Something Old is New Again

The origins of the tomb-like stone chambers in Putnam County are unknown, but possibly were created for pagan rituals commemorating the changes of the seasons. Discerning the Mystery of Easter

JAMES V. SCHALL, S.J.

The word "octave" is from Greek and Latin words meaning the number eight. A Pentagon is something with five sides, an octagonal building, of which there is one in Washington, has eight sides. It can be divided into eight triangles. Musical steps above and below a given pitch are also referred to as an "octave." Seven Wonders of the World, the Ten Commandments, and forty days and forty nights of fasting or rain give eight competition. The "lucky" numbers are seven and eleven

The great holy days of the Christian Church, Christmas and Easter, have "octaves." That is, the feast, because of its rich meaning, is not sufficiently celebrated in one day. The celebration is lengthened to a symbolic forever, the repetition of the same day in the next week. One might say that if the feast is so great, why not celebrate for a month or everyday? Actually, this awareness of the significance of each passing day is present. Any day can be a "feast" day, a Day of the Lord

Thornton Wilder wrote a novel called The Eighth Day. God created the world in six days, but on the seventh He rested. The "Eighth Day" became associated with the time after the Resurrection, the "now time" in which we live. It was the "resting" in God's rest. And such "resting" did not mean inactivity but the perfection of activity, the kind that does not want to go someplace else.

Actually, a "birthday," the commemoration of the date on which each of us is born, is also a "feast" day. To comprehend the full meaning of the birth of each child is not possible, so we repeat it each year of life. Every celebration leaves us with a sense that there is more to celebrate than we are aware of. A lifetime of birthdays allows us to see this meaning of one life, now stretched out in the intervening time.

In Boswell's famous Life of Samuel Johnson, each year in the spring, Boswell would come down from Scotland to visit Johnson in London. In reading this wonderful book, we come across Boswell's notation that a given day in late March or in April is Good Friday or Easter. Usually Boswell, and sometimes Johnson, went for services on Good Friday to St. Clement's Church. For Easter, they went to St. Paul's. After these days, they continued their visiting and conversation.

The other day, I did not recall ever having known the origin of the English word "Easter." Certainly, we know that it refers to the day of Christ's Resurrection that we yearly commemorate on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring Equinox, following the Jewish calendar, with appropriate Roman modification.

My dictionary only gave other variant spellings. However, the Oxford Dictionary to the Christian Churches mentioned that, according to the Venerable Bede, the name Easter was related a pagan goddess of spring. It seems fitting that English speaking Christians identify their defining feast after a pagan goddess; they kept the name by transforming it.

The notion of celebrating is a curious one. It is not something we can command. It is the response to an event of great moment. It falls outside the concept of "need" or "utility." Thus, the notion of an "octave" carries with it the idea of something much greater than we might expect. The greatest things that happen to us are, I think, mostly beyond our ken. Yet they do happen. We are given time to comprehend. We celebrate what is really there.

Fr. Schall is professor of government at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Welcome Back, My Dear Friend

LOU ORFANELLA

Usually when a bit of Americana disappears, it stays vanished. Rabbit ears on the top of the TV set with aluminum foil attached for a clearer picture, drive-in movie theaters with tinny speakers, penny candy that costs a penny, and the local doctor making house calls with his black leather bag in tow will all likely remain memories of days gone by. So too it seemed would the weekly local newspaper with its unapologetic quaint charm once The Putnam County Courier shuttered its doors and let the printing press grind to a halt.

Those of us who grew up with the Courier knew what we were losing and knew as well that wistful thinking about past times tends to remain just that. I remember as a kid seeing the trays of type, the letters nestled in their little shadow boxes and Howard "Buzz" Burr putting another issue to bed, like the editor I watched in one of the film favorites of my childhood, Hans Christian Anderson. The paper was smaller then, not the broadsheet it morphed into over the years. Eric Gross, the trademark goatee then jet black, was already a familiar figure snapping pictures around school and around town. Honor roll lists and scout trips and awards all graced the pages along with the high school sports results and the obituaries.

Times moved on and so did I. For four years at college, I looked forward to the weekly mail delivery of the Courier, like Hawkeye Pierce on MASH waiting for the arrival of his small town paper from Crabapple Cove. There was a comfort and connection in turning the pages each week, finding names and photos of life's simple pleasures.

As my path in life continued to stretch and change, the Courier, despite changes in layout, management, and ownership (not to mention a brief name change to The Courier-Trader), its presence remained a constant in a world of change. Where else to spread the word about upcoming high school reunions or the year's Putnam Community Hospital Fair schedule?

One of the things that troubled me the most about the recent demise of the Courier was the loss of a training ground for future writers. Just as the darkening of local radio stations around the country has left the airwaves devoid of developing talent, I feared the same would prove true of the newspaper business. Before finding a national audience for any of my own work, and long before the release of any of my books, my first two, albeit sophomoric, poems appeared on the pages of the Courier. Many portions of my book Scenes from an Ordinary Life; Getting Naked to Explore a Writer's Process and Possibilities originated as columns in the Courier.

The loss of a small weekly hometown newspaper may seem trivial in the electronic age in which we live, but to me at least, it felt as significant and personal as any loss I have experienced. That is why it felt so good to pick up a copy of the inaugural edition of the resurrected Putnam County Courier, during the unintentionally symbolic season of Easter no less.

Once in a while it seems, a lost piece of the past can come back after all.

Lou Orfanella is the author of twelve books, most recently Objects in Mirror are Closer than they Appear and In a Flash: Twenty-One Short Short Stories. He has lived in Putnam County for over forty-five years. Death Be Not Proud Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so, For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then; One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. - John Donne (1572 - 1631)