Monday, December 04, 2006
Being in Love ~
I said to myself that the girl I saw yesterday in church just had to be in love. Her whole being had a kind of radiance about it. She was completely concentrated and occupied in thought. After church she mingled in the crowd outside and everyone seemed attracted to her and would light up when she looked at them and spoke. Oh how love energizes!
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
News from Tamara ~
Dear Charles,
People are saying the when the guns are firing the muse is silent. In my case, apparently, it is not true. I am happy that it was not taken away from me and my soul is continuing to express herself. I hope that your soul finds the way to full expression. Reading the Bible always gives me inspiration. Years I am reading several verses every day and the reading gives me strength and continuation.
Thank you for remembering me and thinking of me.
Warmly,
Tamara
People are saying the when the guns are firing the muse is silent. In my case, apparently, it is not true. I am happy that it was not taken away from me and my soul is continuing to express herself. I hope that your soul finds the way to full expression. Reading the Bible always gives me inspiration. Years I am reading several verses every day and the reading gives me strength and continuation.
Thank you for remembering me and thinking of me.
Warmly,
Tamara
Monday, November 20, 2006
Self Restraint ~
The wise old monk's perspective said: It's not just a matter of giving something up, i.e. television. It doesn't end with making a sacrifice. We make the sacrifice for some other reason. Namely, to find ourselves. To have the quiet and rest to begin to comprehend who we are and what is going on inside ourselves.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Burying a Choir Brother ~
We sang in the choir together. Bass. He was ten years younger than I. Had lost his wife three years ago. They were very close.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Bitter Lessons ~
It must have been a bitter lesson for George W. Bush to learn. We learned it in grade school: America doesn't want a king or an absolute ruler. That's why we fought the Revolutionary War. It is ingrained in us.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Lost Gems ~
All the beautiful, beautiful things that go unseen and unheard! Like the poem I happened to hear this morning, Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe -- read so feelingly by Garrick Hagon. Has that gem been lost, and only able to be found by chance, as if it were a random grain of sand along the Atlantic coast?
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Sun Worship ~
Observation: When I stand looking out my window at five o'clock on these beautiful November afternoons and see the setting sun light up the western sky, I see the crows flying past and towards that light. Likewise, in the morning when the sun rises as I take my morning walk I see them coming back from the west over to the beautiful red sphere appearing at the eastern horizon.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
All Saints Day ~ 2006
All Saints Day. I know a lot of them right around me. Like the mother who took her 40 year old son to the grave last week. The same mother who years ago lost one of her children when a bookshelf fell on top of him. That saddened woman who can never stop mourning. Quiet saints like she show us how to go on trusting in God. . . And maybe these too.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Rehearsal for a Concert ~ J. S. Bach ~ Mass in B minor ~
When God heard what J. S. Bach created in the Kyrie and Agnus Dei of that Mass with its entreaty "have mercy on us", He had to be so moved by the music that He, then and there, forgave all the sins of the world.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
The Myriad Everyday Distractions ~
The old monk said that I should be more radical and block out all distractions. You must be silent, he said, to be able to listen to your unique life that is going inside you.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Amish ~
Look to the Amish with humble respect. It was reported that fifty percent of the people attending the funeral of the man who murdered their children in the school house were Amish. That is a lesson.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Cosmic Order Restored ~
Yesterday morning at 7 a.m. I drove to a field of flowers nearby. You cut whatever flowers you want and drop a few coins in a metal container on leaving. I wanted a bouquet of zinnias for my wife's birthday. This morning I discovered that my expensive flower shears were missing and thought I might have left them there. If that were the case, there would hardly be a chance that they were there, but I drove back anyway. Low and behold, there they were right in the middle of the path where I had left them. How many people had been there and not seen them, God only knows!
Friday, October 13, 2006
Autumn Walk ~
This morning while walking I felt my shoes swishing through the first patches of dried leaves and heard them crackle under my shoes. So now it's been one whole year already since I experienced that last. That sharp moment of awareness that time had passed.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Wedding Brunch Next Day ~
This delightful man from next door came by with his guitar and played. Any songs we could think of. Ended up by singing God Bless America. Yes, we are patriots, even if, or maybe because we disagree with the way our country is being run.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Wedding Day ~
It was in the oldest Episcopalian church in Pittsburgh. The bride is Protestant, my nephew is Greek Orthodox. The compromise was for an Orthodox marriage in an Episcopalian church. But there was no Protestant minister allowed at the altar.
