"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
The last set of Catholic Pick-Up Lines seemed to be rather popular so I thought I would do it again for this week’s Friday Frivolity 🙂
However, last time I could tell from the website statistics that an awful lot of people read the post but didn’t vote on their favourite pick-up line! Â Come on people! Vote!
Science, or rather, my love life, is depending on you!
Part 1 |Â Part 2
I haven’t done one of these in a while so I thought I would share another of my favourite people…
Today’s favourite person is Kahlil Gibran, a Lebanese poet, writer and artist who died in 1931. I’ve generally found that most of my friends haven’t heard of him, which is a bit odd considering that the New Yorker says that he’s the third best-selling poet of all time.
I first encountered Gibran shortly before I was to move away from England. Cheltenham had been my home for the previous six years, but I was soon to start working for Cynergy in the United States. One lunch break, shortly before leaving England, I wandered into a second-hand bookstore. I was rifling through a pile of books when I came across Kahlil’s most well-known book, “The Prophet”. I flicked it open and then began to read. I found it was poetry, something I hadn’t read since school. Here is who the book begins:
Almustafa, the chosen and the beloved…. had waited twelve years in the city of Orphalese for his ship that was to return and bear him back to the isle of his birth…
He climbed the hill without the city walls and looked seaward; and he beheld the ship coming with the mist. Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. And he closed his eyes and prayed in the silences of his soul.
But he descended the hill, a sadness came upon him, and he thought in his heart: How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city… It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.
Yet I cannot tarry longer. The sea that calls all things unto her calls me, and I must embark.
I was moved. Gibran’s words articulated exactly what I had been feeling for the previous few weeks as my time in England drew to a close.
In the book, the inhabitants of Orphalese come to the Prophet and ask him to speak to them on various subjects and many of them put me in mind of something from the Psalms or the wisdom literature of the Old Testament. Some of these discourses are wonderful (well, except the one on marriage). Here’s my favourite:
Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.”
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight…
Gorgeous.
If you would like to read more of Gibran’s poetry, his works are available online, but next time you’re in a second-hand bookstore I’d encourage you to look in the poetry section as you’ll probably be able to pick up one of his beautiful works.
Last week it was my Confirmation Anniversary. Today it’s my Baptism anniversary!
This year my baptism will mainly be celebrated with gelato…
Tonight, after Benediction, I felt drawn to tarry in the church a while longer than usual. Soon there were only one or two other people left in the church.
While sitting there, I felt a deep, tremendous peace; a peace I haven’t felt in some time.
As I sat there, just enjoying the moment, I was reminded of something that my patron Saint, St. Peter, said at the Transfiguration when he beheld the Jesus’ glory:
“Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah” – Luke 9:33
I know there’s a lot of theological significance in what Peter is saying here, but sitting in that church tonight I understood those words in a slightly different light. Peter was seeing the beauty of the Lord and wanted to prolong that mountaintop experience. He didn’t want to go back down the mountain just yet – he wanted to setup camp for a little while…
After Benediction, I, too, wanted to prolong the experience, remain in my pew and maybe setup camp for a little while…
The purpose of getting to higher ground isn’t so we can just enjoy the view, it’s so that, when we come back down from the mountain, we can approach the terrain ahead with a new perspective and with confidence.
Last week I began a series of posts about comedy shows from back home. I have found that American exposure to these comedians and shows is rather limited. I’ll sometimes meet people who have seen Monty Python, Absolutely Fabulous or Benny Hill [rolls eyes], but there’s so much more on offer!
Since I usually write about subjects related to religion, today I’d like to focus on one show in particular that concerns Catholicism: the very excellent “Fr Ted”.
Fr. Ted is a priest who lives on a tiny island off the coast of Ireland with two other priests: an idiot and an angry drunk who has a fear of nuns, together with a housekeeper who has an obsessive need to serve people tea…
Despite the fact that this show deals with the subject of religion (a touchy area when it comes to comedy), it really pulls it off brilliantly because it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Speaking of which, have you ever wondered what would happen if a group of priests got trapped in the lingerie section of a department store? Well, thanks to Fr Ted, wonder no more…
The meme I produced for the movie “Grease” in my Terrible Lessons post seemed to be really popular, so I decided to produce some more.
So, listen up ladies, here’s some sound advice from the movies…
Tomorrow I’ll post the advice to men…Â
The natural loves are not self-sufficient. Something else…must come to the help of the mere feeling if the feeling is to be kept sweet… It is no disparagement to a garden to say that it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns.
There were two reasons for my delay… [The] older theologians were always saying very loudly that (natural) love is likely to be a great deal too much. The danger of loving our fellow creatures too little was less present to their minds than that of loving them idolatrously. In every wife, mother, child and friend they saw a possible rival to God. So of course does Our Lord
…For most of us the true rivalry lies between the self and the human Other, not yet between the human Other and God. It is dangerous to press upon a man the duty of getting beyond earthly love when his real difficulty lies in getting so far.
But to have stressed the rivalry earlier in this book would have been premature in another way also… The loves prove that they are unworthy to take the place of God by the fact that they cannot even remain themselves and do what they promise to do without God’s help… Even for their own sakes the loves must submit to be second things if they are to remain the things they want to be.
…[For the] older theologians… the danger of loving our fellow creatures too little was less present to their minds than that of loving them idolatrously. In every wife, mother, child and friend they saw a possible rival to God. So of course does Our Lord.
In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation in which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him. Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one’s heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose…. Of course this is excellent sense… [However,] if I am sure of anything I am sure that [Jesus’] teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities… Would you choose a wife or a Friend – if it comes to that, would you choose a dog in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates
We follow One who wept over Jerusalem and at the grave of Lazarus, and, loving all, yet had one disciple whom, in a special sense, he “loved”… Even if it were granted that insurances against heartbreak were our highest wisdom, does God Himself offer them? Apparently not. Christ comes at last to say “Why hast thou forsaken me?”
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