has paid a house call to the tune of 85 bucks to tell me he didn't know how to fix it.

Luckily, Alan told me before leaving I could use his mac with which I am basically unfamiliar but am making do. The blog allows me to maintain the delusion that I am actually in control of...something, and I become quite agitated, I'm not proud to say, when not able to get to it. So I'm grateful to have a back-up.

Meanwhile I was interviewed on EWTN (Catholic Register Radio) the other morn! And did manage to use the phrase "falling-down, blackout drunk" at least once...Here's the info:

"The show airs on 220 EWTN AM & FM affiliates across the U.S., as well as Sirius Satellite Radio’s channel 130, and on Sky (our European broadcast); and around the world on webstream through www.ewtn.com/radio, via mobile devices (EWTN, iHeart and TuneIn apps,) and of course—what first made EWTN go global 20 years ago—our EWTN Shortwave Radio signal traveling the globe.

Register Radio encores throughout the weekend Saturday at 5:00 p.m. PDT and Sunday at 8:00 a.m. PDT

We will post the audio of the show and we will have a downloadable podcast available at www.ncregister.com.

Click on the “Radio” tab and then click on the “microphone” icon."

THIS IS WHAT YOU GIVE THEM IN THE MORNING

AFTERNOON SNACK--CRACKED CORN!
WHO WOULDN'T LIKE THAT?
THEY ALSO GET OLD LETTUCE LEAVES,
BREAD HEELS AND, AND AN OCCASIONAL
DOLLOP OF COTTAGE CHEESE

BASIL, OBVIOUSLY

I ALSO HAVE A SALAMANDER, A CAT, A FERAL CAT, AND MANY VEGETABLES,
FLOWERS AND HERBS IN MY CHARGE

ZUCCHINI FRITATTA HAS FIGURED
PROMINENTLY IN MY DIET AS OF LATE

GRAPE ARBOR, BACK YARD

THESE LAST FOUR SHOTS ARE THE FRONTYARD.
THE OTHER DAY A GUY ON A MOTORCYCLE SCREECHED TO A HALT,
PEERED UP THE STEPS, AND REPORTED "I JUST LOVE THIS PLACE!"

I think Werner is being a bit harsh here in saying chickens are stupid. Though I will say that in the laying box, lined with wood shavings, there is a wooden egg which apparently you put there so they'll know that's the place. There it stays. And the chickens have been in the same coop for over two years.

THE KEISKAMMA ALTARPIECE

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 04:07:00 +0000

Do you all know of the Keiskamma altarpiece? I didn't, until last week.

Above are a couple of youtubes telling its story.

Here's more info from the Fowler Museum at UCLA, where the altarpiece visited.

Here's a wonderful essay by Barbara Hinze, from the American Medical Association's Journal of Ethics, entitled "Saint Anthony's Fire and AIDS: Two Altarpieces and the Oft-Forgotten Goals of Medicine."

DETAIL, ISENHEIM ALTARPIECE,
MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD,
AFTER WHICH THE KEISKAMMA WAS MODELED

THE MAGIC HOUR

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 22:45:00 +0000

From wikipedia: "In photography, the golden hour (sometimes known as magic hour, especially in cinematography) is the first and last hour of sunlight during the day when a specific photographic effect is achieved due to the quality of the light."

TELL ME NOW, WAS LIFE SO GOOD ON EARTH?

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 05:36:00 +0000

MEXICAN BIRD-OF-PARADISE
to die for, right?

NEW MOON, MONDAY NIGHT,
PALM SPRINGS

I was in Palm Springs for a week and left yesterday. Never have I so enjoyed my time there. I am one of those people who (I'm sure annoyingly) is always cold, so a nice stroll in the coolness of a 90-degree early evening for me is bliss.

By the time I left, the baby hummingbirds (see a couple of posts back) had started to poke their minuscule heads, mouths agape, over the top of the nest. Also it was quiet, quiet, blessedly quiet. Away from L.A., I feel how incredibly stressful my life is there. I don't even commute, and though I live in a relatively quiet street, still the noise is almost incessant. The yard guys come every Tuesday with their leafblowers. Every other Wednesday Marta the cleaning lady arrives at noon and leaves at 7:30. The building next door is divided into fifteen or so studios, filled with mostly young-ish people who God love them just adore standing out on their balconies till about 1 shooting the breeze and smoking. Across the street are two, not one but two, houses with incessantly barking dogs. Plus did I say we've had a rat in our kitchen? That's right. A freakin rat! A mouse isn't four inches long with a long snaky black tail. A mouse doesn't sit on top of the stove by the tea kettle in the dark and leer when you turn on the light and shriek.

Louder than all that, though, is the noise in my head. How to carve out enough time to write? How to keep up with the steady stream of email? How to stay centered in Christ because without that, I have nothing to give, nothing to say. "I am the vine and you are the branches: without me, you can do nothing." Nothing!

I hope to go out to Palm Springs again in July. And meanwhile, I'm house-sitting from June 12 through July 1 at the house of my friends Donald and Alan. Who I may have mentioned HAVE CHICKENS that lay one to three fresh miraculous eggs each day!

Here's a poem I read out there, from a book a friend gave me called Death.

SONG OF THE DEAD ONE

Joy fills me
When daylight breaks
And the sun
Glides silently forward.

But I lie choked with fear
Greedy maggot throngs
Eat into my collarbone cavity
And tear away my eyes.

Anxiously I lie and meditate.
How choked with fear I was
When they buried me
In a snow hut on a lake.

When they sealed the door
Incomprehensible
How my soul could escape.

Greater grew my fear
When the ice split
And the crack grew thunderously
Over the heavens.

Glorious was life
In winter
But did winter bring me joy?
Worries corroded
Worries for sole-skins and boot-skins.

