An out of control saint

Here’s a little gem about St. Bridget. “The Giveaway,” by 20th century poet Phyllis Mcginley, captures Bridget’s profligate generosity:

Saint Bridget was 

A problem child. 

Although a lass 

Demure and mild,  

And one who strove 

To please her dad, 

Saint Bridget drove 

The family mad. 

For here’s the fault in Bridget lay: 

She would give everything away. 

To any soul 

Whose luck was out 

She’d give her bowl 

Of stirabout; 

She’d give her shawl, 

Divide her purse 

With one or all. 

And what was worse, 

When she ran out of things to give  

She’d borrow from a relative. 

Her father’s gold,

Her grandsire’s dinner,

She’d hand to cold

and hungry sinner;

Give wine, give meat,  

No matter whose;

Take from her feet

The very shoes, 

And when her shoes had gone to others,

Fetch forth her sister’s and her mother’s.

She could not quit.

She had to share;

Gave bit by bit

The silverware,

The barnyard geese,

The parlor rug,

Her little niece-

‘s christening mug,

Even her bed to those in want,

And then the mattress of her aunt.

An easy touch

For poor and lowly,

She gave so much

And grew so holy

That when she died

Of years and fame,

The countryside

Put on her name,

And still the Isles of Erin fidget

With generous girls named Bride or Bridget.

Well, one must love her.

Nonetheless,

In thinking of her

Givingness,

There’s no denial

She must have been

A sort of trial

Unto her kin.

The moral, too, seems rather quaint.

Who had the patience of a saint,

From evidence presented here?

Saint Bridget?  Or her near and dear?

Brighid lives!

Speaking of time (as I did in yesterday’s post), if we all lived in the Southern Hemisphere, we would have celebrated St. Bridget’s Day last Saturday, August 1. Did this south-of-the-border St. Bridget’s Day somehow pass by without you being aware? How many of you readers live in the Southern Hemisphere? Speak up! Shout out!

For the rest of us in the Northern Hemisphere, St. Bridget’s Day is February 1, but in recent days I’ve been thinking a lot about St. Bridget, so I’m looking for any excuse to bring her into my blog.

Have you ever met St. Bridget? I hadn’t until I was asked to give a sermon at Cornell University’s Sage Chapel on February 2, 2003. A little research into St. Bridget and Celtic festival of Imbolc led me to fruitful territory – territory that has recently bubbled again to the top of my consciousness.

Here’s part of what I said back on February 2, 2003:

“In Ireland, which is warmed by the Gulf Stream, the turning of winter towards spring is said to happen on February 1, roughly the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.  This is the date for the ancient Celtic festival of Imbolc that celebrates the time when pregnant ewes began lactating, a sign not only of impending lambs, but also of the coming of spring.  February 1 is also the date for the feast of St. Bridget.

Brighid is a fascinating figure with a powerful history that links her not only with Christian spirituality, but also with Celtic mysticism.  As a Celtic goddess, she is said to have been born in the instant between night and day.  That she was born on a threshold, is a very important aspect of the legend.  The ancient Celts were fascinated by in-between places such as shorelines, the instant of sunrise, the instant seasons change, doorways, and other places that lay instantaneously between two places, while being in neither.

The goddess Brighid is symbolized by fire, flames, and the hearth; also by water, grain, and cattle.  She watches over sheep and cows, blacksmiths and doctors, poets and farmers.  It’s an impressive resume!

Most of the stories associated with St. Bridget are of her extravagant generosity.  Indeed, the only words we have that are directly attributed to St. Bridget, are from a poem that begins, ‘I should like a great lake of ale for the King of Kings / I should like the family of heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.'”

My last few days have been spent contemplating those who live on the shoreline between night and day, lives made rich by passages forward and back, forward and back, forward and back through the doorways of experience. Yes, Brighid lives!

We Speak of Time

Back in 2015 I wrote a piece entitled “We Speak of Time” for chorus and piano. Last year, at around this time, I tinkered with it quite a bit and had it performed again.

It has not been recorded, so you are spared having to listen to it, but (embarrassingly enough) I have real affection for the words that inspired it, for the compositional trick I used to capture them, and for a drawing that arose from last year’s performance.

The text is from The Eternal Now by Paul Tillich. Tillich (1886-1965) was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, whose work I know nothing about beyond these words:

“We speak of time in three modes — past, present, and future. Time runs from the beginning to the end. Our awareness goes in the opposite direction. We go toward something that is not yet. We come from something that is no more. Is not our time the ever-moving boundary between past and future?” And from Romans 12:2, cited by Tillich in The Eternal Now, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

Inspired by Tillich’s reflections about our awareness of time, the vocal parts are all derived from a single melody. The melody is a palindrome: it is presented forward, backward, and in harmony with itself, as does the merry-go-round-like piano accompaniment. The overall effect is intended to suggest the ever-moving boundary between past and future – the eternal now.

One of the singers in the chorus, Beth Damon, came up with this artistic fantasy after we did it. I thank Beth; her drawing is easier to take in than my piece!

This volatile dynamic between past, present, and future can be summarized as “transience,” a concept that is absolutely at the top of my mind.

More to come!

Nod a lot

This morning’s post comes from a chance encounter with a website that offers “10 Psychology Tricks You Can Use To Influence People”. Buckle up – you’re about to be tricked and influenced.

Here are the ten tricks:

10. Get someone to do a favor for you.

9. Ask for way more than you want at first then scale it back later.

8. Use a person’s name, or their title depending on the situation.

7. Flattery will actually get you everywhere.

6. Mirror their behavior.

5. Ask for favors when someone is tired.

4. Start with a request they can’t refuse and work your way up.

3. Don’t correct people when they are wrong.

2. Paraphrase people and repeat back to them what they just said.

1. Nod a lot while you talk, especially when leading up to asking for a favor.

 

So here’s my fantasy proposal using those “10 psychology tricks:”

10. Do me a favor, if you would, and let me know if the questions I’m about to ask you influence the way you read the poem I posted on June 19.

9. Believe it or not, I’m hoping that with your answers I can make the poem work as a kind of sales pitch for a seaside house I’d like to put on the market.

8. I’ve broached this idea with Donald Trump, who said he’d help me because he’s a whole lot more interested in real estate than the presidency.

7. But you present a lot more intelligence, to say nothing of humanity, than Trump, so your opinion is much more significant to me than his.

6. I can imagine how you are shaking your head is utter disbelief that I am proposing that you team up with Trump, but I think there might be financial benefit for all of us in poetry and real estate sales.

5. Now I can really see you are shaking your head in fatigue and disbelief that I’d have the gaul to ask this of you when you are undoubtedly doing something else that is much more important and tiring, but give me just a minute or two of your time.

4. Five yes or no questions will get us started. I’m really interested in your opinion. The questions are below.

3. There’s no such thing as a wrong answer.

2. Every question you answer I’ll rewrite into a statement that accurately reflects what you said in your yes or no answer.

1. I really appreciate your willingness to help me become a better poet and successful real estate salesman by giving me your feedback – thank you! I’d also like to include this poem in a self-published book that costs – what can I say? – a few bucks, so if you have any spare money, send it along!

Question #1: Was Donald Trump proud that on July 23, 2020 he was able to remember and repeat these five words: “Person, woman, man, camera, TV.” Yes or no.

Question #2: Did I mean to suggest cresting and receding waves by using varying lengths of each line of my poem? Yes or no.

Question #3: Did you recognize the imagery in the last four lines of the poem as part of a sermon I gave at Cornell’s Sage Chapel in 2004? There’s only one answer: no.

Question #4: Is it clear that my meager output as a poet is typically around two poems a year? Yes or no.

Question #5: Is my poem worth a house? There’s only one answer.

I bet you’re nodding a lot right now. Sweet dreams!

It’s about time!

Here’s the headline in the June 10 NYTimes: Roger Federer Won’t Play in 2020 After Knee Surgery.

And today’s news in A Year of Guys: Dick Riley About to Play For the First Time in Two Years!

Weather report

The temperature is rising.

The wind blows

strong.

 

Is this wind

a buffer of burn,

or funereal flame?

 

Please blow my life backwards

to strength and resilience

and myopia!

 

Or to the future

of unknown miracles

making love with mirage!

 

Ah, you can see that by that past

and by that future

I see clearly!

 

And yet –

I believe I was

born on the threshold

 

of seasons and shorelines and

doorways that lie between,

while being in none.

 

You, I’m regret,

cannot hear or feel or see

the seasons and shorelines and doorways of my life.

 

Nor can I.

Could an opinion give birth to truth?

My father, whose 109th birthday was two days ago, was a scientist. I am not, but I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of scientific thinking, and scientific thinking  profoundly influences my thinking about opinions.

Opinions are not facts, but if we agree with an opinion we want it to be a fact, don’t we? But what is the value of an unprovable opinion? If scientific thinking is the gold standard, is opinion just worth bronze?

“Scientific thinking,” write Kevin N. Dunbar and David Klahr in the The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning, “refers to both thinking about the content of science, and the set of reasoning processes that permeate the field of science: induction, deduction, experimental design, causal reasoning, concept formation, hypothesis testing, and so on.”

Scientific thinking fuels the scientific method, which is the dispassionate presentation of facts that prove a larger fact – truth.

But about those facts… Jerome Raymond Ravets asserts in Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems (1996) that science “distinguishes between 1) states of affairs in the external world and 2) assertions of fact that may be considered relevant in scientific analysis.”

