Reading from Carl Sandburg’s “Clocks”: “Here is a face that says half-past seven the same way whether a murder or a wedding goes on, whether a funeral or a picnic crowd passes. A tall one I know at the end of a hallway broods in shadows and is watching booze eat out the insides of the man of the house; it has seen five hopes go in five years: one woman, one child, and three dreams.”
Reflection: The point of LITurgy Daily is to read the hours of the day as just what they are: hours. There is a rich heritage of stopping and praying or writing or singing or pondering the hours of the day from many spiritual traditions and practices. I have reflected on the hours of the day for many years using texts inherited from ancient Catholic monastics. It is a beautiful way to use texts to both find meaning in each distinct hour of the day and to produce meaning out of each of those hours. Today, religious texts may not impact readers as much as texts from our inherited literary tradition. I thought it would be a fun writing practice, and reading practice, to create an ongoing “Liturgy of the Hours” with a variety of literary texts. See what it feels like to read and reflect on snippets of poetry, prose, and drama throughout the day. Eventually, I hope to have a complete collection for each of the traditional “seven sacred pauses” celebrated over the century. These readings and reflections are for me. They’re for you. They’re a way to use the lens of the sacred as a tool to dive deeper into artists’ texts.
At half-past seven, in Sandburg’s imaginative language, we might encounter a wedding, a funeral, or a picnic. At any hour, a child is born, a mother dies, a grandfather bakes bread, and the man of the house has his insides eaten out. Possibility and paradox.
Writing Prompt: Pick an hour today. Maybe it’s 2:30. What is happening where you are at 2:30? What does it smell like? What are its sounds? Is this a poem? A scene for a story you’re writing? Is this one hour in a lifetime of memoir?