Glorious was life
In summer
But did summer bring me joy?
Ever was I anxious
For sleeping furs.

Glorious was life
On the sea ice.
But did that bring me joy?
Ever was I anxious
For no salmon wished to bite.

Was it so beautiful
When I stood flushed, embarrassed,
In the swirl of the feasthouse,
And the choir ridiculed me,
Getting stuck with my song?

Tell me, now, was life so good on earth?
Here joy fills me
When daylight breaks
And the sun
Glides silently forward.

- Copper Inuit traditional song -

SUNSET OVER SILVER LAKE TUES. NIGHT
NOTE TINY CRESCENT MOON!

CROSS, FOREST LAWN CEMETERY
DUSK AND SMOG

As the sun glides silently forward, I'm gliding from hummingbirds to poultry.

I pray not to be choked with fear.

GIVING VOICE TO THE EARTH

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 12:33:00 +0000

A recent email from reader Alicia Rae Drost re, among other things, responding peacefully to bad neighbors:

"Heather,

While you probably have more reading material than you know what to do with, I want to share with you these few pieces because your desire for justice, heart for the people, and interest in current events has become evident to me. I do not know if this particular story will interest you, but I was surprised by the passion this issue evoked within my spirit.

I've meant for quite some time now to share this with you, and I don't believe I yet have done so...

The installment of an irresponsible Canadian oil pipeline in the States causes many discrepancies and produces many reactions. The response held by The Hermitage, a Mennonite-orchestrated retreat center in Southwestern Michigan seems most appropriate...

There's this link which is an article about how the oil line will effect (or is it affect?) the land belonging to the retreat center and what the owners/directors intend to do about it (which I find to be a very wise response):

Then there's this link which speaks more about the response given by the hermitage and surrounding community:

If you chose to peruse the second link you'd probably discover this poem written by the directors of the retreat center, but since I do not know if you have the time to do so I'll include it here. What impacts me about this poem is that while it addresses the sorrow we may have over the destruction of land and trees and wildlife it also acknowledges our role in this destruction, and isn't that recognition what will bring about healthy change, if anything will?"

The Earth Speaks
by Naomi R. Wenger and David Wenger
(found at: Catapult Magazine)

Giving voice to the earth is a monumental task, but one that we feel keenly as we anticipate the loss of what is here and its replacement with a hidden harbinger of what is more dangerous than terrorism, more insidious than pollution, and almost as ubiquitous and purposed as the air we breathe.

How massive the equipment that bears down upon me, obliterating all that springs forth from within:

oaks, cherries, hickories, sumac, beech groves to come, sassafras for tea, apple trees, dogwood, broom sedge, bouncing bet, butterfly weed, wild asters, Queen Anne’s Lace, yarrow, goldenrod, black berries, black raspberries, wild grapes mushrooms and even poison ivy;

ensnaring, crushing and displacing all that finds a resting place upon me:

box turtles, snapping turtles, turkeys, wrens, evening grosbeaks, pileated woodpeckers, flickers, downy woodpeckers, dragonflies, dung beetles, butterflies, sow bugs, striped beetles, ground hogs, chipmunks, rabbits, gophers, squirrels, deer, raccoons, coyotes, hog snakes, black racers and garden snakes.

How violent the scoops that cut me open,

deep wounds bleeding mound upon mound of soil,

digging down, down, down;

reversing infertile dirt and top soil so that I am left scarred and barren.

How repulsive the implant of metal veins

coursing black tar from sandy deposits through me

to be refined and then used against me to power more machines that ravish and kill.

Oh, to be caressed with soft footfalls and tender scratching,

to be gentled into producing that which gives life to all,

to be without the pain of more, bigger, faster.

How long ?

How deep?

How big?

How much is enough?

AROUND MY BACK YARD

THE NON-SWIMMER

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 03:29:00 +0000

I'm the opposite of Neddy Merrill, the guy in John Cheever's "The Swimmer." Not only do I not swim in my neighbors' pools out here in sultry Palm Springs, I don't actually much swim in my own. I just like to look at it in the dark.

MY OWN PRIVATE HUMMINGBIRD

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 04:01:00 +0000

It's summer and my thoughts turn to...Barbecues? Family vacations? No: one of my own favorite activities--getting away from people.

Thus, I'm in Palm Springs for the week (90 miles west of LA) staying at my friend Christine's while she's in her hometown of Zermatt, Switzerland. Outside the sliding glass doors to the pool is a cactus, and within an hour of arriving, I'd discovered that affixed to the top of it is a hummingbird nest, complete with hummingbird! I can't figure out if she (do only girls hang out in nests?) is sitting on eggs or what, but I have never seen a hummingbird sit still before and I assure you, it is thrilling. I feel quite sure God has sent me here so she, the bird, can guard me.

This is my kind of weather--about 90 degrees Fahrenheit with a gentle breeze. I at once turned off the A/C, cranked open the windows, and made a large batch of sun tea. Morning Mass is at 7:30. Around vespers, I take a long walk through old Las Palmas. There is no shortage of alkies and addicts with whom to gather for an hour. In between I write, pray, dangle my feet in the pool, and ponder another exciting piece of news.

To wit, from August 6 through 11th I'll be on retreat at the Redwoods Monastery way up in Whitethorn, California! Whitethorn is on or near the Lost Coast, which I'd never even heard of before, and now want to move to sight unseen simply for the name. I'll drive, so it'll be a road trip and an adventure.

Now's your chance, if you live around or near the California coast, to meet up for coffee!

