Please add the thoughts, prayers, poems, words ... that inspire you.
“In the measure that you desire God, you will find God.”
St. Teresa of Avila
Friday, May 2, 2008
Thoughts...
"Each person, no matter how old,
has important work to do.
This good work not only accomplishes
something needed in the world,
but completes something in us.
The work we do in the world,
when it is true vocation,
always corresponds in some mysterious
way to the work that goes on in us."
-Elizabeth O'Connor
"Soul is the ability to stretch ourselves--
our language, our responses, our reactions--
one notch higher than
our present circumstance seems to require."
- The Carmelites of Indianapolis
has important work to do.
This good work not only accomplishes
something needed in the world,
but completes something in us.
The work we do in the world,
when it is true vocation,
always corresponds in some mysterious
way to the work that goes on in us."
-Elizabeth O'Connor
"Soul is the ability to stretch ourselves--
our language, our responses, our reactions--
one notch higher than
our present circumstance seems to require."
- The Carmelites of Indianapolis
The True Carmelites
Please go to
http://www.praythenews.com/
You will be glad to know the Carmelites of Indianapolis and by the way it is possible to become a secular Carmelite. This is explained on their website where you can also light a votive candle and ask for the sisters' prayers.
http://www.praythenews.com/
You will be glad to know the Carmelites of Indianapolis and by the way it is possible to become a secular Carmelite. This is explained on their website where you can also light a votive candle and ask for the sisters' prayers.
The Sisters of Saint Clare, Les Clarisses
will soon have a community at La Chapelle de Ronchamp designed by Le Corbusier.
The photo (see below in "Master Let Me Walk with Thee") is one my husband took when on his spiritual journey in his belovèd France and Switzerland recently.
He did not know that my preferred (or one of them!) saint is Saint Clare.
You can find the Sisters of Saint Clare at Le Monastère Sainte Claire in Besançon (clarisses-besancon@wanadoo.fr) and at the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls at Clare's Well, a retreat center, in Annandale, Minnesota, one of my favorite places in the world, a place where my heart healed http://www.fslf.org/clareswell.html.
Clare. Clair. Clairvoyance.
For those of you now experiencing what I call a "soul's wilderness of grief and pain and all strife," know that the way does and will become clearer.
It is so. Thanks be to God.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Peace.
The photo (see below in "Master Let Me Walk with Thee") is one my husband took when on his spiritual journey in his belovèd France and Switzerland recently.
He did not know that my preferred (or one of them!) saint is Saint Clare.
You can find the Sisters of Saint Clare at Le Monastère Sainte Claire in Besançon (clarisses-besancon@wanadoo.fr) and at the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls at Clare's Well, a retreat center, in Annandale, Minnesota, one of my favorite places in the world, a place where my heart healed http://www.fslf.org/clareswell.html.
Clare. Clair. Clairvoyance.
For those of you now experiencing what I call a "soul's wilderness of grief and pain and all strife," know that the way does and will become clearer.
It is so. Thanks be to God.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Peace.
Celtic Prayers
From
The Celtic Way of Prayer
Esther de Waal
Marked by Claudia with a Salvador Dali bookmark from her 2003
trip to France to this:
"Making the bed provided them with the opportunity to reflect on God's many blessings.....
Marked by Claudia with a Salvador Dali bookmark from her 2003
trip to France to this:
"Making the bed provided them with the opportunity to reflect on God's many blessings.....
'I make this bed
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
In the name of the night we were conceived,
In the name of the night we were born,
In the name of the day we were baptised,
In the name of each night, each day,
Each angel that is in the heavens.'"
"A Celtic Prayer"
The Cross
The Cross
In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
THE INVITATORY
O God make speed to save me (us),
O Lord make haste to help me (us),
Glory to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.
Amen.
THE CRUCIFORMS
Be the eye of God dwelling with me.
The foot of Christ in guidance with me,
The shower of the Spirit pouring on me,
Richly and generously.
THE WEEKS
[Pray each phrase on a separate bead.]
I bow before the Father who made me,
I bow before the Son who saved me,
I bow before the Spirit who guides me,
In love and adoration.
I praise the Name of the One on high.
I bow before thee Sacred Three,The ever One, the Trinity.
This prayer was created by Sister Brigit-Carol, S.D.
You can visit the website of the Solitaries of DeKoven,a community of Episcopal Hermits,
For those who grieve and whose hearts are heavy today
A Litany of Farewell (Episcopal Church)
Good Christian people, I bid you now pray for the saving presence of our living Lord
In this world:
He is risen.
In this Church:
He is risen.
In the hearts of all faithful people:
He is risen.
But especially I bid you pray and give thanks for
those I love who are now leaving [me and whom I must leave] our community.
For expectations not met:
Lord, have mercy.
For grievances not resolved:
Lord, have mercy.
For wounds not healed:
Lord, have mercy.
For anger not dissolved:
Lord, have mercy.
For gifts not given:
Lord, have mercy.
For promises not kept:
Lord, have mercy.
And now for this portion of your lifelong pilgrimage which you have made with these people in this place:
Thanks be to God.
Good Christian people, I bid you now pray for the saving presence of our living Lord
In this world:
He is risen.
In this Church:
He is risen.
