A seminarian-turned-teacher-turned-farmer friend writes about “Farmer What-a-Waste” in an essay about why he moved to the rural life. “The main reason, put simply, is the search for contemplatio. It’s not that contemplation is impossible in other ways of life and other professions. But I am convinced that living close to the land and elemental things—the raw, inexorable life-force of plants and animals; the life-giving richness of the soil; the harsh embrace of brisk ridgetop air—is especially conducive to thinking deeply about the ends of things more broadly. What are things for? What are we for?”
In addition to religious art, Daniel Mitsui is prolific in the designing of bookplates. “I suppose the most difficult bookplates for me to draw are those that require me to adopt a style or subject totally different from what I normally draw. One reason I like bookplate commissions so much is that they require me, on occasion, to stretch myself creatively.”
What are the connections between Appalachian dialects and older English language traditions? “While our high-browed relatives who moved to the big city and lost their accent may frown upon our words and pronunciations, it is believed that the Appalachian dialect is a remnant of Elizabethan English. An evidence of this is the use of words such as ‘afeared’, a Shakespearean word that is largely forgotten by most English speakers outside of the Appalachian region.”
Don’t forget that today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Refresh your doctrinal knowledge with P. Pius IX’s Ineffabilis Deus. “And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son—the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart—and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds.”
