That Which We Have Heard & Known

Occasional thoughts of an Anglican Episcopal priest

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Considering God’s Works in the Scottish Hills

July 2, 2011 / / 0 Comments

My first full, relatively well rested day in Scotland and England begins. Yesterday, my first day here, was spent handling necessary tasks of arrival pretty much in a mental fog. Does anyone really sleep on those overnight flights across the Atlantic?

We arrived slightly ahead of schedule and eventually got off the Boeing 757. The walk from plane to immigration is typical of British, Irish and European airports – a long walk down a plain corridor with many turns, down a flight of stairs, and finally into a big room with Disneyland style crowd control fences. UK/EU citizens were directed to one set of officers; all others to another. There were six agents checking through the UK/EU group … one handling everyone else. There might have been more but apparently some public employee union in the UK was having an “industrial action” (i.e., a strike) so several stations were unstaffed. Then after about 80% of the UK/EU group and about 10% of the rest of us were through, the computers went down – so we all stood around for 30-40 minutes while this was repaired. Eventually things got worked out and (once the UK/EU citizens were through) all opened stations started handling everyone.

I got through that with no other hassle and claimed my bags – Edinburgh has free luggage carts so that simplified things. The car rental agencies are housed in a separate pavilion a long walk from the main terminal on the other side of the car park – and it’s not made obvious that that’s where you go. But after asking a couple of people, I figured it out and claimed my car. It’s some sort of four seater Peugeot, about the same size as the cars Evelyn and I drove in Ireland.

My rental PeugeotDriving on the left side of the road is something that pretty much comes back to you quickly after having done it before. Scottish roads are nearly identical to the Irish, though their country lanes are wider. I made a fool of myself getting into a place in the rental yard where I had to back up and couldn’t figure out for several minutes how to get the darned thing into reverse, but eventually figured that out.

Without using the GPS (which I brought with me from the States equipped with European maps and pre-programmed for all the places I hope to visit and all the hotels or B&Bs at which I’ve made reservations), I found my way to the Gyle Shops mall (looks exactly like an American mall with the addition of a supermarket) and the Vodafone store. I bought a small, inexpensive Nokia mobile phone on a pay-as-you-go plan (you buy a voucher and top it off, or do it on the internet, or at a special phone number using credit card); in Ireland I can purchase just an inexpensive SIM chip for the phone and be on a local system there.

I figured out how to call the US – the Vodafone guy gave me the wrong country code, but the T-Mobile down the mall girl had the right one – and called my wife. Then I went to the supermarket (a Morrison’s Store), bought a diet Coke, went out to my car, set up the GPS, and hit the road for Galashiels.

The Scottish countryside here is lovely! High rolling hills, pine and oak forests, fields set off by hedges or stone walls just as in Ireland, but the fields are much, much larger. Lots of black-faced sheep. As I said, roads similar to Ireland, though somewhat wider in the country.

Today (Saturday, 2 July 2011) I am driving a short distance to Melrose to visit the abbey. I’m told there’s some sort of county fair or “ride out” going on there and that I shouldn’t expect to get through the town quickly. That’s fine; I’m in no hurry.

After Melrose, my plan is to cross the border into England (not really a border since this is all the UK – more a cultural, historical artifact than an actual border) and visit Jedburgh, then make my way to Lindisfarne for the next two nights.

Today’s psalm for the Daily Office was one of my favorites and though it really has nothing to do with my plans for the day, I thought I would share it with you:

Blessed be the LORD my rock! *
who trains my hands to fight and my fingers to battle;
My help and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, *
my shield in whom I trust,
who subdues the peoples under me.
O LORD, what are we that you should care for us? *
mere mortals that you should think of us? (Psalm 144:1-3)

I’m certain that those images of rock and fortress and stronghold resonated with the Gaelic folk of Ireland and Scotland (especially rocky Scotland with its granite mountains). A few days ago I shared Donnchad Mór Ó Dálaigh’s 13th Century poem An Aluinn Dún (“The Beautiful Fortress” or “The Heavenly Habitation”) – see Translating Hymns (Part 3), a hymn that builds on those metaphors.

My favorite answer to the question in verse three, however, comes not from Gaels, but from another of the Psalms in which the question is asked in different form:

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies,
that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet:
All sheep and oxen, yea,
and the beasts of the field;
The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea,
and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
O LORD our Lord,
how excellent is thy name in all the earth! (Psalm 8 – KJV)

Today I go off to drive through the Scottish and English countrysides to consider the works of God’s fingers and those of humankind under whose feet God has put all things.

Summer and Sabbath

June 30, 2011 / / 1 Comment

In about two hours I will be headed for Cleveland-Hopkins Airport to get on a flight to Newark and thence to Edinburgh. Checking email, Facebook, etc. before packing up the laptop, I found that a friend forwarded me an email from a United Methodist board of some sort containing two delightful quotations about summer and sabbath. The summer thought is from John Lubbock:

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.”

I had no idea who John Lubbock was, although I now know that I certainly should have. He was a Victoria era banker with many side interests, and the First Baron Avebury. He also was a good friend of Charles Darwin, whose hometown of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, I will be visiting in just under two weeks. Wikipedia has an extensive article about John Lubbock which includes this information:

In 1865 Lubbock published what was possibly the most influential archaeological text book of the 19th century, Pre-historic times, as illustrated by ancient remains, and the manners and customs of modern savages. He invented the terms Palaeolithic and Neolithic to denote the Old and New Stone Ages respectively. More notably, he introduced a Darwinian view of human nature and development. “What was new was Lubbock’s… insistence that, as a result of natural selection, human groups had become different from each other, not only culturally, but also in their biological capacities to utilize culture.”

Lubbock complained in the preface about Charles Lyell:

“Note.—In his celebrated work on the Antiquity of Man, Sir Charles Lyell has made much use of my earlier articles in the Natural History Review, frequently, indeed, extracting whole sentences verbatim, or nearly so. But as he has in these cases omitted to mention the source from which his quotations were derived, my readers might naturally think that I had taken very unjustifiable liberties with the work of the eminent geologist. A reference to the respective dates will, however, protect me from any such inference. The statement made by Sir Charles Lyell, in a note to page 11 of his work, that my article on the Danish Shell-mounds was published after Ms sheets were written, is an inadvertence, regretted, I have reason to believe, as much by its author as it is by me.” Preface to Pre-historic times.

Lubbock was also an amateur biologist of some distinction, writing books on hymenoptera (Ants, Bees and Wasps: a record of observations on the habits of the social hymenoptera. Kegan Paul, London; New York: Appleton, 1884.), on insect sense organs and development, on the intelligence of animals, and on other natural history topics. He was a member of the famous X Club founded by T.H. Huxley to promote the growth of science in Britain. He discovered that ants were sensitive to the ultraviolet range of the spectrum. The Punch verse of 1882 captured him perfectly:

How doth the Banking Busy Bee
Improve his shining Hours?
By studying on Bank Holidays
Strange insects and Wild Flowers!

Apparently, Mr. Lubbock’s time spent lying on the summer grass was not wasted. I hope that mine spent, in part, walking through the summer hills of Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland will likewise not be a waste of time. And in that vein is the second quotation in my friend’s United Methodist email, a prayer for sabbath:

Sabbath God, in this season of long days and long daylight, we are grateful to be alive. Give us the wisdom to pause from our hectic routines and enjoy the simple things of this time of year. Let us live easily for a time, putting away watches and looking away from clocks, ignoring all the things that need to be moved, fixed or cleaned. Let us lose ourselves in the bounty of the earth you created. May this be a time of rest, refreshment and renewal. May we be calm enough and quiet enough to perceive your presence. Let us not fill all our time with endless activity.

The email says that this is prayer is “based on a prayer composed by Ted Loder in his book, My Heart in My Mouth.” I also didn’t know who Ted Loder is. It turns out he is another blogging clergy person. The profile on his blog says, “The Reverend Dr. Loder is a retired United Methodist minister who served as Senior Pastor for 38 years at Philadelphia, PA’s First United Methodist Church of Germantown (FUMCOG), which became well known around the country for its dynamic worship and preaching as well as its urban involvement and prophetic social action. He was named one of America’s most creative preachers. He has published several books of prayers, sermons and commentary including Guerrillas of Grace and Loaves, Fishes and Leftovers.” The header on his blog reads, “Stay Watchful – God is Sneaky.” I shall have to read this fellow….

As I fold up this laptop, stow it in my backpack, and start loading my bags into the car for the trip to the airport, my prayer is one petition in particular in the Rev. Dr. Loder’s prayer, “May this be a time of rest, refreshment and renewal.” Amen!

Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation … and Grace

June 28, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Misused apostrophes added unnecessarily to plurals or added (or forgotten) with possessives … to use a serial comma or not … should this be a colon or semicolon … does a comma or period go inside the quotation marks or outside?

Verb tenses, definite and indefinite articles, prepositions, noun-verb agreement ….

Homophones (their, there, they’re … hear, here … right, write, rite) and so forth ….

This sort of thing drives me crazy as I write for “immediate publication,” which is essentially what blog writing is. Apparently I do not type what I think. Maybe I should retitle this blog “What am I TYPING this morning?” We would all be surprised, I’m sure! I know I am surprised when I re-read what I’ve published here. I find all of the issues above-mentioned and more when I do so. So there’s this constant process of correct, hit the update button, read again, correct, hit the update button, read again … and on and on it goes. (Especially transliterating the archaic Irish script of Dantá Dé into modern Latin lettering! I read and re-read, compare to the original, re-type, then do it again, and again, and still I find more things to correct.)

