Poem for Monday and Super Bowl

Russian Cathedral
By Claude McKay

Bow down my soul in worship very low
And in the holy silences be lost.
Bow down before the marble man of woe,
Bow down before the singing angel host.
What jewelled glory fills my spirit's eye,
What golden grandeur moves the depths of me!
The soaring arches lift me up on high
Taking my breath with their rare symmetry.

Bow down my soul and let the wondrous light
Of beauty bathe thee from her lofty throne,
Bow down before the wonder of man's might.
Bow down in worship, humble and alone;
Bow lowly down before the sacred sight
Of man's divinity alive in stone.

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Super Bowl Sunday was excellent, and I don't just mean because the Packers won (though I was rooting for them, so that was nice too). Both kids were busy in the morning -- Adam at Hebrew school, Daniel at robotics -- so I got to read the paper in a quiet house and take a walk. After lunch, we went to National Cathedral for a tour of the stained glass windows, starting in the crypt, which is the oldest part of the cathedral, then moving to the nave and transept, which have spectacular windows though the cathedral is barely 100 years old. Adam was unimpressed by the tour guide (who did spent an awful lot of time talking about other tours instead of focusing on the stained glass, but I still found it interesting), but the light was wonderful today since the sun was out.

I took many photos, but I will post them tomorrow, because when we got home, we picked up Daniel and went to my oldest friend's family's annual Super Bowl party. As always, there was an insane amount of food (including plenty of vegetarian food -- four different pasta dishes, veggie subs, hummus and pita), plus at least fifteen desserts. I got to see my friend's father, whom I've known since I was 10, plus several people I went to high school with and a bunch of people I know at this point from annual meetings at the Super Bowl party. Since none of "my" teams was in the game, I spent as much time chatting as watching (I even missed most of the commercials, heh), at least until after the halftime show, when we came home so the kids could finish their homework while watching the end of the game. We let them stay up for Glee, which wasn't really a good enough episode to justify it!