Dogs Jumping

Sometimes a photo's just too good to keep to yourself!  Wouldn't you just love to have this kind of determination, energy, and joy?

"A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself."  

~ Josh Billings  (1818-1885)

St. Patrick's Breastplate

"St. Patrick's Breastplate has taken its place as one of the favorites in our little Parish community.  It was written by the venerable saint himself, who was born in Ireland way back in the year 372.  The song is set to a traditional Irish hymn melody and is not an easy feat to sing, for it trips merrily up and down and all around the scale.  

Today I dedicate St. Patrick's Breastplate to our little Beau.  It was sung in his honor at his memorial, and I know that he trips merrily along with St. Patrick himself  in the emerald fields of heaven.

"I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity,

By invocation of the same, the Three in One, and One in Three.

I bind this day to me forever, by pow'r of faith, Christ's incarnation;

His baptism in the Jorday river; His death on cross for my salvation;

His bursting from the spiced tomb; his riding up the heavenly way; 

His coming at the day of doom:  I bind unto myself today.

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself to day the virtues of the starlit heav'n, the glorious sun's lifegiving ray,

The whiteness of the moon at even, the flashing of the lightning free,

The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks, the stable earth, the deep salt sea

Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself to today the pow'r of God to hold and lead, His eye to watch,

His might to stay, His ear to hearken to my need,

The wisdom of my God to teach, His hand to guide, His shield to ward,

The word of God to give me speech, His heav'nly host to be my guard.I bind unto myself the Name, the strong name of the Trinity;

By invocation of the same, The Three in One, and One in Three;

Of whom all nature hath creation, Eternal Father, Spirit, Word.

Praise to the Lord of my salvation:  Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Why Should We Be Surprised?

Why is everyone reacting with shock and surprise when Bail-Out Recipient AIG execs were paid over $165 million in bonuses?  AIG's mismanagement was rewarded, so what other lesson would they learn?  Screw up - get bailed out - screw up again.  It's just business as usual.  If any corporation or individual has been foolish with their assets, they should experience the consequences (fail), learn the lessons, and proceed again in a wiser fashion.  Quit bailing out the losers!  But when you do, don't be surprised at what they do next.

One thing that concerns me greatly, though, is that there is talk in Congress  to tax the AIG exec's bonuses - even as much as 100%.  As much as I think AIG's actions have been deplorable, setting the precedence of taxing bonuses at 100% is dangerous.  It opens up a whole Pandora's box of new taxes on honest people.

Sometimes He Calms the Storm

All who sail the sea of faith

Find out before too long

How quickly blue skies can grow dark

And gentle winds grow strong.

Suddenly fear is like white water

Pounding on the soul,

Still we sail on knowing 

That our Lord is in control.

Sometimes He calms the storm

With a whispered "Peace, be still."

He can settle any sea

But it doesn't mean He will.

Sometimes He holds us close

And lets the wind and waves go wild,

Sometimes He calms the storm

And other times He calms His child.

He has a reason for each trial

That we pass through in life,

And though we're shaken 

We cannot be pulled apart from Christ.

No matter how the driving rain beats down 

On those who hold to faith,

A heart of trust will always

Be a quiet peaceful place.

     ~ Scott Krippayne

"Godric" Speaks

Of the River Wear by which he lived:

     "In the little church I built of wood for Mary, I hollowed out a place for him.  Perkin brings him by the pail and pours him in.  Now that I can hardly walk, I crawl to meet him there.  He takes me in his chilly lap to wash me of my sins.  Or I kneel down beside him till within his depths I see a star.

     Sometimes this star is still.  Sometimes she dances.  She is Mary's star.  Within that little pool of Wear she winks at me.  I wink at her.  The secret that we share I cannot tell in full.  But this much I will tell.  What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup."

Of friendship:

     "That's five friends, one for each of Jesu's wounds, and Godric bears their mark still on what's left of him as in their time they all bore his on them.  What's friendship, when all's done, but the giving and taking of wounds? 

     Gentle Jesu, Mary's son, be thine the wounds that heal our wounding.  Press thy bloody scars to ours that thy dear blood may flow i us and cleanse our sin.  Be thou in us and we in thee that Godric, Gillian, Ailred, Mouse and thou may be a woundless one at last.  And even Reginald if thy great mercy reach so far."

Of time and truth:

     "You speak of time, Godric,"Ailred said.  His cough for once was gone.  "Time is a storm.  TImes past and times to come, they heave and flow and leap their bounds like Wear.  Hours are clouds that change their shapes before your eyes.  A dragon fades into a maiden's scarf.  A monkey's grin becomes an angry fist.  But beyond time's storm and clouds, there's timelessness.  Godric, the Lord of Heaven changes not, and even when our view's most dark, he's there above us fair and golden as the sun."  And so it is.

     "God's never gone," my gentle, ailing Ailred said.  "It's only men go blind."

Of their Roman pilgrimage and what they saw:

     "Why did we weep?  I asked myself.  We wept for all that grandeur gone.  We wept for martyrs cruelly slain.  We wept for Christ, who suffered death upon a tree and suffers still to see our suffering.  But more than anything, I think, we wept for us, and so it ever is with tears.  Whatever be their outward cause, within the chancel of the heart it's we ourselves for whom they finally fall.