THE HEART OF THE BIRDS

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 03:48:00 +0000

"Migration is not an easy or a pleasant thing for a tiny bird to face. It must turn deliberately from solid land, from food, shelter, a certain measure of security, and fly across an ocean unfriendly to its life, destitute of everything it needs. We make much of the heroism and endurance of our airmen and explorers. Perhaps some day men will rival the adventurous hope of the willow wren and the chiff-chaff; an ounce and a half of living courage, launching out with amazing confidence to a prospect of storms, hardship, exhaustion—perhaps starvation and death. Careful minds would hardly think the risk was worth taking. But the tiny bird, before conditions force it—not driven by fear, but drawn by Hope—commits itself with perfect confidence to that infinite ocean of air; where all familiar landmarks will vanish, and if its strength fails it must be lost. And the bird’s hope is justified. There is summer at the other end of the perilous journey. The scrap of valiant life obeys a true instinct, when it launches itself on the air. It is urged from within towards a goal it can attain; and may reckon the suffering of the moment not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed."

--Evelyn Underhill, The House of the Soul

CALVARY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
SOUTH PASADENA, CA
I RECENTLY HEARD BRAHMS' REQUIEM HERE

LOVE IS AN EXCHANGE OF POVERTY

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 15:41:00 +0000

LOCAL, A SILVER LAKE, L.A. RESTAURANT WITH PATIO SEATING
BEFORE OPENING, SATURDAY MORNING

"The foxes have lairs and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head" [Matthew 8:20]. To have nowhere to "lay our heads" is a place of true precariousness...
.
We're all in danger of becoming almost fanatically convinced that OUR MODEL ALONE is "right"....Voting for "the right" candidate can become a "rule," the feeding of the poor can become "a rule," getting sober a certain way can become a "rule," being against war and for peace can become a "rule"...

I once received a great gift from a man whose dear face literally looked like the face of a sickly lamb--and isn't it interesting that the most vulnerable person in the room in a strange way has the most power; is the most compelling? To have someone who is very "poor" give to YOU is transformative. It is a very great mistake to think we are doing for, giving to the poor. Love is an exchange.

The suffering human being--if we are brave enough, and vulnerable enough, to look him or her in the eye--blows all our belief systems and power systems apart. We are called to pray for the complainers, the kvetchers, the nitpickers, the "good Catholics" who have never received the great great gift of embracing the leper. Because those people are us. If our eyes were truly open, we would know we are lepers ourselves--we are all lepers.

We would all be better poised to feel God's infinite mercy and tender love...

BAMBOO ORCHIDS,
WITH DRESS

BECOMING LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Thu, 30 May 2013 04:20:00 +0000

"I have too often been wounded by ‘intelligent’ people, disconcerted by unloving champions of orthodoxy or by self-advertising revolutionaries who are incapable of an act of humility.

Wishing to protect my poor soul from the babble of useless talk, I took up once more the simple rosary that my mother had wanted me to recite daily when I was a boy.

Either I have seen too much of life, or else I have witnessed too many failures. One thing, however, is certain: that I put more and more faith in the simplicity of the Gospel, and I can appreciate the concern of Christ when he said to his friends: ‘Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’

To become like little children is not easy for men as riddled with pride as we are; that is why Jesus warned us so uncompromisingly: ‘You will never enter!’

I realize that no one will believe me, but I have no hesitation about affirming that a serious beginning is made in the spiritual life the moment a man makes a genuine act of humility. So often for most men the early stages of faith, or, in the case of others its development, is blocked, poisoned, distorted, or relegated to an everlasting tomorrow by our inability to become like a little child and to cast ourselves, in the spirit of a child, into the enfolding arms of God’s mystery. We try to show God how clever we are, when no class of men is so abhorrent to the Gospel; we want to lay down conditions to the Eternal and Infinite One, but the Infinite does not respond, and the Eternal allows time to destroy us."

--Carlo Carretto, In Search of the Beyond

UTILITY BOX,
SIDEWALK, EAST SIDE TROPICAL CAFE,
SILVER LAKE, LA
ARTIST: VICTOR BALOGH

THE FREEDOM TO GIVE MEANING TO OUR SUFFERING

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Tue, 28 May 2013 05:03:00 +0000

Published on Apr 30, 2013
3-minute video of Frank Simmonds of Brooklyn, NY (who suffers from advanced-stage neuroendocrine cancer) speaking about the meaning of suffering. He asks not to be pitied, but to be accompanied.

Published on May 15, 2013
Frank's second video where he speaks frankly about his experience. "I am part of a community, a companionship of friends and loved ones who help me realize that God is with us right here, right now, and His humanity is the evidence."

You may remember the interview I did with Frank's wife Rita several months back on the sacrament of marriage. You can find it here.

MEMORIAL DAY

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Mon, 27 May 2013 05:40:00 +0000

"American Legion Convention, Dallas, Texas" is a disorganized slice-of-life on a street corner. One elderly veteran has his arms crossed over his chest and looks up at the sky. Another stands looking out into space, his hands in his pockets. Other people wait to cross the street. A man slouches against the building. And an apparently legless man lies on the pavement, his forearms extended like paws.

The photograph was taken in 1964, but it comes across as neither a patriotic nor an anti-Vietnam War statement. (Winogrand abandoned his interest in politics during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis because, he said, of the feeling it gave him of his own powerlessness.) The power of the image comes from the vacuum that has formed around the legless man. But you can read into it whatever you wish, or nothing at all."

--From a June 28, 1989 art review by LA Time staff writer Cathy Curtis on the photographs of Gary Winogrand entitled "Winogrand's Camera Prowls the Street".

I read a lot into it, mainly compassion.

