Grief and Forgiveness

 

 

My joy is gone, grief is upon me,

   my heart is sick.

Hark, the cry of my poor people

   from far and wide in the land:

"Is the Lord not in Zion?

   Is her King not in her?"

("Why have they provoked me 

   to anger with their images,

   with their foreign idols?")

"The harvest is past, 

   the summer is ended,

   and we are not saved."

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,

   I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

 

Is there no balm in Gilead?

   Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of my poor people

   not been restored?

 

O that my head were a spring of water,

   and my eyes a fountain of tears,

so that I might weep day and night

   for the slain of my poor people!

 

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

 

Adams Memorial, or, Grief

SAINT-GAUDENS, Augustus

modeled 1886-1891, cast 1969

Smithsonian Art Museum

Washington D. C.

United States

http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20130921493988037&code=ACT&RC=55690&Row=3

 

Erected in 1891, the monument was commissioned by author/historian Henry Adams (a member of the Adams political family) as a memorial to his wife, Marian "Clover" Hooper Adams.  Marian Adams, suffering from depression, had died by suicide through the ingestion of potassium cyanide, which she otherwise used to retouch photographs.[1] Adams advised Saint-Gaudens to contemplate iconic images from Buddhist devotional art. One such subject, Kannon (also known as Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion), is frequently depicted as a seated figure draped in cloth. In particular, a painting of Kannon by Kanō Motonobu, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and shown to Saint-Gaudens by John LaFarge, is said to have played a major role in influencing the conception and design of this sculpture.[2] Henry Adams, who traveled to Japan withLaFarge ostensibly to find inspiration for this memorial, particularly wanted elements of serenely immovable Buddhist human figures to be contrasted with the waterfall-like robe associated with Kannon. In addition to the still and flowing elements, the monument's dualism includes male-female fusion in the figure itself and blends Asian and European ideals of figure. These checks to the standard heroic figure combine to make a "countermonument" for a woman who disliked monuments generally.[3] Saint-Gaudens may also have been influenced by Parisian funerary art from his stay in France.[4]

Saint-Gaudens's name for the bronze figure is The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding, but the public commonly called it Grief—an appellation that Henry Adams apparently disliked. In a letter addressed to Homer Saint-Gaudens, on January 24, 1908, Adams instructed him:

"Do not allow the world to tag my figure with a name! Every magazine writer wants to label it as some American patent medicine for popular consumption—Grief, Despair, Pear's Soap, or Macy's Mens' Suits Made to Measure. Your father meant it to ask a question, not to give an answer; and the man who answers will be damned to eternity like the men who answered the Sphinx."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams_Memorial_(Saint-Gaudens)

 

 

 

 

Life has taught me to forgive much,

but to seek forgiveness still more.

~ Otto von Bismarck

 

 

 

 

If God were not willing to forgive sin,

heaven would be empty.

~ German Proverb

 

 

 

 

 

Joanie Tadewald and Joan Evashevski at Bunco on Tuesday.

 

 

Jeanne Gibbard and I thoroughly enjoyed Camelot at the Arvada Center.

 

 

We had an interesting Book Club discussion at Jackie Andrew's home.

 

 

Mike and Ann Moore entertained our several Rotary Clubs

at Mt. Vernon Country Club.

 

 

Mr. Blue was there, too!

 

 

Kimra Perkins, on the left, made certain that our new District Governor, Dan Himelspach,

and his Rotary Partner, Leslie Lawson, were properly greeted.

 

 

Today was our Rotary Recycle Day.

Lots of our members put in MANY hours of work for this event!

 

 

Open Door Studios

September 21 and 22

Evergreen, Colorado

http://www.evergreenopendoorstudios.com

Jane Christie

 

 

Betsy Buckner

 

 

Oktoberfest at the the Evashevski's!

Keith, Andrea, Kyle, Bruce, Joan, Paige, and, in front, Luke

 

 

 

 

Look to this day
for it is life
the very life of life.

 

In its brief course lie all
the realities and truths of existence
the joy of growth
the splendor of action
the glory of power.

 

For yesterday is but a memory
And tomorrow is only a vision.
But today well lived
makes every yesterday a memory
of happiness
and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

 

Look well, therefore, to this day....
 
~ Kalidasa

 

 

 

 

September 22, 2013        Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 

Previous OPQs may be found at:

     http://www.dotjack.com/opq.htm

 


Then Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, 'What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.' So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?' He answered, 'A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, 'And how much do you owe?' He replied, 'A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

Luke 16:1-13

Agnus Day, by James Wetzstein

 

Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeremiah 8:18—9:1 

Psalm 79:1–9 

1 Timothy 2:1–7 

Luke 16:1–13