Apology, and Restitution

Our apologies for the hiatus.  Father Anonymous has been collar-deep in a sea of work, some  pastoral and some drably administrative, but all urgent.  

When the Egg returns, about seven days from now, we hope to manage at least a few wry remarks concerning last week's news -- the death of Evangelicalism, the Cramer-Stewart slugfest, the tragicomic hints of self-criticism from Harvard Business School, whose alumni have destroyed the world; the tragicomic lack of self-criticism from AIG, whose executives went to Harvard Business School, and the further evidence that our synod is like an old lady with birds nesting in her hair because she won't look in the mirror.   Maybe worldwide Anglicanism will have self-destructed by then, too. 

But for now, a poem.  Little Baby Anonymous has been demanding them lately, and usually settles for something about Edward Bear and the King of France, or Bad Sir Brian Botany.  But tonight, somehow, he wound up hearing Jabberwocky, a several sonnets by Christina Rossetti, and this touching meditation on one of his favorite subjects:

In Church

I love the church: its labara,

its silver vessels, its candleholders,

the lights, the ikons, the pulpit.

Whenever I go there, into a church of the Greeks,

with its aroma of incense,

its liturgical chanting and harmony,

the majestic presence of the priests,

dazzling in their ornate vestments,

the solemn rhythm of their gestures -

my thoughts turn to the great glories of our race,

to the splendor of our Byzantine heritage. 

-- C.P. Cavafy (1863-1933)