A Fresh Start

                                  The Serenity Prayer ©Rutherford

As I sit here typing, the light from the window to my left falls across the Serenity Prayer before me, which I stitched years ago.  I hung it there as a reminder that in all circumstances that I encounter, my attitude is a primary factor in how I will endure or overcome them, and that help is only a prayer away.

2017 was one of those years of which Charles Dickens might have said, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. . . ."  But the effect of the celebration of the turning of the old year and the coming of the new year is that one gets a sense of a new beginning, a fresh start.  One is drawn toward reflection and consideration of the past year, and despite dark days and times, the gifts of light and joy were also there.  Always, the prayer for Serenity, Courage, and Wisdom should be accompanied by a prayer for Gratitude.  

 The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!  ~Henry Ward Beecher 

Writing in To Bless the Space Between Us, the Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue expresses beautifully the best attitude toward this season of reflection in these stanzas excerpted from his poem "At the End of the Year."

As this year draws to its end,

We give thanks for the gifts it brought

And how they became inlaid within

Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted

And the soul could see delight;

When a quiver caressed the heart

In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake

In forgotten corners of old fields

Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times

When all was awkward

And the wave in the mind

Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped

The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter

With light from beyond themselves;

And from the granite of some secret sorrow

A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,

For all we loved and lost

And for the quiet way it brought us

Nearer to our invisible destination.

And so I greet you, 

                Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Daoibh.  Go n-éirí an bóthar leat!

The Higher Life

The Beauty of a life well lived . . .

As I return to my blog, I am surprised to find that quite so much time has elapsed since my last entry, time spent in the blur of sudden illness and grief.  I also found it ironic yet comforting that the last entry on May 5 was about the beauty of being family, especially as we have just lost a beloved family member.

The bustle in a house

The morning after death

Is solemnest of industries

Enacted upon earth,--

The sweeping up the heart,

And putting love away

We shall not want to use again

Until eternity.

                                               -Emily Dickinson

William Wordsworth, that great English Romantic poet, described poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”  

Over the past two weeks I have discovered that saying to be so true as I dealt with processing the unexpected death of a beloved member of our family, one of the matriarchs of our clan.   Our Aunt Mary was one of five sisters, ages 78  to 90, with a brother of 82, who have spent longer than the the average span of time living their lives together with a loving closeness most people have not experienced in their lives.   We always called the five of them “the girls” because of the incredibly youthful and joyous personalities they have maintained throughout their lives.  As the decades passed we never gave much thought to them as growing older because their spirits never seemed to age.  Of course we knew the time would come when they would have to leave the family, and we are so blessed to have had them with us to love, encourage, and support us for so long.  Aunt Mary, we will miss you so, but we will carry your influence with us always.

Grief leaves us bereft, and in the immediate numbing moments, hours, and days of our grieving, we find it hard to say those words which will express what our hearts are experiencing.   But what I found happening during this time was that bits of poems and verses of scripture memorized long ago kept rising to the surface of my mind and providing my pained thoughts what Robinson Jeffers described as “the honey of peace in old poems.”

 Although we had not quite expected this to be Aunt Mary’s time to leave us, regardless of her 87 years, thankfully we were given the gift of a few days in which to say goodbye, and so my family gathered in from all around, as they always do with all of life’s occasions, joyous or sad, to surround her and each other with comfort, love, and ultimately the joy of being family.  There were ten of us of all ages surrounding her bedside at the midnight hour when she finally left us.

One of the great hymns of the Faith which is so meaningful in times of grief is taken from John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem “The Eternal Goodness,” written in 1867.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
God’s mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead His love for love.

And so beside the silent sea
I wait the muffled oar;
No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.

Another powerful poem that came to mind was Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Chambered Nautilus,” which compares our life’s journey to that of the nautilus, a marine creature which builds its shell around itself.  As the nautilus grows through the years it twists and bends itself around a mathematical curve, creating spiraling chambers of pearly beauty which accommodate its growth.  As each chamber is left behind, it is sealed off and these chambers create a buoyancy that carries the shell along the sea path.  Although each outgrown chamber lends support to the nautilus, it only lives in the last and largest chamber.    For Holmes, the chambered nautilus provides an answer to life’s greatest question, if a man die, will he live again?:

     Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

     Child of the wandering sea . . .

And the message is this:

     Year after year beheld the silent toil

     That spread his lustrous coil;

     Still, as the spiral grew,

     He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

     Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

     Built up its idle door,

     Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Leading to the final conclusion . . .

     Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 

. . .

     Till thou at length art free,

     Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

Other bits of poetry came to mind over this time, such as these lines from Wordsworth’s “Ode on the Intimations of Immortality”:

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now forever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind,

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be,

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of Human suffering,

In the faith that looks through death . . .

     William Wordsworth also said that, 

“The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love”

But we will remember, Aunt Mary, all the little nameless ways in which you filled our lives with love.

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
   but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Honor her for all that her hands have done,
   and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

                                                                                                       -Proverbs 31: 30-31

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Sabbath Thoughts: Alleluia

© Greg Ferrell

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.  ~Martin Luther

Resurrection

I am

a flower in the field of Love

I bloom

and spread my fragrance far and wide

I shine 

in the light of the radiant Sun

I wilt 

in the heat of Autumn’s blaze

I sink

into the earth under the snow bank

I wait 

cold, afraid, longing for renewal

I fear

my roots will shrivel and die

I wait

not certain, only half believing what I know is true

I feel

soft fingers of light prodding through the dark

I stir

under the plop-plop of gentle, life-giving rain

I breathe

the scent of fresh tendrils of grass

I hear

the call of bird song and bleating

I am 

made alive in the strength of their calling

I burst forth

and greet the earth again and again.

                                                                   © Ardoth Rutherford

"Keep your faith in all beautiful things; in the sun when it is hidden, in the Spring when it is gone."
-  Roy R. Gilson

The joyful news that He is risen does not change the contemporary world.  Still before us lie work, discipline, sacrifice.  But the fact of Easter gives us the spiritual power to do the work, accept the discipline, and make the sacrifice.  ~Henry Knox Sherrill

The resurrection gives my life meaning and direction and the opportunity to start over no matter what my circumstances.  ~Robert Flatt

Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, Cincinnati, Ohio  © Greg Ferrell

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Happy Birthday, Shakespeare!

Happy Birthday to the man who warms the cockles of a Literature teacher's heart . . . . the Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare 

“He was not of an age, but for all time.”

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564, in Stratford-on-Avon. The son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden, he was probably educated at the King Edward IV Grammar School in Stratford, where he learned Latin and a little Greek and read the Roman dramatists. At eighteen, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman seven or eight years his senior. Together they raised two daughters: Susanna, who was born in 1583, and Judith (whose twin brother died in boyhood), born in 1585. 

Very little is known about Shakespeare's activities between 1585 and 1592. But there is evidence that he may have taught school during this period, but also worked as an actor and a playwright.

And from those humble beginnings emerged one of, if not the, greatest writers who ever lived, not just in English literature but in the literature of every culture. 

Since his death in 1616, no other writer has surpassed his ability to capture the human soul in words, and no other writer has been more read, more written about, and more debated. Shortly after Shakespeare died, his esteemed contemporary Ben Jonson wrote of him, “He was not of an age, but for all time.”  

In 2000 British citizens voted him the Man of the Millenium –the most important earthling since 1000 A.D. 

Quotes:

.......”Down through the ages, important essayists, poets, dramatists, and critics have acclaimed Shakespeare as a virtuoso of unparalleled creative and technical skill. Bernard D. Grebanier observed: "One might succeed in discussing individual facets of Shakespeare's unique genius, but it is utterly impossible to summarize his achievement. There is something miraculous about Shakespeare's peculiar gifts; and every sensitive reader will eventually discover the miracle for himself" (English Literature and its Backgrounds, New York: Holt, 1950). 

