Still One Sun and One Moon

The poem by Amanda Gorman that she read during the presidential inauguration in January of 2021 evoked my memories of other inauguration poets.  The following thoughts -- which I wrote five-and-a-half years ago -- still seem relevant. Perhaps poets' reflections are of more lasting value than much of  today's tweets.

~ ~ ~

The reading of a poem by a designated poet has now become a regular part of U.S. presidential inauguration ceremonies. The first reading was at the inauguration of JFK in 1961.  The already well-known and highly esteemed poet Robert Frost brought a copy of his new poem "Dedication" to read.  No inaugural poet has had to face the elements and imperfect technology the way Frost did.  I remember watching on TV. Frost stood at a podium where an electrical fire had been put out; a bitterly cold wind rattled the sheets of paper he held; and the intense sun blinded his eyes.  The sun won out.  And so, unable to read further, Frost finished by reciting from memory an older poem, "The Gift Outright."

Over the past decade or so, inaugural poets have been less known, but that has not meant that their poems, usually written for the occasion, have been forgotten.  I remember in particular there having been quite of bit of favorable comment about the poem "One Today" read by Richard Blanco at the Obama inauguration in 2013.  The comments about the poem afterwards on radio and TV showed how it had been especially accessible and meaningful to many.  In his poem, Blanco employed the opening image of "one sun" rising in the eastern U.S. and moving across the continent to depict and tie together the varied lives of people as they awoke and arose to their day's regular activities.  Occasionally, a specific detail added depth to the more general descriptions:

"My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,

...on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives --

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did...."

The poem continued the theme of unity by using the phrases "one sky" and "one moon."

That modern poem came back to my mind when I recently read, of all things, an 8th-century Buddhist stanza.  It was by Yung-chia Ta-shih, and goes like this:

"One Nature, perfect and pervading, circulates in all natures,

One Reality, all comprehensive, contains within itself all realities.

The one Moon reflects itself whenever there is a sheet of water,

And all the moons in the waters are embraced within the one Moon."

Even when I was in early elementary school, and read introductory books about astronomy, scientists knew that the planets of our own solar system varied in whether they had one moon, no moon, or more than one.  Astronomers' inventory of our universe is now so vast that we have numerous examples of the variety of moons that orbit about each planet in many planetary systems.  We also now know that other planetary systems sometimes have not a single star but a star system at their center.

