This Joyful Eastertide, Away With Sin and Sorrow.

The Holy Tridium - Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, are probably my favourite part of the Liturgical Year.  The ceremonies proper to this time, are particularly beautiful - an astonishingly glorious mixture of keening grief over the death of the beautiful, strong young hero, and soaring exultation at His victory over death and sin. The antiphons are sheer poetry, the music cuts to the very heart. The great mystery of the Cross becomes beautiful and terrible; both human, and of God.  

I mentioned my intention of including more poetry on this blog, and I had several ideas germinating when I said that. I set to work, full of the flame of poetic inspiration. I am out of practice, hwever, and for a while, and I struggled mightily to get the poem down in the shape I saw in the back of my mind. I nearly gave up and considered posting an old composition, but when I woke up this morning, the whole thing suddenly fell into place, and I was able to finish it. 

                     His bitter foes got Him at last

                    Whose Life they long had sought

                         They wove for Him a net of lies

                          Bought His Blood at a traitor's price

                    Caught Him, and cursed Him, and bound Him fast.

                    They've had their will of Him at last,

                    And all His doom so dreadly wrought - 

                         An outlaw's death upon the Rood,

                         Robed all in His own red Blood,

                    Bound to a Tree and nailed fast.

                         Are all good things, then come to naught,

                        When Goodness is so cheaply bought?

                        And Nature racks herself for grief,

                       The best amongst us, a holy thief - 

                       Is lost, now, all for which we fought?

                  But King He was unto the last,

                  And Love Himself, Who was loved not.

                       Now all their weavings are unwound

                       For Life has lain Its own life down

                  Defeated Death, and bound him fast.

                  All lost? - No! Victory here at last - 

                  The fallen World is newly wrought. 

                       The Dragon's reign is at an end

                       God has made Him one with Men

                  Called him Comrade, and held him fast.

And, with that, I wish you all most joyous and blessed Easter! May the Risen King keep you close, and send you every grace and happiness. 

Something... Emerges.....

I am somewhat disconcerted by the frequent lapses into silence which this blog keeps taking. My intention at the first of the year was to be more faithful in updating it - not, mind, because I am under some misapprehension that my readers await with bated breath for the words of wisdom which pour from my fingers, but because I meant to be more disciplined about my writing this year. Obviously. despite good intentions, I am failing miserably. I have let St. Patrick's Day and St. Joseph's Day go past without comment. The 25th of March sneaked past without me remarking it was the day tin which Frodo threw the Ring into Mount Doom, and Sauron was defeated. I have failed to mention the wee green things growing outside my door, more than a month before their time, nor have I waxed gleeful about the late snow storm that almost resigned me to the end of a severely disappointing winter.

I could make excuses. Indeed, for a change, I have quite decent reasons not to be writing.... but I'm not going to use them. I am simply going to say that several long-standing issues that have been weighing on me are finally sorting themselves out - thanks be to God and all His little helpers - and I am far healthier and happier than I have in quite some time. The result is that I am feeling remarkably vigourous; various hobbies that I have neglected have become intensely fascinating; I am exceedingly interested things these days. Unfortunately, blogs - the reading of them, the commenting upon them, and the tending to them - are not amongst the things that are absorbing my attention.

However, though I have not written a word here in darn near a month, I have been considering ye old blog with a discerning sort of an eye. Way back in the day, when I first started here, I had actual plans for the thing. I wanted, for example, to write regular book reviews. I wanted to force myself to write some of those essays, short stories and poems that tend to rattle around the back of my mind until they get old and stale, and no one is interested in them any more.  Therefore, my new resolution - in addition to posting with something approaching regularity - is go back to the original intention for this blog, and to write things for it, not merely pass the time with it.

There, now that I have that out there for all the world to see, I feel better. It remains to be seen whether I am faithful to this resolution or not. My past history with bloggy-resolutions does not bode well for it, but we shall see. At the very least,  I shall look for funny piping pictures to post, so that things don't get too quiet around here.

International Bagpipe Day

Yep. That is today. It has taken place the last several years, but I am never quite sure what it is, because googling "International Bagpipe Day" generally brings up websites concerning events from previous years - nice, if you are in the know, and were at one such celebration, but somewhat frustrating for those of us who genuinely curious about the thing. But, I am a piper, and I should not let such a celebration go by without some sort of mention, now, should I? So here you go - pipers..... being pipers....I have mentioned before that pipers are an odd lot of people, haven't I? 

There is, of course, the Unipiper. I'm willing to bet you've never been confronted with something like this when you are taking a casual stroll, now have you?

There is this piper, whose dog sings along with him. (Dogs do that. Sam-the-Dog makes and incredibly deep solemn ooooooooooooooo when I play. He sounds mournful, but his tail wags the whole time, so I have no idea if he is happy about it or not.)

And then, there is the piper who gives lie to the accepted belief that one cannot play bagpipes and sing at the same time:

(For the first minute he is just using the drones to accompany his singing. You can listen to that if you want, but if you skip about a minute into it, he plays and sings.)

Here is something a little different - a tune called Corryvreckan by William Jackson. It is the first tune I can ever remember hearing that integrated pipes into a band this way. I was quite obsessed with it for a while, and I still think it is a braw fine tune:

Remember, Man, That Thou Art Dust

Indeed, it is here. And not matter how late in the year it comes - this year it is very late - Lent seems to come much sooner than I want it too. The Spirit might be willing, but the Flesh is very weak, and it quails at the thought of straightened rations, early rising, curtailment of the weekly meat allowance, and general penitence. One feels peckish and deprived:

On the other, now that the seasons have completed their rounds, and the Season of Penance draws is here again, I definitely feel as though I've a year's worth of failings and imperfections to atone for. I have let myself get rather slack, and there is a hit-and-miss quality towards my duties towards God and Man. I have gotten sloppy. So truly, I am quite ready for a good stiff bit of training, and strengthening up:

(One does not want to remain a Kili sort of fighter forever ;-)

Besides, there is something rather beautiful about Lent - a sense that one is following in the footsteps of Our Lord; taking the cross up voluntarily; walking beside Him along the road to Calvary. It is heartening, and purifying and good.

