Summer begins

As Summer begins let’s begin with a simple poem.

Summer Song by William Carlos Williams

Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,—
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer’s smile,—
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?

While I was looking up this poem there were several websites that were already trying to crown a “Song of the Summer.” Sure the season of Summer began on Memorial Day but we’ve still got more than half the summer left so how can we decide what the song is now. Billboard offers the top 10 list since 1958 but this really is a new thing. The Huffington Post offers their own suggestions as to what it might be and even has some guidelines as how to pick the song which includes what has to be my favorite “rule” “by the end of Summer, the entire world must never want to hear it again.” If you don’t care what the song of this Summer is TimeoutNY offers a playlist of the top 50 best songs about summer, this is by far a list that I would fire up at any summertime party.

In Summer

As we enter this final week of Summer here is a great poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

In Summer

Oh, summer has clothed the earth
In a cloak from the loom of the sun!
And a mantle, too, of the skies’ soft blue,
And a belt where the rivers run.

And now for the kiss of the wind,
And the touch of the air’s soft hands,
With the rest from strife and the heat of life,
With the freedom of lakes and lands.

I envy the farmer’s boy
Who sings as he follows the plow;
While the shining green of the young blades lean
To the breezes that cool his brow.

He sings to the dewy morn,
No thought of another’s ear;
But the song he sings is a chant for kings
And the whole wide world to hear.

He sings of the joys of life,
Of the pleasures of work and rest,
From an o’erfull heart, without aim or art;
‘T is a song of the merriest.

O ye who toil in the town,
And ye who moil in the mart,
Hear the artless song, and your faith made strong
Shall renew your joy of heart.

Oh, poor were the worth of the world
If never a song were heard,—
If the sting of grief had no relief,
And never a heart were stirred.

So, long as the streams run down,
And as long as the robins trill,
Let us taunt old Care with a merry air,
And sing in the face of ill.

2016 Summer Olympics in Rio

It’s time for the Olympics to officially begin. This will be the 31st Summer games and there a couple additions to the sports Rugby (sevens) and Golf have been added both of these sports used to be in the Olympics. Rugby last appearing in 1924 and with the Americans as the defending Gold Medalist. Golf on the other hand last appeared in 1904 and the results are a bit skewed as the Americans  taken home 10 of the 13 medals given out. It will be interesting to see if these new sport stick around as we’ve just heard about some new sports joining the 2020 Olympics (baseball/softball, karate, sport climbing, surfing and skateboarding).

Rio is the first South American nation to host the Olympics as well as the first time Portuguese is the official language. This year there will be some new nations like Kosovo and South Sudan, as well as a team of refugee competing. The Cauldron for the Olympics won’t be actually at the main Stadium but near the Port. Now the big thing is to decide what Brazilian food to make for these Olympics.

Franciscan Crown: The Visitation

This decade we turn to the Visitation, Mary visiting Elizabeth is the second mystery just like in the regular Rosary. The feast of the Visitation has moved a bit over the ages it was began by Franciscians before 1263, Pope Urban VI in hopes to end the Papal schism added the feast (July 2) to the Roman Calendar in 1389. July 2 was the day after the end of the octave after the feast of the birth of John the Baptist. The feast stayed on July 2 until 1969 when Paul VI revised the calendar and moved it to May 31 between the feasts of Annunciation and Nativity of John (June 24) to better fit the Biblical narrative. In the East the feast is relatively new only dating back to the 19th century and the feast is on March 30 (April 12). However the feast is not accepted by all the various Orthodox Churches. Let us keep all those who are traveling this summer in our prayers that they get to their destination safely. We should also remember those who are hosting friend and family as well that everyone is kept safe and great memories can be made.

On the Grasshopper and Cricket

It is officially summer so here is a poem by John Keats about the season.

The Poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

Little League World Series 2015

Yesterday we had a record setting Championship game at the Little League World Series. This is by far the highest scoring baseball game I’ve ever watched sure the game is played on a smaller version of the diamond but 29 runs  in one game is remarkable. Once again Japan won the game but that’s isn’t that unusual as Japan and Taiwan have won a combined 27 time so it really isn’t that big of a surprise. Being such a high scoring game it was also pretty exciting game none the less with an offensive explosion in the first it was a close game even though through after the first it was 10-2 with Pennsylvania leading, by the end of the third Tokyo took the lead and never gave it back 13-11.

I am a huge fan the ESPN has done so much for this event as it has been airing the Little League World Series for my whole life and it’s been a wonderful way to cap off a summer. I think that it is wonderful for the kids to be just like their heroes playing on ESPN and it does help fill in that sports lull that is the summer when only two sports are playing games.

Lesser Known…

This week there are a bunch of random observances to start off the Summer Solstice happens as well as International Surfing Day, International Yoga Day, World Music Day, Go Skateboarding Day, World Humanist Day, and World Hydrography Day.  Talk about a busy day after surfing, skateboarding and doing yoga we need to listen to music and reflect on hydrographers as well as Humanists.  These are not even the weirdest of observances this week as there are some stranger oddly more specific days  Global Wind Day on June 15 when wind energy is celebrated; World Day to Combat Deforestation and Drought on the 17th; and I think the most bizarre day World Sauntering Day on the 19th when we are encouraged to take it easy, slow down and stop to smell the roses.

Bloomsday is also this week made famous by James Joyce’s Ulysses, which takes place on June 16. Ulysses tells of the adventures that Leopold Bloom’s journey on June 16th, This is why it is called Bloomsday, this day has made its way into The Producers at least the musical version as the character Leo Bloom asks when is it going to Leo Bloom’s Day on June 16.

Marina the Monk (died 19 July 750 AD)
This has to be one of the better Saint stories out there. Marina was the daughter of wealthy Christian parents, her mother died while she was young and her father raised Marina. When she got to marrying age her father decided that after Marina was married he would become a monk at the Monastery of Qannoubine in the Kadisha Valley , when Marina heard this she asked why he was going “to save his own soul and destroy mine?” Her father asked her what about you, since you are a woman. At this Marina renounced being a woman and would wear the clothing of a monk.  So Marina and her father set off for the Kadisha Valley, where they shared a cell. After ten years her father died and no one knew that she was a woman. Once the Abbot sent Marina and two other monks to do some business which was far from the monastery, so they stayed at an inn that evening. Also staying at the inn was a solider who became infatuated and raped the innkeeper’s daughter, and the solider told the daughter to say that it was Marina who had done it. When the inn keeper found out he went to the Abbot and was furious about what had happened. The Abbot called Marina and reprimanded her severely, when she realized what was happening she started weeping  admitted the sin and asked for forgiveness. Marina was told to leave, she didn’t go far as she was at the gates for the next ten year where she raised the innkeeper’s daughter’s child. The monks wore down the abbot and let Marina back into the monastery where hard labor was added to her regular monk duties. Around the age of 40 she became sick and died three days later. When a monk was cleaning and changing her for funeral prayers they discovered that the monk was a woman. The abbot when seeing the body wept bitterly, he then in turn brought the innkeeper who also wept  and eventually after Marina was buried the solider and the innkeeper’s daughter came and admitted what had happened, asking for forgiveness and wept as well.