In the hearts of all faithful people:
He is risen.
But especially I bid you pray and give thanks for
those I love who are now leaving [me and whom I must leave] our community.
For expectations not met:
Lord, have mercy.
For grievances not resolved:
Lord, have mercy.
For wounds not healed:
Lord, have mercy.
For anger not dissolved:
Lord, have mercy.
For gifts not given:
Lord, have mercy.
For promises not kept:
Lord, have mercy.
And now for this portion of your lifelong pilgrimage which you have made with these people in this place:
Thanks be to God.
For friendships made, celebrations enjoyed, and for moments of nurture:
Thanks be to God.
For wounds healed, expectations met, gifts given, promises kept:
Thanks be to God.
For bread and wine, body and blood:
Thanks be to God.
For all the thoughtful, little unheralded things done to make the day better for someone:
Thanks be to God.
And so, to establish a home in another place with other members of the family of Christ:
Go in peace.
To continue the journey with new friends and new adventures, new gifts to give and to receive:
Go in peace.
To offer wisdom and experience, competence and compassion, in the ministry to which you are called:
Go in peace.
With whatever fears, whatever sadness, whatever excitement, whatever dreams may be yours:
Go in peace.
With our faith in you, our hope for you, and our love of you:
Go in peace.
Your petitions and thanksgivings are invited at this time.
The Lord watch between us while we are absent one from the other—
in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Go in peace.
Amen.
Care thou for mine whom I must leave behind;
Care that they know who 'tis for them takes care;
Thy present patience help them still to bear;
Lord, keep them clearing, growing, heart and mind;
In one thy oneness us together bind;
Last earthly prayer with which to thee I cling--
Grant that, save love, we owe not anything.
From Diary of an Old Soul, George MacDonald, Entry for January 18
I am standing upon the seashore.
From Diary of an Old Soul, George MacDonald, Entry for January 18
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, ‘There! She's gone!' ‘Gone where?' ‘Gone from my sight, that's all'. She is just as large in mast and spar and hull as ever she was when she left my side; just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at that moment when someone at my side says, ‘There! She's gone!' there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, ‘Here she comes!' …..
Attributed to Victor Hugo
Do not stand at my grave and weep
Attributed to Victor Hugo
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
Attributed to Mary Fry
A Gift from a Teacher, a True Preceptor -- 31 years later
The Gift to Be Simple, the Gift to be Free
Sarah H. Youngblood
Professor of English
Mount Holyoke College
Baccalaureate Address
May 29, 1977
Mount Holyoke College
If I could have for you three wishes, I would wish for you the three gifts of the Shaker song: “the gift to be simple, the gift to be free, the gift to come down to where you ought to be.” Each is a gift of purified consciousness: of lucidity. Each describes a way of being, and a way of perceiving, that is cleaned of the trivial, released from the constraints of vanity and will. They are all, perhaps, forms of grace: ideals of being that cannot be continuously realized in the fret and clutter, the general wear-and-tear of our daily human lives; but none the less real for that; none the less to be wished for; none the less possible.
The last of them, “the gift to come down to where we ought to be” defines a grace of self-perception, and of self-conduct, that is especially difficult for persons of privilege – as you, and I, and all of us in this place, are privileged persons – and, for that reason, it is a gift the more especially to be wished for.
The privilege that we share is a larger access to culture than is possible to persons without education. And I do not mean by culture, having the Bachelor of Arts degree (even when inscribed in Latin); or going to the theater every week; or being able to quote Plato to a prospective employer. I mean by culture something that does indeed include these things; but is much larger and of much greater age: “culture” in the sense that anthropologists use the term. All of the artifacts that the human race has made, from the fluted-stone spearheads of prehistoric tribes to the pyramid of Amen-Hotep to the space vehicles on the moon. All of the texts, sacred and secular, from the Upanishads to the I Ching to Dante to the White House transcripts. And all of the concepts, institutions, theologies, intellectual constructs of human history. Culture in this largest sense is the inheritance of the educated. It is a mixed legacy: immense, chaotic, glorious, terrifying. Fortunately, no single mind can encompass it, or even a fragment of it. But by education, each generation tries to possess as much of it as possible. Not only out of practical need – so that each generation does not have to invent the wheel again, nor discover radium again – but also, out of a more deeply-rooted emotional need, we strive to understand the culture we inherit.
For culture is the home the human race has made for itself, the many mansions we have built to house the troubled, divided consciousness we carry – a consciousness that is no longer at home among the other mortal animals with whom we share the earth; a consciousness that cannot imagine a god who is not, unlike us, beyond death.
The notion of the human being as scaled on a ladder, or an ascending chain, midway between the animals beneath us and supernatural beings above us, is an ancient one. It, too, is part of our cultural inheritance, a persistent metaphor for man’s urgent need to aspire beyond the constrictions of the physical, mortal self. All of our metaphors for aspiration and self-transcendence are vertical: variations upon the same figure: per aspera ad astra. Whether for the stars, or the moon, or the apple in Eden, human history enacts again and again the same symbolic gesture. The dynamic force of culture, and the dynamic force of our individual lives, for we are creatures of culture, is a belief in the necessity of ascending. The ziggurats of ancient Babylonia, the spires of Notre Dame, the launching towers at Cape Canaveral, point in the same direction: up there.
