I have no Scots ancestry, but my wife does. However, my English is Scots-influenced (confusing, huh?) because I am a Western Pennsylvanian. The sturdy settlers there hailed to a large extent from Caledonia.
When I taught English 4 or poetry I enjoyed sharing Burns. He was proud of his heritage, a hard-working man, and wrote of love, his homeland, and that wee mousie.
Tomorrow night is my Scotch night, and I will raise a glass to him.
Deaths occurring in clusters of three usually belongs to how we cope with death. Two people meet, and they can usually come up with three recent deaths from their families, friends, acquaintances, and the news in general.
Then in the music world there was Jeff Beck, Robbie Bachman (drummer from Bachman- Turner Overdrive), and now David Crosby, founding member of the Byrds and Crosby, Still, Nash, and Young. (Although Young came after the first album.
Crosby had his issues, but this is not the time nor the place to dwell on them. The tributes from his bandmates were sincere and heartfelt.
He was asked to leave the Byrds. Traumatic enough, but I cannot see the Byrds pioneering country rock with Crosby. His songwriting and performing skills led him in other directions. He evolved, I would say, rather than matured. In addition, he mentored upcoming musicians/singers and collaborated with so many others.
His first solo album was owned by a neighbor in my dorm at Penn State. I listened to it with him and was impressed. Appearing on that album were Graham Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, members of the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Santana. That is a Who's Who of FM radio of 50 years ago.
Being a poet/writer, I also focus on the lyrics. Scroll down for "Guinnevere" from the debut CS&N album. The link has many other examples of what I mean.
https://www.azlyrics.com/d/davidcrosby.html
That first solo album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1WAfbjyOoI
My family saw CS&N in 1991 on their acoustic tour in an open-air Albuquerque setting. Sheer majesty! And that mustache!
Recently I saw a tweet that asked if writers need to read.
My first reaction was, "Duh..."
But I actually responded with something like "Absolutely."
The question brought back memories of a few students who said they wrote or composed music. Many of them said they did not read or listen to others, they just wrote or composed. I would smile and say they need to read or listen. Anything I wanted to say would have resulted in a parental conference and would have been as cruel as it was accurate.
The Beatles did not become the greatest band ever by ignoring the music around them. Writers read voraciously Right now I cannot think of an example, but you get the idea.
For Christmas, I received a copy of Ron Rash's Eureka Mill. The poems deal with his family's transition from farming to working in textile mills. Excellent poems and it got me thinking about my own family. Three of my four grandparents immigrated to the USA; the fourth was conceived in Europe but born here.
This weekend I plan to start.
What inspired me:
My poetry:
My novel:
https://www.blurb.com/b/10799783-the-botleys-of-beaumont-county
https://www.dailycamera.com/2023/01/04/opinion-marc-thiessen-the-tragedy-of-pope-benedict-xvi/
Before going any further, my confession (pun intended). I am a pastor in good standing in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ordained 1981), and currently licensed in the Upper Diocese of South Carolina in the Episcopal Church of the USA, I consider myself an Evangelical Catholic. Anyone who has seen me at the altar would understand that. At times I have been told to become Roman Catholic (my wife would have something to say, as she has herself been ordained for some time now.). Over the years I have enjoyed friendship and collegiality with Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and laypeople. I have received the Eucharist openly and sometimes not so openly.
Thiessen's point is that because Benedict XVI resigned, the way was paved for Francis to be elected. There was a time when conservative Catholics like Thiessen answered criticisms of a pope with "You cannot criticize the Pope!" However, that does not apply to a pontiff like Francis who is perceived by some conservative Roman Catholics as being liberal-socialist-wrong-terrible,
Had Joseph Ratzinger not been elected in 2005, he would be remembered as a great theologian. There is no question about either his intellect or his piety. He also had every right to speak on matters pertaining to Roman Catholicism. I purposely did not say church, because the link below to the 1991 Declaration says there is only one Church established by Jesus Christ: the Roman Catholic Church.
I am not alone in disagreeing with this, and other points It is a turning back of the progress made by Vatican II. When the Declaration came out, I stopped crossing myself the Latin way, and did so the Orthodox way (right to left, not left to right anymore).
Benedict's mistake was not his resignation. It was facing an increasingly-secularized world by reverting back to views that were incorrect and potentially alienating fellow Christians. In some conservative Roman Catholic circles, he was seen as a possible rival to Francis, which Benedict rejected.
I am sorry that my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters experience this turmoil. We have our own in the ELCA, as does every part of the Church. By that term I mean all Christians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominus_Iesus
c
A sad week in our household. For the first time in over forty years, my wife and I do not have a newspaper to hold in our hands. She...
