"Like one powerless and defenseless against Love's control, the knight of the cart fell into such thoughts that he lost thought of himself. He did not know if he was alive or dead, did not remember his own name, did not know whether he was armed or not, did not know where he was going or whence he was coming. He remembered nothing but one person, and for her he put everyone else out of his mind. He thought so much about her alone that he heard, saw, understood nothing." -- Chretien de Troyes, The Knight of the Cart

For My Friend

Why did we become friends?
Why were we immediately drawn to each other?
Was it because you'd never known a father's love
and attention?
And because I lacked everything feminine?

Or was it just because you were wearing that straw hat
and that pretty summer dress
And I was standing in the courtyard, alone in a crowd
holding a scotch and soda in one hand
and a gin and tonic in the other?

I told you that you looked 'vintage'
and you told me that there was something sexy
about a hard-drinking sort of old-fashioned man

Whatever it was, it was one of the best things I ever did
We could have been lovers
But instead we became friends

I was jealous, one time
because you had a crush on someone else
because you were paying attention to someone else
But it passed, and I saw that that was not who we were

When everyone else turned on me
You were still there
And when everyone else turned on me again
You were still there

And all these years later, you are still here

When I'm feeling lost, and down,
and like there's no one in the world who loves me
who gets me
who thinks well of me
I can write to you, and you'll be there
When you're at the end of your tether
and feel like you can't endure another second on this earth
You call me, and know that I will understand

And so, this is to say Thank You
and that I Love You
my dear, sweet, special friend

A Christmas Poem for You

I think I know now,
why I think of you at Christmas
Why, to me, Christmas means you

Christmas is
the most beautiful time of the year
And to me,
you are the most beautiful of women
To me, looking at your face
is like looking at a Christmas tree;
shining, sparkling, glowing, enchanting

Christmas means
a home full of love
the lights of tree and candles
the warmth of the fire
the glow of food and wine
the joy of giving and receiving
the peace of belonging
And those are all the same things
that you make me feel

At Christmas
there is that indefinable spirit in the air
That sense of hope, of excitement, of expectation
Of goodness, love, and deep and lasting joy
And those are the things I feel
when I think of you
when I am around you
when I just remember that you are in the world

Christmas is all these things;
sublimely beautiful, profoundly joyful
because at Christmas, we savor the sweet presence of Christ

And you are all these things to me
because in you, I also taste His presence
In loving you, I abide in His love

I received these pictures this morning, from one of the outreaches I sponsor in India. They are celebrating my birthday (which I am not, although that cake looks delicious enough to make me re-think it). I found it touching and sweet (and humbling), so I thought you might enjoy them too.

It makes me unspeakably happy that these hungry children are eating, and eating my birthday cake. Since I was a child, when my mother used to say "Eat, there are starving children in...", I have often wished that I could send what I was eating just then to those starving children. This is like that actually happened.

He could not look at her enough; the more he gazed at her, the more she pleased him...looking at her restored and delighted him."

-- Chretien de Troyes, Erec et Enide

"The maiden was very beautiful, for Nature in making her had turned all her attentions to the task. Nature herself had marveled more than five hundred times at how she had been able to make such a beautiful thing just once, for since then, strive as she might, she had never been able to duplicate in any way her original model. Nature bears witness to this: never was such a beautiful creature seen in the whole world. In truth I tell you that Isolde the Blonde had not such shining golden hair, for compared to this maiden she was nothing. Her face and forehead were fairer and brighter than the lily-flower; contrasting marvelously with the whiteness, her face was illuminated by a fresh, glowing color that Nature had given her. Her eyes glowed with such brightness that they resembled two stars; never had God made finer nose, mouth, nor eyes. What should I say of her beauty? She was truly one who was made to be looked at, for one might gaze at her just as one gazes into a glass."

"Indeed  though beautiful  her good sense is worth even more than her beauty. God never made such a wise creature, nor one so noble in spirit."

"When I have (her) near me, I would not give a marble for the whole world: she is my delight, she is my diversion, she is my solace and my comfort, she is my wealth and my treasure. I love nothing else as much as her."

 -- Chretien de Troyes, Erec and Enide

"Loneliness was the first thing that God's eye named not good."

 - Milton

"I’d like to be with a woman, I can’t live without love, without a woman. I wouldn’t care a fig for life if there wasn’t something infinite, something deep, something real."

ibid

"For my part, I still continually have the most impossible and highly unsuitable love affairs from which, as a rule, I emerge only with shame and disgrace."

-- Vincent van Gogh

Come Again, Sweet Love

"You Cannot Barre Love Oute" by Arthur Hughes

Come again! 

Sweet love doth now invite

Thy graces that refrain

To do me due delight,

To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die,

With thee again in sweetest sympathy.

Come again! 

That I may cease to mourn

Through thy unkind disdain;

For now left and forlorn

I sit, I sigh, I weep, I faint, I die

In deadly pain and endless misery.

All the day 

The sun that lends me shine

By frowns do cause me pine

And feeds me with delay;

Her smiles, my springs that makes my joys to grow,

Her frowns the Winters of my woe.

All the night 

My sleeps are full of dreams,

My eyes are full of streams.

My heart takes no delight

To see the fruits and joys that some do find

And mark the storms are me assign'd.

Out alas, 

My faith is ever true,

Yet will she never rue

Nor yield me any grace;

Her eyes of fire, her heart of flint is made,

Whom tears nor truth may once invade.

Gentle Love, 

Draw forth thy wounding dart,

Thou canst not pierce her heart;

For I, that do approve

By sighs and tears more hot than are thy shafts

Did tempt while she for triumph laughs.