Facts are the supposed to be the gold standard of the scientific method, but Ravets says that science is built upon relevant assertions of fact. This is what has always intrigued me about science. There will always be a percentage of what is presented as scientific fact that will turn out to be proven as either incorrect or so limited in its description of what was examined that it is less a statement of fact, than a claim of truth.

Scientific knowledge is almost by definition a snapshot of only what is observable, and what is observable changes constantly. And yet the scientific community accepts the inadequacy of the scientific method to know all, even as it will forever strive to create research that explores ever more sophisticated hypotheses.

But back now to the questions of opinions versus scientific thinking. If facts that support scientific inquiry can sometimes be hard to find, how do we assess the value of opinions?

I don’t think they are as far apart as they initially appear. The value of an opinion has everything to do with the percentage of that opinion that can be verified as fact. Opinions aren’t pure facts, and yet they can reveal facts. Opinions can influence perception, even as perception is, by definition, incomplete. Perception heightens awareness, even as awareness is selective. Awareness generates mental energy – and  opinions are a selective expression of that mental energy.

If scientific “opinion” can generate a well-designed experiment, does it not seem possible that a carefully considered non-scientific opinion could give birth to an experimental truth?

What you don’t know about me

I’m awfully proud of something I do that ranks low on other folks’ list of priorities. The next time you’re feeling drowsy but need to get somewhere in a car for whatever reason, give me a call. I’ll drive you there so gently that you’ll be able to take a nice nap.

I’ve come relish the challenge of accelerating or braking or turning left or right so gradually that the sleeper does not wake. But it’s no fun if you do everything slowly. What’s fun is to do it so that the basic speed that you’re traveling is as ever, but that you anticipate all changes so that there’s absolutely no suddenness of movement. Every turn is anticipated by subtle anticipatory turning, every braking is so gentle that there’s no lurch forward, every acceleration is gradual enough so that the engine doesn’t roar.

This has been a fetish of mine for quite a while now. The maiden voyage, as it were, was after Susan, Lissa, Hannah, and I climbed mighty Mt. Wachusett in central Massachusetts. Mt. Wachusett is just 2,000 feet, but it was a good climb for our then two and five year-old daughters. When we got back in the car after the climb was over, the challenge was to put – and keep – Hannah and Lissa asleep as we drove for the next 45 minutes over curvy back roads.

It was surprisingly satisfying to control the movement of the car so that everyone slept. It felt a little like I was conducting a gentle, soft piece written for strings.

I continue to enjoy it. Today I put Susan to sleep as we came home from Burlington after getting tested for COVID-19. Well done, Dick!

 

The book of guys

A couple of days ago I was at a reception honoring Susan’s art exhibition at the Highland Center for the Arts when a friend gave me a book by Garrison Keillor. I was distracted when she gave it to me so I didn’t note its title until I got home. It’s called The Book of Guys.

I swear I’ve never heard of it! And how dare Keillor lift his title from my A Year of Guys? Or, perhaps given that The Book of Guys was published in 1993, how dare I lift my title from his?

But I have no memory of ever having read Keillor’s book, so it was with some interest that I read a few chapters. What stands out is the borderline farcical “guy” tone used by Keillor. His guys are verbally cryptic, socially obtuse, and self-absorbed. That sounds harsher than it really is, as Keillor’s tone is basically benign, but it does describe the humor angle that Keillor employs.

Let is be known that J.S., Silas, Atul, Roger, and Pete did not make my guy list by being one of Keillor’s. There truly are some good guys around – even as we have to endure clowns like Trump.

Extra, extra, read all about it!

After deep contemplation and careful consideration of the spoken rhythm of my Guys’ names, I’ve chosen “J.S., Silas, Atul, Roger, and Pete” as the new title headline of the blog. This was not one of the choices I gave to you for your vote, but so be it.

I like the balance of my headliners. The title could read “Music, Family, Science, Tennis, and Politics.”

Or “335, 6, 54, 38, and 38.” That’s catchy, isn’t it? Those are their ages.

And then there’s “German, American, American-with-Indian parents, Swiss-with-a-South African mother, and American-with-a-Maltese father.” Also catchy. That describes their immediate genetic ancestry.

Or try this one: “One man sperm bank, computer game virtuoso, money not for me, face on two coins, and talent overload.” That’s J.S. Bach who sired 20 children, six year-old Silas with dizzying computer game skills that make me feel very, very old, Atul Gawande who returned a $20,000 check from Charlie Munger thanking him for his 2009 New Yorker article about the insidious US profit-maximizing culture only to receive a $40,000 check in return which he donated to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Surgery and Public Health, Roger Federer who is the first living person to be celebrated on both the Swiss 20-franc and 50-franc coins, and Pete Buttigieg who in his idle hours plays guitars and piano at astonishingly high levels.

Thank you guys!