Birthdays and commemorations: August 11

Today is the feast of Clare of Assisi.

Padre Mickey, El Hagiografero (¿¿¿Is that a word???), has posted reflections on Clare, as has It's Margaret. Thanks to Margaret and Mickey for the inspiration and for telling stories so well!

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Today is also the birthday of my beloved friend David, who died six years ago last month. He would have been 73 years old.

Here is a fine article he wrote called "Praying in a Post-Einsteinian Universe." In it, he writes:

What, I ask myself, is the effect of post-Einsteinian cosmology on my spiritual practice - and by that I mean both the inward work of prayer and contemplation as well as the outward work of social action? Does the expanding, replenishing universe of the big bang, black holes, and "dark matter" make a real difference to the way in which we believers pray and work?

His account of a short trip he took to Kosovo with Catholic Relief Services is here.

One of his obituaries, written by fellow editors of the magazine where he worked till a few months before his death, is here. I posted the whole piece, with a brief remembrance of our last visit, last year on this date.

I miss my friend.

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Today is the birthday of the beautiful and talented Diana, my cousin the dancer/choreographer/poet/yoga teacher. She is 54. My mother, several cousins, one of Diana's sons, a couple of college friends and I saw her perform in Washington, D.C. last month.

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It is also the birthday of my former vicar from Berkeley, Kathleen. She is now the Venerable Kathleen, Archdeacon (in the Diocese of California).


For the lives of your people, Creator God, we give you thanks.