Remember, remember

Today is Guy Fawkes Day in the UK. It’s not a holiday in the sense that you get out of school or off work; but tonight across the realm there will be fireworks and bonfires lit (along with suitable amounts of drinking) to celebrate the exposure and foiling of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament and King James I on this date in 1605.

Guy Fawkes wasn’t the leader of the plot, but he was the one charged with its execution (so to speak). Having been a mercenary fighting for the Catholic League and the Spaniards against the Protestant Dutch, he presumably had the experience necessary to handle barrels of gunpowder and set the charges.

He did, but the plot was revealed via a letter warning a Catholic Member of Parliament to stay away on the 5th. One thing led to another, the gunpowder was discovered (“Oi, mate—did you order 30 barrels of black powder and all this firewood and coal?”), Fawkes was apprehended and duly tortured to reveal the names of co-conspirators. (Unsuccessfully—as “interrogators” in our current foreign wars have learned, torture isn’t a good means of acquiring reliable information.)

Eventually there was a trial, but the verdict was a foregone conclusion. Fawkes cheated the hangman, though: he jumped from the gallows and broke his neck.

I’m guessing the executioners went ahead with the drawing and quartering, however.

Since the 18th Century, effigies of Fawkes, “guys”, have been burnt in bonfires with much gaiety on this night.

Now, while I think it’s a good thing indeed to foil mass murder plots (even when the prospective victims are politicians), there’s something about continuing this tradition of dissing Catholics down into the 21st Century that just creeps me out.

It’s not that I am baptized in the Roman Church, it’s this holdover from the time when where you worshiped defined your entire existence for good or ill. I mean—that’s so 19th Century. (Okay, people over here were certain that JFK would be taking all his marching orders from the Pope; but we got over that.)

But the Brits are stuck in this time warped mentality in which Catholics = Satan-worshiping-overthrowers-of-civilization.

This whole aversion to Catholicism is related to the monarch being the head of the Church of England, which emerged from Henry VIII having the hots for Anne Boleyn (and the possibility of producing a son who wouldn't die in infancy) and needing a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, which Pope Clement VII refused to give him. For centuries after Henry declared the papacy irrelevant, all non-CoE followers were required to support the established church with their taxes. So if you were a Methodist, you were voluntarily giving money to your chapel and involuntarily giving money to the Anglicans.

That’s one of the reasons why our Founding Fathers slipped that separation of church and state clause in the First Amendment. That established church thing just rankled. (A lot of the provisions in the Constitution were reactions to British governing practices.)

Charles III has signaled a more ecumenical approach for the new century. He inherited the title of “Defender of the Faith”, which was accorded to Henry VIII by Pope Leo X for his defense of the Catholic Church against Martin Luther (and subsequently taken to designate the British monarch as the head of the Church of England), but has said he prefers to think of himself as a “defender of faith”. (Some Commonwealth countries also removed the “DoF” style from references to the king.) Only recently he was seen praying in the Vatican with Pope Leo XIV; since giant cracks did not appear in the earth’s surface and the sun, in fact, rose again the next morning, this may be A Sign.

Indeed, in an odd turn of events—even as the Church of England elects a female Archbishop of Canterbury and the official head of the denomination reaches out to members of other faiths—evangelicals in the US are pushing for a White (Protestant) Christian-fascist theocracy in the country founded on no established religion.

If we had bonfires here, they’d be tossing witches and irony into the flames.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Habemus papam

Well, Catholics had a turnup for the books last week when the conclave of cardinals elected a man from Chicago as Pope. Robert Prevost (who’d only been a cardinal for 19 months) succeeded Argentine Francis I, taking the nom de pontiff Leo XIV.

This is so interesting—and heartening—for a number of reasons.

Francis was generally seen as on the radical side, because he fostered outreach to the poor and marginalized. In reality, he was pretty centrist, but in an organization as hide-bound, hierarchical and committed to maintaining status quo as the Roman Catholic Church, this can be taken for radicalism.

He was also a Jesuit. Jesuits are the wildcards of the Church; it was interesting that Francis was elected in 2013.

Leo is an Augustinian, which is also interesting. Founded in 1244 in Tuscany by followers of the Rule of Augustine, 4^th and 5^th Century Bishop of Hippo, Augustinians focus on education, evangelism and community. They are bridge builders and upholders of justice. The cardinals clearly know this, and they know how closely Francis drew the American to him in recent years. It took them barely 24 hours to elect him as Francis’s successor. They clearly expect him to carry forward Francis’s work.

