Celebrating the Feast of George Herbert

Celebrating the Feast of George Herbert, and the approach of Ash Wednesday:

Lent

Welcome deare feast of Lent: who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authoritie,
.................................But is compos'd of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church sayes, now:
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
.................................To ev'ry Corporation.

The humble soul compos'd of love and fear
Begins at home, and layes the burden there,
.................................When doctrines disagree.
He sayes, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandall to the Church, and not
.................................The Church is so to me.

True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
.................................When good is seasonable;
Unlesse Authoritie, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it lesse,
.................................And Power it self disable.

Besides the cleannesse of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
.................................A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulnesse there are sluttish fumes,
Sowre exhalations, and dishonest rheumes,
.................................Revenging the delight.

Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
.................................And goodnesse of the deed.
Neither ought other mens abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
.................................We forfeit all our Creed.

It 's true, we cannot reach Christ's fortieth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
.................................Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior's purity;
Yet are bid, Be holy ev'n as he.
.................................In both let 's do our best.

Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
.................................That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
.................................May strengthen my decays.

Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
.................................As may our faults control:
That ev'ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
.................................And among those his soul.

George Herbert

Baby Priest's Gestalt

Though this might sound a little Orwellian, I do have the ability to see how people get here, including the strings people put in their search engine. Two recent searches gave me a little pause.

For example, if you put the words anglican, self, and mortification into the Netscape search engine my post A Day at the Game ranks #4. Check it out by clicking here.

Further, someone arrived here by putting the phrase "abandoned baby at trinity hospital" into Google, and ended up in my archives. I can't recreate this one for you, so you will have to take my word for it.

It's like a peek into the gestalt that is Baby Priest.

Baby Priest the blog, that is.

I hope.

The Four Meme

Sam at Elizaphanian gets the honour of being the first to tag me with a meme. So here it is, the Four Meme:

Four jobs I've had:
1. Dental Assistant.
2. Busker.
3. Canoeing instructor.
4. Wood-Canvas canoe builder and restorer.

Four movies I can watch repeatedly:
1. Star Wars, pre-digital effects, the one Lucas claims doesn't exist. I have it on my iPod, for crying out loud.
2. The Matrix.
3. Apocalypse Now.
4. The Blues Brothers.

Four places I have lived:
1. Grand Bank, Newfoundland. I was born there.
2. Winnipeg, Manitoba. As close to a home city as I've got.
3. Victoria, BC.
4. Berkeley, California.

Four TV shows I like to watch:
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and the spin-off, Angel).
2. Lost.
3. 24. I haven't missed an episode since season 1.
4. Firefly.

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Glovertown, Newfoundland.
2. China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Three places, but one trip.
3. Gimli, Manitoba.
4. Long Beach and Anaheim, California.

Four favourite dishes:
1. Fish and chips.
2. Spaghetti with meat sauce.
3. Barbecue chicken.
4. Chili on rice.

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Bloglines.
2. CBC news.
3. The Unofficial Apple Weblog.
4. oaklandathletics.com.


Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Elsewhere.
2. Winnipeg, Manitoba. (Did I really say that?)
3. In Glovertown, in my Nan and Pop's house, before they passed away and the house was sold to strangers.
4. Sausalito, California, but only for an afternoon.

Four people to tag:
1. Wesley at geekchic.
2. Ruth at dance like you mean it.
3. Karen at kinesis.
4. Jennifer at room for rambling.

Giving at Work

My CPE training includes regular professional development seminars, and not long ago we went to Roseville, California, to attend a seminar on death, dying, and hospice chaplaincy. One of the presenters said that hospice chaplains have a saying for when they are invited out to movies with high emotional content. They say “sorry. I gave at work.”

I thought she meant that hospice chaplains don’t want to spend emotional capital on a movie with heavy emotions. Perhaps she did.

But when Karen and I were watching Monster’s Ball the other night, I wonder if she meant something quite different. Admittedly, I am not the most emotionally expressive person, but I do get a good lump in my throat, and even a little glassy-eyed, during an emotional scene in a good drama. (Not much, I know, but I am a man after all. A lump and a wet eye are not bad, considering.) But as we watched the scene where Halle Barry’s character, Leticia Musgrove, discovers that her son has been killed in a car accident, I felt nothing. No twinge, no lump, no threat of a single tear, even though it was a scene that should connect emotionally with me: a mother crying bitterly in a hospital, and an injured son, now dead. There was even a chaplain standing by. All the cues that might bring me back to my own hospitalization, and my work, the real situations where I was and continue to be emotionally overwhelmed, didn’t work. I had no emotional response to this scene. I felt nothing but the airy space of distance.

Maybe this is what it means to give at work, and not at home. The lack of desire to see such drama on the screen is not an effort save that precious emotional capital for the hospital and bedside. It’s to say that the emotional reserve is already spent, and there is nothing left for the movies anyway.

I don’t k now if this should worry me or not.

Happy Birthday, Mom

Wanna see a picture of my mom? Look here.

A little late, but happy birthday anyway, Mom.

Addendum: A special thanks to Wes and Helen for posting the picture.