Wage peace with your breath.
\nBreathe in firemen and rubble,
\nbreathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.
\nBreathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children
\nand fresh mown fields.
\nBreathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
\nBreathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.
\nWage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.
\nRemember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.
\nMake soup.
\nPlay music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.
\nLearn to knit, and make a hat.
\nThink of chaos as dancing raspberries,
\nimagine grief as the outbreath of beauty or the gesture of fish.
\nSwim for the other side.
\nWage peace.
\nNever has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
\nHave a cup of tea and rejoice.
\nAct as if armistice has already arrived.
\nDon\u2019t wait another minute.<\/p>\n
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Advent Creche<\/p>\n
Advent Angel, Hummel;\u00a0 Lakota medicine pouch, Don Montileaux;\u00a0 Celtic cross, Waterford<\/p>\n <\/p>\n ps Today is Art McGovern\u2019s birthday;\u00a0 he is another Advent saint for me.\u00a0 On May 25, 2000, I posted this eulogy from Chestnut Hill, MA where I was finishing two years as the Gasson Chair at Boston College.<\/p>\n My buddy Art died this afternoon.<\/p>\n He had breakfast as he normally did but by lunch time he had clearly taken a turn toward dying.\u00a0 By 2:00 when I heard about it, he did not seem to be very conscious.\u00a0 Two Jesuits, John McGrail and Pat Kelly, anointed him and were with him as he died.\u00a0\u00a0 It happened that I called his room, in the hope of saying goodbye should he be able to hear me still, just moments after he died.\u00a0 The nurse, a Jesuit named Harry Sanford whom I’ve just met and like a great deal, was kind enough to put the phone by Art’s ear anyway and I told him goodbye.\u00a0\u00a0 I will miss his company very much.<\/p>\n john sj<\/p>\n Art McGovern\u2019s tree near the Jesuit Chapel, 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wednesday,\u00a0 December 4 \u201cimagine grief as the outbreath of beauty\u201d November 29 was the anniversary of Bill Pauly\u2019s sudden death at 59, 2006, of a heart attack.\u00a0 That year Bill played inside a lovely sabbatical after years of demanding pastoring … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2014\/12\/Advent-Figurines.jpg\")
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