In his first address as Pope on Thursday, Leo used the words “peace” and “justice” multiple times, and he talked repeatedly about welcoming all, with a special shoutout (in Spanish) for his former parishioners in Peru. I also think it's not for nothing that he picked "Leo" as his moniker: the last one, Leo XIII, was huge in the social justice fight. XIV's history would indicate that he's of the same persuasion.

It remains to be seen how much success Leo will have. The Vatican is a huge ship, and it takes a long time to change course. But the fact that MAGAts have gone ballistic in their criticism of him (“WOKE MARXIST POPE” tweet-shrieked that noted theologian Laura Loomer) is a definite plus. (As "Robert Prevost", Leo's only tweets this year opposed Kleptocrat administration policies and one even flat out called JD Vance's notion that Christians need to rank their love of humanity wrong.

Also—the memes about a Chicagoan being Pope are absolutely cherce, and we can expect them to continue throughout his papacy.

And I am grateful that all those old men in medieval robes creaked their way to what may be one of the boldest choices possible for the future of a vast number of Christians. I am heartened.

 

©2025 Bas Bleu

Absolved, remitted, cancelled

Yom Kippur begins at sundown tonight and continues until dusk tomorrow. It’s the culmination of the Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar, and the time for a sort of moral Spring cleaning—the Day of Atonement, when you’re meant to rummage through your behavior over the previous year, acknowledge your shortcomings with respect to your fellow humans, apologize (to those they’ve trespassed against and to God) and resolve to do better.

Then—having cleared the slate, so to speak—you’re good to go for another year.

Well, the deal is that God opens the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and inscribes your name in it, but doesn’t close-and-seal it until the end of Yom Kippur. You have those ten Days of Awe to get your ducks in a row.

In recent times, people have taken to issuing blanket apologies for transgressions, presumably in the hope that anyone who’s actually suffered at their hands will happen by at the time the apology emerged, and will catch it in passing. And, of course, SoMe has amplified this impersonalization of what should be a very personal act of contrition.

I have never subscribed to the one-size-fits-all approach to giving or receiving apologies, but that’s just me. I mean—in the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation, we’re meant to hawk up actual things we’ve done, say them out loud to the confessor and accept the penance we’re given. (Toughest priest I ever knew wouldn’t give you any generic Hail Marys or Our Fathers; no, no. If I’d been pissed off at my family, he’d tell me to go back and be specially nice to them. Killed me, he did.)

Protestants generally have no truck with confession and atonement. That may be because, being based on the teachings of John Calvin, they’re guided by the tenets of Predestination: God decided long before your birth whether you’re saved or damned, and nothing you can do here will change that. Therefore there’s not much point in calling out your transgressions, or promising to make amends—you’re headed where God sends you.

(Okay—there’s a lot of talk in some fundamentalist circles about repentance and forgiveness. But that seems largely to apply to Republican elected officials and some preachers who’ve been caught doing something that they can’t wriggle out of on account of the video and the forensic evidence. I take no notice of this.)

But I digress. This post is about Yom Kippur and the mindful inventory of one’s transgressions with a view to amending one’s trajectory in the New Year.

In synagogues and communities around the world just before sundown tonight, someone will be singing “Kol Nidre”, a call from the Ashkenazi tradition of Judaism. It’s a mixture of Aramaic and Hebrew, declaring null any oaths or commitments made to God from one Yom Kippur to the next, and asking for pardon for shortcomings in fulfilling those vows. The idea, as I understand it, is to mitigate the sin of failing to fulfill a vow that might have been made rashly. (It also annulled any vows associated with forced conversion to Christianity, which was a thing for a long time.)

Both Al Jolson and Neil Diamond sang “Kol Nidre” in their appearances in The Jazz Singer (1927 and 1980, respectively). Johnny Mathis and Perry Como have also recorded it, which seems passing odd to me. But I’m giving you Cantor Julia Kadrain of the Central Synagogue (a Reform shul in Midtown Manhattan) leading it for Yom Kippur 5776 (nine years ago).

May your name be sealed in the Book of Life.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

 

The ghost of life: Lilies shout glory

It seems so strange that in the heart of Spring we are cooped up indoors around the world. This is when we celebrate new life, rebirth; all is fresh-green and petal-colored. But here we are, pacing the floors, debating whether it’s safe to open the windows, plotting when and how to make a grocery run.