And yet the Shaker song reminds us – quietly, purely – that it is a gift to come down: to come down to where we ought to be. For whatever “the rights, privileges, and responsibilities” that are vested in us, as signs of our acculturation, we are creatures of the earth, still. To remember this, to accept it, is not to debase the self but to honor it in its essential being. The earth is our first home; life is our first gift. That you should remember this – simply, freely – is what I wish for you: here, now always.
§§§§§
Nota Bene
Another teacher who knew Miss Youngblood well, both as professor and colleague, just sent this moving address to me. Oh, that I might have known Sarah Youngblood but I did not take a course with her although I feel now -- having read her words -- that her spirit was transmitted to me by her student and friend, my first professor at Mount Holyoke College and a person who has inspired me (in the true sense of the word) whom I am now honored to call "friend."
Sarah Youngblood "passed the Veil" in 1980. May perpetual light shine upon her.
In her honor, I ask you to listen to:
"Tis a Gift to be Simple"
http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/t/t717.html
and
"In Paradisium" from the Duruflé Requiem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ0wunX3C2o
Education comes from the Latin "educare." To lead out.
In English the word "education" can be transformed into:
Action due.
That is what I learned at Mount Holyoke College. It took me a long time to understand.
But I did. I did!
Soli Deo Gloria.
Sarah H. Youngblood
Professor of English
Mount Holyoke College
Baccalaureate Address
May 29, 1977
Mount Holyoke College
If I could have for you three wishes, I would wish for you the three gifts of the Shaker song: “the gift to be simple, the gift to be free, the gift to come down to where you ought to be.” Each is a gift of purified consciousness: of lucidity. Each describes a way of being, and a way of perceiving, that is cleaned of the trivial, released from the constraints of vanity and will. They are all, perhaps, forms of grace: ideals of being that cannot be continuously realized in the fret and clutter, the general wear-and-tear of our daily human lives; but none the less real for that; none the less to be wished for; none the less possible.
The last of them, “the gift to come down to where we ought to be” defines a grace of self-perception, and of self-conduct, that is especially difficult for persons of privilege – as you, and I, and all of us in this place, are privileged persons – and, for that reason, it is a gift the more especially to be wished for.
The privilege that we share is a larger access to culture than is possible to persons without education. And I do not mean by culture, having the Bachelor of Arts degree (even when inscribed in Latin); or going to the theater every week; or being able to quote Plato to a prospective employer. I mean by culture something that does indeed include these things; but is much larger and of much greater age: “culture” in the sense that anthropologists use the term. All of the artifacts that the human race has made, from the fluted-stone spearheads of prehistoric tribes to the pyramid of Amen-Hotep to the space vehicles on the moon. All of the texts, sacred and secular, from the Upanishads to the I Ching to Dante to the White House transcripts. And all of the concepts, institutions, theologies, intellectual constructs of human history. Culture in this largest sense is the inheritance of the educated. It is a mixed legacy: immense, chaotic, glorious, terrifying. Fortunately, no single mind can encompass it, or even a fragment of it. But by education, each generation tries to possess as much of it as possible. Not only out of practical need – so that each generation does not have to invent the wheel again, nor discover radium again – but also, out of a more deeply-rooted emotional need, we strive to understand the culture we inherit.
For culture is the home the human race has made for itself, the many mansions we have built to house the troubled, divided consciousness we carry – a consciousness that is no longer at home among the other mortal animals with whom we share the earth; a consciousness that cannot imagine a god who is not, unlike us, beyond death.
The notion of the human being as scaled on a ladder, or an ascending chain, midway between the animals beneath us and supernatural beings above us, is an ancient one. It, too, is part of our cultural inheritance, a persistent metaphor for man’s urgent need to aspire beyond the constrictions of the physical, mortal self. All of our metaphors for aspiration and self-transcendence are vertical: variations upon the same figure: per aspera ad astra. Whether for the stars, or the moon, or the apple in Eden, human history enacts again and again the same symbolic gesture. The dynamic force of culture, and the dynamic force of our individual lives, for we are creatures of culture, is a belief in the necessity of ascending. The ziggurats of ancient Babylonia, the spires of Notre Dame, the launching towers at Cape Canaveral, point in the same direction: up there.
And yet the Shaker song reminds us – quietly, purely – that it is a gift to come down: to come down to where we ought to be. For whatever “the rights, privileges, and responsibilities” that are vested in us, as signs of our acculturation, we are creatures of the earth, still. To remember this, to accept it, is not to debase the self but to honor it in its essential being. The earth is our first home; life is our first gift. That you should remember this – simply, freely – is what I wish for you: here, now always.
§§§§§
Nota Bene
Another teacher who knew Miss Youngblood well, both as professor and colleague, just sent this moving address to me. Oh, that I might have known Sarah Youngblood but I did not take a course with her although I feel now -- having read her words -- that her spirit was transmitted to me by her student and friend, my first professor at Mount Holyoke College and a person who has inspired me (in the true sense of the word) whom I am now honored to call "friend."
Sarah Youngblood "passed the Veil" in 1980. May perpetual light shine upon her.
In her honor, I ask you to listen to:
"Tis a Gift to be Simple"
http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/t/t717.html
and
"In Paradisium" from the Duruflé Requiem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ0wunX3C2o
Education comes from the Latin "educare." To lead out.
In English the word "education" can be transformed into:
Action due.
That is what I learned at Mount Holyoke College. It took me a long time to understand.
But I did. I did!
Soli Deo Gloria.
I Meant to Do My Work Today
I Meant to Do My Work Today
Richard Le Galienne
I meant to do my work today --
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand --
So what could I do but laugh and go?
Potato Soup
Potato soup, scratch buttermilk biscuits….
Peel; wash; chop; roll rivoli between floured palms; pinch off.
Simmering soup.
Mix flour, butter, buttermilk; knead; roll; cut; dip.
Biscuits baking.
***
Here, suddenly in this country kitchen
A world away,
My grandmother.
Her country kitchen,
Galesburg, Illinois.
She prepares supper—
Kneading the rivoli and the biscuits, needing hearty food for her four girls.
(Nickels and dimes scarce on the farm.
The Great Depression about to occur but already here on this farm.)
Suddenly now my mother, joining us in my country kitchen.
She who
In this simple meal
Passed down her mother’s Love.
Our family meal—
A hearty meal for the hungry heart and soul.
Made now
In a country kitchen
In a country far away
Where I carry on and with me
The loving
Gestures of the generations.
18 March 2008
Peel; wash; chop; roll rivoli between floured palms; pinch off.
Simmering soup.
Mix flour, butter, buttermilk; knead; roll; cut; dip.
Biscuits baking.
***
Here, suddenly in this country kitchen
A world away,
My grandmother.
Her country kitchen,
Galesburg, Illinois.
She prepares supper—
Kneading the rivoli and the biscuits, needing hearty food for her four girls.
(Nickels and dimes scarce on the farm.
The Great Depression about to occur but already here on this farm.)
Suddenly now my mother, joining us in my country kitchen.
She who
In this simple meal
Passed down her mother’s Love.
Our family meal—
A hearty meal for the hungry heart and soul.
Made now
In a country kitchen
In a country far away
Where I carry on and with me
The loving
Gestures of the generations.
18 March 2008
Ironing
Ironing out the creases in
The family
Laundry now newly lavender-scented, starched.
From generation to generation belovèd women pass on their legacy --
A sacred act.
A sacred trust.
17 March 2008
The family
Laundry now newly lavender-scented, starched.
From generation to generation belovèd women pass on their legacy --
A sacred act.
A sacred trust.
17 March 2008
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Shema
SOUL SCULPTING 2008
From an email written on 14 August 2008
Now for the latest news from LA P.
***
Last night (August 13, 2008) at around 9 30 the doorbell rang. We had not even had dinner yet. At first we were not going to entertain these guests as the two rooms were not ready because I was going to do them today for the family of five that is arriving. BUT. I had a feeling. III, the informed Irish intuition, at work....
So we welcomed these particular angels.
This morning Odile informed me that they are from Paris but now live in Israel where...................she teaches French. Her "dream" has been to create a "cours intensif" in France for her students and, my dear Elissa (Gelfand who is a professor of French at Mount Holyoke and who directed my undergraduate and one and only thesis!), it looks like she has found the perfect place to do so. Yes, indeed. La Prévenchère (English) Language Academy cum B & B.
In a note written to Andrea Sununu, who is now a professor of English at DePauw but who was my first professor at Mount Holyoke:
Andrea-- One of my dearest friends is an orthodox rabbi who has always called me "Reverend Mother." No kidding. He is from London and his parents (his father was also a rabbi) sent him to Catholic grade school so that he would learn about "the other side." Barry is 69 years of age and has lived in MN for many, many years. We met in 1993 at the largest Lutheran church in the US -- Mount Olivet -- where I had organized a weekend-long conference on mental illness and where he spoke on the Sunday morning.Read on concerning our recent angels from Israel.C.OH. PS. My parents' bequest was used at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, MD to create art for the common area. The common area because for more than 30 years BHPC has shared its sanctuary and space with the Bethesda Jewish Congregation. Yes. Really. Bethesda.AND. The work of art commissioned with the bequest (equal to the amount my parents paid for our home...did I say "Beth"??????????????) is titled, "The Light of One God."
And as we know. "As above, so below."
The following is a note I wrote to Rabbi Barry Woolf on 15 August 2008, the Feast of Mary—Assumption:
My dear,When I make beds and clean toilets, I pray.Here is the prayer I usually say when I make beds: http://quieteyevirtualconvent.blogspot.com/2008/05/celtic-prayer.html
From
The Celtic Way of Prayer
Esther de WaalMarked by Claudia with a Salvador Dali bookmark from her 2003trip to France to this:"Making the bed provided them with the opportunity to reflect on God's many blessings.....
'I make this bed
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
In the name of the night we were conceived,
In the name of the night we were born,
In the name of the day we were baptised,
In the name of each night, each day,
Each angel that is in the heavens.'"
HOWEVER.The other night after telling my newest angels about the "Grand Pardons" today in Brittany -- it is the Feast of the Assumption as you know -- and their having replied, "Nous sommes juifs" and my having then told them about you, my dear "rabbin" educated in Catholic schools --when I made their beds I said the Shema.***
I told Odile that this morning and she was very moved. She said, "How do you know about this?" And I forgot to tell her about "The Light of One God" at Bradley Hills and Bethesda Jewish Congregation!
***
17 August 2008
Andrea Sununu asked me the other day how I prefer to be called: Christie or Christiana.
Here is my reply.
Dear Andrea,Funny you should ask. I have had a lovely time today thinking about this while making beds, etc.There is of course a story to tell. Or several. Read: AND several.
My full given name is Margaret Christiana. My mother's name was Mary Margaret. My sister's name is Mary Beth and we call her Beth. I understood after my mother died that she had given her name to her two daughters. Mary Beth and Margaret Christiana.
My paternal grandmother's name was Christiana. Her family and friends called her "Yonnie." Second generation German in Pittsburgh. In the late 19th century, she married Edward Adams, second generation Irish. (That is a story for another day because as you know, I am sure, marriages then not only between different ethnicities but ! Roman Catholics and Protestants were verboten....especially in cities like Pittsburgh.) My grandmother raised all eight of her children as Catholics. Their third child, whose name was Margaret Christiana, died when she was three years of age (as we say in the Midwest). Bless her heart, my grandmother always thought my mother had named me after her daughter when in fact.... My mother, to coin Elissa's phrase, never disabused her mother-in-law of this notion. I am so fortunate that none of my father's siblings chose this beautiful name for their children. My father was the eighth and last child and I am the last grandchild of Edward and Christiana Adams.******
My mother, as you know from "Soul Sculpting", loved words. Her wish was that I be called "Christie." Never Christiana when I was a child. "Christie." I think you understand why. Please remember that my father was then the Dean of the School of Pharmacy at Duquesne University and we were surrounded by the Holy Ghost Fathers and all of the nuns who were studying pharmacy with "Iron John." Christie.
Sidebar story: One evening my parents were entertaining...angels?...several Holy Ghost priests at our home in Pgh. Suddenly a three-year old Christie shouted and I do mean shouted, "JESUS CHRIST." My parents were absolutely mortified; in our home the Lord's name was never taken in vain, or rarely! And only by "Iron John" when he was in a fix! "GD IT" was what he said then. Never, never "JC."That being said he never said even the "GD" in the hearing of this little child. Not then.But wait, Andrea! There is more. As my mother told the story, the little Christie immediately dropped to her knees, raised her hands in prayer and said, "My Lord."This, my dear Andrea, is yet another true story. Really.End of sidebar.
My family called me "Chris." Even my mother very often called me "Chris." Three people in my life called me "Chrissie." Actually five. My father, Monique Legrand, her sister Suzanne, her best friend Elisabeth (also deceased ... just five years after Monique, from a brain aneurysm; I knew Elisabeth very well also and she was so young, so young when she died), and my friend Bob, who died in November 2004.***
When my father introduced me to people, he always introduced me as "my daughter, Chris." When my mother introduced me, it was always "my daughter, Christie."At school (grammar, junior high, senior high and MHC) and then when I moved here the first time, I was and still am actually "Christie."Another true funny story. In school of course when Miss Marjorie Baldwin, my first grade teacher, called the roll at Storrs Grammar School, she called, "Margaret Adams." I naturally did not reply "Here" because I am Christie Adams!***
When I moved back to the US in 1988 and in the circumstances you know, I asked very close friends in NYC to call me "Chris." I was so lonely and "Chris" reminded me of my family.When I moved to Minnesota I was even lonelier! (Thank God for Dorothy Day and _The Long Loneliness_ and for HJM Nouwen and for _Markings_....) I therefore introduced myself everywhere I went (Mary's lamb of sorts) as "Chris." That is what everyone from those years calls me.***Another sidebar. When I was at MHC and living on the German floor of Ham so that I could get a single but did not! one of my dearest friends, Carol Fitton, (and yes, there is another story there as well that I will tell you) used to call me Christiana. (She pronounced if for fun as CHREESTIANA". Her father was a Presbyterian minister.)She loved my name. And now there is Christie II as Carol named her daughter after me. Christiana Fitton Moyle.Christie II.End of this sidebar***
Fast forward now to 13 January 2005. "Chris," said Patti. "Meet Chris." Unbelievably many, many of his friends from MN call Christian "Chris." He is just not a "Chris"! Not, in my opinion, a "Chris." He is a Christian, Martin, Raphaël (mmmhmmm......). I have always called him Christian and he has always called me "Christiana." I am so glad as I love our name.
Final sidebar: I, too, love Montaigne's essay on friendship that Christian selected as his secular reading for our marriage. What then should I choose? I just could not find what I wanted; I could not find the perfect secular passage. No problem for the Biblical passages!I looked through all of my books of poetry (including one from a certain class in 1974--no kidding!) and essays or nearly all of them. And then I was inspired (yes, truly) to go to a book my mother had given me a very long time ago: _The Four Loves_ . Where I immediately came upon the reference to _The Pilgrim's Progress_ and another Christian and Christiana. (I cannot remember if I have sent you the second attachment. If so, here it is again. If not...well...read on!)End of last sidebar for this evening!
Here, finally, is the answer to your question. Call me "Christie" as that is how you think of me. I call myself "Christie" too! And my "Christie II" is a very special girl. Attached is a poem she wrote when she was eleven years of age. She is now twelve.I sent her the poems of Hilda Conkling, whose mother as you most likely know, was an English professor (or assistant prof) at Smith.
With my love,
Christie I
From the evening of 16 August 2008:
My dears,
It is late and I am tired. So many angels! One who is here for two weeks a professor of French, Latin and Education ... And there is so much more. But as I said it is late and I am tired. Those will be stories for another day.***A few minutes ago, I went to bed but wanted to read the Missal to relax and to be "inspired." (In both the literal and figurative senses!) Before going to sleep I wanted to "breathe deeply of God's peace", as Susan Andrews (our pastor for many years and through the best of times and the worst of times...) told me to do when I had a sinus operation in 1990.(Because in addition to entertaining all of these angels, my dear cat, Mistinguett, had a stroke three weeks ago and then last Monday fluid on the lungs. I have been hand-feeding her for three weeks. Equivalent of Ensure, vanilla milkshakes with egg now, chicken, tuna, water, ginger vaporizer inhalations and so forth and so on. Und so weite, und so weite... Well. Basically everything I did for my beloved parents and Aunt Lorraine. Including singing. My cats, by the way, always come to me when I sing...you simply will not believe this but ‘tis true, 'tis true..."Jesus Loves Me." Many people can now attest!Dear Mistinguett. Her illness has provoked all of the tears I never shed for my beloved ones. The human ones that is. I have cried a river and more tears in the past three weeks than in my entire life. Truly. This is a good thing for me. A very good thing.)***Back to a few moments ago.The Missal from Duquesne University was edited by one of my father's favorite Holy Ghost Fathers. It of course belonged to my dad and I have read it, shall we just say religiously, for many years and I always look to it for solace. Just now I looked at today's feast. Yesterday of course was the Assumption of the BVM, if you happen to be Catholic! Then I looked forward to August 22, the anniversary date of my father's passing.Lo and behold.August 22 is yes. That is correct. The Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.****For those of you who did not know them. My mother's name was Mary. My father's name was John.Peace and blessings.C.
***
Finally, we entertained English angels the other day. Here follows the email I received from Susie Bromwich last night. Susie is also a development director for grammar schools in England. Her nine-year-old daughter’s name is Lucie.
Dear Christiana
We had such a great time staying with you at La P, thank you so much.
I have looked out my copy of 'Labyrinth' and will send, it is a great story, not too highbrow, but a 'must' for all Grail followers, and set in Languedoc.
How is your little cat? Lucie said she thought she might be a a Russian Blue - I wonder... when I was little we had a Russian Blue called...'Magnificat'!!! (my brother was a chorister and we are all musicians, and also Russian Blues orginate from the town of Archangel in Russia, so that's how the name came about. Anyway, we hope your little cat is ok.
Lucie loves Eloise and promises me she will finish it tomorrow and then I can read! I read all of 'Thirst' last evening and will read some again, I like her sea, sky and earth. I did enjoy your reference to angels: - travellers (of course!) - in our home we have always lit a candle in our window every evening for travellers, but I hadn’t made the connection to angels till you forwarded the
e mail. Glad that more angels are calling in.
We had a rough crossing, everyone sick except us, we got home at 3am!
Thanks for finding my nightdress, sorry to have put you to trouble, please give best wishes to Christian, lots of hugs to your both from us
Susie and Lucie
From an email written on 14 August 2008
Now for the latest news from LA P.
***
Last night (August 13, 2008) at around 9 30 the doorbell rang. We had not even had dinner yet. At first we were not going to entertain these guests as the two rooms were not ready because I was going to do them today for the family of five that is arriving. BUT. I had a feeling. III, the informed Irish intuition, at work....
So we welcomed these particular angels.
This morning Odile informed me that they are from Paris but now live in Israel where...................she teaches French. Her "dream" has been to create a "cours intensif" in France for her students and, my dear Elissa (Gelfand who is a professor of French at Mount Holyoke and who directed my undergraduate and one and only thesis!), it looks like she has found the perfect place to do so. Yes, indeed. La Prévenchère (English) Language Academy cum B & B.
In a note written to Andrea Sununu, who is now a professor of English at DePauw but who was my first professor at Mount Holyoke:
Andrea-- One of my dearest friends is an orthodox rabbi who has always called me "Reverend Mother." No kidding. He is from London and his parents (his father was also a rabbi) sent him to Catholic grade school so that he would learn about "the other side." Barry is 69 years of age and has lived in MN for many, many years. We met in 1993 at the largest Lutheran church in the US -- Mount Olivet -- where I had organized a weekend-long conference on mental illness and where he spoke on the Sunday morning.Read on concerning our recent angels from Israel.C.OH. PS. My parents' bequest was used at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, MD to create art for the common area. The common area because for more than 30 years BHPC has shared its sanctuary and space with the Bethesda Jewish Congregation. Yes. Really. Bethesda.AND. The work of art commissioned with the bequest (equal to the amount my parents paid for our home...did I say "Beth"??????????????) is titled, "The Light of One God."
And as we know. "As above, so below."
The following is a note I wrote to Rabbi Barry Woolf on 15 August 2008, the Feast of Mary—Assumption:
My dear,When I make beds and clean toilets, I pray.Here is the prayer I usually say when I make beds: http://quieteyevirtualconvent.blogspot.com/2008/05/celtic-prayer.html
From
The Celtic Way of Prayer
Esther de WaalMarked by Claudia with a Salvador Dali bookmark from her 2003trip to France to this:"Making the bed provided them with the opportunity to reflect on God's many blessings.....
'I make this bed
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
In the name of the night we were conceived,
In the name of the night we were born,
In the name of the day we were baptised,
In the name of each night, each day,
Each angel that is in the heavens.'"
HOWEVER.The other night after telling my newest angels about the "Grand Pardons" today in Brittany -- it is the Feast of the Assumption as you know -- and their having replied, "Nous sommes juifs" and my having then told them about you, my dear "rabbin" educated in Catholic schools --when I made their beds I said the Shema.***
I told Odile that this morning and she was very moved. She said, "How do you know about this?" And I forgot to tell her about "The Light of One God" at Bradley Hills and Bethesda Jewish Congregation!
***
17 August 2008
Andrea Sununu asked me the other day how I prefer to be called: Christie or Christiana.
Here is my reply.
Dear Andrea,Funny you should ask. I have had a lovely time today thinking about this while making beds, etc.There is of course a story to tell. Or several. Read: AND several.
My full given name is Margaret Christiana. My mother's name was Mary Margaret. My sister's name is Mary Beth and we call her Beth. I understood after my mother died that she had given her name to her two daughters. Mary Beth and Margaret Christiana.
My paternal grandmother's name was Christiana. Her family and friends called her "Yonnie." Second generation German in Pittsburgh. In the late 19th century, she married Edward Adams, second generation Irish. (That is a story for another day because as you know, I am sure, marriages then not only between different ethnicities but ! Roman Catholics and Protestants were verboten....especially in cities like Pittsburgh.) My grandmother raised all eight of her children as Catholics. Their third child, whose name was Margaret Christiana, died when she was three years of age (as we say in the Midwest). Bless her heart, my grandmother always thought my mother had named me after her daughter when in fact.... My mother, to coin Elissa's phrase, never disabused her mother-in-law of this notion. I am so fortunate that none of my father's siblings chose this beautiful name for their children. My father was the eighth and last child and I am the last grandchild of Edward and Christiana Adams.******
My mother, as you know from "Soul Sculpting", loved words. Her wish was that I be called "Christie." Never Christiana when I was a child. "Christie." I think you understand why. Please remember that my father was then the Dean of the School of Pharmacy at Duquesne University and we were surrounded by the Holy Ghost Fathers and all of the nuns who were studying pharmacy with "Iron John." Christie.
Sidebar story: One evening my parents were entertaining...angels?...several Holy Ghost priests at our home in Pgh. Suddenly a three-year old Christie shouted and I do mean shouted, "JESUS CHRIST." My parents were absolutely mortified; in our home the Lord's name was never taken in vain, or rarely! And only by "Iron John" when he was in a fix! "GD IT" was what he said then. Never, never "JC."That being said he never said even the "GD" in the hearing of this little child. Not then.But wait, Andrea! There is more. As my mother told the story, the little Christie immediately dropped to her knees, raised her hands in prayer and said, "My Lord."This, my dear Andrea, is yet another true story. Really.End of sidebar.
My family called me "Chris." Even my mother very often called me "Chris." Three people in my life called me "Chrissie." Actually five. My father, Monique Legrand, her sister Suzanne, her best friend Elisabeth (also deceased ... just five years after Monique, from a brain aneurysm; I knew Elisabeth very well also and she was so young, so young when she died), and my friend Bob, who died in November 2004.***
When my father introduced me to people, he always introduced me as "my daughter, Chris." When my mother introduced me, it was always "my daughter, Christie."At school (grammar, junior high, senior high and MHC) and then when I moved here the first time, I was and still am actually "Christie."Another true funny story. In school of course when Miss Marjorie Baldwin, my first grade teacher, called the roll at Storrs Grammar School, she called, "Margaret Adams." I naturally did not reply "Here" because I am Christie Adams!***
When I moved back to the US in 1988 and in the circumstances you know, I asked very close friends in NYC to call me "Chris." I was so lonely and "Chris" reminded me of my family.When I moved to Minnesota I was even lonelier! (Thank God for Dorothy Day and _The Long Loneliness_ and for HJM Nouwen and for _Markings_....) I therefore introduced myself everywhere I went (Mary's lamb of sorts) as "Chris." That is what everyone from those years calls me.***Another sidebar. When I was at MHC and living on the German floor of Ham so that I could get a single but did not! one of my dearest friends, Carol Fitton, (and yes, there is another story there as well that I will tell you) used to call me Christiana. (She pronounced if for fun as CHREESTIANA". Her father was a Presbyterian minister.)She loved my name. And now there is Christie II as Carol named her daughter after me. Christiana Fitton Moyle.Christie II.End of this sidebar***
Fast forward now to 13 January 2005. "Chris," said Patti. "Meet Chris." Unbelievably many, many of his friends from MN call Christian "Chris." He is just not a "Chris"! Not, in my opinion, a "Chris." He is a Christian, Martin, Raphaël (mmmhmmm......). I have always called him Christian and he has always called me "Christiana." I am so glad as I love our name.