If our own solar system did have more than one sun, or if our Earth had more than one moon, I would hope we would still have poets to remind us that we are all ultimately one people.  And also have poets to at times stretch our minds a little farther, by reminding us that all Life on this planet is ultimately One Life.

~~~

Is there some way you try to come back to an awareness of our unity amidst differences?

(The Japanese print is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.)

(The Buddhist verse is taken from The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley, © 1945, p. 8.)
(The 2013 poem "One Today" by Richard Blanco can be read at this external link:  "One Today".)

A Church and a Novel

Say “the hunchback of Notre Dame,” and many people will think of that hulky character in one of the movie versions of the novel. Maybe the mental image evoked will include some sense of the height of the great cathedral of Notre Dame, from which the hunchbacked character looks down upon the jeering mob below. Rarely has there been such a famous intersection of a church and a novel; in this case, Paris's largest cathedral and the novel by Victor Hugo.

Paris's second largest church building, the much less famous Church of Saint-Sulpice, has had an interesting intersection with a novel, but in a quite different way.  And that intersection may say something about our human struggles to bring the illumination of both science and religion to our world.

Now on display in Saint-Sulpice is this note about the long, straight line in the 17th-century church's floor:

"Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent best-selling novel,
 this [line] is not a vestige of a pagan temple.
 No such temple ever existed in this place.
It was never called a "Rose-Line'."

The "best-selling novel" discreetly referred to is the 2003 book The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.

The inlaid brass line is in fact part of a device (a "gnomon") for knowing when the spring equinox occurs, based on where during the course of a year a noon-time shaft of light falls along that line, or on the obelisk at the far end of it. The word "gnomon" has its root in the Greek word for "to know." But there is much that Brown does not appear to know (or desire to convey) about the true history of this gnomon. The religious reason for discerning the spring equinox is explained by an inscription on the obelisk's base: "Ad Certam Paschalis," or "for the determination of Easter." That religious task, as the 20th-century scientist Stephen Jay Gould explained, "requires considerable astronomical sophistication, for lunar and seasonal cycles must both be known with precision."

The sun-calculating device in the Church of Saint-Sulpice is not an exotic oddity, as one might think reading Brown's book.  In fact, other similar installations (sometimes called "meridian lines") can be found in cathedrals in Rome, Florence, and Bologna, Italy -- all demonstrating conjunctions of the Church and astronomy. Even beyond those other installations, there is additional evidence that Saint-Sulpice's gnomon has real Christian roots, and is not a pagan import: The Christian practice of scientifically calculating solar equinoxes was mastered notably by an English monk living in the 700's, the Venerable Bede. He developed tables for calculating Easter for the three centuries yet to come. His manual for that scientific field called "computus" continued to be used into the Middle Ages.

And what about the letters "P" and "S" in two of Saint-Sulpice's windows? Here again, the notice posted in the cathedral brings illumination:

"Please also note that the letters "P" and "S" in the small round windows
 at both ends of the transept refer to Peter and Sulpice, the patron saints of the church,
 and not an imaginary "Priory of Sion" [a secret society in Brown's novel ]."

The architecture of the Church of Saint-Sulpice is not to my personal taste. Nevertheless, I can admire the openness not only of the people who built Saint-Sulpice, but also the other Christian minds stretching back to the Venerable Bede and even beyond -- bringing together knowledge and inspiration from both science and religion.

~ ~ ~

Is there knowledge about the natural world from contemporary science that expands your spirit?

(The quotation by Stephen Jay Gould is from his Dinosaur in a Haystack, © 1995, p. 39.)

A Fiery Paradoxical Mystery

In his "Canticle of Brother Sun," St. Francis of Assisi uses a series of verses with very similar wording to celebrate one by one each part of the natural world.  Each part -- moon, air, water, and so forth -- is celebrated as both praising God and being a means by which we join Nature in praise.

There is one part of the natural world, however, that is singled out by St. Francis as being most like God, and it is surprising:  Francis singles out the sun.  When speaking to God about the sun, Francis says, "Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness."

Somehow it seems to smack of sun worship!  Wasn't I taught in church-school how the ancient Israelites in the Bible took pains to differentiate their concept of God from the beliefs of the other ancient cultures that worshipped a planet or the sun?  So why does Francis say that of all the things in the natural world God is most like the sun?  We, today, in most mainstream Christianity are more likely to prefer that God be likened to something more close at hand than the sun, and something less likely to burn us.  It's more comforting to think of God as being like a gentle breeze, or a good friend.

Francis's own statement that the sun "brings the day" shows that he found a similarity to God's faithfulness in the sun's faithful rising every morning.  Francis also says that it is through the sun that God provides us light. However, another clue as to how God might by like the sun might be found later in the "Canticle" where Francis says of "Brother Fire" that fire too not only brings light but is also "full of power and strength."  Light and warmth but also power -- some of the same properties held by the fiery sun.

So here is a paradox which might speak even more closely to the similarity between the sun and the great Divine Mystery we call God, who we never see:  We receive light and warmth from the sun, but we could never touch the sun itself, much less enter its fiery core, without being consumed.  Similarly, I can find intimations of God here on Earth, but how could my mind ever fully grasp what kind of power it can be that can make possible all of the 170-billion galaxies, with an average of 100-billion stars in each galaxy?  My mind would be completely overwhelmed, consumed.

In 1654, the Christian philosopher Blaise Pascal experienced for about two hours one of those mystical experiences in which a veil is lifted and the Divine Mystery is experienced extraordinarily directly.  For the remainder of his life, Pascal carried with him a piece of paper on which he had written a description of his experience of God.  It's words in part were:

"In the year of Grace 1654, on Monday 23rd November...

From about half past ten at night until about half-past twelve.

FIRE.

... Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy."

