It's November, so it's time to pray for the dead and contemplate the coming of Christ, not just by remembering/celebrating Christmas, but also by looking forward to his Second Advent.
Sorry for recycling old goods, but perhaps few have read this column. I published it in The Record, the newspaper of the archdiocese of Perth, Australia, once upon a time. (I would link the page, but alas, they seem to have removed all but six of my columns from their archive.)
But heaven help me. I'm too sad. There's too much garbage going on in the world. But I will not discuss it.
Most of us love Christmas music, and this is really superb. I loooooooooove ancient music. I will admit that Medieval and Renaissance music in general is an acquired taste, but Baroque... well, this is just sublime. It will get you in the Christmas spirit. I'm not advocating that you skip Advent, but if you (like me) need some peace in your soul, seriously, give this ensemble a listen. Beautiful hymns and carols, and a very talented group of singers and musicians.
We will reclaim the culture through beauty. That is all.
PS this video is not narrated in English. Yet at the very end I heard the name "John Rutter," and John Rutter is NOT a Baroque composer (but his music is also sublime! We will leave that for another day.) Enjoy, and God bless your day! (Just 6-odd weeks till Christmas!!!)
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Jesus and vintage. Though the aforementioned is a Person, of course, and what a Person. I especially love the image/statue of Christ the Redeemer as he appears in Rio, Brazil.
For as much as I love Audrey Assad, I have to admit that I don't own ANY of her albums. Isn't that the worst? A Christmas or two ago, I'd bought Fortunate Fall for my daughter. Then I "borrowed" the CD, and still haven't given it back. (She's OK with that, since she ripped the album into her iTunes library.)
To expand my Audrey repertoire, I've been listening to her tracks and playlists on YouTube, and loving everything I hear. Then I went to the iTunes Store and previewed all her tracks from all her albums, and I gotta say, I HAVE TO HAVE ALL OF THEM. That is all. This fantastic song is from her album Heart:
This is a great live version. Want the official video with lyrics? Go here.
Do not be troubled; His eye is on the sparrow. Have a great day.
Sunday, April 15, 2018
I've mentioned this artist before (and I will keep doing it until everyone I know has at least given her music a try), but if you want to be blessed and uplifted and refreshed and energized, LISTEN TO AUDREY ASSAD. This song is appropriate, because it's mid-April, and we are still sitting under three solid feet of snow. So try not to laugh when this video begins with the "Spring" quotation from Shelley. He obviously had never heard of Saskatchewan.
On a somber (and more hopeful) note, the song and video remind me of death and resurrection. I'm thinking of the men, boys and Dayna who "woke up in April" to eternal life, and to the broken hearts they left behind. I am praying for every one of you. #BroncosStrong.
This blog post was written by my lovely niece Anna, who is a mom, designer and seamstress/crafter. She owns and operates Little Plum Tree from her home: beautiful hand-made toys, using local products and materials. I have a couple of her tote bags, and my pet hen, Henrietta, also came from Little Plum Tree.
Henrietta enjoying a prairie summer sunrise from the comfort of the settee
The article is about making one's home beautiful--something with which I have always struggled mightily. Heck, I can hardly keep the place tidy, but it's all part of the same problem. I liked this quotation:
In the past I’ve been tempted to settle for a solution that is functional only, thinking I need to be content with something I don’t particularly like because we need to finish a project, or because it’s superficial to hold out for something that’s more attractive.
Ain't THAT the truth! Mrs Beazly and I have struggled with this for so long, we even came up with a name for our decor style: "Scrap and Salvage" (and not in a good, trendy, hipster, thrift-store kind of way). For a while at my house, we had an old kitchen cabinet standing backwards (doors to the wall) embellished with some laminate shelving and pine "trim," which functioned as a shoe shelf IN OUR ENTRYWAY: you know, the place in your house where guests get their first impression. Before it went to its rightful home (the dump) I photographed it, but it was so ugly, I can't even bring myself to post it. (Like that Legolas guy said after that Gandalf guy died in that movie, "the grief is still too near.")
And I still can't get my hubby to throw away the boxy, non-functioning, fake wood/fake leather stereo speaker from the 1970s that he uses for an end table next to his reading chair. Good Lord! I'm in my FIFTIES: when can I stop living like a college student, and instead have only real furniture in my house? (Yes, I know: First World Problems.)