It was a wonderful weekend. Three full days of celebration. One of the highlights was the couple's fourteen-month-old daughter who had just learned to walk. She led the procession out of church, hand in hand with two four-year-olds. A wedding is a joy. Seldom affairs any more. I spend much more time going to funerals. [There is one tomorrow here in Germany for an onetime student of mine.]
It was a wonderful weekend. Three full days of celebration. One of the highlights was the couple's fourteen-month-old daughter who had just learned to walk. She led the procession out of church, hand in hand with two four-year-olds. A wedding is a joy. Seldom affairs any more. I spend much more time going to funerals. [There is one tomorrow here in Germany for an onetime student of mine.]
Friday, October 06, 2006
Enjoying Pennsylvania
Visited Harrisburg and had an excellent guided tour along with a dozen Red Hat Ladies who thought my brother and I, the only men, were real gentlemen of old. At least that's what they said in an elevator! Visited a Capuchin friar in his church in town and on hearing that I had come from Germany he served me an excellent beer. He said St. Francis would have loved it.
Then on to Lewisburg, Pa. where we dined opulenly at a time-honored Lewisburg Hotel [1834], served by polite students from neighboring Bucknell University. Next day to State College, Pa. and Penn State University. Met my nephew there. We walked and marveled at that colossal campus. Saw the enlarged football stadion where Penn State was to host Notre Dame the following day.
Then on to Lewisburg, Pa. where we dined opulenly at a time-honored Lewisburg Hotel [1834], served by polite students from neighboring Bucknell University. Next day to State College, Pa. and Penn State University. Met my nephew there. We walked and marveled at that colossal campus. Saw the enlarged football stadion where Penn State was to host Notre Dame the following day.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Exxon ~ Hagerstown, Maryland ~
While at a gasoline pump in Hagerstown, Md. I looked up and saw three hawks gliding in wide circles just off to the east. They were coasting, without a single wingbeat as if enjoying the freedom of the sky. It was about 7 a.m. and the Maryland dawn had a magnificent orange-yellow color. I parked off to the side after paying and looked again but the masters-of-flight had gone their way.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Heart of the Nation ~ Washington, D.C. ~
Stayed outside Washington, D.C. at the end of the subway system. Next morning purchased a day ticket and rode into the heart of the city at high speed. People around me seemed anxious and unfriendly. But there is a beauty in the underground stations that I have not seen in European structures. Got off at the Mall and wanted to visit the Museum of American History: it was closed for renovations. Went instead to the National Archives, passing through a delightful garden where sculptures by American artists were in place. Then to see the renovated Union Station where I imagined the whole time how bustling it was 50 years back. Lunched there and headed for the Capitol to make the reverent pilgrimage visit I have always made when in Washington. Was met there at that steps by heavily armed guards who warned not to come any closer. Pondering that, went across to the Library of Congress and after being searched, spent the last hour of that perplexing day there.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
On the Road ~ Sharpsburg, Maryland ~
On the Pennsylvania Border
Spent the first week of my stay on the road with my brother seeing small-town America. Drove south in Pennsylvania crossing over into Maryland where I wanted to visit the Antietam battlefield. Had read a book about that last year [Stephen Spears] and was so taken by it that it resulted in a poem. My nephew, who is a Civil War historian, spent two days with us there explaining in detail the battle as it took place, hour by hour. By coincidence it was September 17, the very day the battle took place in 1862.
