Friday Links
The Annunciation Henry Osawa Tanner
March 24, 2023
“Mid-Lent” by Tamara Nicholl-Smith in Ekstasis
Can Beauty Save The World? An evening conversation with Makoto Fujimura and Dana Gioia
The Spirituality of Sacristans: What this often overlooked role has to teach the church by Terence Sweeney
Only Murders in the Cathedral: Ben Myers reviews J.C. Scharl’s Sonnez Les Matines
The Unoriginal Augustine: Jessica Hooton Wilson in Church Life Journal
"Mid-Lent" by Tamara Nicholl-Smith
Here’s a lovely poem in the always gorgeous Ekstasis by Tamara Nicholl-Smith. Her words will see you through the last days of Lent.
Can Beauty Save The world? An evening conversation with Makoto Fujimura and Dana Gioia
If you’re in the Nashville area on April 5th, you have the good fortune of being able to attend the wonderful Trinity Forum’s evening conversation between Dana Gioia and Makoto Fujimura. More information can be found at the above link.
The spirituality of sacristans: What this often overlooked role has to teach the church by Terence Sweeney
“Love is as much shown in small acts of care and attention as it is in big words and bold deeds. A sacristan’s task is to attend to those small acts of care in a world and church that are too often inattentive and careless.” In his reflections on his role as a sacristan, Terence Sweeney reminds us all of the importance of the ordinary, often unnoticed things we do. When I was a nurse, patients were often most grateful for the meal things, having their faces washed or their teeth brushed, a back rub, or a few extra minutes listening to a story. The big, complicated, technical things might be necessary—providing care, as the policy manual calls it—but they should not, though they often do, come at the expense of smaller things. Providing care is not the same thing as caring. Sweeney’s essay is a good reminder of this.
Only Murders in the Cathedral: Ben Myers reviews J.C. Scharl’s Sonnez Les Matines
Ben Myers has an excellent close read of J.C. Scharl’s new verse play, Sonnez Les Matines, in Fare Forward. Insightful, generous, and attentive, this review hits all the important points, especially the theme of embodiment. Myers also notes one of the plays main attributes—joy—and observes how Sonnez Les Matines is “experimental” in the best sense. (Extra points to Myers for the perfectly irresistible title.)
“Scharl’s book is… a true experiment, work that seems to be born out of curiosity, out of the spirit that says, “I wonder what would happen if….” This is the kind of ambition, not mere careerism, that produces worthwhile art. Sonnez Les Matines takes up serious matters, but it also fairly sings with the joy of experiment, of trying things out.”
The Unoriginal Augustine: Jessica Hooton Wilson in Church Life Journal
I just finished reading The Confessions for a class so this older essay caught my eye. It originally ran as an Advent essay, but Jessica Hooton Wilson’s observations absolutely apply to the Lenten Season.
What could more strongly confront our unhealthy desire for exaltation than remembering that God descended from his throne in heaven where he was surrounded by angels singing of his glory to the confined flesh of a wailing infant, neglected by the city, born in a stable, surrounded by vacant-eyed animals?
