ON THIS DAY: JOHN BOSWELL

"It is possible to change ecclesiastical attitudes toward gay people and their sexuality because the objections to homosexuality are not biblical, they are not consistent, they are not part of Jesus' teaching; and they are not even fundamentally Christian." - John Boswell

Historian John Eastburn Boswell was born 20 March 1947 in Boston, Massachusetts. He published 4 books, including Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980). Boswell died of complications from AIDS when he was only 47 years old.

I remember hearing him speak, either at a Integrity/Houston convention or at Autry House, Houston. Well all I can say is praise be. What a gift John Boswell is in his writings that live on.

Anniversary of the 'Watersnoodramp" - the Dutch 9/11

"For those who went through the Watersnoodramp [the 1953 flood disaster in The Netherlands] it was the biggest shock of their lives, perhaps an even bigger shock than living through World War II had been. That disaster after all was manmade, with convenient villains and which could be easily remade into a self flattering narrative of a plucky little country standing up to the might of the efficient, ruthless nazi hordes. But to be overwhelmed by nature, by the old enemy, the sea, the enemy we were supposed to have tamed and bound our will, suddenly showing just how fragile our defences really were: that shocked us to the core, that hit us in the national psyche."

Read all about it at Wis[s]e Words - and what happened after the watersnoodramp.

On This Day: Wren

Architect Christopher Michael Wren was born 20 October 1632 in East Knoyle, Wiltshire, England.

The design of many churches in London bare his stamp. I am more familiar with St James's, Piccadilly, as it was my parish when I lived for a year in London.

“I can hardly think it practicable to make a single room so capacious, with pews and galleries, as to hold 2,000 persons, and all to hear the service and see the preacher. I endeavoured to effect this in building the parish church of St James’s, Westminster [Piccadilly], which I presume is the most capacious, with those qualifications, that hath yet been built.”
Sir Christopher Wren

On This Day: Charles Ives

From the G. Schirmer (music publishers) website:

"Born in Danbury, Connecticut on 20 October 1874, Charles Ives pursued what is perhaps one of the most extraordinary and paradoxical careers in American music history. Businessman by day and composer by night, Ives's vast output has gradually brought him recognition as the most original and significant American composer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, Ives sought a highly personalized musical expression through the most innovative and radical technical means possible."

Ives was a complex composer. He drew on a range of influences, particularly military music (his father was a US Army band leader). He also wrote for the church. This is a lovely setting for Psalm 135.

The Episcopal Church Exposes the Doctrine of Discovery

This video is intended to inform people about the impact of the Doctrine of Discovery in an effort to respond to God's direction; that we, the Episcopal Church, "act with justice and...do what is right" (Psalm 106:3, Book of Common Prayer), and about the unjust way the Americas were settled, and the on-going consequences of those events. Resources Now Available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/page/doctrine-discovery-resources

MENIL COLLECTION AT 25

The Menil Collection celebrates its 25th anniversary today. OffCite recalls how revolutionary John and Dominique were to the Houston community before the collection was even built! I lived less than a block from the Menil, and it was my oasis from the dog eat dog of Houston life.

Before they brushed their great gray wings across an otherwise ordinary neighborhood of bungalows in lower Montrose, before their place in Houston’s history felt as ordained as the live oaks, and before Houstonians began trading stories about sightings of a thin and ethereal woman seated in front of her museum’s great paintings, there was simply a couple: John and Dominique de Menil. A pair of émigrés who fled France after the Nazi invasion with their three small children in tow. A couple whose wealth, a prominent Houstonian once told Grace Glueck for a May 18, 1986, New York Times Magazine article, was “really peanuts,” when measured on the same scales as Houston’s old oil aristocracies. A couple whose story is as much about Houston’s coming of age during a time of social upheaval as it is about their pushing a cadre of visionaries to accomplish the extraordinary wherever an institution gave them the space and freedom to act. To recall just a few of the details of this story is as much an elegy as it is a celebration.

STILL A CLASSIC

Americans Observing 9/11 By Trying Not To Masturbate

Seductive Beauty

Queen Paola of the Belgians celebrates her 75th birthday on 11 September. She married then Prince Albert when she was twenty-one years old. I always thought she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. Flandersnews has a video up in English. And there are some photos from an old family album.

Photo credit: De Standaard.

On This Day: Sara Teasdale

Poet Sara Trevor Teasdale was born 8 August 1884 in St. Louis, Missouri.

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Sara Teasdale, published in 1920

The poem was written right after "the war to end all wars." An indictment surely on the devastation of nature by humans, who would not be missed by the birds and the trees. Our disrespect towards every living thing continues in this century.

Unfortunately now we make the robins and other creatures pay too with our radiation and chemicals.

My mother's favorite poet. We read this poem at my parents' memorial service when their ashes were deposited in the ground with a cherry tree at the Vos summer house in Zeeland (NL). We read Sea Fever, by John Masefield, too, because my father had sailed ships in his career.

O my chevalier!

Poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on July 28, 1844 in Stratford, Essex (now part of Greater London). He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1866 and was ordained priest in 1877. He died of typhoid fever in 1889.

 A brilliant man...and so tormented both by his attraction to men and by his love for poetry.  I would have liked to have been his friend.

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

written 1877, published 1918

On This Musical Day: Dawn Upshaw

Dawn Upshaw, soprano, was born 17 July 1960 in Nashville, Tennessee.