Millions are also logging on to virtual services to celebrate Easter—the resurrection of Christ—instead of gathering at sunrise in parks or in churches to sing joyful hymns and proclaim, “He is risen!” (Except for the evangelicals who defy both law and science.) And that, too, is weird—to not be surrounded by the music and the ritual; to express your hope and joy alone or with just your family. Churches can't even ring peals; can't pull the sallies with six feet of distance between ringers.

Well, that’s where we are. So here’s my entry for National Poetry Month for today, a haiku by someone named Mary Havran. I know nothing about her, but I really like this. Something different for a really different Easter.

“Easter lilies”

Trumpet shaped bloom

Good News sounds forth from tomb

Lilies shout Glory

The ghost of life: Hosanna

Today is Palm Sunday, the day Christians in the West remember the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem. Ordinarily churches would be handing out palm fronds for congregants to wave in emulation of the palms that were laid before the Christ. In Roman and Anglican Catholic parishes, they take the triumphal entry story all the way to the crucifixion, with the congregation acting the part of Jews screaming “Crucify him!”

(I think that these days, the order of service refers to the screamers as “the People”; the Roman Church only stopped calling Jews Christ-killers after Vatican II, and a lot of people are still begrudging that.)

It’s kind of weird to think of churches—except for the evangelical nutjobs across the former Confederacy—not enacting the procession, singing “All Glory, Laud and Honor”, weaving palm spikes into crosses and preparing for Holy Week. But here we are.

Well, anyway, today’s entry for National Poetry Month is from someone I’ve never heard of, Lloyd C. Taylor, Jr., a resident of North Carolina. I was trawling an archive of seasonal poems and stopped at this one, because we should all be asking its question. We should be asking it every year, but this one in particular.

Sadly—very few will.

“What Have We Learned?”

They shouted with praises, reaching the sky,

Pushing and shoving to see Jesus pass by.

Crying, 'Hosanna, hosanna, glory to the King!

He comes to us today, great joy He doth bring.'

They threw down palm leaves, covering the way,

Clearing the way for His entrance that day.

Raising joyful voices, as praises filled the air,

The day had come, God answered their prayer!

But, in a short time they changed their chant,

From joyful noise, to a mob's hate-filled rant.

From Hosanna, hosanna, as when He was praised;

To crucify Him! Crucify Him, as their anger blazed!

In disbelief we might question why they turned?

But maybe the question is, 'What have we learned? '

Behind the scenes

The video that should have been all over TV in the Bible Belt during the 2016 elections has been uncovered and is making the rounds on the Interwebs. You know—the 2015 Bloomberg Politics interview in which Cadet Bonespurs is completely stumped when asked what his favorite verses are. He can’t even choose between the Old and New Testaments; apparently he didn’t know there were two of them.

Like the two Corinthians.

Well, that video is hilarious in its own right, and levels yet another charge of hypocrisy against all the evangelicals who believe their god personally sent a lying, greedy, thieving, cruel, blaspheming, gluttonous, fornicating kleptocrat to run the United States. Because your average atheist could have answered more questions about the Bible than the self-proclaimed Chosen One.

Well, but it turns out there’s a guy in the UK named Michael Spicer, who does a kind of Randy Rainbow mashup (without the music and flamingo pink glasses), and now it all becomes clear:

I am never going to be able to listen to this buffoon stumble his way through congratulating Poland on the 80^th anniversary of the Nazi invasion or bragging about our “great relationship” with Colombia and FARC without looking for his earpiece and imagining Spicer somewhere at the other end of the com line.

Upsoaring wings: All people

In addition to co-founding (with Martin Niemoeller and Karl Barth) the German Confessing Church, pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a passionate anti-Nazi, who worked tirelessly against the Hitler regime from its ascension to power in 1933 until his execution in April 1945. His protests against the euthanasia program and against antisemitism as state policy provoked the Nazis to ban his church, and he basically went underground to operate “seminaries on the run”, training the ministers of the future; he believed wholeheartedly that the post-war world would need Christians to rebuild.

Even after he was arrested in 1943 for his work helping Jews escape, Bonhoeffer continued his ministry in prison. He was linked to the July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and was moved to Buchenwald and then Flossenbürg to be executed by hanging.

