Music Tuesday: "Jumping Jack Flash" by The Rolling Stones

I'm a big Rolling Stones fan.  No I can square it with my religious faith.  I do not endorse many of the values expressed in the songs.  But really it's the music that one should assess musicians and composers; themes and lyrics are of secondary importance.  Here's one of my all time favorites.  I've said that this song is the perfection of what rock and roll should be: a driving beat, rhythm and blues core, great vocal inflection, and attitude.  Plus the Stones at their best just write interesting songs.  Supposedly the inspiration for Jack came from Keith Richards' gardener.  You can read about it here.  I post a YouTube version with showing the lyrics.

Matthew Monday: Easter Mass

I took Matthew to Easter Mass yesterday.  Unfortunately I didn't take a picture, but he just looked so adorable.  He had on a stripped green and white, long sleeved polo shirt and tan slacks.  He just looks so handsome with his dark hair combed nicely. 

I think this was his third mass, other than his baptism.  The first two times we sat in what my church sort of isolates as a section for people with children, in the back corner with glass encasing.  I've never seen anything like that in any other church, but it's helpful for noisy kids.  Those two times we stayed through the homily and credo.  That's about the point he couldn't help being too active.  There's only so much constraint a two or three year old can take.

This time I took him into the main pews to where I normally sit.  I kind of wanted to show him off to the people who normally sit around me.  I will say he was very shy, but he did talk to the woman who normally sits next to me.  I don't even know her name, and yet we're usually both there every Sunday.  I do know she's a grandmother, and she started talking to him like a grandmother, and Matthew just loved it.  I told her he was adopted, and she in turn said she had been adopted as a child.  Isn't that something? 

What hooks Matthew with church is the music.  He doesn't understand anything else, but he does listen intently, hoping to hear a song he knows.  He keeps wanting to hear "The Wheels On the Bus," LOL!  No he didn't hear it.  The other two times at Mass I had to leave because I thought Matthew was getting a bit rambunctious.  This time, sitting in the crowded pews on a packed Easter Mass, he got intimidated and began to well up and cry.  It was a silent crying.  He pushed his head into me and his hands covered his eyes.  And when it got to the standing parts I had to pick him up and hold him. 

I got him to stop crying by taking out a pen and paper from my jacket pocket and having him scribble.  He did it quietly, thank God.  I got the idea from two children slightly older who were sitting two pews ahead who had crayons.  On the kneeling parts during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, I had to kneel on one knee and put him on my other.  Try that some time.  And then I got him to shake hands on the sign of the peace.  He was shy but I think he liked that.  There were two teenage girls sitting behind me that I think were ogling him the whole time and insisted on shaking his hand.  He's got such a way with the ladies. :)

We left when everyone was going up to receive communion.  He almost made it through the whole mass.  Next time I think I'll have him sit by the organist and choir.  I think that will keep him interested longer.

Holy Saturday Blood Donation

I donate blood on a fairly regular basis.  I used to do it every time I was eligible.  One year I was able to donate seven times in one year, which is actually hard to do.  One is limited to a whole blood donation every two months, but if the first one of the year is in early January, you can squeeze in a seventh at the end of December.  I did that a few years ago.  I donate because people truly need it.  My father on a number of occasions needed it during his frequent events at the hospital, and I was so thankful to whoever provided it for him.  I’ve since more than given back whatever he needed.

 

Lately I’ve not been as disciplined in my donations, for various reasons I guess.  Perhaps it’s having a son now that complicates my schedule, but it’s more than that.  Things just seem to come up.  And recently I keep getting sick, and they want you healthy.  Also, after I donate my exercise ability drops for almost a week and I really feel it when I go to the gym.  But it seems that ever since I started donating platelets last year my eagerness to donate has dropped a little.  You can read about the different types of blood donations here, and more specifically about blood platelet donations here.

 

Platelet donation takes a lot longer than the fifteen minutes of a whole blood donation.  The way platelets are taken is that blood is drawn in the usual way but it is sent through a centrifuge which spins the platelets out, and then the blood is returned back into your arm through the same line.  The same blood line (is it called intravenous line?) goes through a cycle of draw and return, and the process takes about an hour per unit of donation.  You can donate up to two units, which not including the mini exam and the prep stage, takes two hours to complete.  If you read the website on the platelet, you’ll find that losing those platelets feels funny.  It makes your face tingly, especially the lips, and your whole body feels cold.  Plus it hurts.  That darn needle in the arm for that long starts to pinch and eventually ache.

