I mean I want to see

Sometimes when I talk to my exuberant friends who are all vivid and full quick feeling I think of this prayer:

“Watch, dear Lord, with those who wake or watch or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Jesus Christ, rest your weary ones, bless your dying ones, soothe your suffering ones, shield your joyous ones, and all for your love’s sake.”

I love the rich and the solemn and the promising words here. And the truth behind these words “shield your joyous ones”. It places joy within limits, within time; as Gail Godwin put it, “the very arrangement of words calls up joy’s end even as you’re evoking pictures of its many manifestations”.

(You think of the children whose childhood have been snatched away from them — as I asked once

Is war automatically immoral inasmuch as children who live in a war zone are almost certainly being denied the right to their childhood? Do children have a moral right to a childhood? Is it immoral for children to fight in a war or be expected to fight in a war? Is a society acting immorally if it teaches its children a collective memory of war that is heroic or an interpretation that most other people consider wrong? How have children written about war and what is their moral view of it? How have adults written about war for children and what is their moral responsibility in discussing it?)

There has to be a reason why the intellectual intelligent artistic and ardent ones are prone to depression and black moods and need shielding. They need protection because their defences are down. Both in the high of its euphoric vision and the intensity of its deepest experience, joy brings an uncomplicated simplicity and incautious attitude. The ardent sorts are very sensitive to dampeners, and their fire needs stoking by enthusiasts and lovers of enthusiasts.

Flowers in Scotland, 2001

She is amazing and fabulous. And so utterly gorgeous.

And I like this series on the Stradivarius instruments, which go way beyond, as Jude puts it, the price/sound ratio.

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Yay for buckets of prawns with good chilli sauce. Mmm. And also to good, sweet rest. No stress and lots of rest — essential for unblemished skin and glossy hair and strong nails, bright eyes and loads of energy.

I’ve put a couple of recipes I often use up on the site, more mussels and yummy mint julep and a hungarian peasant soup I’m quite fond of. Will have to get down to more reading pages and get that section on friends and links up. Am still researching my digital camera buys after the last one conked out, so current photos will have to wait. May get a scanner soon, though I’m really quite tightfisted when it comes to gadgets.

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“我们不论对于哪一本书，哪一种学问，都要经过自己的怀疑：因怀疑而思索，因思索而辨别是非；经过‘怀疑’‘思索’‘辨别’三步以后，那本书才是自己的书，那种学问才是自己的学问。否则是盲从，是迷信。盂子所谓‘尽信书不如无书’，也就是教我们有一点怀疑的精神，不要随便盲从或迷信。”

– 顾颉刚 《怀疑与学问》

Still struggling with the same questions about church. I think it was Kristina who sent this Boston Globe article? Anyway, it’s beautifully written —

BEVERLY BECKHAM
In the dark about gays
Her church stumbles when it draws the line
March 19, 2006

I am as Catholic as the moon is round. It’s not visible, sometimes, the moon, my Catholicism, but it’s there, pulling the tides, shaping the earth, pulling and shaping me. I knew who made me before I knew who I was. God made me.

”Why did God make you?” the catechism asked.

”God made me to show His goodness and to make me happy with Him in Heaven,” the catechism taught me.

I was a child who loved being a Catholic. I loved bowing my head at the name of Jesus, kneeling, lighting candles, inhaling incense, listening to Latin prayers and Gregorian chant.

I loved Saturday afternoon confession and Sunday morning Communion, the ritual, the cleansing, the knowing that if I got hit by a car on my way home from either, I would ascend right to Heaven and behold God’s face.

I loved words like ”ascend” and ”behold”. They took the sting out of life and death.

I had a child’s unflinching faith. So did my friend Beth. We both spent the seventh grade in different towns and different parishes praying for the same thing: signs of the stigmata. We longed to be martyrs and saints. We laugh at this now. But it’s a wry laugh. What happened to us?

In fourth grade I accompanied my best friend, Rosemary, to her Baptist church one Sunday, and my priest said I’d sinned. Rosemary could come to my church any time, but I couldn’t go to hers because hers was not the one true Catholic and apostolic church, he told me.