So, dear readers, I beg your indulgence. If you read a sentence that doesn’t make sense, read it again and figure out what’s missing. A helping verb, a preposition, a conjunction, something will make it good. I trust you to supply the correction … and to check back later and see if I’ve supplied something else!

A story …

When I was in seminary a good friend (a retired priest in my home parish) died, so I went to the seminary chapel and added his name to the prayer list for that day’s Evening Prayer service. The list asked us to include our name as requester and indicate our relationship to the person being remembered. Our officiant that evening was a commuter student who didn’t know all of the dormitory residents … and apparently in my grief or haste I did not write very legibly. So when the list of those for whose souls reposed was prayed came around, she prayed for “Father Hunt Parsons, friend of Ernie Funston.” Of course, there were sniggers and a few outright guffaws in the congregation.

Leaving the chapel at the conclusion of the service, Dr. Guy Lytle, who taught Anglicanism and church history, happened to go out the door beside me. He took me by the arm and said, “Don’t worry. God has spell-check on prayers.”

Since then I’ve come to regard that as a metaphor for God’s grace … God has spell-check on our lives! Like the automatic spell-checker in our word processers, God quietly and efficiently corrects (or simply chooses to overlook) the errors we commit.

And we are called to have spell-check (and grammar-check and gentle proofreading) for one anothers (another’s? anothers’?) lives.

So “grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ!”

Leaving the Fireflies (Postscript)

June 27, 2011 / / 0 Comments

I found a YouTube video of the Irish Klezmer band The Fireflies (referred to in my prior post). The video is a collection of still photos of the band with a pretty good soundtrack. Not exactly what one expects to hear from an Irish band! LOL!

Leaving the Fireflies

June 27, 2011 / / 0 Comments

On June 30, 2011, I’ll load my rolling dufflebag filled with clothing and such, my backpack filled with computer and books, and my CPAP machine (its bag crammed with anything else I can fit into it) into the car, head for Cleveland-Hopkins Airport, and fly to Newark where I will wait for five hours and then take another plane to Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

Last evening as I walked the dog after sunset, the sky still a fairly bright blue with plenty of light to see, I looked into the darkness of the woods behind our house and saw that the fireflies were beginning to flash their mating signals. I realized that I’m leaving Ohio at one of my favorite times of the year – firefly time! I love fireflies!

I was born and raised mostly in the little-known southern Nevada community of Las Vegas, but my summers from age 5 to age 13 were spent mostly in the southeastern Kansas town of Winfield. That area of Kansas has a lot of fireflies; my mother was born there and both of my parents were reared there. Those summers were spent living with my paternal grandparents and with my cousins, the children of my father’s only brother, who lived next door to them. A nearly daily activity during June and July was catching fireflies in the early evening so we could watch them flash on our dresser all night long.

I was delighted when we moved to Ohio to find fireflies here … not as many as there were in Kansas, but enough. An informational website maintained by Ohio State University has this to say about firefly habitat:

If you live in the United States, west of about the middle of Kansas, you are not apt to have the flashing type of fireflies in your area. Although some isolated sightings of luminous fireflies have been reported from time to time from regions of the western U.S., fireflies that glow are typically not found west of Kansas. The reason for this phenomenon is not known.

I can guarantee you that I never saw a firefly in Las Vegas! But those summers in Kansas there were plenty.

Fireflies are called different things in different parts of the country. I’m pretty certain that firefly was the most common term in Winfield, although occasionally someone might call them lightning-bugs. I know that some people also call them “glow worms” but the only time I ever heard them called that was when my mother would sing a song with that title popular back in those days. Whenever I would talk about catching fireflies, she start humming or singing that song. Here’s a YouTube video of the Mills Brothers singing it (it brings back a lot of memories!):

My cousins and I would catch the fireflies and keep them in mason jars. We’d grab a handful of the grass growing along the fence of our granddad’s garden (this was in the days long before “weed whackers” and no one ever seemed to feel like trimming that grass by hand, so it was always good and long, perfect for a mason-jar firefly habitat) and shove it in the jar, then run through the yard after the flashing bugs trying to trap them between jar and lid. The lid, of course, was a mayonnaise jar lid (Grammy wouldn’t let us use her good canning lids) that we had pounded a nail through several times to give the bugs air. We’d usually get five or six bugs in each jar and that would be enough for the night.

We’d put the jars on the dresser next to our beds in our grandparents’ basement or at my cousins’ house, wherever we were going to sleep that night, and then do something else for the rest of the evening. Eventually, though, bedtime would roll around and off we’d go, to lay awake as long as we could watching the fireflies flash. Come morning, Grammy would encourage us to set them free and we would dutifully dump out the contents of the jar, wilted grass, fireflies (dead or alive, who knew?), and all.

