A bit of fun with St. George

April 25, 2013 / / One comment

April 23rd was St. George’s day so, just for fun, I thought I would share a few depictions of St. George that you don’t see every day. St. George is one of the world’s most venerated saints, and is the patron saint of England, Boy Scouts, soldiers, and many nations and cities. Like the Archangel Michael, St. George is a warrior saint. The story of St. George and the Dragon came back to Europe with the Crusaders. St. George is also one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers mentioned in Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel: “When at night I go to sleep/fourteen angels watch do keep….”

 

St. George and the Pterodactyl
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, 1873/1868

 

 

Boy Scout as St. George
from Scouting for Boys, 1908

 

 

50th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts in Greece
stamp designed by A. Tassos (Anastasios Alevizos, 1914-1985),

 

 

St. George window by Hans Acker, 1440
Ulm Münster, Ulm, Germany

And finally, Wallace Tripp‘s whimsical reinterpretation of a bas relief by Michel Colombe (1508, Musée du Louvre).

St. George After Colombe
Wallace Tripp

 

St. George and the dragon
Michel Colombe, 1508

 

(These last two images originally posted by artist and photographer Thom Buchanon on his blog mydelineatedlife.blogspot.com)

Category: art, fun, saints / Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Suffering and joy in community

April 22, 2013 / / One comment

Last week was a tough one. My town had some local violence to deal with on top of all the other trauma and sadness. I feel like I’ve spent the past ten days in prayer.

I also feel like I’ve learned some things about community. In these times, the technology that connects us daily intensifies our experience of of events as they occur. We feel the anxiety of not knowing and impatience for events to unfold. We have all the power of the internet, and yet we cannot find answers to our questions.

What we can do, what we have done, is be in community–in space and online. Suffering, both ours and others’, often makes us aware of our place in larger communities than we had imagined we were part of. Our shared humanity becomes achingly apparent to us, and we express ourselves in public acts of grief, anger, support, and remembrance. The web can do that too.

This is our part of our call as Christians. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn. I’ve known that for years, but last week I got a bigger sense of what that might mean.

So here we are on Monday morning. There’s a new week beginning and it’s still Easter. I think I’ll give thanks and share a bit of Presbyterian Seminarian humor that was sent to me a while back. It also reminds me that I am part of a very large community–the Church Universal, they call it–and that is a wonderful thing.

 

“A little present for those Presbyterians (PCUSA) gearing up for ordination exams this week. Just a reminder of how wonderful — and wonderfully ridiculous — our tradition is. Thanks to all those who helped — both PCA and PCUSA alike.”

Category: Easter, humor, techology / Tags:

The torn cloak

April 19, 2013 / / Comments Off on The torn cloak

“An Elder was asked by a certain soldier if God would forgive a sinner. And he said to him: Tell me, beloved, if your cloak is torn, will you throw it away? The soldier replied and said: No. I will mend it and put it back on. The elder said to him: If you take care of your cloak, will God not be merciful to His own image?”

 

CXXXIX from The Wisdom of the Desert: Saying from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century, translated by Thomas Merton, Shambhala, 2004.

Category: forgiveness, mercy, quotations / Tags: ,

“Look for the helpers” – Servant song

April 17, 2013 / / One comment

 

When I turned to my social media channels after the bombing, among the news updates and messages from friends telling us they were safe, I saw many people repeating Fred Rogers’ account of his mother advice to “Look for the helpers” in times of disaster. Certainly the city of Boston is filled with helpers–people who ran to help the injured, investigate the bombing, open their homes to strangers. It comforts me to know that they are there, that there is light in darkness. It also reminds me that, while we may see it most clearly in times of violence and sorrow, the darkness is always with us. We are always called to bear witness to the Light, and to serve one another.

 

Brother, sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.

We are pilgrims on a journey. We are brothers on the road.
We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you in the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you; speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping; when you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow till we’ve seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven, we shall find such harmony,
Born of all we’ve known together of Christ’s love and agony.

Words and music: Richard Gillard, copyright 1977.

Here’s the composer singing his own song. It sounds quite different from all the pipe organ versions I found–more lyrical and interesting. The video description notes that Gillard is using a Drop D tuning with the capo at the first fret.

