It is not the stars

After Psalm 131, for Clay Smith 

It is not the stars

to which I lift my eyes.

It is not the sun that

warms my frozen heart.

It is not the moon that

lights my way at night.

It is not the marvel,

the great, that

occupies my mind.

 

Instead,

 

I sit in the quiet.

I repose in the calm.

I listen in the silence.

I place my hope

in the one who surrounds me.

I place my heart

in the one who saved me.

I place my soul

in the one who loves me.

 

Photograph by Khamkéo Vilaysing via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

Holy Ghost: Fifty Holy Wells, #19 – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Elijah and the Widow – poem by Kristina Erny at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

When Goodbye is Forever – Tim Challies.

 

‘Blue Squills’ by Sara Teasdale – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Poet’s Good Pen – poem by Michael Charles Maibach.

"A Stolen Shadow" by H L Marsay

Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow is back. There was a strong possibility that H L Marsay might stop the DCI John Shadow stories, when, at the end of A Christmas Shadow, the DCI left for an extended visit to Italy with the family of his long-deceased (and only) love. But, in A Stolen Shadow, he returns, as curmudgeonly as ever, just in time for a new case. 

While they’re investigating the theft of a ceremonial sword, Jimmy Chang, Shadow’s enthusiastic detective sergeant, convinces his boss to attend a pantomime of Snow White. In England, pantomimes are traditionally staged after Christmas, based on a fairy tale or similar story, and involved slapstick comedy, musical numbers, jokes, and audience participation.

 

Shadow reluctantly goes along. In the middle of the performance, the leading man (Prince charming) is poisoned. It’s supposed to be part of the story, but the man is really poisoned and dies on stage. His business partner, a woman, was supposed to be in the performance as well, but she was a no-show, her place taken by the understudy. She’s later found dead.

 

H L Marsay

As Shadow and Chang get deeper into the case, they soon discover that the suspect list is long and keeps growing. And way too many people had motive, opportunity, and means.

 

A Stolen Shadow is just as entertaining as its predecessors, with the bonus of knowing that DCI John Shadow is officially back and, we hope, for a long series of stories.

 

Marsay is the author of seven mystery novels in the DCI John Shadow series. Set in York, the characteristic features of each of the stories are a curmudgeonly DCI, his irrepressibly cheerful sergeant, a culinary tour of the city restaurants, café, and pubs (some of which actually exist), and an introduction to York’s colorful history and present. A member of the Crime Writers Association, she lives with her family in the city of York in England. 

 

Related: 

 

A Long Shadow by H L Marsay.

 

A Viking’s Shadow by H L Marsay.

 

A Ghostly Shadow by H L Marsay.

 

A Roman Shadow by H.L. Marsay.

 

A Forgotten Shadow by H L Marsay.

 

A Christmas Shadow by H L Marsay.

Some Thursday Readings

 

How Walmart, Delta, Chevron and Starbucks are Using AI to monitor employee messages – Hayden Field at CNBC.

 

The spectre of the past – J.S. Barnes at The Critic Magazine on the “Great English Ghost Story.” 

 

Sherlock Holmes, That Enigma We Know So Well – Laurie King at CrimeReads.

"Across Five Aprils" by Irene Hunt

In 1964, author Irene Hunt (1907-2001) published the middle-grade novel Across Five Aprils. It’s the coming-of-age story of nine-year-old Jethro Creighton, the youngest of five brothers and a sister. They live and work with their parents Matt and Emma on a farm in southern Illinois. 

This coming-of-age story is set during the Civil War, beginning in 1861. It’s so well done, and such a good story, that it’s no wonder that it was runner-up to the Newberry Medal in 1965 (her second book, Up the Road Slowly, won the medal in 1966). In 212 pages, Hunt manages to tell both the story of the Creighton family and the story of the Civil War itself. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Civil War Institutes and Conferences – Terry Rensel at Emerging Civil War. 

Who Won the Battle of Cold Harbor? – Owen Rust at The Collector.