.......H.M. Burton observed that Shakespeare "is as important a figure in the history of mankind as Nelson or Lincoln, Newton or Einstein. His works have become a part of us and if they had never been written our lives and our language would have been so much the poorer." 

.......Harold Bloom said Shakespeare "is a system of northern lights, an aurora borealis visible where most of us will never go. Libraries and playhouses (and cinemas) cannot contain him; he has become a spirit or 'spell of light,' almost too vast to apprehend." 

.......According to drama critic John Gassner, "Shakespeare is the greatest humanitarian who ever wrote for the theatre. . . . Shakespeare's ability to create infinitely human characters stems from a pervasive love of man which no degree of pessimism in his climactic period can obliterate." 

.......American essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson called Shakespeare "inconceivably wise." And English critic and lexicographer Samuel Johnson said Shakespeare was a master at depicting the humanity everyone shares.

The photos below were taken by me when I and my students were in Stratford on Shakespeare's birthday.  I thought that would be a memorable experience for them, and it was! 

His birthplace in Stratford on Avon     (Click on images to enlarge)

©A. Rutherford

The river Avon as it runs by the Royal Shakespearean Theatre 

©A. Rutherford

His statue sits in a prominent place by the River Avon, in front of the Royal Shakespearean Theatre. He is surrounded by four great characters from his best known plays. 

Here is Macbeth, whose tragic flaw was ambition, crowning himself King. 

©A. Rutherford

And here is Hamlet, whose tragic flaw was his hubris, deep in the throes of his indecision . . .

Unlike Macbeth, Hamlet was a tragic hero, because in the end he achieved enlightenment, which led him to his acknowledgment that: 

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 

Rough-hew them how we will,--" 

Hamlet is thought to be the character in Shakespeare's plays who is to a large extent autobiographical, and who speaks most nearly for Shakespeare himself. 

©A. Rutherford

In the great tragedies of Shakespeare, questions about human existence are addressed: 

• What is evil, and what drives men and women to commit deeds of darkness?

• What are the consequences of our freedom to make choices in life? 

Here is Trinity Church, where he is buried 

©A. Rutherford

The spot at the altar where he is actually buried, with a bust of him above the spot which is marked by the gold candlestick and the blue sign

©A. Rutherford

©A. Rutherford

The inscription is a curse which he is said to have written and requested be put on his tomb so no one would ever disturb his grave. 

In modern English: 

Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare 

To dig the dust enclosed here 

Blessed be the man who spares these stones 

Cursed be the man who move my bones. 

The Christian Worldview of William Shakespeare

Quote:

Shakespeare apparently believed firmly in a Supreme Being, as his plays suggest. In Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Hamlet tells Horatio in Act V, Scene II, that “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” In Henry V, King Henry–deliberately portrayed by Shakespeare as strong and wise–exhorts his countrymen in Act II, Scene II, to “deliver our puissance in the hand of God, putting it straight in expedition.” To be sure, Shakespeare grappled with the great questions of eschatology, for his characters discuss death and the afterlife. But there can be no doubt that he joined other great men of the Renaissance–Copernicus, Galileo, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Erasmus, and Sir Thomas More–in believing in God. The opening of his last will and testament, written in his 51st year just three months before his death, then revised one month before his death, states (in English modernized for the sake of readability): 

. 

In the name of God . . . I William Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon . . . in perfect health and memory, God be praised, do make and ordain this my last will and testament in manner and form following–that is to say, first, I commend my soul into the hands of God my Creator, hoping and assuredly believing, through the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, to be made partaker of life everlasting. 

-Biography 

By Michael J. Cummings...© 2003

So although he remains a man of much mystery, here is what we know—

We know that although limited in formal education, he was brilliant in intellect, insightful about the nature of man, gifted to an uncommon extent in his creative abilities, deeply emotional in his sensitivities and concerns about the human condition.

Incidentally he died on his birthday, April 23, 1616 at the age of 52.

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Good Friday Meditation

A stone cross outside the ruins of an old church in County Clare  ©A. Rutherford

"Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the tree."