Anyway, back to Anna and Little Plum Tree. She also has a great eye and is a marvellous photographer.
I think my next acquisition will be this little owl. I'm in love with him.
But I suppose there are various ways to define "rest." One thinks of the phrase, "A change is as good as a rest," and today I will have to hew to that version. After Mass, we're heading north (45 miles) to visit my husband's parents for the afternoon. In the evening, Hubby is going to drive our teens back to the parish for youth group, but I'm staying in town to see Faure's Requiem (woot! All my life I've longed to see that performed). I hope to catch a ride back home with a friend. Fingers crossed that it will all work out, and that the weather will cooperate (yesterday we had a blizzard, so you never know.)
But back to the idea of "rest." There is this concept of "Resting in the Lord," and it's something we should strive to do on a regular basis, whether it's Sunday or not. Most people I know (including yours truly) seem inordinately stressed a lot of the time; it just seems to be the way life is. And there are no signs of it letting up, especially as postmodern society gets more bizarre by the day.
We need to "get away," which is, I suspect, why people who can afford it --and even some who can't-- take exotic vacations. Some people of faith take pilgrimages to various holy sites in the world; others go on retreat as often as they can. But sometimes you just can't get away...or can you?
The answer is yes. It's called prayer. More specifically, contemplative prayer, which mainly just means sitting still and quiet and focussing on God. Which is kind of hard to do, especially if you are a restless sort of person, or if you have a million things to think and worry about. But my main aid in this pursuit is listening to calm worship music. It's a way to touch and commune with God without leaving your bedroom.
One of my favourite artists is Audrey Assad. If you don't know her music, seriously, look her up. She has lengthy playlists on YouTube (not that I recommend those for prayer, since they are interspersed with annoying ads). I have her album Fortunate Fall, but I'm going to acquire more--in fact all of them. I love her that much. She helps me connect with God, and that is no small feat.
If you have time today (and please try) sit still and listen to this track. And meditate upon the words.
This is yet another song that my daughter has been practicing. She accompanies the junior church choir for Sunday Mass, and also when they compete in choral classes in the local music festival. It is for the latter that she is preparing this piece, although (I hope) the choir will also sing it during the Easter Triduum.
I love this song because of its inherent beauty, truth and holiness, but also because it was composed by a Canadian duo for World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, Canada. I will never forget that event, even though I could not attend (having recently given birth, which sort of chartecterizes most years of my life between 1988 and 2004). I watched it on TV, and Pope (now Saint!) John Paul II was of course in his declining years (health-wise), and the Canadian state TV network (CBC, a leftist outlet) were all cynical and critical and "oh he's so frail, he has to exit the plane with an elevator, yadda yadda yadda" and then the Holy Father left the plane of his own accord and WALKED down the stairs and rendered the reporters speechless. It was so satisfying.
The music for the Masses of WYD 2002 was just wonderful. I still get teary-eyed thinking about it, and I still watch reruns on YouTube. It was a moment in history--wish I could have been there.
Mainly because it's killing satire. What would Jonathan Swift have said to all the craziness going on in North American society these days? Possibly, nothing: he'd have been hauled before some human rights or social justice tribunal for writing Gulliver's Travels (alternately, he'd have been given an award by Planned Parenthood for his essay "A Modest Proposal" wherein he --satirically-- suggests that society solve the "overpopulation" and poverty problems in one go by eating their children.) It is satire. He wasn't serious. You have to explain that these days.
When satire is dead, comedy is dead. Also drama, poetry, song, fiction and film. I avoid Hollywood movies for the most part, because they are no longer interested in telling entertaining and exciting stories. Most of them contain lame preaching on trendy topics, and thus have become the equivalent of medieval morality plays (in fact, they're probably far worse, becuase at least back then, people knew how to write). It's the same reason why some Christian ghetto novels and films are so bad. The story must come first; the moral or lesson must be incidental, not central to the purpose of the artwork. But I digress.
I enjoyed this essay/article by Lionel Shriver. I must admit I had not been interested in her work until I saw her interviewed by Mark Steyn, back when he had a TV show on CRTV. Those videos are also worth checking out.
