First Church Boston
April 29, 2020
Corey Spaley, Chair of the First Church Canvas Team, joins Daniel Lawlor, ministerial intern, to explain to us what the church canvas is, how to contribute to this year's church fundraising (click ahead to 7:03 on the video link), and offers two beautiful poems on mysticism, "The Kingdom Likened to a Field of Weeds", from The Late Romances by Eric Pankey, and Mysticism for Beginners, by Adam Zagajewski.
To hear from Corey, check out this link - https://youtu.be/6V2Ipay3kYE
To learn more about the canvas and how to make you pledge to support the ministries of the church, please click here: https://www.firstchurchboston.org/way...
PS. To enjoy more poetry and music, celebrate with our online Friday Meditation and Music THIS Friday on Zoom, 7-8pm. The link to join us will be in Friday's e-news!
Mysticism for Beginners By Adam Zagajewski,
Translated by Clare Cavanagh
The day was mild, the light was generous.
The German on the café terrace held a small book on his lap.
I caught sight of the title: Mysticism for Beginners.
Suddenly I understood that the swallows
patrolling the streets of Montepulciano with their shrill whistles,
and the hushed talk of timid travelers from Eastern,
so-called Central Europe,
and the white herons standing
—yesterday? the day before?—
like nuns in fields of rice, and the dusk,
slow and systematic,
erasing the outlines of medieval houses,
and olive trees on little hills,
abandoned to the wind and heat,
and the head of the Unknown Princess
that I saw and admired in the Louvre,
and stained-glass windows like
butterfly wings sprinkled with pollen,
and the little nightingale practicing
its speech beside the highway,
and any journey, any kind of trip,
are only mysticism for beginners,
the elementary course,
prelude to a test that's been postponed.