I was 9 years old and absolutely certain that this priest was God’s right-hand man — but I didn’t believe he was right about this.

Forty years later a different priest called me a cafeteria Catholic, but not in a mean way. He said it with an understanding born of having said it many times before. But he said it with a warning, too. You cannot choose what to believe if you are a Catholic. You have to believe what the church teaches.

I didn’t. And I don’t. And I am not the only one.

The church was kind when I went back. The child who wanted to be a saint grew into a woman who left the church for 17 years. The moon rose and fell and tugged and shone, but I said no, I am not following you. And then one day, the moon illuminated a man I did follow, a good man and a good priest.

He said, ”God loves us all,” and he meant it. He said, ”People are good,” and he believed it. He said at the end of every Mass, ”Go and serve the Lord and one another.” And he did.

I forgave the church its trespasses because of him. I opened my eyes and saw that there were no longer just altar boys serving Mass. There were altar girls as well. I saw lay people reading. I saw Eucharistic ministers. I saw a community where there once had been a kingdom.

I turned a deaf ear to Rome’s dictates about premarital sex, divorce, artificial insemination, and contraception.

Yes, the church was against these things, but when I returned, it was to a parish where there was no finger-pointing. This church was holding out its arms.

”What would Jesus do?” I love this question.

Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, a social breach, unheard of. But he did it anyway.

Jesus was best friends with Mary Magdalene, another scandal. Jesus forgave Peter for denying him, and Judas for betraying him, and his Father in Heaven for sacrificing him.

What would Jesus do? He would not draw a line in the sand and say, ”Cross it and I reject you.”

The Roman Catholic Church, my church, deems homosexuality a sin.

It says that two people of the same gender who love one another and are in a committed relationship are sinners.

It says that same-gender couples aren’t really couples and are not morally fit to raise children.

But the Roman Catholic Church, my church, also teaches that God loves his creation so much that he sacrificed his only son for all of us.

For all of us. Not just the heterosexuals in the group.

The moon pulls and illuminates. But my church is in the dark.

”Who made us?”

”God made us.”

Straight and gay, God made us and loves us all.

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Things to do:

- volunteering appts
- Daily French and Vietnamese and pilates and calligraphy
- enough sleep
- brokerage stuff
- read proper stuff instead of going through my Wheel Of Time robert jordans again

And I’m in the triple digits!
999 days and $221543.42 left to go

茶杯在手，从灸手可烫到渐渐温凉。轻旋杯盖，花香氤氲，直沁心脾，抿唇轻呷，浅浅的甜与淡淡的香萦绕舌间，齿颊留香，直侵肺腑，清心明目之际，精神也为之一振，一杯茶汤源源不断地入口，夏季特有的燥热渐渐散去，这午后就有了特别清醒的时刻。读书的欲望在加浓，一时间，唇触杯沿，目追诗行，思随书动，愉情于古人的诗章辞赋中，红尘琐事，功利世界，全然置身事外。

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丑奴儿·书博山道中壁

辛弃疾

少年不识愁滋味，爱上层楼；爱上层楼，为赋新词强说愁。
而今识尽愁滋味，欲说还休；欲说还休，却道天凉好个秋！

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青玉案·元夕

辛弃疾

东风夜放花千树。更吹落、星如雨。宝马雕车香满路，凤箫声动，玉壶光转，一夜鱼龙舞。
蛾儿雪柳黄金缕。笑语盈盈暗香去。众里寻她千百度。蓦然回首，那人却在，灯火阑珊处。

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宣州谢朓楼饯别校书叔云

李白

弃我去者，昨日之日不可留；
乱我心者，今日之日多烦忧。
长风万里送秋雁，对此可以酣高楼。
蓬莱文章建安骨，中间小谢又清发。
俱怀逸兴壮思飞，欲上青天览明月。
抽刀断水水更流，举杯销愁愁更愁。
人生在世不称意，明朝散发弄扁舟。

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锦瑟
李商隐

锦瑟无端五十弦，一弦一柱思华年。
庄生晓梦迷蝴蝶，望帝春心托杜鹃。
沧海月明珠有泪，蓝田日暖玉生烟。
此情可待成追忆，只是当时已惘然。

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For the non-Chinese-speaking, the above’s some poetry and some pretty phrases about thoughts while drinking tea.

