Publisher @OrbisBooks, saint-whisperer @GiveUsThisDayLP. #TolstoysTalesofTrump. #MastersofSocialIsolation. Seeking meaning in the sacred and the absurd.
Joined December 2016
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Evening meditation: 17th cen icon, Salus Populi Romani (Protectress of the Roman People), recently restored under Pope Francis.
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Yes indeed. Franny is reading The Way of a Pilgrim when she locks herself in her room, suffering from depression. Her brother tells her it means nothing to recite the Jesus Prayer if she can’t even accept her mother’s “consecrated chicken soup.”
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The President excited to know that his daily updates on the pandemic are a “ratings hit”—talking “The Bachelor” finale numbers!! 👏👏 Advertisers take notice!! $$$
“President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to rise...
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Thank you, I didn’t want to suggest anything particularly heroic, but the memory of that time came back to me strongly today— with the question, What are our “cells” teaching us?
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#Quarantine Go into your cell and your cell will teach you everything,” said St Anthony, the desert monk. I thought of the 16 days I spent fasting in solitary confinement in a jail in CO in 5/78—arrested for blocking railroad tracks into the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.
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My solitary cell was just wide and long enough to lie down on a mat on the floor. No lights, window, or toilet. Outside the bars was a sink I could just reach with a cup. Beyond that a steel door that was periodically closed, sealing me in total darkness and silence.
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What did my cell teach me? Though consigned to “inactivity” I felt very active: raising a warning about the evils of preparation for nuclear war, much more loudly than I could with words on the outside. I felt deeply protected by God—thankfully, no experience of hunger.
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I discovered a strength within that I hadn't known before. At the same time—a sense of deep vulnerability and of my own limits. I could not rely on my own strength. I read the Psalms over and over—words that I had known in prayer now came to life, describing my own reality.
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In solitude I felt deeply connected to people all over the world who were working for peace or just struggling to get by. I never felt alone. Deprived of natural light or color, my mind was filled with thoughts of the earth and the preciousness of all living things.
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One day I received a postcard from DOROTHY DAY: an aerial photo of Cape Card, on which she had written: “I hope this card refreshes you and does not tantalize you.” Considering this card, thinking of her lifetime of mercy, sacrifice, and witness for peace, I was deeply refreshed.
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On the 16th day I was taken out and chained to a line of prisoners being led to court. Weakened, I slipped to the ground. A burly guard shouted, “Ellsberg, you gonna stand or what?!” Another guard helped me up: “You’ve done a good job, Bob. God bless you.”
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In an article I wrote for the CW I concluded: “Then we’re marching silently, down the hall, past the bars, locks, the guns, into the warm clean air, blue sky, the trees, tears and laughter, the spinning seasons, even more precious than we left them.”
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Wisdom in quarantine from a dying poet. via @NYTimes nytimes.com/2020/03/26/trave…
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Despite his hardships, the pilgrim discovered that through his unceasing “prayer of the heart” he was enabled to see the world by the light of the transfiguration. Not only was he happiest person on earth, “but the whole outside world also seemed to me full of charm and delight.”
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“Everything drew me to love and thank God; people, trees, animals. I saw them all as my kinsfolk, I found on all of them the magic of the Name of God.” Whatever befell him—whether good fortune or ill—spoke to him of God. Every face reflected back to him the face of Christ.
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