There are no fireflies in Ireland (though I’m told there’s a Klezmer band there called The Fireflies) so I am leaving one of my favorite sights of summer, the evening flashes of the lightning bugs. There are no fireflies in Ireland, but there is in the ancient verse and the Celtic spirituality of the Irish people a deep appreciation of nature and of nature’s God. In the early 20th Century, Dr. Douglas Hyde collected many bits of folk poetry reflecting that appreciation, including this one found in Dánta Dé. It is described as “ceol na ndaoine, as Albain, tré Lachlann MacBeathain” (“folk song from Scotland by Lachlann MacBeathain”); the notes in the hymnal indicate that Dr. Hyde collected it in 1924:

Áluinn fairrge spéir-ghlas
Áluinn uisgeacha ciúin,
Áluinn taithneamh na gréine
Ar na tonntaibh tá fúinn;
Faoileáin ‘g eiteal ‘s na spéarthaibh,
Teas le h-éirghe an lae;
Ó! nach áluinn, a Dhe!
Siúd uait amharc na sléibhte,
Bárra a bhfolach fá cheó,
Caoirigh ciúin ar a dtaobhaibh,
Síot a’s sonas a’s sógh.
Tógfad suas mo chroidhe-se
Tógfad suas mo ghlór,
Molfad Eisean a-choidhche
Fá gach iongantas mór;
Árdaigh feasta mo smaointe
Mar na sléibhte ‘san aéir,
Ciúnaigh feasta mo chroidhe-se
Mar an t-uisge soiléir;
Éist le m’athchuingh’, a Thigh’rna,
Tar a’s cómhnaigh im’ chléibh,
Réidhtigh m’anam: ‘s im’ inntinn
Déan-sa t’-árus, a Dhé.

The direct, non-metrical, prose interpretation:

Lovely is the sky-grey ocean,
Lovely the quiet waters,
Lovely the shining of the sun
On the waters below;
Seagulls flying in the skies,
Warmth with the rising of day, –
O how delightful is Thy world!
O how delightful, my God!
See in the distance the mountains,
Summits hidden in the mist;
Quiet sheep on their slopes,
Peace and pleasure and bliss.
I will lift up my own heart,
I will lift up my voice,
I will praise Him for ever
For each wonder great.
Lift Thou upwards my thoughts
Like to the mountains above,
Calm Thou henceforth my heart
Like the waters clear;
Hear, O Lord, my prayer,
Come, abide in my breast,
Quiet my soul, and within my mind
Make Thy dwelling, O God.

There are no fireflies in Ireland, but I’m sure if there ever had been they would have found there way into the religious songs of the Irish people. Fireflies spark our imaginations and light up our souls on summer nights. In a way, I’m sorry to be leaving the fireflies.

Sermon on the Sunday I Left for Sabbatical…. (June 26, 2011)

June 25, 2011 / / 2 Comments

There is a lot happening at St. Paul’s Parish this morning – it would seem to be a lot more than one might expect to find going on in a church on a summer Sunday! If this is your first visit to our parish and you are not one of the members of Medina Lodge #58, Free & Accepted Masons of Ohio, who are our guests today, you may be wondering what sort of church this is, what is all this activity! Well, let me tell you ….

First – it is the last Sunday of the month and that means that, in addition to our regular weekly offerings, we take up a collection called “the 2-cent-a-meal offering” to fund hunger relief work in this parish and throughout the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. Nick Magee, who oversees our Free Farmers Market food pantry ministry, sent me an email yesterday with the half-year statistics on that ministry. His spreadsheet showed that yesterday 221 people were provided with food by this parish, which just happens to be the average number of clients served each week the Free Farmers Market is open. In the first half of 2011, our food pantry has provided a week’s worth of groceries to 2,646 persons; nearly twenty thousand pounds of food have been distributed. A word of congratulations to Nick and the Free Farmers Market volunteers – the food pantry was recognized by the Akron Community Foundation last month which awarded it a grant of $4,000! It continues to be a vital and necessary ministry in our community and I encourage you to be as generous as the Akron foundation.

Second – also because it is the last Sunday of the month, this is the Sunday on which we offer prayers for healing and when we bless the work of our knitting circles. For those who are ill or injured, we offer unction and the laying on of hands here at the communion rail following the distribution of Holy Communion. You can also come forward to receive unction and prayer on behalf of someone else, someone unable to be here. The knitted items are, for the most part, prayer shawls made for the comfort of those recovering from illness or injury, warm garments (hats, scarves, and gloves) for merchant marine seamen served by the Episcopal Church’s Seamen’s Institute, and baby blankets for the newborn (many of which we now have or are soon expecting in this parish, by the way. Congratulations again to Nick Magee and to his wife Sian who this week welcomed Finn Griffiths Magee into the world and into their family.)

