Positioning Oneself ~

The monk asks what. He doesn't ask why.

Visit to Dresden, Germany ~

I walked in the streets of Dresden, rebuilt now and magnificent after being bombed by our planes and British planes in 1945, marvelling at its new beauty — but still could hear the low hum of the bombers in the distance, coming in from the west.

Poem about Dresden

Heavenly Delight ~

Did you see the chimney swallows? They’re back! Their flight absolutely delightful to watch. And when they come in groups, at high speed, curving around the trees and down across our garden, chirping, I feel the show is just for me.

Pain and Suffering ~

It is easier to associate ourselves with pain and suffering than with joy — just because we are more acquainted with them.

Turning the Tables ~

Spent a wonderful weekend with old students of mine ['82 grads] in a quaint Black Forest hotel. They lavished appreciation on me for little things I did an said back then, that they said supported them. I came away with the grateful feeling of being their student now and of being carried on their strong shoulders.

Being Poor ~ Having Everything ~

Once you have found your true love nothing else matters. You want to shed everything else to concentrate on the beloved.

Finding Words for What We Know ~

These few perceptive words I heard spoken yesterday: "It is a loving sustained attention that reveals beauty."

Criminal Activity ~

Now they are thinking of setting up a special police group to enforce non-smoking in restaurants. If you are caught smoking you can be fined anywhere from 20 to 2,000 Euros.

Blacksburg, Virginia ~

Virginia Tech University

Shooting on campus. 32 dead, 21 wounded.

The locals said the winds rose to carry the angels down so they could take the children home.

Is There Any Consolation? ~

In the vinyards along the Rhein near here a 13 year old girl was abducted on her way home from school and murdered. No clues. And yesterday in Heilbronn, a city known for its ties with the Romantic literary tradition, a 22 year old policewoman was shot in the head and died. No clues. She had just finished her training for the profession she had always dreamed of, had just found boyfriend with whom she had fallen in love.

Someone is Greeting You ~

For anyone who happens upon this blog, I hope this is an uplift for the day.

From Tamara ~

Dear Charles,
Hopefully everything is ok in your part of the world. However, the growing anti-semitism in Germany and the rest of Europe does not make me very happy.

I wrote to a selection of different places with the emails you gave to me but nobody answered. In my opinion it does not fit the Europe I knew, even when the answer is in the negative, but this was apparently the world of yesterday. I am learning every day not to have expectactions and just be thankful for what I have and what comes.

I hope that you are in a creative period. New events are happening all of the time in the world and in the lives of individuals and especially for people who are creating. I want to share with you a new site of my art of 2006 with some of the poetry I have written. I am together with an American sculptor who in my opinion is doing unusual works having to do with the Holocaust and the journey of souls to another dimension.  http://etherealjourney.com/
I hope to hear from you.
Warm regards,
Tamara

Good Friday Liturgy ~

Stood in the choir loft on Good Friday and sang. The atmosphere was overwhelming. The sad tonality of the singing, the absence of organ and lighting and the half-darkness in the nave, the eery porcession with cross. It was later, after the ceremony, that I noticed what it had done to me, causing an extreme down-heartedness, mixed with a strange kind of joy. I was unable to shake it off on Easter Sunday and on into the week.

Search for Something New ~

Read in the newspaper this morning that the first victim of "coma boozing" died this week. This is the lastest fad among teenagers here in Germany.

World's Oldest Benedictine Monk ~

He recently turned 106. He is doing just fine. At 99 he started to learn Spanish. When he was 100 he set out to learn how to operate a computer. His ardent desire: to one day go home to his Maker.

Lighting Up the World ~

Just think for a moment what it would be like if a baby couldn't do this.

Concert: J. S. Bach, Mass in B minor ~

When the concert ended there was dead silence, a pause of 135 seconds before audience started to applaud.

Displaced Persons ~

There was a remarkable show on German TV the last two evenings. It was the story of aristocratic German family in East Prussia that had to flee, along with their indentured servants, among whom there were several French prisoners, from the approaching Russian armies in 1945. I had read an account by another person who had gone through the same harrowing experience, Marion Hedda Ilse Countess Dönhoff in her book: Names No Longer Used: East Prussia - People and History. She participated in the resistance against Hitler's National Socialists with Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. After the war, she became one of the leading German journalists and intellectuals.


A close friend of mine made the trek with his parents from Breslau to Bavaria when he was just four years old.

General Robert E. Lee ~

Then I ran across this observation by the famous Civil War tactician:

"It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."

Dixie Chicks: No Ready to Make Nice ~

Bought that CD, Taking the Long Way, by the Dixie Chicks. I like their singing, especially Not Ready to Make Nice. Full of emotion set to feisty lyrics.

In light of their Bush statement in 2003, these girls have shown us an admirable courage.

J. S. Bach ~ Mass in B minor ~

Preparations are going well for our performance of this sublime work in March. I am able to sing passages that I never thought I could sing. It is amazing. It must be the woman who is directing us. Somehow her enthusiasm, knowledge and love for music awaken something in me that makes what little singing talent I have actually better than it has ever been. And also, it is the challenge of trying to keep up with the genius of Bach.

Reverses ~

Someone asked me if I could remember how practically the whole world was behind the U.S.A. just after Nine-Eleven. How much goodwill toward our nation has been destroyed?

God's Search ~

The old monk said: God is busy searching for you. That is why He keeps tugging at your heart.

Snow Welcome ~

Our first winter snow has finally arrived and made our village over again. Everything seems to be new and fresh. When I stand at my window and look out into the white I begin to feel that inside me some such change in my interior landscape might have happened, unnoticed, like a snowfall during the night. On awakening though, I am completely astonished at the change that has been brought about.

Morning Spectacle ~

At seven thirty in the morning when I take my walk I look up into the eastern sky and there is the morning star. The sky is bright already and other stars have disappeared, but the morning star still graces the heavens. Near it this morning there was a thin sliver of the waning moon.

Christmas Gift ~

Two weeks before Christmas an old student of mine, an '82 grad, called and said he just wanted to hear my voice. I was so moved I was lost for words.

Tom's Passing ~ One Year Ago ~

It has been a year now since we buried Tom. I visited his grave today and took flowers to his wife. I visit the gravesite often. Always bringing my problems and needs there and I stand and listen to what he has to say. I feel he is looking out for me, just like in the old days.

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!

What Young Mothers Do ~

. . . and yesterday he learned to submerge!

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.