Here are a few things Bonhoeffer believed, which I’m pretty sure will not be echoed in evangelical churches these days:

“Silence in the face of evil is evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”

“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

“The first service one owes in a community involves listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s word, the beginning of love for others is listening to them…We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them.”

Today being Easter, my National Poetry Month entry is Bonhoeffer’s “Christians and Pagans”, which he wrote in July 1944, when he’d been in prison for more than a year. Its point—that God serves all, not just those calling themselves Christians—is also not something you’ll hear in evangelical churches these days.

“Christians and Pagans”

People turn to God when they’re in need,

plead for help, contentment, and for bread,

for rescue from their sickness, guilt, and death.

They all do so, both Christian and pagan.

People turn to God in God’s own need,

and find God poor, degraded, without roof or bread,

see God devoured by sin, weakness, and death.

Christians stand with God to share God’s pain.

God turns to all people in their need,

nourishes body and soul with God’s own bread,

takes up the cross for Christians and pagans, both,

and in forgiving both, is slain.

Upsoaring wings: I want my sins back

We’ve got two holy days going today: for Western Christians, it’s Good Friday, the day Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. And at sundown tonight, Pesach begins for Jews, honoring the Exodus from Egypt. Because it’s generally accepted that the Last Supper was a Seder, it seems appropriate that I offer a poem to commemorate each, and I’ve chosen entries from two contemporary poets.

Maria Melendez Kolson teaches literature and writing at Pueblo Community College, in Pueblo, Colorado. She herself writes of the Latinx experience in America. Her “Good Friday” is intimate as she confesses her shortcomings (reminding me a little of Saint Augustine’s “Lord, grant me chastity and continence. But not yet.”). I like it a lot.

“Good Friday”

Jesus, I want my sins back.

My prattle, pride, and private prices — 

climbing, clinching, clocking — 

I might loan you a few for the evening,

so you don’t show up at your own crucifixion

naked of all purpose.

But for God’s sake, don’t spill any

redemption on them! They’re my

signature looks. Body by Envy.

Make up & wardrobe provided by Avarice. Lord,

if you take away my inordinate cravings,

what the hell’s left? Do you know

how much I paid for my best rages?

I want them all back if they’re

so To Die For. Else shred my palms,

wash my face with spit, let the whip

unlace my flesh and free the naked blood,

let me be tumbled to immortality

with the stew of flood debris

that is my life.

Likewise, the focus of South African-born poet Bracha Meschaninov’s “Pesach” is personal and honest. She lives in New York, with her husband and six children, so this feels authentic.

“Pesach”

House cleaned

more or less

kitchen surfaces covered

more or less

food ready

more or less

an experience of redemption

more or less

Creationism

A friend sent me the link to this frisnic on Bored Panda—people’s take on what God was thinking while creating life on Earth. They’re pretty good. I’ll give you a couple of fer-instances and leave you to click through to all 49 of them.

I dunno who this Dad guy is, but he’s very, very funny.

And here’s the cold water of truth:

Touring Josefov

Not that I have any intention of doing any shopping on this trip, but I was mildly curious about whether stores would be open yesterday, it being Sunday and all.

(This was because I was so utterly gobsmacked during my time in the UK, which only grudgingly had supermarkets open on Sundays. And I recall a time in the Old Dominion when by law only grocery stores and tourist-focused stores—think souvenirs and gift shops—could be open on Sundays. The lege changed that law while I was in grad school, and people like to lost their minds whining that if stores opened on the Sabbath, they’d have to work overtime! It did not occur to them that the boss would just hire more people, maybe even cut back their hours to save on paying benefits.)

Anyhow—I needn’t have concerned myself in the least. Not only did they open yesterday, but they appeared to open at the same time as on other days. None of this two-three hours later than weekday stuff like in the Confederacy.

Because as I turned the corner on my way to the Jewish quarter, I came across this crowd waiting for Hamleys toy store to open. (Hamleys is London’s answer to FAO Schwartz.)

 

But when 1000 rolled around and the doors opened, no one swarmed in. Because there was a ritual of store employees in the doorways chanting something and engaging the crowd in a call-and-response thing.

Cool.

Well, I carried on over to Josefov, the Jewish district (named after Josef II, the Holy Roman Emperor who emancipated Jews within his empire). Much of my day was spent walking to and through the several synagogues that make up the Jewish museum experience. I don’t think right now I’ll go into the pall that hangs over Jewish history in Eastern Europe. I’m still processing it. Anti-Semitism has always been a feature of life in these parts—as, indeed, it is right home in the US.

