Impressions of Beauty

When it was too late, I realized that I had only once in my life had a picture made with this woman I love so much. And that picture was across the ocean, where it had been since I framed it and set it out in our living room in our house across the ocean.

 

So, when the man I married made a trip across the ocean earlier this year, I asked him to bring the picture back so I could have it over here.

 

And he did. And here it is.

 

 

 

As you can see, the frame is too big for it, but it is what I had twenty-something years ago. What I didn't have back then was any normal kind of matting for it. This was wartime Yugoslavia/Croatia we were living in, and there wasn't a lot of choice about a lot of things. And decorating wasn't my top priority at the time, in any case.

 

So, odd as it seems to me now, I found some crinkledy paper that at the time matched the color of the flowers on Mama Neva's dress. And for twenty-something years, that is what was in the frame behind the photo. Over time, it had changed color and faded around the edge, and at any rate it just didn't look so great, so I took it out.

 

Being sentimental to a degree some might find pathological, I couldn't bring myself to throw the pink paper away, and it sat on my prayer desk for a couple of weeks until I decided I had to do something with it. (Meaning, it was time to throw it away.)

 

But when I actually looked at it, rather than simply looking over it or beyond it, I had a surprise:

 

 

 

The twenty-something years of light shining onto the photo had created a second image behind it!

 

So now I feel as if I have a sort of shroud of Turin, or something like that, and I don't know how I will bring myself to throw the paper away....or what I will do with it. This may be how hoarders get started, who knows?

 

On a more serious note, discovering this unexpected image gave me hope and resolution. The secondary image is not the same as the original photo, but it is recognizable as an impression of the original. And I know that I am not like Mrs. White in many ways. No one could ever mistake me for her. I certainly don't play piano like her, and I don't live my life as well as she did. But I hope that with the years of Light shining through her onto me, maybe there is something about me that can be recognized as a faint image of her. I would love to bear the image of her compassion, her grace, her gentleness, her joy.

I would like to be beautiful like her.
Because she was beautiful.
She was the best kind of beautiful.

Lux Aeterna

A little over ten years ago the music above entered my life. From the first measure, I loved it. It is Morten Lauridsen's "Lux Aeterna," and we sang it in the Rhodes Mastersingers Chorale.

Here is my music, placed in front of my preludes and fugues, one of the first books of music I bought when taking piano lessons from Mrs. White back in high school. After I got a CD of the Lauridsen music, I took it to her house on a visit home, and told her she was going to love it. As we listened, during that very first long, high/low note you see above, she whispered, "I already love it!"

The night we performed it, with Lauridsen himself present, I thought about my high school English teacher, Ray Wright, and how much he would love this music. He was in a coma at the time, though I did not know it, and a few days later I attended his funeral.

I've written a whole article on that year, so I won't go into detail here. But over the next six months, my grandmother died, a precious young cousin died by suicide, an old friend was murdered, and a close friend my own age unexpectedly died shortly after giving birth.

It was a very hard year. I found odd comfort in Hopkins' comfortless sonnet:

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,

More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing —
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'

    O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.


Of course, with time and a lot of love, hearts can heal, and mine did.

Last year, nine years after that beautiful music came into my life, and those beautiful people left my life, I was working on a paper for school, and I found a way to work this Hopkins poem into it (only partially cited here):

Man, how fast his firedint, | his mark on mind, is gone!

Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark
Drowned. O pity and indig | nation! Manshape, that shone
Sheer off, disseveral, a star, | death blots black out; nor mark

                           Is any of him at all so stark

But vastness blurs and time | beats level. Enough! the Resurrection,

A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, | joyless days, dejection.

                            Across my foundering deck shone

A beacon, an eternal beam. | Flesh fade, and mortal trash

Fall to the residuary worm; | world's wildfire, leave but ash:

                            In a flash, at a trumpet crash,

I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and

This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,

                            Is immortal diamond.

Well, the marks these people left on my mind were not gone, but I was able to find great comfort and joy in the hope of resurrection.

While working on that paper, my beloved piano teacher was in a coma, and this time I did know it. I so hoped to see her once again, but did not. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of her death.

And thus this post, as tonight I reflect and remember these beautiful people and the blessings they have been to me and to many others.

Music is everywhere, so I trust they are enjoying beautiful music even now, as we wait for the flash and the trumpet crash and the Day when all immortal diamonds will shine in splendor in the presence of the Lux Aeterna.

Music Everywhere

I remember several years ago hearing John Michael Talbot talk about how in a way, everything in the universe is a sort of music. Because music is, essentially, vibration. We sing because our vocal chords vibrate in a certain way. A violin makes music because the strings vibrate as they are bowed or plucked. Drums vibrate when they are hit. Brass and woodwind instruments involve vibrations of reeds and lips.

 

And everything in the universe, as we understand it now from the physics folks, is a form of energy vibrating at some rate, whether slow or fast.

 

And that's about all I can say about that, not having studied physics.

 

I like the idea that the whole universe is made up of music.

 

And I found some the other day in a most unlikely place......

 

 

 

 

 

Of course I couldn't hear this music, but it does look an awful lot like notes on a staff, doesn't it?

 

 



If it's not music, then it's certainly visual art. Who would guess that the ivy growing six or seven feet away from the window would combine with the shades to produce such a musical shadow?


Music is always migrating from its point of origin to its destiny in someone's fleeting moment of experience.
                                                                                        -- Alex Ross, "The Rest Is Noise"

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.