Susan Pitchford
Fioretti ("little flowers")
A "florilegium" is a collection, or bouquet, of writings. It comes from the Latin "flora" (flower)+ "legere" (to gather). It has the same meaning as the Greek word "anthology."
In the Middle Ages and beyond, when books were rare and expensive, people copied their favorite excerpts from books into a booklet they carried with them, a florilegium. In a similar vein, the "fioretti" or "little flowers" of Francis of Assisi are a series of stories about the saint that were gathered into a single volume. In this florilegium (nicer than "blog," isn't it?), I'd like to gather some of my favorite bits of writing by various authors, adding a little commentary but mostly letting the quotations speak for themselves. I hope it will grow into a garden that will be a pleasant place to linger for a bit. Enjoy! Archives
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FlorilegiumDesert ClassroomJanuary 24, 2010
One of the symptoms of my current insanity is that, in spite of having no discretionary time at all, I’ve agreed to participate in no less than three reading groups. One of these is reading “In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers,” by John Chryssavgis. The desert abbas and ammas were those strange third and fourth century men and women who fled civilization, with all its comforts and distractions, and went into the Egyptian desert to be stripped bare before God. The book, which is a collection of their sayings grouped around a set of key themes, begins with a fourth century Eucharistic prayer to God: “We entreat you, make us truly alive.” (more…)
Re-Thinking Time, Part IJanuary 4, 2010
“When the time bind catches me, it seems impossible to come out ahead. I have gotten too little done, or I have done so very much that I failed to share time with people I love. Anger at myself contends against anger at others, whether they be fritterers or workaholics or simply people who need me more than I can afford to be needed. Time becomes an arena of anguish, and the genuine hardships I face in trying to juggle the demands take on an added dimension of pain. When this is so, I arise weary each day, trying once again to pull together enough energy to earn the air I breathe.”
Dorothy C. Bass, “Receiving the Day: Christian Practices for Opening the Gift of Time” Today is the first day of Winter Quarter, and I woke up thinking about time. (more…) |
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