I remember seeing several musical notables during the twenty-three years I lived in Houston. I had the wonderful opportunity to see her in Rosenkavalier with HGO in 1995. Three stars in one evening: Renee Fleming, Dawn Upshaw and Suzanne Mentzer. (Craig Gallagher, who was choirmaster at St Stephen's Episcopal Church, where I was a member, recruited Suzanne to sing with the choir when she was at the HGO Studio - I was in the choir then, too.)

Her singing of Barber's Knoxville Summer in 1915 is just lovely.



I adore Barbara Cook, but my next-favourite rendition of Glitter and be Gay from Bernstein's Candide is Upshaw's.

On This Day: Clement Clarke Moore

Clement Clarke Moore was born July 15, 1779 in New York City; he grew in the family home in Elmhurst, Queens. This professor of Oriental and Greek literature at Columbia College had great effect on New York City. The neighborhood "Chelsea" is still named for his family estate, which he inherited from his mother's father and later divided and developed. He gave an apple orchard as land to develop the General Theological Seminary. He helped Trinity Church organize St. Lukes in the Fields. And, of course, children around the world who celebrate Christmas, know and love his poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (better known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

On This Day: "Oh, the humanity and all the passengers screaming around here."

On May 6, 1937 in Lakehurst, New Jersey. the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its landing. That voice on the audio and video reports has haunted me since the first time I heard radio reporter, Herbert Morrison, describe the accident.

Bevrijdingsdag|Liberation Day

Yesterday was Remembrance Day, today is Liberation Day in the Netherlands, with more ceremonies and festivities around the country.

Today is also my birthday (OLVG, A'dam, 5 mei 1948). This morning I drank coffee from a special commemorative mug, a gift I received in 1995 from my cousin Marianne: "50 Jaar Bevrijd! 5 mei 1995". Nothing could be better.

Tonight HM will attend the annual open air concert in Amsterdam which thousands of people enjoy too, sitting in their boats or standing along the Amsterdam canals (as well as it will be broadcasted, of course).

Here is the link to the official site of the 4 & 5 May Committee. It's a shame it's not in English; though there is a small note telling us that a translation is coming, today it is a bit late for that! In 1995 when I was in Arnhem for a liberation concert, there were thousands of Canadians in the country, veterans of Liberation. So it wouldn't have been a bad idea to have a French translation, too.

AN ORDINATION ANNIVERSARY: 4/29/77

This is the 2,000th post for Blazing Indiscretions! And what a better way than to celebrate this anniversary:

On April 29, 1977, the Episcopal Diocese of Texas ordained its first woman priest, Helen Havens. In 1981 St Stephens parish at Woodhead and W. Alabama, Houston - where I was a member - was the first church in the Diocese of Texas with the vision to call a woman rector. Guess who? From the parish history pages:

Clax [Monro, the rector at the time] appointed Bob Evans to chair a search committee and the work began. Members visited other churches to hear their candidates, and received recommendations from parishioners. Helen Havens, an assistant at St. Francis, was recommended and some members of the committee were alarmed. The idea of a woman rector was very new. In fact, there were not women rectors in the Diocese of Texas and very few in the United States. Three members of the committee agreed to meet the prospect and were quickly convinced that she was the best choice. After numerous meetings, debates, and prayers, the vestry finally and miraculously recommended that the church call Helen Havens. The Vestry vote was close, but favorable, and Bob Evans and Sidney Mitchell called on Bishop Benitez to request the call.

The Bishop was concerned about St. Stephen's choice and took the unusual step of requiring the Vestry to reconsider its vote. The Vestry met again and voted with a greater majority to sustain its original vote. Messrs. Evans and Mitchell met again with the Bishop who was still concerned and again asked the Vestry to reconsider its action. At this, Bob Evans said that he would comply, but that he wanted the Bishop to explain to the Vestry why he wanted another vote. This ended the matter, and Helen Havens was called to St. Stephen's. The first woman to be called as rector to a parish in the Diocese of Texas, Helen began her ministry with us on Thanksgiving Day, 1981.

EARTH DAY

The first Earth Day was celebrated on 22 April 1970.  I was "there," but oh gosh! with these anniversaries, I realise that I'm getting older! That was 42 years ago!

... [I]t activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. The passage of the landmark Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and many other groundbreaking environmental laws soon followed.

Today, read Juan Cole: Earth Day means nothing if We Don’t Limit Carbon Emissions

ON THIS DAY

Freedom of religion was granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam on 20 April 1657.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Yes, it was On This Day. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" on 16 April 1963 while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting against segregation.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
-- "Letter from Birmingham Jail,"

This was nearly 50 years ago! Reading this letter when I was a sophomore in high school made an impression on me by changing my life and opening up my eyes to economic injustice and systemic racism, not just the little acts of meanness.

On This Day

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech on 3 April 1968 at at the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, Tennessee.

The next day he was assassinated.

Two Songs from Wartime

Vera Margaret Welch, who performs as Vera Lynn, celebrates her birthday today. She was born 20 March 1917 in East Ham, Essex, England. She is still going strong at 95 and is regarded with great affection in Britain, particularly by veterans of World War Two.



More a song of defiance is this one about the First World War Sung by Chumbawamba, I'd never heard it until this week. And it rings true today.