3/3/2009
A Love Story
"We are first called and moved by the very Love that lives within us:
The Love of Christ overwhelms us..." (2 Cor: 5:14)
Spirit and Lifestyle
When I saw Harriet Doerr's Stones for Ibarra among the "quick picks"
in the library, I could not resist. For the fourth time since 1996, I
have read the book. Enough time had passed between each reading for
me to forget a great part of it but each time I was struck by one
sentence towards the end of the book: "It occurred to her this
evening in Ibarra, with rain at the window and Richard four months
dead, that nothing ever happened on either numbered or unnumbered
roads that could be classified as unimportant. All of it, observed by
dark, observed by day, was extraordinary."
In my fourth reading, I realized that the book was a love story. And
today I confirmed that the novel was in fact the author's love story.
Born in Pasadena, California in 1910, Harriet Doerr attended college
but abandoned her studies to marry Albert Doerr in 1930. She received
her B.A. from Stanford in 1977, 5 years after Albert died of a 10-
year long cancer, and was accepted in the Creative Writing Program.
Her first novel, Stones for Ibarra, 1984, won the National Book
Award for First Fiction as well as 3 other awards.
In the late 1950s, Albert and Harriet went to the mountains in
Aguascalientes, Mexico, to reopen the copper mine abandoned by
Albert's grandfather 50 years earlier. The book parallels real life.
The signs of love between the couple are subtle. Richard spends long
hours at the mine. At home he is constantly preoccupied with his
slide rule and numbers he jots down. He half listens - or so it seems
- because for his wife Sara nothing is "unimportant." She loves her
garden and doesn't seem to be lonely or bored. At 5 o'clock she
dismisses the cook and gardener. She's totally present to Richard.
The locals note that the Americans drink a glass of wine, listen to
classical music, eat together and sit together in front of the fire.
Before they rise in the morning they hear the cenzontle bird in the
fresno - "It's earth colored and sings in a backward scale." Each
time Richard has a fever, Sara goes off long distances to make a
phone call to the doctor in California. It seems that not only on the
numbered or unnumbered roads, but every moment, everywhere, is
extraordinary. In 1972, after Albert's death, Harriet returned to
California and died in 2002 at the age of 92. I now know to whom she
dedicated Stones for Ibarra - A. E. D. (Albert Doerr). Por el cariño
que él mismo sentía al lugar - For the love that he himself felt for
the place. Life would have been so much easier in California but
through love, his dream became her dream, their dream.
A love story can tell us a great deal about the Love mentioned in the
above lines from Spirit and Lifestyle.
I'll be in Brazil, March 2-18. If anyone feels inspired to do the
next two reflections, please feel free. Edwina will be Edmonton March
20-23. I'm just hoping it will feel a bit like spring!
Cecily
3/23/2009
3/24/2009
The Gift of Faith
We who enjoy the gift of faith, calling us to continual conversion
and transformation, are impelled to share the love the springs from
faith. We, who have received the love of Christ through the Spirit
must contain it. It must reach out, touching and transforming the
world in which we live. - Spirit and Lifestyle
My first day home back from 16 days in Brazil and still reeling from
a 40-hour trip from hotel to home, I noted that the Lenten readings
were interrupted by the celebration of the feast of St. Joseph. The
Gospel reading was Luke 2: 43-49 when Jesus, as a boy, stayed behind
in Jerusalem "sitting among the teachers, listening to them and
asking them questions." I thought how quick I am to say: "Brazil is
done, what next?" There was no shortage of things to do next.
Thursday to Monday were a whirlwind of activities. Still, the
reflections on the reading from Luke beckoned me to stay back a
little while. Today I offer you two commentaries on that passage.
"All of Jesus' actions in the Temple - from his being found there by
Mary and Joseph as a child, to his preaching there - are
manifestations of being about his Father's business. That business is
love - not a sentimental or pious love, not an escapist or exclusive
love, not a passive or self-indulgent love, but a love that enters
the world to bring everything and everyone into loving relationships
with each other. This love has a reverence for life; it practice
generosity by sharing time, energy, gifts and resources; it sees
itself responsible for all creation, human and otherwise; and is full
of care in the way it relates to others." John Pungente & Monty
Williams - Finding God in the Dark: Taking the Spiritual Exercises of
St. Ignatius to the Movies.
"In the Church today there is far too much silence. Czeslaw Milosz,
in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980,
said, "in a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of
silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
"The courage to speak is ultimately founded upon the courage to
listen. Do we dare to listen to the young with their doubts and
questions? Do we dare to listen to people who have other theological
opinions than ours? Do we dare to listen to people who feel alienated
from the Church? Do we listen to those whose lives may appear to
place them on the edge, because they are divorced and remarried or
gay or living with partners? We will not have the courage to do so
unless we have listened in silence to the most disturbing voice of
all, that of our God. If we can be silent before God and hear his
Word which rose from the dead, then no silence will imprison us in
any tomb." Timothy Radcliffe - Seven Last Words
Cecily
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