VeronicaMary's Xanga

Because I'm back at work...

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 20:40:59 GMT

And because it feels a little like this...

A little Monty Python to go with your champagne.
Happy New Year's everyone.

Merry Christmas, Friends...

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 08:51:31 GMT

"Eternity enters into time, and time, sanctified, is caught up into eternity."
- Thomas Merton

I hope you enjoy your moments this Christmas day.
Best wishes,

Veronica

Acedia: the absence of caring

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 00:03:35 GMT

I was at a book launch the other week, listening to Kathleen Norris speak on the lost meaning of Advent. She centered her talk around a long-forgotten word the desert fathers used: acedia. The word literally means "the absence of caring." Norris said the concept was originally one of the seven deadly sins, but became subsumed under the more one-dimensional word "sloth."

Acedia seems to articulate a very contemporary malady. And it is difficult to reduce to a simple "thou shalt not."

Fourth-century monks called it "the noon-day demon." It reared its ugly head in the physical and spiritual torpor brought on by long hot mid-day hours in the desert. An ancient writer explained that the noonday demon “stirs the monk also to long for different places in which he can find easily what is necessary for his life and can carry on a much less toilsome and more expedient profession." It's described as a heavy dullness of the soul that robs an individual of spiritual and physical energy. Though we think of sloth as immobility, acedia is more often related to a restlessness. It was the temptation of the monk to stop caring, to escape, to cease effort in the present and seek false solace elsewhere.

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Social relevance

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 05:00:32 GMT

So tonight Eagleton defined a "pressing historic problem" for me, one that has been keeping me up at nights lately (or just about): " . . . the problem of the intellectual's relation to 'common humanity,' the relation between a tolerant intellectual skepticism and more taxing convictions, and the social relevance of a professionalized criticism to a crisis-ridden society."

Apparently this was of keen interest to lit theorists in the 20's and 30's. And to a rather common English major deciding on a thesis in October of 2007.

What do you think? Is it relevant? Important? If one could choose between raising money for a good cause and dissecting the meaning of "semiotics" in Julia Kristeva's criticism, is one more worthy than the other?

I used to have a long line of thought that led me to believe both were equal, but I've lost the end.

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Posting again...

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 05:10:06 GMT

Of nights, solitude and warmth...
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Neice and the north...

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:38:03 GMT

I'm away for thanksgiving seeing a tiny special someone...
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And someone pointed out that I had the comments set to blogspot-only users. They're now open to all. :)

New posting...

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 01:14:00 GMT

I'm turning my stubborn xanga into a posting board for my new blog, though I still will lurk as much as ever on all your lovely pages. Hope you don't mind following a link!

Today, it's thoughts on how to spend an autumn afternoon and Merton, Merton, Merton.

Come see me!

The soul is green

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 02:10:25 GMT

The soul must be green. The type that’s ambiguous, yet full of potential. To die. To grow. To burn. The colour of earth touched by storm. The colour of branches in transient summer. The colour of youth. The colour of maturity. The colour of possibility. And of possible loss. Yes, today . . . I think the soul must be green.

I'm sure tomorrow it will change.

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On Beethoven...

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 04:45:44 GMT

I've been listening to Beethoven's fifth symphony rather endlessly after seeing "Copying Beethoven," and found this critic's evaluation upon hearing it performed for only the second time. I thought it was rather passionately beautiful, and strong enough to stand on it's own as a bit of truthful writing...

“Radiant beams shoot through the deep night of this region, and we become aware of gigantic shadows which, rocking back and forth, close in on us and destroy all within us except the pain of endless longing—a longing in which every pleasure that rose up amid jubilant tones sinks and succumbs. Only through this pain, which, while consuming but not destroying love, hope, and joy, tries to burst our breasts with a full-voiced general cry from all the passions, do we live on and are captivated beholders of the spirits.” - E. Hoffman

If you listen attentively to the fifth symphony, I think you can hear that.

Today I walk in hours...

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:13:02 GMT

Just listening to a Bruce Cockburn song that's so homey and heartachy that it seems perfect for a slow August evening when you can hear the day go out like a sigh with the tired light over the shopping plazas and intersections. Sitting here listening, it makes me think of dusty roads, dozens of sunsets, and a sense of time that has little to do with deadlines and goals. Makes me think of the necessity of kindness, the frailty of me, of you, the universal need for home.

"Oh I have been a beggar
And shall be one again
And few the ones with help to lend
Within the world of men

One day I walk in flowers
One day I walk on stones
Today I walk in hours
One day I shall be home

I have sat on the street corner
And watched the bootheels shine
And cried out glad and cried out sad
With every voice but mine

One day I walk in flowers
one day I walk on stones
Today I walk in hours
One day I shall be home
One day I shall be home."