Third – this past week marked the 20th Anniversary of my ordination into the priesthood and my wife Evelyn and our Senior Warden Barbara Baird cooked up a scheme to have a reception acknowledging that milestone during our usual “coffee hour” after this service. Ladies, I’m very grateful to you for doing so. As I said in a post on Facebook on Tuesday, the actual anniversary, I am extremely grateful and humbled by the gift and privilege of priesthood which permits those of us in this office to share with each of you and all of you the milestones of your lives, to celebrate with you in times of joy and to grieve with you in times of misfortune and sorrow, to preside at our faith’s most significant acts of worship, and to participate in all the small but meaningful ways we form community. My wife secretly arranged for our children, Caitlin and Patrick, to be here for this reception, and Patrick (who was recently ordained a deacon and in a few months will himself be ordained a priest) is serving at the altar with me today – our first time to do so together.

Fourth – later this week … to be precise in four days, seven hours, and fifteen minutes (but who’s counting?) … I will be flying to Scotland to begin three months of sabbatical studying Celtic Christianity, learning more of the Irish Gaelic language, visiting ancient British, Scottish and Irish ruins, and translating and arranging some ancient Irish hymns. So the anniversary reception is also something of a going away party. Please join us in the Parish Hall after this service for the party!

Finally – as we have done for the past few years, St. Paul’s Parish is hosting our friends from the local Masonic Lodge whom I mentioned earlier and whose custom it is to worship together on the Sunday closest to the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. Thus, we are using the lessons assigned to that feast not those of the usual Sunday lectionary, and singing songs which might seem to some more fitting for the season of Advent than for the middle of summer. The members of the Lodge do so because modern American Freemasonry regards both St. John the Evangelist and St. John the Baptist referring to them jointly as “the Holy Saints John of Jerusalem.”

Why, you may ask, would Masons, who insist that our fraternity is not a religious institution, thus venerate these saints? Why would Masons gather together in worship on this particular Sunday?

As every Mason knows, one of the symbols found in a lodge room is a certain point within a circle, bounded by two parallel lines, with the volume of sacred law displayed atop the circle. Christopher L. Hodapp, the author of the book Freemasons For Dummies, has suggested that this is one of the least understood Masonic emblems. On his internet blog, he writes:

The symbol is actually based on an old astrological and alchemical symbol. The point in the center represented the Earth, which was thought to be the center of the universe. The heavens were believed to spin around the Earth, represented by the circle. The two lines represented the summer and winter solstices, the longest and shortest days of the year. For thousands of years, these days were celebrated as pagan feast days all over the world, and they were especially important to farming societies, because they were the astronomical methods of determining planting seasons.

In about 300A.D., the [Christian] Church began to dedicate popular pagan feast days to the saints. June 24th, the longest day of the year, was declared St. John the Baptist day, while December 27th, the shortest day, was dedicated to St. John the Evangelist. Collectively, Masons refer to them as the Holy Saints John.

Operative Freemasonry was first developed when Roman Catholicism was the prevailing religion, and these feast days continued under the Church of England. It was common for guilds and other trade groups to adopt a patron saint or two. Some Masons picked both Saints John, and over the centuries Masons commonly celebrate their feast days with banquets. And curiously, even though Freemasonry today is non-denominational and non-sectarian, American Masons have retained these customs of old. ….

John the Baptist was zealous, while John the Evangelist was learned, and by picking both of them as patron saints, Masons symbolically united both passion and reason.

The symbol also shows the Volume of Sacred Law at the top. In Masonry, the point represents the individual, and the circle is the boundary of his actions. Taken as a whole, the symbol implies that a Mason should consult the sacred texts of his own religion to achieve the proper balance between passion and intensity on one side, and knowledge and education on the other. In other words, he should balance education, excitement and faith to effectively subdue his passions. In a way, it is a graphic representation of the conscience.

Zeal and learning, passion and reason, excitement and education … the effective blending of these supposed opposites into effective action and ministry … this is what is going on here at St. Paul’s Parish today.

It is all well and good to be zealous and passionate about the need to feed people, but to get it done people like Nick and the other Free Farmers’ Market leaders have to do the reasonable work, really the hard work of figuring out what’s needed, ordering it, stocking it, and organizing volunteers to actually get it done. The proper balance between passion and intensity on one side, and knowledge and education on the other, effectively accomplishes the mission of the church – people are fed.

It is all well and good to love to knit and want share what one makes with the excitement and intensity that our knitting circles display, but without someone to take on the job of learning where the shawls, the gloves and scarves, and the baby blankets are needed, and how to get them there, all that excitement and intensity goes nowhere. The proper balance between passion on one side, and knowledge and education on the other, effectively accomplishes the mission of the church – the ill are comforted and lonely seamen are kept warm.

Today, in commemorating St. John the Baptist, we honor the zealous, passionate, excited side of this equation; we honor the forerunners, the visionaries, the pioneers, the people who “dream dreams and see visions,” those who go to the mountain-top and cry out “Behold!”

It has been said of visionaries that what they do is make the untrue become true. Author Ken Zaretsky puts it this way:

If you say something you know isn’t true and just leave it at that, then you are a liar.

If you believe that untruth, then you are delusional.