As recent events in Pittsburgh and elsewhere have so acutely reminded us.

Anyhow—I have Thoughts on this topic, but I’ll hold off on sharing them.

Instead I’ll concentrate on some of the design elements, which I always find interesting. The first lot is from the Spanish Synagogue (so called because it was built in a Spanish architectural style).

(I just really like repeating patterns.)

As you often see in churches, the windows were dedicated to patrons and/or their families:

The Pinkas Synagogue led to the Old Jewish Cemetery, which received the dead for about three centuries. It ceased operations in 1787, when our pal Josef II banned burials inside city walls for reasons of hygiene. Until then, graves were often layered, with older headstones being raised alongside the newer ones. Ergo the veritable forest of stones:

To me, the tumbled-down appearance sometimes looked as though the stones were comforting one another:

I overheard one of the ubiquitous tour guides telling her charges that the elaborate markers denote the rich or important (meaning: scholars), and that the very large stone flanked by these lions was someone very rich indeed:

The Jewish Community, which manages the elements of the Jewish Museum experience encourage men to wear a kippeh while in the synagogues. I give this guy credit for trying, but it's more rakish than your Orthodox or Conservative congregations would like. Maybe okay for Reform, though.

Once I finished with the Josefov, I ticked another Prague box: I rode on the trams. I truly love public transportation; as a native of Los Angeles, I find any efficient form of transit a wonder, and Prague’s trams are extra primo good. Clean, with clearly audible automated stop announcements and electronic signage telling you what stops are coming up. They’re everything Metro wishes it could be.

At some point, I’ll have to take Prague’s Metro system, but I opted for surface transportation just because.

Auto-atonement

Yom Kippur began at sundown last night and continues until dusk tonight. It’s the culmination of the Days of Awe in the Jewish calendar, and the time for a sort of moral Spring cleaning—the Day of Atonement, when you’re meant to rummage through your behavior over the previous year, acknowledge your shortcomings with respect to your fellow humans, apologize (to those they’ve trespassed against and to God) and resolve to do better.

Then—having cleared the slate, so to speak—you’re good to go for another year.

Well, the deal is that God opens the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and inscribes your name in it, but doesn’t close-and-seal it until the end of Yom Kippur. You have those ten Days of Awe to get your ducks in a row.

In recent times, people have taken to issuing blanket apologies for transgressions, presumably in the hope that anyone who’s actually suffered at their hands will happen by at the time the apology emerged, and will catch it in passing. And, of course, SoMe has amplified this impersonalization of what should be a very personal act of contrition.

I have never subscribed to the one-size-fits-all approach to giving or receiving apologies, but that’s just me. I mean—in the Roman Catholic Sacrament of Reconciliation, we’re meant to hawk up actual things we’ve done, say them out loud to the confessor and accept the penance we’re given. (Toughest priest I ever knew wouldn’t give you any generic Hail Marys or Our Fathers; no, no. If I’d been pissed off at my family, he’d tell me to go back and be specially nice to them. Killed me, he did.)

Anyhow, last week, my ex-manager emailed me to ask if we could reschedule a regular Wednesday morning meeting this week, on account of it being Yom Kippur. I said sure, adding, “May you be inscribed in the Book of Life. And your family.”

He replied, “Thank you. Please forgive me for any sins of omission or commission that I have committed, whether known to me or unknown.”

I suspect he’s being smart-assed. Pretty sure he doesn’t remember this, ah, incident, although it immediately sprang to my mind.

Jury’s still out on whether I forgive him.

Gratitude Monday: A new year

Jews around the world gathered with families and friends at sundown last night to welcome in the year 5779. Rosh Hashanah begins with the call of the shofar at a synagogue service, and continues with a meal that traditionally includes a round challah (symbolizing the circle of life) and apples dipped in honey (for a sweet year).

(I love the way food is fully integrated into religious observation. And now I know why Whole Foods was giving out samples of both plain and raisin challah. Delish.) 

It also marks the ten Days of Awe, when Jews reflect upon the past year and consider what they might have done better. The Days end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews acknowledge the wrongs of the previous year and ask forgiveness—from both the person(s) they’ve wronged and from God.

