Windy Sunday Quotes

Sunday Morning V She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss." Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. VI Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. VII Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest. VIII She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings

This is what's most annoying and beautiful about the windy Spirit and why we so often miss it. It has this habit of showing in all the wrong places and among all the wrong people, defying our categories and refusing to take direction. Today, some of us struggle to see the Spirit within the religious institution, often for good reason. But God is present both inside and outside the traditional church, working all sorts of everyday miracles to inspire and change us if only we pay attention. Sometimes I wonder how much I've missed because I haven't bothered to look, because I wrote off that church or that person or that denomination because I assumed God to be absent when there is not a corner of this world that God has not abandoned.

Frau Heinchen, was the elderly woman with her dog, who talked to me on the windy hillside overlooking Überlingen on Sunday afternoon, December 1, 2002. She recalled the Polish and Russian prisoners, whom she called Cossacks, and vividly remembered the hanging of the Russian soldier, described in “Suppressed I Rise”. According to her, it was the farmer’s wife Clarissa who was raped by the Russian soldier and later, bore his child. She remembered the lager (warehouse) that was used to house the prisoners, saying that it was located on a field near the municipal hospital. She also told us the location of where the one room schoolhouse had been. For the limited time that we talked, she glowed and became twenty-one years young again.

Monsieur Alfred Backert, a resident of Bischoffsheim, lived near the village center. He recalled the war years in Alsace-Lorraine and remembered the women from Mannheim who were sent to Bischoffsheim, ostensibly for their safety by the Nazi Regime. He later served in the French army and was stationed in Germany for a number of years. Frau Heinchen, the elderly woman with her dog, who talked to me on the windy hillside overlooking Überlingen on Sunday afternoon, December 1, 2002. She recalled the Polish and Russian prisoners, whom she called Cossacks, and vividly remembered the hanging of the Russian soldier, described in this book. According to her, it was the farmer’s wife Clarissa who was raped by the Russian soldier and later, bore his child. She remembered the lager (warehouse) that was used to house the prisoners, saying that it was located on a field near the municipal hospital. She also told us the location of where the one room schoolhouse had been. For the limited time that we talked, she glowed and became twenty-one years young again.

Monday, February 1. A snowstorm… Thursday, February 4. It snowed… Saturday, February 6. A very cold day… Sunday, February 7. Clear and excessive cold… Monday, February 8. Terrible, cold, and windy… “God, I hate winter,” I say,