Currently The Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland (Forgotten Books) By Elias Lonnrot see related

the only questions I ever really ask myself.

Do I want to participate in the most beautiful thing in the world?

Or to create something beautiful, but to a lesser degree?

Most of the time I think I go with number one.

Currently Edda (Everyman's Library) By Snorri Sturluson see related

I was thinking about esperanto (a constructed language) for some time.  I've always had this gut reaction to it, that it is just wrong.  I couldn't really place it, I thought, every language is really constructed, why is this one so bad.  Its not just this one, but most of the modern constructed languages.  I read something today, about there is an unavoidable and creative power in languages in them being tied to mythology.  Languages work because they have songs and stories.  Powers and beauty and mysteries of ancient tongues, of the ancient things of mankind.  I was thinking about that, as an orthodox christian, what I know of God:

Is all sung,

In ancient melodies,

In more ancient languages.

Currently The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn By CocoRosie see related

all the places

I've been thinking about earth, good, green, God-breathed, growing earth.  This summer when I was in Malawi, I sat on a porch watching some goats and some kids.  I thought to myself as I dug my fingers in, I love this earth.  Honestly I feel odd about it, but I truly love it.  God's goodness fills so many things on it.  In class today and over the past few days I was thinking about the goodness of earth.  In 4 Kingdoms (also known as 2 Chronicles) it ends with this passage about the land putting people in exile so it could enjoy sabbath.  In the Torah itself it says that the land is good.  The land is substantially good.  There is this famous peninsula of orthodox monasteries in Greece called Mt. Athos, also known as the Holy Mountain.  I was reading this monk and this is what he says, "The entire Mountain, Nature, the peak of Athos - the monasteries, forests and rocks - had all been filled with joyful light and imbued with heavenly beauty. The Mountain was invisibly revealing itself as being indeed 'Holy'. It was apparent that the holiness in its name was something inseparable from its very physical substance. And you felt that if it could be crumbled like a clump of earth, then from this very dirt would come forth a dazzling light, the very same fragrance which had filled the universe on the day of Resurrection. The souls of the saints fly and flutter about, luminous and full of light. The relics of the saints emit the same uncreated and scintillating light; an indescribable and uncreated fragrance pours out from their tombs. Everything around is filled by the beauty of contrition and the fragrance of heaven."  It is not a simply a place of holy people, but the mountain is itself holy.  The land is holy.  I think that this is something that I coming to really understand, understanding God showing himself forth in love in all things he touches, it is imbued as much as it can hold of the presence of God. 

Anyways, be well.

Ian

Currently Desert Farmers By Hannah Marcus see related

saturday

I have started out this day building a kite.  That is right, I have a kite, apparently before my adoption of the lil' tyke; it was named "SMOKE ADDICTION".  I'm really okay with that name, its a moniker fit for a king.  So I decided on a whim that I should get a kite as the season is really nice for catching some updrafts.  So I find a kite store in Chicago, on Harlem.  Jon says he thought it would be on Milwuakee because all the bizarre stores are there.  True enough Jon Bukiewicz, true enough.  So I mosey on in walk out with smoke addiction at a discounted price.  Soon she'll be singing with the saints!

I think my Saturday will consist of this and perhaps ........VVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRSSSSSSSSS!  That's right, my favorite part of the ol' saturday line-up Vespers.  I love it, its so gentle, and all song.  Maybe I'll fuse the two and kite fly during vespers.

mmmmm

I like it.

My mystical suppers.

I have been having this really odd sensation.  I've been really keenly feeling that one day I will be old, and possibly bed ridden.  I was riding the train today and saw some flowers growing off the top of a metal fence.  I was thinking that when I am old and in bed I won't see those flowers with my eyes, but feel this memory so very sharply.  I also thought that my legs would be frail, maybe from being hit by a car when I was young.  So I just reached down and held my legs to feel their strength and and remember them intentionally. 

But what this really made me think of is the fact that my view of the end of my life is that it is a sorrowful thing.  Then I thought back to this piece from st. John of Damascus that a friend sent me.  It is from the burial service for Orthodox priest and ends like this: "Youth and the beauty of the body fade at the hour of death, and the tongue then burneth fiercely, and the parched throat is inflamed. The beauty of the eyes is quenched then, the comeliness of the face all altered, the shapeliness of the neck destroyed; and the other parts have become numb, nor often say: Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

With ecstasy are we inflamed if we but hear that there is light eternal yonder; that there is Paradise, wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth. Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that all we may cry aloud thus unto God: Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia."

indeed.