Child of the Romans

SOURCE:            https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/753

KEYWORDS:  humility, work, labor, rich, poor,

The poetry of Carl Sandburg often documented the lives of ordinary working people in his adopted city of Chicago. Here, he contrasts the backbreaking work and simple lunch of a railroad laborer with the comfortable lives and fine food enjoyed by the passengers on a first-class dining car rushing by. Despite the use of the pejorative term "dago" (an ethnic slur for Italians), the poem's title and Sandburg's sympathetic portrayal suggest a loftier lineage for the humble worker.

CHILD OF THE ROMANS

by Carl Sandburg

THE dago shovelman sits by the railroad track

Eating a noon meal of bread and bologna.

A train whirls by, and men and women at tables

Alive with red roses and yellow jonquils,

Eat steaks running with brown gravy,

Strawberries and cream, eclaires and coffee.

The dago shovelman finishes the dry bread and bologna,

Washes it down with a dipper from the water-boy,

And goes back to the second half of a ten-hour day's work

Keeping the road-bed so the roses and jonquils

Shake hardly at all in the cut glass vases

Standing slender on the tables in the dining cars.

Bread and Roses

SOURCE:  https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/judycollins/breadandroses.html

https://lauragraceweldon.com/2022/07/04/bread-roses/

KEYWORDS:  Strike, Union, Labor, Justice, Soul, Body, 

The slogan “Bread and Roses” originated in a poem of that name by James Oppenheim, published in American Magazine in December 1911, which attributed it to “the women in the West.”

It is commonly associated with the textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts during January to March 1912, now often known as the “Bread and Roses strike.” The strike, which united dozens of immigrant communities under the leadership of the Industrial Workers of the World, was led to a large extent by women.

As we go marching, marching in the beauty of the day

A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray

Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses

For the people hear us singing: “Bread and roses! Bread and roses!”

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men

For they are women's children, and we mother them again

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead

Go crying through our singing their ancient song of bread

Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew

Yes, it is bread we fight for - but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days

The rising of the women means the rising of the race

No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes

But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes

Hearts starve as well as bodies;

Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

The Running and Screaming

SOURCE:  Internet

KEYWORDS:  resurrection, resuscitation, Easter, Empty Tomb, living among the dead

My Comment:  Here is what makes resurrection so radical.  It's completely outside our worldview.  

Build Houses, Plant Gardens, and Wash Windows

SOURCE:  "Window Washer" by Agata Kus (Polish artist)

KEYWORDS:   Jeremiah 29:28, garden, resident aliens,

My comment:  I see this as heroic. People who do what needs to be done despite the overwhelming chaos
 

The Frameworks We Inherit

SOURCE:  https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/aug/31/alexander-grothendieck-huawei-ai-artificial-intelligence

KEYWORDS:  paradigm, Kuhn, mathematics, science, epistemology, knowledge, culture, biblical, worldview,

In a famous passage from Harvests and Sowings, [Alexander] Grothendieck writes that most mathematicians work within a preconceived framework: “They are like the inheritors of a large and beautiful house all ready-built, with its living rooms and kitchens and workshops, and its kitchen utensils and tools for all and sundry, with which there is indeed everything to cook and tinker.” But he is part of a rarer breed: the builders, “whose instinctive vocation and joy is to construct new houses”.

Alexander Grothendieck was a mathematician.  Harvests and Sowings was his autobiography.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Grothendieck

The quote reminds me of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolution.  

Pied Beauty

SOURCE:  

• https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44399/pied-beauty
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins

KEYWORDS:  wonder, nature, creation, awe, 

Pied Beauty

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –

   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

      For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

      And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

   Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

      With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

Oppressor Religion?

SOURCE:  

• https://www.thebulwark.com/p/sinners-review
• https://www.nps.gov/locations/lowermsdeltaregion/b-b-king.htm
• https://www.premierchristianity.com/reviews/sinners-a-boundary-crossing-horror-movie-that-tackles-religion/19390.article

KEYWORDS: liberation, freedom, redemption, 

I just saw the movie "Sinners."  It's well-made and the music is incredible.  But I was dismayed by the depiction of Christianity as simply imposed by oppressors.  One way Christianity is depicted is by the pastor and father forcing his son to choose between faith and his music.   

Plenty of examples exist of how the blues and Christianity can coexist.  B.B. King's first exposure to music was in the church.  The first electric guitar he heard was played by his pastor, Archie Fair, in a Pentecostal Church.  Rev. Fair encouraged King to play and even taught him a few chords.  

