400 years ago today, a Christmas sermon by John Donne

 Found on Alan Jacobs' blog:

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From a sermon preached by John Donne on the evening of Christmas Day at St. Paul’s in 1624:

    God made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons, and day and night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in their season: But God hath made no decree to distinguish the seasons of his mercies; In paradise the fruits were ripe, the first minute, and in heaven it is always Autumn, his mercies are ever in their maturity. We ask panem quotidianam, our daily bread, and God never says you should have come yesterday, he never says you must again tomorrow, but today if you will hear his voice, today he will hear you. If some King of the earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North, and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together in his Dominions, so large an extent East and West, as that he hath day and night together in his Dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgment together: He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thou Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benummed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.

Rogationtide: Praying for mercy and for fruitful seasons

 

Everything is burgeoning! The dogwoods, irises, and peonies have finished blooming, but the clematis and pinks are going wild and the lavender shooting out bloom stalks. I love this time of year.

My youngest daughter has started two bed in a sunny spot in our back yard that are modelled after the traditional “three sisters” way of planting. First she planted corn and sunflowers. Now that they’re coming up nicely she’s going to plant beans, which will twine up the stalks of the taller plants, then in a few weeks she’ll plant squashes, which will flourish on the ground below the other plants.

This coming Sunday will be the sixth Sunday of the Easter season. Up until fairly recently the Gospel reading for this Sunday was John 16:23-33, which begins, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” The Latin word for ask is rogare, and so this Sunday is known in liturgical churches as “Rogation Sunday.”

One of the traditional prayers for this brief season is the prayer for fruitful seasons:

Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth: We humbly pray that thy gracious providence may give and preserve to our use the harvests of the land and of the seas, and may prosper all who labor to gather them that we, who constantly receive good things from thy had, may always give thee thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

I have written before about some of the festive ways Christians have kept the days between Rogation Sunday and Ascension Thursday, but this week something new struck me and I wanted to mention it here.

Over the last year I’ve been dipping into Eleanor Parker’s delightful book, Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year, and last night I read her section called “Holy and Healthy Days,” which is on the origins of Rogationtide and the ways the early medieval English Christians kept this season. She mentions one of Aelfric’s sermons for Rogationtide and describes how the season was a penitential season as well as a festive one. Aelfric says that during this season, “we should pray for abundance of our earthly fruits, and for health and peace for ourselves, and, what is still greater, for the forgiveness of our sins” (pp. 157-158).

So, on the Rogation Days (the three days between Rogation Sunday and Ascension Day), the priests and parishioners would walk around the parish boundaries not only praying for fruitful seasons, but also praying for the forgiveness of their own sins and for the Lord’s mercy on their city. In his History, Bede quotes a chant from the Gallican Rogation Litany:

We pray Thee, O Lord, in all Thy mercy, that Thy wrath and anger may be turned away from this city and from Thy holy house, for we are sinners. Amen.

As Parker puts it so beautifully, “The Rogation Days seek physical and spiritual health for the individual, the community and the natural world; all are connected, one harmonious whole” (p. 162).

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For more on Aelfric’s sermon and the medieval traditions, see Eleanor Parker’s blog post at The Clerk of Oxford.

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Rogationtide, part two: Traditional prayers

To Anthea

by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Now is the time when all the lights wax dim;
And thou, Anthea, must withdraw from him
Who was thy servant: Dearest, bury me
Under that holy-oak, or gospel-tree;
Where, though thou see’st not, thou may’st think upon
Me, when thou yearly go’st procession;
Or, for mine honour, lay me in that tomb
In which thy sacred reliques shall have room;
For my embalming, Sweetest, there will be
No spices wanting, when I’m laid by thee.

The “yearly procession” in the poem is the tradition called “beating the bounds” when all the members of the parish walked around the parish boundary and prayed for good weather, for a good harvest, and for the Lord to protect the people. It was held on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before the Ascension.

The Gospel reading on the previous Sunday is John 16:23-33, which begins, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” The Latin word for ask is rogare, and so this Sunday is known in liturgical churches as “Rogation Sunday,” and the next three days are called “Rogation Days.”

It’s been unseasonably dry here, so we’ve been praying for rain, and, thanks be to God, it rained most of the day today! I took this photo this evening between showers.

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer has three prayers for use during the Rogation Days. We prayed the first, For Fruitful Seasons, during Morning Prayers today, and will pray the next two on Tuesday and Wednesday. 

I. For fruitful seasons

Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth: We humbly pray that thy gracious providence may give and preserve to our use the harvests of the land and of the seas, and may prosper all who labor to gather them, that we, who constantly receive good things from thy hand, may always give thee thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

II. For commerce and industry

Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ in his earthly life shared our toil and hallowed our labor: Be present with thy people where they work; make those who carry on the industries and commerce of this land responsive to thy will; and give to us all a pride in what we do, and a just return for our labor; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

III. For stewardship of creation

O merciful Creator, whose hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us, we beseech thee, ever thankful for thy loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of thy bounty; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

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I’ve blogged before about Rogation Day – here’s a post explaining Beating theBounds, and here’s one with a hymn for Rogation Sunday.

Winter rest

 

I was going to write a beautiful post about the gloriously busy holiday season and the need for rest before I go back to teaching again in February, but I’m too tired. The days are cold, and dark, and dreary. Nature is saying, “Rest,” so I will rest.

Mindfulness

My morning walks are something like a meditation time. When I first starting walking regularly I would bring along an audio book or my French lessons and I found that I hated it — I couldn’t focus on the walk or the book. Instead I focus on the walk itself, and it’s much more pleasurable and relaxing that way.

First I focus on my feet, how I’m placing them. This will sound silly but it’s actually necessary for me. A couple of years ago the pain in my right foot became so bad that I finally went to a doctor and he put me in physical therapy for a few months. Turns out that the weeks I spent walking in a cast after breaking my foot when I was five years old caused me to develop bad habits, and the years of that gait caused damage to my foot, my ankle, my knees, hips, back, and neck! So the first thing I do is make sure that I’m planting that foot the way I should be and pushing off correctly.

Then I spend a bit of time noticing my hips and lower back, checking for correct posture and muscle usage. Then I move up to my upper back, neck, and shoulders, making sure they’re correct and relaxed, so that my chest is open and relaxed and I’m breathing properly. Then I cycle through again to make sure I haven’t lost anything along the way.

CS Lewis said, “When you put the feet right, everything else comes right.” 😀

This sounds time-consuming, and it was at first, but while I’m concentrating on my gait, posture, and breathing, I’m also taking in the look of the ground and noticing whether it shows signs of recent rain or wind. I’m smelling the air and feeling the temperatures. I’m listening to the birds and other animals and to the sound of the wind in the trees. I’m looking up at the sky and noticing the color and whether there are any clouds and what they’re like.

Nowadays focusing on my own body has become easy enough that it doesn’t take much attention or energy, so I have more of that for simply noticing the creation and letting my thoughts wander to whatever I want to think about.

There’s a specific technique that I had learned before all of this came up, and I think it’s why focusing on all those things came fairly easily for me. It’s counting your breaths. This sounds dumb, but it’s actually pretty hard.

Go sit or lie someplace quiet with no distractions. Then breathe in to a slow 3-count and out the same way. Count in your head, if possible, so you can keep your body as quiet and relaxed as possible. At the end of each cycle, count that as 1 breath (keeping count on my fingers works best for me). Try to get all the way to 10 without thinking of anything else. If any other thought intrudes itself, push it out and start over counting.

The goal is to be able to count to 100 (ten 10s) while maintaining that level of focus. It took me weeks and weeks to get there, but it’s worth it! Especially if you have an annoying dental procedure coming up and don’t like using the laughing gas. 😉

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(This post was originally a comment at Joy’s blog.)

Wordless Wednesday: Thanksgiving preparations

Randomness

While we were traveling last month I read Tom Sawyer to the kids, and started Huckleberry Finn.  I'd forgotten how funny Tom Sawyer is and was glad that the kids spent most of that book laughing aloud.  Huckleberry Finn's quite a character.  He can make up the most fabulous, detailed story to explain who he is and what he's doing in order to fool whoever needs fooling at the moment.  We stopped several times just to marvel at his ingenuity.  Not that I'd consider that sort of thing a virtue, exactly.

But then this week while reading The Wanderings of Odysseus we came to the part where he wakes up on his own island, but doesn't know where he is, or who the young man is who tells him he's on Ithaca.  It's Athena in disguise, but Odysseus, true to form, makes up the most fabulous detailed story about being a Cretan who was running for his life with his treasure and had sought help from the Phoenecians, and on and on.

At that point I put down the book and said, "I never thought of Huck Finn being like Odysseus before!"