~~~

What to you most strongly proclaims the greatness of the world we live in?

(The Pascal quote is taken from An Anthology of Christian Mysticism, by Harvey D. Egan, © 1991.  p. 482.)

(The photo of artwork, by Frank Vincentz,

 is used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

(One translation of St. Francis's "Canticle" can be read at this external link: "Canticle.")

Following the Sun

In the 2013 PBS Nova special "Earth from Space," NASA satellite photography was combined with computer graphics to show the unseen currents on our planet.  One animation I particularly remember was how commercial airplanes, in order to expand the time they fly in daylight, more often travel toward the sun during daytime.

I recalled those airplanes "following the sun" in a quite different context -- one that brought much greater meaning to the imagery of that phrase.  I was watching a gentle 1941 Japanese movie, a soft-spoken romance titled Ornamental Hairpin (Kanzashi), directed by Hiroshi Shimizu.  The emotional weight of the story surrounds the character Emi, who takes advantage of her having lost an ornamental hairpin to return to a country hospice to retrieve the piece of jewelry, and to apologize to the young man who was injured when he accidentally stepped on the hairpin in the deep water of the communal bath.  Through Emi's conversations with a woman friend who follows her to the countryside to try to retrieve her, we learn that Emi is trying to find a way to separate herself from a relationship with a man back in Tokyo, a relationship she finds stifling, perhaps even repressive.

It is during one of those conversations that Emi speaks the line about following the sun.  The friend had at first judged Emi as being irresponsible.  But the friend's attitude changes as Emi conveys how her time vacationing in the countryside has given her new life.  Emi describes how she has been spending her days outdoors, strolling and chatting with the young man and a pair of elementary-school boys, but also washing clothes in the river, hanging them in the sun to dry.  Emi also points out how outdoors her skin has become less pale.

"but at least while I'm here
every day in the sunshine"

Responding to her woman friend's query of what she will do next, Emi says, "I don't know what the future holds, but at least while I am here, every day in the sunshine, the sun will show me the way."  All of the world's faith-traditions contain encouragements to have courage in the face of an unknown future.  We can never be certain what the next day will bring.  But as the earth turns, we can face the next day, following the sun, and following the light we can see.

Reflecting now upon the film, I think about how Emi's words must have had additional meaning for a Japanese audience in 1941.  Their nation had been at war with China for four years, and was now on the verge of being engulfed in the even larger World War II, which had already been expanding in Europe.  It had to be a frightening and uncertain time for many Japanese people.

