Remembering Francis

October 4 was the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi. I wasn't able to do anything in particular in remembrance of it, beyond remembering it.

 

But I am thankful for his life, for what we know of it, and for how his influence has spread way beyond Assisi, way beyond the centuries he lived in (12th and early 13th), and way beyond the Roman Catholic Church he was a part of.

 

 

 

 

Five years ago I took these pictures in Assisi. This is the church of San Damiano, where Francis heard the call to "restore my church," which he did first by working to physically repair this church which was crumbling in disrepair. (It was later added on to; this is much more than the original church, of which you can see the outline.) Only later did he realize the call and the need were to work to restore the larger church itself, which was falling into spiritual disrepair through various struggles in those times.

  

Assisi is full of men in brown robes and white belts, dressing as Francis did and seeking to live their lives as he did, as is possible and appropriate in the century we live in. Obviously part of this man's vocation is to share the story of Francis and the various places people visit to learn about him.

 

 

 



 

No one stakes their lives on it, but they say this tree was there during Francis' lifetime and played a role in one of the popular stories of his life. Olive trees are known to live an average of 500-900 years, so there is no reason not to think that this could be the tree.

 

 

 

I came upon this in Villach, Austria, from the same trip five years ago.

 

And on the same trip I saw him on this building in Zagreb, Croatia. His influence really did spread amazingly far, especially in a time with no television, radio, or Internet. His teaching and example of radical poverty and returning to very basic church teachings had a profound effect in his lifetime and continues today.

 

 

This is   one of my favorite photos from Assisi, the woods up on Mt. Subasio, where Francis and his friends used to go to pray. The trees are so gracefully wild, or wildly graceful, and I can just imagine  how he loved to be up there away from the city.

From Reluctant Saint: The Life of Francis of Assisi--

". . . .we prefer saints to be either perfect in every way or so ordinary that they conform to our own stature and do not challenge our spiritual indolence. But saints are in fact heroically in love, and like lovers, they sometimes become eccentric, and even overstep themselves; holiness does not preclude humanity, after all. Above everything, however, saints keep God firmly in sight. They remain faithful, and that is why they are saints--not because they are invariably models of polite or even imitable conduct."

" How much more credible and moving are the truer accounts of those who endured daily struggles, to remain true to their beliefs--those who constantly had to battle temptations to discouragement and despair; those who suffered physically, emotionally and psychologically; those who felt betrayed and abandoned . . . .holiness is certainly (like conversion) a lifelong process, and genuine saints probably never think about it. Their energies are directed toward God, not toward a consideration of their own merits or excellence. Most of all, their lives proclaim to the world the existence of a reality that transcends it."

Morning Has Broken

Many mornings I start the day with a walk.

This morning was no exception--except for the major exception that I am in Eureka Springs, and my walk took me from the top of an Ozark "mountain" down a long dirt-gravel road into a valley. I was the only person I could see the whole time I was out, except for the man on his porch that I saw on my way back up out at the top of the road.

So for an hour or more I walked around and saw no one else, heard no one else. Only birds, the scampering of a squirrel now and then, the insect sounds. Oh, even a crow cawing at one point. "Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird....."

How to describe the light coming through the air as it was when I took this photo? I felt like Saul on the road to Damascus, or perhaps a character in a Lord of the Rings novel. The light was alive. The morning was alive. I was alive.

Reminds me of a Hopkins poem, one of his better known. One I resonate with so much, because I live in a city and am often reminded of how "all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil...." It is beautiful to be in a place where you can forget that for a while.

And morning is always a reminder that God is at work, sustaining what is, and also making things new.

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
     World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

 --Hopkins, "God's Grandeur"

   

Don't Rush

 I find God never guides us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.
                                                                                              --Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion.


I don't believe my piano teacher ever read Thomas Kelly, but she certainly believed these words. "Don't rush" wasn't just instruction for how to play piano well. She did not rush her life. She always had time for music, for prayer, for people--piano students, college students, her children and later grandchildren.

Recently another dear friend and mentor to my husband died. Someone shared this in the tributes, a quote from C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, about what it means to be a holy person:


Their very voices and faces are different from ours: stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less…..They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from… I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at its very lowest, it must be great fun.

"They will usually seem to have a lot of time." Of course. If we believe we will live for eternity, why on earth do we get in a rush?

Whether playing piano or listening to people or planning and executing the day, I think "Don't rush" is excellent wisdom for both holiness and happiness.

To Everything There Is a Season

And apparently the season for calendar sales is getting longer and longer. Maybe it has something to do with climate change, but I'm just sure calendars did not used to appear, as these did, in the middle of August. I could hardly believe my eyes a couple of weeks ago, when it was nearly a hundred degrees outside, and 2014 calendars were not only sprouting but in full bloom at the bookstore.

 

 

Beyond my ability to believe. Positively crazy. Like a Star Trek time warp.

After my initial shock, I was determined to keep calm and trust that everything was going to be okay.

 

 

 

 

Oh, what does it say there, there in the right bottom corner? Something about "this day"?

 

 

 

 

This day will never come again. And yet we live in a time that would have us always looking ahead, rarely staying in today long enough to notice and remember it.

 

 

 

 

Of course this is about the bookstore making money, keeping themselves afloat. But the very fact that they will sell calendars in August, along with the way Walgreen's has Halloween fare out as soon as July 4 has passed, has to do with more than just making money. It tells us something that our culture will allow this to happen. It says that making money is more important than living sanely with and in time.

 

 

 

 

"Saving the Season," a book out on a nearby display, seemed to clash with the ushering in of a whole new year just across the aisle.

 

 

 

 

It was especially thought-provoking because as you can see, this wasn't one display case of calendars. I believe there were six double units like this. I could not help feeling a bit overwhelmed.

 

 

 

 

At least Thanksgiving Day is only a little over three months past the day we were in the store.

 

 

 

I think life has to be lived in small batches to have much meaning. And to be preserved well in memory.

 

 

 

 

Maybe this is the first year to have calendars on sale in August. But of course it isn't the first sign that human beings don't always value time. Not long after coming upon the calendar display, I came across these wise words from The Cloud of Unknowing, written in the late 14th century:

Pay attention, then, to how you spend your time.
You have nothing more precious than time.
In one tiny moment of time, heaven may be gained or lost.

I suppose one wise thing to do with my time would be to go buy a calendar while they still have such a great selection. . . unless they have all already been bought. Ha.

Sitting a Spell, Spellbound

So, as I said, this photo  was a hint of things to come. You see that bit of light on the third pew back?

 

 

Well, just keep looking. Because light shines on whatever is in its path, and anything that will reflect it can be transformed. (Yes, I think there's a deeper story there.....)

 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was thinking what a wonderful thing this is in a church building, because a church is made up of many people, all different from each other, like the different colors.

 

 

 

And with blemishes, too. But they just don't seem as important compared to the overall beauty created by the light and the colors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Odd to think that had I come at a different time of day, it might have just all looked like this. The floor had a beauty of its own, a very subdued coloring. But I'm so glad I came when I did for the rich color feast.

 

 

 

It was like music for the eyes. (And, yes, I did try the piano while there. I'm guessing it goes back to 1960 and hasn't been tuned since being delivered there. So the visual music was much more lovely than anything audible!)

Stone and Stained Glass

 

 

So, following up on the Birthday Birthplace, here comes another phenomenon of light.

 

This site, now a part of Montgomery Bell State Park, is the birthplace of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. A log house is just down the way, a replica of the one where one of the first preachers and founding fathers lived. This chapel is not as old as the house, though it took me a while to track down information on when it was built, which turns out to have been in 1960. Not what I had thought! But still it's older than me.

 

It's a simple stone building, sweet and solid. If I were just passing by, I probably would not have even gone in, having been inside several simple stone church buildings over the years. But I had seen photos on the website that made me want to see the interior, and I did want a quite place for prayer.

 

But I had no idea what to expect. The photo I had seen intrigued me but did not do justice to what I found inside.

 

This is similar to the photo I'd seen on the website, except without so much of the side shots. So it seemed like a nice country church, a good place to pray, not likely to draw big crowds.

What I didn't expect was the windows all around and what light would do coming in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the looks of it, the Bible may have been original to the church.

(This photo hints at what's coming in the next post.....tune in next time....)

I love the way the light casts reflections on every surface possible, smooth or rough, near or far.

I think it's the first time I've been able to see through stained glass to the surroundings outside (the trees out the window, in case you can't tell).

When I was reading about the place, I learned that the man who lived in the house down the road, Rev. Samuel McAdow, died at age 84, in 1839, after losing three wives to death. According to the website, his last words were, in answer to a friend, 'All is peace, my work is done, every thing is ready; I have nothing to do, but to die; there is no doubt, no fear.'"

Makes me think that despite his being "rather inclined to despondency" throughout his life--or perhaps because of that--he must have searched out light and found it.

Dark. And a Phenomenon of Light.

In the very early morning, lying awake when I would have preferred to be asleep, I heard the rain start. A pouring rain. I hoped it might wash away the troublesome thoughts and feelings, and maybe I could get to sleep. That didn't happen, but it felt good just to hope for it.

