| God’s Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
"God’s Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Public Domain. (buy now)
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a passionate letter to an unknown woman on this date in 1812. Beethoven had gone to the Czech resort town of Teplitz, which his physician had recommended for his health. And over the course of two days, he wrote a letter, in three installments, to a mysterious woman who has come to be known as "the Immortal Beloved." He begins the letter: "July 6, in the morning. My angel, my all, my very self [...] My heart is full of so many things to say to you [...] there are moments when I feel that speech amounts to nothing at all — Cheer up — remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I am yours. The gods must send us the rest, what for us must and shall be —Your faithful LUDWIG." Ever since then, scholars have been arguing over the identity of the Immortal Beloved. One candidate is Bettina von Arnim, a writer, singer, composer, and a friend of the poet Goethe. There is Josephine von Brunswick: Beethoven was very much in love with her at one point, and wrote her several passionate letters. And there is Antonie Brentano, who was unhappily married and met Beethoven in Vienna — she became ill there, and Beethoven played piano for her while she was sick. He wrote the letters shortly before she moved away, and he never saw her again.
Today is the birthday of the British author Dame Hilary Mantel (books by this author), born Hilary Thompson in Glossop, Derbyshire (1952). She already had several novels, a memoir, and a story collection under her belt when she published Wolf Hall (2009), a richly detailed historical novel about the life of Thomas Cromwell, who was an advisor to Henry VIII. She won the Man Booker Prize for fiction for Wolf Hall, and made history when she won the prize again for the book’s sequel, Bring Up the Bodies (2012). She was the first woman — and the first English writer — to be awarded the Man Booker Prize twice. She’s also the only author to win it for back-to-back novels. One of the judges called her “the greatest living English prose writer.” She said: “The most frequent question writers are asked is some variant on, ‘Do you write every day, or do you just wait for inspiration to strike?’ I want to snarl, ‘Of course I write every day, what do you think I am, some kind of hobbyist?’ But I understand the question is really about the central mystery — what is inspiration? Eternal vigilance, in my opinion. Being on the watch for your material, day or night, asleep or awake.”
Today is the birthday of the 14th Dalai Lama (1935) (books by this author), the spiritual ruler of Tibet. He was born Lhamo Thondup in Taktser, Tibet, to a farming and horse-trading family. His mother gave birth to him on a straw mat in a cowshed behind the family hut. When he was two years old, a search team set out on foot to look for signs of the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. Dalai Lamas are believed to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron saint of Tibet. Signs and visions led the search party to the boy’s home, where they posed as pilgrims and laid out drums and beads belonging to the 13th Dalai Lama. They asked him to choose which ones belonged to the Dalai Lama and which ones didn’t. He chose correctly each time and was soon ensconced in the 1,000-room Potala Palace in Lhasa, where he was tutored every day in wisdom, logic, medicine, and Buddhist philosophy. Tibet had declared independence from China in 1912, but by 1951, Chairman Mao had invaded Tibet in an attempt to bring the country back under Chinese Rule, which led to years of unrest and violence. By 1959, hundreds of thousands of Tibetans had gathered around the Summer Palace, the Dalai Lama’s home, concerned for his safety. At 23 years old, he fled on foot to India, where he has lived as a refugee in Dharamsala ever since. The Dalai Lama is the author of more than 100 books, including The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality (2005), Beyond Religion: Ethics for the Whole World (2012), The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (2016). He routinely posts words of wisdom on Twitter; he has 19.2 million followers. The Dalai Lama says: “All problems must be solved through dialogue, through talk. The use of violence is outdated and never solves problems.” | 
