Showing items filed under “The Rev. Canon Dr. Victor Lee Austin”

What the World Needs Now

 Yours truly as a youth didn’t much care for popular music; weird even then, I enjoyed the likes of Beethoven. But some popular songs sink into the brain without trying to listen to them. Those songs are everywhere; their music is easy to grasp; they worm their way into the memory.

    Sort of. Recently I found an old song running through my head, and I have no idea what brought it to mind. It opens: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” The next line, in my memory, runs: “It’s the only thing that there’s not too little of.” And I thought, that doesn’t make sense! If there’s not too little of love, then there is enough of it. So why is it needed?

    So I googled the thing, and found (as you, dear reader, probably already know) that the word “not” is a mis-memory. The correct line is: “It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” That makes a bit more sense, although I think there are other things that we could use more of (truth, say).

    What was my memory doing? I wonder if, subconsciously, I changed that word 50 years ago so that the song would be nonsense, as if I had a desire to mess up the song.

    And if my mind can do something like that with a popular ditty, what else do I twist to my liking? I don’t know if it’s what the world needs, but I certainly need more humility about the things I remember! T. S. Eliot says that the wisdom of old men is overrated. Instead, we should be talking about humility. “Humility is endless.”

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    Out & About. “Walking the Camino: How and Why.” Sunday, October 27, the fall theology lecture. As I did two years ago, I walked again this year a thousand-year-old route of about 450 miles, ending at Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. My lecture will face two questions that many people have asked me. First, what are the practicalities of making this walk? Do you need permission? What sort of preparation do you need? (and so forth). Second, why walk to a place that claims to be the burial place of a saint? Isn’t God everywhere? What is the connection of holy places to our nature as animals that walk? Bishop Sumner will offer a response; there will be time for questions; there will be a reception. 5 p.m. in the Great Hall at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Dallas. 

    The next “Good Books & Good Talk” seminar will be on Sun., Nov. 10, on Charis in the World of Wonders by Marly Youmans; at 5 p.m. at St. Matthew’s (in Garrett Hall, 2nd floor). Youmans is a Christian writing good fiction and good poetry who is part also of the movement to revive art and culture. The novel is introduced thusly: Charis clambers “into the branches of a tree” fleeing “flaming arrows and massacre. She will need to struggle for survival: to scour the wilderness for shelter, to strive and seek for a new family and a setting where she can belong. Her unmarked way is costly and hard. For Charis, the world outside the window of home is a maze of hazards. And even if she survives the wilds, it is no simple matter to discover and nest among her own kind—the godly, those called Puritans by others.” And yet there is the world of wonders.

The Red-head Boy

When I saw him in the communion line, I did a double-take. He seemed about the same size, with similarly messy red hair, as one of my grandsons. I watched him with fascination: he was somewhat independent but not transgressive, like my grandson. He knew where he was and was happy, a little running to the side then back into the line. He looked up when he reached the altar. Although I knew he was not my grandson, still I felt that I knew him.

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    A guy passed me on the Katy trail. Another double-take: Do I know him? But if so, from where? one of the churches I visit? at the library? at a restaurant? Then I realized it was none of these, that in fact, we were strangers jogging past each other. The shape of his head, his jawline, his overall height: they had evoked the memory of a priest who, back in New York, had been first a student of mine and then a colleague. That priest is one of my “friends on hold”; I haven’t seen him for several years, but there is in me the hope that I will see him again. If we were to meet on the trail, we could pick up immediately where we left off, as if no time had passed.

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    My red-head grandson, like all my grandchildren, is a friend-in-the-making. There are important respects in which we are not friends now. Adults have a certain authority over children that, for the children’s own good, they cannot lay aside. (Adults who try to be friends of children too easily slip into behaviors that harm children.) But in time—and it won’t be that long, actually—he will be an adult, and we can then be real friends, if we both want it. 

    Concerning the red-head boy that I saw in church: it seems God and he are already forming a friendship. If that sticks for both of us we will be friends someday, even though at present we don’t know each other. We will be friends because, at the end, all the friends of Jesus will be friends with all the friends of Jesus. 

    And the guy on the Katy trail? Since friendship is what human beings were made for, who knows? Maybe he too is a friend of Jesus. 

    God is always wanting to give us new friends.

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    Announcing: The Fall Theology Lecture, Sunday, Oct. 27, “Walking the Camino: How and Why.” Twice now I have walked from Roncesvalles in Spain, a village just over the Pyrenees from France, to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. This route is a thousand years old, and millions of pilgrims have walked it, including today some hundreds of thousands every year. My lecture will address two basic questions. First, how does a person make this walk? What are the practicalities? How do you prepare physically and spiritually? And second, why would you want to walk to a place which is claimed to be the burial place of a saint? Isn’t God everywhere? What is the connection of holy places to our nature as animals that walk? Bishop Sumner will offer a response; there will be time for questions; and there will be a reception. 5 p.m. in the Great Hall at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Dallas.

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    Out & About: I am to preach at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Dallas, on Sunday, Oct. 13. The Eucharists are at 9 and 11:15 a.m.

    “Good Books & Good Talk” book seminar October 13: We’ll discuss Russell Kirk’s Gothic novel, Old House of Fear. The title refers to a castle on a purportedly haunted Scottish island. Anyone who reads the book is welcome to join; we meet from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in Garrett Hall at St. Matthew’s. To enter: find St. Matthew’s on the box beside the door; then find receptionist; then ring.

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The Rev. Canon Victor Lee Austin. Ph.D., is the Theologian-in-Residence for the diocese and is the author of several books including, "Friendship: The Heart of Being Human" and "A Post-Covid Catechesis.: