October in Phoenix

October in Phoenix:
No scarlet leaves in sight;
October in Phoenix,
Still sweltering at night.


October in Phoenix--
First day breaks a hundred--
We all see, crestfallen,
The records we dreaded.


I dream of northern mountains,
Flagstaff maples and aspens;
But I'm down here working,
No matter what happens.

If I were a Catholic
I'd call it "Purgatory";
Ah, since I'm a Lutheran
I lack that category.


Beyond urban confines
The desert grows scenic;
But it's a big city--
October in Phoenix.

Ocotillo

---C. Marie Byars,  (c) 2015



Dreams:

Aspens in Flagstaff, AZ

 

Lord of All Hopefulness

[Happy Labor Day!]

 

 Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust, ever child-like, no cares can destroy,
Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

 Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,
Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe,
Be there at our labors, and give us, we pray,
Your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,
Your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace,
Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray,
Your love in our hearts, Lord, at the eve of the day.

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,
Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm,
Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray,
Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day.

 

---"Jan Struther"  (Joyce Maxtone Graham)* , 1931

*This authoress of many Anglican hymns was, actually, agnostic, although she regularly attended church.  We shall take her work in the fullest Christian sense.

Old Glory in Nature's Glory

 

 
 
 

Monument Valley, Arizona (Navajo Reservation)

 

North Carolina Mountains


 

Bird Room

Still at it with the new house: now it's the settling in for this new year.  The kitchen/dining area has a real "bird theme", which relates to this blog.  I often hear birds singing outside, despite living in this metro area: 

 

Beautiful Mountains

Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, New Mexico

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day*

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head**
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
---Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, 1864

*Usually sung to a tune written by Jean Baptiste Calkin
*This poem was written during the Civil War. Two stanzas further reflecting the sense of despair over the war are not usually included anymore in the hymn and are not included here.

Pied Beauty (Redux)

Always nice to repeat some of Hopkins work:

Glory be to God for dappled things,For skies of couple-color as a brindled cow,
For rose-moles in stipple** upon trout that swim.Fresh-firecoal chestnut falls***, finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced---fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.All things counter, spare, original, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled, (who knows how?)With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:Praise Him.
---Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877

*Pied: Having patches of more than one color; i.e. the "Pied Piper"
**Rose-colored dots or flecks
***Fallen chestnuts, red as burning coals

 

To Everything a Season

There is a time for everything,
And a season for every activity under heaven:

• A time to be born and a time to die;
• A time to plant and a time to uproot;
• A time to kill off forcefully and a time to heal;
• A time to tear down and a time to build;
• A time to weep and a time to laugh;
• A time to grieve and a time to dance;
• A time to scatter stones about and a time to gather them up;
• A time to embrace and a time to hold back;
• A time to search and a time to abandon search;
• A time to keep and a time to discard;
• A time to tear and a time to mend;
• A time to be silent and a time to speak
• A time to love and a time to hate*;
• A time for war and a time for peace....

[God] has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity into the hearts of people,
Yet they cannot grasp what God has done
From beginning to end. --(King Solomon?); Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11
*We are called to truly hate what is evil or false; not to arbitrarily hate other people.

What a Waste!

Our Solid Waste Problem

Already in the 1980s, National Geographic alerted readers that so-called bio-degradables don't really break down in landfills. They studied lettuce, for instance, that was nearly 20 years old and still not broken down. And there is much more in the way of thrown-out foodstuffs and yard waste. More recently, William L. Rathje of University of Arizona wrote in his book, Rubbish! the Archeology of Garbage,
"They [landfills] are not vast composters; rather, they are vast mummifiers." He went on to write, "Well-designed and well-mamaged landfills, in particular, seem to be far more apt to preserve their contents for posterity than to transform them into humus or mulch."
Solutions? Compost at home. If you can't create a compost heap, try mini-composting: place food waste on the ground right near plants & partially hidden by the foliage or between plants & slightly spaded into the soil. Use a mulching lawn mower. So far, the U.S. has been blessed with enough space not to worry about this, but the time will come.
Plus, coupling people's desire to become more "green" with the current recession means that maybe we can look at some jobs & technology in green fields. Maybe we could invent giant "rakes" to go in and occasionally turn over detritus in existing landfills so that the bio-degradables will compost. We Americans with our so-called "Yankee ingenuity" have been falling down on the job, so to speak, for some decades now. And we Christians have not followed our first pre-sin injunction to take care of this earth.

From Sea to Dark Dead Sea

[This poem is about the modern American mindset and its influence upon the Church. It does not reflect a crushing depression on the part of the poetess.]

The Jordan in but never out,
So knowledge takes in me such route
In brackish waters to brood about
The suppression of true freedom's shout---
The Dead Sea.

At lowest point, then, here I sit.
The deepest depression of deep'ning rift.
The deep'ning gloom---and shall it lift?
Integrity's shroud, hides Holy Writ. . .
Apathy.

As just-hatched bird by Nature bred
Lives just to squawk and so be fed
I now by histr'y do so defend
By justified means I reach this end:
The Bland Me.

I lived through day, I lived through night;
I lived through love, I lived through fright;
I turned inside to put to flight
The hopeless failures from crueller sight:
The Dead Me.

Whether by mindless shallowness
Or endless, stale analysis,
In Sophist and in Hedonist
The fear of Feeling here exists:
The fear "to be."

On me they float but can't dive in:
Cannot drown but cannot swim.
Advance in skills. . .Retreat within. . .
A merry-go-round with fatal spin. . .
Technology?!?!

Oh, to be that other sea,
Parted to let young Israel free,
Closed to drown out cruelty,
Fluid with fresh-faced vitality:
The Red Sea!!!

-----C. Marie Byars, 1987

Technorati Labels existentialism philosophy theology ethics culture religion technology