Solitary bees are making their nests in the stump of an orange tree utilizing what appear to be abandoned beetle borings.
I suspect that these bees are Megachile (Subgenus Chelostomoides) bees because they look like ordinary leafcutter bees but don’t seem to be cutting or carrying leaf fragments to their nests, and they seal the openings of their nest cavities with resin and occasionally other organic material (leaf paste, grass blades, wood) and (possibly) sand and tiny pebbles.
I have a story—another novel excerpt—in the latest issue of El Portal Literary Journal, a publication produced graduate students and faculty at Eastern New Mexico University. El Portal includes writing and art from Eastern New Mexico students as well as other writers far and near. The quality of the writing in El Portal is consistently excellent, and that includes the student writers. I am honored to be published with them. I have a recollection of El Portal being one of the mainstays of the Southwest literary scene back in the days of my youth, alongside journals like Arizona Quarterly and (the now defunct) New Mexico Quarterly—a place that published many important writers with southwestern roots along with others who taught and lived in the Southwest. It certainly has a long history and is still in the hands of exceedingly discerning and capable editors.
Siempre será Pentecostés en la Iglesia, pero mientras
la Iglesia haga su rostro transparente a la belleza del Espíritu Santo. Cuando
la Iglesia deja de apoyar su fuerzaen esa virtud de lo alto que Cristo le
prometió y que le dio en este día, y la Iglesia quisiera apoyarse más bienen
las fuerzas frágiles del poder o de la riquezade esta tierra, entonces la
Iglesia deja de ser noticia. La Iglesia será bella, perennemente joven, atrayente
en todos los siglos, mientras sea fiel al Espíritu que la inunday lo refleje a
través de las comunidades, a través de sus pastores, a través de su misma vida.
--San Oscar Romero, 14 de mayo, 1978
I wanted to mention that I have a new story in Sublunary Review. It's the latest (and probably the last) of the "Zoë stories." Sublunary Review is a fabulous journal, and the editors do a beautiful job with the layout and illustrations for the work they publish. I feel so honored—it's like my work is being presented in a palace or a splendid museum. And this story allows me to pay tribute to Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday and Goethe’s Marchen, amid all sorts of fun and whimsy and playfulness, with a serious message underlying it all.
Rise now, O frail person! Flee, for a little while, your occupations; hide yourself, for a time, from your unsettling thoughts. Cast aside, now, your heavy cares, and put away your toilsome business. Give room for a little while to God; and rest for a short time in him. Enter the inner chamber of your mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God, and those that can aid you in seeking him; close your door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, “I seek your face; your face, Lord, will I seek” (Psalm 27.8). And come now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek you, where and how it may find you.
I was thinking
about St. Anselm and the Proslogion today. My father, who was a
philosopher and a professor of philosophy, recommended it to me (among other
books) when I was a teenager and became interested in philosophical questions.
I didn’t really get the ever-controversial “ontological argument for God” at
the time (and one could claim that there are actually two separate arguments), but I loved (and still love) the first and last chapters for their
spiritual depth and authenticity. One can truly “hear” Anselm’s voice and personality in those chapters, despite the passing of almost a millennium since they were
written. Anselm remains one of the most interesting figures of the eleventh
century, and not only because of his philosophy and theology. He was deeply involved in both the civil and
religious controversies of his time, and this meant that his later life was
deeply unsettled, which makes the depth and focus of his writings all the more
remarkable. Those works were tremendously influential in the Middle Ages, and
philosophers still quarrel over the “ontological arguments.” I haven't read any
of his other works (except for a few short selections), but I never grow tired of the first and last chapters of
the Proslogion.
Today is the
birthday of Pandit Kumar Gandharva, the great Indian
classical singer. A musical prodigy from
childhood, he refused to be bound by custom, and introduced many groundbreaking
themes and styles into his singing, which made him controversial in the eyes of
some conservatively-minded music enthusiasts.
He was stricken with tuberculosis as a young man and was told by doctors
that he would never sing again. After
much suffering, he recovered with the help of antibiotics, but was left with
only one functioning lung. This didn’t
stop him from eventually returning to singing.
He incorporated folk and devotional songs into his repertoire, including
the songs of Kabir. His interpretations
of the songs of Kabir are renowned for their artistic beauty and singular spiritual
intensity. Here is a link to his
performance of Kabir’s Nirbhay Nirgun Re Gaoonga:
