A Community of Souls...exploring the mystery of being human
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I have danced my life to such music as saints make.
I have lived in the sun and glinted in its gold.
I've lavished feasts of fire on my soul and
blessed my skin for every touch of wind or
love that came.
I have loved.
I have created stars—
even if they were only little stars;
but they were mine.
O God, thank you! Is Heaven better?
William Boast
On This Day…
St. Augustine: 1C Archbishop of Canterbury
In the “Gloria” of the High Service, the Latin of the communion reads: Emitte spiritum tuum et creabuntur, “Send forth your spirit and they shall be created.” I imagine this “sending forth” as the emission of spirit all around us and up through the root of us and through every vessel of every tissue of us and through every fold and chord of us. Thus, we shall be created anew, anew again. Emitte spiritum, I believe, reaches far beyond the limitations imposed by the censor of the mind, the immaturity of the heart, the narrow experiences of life—and we are created anew.
Created anew, we sing a new song as no one has sung before. We create stars— even if they are only little stars; they are ours. As we breathe life into the deaths of the least of us, the births of the best of us-- new jobs, new roles, new poems, new friends, new achievements—often calling on heroic breakthroughs to reach such pitch, such intensity, such a sounding, such an intermingling of earth and stars that as the created creator in the image of our Creator, each unites with the Creator in an ecstasy and in a joy each his or her own….Oh sing my God through me, a gloria of life drawn to me, a gloria of life drawn from me. Emitte spiritum tuum—emit your spirit of joy—et creabuntur—and we shall be created—anew. Amen.
Benjamin H. Martin
On This Day…
Cropped portrait from The Venerable St. Bede Translates St. John by J. Doyle Penrose (c. 1902)
The Venerable Bede (672-735): monk who influenced English literature, author; called ‘the father of British history’ for his Historia Ecclesiastica, only British Doctor of the Church
Ralph Waldo Emerson born 1803 in Boston, died 1882: essayist, lecturer,poet, leader of America’s Transcendental Movement
Works: Self Realization, Essays, Nature
Quotes: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” “Always do what you are afraid to do.” “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
Years ago, when we first gathered at the Boast’s house, you never, never, ever, ever left the gathering without receiving a word of exhortation or cheer from Bill “Blessings!” he cried to us, usually from the front porch, as we made our way to our cars to drive away. “Blessings! Blessings! Blessings!” he’d call as he waved to us until we were out of sight….Sent on your way, sent on your quest with Joy! Joy! Joy! I know the word Bill cried out was “blessings” but “Joy! Joy! Joy!” is what I always heard.
What did we learn from Bill on all those Sunday nights? At the very least, Bill taught us to create a rich life no matter how impoverished the time. At the very highest, he taught us the secret of the fiery quest and its boon—the birth of the human soul within each of us. Years ago, many of us made our way into a womblike canyon following the glow of Bill’s porchlight and there…his tables never failed to be laden with soul-nourishing riches, the air filled with joyous anticipation. Bill, wherever you are, whatever quest you are currently fulfilling, I hope you know that this merry band has ever been and is still grateful to you for all the “Blessings of Joy!”—you bestowed upon us from the front porch of your omnific journey.
Teri H Martin
On This Day…
St. David (1084-1153): king of Scotland and spreader of Christianity
Joseph Brodsky born 1940 in Russia, died 1996: poet and essayist
Works: Watermark, On Grief and Reason, So Forth
Quotes: “Life – the way it really is – is a battle not between Bad and Good, but between Bad and Worse.” “After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.” “For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.”
I am living in the best of both worlds right now. While I find joy working in the field of real estate management—the buildings I have helped create and manage on a daily basis, and coming to know and work with owners and tenants—I get even more joy from creating and talking about the music for our Christuman High Services. What books are for some, music recordings are to me. The quest for me is hunting for those absolutely perfect pieces of music for a service. The jackpot is watching the expressions on the listeners’ faces and seeing how they become utterly absorbed. The power and joy of music, what it is capable of generating, is not to be underestimated.
Earl Behnke
I thrill to the nuance of light as it plays in my valley and dances in the trees and explodes clumps of snow that sift through the evergreen needles and fall like flour onto the dough of the ground below. For I live in a Taj Mahal, an edifice of forest created out of love, for the sheer love of creation, the light of life. I want to snapshot the light as it streams from seasonal directions - north to south, high to low, wide and hot to narrow and intense.
Why so much joy in light? Because it reveals what I did not see before and it unveils a mystery that expounds into a greater mystery only now veiled in light. In the “ah ha” of the creation, the light magnifies what the darkness can no longer hide - beauty to behold but not to be understood, beauty to marvel but not to grasp. An expounded-upon mystery revealed in light to be a greater mystery than the mystery hidden in the dark.
Benjamin H Martin
On This Day…
Declaration of the Bab: Baha’i remembrance of the fore-runner of Baha’u’llah
Jane Kenyon born 1947 in Michigan, died 1995: poet and translator
Works: Let Evening Come, A Hundred White Daffodils, The Boat of Quiet Hours
Quotes: “Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.” “If it’s darkness we’re having, let it be extravagant.” “The poet’s job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.”