Life Passes You By

A few weeks ago I attended "The Urban Character of the Early Jesuit Apostolate" lecture given by Father Thomas Lucas. In this lecture Lucas described the coming about of Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuit ideals. He also ties cities into his lecture and the important role they played in the early Jesuit community.
When Ignatius was in the army he was injured and bedridden, with books about Jesus and his followers to entertain him. This is when he changed his life to the idea of a life for religion. When he was trying to find himself and his place in religion he set forth on a journey to Jerusalem, but when he made it there he was quickly ran out by the Franciscans. At age 30 he went back to grammar school in Barcelona, then continued his studies in Paris, which was the largest city in Europe at the time, with 300,000 people. By this point Ignatius had followers in his beliefs and they went to Rome to serve the Pope. The church was the center of the city and the Jesuits were the first religious order to set base in Rome.
Rome was a city of 50,000 inhabitants including: native Romans, and principle industries of the chirch, pilgrimages, and prostitution. The Jesuits set up a house in the heart of Rome so they were in the middle of the mix. Location was an extremely important idea to the Jesuits and they always located themselves and their schools and churches in the center of the cities they went to.
In the cities they had half-way houses for prostitution and other facilities to focus on the outreach to the urban population. Jesuits believe that God is found in all things and that the "Greater Glory of God, the more universal good" is the idea people should follow.
Basically the lecture was a history lesson in the production of the Jesuit idea and institution, and how they used cities to build the foundations of their success. Lucas ended the lecture with our school motto, "Strong truths well lived." This motto is broad enough to include many aspects of our lives. This helps connect to the works we had to read and how how people view life determines how they are going to live it.
The poem In a Station of the Metro, by Ezra Pound and the short story "Everyday Use," by Alice Walker have common themes of beauty coming forth from everyday things and the constant idea of life passing you by everyday. These two works also use their titles significantly in the meaning of their works.
Pound's In a Station of the Metro is an extremely short poem that uses imagery to get its point accross. The title of the poem sets the scene for where it is taking place, which helps the reader relate to the poem. In the first line Pound uses the word "apparition" to describe the "faces in the crowd." This word means a ghost, or an act of appearing. So the first line of the poem describes the people on the metro coming into view. The second line states "Petals on a wet, black bough," which gives the image of a flower on a wet, dreary, maybe dying tree branch. In other words, beauty and life coming out of something we normally would pass by without a second glance. This idea makes the reader go back to the first line and helps them understand why these faces are appearing, and becoming significant. The poem makes the reader take a different view of normally oridinary or boring things and put life into them, so they don't let the beauty of life pass them by.
Walker's "Everyday Use" is a short story about a daughter returning home from school to her mother and sister. The mother is the narrator in this story and she describes the simple life she leads, which is not glamorous in any way. Her youngest daughter, Maggie, was burned in a fire in their previous home, and has hid behind her mother, or anything she could find, ever since them. For example, when her sister's husband tries to shake her hand Maggie "falls back, right up against her chair. The mother feels her trembling there and when I look up I see the perspiration falling of her chin."(pg 929) She was ashamed of her burns and led a different life than her sister, Dee. Dee returned from school with her husband, a new name, nice clothes, and a camera. When they sit down for dinner Dee asks to have a few things off the table, and then rummages to find old quilts, all for artwork purposes. When her mother told her she couldn't have this one quilt and gave it to Maggie, Dee got angry and told her that Maggie doesn't even understand heritage and won't appreciate the quilt. The mother and Dee had two different views of heritage, for Dee was living the new life of colored people and using new technologies, while the mother was stuck in her old ways. The mother said on page 928, "I used to love to milk till I was hooked in the side in '49. Cows are soothing and slow and don't bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way." The mother was stuck in the past and he simple pleasures in life and didn't seem to want to take place in this new developing world, she was happy where she was. After the mother tells Dee she can not have the quilt she goes to leave and says to Maggie "You ought to try to make something of yourself, too, Maggie. It's really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama still live you'd never know it."(pg 932) In this short story the idea of beauty in things and life passing you by is interpreted differently by the different characters. Dee saw things as artwork and coming into the new era, where the mother and Maggie saw things for their purposes and living in the past.