Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Thine own of Thine own, we offer unto Thee on behalf of all and for all.

O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e’er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

From Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay (Read the whole thing.)

When I read things like this, I don't know what to do. Eternity is at hand in every moment and I suspect that every living thing is swollen with it. (I love the leaves wherewith enleaved is all the Garden tended by that eternal Gardener.) My fingertips are merely skimming the surface of that from which I would drink infinitely.

But when you dare to put your lips to that cup, will you and your wretchedness not be drowned inside it? If I were to push the grass apart and lay my finger on Thy heart, would I not be destroyed for doing so?

I suppose that is the idea. I desire beauty. I desire to consume it because that is the only way that I know how to commune with it. I forget that my understanding of this is bound in my perspective, and if I truly knew my nature and God's, I would understand that it is I who must be consumed.

But I do not live that way because it is terrifying.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

here cracks a noble heart!

I have been working on the chronicle of the twin births, or rather the chronicle of my feelings about it, since it's hardly a reliable set of medical observations. It's difficult because the religious atmosphere of this family was much more palpable and determined than that of the Amish family! Strangely the Amish are able to put a visitor at ease more than the Presbyterians. I'll keep working that out and publish it soon, I hope.

Blog. I hate that word. I've only admitted to a few people that I have a blog, and whether I mention it out loud or online, I feel like a total fool uttering the word. BLOG. Gag me with a spoon.

Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare's Hamlet has set me down crookedly in the world today. Nothing fits quite right after that sort of thing.

I've had an odd summer of Shakespeare film productions. Godard's King Lear (if you can call it Shakespeare), Royal Shakespeare Company's Macbeth, someone's Twelfth Night and now this.

It is my next to last evening in Indiana so I suppose I should relish it rather than Writing In/on My BLOG.