To which one of my children (and you know they're all a lot smarter than I am) replied gently, "Well, it is a story about a guy on a raft having adventures away from home."

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Speaking of Odysseus, that book is so annoying.  When I was reading today's chapter, the one with the dog and the old nurse, I could hardly read two paragraphs together without all the waterworks in my head springing a leak.  It was ridiculous.

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During our Morning Time on Tuesday afternoon *ahem* I inadvertently let slip that at least 90% of the time I squelch the impulse to burst into song at random times during the day, and I got fussed at.  For not singing random songs like we live in a musical or something.

They wouldn't accept my excuses that even if I could sing in a way that made the song recognizable to the hearers, they still wouldn't know what I was singing because the songs were mostly show tunes and the pop music of my parents' generation, with a smattering of 70s pop and TV jingles thrown in.

Kids like to hear their moms sing.  Even when it's far from perfect.

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Be sure to read the comments to my last two posts if you're interested in some practical bits of information on incorporating music lessons for little ones into your day on a tight budget and math story books.

Also, in case you missed the update to my last post, Dawn will be hosting Wednesdays with Words from now on. :-)

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Last month my mom introduced me to the wonders of cherry juice for easing joint pain.  Let me tell you, after taking this elixir for a week and then forgetting to for a couple of days I've become a convert.  It is amazing the difference it makes in the way I feel.



You add two tablespoons to water and drink it once a day. I just add it to maybe 4 ounces of tap water and drink it that way, but it's awfully tart and you might need to dilute it more and ice it the way it is in the picture, if you decide to try it.  It's kind of expensive -- $30 for a quart -- but the quart will last you a month, and surely it's better than taking pain killers on a regular basis.

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The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous this summer.  Usually by this time I'm exhausted from the heat and sorely tempted to curse my Scots-Irish ancestors who came to Virginia instead of Nova Scotia, but we've had several cool nights this month and the days not nearly as hot as usual, so it's been really pleasant.  Now, if we could just ditch Daylight Saving Time so that the sun would come up in the morning instead of staying up till bedtime it would be perfect.

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Here's something Eldest Daughter drew yesterday, commenting, "I need to work on Maria, so instead I drew this girl with horns and a mullet."

I can't imagine where she gets her randomness from.

Meal planning

We’re trying to learn to eat more seasonally as part of transitioning into growing as much of our own food as we can. My gardening skills aren’t very good, to say the least. We generally succeed at a tomatoes, and last year we had a bumper crop of turnips, but everything else we plant usually fails for one reason or another, but it’s spring and there’s always hope. So I’m still thinking that some day we’ll be able to grow more stuff (and even if we don’t we’re trying to buy more from local farmers), and when we do that we’ll need to be used to eating what’s available in the garden.

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There’s a cook book I’d love to get some day: Simply in Season. That website posts a new recipe each week — this week’s is spring greens salad, and the page includes recipes for five different dressings. That’s a site worth bookmarking.

Another helpful site is Eat the Seasons, which lists what’s in season each month and has links to several recipes.

Checking out those lists on occasion gives me fresh ideas for meals. I’ve been in an awful rut lately, owing, I think, to the way we’ve changed what we eat. Up until the last couple of years I always planned meals around a chunk of meat (plus had occasional meatless meals) but with trying to raise our own meat or buy it locally, that just doesn’t work out since we only have meat available a couple times a week.

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Speaking of planning meals around a chunk of meat — a neighbor had more ducks than he wanted so he gave us a couple of young males last month that we’ve been saving for Easter dinner. They’ll be butchered this afternoon and I’m going to marinate them in lemon juice till it’s time to prepare them. I’ll be roasting them, so I can do all the prep on Saturday then turn on the roaster before leaving for church Sunday. For the rest of the meal, I took my cues from the list at Eat the Seasons and checked my cookbooks for recipes.

Here’s the tentative menu:

* Avocado Grapefruit Salad (from Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions — sliced avocados and grapefruit sections served on a bed of lettuce, topped with homemade dressing and green onions)
* Roast Duck with bacon-rice stuffing and giblet gravy (from Good Housekeeping’s All-American Cookbook)
* Asparagus with sesame seeds (also from Nourishing Traditions — sauteed in olive oil then baked with shallots, served with a squeeze of lemon juice)

What kind of wine would be best with that?

Elai is going to make a chocolate mousse for dessert.

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What are you eating this month?