Month: March 2012

On Casimir Pulaski Day, Slavery in The Christmas City

~ Chris Cocca ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday was Casimir Pulaski  Day, which I know about because of the Sufjan Stevens song.  Pulaski was a Polish noble and general who helped the American colonies win their independence from Great Britain by training and leading American soldiers throughout the Revolution.  Pulaski died from wounds sustained during the Siege of Savannah, and is remembered today as a proto-typical Polish-American hero in many Polish-American communities.  Though his holiday is mostly celebrated in Illinois, two years ago I discovered a connection between the Duke and the Lehigh Valley’s very own Bethlehem, PA.

I was walking around the grounds of the old Moravian settlements in Bethlehem and come upon this grave in the historic Moravian Cemetery:

A few yards away, I found this historical marker, explaining Duke Pulaski’s role in defending the early settlement and the fact that women from the Moravian community created the war banner he carried into Savannah, an even later llionized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem at the Consecration of Pulaski’s Banner.

Reconciling the image of pacifist Moravians sewing banners meant for war is one thing.  But Cornelia’s grave made me hot with rage and then it made me weep.

When I got home, I wrote the piece below.  You need to know that Bethlehem, PA, was founded by pacifist Moravians (who were fleeing religious persecution) in 1741 and christened for its namesake on Christmas Eve.

 

CORNELIA
NEW YORK
1728-1757
MULATTO SLAVE
(THE HORSFIELD’S)
1755 RECEIVED INTO THE CHURCH

What scandal, these Moravians, these Peace Church nuns and friars rending martial banners? Duke Pulaski, their protector, marches to Savannah, is recalled in Illinois among the Polish and in the frontier psalter for his sword. How ancient, their Count’s mission, in its context on the Lehigh, infant, pre-incarnate by their Christmas City’s namesake — Bethlehem, Palestine?

Cornelia, theirs in life, (the Horsfields’), not her own or God’s, sewn in Pennsylvania with the city’s founding mythos. December 24, 17whatever. Theirs in death, the Horsfields, these Peace Church nuns and friars.

Paul Pierce and Gospel Poetry

~ Chris Cocca ~ 1 Comment

I spent most of the day working on a message inspired by 1 Corinthians 1:18- 25.  In that passage, the apostle Paul says that the cross and the message it sends are foolishness to the self-styled wisdom of convention, but to those who “are being saved, it is the power of God.”

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the ways the life of Jesus bucked convention. His birth and upbringing, his passion, death, and resurrection. let alone his passion, death, and resurrection.  Te irony, subversion, and poetry of Christ’s story is precisely what I find so compelling.

Last night, while I watched Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith throw down about the trade rumors swilring around Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo, I did a little reading up on lifelong Celtic forward Paul Pierce.  It’s not often that professional athletes quote Mark Twain and Blaise Pascal on the front page of their website, but as Shaquille O’Neal will tell you, “Paul Pierce is the Truth.”  As Pierce’s website reminds any nonbeliever:  After a Lakers’ victory over the Celtics in 2001, O’Neal pulled a Boston reporter over and gestured toward his notepad:

“Take this down,” said O’Neal. “My name is Shaquille O’Neal and Paul Pierce is the [%*$&ing] truth. Quote me on that and don’t take nothing out. I knew he could play, but I didn’t know he could play like this. Paul Pierce is the truth.”

Compare that wit the first three verses of the apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians:

“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, to the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

My name is Paul and this is how it is with Jesus. 

My name is Shaquille O’Neal and Paul Pierce is the truth. 

Sometimes that’s how I feel about the poetry of Jesus’ story.  Whatever else, that poetry’s the truth.

“Fiction is bound by possibility,” Pierce quotes Twain as saying, “the truth is not.”  Pascal adds, “we know the truth not only by reason, but also with the heart.”

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

Well said, Mike.

Chris Cocca's avatarbroken liturgy:

“Sometimes I can’t say the things I want to because it’s out of reach.
I am not able to say it, regardless of how hard I try. I stare blank
stares and feel like I have no mouth.Then the art in each of us starts
to speak through another. I hear it perfectly said and am satisfied,
relieved in a way, and when I hear it I laugh the laugh of bona fide
truth, obvious delight….It has taken me a half century to see we sing
the songs the other can’t sing – that we give each other the voice we
do not have of ourselves alone.”

– Michael Nesmith (today on Facebook)

 

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Martha Stewart’s Dead Fish Fashion Tee

~ Chris Cocca ~ 1 Comment

Pinterest.  I love you.  You gave me this:

 

This is a DIY T-shirt project from Martha Stewart.  Cool design, right?

Take a look at the Tools and Materials List.  First thing: whole fish or fish replica.

First How-To Step: Generously ink fish.

What?

I like how she gives you a template for the hook, though.

Romney’s Lebowski Problem

~ Chris Cocca ~ 6 Comments

This is from March, 2012.  I’m reposting it today because everyone seems to think Mitt Romney is going to save the world from Donald Trump.  Or something.

I had the blissful opportunity of enjoying exceptional hot wings, conversation, and bro time in Wayne, PA this week.  One of the insights that emerged from this time of fellowship is offered here for your consideration.

Mitt Romney is so unpalatable because there’s absolutely no reason for him to be running for president.  It’s great that he’s not an ideologue, but it would be nice if he had some ideology.  It’s not the incessant flip-flopping so much as what that says about his real motives for running.  He has no great beliefs and hence no great motives.  He’s running because he wants to be President, pure and simple. He’s running because he wants the Office of Ultimate Upward Mobility.  He’s running for power or prestige or from some deep-seated need to leave no opportunity untapped.

We’ve been saying things like this for a long time, but it wasn’t until this week that we’ve been able to put it in the most precise terms possible:


Say want you want about the tenets of Obama’s socialism, dude, but at least it’s an ethos.

Does anyone really believe anything this man says?

St. David’s Day Redux and Casimir Pulaski

~ Chris Cocca ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, I wished you all a Happy St. David’s Day. For more context, check out my St. David’s Day greeting from last year, here.

Oh, and also: Free Wales!

On Monday, we’ll observe Casimir Pulaski day with a short piece I read at an International Arts Movement event last year, an original photo of a Moravian grave here in the Lehigh Valley, and music by Sufjan Stevens.