aesc | awww, awww!

I've been walking a fine line between despair at the world, worry for myself, and still being able to get out of bed in the morning, but I would just like to say a couple things:

1.) Thank you so very very kindly to the anonymous person who gave me a whole year of paid LJ time! ♥♥♥!! I don't know who you are (obviously, because you are anonymous), but I pet you on the head!

2.)

villainny's request for poetry reminded me of this, as did a photo on Cute Overload. (Although what follows the cut is more sublimely lovely than cute.) I wish this was how my middle school had taught religion, as something simple and personal instead of a thing where all you fear more than anyone who's different is the possibility of going to hell because you got it wrong.

When I must come to you, My Lord, let it be on a day in spring when the dust shines in the sun. I would like to choose my own way, as I did on earth, to go to Paradise, where the stars shine by day.

I shall take up my staff and set out on the great road and I shall say to the donkeys, my friends--I am Francis Jammes and I am going to Paradise, because there is no hell in the land of the Good Lord.

I will say to them, come, dear friends of heaven, poor dear creatures who with a brisk movement brush away the dull flies, and blows, and stings...

Let me come to you, Lord, in the midst of these creatures that I love so much, because they lower their heads gently, and stop: putting their little feet together in a sweet way, which makes you pity them.

I shall arrive followed by thousands of ears; followed by some with crows on their backs, some who drag carts of acrobats or carriages with white feathers and silver, some with barrels hunched on their sides, by she-asses full as a leather bottle, with broken steps; by some with little trousers because of the seeping wounds made by the stubborn flies that crowd around.

Lord, let it be that I come to you with these asses. Let angels lead us in peace to wooded streams where cherries tremble, smooth as the joyful flesh of young girls, and may I, leaning over your heavenly waters in this dwelling place of souls, be like the donkeys, whose humble and sweet poverty reflects the clarity of eternal love.

I just... I love the language of it, those precise details--the sun on the dust, the donkeys' small feet placed close together, the hope. The most recent news about preachers endorsing various presidential candidates from the pulpit has gotten my back up, and brought to mind how one of the worst things that happened to Christianity was that it got involved in politics.

It should have, I think, stayed with the donkeys.

(BTW, the prose translation is from Terry Darlington's Narrow Dog to Carcassonne,which is one of my VERY FAVORITE BOOKS EVER.)

In other news:

sga_santa and

sga_art_santa are open for sign-ups! I don't yet know how my fall and winter will shape up in terms of mind-breaking stress and horror, but I will probably make time for one of them ♥

Also, am going to catch up with SPN tonight. Hurrah!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It should have, I think, stayed with the donkeys.

Yes! Oh, I adore that poem! As you said, it has such precision of language and details, and it is so soft and lovely and sunshiny. I want to wander along with those donkeys.

And I am totally going to check that book out. :)

It's really so lovely! I have it copied out in my little commonplace book.

And you might like Narrow Dog. Terry Darlington spent most of his life as an executive before he retired and started writing... I wish he'd done it the other way around, because I love his style :)

Narrow Dog sounds delightfully intriguing, but I couldn't find it anywhere local! So I've put in an ILL request to my University library. I love having that ability to request random things from further afield. :D

There are actually two Narrow Dogs now :D Narrow Dog to Carcassonne and Narrow Dog to Indian River. The former has been released domestically (although the first time I read it was several years ago, when my dad brought it back from the UK), and I actually ordered the latter from a US bookstore that specializes in imports because I was not going to wait for the stupid slow US publisher to decide to release it :D

(Both are awesome. Seriously, I love them!)

Thank you so much for posting that poem. I've never read it before, but it's truly moving. What wonderful imagines. Thank you again.

You're welcome! I just love it :)

Donkeys! How lovely! A lot of people on my flist (hell, me too, actually) have been having more of those 'worry-worms in the belly' days and I suppose the main thing is to believe in our own resilience. The process of living is sometimes daunting and it seems unfair that those of us given to introspection often feel like we're chipping away at our own foundations when we stop to really look at what's going on in the world. Still every day carries the possibility of something random or zany or wonderful and I feel like it's up to us to get out of bed and see that, even if getting out of bed takes longer on some days. XD

This morning was especially difficult... I'd been up late and it really was rather cold in my room, and ohhhh how I just wanted to burrow under my quilts and let my students fend for themselves :D

*hug*

*huggles you up!*

awww, awww!

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