Profligate Nature

 

I was at a gathering tonight where mention was made of Annie Dilliard's "An American Childhood." Her book "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" has influenced this blog. Here is a quote from it that I find amusing:
Nature is. above all, profligate. Don’t believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance!...This is a spendthrift economy; though nothing is lost, all is spent. (p.65)

All Souls Day

 

Did someone say that there would be an end,
an end, Oh, an end, to love and mourning?....
Now the dead move through all of us still glowing,
mother and child, lover and lover mated,
are wound and bound together and enflowing.
What has been plaited cannot be unplaited.
Only the strands grow richer with each loss
and memory makes kings and queens of us.
Dark into light, light into darkness, spin.
When all the birds have flown to some real haven,
we who find shelter in the warmth within,
listen, and feel new-cherished, new-forgiven,
as the lost human voices speak through us
and blend our complex love,
our mourning without end.
-- May Sarton

Surprise!

 

I was just enjoying looking again at the pictures that I took in Paris. This was one of the charming surprises that I came across one day. It has no significance except that it made me happy and still gives me pleasure and reminds me that the beauty of the city of Paris itself was one of the unexpected treats of my trip.

All Saints

 

"I saw a huge number of people, impossible for anyone to count, from every nation, race, tribe, and language." This verse is an attempt by the author of the Book of Revelation (7:9) to describe the number of saints in heaven.
Early Christians found it impossible to count all those who had been killed because they believed in Jesus. Some martyrs, of course, were outstanding in their witness and were named as such, but Christians wanted also to honor all of those who were not famous, so they celebrated in Rome a catch-all feast of All Martyrs on May 13.
The pre-Christian Irish remembered their dead at the end of October, the end of their year. After becoming Christians they continued to honor their dead at the same time of year. When the Church decided that we wanted a catch-all day to celebrate, not only martyrs, but all those non-famous persons who had died and were with God in heaven, it was the Irish time of year that won out.
So November 1 became the Feast of All Saints. It is a time for us to remember and honor all those who have died but never made a name for themselves for being holy, people like our friends and family members, and the "huge number of people, impossible to count, from every nation, race, tribe, and language."

Lord, that I may see.

 

I took this picture one afternoon this week. I have always liked the autumn leaves contrasted with green. Many branches now are bare and some whole trees. After four warm sunny days strong winds and heavy rain brought down a lot more leaves.
This Sunday's Gospel has me thinking about how much we need the eyes of faith to see God in ourselves, in others, and in the things around us, like autumn leaves and gray days.

Day to Night

 

who are you, little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window;at the gold


of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

e e cummings

One of my favorite poems of one of my favorite poets whose birthday is today.

Matisse Chapel

 

This is not the chapel. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures in the chapel. The chapel is in Vence, a town in the hills behind Nice in the south of France. It was the main reason that I went to the south of France on my trip.
I took this picture in the historic part of Vence which dates from the 15th century. Its ancient town wall separates it from the rest of Vence. Many of the streets are as narrow as the one in the picture. There are also small open squares that add to the charm of this "old village." I was so enchanted by it that I spent a couple of hours here before going to the chapel.
Between 1947 and 1951 Henri Matisse, in his eighties and nearly blind, designed and decorated the chapel as a gift to the convent of Dominican sisters who had nursed him in an illness. Since it was another ecstatic experience that I had with stained glass, let me try to describe it. The entire south wall is long, horizontal waves of yellow, green and blue stained glass. The west wall uses the same colors vertically to hint at a "tree of life." The altar is made of a kind of pockmarked stone that resembles bread. On the other walls are simple line drawings of the stations of the cross, Madonna and Child, and St. Dominic. I felt enveloped by Divine Brilliance.