Words and quiet acts of love...

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It's Sunday, 48 degrees, and raining. Again. Yesterday was a delightful reprieve; no rain. In the meantime, tree pollen and early flower pollen are making me itchy and sniffly, but hey, it's spring, and I'm not going to whinge about it. 

How 'bout that word? I've been thinking about strange, rare, forgotten words again. I am a true nerd: I love etymology. I like to see how words happen, and how they change. One of my favorites is disgruntled. It's a negative of a word we no longer use, that being gruntled. And I love those words that do double duty, like cleave. 

When I teach Robert Hayden's poem, "Those Winter Sundays," kids always, always get hung up on the use of the word offices in the last stanza: "What did I know, what did I know/ of love's austere and lonely offices?" I then have to tell them about the monastic tradition of praying the holy hours, and how doing a quiet duty is an act of love. 

I hope your day is calm, centered, and filled with love. 

C

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