A Carpe Diem Snapshot:
After a conversation about Calendar Class last night with my first employer in Rome, Dr. Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican magazine, I reflected about what first set me off on this life-long rabbit trail journey. When I was 9 or 10 years old, I received for my birthday a fun book called The Kids' Diary of 365 Amazing Days. I recorded life events and drew cartoons in that book for three years. As a teen, I discovered The Writers Almanac radio show by Garrison Keillor, and loved hearing about the eventful and colorful lives whose birth or death was commemorated on that day. Also, listening to Keillor read the poem of the day often inspired me to stand still, if only for a moment, as the words drew images in my mind, and brought forth ideas to consider that had not been there a moment before. All these decades later, I find myself still doing the same thing- learning about the lives that have gone before us and the legacies they left, and contemplating lessons and words of beauty and wisdom that impart a sense of meaning and awe to the rest of the day.
Liturgical: Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
"I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness. And if anyone hears my words and does not observe them,
I do not condemn him, for I did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. Whoever rejects me and does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word that I spoke, it will condemn him on the last day..."
Sanctoral: Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Austria, Priest and Martyr (1577-1622), "protomartyr of the Capuchin Order and of the Propaganda in Rome"; Mary of Cleophas, Mother of St. James the Less and Joseph, wife of Cleophas
Human: Birthdays of Robert B. Thomas (founder of The Old Farmer’s Almanac) – 1766 and Robert Penn Warren (poet) – 1905; deaths of Lucy Maud Montgomery (author) – 1942 and Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov (became the first person to die during a space mission) – 1967; Spain declared war on the United States (Spanish-American War)– 1898; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II– 1953; Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger inaugurated as Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He took the name Pope Benedict XVI– 2005
Natural: Joshua Slocum left Boston on his 37-foot sloop named Spray. He arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, on June 27, 1898, becoming the first sailor to have circumnavigated the globe alone– 1895; Hubble space telescope launched– 1990
Quote: a poem by Robert Penn Warren, on his birthday
Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true.
And the line where the incoming swell from the sunset Pacific
First leans and staggers to break will tell all you need to know
About submarine geography, and your father's death rattle
Provides all biographical data required for the Who's Who of the dead.
I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least
I can say how night-long I have lain under the stars and
Heard mountains moan in their sleep. By daylight,
They remember nothing, and go about their lawful occasions
Of not going anywhere except in slow disintegration. At night
They remember, however, that there is something they cannot remember.
So moan. Theirs is the perfected pain of conscience that
Of forgetting the crime, and I hope you have not suffered it. I have.
I do not recall what had burdened my tongue, but urge you
To think on the slug's white belly, how sick-slick and soft,
On the hairiness of stars, silver, silver, while the silence
Blows like wind by, and on the sea's virgin bosom unveiled
To give suck to the wavering serpent of the moon; and,
In the distance, in plaza, piazza, place, platz, and square,
Boot heels, like history being born, on cobbles bang.
Everything seems an echo of something else.
And when, by the hair, the headsman held up the head
Of Mary of Scots, the lips kept on moving,
But without sound. The lips,
They were trying to say something very important.
But I had forgotten to mention an upland
Of wind-tortured stone white in darkness, and tall, but when
No wind, mist gathers, and once on the Sarré at midnight,
I watched the sheep huddling. Their eyes
Stared into nothingness. In that mist-diffused light their eyes
Were stupid and round like the eyes of fat fish in muddy water,
Or of a scholar who has lost faith in his calling.
Their jaws did not move. Shreds
Of dry grass, gray in the gray mist-light, hung
From the side of a jaw, unmoving.
You would think that nothing would ever again happen.
That may be a way to love God.
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