An adoring sister
A few critical measures in compressed language
One test of a poem (for me, at least) is based on the qualities of good vocal ministry arising in the traditional quiet worship of Quakers: incantatory language and prophetic whirlwind. Unlike “slow prose” as a kind of sermon.
In vocal ministry, how often the message comes from within our current conflict or personal struggle!
Yes, we wrestle with God.
Poems and prayers you feel in your hands more than bounce around ‘tween your ears.
Moving on?
Remarkably, it seems
what’s happened I no longer want to travel or climb the high mountains or is it just all the moves across the continent and back, my years on the road, my commute daily so stretched I’d contract into my nest and grounds for reading or revision, the places I’ve been and people I’ve known so many I want to know my own better . people come from all over the globe to see the landscape I call home
Why Wycliffe and Tyndale matter
John Wycliffe, who introduced the Bible into English back in the 14th century, shows up as a major character in the opening novella in my book, The Secret Side of Jaya, only he’s taking refuge out on the American prairie.
And a century-and-a-half later, William Tyndale picked up the mission in England, though he didn’t move on to my fiction.
Could they be the most important translators in history? Apart, maybe, from Martin Luther, who could be the basis of his own Tendril, one with 95 points rather than ten, and his German rather than English?
Here, then, we go.
- Wycliffe (1328-1384) was a dissident priest highly critical of the Papacy and much of Catholic teaching and practice. With his emphasis on scriptural authority, he is now seen as an important predecessor to Protestantism.
- He translated at least all four gospels and perhaps the entire New Testament from the Latin Vulgate into Middle English, while associates translated the Old Testament into what became known as Wycliffe’s Bible.
- His followers, known as Lollards, were a major underground radical movement leading up to the Protestant Reformation, despite being highly persecuted.
- His writings in Latin highly influenced Czech reformer Jan Hus, whose execution in 1415 sparked the bloody Hussite Wars.
- Wycliffe was declared a heretic and his books, burned. His corpse was later exhumed and burned, and the ashes, thrown in a river.
- About 150 manuscript copies, in part or complete, survive.
- William Tyndale (1494-1536) was a scholar influenced by Erasmus and Martin Luther.
- In translating the Bible, he drew directly on Hebrew and Greek texts. He was the first to rely on them in translating to English, and his was the first English translation to make use of the printing press. He introduced the word Jehovah in English.
- Many consider him the father of modern English, more than Shakespeare a generation later. His translations were widely plagiarized by others, including the committee of scholars who composed their authorized version for King James, where perhaps 83 percent of the New Testament and 76 percent of the Old Testament are lifted from Tyndale. The Bible was certainly much more widely heard and read throughout Britain than was the Bard.
- He was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake in Belgium after his criticism of King Henry VIII in divorce matters only aggravated the situation.
~*~
There we go, politics AND religion. In this case, both of a radical nature.
Peel, 1962
Among the fine vines … of Indiana
In early drafts of my novel What’s Left, I considered going into detail on her uncle Dimitri’s practice of micro-lending and startup investing. Here at home we discussed including a whole list of failures and successes — or reasons applications were approved or rejected. Just think of all the once bright options that soon failed, as well as the ones that have since gone mainstream.
One proposal that didn’t survive my second-thoughts was this:
Thus, when friends decide to launch a local winery, we support them.
At the time I first noted this, 45 or so years ago, a local winery would have been cutting edge. Now there seem to be wineries everywhere, and their output can be widely uneven and often overpriced.
~*~
My experience as a home brewer, making more than 2,500 bottles of beer, was fascinating. We relied on kits from a local aficionado and never had a bum batch. But we still haven’t tried making our own wine.
Gardening, of course, is another matter. As is composting.
Do you raise any of your own food? Make your own bread or yogurt? How about jams or jellies or artisanal vinegars? Any other hands-on touches?
~*~
In time for Chinese New Year
In past years, we’ve had Chinese college students stay with us during their term breaks. They were in Dover and nearby communities to work volunteer internships, usually a month long, and the New Hampshire Children’s Museum was a popular choice.
They would often bring a gift, typically fine green tea, but this one initially perplexed me until it was pointed out that it’s a holding cup for things like pens and pencils and is inscribed with four popular poems.
Cynthia later transcribed them, with translations in English.
She had no idea I am a poet, or that her gift would be so appropriate.
With the Chinese New Year on Friday, we’ll be thinking of her and the others who have brightened our household.
Here’s what she wrote out:
I’ve engaged much of our world from a daily newspaper perspective
Let me express my own everlasting gratitude for Glenn Thompson and his eye for talent, in my case after my letter to the editor and then his offer of an internship, later followed by a full summer. In a seemingly casual interview, he urged me to keep a personal journal, which I actually have. And then came the job offer. Without him (and so many others), my life would have taken a different direction. Gee, indirectly he even led to my first lover. (Look for Mitch in Daffodil Uprising, who’d been a copy boy I met thanks to Glenn’s support. Mitch was the catalyst to the crucial introduction. That dimension, in itself, could be a novel.)
Glenn was the editor-in-chief of the morning newspaper in Dayton, Ohio, and in his own way, a visionary. Behind the scenes, he even brought together the first university I attended, Wright State. And also, through him, I became a professional journalist, even while still in college. Another long story.
And he asked questions no one had prodded me with before. How would I change the world? What issues could I raise and address? At first, I was speechless. We were so green, and within a year, everything would look different. The biggest item on the agenda was the Establishment, not even its war in ‘Nam. Civil rights issues were a distant second.
The next summer I was a hundred miles up the road from Woodstock, working for a publisher who totally ignored me and editors who kept their heads down. But a new direction was taking shape for me.
Alas, as I’m also seeing, mine are steps youth today cannot follow. The pathways simply no longer exist, to the larger society’s impoverishment.
As I describe in my novel Hometown News, American journalism has long been based on a precarious business model. News itself is a byproduct of trying to attract customers for advertisers, and many publishers considered news gathering mostly as a costly nuisance. Successful newspapers were defined mostly by their obscene profits, and the pay levels for reporters and editors were often at the bottom of pay scales for professionals. As a priest reminded me before my first marriage, we might as well have been bound by vows of poverty. Oh, yes, and some of the highest quality papers – the kind I aspired to – were fighting for their very survival. We can now add to the toll of the role of the Internet.
So it’s all in flux now.
Still, newspapers show up in the majority of my novels, though in Nearly Canaan the field turned from journalism into non-profit organizations where the long, odd hours, public service, and stress nevertheless remained.
As I look back on my own years of being on the management track in a shrinking business, I see how I started out a hot-shot who thought the New York Herald Tribune in its last years was the best newspaper ever – led by an editor who later admitted in a letter to me he seemed to have become a specialist in trying to recover dying papers. Even then, I would have loved to have worked for him.
Despite my own honors, I had some crucial near misses. For one, I wound up in the final 24 for a dozen summer internships at the Washington Post but failed to make the final cut. The next summer, the Wall Street Journal was laying off staff rather than hiring, so their interest evaporated. Ten years later, something similar happened with timing for a high-level spot at the Detroit Free Press. And so my career veered away from the big cities where I had dreamed of living and from the big time, maybe for the best for me personally and ultimately professionally.
Somehow, this also has me thinking back to the lost hippie wannabes at the corner of Third and Main in Dayton during the summer of ’68. Theirs was a story I had hoped to write, but I couldn’t ask the right questions, I was too green myself. But, more honestly, maybe I just wasn’t cold-hearted enough to cut through to the real hurt and relate it without concern for the consequences.
How about some remarkable couples?
Sometimes the sum is greater than the parts. Helps when each of the parts is already sterling.
Here are ten examples.
~*~
- My best friend’s parents: Hap and Pauline. Among other things, they nurtured my love of classical music.
- Our drip-line neighbors: Tim and Maggie. Warm, welcoming, generous, helpful, social justice activists, great parents. The list could go on.
- Political science mentors: Vincent and Elinor. They taught me how to read analytically and how to dissect public policy proposals. As professors, they never used textbooks but relied on real books, like the Federalist Papers or Democracy in America. Their goal was to train independent scholars and fellow practitioners.
- My ex in-laws: Sam and Jeanice. Losing them was the hardest part of the divorce.
- Can you identify them in the novel? Phyllis and Ivar.
- Memorable ministers: Myrtle and Howard at Winona Friends Meeting. She had the entire Bible memorized. And the dynamics were multiplied when they were joined by their best friends and neighbors, Rose and Harold.
- Faithful Mennonites: Bob and Ruby. I learned to sing harmony through Bob, who was also a beloved physics teacher and an avid Orioles fan. Ruby had taught in a one-room schoolhouse before moving on to the big city of Baltimore. She packed the most amazing dinners in her small tote bag, which she shared with all of us at the ballgames.
- Fellow Quakers: Jeremiah and Beth. Now that they’ve moved to Dover, we’re getting to know them even better. Lucky us.
- An ex-girlfriend’s parents: Gene and Doris. They welcomed me to a whole new world and were surprisingly liberal when it came to their daughter. Guess they really liked me.
- Cornerstones of the Meeting: Silas and Connie. Wish I could show you the video. And then, just up the road at Gonic, we had Shirley and Eddie.
~*~
Who would you nominate from your own circles?
Jnana's Red Barn 