"Your love will carry me safely through": War, Hope, and Reasons to Live - Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

The Hidden Sorrow of Valentine's Day - David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

On the Origin of Humanity's Superpower - Seth Lewis.

'February 14, 2024': An Ash Wednesday Valentine's Poem - Cynthia Erlandson at Society of Classical Poets.

John Rateliff Delves into the History of "The Hobbit"

I’m no Middle Earth scholar, but everything I know about J.R.R. Tolkien tells me The Hobbit was written carefully, over a long period of time, and regularly revised. 

Tolkien scholar John Rateliff documents precisely how that happened. 

 

First, something of a confession. I bought Rateliff’s The History of the Hobbit last year, ordering it online. I was so excited I didn’t pay attention to the number of pages. 

 

Including the index, it’s 938 pages. That doesn’t include the 41-page introduction.

 

To read a nearly 1,000-page volume requires determination and time. I had the former but not the latter. For several months, the book rested on my desk, almost staring at me in a kind of silent reproach. The only path forward in tackling it was the one I eventually followed. 

 

I read it gradually and in spurts, until I could finally read it straight through.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Winter Grief – revised poem by David Whyte.

 

The Word in the Wilderness, a Journey through Lent – Malcolm Guite.

 

“A Light Snow-Fall After Frost” by Thomas Hardy – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“Requiem” by Robert Louis Stevenson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern. 

Overlap – poem by Rachel Donahue at Rabbit Room Poetry. 

"The Bone Chests" by Cat Jarman

December 1642: the English Civil War between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians is raging. 

The Parliamentarians occupy the city of Winchester and storm into the city cathedral.

 

The cathedral had been a fixture in the city since 1079, replacing a church building known as the Old Minster first built in 648. The Old Minster had housed the bodies of many Anglo-Saxon ruler until they were removed, the bones placed in 10 chests in the then-new cathedral. 

 

The Parliamentarians weren’t fond of relics, statues of saints, and stained glass. After wrecking much inside the cathedral, the soldiers turned their attention to the chests, which monks had placed high above the floor in the hope that they would be out of reach. They weren’t. Six of the chests were destroyed outright and the bones scattered. The remaining four were emptied. What stopped the full destruction was the appearance of the local people determined to protect what was left. Not surprisingly, the soldiers decided they were finished for the day. 

 

The great stained-glass window was wrecked by the solders launching the emptied bones through the glass.

 

The Bone Chests: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons tells the story of what happened to the chests and the bones they contained. The author, Cat Jarman, is editor of British Archaeology Magazine, and tells that story, and she does a lot more. The chests become the mirror she holds to the Anglo-Saxon age, with the era’s kings and queens, the battles with the Vikings, the battles among themselves, and the role of Christianity and great cathedrals like Winchester. 

 

It's a captivating tale. Jarman organizes the story by the bone chests themselves, the four surviving chests and the two replicas built after the Restoration of 1660. She details the considerable forensic and archaeological work undertaken in Winchester as well as other, connected places (including Madgeburg, Germany). She describes how the bones were gradually gathered up and but back in the boxes, often in a jumble. Hundreds of years later, scientists examined the bones in an effort to determine which bones might belong to which ruler. Along the way, she provides the history of each ruler and the times they lived in.

 

Cat Jarman

Jarman is a bioarchaeologist and field archaeologist specializing in the Viking Age and also the Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Her studies include the use of isotope analysis, carbon dating, and DNA analysis. She previously published River Kings: The Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads. Jarman received her Ph.D. degree in Archaeology from the University of Bristol. Her thesis involved a forensic analysis of Viking Age burials, including a mass grave of 300 individuals. 

 

The Bone Chests is a fascinating study, not only of the times and people who ruled but also how archaeologists have worked to determine the bones’ identities.

 

Top photograph: the great west window of Winchester Cathedral. The shattered glass from 1642 was collected and made into a mosaic. Image from Wikipedia. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Do We Owe Loyalty to Institutions? – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative. 