A beautiful meditation can be found at the link below:

You Raise Me Up, by Secret Garden

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Long Ago and Far Away

©A. Rutherford

Long ago and far away, but not a fairy tale.

Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, in the Christian faith is a day to observe the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples.  It is a solemn day, a day lived out under the shadow of betrayal, a day for reflection and personal questioning.

 "When evening came, he sat down with his twelve disciples, and, while they were at table he said: “Believe me, one of you is to going to betray me.” 

They were full of sorrow, and began to say, one after another, “Lord, is it I?” He answered, “The man who has put his hand into the dish with me will betray me.” 

For the Son of Man goes on his way to die, as the scripture foretells of him; But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him; better for that man if he had never been born."          Matthew 26:21-24

This scene in the Easter story has engaged the imagination of artists throughout the centuries, but the most famous painting of the event is that of Leonardo da Vinci.  However, his Last Supper is not the usual static tableau of figures frozen in time, but rather Leonardo has rendered each disciple caught up in the emotions of shock, anger, agitation, or fear.  Their gestures and expressions have reverberated through time, and one cannot look at the painting for long without being caught up in the question too—”Am I one of them, Lord?”

The Last Supper (ca. 1492/94–1498)

Leonardo's Last Supper, on the end wall of the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, is one of the most renowned paintings of the High Renaissance. Recently restored, The Last Supper had already begun to flake during the artist's lifetime due to his failed attempt to paint on the walls in layers (not unlike the technique of tempera on panel), rather than in a true fresco technique.  Even in its current state, it is a masterpiece of dramatic narrative and subtle pictorial illusionism. 

Leonardo chose to capture the moment just after Christ tells his apostles that one of them will betray him, and at the institution of the Eucharist. The effect of his statement causes a visible response, in the form of a wave of emotion among the apostles. These reactions are quite specific to each apostle, expressing what Leonardo called the "motions of the mind." Despite the dramatic reaction of the apostles, Leonardo imposes a sense of order on the scene. Christ's head is at the center of the composition, framed by a halo-like architectural opening. His head is also the vanishing point toward which all lines of the perspectival projection of the architectural setting converge. The apostles are arranged around him in four groups of three united by their posture and gesture. Judas, who was traditionally placed on the opposite side of the table, is here set apart from the other apostles by his shadowed face. 

Source: Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke upon seeing Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper in Milan in 1904 was moved to write the following poem:

The Last Supper

They are assembled, astonished and disturbed

round him, who like a sage resolved his fate,

and now leaves those to whom he most belonged,

leaving and passing by them like a stranger.

The loneliness of old comes over him

which helped mature him for his deepest acts;

now will he once again walk through the olive grove,

and those who love him still will flee before his sight.

To this last supper he has summoned them,

and (like a shot that scatters birds from trees)

their hands draw back from reaching for the loaves

upon his word: they fly across to him;

they flutter, frightened, round the supper table

searching for an escape. But he is present

everywhere like an all-pervading twilight-hour. 

                                           _________________

While not a “last supper” poem, the following excerpt from a poem, “Rice,” by Mary Oliver makes a salient point.   She uses the metaphor of a rice field to make a powerful statement about what our response should be to the gift of risen Life.  Are we to be observers only, satisfied that our bellies are filled?

. . .

I don't want you to just sit at the table.

I don't want you just to eat, and be content.

I want you to walk into the fields

Where the water is shining, and the rice has risen.

I want you to stand there, far from the white tablecloth.

I want you to fill your hands with mud, like a blessing.

Yes,  something that happened long ago and far away . . .  but its meaning is just as relevant today.

"Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Romans 6:4b

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Spring Beauty, Appalachian Cuisine

Spring Beauty, ©A. Rutherford

This may be a delicacy that only a few families like mine eat any more . . . hog tater. 

Some people call it tanglegut, the more sophisticated among us call it branch lettuce, but no one back through the generations in my family ever knew what it really was. All they knew was that very early in the Spring in the Appalachian mountains, these little shoots would spring up and tender green leaves would emerge, followed by tiny pale pink buds and flowers. After a long winter of eating nothing but what had been canned from last year's garden and the contents of large sacks of various kinds of dried beans, they were starved for something fresh and green. 

