Limestone Roof

(1) The Quality of Objects (The Russell Kirk Center)

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Quotes from Paul by N.T. Wright:

“But the dark powers do not give up easily.”

“Ephesus was famous as the home of all kinds of magic, the dark and powerful arts that were always popular on the edge of mainstream paganism. When Acts describes converted magicians burning their secret books as evidence of the impact of Paul’s teaching, this makes sense precisely in Ephesus. But it would also make sense to imagine a backlash. And when the dark forces strike back, they do not play fair.”

“In one scene that must have shaken the world to its core, a substantial group of magicians made public confession of what they had been up to and brought their valuable magic books to be burned. The dark arts were being smoked out of hiding, almost literally. All those prayers Paul had prayed, invoking the name and the power of the crucified and risen Lord, were having their effect.”

“But in this case he had sensed that something else was going on. The forces ranged against him were not simply human. He had stirred up a hornets’ nest with his powerful ministry in Ephesus. Think of all those magic books going up in smoke. Just as Jesus warned his followers not to fear those who could merely kill the body, but rather to fear the dark power that could wreck a more terrible destruction, so Paul was learning that human authorities, though important in themselves, might sometimes be acting merely as a front for other powers that would attack through them.”

“I think that, like a plant in harsh winter, Paul in prison was forced to put his roots down even deeper than he had yet gone into the biblical tradition, and deeper again, still within that tradition, into the meaning of Jesus and his death. The roots slowly found moisture. From the depth of that dark soil, way below previous consciousness, he drew hope and new possibilities. The fruit of that labor remains to this day near the heart of Christian belief.”

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Do not delete.

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“It is a difficult and rare virtue to mean what we say, to love without dissimulation, to think no evil, to bear no grudge, to be free from selfishness, to be innocent and straight-forward.” — Lead, Kindly, Light

(1) The art of imitation – 19th century Islamic revivalism (The British Museum)

(2) A poem by Robert Frost:

TO THE THAWING WIND
“Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate’er you do tonight,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit’s crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o’er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.”

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(1) A quote from Paul by N.T. Wright:

“When our words run out, we need images: the look of delight when a dear friend pays an unexpected visit, the glance of understanding between musicians as together they say something utterly beautiful, the long squeeze of a hand by a hospital bed, the contentment and gratitude that accompany shared worship and prayer—all this and more. The other Greek word for which Paul would reach is of course agapē, “love,” but once again our English term is so overused that we can easily fail to recognize it as it walks nearby, like a short-sighted lover failing to recognize the beloved; what we so often miss is that it means the world, and more than the world. ‘The son of God love me,’ Paul had written to the Galatians, ‘and gave himself for me.’ What we see as Paul makes his way around the cities of northern Greece is what that love looks like when it translates into the personal and pastoral ministry of the suffering and celebrating apostle.”

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(1) A quote from The Power Of Silence: Against The Dictatorship Of Noise by Robert Cardinal Sarah:

“Today the danger lies in the unbridled activism of the modern world. We are always called to fight, to comb the countryside, to overthrow our adversaries, and to destroy them. Indeed, man is driven to compound one evil with another, whereas we ought to let the weeds grow with the wheat. Silence will give us the patience to wait for the moment when the useless plants will fall by themselves. Thanks to silence, we will know how to bide our time and to wait for God’s hour with perseverance so as to forge an alliance with him and to work under his guidance.”

(2) The Death of Europe, with Douglas Murray (YouTube)

(3) Virginia gun ‘sanctuary’ leaders urge resistance to gun laws, compare to American Revolution (Washington Examiner)

(4) Chuck Todd Suggests That Trump Voters ‘Wanna Be Lied to’ Because Noah’s Ark or Something (PJ Media)

(5) Wintry panorama…

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I’m using my retreats as bookends so the timeline covers the period between December 7-9, 2018 and December 20-22, 2019. What I didn’t know before my first retreat ended is that I would spend 6+ months in Paris for work beginning in March.