It doesn’t take much parsing to conclude that protecting all and sundry from the terrible experience of having your feelings hurt is the end of free speech altogether. Since nowadays “you can’t argue with what people feel,” umbrage is freed from rational justification. Given that the better part of the human race is crazy, stupid, or both, there’s nary a thought in the world whose airing won’t offend somebody. Doesn’t Darwin offend creationists? Furthermore, in granting so much power to woundedness, we incentivise hypersensitivity. If we reward umbrage, we will get more of it. We do reward umbrage, and we’re buried in it by the truckload.
If you feed me, I will grow.
Trigger warnings/Microaggressions
More from Ms Shriver:
Yet these days, straight white fiction writers whose characters’ ethnicity, race, disability, sexual identity, religion or class differs from their own can expect their work to be subjected to forensic examination—and not only on social media. Publishers of young adult fiction and children’s literature hire “sensitivity readers” to comb through manuscripts for perceived slights to any group with the protected status once reserved for distinguished architecture.
Good heavens, what hope do aspiring writers have, unless the culture regains its sanity?
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It's probably an indication that I don't get out enough, but I am so amused by email Spam. Today I got one from "Jose Lawless User Support." Really? You're trying to rip me off and the best name you can come up with is "Lawless"? Is this some sort of reverse psychology? Vizzini, I need your help.
Jose's subject heading was, "You have a private notification." Well, Jose, if it's "private," how did you find out about it?
Once again, I give you James Veitch. As a writer (and would-be novelist, having dabbled in the medium, to varying degrees of completion), I find this video particularly hilarious. Happy Wednesday and last day of February.
I think I should. Call me strange, but one of the things I enjoy about gardening is seeing the extremely weird things that vegetables can do. Here, two little twin baby onions decided to sprout from another dried up old onion. I liked the different textures and interesting layers, and I photographed it from different angles, partly so that I could use it as a model for drawing class exercises with my 13-year old. (We're using Betty Edwards' text/method this year.)
But maybe I should also try to launch an Art career. I could photoshop the background a bit (make it more blurry, and maybe pinkish), print the images up on large canvasses, and write up an abstract about how these sprouts...
It's possible, and you can do it every day. There are so many ways: love, prayer, good food (as long as you don't overeat), acts of kindness, walking in the park, holding a baby, reading a good book, visiting a friend, wine (again, not too much lol), hugs, great art: MUSIC. Oh my goodness, music.
I get to touch heaven all the time at my house. I am so, SO blessed (in many ways) but in particular because my daughters --all seven of them-- are beautiful and talented musicians (sorry, girls! Moms have to brag sometimes). I have a large CD collection (that makes me sound so old, now that everything is online), and I also stream hours of music through YouTube. I'm SO old, that I'm still afraid of Spotify and Apple Music and other stuff I don't fully understand. But I DO have an iTunes account, and I've even purchased albums online, so there is hope for me yet.
But my greatest joy (artistically speaking) is live music. And I get to hear it nearly every day. My 15-year-old daughter is currently learning this piece. Chopin. Pretty sure I would die without him.
Here is the great Vladimir Ashkenazy. I have his 5-CD set The Chopin Experience (Mrs Beazly, get a load of this price!! Aren't you glad you bought it in 1996 for a bit less?)
There there is THIS GUY. I am so proud he's Canadian (though everyone calls him "Polish-Canadian," which is OK, because he is the son of Polish immigrants. Chopin was Polish too, despite the French name. What is it with those artistic Poles? Thank God for them anyway).
To call Jan Lisiecki a 'prodigy' is a misnomer, even though he finished high school when he was like 12 or something, and he's been an internationally touring concert pianist since he was 15. I have seen him perform three whole times. It is a sublime experience, as you may well imagine.
We were not allowed to take pictures during the performance, of course; I took this before Jan took to the stage. We were front row, centre. The picture is horrible, dark and blurry, but it's proof (yes, thanks to Google, spying on us 24/7 through our smartphones, I can prove that this picture was taken at the foot of the stage on the night Jan Lisiecki performed at TCU Place in Saskatoon last September). I was close enough to stand up and touch his shoe. Which of course I didn't do, because I did not want to frighten Mr. Lisiecki, or be arrested.
