Daily Signet

The fullness of life is the fruit of creative response. And creative response is core to growing soul and growing soul is all we are asked to do in this life. It is what will serve us in the next life and what will extend our influence in this life even after we are gone. For what is of the soul is founded in the eternal and serves as nourishment to those becoming human. This nourishment of soul is found in the concept of the Golden chain—soulful predecessors who still inspire us with works of creation and lives true to their origo.  Our role as Anam Chara is to continue to bolster the collective resolve of Christuman to individually respond to the call to create. I appeal to you to help me root myself in my genius, my origo—what is unique in me—so that I may create. And I commit to you that I will help you root yourself in your genius, your origo—that what is unique in you is maintained with integrity and from it you may create.                                         

Benjamin Martin

On This Day…

Anthony of Padua with the Infant Jesus by Francisco de Zurbarán, 1627–1630

St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231): Franciscan preacher

Dorothy Sayers born 1893 in Oxford, England, died 1957: crime writer, poet, essayist, translator and Christuman Humanist best remembered for her plucky detective, Lord Peter Whimsey
Works:  Gaudy Night, Whose Body?, The Nine Tailors
Quotes: “Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.” “The great advantage of telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.”

Daily Signet

I have always seen the second of the Ten Commandments—“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image…”— translated in a way which led me to believe that God was ordering us not to sit down and with pocket knife and a bar of soap, whip out a little statue of Him (which would, after all, be quite difficult to do, having no model). However, the way Mircea Eliade translates it, “You shall not make yourself a carved image”…makes my mind want to add the word “of” between “Make” and “yourself." Ah! A more sensible idea! Not that we are forbidden to paint pictures of God, or to whack the corners off great chunks of marble, endeavoring to duplicate His appearance, but rather that WE should not sit about as wooden, unmoving, lifeless images of Him, but should be fully alive, animated, experiencing, growing.  For God lives through us. Our play is the learning of God. Our pitches into the mud and descents into the various underworlds we create teach us both, as do our triumphs, our joys.  

Donna Piper Leichtling

On This Day…

Djuna Barnes born 1892 in New York, died 1982: writer and artist and participant in the Paris renaissance of art in the early 20th century
Works: The Book of Repulsive Women, The Antiphon, Nightwood (her autobiography was titled Life Is Short and Nasty – In My Case It Has Merely Been Nasty)
Quotes: “A strong sense of identity gives a man an idea he can do no wrong; too little accomplishes the same thing.” “We are adhering to life now with our last muscle – the heart.” “Dreams have only the pigmentation of fact.”

Daily Signet

Mechthild of Magdeburg, a 13th c. Christian mystic, first gained authority over herself by submission to a search for rock bottom, where she was absolutely stripped of all consolation and expectations. It was not her worthiness, then, which drew God to Mechthild, but rather her emptiness; even God, according to Mechthild, must submit to the authority of love. Mechthild’s submission is active, drawing in her desires as if preparing a treasure, and thereby creating an irresistible vacuum for God’s love and grace to fill. There is no pride in this authority, nor is it without cost, for the inward tug that draws us in time to God must first draw us to the depths of abandonment. This abandonment does not come from the belief that one can become God, but rather as Mechthild described it, in the profound sense of Thou and I and the essential difference between the two when one has genuine self-knowledge. 

At one point in Mechthild’s life, the church authorities refused to read the offices before her or celebrate the mass. God assures her, though, that “I am in thee and thou in Me; we could not be closer, for we two are fused in one, poured into one mould, thus unwearied shall we remain forever.” Christuman calls each to be his own priest, to go beyond believing to beloving, to essay the freedom of choice against the authority of love.  Mechthild would tell us that “Amen” will move heaven and earth if backed with the authority of love and the power of submission. “Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened unto you.” In the name of the Christ within each, may it be so.  Amen.                                                        

Teri H. Martin

On This Day…

Sacred Heart of Jesus – Christian Catholic

St. Barnabas, Apostle

Daily Signet

There’s a most magnificent moment in the Ramayana, when all the monkeys are taken aback by the need to leap 100 yojanas, the distance from mainland India to Sri Lanka. They monkey about on the beach bragging of leaps of 10, 30, 50, 70, 90 yojanas—but 100 is beyond attempting, or even imagining. Finally, Jambavan, the king of the bears, goes to the great ape Hanuman and says, "Hanuman, why are you sitting thus, alone, silent and dejected? How is it you do not realize that you are as valiant as Sugriva the King, or Rama or Lakshman? You must have heard of Garuda [the greatest of eagles]…he is famed for his strength, for the speed with which he can fly, for the beauty of his wings, which has earned for him the name ‘Suparna’. I am telling you that the powerful wings of Garuda are not to be compared with the strength of your arms. Your strength, your wisdom, your valor, and your good nature are superior to those of everyone else in this entire world. Do you not know yourself?"  And Hanuman then leaps and does find Sita and does not get a swelled head.

Do you not know yourself?  Who you are is of greatness. What you are doing is of greatness. What you are creating is of greatness. With Rama’s name writ large on every bone, you must rise up to leap—beyond even your imagination.

Benjamin Martin           

On This Day…

Maurice Sendak born 1928 in Brooklyn, New York, died 2012: writer and illustrator of children’s books
Works: In The Night Kitchen, Where the Wild Things Are
Quotes: “There must be more to life than having everything.” “Kids don’t know about best-sellers. They go for that they enjoy. They aren’t chasers and they don’t suck up. It’s why I like them.”

Daily Signet

Humility is not that we think less of ourselves, but that we think about ourselves less.

The less often you think about yourself—the less self-confident, the less self-aware, the less self-conscious you are—the greater you will be and will feel. All freedom is freedom from self.

Lose the self in the greater-than-you-are. Avoid people who make you self-aware. So live that people never notice you—they notice what you are saying, what you are doing, what you are achieving—then they will remember you as a far greater person.

Mastering an art lies in loss of self in the art—as in the art of living. 

William Boast

On This Day…

St. Columba (Columcille): 6C Irish monk, founder of many monastaries including Derry, Darrow and Kell. Involved in a long feud with King Diarmid – when 3,000 men were killed in the resulting battle of Cuil Dremne, Columcille left Ireland in atonement and vowed to convert 3,000 to Christianity. Founded and built the monastery on the Holy Isle of Iona, where he is buried.