{"id":3710,"date":"2020-11-30T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T05:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/?p=3710"},"modified":"2020-11-30T10:40:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T15:40:49","slug":"bill-pauly-an-advent-angel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2020\/11\/30\/bill-pauly-an-advent-angel\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Pauly, an Advent angel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>November 30, early in this year\u2019s Advent season<\/p>\n<p>My Lakota daughter, Mary Tobacco, lives on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. \u00a0For some years, she and\u00a0Fr. Bill Pauly, sj walked and ran and drove across that same land. She and I talked about Bill this morning, each of us telling the other stories about Bill; stories of a man who died \u201ctoo young.\u201d \u00a0As we remembered him, Mary T said, \u00a0\u201cif you could live in this hard world like him &#8211; &#8211; brave and strong and full of playful joy &#8211; &#8211; \u00a0you are an amazing person..\u201d \u00a0I\u2019ve taken to calling him \u201can Advent Angel.\u201d \u00a0Here is the memorial I wrote for him several years ago, early into the Advent season that year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNovember 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 on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation in western South Dakota.\u00a0 Before Pine Ridge, Bill had been pastor in a South Milwaukee Hispanic parish.\u00a0 Bill is a soul friend and we miss him at this time.\u00a0\u00a0 He loved beauty, and hospitality, and play, and sacred stillness.\u00a0\u00a0 Partly because of the date he died and partly because of the way he lived, Bill lives in my imagination as an Advent figure.\u00a0 He did not fear grief or fatigue.<\/p>\n<p>Bill also introduced me to the poet Mary Oliver.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of him in today\u2019s post, \u2018Wage Peace,\u2019 and a lot of Advent too.\u00a0 Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Have a blest Advent Monday when the weather looks to be teasing winter from a safe distance.<\/p>\n<p>john sj<\/p>\n<p><strong>Today\u2019s Post \u2013 Mary Oliver \u2013 \u201cWage Peace\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Wage peace with your breath.<br \/>\nBreathe in firemen and rubble,<br \/>\nbreathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.<br \/>\nBreathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children<br \/>\nand fresh mown fields.<br \/>\nBreathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.<br \/>\nBreathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.<br \/>\nWage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.<br \/>\nRemember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.<br \/>\nMake soup.<br \/>\nPlay music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.<br \/>\nLearn to knit, and make a hat.<br \/>\nThink of chaos as dancing raspberries,<br \/>\nimagine grief as the outbreath of beauty or the gesture of fish.<br \/>\nSwim for the other side.<br \/>\nWage peace.<br \/>\nNever has the world seemed so fresh and precious.<br \/>\nHave a cup of tea and rejoice.<br \/>\nAct as if armistice has already arrived.<br \/>\nDon\u2019t wait another minute.<\/p>\n<p>my personal Advent Creche<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2014\/12\/Advent-Figurines.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-966\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2014\/12\/Advent-Figurines-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2014\/12\/Advent-Figurines-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/170\/2014\/12\/Advent-Figurines.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Advent Angel, Hummel;<br \/>\nCeltic cross, Waterford;<br \/>\nLakota medicine pouch, Don Montileaux<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>November 30, early in this year\u2019s Advent season My Lakota daughter, Mary Tobacco, lives on the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. \u00a0For some years, she and\u00a0Fr. Bill Pauly, sj walked and ran and drove across that same land. She and I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2020\/11\/30\/bill-pauly-an-advent-angel\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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\/3710"}],"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=3710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3712,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}