The Breeze So Warm and Mild
A rainbow split the warm sky yesterday evening while we were enjoying some porch-sitting out back. The birds very active, as was our chipmunk, and the 75 degree air was a welcome relief to arthritic stiffness and the inactivity that frigid weather imposes.
But today the temperature is dropping steadily, the rain will resume again in a couple of hours, and by morning, we’re forecast to have lots of heavy, wet snow. The kind that snaps power lines and turns mountain roads into luge tracks. May it not come to pass.
I thought I’d share a cute video and a beautiful song, if you will indulge me, dear readers.
First, the video. It speaks for itself.
Isn’t that delightful? I like to think the fox will return to its den and tell its mates, “You’ll never believe what I walked into this afternoon…”
And now the song. Some years ago, I watched a war movie with Brad Pitt called Fury. The movie is about a tank crew fighting in Germany in the closing months of World War II. The movie is memorable for me for two reasons. One, I became aware as I watched it that I was not rooting for the American soldiers, but for the German people. I suppose this moment marked the final sloughing off of my old patriot skin, a decent preparation for the later realization that I was no longer living in the country in which I was born. I no longer have anything about which to be patriotic or proud.
And two, there was a scene in the movie where two American soldiers force their way into the home of two German girls. The soldiers hide out in the flat and use the peace and quiet to clean up and get the girls to cook some eggs they’ve brought along. While the sergeant (Pitt) is washing and shaving, the young private looks around and notices a piano. He sits at it and selects a piece of sheet music and begins sight-reading the piece. The younger of the two German girls, delighted at hearing the piece played, comes over and acts as page-turner and sings the song in her native tongue. It’s a very short scene and is quickly interrupted, but I found the music sad and beautiful and haunting. This afternoon, I finally remembered to look up the song. It’s titled Mariä Wiegenlied (The Virgin’s Slumber Song) and is a lullaby from the Blessed Virgin Mary to the Christ child. Here is the song, and I have appended the English translation below. If I may make a suggestion, turn the lights down and sit in a quiet room and let this wash over you.
May your night be soft and peaceful, may your rest be sweet and deep, and may the morning find you strong and clear-eyed. I am praying for each of you, my dear readers.
~ S.K. Orr
Amid the roses Mary sits
And rocks her Jesus-child,
While amid the treetops
Sighs the breeze so warm and mild.
And soft and sweetly sings
A bird upon a bough:
Ah, baby, dear one,
Slumber now!
Happy is Thy laughter,
Holy is Thy silent rest,
Lay Thy head in slumber
Fondly on Thy Mother’s breast.
Ah, baby, dear one,
Slumber now!
by Max Reger (1873 – 1916), “Mariä Wiegenlied”, op. 76 (Schlichte Weisen) no. 52
2 Comments
NLR
Good post.
I remember that scene from Fury as well. What I found striking about it was that here they are in the home country of the enemy, after all this time, and the Germans turn out to be ordinary people.
I agree about the US not being the country it used to be. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both loved and drew inspiration from Germanic mythology and culture and for that reason they despised National Socialism which they recognized as a hijacking of it. Just as Communism had nothing to do with the real Russia or Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Hollywood have anything to do with the real US.
I’m flabbergasted how frequently people will bend over backwards to justify how something that has the same name as something else really is that thing when it’s clear that, no, it isn’t at all. For one example, Harvard would be totally unrecognizable to Emerson and Thoreau, let alone to the Puritans. If John Harvard (https://infogalactic.com/info/John_Harvard_(clergyman)) could see the school that bears his name now, I’m sure he would ask for his library back.
I believe this is important because this kind of thinking so often leads people down blind alleys. But once people recognize that things aren’t the same, then they can be loyal to what remains that’s worth loyalty (such as the saints, as you point out in your next post).
admin
Thank you, NLR.
What I remember clearly from watching “Fury” was my bewildered annoyance at Brad Pitt’s lecturing the German girls about how he would keep fighting until “they” quit. General George S. Patton, Jr. wrote in his journals about how Eisenhower hated the German people deeply, and Pitt’s character seemed to have this same mindset. Two scared girls in a besieged apartment in a war-torn German village are part of the reason why Pitt is there with his tank and its degenerate crew.
“I’m flabbergasted how frequently people will bend over backwards to justify how something that has the same name as something else really is that thing when it’s clear that, no, it isn’t at all.”
That’s how I feel when I look at the US Marine Corps nowadays and listen to all the mindless jingoistic dithering by the 2nd Amendment crowd (you know, the same ones who bravely defended the defiling and destruction of all those Confederate statues?). None of the things I was raised to believe in and be proud of remain. What remains are hollow husks, filled with corruption and malice.
Appreciate you stopping by and commenting, NLR.