Although I can already feel the heat rising. The birds were singing quite extravagantly when I was returning from the supermarket (i.e. the midpoint of the morning walk-- the only item I needed to shop for was alfalfa sprouts although I picked up some tuna and sausage links because they were on sale) and I stopped to listen a couple of times, peering across the street to see if I can could see the soloists; the drivers passing either understood or else thought that I was going bonkers. The back yard is polluted at the moment with the noise of a lawn-cutting machine, which is drowning out the clicks and cries and caterwauling of the squirrels and the crows or jays as they continue their perpetual combat.
Have been wanting to post this excerpt of Father Abbot Philip Anderson's last email, which arrived a week ago. Clear Creek Abbey is somewhere in the wilds of Oklahoma and is the American daughter house of the Abbey of Fontgombault.
... Among the duties that are incumbent upon man, there is one that has been more neglected in our day. And yet it is a very agreeable duty, a joyful obligation, one that lifts a man up as he performs it. It is the duty of praise: "Offer to God the sacrifice of praise," says the Psalmist, "and pay thy vows to the most High…. The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me: and there is the way by which I will show him the salvation of God" (Ps. 49:14, 24).
We can be certain that in the exact measure to which proper praise, Eucharistic praise especially, but also the praise of veneration offered to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the other Saints, begins to rise up more frequently from the world, to the same extent the voices of violent anger and despair will be calmed. This is not to say that efforts to ensure justice on earth should cease—on the contrary—but that this pursuit of justice should once again become a truly human activity, an activity where passion is being led by reason and not the contrary. If we offer praise, Divine praise, in our lives we will be able again to discuss our differences honestly and for the enrichment of all....
It's time for breakfast. Now the neighbor is weed-cutting.
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