Category: ministry, music / Tags: , , , ,

No taxes in heaven

April 15, 2013 / / Comments Off on No taxes in heaven

Peter takes a coin from the fish’s mouth

Detail from Masaccio’s The Tribute Money in the Brancacci Chapel of the basilica of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence.

The story is from Matthew 17:24-27

When they reached Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the temple tax?”He said, “Yes, he does.” And when he came home, Jesus spoke of it first, asking, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?” When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free. However, so that we do not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me.”

 

I think of this as a story about paying for access to God.

 

Category: art, Bible / Tags: , , , ,

A heart bright as a mirror

April 13, 2013 / / One comment

 

Thought for a beautiful spring morning…

 

A heart that would contemplate must be bright as a mirror, shimmer like some still stretch of water crystal clear, so that in it and through it the mind may see itself, as in and through a mirror, an image in the image of God.  The heart that covets the sight of God as in a mirror must keep itself free from cares, from harmful, unnecessary and even necessary ones.  It must keep itself ever alert through reading, meditation and prayer.  Blessed are the pure of heart; they shall see God.  May he grant that we do so. Amen.

 

Isaac of Stella (d. 1169)
English Cistercian
translated by Hugh McCaffery

From In the School of Love: An Anthology of Early Cistercian Texts, selected and annotated by Edith Scholl, Cistercian Publications, 2000.

Category: beatific vision, contemplation, Presence, quotations / Tags: , ,

Peace

April 9, 2013 / / 2 comments

 

Peace unto Zion.
Peace, peace to the faithful,
And a crown of rejoicing
And a crown of rejoicing
From your Heavenly Father.

When Zion shall be cleansed
She shall flourish as a rose
I will walk in her midst
And will bless all those with a tenfold blessing
And their sorrows shall cease
For I’ll cry upon her walls

Peace, sweet peace

 

Something about the Shakers speaks to me.  Something American, but otherworldly–sort of like pioneer Benedictines, perhaps. I first heard Kevin Siegfried‘s wonderful arrangements of Shaker songs performed by the Tudor Choir on the album Gentle Words.  It remains one of my all-time favorite CDs and a source of beauty, nourishment and healing for me. I especially love John Lockwood’s hymn “The Burning Day” (“Redeemed Souls, your voices raise…) and the title track “Gentle Words” (“What the dew is to the flower/gentle words are to the soul”).  Siegfried’s arrangements are modern interpretations, not historical recreations, and they are wonderful both in their own right, and in the way they reveal the extraordinary melodies and texts of the original Shaker compositions.

As a small sample of this collection, here is “Peace” sung by the Murray State University Concert Choir.

 

 

 

Category: music, peace / Tags: ,

Our soul is escaped

April 7, 2013 / / One comment

Our Soul is Escaped

 

Psalm 124

A song of degrees of David.

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, now may Israel say; If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us; Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us: Then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul: Then the proud waters had gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

 

From the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible
Designed and illustrated by Barry Moser

Category: art, Bible, Easter, psalms / Tags: ,

Open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise

April 2, 2013 / / Comments Off on Open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise

When I first began to draw near to belief in God and even for some time after it had been give to me, I found a stumbling block in the demand so clamorously made by all religious people that we should  “praise” God; still more in the suggestion that God Himself demanded it….

But the most obvious fact about praise–whether of God or anything–strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it.  The world rings with praise–lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game–praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers mountains, rare stamps rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.  I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least.  The good critics found something to praise in many imperfect works; the bad one continually narrowed the list of books we might be allowed to read….Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible….

The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever”. But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.

 

                   C.S. Lewis, “A Word About Praising” in Reflections on the Psalms.

Category: praise / Tags:

The Seven Stars

March 30, 2013 / / One comment

 
 

In anticipation of the light that is coming: Jonathan Dove’s choral setting of Amos 5:8 and Psalm 139, ‘Seek Him That Maketh the Seven Stars’

 

Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion
and turneth the shadow of death into the morning.
Alleluia, yea, the darkness shineth as the day,
the night is light about me.
Amen.

Category: Easter, Holy Week, music, Passion, Pipe organ, worship / Tags: ,
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