 

They seem to like my blood, those vampires…lol.  I get calls from the New York Blood Center as soon as I’m eligible to give again.  I’m a member of “The Gallon Club.”  I’ve probably given a few gallons actually.  They call and we schedule, and if it’s convenient I keep my appointment, and, if I don’t, they call again and reschedule.  Lately they’ve been more persistent in asking for platelets.  I’ve given a few times, but last time I really didn’t have the time and said I couldn’t do it and just gave whole blood.  This time I scheduled for the day before Easter since I figured I should be available that day.  And then it struck me that giving blood over the Triduum weekend would make it a sort of mini imitation of Christ’s sacrifice: I’d give my blood to save a life.

 

When I got there this morning, and after I passed the mini exam, the examining nurse said they were really short on my blood type, would I mind if I gave one unit of platelets and one unit of whole blood.  I said I didn’t know you could do that, but if that was what was needed, sure.  And so he hooked me up.  The machine projected a completion time for both extractions of 76 minutes.  I was ready with my Kindle, made myself comfortable under the conditions, and set myself to re-read Edgar Allen Poe’s “William Wilson.”  The nurse came back a few minutes into the extraction with a print out of a mini blood analysis and said in his East Indian accent, “Your blood is VERY good,” whatever that meant.

At the forty-five minute mark (the centrifuge indicates the progress) I had just completed the story, and actually one handed typed in a little note as to why I enjoyed it and its concluding flaw (all of Poe’s stories seem to have a concluding flaw to me) but it’s then I noticed my lips were beyond just tingling, they were almost numb.  My face was also a bit numb, but the numbness seemed to go into my brain.  And my arm was really hurting now, not so much from the needle prick—he had inserted it really smoothly, flawlessly—but from being locked into an awkward position for good deal of time.  The nurse had never loosened the blood pressure cuff and my arm was more elevated than I ever remember at a blood donation, and it was also hanging over, so that it felt as if my arm were being stretched.  The pain was in my bicep mostly, and I didn’t dare shift the arm very much with the needle point inside.  A slight shift did help, but then the arm went back into the same position and exerted the same pain.  The nurse responsible for me had disappeared (lunch break I think) and the other nurse looking over the floor seemed to be busy.

As I finished that short story and went on to another Poe, my concentration dropped.  My brain was getting fuzzy.  The pain was also getting more to bear.  It occurred to me at that point that this was in part a little suffering in the manner of Christ on the cross.  My arm was pinned and being stretched.  This was like a half crucifixion.  However, don’t let me take the analogy too far.  Though this hurt, this was nowhere near a crucifixion.  I tried to wonder what a real crucifixion must have felt like.  I tried to project how two arms pinned and stretched in this manner for three hours must have felt.  Add to it that Christ was beaten and scourged before hand, forced to carry a cross up a hill, and probably didn’t have any food in him since the night before.  Well, I never called the nurse over to relieve the pain.  This wasn’t suffering.

When I was finished, it felt so good to get my arm back.  I almost pulled it away before the nurse took the needle out.  He gasped and caught my arm before I moved too far.  When I got up I felt really light headed.  I had never felt like this before after giving blood.  I realized that Friday—Good Friday—I had mostly fasted, and even this morning I had only a small breakfast.  I normally would have a bit more if I were donating blood.  As I moved I felt very awkward on my feet and told the nursing crew I was light headed.  They had me quickly sit down and rest, and the nurse went over and got me a bottle of juice.  My head was numb.  I don’t know how long I rested, ten, possibly fifteen minutes, and then I got up and went to snack table to have some coffee and cookies.  I took another bottle of juice and cautiously, still feeling peculiar, went out.

 

"I turn me and lean against the most Holy Cross of Christ Crucified, and there I will fasten me." –St. Catherine of Siena.

 Have a most blessed Easter, or as I prefer to call it it, Resurrection Day.

 

 

 

 

Faith Filled Friday: "Crucifix" by Giovanni Cimabue

Holy, holy, holy.

Painting by Giovanni Cimabue, "Crucifix," 1268, detail.  You can see the entire painting here and read about it here.

Have a blessed holy weekend.

Music Tuesday: "Were You There When They Crucified My Lord" by Kathleen Battle

I'm sure you'll recognize this great Negro Spiritual sung by one of my favorite opera voices, Kathleen Battle.  I love the way she sings this A Capella.  Scenes from "The Passion of the Christ."