Some notes…

I’ve provided dates for specific events (matches, concerts, etc.) and if you’re keeping score at home my teams / clubs went 5-1-1. All the links in this post are to Flickr, Vimeo, and/or official sites. While I briefly mention my trips to Belgium (Orval Abbey) and Germany both are covered extensively in other posts. The second part of my post will focus on life in Paris.

Timeline

• Retreat at St. Josephs Abbey 12/7 to 12/9/2018
• North Carolina 1st Visit 12/16/2018
• New York Islanders (6) vs Ottawa Senators (3) 12/28/2018 (WIN)
• Paris 1st Sprint 3/9/2019
• La Marche de Saint Joseph 3/16/2019
• Weekend in Metz 3/30 to 3/31/2019
  • FC Metz (2) vs FC Lorient (1) 3/31/2019 (WIN)
• A.J. Auxerre (0) vs FC Metz (0) 4/6/2019 (DRAW)
• Weekend in Southampton 4/12 to 4/14/2019
  • Southampton (3) vs Wolverhampton (1) 4/13/2019 (WIN)
  • Solent Sky Museum 4/13/2019
• Weekend in Belgium (via Luxembourg) 6/22 to 6/23/2019
• Kingdom Hearts World Orchestra (NYC) 6/29/2019
• Bastille Day 7/14/2019
• North Carolina 2nd Visit 8/15/2019
• Weekend in Angers 8/24 to 8/25/2019
• Angers SCO (3) vs FC Metz (0) 8/24/2019 (LOSS)
• Weekend in Trier Germany & Luxembourg City 9/14 to 9/15/2019
  • Eintracht Trier (3) vs TuS Koblenz (2) 9/14/2019 (WIN)
• TWA Hotel 9/22 & Walt Disney World 9/23 to 9/29/2019
• New York City 10/24 to 10/26/2019
  • New York Islanders (4) vs Arizona Coyotes (2) 10/24/2019 (WIN)
  • Emanuel Ax Performs Beethoven @ Lincoln Center 10/25/2019
• London 11/17 to 11/24/2019
  • Mail Rail at The Postal Museum & Guildhall Art Gallery 11/18/2019
• Bristol 11/22 to 11/24/2019
• North Carolina 3rd Visit 12/14 to 12/18/2019
• Retreat at St. Josephs Abbey 12/20 to 12/22/2019

Paris 1st Sprint
I spent my first weekend in Paris participating in the La Marche de Saint Joseph. It was an amazing event but notable for two reasons— we attended mass at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris less than 1 month before it was devastated by a fire on April 15 and we visited Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. The former was my refuge whilst in Paris, and it wasn’t until my retreat to St. Joseph’s this Advent that I realized HOW special this cathedral is.

Here is Saint Therese of Lisieux on Our Lady of Victories:

“We reached Paris in the morning and commenced our visit without any delay. Poor little Father tired himself out trying to please us, and very soon we saw all the marvels of the Capital. I myself found only one which filled me with delight, Our Lady of Victories! Ah! what I felt kneeling at her feet cannot be expressed. The graces she granted me so moved me that my happiness found expression only in tears, just as on the day of my First Communion.”

Here’s a photo and video from the limestone archives from inside the cathedral. Coffee and books will feature prominently in this long post and I spent many weekends at Bar du Moulin (right next door to the cathedral) sipping coffee and reading in the shadow of Our Lady.

Metz & Auxerre
My first trip outside of Paris was to Metz via Gare de l’Est. The goal of my weekend excursion was a football match between FC Metz and FC Lorient. This photo of Stade Saint-Symphorien is one of my favorites. I was able to the explore the stadium the day before the match completely unmolested and the walk from Gare de Metz to Stade Saint-Symphorien follows the beautiful Moselle. Don’t miss the Basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains, Cathedral of Saint Stephen of Metz (Good Lord’s Lantern), and Temple Neuf. When you need a little caffeine and rest find La Moselle. It’s one of three really exceptional cafés discovered on these trips. The others being Foliage Café in Bristol and The Caféothèque of Paris.

My second excursion was a day trip to Auxerre for a football match. I was perched outside the stadium early enough to see the club arrive via bus.