At Mass Sunday morning (Holy Trinity), Father spoke of honoring the men and women who have died in war and he also spoke of having just returned from Lourdes. He spent 8 days on pilgrimage helping to wheel a sick person to the healing waters of Lourdes. During the course of his pilgrimage, he heard the Confession of a young man, 23 or so, who hadn't been to Confession in a long while, a very honest and moving confession. Later, they had a foot-washing ceremony and Father saw that the man had no legs. A woman knelt before him and very tenderly washed, dried, and kissed his stumps. The guy had been hit by an IED in Afghanistan, turned out, and he was there with his brother; his brother was wheeling him around. So Father went up to the brother and said, "Thank you for bringing your brother [who couldn't walk by himself] to Lourdes." And the brother said, "Oh no, I didn't bring him; he brought me. He's accepted what's happened to him. I'm the one who's full of anger and hate. "

Father said the walls of the grotto were completely smooth from millions of pilgrims pressing their hands to the stone: in supplication, in tears, in prayer.

So we honor the men and women who have died and we pray that the madness stops and love reigns. Love reigns anyway but what might happen if we TRULY believed it?...

May the pilgrimage continue...

PEONIES

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Sun, 26 May 2013 03:57:00 +0000

I was going to go out the other night (a fairly rare occurrence). But that day I'd splurged and bought TWO magnificent bunches of peonies. And I was so utterly, unbelievably enraptured by these flowers that I stayed home instead, just to be near them.

ENERGY CHALLENGES

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Fri, 24 May 2013 05:16:00 +0000

RED (WHY?) PUDDLE
REVERE STREET AND GLENDALE BOULEVARD
ATWATER VILLAGE
IT'S STILL THERE IF YOU WANT TO COME TAKE A LOOK!

Hello dear people.

Out in the woods of eastern Pennsylvania recently, I was kneeling in a grotto praying, and suddenly I had an overwhelming sense of not being able to contain myself! I wanted to burst out of myself, like a sprouting seed, or a bud exploding into bloom, or a chick cracking through its eggshell. We want to be more than ourselves! And then we come back to ourselves: meager, limited, broken...and then we get to laugh.

Anyway, so a little update.

I've been working, working, working, and that is mostly a good thing but I can also use work--I can use anything--to self-medicate.

I've been across country three times this year so far to speak. I've learned a lot, observed a lot, felt baffled a lot.

My mother died last fall and that is effecting a deep tectonic shift. When you're younger, you tend to think the childhood wounds will disappear with age; instead, I'm seeing ever more clearly how mine have driven me all my life. As my friend Brian observed: "You've had some...energy challenges recently." That's Southern California-speak for near psychotic break.

I just discovered Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, Massachusetts and am going to apply for the 30-day Ignatian retreat that takes place July 2014.

I have had the crazy idea to walk the Camino in my head for years and it is not going away so my sense is I am going to make the trek to REI one of these days in the not terribly distant future, book a flight, and start walking...

I'm contributing every other week or so to RCSpiritual Direction. It's not original stuff, but is a nice way to connect with Dan Burke, who runs the blog and a whole bunch of other things, and his readers. He's been incredibly supportive and is going to interview me June 14 on National Catholic Register Radio, details forthcoming.

I have TWO speaking gigs in San Antonio this year. The first is as follows:

June 22, 2013, Saturday, 12-3 p.m.
Keynote speaker
ENDOW Luncheon
Omni San Antonio Hotel at the Colonnade
9821 Colonnade Blvd., San Antonio TX 78230
For more info, visit EndowGroups.org

I have driven across Texas twice and visited San Antonio once before so this will be a lovely way to bond more deeply with the good folks out that way.

Exciting upcoming news on the Magnificat front as well. Will keep you all posted!

Finally, Elizabeth Scalia of patheos has been a huge, consistent champion of my work. Her new book, just out from Ave Maria, is Strange Gods: Unmasking the Idols in Everyday Life. I mean who wouldn't want to take a look at that!

VISITORS TO THE FARM

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Wed, 22 May 2013 04:18:00 +0000

Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa has a chapter entitled "Visitors to the Farm."
I have had some visitors to my own farm lately!

Last week, young (23) Austin Ashcraft (you'll remember Austin as the good lad who turned us all on to Fr. Landry's piece about Pope Francis's call to turn away from SPIRITUAL NARCISSISM) was blowing through town to interview for teaching positions in Orange County. He bravely made the trip north to L.A. in full-on rush hour, appearing at my door in time for a cup of strong coffee. After that we made our way to 7 p.m. Mass at Holy Trinity, to Indochine for Vietnamese noodles and then to the Casbah Cafe where Austin enjoyed a carrot cupcake and I observed (it was close to 10), "You young folks surely have lots of energy!" He is off to Africa with a friend and I feel quite sure is poised to light the world on fire and I got a huge kick out of getting to spend time with him.

Then Monday afternoon I was returning from jury duty in downtown L.A. when I rec'd an email:

"Hi Heather,

You don't know me, and we've never met, but I have recently discovered your book Redeemed and have been soaking up every word. What a raw, honest, beautiful account of a soul's journey. Thank you! It's already up there for me with Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness.

Just a note to say that I am passing through LA today (we are from the north country of Portland,Oregon) and after seeing your blog post about you walk through the neighborhood near St. Francis of Assisi Catholic church after your morning Mass, we decided to pull of the highway and see the neighborhood.

"Hello Jesus!" I just said to the kids (I have 5). We are parked outside of the church you wrote about and can hear the children playing in their schoolyard. It is a peaceful, welcome turnoff from the highway.

If this email happens to go to your phone, and you'd like to have a cup of coffee, or stand on the sidewalk in the sunshine to shake hands, shoot me a text. Number below. :)

On our way to drive towards Silver Lake down Micheltorena . Then towards Union Station and the mission downtown to stir up memories of my gypsy youth when I passed through LA from Albuquerque en route to OAKLAND, where I stopped to say a prayer in the Adoration Chapel of the mission and get a smoothie in the sunshine. What a beautiful land this is. It's fun to see your writing-home of the City of the Angels. God bless you and your work. Cheers!

Love in Him, a fellow pilgrim and fellow writer."