On the other hand, if you say something you know isn’t true; then not only believe it but also make it true, you are a visionary! Visionaries are deserving of praise and accolades from friends, peers and the public.

There are fine lines between liars, delusional individuals and visionaries. After all, what is the difference between making something up and making something up?

The first difference is intent. A liar conjures an image. He or she might see it. He might get others to believe in it. But he doesn’t believe it himself. The liar has no intention to make anything happen.

Like the liar, the delusional person also has an image. He or she can see it and, unlike the liar, believe it. It’s possible that she can also get others to believe in it. But she doesn’t do anything beyond believing because, to the delusional person, the image already exists in reality.

A visionary has an image of the ideal. The visionary sees the image, believes it and gets other people to believe in it. Then the visionary works to make the image come to life.

Visionaries see and proclaim an inspired and inspiring positive picture of the future, with a clear sense of direction as to how to get there. They keep communicating the vision to create an energy that sometimes they, but more often others, use to bring their vision into physical reality. Nelson Mandela, for example, clearly held a positive vision of a racially harmonious South Africa during his 28 years in jail and helped bring it into reality peacefully – to the amazement of the world.

Visionaries inspire use to be better than we are and help us identify with what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” This was the power of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech.

Visionaries often have the ability to see higher spiritual forces at work behind the scenes of events, and they align with the vision of these redemptive forces. Both George Washington and Winston Churchill spoke about the help they received from a “guiding hand.” Churchill said, “…we have a guardian because we serve a great cause, and we shall have that guardian as long as we serve that cause faithfully.”

Vision, it has been said, is an energy field that brings new realities into form. Visionaries tap into and transmit that energy to people, giving us a new sense of hope and confidence, helping us to believe in ourselves and work to create a better world.

More than twenty years ago I had a vision of the priesthood, a sense of call to the ministry of hope and confidence, to the work of creating a better world, to the gift of sharing with God’s people their times of joy and their times of misfortune and sorrow, to the privilege of presiding at our faith’s most significant acts of worship, and to the simple good fun of participating in all the small but meaningful ways the church forms community. I am very grateful for every minute of the twenty years that I have lived out that vision in this and other parishes, but let me be honest and tell you that after twenty years of managing tight budgets, chairing vestry meetings, rehearsing and solemnizing weddings, baptizing babies, leading bible studies, sitting beside hospital beds, and burying the dead … it’s time for a break. So I am also especially grateful for the opportunity to take these next several weeks of time away from the church.

I do so confident that this church will do just fine without me, that things will be (as I am wont to say) “Just peachy!” I know that they will be because our vestry, our lay leadership is a bunch of visionaries. They dream dreams and see visions and generate the energy make them come true. They are neither liars nor delusional, what they purpose they accomplish. They have dreamed a dream and seen a vision of a growing St. Paul’s Parish with and expanded and improved building, and they are going to see it accomplished. They have a clear sense of direction as to how to get there and over these coming weeks they will communicate that vision in way that I am sure will create the energy that they and you will use to bring that vision into reality.

Today, in commemorating St. John the Baptist, we honor the zealous, passionate, and excited leadership of the church; we honor the forerunners, the visionaries, the pioneers, the people who “dream dreams and see visions,” those who go to the mountain-top and cry out “Behold!”

The Vestry has begun closing its meetings with a prayer for vision attributed to Sir Francis Drake, the explorer who claimed North America on behalf of Queen Elizabeth the First and whose ship’s chaplain offered the first Christian worship on North American soil. I’m going to close my sermon today with that same prayer.

Let us pray:

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes, to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love. Amen.

(This sermon is also posted at The Theology Diner)

Translating Hymns (Part 3)

June 22, 2011 / / 3 Comments

Between the steps outlined in my last two posts, there is the matter of music. The metre, the accents, the stressed syllables … all that has to be considered. Hymn metres are often described numerically by the number of syllables in each line. For example, the great Lutheran hymn A Mighty Fortess Is Our God is metrically described “87 87 87 66 7” – this means that in each nine-phrase stanza, the first line has eight syllables, the second seven, the third eight, and so on.

I look over the music in Dánta Dé and determine, using this syllable-count scheme, what the metre of the translation should be, how the music fits the Irish lyrics and how best an English re-working might fit. And then, working from the literal translations of ní Ógáin and my own literal translation, I begin crafting a metrical paraphrase.

One of my favorite pieces in the hymnal is entitled The Heavenly Habitation, written by Donnchad Mór Ó Dálaigh in the 13th Century. Here it is in three versions – the original archaic Gaeilge, ní Ógáin’s translation, and my final metrical, rhyming paraphrase.

The original Irish Gaelic:

Áluinn Dún Mhic Mhuire,
An Dún is gluine blat;
Aoibhneas ann agus ceo,
Ní fhaicthear brón go brat.

