Two views of God

From Bread and Wine by Ignazio Silone:

'May I confess a suspicion of mine?' Bianchina said. 'I'm not at all sure you're a real priest.'

'What do you mean by a real priest?'

'A boring person who has the Eternal Maxims in the place where his head out to be...'

'You're right, I'm very different from that kind of priest,' Don Paolo said. 'Perhaps the biggest difference is that they believe in a very old God who lives above the clouds sitting on a golden throne, while I believe He's a youth in full possession of His faculties and continually going about the world.'

Dana Gioia at Stanford

Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, gave the commencement address at Stanford last month. Here are a couple excerpts:

What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens?Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.

Art addresses us in the fullness of our being—simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories, or songs, or images.

Read his full address here.

A post with wings

Karen Miedrich-Lou, one of the editors of Relief Journal, authors a beautiful blog, Stone Pillars. A couple weeks ago, a visitor brought an interesting offer to the comment section of her very first post from May 2006.

“Even the Rocks Shall Cry Out” is a meditation on the placement of stones as markers “of time, of place, or experience of the holy.” A cairn is one name for a structure of stones built for this purpose. Jacob had a dream, Miedrich-Lou, reminds us and then he “took the stone pillow and placed it on its end and poured oil on it.”

Recently a woman contacted her through the comments section for this post. She would like to use her concept of cairns in a cross-cultural multi-faith prayer room that she is establishing in an airport. What’s more, she’d like to print Miedrich-Lou’s words on a card placed in that room. (Read their transaction here, towards the bottom of the comments list.)

How cool is that??!!

Contest rules

One of the advantages of having unsorted stacks of papers around is that when you finally do go through them it is nearly like a treasure hunt. Who knows what might emerge from between an old magazine and a page of unclipped coupons?

Here is a recent find. A great quote from St. Basil:

So we must consider that a contest, the greatest of all contests, lies before us, for which we must do all things, and, in preparation for it, must strive to the best of our powers, and must associate with poets and writers of prose and orators and with all men from whom there is any prospect of benefit with reference to the care of our soul.

St. Basil

In memoriam: Suzanne

Last week a second friend died of ovarian cancer. About a decade ago, a close college friend died of this disease after a struggle of several years. Last Wednesday, Suzanne, the wife of my husband's cousin, died. She had first been diagnosed about 5 years ago, went through rigorous treatment and then into a strong remission. I last saw her about two years ago at a family reunion. She looked so beautiful and healthy then we were all fooled into thinking the cancer was gone for good even as we prayed that the remission would, in fact, be a cure. Within a few months, it was back, however, and it tenaciously gripped her ever since. Until last Wednesday.

Suzanne and I first met at a family reunion in South Dakota. We were both of "in-law" status and hit it off right away. I had a 1-year-old son and she had a 2-year-old son. We talked and played with these little guys while the others were off reminiscing. Two new and healthy young mothers.

Her husband started a blog when the cancer came back a second time. It's a story of love and pain and faith.

She asked that her memorials be given to either of two places, which I've listed here. Not that I think any readers of this blog should contribute money to the memorial of this woman that they didn't know, but it never hurts to know of two good organizations. The first are some people doing good research in ovarian cancer; the second is an orphanage in Guatemala.

Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research
1221 Madison Street
Suite 1401
Seattle, WA 98104
http://www.marsharivkin.org

Guatemala Children’s Mission (Agua Viva Children's Home)
PO Box 398
Spicer, MN 56288-0398
http://www.aguavivahome.org

Emerson: The Sabbath and the dignity of spiritual being

"Two inestimable advantages Christianity has given us; first; the Sabbath, the jubilee of the whole world; whose light dawns welcome alike into the closet of the philosopher, into the garret of toil, and into prison cells, and everywhere suggests, even to the vile, the dignity of spiritual being."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "The Divinity School Address"