Some friends and I were discussing the heated discussions that tend to happen on the Catholic blogosphere (how do you spell that??), and today I came across this reading, which I thought worth noting.
“False sencerity has much to say, because it is afraid. True candor can afford to be silent. It does not need to face an anticipated attack. Anything it may have to defend can be defended with perfect simplicity.
“Those who love God should attempt to preserve or create an atmosphere in which He can be found. Christians should have quiet homes. Throw out television, if necessary — not everybody, but those who take this sort of thing seriously. Radios useless. Stay away from the movies — I was going to say ‘as a penance’ but it would seem to me to be rather a pleasure than a penance, to stay away from the movies. Maybe even form small agrarian communities in the country where there would be no radios, etc.
I have officially declared June the “Month of Merton” for the sake of my spiritual reading. I was looking for something new to start on when Craig showed up with a pile of free spirituality books, including Pray to Live, which is Henri Nouwen explaining the life and thought of Thomas Merton. I’ve tried a couple of Merton’s works unsuccessfully, so this struck me as a perfect starting place. If this goes well, the Month of Merton may become the Summer of Merton. : ) Quotes and reflections should be forth coming soon, provided I am able to make my way to the computer for any extended period of time. Anyone more experienced with his work, feel free to suggest which book I should pick up next!
Elizabeth Foss uses this quote from Edith Stein in her book:
“The soul of a woman must therefore be expansive and open to all human beings; it must be quiet so that no small weak flame will be extinguished by stormy winds; warm so as not to benumb fragile buds; clear, so that no vermin will settle in dark corners and recesses; self contained, so that no invasions from without can impede the inner life; empty of itself, in order that extraeneous life may have room in it; finally, mistress of itself and also of its body, so that the entire person is readily at the disposal of every call.”
This post made my day. Craig’s dad is growing strawberries, and we have been the beneficiaries of his bounty for the last month or so. We are exploring new and exciting ways to use them all, but Lucy still likes to eat them plain, preferably daily or twice daily. Craig’s dad has beautiful, neat, raised, mulched rows for his plants, but neglected strawberries for ground cover, now there’s an idea! The book list at the end of the post is great, too. I’m going to have to head to the library for a copy of Jamberry. That was one of my favorites growing up.
…is something I think I need more of in my life. Fortunately, Karen Edmisten puts a little something up every Friday. I thought this one was worth passing on. I’m going to have to look for more of Anne Porter’s work!
“Adults have taken it for granted that children are sensible only to gaudy objects, bright colors, and shrill sounds, and they make use of these to attract a child’s attention. We have all noticed how children are attracted by songs, by the tolling of bells, by flags fluttering in the wind, by brilliant lights, and so forth. But these violent attractions are external and transitory, and can be more of a distraction than boon. We might make the comparison with our own way of acting. If we are busy reading an interesting book and suddenly hear a loud band passing by in the street, we get up and go to the window to see what is happening. If we were to see someone act in this way, we would hardly conclude that men are particularly attracted by loud sounds. And yet we make this conclusion about little children. The fact that a strong, external stimulus catches a child’s attention is merely incidental and has no real relation with the inner life of the child which is responsible for his development. We can perceive evidence of a child’s inner life in the way he immerses himself in the fixed contemplation of minute things that are of no concern to us. But one who is attracted by the smallness of an object and focuses his attention upon it does so, not because it has made a striking impression upon him, but simply because his contemplation of it is an expression of an affectionate understanding.”
“Our attitude towards the newborn child should not be one of compassion but rather of reverence before the mystery of creation, that a spiritual being has been confined within limits perceptible to us.”
“But if in the child are to be found the makings of the man, it is in the child also that the future welfare of the race is to be found”
-Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood
So I just finished The Long Loneliness which is a kind of autobiography Dorthy Day wrote back in the fifties. I highly recommend it, first of all. The first section about her early life is fascinating, the section about the birth of her daughter is moving (and should be required reading for mothers), and her depiction of Peter Maurin, who practically drove her to start the Catholic Worker movement, left me wondering why he hasn’t been canonized yet. There will be much, much more on The Long Loneliness as I re-read it in the coming months, but we started looking again at Maurin’s Easy Essays, and here is one for a taste. I suspect a similar feeling of unconnectedness to my experience in the world is what has caused me to drift away from my interest in formalized theology. (No offence intended, studiers of formalized theology, it’s just that I have found God more easily in my garden than in Aquinas lately.)
Loyola Kids Book of Heroes: Stories of Catholic Heroes and Saints Throughout History by Amy Welborn
Mary for Today by Hans Urs von Balthasar
Metamorphoses (Penguin Classics) by Ovid
Blessed Among All Women: Women Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time by Robert Ellsberg
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris
