November 17th, 2011
by e.e. cummings
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.
Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hoe and then)they
said their nevers and they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt for forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
-Read at St. Lydia’s on October 30
November 17th, 2011
by W. H. Auden
As I walked out one evening,
Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
Were fields of harvest wheat.
And down by the brimming river
I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
‘Love has no ending.
‘I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street,
‘I’ll love you till the ocean
Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
Like geese about the sky.
‘The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.’
But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.
‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.
‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.
‘Into many a green valley
Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
And the diver’s brilliant bow.
‘O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
And wonder what you’ve missed.
‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.
‘Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,
And Jill goes down on her back.
‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.’
It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.
-Read at St. Lydia’s on October 23, 2011
November 17th, 2011
by Tomaž Šalamun
such an Eros? such a home?
it tumbles, reckless, humus of earth
the woods, brilliant steam of night
the smoke, we name the smoke the surface of the sea
who wallows in the vault?
who supports the hunger of the sky?
where will we put earrings, young lieutenants,
weary sailors?
as if the light itself would show us how to pluck an apple
how to smell it, predatory beast
how ink pencils, ice of mirrors
from the hand descend clouds, who seduces fire in the night?
who knows about loam, about weather? who knows how to feed the stove?
herd of hungry mercenary minds
pesky habits, lazy muzzles
Thoth’s work coupled common flowerbeds
steam! steam moves souls! textiles!
breaking hiddens slide
monkeys are hungry, runners are hungry
gifts lick straps, the principle trembles
lying down, I will rake fishes, dry colour of crumbs
fencers, baroque stuntmen, huts of mouth
look at loosened world bonds, drunken crickets
buckskin pokes, terrible children
there is bustle in the orbits, rot in mobile fish
break-neck in the height of eagles
wrappers, rivers of angels, raspberries pierced
on earth we do not file flames, we do not foresee God’s temples
we do not turn up our palms
on earth we tremble, destroy waters, nourish smoke
in the dark we lay hands on the hunger of the sun
-Read at St. Lydia’s on November 13, 2011
November 17th, 2011
Heather Young is a congregant at St. Lydia’s. She has this message for us about adopting a family this Christmas.
Last year, I was pleased to coordinate an effort from St. Lydia’s to purchase a Christmas dinner (and a few gifts) for a needy family through St. John’s Bread and Life (www.breadandlife.org/). Bread and Life serves about 2,000 families each year through this program! It was inspiring to me to see so many Lydians dig into their pockets to find something to give, at a time when purse strings are already tight.
A lot of programs in the city are all about collecting presents for needy kids, and presents are a very nice thing, but Lydians focus on the importance of sharing a meal; our outreach should be no different. This year, Bread and Life’s meals are being produced by New York State farmers, and the ingredients have been grown in a sustainable and healthy way. How much more Lydian can you get?!? I invite you to join with me to sponsor a family — just one family — this Christmas. We need to raise $100 so we can provide the following: a turkey, vegetables, stuffing, soup, gravy, fruit, bread, dessert, and an age-appropriate toy for each child under 16. We did it by the skin of our teeth last year and this year the cost is $30 higher. I have faith that we can do it! Remember, giving is a spiritual practice.
To contribute, come talk to me (Heather) in person this Sunday, December 4 or December 18, e-mail me at iamheatheryoung@gmail.com, or just leave money in the special plate we will set on the welcome table for this purpose. Make checks payable to ME; I’m contributing on St. Lydia’s behalf in advance, since the money has to be sent in weeks prior to the distribution. Remember, this is separate from any contributions you make to St. Lydia’s and does not go toward your annual giving commitment. It’s just an extra bit of kindness during a tough time of year!
November 15th, 2011
The following is an excerpt from an article written by our Community Coordinator, Rachel Pollak, for the Lutheran New Yorker on the subject of St. Lydia’s and our relationship to art. Read the full text of the article in this month’s LNY here.
Art plays an important role at St. Lydia’s, and not just in our graphic design or excellent taste in tablecloths. During the sacred meal we share each Sunday night, when we cook together, break bread, pray and sing at our table, we place practice before belief, choosing to let the meaning of what we do unfold from our liturgy (which is grounded in a long history and rich tradition of Christian worship) into the rest of our lives. Making art, for me at least, is also a practice, one that has important parallels with this liturgical practice. I work in my studio because I feel a kind of hunger that can’t be satisfied in any other way.Many of the people who come to St. Lydia’s come from outside church traditions, and the hunger they feel for spiritual communion is easiest to identify by its similarity to other kinds of hunger. The hunger for food, the hunger for fellowship and connection, and for a place to ask the questions that have no answers. We arrive hungry, we pick up what’s in front of us, and we work with it until we’ve made something edible, or something that we can look at, consider, chew on.