-- John Dowland

John Dowland--Now, O Now

Rediscovering Ancient Greek Music

This is very interesting. If you find this sort of thing interesting. I love the piece on the "Louvre" aulos. Reminds me of sitting in Mr. Tumnus's house by the fire.

Patricia JANEČKOVÁ: "Les oiseaux dans la charmille" (Jacques Offenbach -...

This is...wow. I thought it was going to be cute, until she opened her mouth and started singing, whereupon my jaw dropped. I've never heard a soprano with such power and precision--and most stunning of all, her voice has that quality that so many sopranos lack--beauty. Even at the highest notes, where so many of them sound like they're just screaming.

I would love to hear her and Anna Netrebko sing the Sull'aria. Perfection.

This has just joined my list of all-time favorite scenes. Something I've often fantasized about getting the opportunity to do.

Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person - Alain de Botton

This is quite good. I don't agree with everything he says, particularly I think that it is possible to find the right one, with the proper Guidance.

You may wonder, given my seemingly romantic tendencies, that I like and (mostly) agree with this. But I'm not actually a "romantic" in the sense in which most moderns mean it. That is, I don't believe in "follow your feelings," or in wishy-washy emotionalism in making decisions about love (or in any area). I guess I'm what you might call a romantic realist: I believe that there is such a thing as True Love, but that we have to get there through a path of wisdom, discipline, sacrifice, knowledge of ourselves and the other, moral virtue, commitment, hard work, and all the other things that the pragmatists advocate. In other words, I believe that the pragmatists and the romantics are both right and wrong: that each only has half (or in some cases, less) of the picture.

To put it metaphorically, emotions are like flowing water. What we want in flowing water is for it to be a nice, clear, cool, sparkling, fresh stream; and for that, we need solid banks or a channel for the water to flow through. Without banks, a river becomes a swamp: this is the mistake of the pure romantic. But the mistake of the pure pragmatist is to build a dam, and try and stop the flow altogether; this, of course, is eventually going to result in disaster. Not only does the water in the resultant lake become muddy and stagnant, but eventually it will either overflow or burst the dam.

All this is especially true in the case of the most powerful emotion, love, and applies to making our choice of partner, as well as all the choices we make throughout the relationship. Just because we feel an emotional connection with someone, doesn't mean that's the person we should marry. But neither should we marry based solely on how the other person "looks on paper," and stifle and dismiss the emotional element altogether. We've got to use both our hearts and our heads. Similarly, divorcing because you "fell out of love" with someone is foolishness, but so is divorcing because your partner isn't living up to your ambitions and expectations.

I heard once, in a movie, the line; "There's always a moment, when you have a choice: 'Do I give in to this or not?'" And I wholeheartedly agree. I, obviously, believe in and am capable of immensely deep and profoundly passionate love. But it only comes after I have allowed myself to experience it, because I have become convinced that it is appropriate and right, or at least possible and permissible. So if, for example, I met a married woman with whom I shared a very real emotional and intellectual connection, and even a physical attraction, I would not consider that real love, and would never allow myself to fall in love with her (nor to act on the attraction in any way), because it would not be appropriate and possible. I might form a friendship with her, if it were feasible, and any other feelings I had, I would regard as just feelings, and they would fade over time.

This may sound like I am pontificating and don't know what I'm talking about--"it's easy to say these things, but have you tried living them?" Well  yes, I have. When I met again the woman for whom I'd carried a flame for 27 years and was convinced I should have married, I hoped I might have a second chance. But when I found out she was married, I put that to rest forever, and finally was able to move on.

Or, to put it all another way, I believe that genuine True Love is metaphysical love; the Love of God, given as a gift for us humans to share between us and in Him. And this can only be achieved within the context of His order.

Anyway, this is quite a good little talk about love from a psychological and philosophical viewpoint. I especially like when he talks about the courage of openness and vulnerability, and how real love is the choice to see the good in the beloved, even in their flaws. Reminiscent of 1 Cor 13: "Love suffers long and is kind. Love envies not, boasts not, is not proud; is not arrogant or rude. It does not dishonor, is not self-seeking; is not easily provoked, and thinks no evil. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. Love believes all things, bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things." That, and the fact that he closes with Kierkegaard, might explain why he and I agree.

Vivaldi Gloria at La Pieta, Venice

This is pure beauty. And they seem to have (with one notable exception) selected the most beautiful women: women with true, pure, natural beauty. 

The Greatness of Bach and the Glory of the Lord

Enough has been said about Bach's genius, and I can add nothing to it. I am no musicologist, nor even an especially knowledgeable amateur. But I was thinking this morning about the universality and transcendence of it, and of the other great works of Christendom. There is good art in many cultures, that speaks to the heart and moves the soul. But there is that something in these works that touches the universal, the infinite, the transcendent, the sublime, that nothing else can match. It is this which gives the works of artists like Bach, Handel, Dante, Shakespeare, Raphael, Donatello, Donne, Hugo, and Tolstoy that aetherial power which moves the human spirit and not just the soul. It is Truth, and not just human truth, but Divine Truth.

Listening to this, the opening of St. John's Passion, is like gazing, with Dante and Beatrice, from the Crystalline Sphere into the High Empyrean. Listen to the music, look deep into this image by Gustav Dore (but don't just see a monochromatic image: bring the glorious pictures of the heavens you've seen from the Hubble telescope to mind, to bring it to life in your mind's eye), and recall the opening words of St. John's Gospel: 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

Soli Deo gloria

"When someone in need tries to push you away, you have to find the strength to hold on tighter."

-- Unknown

Vieni, vieni in questo seno