St. Francis of Paola

 

Put aside your hatred and animosity. Take pains to refrain from sharp words. If they escape your lips, do not be ashamed to let your lips produce the remedy, since they have caused the wounds. Pardon one another so that later on you will not remember the injury. The recollection of an injury is itself wrong. It adds to our anger, nurtures our sin, and hates what is good. It is a rusty arrow and poison for the soul. It puts all virtue to flight. It is like a worm in the mind: it confuses our speech and tears to shreds our petitions to God. It is foreign to charity: it remains planted in the soul like a nail. It is wickedness that never sleeps, sin that never fails. It is indeed a daily death.

                                                                                                --St. Francis of Paola

Today is the feast day of St. Francis of Paola, a Franciscan hermit of the fifteenth century.  He founded a community of hermit mendicants that eventually became the Minimi (the least ones).  And, in addition to establishing rules for friars and nuns, he created a “third order” for lay people.  Though he was a hermit, he was eventually drawn into a more active life, preaching and ministering to people of all social classes, defending the poor and oppressed, and making peace between kingdoms.  He was renowned for his humility and the austerity of his life, as well as his kindness and charity, which extended even to animals.  There are tales of his performing miracles on behalf of his animal friends, including a fish!  He was a strict vegan, as were all his fellow hermits.  They kept a year-round Lenten fast, abstaining not only from meat but all animal products including milk, eggs, and cheese.  Despite this, and the extreme austerity of his life (or perhaps because of it), he lived to be ninety-one-years-old.

The Snails

 Einst gingen zwei Jünglinge spazieren und fanden im Fahrweg einige Schnecken, die sie, besorgt, daß sie von einem Fuhrwagen zerdrückt werden möchten, in den Busch dabei warfen. »Ihr Mutwilligen«, riefen die Schnecken, »warum stört ihr uns aus unsrer friedlichen Ruhe und werft uns so mutwillig hierher.«

     Menschenbrüder, mit wem hadert ihr, wenn euch ein kleines Ungemach geschieht? Mit einem Allweisen? O! ihr Kurzsichtigen!

 

On one occasion, two youths went for a walk and found some snails on the roadway, which they threw into the bush, afraid they might be crushed by a wagon. "You mischievous ones," cried the snails, "why are you disturbing our peace and wantonly throwing us about?"

     Brothers and sisters, with whom do you quarrel when a little trouble befalls you? With an All-Wise? Oh, you short-sighted ones!

                                                                                    --Novalis, “Die Schnecken”

 

Because we are truly children of God, we want to understand all things.  But because we are obstinate children, we are not willing to be taught.  To perceive is to know how little we know.  Instead of waiting for the story to unfold, we demand the climax on the first page.  And when the train is traveling to strange and harsh and mysterious lands, we insist on getting off at the nearest stop.

 

Our Lady of Guadalupe 2021

Listen to me, my faithful children: open up your petals,

like roses planted near running waters;

Send up the sweet odor of incense,

break forth in blossoms like the lily.

Raise your voices in a chorus of praise;

bless the Lord for all his works!

Proclaim the greatness of his name,

loudly sing his praises,

With music on the harp and all stringed instruments;

sing out with joy as you proclaim:

The works of God are all of them good;

he supplies for every need in its own time.

                                  --Sirach 39:13-16

 

Feast of St. Cecilia

Take the case of people singing while harvesting in the fields or in the vineyards or when any other strenuous work is in progress. Although they begin by giving expression to their happiness in sung words, yet shortly there is a change. As if so happy that words can no longer express what they feel, they discard the restricting syllables. They burst out into a simple sound of joy, of jubilation. Such a cry of joy is a sound signifying that the heart is bringing to birth what it cannot utter in words.

      Now, who is more worthy of such a cry of jubilation than God himself, whom all words fail to describe? If words will not serve, and yet you must not remain silent, what else can you do but cry out for joy? Your heart must rejoice beyond words, soaring into an immensity of gladness, unrestrained by syllabic bonds. Sing to him with jubilation.