Part of me thought, Oh for the love of heaven, I need to catch up on some work. And the other part thought, You're going to go home and make a giant cup of coffee: why not invite these folks over, who sound interesting and good, and have a cup with them? So I emailed back, and ten minutes later a van pulled up and out spilled, Sia (long i), her husband Justin, and their four kids: Aidan, 7; Eli, 6; Micah, 4; and Hazel, 2. (The fifth is on his or her way).

We got everyone drinks, opened the French doors, and settled in at the big long white table on the veranda. Sia told me a bit about her background, which included being raised on a farm among the Alleghenies, several siblings, and a love for Appalachian music (we are all Hazel Dickens fans, turns out).

So I said, "Oh yes, I have spent some time in Appalachia, first in Spencer, West, Virginia; and then, just a couple of months ago I was in Pittsburgh, and this lovely woman picked me up and brought me to her farm outside Steubenville. In fact you look a lot like her. Her name was Dru Hoyt."

Whereupon Sia and Justin looked at each other really hard, and Sia said--"Dru Hoyt is my mother." And we all shrieked "Oh my God!" "No!" "How weird is that?" for about five straight minutes. It turns out Dru (you may remember my post about her) had given Sia my book, but Sia had no idea I had actually broken bread with her mother at their ancestral home.

Anyhoo, we had a grand old chat. This is just how I enjoy children: in hour-long stretches, with their parents present. Every so often, I'd feel a butterfly-like fluttering on my side or wrist, and would look down to see a little hand and a small face bestowing the MOST beatific smile. The kids speared fountain algae with sticks, inquired as to the difference between goldfish and koi, and drew. We grownups talked about money, vocation, and the fact that Catholicism is all about enjoying good food, good beer, good coffee, good sunglasses, and in Justin's case, the music of Ryan Adams.

So, it is interesting, the constant making of boundaries, and the constant inviting people in. Everything happens in the face-to-face encounter and if we're not open to that, we're not fully open to Christ. The angels and saints come in disguise: in young ex-seminarians who have spent their whole day interviewing and are still willing to make a nightmarish drive to meet a kindred spirit, in parents who take time out of their exhausting lives to pay a visit to a stranger, in children.

And always, always, in music.

THE VIRUS OF VIOLENCE: U.S. MILITARY DRONES

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:04:00 +0000

JOURNALIST MARK MAZZETTI
ON U.S. 'TARGETED KILLINGS' AND THE
UNSUPERVISED 'WAR ON TERROR.'
"EVERY DRONE STRIKE IS AN EXECUTION. AND IF WE ARE GOING TO HAND DOWN
DEATH SENTENCES, THERE OUGHT TO BE SOME
PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY AND SOME PUBLIC DISCUSSION ABOUT THE WHOLE THING."
EXCEPT THERE ISN'T...

The eyes of peacemakers are watchful, caring eyes and their fellow wayfarers find warmth in them like people at the fireside. They never find a motive for fighting because they know that they are only accountable for peace and peace is not preserved by battles.

They know that dividing a single atom can unleash cosmic warfare.

They also know that there is a chain that links human beings together and that when one human cell is torn by anger, jealousy, or bitterness, the reaction of war can rebound to the end of the universe.

--Servant of God Madeleine Delbrêl

As a Catholic, I am pledged to at least try to love my enemy and forgive the murderer. Here's the difference between Christ and a war hero: Christ laid down his life not in the course of perpetrating violence, but instead of perpetrating violence.

We don’t give violence its due. Electricity will light the darkness so you can read the Gospels and it will also fry you in the shower. But electricity is neutral. Violence has a hideous malevolent “intelligence” that is cunning, baffling, and capable of an infinite variety of disguises. Violence has a virus-like, berserk quality. Violence goes underground, festers, re-groups, and turns up continents away and years later. Violence turns back upon itself.

We live in a culture that glorifies violence, constitutionally safeguards violence, and is now engaged in a permanent state of war. In The New American Militarism, Andrew Bacevich writes:

“The marriage of military metaphysics with eschatological ambition is a misbegotten one, contrary to the long-term interests of either the American people or the world beyond our borders. It invites endless war and the ever-deepening militarization of

U.S.

policy. As it subordinates concern for the common good to the paramount value of military effectiveness, it promises not to perfect but to distort American ideals. As it concentrates ever more authority in the hands of a few more concerned with order abroad rather than with justice at home, it will accelerate the hollowing out of American democracy. As it alienates peoples and nations around the world, it will leave the

United States

increasingly isolated. If history is any guide, it will end in bankruptcy, moral as well as economic, and in abject failure.”

Bacevich is no aging peacenik toting a “What If They Gave a War and Nobody Came? sign: he’s a professor of international relations at BU and a retired career Army officer who lost a son in

Iraq

In our zeal to dominate the world, we overlook the obvious: that when we teach young men and women to kill, they stand a good chance of turning the violence against each other, themselves, and us.

To believe in the mystical Body of Christ is to believe that all men are brothers. It is to know that the peacemakers have always been labeled dreamers and fools. It is to pray to beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks in the face of powers, principalities and systems that are ever more faceless and ever more terrifying.

One of the most terrifying and cold-blooded weapons ever devised is the remotely-controlled military drone. In Drift, Rachel Maddow describes the anonymous ops who work from air-conditioned comfort in suburbia, picking off targets from thousands of miles away. “The Air Force joystick operators show up at their virtual consoles in actual flight suits; they call the video feed there Death TV, and they have a name for the Pakistanis on the ground who make a run for it when they see the drone approach: ‘squirters.’”

That by some accounts half the U.S. budget is given over to the military should give us profound pause. That the number one cause of death among U.S. soldiers is suicide should lead us to bow our heads in mourning. "If you think you know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know," (now-retired) Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times in2010, "because we don't know what it is."

