Category: Sunday Posts

Sunday, a day of rest and reflection, a day to keep holy, in awe of God.

Corpus Christi Carol

On By cjx07sterIn Sunday Posts, TravelLeave a comment

This as I walked on Sunday morning, in  Foxboro, MA. USA.  Past rocks and springs, and green grass, past houses of wood on foundations of stone, ready for the frozen ground to come, but shining in the light summer air that day. I had a short conversation that morning.

“hello” – said the american woman, as I came by her house.

“Hi”, – I said, the Aussie wondering..

“How are you ?”, the woman answered, digging out a tree in her garden

“I’m well” I said, the stranger walking by,  “looks like a fair bit of work for you”…

“Yes”, “The kids are away …”

“OK well It’s good that it is not raining then” as I continued on past..

Sunday can be like that, far from home, a whole day can be spent with just occasional short conversations.. which take on a significance due to the lack of other conversational noise of the day to day.  As I continued walking I thought I might write something of Corpus Christi, what is it all about etc..

Corpus Christi Carol, I really like the tune, the way Jeff Beck plays it, the way Hayley Westenra sings it, the way Benjamin Britten wrote the music, the way somebody wrote the ancient lyrics some 500 years ago.  I feel there is scope to extend the lyrics a few more stanzas…I guess these stanzas look at the continuation of presence by faith and power in the Eucharist, something relevant to the feast of Corpus Christi.

Corpus Christi Carol – additional stanzas

And this is the method his story is told

not symbolic, but real life fold-ed

Corpus Christi, he gave us to share

Bread and wine Christ made him there

How can it be, that this bread is He ?

How can it be, this wine you and me ?

in our lives, his love transforms

and by our faith, his word informs,

And told the priest that he had the hour

To continue the simplest miracle power

The lost 39 Minutes

On By cjx07sterIn Intelligence, Sunday PostsLeave a comment

Sunday marks the beginning and the ending of the world, the alpha and omega of God’s time and work of creation. The earth,  mars, solar system and milky galactic realm are all cyclic. and our world, progresses leaping forward each week a worldly man-made cycle, but beginning and ending each Sunday. Its stability like clockwork.

Back on Mars, it was a bit cold perhaps, and Christmas’ were more spread out, being nearly two earth years between drinks.  But Sunday, the cyclic creation rest, stretched out an additional 39 earth minutes there.  We started out there in our Marworld civilization, who when it got unbearable, decided to migrate to the earth.  A bit closer in, maybe a bit warmer.  Martian people we maybe started out, and then became earthlings.  Shortening our day, and speeding up our lives. We brought war with us, and it has been assumed this is due to the loss of those 39 minutes. We stop reflecting at the pivotal moment, always seem to be running out of time to discuss and resolve and resort to war instead.

How some of us long to return to those quiet peaceful days our forefathers had on the red planet. Where we had time to think and contemplate life.  We don’t know why the Marworld dried up and became lifeless, too hard to live on. The grind of the solar system has obliterated all trace.  Were we the cause, were we the tipping point, did we just mess it up too much for it’s own cycles and balance systems to fix up.  Lyapunov unstable the engineers said, we just pushed it a bit too far, and the rest is history.

Note : Mars Sol day is around 24hrs 39mins 35 seconds long. It takes about a year 320 days to orbit the sun. Many including Tesla speculated that perhaps intelligent life existed on Mars due to his own radio observations. I think most people don’t believe this anymore and the facts seem to weigh against the idea.  Perhaps our world is safe from global climate change and we are guaranteed by some kind of Godly stability in creation.  Perhaps not.  I for one probably think Mercury is not a safe haven.

A place to pray my way in Shanghai

On By cjx07sterIn Sunday Posts, TravelLeave a comment

I travelled to China a bit – lately haven’t been..  I had work in Shanghai and got to know Hen Shan Lu pretty well as well as Urumqui Lu and beyond out to Cao Bao Lu.

Shanghai Sunday was a good chance to see how people are, in the park, they do dancing in groups, or Tai Chi, or exercises or in peoples park, they sit and watch other people walking by, or peg up scrap paper notices with texta writing on lines in peoples park, looking for and interviewing prospective spouses for their kids.

A catholic mass was held in the Cathedral in Shanghai each Sunday, you could hear it in mandarin or russian.  I used to choose mandarin mass, cos they had the words up in Chinese on overhead projectors, and I used to try to at least read some of the characters.  I got to know the one for Lord at least. The beauty really is that regardless of the language, the catholic mass is the same worldwide, so you really feel at home no matter where you end up.  I get the feeling having been to probably hundreds of churches worldwide that it’s the same for many travelers.  I would meet people from everywhere, everyone praying but without a common earthly language. The weird part was that the music was often the same old hymn tunes from colonial times, but different words. How God and people of all languages get together on Sunday. You can pray when you realise its not about the words, when all the words are different for all the people sitting there.

There was a coffee shop in Shanghai, called May Coffee, run by May, and I liked going there.  It’s no longer there, and who knows where May went.  It was good coffee, and a place to relax on the way back to the hotel.  May and her friends used to meet and chat in Shanghainese.  I really had no idea what was being said, but it was quiet and peaceful there on Henshan Lu on a sunday morning.