Southampton
I returned to the US via Southampton and London. A brief summary of my trip was captured in Southampton, P2. One of the highlights was my visit to the Solent Sky Museum and it’s featured in a documentary about the Spitfire on Netflix. I was also there for a football match at St. Mary’s.

>> Related: Southampton, P1

Belgium
I took two really great weekend trips outside of France during my assignment in Paris. The first was to the Orval Abbey in Belgium whilst the second was to Trier in Germany. I took the train from Paris to Luxembourg for both and then rented a car. The Orval Abbey and St. Joseph’s both share a Cistercian and Trappist history. I stayed at the Hotel Le Florentin and it’s one of the nicest hotels I’ve ever stayed at (not exaggerating). The area around Florenville is also very pastoral / bucolic.

I was back in NYC in June for the Kingdom Hearts World Orchestra and the highlight was meeting Yoko Shimomura!

One perk of this assignment was the opportunity to celebrate two national holidays within ten days of each other on two different continents / countries— Independence Day and Bastille Day. I have never seen better fireworks than the ones in Paris (and having the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop just adds to the pageantry). I also had access to a special viewing section (long story for another post).

Angers
One of my last weekend trips in France was to Angers to see newly promoted FC Metz get steamrolled by Angers SCO. The city follows the contours of the Maine. The area around the Château d’Angers offers excellent vistas and don’t miss the Tapestry of the Apocalypse within the castle. The Crêperie du Château is a nice break from adventuring, and I’m NOT a foodie so its inclusion in this post is significant. You could also spend a half-day taking photos in the narrow streets around the creperie.

Trier & Luxembourg City
My trip to Trier was just before the end of my assignment and included a football match between Eintracht Trier and TuS Koblenz. I also revisited Porta Nigra (was there once upon a time). I spent the night at the BECKERS Hotel and Restaurant and you can see vineyards from the property.

Some poor planning on my part resulted in almost a full day in Luxembourg City (kind of a happy accident) which included a self-guided tour of Saint Michael’s (the oldest Catholic Church in Luxembourg City) and a stroll through the Parcs de la Pétrusse.

TWA Hotel and Walt Disney World
I spent a night at the TWA Hotel at JFK in September with my brother en route to Walt Disney World. I’m not going to write about the latter because it’s getting much more difficult to see any trace of Walt Disney. The restoration of Eero Saarinen’s Bird Terminal on the other hand will result in an architectural and historical sensory overload. We spent most of the night just wandering around the hotel taking photographs. I wish Disney would restore Tomorrowland to its original Saarinen-like design.

>> Up, Up and Away with TWA (Flickr Album)

New York
I did return to Paris for one final sprint but work obligations made any weekend excursions difficult. The end of my assignment and return to the US coincided with the start of hockey season (AHL/NHL) and a concert at Lincoln Center/David Geffen Hall. I went home to the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum a couple days before my birthday to see the Isles (founded in 1972) play the Arizona Coyotes. The Isles WON 4-2 and I caught a puck in the third period.

Fun Fact: I saw the North Carolina Hurricanes (Hartford Whalers) defeat the Arizona Coyotes on 12/16/2018 3-0 on my first trip to Raleigh.

London and Bristol
I finished Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History sometime in the summer (no doubt at Bar du Moulin in the shadow of Our Lady) and was enamored by a painting depicting one of the important battles. My trip to London in November included a day trip to the Guildhall Art Gallery to see the painting Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, 1782 by John Singleton Copley. I also rode the Mail Rail at the Postal Museum. IF you are not claustrophobic (and love trains) this tour / museum should be managed on your itinerary like expedited first class. I also went to the London Transport Museum for some gift shopping and left with British Rail Architecture 1948-1997 by David Lawrence for the limestone library. I haven’t finished the book yet but quotes are appearing in posts and correspondence to friends. I was so inspired by a passage about an experimental station that I’m managing something similar in my backyard (in miniature of course).

I left London for Bristol via Waterloo Station. The highlight of this trip was the Foliage Café and the Clifton Suspension Bridge. The weather was really (really) lousy but I was still able to explore the city by foot. Make sure to explore Giant’s Cave. If you fancy vinyl there’s a Rough Trade on Nelson Street.

Paris Closing Notes
A quick list of my favorite places and things in Paris not mentioned in the body of the post:
RATP / Châtelet / Paris Métro
La Défense
Saint Joseph’s
Hôtel de Ville
Ashiana (Indian Restaurant)
Au Plat d’Etain
Gare de Bercy/Gare de l’Est/Gare Montparnasse
Jardin du Luxembourg/Jardin des Tuileries (Big Wheel on Place de la Concorde)
The Abbey Bookshop
Marché couvert les Enfants Rouges
Cinq Fois Plus
The Musée de l’Orangerie
Grand Palais
La Caisses de Bières
Arc de Triomphe
Sacré-Cœur
La Droguerie
Le BHV Marais (Caran d’Ache)
Atelier des Lumières
Marche aux Fleurs et aux Oiseaux

Companion Books and Music
Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History by Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins
Absolutely on Music: Conversations Haruki Murakami with Seiji Ozawa by Haruki Murakami and Seiji Ozawa
Orval: Histoire de la reconstruction de l’abbaye by Danièle Henky and Èric Hance
British Rail Architecture 1948-1997 by David Lawrence
The Baroque Oboe: Harold Gomberg performs Vivaldi, Telemann and Handel; Seiji Ozawa conducting the Columbia Chamber Orchestra with the Gomberg Baroque Ensemble

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(1) Glenn Gould’s U.S. Television Debut: Bernstein Conducting Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor (YouTube)

(2) The link between Haruki Murakami / Seiji Ozawa and Kingdom Hearts via Absolutely on Music.

Murakami: Keiko Fuji’s daughter is very active nowadays as a singer.

Ozawa: Oh, really?

Murakami: She calls herself Hikaru Utada. When I was a student, I worked in a little record shop in Shinjuku, and one day Keiko Fuji came in. She was a small woman, very simply dressed, and didn’t stand out in any way. She introduced herself to us with a smile and thanked us for selling her records. Then she gave us a little bow and left. I remember being very impressed that such a big star would go to the trouble of making the rounds of the record stores like that. That would have been around 1970.

(3) How the Creator of ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ Got the Gospel Past CBS Execs (NewsBusters™)

(4) A Leg Up on the Last Mile (Urban Omnibus)

(5) Interview: How a Pigment Forager Is Creating an Exhaustive Archive of Ochres Around the World (My Modern Met)

(5a) Related Post: Making Colour

(6) More Haruki Murakami / Seiji Ozawa via Absolutely on Music.

Murakami: Let’s talk about the sixties again. I believe your first American recording was an accompaniment for the oboist Harold Gomberg. It contains concertos by Vivaldi and Telemann, and the recording is date listed as May 1965. I happened to come across this copy at a used-record store in the US.

Ozawa: How incredible that you found this thing. Wow, it brings back memories!

(7) A quote from Walt Disney and the Quest for Community by Steve Mannheim:

“One of the important maxims at WED Enterprises was, according to Bill Martin, ‘we never threw anything away and a lot of these ideas ended up in other plans years later.’ Examples include the proposed International Street at Disneyland and a Chinatown district, neither of which was built. Of course, international theming has a long tradition in fairs and exhibitions and would be featured in the EPCOT concept.

Edison Square, another historically themed street proposed for Disneyland, evolved into General Electric’s Carousel of Progress. Also, an American Liberty Street was scheduled to open at Disneyland in 1959. Disney visited Williamsburg, Virginia, with his family near the end of his life and possessed several books about colonial Williamsburg. Instead, Liberty Square eventually become part of the Magic Kingdom at Florida’s Walt Disney World in 1971. The WED Enterprises’ maxim that an idea sometimes must be wait until its time illustrates that a concept and the final show installation can end up being two very different things. The EPCOT plan was only conceptual when Disney died.”

(8) Some quotes from Paul by N.T. Wright:

“The second thing we can be sure of it that he prayed, he studied, and he figured out all sorts of things. Faced with his letters (written a decade and more later), dense as they are with concentrated argument, we cannot imagine that when he wrote the he was breaking entirely new ground. He could no doubt improvise on the spot, but in his mature thought he gives every evidence of long pondering. Saul spent a silent decade deepening the well of scriptural reflection from which he would thereafter draw the water he needed.”

“As I think of Paul launching this new venture, the image of the tightrope over the volcano doesn’t seem to go far enough. He was inventing, and must have known that he was inventing, a new way of being human. It must have been a bit like the first person to realize that notes sounded in sequence created melody, that notes sounded together created harmony, and that ordering the sequence created rhythm. If we can think of a world without music and then imagine it being invented, offering a hitherto undreamed-of depth and power to space, time, and matter, then we may have a sense of the crazy magnitude of Paul’s vocation.”

(9) A quote from The Mirror of Faith by William of Saint Thierry:

“Woven into the fabric of medieval ecclesiastical society, the Black Monks sought salvation for themselves and for all Christians by maintaining an ancient and honorable tradition, giving glory to God and security to men through fidelity to the Rule of St Benedict and to the customs which had grown up through generations of its observance. The first Cistercians, reacting against the embellishments of time and sentiment, had undertaken a corporal and spiritual asceticism by which they discarded cherished observances, impressive ceremonies, and architectural ornamentation which supported contemporary monastic life, not because they thought them meaningless—some indeed had altogether too much meaning—but because they found the very richness distracted them from the search for God alone. The White Monks had resolved to return to the fountainhead, to the Rule and to the Scripturas which it summarizes. Having settled themselves in their austere monasteries in the strait and narrow way set out by the Rule, they began in the persons of their most articulate abbots and able writers to explicate these sources in terms of their own personal experience. Unfettered by archaism, they strove for primitive purity and created a new tradition.”

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“Take away from a traveler the hope of arriving, and his courage to go on is broken.” — William of Saint Thierry

My retreats are a bit like book ends and it was interesting to read / compare my journal entries between them. The exercise of comparing entries isn’t all that groundbreaking but there’s a BIGGER backstory here that makes this year more interesting than previous. My plan is to use the time between retreats to give fuller context to one incredibly amazing year, especially since SO much of the year was rooted in faith, hope, and charity.

This wasn’t an intellectual retreat either and the time was mostly spent recovering / recuperating from physical exhaustion (although I don’t want to diminish the intellectual meatiness of the homily and conference(s) since both were brilliant).

I took five books from the limestone library but read mostly from two found at the abbey. The first was St. Therese of Lisieux: Her Last Conversations by St. Therese of Lisieux (Author) and John Clarke (Translator) and the second The Mirror of Faith by William of Saint Thierry. The two books from my own library I did revisit were Dialogues with Silence by Thomas Merton and Life Lessons from the Monastery by Jerome Kodell.

There were a couple of emergent themes. One was inspired by “A Joy To Be Around“ in Life Lessons from the Monastery. The other was in my notes from last year regarding a ‘field hospital‘ that’s traced to The Power of Silence (pages 154-156; see below) and this quote from Pope Francis.

“In a secularized, decadent world, if the Church allows herself to be lured by materialistic, media-savvy, and relativistic sirens, she runs the risk of making Christ’s death on the cross for the salvation of souls futile. The Church’s mission is not to solve all the social problems of the world; she must repeat tirelessly the first words of Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry in Galilee: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.’ (Mk 1:15)”

I also took some photos which you can view on Flickr in an album dedicated to St. Joseph’s Abbey.

Personal Plea
IF you find this post please pray for Fr. William. He gave our conference in 2018. Please also pray for the brothers at St. Joseph’s Abbey, Orval Abbey, and Clear Creek Abbey.

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“I didn’t know what to do. And I flew round in circles with ten people following me around in circles, them looking at me as a leader, and me not knowing what to do. And I can tell you, I prayed, I prayed. I didn’t know what to do, what to do. And God answered. He doesn’t answer you with a flash of lightning, he puts something in your head that you never thought of before. And I thought, ‘What I’d better do now is fly all the way back to Gibraltar,’ which was 850 miles in the opposite direction. So I set off. By the grace of God, I came across the wake of the Navy and found the Ark Royal and all the fleet, 20, 25 ships.” — Thomas Francis “Ginger” Neil

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Lead, Kindly Light
“This world is a scene of conflict between good and evil. The evil not only avoids but persecutes the good; the good cannot conquer except by suffering. Good men seem to fail; their cause triumphs, but their own overthrow is the price paid for this success. — Endurance of Censure

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(1) This Is Why Your Holiday Travel Is Awful (Politico)

“Penn Station is the second most heavily trafficked transit hub in the world, trailing only Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station. The station serves more daily passengers than the region’s three huge airports (Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark) combined. More people pass through Penn each weekday than live in the city of Baltimore. Anyone who has passed through Penn Station over the past half-century—or who passed through it this Thanksgiving weekend—knows that the nation’s busiest transit center is a national embarrassment, a hole in the ground where the food is ratty and the waiting rooms are sparse.”

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“You know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” — Rom 13:11-14

Lead, Kindly Light
Divine calls in Scripture require instant obedience, and next call us we know not to what; call us on in the darkness. Faith alone can obey them. How does this concern us now? We were all called to serve God in infancy, before we could obey or disobey; we have been called to a state of salvation, through Holy Baptism, by the act of our parents. Calling is not a thing future with us, but a thing past.

Prayer: Sometimes I am afraid, dear Lord, when You lead me in darkness. Increase my little faith that I may ever trust in You.

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(1) American Interior (1935) by Charles Sheeler

(2) Game Over: How technology forced traditional toys to evolve (Vera)

(3) Great Western Railway: Adventures with the Famous Five (YouTube)

(4) A couple of quotes from British Rail Architecture 1948-97 by David Lawrence:

“Any designed object or space will have an appearance intended to attract the eye in some way: perhaps to impress or reassure, to demonstrate efficiency, or comfort, or progressive ideas.”

“Frank Pick (1878-1941), influential patron of art and design for modern transport, saw the potential for the railway station as an opportunity for architecture and design to come together in interesting an appropriate ways, and he knew that the station could earn money for the railway.”

“Only the concrete and brick stations built by the Southern Railway for routes converted to electric services during the 1930s provided a contrast to the varying levels of decrepitude manifested at the Region’s wayside halts and gloomy suburban stations.”

“Leslie (later Sir Leslie) Martin and his wife Sadie Speight, shared a background in architecture and avant-garde art. They were close to sources of modernity, not least because Martin co-edited the magazine Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art with artists Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, published from 1937. Sadie Speight was a founding partner of Design Research Unit, which would author the British Rail corporate identity of 1964. Together they designed a timber-frame school at Hartford Ch (1938), which used standard components to test building with ready-made structures. London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) architect WH Hamlyn created a Development Section concerned with the collection of data from existing buildings, to look at types of station, planning and production of buildings, types of structure and their performance, wear and maintenance of materials and finishes, lighting and plumbing, and furnishings. From this data specifications would be compiled to standardize design, materials and equipment for future architectural needs.”

(5) It Was Supposed to Be the Safest Building in the World. Then It Cracked.

How San Francisco’s Salesforce Transit Center went from the Grand Central of the West to a $2.2 billion construction debacle. (Popular Mechanics)

(6) The Festival of Britain 1951 (Historic UK)

(7) Quarry plan controversy (The Royal Gazette)

(8) blue cathedral (YouTube)

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A couple of quotes from Gibraltar: The Greatest Siege in British History by Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins:

“Previously governor of Greenwich Hospital, Hardy† had earlier in the year been put in charge of the Channel Fleet, in what was a political rather than a military appointment.”

“Despite Admiral Hardy’s widely criticized handling of the invasion threat, he was still in command of the Channel Fleet, but instead of involving him in these new operations it was decided to place someone else in charge.”

†Sir Charles Hardy, Vice-Admiral of the Channel Fleet

Update
Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, 1782 by John Singleton Copley at the Guildhall Art Gallery

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