Here's what it is: the human soul is neither formed for nor meant to commit systematic, institutionalized, state-sanctioned violence. Murder is murder and at some point the human soul breaks beneath its weight, as it should.

Perhaps nations have souls, too. Perhaps those of us who love our country have given it a soul. If so, that soul is in dire crisis. Because we are no longer even pretending to follow our own rules. We are no longer even paying lip service to the basic humanitarian credo of decency, fair play, and universal brotherhood.

The violence we direct at others from behind closed doors, from classified compounds, from hidden torture chambers—and that is accepted without resistance from both political parties and largely, to our shame, in the Church—is not protecting our freedom. It is steadily diminishing our freedom. It is breeding ever more violence. It is turning us against ourselves from within.

In our arrogance, we think we can contain the violence we unleash upon the targets of our hatred. But we are deeply, willfully naïve if we think those

U.S.

military personnel playing "Death TV" are not splattering blood in all directions. We delude ourselves if we think that, from their air-conditioned consoles they are “only” picking off suspected terrorists in

Pakistan

Afghanistan

Yemen

. We are very much in error to refer to the civilian men, women and children who happen to be in harm's way as their collateral damage.

They--we--are lining up the Amish schoolgirls.

We are shooting the children of Sandy Hook.

We are aiming at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

But because they believe in spreading love, they know that whenever a little peace is created, there is planted a virus of peace that is strong enough to infect the whole earth.

So they live and move in a twofold joy:

--that of bringing peace wherever they go;

--that of hearing an ineffable voice saying “Father” in the depths of their hearts.

Happy are the merciful

…for they will receive mercy.

--Servant of God Madeleine Delbrêl

ODDBALL AND PROUD

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:30:00 +0000

PRISM ON PRINTER PAPER

In the measure that a Christian professes his faith and tries to live it he becomes a “misfit” to both believers and non-believers alike. This happens because the Gospel will not cease until the end of time to be News (Good News) for both Jews and Gentiles alike.

The oddball character of the Christian stems purely and simply from his resemblance to Jesus Christ, the resemblance to Jesus that is infused into a person at baptism and which, passing through his heart, comes out right to the very nerve endings of his being.

Just as the human face is made up of features—the two eyes, the nose, the mouth—whatever the age, mentality, or color the person may be, so the resemblance that a Christian has to Jesus Christ consists in the very character traits of Christ. This is true whether the disciple is intelligent or unintelligent, whether he is called to suffer a little or a lot and whether he is in a high position or a low position in the world.

This character of being a “misfit” is not cause by his being a remarkable man and someone who is noticed nor is it this that entitles him to the name Christian; it is the rejection of and removal from his own life of everything that would destroy its resemblance to Jesus Christ. It is not the dazzling achievements of the Christian that make him different, it is the fact that Christ, always the same Christ, is showing his face through this human face.

Madeleine Delbrêl, The Joy of Believing

IN THE 'HOOD

I FOUND A LOVE

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:23:00 +0000

The other morning, after 8 o'clock Mass, I left the church and started walking home. I took the long way, up Micheltorena through the winding hills of Silver Lake and down through Descanso. I passed a couple, standing in their driveway by their respective cars, getting ready to go to work.

"Bye, baby," the gal said. "Bye, honey," the guy said.

I thought of the Eucharist: with me, in me.
I thought: That’s me and Christ.

ONE OF US

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:27:00 +0000

WISTERIA, UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Wow. It's Monday morning, I am back from leading a retreat for recovering women in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and I am reeling. From the strength and stories and laughs from these incredible women, the suffering they have endured, their flowering hearts. The atom bomb had nothing on the power of love that was palpable in that circle of women all weekend.

We had the working poor and socialites, the young and the old, women who'd been sober 30-plus years and women who hadn't quite, just yet, put down the drink. We had women whose children had died of ODs, women with siblings born with fetal alcohol syndrome, women whose kids had been taken away from them because of their drinking and drugging and because they were sober, had gotten the kids back, and raised them, and gone back to college and graduated magna cum laude and the kids are in college now, too. We had mothers whose children were bipolar, or with abusive partners, or having panic attack, mothers with eating disorders, women, like me, who had never been and are never going to be mothers.We had women who had just lost their mothers, women who had just lost their husbands, women who were caring for their aging parents, alone. We had two sets of blood sisters, women who came with posses of their sober sisters, a pair of ex-college roommates, women who had come to the retreat, in fear and trembling, alone, because they wanted to get better.

And let me tell you something: if you have never gotten that close to the beating heart of the world, you are missing out. If you have never looked into the eyes of a human being who has suffered physical, sexual, and emotional abuse as a child that would have felled a lesser person--and who is telling you, "I have to get better. Because I'm worth something"--you have not entirely lived.

Early Sunday morning, I sat for awhile by the coffee machine with a woman who had come all the way from Washington, D.C., by train and chauffered car. I'd been there when she walked through the door Friday night, eyes downcast, shaking with anxiety. "I'm so afraid," she'd whispered.

All weekend, we women had shared our brokenness, and out of that collective wound had arisen a strange, rejuvenating hope and strength and sense of purpose, as if we'd been infused with new blood. Now by the coffee machine Sunday morning, this gal said, "I have a great favor to ask of you--would you pray for me?" I said, "Of course I will. You've touched my heart and the heart of everyone here."

And then she said, "I'd like to do one more thing. May I pray for you? Is there something you'd like me to pray, for you?"

I gazed into that dear human face for a second, and then I put my head down on the table and wept. I had given everything I had. It was the first retreat I'd ever led and I'd given literally everything I had: my heart, my body, my sleep. But that this woman, who had suffered so much and come so far, would pray for me?

I said, "Pray for my strength, if you would. Pray that I'm strong enough to endure the gifts that have been given to me."

Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy-burdened, and I will give you rest.

