Brother Sixtus Roslevich, in an October note to oblates and friends of Portsmouth Abbey, offers a reflection on the theme of "words." Inspired by his interaction with some of the texts he has found in his inherited office in the monastery, and their physical link to the community's past, the very tangible experience of words elicits his own attempt to verbalizing an experience of words, of the Word, and of what may be beyond words.

In offering an assessment of our present circumstances, Father Michael draws on Robert F. Kennedy, as well as Grandmaster Flash. The latter, for the uninitiated, wrote the 1982 hit song, "The Message," with its most famous line: "Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge…" The first comment currently posted beneath a Youtube clip of the song (are footnotes needed for that citation?): "This song is SO the cut for RIGHT NOW!" Fr. Michael offers some RFK hit quotations from the 1960's which also address our present moment with unsettling clarity, calling for, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., "not division…, not hatred…; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another."

A letter from Oblate Director to the greater Abbey community with his recent reflection and some updates.