The Dark Night
by: St. John of the Cross
“On a night of darkness,
In love’s anxiety of longing kindled,
O blessed chance!
I left by none beheld,
My house in sleep and silence stilled.
In darkness and secure,
By the secret ladder and disguised,
O blessed venture!
In darkness and concealed,
My house is sleep and silence stilled.
By dark of blessed night,
In secrecy, for no one saw me
And I regarded nothing,
My only light and guide
The one that in my heart was burning.
This guided, led me on
More surely than the radiance of noon
To where there waited one
Who was to me well known,
And in a place where no one came in view.
O night, you were the guide!
O night more desirable than dawn!
O dark of night you joined
Beloved with belov’d one,
Belov’d one in Beloved now transformed!
Upon my flowering breast,
Entirely kept for him and him alone,
There he stayed and slept
And I caressed him
In breezes from the fan of cedars blown.
Breezes on the battlements –
As I was spreading out his hair,
With his unhurried hand
He wounded my neck
And all my sense left suspended there.
I stayed, myself forgotten,
My countenance against my love reclined;
All ceased, and self forsaken
I left my care behind
Among the lilies, unremembered.”
Here, John writes of rejoicing in his union with God by the path of spiritual negation. Very sensual, which is common among the mystics.
There have been times past when the sense of God’s presence and my great desire for God have been so great, that I have experienced spiritually, emotionally, and physically such things – such passion, such… I just don’t know how to describe it.
That was a good while past. I don’t know whether the passion has waned, whether the desire is gone, or maybe just different now.

Off to Baltimore again this year for Thanksgiving. I could sense that my mother really wanted me to come home this year. All the concerns surrounding my grandmother and the problems concerning my uncle, my mother’s brother, do nothing but add to her frustration and worry. She wanted to come to New York – she would have loved to have seen the balloons being inflated or even gone the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. That is not happening, and this is my last year here. They will be at my grandmother’s for Thanksgiving.
Maybe I should have gone, but part of me just can’t. Selfish? Maybe so. I will have an incredible Thanksgiving meal. I will be in a place that is so relaxing. I will be with people I am comfortable enough with, although…
Another Thanksgiving. What am I honestly thankful for? Am I far too removed from real life to stop, even for a moment, to think and be thankful?

I have a great view of the children’s garden a few stories below my bedroom window. The toddlers and kids up to around three or so are out there playing, and I heard one crying, only half paying attention.
I looked out my window and saw one of the kids just hugging another one and patting her on the back. She did this for a good bit of time, releasing and hugging again. After it ended, the hugee wiped her eyes and they went back to playing.
Kids are amazing things!

I have a more reputable source for the mean and origin of the surname, “Griffith.” I heard from another Griffith years ago that the name was Welsh and stood for “red headed tribal chieftain.” Thatç—´ a lot of description for one little word.
So, according to The Family Chronicle, here is the definition:
Griffith is British-Welsh and comes from the middle Welsh “Gruffund;” “und” means lord. The name is taken from or based upon the first name of the ancestor’s father, which makes it patronymic.
And, according to The Sweetest Sound from PBS, it is number 358 out of a possible 55,000 of the most popular surnames in the USA. Go figure.

Ashton coaches the Princeton Equestrian team. Today, they were high point team and one of the women was high point rider. They won by the highest point spread in the school’s history. Ashton has been coaching them for less than a semester, but boy have they improved.
He also qualified for regional competition, on his way to nationals once again!
(There have been problems with this weblog since my website host company has some screw-up once again. I have spent all afternoon rebuilding this stupid thing, which means I have done nothing with my liturgy paper which is due tomorrow.)

I am tired. I’m tired of a year through which we had to deal with aftermath of Bishop Robinson’s consecration. I’m tired of a year through which we had to deal with a presidential election. I’m tired of month period where the Windsor Report was issued, and a president was elected.
I am tired of all the lies and fear mongering perpetuated by the anti-gay establishment in both the Church and the State.
I am tired of living in a society where few have really learned anything about loving one’s neighbor as one loves one’s self. Don’t you think it is about time we start honestly doing what we are called to do as Christians?

Walter Bauman, a systematic theologian and retired professor of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, taught a Systematic Theology course I took a few years ago, commented on the role the East German Lutheran Church during the Communist period. He said that the East German Lutherans did not campaign against the godless communists in power, but decided that they would hold their communist leaders’ feet to the fire and demand they actually do what their propaganda promised. The Lutherans held their public leaders accountable to the egalitarian and socialist ideals they said they believed in, they fought against public graft, corruption, and enrichment of leaders at the expense of the people, and they demanded that their leaders actually abide by the grand claims of the socialist and communist system.
If that is what the majority of people who voted for “moral values” want, then that is what we should hold them accountable for. If that is the language and schema they want to use, then so be it.
We should demand that they explain that they mean by “moral values,” then demand that they prove their assertions using good exegetical and hermeneutical methods of Biblical interpretation, historical and cultural understandings that apply to those Scriptures, and not let them get away with the misuse and misinterpretation of Scripture. We should also be vigilant in demanding that they live up to their own rhetoric, and sadly make sure their failures are widely known. Of course, because we strongly believe in the merciful grace of God, which they claim also, by pointing out their failures we are fighting the sin of hypocrisy and we are actually helping them be free from that which enslaves them and helping them come to the freeing realization of God’s grace, mercy, justice, and peace.