Healthy people don't need a doctor; sick people do.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

The road of happy destiny.
Best overhead line of the weekend:
"Here's the difference between me and God.
God doesn't get up up in the morning and think He's me."

Thank you from my heart, girls.
Let's carry it on.

MALVERN

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:27:00 +0000

Happy Friday, people.

I am at the beautiful Malvern Retreat House in Chester Cy. Pennsylvania, poised to lead a Matt Talbot weekend retreat for women.

Matt Talbot (1856-1925) was an Irish drunk who was struck sober, became deeply pious, died 40 years later on a Dublin street, and was found to have all manner of chains and cords tied about his body. My way has been a lot easier and softer but I am in deep solidarity with his suffering as an alkie and totally on board with his love for Christ and I am humbled and thrilled to be here.

THE DOGWOOD AND AZALEAS ARE IN BLOOM

The 125-acre grounds have several grottoes, woodland trails, and sets of Stations of the Cross.

THE SIXTH STATION OF THE CROSS
VERONICA WIPES THE FACE OF JESUS

It was here, on my constitutional just this morning that, folks, I had a "vision!" I looked down at the ground to my right and saw this weird shadow, WHICH DID NOT IN ANY WAY CORRESPOND TO THE OUTLINE OF THE SCULPTURE, of a man, possibly Jesus himself, clearly about to drive a nail into my small person! Check it out!

I moved on to Station Seven--Jesus Falls for the Second Time--and spent quite a bit of time there.

Having celebrated 26 years of sobriety Wednesday, May 8th, I especially treasure this chance to share my story and to spend time with the women who'll be coming.

Maybe the "vision" was God's way of saying Don't forget to crucify your ego and thus let HIS truth, beauty, and sense of humor shine through!

FR. JOE AND THE PASSIONISTS OF SOUTH PITTSBURGH

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Wed, 08 May 2013 04:30:00 +0000

One especially vivid memory of my February trip to Pittsburgh is the single night I spent, courtesy of Fr. Joe Sedley, at the St. Paul Monastery, Church and Retreat House in South Pittsburgh.

The men at St. Paul are Passionist priests. They serve the neighborhood as well as their retreatants, and part of their charism is hospitality.

Fr. Joe, who is 77, had e-mailed me when he read I was coming his way. “Love to meet up if you have time,” he said. He acted like I was doing him a favor instead of the other way around.

The Saturday afternoon we'd arranged for him to pick me up, he was leading a retreat and drove across town on his break. His 2004 Ford Focus looked like it had made many such trips; I imagined him fetching anawim of various stripes from near and far as we made our way to St. Paul's.

At the monastery, Father helped me with my bags to the retreat house office, and introduced me to Dottie. A volunteer with a slight limp, Dottie welcomed me warmly and allowed that she was scheduled for knee surgery in two days.

Then Father showed me around--the dining hall, the chapel, the sacristy to the old neighborhood church. Here we came upon Loretta Diehl, a petite redhead who was bent over an ironing board with “just a stack of altar cloths!”

“Loretta about runs this place,” Fr. Joe chuckled.

“How long as she been here?” I asked as we toured the sanctuary. In a niche to the side, statues of St. Gemma Galgani. St. Gabriel, and St. Theresa of Avila were bathed in an otherworldly green light.

“Loretta?” Father mused. “Let’s see, she’s been volunteering her services now for over 40 years or so.”

SIDE CHAPEL IN MONASTERY AREA

Back in the residency area, Fr. Joe had managed to score me one of the coveted newly-refurbished rooms.
I settled in and ambled down to dinner: killer spaghetti and meatballs, after which Father insisted upon announcing me like I was some kind of celebrity instead of the person who had done the least work of anyone there to make the retreat and atmosphere lovely for everyone.

I slept like a lamb.

Some of the women had taken shifts, or been up all night, before the Blessed Sacrament. Like the worker who came late to the vineyard, I appeared in the chapel at 6:30 a.m., half an hour before the Eucharist was to be reposed. The first person I saw, sitting quietly to the right, was a freshly-shaven Fr. Joe.

After morning prayer, he introduced me to Fr. Mike Salvagna, who promptly lent me to key to the crypt. “Bring ‘em back to me at breakfast,” said Fr. Mike. Never seen me before. Total trust.

FROM THE CRYPT
IF MEMORY SERVES, RIGHT HAND SIDE, SECOND UP FROM BOTTOM
IS HORSEHAIR SHIRT AND SCARY BARBED IRON PENITENTIAL ITEM

Over breakfast, Fr. Mike and I enjoyed a delightful chat, after which he shot back to his room and re-appeared with much incredibly helpful material and several CDs about his healing retreats.

Mass for us retreatants was to be held in the chapel. But first, I wanted to see those statues again. So I walked through the sacristy toward the main church, where, unbeknownst to me, the 10 a.m. parish Mass was about to be celebrated. A priest I hadn’t met was looking out the window and gathering himself. He probably could have done without a stranger traipsing through his sacristy before Mass, but if so, he didn’t betray that by the slightest sound or movement or body language. He neither acknowledged me nor ignored me. He included me. He incorporated me. His face is stamped on my memory. Not the features, but the quality of the gaze.

After Mass, I got to sit in on Fr. Joe’s last talk. He was a wonderful speaker: funny, deep, and with a delivery all his own. I was spellbound and could have listened to him for hours. Instead, true to form, he turned the podium over to me for 15 minutes. I got up and basically cried, after which several dear women, I’m sure inspired entirely by Fr. Joe’s home-spun holiness, bought my book.

It may not seem like much, that humble monastery. We left its walls and returned to the “real” world. But back in L.A., assaulted by the usual news of abused children, torture victims, the bombs built by a pair of brothers, my mind has returned again and again to those homely scenes:

Fr. Joe, praying before the Blessed Sacrament.
Dottie, welcoming the stranger.
Fr. Mike, trusting the resident alien.
Loretta, head bent to the endless work of pressing and folding and stacking altar cloths.
An anonymous priest, his weary face raised to the light.