So, once more into the breach! Here's hoping that I make it a good Lent. A very holy and blessed season to you all.

Breakfast At Denny's

AKA: The "I Do What I Want" Post

There was one day last month when all of the "big kids" around here shared the same day off. This is a great rarity these days, and we celebrated by going out to breakfast at Denny's.

Now, we are not really much of a going-out-to-eat family. We like our own cooking very well, and generally prefer to eat that. However, breakfast at Denny's is something of a thing with us; a long-standing thing from back in the the days when we were all young and mostly broke, and the friends who came to visit us were in similar financial straits. Breakfast at Denny's was an economical way to get out for a bit, and it turned into something of a tradition. Sometimes, when several of us had guests to visit at the same time, we'd end up going in with quite a crowd, and take the place by storm. We didn't just have our own booth. We had our own wing.

We also like to play with some of the kiddie entertainment that Denny's occasionally provides. On one notable occasion, several small people were included in the excursion, and were presented with a plastic tub full of Tinker Toy like doodads, which we all pounced upon like budding engineers. In short order, the table was covered with fantastical structures, and the waiter, much amused by us, had brought forth two more tubs to feed our passion for architecture. 

It is probably just as well that at last month's jaunt to the old restaurant, that we had nothing with which to entertain ourselves, but our own brilliant conversation, and a maze on the back of the kiddie-menu place mat at each place. A suggestion was cast out, that we should hold a race, and see who could complete her (or in my brother's case, his) maze the fastest.... I don't remember if there actually was a winner. We all dashed through the challenge quite nippily, and compared the results. Here is what I produced:

And all thought of a winner was forgotten amid gales of appreciative laughter. Treski snapped this picture, and entitled it, "I Do What I Want".

Now, I must point out that I was not trying to pull a Loki here. For some reason, I genuinely thought I was supposed to use the white lines to get to the FINISH in the center of the maze. Yes, I know, the actual paths through the maze are far bigger and more obviously THE MAZE than the skinny little white lines, so it should should have been blindingly obvious to the meanest of intelligences, how, exactly, one was to proceed in this endevour, but... well, that is me for you. Doing things the hard way again, what? Oh, yes indeedy!

 I do what I want!

In Which I Emerge from the Cave

Yes, it has been a long time. No, I really do not have a good excuse:

From 123giggle.com

And that about sums it up. I was sort of hoping that if I ignored them, the dragons would go away, so I pulled up the drawbridge, barricaded myself in my house. I feasted upon small feasts, and had honey whiskey to stand me in the place of mead - and if the whiskey soothed a soreness of the throat, so much the better. Various portal, magic or otherwise, allowed me visitors, who could come and go without attracting attention. And so, some of my time was spent in the company of Agents Fitz, Simmons and Coulson. I would occasionally entertain 5 Allied POWs who slipped away from WWII at Stalag 13 through the very clever tunnel-system they have devised. A high-functioning sociopathic detective made an appearance, as did an Army doctor, who knows how to sprain people, and his very companionable wife, who knows how to shoot people. Sometimes there was an FBI agent named Peter, and con-man who calls himself Neil. I also might have been visited by King Arthur and Sir Gawain, as well as a firebird, an enchanted prince whose heart was given to a witch, and the Princess who got it back for him. Hobbits might possibly have crept in, too.

At last, I thought the dragons were gone, and I emerged into a world that seemed too sunny to be safe. The dragons were merely bidding their time, and I have had to chase them away with swords and un-answerable riddles, and the threat of a clan of female warriors, who will sing the Cup Song to them for hours on end, until they (the dragons) go mad and die. That scared them, and they went away, and the rain came, and the snow came, and I went home again, basking in the satisfaction of a Job Well Done. 

In short, there has been Life and Work and Disease, and I have been watching too many TV shows, and reading too many books, and ignoring Ye Olde Blogosphere most reprehensibly. I ought, at this point, to make professions of renewed dedication, but I am not. I am going to put a chicken-and-mushroom pie in the oven. And see if I cannot find Alan Breck Stewart to come share it with me. 

All from Sheba Shall Come, Bearing Gold and Frankincense, and Proclaiming the Praises of the Lord.

Today is the feast of the Epiphany, the last day of the twelve days of Christmas. It marks the day of the visitation of the Three Kings to the Infant Jesus, and the first time that our Lord revealed Himself to the Gentiles. The Liturgy for Epiphany is very like to that of Christmas day itself. You can read about some of the traditions particular to this feast day here.

I missed posting yesterday, because I was too busy to sit down and do it properly, so I am finishing off with two songs today. The first is from Handel's Messiah, and is far more fitted to Christmas-time than the more popular Hallelujah Chorus. Besides, I have posted a lot of old, very traditional and largely folk-ish carols this year, so it seemed fitting to include this quite magnificent classical piece:

 

And to complement it, here is a beautiful, timeless carol, based on Christina Rosetti's poem. It has some of the most lyrical descriptions of winter you are likely to find - I particularly like the phrase "snow had fallen, snow on snow" because, as people in snowy climates know, that is exactly what it is like. The ending verse seem particularly fitting for today:

 

Today is also Sherlock Holmes' birthday - at least, according to this article. So, many happy returns of the day, Sherlock! You are not expected to come for dinner, as there are likely going to be people there, but hopefully someone will provide you with a cake that looks like this:

source