As I’ve written before, I think it’s a custom that pretty much everyone could benefit from. Most Christians pay lip service (literally) to the notion of atonement when they recite that passage of the Lord’s Prayer that goes, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” But there are a shedload of Christians who run through that whole prayer without giving it much thought. They also run through their lives the same way.

That may be true of Jews at the High Holy Days, too. But I think that taking entire days out of your life and devoting them to thoughts of enumerating your transgressions and asking forgiveness (as well as accepting others’ apologies) tends to focus the mind.

At any rate, I’m grateful for all my Jewish friends and their families, and I wish them all (whether in Herndon, Chicago or on a cruise around Cuba) L'Shanah Tovah.

Gratitude Monday: graces unasked and unlooked for

A friend of mine organizes a novena to Saint Bartholomew via Facebook each August. I’m glad to be included, because for nine days, I have to carve out—oh—five to 15 minutes to say the prayers, examine the art works accompanying the posts and contemplate the significance of that day’s devotion.

Yeah, some days, even five minutes is monumental, as you get wound up in this and that. But I do my best, even if I end up doubling up some days.

(For those unfamiliar with the novena, it’s a ritual of intercessory prayers across nine days, typically culminating on the day a particular saint is recognized in the liturgical calendar. It can be performed alone, or in the company of others. There’s an introduction, a novena prayer constant to all nine days and a prayer specific to each day. Then there are concluding prayers.)

Every year a phrase of the Saint Bart novena catches me up: “May [the saint’s] prayers obtain for us every grace and blessing we need in our lives, and we thank you for the graces you have already granted us through his intercession, especially those which have come unasked and unlooked for.” [Emphasis mine.]

Graces and blessings that come unasked and unlooked for. Huh.

How many of these surround us, filling our lives with joy and comfort? Graces and blessings we didn’t think to ask for, which surprise us every day in ways large and small? What would our lives be like without them? An unexpected call from a friend, watching a puppy squirm and wriggle in a pile of leaves, the first sip of a perfect latte, arriving safely home through urban traffic—I typically don’t think to ask for these things, and while I do try to acknowledge them when I encounter them, I don’t think I could be said to look for them.

I wonder how many of them have slipped past me in my worrisome fugue every day?

Every year this prayer reminds me that I am in fact engulfed by graces and blessings, whether I’ve asked for them or even notice them. Every year I’m stopped cold by this reminder.

But this year I was also struck by a phrase from the prayer for day nine, Saint Bartholomew’s Day: “O Glorious Saint Bartholomew, when you met Jesus you recognized him as the Son of God and the King of Israel. Pray for us that we may always recognize Jesus when we meet him.” [Emphasis mine.]

Well.

Um.

Now—this is only my interpretation, mind, and YMMV—but, I’m thinking that the Jesus we might meet these days could appear in, well, any form, really. If we limit ourselves to just humans, given how he manifested the last time—an itinerant Jew who relied on the kindness of strangers to provide him with food and shelter and did not build mega-churches, get around Galilee on the biblical equivalent of limos and private jets or exchange blessings for credit card details—it seems logical to me that 2018-Jesus might look dark-skinned as well as light; could shine through a woman’s face; may perhaps be found in a refugee camp seeking children forcibly pulled away from parents; possibly suffers from a pre-existing medical condition.

In short—we can’t rely upon the Almighty to publicize the arrival of Jesus (or even on Saint B to give us guidance in this), so we ought to be on the lookout for him or her or non-binary them…well, everywhere, really. In the supermarket, on Metro, at work (although—and this is just me being me—probably not in the boardroom or the executive suite; I could be wrong), in school, along the bike lane, out in the woods. We should be alert and receptive to him/her/them and maybe not get pissed off when they’re in the express lane with more than 15 items, or panhandling at an intersection, or wearing shabby clothes or don’t seem to be able to control their kids—which I recognize is not necessarily easy. At least, it isn’t for me.

However, by looking for Jesus everywhere, by seeking out the good and the godly and inviting these graces and blessings into our lives, I believe we can become a conduit for them to those around us; we can help bring them—unasked and unlooked for—to those around us.

And this is my grace—my gratitude—for today.

Paschal moon: the thunder from Sinai

Yom HaShoah, the annual commemoration of the millions of lives lost in the Holocaust, began at sundown yesterday. At 1000 local time, everything will come to a halt across Israel, and people will stand silent and still, remembering those deaths. It’s an astonishing thing to watch on my computer screen; I cannot imagine it in real life.