When I think of Holy Week, this is the song I most identify it with.  Prayers for all of my intentions.

2013 Reading List: Update #1

As you can see I've completed a couple of short stories. a book of the Old Testament, and the biography of St. Catherine of Siena since I listed my progress.  I've now pushed a couple of works into the Currently Being Read catagory, though I haven't started the Mark Helprin novel yet; I'm about to start.  I've also expanded the Upcoming plans.  The Mark Helprin novel is very long, so I'm going to use a lot of the time while reading it to write up posts on some of the completed works.  I've still have more to say about Catherine of Siena; I finally found a Poe short story I liked; Hemingway's "In Another Country" was outstanding, and while the First Book of Chronicles might be the most boring book of the bible, it had a great last two chapters.  I might post something on each.  And I have not forgotten that I promised Sue I would give my thoughts on Tolstoy's The Cossacks.  If anyone has an interest in any of the works I've read, let me know; I'll definitely post something on them.



Completed:

“A Star Trap,” a short story by Bram Stoker.

“Grandfather and Grandson,” a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. 

The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, a novel by G.K. Chesterton.

“Feathers,” a short story by Raymond Carver.

The Cossacks, a novel by Leo Tolstoy.

“In Another Country,” a short story by Earnest Hemingway.

First Book of Chronicles, a book of the Old Testament, KJV.

Catherine of Siena, a biography by Sigrid Undset.

“The Masque of Red Death,” a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

Currently Being Read:

Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, a non-fiction history by Martin Goodman.

Les Misérables, a novel by Victor Hugo.

“The Lovely Lady,” a short story by D.H. Lawrence.

Imagist Poetry: An Anthology, a collection of poetry edited by Bob Blaisdell.

“William Wilson,” a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

A Soldier of the Great War, a novel by Mark Helprin.

Upcoming Plans:

Second Book of Chronicles, a book of the Old Testament, KJV.

“Purgatorio,” 2^nd part of the epic poem of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.

Life on the Mississippi, a memoir by Mark Twain.

“Hills Like White Elephants,” a short story by Earnest Hemingway.

 “A Descent into Maelstrom,” a short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

ifferismsif, a work of non-fiction by Dr. Mardy Grothe.

“The Shawl,” a short story by Cynthia Ozick.

Washington Square, a novel by Henry James.

Faith Filled Friday: O Passio Magna

Today you get a twofer, my weekly Faith Filled Friday (an old prayer in Latin perfect for Passion week) and my humble attempt at a poetic translation of the prayer to English.

 

The prayer comes from Fr. Mark Daniel Kirby, a prior at a Benedictine Monastery who blogs at Vultus Christi.  By the way, hat tip to Joyce who blogs at The Unprofitable Servant for pointing out Fr. Mark’s wonderful blog for me a few weeks ago.

 

The prayer is titled from the first line, “O Passio Magna," and you can read the prayer's history from Fr. Mark’s blog entry.  Here's the Latin prayer.

O passio magna!
O profunda vulnera!
O inestimabilis dolor!
O largissima effusio sanguinis!
O abundantissima effusio lacrimarum!
O dulcis dulcedo!
O mortis amaritudo!
Da mihi vitam aeternam.

Fr. Mark provides what he says is one variant of a translation:

O great Passion!
O profound wounds!
O immeasurable sorrow!
O most copious shedding of blood!
O most abundant outpouring of tears!
O surpassing sweetness!
O death suffered in every bitterness!
Give me eternal life.

 

Well, I began thinking.  If there are variations, then I don’t think it would upset anyone if I came up with one more variant, and while at it give it a more poetic feel.  Here's my translation:

 

O great Passion

With wounds arcane and deep,

With boundless pain,

Diffusive spray of blood;

O tears, bursting tears,

Sweet-scented sweetness

In most bitter death,

Give me eternal life.

 

My thoughts on the translation were such.  Straight translation of Latin tends to lack full context that the Latin typically implies.  So I tried to expand a little in some lines.  I avoided the over use of the repeated expressive interjection “O.” That doesn't do well in English.  I also have some diction differences that I don’t think alter the meaning, but I think makes it more interesting English.  The only word I translated with a different meaning is in the third line, “dolor,” which I translate as “pain” rather than “sorrow.”  I can’t claim to being anywhere near an expert in Latin, so I can’t say if “sorrow” is accurate.  I'm pretty sure "pain" is a legitimate option.  Either way, I think “pain” fits the meaning better.

 

Hope you liked it, and feel free to critique it.