     We'd tramped so far from home and found so little for our pains.  We'd started forth so full of hope and gaiety who now sat sore of foot among the rubble of those brutish lists.  Still darker yet, we'd come to pray to God for mercy on my father's soul, and lo, save only for those heaps of marble limbs and heads, we found no God in Rome.  If God was there, then like the Pope the eyes he cast on us were blind."       

     

And of the Wear once more:

     "Here are the sounds of Wear.  It rattles stone on stone.  It sucks its teeth.  It sings.  It hisses like the rain.  It roars.  It laughs.  It claps its hands.  Sometimes I think it prays.  In winter, through the ice, I've seen it moving swift and black as Tune, without a sound.

     Here are the sights of Wear.  It falls in braids.  It parts at rocks and tumbles round them white as down or flashes over them in silver quilts.  It tosses fallen trees like bits of straw yet spins a single leaf as gentle as a maid.  Sometimes it coils for rest in darkling pools and sometimes leaps its banks and shatters in the air.  In autumn I've seen it breathe a mist so thick and grey you'd never know Old Wear was there at all."

Campaign of Hope?

President Barak Hussein Obama's bid for the Presidency included campaign slogans of "Hope", "Change", and "Yes, we can!"  Well, we've got change, alright; but it's not what many people assumed it would be, which shows that you can't take simple rhetoric simply.  So, we have "Change", but what happened to "Hope" and "Yes, we can?"  There's been nothing but gloom and doom and "you can't do anything about it, the government has to" in every speech I've heard Obama give.  

Today President Obama gave another speech - this one to a graduating Police Academy class in Ohio.  We all know that graduation speeches are intended to inspire and uplift the graduates as they prepare to go and do what they've been prepared to go do.  This particular class, however, heard nothing like that at all.  They heard, "I don't need to tell this graduation class that your job might be next.." and the President continued his continuing campaign oration.

Mr. President, that's not how leaders lead.  Leaders inspire, encourage, cheer, and motivate. More importantly leaders serve, listen, and pay attention to the needs of those they're leading. That last sentiment can be echoed to the entire Congress as well.  We need Leaders, not just political campaigners with false premises and false promises.

Godric, A Novel by Frederick Buechner

     "Look at the floor, Godric," she said in her thin child's voice.  I looked and saw it freshly strewn with rushes.

     She said, "My lord this morning bade me tell the chamberlain to have them sweeten it with herbs against the feats, and so I did.  They scattered lavender and mint and winter savory all about till now it's fit for royal feet.  And pennyroyal too, that makes me think.  I doubt if there's a sweeter floor in all of Christendom.  But, Godric, do you know what's underneath?"

     I shook my head.  I thought the wine had made her giddy the way she closed her eyes and shivered.  But when she opened them again, I saw that wine was not the cause.  If we'd met as simply man and child, I'd have taken her upon my knee and tried to lullaby the pain away.  

     "What's underneath is turds of dogs and grease and spit and bits of bone," she said.  "The part you see is fair and fresh.  The part you do not see is foul.  Do you know what it reminds me of, this floor?"

     Again I shook my head though I had guessed her meaning well enough.

     "My life," she said, and hid her face."

The premise explored by Buechner in his novel Godric, can be summed in the above passage - the holiest, most devout Christian is yet a man of filthy rags, sinful down to his DNA.  

Saint Godric was an actual man.  He was born in the mid-Eleventh century to an Anglo-Saxon family in Walpole, Britain.  He began his career as a peddler, and later becoming a sailing merchant (pirate?), and then a steward to a wealthy British lord.  During this time he made a pilgrimage to Rome with his mother, as well as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  Then at about the age of 30, he forsook his "secular" life and joint the hermit Elric at Wulsingham where he acted as door-keeper and bellringer at the church of St. Giles.  He also took up his education with the choir boys at Saint Mary-le-Bow.  Sometime after the age of 40 he became a hermit himself, settling at Finchale by the River Wear.  There he took up the austere lifestyle of a religious ascetic, dedicating his life to mortifying his flesh in order to become pure before God.  Before his death on May 21, 1170 - now his feast day - he was attributed with knowledge of future and distant events and a love of wild creatures, having power over them.  He is the earliest known lyrical poet in English, including a hymn to the Virgin Mary which he set to music himself. 

In his novel about Saint Godric, Buechner takes these and other facts, and weaves an extraordinary Chaucer-like tale of a man who encounters grace, and then follows after the Giver of grace with all that he knows.  The medieval Roman Church's understanding of holiness is not what we understand it to be today, but any modern Believer would appreciate the struggle in Godric's life to live a life pleasing to our Lord and Maker, but yet struggles daily with the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Indeed, in our flesh we are all like the banqueting floor of the passage, lovely and fragrant on the surface, but full of filth beneath.  And like Godric, we can find a remedy for our souls in the One who takes our sins upon Himself and washes us clean.

"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered:

blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin."

~ Romans 4:7-8