There is no direct correlation between object and meaning in the making of art, and the same goes for dinner church. Every week as a community we walk up to the line between what we know and what we don’t know and try to spend a few hours living in between those two realms. Every time we make a work of art or consider one, we are walking up to the same line; we practice a radical way of looking at the world where the old categories—high church or low church, decorative art or fine art, rich or poor, in or out—don’t apply.
November 11th, 2011
Charlotte baked this bread as part of our baptism ritual last Sunday, for a new take on the old church tradition of having the newly baptized serve milk and honey (a food traditionally served to infants) to the gathered after the washing.
Bread:
1 c. milk
2/3 c. honey
1/4 c. butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 c. white flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. toasted wheat germ
1 c. walnut halves or chunks
Creme fraiche glaze:
2 cups creme fraiche
honey, 3 tablespoons or to taste
Directions for bread:
Heat the milk and honey together until the honey is dissolved, then stir in the butter. When the milk and honey mixture is somewhat cooled, beat in the eggs. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the wheat germ and gradually stir the dry mixture into the liquid. Stir in the walnuts, mix well, and turn into a buttered loaf pan or flat pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 30 min. to an 1 hour (depending on oven and pan used).
A sweet bread for real honey fanciers. May be served with cream cheese at tea time.
(Or, if not cream cheese then…)
Directions for creme fraiche glaze:
Add creme fraiche and honey to food processor, whip only until honey is mixed. (mixing too much can cause the cream to get grainy)
Drizzle on top and garnish with more honey!
Read more about it at Cooks.com
November 7th, 2011
On November 6, we celebrated our first baptism as a community.
Rachel Pollak, our community coordinator, made these candles for her sculpture, “Not Made With Hands.” We lit them as part of our All Saints’ observance, saying the names of people who have died who we want to remember.
See more photos from All Saints day on our Picasa Album.
November 7th, 2011
Rachel Pollak, our Community Coordinator, was baptized at St. Lydia’s on November 6, 2011. She gave this testimony at Dinner Church that evening.
This is my testimony.
I heard the good news for the first time in a college seminar. In 2001, following difficult events both worldly and personal, I had arrived at a dark place in my thinking. I felt that I had exhausted the logic I’d been supplied with thus far, and the world seemed disordered and bleak beyond repair. Night after night I lay on my bed thinking, “If we all just die in the end, what is the point of any of this?” Then, in a lecture delivered during a Russian Lit course I was taking that year, I learned that there was a group of people who had a way of looking at the world in which death was not the most important thing that happened in a human life; a people who lived within an entirely different ontological framework, in which fearing death, or inflicting it on others, were not valid motivations for making decisions. He drew two overlapping circles on the chalkboard, with one circle representing the old world order, where people oppressed and feared one another, and wielded power over each other and hoarded resources, and the other circle representing the new world, the Kingdom of Heaven, where everyone loved one another equally and everyone lived forever. He said that Christians believe we are living now in the place where the two circles overlap, and that both worlds exist simultaneously, one reality layered on top of the other.
Astonishing, I thought. Who are these people? They must be crazy. I had heard of Christians, but I thought they were mostly dead, and the ones who were left were living in far away places without libraries.
My astonishment turned into curiosity once my distinguished professor, who was clearly a holder of many library cards, disclosed that he was a practicing Christian. Huh, I thought, and a secret door revealed itself in my heart. It stayed there, closed, for a long time, but I could feel it inside me all the time after that.
I responded to my curiosity about this mysterious tribe the way I had been taught to, with my library card. I spent the rest of college reading St. Augustine, who said in his Confessions, “You were within me when I was outside myself,” and St. Paul, who said, “Pray without ceasing.” I wrote these things on slips of paper and pinned them to the closed door.
Read the rest of Rachel’s testimony here.
November 7th, 2011
This creed was published by the United Church of Canada. It was read at St. Lydia’s by Rachel Pollak on the night of her baptism, November 5, 2011, in lieu of a poem.
A New Creed
We are not alone,
we live in God’s world.
We believe in God:
who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus,
the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others
by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil,
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death,
God is with us.
We are not alone.
Thanks be to God.
October 17th, 2011
Read Emily’s latest sermon, “No Bucket, No Rope,” on her blog, Sit and Eat.
