Beauty in the ordinary
Blossoming trees, cast-iron lampposts, and brick buildings in the sharp light of sunrise yesterday. Our city has wonderful brick buildings, including the old mill buildings on the river.
The gentle movements of air over the lake surface. Another day, near the lake, the trunks of tall pine trees reflected in the vernal pools around them. There was a block of styrofoam in the water, clarifying that this was our world rather than some other planet or wood between the worlds.
Around the house
New wall-mounted bookshelves in our room and a new set up for our home shrine. Last time we established such good order in our living space, a whirlwind descended right away. We still have a way to go in organizing things this time. . .
After failing miserably the last time I tried, I made some decent lasagne last weekend. My sister told me it was easier with the “oven-ready” noodles and she was right. It was part of our celebration of the canonizations of Pope John the XXIII and Pope John Paul II.
Praying
Once again, a novena to Our Lady Undoer of Knots. For the same people as before. And around the same time of year as the last time I prayed it.
Reading
I read The Way of Trust and Love by Jacques Philippe over Lent. Now I’m almost finished with Time for God by the same author. With my spiritual director, I am reading a book called Finding Sanctuary.
Louise Gluck in May. Read Meadowlands, uncertain about it as a whole. Then some earlier poems of hers.
The title essay of Joseph Brodsky’s collection Less Than One.
Yesterday, in a bookstore, most of Czeslaw Milosz’s “last poems.” Something that was always present in his work clarified and distilled in these.
Isaiah and Matthew. Song of Solomon.
I want to read Journal of a Soul and Witness to Hope but not sure I have the stamina. I ordered A Letter in the Scroll the other day; the title allured. My brother recently heard a lecture by Rabbi Sacks.
Grateful for
I am playing the recorder again. The wooden student recorder I bought last month once belonged to a religious sister with the name Soeur Marie-Joseph. The music book the owner of Courtly Music Unlimited helped me choose is the second volume of Hugh Orr’s Basic Recorder Technique. It is right at my level and incorporates a lot of Renaissance and Baroque music. Courtly music unlimited. . . a way to think of heaven: The Lord is our Savior. We shall sing to stringed instruments, in the house of the Lord, all the days of our life.
WERKI
An English horn, a drum, a viola making music
In a house on a hill amid forests in autumn.
A large view from there onto bends of the river.
I still want to correct this world,
Yet I think mostly of them, and they have all died.
Also about their unknown country.
Its geography, says Swedenborg, cannot be transferred to maps.
For there, as one has been, so one sees.
And it is possible even there to make mistakes; for instance, to wander about
Without realizing you are already on the other side.
As I, perhaps, just dream those rusty-golden forests,
The glitter of the river in which I swam in my youth,
The October from my poems with its air like wine.
The priests taught us about salvation and damnation.
Now I have not the slightest notion of those things.
I have felt on my shoulder the hand of my Guide,
Yet He didn’t mention punishment, didn’t promise a reward.
Czeslaw Milosz
A New Field 
Beautiful daybook! You are reading some good books. I love the title *Finding Sanctuary*…I will have to look that one up.
Have a blessed week!
Theresa, thanks for your comment! Finding Sanctuary is about applying insights from the monastic tradition to secular life. (My spiritual director is a Benedictine priest.) Finally finding a spiritual director has been one of the great blessings of this year!
I also came across yesterday a poem Czeslaw Milosz wrote for Pope John Paul II’s eightieth birthday. Have to add it!
“Ode for the Eightieth Birthday of Pope John Paul II”
by Czeslaw Milosz in New and Collected Poems
We come to you, men of weak faith,
So that you might fortify us with the example of your life
And liberate us from anxiety
About tomorrow and next year. Your twentieth century
Was made famous by the names of powerful tyrants
And by the annihilation of their rapacious states.
You knew it must happen. You taught hope:
For only Christ is the lord and master of history.
Foreigners could not guess from whence came the hidden strength
Of a novice from Wadowice. The prayers and prophecies
Of poets, whom money and progress scorned,
Even though they were the equals of kings, waited for you
So that you, not they, could announce, urbi et orbi,
That the centuries are not absurd but a vast order.
Shepherd given us when the gods depart!
In the fog above the cities the Golden Calf shines,
The defenseless crowds race to offer the sacrifice
Of their own children to the bloody screens of Moloch.
In the air, fear, a lament without words:
Since a desire for faith is not the same as faith.
Then, suddenly, like the clear sound of the bell for matins,
Your sign of dissent, which is like a miracle.
People ask, not comprehending, how it’s possible
That the young of the unbelieving countries
Gather in public squares, shoulder to shoulder,
Waiting for news from two thousand years ago
And throw themselves at the feet of the Vicar
Who embraced with his love the whole human tribe.
You are with us and will be with us henceforth.
When the forces of chaos raise their voice
And the owners of truth lock themselves in churches
And only the doubters remain faithful,
Your portrait in our homes every day remind us
How much one man can accomplish and how sainthood works.
Your daybook is beautiful. I love the way you write.
The Way of Trust and Love sounds right up my alley.
Blessings,
Emily
Emily, so glad you stopped by. Thank you!
The Way of Trust and Love is a retreat Fr. Jacques Philippe gave, based on the writings of St. Therese. There are six chapters which I spread out over the six weeks of Lent. You would love it!
Hello! I’m glad you are blogging again! What a daybook! Good and rich points to ponder on; thank you! I am excited about checking out your reading list 🙂
‘Hope your week is doing well. You will post again, won’t you?
Thank you, Marcia, for stopping by and for your encouragement.
Hmm, maybe I should post again next year? What do you think? lol
Pray that I will know what God wants me to do with this blog. I’ve been so blessed by reading the blogs connected to the (now) Littlest Way site; maybe He wants me to contribute more as well?
Heading over your way now!
I’m a huge fan of Fr Jacques Philippe and his writing. The recorder! Awesome. I love live music from my daughters on the piano. I’m thinking of asking one of them to teach me so I can play music.