"His spirit and his life breathes in all"

 My throat was scratchy on Wednesday, and then I felt warm yesterday, with everything that comes along with that. So I stayed home for the Holy Thursday mass, and the Good Friday service today. I could have gone, but am probably contagious, considering I've got a slightly elevated temp. And who would want to sit near a runny-nosed, trying-not-to-cough person? Not I. But I am better this evening and hope to go tomorrow night.

This is Malcolm Guite's Good Friday sonnet, Jesus Dies on the Cross:

The dark nails pierce him and the sky turns black
We watch him as he labors to draw breath.
He takes our breath away to give it back,
Return it to its birth through his slow death.
We hear him struggle, breathing through the pain,
Who once breathed out his spirit on the deep,
Who formed us when he mixed the dust with rain
And drew us into consciousness from sleep.
His Spirit and his life breathes in all,
Mantles his world in his one atmosphere,
And now he comes to breathe beneath the pall
Of our pollutions, draw our injured air
To cleanse it and renew. His final breath
Breathes and bears us through the gates of death.

-  from The Word in the Wilderness

"the purpose of education"

 "The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, ....But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it - at no matter the risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change."

                                                          -   James Baldwin, from Plough, Winter, 2025

"How Samuel Adams supported his family starting around 1769 is a mystery. With his brewery closing that year, his only steady income was his small salary as clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. According to gossip, the Adamses were so poor at this time that John Hancock and other friends sent them food to keep them from starving and repaired the Purchase Street house to keep it from falling. There was even a joke around Boston about Adams's letter writing: 'Samuel Adams writes the letters and John Hancock pays the postage’.”

Dennis Fradin, the author of this biography, says that Samuel Adams never held a good job when he was younger, he was more of a thinker. And it seems that our revolution would Never have come to pass without him. He knew we needed to revolt against the oppressive British rule and he never stopped insisting on it, trying to stir up the populace. 

a little crop

 On Sunday, September the 22nd, I started reading Lord of the Rings again. I was feeling the pull, but thought I'd wait till Bilbo's birthday.

We had a nice, soft, quiet rainfall the other day, finally. It's been very dry for the better part of two months. 

I decided to harvest my butternut squashes. There were four of them, but one was lost; it had detached from the vine and rotted, all because I am an inattentive gardener. 

Still, it's amazing to see these things grown from one small seed. I would like to save one for Thanksgiving.

There is a lovely white cloud of tiny asters out there in the tangle of my garden, and tomorrow is Michaelmas. At least I assume that's what they are - it's the right time of year, but they are usually larger than these.

They're charming, anyway. We're in a warmer, humid spell, so I stopped washing the windows for a bit. I like doing them when it feels like fall's really here. There are other things to do. 

The images out of Tennessee and North Carolina are terrifying. May God have mercy on them.

"the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.

I wish it need not have happened in my time, said Frodo.

So do I, said Gandalf, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."