And in order to enjoy it, you don't even have to be a rabid David Bowie fan, which I sort of am. Apparently this choir came together on 24 hours' notice or something crazy like that. The unifying power of music. The choir comprises old, young, cool, nerdy, the works. Must have been great fun.
I've been sick for a few days now. I thought it was a cold at first, but now I'm getting flu-like symptoms. Which is really annoying, because I got a flu shot earlier this fall. (My arm still hurts! I'm gonna guess that's not normal.) I can't sleep at night, which means that I don't get much done during the day, except for tutoring my daughter, as she sits on the edge of my bed, and blogging, and listening to Jordan Peterson vids and podcasts.
I saw this book and play kit at Costco recently, and was rather disturbed that there is no figurine of the Prince. Just the Beast. Belle falls in love with the Beast, and he remains a beast. There is no transformation scene at the end of the book. Which is sad and a little creepy.
On the one hand, I'm thinking, this is very funny, but why do some people 'waste' their time doing stuff like this? On the other hand, the Bad Lip Reading folks have 6.5 million subscribers. Allow me to repeat: 6.5 MILLION. On the whole, not a bad way to pick up some pocket change. And besides, it beats 98% of what passes for entertainment on TV these days.
This is why we need poetry in our lives. Isn't that one of the best lines you've ever read? It comes from the opening hymn from Morning Prayer (Liturgy of the Hours). If you do not pray the LOTH, you should seriously consider it, because it's the next most legit thing to attending daily Mass. (Yes, it's even "better" than the daily rosary, and that is saying a LOT.) If you don't know what it is, or where to begin, read this book. Available in ebook format, so you can start within the next 10 minutes if you want. I can't overstate how important this form of prayer is in my life.
We all have suffering and darkness in our lives, and we want God to take it away. Sometimes, the only prayer we can muster is, "God, help me; I can't deal with this crap." But if we're going to pray that prayer, we might as well use beautiful language--not because God needs to hear it (he knows all the words, even the bad ones), but because we do. God is everything that is true, good and beautiful. And good Art is the same thing. True Art leads us to God.
The LOTH is based on the Psalms, which contain some of the most beautiful words in the Bible.
The Bible also has a lot of cool metaphors. This one came from the Reading from Midmorning Prayer today: (1 Peter 1:13-14): "Gird the loins of your understanding..." Ha, I love that! In other words, 'Get it together, man!' Know what you believe; know why you believe it, and be ready to explain/defend it when asked/challenged.
By the way, I don't usually pray so many of the hours, so don't think I'm some kind of saint. In fact I was kind of cheating and listening to the LOTH audio while I tidied my bedroom this morning. It had become rather messy over the holidays. (You know it's bad when you get all the way through the podcasts of Morning Prayer, Office of Readings AND Midmorning Prayer, and you only cleaned half the room.) Disorganization, laziness and clutter: just a few more those darksome things that need to be driven forth from my life. Pray for me; I'll pray for you.
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Here is a lovely article about the traditions of Ukrainian Christmas. Being of Slavic descent, and having been gifted with a beautiful volume of Russian folk and fairy tales in the early 70's (thanks, big sisters!), and having been introduced to Catherine Doherty's writings at young age (thanks, Dad!) I have a great love for Eastern Christian art, spirituality, rituals, architecture, culture and so forth. (How did I not mention food in that list?) I have never experienced a Ukrainian Christmas Eve feast, but someday I would love to.
I love the British Poirot series, created/adapted by Clive Exton (who also did a smashing job of Jeeves and Wooster) and starring the wonderful David Suchet. Someday, I want to own the entire DVD series, because the day is coming when there will be nothing to watch on TV.
We have already given up on all network TV and no longer have satellite service. And now Netflix has dropped some seasons of Poirot, so what good are they? (Netflix, that is.) And besides, our internet service is terrible (Xplornet, our provider is ranked 20th out of 20 providers, and alas and alack, we still have an entire year on our contract!). So DVDs it is.
But the style! When I watch this series, I'm always geeking out over the Art Deco furniture, architecture and the 1930s clothing. I especially love Miss Lemon. I would like to dress like her when I grow up.
