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H.M.S Cistercian
My recent pilgrimage to the monastery of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky has deepened my appreciation for the writings of the abbey’s most famous monk, Thomas Merton. I have been reading with much enjoyment Merton’s lively history of the Order of the Cisterians of the Strict Observance, also known as the Trappists. The book, The Waters of Siloe, describes the origin of the order and how persecuted French monks came to the shores of the United States to establish the monastery where Merton spent his hidden contemplative life. Having been inspired by Bruce Charlton and the writers at the Junior Ganymede blog to read a bit of Mormon history, I have…
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Ninety And Nine
My mother used to sing a hymn when she did housework. This was when I was a small boy; when I was older, she never sang, though I don’t know why. The hymn I remember her singing often was “There Were Ninety and Nine,” and I can’t recall the last time I heard anyone sing or play this old chestnut. It’s a strange sort of dovetailing, me thinking of this hymn this morning, because today would have been my mother’s 99th birthday, and in the dark silence of the predawn, I heard a neighbor’s sheep baaing down in the holler. In the ancient world, such things would likely have been…
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My Own Private Assisi
My rescue of critters continues. Yesterday, I noticed that one of the hummingbird feeders was empty. When I brought it into the house to wash it out and replenish it with nectar, I saw that a honeybee had somehow worked her way down into the feeder. I dumped her into the sink when I emptied the glass feeder. She was saturated with sugar-water and barely moving, but she did not try to fight me, as the Irishman is reputed to have done when he fell into a vat of whiskey and his mates attempted to rescue him. I took her out to the deck and put her on the rail…