Mama Mondays

      some very important reminders from the wisdom from The Boy, the Fox, the Mole, and the Horse 

  Maya Angelou - God Loves Me This is so very beautiful...  and this piece below was written by one of my former colleagues at SPU:  In 1840, the composer Robert Schumann wrote a  lieder  (art song) for his soon-to-be wife, Clara (herself an accomplished musician). He took his lyrics from the poet and linguist Friedrich Rückert. The result was a piece called  Widmung  (“Dedication”), considered to be one of the most lush and profound love songs ever written. It went like this: “You are my soul, you are my heart, You give me joy, or pain impart, You are my world – The world I gladly live in. You are my grave, My very heaven! …Your eyes transfigure me and raise me high. …[You are] my very soul, my better self!” Schumann and Rückert lived and worked during the period of European culture we call “Romantic.” The meaning of the word “Romantic,” of course, has changed over time. Originally, it denoted something “ancient-Roman-ish,” evoking bygone, heroic, and...

I ran across this article last week trying to just find the origin of this phrase: " Behold what you are. Become what you receive " that I heard my professor say in class, and I loved this . This has St. A's written all over it.  Behold what you are. Become what you receive. | Reviving Creation The story of Jesus feeding the crowds is told more often than any other story in the four Gospels. Each of the Gospels tells at least one story of Jesus feeding a crowd of thousands, and the Gospels of Mark and Matthew tell the story twice [Mark 6:30-44, 8:1-9; Matthew 14:13-21, 15:32-39; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-13]. You can see how important this story was to the early community, for the story was clearly linked to the Eucharist. We often think of the Eucharist as originating with the Last Supper, but the early Church also put a great deal of emphasis on Jesus eating with his disciples in Galilee, and, after the resurrection, on his returning to eat meals with his friends. 1  In ...

A wonderful post from Sarah Bessey from last March:  At a pivotal moment in Madeleine L’Engle’s classic book   A Wrinkle in Time , the mysterious guide Mrs. Whatsit says to our protagonist Meg,   “Stay angry, little Meg. You’ll need all of your anger now.” If it’s been a minute since you read the book, this moment happens as Meg, along with her brother Charles Wallace and their friend Calvin, are about to embark on a rescue mission. The three celestial women who have guided them thus far can go no further and the children are facing the darkness on their own now, all to save Meg and Charles Wallace’s father and defeat the hideous “It,” which seeks only conformity, obedience, and so dominance and control. Throughout the story, Meg has struggled to contain and manage her anger, seeing it as a vice or a problem, even a character flaw. She has worked to hide it or to get over it, but with that line,  Mrs. Whatsit gives her permission to access the very anger she’s been t...