Seen hanging on the door of an
apartment in nearby senior housing:

IF YOU'RE GROUCHY,
IRRITABLE,
OR JUST PLAIN MEAN,
IT'LL COST YOU $10
FOR ME TO PUT UP WITH YOU.

Okay, I'm done with Christmas shopping.

We come to the last of the O Antiphons, for tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the Vigil of the Nativity.

I mentioned yesterday that the O Antiphons were arranged backwards into the song Veni, Veni Emmanuel. This was by design, for the Antiphons themselves are a backwards acrostic.

The first letters of the Messianic titles — Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia — spell out the Latin words ero cras, meaning, "Tomorrow, I will come".

Which is pretty neat.



O Emmanuel, Rex et légifer noster,
exspectátio Géntium, et Salvátor eárum:
veni ad salvándum nos, Doómine, Deus noster.

Englished:

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Friends,
The Japanese have a saying to the effect that at years-end
even Buddhist priests are busy.

A cluttered day yesterday, sending a large suitcase
ahead of me to Princeton where I will be going for
Christmas, getting my safe deposit box drilled and not
finding a document, spilling chinese mustard on my trousers,
losing a tube of prescription medication, losing my wallet
(later finding it) feeling a bit of acid reflux-- saying
to self calm down or you will make yourself sick. so I did.
calm down.
In evening read, this has been an Advent of reading, as
you know, Kandinsky books, Rudolph Fisher, Claudel,
Nabokov and lately Robert Lax.
I read from an assemblage of materials
called simply Lax. Museum Tinguely photographs,
an interview shorter but more incisive than Dreamcatcher in
ways, minimalistic poems from his last journals, and an
account of his coming home from Patmos to Olean New York to
St Bonaventure's ,to die.

Let me transcribe just a couple of things.( Read more... )
I have included an example of the photography of the book, a
striking image I think.

Now I will go to the City to meet Sonia Kishkovsky whom I have
in recent years seen only in Moscow, and Volodya Schneider for
lunch.
Well, let that be our entry for today, and as always I welcome all
your response and am yours,
+Seraphim
.

Ada was singing a friend's name over and over again. Which reminded me of a song, so I played it for her.

And now, if you're brave enough, you can feel my pain. Man, I didn't remember this well enough to stay away. Although, well, it's also kind of awesome in a nostalgic sort of way.

Update: Now she's asking for All Apologies, which she refers to as "the Mary Song."

Friends,
A busy day with many little things to do. Just had my safe-
deposit box drilled open since I had lost the key. Left my
suitcase with someone driving to Princeton so when I go there
by train on Christmas Eve I shall not need to shlep it through
New York etc. Today three quick things to share...

1)I am struck by the thought that the stones in the iced over
pond have the effect of a Zen rock and sand garden, here
is a photo. ( Read more... )
2. A nice quote from Robert Lax (who with Wang Wei the Tang Dynasty poet,
and the John the Balladeer stories of Manly Wade Wellman, is for better or
worse a regular here) quote from Lax on his friend Jack Kerouac, here
if you will( Read more... )
3) Detail at the end of this post of Leonardo's
Adoration of the Magi. This is a screen cap of the opening
credits of Andrey Tarkovsky's Sacrifice. You know that
I regard the Adoration as the supreme visual image of Christmas,
amazing, mysterious and deep...Raphael said one can only gaze at
it with awe. Here at the still point of that incredible vortex
the infant reaches out his hand to accept the gift of myrrh
from the Magus. The three strange gifts of the magi, so
impractical yet iconic--gold for a king, incense for
a god, myrrh for burial. It is the myrrh he is touching
and accepting at the beginning.

Let us look at the painting again, and this painting too has
been a underlying theme in this journal and was the topic of
my very first entry, but here it is now( Read more... )
And I have added a scene from Sacrifice. See how the Tree at the
center right of Adoration becomes the dead tree of Sacrifice
patiently watered and at the end it seems returning to life as the
little boy, who had not for some psychological reason been able to
speak, says his first words
"“In the beginning was the word… why was that, papa?"

Today these various and as always welcome all your response
on these or on anything else at all, yours
+Seraphim
.

With Christmas literally days away, we hear the penultimate O Antiphon this evening.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that the antiphons might sound vaguely familiar to you. In the 12th Century, an unknown songwriter compiled versions of the O Antiphons into a single Advent hymn, called Veni, Veni Emmanuel. You know the English version as O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

The song's verses are in reverse order from the order of the antiphons. More on that tomorrow.



O Rex géntium, et desiderátus eárum,
lapísque anguláris, qui facis útraque unum:
veni, et salva hóminem,
quem de limo formásti.

Englished:

O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.

Friends,
Two mysterious discoveries...
1) someone's lunch, french fries and a burrito in a tin tray
thing under the back seat of my car. not mine. who have I given
a ride recently? why would they put their lunch there?

2)short of combs. got a new one just the other day...
in a pocket of a sports jacket I have not worn for a while,
four pocket combs. four.

Speaking of slightly eccentric people, as perhaps Robert Lax
the poet we have been speaking of, was--or at least a very
unusual man going a different way than many are able to...an
almost unique way, well everyone is unique but as Samuel Beckett
said:
"Why do I read Robert Lax? For the sheer joy of it.
I don't know another poet ...like him."

What a different sort of writer and man Beckett was than Lax,
although they both moved into minimalist writing... But what
has been interesting to me to discover from reading "The
Way of the Dreamcatcher." is a real friendship between Lax
and Jack Kerouac and also Lax's knowing Allen Ginsberg.
With Kerouac there was a connection preexisting in Columbia
University, and the group around Columbia's Jester
magazine, Merton, Lax, Ed Rice, Ab Reinhardt, was it seems an
early inspiration for the Beat Generation writers. It is
interesting to think about Lax and Kerouac together in
particular, both Catholic (Lax a convert but deeply religious
as a Jew before that also,Kerouac born) both very aware of
Eastern religions, both playful-- Kerouac called Lax "a
laughing Buddha". I find on the internet some paragraphs on
a part of their friendship at least ,which may be interesting
enough to share. ( Read more... )
I find on Ginsberg the note, in Dreamcatcher, that when they first
met he asked Lax "do you believe in God?" Bob replied "I am a Catholic."
three years later Allen called Lax to ask how he was ,immediately asking
"Are you still Catholic?" which Lax says "I thought that was pretty
funny."

Now two things:
1) I am interested to know more about Lax-Kerouac friendship. Continued
correspondence in later years? meeting mentioned in Dreamcatcher where
I think it said they went to buy a cat together, when and where?

2)It strikes me that while Lax and Merton used a very special style
in kidding around,elliptic, loose, also were very playful, as in
a new york subway together miming going into a trance whenever the
speed of the train went up and coming down when it lowered etc.
all of this parallel to Kerouac. that in talking about religion
Jack never seems to allow himself out of that style so in the
notes quoted:
"[I'll] prove at last by example not only by words -
Bless Jesus."
the "Bless Jesus" is in that loose jokey style isn't it and yet of
course it is serious. Perhaps he never found the peace and happiness
that characterized Lax by all report and this ironic distancing
was part of that distance from his innermost hopes...but also it can
lead to undervaluing Kerouac's seriousness.
I have not seen this addressed in discussion of Kerouac, not that I
have read a lot on him, but this breezy beat style seems to me to
work, on some things, better in correspondence like the Merton-
Lax letters, or let it be Kerouac-Lax, than in a novel.

These thoughts and as always invite all your response on them
or on anything else at all, yours
+Seraphim
.
Inscribed by Ginsberg "Portrait of Jack Kerouac
w/brakeman's manual in pocket. 1953. Allen Ginsberg."

Short, sweet, and on the solstice.

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone." (Isaiah 9:1[2])

Today is also the feast of Saint Thomas the Apostle in the old calendar.



O Oriens,
splendor lucis ætérnae, et sol justítiæ:
veni, et illúmina sedéntes in ténebris, et umbra mortis.

Englished:

O Rising Sun,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

O Lord, confound the machinations of arrogant men and women who would enslave us with debt and State control of our most personal decisions. Amen.

Continuing on, we come closer and closer to the birth of the Messiah, "the holy one, the true, who holds the key of David, who opens and no one shall close, who closes and no one shall open" (Rev. 3:7).

If you are interested in learning more about the O Antiphons, I recommend Fr. Zuhlsdorf's site here. The format is bare-bones, but the information is thorough.



O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israël;
qui áperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo áperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo cárceris,
sedéntem in ténebris, et umbra mortis.

Englished:

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Friends,
Well the big snow storm turned out at least in the Hudson Valley to
be not much at all, a few inches of fluffy snow on the ground. Long
Island had two feet in places but I would guess it will be under
control by tomorrow... One good thing that came from my excursion
yesterday though was finding in a book store the book of interviews
by Steve T Georgiou with poet Robert Lax titled The Way of the
Dreamcatcher, which seems to be out of print but I was able to buy
for cover price.
Geoorgiou , a young Greek-American academic, came to Patmos in 1993
looking for peace, and he found Lax whom he had not heard of before.
over the following six years he returned again and again recording
interviews. His questions are, as an amazon reviewer notes,
simple and fairly one dimensional, and are
relentless in their leading to a sense of the holiness and wisdom of
Robert Lax as a saint and sage. And Lax in some measure ,liking his
young friend and perhaps indulging him, goes along...And yet...and
yet one feels also that in a deep way Lax was that, a poet , a sage,
called by his friend, and fellow Catholic, Jack Kerouac "a laughing
Buddha"...it seems Kerouac visited Lax on Patmos. I would be happy
to learn more of that. Merton of course was his friend from Columbia
days.
Well there is something special about this man, something different
from what one feels with most other writers or even other religious
figures...let me give a few quotes which you may like, I think,
and just a couple of pictures from the book if you will click to
the right here. ( Read more... )
And you see I have added two poems, one of a relentlessly
minimalist sort and another (finding them on the internet and so
not needing to copy out)

I see that Kerouac said of Lax that he was
" a Pilgrim in search of beautiful innocence.
writing lovingly, finding it, simply, in his own way."
I find it inspiring to see what one feels as a fulfilled quest,
a simplicity...

Yeats wrote...
"And then he laughed to think that what seemed hard
Should be so simple—a bat rose from the hazels
And circled round him with its squeaky cry,
The light in the tower window was put out."
Something like that...
hope you may have found also something of interest here
and I am ,welcoming all response, yours
+Seraphim
.
Robert Lax 1915-2000

I have returned from my out-of-towner much wearied in the flesh, but buoyed up in the spirit. In due course, the work of the committee will reach its conclusion. At this point, all I can say is, it's a rare meeting that I would describe as "anointed," but this one was. In addition to the official work (which is proceeding better than I dared hope), the relationship building amongst the committee was excellent -- not merely as it pertains to me and the others personally, but also corporately. I learned things about United Methodist Men and their organization and difficulties I never knew. The UMM guys got an eye-opener about NAUMS and Scouting Ministry in the UMC from me. All of us are readier and better equipped to work together now.

People carp all the time about "unity." We even have a Task Force on Unity in GCUMM. I have always been leery of unity talk, because it so often means "let's all agree to act together," but the decision on what actions to take is another time, another place, and some folks don't get invited. "Unity" thus becomes "bait-and-switch." But real understanding and desire to achieve a common vision begets genuine unity: a unity that sees through the bait-and-switch and gets real goods achieved. May it be so this year in the General Commission on United Methodist Men and all its affiliates.

Friends,
With a heavy snow coming up from the south I decided
to give myself a one day vacation, driving north into an
area of lesser snowfall and staying at a holiday inn which
is in any case insulated from all that, and here I am at
the business center of the holiday inn in Fishkill New
York.
A vacation likely needed,although perhaps a better one
than this, left credit card behind went back for it,
dropped it in hallway outside motel room, returned to
me... pains off and on in teeth(sinus? neuralgia?)

On the way I stopped at the bookstore at Graymoor
and got a book called The Way of the Dreamcatcher
about the poet Robert Lax. taped interviews with him during
his time on the isle of Patmos. the author, a Greek Orthodox
american professor, seems a little too much the disciple
setting Lax up to say things that are holy by leading
questions...there is something a little unsatisfactory about
the whole thing but Lax was a great poet and soul too no
doubt, friend of Kerouac as well as Merton. Here is a
word from Lax,
"While we're all involved in our own special dreams,
together we are part of one big flowing dream that
begins and ends in heaven."
and
"Look far back
look infinitely on
penetrate,don't appraise
behold all things
with the innocence of light
laugh when you meet a stranger
let your glances flow together
like water in sunlight"

well...so just this note, yours
+Seraphim

By now some of you might be thinking that the O Antiphon words might be sounding kind of familiar, even though you're not really up on your Gregorian Chant.

In fact, these antiphons are some of the earliest attested antiphons in the Divine Office, being mentioned in passing in the works of Saint Boethius in the early sixth century. The version we're listening to is the Solemn Tone. There are also less complicated versions in the Monastic Tone and the Simple Tone.



O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populórum,
super quem continébunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabúntur:
veni ad liberándum nos, jam noli tardáre.

Englished:

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

Drove down to Nashville yesterday and launched into meetings. Had interviews and meetings all day today and will probably continue most of this evening. Got interviews and meeting tomorrow.

Sitting in a room, talking, is exhausting.