postmodernpilgrim

Monday night I watched PBS American Experience , which as a closet history buff I tend to enjoy quite a bit. The subject for this episode was Walt Whitman, American poet and romantic transcendentalist. It was extremely insightful, calling on many Whitman scholars to retell the story of the man and the impact his poetry had upon the national psyche. I was reminded of how, as a freshman in high school, I had read Whitman's The Lern'd Astronomer, Song of Myself , and I Sing the Body Electric in Mr. Jack Covington's English lit class at Arlington High School and fell in love with the timelessness and transcendental quality of Whitman and his poetry. He was a rebel and a hopeless romantic, in his relationship with others, to his country, and to the world. I wanted to be such a rebel and began to re-imagine and re-create myself as a poet. I remember seeing Dead Poet's Society for the first time and just going crazy over the fact that a poet I loved so much was so oft-q...

Reading Sara Miles' Take This Bread , amazing read that I would recommend to sacred, spiritual, and secular alike. The story is an autobiographical account of Miles' rediscovery of her faith in Christ through her rediscovery and deeper understanding of the Eucharist. Miles handles deftly her apprehension of sharing her recently re-discovered faith to friends: "to most of my non-believing friends, Christian was shorthand for fanatic fundamentalism, anti-intellectualism, and right-wing intolerance." Miles discovers, as I believe many are, that a great majority of Christians are not the closed-minded republican clods but in fact are still listening closely to hear the voice of God amidst their holistic involvement in the missio Dei. Miles also finds in the ritual/sacrament of communion the heart of what she believes to be central to the missio Dei: that love means "giving yourself away, embracing outsiders as family, emptying yourself to feed and live for othe...