Final sidebar: I, too, love Montaigne's essay on friendship that Christian selected as his secular reading for our marriage. What then should I choose? I just could not find what I wanted; I could not find the perfect secular passage. No problem for the Biblical passages!I looked through all of my books of poetry (including one from a certain class in 1974--no kidding!) and essays or nearly all of them. And then I was inspired (yes, truly) to go to a book my mother had given me a very long time ago: _The Four Loves_ . Where I immediately came upon the reference to _The Pilgrim's Progress_ and another Christian and Christiana. (I cannot remember if I have sent you the second attachment. If so, here it is again. If not...well...read on!)End of last sidebar for this evening!
Here, finally, is the answer to your question. Call me "Christie" as that is how you think of me. I call myself "Christie" too! And my "Christie II" is a very special girl. Attached is a poem she wrote when she was eleven years of age. She is now twelve.I sent her the poems of Hilda Conkling, whose mother as you most likely know, was an English professor (or assistant prof) at Smith.
With my love,
Christie I
From the evening of 16 August 2008:
My dears,
It is late and I am tired. So many angels! One who is here for two weeks a professor of French, Latin and Education ... And there is so much more. But as I said it is late and I am tired. Those will be stories for another day.***A few minutes ago, I went to bed but wanted to read the Missal to relax and to be "inspired." (In both the literal and figurative senses!) Before going to sleep I wanted to "breathe deeply of God's peace", as Susan Andrews (our pastor for many years and through the best of times and the worst of times...) told me to do when I had a sinus operation in 1990.(Because in addition to entertaining all of these angels, my dear cat, Mistinguett, had a stroke three weeks ago and then last Monday fluid on the lungs. I have been hand-feeding her for three weeks. Equivalent of Ensure, vanilla milkshakes with egg now, chicken, tuna, water, ginger vaporizer inhalations and so forth and so on. Und so weite, und so weite... Well. Basically everything I did for my beloved parents and Aunt Lorraine. Including singing. My cats, by the way, always come to me when I sing...you simply will not believe this but ‘tis true, 'tis true..."Jesus Loves Me." Many people can now attest!Dear Mistinguett. Her illness has provoked all of the tears I never shed for my beloved ones. The human ones that is. I have cried a river and more tears in the past three weeks than in my entire life. Truly. This is a good thing for me. A very good thing.)***Back to a few moments ago.The Missal from Duquesne University was edited by one of my father's favorite Holy Ghost Fathers. It of course belonged to my dad and I have read it, shall we just say religiously, for many years and I always look to it for solace. Just now I looked at today's feast. Yesterday of course was the Assumption of the BVM, if you happen to be Catholic! Then I looked forward to August 22, the anniversary date of my father's passing.Lo and behold.August 22 is yes. That is correct. The Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.****For those of you who did not know them. My mother's name was Mary. My father's name was John.Peace and blessings.C.
***
Finally, we entertained English angels the other day. Here follows the email I received from Susie Bromwich last night. Susie is also a development director for grammar schools in England. Her nine-year-old daughter’s name is Lucie.
Dear Christiana
We had such a great time staying with you at La P, thank you so much.
I have looked out my copy of 'Labyrinth' and will send, it is a great story, not too highbrow, but a 'must' for all Grail followers, and set in Languedoc.
How is your little cat? Lucie said she thought she might be a a Russian Blue - I wonder... when I was little we had a Russian Blue called...'Magnificat'!!! (my brother was a chorister and we are all musicians, and also Russian Blues orginate from the town of Archangel in Russia, so that's how the name came about. Anyway, we hope your little cat is ok.
Lucie loves Eloise and promises me she will finish it tomorrow and then I can read! I read all of 'Thirst' last evening and will read some again, I like her sea, sky and earth. I did enjoy your reference to angels: - travellers (of course!) - in our home we have always lit a candle in our window every evening for travellers, but I hadn’t made the connection to angels till you forwarded the
e mail. Glad that more angels are calling in.
We had a rough crossing, everyone sick except us, we got home at 3am!
Thanks for finding my nightdress, sorry to have put you to trouble, please give best wishes to Christian, lots of hugs to your both from us
Susie and Lucie
The Journey
A poem by Mary Oliver sent to one of the Irish Ladies on the occasion of her birthday.
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world.
Determined to do the only thing you could do
determined to save the only life you could save.
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world.
Determined to do the only thing you could do
determined to save the only life you could save.
Oh, the Comfort
Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort
Of feeling safe with a person;
Having neither to weigh thoughts
Nor measure words,
But to pour them out.
Just as they are --
Chaff and grain together,
Knowing that a faithful hand
Will take and sift them,
Keep what is worth keeping,
And with the breath of kindness,
Blow the rest away.
George Eliot, 1819-1880
Of feeling safe with a person;
Having neither to weigh thoughts
Nor measure words,
But to pour them out.
Just as they are --
Chaff and grain together,
Knowing that a faithful hand
Will take and sift them,
Keep what is worth keeping,
And with the breath of kindness,
Blow the rest away.
George Eliot, 1819-1880
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