So they would go out in the woods to the spots where they knew it grew, as soon as they could reasonably expect that it was "hog tater pickin' time." Every family guarded the secret of the patches where they could count on finding it.  However, its growing season is only two to three weeks and then it is gone. Kind of like the rarity of truffles in Europe. 

I remember when I was a little girl and living in the city with my family, the relatives would pick a sack and pack it up nicely and put it on the Greyhound bus and the driver would make sure it got to us still fresh. It would travel through the night to us, much faster and safer than UPS or FedEx can ship anything today. 

The aunties would call us to let us know it was on its way, and we would go to the bus station to pick it up. 

In recent years after the family "back home" were either gone or too elderly to gather and ship it, I have longed to have it again. A few years ago my brother and I made it our mission to find a place where it is still growing. Three or four years ago we did! 

And here it is, on my mother's kitchen table—last year's bounty. 

Served as it is traditionally with boiled potatoes, bacon fried crisp, and fried corn bread patties. 

The hog tater itself is washed well (although it "picks" very clean), and is wilted in hot bacon grease with a little vinegar and salt added to it, which is then poured over the top of the fresh greens. 

I wish I could express to you what it tastes like . . . how heavenly it is to have it a for a couple of meals each Spring . . . if Emeril only knew . . . 

Here are some scenes from our private “stash” we found on a hillside down a country road a few miles out of town.

After some research, we discovered that our little plant with the colorful names actually had a lovely name: Spring Beauty. Even its botanical name is quite nice: Claytonia virginica. 

Don't know how this evolved into hogtater and tanglegut 

But I think these mountain folk names are quite wonderful, don't you? 

Spring Beauty—A Woodland Wildflower With Tasty Tubers 

Plants & Gardens News Volume 21, Number 1 | Spring 2006 

by Scott D. Appell 

One of our prettiest and earliest-blooming wildflowers—spring beauty (Claytonia virginica)—is also a delicious vegetable. It may be the definitive tater tot. Native to moist woodlands, sunny stream banks, and thickets in eastern North America, this low-growing plant has tiny underground tubers that can be prepared and eaten just like potatoes. Indeed, another common name for the spring beauty is the "fairy spud." 

A member of the Portulacaceae, or portulaca family, and a cousin to other well-known wild edibles such as purslane (Portulaca oleracea) and miner's lettuce (Montia perfoliata), spring beauty is one of about 15 species in the Claytonia genus. The genus is distributed throughout North America and Australasia and has long been a source of good snacking. Both the Iroquois and Algonquin dined on the boiled or roasted tubers of Claytonia virginica. 

A perennial herb, spring beauty usually grows about six inches tall and eight inches wide. It sports grasslike, succulent, dark green leaves. In early spring, dense racemes of star-shaped, pink-tinged white flowers appear and last for about a month. 

When spring beauties blossom in large drifts across the landscape, the effect is stunning. 

The tubers are found about two to three inches under the soil and measure from a half inch to two inches in diameter. In his classic culinary field guide, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Euell Gibbons wrote a charming chapter on these wild edible treats. He remarked that the "spuds" don't really taste like potatoes at all but rather are sweeter in flavor, like boiled chestnuts, though with a softer, smoother texture. 

However, even back in 1970, Gibbons sounded a note of caution and restraint. He warned against overharvesting the tubers in the wild and diminishing the plants' flowering display. "The tubers are good food for the body," he wrote, "but after a long winter, the pale-rose flowers in early spring are food for the soul." 

These days, wild collection of spring beauty and other native plants is controversial, due to issues of sustainability. (In at least one state—Massachusetts—spring beauty is now listed as endangered!) 

We never knew that one could eat the tubers; we only harvested the leaves and the flowers which were small and delicate. 

If you are by this way this week stop by and sit a spell! I'll treat you to a mess of hogtater with all the trimmin's! 

I'll leave the latch out for you . . .

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