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As a naturalist by profession and a humanist at heart, I have long believed that wisdom dictates an optimal strategy for proper steering toward the dream and away from the danger: as you reach upward, always festoon the structure of your instrument with the rich quirks and contradictions, the foibles and tiny gleanings, of human and natural diversity — for abstract zealotry can never defeat a great dream anchored in the concrete of human warmth and laughter.

– Stephen Jay Gould
I Have Landed: The End Of A Beginning In Natural History
Three Rivers Press, 2003
p. 396

My faith is all a doubtful thing,
Wove on a doubtful loom, –
Until there comes, each showery spring,
A cherry-tree in bloom
– David Morton

Sakura blossoms in Kyoto, 2006

A good run after getting back from work; it’s just been raining and I love the coolness and the smell of green things. Old men in white T-shirts and black slacks cycling slowly, the helmeted Malay youths at the gas station store where I was getting some water, the bats! circling around and around their favourite trees, the smell of flowers from a tree I can’t identify, the last shifts of buses passing by, wakes at a void deck with the family in white and black and with coloured squares on their sleeves, talking with the tortoiseshell stray cats. I love the estate at night.

And am helping a friend, who’s sort of a cross between Martha Stewart (everything just so) and Andy Warhol (anything’s possible). decorate. I may complain about lifestyle magazine type of men, but I’m so much the colours and bower bird sort. My mission is to brighten up every space with good design and bright, inviting colours, and if I can get a touch of humour squeezed in it’ll be fabuous.

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I love the Economist’s style:

“In the United States the last year of a lame-duck presidency is seldom a productive affair: the president quacks on in the White House while the country’s political class focuses on who should succeed him. But at least there is a defined end and a defined contest. Britain has had a lame-duck prime ministership—made worse so far by the absence of either a date for Tony Blair’s departure or a public contest to succeed him.”

– A quick departure and a noisy contest, Sept 7, 2006

Someone was telling me of the temperament of search dogs when we were talking of 9/11.

The Type A qualities of a good search dog often make them terrible pets for most families — the animals are high-energy and restless and out-going, with relentless energy and tenacity and a tendency to get bored when idle. Some of them end up getting sent to the pound, and search dog training foundations who look there put them through ability/motivation tests to look for suitable candidates. To save one of these dogs given up for lost, they give them proper training and a focus for their energy and enthusiasm, and they give them a job to do.

Rereading The Sound And The Fury. It’s hard to slip into Faulkner, I find all those convoluted voices tough going — but once you find your sea-legs it’s amazing stuff, shattering, depressing, deep. It brings up all these fractures, shows how we betray those we’re closest to, how broken and how fragile we are, how lives bend out of shape, how we all need to forgive as we all need forgiveness.

Yay, another author to start discovering. I’ve already fallen in love with Graham Greene in the past year, and though Faulkner is not as easy to read it’s stretching and rewarding.

:) And since I’ve to struggle through the American South idiom, when I write the readers will have to struggle through Singlish! And bits of untranslated Chinese, much as I struggled with the bits of French from Enid Blyton to Dorothy Sayers.

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One day a rabbi asked his students, “How can you tell that night has ended and the day is returning?” One student suggested, “When you can see clearly that an animal in the distance is a lion and not a leopard.” “No,” said the rabbi. Another said, “When you can tell that a tree bears figs and not peaches?” “No,” said the rabbi. “It is when you can look on the face of another person and see that woman or man is your sister or brother. Because until you are able to do so, no matter what time of the day it is, it is still night.”

– Radcliffe, What Is The Point Of Being A Christian?, p 125
Quoting Sean D. Simmons, Religious Life In America: A New Day Dawning, New York 2002, p. 95

The problem with poverty of all sorts, I think, is that it grinds you down and causes the loss of hope and meaning. People who don’t have much look at themselves as they are now, and that’s all they see. They don’t see a future, they just see a miserable present. That’s why the rehab folks and the teachers who have the gift of working with the potential they see are successful.