We recently were put in a position where we had to make a trip to Chennai. I wish this had happened under more happy circumstances. A close family member had taken ill and was admitted to hospital. Thankfully, he recovered, and is now in the phase of a slow but sure recovery. Our flight was long and neck-ache-inducing, but we got through it. Chennai smelled good when we got off the plane. That familiar smell of plantain leaves and dosais wafted through the air. I do not remember Chennai smelling this good. Maybe the new mayor was doing a good job keeping the city clean. It certainly was in Chennai's favor that our port of entry was New Delhi - where Instagram photos of an early morning in the airport looked artistically foggy, but in reality, that was smog - and the fog was clearly the lesser part. Where's the cursed mask when you need it. But not at the Chennai airport - which also looked nicer than when Ange and I left...9 years ago. Visiting the city one spends one's fo
In his poem based on the fifth "O antiphon" - O Oriens , Guite plays on the word "Dayspring" as having the sense of "light" and "water". This is quite striking. Dayspring has always been one of my favorite words in the bible that refer to Christ. Guite's play on Dayspring is one that refers to essence or maybe form or maybe a state of being - "the eternal Prima Vera". Dayspring is something we can't see fully now but we will see it at our "waking" - Guite seems to be calling attention to an inversion of reality before and after death. Although we seem to be "alive" and "awake" this side of death, and death seems to be "sleep", in another sense, the other side of death is where we shall be fully "awake" when we shall be able to see Dayspring clearly because this very Dayspring has overcome death and it's darkness. This is not to say that the darkness we face on th