Hiroshi Shimizu's touching movie closes with two wordless scenes expressive of the presence of beauty in situations in which humans follow a hard or uncertain walk of faith:  The beautifully appareled Emi, carrying a parasol, walking alone up a steep incline of steps.  And Emi walking on a very narrow footbridge across the river.

~~~

Is there something that helps you face each day as it comes?

(The still photos are from the movie Ornamental Hairpin,
directed by Hiroshi Shimizu, © 1941 [based on a novel by Masuji Ibuse], and are used under Fair Use.)

One Sun and One Moon

The reading of a poem by a designated poet has now become a regular part of U.S. presidential inauguration ceremonies. The first reading was at the inauguration of JFK in 1961.  The already well-known and highly esteemed poet Robert Frost brought a copy of his new poem "Dedication" to read.  No inaugural poet has had to face the elements and imperfect technology the way Frost did.  I remember watching on TV. Frost stood at a podium where an electrical fire had been put out; a bitterly cold wind rattled the sheets of paper he held; and the intense sun blinded his eyes.  The sun won out.  And so, unable to read further, Frost finished by reciting from memory an older poem, "The Gift Outright."

Over the past decade or so, inaugural poets have been less known, but that has not meant that their poems, usually written for the occasion, have been forgotten.  I remember in particular there having been quite of bit of favorable comment about the poem "One Today" read by Richard Blanco at the Obama inauguration in 2013.  The comments about the poem afterwards on radio and TV showed how it had been especially accessible and meaningful to many.  In his poem, Blanco employed the opening image of "one sun" rising in the eastern U.S. and moving across the continent to depict and tie together the varied lives of people as they awoke and arose to their day's regular activities.  Occasionally, a specific detail added depth to the more general descriptions:

"My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,

...on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives --

to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did...."

The poem continued the theme of unity by using the phrases "one sky" and "one moon."

That modern poem came back to my mind when I recently read, of all things, an 8th-century Buddhist stanza.  It was by Yung-chia Ta-shih, and goes like this:

"One Nature, perfect and pervading, circulates in all natures,

One Reality, all comprehensive, contains within itself all realities.

The one Moon reflects itself whenever there is a sheet of water,

And all the moons in the waters are embraced within the one Moon."

Even when I was in early elementary school, and read introductory books about astronomy, scientists knew that the planets of our own solar system varied in whether they had one moon, no moon, or more than one.  Astronomers' inventory of our universe is now so vast that we have numerous examples of the variety of moons that orbit about each planet in many planetary systems.  We also now know that other planetary systems sometimes have not a single star but a star system at their center.

If our own solar system did have more than one sun, or if our Earth had more than one moon, I would hope we would still have poets to remind us that we are all ultimately one people.  And also have poets to at times stretch our minds a little farther, by reminding us that all Life on this planet is ultimately One Life.

~~~

Is there some way you try to come back to an awareness of our unity amidst differences?

(The Japanese print is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.)

(The Buddhist verse is taken from The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley, © 1945, p. 8.)
(The 2013 poem "One Today" by Richard Blanco can be read at this external link:  "One Today".)

“Music, ‘Arabian nights,’ and Darwin”

It is sometimes the small, unexpected details that catch my eye when I am reading history or biography.  So it was when I was reading part of Gertrude Himmelfarb's book Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution.  I have read a number of books about the response to the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859.  But my attention was caught by what the British novelist George Eliot wrote in her diary on the evening of the very day Darwin's revolutionary book was published.  Describing how she had occupied herself that very evening, Eliot wrote:  "music, 'Arabian nights,' and Darwin."  What a combination of evening activities and reading before turning into bed!

George Eliot

George Eliot (a woman who wrote under that pseudonym) is most known for her somewhat psychological novels.  But she was also part of a movement of intellectuals who could no longer find credible the church's theological descriptions of the world.  To many such intellectuals, the church's theological concepts could no longer illuminate life.

When I was in college, I read an English translation made by George Eliot of Feuerbach's difficult book The Essence of Christianity, which was part of those 19th-century struggles. Feuerbach maintained that statements about God were actually just projections of human beings' own ideal image of themselves.

However, when I think of George Eliot's writings, what comes to mind are not those difficult religious struggles of the 19th century, but instead a coincidental conjunction I once experienced between Nature and Eliot's novel Silus Marner.

My high-school English class was reading together part of the novel in class.  Our English class was held in one of the wood, portable buildings that had been set up because the student body had grown larger than the main brick building.  Most students did not like having a class in one of those wood "shacks," but I did.  I liked the way the shacks (without air-conditioning) had windows on both sides of the classroom, thus allowing more air and sunlight to flow in.

On the particular day I remember, we were reading a passage in which the outcast Silus Marner experiences what seems to him a miracle.  While he is in a catatonic state, a small child with radiant golden hair crawls into his house through the open door, thus seeming to Silus to appear suddenly when he awakes.  He feels as if he has been graced with a gift from God upon seeing the child, which seemed to have a wonderful glow about it.

Although I knew the scene was contrived, the beauty of that scene seemed to stand out even more brightly to me because, as we read it, I was so aware of the sunlight right there at that moment, shining beautifully into our classroom.

~~~

Have you read a novel or story in which a scene was uncannily real to you?  Why?

(The painting of Eliot is in the public domain

because its copyright has expired.)