Monthly Archives: May 2016

May 30 2016
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Memorial Day

Decoration Day

Rainy Day Fifth Avenue

It is Memorial Day and we remember all who gave their lives for their country. This is the purpose of Memorial Day, pure and simple. It is an American holiday, though versions of it are celebrated around the globe, like in Finland, where the Third Sunday of May––Kaatuneiden Muistopäivä, or Commemoration Day––is held in remembrance of those who died in Finnish wars. As we saw in the previous chapter of this Book of Days, this tradition of remembering the dead at this time of year, especially in the military, goes back to Ancient Rome.

Be that as it may, for us here in the United States it goes back to the Civil War. In 1865, an “Independence Day of a Second American Revolution” was organized in Charleston by freed slaves, and on that May day, they honored Union soldiers buried there in unmarked graves. There were other informal early summer decoration days throughout the country during the war: in Warrenton, Virginia in 1861, in Savannah in 1863, in Gettysburg in 1864, and in Waterloo, New York, after the war had ended, in 1866.

It was a simple decoration day back then and that’s the name folks gave to it: Decoration Day, as they decorated the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers. Just as the Romans did. Again, flowers for remembrance. In 1868, the first formal celebration of Decoration Day was held at Arlington National Cemetery by the Grand Army of the Republic, and Major General John Logan chose the date: May 30, for he believed on that date flowers would be in bloom all across the country. This set the date for Memorial Day for the next century.

Memorial Day has also become our American unofficial start of summer, especially now that it is part of a long weekend, a change that took place in 1968 with the passage of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. The holiday is now a moveable one, celebrated each year on the last Monday of May. This year, however, things work out that we get to celebrate Memorial Day on the day that Major General John Logan intended, which is kind of nice, no? Flowers are in bloom across this great country this 30th of May. It is a good day to remember all who died in service to this country and for all that blooms within it.

Image: “Rainy Day, Fifth Avenue” by Childe Hassam. Oil on canvas, 1916 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

 

May 23 2016
Rosalia

Rosalia

GatherYeRosebuds

Memorial Day––our unofficial start to summer in the United States––is but a week away. Greater than its role of ushering in summer, however, is its status as a day of remembrance, particularly of those who died in service to their country. It is a holiday with a long history, dating back to the Civil War. The 30th of May was chosen as the date of Memorial Day for it was believed that flowers would be in bloom at that time in all corners of the country. Flowers for remembrance.

Go back centuries more and you will find a similar sentiment for this same time of year in Ancient Rome. May was the time of the Floralia, an annual festival honoring the goddess Flora, goddess of flowers and plants. It was, as well, a time of remembering the dead, particularly for the Roman military. And today, the 23rd of May, brought the Rosalia, a day of similar devotion and remembrance, but with a focus on roses. Graves, especially, would be decorated today with roses. Roses for remembrance.

And so today we’d do well to gather rosebuds and to decorate with them, homes and graves. It is a day for both the living and the dead.

 

Image: “Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May” by John William Waterhouse. Oil on canvas, 1909 [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons. 

 

May 15 2016
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Pentecost

Connexions: Inspiration

Inspiration

My very first Sunday Meeting at the 1794 Meeting House at Chosen Land, the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine where I interned as a printer in the late 90s, happened to be on Pentecost Sunday. It was a blustery day, the sort of day when laundry left on the line to dry takes on a life of its own, the shirts and dresses and jeans dancing with each other as they catch the breeze and fill and empty of air and sunlight.

The Shaker Meeting House at Chosen Land is modest but beautiful in its simplicity. I entered on the left side, for this is the door through which the men enter. The women enter on the right. The room you enter into is large and uninterrupted by posts or columns; the roof is supported by boxed beams that span across the room. The walls are white plaster and the wooden beams and original benches are painted blue. The blue takes your breath away. It is the original milk paint, dyed with Maine wild blueberries, from 1794. The floor is wide plank wood. To look at it and to step upon it is to think of all the Shaker brothers and sisters who walked and danced and twirled upon it throughout its history. All these years later I still think of that wood floor and think of doing rubbings of it for a book project someday. History has seeped into every corner and crevice of this building, and this is the building I’d stepped into that First Sunday of Pentecost in 1996.

If you’ve never been to a Shaker Meeting (and chances are good, I realize, that you haven’t), here’s what happens: Sister June reads a prayer to open Meeting, then Sister Frances announces which set song will be sung from the Shaker Hymnal. There are three Bible readings. And then Brother Arnold will say a few words about their founder, Mother Ann Lee, and remind everyone to “not feel strange or a stranger.” And this is an invitation for spontaneous songs and testimonies. The songs are any of thousands of Shaker songs handed down orally through the years. And the testimonies are from the heart, inspired by the atmosphere of the Meeting.

Pentecost never meant much to me but it did after that day. Father Bob Limpert, an Episcopal minister from New York, was there, and the Shakers let him give a more formal sermon. Father Bob was inspired by that blustery day to talk about the relationships between words like gust and ghost and of course it was Pentecost, the day the Church celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit… which, when I was a kid, was better known as the Holy Ghost. And here was this day of gusting wind ushering in holy ghosts of all kinds in this old building dripping with history: gust to ghost to spirit. And spirit brings us to inspiration.

And this always reminds me of one of my favorite professors from college, Myriam Swennen Ruthenberg, who, in an Italian Literature class, perhaps over Dante or Bocaccio or di Lampedusa, spoke one day of the connexions between words, too. Her words that day were the Italian versions of respiration and inspiration and their common Latin root: spirare, breath. We breathe in and out in the act of respiration, but we also breathe in and out inspiration: we are inspired by what we take in, and what we exude or breathe out hopefully inspires others.

If you’ll follow along on my winding trail, these things all connect: the gust and ghost of Father Bob, the breathing in and out of Professoressa Ruthenberg. All are not so much of the earth as they are of the air (ghost/gust/spirit/breath/respiration/inspiration) and so they lack heaviness and instead are light and ethereal. Inspiration comes to us sometimes as fleeting as breath, a ghost seen just briefly from the corner of the eye.

This is a reprint of a Convivio Book of Days chapter originally published on Pentecost, 2014. I find I can’t describe the day any better than I did then, and I still am filled with wonder over the connexions that can be drawn and with fondness for this place I love so much. I hope to visit my friends at Chosen Land again this summer. Image: Taking a deep breath, crossing into the unknown. A 16th century engraving from the dust jacket of the book The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin. Happy Connecting.

Should you find it a little chilly today, too… well, today is Cold Sophie. Brrr.

 

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