Ní fhaicthear ann cean crom,
Tuirse trom ann nó cás,
Ní fhaicthear cúis no coir,
Ar aon neach ann go brat.

Do chídhtear ann do shíor,
Aoibhneas Ríogh na ngrás;
Do chídhtear sin san Dún
Soillse nach múcann smal.

An Spioraid Naomh go taithneamhac
Mar gaethibh siúbhlac’ gréine,
Is É ag scaoileadh go ceathannach
[Glé-] grása Ríogh na Féile.

San mbrúgh suaithneach solus-bhlát,
– Óir ‘s ionann lá is oidhche –
Ó chorraibh ‘n bhrógha bháin-ghil
Tig deallradh lán do’n aoibhneas.

Tá mile ógh is máirtireach
Fuair san tsaoghal gach dochar,
Lán dá n-aoibhneas taithniomhach
Ann go sámh glan socair.

Gorta is iota is ocras
‘S gach uile galar claoidhte,
Deoch as tobar na trócaire
D’fhóirfeadh iad sin choidhche.

Iompuighmíd ar ár n-ais arís,
Go bhfeicmid Ri na ngrása,
Is iarrmaoid ar ár nglúine
Ár leigean ‘san Dún is áilne.

Úna ní Ógáin’s direct translation:

Beauteous the Dún of the Son of Mary,
The Dún of purest bloom;
Delight is there and music,
And sorrow ne’er shall be seen there.

Ne’er shall be seen there a head bowed down,
Heavy weariness nor care;
Never sorrow nor crime
On anyone there for ever.

For ever is seen there
The loveliness of the King of the graces;
This is seen in that Dún,
Light that no cloud shall quench.

The Holy Spirit radiantly
Like moving beams of the sun,
And He shedding in showers
The graces of the King of generosity.

In the Fortress colour-full, light-blossoming,
– For there day and night are the same , –
From the pinnacles of the fair bright Fortress
Comes radiance full of delight.

A thousand virgins and martyrs
Who received in the world all hardships,
Filled with joyful delight
Are there, peaceful, pure, safe.

Famine and thirst and hunger,
And every wearing disease, –
A drink from the Well of Mercy
Would relieve them for ever.

We will return back again
That we may see the King of the graces,
And beseech him on our knees
To take us into the Dwelling most beauteous

My work based on this hymn:

How wondrous bright the glorious dún
of Jesus Christ our King;
Delight is there for ev’ryone,
and there the martyrs sing.

No head is bowed with sorrow there,
no heavy weariness known;
No crime, no cloud, no toilsome care,
bedims that heav’nly home.

The beauteous mansions of God’s Son
all sound with music bright;
The radiant Spirit, like the sun,
Fills them with glorious light.

The graces of the King are spread
and purest loveliness blooms
on all the holy, faithful dead
who now live in God’s rooms.

The many virgins, martyrs, saints
who hardship all endured
are filled with joy, delight, and grace;
blest, peaceful, and secure.

From famine, suff’ring, thirst, disease,
the Well of Mercy has giv’n
release and comfort to all these
who now dwell in God’s heav’n.

That heav’nly habitation we
all live in hope to share;
The King of all the graces we
beseech to take us there.

Upon our knees, the King we pray
will there make welcome our souls,
where ev’ry night is bright as day,
and ev’ry life made whole.

How wondrous bright, the glorious dún
of Jesus Christ our King;
Delight is there for ev’ryone,
and there we all shall sing.

There ev’ry soul is pure and bright,
and ev’ry loveliness known;
There joy, and peace, and pure delight
bless our eternal home.

There are about eighty ancient Gaelic hymns in the hymnal (there are also Gaelic translations of familiar hymns, especially Christmas carols, which I will be ignoring). My sabbatical project will be to work on these metrical, rhyming English paraphrases for as many as I can complete during my time on leave.

Translating Hymns (Part 2)

June 2, 2011 / / 2 Comments

Continuing from my last post ….

Here’s an example of what I was describing in my last post. This is the first verse of the fourth hymn in Dánta Dé, in the section titled Maidin (“Morning”). The hymn is described as Cantain Tíre-Chonaill (“Chant [from] Tyrconnell”) and the ascription reads, Ó na daoinibh tré Antoine Ó Dochartaigh (“From the people by Anthony O’Doherty”).

A Íosa mhilis, a Mháighistir ‘s a Dhia,
A Fhuasglóir oirdheirc ainglidhe,
Féach d’ár laige ‘s ná leig ár gclaoidhe
Le tonnaibh buadhartha an pheacaidh.

Úna ní Ógáin translates this as follows:

O, Jesu sweet, O master and God!
Deliverer august, angelic,
Look on our weakness, and let us not be overcome
By the troublous waves of sin

Now, I’m quite certain that her translations are correct, but I want to understand this Irish Gaelic text as thoroughly as possible, so I go to work translating for myself. Many of the words are familiar to me – the name of Jesus, for example, Íosa, or the word meaning “sweet”, mhilis, or the verb “to see”, féach. Others look like words I know, but they seem to be older forms – for example, ainglidhe (which she has translated as “angelic”) does remind me of aingeal meaning “angel”, and tonnaibh (which she has translated as “waves”) is similar to the word I know for “wave”, tonn. Others are new to me.

