{"id":1906,"date":"2016-08-01T00:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T04:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/mission-and-identity\/?p=1906"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:47:42","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:47:42","slug":"august-1-regular-work-year-begins-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2016\/08\/01\/august-1-regular-work-year-begins-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"August 1 – regular work year begins (for me)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monday August 1 \u00a0\u2014 \u201chere come the stars”<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I wrote the account of my travel home from vacation for two soul friends who live in Detroit. \u00a0 It turned into a card honoring St. Ignatius whose feast day was yesterday. \u00a0I sent it to 4 or 5 other friends. \u00a0This morning, it has become a journal entry for the first day of the work year, a good way to frame Robert Frost\u2019s wonderful celebration of stars in today\u2019s poem.<\/p>\n

“About driving home from vacation around Lake Michigan\u2019s northern edge”<\/strong><\/p>\n

As in the last 4-5 years,\u00a0dinner with my sister Mary began\u00a0my end-of-summer ritual in our home town, Marinette, WI, where Upper Michigan and Wisconsin meet on the short of Lake Michigan: \u00a0 to bed c. 10:00 pm; on the road by 2:10 am or so; \u00a0stopped 32 miles up along the Northwest shore of Lake Michigan at a little beach (Fox Point); walked c. 40 ft to the shore and stood by that immense body of water gazing at the 27,534,210 stars in a vast clear sky (no clouds and almost zero artificial ground light) with a sliver moon hanging out over the north end of the Lake, \u00a0praying the Lakota prayer of the six directions as a goodbye to summer and a welcome to my work \u00a0year.<\/p>\n

Last year about an hour south of the big bridge (Mackinac), I got very sleepy at the wheel, enough that I stopped at every rest stop all the way to Detroit. \u00a0Not very fun.\u00a0\u00a0This year I asked Norm Dickson, sj\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 good friend, 20+ years working in the south of Sudan, now \u00a0pastor of the little parish of Kalkaska (c. 90 min south of the big bridge)\u00a0\u2014 if I could stop and take a nap. \u00a0Yes, of course. \u00a0I\u00a0checked out the parish garden (huge and to die for beautiful, \u00a025 parish vols) \u00a0and the church (unpretentious and lovely) \u00a0and dove into a 2 hour wonderful nap. \u00a0Result? \u00a0A much more relaxed drive from the big bridge to McNichols Road.<\/p>\n

Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses. \u00a0Welcome to 2016-17.<\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Post \u00a0\u00a0Robert Frost \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Literate Farmers and the Planet Venus\u201d<\/p>\n

Here come the stars to character the skies,
\nAnd they in the estimation of the wise
\nAre more divine than any bulb or arc,
\nBecause their purpose is to flash and spark,
\nBut not to take away the precious dark.
\nWe need the interruption of the night
\nTo ease attention off when overtight,
\nTo break our logic in too long a flight,
\nAnd ask us if our premises are right<\/p>\n

Robert Frost, 1874 \u2013 1963<\/strong>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\"T1520565_05\"<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday August 1 \u00a0\u2014 \u201chere come the stars” Yesterday, I wrote the account of my travel home from vacation for two soul friends who live in Detroit. \u00a0 It turned into a card honoring St. Ignatius whose feast day was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1908,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions\/1908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}