 

The dangers of digital media – Samuel Walters at The Critic Magazine.

 

This Forgotten Valley – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian. 

 

The First and Best Writing Advice I Ever Received – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Poetry Prompt: O, Soul – Tweetspeak Poetry.

We sing our song

After Psalm 130 

We sing our song,

our cry from the depths;

we sing our hope

that you’ll hear our voice.

 

Hear our voice.

Hear our voice.

 

Bulldozed by sin,

saturated with iniquity,

drowning in our sin.

None of us can stand.

 

Hear our voice.

Hear our voice.

 

And so we wait,

we wait for the Lord,

And so we hope,

we hope in his word.

 

Hear our voice.

Hear our voice.

 

With the Lord is hope.

With the Lord is redemption.

With the Lord is hope.

With the Lord is life.

 

Hear our voice.

Hear our voice.

 

Photograph by Austin Neill via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

After the Snow Melts – Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition.

 

Wisdom Will Laugh at Your Expense – Justin Poythress at Time & Chance.

 

The Deep Wisdom of Rootedness – Fergus Butler-Gallie at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Origins & Development of the Season of Lent – Jacob Zepp at The Imaginative Conservative. 

A Sonnet on the Transfiguration - Malcolm Guite.

Saturday Good Reads - Feb. 10, 2024

For a project I’ve been working on, I spent a fair chunk of Wednesday and Thursday reading poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. One poem is one of his best-known works, although not under its official title of “The Landlord’s Tale” from Tales of a Wayside Inn. Better known as “Paul Revere’s Ride,” it is still a soul-stirring poem. At the Society of Classical Poets, Andrew Benson Brown asks the question, whatever happened to great poetry? He sees Longfellow as one of the last of the great American poets. 

Speaking of great poetry, it may not be a popular thing to say these days, but the father of Western civilization has long been recognized to be the Greek poet Homer. Joshua Katz at New Criterion writes about the importance of Homer and the poetic tradition.

 

I had a comment exchange with a friend this week; we represent opposite sides of the political spectrum, but we still manage to keep it civil and mutually beneficial. The great American political divide didn’t happen overnight, nor has it been a development only since the 1960s. As Shaun Rieley at The Imaginative Conservative writes, the divide can be traced back to the late 18^th century, and the conflict of competing ideas (and ideologies) began with Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine.

 

More Good Reads

 

Faith

 

The Worst Thing Was Not the Last – Erin Ahnfeldt at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Anna Who Waited: How the Means of Grace Sustain the Grieving – Peter Witkowski. 

 

Six Encouraging Resources to Prepare Your Heart for Lent – Michele Morin at Living Our Days.

 

Music

 

The Art of Composition: Eremo by Jeff Johnson and John Van Deusen – Kevin Belmonte at All Nine Muses.

 

Art

 

An expert’s guide to Frans Hals: five must-read books on the Dutch Old Master – José da Silva at The Art Newspaper.

 

Change – Sonja Benskin Mesher. 

 

Albert Turpin, Painter – Spitalfields Life. 

 

British Stuff

 

Britain Can’t Protect Its Own Government Ministers from Islamists – Oliver Wiseman at The Free Press.

 

Poetry

 

Falling Out of Love with Lyric Poetry – Jason Guriel at The Millions.

 

“God’s Own Descent”: Dante, the Incarnation, & Frost’s “The Trial by Existence” – Myah Gebhard at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Submissions are open for the Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award – Plough Magazine.

 

The Cardinal – Paul Wittenberger.

 

Life and Culture

 

Rights and Duties – Frank DeVito at Front Porch Republic.

 

Opiods Decimated a Kentucky Town. Recovering Addicts Are Saving It – Sam Quinones at The Free Press.

 

Why Hillsdale Stand Alone – Aaron Renn.

 

Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

 Painting: Young Clergyman Reading, oil on canvas by Martin Rørbye (1803-1848), Art Institute of Chicago.