Mr. Fezziwig's Ball

“He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ‘em up: what then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”

-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

A World Without Shakespeare?!

And what, in God's name, is all this pother about?

...Suppose Shakespeare had been knocked on the head some dark night in Sir Thomas Lucy's preserves, the world would have wagged on better or worse, the pitcher gone to the well, the scythe to the corn, and the student to his book; and no one been any the wiser of the loss. There are not many works extant, if you look the alternative all over, which are worth the price of a pound of tobacco to a man of limited means. This is a sobering reflection for the proudest of our earthly vanities. Even a tobacconist may, upon consideration, find no great cause for personal vainglory in the phrase; for although tobacco is an admirable sedative, the qualities necessary for retailing it are neither rare nor precious in themselves. Alas and alas! you may take it how you will, but the services of no single individual are indispensable.

-Robert Louis Stevenson, An Apology for Idlers, 12.

In Praise of Idleness

Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.

- Robert Louis Stevenson, An Apology for Idlers, 7.

Bean Counters

History may dwell on stories of heroism and drama, but there are ultimately few of us out on the high seas, and many of us in the harbour, counting the ropes and untangling the anchor chains.

-Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, 241.

Rose Standish Does the Laundry

"Ho Rose!" quoth the stout Miles Standish,
As he stood on the Mayflower's deck,
And gazed on the sandy coast-line
That loomed as a misty speck.

"On the edge of the distant offing;
See! yonder we have in view
Bartholomew Gosnold's 'headlands.'
'Twas in sixteen hundred and two

"That the Concord of Dartmouth anchored
Just there where the beach is broad
And the merry old captain named it
(Half swamped by the fish)--Cape Cod.

"And so as his mighty 'headlands'
Are scarcely a league away,
What say you to landing, sweetheart,
And having a washing-day?"

"Dear heart"--and the sweet Rose Standish
Looked up with a tear in her eye;
She was back in the flag-stoned kitchen
Where she watched, in the days gone by;

Her mother among her maidens
(She should watch them no more, alas!),
And saw as they stretched the linen
To bleach on the Suffolk grass.

In a moment her brow was cloudless,
As she leaned on the vessel's rail,
And thought of the sea-stained garments,
Of coif and farthingale;

And doublets of fine Welsh flannel,
The tuckers and homespun gowns,
And piles of the hose knitted
From wool of the Devon downs.

So the matrons aboard the Mayflower
Made ready with eager hand
To drop from the decks their baskets
As soon as the prow touched land.

And there did the Pilgrim Mothers,
"On a Monday," the record says,
Ordain for their new-found England
The first of her washing-days.

And there did the Pilgrim Fathers,
With matchlock and axe well slung,
Keep guard o'er the smoking kettles
That propt on the crotches hung.

For the trail of the startle savage
Was over the marshy grass,
And the glint of his eyes kept peering
Through cedar and sassafras.

And the children were mad with pleasure
As they gathered the twigs in sheaves
And piled on the fire the branches
And heaped up the autumn leaves.

"Do the thing that is next," saith the proverb,
And a nobler shall yet succeed:
'Tis the motive exalts the action;
'Tis the doing, and not the deed;

For the earliest act of the heroes
Whose fame has a world-wide sway
Was to fashion a crane for a kettle
And order a washing day!

-Margaret Preston, "The First Proclamation"

***

It was my great honor to read this poem at our 4th of July festivities. My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of laundry!"

Tidiness

Rum idea this is, that tidiness is a timid, quiet sort of thing; why tidiness is a toil for giants. You can't tidy anything without untidying yourself; just look at my trousers.

-G. K. Chesterton, Manalive, 42.

Whether Thou Readest or Writest

Whether thou readest or writest, whether thou watchest or sleepest, let the voice of love [to Christ] sound in thine ears; let this trumpet stir up thy soul: being overpowered with this love, seek Him on thy bed whom thy soul desireth and longeth for.

-Saint Jerome, quoted by my brother on my answering machine

Edification/Demolition

Every time you meet another human being you have the opportunity. It’s a chance at holiness. For you will do one of two things, then. Either you will build him up, or you will tear him down. Either you will acknowledge that he is, or you will make him sorry that he is—sorry, at least, that he is there, in front of you. You will create, or you will destroy. And the things you dignify or deny are God’s own property. They are made, each one of them, in his own image.

There are no useless, minor meetings. There are no dead-end jobs. There are no pointless lives. Swallow your sorrows, forget your grievances, and all the hurt your poor life has sustained. Turn your face truly to the human before you and let her, for one pure moment, shine. Think her important, and then she will suspect that she is fashioned of God.

How do you say Hello? Or do you say Hello?

How do you greet the strangers? Or do you greet them?

Are you so proud as to burden your customer, your client, your neighbor, your child with your tribulation? Even by attitude? Even by crabbiness, anger, or gloom?

Demolition!

Or do you look them in the eye and grant them peace?

-Walter Wangerin, Ragman, and Other Cries of Faith, 129-130.

Sometimes by Step

Sometimes the night was beautiful
Sometimes the sky was so far away
Sometimes it seemed to stoop so close
You could touch it but your heart would break
Sometimes the morning came too soon
Sometimes the day could be so hot
There was so much work left to do
But so much you'd already done

Sometimes I think of Abraham
How one star he saw had been lit for me
He was a stranger in this land
And I am that, no less than he
And on this road to righteousness
Sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond your reach

Oh God, you are my God
And I will ever praise you
I will seek you in the morning
And I will learn to walk in your ways
And step by step you'll lead me
And I will follow you all of my days

-Rich Mullins and Beaker

Vocation

In nothing has Church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.

-Dorothy Sayers, Why Work?

Work

Most of the world's work is done by people who are not feeling very well.

-Winston Churchill (?)

Ministry

It is a crazy and foolish business to work for Christ in a world where most people most of the time don't give a hoot in hell whether you work for him or not. It is crazy and foolish to offer a service that most people most of the time think they need like a hole in the head. As long as there are bones to set and drains to unclog and children to tame and boredom to survive, we need doctors and plumbers and teachers and people who play the musical saw; but when it comes to the business of Christ and his church, how unreal and irrelevant a service that seems even, and at times especially, to the ones who are called to work at it.

-Frederick Buechner, "The Road Goes On," A Room Called Remember, 142.

Advice to Writers

Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.

Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.

The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
upper branches, nests full of eggs.

When you find your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.

From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.

-Billy Collins, Sailing Alone Around the Room

Mission

God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.

I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place while not intending it—if I do but keep His Commandments.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me—still He knows what He is about.

-John Henry Cardinal Newman

Superfluous Women

"Miss Climpson," said Lord Peter, "is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers' money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policemen like you. My god! it's enough to make a man write to John Bull. And then bright young men write nasty little patronising books called 'Elderly Women,' and 'On the Edge of the Explosion'—and the drunkards make songs upon 'em, poor things.

"...Just think. People want questions asked. Whom do they send? A man with large flat feet and a notebook—the sort of man whose private life is conducted in a series of inarticulate grunts. I send a lady with a long, woolly jumper on knitting-needles and jingly things round her neck. Of course she asks questions—everyone expects it. Nobody is surprised. Nobody is alarmed. And so called superfluity is agreeably and usefully disposed of. One of these days you will put up a statue to me, with an inscription:

"'To the Man who Made
Thousands of Superfluous Women
Happy
without Injury to their Modesty
or Exertion to Himself.'"

-Dorothy Sayers, Unnatural Death, 25-26.

Morning Prayer

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being; We, thy needy creatures, render thee our humble praises, for thy preservation of us from the beginning of our lives to this day, and especially for having delivered us from the dangers of the past night...

AND since it is of thy mercy, O gracious Father, that another day is added to our lives; We here dedicate both our souls and our bodies to thee and thy service, in a sober, righteous, and godly life: in which resolution, do thou, O merciful God, confirm and strengthen us; that, as we grow in age, we may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

-The Book of Common Prayer, 1892 Edition

Sonnet on His Blindness

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent, which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He, returning, chide:
“Doth God exact day labor, light denied?”
I fondly ask; but Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

-John Milton

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell; the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

-Gerard Manly Hopkins

Calling

If a man is called to be a street-sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, "Here lived a great street-sweeper who did his job well."

-George Smith Patton