                                                                    --St. Augustine, A Commentary on Psalm 32

American Snout Butterfly

No, this picture is not upside down.  The butterfly is hanging upside down.

I keep seeing what I think is the same American snout butterfly (Libytheana carinenta) in our front yard.  I’m not sure what is attracting it, since there are no hackberry trees in our yard, and I don’t know of any nearby.  It may just be drinking from the lantanas.   I’ve heard that these butterflies can appear in great numbers during migrations in the fall.  But this one seems to be alone (although there might be a few others around that I haven’t seen).  At any rate, it’s not part of a mass migration, during which adult American snout butterflies can darken the sky with their numbers and their larvae can strip hackberry trees almost bare, though the trees usually make more leaves and recover.  The elongated mouthparts (labial palpi) give this butterfly what looks like a giant nose.  It’s one of my favorite butterflies, both for its strange appearance and its willingness to let the human viewer get up close to observe it.  

I'm not sure why this butterfly is interested in these overripe lantana "berries," either.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2021

 

To most indigenous thinking people, the United States is not a melting pot; it is a boiling mess. No longer do we have the clear blue skies, but acid rain, maybe soon cyanide and nuclear rain, destroying life on land and water. No longer clear cool waters, but outrageous pollution destroying all forms of water life--believe it or not folks, if we cannot drink our once clear blue waters, we are the next to go!

                                                             --Carrie and Mary Dann, Right Livelihood Award acceptance speech

Tortillas

 

The house that was home for so many years, the house not far from where we live today, the house that was also a fair trade store, where our children grew up and where we experienced so much joy and heartache over their chronic health problems, was located across the street from a tortilleria.  We needed only cross the street to obtain fresh tortillas, and, at Christmastime, tamales.  I will never forget the smell of tortillas being produced—the timeless smell of white corn soaked in lime, of masa being gently toasted into planets of natural sweetness.  It makes me think of Hermann Hesse’s famous essay, “Über das Wort Brot” (“On the Word Bread”), where he says:

 Man braucht es nur auszusprechen und das in sich einzulassen, was es enthält, so sind schon alle unsere Lebenskräfte, die des Leibes wie die der Seele angerufen und in Tätigkeit versetzt. Magen, Gaumen, Nase, Zunge, Zähne, Hände sprechen mit. Es fällt uns der Eßtisch im Vaterhause ein. Rundum sitzen die lieben vertrauten Gestalten der Kindheit. Vater oder Mutter schneidet vom großen Leib die Stücke und bemißt ihre Größe und Dicke, je nach dem Alter oder Hunger des Empfängers. In den Tassen duftet die warme Morgenmilch. Oder es fällt uns ein, wie es ganz früh am Morgen, noch bei halber Nacht, vom Haus des Bäckers her gerochen hat, warm und nahrhaft, anregend und begütigend, hungerweckend und ihn halb auch schon stillend. Und weiter erinnern wir uns durch die ganze Weltgeschichte hindurch alle Szenen und Bilder in denen das Brot eine Rolle spielt.

 One only needs to utter it, to admit the word’s content into oneself, and already all our vital forces, those of both the body and the soul, are invoked and stirred into action. Stomach, palate, nose, tongue, teeth, hands, also utter the word. We are put in mind of the dining room table in our father’s house. Around it are seated the dear familiar figures of childhood. Father or mother are cutting slices from the large loaf, appraising their size and thickness, according to the age and hunger of the recipient. From the cups comes the smell of the hot morning milk. Or we recall, very early in the morning, when it was still half night, the aroma wafting from the direction of the baker’s house, warm and nourishing, stimulating and soothing, arousing, and also half-sating, a feeling of hunger. And, thinking on, we recall all the scenes and images in which, down through the entire history of the world, bread has played a role.

 Today, this is all I wish to invoke in my writing.  I won’t disown the language games that I’ve already played, some of which have yet to see the light of day, but I want to speak with simplicity and faithfulness of the humble bread that belongs to the world into which I was born and the neighborhood where I have spent most of my life—the fresh tortilla—and of those neighbors of mine who feast on it every day.