"More Spacious Than the Heavens"

Our family had dinner at a Melkite Catholic church on Saturday night. Part of the evening included a tour of the church.

The Melkite Church is in communion with the Roman Catholic Church (they acknowledge the Pope as the head of their Church), but their liturgical traditions come from the East, not the West. Icons figure very prominently in the way they worship, especially icons of Mary, the Theotokos (the “God-bearer”).

The sanctuary of a Melkite church is very different from that of a Latin (Roman) church. Most notably, there is no crucifix behind the altar. Instead there is an icon of Mary similar to the one pictured here.

This type of Marian icon is known as Platytera, which literally means “wider” or “more spacious”. In the Eastern Church, Mary is venerated under the title, Platytera ton ouran. In English, this title is literally “more spacious than the heavens”. Mary is given this title because, unlike the heavens/universe, Mary, the Mother of God, could contain God and did for the nine months leading up to Christmas.

Yesterday was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and Christmas is only 16 days away. It seems to me to be a fitting time to open our hearts to the one who was “more spacious than the heavens”. In doing so, we also welcome the One she carried within her.

The Saintmakers

The kids at Boola and Pepere's house. Thanksgiving 2008.

One Little Indian

Every year at the kids' preschool there is a Thanksgiving "play" put on by the preschoolers. It's the same thing every year. All the kids are divide into groups and deliver lines every time their characters are mentioned.

The narrator tells the story of the first Thanksgiving: there's a preacher ("Praise the Lord!"), pilgrim men ("Ahunting we will go!"), Indian men ("Brave and strong!"), turkeys ("Gobble, gobble, gobble!"), and pilgrim women ("Oh, my goodness!").

This year, our Francesca (nee' Annamaria Francesca) was spectacularly miscast as one of the Indian women concerned with keeping things quiet around their sleeping children ("Shhh! Baby sleeping!").

Cute and cuddly she is, but she couldn't sneak up on a buffalo to save her life.

BTW, the kid is much cuter than the picture.

What's Right With the World

From GKC via Nancy Brown, etc.

For at present we all tend to one mistake; we tend to make politics too important. We tend to forget how huge a part of a man's life is the same under a Sultan and a Senate, under Nero or St. Louis Daybreak is a never-ending glory, getting out of bed is a never-ending nuisance; food and friends will be welcomed; work and strangers must be accepted and endured; birds will go bedwards and children won't, to the end of the last evening. And the worst peril is that in our just modern revolt against intolerable accidents we may have unsettled those things that alone make daily life tolerable. It will be an ironic tragedy if, more

A Hope Deferred: Justin McRoberts

I stumbled upon this today. God has a funny way of sending messages...

What's Wrong With the World

h/t my buddy Scorrahood

‘Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend’

Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum: verumtamen justa
loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.

THOU art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?

Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, 5
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again 10
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,
Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

Look Who's Four!

Annamaria Francesca turned four last Saturday! Hooray for Kecka!

Hope you can open this

Max and Papi talking about Boola in Flagstaff. Filmed with my new Palm Centro phone.

Silly Sisters - Geordie

My foray into bawdy folk music has lead me to the Silly Sisters. This song is performed by June Tabor. I am addicted to it. People are starting to worry about me.

I just want to be referred to as "my dearie" by Amy, is that so wrong? (I also think it'd be cool if she threatened to make the blood flow upon the green if she didn't get her laddie.)

Here are the lyrics, more or less, in "English":

There was a battle in the north,
And nobles there was many,
And they hae kill'd Sir Charlie Hay,
And they laid the wyte on Geordie

O he has written a lang letter,
He sent it to his lady;
Ye maun cum up to Enbrugh town
To see what words o' Geordie.

When first she look'd the letter on,
She was baith red and rosy;
But she had na read a word but twa,
Till she wallow't like a lily,

Gar get to me my gude grey steed,
My menzie a' gae wi' me;
For I shall neither eat nor drink,
Till Enbrugh town shall see me.

And she has mountit her gude grey steed,
Her menzie a' gaed wi' her;
And she did neither eat nor drink
Till Enbrugh town did see her.

And first appear'd the fatal block,
And syrie the aix to head him;
And Geordie cumin down the stair,
And bands o airn upon him.

But tho' he was chain'd in fetters strang,
O airn and steel sae heavy,
There was na ane in a'the court,
Sae bruw a Man as Geordie.

O she's down on her bended knee,
I wat she's pale and weary,
O pardon, pardon, noble king,
And gie me back my Dearie!

Gar bid the headin-man mak haste!
Our king reply'd fu' lordly:
O noble king, tak a'that's mine,
But gie me back my Geordie.

The Gordons cam and the Gordons ran,
And they were stark and steady;
And ay the word amang them a'
Was, Gordons keep you ready.

An aged lord at the king's right hand
Says, noble king, but hear me:
Gar her tell down five thousand pound
And gie her back her Dearie.

Some gae her marks, some gae her crowns,
Some gae her dollars many;
And shes tell'd down five thousand pound,
And she's gotten, again her Dearie.

She blinkit blythe in her Geordie's face,
Says, dear I've bought thee, Geordie:
But there sud been bluidy bouks on the green,
Or I had tint my laddie.

He claspit her by the middle sma',
And he kist her lips sae rosy:
The fairest flower o' woman-kind
Is my sweet, bonie Lady!

Theology of the Bawdy: Amy, Will You Let Me

Here's a little salt to go with the sweet of the last post...

Amy and I have been watching (and loving) the Sharpe videos starring Sean Bean as Richard Sharpe, a British soldier fighting in the Napoleonic Wars.

One of the best parts of the series is the music. Much of the music is composed and sung by Rifleman Dan Hagman, played by British folk singer John Tams. Tams' voice is amazing and the Napoleonic-era folk songs in the videos are wonderful. A song I particularly liked hearing was "The Spanish Merchant's Daughter" (sometimes called "No, John, No"). It's a bawdy song and I found it charming--so charming that I decided to try my hand at writing my own. What follows is what I came up with.

Imagine it being sung back and forth like "There's a Hole in the Bucket". I'll try to record this one later, too.

p.s. It's not really all that bawdy, but sing it to the tune of Tantum Ergo if you long for the thrill of scandal...

Amy, Will You Let Me?

Robert: See that girl there? Her name’s Amy—
She looks nice in panty hose.
I would like to have a look-see
Just how high them hoses goes.

Oh, Amy will you let me
see how high them hoses goes?

Amy: Yes, my Love, on one provision—
You must do just what I say.
Robert: But of course, dear. What’s my mission?
Amy: Wait until our wedding day.

Oh, Robert, patient Robert,
Wait until our wedding day.

Robert: Surely, Love you must be teasing—
what an unkind thing to speak!
Can you not just once appease me?
I will marry you next week.

Oh, Amy, will you let me?
I will marry you next week.

Amy: Since, my Love, you asked so sweetly,
You can see how high they go.
I’ll remove my hose completely--
Put them on and you will know!

Oh, Robert, patient Robert
Put them on and you will know.