Gerard Manley Hopkins - June 8th

Gerard Manley Hopkins

From "Telling the Stories that Matter" blog

Gerard Manley Hopkins was a poet and so he wrote poetry. It was a natural thing. Not only did he produce beautiful art in words and thoughts but it was, by itself, beautiful in the way he did it. At its very essence, Gerard's art produced art. But he struggled mightily with a variety of sins and compulsions. To add to his pain, he suffered under long bouts of depression and anxiety that often left him feeling hopeless. This depression and dismay led him to write poetry while at the same time despising the product of his pen--such is the nature of most foul depression. He resolved to become a Jesuit and a priest and in this resolution he took his poetry and burned it as an act of sacrifice and renunciation. Apparently, Gerard had decided that the mind of a poet could not be or become the mind of a priest. Though many have insisted he was wrong to think so, perhaps he was right at the time. Perhaps Gerard-who-was had to lay down a part of himself to find Gerard-who-could-be. So, his aims changed but poetry still beat within his heart and his words ("I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day") even now give expression to that dark predator that haunted his waking hours:

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.What hours, O what black hours we have spentThis night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!And more must, in yet longer light's delay.With witness I speak this. But where I sayHours I mean years, mean life. And my lamentIs cries countless, cries like dead letters sentTo dearest him that lives alas! away.I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decreeBitter would have me taste: my taste was me;Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see The lost are like this, and their scourge to beAs I am mine, their sweating selves, but worse.

Read it all HERE at Telling the Stories that Matter




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It's time to lift America's spirit, by Maya Angelou

One of my heroes, Maya Angelou, is interviewed by CNN today - "It's time to lift America's spirit"! Absolutely, isn't it time to bind us together? It may, indeed, be such an important time to work to heal divides, and care for one another. Read an excerpt below, or read it all HERE.

~ Rev. Peter M. Carey

It's time to lift America's spirit, by Maya Angelou

NEW YORK (CNN) -- At 80, Maya Angelou says her "knees are not all that swift and my lungs need some extra help but other than that, my desire to learn and to share, that has not abated."

Maya Angelou urges politicians to "aim for the high ground" in her new book, "Letter to My Daughter."

She shares what she's learned in an eventful life in her best-selling new book, "Letter to My Daughter." Angelou achieved fame for her autobiographical writing, including "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and her poetry.

She read her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Clinton's first inauguration. She was only the second poet invited to read at the swearing in of a new president.

But her career has had many facets -- Angelou has been a singer, dancer, playwright, director and teacher.

In 166 pages, "Letter to My Daughter" distills stories from Angelou's life into universal lessons. She writes about birth, life and death, about the ways people misunderstand each other and then transcend their conflict. She calls on national leaders to raise the country's spirit and on Americans to remember that this is the nation that defeated the Nazis and expanded people's freedom through the civil rights movement.

"Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow," she writes. "Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone."

Read the rest HERE.