During church, more rain fell than I remember hearing ever while in that place. Heavy, hard, pounding rain. It couldn't wash away the troubles, either, but being at church did help. Kind hearts and hugs do make a difference, as do songs of faith, reminders that ultimately Love will heal and transform this wounded world.

But outside again, the sky was gray. The clouds were thick and heavy. It's the peak of summer, but it was dark and bleak outside.

Later in the afternoon, I sat in a Starbucks talking with a friend. One of my best listener friends.

The content of much of our conversation was dark, heavy, thick, bleak. Hard. Because of situations in this dark world that weigh heavy on me. That can't be washed away. That will never wash away. That block the light from shining through, at least much of the time. That wake me up in the early hours more days than not. Because people I love are wounded, because I am wounded, because the world is so deeply wounded.

The rain stopped. After much talking and listening, the sky was a lighter shade of gray.

At some point I looked up. I had looked up in that direction often as we talked. Through the window of Starbucks were huge electrical lines and huge boxy thing-a-ma-jiggers connected to the lines, on their tall poles, crossing the street and looking ugly. Across the street huge golden arches blared bright yellow against the gray sky. And behind them a billboard advertising something or other framed the view. Urban ugliness matched the bleakness of the weather. A wounded landscape, like so much in the city.

But at that point when I looked up . . . . it was faint, but I thought I saw a rainbow. No, I was imagining it. Or was I? As I continued to look, it became more distinct, and I could see for certain that a rainbow was forming.

 

 

(I didn't have a camera with me. These are photos from five years ago. A faint rainbow is there, just right of center above the ground.)

Soon it became full-colored and distinct, and I couldn't help but notice that while it was interrupted and blocked by the ugly wires and arches and billboard, it went way beyond them, and beyond other signs and poles,  beyond where I could see, beyond, beyond, to wherever rainbows go.

In the midst of the wounded landscape, a sign.

Love will heal and transform this wounded world.

Birthday Birthplace

 

In July, as part of a retreat I went on, I went in search of a small church I had seen a photo of online when I was looking at the website for Montgomery Bell State Park, the site of the retreat.

 

It intrigued me that a state park would have a picture of a church on their site, so I wanted to find it, learn more about it (if there was a story connected to it), and I hoped to sit quietly and have a cool, mosquito-free place to just pray and think.

 

When I drove in the direction the park representative told me to go, I came to a parking spot and this sign.

 

 

 

 

Ordinarily I wouldn't take a picture of an informational sign, but it was just kind of amazing, because I didn't know this church was connected to any birthplace, and because February 4 is my birthday!

 

So I immediately felt a sort of kinship with the place, whatever kind of birthplace it was.

 

It turned out that there was actually a log cabin (which I don't have pictures of, because my batteries died, and I didn't have extras with me), and also this church.

 

 

Not particularly spectacular seen this way, but in my next post you'll see why my batteries died. They say you can't judge a book by its cover. Well, you can't judge this church's photographic potential by its exterior, either!

Till next time. . . .

Sketches

Oops. I went over a month with nothing on my blog. While I'd like to get back into more frequent "blogging" (still hate that word, cf. my very first post from--gasp--eight years ago), I do at least try not to go more than a month without posting something.

 

So tonight, a quick post.

 

In looking for something a few weeks ago, I came across these doodles in a couple of notebooks. The top three were done during a class when I was kind of bored.

 



 

Looking out the glass window to the foliage outside--wishing I were outside.

 

 

 

 

 

This, as I recall, related to something we were discussing in class.

There was not a tree in the room, so I was sketching an idea, not something I saw--obviously!

(Does anyone know how to stop Blogger from turning photos sideways?

I never have figured it out.)

Another view out other windows. It looks as if I were interrupted, or else that tree on the right would continue branching out into the window pane to its left....but I actually remember that it didn't.

It just went upward at that point, out of sight.

 

Another notebook, one I took to Croatia. This was the plan for tiling the bathroom,

though our plan was not to have a sideways bathroom.

Life is different over there, but we don't live sideways.(Blogger again!)

Of course when time for tiling came, and dear hubby flew home to oversee the project,

neither of us remembered that I had drawn this sketch!

 

 

Anyway, just seeing these things while in search of something else reminded me that I really do enjoy sketching/drawing/doodling and don't do it much. I enjoy the way it slows you down, focuses you, connects you to your own body and to the world around you.

 

So when I saw a very small, portable sketchbook at the bookstore the next day, I brought it home. It's set up to do a sketch a day, which I was doing until severely interrupted by two intensive weeks of school, but I intend to get back into the habit.

 

Maybe I'll share some more, though I must say sketching itself is much more relaxing that doing a post on sketching.

 

Here's to old-fashioned fun, no screens involved.