Spent the first week of my stay on the road with my brother seeing small-town America. Drove south in Pennsylvania crossing over into Maryland where I wanted to visit the Antietam battlefield. Had read a book about that last year [Stephen Spears] and was so taken by it that it resulted in a poem. My nephew, who is a Civil War historian, spent two days with us there explaining in detail the battle as it took place, hour by hour. By coincidence it was September 17, the very day the battle took place in 1862.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Feeling Like a Terrorist ~
I never had anyone check me over as closely as they did it at the Frankfurt airport before I got on the plane. No area of the body was left unexamined. I felt as if they would only be satisfied if all of us had stripped and gone out to the plane naked. Chuckled about that as we lifting off and were getting above the clouds.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Back Home Again ~ Chicago - Pittsburgh ~
My American Airlines flight to Pittsburgh took me there by way of Chicago where I had a 4 hour layover. I didn't mind. It was delightful just to see the sit and watch the people, everyone in a hurry, not noticing that I was admiring them, the first Americans I have seen in a long time. Just the sight of them made me feel that we are a breed of our own, different than Europeans. Some light-footedness, some ease, some freer rein. And they were all speaking my American language.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
On the Way to the Airport ~ Mannheim Train Station ~
She must have been 60. He carried her luggage in and found a seat for her by the window. A quick kiss. Then he went out and stood on the platform close by her window, waiting. The train pulled out but she didn't wave because she was so busy storing her bags.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Across the Ocean ~
Today I'm all tickled about flying home to Pittsburgh for a wedding. My nephew is getting married!
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Recital for Baby Elias ~
As I was playing the piano this morning I was thinking that the next time the little fellow comes I'm gonna' pull his crib right up close to the piano and play those Bach chorals and variations I was just playing. Those pure sounds he has got to hear, to remind him of where he came from.
Monday, August 28, 2006
Excerpt from Tamara's Letter ~
Thank you Charles for your letter. What could be more meaningful for a creator than what you have said to me.
I was never thinking about lecturing because I never wanted to talk about the subject. All that I am thankful for is to have the ability to transfer it the way I do.
About the recognition, it may be as my granddaughter once told me, 'people are going to recognize you after your death'. So maybe she is right and if my stories and my creation are strong enough, this is going to be sufficient to transfer a view of this tragic event in history in the twentieth century which was experienced by me.
I have started to work these days on the addresses you gave to me. I hope to have some positive response.
Thank you again. No words can express my gratitude.
Tamara
I was never thinking about lecturing because I never wanted to talk about the subject. All that I am thankful for is to have the ability to transfer it the way I do.
About the recognition, it may be as my granddaughter once told me, 'people are going to recognize you after your death'. So maybe she is right and if my stories and my creation are strong enough, this is going to be sufficient to transfer a view of this tragic event in history in the twentieth century which was experienced by me.
I have started to work these days on the addresses you gave to me. I hope to have some positive response.
Thank you again. No words can express my gratitude.
Tamara
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The Chimney Swifts Have Left Us ~
They came in June and made a summer of astounding aerial acrobatics for us. As if they were writing in the sky. Were they trying to say something? Was I too busy contemplating less worthy things?
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
Where is God? ~
I can still hear the old monk saying: if you love God you will see him everywhere -- in the people around you and in all of nature.
Friday, August 11, 2006
A Compliment ~
There were two one-year-olds in the waiting room at the doctor's this morning. Their mothers had to wait a full two hours. The children played on the floor the whole time. The one wimpered quietly and wanted to go home, the other tried to humor him by playing with the balls on an incline plane or by setting up blocks. They got along nicely and the patient young mothers had a chance to try out all their newly-learned motherly competencies, in public -- and looked on with pride.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Choral Workshop ~
One wonderful week of singing, mornings and afternoons with a random group of men and women interested in voice training and choral performance. Gave two concerts at the end. Having to part last night was heartbreaking.
There is something about working in a group that gives you the feeling that you can do what is required. It is so much easier than when one has to do it alone. . . but then there was that tiny nagging need for recognition, that little sign of approval.
There is something about working in a group that gives you the feeling that you can do what is required. It is so much easier than when one has to do it alone. . . but then there was that tiny nagging need for recognition, that little sign of approval.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Friendship ~
Today I get news that an old friend of mine, and choir director and organist at our church back home has been arrested and put it jail for having touched a sixteen year old music student of his in an inappropriate manner on two occasions following the lessons. He also is said to have furnished alcohol to the teenager.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Mental Images ~
I can still hear the wise old monk saying: Consider that things are often better in the imagination than they are in reality.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Fighting Insufficiency ~
It cannot be: that he who formulates a prayer better than the other is more worthy of being heard.
Monday, July 17, 2006
In this Valley of Tears ~
The insight of the old monks stands: It is the suffering, that we are bound to bear, that keeps us turning to God.
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