All that being said, this review of the movie by Jonty Langley hits hard.

 The fact that Christianity in the film is depicted as an almost monastic retreat from creative fulfilment and the fight for justice may not please Christians, particularly those excited to see and hear the incredibly talented Gospel-adjacent singer Miles Caton in a crucial supporting role. But if we would prefer to see Christianity depicted as liberating, creatively fulfilling and engaging dynamically with the world of culture, politics and justice, perhaps we need to ask ourselves why that is not how the Church is perceived anymore, and repent.

Christopher Reeve on Superman

SOURCE:  internet

KEYWORDS:  Superman, Love Neighbor, Care, Empathy,

Christopher Reeve on the role that made him famous:

"Remember that the basic ingredient of Superman is that he's a friend.

That's the value that's so important to me, not Superman as a muscleman but Superman as friend:  A really good neighbor.

This country was founded on the idea of a 'neighbor' and walking five miles to lend your friend a cow or a plant or something.

I just think that's what, in this hi-tech urban nightmare landscape that we've got of people feeling isolated and alone - they don't know their neighbors and they don't know who's next to them and they're afraid of people on the street - life is very overwhelming.

The idea - that early American value of a friend who is there when you need him is the key to the whole character."

You Don't Have That Kind of Time

SOURCE:  https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2025/4/2/anne-lamott-on-how-easter-changed-for-me

KEYWORDS:  Resurrection, Worship, Prayer, Spiritual Disciplines

Anne Lamott writes about Easter...

When I was 38, 

my best friend, Pammy, 

died, and we went shopping 

about two weeks before she died, 

and she was in a wig 

and a wheelchair. 

I was buying a dress 

for this boyfriend I was trying to impress, 

and I bought a tighter, 

shorter dress than I was used to. 

And I said to her, 

“Do you think this makes my hips look big?” 

and she said to me, so calmly, 

“Anne, you don't have that kind of time.” 

And I think Easter has been about 

the resonance of that simple statement; 

and that when I stop, 

when I go into contemplation and meditation, 

when I breathe again and do the sacred action 

of plopping and hanging my head 

and being done with my own agenda, 

I hear that, ‘You don't have that kind of time,’ 

you have time only to cultivate presence 

and authenticity and service, 

praying against all odds 

to get your sense of humor back. 

That's how it has changed for me. 

That was the day my life changed, 

when she said that to me.

Bonhoeffer on Preaching

SOURCE:

KEYWORDS: Preach, Homiletics

“Preaching is the most dangerous profession on earth. It requires a man to stand between heaven and hell, between God and men, with an open Bible and a clear conscience.” 

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Expressions of Gratitude during Thanksgiving Holiday

SOURCE:  https://pewrsr.ch/4g0oweG

KEYWORDS: Thanks, gratitude, blessing, holiday, prayer, 

Around two-thirds of U.S. adults say someone at their Thanksgiving dinner typically says a prayer or blessing (65%) or says things they are thankful for (69%). And a majority of Americans (56%) say their dinner typically includes both of these things. https://pewrsr.ch/4g0oweG

Elderly Women Are Breaking the Law to Deal with Loneliness

SOURCE:

• https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/18/asia/japan-elderly-largest-womens-prison-intl-hnk-dst/index.html
• https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/20/world/video/japan-elderly-prison-pkg-ldn-digvid
• https://fortune.com/well/article/japan-prison-older-women-loneliness/

KEYWORDS:  

• Lonely, Community, Family, Relationship, Reconciliation, Kononia, Fellowship

Elderly women in Japan are breaking the law to go to jail to deal with loneliness.

"The rooms are filled with elderly residents, their hands wrinkled and backs bent. They shuffle slowly down the corridors, some using walkers. Workers help them bathe, eat, walk and take their medication.

But this isn’t a nursing home – it’s Japan’s largest women’s prison. The population here reflects the aging society outside, and the pervasive problem of loneliness that guards say is so acute for some elderly prisoners that they’d prefer to stay incarcerated."

A Gospel That Doesn't Disturb

SOURCE:

KEYWORDS:

"A church that does not provoke, a gospel that does not disturb, a word from God that does not irritate, a word from God that does not touch the concrete sin of the society in which it is proclaimed: What kind of gospel is that?"

--Oscar Romero