medial // caesura

Maybe because my younger boys like Batman and maybe because I have been feeling a spiritual dryness for an unparalleled period in my life, the phrase "dark night of the soul" has been echoing in my head.  Interestingly enough, the phrase "noche oscura," or what is commonly known as the "dark night of the soul," comes from a poem by the 16th century Spanish poet, St. John of the Cross. He did not intend it as we think of it today--a time of difficulty and spiritual impoverishment.  He was writing about the soul's journey to God.  The dark for him is our unknown destination with an unseen God. His "noche oscura" was joyful for God redeems. . .  A few weeks ago, I finished Elie Wiesel's book, Night , telling of the Holocaust horrors he, his father, and his fellow Jews experienced in the concentration camp and work camp of Auschwitz and Buchenwald near the end of WWII. After reading his harrowing account, my own sorrow was made heavier, b...

"Peace and Chicken Grease, Sister!" the greeting/farewell my teenaged brother delivered, his grin and two fingers outstretched.  I'm so thankful God has given me a brother with such a magnanimous spirit and a whole lotta wisdom.  He can make me laugh when that's the last thing I feel like doing.  He reads people better in five minutes than I do in five months.  And he gives the best advice, partly because it's succinct but mostly because it is sheer wisdom laced with humor that brings peace to a troubled mind. Although he would probably deny this and laugh at me for saying so, he brings to mind Colossians 4:6, the theme verse for our recent Classical Conversations training, "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person."   That salt, by the way, is the Truth, capital "T."  My brother was there for me yesterday when the sorrow akin to that described by  Hamlet's usurping ...