"A Call to Faithfulness... to Jesus!"

By William J. Cork during his days as a Lutheran pastor:

This article was originally published as an editorial in a Lutheran Forum special issue (Pentecost 1992, pp. 6 ff.) introducing the "Call to Faithfulness" conference in Northfield, MN. The object of the conference was to bring together Lutherans self-identified as "evangelical Catholics" to discuss the current situation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA had published a study on "Human Sexuality and the Christian Faith," which I saw to be symptomatic of the issues confronting the ELCA. This was the final straw leading me to seek full communion with the Catholic Church; by the time this appeared in print, I had made contact with Cardinal Law of Boston....

See also The Piskification of ELCA?

(Thanks, Bill.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 11/16/03 09:38:54 PM
Categorized as Religious.

Hidden Martyrs

Vide.

(Thanks, Nârwen.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 11/16/03 06:40:53 PM
Categorized as Religious.

"Man on the Street"

Margaret calls my attention to this interview of P. J. O'Rourke at Atlantic Unbound, Nov. 13.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 11/16/03 03:26:02 PM
Categorized as International.

Three by Colum II

Poems by Padraic Colum.

Crows

Then, suddenly, I was aware indeed
Of what he said, and was revolving it:
How, in the night, crows often take to wing,
Rising from off the tree-tops in Drumbarr,
And flying on: I pictured what he told.

The crows that shake the night-damp off their wings
Upon the stones out yonder in the fields,
The first live things that we see in the mornings;
The crows that march across the fields, that sit
Upon the ash-trees' branches, that fly home
And crowd the elm-tops over in Drumbarr;
The crows we look on at all hours of light,
Growing, and full, and going—these black beings have
Another lifetime!

Crows flying in the dark—
Blackness in darkness flying; beings unseen
Except by eyes that are like to their own
Trespassers' eyes!

And you, old man, with eyes so quick and sharp,
Who've told me of the crows, my fosterer;
And you, old woman, upon whose lap I've lain
When I was taken from my mother's lap;
And you, young girl, with looks that have come down
From forefathers, my kin—ye have another life—
I've glimpsed it, I becoming trespasser—
Blackness in darkness flying like the crows!

Plovers

The Plovers fly and cry around,
Unguided, nestless, without bourn,
Wandering and impetuous,
Turning and flying to return.

These wild birds seen on Ireland's ground
I name upon Hawaiian beaches—
Estrayents, they, of all lands' ends,
They have the oceans for their reaches.

My thoughts are like the Plovers' flight,
Unguided, nestless, without bourn,
Wandering and impetuous,
Turning and flying to return.

Song of Starlings

We've watched the starlings flocking past the statues
That we have often seen in other cities—
Hope, Justice, Commerce—and have heard them sing
Unvarying songs that are their memories—
Memories of winds that they've been blown by,
And rivers bordered with their beds of sedges,
And level lands on which are empty folds.
Daylight dims, and we
May not return to where a lamp
Beams, making a room familiar, and a wife
Tells of the children's doings: we hear the starlings
As we have heard them often in other cities,
Around other cupolas, along other cornices,
In sunless parks bunched on the tops of trees,
And see around us bleak, monotonous fields
Our hearts must ever hold—theirs are these songs—
These are the songs that most touch us exiles!

Collected Poems (1953), pp. 156, 181, 193.

See also Three by Colum: Poems by Padraic Colum.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 11/16/03 03:09:59 PM
Categorized as Sunday Poetry Series.