(Possibly the two minutes of silence at 1100 on 11 November every year in the UK is the closest approximation. But in the years I lived there, I never saw the kind of universal participation—traffic kept moving, people chattered—so, no.)

Today’s poem for National Poetry Month is by Maria Skobtsova, née Elizaveta Yurievna Pilenko in 1891 in Riga, then part of Russia. She embraced atheism in her youth, married for the first time at age 20 (to a Bolshevik), and got involved with pre-war literary circles. For a while—during and after the Russian Revolution, Skobtsova had quite the adventurous life, including a planned assassination of Leon Trotsky, from which she was dissuaded by friends. Following her divorce, she was drawn to the (Orthodox) Church; she married a second time (to a man named Skobtsov), divorced this husband and moved to Paris with her children. The short version of this journey is that she took religious vows (assuming the name Maria) and found her calling in social work and theological studies. Her home became a center for refugees, geographic, economic and spiritual; her doors were open to anyone in need of help.

I don’t know whether it was a residue of her early years as an atheist, but somewhat unusually for a follower of Eastern Orthodoxy (the term “pogrom” and its practice originated in tsarist Russia), Skobtsova welcomed Jews to her refuge (without expectation of needing conversion), including during the time following the German invasion and occupation of France. Her spiritual advisor, Father Dmitri Klepenin, issued baptismal certificates to Jews, and she both sheltered those who came to her and helped many escape the country.

Eventually the Nazis came for her. In 1943 she was sent to Ravensbrück, the concentration camp for women, where she was gassed on 31 March 1945, five weeks before the end of the war. In 2004, the Eastern Church declared Skobtsova a saint; in 1985, she was recognized as Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Skobtsova’s poetry covered a lot of ground, but for today I’ll give you this one.

“Israel”

Two triangles, a star,

The shield of King David, our forefather.

This is election, not offense.

The great path and not an evil.

Once more in a term fulfilled,

Once more roars the trumpet of the end;

And the fate of a great people

Once more is by the prophet proclaimed.

Thou art persecuted again, O Israel,

But what can human malice mean to thee,

who have heard the thunder from Sinai?

A new day will rise again

Today is the feast of Saint Lucy, a Sicilian martyr of the Diocletian persecutions in the Third Century. When you hear the term “Christian martyr” applied to a woman of the early years of the Church, it’s almost always a young woman whose only defense of her virginity against pagan lechers is death. And so it was for Lucy, also known as Lucia, who was burnt at the stake in Syracuse. Although she did not die until given Christian rites…

Ah, good times, eh?

Well, interestingly, Saint Lucy (whose name derives from the Latin lux, lucis; light) was taken up big time by the Nordics. Interesting, but not really surprising. For one thing, when you live in areas enshrouded by darkness for months at a time, anything relating to light is highly valued.

For another, it turns out that, in pre-Christian Scandinavia, 13 December was dedicated to Lussi, a kind of female demon, who led her followers around wreaking havoc on everyone. In the period between Lussi Night and Yule, trolls and evil spirits (possibly joined by spirits of the dead) roamed the land and committed all manner of mischief. Lussi could come down the chimney and take naughty children away.

So you can see why folks might want to wrap a saint rumored to have taken food and supplies to refugees hiding in caverns (wearing a wreath of candles on her head, so as to leave both arms free for schlepping stuff) around the Old Ones’ Lussi.

Last year I gave you a different take on Saint Lucy, so this time why don’t we go to the Far North for something more, um, kosher. There, the celebration features girls and young women wearing white nightgowns (symbolizing virgin purity) and red sashes (for the blood of martyrdom), singing appropriate songs. One of them wears a crown of lighted candles. There are also Lucia buns and other treats, which pretty much rounds it out in my estimation.

Here's a typical procession of Saint Lucy and her cohort in Sweden, singing a song that you might more readily associate with Sicily.

The lyrics are all about the fight between darkness and light, which seems apt.

Night walks with a heavy step

Round yard and hearth,

As the sun departs from earth,

Shadows are brooding.

There in our dark house,

Walking with lit candles,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

Night walks grand, yet silent,

Now hear its gentle wings,

In every room so hushed,

Whispering like wings.

Look, at our threshold stands,

White-clad with light in her hair,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!

Darkness shall take flight soon,

From earths valleys

So she speaks

Wonderful words to us:

A new day will rise again

From the rosy sky…

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia!