Four Articles and a Poem

Thanks, as always, for reading this post. I am grateful to those readers who find my weekly reading suggestions interesting or even helpful. I also appreciate your feedback. If you want to include a comment below about the article that most strikes you or how it touches you, I would find that helpful. 

Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem accompanied by some comments about what we can learn from them. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew.

This week, we look to the space program, book suggestions, a theological spat, Nepal, and All Souls' Day.

1. Forging a New Consensus on America’s Future in Space. President John Kennedy cast a vision that guided our space exploration, landing us on the moon with the Apollo missions. In these days after the conclusion of the space shuttle program, the United States needs a new vision. Peter Juul, of the Center for American Progress, takes up that question for the U.S. space program and argues for the importance of building a national consensus about what we aim to do in space.
2. 20 books Mark Zuckerberg thinks everyone should read. Richard Feloni has brought together all 20 books in Mark Zuckerberg's Year of Books in this piece in Business Insider. I sincerely have enjoyed reading the works selected by Zuckerberg. I have put commentaries on this blog, and an index with links to each commentary is found here. Similarly, Business Insider details 17 books Bill Gates thinks everyone should read, and these books as well are timely and important.
3. Theology and Hate. Fr. James Martin, S.J. wrote an important article reflecting on exchanges between columnist Ross Douthat and theologian Massimo Faggioli.
4. Rubina's story. Gavin Gough is a British editorial and travel photographer, based in Bangkok, Thailand. After Nepal's massive earthquake, he was on scene to capture some images. He returned six months later and tracked the progress of Rubina, a seven-year-old Nepali, who suffered significant injuries to the lower part of her body in the earthquake. This post provides interesting human insight into the earthquake and life in Nepal.

Tomorrow, we arrive into November, a month to remember our dead. I have not read nearly enough of D. H. Lawrence. Many of his volumes that I have perused had the tidy margin notes in the precise script of the late seminary rector, Fr. John Gerber, C.S.C. Lawrence lived only to forty-four years old, but he wrote extensively. He published 11 novels, four short novels, several collections of short stories and poetry, scores of essays, travel writings, and other non-fiction, and his collected letters amount to seven volumes. Fr. Gerber's collection became almost a full shelf at Moreau Seminary's library.

"Service of All the Dead"
by D.H. Lawrence

Between the avenue of cypresses
All in their scarlet capes and surplices
Of linen, go the chaunting choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers.

And all along the path to the cemetery
The round dark heads of men crowd silently;
And the black-scarfed faces of women-folk wistfully
Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery.

And at the foot of a grave a father stands
With sunken head and forgotten, folded hands;
And at the foot of the grave a mother kneels
With pale shut face, nor neither hears nor feels

The coming of the chaunting choristers
Between the avenue of cypresses,
The silence of the many villagers,
The candle-flames beside the surplices.