Upon this rock I will build my church. And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

THE SUPPER OF THE LAMB

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:09:00 +0000

Someone, I can't now remember who but thanks, recently recommended a book called The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection. The author is an Episcopal priest, husband, and father named Robert Farrar Capon.

I liked the book a lot. It's quirky and opinionated, and in the best way, rambling (Capon spends several chapters telling how to make a meal for 8 four different times out of a single leg of lamb: Main ingredient: "1 leg of lamb (The largest the market will provide. If you are no good with a kitchen saw, have the chops and the shank cut through. Do not, however, let the butcher cut it up. If he does, you will lose eight servings and half the fun." Like that).

There's an ode to baking soda, a jeremiad against electric serving knives, an exegesis (generated by his wife's learning to make spaetzle) on the excellent advice to either fast or to eat to your heart's content but on no account to engage in the kind of angst-ridden persnickety calorie-counting that drives ourselves and everyone else crazy.

On being an amateur cook:

"There, then, is the role of the amateur: to look the world back to grace. There, too, is the necessity of his work: His tribe must be in short supply; his job has gone begging. The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of a pack of trolls. Indeed, the whole distinction between art and trash, between food and garbage, depends on the presence or absence of a loving eye. Turn a statue over to a boor, and his boredom would break it to bits—witness the ruined monuments of antiquity. On the other hand, turn a shack over to a lover; for all its poverty, its lights and shadows warm a little, and its numbed surfaces prickle with feeling."

At one point, he instructs the reader to set aside an hour and deconstruct an ordinary brown onion:

“Then look. The myth of sphericity is finally dead. The onion, as now displayed, is plainly all vectors, risers and thrusts. Tongues of fire. But the Pentecost they mark is that of nature, not grace: the Spirit’s first brooding on the face of the waters….:

For somehow, beneath this gorgeous paradigm of unnecessary being, lies the Act by which it exists. You have just now reduced it to its parts, shivered it into echoes, and pressed it to a memory, but you have also caught the hint that a thing is more than the sum of all the insubstantialities that comprise it. Hopefully, you will never again argue that the solidities of the world are mere matters of accident, creatures of air and darkness, temporary and meaningless shapes out of nothing. Perhaps now you have seen at least dimly that the uniquenesses of creation are the result of continuous creative support, of effective regard by no mean lover. He likes onions, therefore they are. The fit, the colors, the smell, the tensions, the tastes, the textures, the lines, the shapes are a response, not to some forgotten decree that there may as well be onions as turnips, but to His present delight—His intimate and immediate joy in all you have seen, and in the thousand other wonders you do not even suspect. With Peter, the onion says, Lord, it is good for us to be here. Yes, says God. Tov. Very good."

MY LIFE SHALL BE A REAL LIFE

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:24:00 +0000

ANCIENT BOWLING SIGN
ECHO PARK, L.A.
THE VIETNAMESE CREPES AT XOIA MAKE ME FEEL EVER MORE SPIRITUALIZED!

...[W]e, living and growing personalities, are required to become ever more spiritualized, ever more and more persuasive, more and more deeply real; in order that we may fulfil [our] Divine purpose.

This is not mere pious fluff. This is a terribly practical job; the only way in which we can contribute to the bringing of the Kingdom of God. Humanitarian politics will not do it. Theological restatement will not do it. Holiness will do it. And for this growth towards holinesss, it seems that it is needful to practice, and practice together, both that genuine peaceful recollection in which the soul tastes, and really knows that the Lord is sweet, inwardly abiding in His stillness and peace; and also the suffering, effort and tension required of us unstable human creatures, if we are to maintain that interior state and use it for the good of other men. This ideal is so rich, that in its wholeness it has only been satisfied once. Yet it is so elastic, that within it every faithful personality can find a place of opportunity and development. It means the practice of both attachment and detachment; the most careful and loving fulfilment of all our varied this-world obligations, without any slackening of attachment to the other-worldly love.

And if we want a theoretical justification of such a scheme of life, surely we have it in the central Christian doctrine of the Incarnation? For does not this mean the Eternal, Changeless God reaching out to win and eternalize his Creatures by contact through personality? that the direct action of Divine Love on man is through man; and that God requires our growth in personality, in full being, in order that through us His love and holiness can more and more fully be expressed? And our Lord's life of ministry supported by much lonely prayer gives us the classic pattern of human correspondence with this, our two-fold environment. The saints tried to imitate that pattern more and more closely; and as they did so, their personality expanded and shone with love and power. They show us in history a growth and transformation of character which we are not able to grasp; yet which surely ought to be the Christian norm? In many cases they were such ordinary, even unpromising people when they began; for the real saint is neither a special creation nor a spiritual freak. He is just a human being in whom has been fulfilled the great aspiration of St. Augustine--"My life shall be a real life, being wholly full of Thee."

--Evelyn Underhill, Concerning the Inner Life

Link to a PBS piece on Underhill.

BACK OF AIMEE SEMPLE McPHERSON'S ANGELUS TEMPLE
ECHO PARK, L.A.

MY FRIEND PATRICK
SOON TO BE APPEARING AT THE LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE
IN
HIS GIRL FRIDAY
FRIENDSHIP IS THE ULTIMATE SPIRITUALIZATION

THE NEW EVANGELIZATION

noreply@blogger.com (HEATHER KING) — Sun, 05 May 2013 16:28:00 +0000

Recently I gave permission to re-post a piece of mine.
"367 likes!" my contact person e-mailed back.
"That's great," I replied.
And ever since, I've been thinking: Wouldn't it be great if just one person liked Christ?