7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. XLII)

 

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Cold January days this week! Temperatures have been hovering near 0 F during the early morning hours on several days, and not rising far above it during daylight hours.  Still, the frigid dry air makes -- for me -- for easy breathing, along with gorgeous sunsets splashed with royal purples and deep pinks, and robin's egg blue skies.  Every season, even at its sometimes worst, has its beauties.

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I began reading Br. Joseph Schmidt's Walking the Little Way of Therese of Lisieux: Discovering the Path of Love this past weekend.  

Wow.  "Eye-opening" does not begin to describe this book, and Br. Schmidt's presentation of St. Thérèse's "Little Way."  I'm seriously having to rethink my views on asceticism, prayer, living the Gospel, service to others, and spiritual motivations, among other things, after reading only the opening chapters of the book.  Br. Schmidt shows how truly radical the good saint's views are, in terms of being non-violent and living out non-violence towards one's self and one's neighbor, even in the smallest of ways.

There's a longer post -- perhaps two -- on this topic burbling about inside me.  Think it may come out right before Lent in a post on fasting or asceticism.  We'll see what unfolds in the next few weeks.

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Chopin's "Winter Wind Etude":

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"A Country Boy in Winter"

The wind may blow the snow about,

   For all I care, says Jack,

And I don’t mind how cold it grows,

   For then the ice won’t crack.

Old folks may shiver all day long,

   But I shall never freeze;

What cares a jolly boy like me

   For winter days like these?

Far down the long snow-covered hills

   It is such fun to coast,

So clear the road! the fastest sled

   There is in school I boast.

The paint is pretty well worn off,

   But then I take the lead;

A dandy sled’s a loiterer,

   And I go in for speed.

When I go home at supper-time,

   Ki! but my cheeks are red!

They burn and sting like anything;

   I’m cross until I’m fed.

You ought to see the biscuit go,

   I am so hungry then;

And old Aunt Polly says that boys

   Eat twice as much as men.

There’s always something I can do

   To pass the time away;

The dark comes quick in winter-time—

   A short and stormy day

And when I give my mind to it,

   It’s just as father says,

I almost do a man’s work now,

   And help him many ways.

I shall be glad when I grow up

   And get all through with school,

I’ll show them by-and-by that I

   Was not meant for a fool.

I’ll take the crops off this old farm,

   I’ll do the best I can.

A jolly boy like me won’t be

   A dolt when he’s a man.

I like to hear the old horse neigh

   Just as I come in sight,

The oxen poke me with their horns

   To get their hay at night.

Somehow the creatures seem like friends,

   And like to see me come.

Some fellows talk about New York,

   But I shall stay at home.

-- Sarah Orne Jewett

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A friend commented the other day that he thought I was a "glass half-full" kind of person.  I suppose I might be called that -- but not the sort of optimist whom Chesterton describes in Orthodoxy in these words:

What is the evil of the man commonly called an optimist? Obviously, it is felt that the optimist, wishing to defend the honour of this world, will defend the indefensible. He is the jingo of the universe; he will say, "My cosmos, right or wrong." He will be less inclined to the reform of things; more inclined to a sort of front-bench official answer to all attacks, soothing every one with assurances. He will not wash the world, but whitewash the world.

That's not the sort of optimist I am, if "optimist" is even the correct term here to use.  I've always said I'm a realist, in that I try to see things as they are, in their complexity, in their good and in their evil, without trying to whitewash away the evil or to drown the good in wine pressed from sour grapes, as it were. I recognize, for instance, that the last several days have been bitterly, even dangerously cold -- but the frigid air does not blind me to the gorgeous sunsets ending the days.

Such is my brand of optimism, born of wonder and awe at the glory of God and His creation.

--- 6 ---

Switching topics to food: my love and I will be learning how to make oyako-donburi (chicken and egg rice bowl) from a dear Japanese friend of mine this coming weekend.  We are all very excited about this!

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Skillet lasagna and a quinoa stew, I think, will also be on the menu for the weekend.   Oh, and finishing up the bacon as well!  Can't forget the bacon, now can we?

See you Monday, readers!

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