So I spend a lot of time leafing through the dictionary learning new words and trying to understand the meaning of the almost-familiar words. However, many of these words are not found in my modern Irish-English dictionary (I’m primarily using Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla by Níall Ó Dónaill, as well as various other sources) because of the changes made in modern standard Gaeilge. For example, ainglidhe has been simplified to aingli. The changes to other words are not so easily discovered: tonnaibh, for example. The plural of “waves” that I know is tonnta, so I think that perhaps this is a related word meaning a particular kind of wave? I know from dealing with other “modernized” words that the “bh” letter combination has been often replaced with either “ch” or “dh”, so I look in the dictionary for that variant spelling. Nothing. I also know that “ai” has frequently been simplified to “a”. Aha! The dictionaries have both tonnach (“quagmire”) and tonnadh (“surge” or “tide”). There’s no way to really know which of these the “folk of Tyrconnell” might have intended, so either could be used as a translation and both suggest imagery for the later step of putting this chant into metrical, rhyming English.

I move on to the next word, buadhartha, which ní Ógáin translated as “troublous” (which I’m not sure is even an English word!) This one is also unfamiliar to me, but it reminds of a word I do know, buaigh, the verb “to win”. The structure of buadhartha suggests to me that it is what the Irish call an aidiacht bhrathartha (“verbal adjective”), but the verbal adjective of buaigh is buach (“victorious” or “winning”). Further, “winning” and “troublous” hardly seem to fit one with the other, so this is obviously some other word. This requires the time-consuming process of simply reading the dictionary word by word until something comes close to ní Ógáin’s “troublous” rendering. The “r” in the word, by the way, is a lead, so I look particularly for words beginning with “bua” and including an “r”. The search ends when I find buair, a verb meaning “to grieve”, and its related word buartha (“grievous, worrying, or sorrowful”). (And a bit of learning for use later on … the letter combination “adha” here was simplified to “a”; this pattern may be repeated in other words.)

This is the process I work through which each word, each line, each stanza of the hymn. In the case of this first verse of Anthony O’Doherty’s chant from Tyrconnell, I render the verse as follows:

O Sweet Jesus, Master and God,
O exalted [and] angelic Redeemer,
See our infirmity and do not allow our conquering
By [With] the grievous tide [quagmire] [of our] sins

Not too dissimilar to ní Ógáin’s original translation, but by doing the work of translation myself, delving into deeper and alternative renderings of the text, I gain insights and ideas that will be of use in the next step, turning the translation into something in English that can fit the metre of the original music to which the Irish words were set. More on that in a later post.

Translating Hymns

May 31, 2011 / / 0 Comments

In about a month I’ll be starting my sabbatical with two weeks walking hills and visiting important pre-historic, Celtic, Roman, and medieval sites in Great Britain, starting with Melrose Abbey in Scotland, St. Cuthbert’s Way, Lindisfarne in England, Hadrian’s wall, Jedburgh, etc. As I visit these sites, I’ll be blogging and sharing pictures, continuing my self-study of Irish Gaelic (refreshing my learnings from my summer 2008 time at NUI Galway and adding to them in preparation for more study there this summer), and working on translations of the poetry in Úna ní Ógáin’s hymnal Dánta Dé idir sean agus nuadh (Hymns to God: Old and New).

I’ve been working on this for a couple of years and, let me tell you, translating old Gaelic verse into rhyming and metrical English is not easy! I usually end up with more something of my own authorship that is inspired by the original than a translation of the original. The process requires four foundational steps before anything like a singable text can even be considered:

First – the hymns in Dánta Dé are printed in old Gaelic script and in the older form of Irish Gaelic in which there are a lot of letters which have been dropped from the modern standard Irish. So my first task is simply transliterating the Gaelic script into the Latin alphabet. My old eyes aren’t what they once were, so I make frequent mistakes confusing, for example, the letter combination “id” for “ro” and similar errors.

Second – once I’ve gotten the old Gaelic transliterated is to figure out what form the word has taken in modern Irish; spellings in many cases have changed and although the changes follow a pattern, there are sometimes difficult choices to make.

Third – review ní Ógáin’s translation. Her translations are more prose or free verse than rhyming/metrical lyrics. They are fairly direct, but they are also informed by a deep early 20th Century Irish Roman Catholic spirituality so that adds a “flavor” that a more direct translation might not have.

Fourth – my own direct translation. This involves a lot of dictionary work and a lot of grammar review!

Then comes the work of recasting the ideas, images, and spirituality of the piece into singable lyrics….

And we haven’t even considered what to do with the music…..

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