Happy Monday Digital Neighbors! I hope you all had a good weekend. I had my first weekend at Queen of Peace and next weekend I will be celebrating Mass at St. Anthony of Padua. It was an excellent weekend, I enjoyed meeting the parishioners and praying with them. I look forward to getting to know them, a few have already earned some nick-names from me.
Nick-names are an interesting experience, they can be playful, endearing, funny and sometimes mean and stigmatizing. Names and nick-names can carry a weight of meaning with them, or they can be utterly nonsensical, it really depends on the Namer and the Named and their relationship. In the the Judeo-Christian world the name of God is sacred. The Lord doesn't really give Moses an answer as to His name from the burning bush. I am, Who I am. Are you Popeye, Lord? Any-whose-it, the name is more of a riddle than a declaration. Lord become the standard replacement word for the name of God which is mysterious. The Lord and whatever He chooses to reveal about Himself is for our good, not His. God does not and never will need us, but in His kindness He invites us to question, seek and wrestle with the meaning or meaningless of life, questions of self and all the other ponderings that stir in an awakened mind and curious soul. Sorry, sounding a preachery. Back to nick-names.
My Mom's side of the family (The Lavin and their hyper-Irish vibe) loved nick-name and giving them to family & friends. Most of them were funny & playful but some could be a little heartless. Mine as Too much Tom, The Lord Mayor of Ireland. A bit of a pretentious name, especially that whole Lord Mayor bit, for most of my childhood I had no idea what a Lord Mayor was. My other nick-name from Mom was pogue mahone. Mom thought it meant pain in the ass, but we came to find out much later in a life during to tour of Ireland that it meant kiss my ass. I have to say I am even more fond of that nick-name and it captures a certain vibe I have for the overly critical and unkind that cross my path. God bless you and pogue mahone!
As a child in Elsberry, I was always Little Miller. My brother Joe & Jerry were well known in town and most everyone knew I was their little brother. For the most part that was a great arrangement, I was generally left alone by any would be bullies or older ass-holes because no one wanted a locker slamming encounter with Jerry or Joe. They had exclusive beating rights on me. I don't think I had any real enduring nick-names in grade school. I was called Mother Hen and Lex Talionis in the seminary, for two aspects of my personality. I tend to care for people's well being in providing drinks, asking if they are hungry and cleaning up after them. I blame Grandma Lavin, that was one of her real gifts to all of us when we visited her. I was called Lex because I always had a comeback, I was well trained in the school of "If you give'th shit, you must take'th shit." Some of my friends thought that I was less than kind in my verbal retorts. I probably was, I was still working through some of my own personal shit and the rough edges often bled over into humor and nick-names. At least I wasn't afraid to apologize when I took it too far. That was a fortunate lesson to learn earlier in life. There is nothing playful about hurting another's feelings, however if you are easily hurt you probably won't get any nick-names or playful interactions with me. I will think of you as fragile and treat you with gentle indifference.
As the good people of QOP & AOP get to know me they will earn their pet-names, nick-names or catch-phrases that I use for them. Thus far we have Tuuts, Whirlwind and Caravaggio. I couldn't remember Frank's last name. Caravaggio came out as something close to it and he laughed. Close enough. As I write this, I think of all the all my friends at New Melle and their endearing and fun nick-names. I pray for them every morning and miss their closeness and familiarity, and I hope they are blessed in all the changes they are experiencing in life.
Happy Monday ADD Irregulars, WSN Revelers, Black Sheep, Friends, Refugees, Phamily, Misfits and all the rest of you known and unknown wanderers on Locals.
St. Jerome by Caravaggio
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
