NIGHT SCENE

March 5, 2022

GREEN CATHEDRAL

 

Singing

I KNOW A GREEN CATHEDRAL

Gordon Johnstone and Carl Hahn

I know a green cathedral,
A shadowed forest shrine,
Where leaves in love join hands above
To arch your prayer and mine.

Within its cool depths sacred,
A priestly cedar sighs,
And the fir and pine lift arms divine
Unto the pure blue skies.

In my dear green cathedral
There is a flowered seat
And choir loft in branchéd croft
Where songs of bird hymn sweet.

And I like to dream at evening,
When the stars its arches light,
That my Lord and God treads its hallowed sod
In the cool, calm peace of night.

That my Lord and God treads its hallowed sod
In the cool, calm peace of night.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL

Jerusalem

Plate 64

"The visual conception suggests the emanation of poetic thoughts from the mind of an inspirited dreamer whose rational self tries to inscribe the vision's literally unreadable marks." The Illuminated Books - Volume 1.

I've read that when Joseph Campbell began to write for popular consumption he had to learn a new style of writing. Previously his academic writing had followed a direct line of reasoning from a premise to a conclusion without digression or repetition. If he wanted the general public to read what he wrote and understand it that couldn't be his model. The general reader needs to be to told in the beginning the purpose, he needs to have the material explained or illustrated, and then he should be told what conclusions he might draw.

These biographical passages that you are giving to your readers now follow neither of these two patterns. They are scattered episodes drawn from your memories. If they have particular significance to you or to the reader, it must be discerned within the context of a life. Our lives come to us along a time line but there is a dimensional factor involved also. The second dimension is what else is going on simultaneously in our psyches, in the world and in people around us at a specific point in time. The third dimension is what went before and what will come after; this is where meaning and purpose enter. These aspects can't be made explicit because they are unfolding in a dimension outside of time - in eternity. 

"The Most difficult thing but an essential one – is to love Life, to love it even while one suffers, because Life is all, Life is God, and to love Life means to love God.”
 Leo Tolstoy

CHILD'S JOURNEY

Originally posted to In Old New Orleans on Saturday, August 29, 2009

 child's journey

(This post was requested by my good wife.)

1943

I was 16. I graduated in Jan of 43. I had
seen an airview of the Duke campus at 10
and resolved to go there for higher education.

My folks put me on the Southerner, the main
line train that ran from New Orleans to
Boston (and maybe points farther north).

I had a seat in a coach car. I was there
23 hours, then I emerged at Greensboro, and
took the milk train which took another four
hours to get to Durham.

What an impression it made. Wow. But it was
nothing like New Orleans. 

Since Larry was taking the Southerner he would have left from this station on Canal Street near Rampart. He lived at St. Mark's Methodist Church and Community Center located at 1130 N Rampart where his father had become pastor the previous year.

New Orleans Terminal, 

Southern RR

Canal Street and Basin. c 1908

Vicinity of Canal and Rampart Streets

"Bird's-eye View of New Orleans, Louisiana". Early 20th century postcard view. Text on back of card: "Bird's-Eye View Of New Orleans LA. This view is taken from the top of Hotel Grunewald showing that section of the City lying beyond the New Orleans Terminal Passenger Station". View shows a section of Canal Street at bottom left. Rampart street is to bottom of photo (someone has labeled it in green ink pen). The building with the large arch fronting Canal Street is the old Basin Street railway terminal. Krauss store visible on Canal just beyond it. Of particular interest is the row of buildings seen fronting Basin Street, including Tom Anderson's, Josie Arlington's, and Lulu White's, and "the District" behind it. This is one of the few published cards showing what history recalls as "Storyville"; from the card's language about "that section of the City" this was clearly an intended focus. The line of the old Carondelet Canal is slightly visible diagonally towards the top of the view. Note the view of the buildings at Canal and Rampart Street which were demolished for the construction of the new Saenger Theater in the 1920s."

St Mark's Methodist Church and Community Center

 

St Mark's Church history
"In 1909, the work of the Mary Werlein Mission moved to Esplanade Ave. and was called St. Marks Hall. Out of this project, a "Church of Nations" emerged and was called St. Marks Methodist Church. The property on N. Rampart was purchased in 1916 and the buildings dedicated in 1924. The church and community center, though separate, shared the facilities. The church was supported for many years by the Board of Missions. Under Rev. Robert Jamieson, he church became self-supporting in 1946. Rev. Jamieson's 'parsonage' was a 5 room apartment on the 3rd floor of the community center."

 

(The Rev Robert Jamieson was my cousin. My Grandmother Louisa Ellen Lilly was the daughter of Robert Hafkesbring and Ellen Jamieson.)

"By this time we were living at St. Mark's Community Center on North Rampart St. on the edge of the French Quarter. It was still in the Nichols School District. I rode the Rampart St. streetcar every morning down St. Claude Ave. to school and back in the afternoon. We lived on the third floor of the community center directly above the swimming pool. There was also a gymnasium. On the other wing was the church, which Daddy served. A fairly small church it still had representatives of 21 nationalities. I suppose it was pretty close to unique in the denomination. Dad got along pretty well there, stayed four years, the first time he had ever had an appointment that long. He liked New Orleans and had no desire to leave. In fact all the ministers liked New Orleans. Those who got there stayed as long as they could." 

"In 1942 I bought a used bicycle on time (50 cents/week) and went to work as a Western Union messenger (people communicated by telegram in those days). The job was roughly from 4 to midnight, although sometimes I worked longer.

It must have been after Christmas that I found employment as a Western Union delivery boy. For the next few months I rode my bike all over the city. I remember going as far as Westwego--a long, long way from 314 Carondelet, the Western Union Office. I frequently rode as much as 30 miles. The original idea was to work a few hours in the afternoon, but like so many of those low level jobs, they were always short of help, and I worked as long as I wanted to.

I rode all over Orleans Parish that year, and parts of Jefferson and St. Bernard delivering telegrams in dozens of "houses of ill fame"; those girls were anxious to hear from someone. (It was said that every brothel in N.O. was on property owned by the mayor; he was also reputed to be allied with the New York mafia. N.O. was a rocky city in those days, as it has always been.)"

"Graduation day at Nichols came for me in January of 1943--I was 16. We had to dress up in tuxedos, which I found awkward and uncomfortable. I suppose most of the class went on to dances and celebrations of various sorts, but that was not in my world.

The big thing in my world was to get on the Southerner a few days later and make the 23 hour ride to Durham where I enrolled at Duke. This represented a desire to get away from home, especially to get away from my father, toward whom I had harbored very negative feelings for a number of years. I got away, and I never came back (to live), although I certainly did visit from time to time."

Dylan's version of House of the Rising Sun

There is a house down in New Orleans they call the rising sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor girl and me, oh God, I'm one.

My mother was a tailor, she sowed these new blue jeans
My sweetheart was a gambler, Lord, down in New Orleans.

Now the only thing a gambler needs is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time when he's satisfied is when he's on a drunk.

He fills his glasses up to the brim and he'll pass the cards around
And the only pleasure he gets out of life is rambling from town to town

Oh tell my baby sister not to do what I have done
But shun that house in New Orleans they call the rising sun.

Well with one foot on the platform and the other foot on the train
I'm going back to New Orleans to wear that ball and chain.

I'm going back to New Orleans, my race is almost run
I'm going back to end my life down in the rising sun.

There is a house in New Orleans they call the rising sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor girl and me, oh God, I'm one. 

________________________

Another sad tale connected to this account is the attempted integration of the New Orleans Public School system in 1960. In the vicinity of St Marks United Methodist Church were the two schools which had been selected to have a few black first graders enroll in white schools. The whites protested with demonstrations and refusal to send their children to the schools with the little black girls. When the minister at St Mark's Rev Lloyd Anderson Foreman saw the reaction he broke the boycott by walking his 5-year-old daughter Pam through an angry mob back to school.

MILTON ON BLINDNESS

 

John Milton was an enormously gifted but unproductive young man. He mastered languages and literature but squandered his talents. He was an idealist who found a niche when his skill in Latin was put into service in the Revolutionary Government of Oliver Cromwell. He was faced with two crises: first his eyesight began to fail, second the Cromwell government proved to be incapable of delivering a republic.

He tasted the bitter draft of suffering and failure but he learned to wait in patience until there germinated in his agile mind the Great poetry of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent

By John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent,

   Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

   And that one Talent which is death to hide

   Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

   My true account, lest he returning chide;

   “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

   I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

   Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

   Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

   And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:

   They also serve who only stand and wait.”

 

TO RENNIE

I want you to know something about this picture.

It was taken at Riverwalk in New Orleans. It was on the day before your first birthday. Larry's sister, Aunt Margaret was making a rare visit to the East. It was something of a Clayton family reunion. On the left is Larry's cousin Dorothy, niece of Larry's father. Next is Larry's sister Margaret. Beside her is Larry's second cousin Marjorie (daughter of Dorothy) unless I am mistaken. The next four you know - Larry, Rennie, Kim and Mark. After that is Larry's cousin Mildred, sister of Dorothy.

Mildred lived in New Orleans and had a birthday party for you. Dorothy lived in Shreveport. Margaret lived in San Bernadino, Ca. Larry and I lived in Salem, SC. And of course you and your mom and dad lived in College Station, Texas.

          Dorothy, Margaret, Marjorie, Larry, Rennie, Kim, Mark, Mildred

 

Larry'sfamily3_v1.jpg

JANUARY 2, 2022

Although I attended a small indoor Quaker Meeting last Sunday, I choose today to respect the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus and stay away from people until the outbreak seems to be under control.   

I knew I could find a lovely quiet place in Old Salem to enjoy the silence on this the first First Day of 2020. The campus of Salem Academy offered the perfect place.

 This is where I sat to meditate.

The walkways lead to an amphitheater.

I didn't go all the way down because I didn't want to climb back up.

The spring house marks the original water source for the town of Salem.

Beautiful old trees and shrubs are everywhere.

Adjacent to the campus of Salem Academy (begun in 1772) is the traditional Moravian burial ground - God's Acre.